In this post, I’ll focus on the lawsuit itself. In the next post, we can talk about the more generic question of “are timber targets of utility, should they be replaced, and if so, by what?” The press release by SELC raised many questions, and hopefully others will know the answers.
A new lawsuit alleges the U.S. Forest Service’s practice of setting ‘timber targets’ puts the climate at risk, undermines the Biden administration’s important climate goals, and violates federal law.
Back in 2018, we had a post on TSW about timber targets and how they’re set. Mac McConnell described the process in this comment. Maybe someone else could flesh Mac’s comment out more, or write a post on it?
The case centers around the Forest Service’s failure to properly study the massive environmental and climate impacts of its timber targets and the logging projects it designs to fulfill them. Each year, the Forest Service and Department of Agriculture set timber targets, which the Forest Service is required to meet through logging on public lands. In recent years, the national target has been set as high as 4 billion board feet – or enough lumber to circle the globe more than 30 times. The already high target is expected to increase in the coming years.
I’m not sure why that would be. Perhaps more fuel treatments projected due to the 10-year action plan? But those are not really “about” timber.
Forests on public lands provide a key climate solution by capturing and storing billions of tons of carbon. But rising timber targets push the agency to clearcut forests and log carbon-dense mature and old-growth forests. Logging these forests releases most of their carbon back to the atmosphere, worsening the climate crisis and undermining the Biden administration’s important efforts to protect old growth and fight climate change.
I’ve got two problems with this.. first, the targets don’t seem to be rising, and second, the only clearcuts I’ve seen recently have been in MPB-susceptible old lodgepole. And I guess the carbon question there is… the trees are gonna die, is it better to turn them into longer-lived wood products, or what.. burn them? Leave them to decay slowly until burned? This is one of those cases in which specifics, and specific alternatives to the maligned practice, would be helpful. It’s almost as if these MOG-ish carbon assumptions assume.. wildfire is not a thing. At the same time, we are told that wildfires are getting worse due to climate change (Sierra Club- catastrophic), and our insurance premiums need to be adjusted to reflect that. Also the puzzling idea that carbon offsets are bad because trees will die; leaving them alone for carbon is good because… trees won’t die? To be fair, these are not SELC positions as far as I know. At the same time, the idea that trees will not die or get burned up does seem to be part of this press release.
Internal Forest Service documents show that achieving timber targets is the agency’s “#1 priority.” According to agency staff, the need to meet timber targets impacts the Forest Service’s ability to provide “basic customer service for health and safety,” “keep trails opened and maintained,” and “respond to needs resulting from catastrophic events…in a timely manner.” In some instances, agency staff have used money meant for wildlife habitat improvement to fund projects designed to achieve timber targets, even if those projects had “no benefit to wildlife.”
“The requirement to meet timber targets results in adverse impacts on water quality, recreation, and imperiled wildlife, while distracting the Forest Service from more pressing tasks that don’t produce high timber volumes like preventing wildfires, saving trees from invasive pests, and controlling invasive plant species. If the agency is going to prioritize timber targets above the other benefits of National Forests, it needs to forthrightly disclose the consequences of that decision, particularly on our climate,” said Josh Kelly, Public Lands Biologist at MountainTrue.
Perhaps Sam Evans can help here, but when I signed on to the link, there were many files, so I couldn’t find the one that said that meeting timber targets was the agency’s #1 priority. And I’m fairly dubious about that claim, since fire suppression and the 10-year wildfire action plan, and remember this about Fire consuming the FS budget.. Also, if we take Chief Moore’s word for it last year, he said:
The FY24 budget request focuses on three primary areas that impact the Forest Service: modernizing the wildland fire management system, combating climate change and confronting the wildfire crisis, and ensuring equitable access to the benefits of the National Forest System.
I remember a quote along the lines of “to find the real policy, don’t listen to what they say, look at the budget.” Maybe someone remembers the real quote on that, and who said it originally? But back to SELC:
The Forest Service’s refusal to take a hard look at the direct, indirect, and cumulative effects of its timber target decisions is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, our nation’s bedrock environmental law.
It almost sounds to me like a request for a national programmatic on the timber program as a whole. Which is interesting, but could be asked of any program (recreation impacts on climate from people driving to national forests?); or how about a national programmatic on fire suppression or prescribed fire? Then we could have litigation on (1) the programmatic, (2) the forest plan and (3) any timber project – all at the same time. I’m not sure who this benefits. I don’t think it’s taxpayers.
Also, I’m not sure that courts are the right places to have these discussions. For example, we could FOIA discussions of the timber program at the Forest Service or USDA, but not settlement agreements, nor the discussions that arrived at them. I’m interested in transparency and accountability; and the need to build trust in our government institutions. As a result, I consider non-transparency to the public as suboptimal. Also, I would say to SELC, we could ask questions of them equivalent to their points about the Forest Service “have you considered that lawsuits like this and the 15-acre one might equally distract your organization from more pressing tasks and environmental concerns, especially with regard to climate?