The Trump administration\u2019s drive to harvest more timber from national forests will lead to a \u201cthriving wood products economy\u201d that doesn\u2019t rely on imports, a top Forest Service official told the agency\u2019s top brass in a memo last week.<\/p>\n
But the timber goal acting Associate Chief Chris French pinpointed \u2014 a 25 percent increase from current levels offered for sale \u2014 would fall short of the first Trump administration\u2019s ambitions and barely make a dent in U.S. timber supplies, data shows.<\/p>\n
The chasm between the new administration\u2019s rhetoric \u2014 cut more trees on national forests to reduce the country\u2019s reliance on wood imports and rejuvenate the economy \u2014 and the math behind French\u2019s memo reflect the hurdles to returning to the timber industry\u2019s prosperous times around national forests.<\/p>\n
French told regional foresters and deputy chiefs in the April 3 memo that the agency aims for the 25 percent increase in the next four to five years by using legal exclusions from environmental reviews wherever possible and setting timber appraisal rates across wide geographical areas, among other measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, we enter a new era marked by pressing issues like a growing demand for domestic lumber and wildfire resilience,\u201d French said. His memo doesn\u2019t mention responding to the changing climate, which helps create hotter, drier conditions that encourage wildfire.<\/p>\n
French\u2019s memo details how the agency will implement Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins\u2019 announcement last week declaring an \u201cemergency\u201d on 112.7 million acres of the 193-million-acre system to expedite harvesting, in the name of reducing wildfire risk and protecting public water supplies.<\/p>\n
Her announcement, in turn, followed President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order earlier this year calling for increased timber production.<\/p>\n
A 25 percent jump from fiscal 2024 levels would translate to around 3.6 billion board-feet of timber. That\u2019s less than the first Trump team\u2019s target of 3.88 billion board feet for fiscal 2021 and roughly equal to the 3.68 billion board-feet goal the prior year, reflecting the last two years of Trump budget requests.<\/p>\n
If achieved, however, it would mark a turnaround in actual sales.<\/p>\n
The Forest Service said it sold 2.88 billion board-feet of timber in fiscal 2024, down from 3 billion board-feet in 2023. The biggest sales years recently were during the first Trump administration, at 3.23 billion board-feet in 2019 and 3.22 billion board-feet in 2020, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report on the timber program.<\/p>\n
Flaws and hurdles<\/strong><\/p>\n Timber industry representatives and others familiar with the Forest Service\u2019s timber program point to several flaws in the administration\u2019s timber-boom narrative, although the industry welcomes the Forest Service\u2019s moves to step up production.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some encouraging elements in the Secretary\u2019s order, including direction to prioritize removal of dead and dying trees, but barriers to doing that remain in place,\u201d said Nick Smith, a spokesperson for the American Forest Resource Council, representing timber companies that work in national forests and elsewhere.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question is whether these efforts can overcome the fundamental barriers of litigation and obstruction, and the cost and time it takes to meet federal regulatory requirements,\u201d Smith said. \u201cMany of the necessary reforms need to come from Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n For one challenge, people familiar with the timber program said, many of the areas at high fire risk have wood that\u2019s of low economic value, such as small-diameter trees not attractive to homebuilders or other construction industries.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2019Worthless wood\u2019 is synonymous with \u2018hazardous fuels,\u2019\u201d said Andy Stahl, a former timber industry lobbyist and executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.<\/p>\n French\u2019s memo hints at the trouble, Stahl said, by promising \u201cdirect financial support programs to industry\u201d including grants for transporting timber taken off national forests \u2014 Biden-era programs that suggest the work isn\u2019t profitable and needs taxpayer subsidies.<\/p>\n Stahl said he\u2019s not sure the administration seriously wants to dramatically increase harvests on federal land, given the competition that could pose to big timber companies that produce the vast majority of the nation\u2019s wood from privately held land. Even a 25 percent increase from national forests would be little more than a rounding error in the national wood supply, he said.<\/p>\n For another reality check, so many mills near national forests have closed in recent decades that even higher-quality logs would have to be transported longer distances, at increased costs.<\/p>\n While some recently closed mills could reopen \u2014 welcome news in areas that have lost them \u2014 \u201cno businessman is going to invest millions of dollars in a new mill or in retrofitting an old mill,\u201d said Susan Jane Brown, an environmental lawyer and principal at Silvix Resources in Oregon. \u201cThat will be another bottleneck.\u201d<\/p>\n One Forest Service manager who works with the timber program told E&E News that such economic realities and government funding are more often barriers to timber production than environmental regulations, at least outside of Montana, Oregon and parts of California.<\/p>\n \u201cMarkets, forest road maintenance costs, forest staffing and available funding are most often the barrier to more timber volume going down the road,\u201d this manager said, requesting anonymity to offer a frank assessment of the Forest Service\u2019s situation.<\/p>\n Another unknown: how the wood products market would be affected if the U.S. slips into a recession, as economists increasingly say is likely with the administration\u2019s tariff-fueled trade war. Big publicly traded timber companies like International Paper and Weyerhaeuser have seen double-digit percentage drops in their stock prices since last week\u2019s tumbles on Wall Street and are trading near 52-week lows.<\/p>\n Impact of staff reductions<\/strong><\/p>\n Finally, the Forest Service is promising to make the ramp up happen with several thousand fewer agency employees, once firings, early retirements and deferred resignations take hold.<\/p>\n And while the agency has tried to preserve jobs directly related to timber, it\u2019s not clear how the staff reductions will affect those employees or people who do indirectly related work, as the Forest Service looks to relocate employees and cut operations in Washington and regional regional offices.<\/p>\n For many employees who remain, training in more active forest management techniques is coming soon, French said in the memo. All forest supervisors, regional forester teams and \u201cappropriate\u201d Washington office staff will attend a national active forest management meeting in the next four months, he said.<\/p>\n French also directed regional foresters to establish two years\u2019 worth of \u201cshelf stock\u201d of timber coming from forest projects, to help in setting goals for out-years.<\/p>\n He called for simplified permitting for projects, using emergency authorities in the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.<\/p>\n French also said the Forest Service would spend up to $50 million in \u201cgood neighbor authority\u201d \u2014 or grants to states \u2014 to fund road and bridge maintenance that supports timber operations.<\/p>\n \u201cThis work will emphasize the minimum standards necessary for safety and removal of wood products,\u201d French said, including the italics.<\/p>\n As ambitious as the administration\u2019s language sounds, it largely reinforces what many forest supervisors already do, the Forest Service manager who requested anonymity said. That includes working with nonfederal partners to maintain forests through contracting.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing in it bothers me except the ability to meet the expectations post-RIF,\u201d said this manager, referring to the reduction in force that employees fear could hit a few thousand people in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n For all the caveats, the administration\u2019s moves represent a refreshing change to timber advocates looking for a friendlier approach from Washington and a more-active forest management style.<\/p>\n In their view, national forests are in a wildfire crisis not just because of climate change but because the government has allowed them to grow too thick, especially in the West.<\/p>\n \u201cOur federal forests have been mismanaged for decades,\u201d said the AFRC\u2019s president, Travis Joseph, when Trump signed his timber executive order. \u201cAmericans have paid the price in almost every way. Lost jobs, lost manufacturing and infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Trump administration\u2019s drive to harvest more timber from national forests will lead to a \u201cthriving wood products economy\u201d that doesn\u2019t rely on imports, a top Forest Service official told the agency\u2019s top brass in a memo last week. But … Continue reading