The U.S. Department of Agriculture has directed a significant increase in timber production and the rapid implementation of forest management projects across a majority of National Forest System lands. This includes 112,646,000 acres of National Forest System lands (59 percent of all national forest acreage). The move, outlined in Secretary’s Memorandum 1078-006, follows President Trump’s Executive Order 14225, signed March 1, which mandates an immediate expansion of American timber production.
The executive order and USDA emergency memorandum do not provide a list of specific forests by name, but California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, the national forests in the South, Great Lakes region (including Michigan), and New England will most likely be impacted.
The memorandum instructs the U.S. Forest Service to utilize emergency authorities granted by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other statutes to accelerate timber sales and forest thinning projects. The directive also prioritizes the salvage of dead or dying trees, the removal of hazardous fuels and trees near infrastructure, and the replanting of fire-impacted areas.
Environmental reviews will be streamlined, limited to the proposed action and a “no action” alternative, and the usual administrative review process will be waived. The Forest Service is further tasked with issuing new guidance to boost timber production, expedite project planning, and propose legislative measures to further support domestic timber supply.
Environmental groups, including The Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club, have voiced strong opposition, arguing the policy weakens environmental protections, threatens biodiversity, and prioritizes industry profits over ecological health. Critics also contend that salvage logging can cause ecological damage and does little to mitigate wildfire risks.
In response, Anna Medema, Sierra Club’s Associate Director of Legislative and Administrative Advocacy for Forests and Public Lands, released the following statement:
“Again and again, the Trump administration has shown it’s more interested in boosting the bottom lines of corporate polluters than protecting our national forests and public lands. Today’s order is the most egregious example yet.
“If this administration were serious about the wildfire crisis, it wouldn’t chaotically fire wildfire prevention staff at the behest of Elon Musk. It wouldn’t slash departmental budgets and preparedness funds. It wouldn’t condition disaster aid to communities destroyed by wildfire. And it wouldn’t name an industry lobbyist to oversee hundreds of millions of acres of national forests.
“What Donald Trump and his cabinet are actually interested in is using any power at their disposal to hand over control of the public lands and national forests that belong to all of us to billionaires and logging companies. The American people should not tolerate this sleight of hand from the people who have a duty to protect these landscapes for the next generation.”
While the USDA and Forest Service are employing emergency authorities to expedite logging, several existing laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Wilderness Act, provide legal safeguards that could be used to challenge or limit the scope of these actions. Courts have historically upheld environmental review requirements.
