Earlier this fall, the U.S. House voted on and passed the so-called “Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2017” (H.R. 2936). The legislation proposes to create massive categorical exclusions (CEs) to allow tens of thousands of acres—15 to 45 square miles—of logging to bypass any public participation or consideration of impacts to other resources and values.
“Logging at this scale would be harmful in larger National Forests out west, but it would have even greater disproportionate impacts on our relatively small Southeastern National Forests,” said attorney Sam Evans, leader of SELC’s National Forests and Parks Program. “Limiting public participation as logging projects are planned and sites for logging are selected would put our Southeastern National Forests in harm’s way.
“These special public lands are beloved by many and include a range of other uses and values—clean water, recreation, scenery, tourism. We cannot afford to treat our Southeastern National Forests as mere crops for timber without disrupting those other values. Congress should be investing resources in the Forest Service so that it can do better work rather than telling land managers to cut corners.” Read more about this alarming legislation here.
from the Southern Environmental Law Center