Forest Service seeks to exempt some logging and mining from environmental review rules: “The U.S. Forest Service on Wednesday announced plans to narrow the scope of a major environmental law, allowing the agency to fast-track activity throughout the national forest system without undergoing environmental review. The proposed changes could potentially make it easier for logging, road building and other construction projects to gain approval than under current rules — and much more quickly. One of the revisions, for example, would eliminate the need to conduct an environmental study before allowing mining on land parcels up to one square mile in size. Rules requiring the agency to conduct environmental reviews often add a layer of unnecessary bureaucracy, Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen said in a call with reporters. “We found we do more analysis than we need. We take more time than we need and we slow down important work,” Christiansen said. “Under this proposed rule, we can more ably respond to unprecedented challenges that result from catastrophic fire, extended drought and insects and disease infestation.” Environmental advocates criticized the agency’s plan, saying it would be a boon for logging companies while leaving the public in the dark as to what’s being done on federal forest land. “This is clearly consistent with the Trump administration’s desire to reduce government and to cut the public out of the process of managing a public asset,” said Susan Jane Brown, an attorney for advocacy group Western Environmental Law Center. The Forest Service is underfunded and understaffed, Brown said, which leads to long delays and backlogs that can slow projects. But overhauling the rules to allow for sweeping exemptions is not the solution, she said.”

[Los Angeles Times, 6/13/19] https://lat.ms/2KMiX8w

Trump administration seeks to ease way for logging, fire prevention in national forests: “The Trump administration is proposing to cut down the amount of environmental review need for many forest management decisions within nearly 200 million acres of federally controlled woodlands and grasslands. In a sweeping set of proposed rule changes released Wednesday, the U.S. Forest Service is streamlining the steps needed to greenlight a number of activities on its lands, including the exploration for oil, natural gas, coal and hard-rock minerals as well as some types of logging and road construction. The agency is billing the changes to the rules as a way to trim paperwork, grow jobs and — by speeding up approval of tree thinning or controlled burning on overgrown patches of forests — stave off the wildfires that scorched about 8.8 million acres nationwide last year alone. More than 80 million acres need restoration to reduce the risk of wildfire risk or drive back disease and bug infestations, the agency said. “Balancing America’s many needs and uses on our public lands is hard work, but it's the Forest Service's most important job,” said Sam Evans, who leads the Southern Environmental Law Center's National Forests and Parks Program. “Today’s proposal makes it clear that the agency is turning its back on that responsibility.” The agency pushed back on that idea the public was being cut out of its planning process, saying that the new standards for environmental review still go above and beyond what other federal agencies do.”

[Washington Post, 6/13/19] https://wapo.st/2KObzJJ

U.S. Forest Service aims to speed up logging, infrastructure projects: “The U.S. Forest Service, which manages millions of acres of national forests and grasslands, on Wednesday proposed "bold" changes for how it carries out environmental reviews of logging, road building and mining projects on public land, a move that raised red flags for environmental groups. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service published proposed changes for how it complies with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a decades-old law that requires detailed analysis to be conducted before approving projects that could significantly affect the environment. The agency's proposals include vastly expanding the categories of project types that would be excluded from lengthy environmental assessments or impact studies, which it says would "save time and resources" and make it easier to repair infrastructure like roads, trails and campgrounds and protect the public from wildfires. "With millions of acres in need of treatment, years of costly analysis and delays are not an acceptable solution," said USDA Secretary Sunny Perdue. It is the latest move by the Trump administration to streamline infrastructure projects on federal land and follows the lead of the Interior Department, which last year proposed major changes in how it follows the NEPA process, including cutting environmental reviews down to two years. The administration is also expected later this month to complete the first major overhaul of NEPA in decades.”

[Reuters, 6/13/19] http://bit.ly/2IeMIgC

Trump Administration Seeking To Overhaul Forest Management Rules: “Federal land managers on Wednesday proposed sweeping rule changes to a landmark environmental law that would allow them to fast-track certain forest management projects, including logging and prescribed burning. The U.S. Forest Service, under Chief Vicki Christiansen, is proposing revisions to its National Environmental Policy Act regulations that could limit environmental review and public input on projects ranging from forest health and wildfire mitigation to infrastructure upgrades to commercial logging on federal land. "We do more analysis than we need, we take more time than we need and we slow down important work to protect communities," Christiansen told NPR. The proposed rule changes include an expansion of "categorical exclusions." These are often billed as tools that give land managers the discretion to bypass full-blown environmental studies in places where they can demonstrate there would be no severe impacts or degradation to the land. John Gale, with the conservation group Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, says that if applied carefully and narrowly to certain projects, these exclusions could help lower the fire risk. But he's skeptical because the administration recently rolled back protections for clean water and wildlife. "We also don't want to see this become the Trojan horse for unchecked resource extraction," Gale says. The Forest Service insists this is not about ramping up commercial logging in public forests.”

[NPR, 6/13/19] https://n.pr/2X8iV1o

Justin McCarthy

Communications Director, NEPA Campaign

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