April 4 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday announced will allow logging in national forests, which will help spur timber production amid reciprocal tariffs on other nations.
A memo by USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins follows an executive order by President Donald Trump last month to expand timber production.
There are 154 national forests covering approximately 188.3 million acres. The most forests are 18 in California.
“Healthy forests require work, and right now, we’re facing a national forest emergency,” Rollins said in a statement. “We have an abundance of timber at high risk of wildfires in our National Forest.
“I am proud to follow the bold leadership of President Trump by empowering forest managers to reduce constraints and minimize the risks of fire, insects, and disease so that we can strengthen American timber industry and further enrich our forests with the resources they need to thrive.”
Trump’s order on March 1 directed Rollins and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to issue “new or updated guidance regarding tools to facilitate increased timber production and sound forest management, reduce time to deliver timber and decrease timber supply uncertainty.”
The USDA memo expands U.S. timber production by 25%. It also will “empower the U.S. Forest Service to expedite work on the ground and carry out authorized emergency actions to reduce wildfire risk and save American lives and communities,” according to a news release.
To achieve this, the Forest Service will remove National Environmental Policy Act processes and reduce contracting burdens.
Rollins said the rural economies will improve rural economies and avoid wildfire risk.
Environmental groups are against the change.
“This executive order sets in motion a chainsaw free-for-all on our federal forests,” Blaine Miller-McFeeley, a representative for the group Earthjustice, said in a statement.
“Americans treasure our forests for all the benefits they provide, such as recreation, clean air, and clean drinking water. But this order ignores these values and opens the door for wild lands to be plundered, for nothing more than corporate gain. In the long run, this will worsen the effects of climate change, while also destroying critical wildlife habitat.”
The Sierra Club said the order was a giveaway to the logging industry.
The industry is bracing for an escalating trade war.
The United States, China, Russia and Canada are the largest producers of wood globally.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, in 2017, the United States imported about 16.1 billion board feet of lumber from all countries, with Canada supplying nearly 91% of these imports — or around 14.65 billion board feet of lumber. More recent data indicates that Canada remains the largest supplier of lumber to the U.S.
Starting Saturday, there is a 34% tariff on Chinese products coming into the U.S., including a new one of 34% announced Wednesday.
There is an exisrting 25% tariff on Canadian exports and the U.S. neighbors to the north retaliated with a 25% one.
The Trump administration did not place a new tariff on Russia. A White House official told The Hill, they already have extremely high tariffs and sanctions preclude meaningfully trade.
In 2023, plans for the U.S. Forest Service to plant more than a billion trees by 2030 — to shade and cool cities, protect water and fight climate change — are being threatened by seedling scarcity and funding issues, a study by the journal Bioscience found.
