Partisan split emerges on Biden old-growth forest plans

Democrats and Republicans in Congress pushed polar opposites to the Biden administration for how to manage national forests: curtail logging in mature and old forests or quit trying to rein in the practice.

The competing messages came in letters from lawmakers to the Department of Agriculture, which is moving toward new protections for old-growth areas in the national forest system but leaving largely unanswered what to do with "mature" forests that could age into old growth in the decades ahead.

Democrats last week were circulating among themselves a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack praising the administration's direction in a nationwide forest plan amendment but urging bolder moves on national forest areas that haven't quite achieved the USDA's definition of old growth.

"The future of our old growth forests depends on the recruitment of new old-growth, but at present, the guidance in the proposed amendment for recruiting future old-growth is effectively unenforceable," lawmakers said in a draft of the yet-to-be-signed letter reviewed by E&E News.

"USFS must strengthen language surrounding the recruitment of new old-growth and provide clear direction regarding how future old-growth should be identified, prioritized, managed and monitored," the draft says, adding, "This is crucial to the long term success of the proposed amendment."

The Democratic letter urged the administration to craft the protections to make them durable into future administrations, a recognition that approaches to forest management often change from one set of leaders to another. The Trump administration steered toward more intensive methods including rolling back roadless-area logging restrictions in Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

Republicans — led by House Agriculture Chair Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.), Senate Agriculture ranking member John Boozman (R-Ark.) and House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) — wrote to Vilsack questioning the administration's effort and seeking more details on how the proposal complies with various laws and regulations, including requirements that national forests be managed for multiple uses including timber production.

The letter says the administration appears to have given special consideration to old-growth and mature forests — "striving to elevate a particular stage of forest succession above other, legally required multiple uses" — without direction from Congress.

The USDA's actions meet President Joe Biden's executive order from April 2022 for the Agriculture and Interior departments to define and inventory the old-growth and mature forests the agencies manage. That, in turn, led to the Forest Service's proposed national forest plan amendment to conserve old-growth areas, which is still in development.

While the administration hasn't said logging would be prohibited in such areas — and that specific language would vary from region to region — the proposal does say that vegetation management in old-growth forests may not be for the primary purpose of growing and harvesting trees for economic reasons.

Among other complaints, the Republican leaders said the administration's actions so far don't settle on a firm definition of mature or old-growth conditions, which the Forest Service said could change over time as new information is gathered. Definitions could vary by region and forest type.

The positions in the letters echo comments from outside organizations. Critics of the administration's moves, including timber industry groups, say officials are rushing through a plan before all of the information on threats to forests — such as wildfire and climate change — has been fully assessed.

“We share these members’ concerns about the entire Executive Order process and the unprecedented, unnecessary and unhelpful proposed plan amendment," said Bill Imbergamo, executive director of the Federal Forest Resource Coalition, which represents companies cutting and selling timber from national forests.

"With a forest health crisis and a multi-billion-dollar infrastructure maintenance backlog, it’s hard to see how rushing through an unnecessary plan amendment helps the Forest Service address the very real challenges they face," he added.

Advocates for greater protection say the administration is moving in the right direction as Biden nears the end of his first term and faces a reelection campaign that will determine the policy's long-term fate.

"Once we have these forest plans, we tend to have them for a while," said Susan Jane Brown, principal attorney with Silvix Resources, an Oregon environmental law firm. The Forest Service proposal coincides with amendments being discussed for the Northwest Forest Plan, for which Brown has served as co-chair on a related advisory committee.

Brown said she'd have preferred a proposal that more directly addressed management of "mature" growth. But the proposal discusses how mature forests transition to old growth, she said, and the Forest Service decided it would need more data to include plans for those areas.