FOREST SERVICE:
Panel to review bill to speed NEPA reviews, cut legal costs
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Published: Monday, June 1, 2015
A House panel Wednesday will take up a draft bill to accelerate National Environmental Policy Act reviews for forest projects and to cut down on the government’s legal costs, among many other provisions.
The legislation is part of a GOP push to streamline laws and regulations it argues are impeding logging and thinning projects on national forests and raising the threat of wildfires.
The 40-page discussion draft, titled the “Returning Resilience to our Overgrown, Fire-prone National Forests Act of 2015,” will be taken up by the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Federal Lands. It was authored by Chairman Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and Reps. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) and Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.).
“Catastrophic wildfire is devastating our national forests, our watersheds and our communities,” full committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said in a statement when the draft was unveiled.
Bishop argued that wildfire was not as big of a problem decades ago when the Forest Service was more aggressively thinning forests.
“We’ve reached a point where the agency is paralyzed by the threat of litigation and fundamentally incapable of fulfilling its primary mission to actively and sustainably manage the national forests entrusted in its care,” he said. “It’s apparent the Forest Service and our local communities lack the adequate processes and tools needed to address the wildfire threat.”
Panel members Wednesday will hear testimony from Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell, as well as Jack Troyer, a former regional forester who is now part of a Forest Service retirees organization. They’ll also hear from a wild turkey advocate, a county commissioner from Washington state and a law professor.
The draft bill contains several provisions that would cut down on NEPA reviews for forestry projects that are developed collaboratively or designed to reduce the threat of wildfires.
For example, the bill says that for any forest management activity that is developed through a collaborative process, or is proposed by a resource advisory committee or covered by a community wildfire protection plan, an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement shall only contain an “action” and “no action” alternative, which appears aimed at reducing the length of the NEPA document.
It would allow a categorical exclusion — exempting a project from an EA or EIA — for logging activities less than 15,000 acres if the primary purpose is to address insect and disease infestation, to reduce hazardous fuels, to protect municipal water sources, to maintain or enhance critical habitat for a threatened or endangered species when wildfire is a threat to the lands, or to increase water yield.
Similar exclusions would be available for forest management activities in areas that were burned by a wildfire to prevent them from re-burning, to provide opportunity to utilize burned material or to provide a funding source for reforestation so the lands may again sequester carbon dioxide.
The categorical exclusions would also be allowed for logging projects up to 5,000 acres whose primary purpose is to create young forest habitat for wildlife. Such projects typically require intensive logging or clear cuts.
Another provision would set deadlines for the Forest Service to replant and cultivate trees on a burned landscape.
In addition, the bill would require groups that sue to block collaboratively planned forest projects to post a bond to cover the government’s anticipated legal costs. If the suing party loses, they would forfeit the bond.
Conservationists and Democratic leaders on the committee have opposed attempts to curtail NEPA reviews or limit groups’ ability to sue the government.
Democrats in past hearings have argued that the primary impediment to the Forest Service approving more logging and restoration projects is a lack of funding, which is made worse by the rising cost of wildfire.
One solution, according to panel Democrats and dozens of other House Republicans, is to pass legislation allowing the Forest Service to access wildfire disaster funds that would prevent disruptions to its forestry work.
“The question now is do we need to go after environmental safeguards and important planning policies as the solution, or should Congress just step up to this obvious challenge of providing the Forest Service the funding model it needs and that we all agree on a bipartisan basis has to be part of the solution?” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said at a forestry hearing last month.
Schedule: The hearing is Wednesday, June 3, at 2 p.m. in 1324 Longworth.
Tags: environmental law, NEPA, policy