In early June, ForestWatch joined several environmental forest advocates in Washington, D.C. to advocate against harmful policies like the pro-logging Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production Executive Order (EO), the Increasing Timber Production and Designating an Emergency Situation on National Forest System Lands USDA Secretarial Memo, and the Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA). Our efforts also focused on promoting the Roadless Area Conservation Act (RACA) and supporting mature and old-growth forests.
Congressional Asks
During the fly-in, we made several key asks of Congressional members:
- Support for the Roadless Area Conservation Act (RACA): We urged members to co-sponsor this important bill and oppose the “Reconciliation Roadless Loopholes” provisions, which would open up protected forests to new road construction and logging if forest management plans don’t explicitly mention the Roadless Rule—putting mature and old-growth forests at even greater risk.
- Opposition to FOFA: We called on Senators to oppose the harmful, pro-logging “Fix Our Forests Act” while informing House members of its potential return, urging them to oppose it as well.
- Pushed back on the pro-logging Executive Order (EO) and Memo: We briefed Congressional offices on recent directives from the Trump administration that promote logging under the guise of forest health, including the Timber EO and a USDA Secretarial Memo.
- Reconciliation Bill (“The Big, Beautiful Bill”): We raised concerns about this bill, which originally included provisions that could lead to large scale public lands sell-offs and rollbacks of environmental protections.
Why these topics matter
The Trump Administration’s Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production EO and the USDA memo have made their intentions clear. They aim to exploit our public lands. One potential way these policies could be enacted legislatively is through the “Fix Our Forests Act”, which could roll back protections for forests nationwide while expanding logging projects under the guise of wildfire protection.
What is the Roadless Rule?
The Roadless Rule, established in 2001 protects millions of acres of public lands by restricting new road construction in these areas, ensuring they remain undeveloped. The rule is critical to preserving biodiversity, water quality and the overall ecosystem.
However, the current administration and the extractive industry have long sought to repeal it to open up “profitable” public lands. As such, the recent USDA Rollins press release about “Rescinding the Roadless Rule” is deeply concerning. The Roadless Area Conservation Act (RACA) legislation seeks to codify the protections of the Roadless Rule, ensuring no future administration can roll it back.
Take Action!
We highly encourage you to take action by asking your members of Congress to support the Roadless Area Conservation Act and oppose harmful legislation like the “Fix Our Forests Act”.
