Common Sense Can Save Our Forests

Over 80 million acres of forests in the United States are overgrown and undermanaged, primarily due to burdensome federal regulations. These conditions are the kindling to the wildfires that ravage our lands every year, a challenge Central Washington is certainly no stranger to. For far too long, the federal government has cast massive, one-size-fits-all rules and regulations on forest management and put those that deal with disasters at a serious disadvantage. That is all beginning to change now. 

Those of us in Congress that work on conservation issues are moving full steam ahead to shift how the federal government works with state and local officials in forest and land management. As a longtime advocate for local stewardship, I am proud of the work we have accomplished in mitigating wildfires. This week, we are taking another huge step in addressing the challenges with forest management in front of us, and ones to come. 

This week, the House of Representatives will consider the Fix Our Forests Act as a revitalized approach to restoring forest health, increasing our resilience to catastrophic wildfires, and loosening the grip the federal government has on those that ultimately get the job done. With this legislation we are aiming to reduce the cost and planning time for forest management projects while keeping common-sense conservation and environmental standards in place. 

All eyes are on California as they recover from the wildfires that impacted the Los Angeles region, which caused nearly $100 billion in damage. Here in Central Washington, we are all too familiar with these disasters that burn hundreds of thousands of acres every year. The Fix Our Forests Act prioritizes state-of-the-art technologies that not only help us contain and control fires but can help prevent them as well. We are also streamlining the resource pipeline and coordinating the existing grant programs for research that keep up with the evolving challenges posed by fires, like restoring watersheds and water storage strategies. 

We also secured a victory two weeks ago with the announcement by the U.S. Forest Service that they withdrew their proposed National Old Growth Amendment that would have been detrimental to our mature forests and those that manage them. This is a proposal I fought against for over a year through the Congressional Western Caucus and would have had damaging effects if it was finalized.

In D.C. proposals often look good on paper but are impractical in application. The federal government must stop issuing unworkable top-down rules and regulations and use common sense to protect our forests. Our land managers need policies inspired by real world experience from the challenges they know and solve. My colleagues and I on both sides of the aisle are working to deliver exactly that, because our communities see for themselves what is at stake.