The Forest Service Press Office (thanks!) sent me a copy of this rather lengthy letter. Here’s a bit of a philosophical question to frame the whole Emergency effort: is wildfire really an emergency? Some would argue that climate is an emergency; some would argue that wildfire is an emergency but other solutions that vegetation manipulation on federal lands should be chosen. Some would argue that vegetative manipulation is OK, but it’s not an emergency enough to change current procedures. Others would argue that vegetation manipulation is OK but not cutting trees to be used commercially. But if we back up, it seems like some people who believe that global warming is a crisis also believe that (some) mitigation projects should be expedited, but not adaptation projects. If we frame the wildfire crisis as being about climate change, which some people do. It’s very confusing, but I thought that it was important to lay out that context before we discuss “what we think is OK to do in an emergency” we need to talk about exactly what we think the emergency is and how we define it.
Here are the general introductory statements:
On April 3, 2025, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins signed Secretarial Memo 1078-006 titled Increasing Timber Production and Designating an Emergency Situation on National Forest System Lands. The Secretarial Memo implements Executive Order 14225, Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production (March 1, 2025). Acting Associate Chief Chris French provided additional direction to Regional Foresters in a letter dated April 3, 2025, Implementation of Secretarial Memo 1078-006. This letter directed the Deputy Chief of the National Forest System (NFS), within 14 days, to release direction for using Emergency National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), and other regulatory authorities to streamline and simplify the permitting process. The following guidance contained in this memo fulfills this requirement.
To address specific challenges related to wildfires and forest health, the Secretarial memo contains an Emergency Action Determination (EAD) under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Section 40807, Emergency Actions authority. NFS will support use of this new EAD with additional information, increased Emergency Action Portal functionality and several mapping products to identify the lands included. All actions eligible within the lands covered will use this EAD authority as the default approach including ongoing actions. To use this Forest Health and Hazardous Fuels EAD, proposals must be submitted through the Emergency Action Portal for final approval by the unit’s Forest Supervisor.
Tribes and States Can Request Additional Areas.
Secretarial Memo 1078-006 provides federally recognized Tribes, Alaska Native Corporations, and States the ability to request additional areas to be included in the EAD through the Regional Forester to the Chief of the Forest Service for approval. Additional process guidance for addressing these requests will be forthcoming.
NEPA
When applying this authority to ongoing NEPA actions, consider if a change in the NEPA process will provide for efficiency given its current stage. If an opportunity for objections has already been communicated to the public or is within the objections process, the project timing may not be a good fit for use of this authority.
Public notice and an opportunity to comment is required for IIJA authorized projects, however the statute affords greater discretion in how that is accomplished. To expedite emergency actions, use streamlined approaches under the Agency’s NEPA procedures rather than relying on the notice and comment procedures of the displaced objection processes set out in 36 CFR Part 218. For example, publication via the Schedule of Proposed Actions and distribution of a notice through the unit’s mailing list may be done for environmental assessments (EAs) and categorical exclusions (CEs). Public notice for an environmental impact statement should follow the direction in 36 CFR 220.5(f).
To further expedite these projects, seek to minimize process requirements like scoping, extraordinary circumstance review, and decision memo requirements while still fulfilling all applicable legal requirements.
My bold. At this point, if I lived near or was otherwise interested in forest projects, I would make sure that I was on the forest’s mailing list, and also check the SOPA at least once a week. You can just type in the forest name and SOPA into a search engine, and find the projects, the dates, the link to the project website and whom to contact. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any luck clicking through today and sent a note to the WO about the broken links.
1. Scoping for emergency actions shall be commensurate with the scope and scale of the project. Such scoping efforts should be focused and brief. Formal comment periods will not typically be required for EAs and CEs. Alternative forms of public involvement are sufficient to fulfill agency responsibilities under NEPA and the IIJA.
I’ve seen many EAs with apparent comment periods and even response to comments, so this is interesting.
2. For extraordinary circumstances review, analyze the degree of effect to the proposed action not just the mere presence of a resource condition. Focus on the most important
resource conditions, those listed in 36 CFR 220.6(b) and do not casually expand the scope of conditions being assessed.
But if you expand them thoughtfully, I guess that would be OK.
3. For decision documents, use Agency templates and only include the content required at 36 CFR 220.6(e) and 36 CFR 220.7(c). Additional emergency compliance tools under NEPA can be found on the Ecosystem Management Coordination SharePoint site. Where applicable, prioritize use of CEs to meet NEPA compliance. To expand use of CEs, the
Forest Service recently adopted over 40 additional categories from other agencies under Section 109 of NEPA. Please examine these additional categories, as well as current USDA, Agency, and statutory CEs when considering compliance actions in support of the Secretarial Memo.
Note that this adoption was last July, prior to the current Administration.
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There are also emergency suggestions for for NHPA compliance and Tribal Consultation.
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Since Jon knows about ESA, I thought I’d throw this section in this post.
For compliance supporting the ESA:
1. Employ existing, and develop new, innovative, options for expediting ESA consultation and achieving conservation objectives. Refer to the June 26, 2024, Interagency Memo on
“ESA Section 7 Streamlining Guidance for Implementing the Wildfire Crisis Strategy” for a summary of existing options and opportunities for efficient and effective ESA consultation (https://usdagcc.sharepoint.com/sites/fs-nfs-niesc).
Seems like that Interagency Memo (from the last Admin) is probably available outside the sharepoint site for those curious.
2. Bring innovative ideas to the WO Natural Resources staff to develop additional options and opportunities. New opportunities are being developed as part of the National Active
Forest Management Strategy.
3. Where expedited consultation is necessary, provide as much essential information as feasible to the Services in advance of the action, in order to: determine appropriate design
features to incorporate; assess whether leadership elevation may be warranted; and minimize the time/capacity investment required after any emergency actions are completed.
4. Use the below suggested consultation initiation language where expedited consultation is needed: “XX National Forest is requesting expedited consultation to perform YY work
pursuant to Secretarial Memo 1078-006. The project is expected to commence on ZZ date. If expedited consultation cannot be completed prior to that date, the Forest requests the
consultation be completed under the emergency consultation regs and procedures. (50 CFR § 402.05).”
5. The WO Natural Resources staff are working with ESA consultation agencies to develop additional guidance and methods involving emergency consultation.
To the simple-minded like me, it seems like ESA consultation would involve something like “in these areas, for these kinds of projects, you need to do X, Y and Z to protect A, B and C species.” We know this because dozens of fuel treatment projects likely have been done in the same area. I get that there are landscape-level considerations. It looks like there already emergency consultation regs and procedures in place, but then that goes back to where we started “is it an emergency, and if so, what kind?”
The National Emergency is destructive wildfires due to lack of forest maintenance. Check out New York, New Jersey, Florida for example. Yes, this is a National thing.
It is true that we are in a very similar climate cycle of about 11,000 years ago. Yes, this means that the impacts of a changing climate will stress conditions, and we can expect more destructive wildfires, overall. In most of our lifetimes, there is absolutely nothing we can do about the climate cycle we are in. Realistically, the only 2 things we can impact is making sure the forests are not so clogged up and we put wildfires out quickly (i.e., no more “managed” or “monitoring” wildfires. It’s that simple. Why do we insist on making things so much more complicated? Sure we could emphasize defensible space around home to minimize destruction, but we won’t. And we could harden homes in the wildland-urban interface, but we won’t. So, actions that we can control are pretty basic: improve forest care and resiliency and “first, put out the wildfire” All of this is fully outlined in “A Call to Action.” Now, if I know this, you can bet about a million other really skilled conservationists also know what to do. Lack of tactics is not the issue. Lack of will is.
Very respectfully,
I think we can all agree that when destructive fires occur, it’s an emergency (if we agree on what “destructive” means). But is fuel build-up an emergency? How much? Where? How about human-caused build-up of carbon in the atmosphere (which we could do something about for future generations)?
Jon – –
so, we can do something for CO2 accretion but not for fuel accretion? How so?
I didn’t say we couldn’t do something with fuel accretion. I just took issue with the idea that we can’t also do something with carbon accretion. The actual difference seems to be that fuel treatments may have adverse environmental effects while carbon mitigation is criticized for having economic and social effects.
boy. oh boy. do not agree with you. we cannot log our way out of anything. more suppression makes things worse.
A – –
I’ve stated before in the TSW that no one has lost a home or a life from an escaped timber sale! But plenty have lost homes and lives from unsuppressed fires. The “let burn” approach that you advocate has no social license! This type of “fire management” policy has caused billions in property damage and community loss.
Plenty have also lost homes and lives from living directly adjacent to 300 TPA *private* clearcuts that were never thinned (cause it costs money instead of doing what is right), that when in the 15-30 year old range turned into raging running crown fires that then directly impacted homes and communities (see, Berry Creek, CA).
I see a lot of attempts to remove local discretion to decide what process a project deserves. If you do more than the minimum legally required, you’re going to be asked about it (and if DOGE is still around, maybe you’re going to be fired).
What do you think about the use of Sharepoint for documents that should be available to the public?
There are several concerning issues here, but what bothers me the most is the direction to limit public involvement to the absolute minimum. If you are in the camp that the Forest Service always comes up with nearly perfect projects with nothing but the best intentions, then you are probably perfectly fine with this. Of course, they will accomplish this with fewer employees, some loss of expertise, and being under the gun to sell 25% more timber. What could possibly go wrong? Of course, every project that they come up with will save us from the impacts of wildfires. We can log our way out of this problem!
It’s interesting that one of the complaints from the anti-managed wildfire folks is that the decisions are made without input from the people who live adjacent to these fires, and may be greatly impacted. It’s a fair point. However, with this direction, if you are opposed to some kind of vegetation management project, they may take your comments and then promptly file them away. They aren’t required to do the least amount of anything with them. You do not have the option of filing an objection. Really, your only option is to file a lawsuit. People complain a lot about “frivolous” lawsuits but my guess is that they have never looked into all that is required to file a lawsuit that has merit and a chance of winning, and what it would cost.
For those of you in the “Forest Service never does anything wrong” camp, I suggest you study your FS history and how the National Forest Management Act came about. Practically everything in it came about because of things that FS did wrong or the public had a real problem with.
I am amused to consider the idea that the potential plaintiffs (and even some Judges) might have more knowledge and expertise in NEPA law than this Administration.
What makes you say that, more specifically? Unless all the federal NEPA lawyers (OGC, Interior and DOJ) quit? When I worked in NEPA, they seemed to know a great deal about NEPA law as it applied to FS and BLM projects.
I don’t get the impression that this administration cares much what their professionals say (even if employees have the knowledge, it’s not worth much if it’s not used).