House Republicans have backed President Donald Trump's push to increase timber harvesting on federal lands, but approved only a fraction of the funding requested to carry it out.<\/p>\n
The House Appropriations Committee voted on Wednesday to allocate US$45 million to the US Forest Service timber program for fiscal 2027, well below the US$175 million requested by the administration. The bill passed the committee 35-27 and now moves to the House floor.<\/p>\n
The approved amount is US$130 million short of the administration's request, despite Republican support for expanding timber production across national forests.<\/p>\n
Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson said budget constraints prevented the committee from providing the full amount sought by the White House.<\/p>\n
The funding dispute comes as the Trump administration seeks to boost domestic timber production through an executive order that opened millions of hectares of federal forest land to increased harvesting. The measure was presented as a way to reduce reliance on imported lumber, particularly from Canada.<\/p>\n
The order covers more than 144 million acres of Forest Service land, including large areas of mature and old-growth forests. Industry groups have largely welcomed the move, arguing that greater domestic harvesting could strengthen timber supply and support rural economies.<\/p>\n
However, the lower funding allocation raises questions about how quickly the Forest Service can expand harvesting operations. Agency officials have previously indicated that additional resources would be needed to meet the administration's timber production targets.<\/p>\n
The United States remains the world's largest lumber producer but continues to import a significant share of its softwood lumber from Canada, a dependence that Trump has repeatedly criticised.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5204],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n