The Fix Our Forests Act, co-sponsored by a Republican receiving substantial donations from the logging industry, makes it easier to bypass environmental review on federal lands.
By Will Peischel. New Republic, January 27, 2025
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The Fix Our Forests Act, which breezed through a House vote last week, represents a “return to common sense,” according to Speaker Mike Johnson. “The reason this is so important is because we see what happened in California,” Johnson said. The recent wildfires that have left at least 26 dead and nearly 15,000 structures destroyed, he has also suggested, are partly the fault of “water resource mismanagement, forest management mistakes, all sorts of problems,” which should be fixed before those suffering receive further federal aid.
The Fix Our Forests Act would allow loggers to more easily thin forests by reducing environmental regulations and public input. The thinking is that reducing tree counts means reducing wildfire fuel. Yet environmental groups including Sierra Club and Earthjustice say that the bill would cause more fires, not fewer…
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