Committee Report
"Without objection, so moved."
On May 6th, the Senate Agricultural Committee held a hearing on the Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA). I’ve never sat through a Senate hearing before, in person or virtually, and it was interesting to see the formality and expedience by which our instruments of governance move, something of a civics class. But I can’t say I enjoyed it, scrolling and scrolling through senate testimony, listening to dialog in which living ecosystems are referred to in terms of “hazardous fuels” and “biomass,” in need of constant “mechanical treatment.” But such hearings are important. They are the process that will determine whether the bill passes or not, and how it might be changed.
A final vote is coming soon and according to what I observed, FOFA is being treated as something of a bipartisan darling. It won’t be too darling, however, for the forests subjected to the saws, feller bunchers, bulldozers, brush hogs and roads needed for all the proposed “fuels management.” Nor for the wildlife that depend on all that “biomass” for food and home. Nor for the soil, ground up by heavy machinery, exposed to the sun, baking out carbon. And what it will do to the ability of forests to hold and recycle water seems yet to have been considered.
And if passed, it will give the Donald Trump’s Forest Service statutory authority to bypass citizen review on millions of acres of public forest.
So it matters. Here’s my little report on the hearing, really more a narration, a rough sketch to give you my view of what happened, what was said, what was not said, and what it might mean. This will not be a typical, objective report. I interject to provide context and interpretation. A lot of language is used by these officials that is never defined. Assumptions hang heavy in dialog. I interpret them according to how I see them.
I suspect in expressing these opinions I’ll lose some subscribers. This always pains me, but in some ways I understand. For people drawn to this site’s science-oriented explorations of the living climate, these more political writings may be off-putting. And for what it’s worth, I’d much rather explore Earth’s living climate than confront legislation and pick through legalese. The Fix Our Forests Act found me, not the other way around. But it’s precisely those explorations of water cycles, soil life, cloud creation—and the intricate sensing and communicating that goes on in natural ecosystems—that propel my opposition to this bill. Everything I’ve learned about the living climate tells me the Fix Our Forest Act is a bad idea. I think it’s gonna dry out and depauperate our forests.
In addition, I recognize that within the Forest Service there are many good people trying to do their best for the land, and that much of the pressure comes from higher ups and from Congress. We are talking about systems here, not individuals.
Lastly, if you live outside the US and wonder what this legislation could have to do with you, my guess is that this paradigm, complete with biofuels, is coming to a forest near you, if it hasn’t already.
In any case, if you disagree, even angrily, please leave a comment and I’ll do my best to respond.
On to the hearing…
It might be worthwhile to first picture the setting, a narrow room with the classic architectural appointments one would expect in the Russel Senate Office Building, graced at one end by a shapely fireplace, with tall, double hung windows along the outside facing wall. A long table stretched in the middle where Senators sat over a maroon rug dotted with gold stars. From their chairs, with folders open before them, they directed questions to the one witness, Chris French, USFS acting assistant Chief, in crisply pressed uniform. At the head of the table sat Senator Boozman, R Arkansas, Chairman of the Committee.
Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, ranking Democrat, introduced the bill by invoking the tragic LA Fires. This I’ve discovered is standard procedure for FOFA proponents, despite the fact that forests had nothing to do with the fires that terrorized Los Angeles. Those ignited in grassland and burned mostly buildings and coastal chaparral. I’ve heard the same linkage made with the 2023 fire in Lahaina, Hawaii, also a grasslands fire. In fact, the area that burned was once wetland, but had been drained and eventually converted to cattle pasture during colonial occupation and settlement. Those pastures gave way to invasive, highly flammable grasses, which are what burned, not forests.
Then she said something interesting: “Rising temperatures, drier summers, longer fire seasons and earlier snowmelt-drying are driving these fires as forests depart from their historic conditions.”
This is quite a statement, for without saying the phrase, she essentially laid blame for the fires on climate change, thereby confirming the main point of those opposing this bill and it’s program of “fuels management.” It’s not trees, or “fuel load” that’s causing the fires, but climatic conditions—heat, dryness and wind in particular. This is not only suggested by numerous studies, but follows common sense. Think of starting a campfire. First you need dry wood. And if you are having trouble getting it started, or want it to burn hotter, you blow on it, you introduce wind. By the same logic in reverse, when you industrially thin forests, opening up the canopy and taking out the windbreak and soil cover, you expose the soil to direct sun, thus heating it up and drying out the vegetation, while at the same time making it windier. Yes, there is less to burn, but you’ve also taken away the forest’s ability to cool, hydrate and moderate its own climate.
One would think Klobuchar would be aware that she inadvertently confirmed the main argument of the bill’s opponents, but understanding the complexities of fire ecology doesn’t seem central here. What seems central is what she says next: “There are growing threats across the nation.”
Fear, fear of fire in particular, seems to be what really drives this bill. Forest fires can be terrifying and those living in fire country have reason to be concerned and a right to expect some form of government action. Riding this fear and expectation, the bill’s backers portray themselves as coming to the aid of threatened communities. The problem, though, is that the bill’s focus is on the backcountry, where the timber is, not the communities themselves, where the people and buildings are. Ironically, there is a bill that would significantly help communities protect themselves. It’s called the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act, and provides actual funding to actual communities to do the things that will actually protect them, such as hardening homes, improving emergency escape and access, and treating the land immediately around the communities themselves, while using the process to lower insurance premiums. That bill, however, was held back in favor of this one.
We’re not very far in here, and already see a lot that doesn’t add up. But let us continue. Senator Klobuchar then introduces Acting Deputy Chief of the Forest Service, Chris French, a 34 year career official who is clearly competent and in command of the material at hand. He begins, “Our forests face great challenges,” listing “fires, insect and disease outbreaks, invasive species and many other stressors…” which the Fix Our Forests Act is meant to fix. He cites as well Trump’s executive order, Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production, as helping to, among other things, “mitigate threats to natural resources on national forest lands.”
Let’s pause here and consider something rather obvious yet strangely hidden. For all the concern about threats to the forests, things like saws, feller bunchers, logging roads and the like, never make the list. An insect infestation befalling a tree plantation is counted as a threat, but the clearcutting, spraying and replanting that created the artificial, and therefore vulnerable forest, isn’t. And as western forests continue to heat up and dry out, becoming less and less resistant to disease and fire, we still don’t ask, officially at least, if all the cutting and roads has had anything to do with it.
I want to be clear that I’m not saying all treatment is negative, especially in tree plantations, where conditions are often crowded and unnatural. There, the case for what strategic thinning can make sense. But I don’t think that’s what this bill, with it’s provisions limiting citizen control, is about. For one thing, activists don’t tend to contest treatments in plantations, or habitat-poor areas, not in my experience. It’s older, mature, habitat-rich places that citizens fight for. Also, while saws in careful hands, at careful scales, can do helpful things, such as in the case of syntropic agriculture or Process Based Restoration (which we’ll be talking about in a future post soon) this bill promotes, and legally protects industrial scale, massive mechanical treatments which can and do cause serious ecological harm.
French also had a couple specific requests.
The first was for a “provision to allow retained receipts to be used for the construction of roads.” This brings up something few realize, that the US Forest Service is allowed to keep certain amounts of revenue from timber sales, introducing an economic incentive within the Forest Service when it comes to harvest decisions.
His other request was “for the committee to establish categorical exclusions statutorily” for hazardous tree removal. Categorical Exclusions allow projects to bypass ordinary processes of scientific review and public involvement. This particular request, pertaining to hazardous tree removal, came up again later in discussion around salvage logging of burned forests. The common view is that fire destroys a forest and the deadwood remaining is just standing there, wasted. But scientists like Dominick DellaSala and Chad Hanson argue that a burnt forest is actually a biological “phoenix,” rising from the ash in a stunning explosion of growth and diversity, captured by biologist poet Maya Khosla in this short visual poem. Burned forests also have a lot of hazardous trees that need removal before they can be logged, thus the reason for Mr. French’s request regarding hazardous tree removal: to provide legal protection against citizen opposition to logging in ecologically critical burned forests.
With his introductory statements completed, questions began, alternating between Republicans and Democrats. It would take forever to report on all the back and forth, so I will instead note a couple themes, different for each side.
From the Republicans, there was the persistent urging that this bill aim toward bolstering the forest products industry. I point this out, because for those concerned that the Fix Our Forest Act is more of a Harvest Our Forests Act in disguise, such urgings only support that suspicion. For his part, French seemed entirely aligned with the objective, continually reassuring the Senators with promises to “offer timber, or biomass, to the wood products industry, whether they’re making it for dimensional lumber or burning it for fuel.”
From the Democrats, there was a consistent concern about DOGE staffing cuts in the Forest Service, yet only for fire-fighting related staff. Since this is a fire-related bill, that makes sense but it also points to a strange disregard for non-fire personnel, such as biologists, endangered species specialists and the like, being carved out of the Forest Service. When you place that lack of concern in the context of America’s extinction crisis, it’s all but heartbreaking. We’re losing birds, we’re losing insects, we’re losing amphibians. We’re crashing whole systems. Not only is species diversity crashing but so are numbers of individuals. And the main culprit is what it’s always been—habitat destruction, taking away the places other living things need to eat, shelter, raise young and evolve.
A reminder of the long-term consequences of this bill came out during North Dakota Senator Hoeven’s questioning. Referencing how both Trump and California Governor Newsom have taken “emergency action on wildfire permitting,” he asked Mr. French to confirm that regulatory streamlining implemented by the Fix Our Forest Act would be permanent. Yes, French, replied, “that’s one of the strengths of this bill.”
As for moments of contention, or pushback, a little of that came from Adam Schiff, D, California. Taking time to carefully compose his line of questioning, he began “my concern is that the bill accelerates the timber industry without a particular focus on reducing fire,” pointing out that there will most certainly be “interest in the timber industry to go beyond (thinning) and harvest timber having nothing to do with fire mitigation?” Thus his question: “Are there any safeguards in this legislation, and what would a safeguard look like, to make sure that this is really about fire mitigation and not just about timber harvesting?”
French began his answer by recalling his long and extensive career in the forest service, giving the sense he was leading up to some sort of pronouncement, but then shifted to “…and I’m acutely aware of the issues in California and the situation of the health of our forests and the way our communities right now are at risk.” In other words, “I’m the expert and people are in danger, so trust me.” It’s a posture one consistently encounters when addressing land management agencies. Note the term “forest health.” Never asked is how the forest got unhealthy to begin with. How many times has it been logged? Is it a monocrop plantation? Or is it a maturing, rewilding second growth forest, gradually regaining it’s biotic legacy, far in the back country, posing no threat to anyone?
He does goes on to provide a more substantive answer by pointing out that every project must comply with the Forest Plan, and be signed-off on by numerous related agencies, such as Fish and Wildlife, before being determined “non-significant.”
This is true, and is also identical to the situation encountered by citizens here along the western slopes of Washington State. When we protest Department of Natural Resources plans to log mature legacy forests, we are also told that various agencies reviewed the plans, and that they are subject to guidelines that require things like streambank buffers, leave trees, considerations of slope and the like. But when it’s all said and done, you’re still left with a clearcut. The legacy forest—that emergent complexity of living things, banquet and bedroom for a host of species, cool, shaded and spongy—is effectively cleared, the land left baking under the sudden sun. And without the forest to protect the leave-trees from wind, they often blow over. What isn’t hauled away is bulldozed into piles, further churning up soils and fungal networks that took thousands of years to develop. Amphibians, needing the cool, moist refuge of rotting logs suffer in particular. The stream buffers, meanwhile, are in a tough spot. Whereas before they were enmeshed in cool, moist, calm forest, they are now surrounded by hot, dry, windy air. I’m glad they’re there. But ecologically speaking, it seems like window dressing. The bottom line is that citizens protest government logging (treatment) proposals because the internal checks and balances don’t meaningfully prevent the harm.
A little later, Schiff pressed the point further, asking French what proposed budget cuts were under the Trump administration, which French acknowledged to be 63%. Shaking his head, Schiff asked “How would it be possible to do anything other than timber harvesting with those kind of reductions?” Mr. French provided a long answer which essentially amounted to “trust us,” which for the next three plus years also means “trust us under Trump.”
That would have been a good time for Schiff to point to a report by Columbia Insight, a northwest citizen run publication, titled The Forest Service is using the threat of wildfires to meet timber targets. Through Freedom of Information Act requests, journalist Nathan Gilles obtained notes from a May 3, 2023 meeting between Chris French and Forest Service/BLM staff. Among other things discussed, were timber targets, “NEPA efficiencies,” and categorical exclusions, in which French said “Lots of the money came in the form of fuels reduction, but we have been creative in doing fuels reduction that produces volume and forest products.”
Schiff could have also pointed to the numerous studies contradicting the presumption that fuels thinning increases fire resiliency, often showing the opposite effect. But Schiff pressed no further, and a few minutes later Chairman Boozman raised the gavel, requesting “unanimous consent to submit letters of support for FOFA to the committee in record. He held the gavel over the block a few silent seconds, then said “Without objections, so moved,” bringing the gavel down to a surprisingly thin tap.
* References:
Platt, R.V., et al. 2006. Are wildfire mitigation and restoration of historic forest structure compatible? A spatial modeling assessment. Annals of the Assoc. Amer. Geographers 96: 455-470.
“Compared with the original conditions, a closed canopy would result in a 10 percent reduction in the area of high or extreme fireline intensity. In contrast, an open canopy [from thinning] has the opposite effect, increasing the area exposed to high or extreme fireline intensity by 36 percent. Though it may appear counterintuitive, when all else is equal open canopies lead to reduced fuel moisture and increased midflame windspeed, which increase potential fireline intensity.”
Hakkenberg, C.R., et al. 2024. Ladder fuels rather than canopy volumes consistently predict wildfire severity even in extreme topographic-weather conditions. Communications Earth & Environment 5: Article 721.
In a huge analysis of 42 recent (2019-2021) wildfires in California’s forests, dense, mature/old forests with higher canopy cover, higher biomass, and higher densities of “ladder fuels” (defined as seedlings and saplings beneath the forest canopy, less than 33 feet tall), had significantly lower wildfire severity (Figure 3 of the study). Younger forests with lower canopy cover, lower biomass, and intermediate densities of seedlings and saplings had the highest wildfire severity.
Lesmeister, D.B., et al. (co-authored by U.S. Forest Service). 2019. Mixed-severity wildfire and habitat of an old-forest obligate. Ecosphere10: Article e02696.
Denser, older forests with high canopy cover had lower fire severity and “buffer the negative effects of climate change” regarding wildfires. “Thinned forests have more open conditions, which are associated with higher temperatures, lower relative humidity, higher wind speeds, and increasing fire intensity. Furthermore, live and dead fuels in young forest or thinned stands with dense saplings or shrub understory will be drier, making ignition and high heat more likely, and the rate of spread higher because of the relative lack of wind breaks provided by closed canopies with large trees.”
SNEP (co-authored by U.S. Forest Service). 1996. Sierra Nevada Ecosystem Project, Final Report to Congress: Status of the Sierra Nevada. Vol. I: Assessment summaries and management strategies. Davis, CA: University of California, Davis, Center for Water and Wildland Resources.
“Timber harvest, through its effects on forest structure, local microclimate, and fuel accumulation, has increased fire severity more than any other recent human activity.”
* Compiled by the John Muir Project
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Rob—great review, heartbreaking reality, if only Klobucher could read this. Your forest-centered perspective makes so much sense. I would vote to put you in charge of making rational policy for healthy forests.
Thanks Rob for sitting in vigil through this process.
You are right - this is a precedent, but sadly it is not a new one in any sense.
To my mind Kirkpatrick Sale explained it best in his 1995 book ‘Rebels Against The Future: the Luddites and their War on the Industrial Revolution’:
"The industrial regime hardly cares which cadres run the state as long as they understand the kind of duties expected of them. It is remarkably protean in that way, for it can accommodate itself to almost any national system —Marxist Russia, capitalist Japan, China under a vicious dictator, Singapore under a benevolent one, messy and riven India, tidy and cohesive Norway, Jewish Israel, Muslim Egypt— and in return asks only that its priority dominate, its markets rule, its values penetrate, and its interests be defended." (I would add – 'at any cost'.)
What we are seeing is nothing but the 'industrial regime' - the industrial complex - that has only solidified since Sale wrote the above, doing what it does. It actually cannot do anything else. (Sale’s book is painfully enlightening - it documents the moment that government and modern industry aligned to stamp out any opposition to its 'progress'.)
While this is utterly devastating it is also a huge eyes open reality. It puts the responsibility on us, we must work out how to undermine this madness (politics never will until we have set the precedents). Audre Lorde wrote in the 1970s 'you cannot dismantle the master's house using the master's tools'. This phrase is a guide to my current thinking: what are the tools that the master cannot understand I ask? what are the things The System ignores because it thinks it is irrelevant? what things are allowed to grow undetected?
Most activism uses the same tools that the industrial complex ’the master’ uses (most activist organizations look and are structured in the same way corporations are, and are in fact often use that same companies who they are 'fighting' to help with promotions and products and software etc). 'The industrial complex’ will always have more 'fire power' than we will ever have. One of the most powerful tools they have is to encourage people to look away and be rewarded/seduced by what The System can provide them, no matter the cost. We have to be creative and inventive to understand what tools the master cannot see and cannot dismount...
In all this, knowing we cannot change the 'Master' overnight. I think we all must acknowledge that what we seek will not be accomplished in our lifetimes -- destruction and slavery will continue. But we (those whose love and connection to earth is in our bones) must create and be the source from which change can occur - from which a trickle can flow into the future holding unshakable love for the earth. Those of us who are young and those of us no longer young must doggedly keep spreading joy and love, and holding grief for our living earth ...and making sure others are inoculated with the spark of life.