U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) on Jan. 9 applauded action by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) to withdraw its proposed changes to the national old growth amendment, which would have amended all 128 national forest land management plans to conserve and steward old-growth forest conditions and recruit future old-growth conditions in light of increasing threats due to rapidly changing climate conditions.
“I have long advocated for responsible forest management decisions to be made at the local level by the people who know the land and how to best handle it,” said Rep. Newhouse. “I am pleased to see the Forest Service withdraw this top-down regulation that would have been a detrimental blow to proper and common-sense management.
“I am looking forward to working in the new Congress on ways we can better support the regional stewards of our national forests to reduce the frequency and damage caused by catastrophic wildfires,” the congressman added.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed the national old growth amendment in December 2023, and USFS evaluated public input from the initial scoping period, which closed Feb. 2, 2024. The draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was published in the Federal Register on June 21, 2024.
On June 27, 2024, Rep. Newhouse cosponsored the GOP-led H.R. 8865 to nullify President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14072 and prevent USFS from finalizing the amendment plan’s draft EIS.
The U.S. House of Representatives on July 24, 2024, passed the 2025 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act containing Rep. Newhouse’s amendment prohibiting funds from being used to finalize, implement, administer, or enforce the draft EIS or any similar action, according to his staff, and on Jan. 7, USFS Chief Randy Moore announced his intent to withdraw the proposal.
“Moving forward, we have the opportunity to identify where old growth conditions may be departed from desired conditions or vulnerable to reasonably foreseeable threats, versus where conditions are high-functioning and less vulnerable to threats,” Moore said in a statement last week. “Understanding these differences will enable us to make intentional management decisions so that we can provide for ecological integrity and maintain, conserve, recruit and steward old growth forest conditions with ecologically appropriate representation, distribution and abundance, based on place-based assessments of what is most needed.”