On Sunday afternoon, the Dear Leader issued a wonderful Executive Order titled Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production.
The EO :
- Bemoans that “onerous Federal policies have forced our Nation to rely upon imported lumber.”
- Within 30 days requires BLM and the USFS to “issue new or updated guidance regarding tools to facilitate increased timber production and sound forest management, reduce time to deliver timber, and decrease timber supply uncertainty,” and to “any legislative proposals that would expand authorities to improve timber production and sound forest management.”
- Within 60 days requires the FWS to “complete a strategy on USFS and BLM forest management projects under section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) (16 U.S.C. 1536) to improve the speed of approving forestry projects,” and to consider “delegate[ing] consultation requirements under section 7 of the ESA to other agencies.”
- Within 90 days requires DOI and USDA to set timber targets for the next 4 years.
- Within 120 days: Requires USDA and DOI to “complete the Whitebark Pine Rangewide Programmatic Consultation under section 7 of the ESA.”
- Within 180 days requires USDA and DOI to consider and adopt new categorical exclusions to speed timber production.
- Within 280 days requires USDA and DOI to consider and adopt “a new categorical exclusion for timber thinning and re-establish a categorical exclusion for timber salvage activities.”
- Orders all agencies to “suspend, revise, or rescind all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, settlements, consent orders, and other agency actions that impose an undue burden on timber production.”
- Directs agencies to “to use, to the maximum extent permissible under applicable law, the ESA regulations on consultations in emergencies to facilitate the Nation’s timber production,” including using the ESA “God Committee” and orders members of that Committee to prepare a report that “identifies obstacles to domestic timber production infrastructure specifically deriving from implementation of the ESA and recommends procedural, regulatory, and interagency improvements.”
We are thrilled to see that we will be quickly returning to the golden era, the era of greatness of timber sales that started at the end of World War II but ended towards the end of the 1990’s (because the massive pace of forest liquidation left little merchantable timber left).
I can’t speak for all US Forest Service lands across the country, but I do know the forests in Wyoming. There is basically no mature or old-growth trees left. What remained after the era of greatness of timber sales, was them virtually eliminated by global warming.
The lodgepole pine was decimated by the bark beetle epidemic that started in the late 1990’s and had killed off 90+% of the mature and old-growth by 2010.
The old-growth and mature whitebark pine was decimated shortly thereafter. Five hundred to 750-year-old whitebark, all dead. What does that tell you about climate change allowing the bark beetles to reproduce more rapidly, not get killed by winter cold snaps and extend to higher elevations where they previously could not survive?
And then there is Englemann spruce that sits near the bottom of lumber quality. Over the last 5–7 years, nearly all the mature and old-growth has died.
The vast areas of clear-cuts from 1945 to 2000 are all doghair lodgepole and will take another 100 to 150 years before you can get a 2×4 out of them (let alone a 2×10). So, in these parts, I don’t know what could be turned into lumber.
Maybe it will just all be chipped to glue into toxic particle board.
We praise the trump voters who allowed the Second Coming of the Dear Leader. All the myriad forest creatures are certainly delighting in offering the sacrifice of their homes to fulfill the sacred mission!
In more great news, we see our beloved Karen Budd-Falen, who has defended such luminaries as Cliven Bundy, has accepted the #3 position at the Department of the Interior.
I have known Karen for more than two decades and have had the misfortune to spend way too much time with her. I have fought many cases with Karen as opposing counsel. Fortunately, she rarely wins.
On the bright side, I have always found Karen to be one of the dimmer bulbs in the room, as they say.
Our gratitude again goes out to all the trump voters who have delivered us back to greatness!
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