Trump Administration Wants to Cut Down Forestry Protections

The proposal could greenlight and fast-track destructive activities like logging and overdevelopment. 

The U.S. Forest Service today proposed broad revisions to the environmental review process that helps protect forests and their wildlife from activities like logging and overdevelopment. “Once again, the Trump administration is abandoning protections for our treasured natural resources as it moves to end safeguards ensuring that the public has a say before our forests are logged,” says Kabir Green, federal affairs director at NRDC.

The proposed changes would weaken the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a bedrock law that requires environmental reviews and helps ensure that the public has informed input into federal agency decisions that impact the environment. The changes would allow for more “categorical exclusions,” which allow whole classes of activities to bypass the more thorough NEPA review processes.

“Providing a rubber stamp to the logging industry is no way to manage our national forests,” Green says.