U.S. Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) on May 8 offered the bipartisan Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2019, which would make major reforms to forest management policy across Oregon’s forests and throughout the United States.
“Oregonians and people across the West are preparing for yet another summer of air-choking smoke from yet another devastating wildfire season,” Rep. Walden said. “We cannot allow this to become the new normal and cannot allow the status quo of failed forest management policy to continue. Enough is enough.”
If enacted, H.R. 2607 would improve forest management activities on National Forest System lands, on public lands under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and on tribal lands to return resilience to overgrown, fire-prone forested lands, according to the text of the proposed legislation.
Rep. Walden, an original cosponsor who helped author H.R. 2607, is joined by 21 other cosponsors, including U.S. Reps. Paul Cook (R-CA), Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson (R-PA), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), and Sanford Bishop Jr. (D-GA). The bill is sponsored by U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR).
“Studies from the Nature Conservancy and Forest Service tell us that active forest management can reduce the size and intensity of wildfires by 70 percent,” said Rep. Walden. “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that active forest management will have the largest sustained carbon mitigation benefit.”
The congressman stressed that lawmakers “should follow the science on forest policy reform,” which is what H.R. 2607 does.
“This legislation ensures that we are able to use proven forest management tools across all of Oregon’s forests, including in southern Oregon where we have seen the most devastating wildfires over the last several years,” he added.
If enacted, Rep. Walden said H.R. 2607 also would ensure prompt clean up of burned, dead trees and require that 75 percent of the affected area be replanted.
“We made significant improvements to the way we manage our forests last year, but there is much more work to be done,” Rep. Walden said. “This bill builds on that progress, bolsters the resiliency of our forests to fire, and will help grow and protect Oregon’s communities.”
Among numerous other provisions, H.R. 2607 also would establish a pilot program to permit certain forest projects to go through arbitration by requiring opponents to offer an alternative proposal to the project, he said.