We have all read about the thousands of Forest Service employees Elon Musk laid off without cause in Trump’s reckless attempt to cut the Federal budget by $2 trillion. Unfortunately, many of those laid off were minimally-paid seasonal employees who clean outhouses, maintain campgrounds, and clear hiking trails.
The old saying “penny wise and pound foolish” comes to mind since if Trump and Musk really want to cut the Forest Service’s budget they need to go where the money is actually being wasted. That would be the Forest Service’s enormously subsidized logging projects that cost billions of federal tax dollars while inflicting significant damage on the environment, wildlife, and fisheries. All to enable the private timber industry to profit off the public resource of our national forests.
Take, for instance, the Forest Service’s own economic analysis that shows the actual costs of recent timber sales in Region One, which includes Montana and northern Idaho.
- Taxpayers will lose $3,184,000 on the South Plateau clearcutting project next to Yellowstone National Park in the Custer-Gallatin National Forest, which we are suing to stop.
- Taxpayers will lose a stunning $4.2 million on the Gold Butterfly logging project in the Bitterroot National Forest, which we are also in court trying to stop.
- The Lost Creek-Boulder Creek clear-cutting project on Idaho’s Payette National Forest would have lost nearly $22 million — but we stopped it in court.
A 2019 report by the Center for a Sustainable Economy found “taxpayer losses of nearly $2 billion a year associated with the federal logging program carried out on National Forest and Bureau of Land Management lands.”
But this report was written before Congress gave the Forest Service $22 billion from the Infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act for more logging. That’s on top of their $6 billion annual budget. When the Forest Service recently told me that they are out of money, I asked what happened to the $22 billion. They said they spent it all.
Externalized Costs
Adding to these losses are significant “externalized” costs that the Forest Service does not count. This includes new noxious weed infestations brought in on bulldozers, trucks, and other logging equipment that will have to be treated for years and may not even be eradicated.
When new logging roads are bulldozed in the sediment, runoff clogs spawning gravels, smothers fish eggs, and kills aquatic insects, negating expensive restoration efforts for endangered bull trout.
Commercial logging increases wildfire intensity
Contrary to the Forest Service’s claim that logging reduces wildfire risk, recent studies show logged areas can actually aggravate wildfire growth and intensity.
In 2016, the largest wildfire analysis ever done found that forests with the most logging and the fewest environmental protections actually had the highest levels of fire intensity. Why? Because logging opens up the forest, allowing more sunlight and wind to dry out the forest and makes them more flammable.
Conclusion
If Musk really wanted to save taxpayers’ money, he’d target the billions of dollars needlessly spent clear-cutting our dwindling old-growth forests for timber industry profits.
It’s a proven fact that the best way to fireproof homes in forested areas is by clearing out nearby brush and using non-flammable building materials — not by clear-cutting forests miles from any homes.
Musk and Trump should focus on where billions of dollars are actually being wasted in the Forest Service, and they’d have plenty left to provide real public services such as clean campgrounds, outhouses, and well-maintained trails.
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