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President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to find ways to bypass endangered species protections and other environmental regulations to increase timber production across 280 million acres of national forests and other public lands.
Trump also called to convene a committee nicknamed the “God Squad” that can override the Endangered Species Act so that development or other projects can proceed even if they might result in an extinction of a species. These directives follow recommendations found in Project 2025, which called for increasing timber production as a way to reduce wildfire risk.
Scientists say that increased timber production is not a solution to wildfires. Climate change and drought are what make wildfires bigger and more destructive, and forest thinning can actually increase wildfire intensity by reducing shade from the forest canopy and changing the forest’s microclimate.
“They’re not hiding the ball,” said Blaine Miller-McFeeley, a senior legislative representative at Earthjustice. “It’s just about trying to cut as much [of] our forests as possible to line the pockets of timber industry executives.”
Judge blocks Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers
On Thursday, a federal judge ordered the Office of Personnel Management to rescind the directives that initiated the mass firing of probationary workers at more than two dozen agencies, including the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management. U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that the terminations were probably illegal, stating that “the Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire and fire employees at another agency. They can hire and fire their own employees.” The ruling temporarily pauses the firings, but it is unclear if federal workers who have already been let go can return to their jobs.
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The attack on the national parks must be seen as an attempt to first devalue them, then close them or turn them over to private ownership, ownership motivated by short-term profit, not pride and stewardship.”
