US Reps. Neguse (D-CO) and Hoyle’s (D-OR) $30 Billion Logging Bill Undercuts President Biden’s Old Growth Protection

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colorado) and Val Hoyle (D-Oregon) are co-sponsoring a bill to spend 30 billion in taxpayer dollars to log and clearcut carbon-storing public forests across the West, a scientifically contested scheme that would undermine President Biden’s “commitment to protect old growth forests on National Forest system lands” while ignoring proven strategies for guarding forest-edge communities from wildfire. [1][2]

The House bill, companion to a Senate bill proposed by Oregon Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, would provide $30 billion in “funding for land management agencies to expand wildfire risk reduction projects.” [3]

Unfortunately, independent (funded without conflicts of interest) peer-reviewed scientific studies, conclude that not only won’t logging stop large wildfires, tree-cutting can make them burn hotter and spread faster by opening forests to sunlight and wind. [4][5]

Indeed, the entire premise of logging to create “historical conditions” of parklike forests due to “overgrown” stands and “unusual” high-severity wildfire has been repeatedly challenged by numerous studies in peer-reviewed journals. Contrary to the industry/agency narrative, this science finds that western forests—including across Colorado and Oregon—prior to fire suppression did grow densely and did experience high-severity wildfire. [6]

The scientific consensus, including from the U.S. Forest Service’s own Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Sciences Laboratory, is that hardening homes—measures such as installing non-flammable roofs and maintaining defensible space 15-60 feet around structures—can save the vast majority from the most intense wildfires. [7][8]

The Biden-⁠Harris Administration asserts that “America’s forests are a key climate solution, absorbing carbon dioxide equivalent to more than 10% of U.S. annual greenhouse gas emissions.” [9]

Yet Rep. Neguse and Hoyle’s unprecedented scale of logging not only ignores this executive order, it would spew gigatons of currently-sequestered carbon into the atmosphere, scuttling U.S. CO2 emission targets for 2030. Meanwhile, studies show that even high-severity wildfire only releases an average of 1-2 percent of tree carbon from burned forests. [10][11]

Further, Hoyle’s bill exploits a federal “emergency action” loophole under Section 40807 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, that allows cutting of a targeted 45 million acres of National Forests without customary legal challenges merely by claiming “threats” from natural wildfires. [12][13]

“In 2022, the town of Oakridge was evacuated due to the 127,000 acre Cedar Creek wildfire while the Willamette National Forest left 30-40 year old flammable tree plantations with fuel ladders down to the ground bordering residential properties,” says Shannon Wilson, Oregon Organizer for Eco-Integrity Alliance. “If it’s not commercial logging of big trees, the US Forest Service has little to no interest in “wildfire fuels reduction.”

“Any meaningful climate action in the U.S. would involve ending logging on public lands and preserving forests as climate reserves as part of a larger ‘Half-Earth’ strategy endorsed by the preeminent biologist E.O. Wilson,” says Josh Schlossberg, Colorado Organizer for Eco-Integrity Alliance. “Yet instead of protecting our best climate buffer, Rep. Neguse and Hoyle have emerged as the biggest pro-logging members of the House, with Colorado and Oregon as ground zero for the detonation of this devastating ‘carbon bomb.’”