President Donald Trump has instructed federal agencies to plan to log national forests harder, working around environmental protections, including for endangered species.
His directive, issued in an executive order March 1, is counter to decades of environmental policy in the Pacific Northwest, where federal forests have been largely off-limits to logging of old-growth trees since the Northwest Forest Plan, the most ambitious multispecies protection plan in the world when it was adopted in 1994.
It’s unclear what direct effect the order will have on forests of the Northwest — or anywhere. The order contradicts federal laws for management of federal forests, and protection of species.
“This is talk and bluster,” said Kristen Boyles, managing attorney of the Northwest Regional Office of Earthjustice in Seattle. “Executive orders direct other agencies to take action, and they certainly set policy and tone. But they cannot and do not replace requirements of congressionally enacted laws.”
The order seems to acknowledge that, with each clause buffered with “if appropriate and consistent with applicable law.” The order also includes a slew of deadlines for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to develop plans to increase logging.
It will be in the proposed actions of those agencies that any changes could occur.
Any effort to cut protected areas — especially by working around the Endangered Species Act, as the order suggests — would be challenged in court, Boyles said. The nation’s forests are, under multiple federal laws, to be managed for multiple uses — species protection, recreation, clean water and air — not just timber production.
“This executive order cannot supplant any of that,” Boyles said.
But it does lay bare Trump’s intentions. “It exposes as a lie any idea that there was a concern about forest management from this administration,” Boyles said. “The only thing it cares about is plundering the forest for private gain. That is now very plain for all to see.”
The order could also could make worse the fire risk it purports to cure. The federal government’s own studies show that forests help stabilize the climate by absorbing and storing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, cooling temperatures and storing water. All of these help reduce the risk of wildfire. Cutting forests ignites a negative loop of climate warming as the amount of cooling, carbon-reducing forests is diminished. The biggest trees store the most carbon.
Others saw opportunity. “Wildfires are one of the largest emitters of CO2 in WA — and the Administration has a chance to use these logs to support local mom-and-pop logging, trucking, and mill operators,” said Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez, D-Vancouver, on X. “American-owned mills should have preferential access to these logs so we can bring down the cost of quality single-family homes — and they should be off-limits to multinationals who keep lumber prices high.”
The order states its purpose, in part, is to push back against imports and assert U.S. forests as the nation’s source of timber supply. A companion executive order directs agencies to examine the use of tariffs to protect U.S. timber production from imports.
The American Forest Resource Council, an industry group, cheered both orders in a news release.
“These executive orders state the obvious but provide the clarity and leadership past administrations have failed to say out loud and prioritize: America’s wood products should come from America,” said AFRC President Travis Joseph in the release. The group also supported actions in a second executive order aimed at reducing imports with tariffs.
That puts Trump on a collision course with Russia, a major exporter of wood products to the U.S., especially birch for plywood. This is conflict timber, with its proceeds used to pay for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Dave Upthegrove, state commissioner of public lands, said he will be looking for ways to expand work with federal agencies in caring for federal forests in Washington. “… I’ll take any opportunity to expand our work with federal agencies in ways that support our shared interests in making our forests healthier, our wildfires less catastrophic, and our communities stronger.”
The timber order conflicts with other ongoing federal efforts, including an update of the Northwest Forest Plan, presently in a public comment period that ends March 17. The update affects millions of acres of old growth managed by the U.S. Forest Service.
How the executive order overlaps with that work is unclear, said Mike Anderson of The Wilderness Society, who served on an advisory committee for more than a year to craft proposed updates to the plan, intended in part to make the forests more resilient to fire.
“It’s unfortunate,” Anderson said of the executive order. “The forest service has been making good strides toward making the national forests more fire resistant and reducing the fire threat to communities and this timber executive order I’m afraid is going to derail those efforts.”
He also questioned how the Forest Service can up the cut at the same time that the Trump administration is slashing the agency’s staff. “I really don’t think it makes a lot of sense.”
Mitch Friedman, executive director of Conservation Northwest, has spent a lifetime on timber, wildlife and conservation issues, starting as a tree-sitter, and evolving to a collaborator with agencies and timber companies with the goal of better outcomes for forests and the wildlife and people who use them. “We know his intent,” he said of Trump. “Game on.”
But what the executive order will really mean is yet to be seen — especially given the federal worker layoffs. “There are still limitations, and questions, including who is going to prepare these projects?” Friedman said.
He is certain that recreational access and quality are going diminish, as well as wildfire response, with thousands of forest service employees pushed out of work. What’s next?
“More logging? Worse logging? Old growth logging? We are going to do our best to prevent that, but we don’t know enough yet,” Friedman said. “We just know the president wants to turn the timber clock back to the clear-cut days of the 1980s.”
