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A U.S. Senate committee has advanced the Fix Our Forests Act — a sweeping forest-management bill that could reshape logging and wildfire policy in heavily forested areas like Lane County. Local environmentalists say Democrats behind the proposal misunderstand the challenges facing forests in the West.
An earlier version of this story misstated the acreage, which is 10,000 acres per logging project that could bypass public comment under the act. Additionally, Oregon Wild incorrectly listed a senator in its statement as voting for the measure; the correct senator was Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M.
Before dawn broke over the southern Willamette Valley, senators in Washington, D.C, had already voted on consequential legislation about Oregon’s forests, still dark in the morning’s early hours.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry is largely made up of lawmakers from the East Coast and Midwest.
On Tuesday, Oct. 21, the committee voted 18-5 to advance to the full Senate the proposed Fix Our Forests Act — a measure that aims to improve forest management and reduce catastrophic wildfires. The 176-page bill largely outlines strategies to clear landscapes of brush and grass that can fuel fires that burn large and hot for weeks at a time.
“These are things that are all bipartisan in nature,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., ranking member of the committee. “They are supported by wilderness groups across the country, and this will amount to one of the biggest packages of bills when it comes to public lands that we have seen in decades.”
However, more than 150 environmental organizations — including groups with Eugene activists including Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands — sent the committee a letter opposing the bill.
They agreed that preventing wildfires is a bipartisan goal shared by environmental groups and the timber industry. But the sides diverge sharply on how to achieve it — whether through thinning or by prioritizing ecological restoration.
Wildfire policy, they say, is the latest chapter in the long-running tension over how to manage old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest, a context that lawmakers from other parts of the country often don’t understand.
Environmental groups opposed the Fix Our Forests Act in part because it would allow some forestry projects to bypass steps such as public comment and environmental review. It would speed up thinning on projects as large as 10,000 acres — enough land to fit the University of Oregon campus 34 times over.
That’s why wilderness groups locally don’t see it as a fix at all for places like Lane County.
Why Lane County stands out
East Coast senators have a very different understanding of forests and public lands than their counterparts in the West, according to organizers with Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wildlands.
Those who voted against the measure in committee on Tuesday represent states with far more federal land, such as California and Colorado.
“It definitely is a misunderstanding for how to ‘fix’ forests in Oregon,” Madeline Cowen, field manager with Cascadia Wildlands, said in an email. “[The act] would apply a broad, one-stop-fix-all approach.”
Cowen’s criticism echoes messaging recently used by the Trump administration — in reverse. In its work to repeal the Roadless Rule, the administration pointed to how a “one-size-fits-all” policy limited local control of forests.
While Oregon stands out nationally for its vast forestlands, Lane County is unique even within the state. It has the sixth-largest share of forestland among Oregon counties — but unlike the more rural counties ahead of it, Lane is home to more than 300,000 people. Nearly half of them live in Eugene and Springfield in the southern Willamette Valley, surrounded by the Siuslaw, Umpqua and Willamette national forests.
Erik Fernandez, wilderness program manager for Oregon Wild, says one of the biggest failures in the Fix Our Forests Act is lack of funding for strategies such as creating defensible space and emergency planning. During this year’s fire season, which burned roughly 350,000 acres statewide, several fires came much closer to communities than in years past.
“Unfortunately, too many politicians in Washington, D.C., including Senate Democrats (on the committee) like Amy Klobuchar and Ben Ray Luján, still don’t understand the issue,” he said. (Klobuchar and Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., voted for the act.)
Next steps for Fix Our Forests Act
While no lawmakers from the Pacific Northwest serve on the Senate committee that voted Tuesday, the bill has gained support across the political spectrum — including from some in the region.
U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, whose district includes Lane County, voted in favor of the Fix Our Forests Act earlier this year when it passed the House.
“The Fix Our Forests Act isn’t perfect by any means, but in between those votes we were able to secure improved language on tribal forest management and firefighter pay, and doing nothing isn’t an option when nearly every county I represent is at risk,” Hoyle said in an email to Lookout Eugene-Springfield. “I had issues with how the bill limited access to reasonable litigation, and I am confident Senators Wyden and Merkley are working on that language in the Senate.”
Oregon’s senators have already voiced opposition to the Fix Our Forests Act as it moved out of committee.
Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, both Democrats, have long criticized budget cuts and federal policies they say put people at greater risk during wildfire season and prevent effective fuel treatment to reduce fire danger.
“While reasonable forestry reforms are essential, we can’t ‘fix our forests’ without adequate staffing for our land management agencies, federal dollars to carry out these projects, and local mill and wood processing infrastructure,” said Merkley in a statement.
In his own statement, Wyden said, “In addition to failing to provide adequate resources to reduce hazardous fuels buildup, the bill also includes a laundry list of Republican demands that will sabotage existing forest management and wildfire prevention work.”
It’s unclear when the bill will go before the full Senate as the government shutdown drags on, but lawmakers continue making amendments in the meantime.
