The Biden administration on Tuesday abruptly dropped its plan to protect old-growth forests after getting pushback from the timber industry. The move was announced by U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore in a letter to forest supervisors, according to the Associated Press.
President Joe Biden issued an executive order in 2022, which called for better management of the nation's forests. The order called for the first-ever inventory of old-growth and mature forests on federal lands. That inventory was released in 2023 and found that more than 100 million acres of old-growth and mature timberlands are still standing on public lands. At the same time, the Forest Service began a rulemaking process to improve the climate resilience of federally managed forests. The public comment period on the proposal garnered over half a million comments in support of protecting mature and old-growth trees from logging.
The Forest Service ultimately proposed a rule that would have limited logging in old-growth forests, with exceptions to allow logging in some old-growth areas to protect against wildfires. Both environmentalists and the timber industry were unhappy with the proposal.
In his letter, Forest Service Chief Moore said that much was learned from the old-growth amendment process, despite the disappointing outcome. “There is strong support for, and an expectation of us, to continue to conserve these forests based on the best available scientific information,” Moore wrote. “There was also feedback that there are important place-based differences that we will need to understand in order to conserve old-growth forests.”
Weather delays CA monument designations
Dangerously high winds threw a wrench in President Joe Biden's plan to designate two new national monuments in California on Tuesday. The president was originally set to make remarks in the eastern Coachella Valley, but the event was changed at the last minute to take place at the White House next week. The White House released details about the monument designations Tuesday morning, ahead of the rescheduled event.
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