Environment — News & Analysis

NEEDS ACTION! Congress Is About To Legalize Liquidation Of National Forests (May 16, 2026)

May 16, 2026 — The National Forest System is currently facing a coordinated effort to prioritize industrial logging through administrative actions and pending legislation. As of April 2025, a 112-million-acre "emergency" declaration covers 59 percent of all national forests, allowing logging projects to bypass environmental reviews, public comment periods, and administrative objections. This action is supported by Executive Order 14225, which mandates a 25 percent increase in federal timber production, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which established statutory timber quotas through 2045.

The leadership overseeing these forests includes USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, who views forest protections like the Roadless Rule as "absurd obstacles," and Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, a former logging executive who argues that the wildfire crisis is caused by a "declining timber harvest". Additionally, Undersecretary Michael Boren, a billionaire donor, has a documented history of unauthorized construction and resource diversion on Forest Service land.

The Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA), currently on the Senate Legislative Calendar, would codify and expand this management style into permanent law. Key provisions of the act include:

• Expanded Categorical Exclusions: Triples the size of logging projects allowed to skip environmental impact statements and public input from 3,000 to 10,000 acres.
• Fireshed Management Areas: Allows the agency to unilaterally designate areas up to 250,000 acres for accelerated logging without environmental review.
• Permanent Emergency Authority: Converts current administrative emergency declarations into statute, permitting logging to begin before environmental reviews are finished.
• Endangered Species Act (ESA) Exemptions: Strips the requirement for the Forest Service to update forest plans when new species are listed or new science emerges, allowing logging to continue regardless of biological impacts.
• Restricted Judicial Review: Shortens the window to challenge projects to 150 days, mandates that judges assume logging projects successfully reduce fire risk, and removes legal presumptions regarding the harmfulness of ESA violations.
• Indefinite Forest Plans: Eliminates the requirement to update forest plans every 15 years, allowing the agency to operate under outdated plans indefinitely.

While originally drafted in 2023 under the assumption of good-faith implementation for ecological restoration, the bill is now positioned to grant unprecedented unilateral power to an administration focused on extraction. FOFA has already passed the House with a 279-141 vote and cleared the Senate Agriculture Committee with bipartisan support. If passed by the full Senate, it would create a permanent framework for landscape-scale logging across protected public lands without traditional legal or public accountability.

The bill has not yet passed as of the article. There is still time to act! Contact your Senator. The full article includes a suggested form letter.
Find your Senators' contact information at https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm