Overview and Analysis of the USDA Secretarial Memo to Increase Timber Production

Last week, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins issued a Secretarial memo that made an Emergency Situation Determination (ESD) on the state of U.S. national forests, stating an urgent need to “better provide domestic timber supply, create jobs and prosperity, reduce wildfire disasters, improve fish and wildlife habitats, and decrease costs of construction and energy.”  The memo allows the Forest Service to carry out authorized emergency actions to advance the President’s March 1 Executive Order, including tree salvage and harvest, reforestation, hazardous fuels reduction, reconstruction of utility lines, and more.

The memo also outlines other emergency authorities like direct hiring (including hiring Tribal crews), expedited contracting authorities and grant agreements, exemptions and waivers, and expedited permitting. It directs the Forest Service to issue new or updated guidance to increase timber production and decrease the time to offer timber supply.  

In conjunction with the Secretarial memo, the Deputy Chief of the National Forest System issued an implementation memo with a series of directives for Regional Foresters, District Rangers, and Line Officers to carry out in the coming months, including:

• Development of a national strategy that outlines goals, objectives, and initial actions related to increasing active forest management, as well as 5-year strategies by Regional Foresters to increase timber volume by 25%;

• Deployment of “innovative and efficient approaches” to meet the requirements of NEPA, ESA, NHPA, and other environmental laws, including categorical exclusions, emergency authorities, condition-based management, determinations of NEPA adequacy, and staged or tiered decision-making;

• Guidance for using Emergency NEPA, ESA, and other regulatory authorities to streamline permitting within 14 days;

• Streamlining of certification requirements and processes;

• Finding additional opportunities to work with states, counties, tribes, and non-governmental partners to increase active forest management activities;

• Up to $50 Million in GNA Agreements to fund road and bridge maintenance and reconstruction for active forest management projects;

• Use of existing frameworks and tools, like Potential Operational Delineations (PODS) and the National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) MOU to "move quickly, capitalize on value, and restore the areas to more fire resilient conditions”; and

• Use of existing and new categorical exclusions for timber stand improvement, salvage, and other site preparation activities for reforestation.

Recent events and conditions surrounding the administration’s orders to increase timber production raise serious questions about both the viability of doing so and future plans for the Forest Service.

Forest Service Layoffs and Restructuring: The USDA is planning to consolidate the Forest Service’s nine regional offices into as few as three and lay off upwards of 7,000 (or more) employees. With a substantial deferred maintenance backlog and a massive budget shortfall, how is it possible that the Forest Service will be doing more work with significantly fewer employees and less funding?

FEMA BRIC Cancellation: The memo frames the emergency order as arising largely from the need to prevent wildfire through active forest management. But on the same day that the memo was issued, the administration announced the cancellation of FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program - a popular grant program that has given states and communities billions of dollars for mitigation activities to protect against natural disasters. If the primary goal of increased timber production is to prevent catastrophic wildfires, why is the administration gutting a successful mitigation program that could do exactly that?

Domestic Sawmill Capacity and Trade War with Canada: The memo comes as the White House prepares to more than double tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber to over 34%. As sawmills across the U.S. continue to close, concerns grow about the capacity to process more timber domestically without increased investment in sawmill infrastructure.

The framing of Executive Order 14225 and the Secretarial memo combined with the recent events described above could indicate an intent to shift substantial responsibility and authority to State, local, Tribal, and non-governmental collaborators to co-manage public lands – an effort to establish what several appointees in the new administration refer to as “cooperative federalism.” But that may be an optimistic view of what could more accurately be described as an attempt to privatize much of the work done by the U.S. Forest Service.