Loving Our Trees to Death

An interview with the only registered forester in Congress, on the costly failures of forest management.

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The Western wildfires that dominated headlines in August and September continue to burn, and there are several months left in this year’s “fire season.” The August Fire in Northern California became the second-largest fire in the state’s history last month, and the Glass Fire is burning through large portions of Napa and Sonoma counties. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate and air quality in many parts of California remains unhealthy.

The Dispatch sat down with Arkansas Rep. Bruce Westerman, graduate of Yale Forestry School and the only registered forester in Congress, to discuss his work promoting better forest management in the federal government and the costs of allowing each year’s fire season to get worse. 

So what fire prevention legislation have you been working on?

Well, the latest thing I’ve got out is the Trillion Trees Act, which addresses planting trees, how to make our existing forests healthier, and how do we do sustainable buildings, which are closely tied to [the health of] our forests and the climate. How do we prevent catastrophic wildfires? How do we make our forest healthier? And how do we maximize the amount of carbon that these forests are storing?

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  1. Vermin8

    I would have liked more discussion on how litigation is stopping forest management and ergo contributing to more forest fires. NEPA applies to actions the federal government is going to take and generally doesn't apply to currently ongoing actions, ie, sustainment. I have no doubt that Rep Westerman knows more about federal sustainment of forests than I do - I wish he had given some concrete examples of when the Forest Service could not do regular sustainment and whether those areas denied experienced uncontrolled burning as a result.

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      Patrick O'Rouke

      You couldn't consider "forestry" as an ongoing activity under NEPA. The EA (or EIS if it's big enough or biologically/culturally significant enough) is going to apply to the specific tract being cut at a given time. So, USFS proposes to cut 500 acres on a National Forest, environmental NGO sues, claiming a NEPA process violation, and USFS misses the ideal window to harvest (or just gives up trying to cut in that area). I'm the really litigious areas, the regional forester just doesn't bother because it's a waste of resources.

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      1. Vermin8

        In your example even if the timbering is stopped indefinitely, they can still do maintenance, ie, controlled burns or removal of dead trees, so that should mitigate a good bit of the risk of fires.

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          Patrick O'Rouke

          Maybe, maybe not. That plan (regular maintenance) would still probably need to go through NEPA review. If you decide on the fly that a tract needs to be burned or salvage logged, you can still be sued for not going through the appropriate level of review, e.g. a riverkeeper organization could claim that the roads you need to cut for salvage logging are going to violate water quality protections. The agency will probably prevail in the end, but is it worth the trouble to them?

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          1. Vermin8

            I have never heard of doing NEPA for regular maintenance outside addressing long term impacts in the NEPA documentation that is done for a major undertaking.
            The original NEPA (eg, if the government is purchasing a piece of forested property or if they are taking a cleared property and planting trees) would cover the environmental impact as a result of the federal government actions - and that action would include the long term maintenance. I can't see a federal agency saying "we're not going to do anything - we're just going to leave it up to Mother Nature. THAT would generate a suit.

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    2. p_smith2

      I thought the exact same thing when I read this. There is enough support for the broad theory that regulations can end up creating more harm than good in a number of policy arenas to make it believable that the problem would happen in this case as well. Although there seemed to be some clarification at the end of this piece about good policy (allow for controlled burns and other prevention strategies), I think there was some fault attribution towards specific groups which are allegedly standing in the way of good forest management policy which was not supported by examples.

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      1. Vermin8

        I used to live near a military installation with a lot of forested land. They did controlled burns not infrequently. This was not a state, however, where the population was likely to sue under environmental statutes and regulation - The West Coast is where we've had the most fires - that population is more likely to use the courts. But - it would have been helpful if he had strengthened the point by talking about injunctions in areas that are experiencing catastrophic fires.

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        1. p_smith2

          Good point about the state to state differences. States can often serve as policy laboratories, so to speak, by allowing for across state comparisons, so it would be interesting to get a better sense of how important of a factor litigation and over-regulation is when it comes to contributing to wildfire risk. Obviously, I'm sure there are other differences that we would need info on as well, but with enough data on all the factors identified in this article and other key variables , it would be possible to empirically validate the claims here.

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    Pat Riot

    Very, very interesting article and the Congressman makes great points. Imagine if we had lawmakers like this one who did *not* destroy their credibility for the rest of their lives by supporting Trump during these years.

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  3. tla

    Great interview. Wish we had more of these type of exchanges which were much more common a generation ago when Democrats and Republicans often had common goals but disagreed about how best to get there.

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    Steve Gordon

    This was an excellent read. I live in a suburb 30 miles south of Seattle and we had a major fire outbreak in the forested area about 3 miles from my home. Started when a transformer blew in a major windstorm event. Only through heroic work of fire fighters were all but 4 homes saved. A lot people in Western Washington got a wake up call and this issue got a lot more attention. Great input on solutions here.

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    Carl M

    I really enjoyed Rep. Westerman's enthusiasm. You can tell that he's just dying to be asked about these topics. I would like to know, though, a little more detail about how the laws he mentions interfere with forest management. I'm not necessarily skeptical of the claim, but I'd like to be walked through an example.

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    Robert Knudson

    Enjoyed this - made a lot of sense and I hope we can get some bipartisan congressional action on these measures.
    . Its infuriating that I remember some of thes issues being raised back in 1988 when the Yellowstone fires occured, and yet the Forest service lands, which are basically designated for active management (unlike the NPS land) are still not being attended to.

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    Mudskipper

    Thank you for a very informative and balanced take on the situation.

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  8. Nathan

    No one is going to take this guy seriously because the government doesn't take preventative measures very well.

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  9. Diane Hansen

    So, you're telling me that political, bureaucratic agendas have supplanted solutions and common sense? I think many people on the right who didn't join the environmental loon hysteria have been saying that for a long time.

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      Mudskipper

      You know, I was feeling good about this article. Balanced, little emphasis on pointing blame, matter of fact.

      And then I read your comment.

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      1. Diane Hansen

        Unfortunately, the truth is often uncomfortable to hear. Pointing fingers and blame is something the tree huggers have been hurling at those of us who actually have been calling for a balanced, solutions orientated approach.. If you've been reasonable, and in search of solutions regarding this problem, then I am not sure why you take offense. Have you ever wondered if the environment Hollywood crowd actually cares about the environment or whether it's just a virtue signaling cause? They don't live like environmentalists...

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          Mudskipper

          I didn't have a problem hearing the truth from Westerman. That is because he is clearly wanting to move forward to solutions rather than engaging in partisan blame.

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        2. BrianMA

          Pointing fingers and blame...things that only those people over there do...

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          1. Diane Hansen

            If the shoe fits.... Gavin Newsome, Barbra Streisand, Daryl Hannah, Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Moore, Rob Reiner...let's just start there.

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    Bill Nelson

    I grew up in a very rural valley in the mountains of western Montana (Jackson MT). Back in the 60s we could go into the forest and harvest what ever was needed (we had our own saw mill). In the early fall we’d take dead trees for firewood. Gradually the Forest Service shut that down, closed off access trails and mining roads.
    This area never really had any major logging sites, too far from any mills, and has never suffered devastating fires but it’s only a matter of time.
    But over the years logging got better, less clear cut, more selective. And it can be even better with improved technology.
    But again, this is an area where government and legislation needs to be more competent. So it doesn’t look good for the future.

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      scott

      They're letting us go back in to harvest firewood now, Bill. We have to get a permit, of course, but it's really a simple process.

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