And Now for Something Completely Different: How the White House Can Reform NEPA

We were asked to give our thoughts on this piece by Aidan Mackenzie and Thomas Hochman.  They have been studying permitting reform for some time, and are definitely a fresh set of eyes on our ongoing challenges. They are our guests, so please respect that, and focus on the content.  I’m particularly interested in the views of those experienced with NEPA, including practitioners and environmental attorneys.

Three steps CEQ can take to fix permitting

On day one, President Trump took bold executive action to streamline the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), revoking the 1977 Executive Order (EO) that gave regulatory authority to the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).1 President Trump’s new EO also directs CEQ to rescind existing NEPA regulations and issue new guidance that significantly accelerates permitting timelines. With these measures, the Trump administration has thrown out decades of NEPA regulations and related case law.2

For those of us who have spent time learning all this..it’s fairly scary.  And as Ted Boling said about the FRA, it’s a full employment program for environmental attorneys to rebuild case law. Nevertheless, here’s the general outline of their ideas:

CEQ and implementing agencies can leverage reasonable interpretations of statutory NEPA and FRA language to achieve three significant goals:

  1. Narrow the set of actions that trigger NEPA in the first place.
  2. Expand the set of actions that are eligible for a Categorical Exclusion (CatEx).
  3. Narrow the set of actions that require an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

We offer three reforms to pare NEPA back to fulfill its true statutory goals. First, to narrow the set of actions that trigger NEPA, CEQ should redefine “major federal action” to ensure that projects with low levels of federal involvement do not trigger NEPA. Second, to expand the set of actions that are eligible for a CatEx, CEQ should set a clear and broad standard for actions that “normally [do] not have a significant effect on the human environment.” Third, to narrow the set of actions that require an EIS, CEQ should set a high standard for what constitutes a “reasonably foreseeable” significant effect. In each case, CEQ should be careful to reduce the litigation attack surface for agencies, advising agencies to consider issues like indirect effects under minimal scrutiny.

We can discuss any parts of their paper, but I’ll focus on the more “on the ground” implementation aspects of #2.

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The term “normally” should be defined using a practical, bright-line test for significant effects. Agencies can reasonably classify actions as “normally” having no significant effect when a substantial majority of such actions have proven benign through actual implementation.

Specifically, an action category should qualify for a categorical exclusion when historical data demonstrates that a substantial majority (more than 70%) of comparable actions resulted in Findings of No Significant Impact (FONSI). This threshold replaces previous interpretations requiring near-certainty of no significant impacts, recognizing that if a substantial majority of similar actions have proven benign through actual implementation, the category can reasonably be classified as “normally” having no significant effect.18

The streamlining benefits would be enormous: ~99% of environmental assessments result in a FONSI.19 This means that an overwhelming percentage of actions that currently trigger an environmental assessment could be covered under categorical exclusions under the new framework.

How to implement

Agencies should document factors that indicate future actions will maintain similar performance, including:

  1. Standard mitigation measures that routinely prevent significant impacts
  2. Existing permit requirements that effectively control environmental effects
  3. Common design features of best practices incorporated into such projects

These predictive factors help establish that the historical performance demonstrated by the 70% threshold will continue.

To support categorical exclusion determinations, agencies should:

  1. Analyze historical NEPA reviews to establish the proportion of FONSIs

  2. Evaluate how standard practices and requirements will maintain environmental performance

  3. Provide professional assessment of typical project characteristics and their environmental implications

  4. Maintain extraordinary circumstance review protocols for unusual situations.

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This sounds a bit like how our FS administrative CEs were developed in the first place.  People also depend on NEPA for public engagement, and the FS requires scoping of CEs but I’m not sure that other agencies do.  Finally, I don’t know how much is saved by a CE vs. an EA.  Here’s what I think it might be for an FS project off the top of my head. I have been out of this awhile, so may have forgotten quite a bit.

CEEA
Public commentScopingScoping plus Draft EA
AlternativesOneTwo or More
Objection ProcessNoYes

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 NEPA has never explicitly defined “significant effect,” leaving room for a much more reasonable interpretation. Therefore, we recommend that an action should meet all three of the following criteria to be deemed significant:

  1. Substantial magnitude: Exceeding minor or routine environmental changes

  2. Inadequate existing mitigation: Impacts that persist despite standard, widely used measures or compliance with existing regulatory thresholds

  3. High likelihood: Based on probable, non-speculative outcomes, and proximately caused by federal action

………

By tying “significance” to magnitude, likelihood, and lack of adequate mitigation, CEQ would shrink the set of “significant” impacts. This would also narrow the “cumulative impacts” concept: if those broader or longer-term effects are speculative, the agency can exclude them from “likely.” And finally, if standard permitting under other environmental laws (such as the Clean Air Act or Clean Water Act) typically addresses any effect, CEQ could determine that that the effect no longer rises to significance because it will be mitigated to an acceptable level under those other laws.

This approach would maintain fidelity to statutory language while allowing for practical implementation, reducing unnecessary analysis for actions with demonstrated track records of minimal impact. It would also create clear standards that can withstand judicial review when properly documented.

How to implement

To establish magnitude thresholds, agencies should:

  1. Identify quantitative thresholds where possible (e.g., acres of disturbance, emissions levels)
  2. For non-quantifiable impacts, define clear categorical standards for what constitutes “substantial” versus “minor” changes
  3. Document why these thresholds represent meaningful environmental distinctions

To establish likelihood, agencies should:

  1. Develop clear standards for what constitutes “probable” versus “speculative” impacts
  2. Require demonstration of direct causal links between federal action and environmental effects
  3. Consider effects that involve multiple independent actors or events as generally more speculative
  4. Prioritize analysis of direct, proximate impacts in determining significance
  5. Effects may be considered more speculative and thus less likely to be “probable” when they:
    1. Depend on the combined effects of multiple separate actions
    2. Require assumptions about future actions by other parties
    3. Cannot be directly attributed to the federal action under review

To establish adequate and existing mitigation, agencies should:

  1. Catalog standard permit conditions and widely-used mitigation measures by project type

  2. Create presumptions that impacts are not significant when standard mitigation measures are applied

  3. Establish protocols for determining when additional, project-specific mitigation might be needed.

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These all sound like things (except maybe the last three)  that agencies could put into their NEPA regulations, which would likely themselves be litigated.  At the same time, if the regulations could make their way through the courts successfully, it seems like these approaches and documentation might make life easier for agency folks, judges and environmental attorneys, while ensuring that the statutory NEPA requirements are met.

Let’s Review Some Forest Service NEPA Stats

If you all have been following the California wildfires, you’ll discover that everyone tends to attach their favorite hobby horse to the disaster.

Politicians, climate change, patterns of housing, and even… vegetation treatments and permitting.   My pet peeve about coverage is how easily folks get into a forest discussion about what, in this case, was coastal scrub and grasslands.  Having said that, I think we need to engage with the permitting folks for many reasons,  not least because permitting reform of various kinds will be on the table in Congress again.  However we might disagree about what should be done, it seems to me that we should work together to get both facts and disagreements on the table.

I try to be hospitable to new people entering the space. Interestingly, permitting reform folks, who work on permitting infrastructure, renewables and so on, tend to use the Forest Service as an example. So we can help them out by adding value and/or questioning their observations.

I’m going to reprint Tom Hochman’s Substack post below.  Remember, we want to share our knowledge with a welcoming spirit. Also it doesn’t seem (as usual) that partisan-ness helps our policy discussions in any way. I’ve spent some time talking to DC folks in the last few weeks, and I think both sides needs to take a deep breath and try to move on past the acrimonious past (do politicians forgive?) so we all can move forward together.

So, from what you know, do these observations make sense and track with your experience? Here’s Hochman’s piece.

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By now, everyone has heard about the wildfires sweeping through the Los Angeles area. The sheer scale of destruction is hard to make sense of. My cousin, aunt, and uncle in Pasadena spent days anxiously packed, ready to evacuate at any moment. Their friends lost their homes; the local elementary school is rubble.

It’s tough to pinpoint a single cause for any given wildfire—and wildfires sometimes happen regardless of human activity or government policy. But there’s no doubt that forest management and wildfire-prevention policies can reduce both the probability and severity of wildfires. In California and at the federal level, those policies have often fallen disastrously short.

With that, here’s a wildfire-focused edition of NEPAstats. I’ve compiled data (all cited at the bottom) on how NEPA and similar review processes intersect with wildfire prevention, and I’ve pulled together a number of specific case studies.

Case Studies

Jimtown Project (Helena National Forest)
  • Proposed thinning/underburning across 900 acres + underburning 220 more
  • EIS and Decision Notice released in May 2001
  • Project appealed despite support from 12 of 22 local landowners, county disaster services, and a tri-county fire group
  • By July 2003: ~45% of the proposed project area had already burned in a wildfire (Kimbell, 2005)

Six Rivers National Forest

  • December 1995: A storm topples trees across 35,000 acres
    • Fuel loads reach 300–400 tons per acre—10x normal
  • 1996–1999: Only 1,600 acres treated while “wrestling through analytical and procedural requirements”
  • September 1999: The Megram and Fawn Fires consume the remaining blowdown area plus 90,000 additional acres
  • Seven years later: The project remains in limbo after a court injunction (USFS, 2002)

Berry Creek (California)

  • Critical thinning projects were delayed by CEQA reviews
  • The North Complex Fire hit in 2020 before completion, resulting in 16 fatalities (Regan, 2025)

Grizzly Flats (California)

  • A forest-restoration project was held up for nearly a decade by NEPA and other environmental reviews
  • In 2021, two-thirds of the community burned before the project was completed (Regan, 2025)

Timing and Delays

Average time before treatments under NEPA
  • 3.6 years to start a mechanical treatment once the Forest Service initiates review
  • 4.7 years to start a prescribed burn under the same conditions
  • For projects requiring an EIS:
    • 5.3 years on average for mechanical treatments
    • 7.2 years for prescribed burns (Edwards & Sutherland, 2022)

Forest Service resource allocation

  • The Forest Service manages 192 million acres—8.5% of U.S. land area—but spends ~40% of direct work hours (>$250 million/year) on planning/assessment rather than active project work (USFS, 2002)
    • An estimated $100 million annually could shift from “unnecessary planning” to on-the-ground treatments with improved procedures
  • Annually, the Forest Service completes:
    • ~5,000 EAs,
    • ~120 project-level EISs
    • 15,000 CEs per year (USFS, 2002)

Litigation Patterns and Impact

  • Sierra Club v. Bosworth (2007) invalidated the Forest Service’s attempt to create a CE for fuel-reduction projects, meaning prescribed burns require a full EA/EIS
  • For NEPA-Related Appellate Court Cases:
    • Fuel-treatment projects that face legal challenges see an additional 1+ year of delay on average
    • Agencies prevail in 93% of NEPA fuel-reduction appeals, with 96% of these challenges brought by NGOs
    • An average of 3 years elapses between permit issuance and final resolution in these cases (Chiappa et al., 2024)

The Human and Environmental Costs

  • Forest density: Parts of the Sierra Nevada are now 6–7x denser than a century ago, fueling more intense megafires
  • GHG impacts: California’s 2020 wildfire emissions wiped out nearly two decades of the state’s greenhouse gas reduction progress
  • Species: Giant sequoias are dying in megafires; conifer forests are sometimes replaced by shrubland in the aftermath (Regan, 2025)

State-Level Barriers: CEQA and CalVTP

  • In 2020, California pledged to treat 500,000 acres per year by 2025—but remains far off due to lengthy reviews, public comment periods, and litigation (Regan, 2025)
  • California Vegetation Program aka CalVTP:
    • Projected 45,000 acres of treatments in the first year, but zero completed after 2+ years
    • 28,000 acres approved but not implemented
    • Project managers cite “unfamiliar and burdensome” documentation, multiple CalFire unit boundaries, and a pending lawsuit from the California Chaparral Institute and Endangered Habitats League (Friedman, 2022)
The CalVTP “fast-track” workflow

Recent Reform Efforts

  • California SB1159 (2024)
    • Would have exempted roadside vegetation clearing within 30 feet from CEQA
    • Died in committee
  • Federal TORCH Act
    • Would expand NEPA Categorical Exclusions for forest thinning and post-fire recovery, limit repeated ESA re-consultations for new species listings, and create larger “CLEAR Zones” for power line vegetation management (Regan, 2025)
    • Didn’t make it to the Senate floor
  • Fix Our Forests Act (2024)
    • Would expand NEPA Categorical Exclusions for certain forest management projects
    • Passed the House, didn’t make it through the Senate

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What are your thoughts?

MT state land timber ransom paid

Maybe this is one possible (small) advantage of state ownership (vs federal) of public lands in one state.  In Montana you (and I mean you, or any environmental group) can bid on a 25-year “conservation license” in lieu of a timber sale.  In what I believe may be a first in Montana, there was such a high bidder.  It’s maybe a fairly unique situation, where adjacent landowners could afford to pony up the $100ks for what appears to amount to a limited-term scenic easement.  This makes some sense for the state if the goal for land management is dollar returns.  Of course the actual timber bidder is protesting it.  Both sides have raised questions about what the statutory language for state lands means when it says: “secure the largest measure of legitimate and reasonable advantage to the state.”  Should it include the “benefits” of roads that would be built (but not the environmental costs); should it include the long-term economic value of being able to resell the same timber in 25 years?  (Is this a good idea for public lands?)

Supreme Court may reinterpret tribal treaty rights on national forests

Here’s a pending Supreme Court case, Herrera v. Wyoming, that hasn’t shown up in the Forest Service litigation summaries.  The federal government is defending the right of a Native American to hunt on the Bighorn National Forest without complying with state hunting laws.  If they lose, tribal treaty rights, as currently understood, could be severely diminished.  The hearing is scheduled for January 8.

When the native tribes ceded their lands to the federal government, the language in the treaties typically preserved their rights to various uses and activities on indigenous lands that were not included within the new reservation, for which the treaties used the terms “open and unclaimed” or “unoccupied” lands.  Much of that land is now part of national forests.  Here is how the Forest Service interprets the language referring to those lands:

The term applied to public domain lands held by the United States that had not been fenced or claimed through a land settlement act. Today, “open and unclaimed lands” applies to lands remaining in the public domain (for the purposes of hunting, gathering foods, and grazing livestock or trapping). The courts have ruled that National Forest System lands reserved from the public domain are open, unclaimed, or unoccupied land, and as such the term applies to
reserved treaty rights on National Forest System land.

In the case currently pending before the Supreme Court the State of Wyoming has argued that this is not true (they also argue that the lands became “occupied” when Wyoming became a state):

The parties further dispute whether the Bighorn National Forest should be considered “unoccupied lands” for treaty purposes. Herrera and the federal government emphasize that the proclamation of a national forest meant the land could no longer be settled, which they argue was the historical standard for occupation. Yet Wyoming argues that physical presence should not be the test, especially given the West’s expansiveness. According to Wyoming, the federal government’s proprietary power over its own lands, including its decisions to exclude hunters, demonstrates that the land was effectively occupied when it became a national forest.

Courts have held that the federal government has a substantive duty to protect ‘to the fullest extent possible’ the tribal treaty rights, and the resources on which those rights depend.   If Wyoming were to win their argument, treaty rights to accustomed tribal uses of national forests would no longer exist.  Because the federal government is defending the tribal interests in this case, one might think that the Forest Service would continue to protect these rights even without the treaty obligation.  However, in the past they have disagreed with tribes on issues such as campground fees and desired salmon populations.

Klamath Westside salvage project

I thought this article provided a succinct overview of the state of salvage logging in California.  I was curious about what kind of a logging project the Center for Biological Diversity and local environmental groups were supporting.

Table 11 in the ROD shows that the tribal alternative they supported would harvest about 2000 acres. The selected alternative would log three times that.  Why did the Forest Service pick the latter over the former?

“As shown in Table 12 (sic), there is considerable overlap between the Karuk Alternative and the Selected Alternative;”

Did the FS miss the obvious point here?  That the magnitude of the project is the problem because it would affect water quality and salmon runs?  (Or is this what “pound sand” means?)

It was also interesting to read the earlier letter from the Karuk Tribe chairman that describes the tribal interest in prescribed fires.  I wonder if the Forest Service has considered managing the historic tribal lands for “production of acorns, wild game, medicinal plants and basketry materials,” among its multiple uses.

What Should Congress Do? II Trusts

Pages from JayOLaughlin_US-Senate-testimony_03-19-13

This post involves information from Mac McConnell, Jay O’Laughlin and about the Valles Caldera experiment.

Solving these many and diverse local problems require local solutions based on local know-how. The current topdown,
one-size-fits-all land management by the feds has proven itself incapable of problem-solving at the forest
level. Removal of selected lands from federal oversight and transferal to local autonomous authority, similar to
state trust lands, would seem to be the most direct and efficient way – perhaps the only way – to secure reliable,
adequate funding and cut through the tangle of shifting, restrictive, and often conflicting laws, regulations,
executive orders, litigation, and judicial mandates that make federal management a hopeless cause.

Here is an in-depth look at this option, from Mac.

Jay O’Laughlin has also published some papers on trusts as a solution to some federal lands problems. Here is avery thorough one with charts and tables, and here is his testimony from a hearing in March. rough and one and here is his testimony at a Congressional hearing in March.

I’m interested in 1) what you think of the trust idea in general, and 2) whether you think a pilot might be feasible as a test case (or adaptive management). Perhaps O&C lands? Or somewhere else? Why would that area be good for a pilot?
3) What have we learned about trusts through the Valles Caldera trust experiment?
I was just reading about how:
from the Sierra Club

The Sierra Club, Caldera Action, National Parks Conservation Association, New Mexico Wildlife Federation, Coalition of NPS Retirees, Audubon and others have been pushing to replace the current experimental trust management with the National Park Service since around 2007.

Many people feel Valles Caldera is a National Park-quality place and it could be well protected and a tremendous economic asset to Northern New Mexico when the National Park Service assumes management of the land as a preserve.

Maybe any place placed into trust would be a “non-National Park quality” place? But I wonder if to the NPCA,to the retirees, and to the Sierra Club everyplace is “National Park quality” either now, or once current users are removed.

The grazing language now reads that the National Park Service “shall” permit livestock grazing but the NPS will have full discretion about where cows can be, when, and how many.

So to a pilot, we would have to find a place that most folks would say is not “National Park Quality”. Perhaps lots of timbered country, no pretty canyons, lots of existing roads. In a state with existing land trusts. Perhaps Northern Washington or Idaho?

Rocky Barker: Good reasons why federal forests don’t pay like the state’s

Here’s the link and here’s an excerpt.

In the days when the Forest Service did try to emphasize making money from logging, it lost support across the West because it was clear-cutting.

No matter how many times the timber industry tried to put a good face on that accepted forest practice, the public just didn’t like looking at clear-cuts. Much of the federal forest timber program was shut down by litigation and lack of money for roads, along with water-quality problems and endangered species issues.

Otter noted that timber harvests on federal lands in Idaho are the lowest they have been since 1952. They are actually beginning to rise, however, in part due to the collaborative efforts of timber executives, environmentalists and others to identify timber that can be sold.

Private forests and state forests are, by definition, high-value forests. If they weren’t, the owners would have disposed of or traded them in years ago.

But the Forest Service doesn’t manage forests for a profit. You don’t hear the conservation groups that are supporting new mills and increased timber harvests and jobs complaining about timber sales that lose money.

That’s because they know the restoration value for wildlife and fish habitat that comes with timber sales are a part of the cost of managing forests for multiple uses.

Private and state forests are managed for maximum timber harvest. The recreation, habitat and other values that come from those lands are secondary. That’s why you can go to some state forests in Idaho and clearly see the difference between them and the federal forests next door.

It’s the state forests that are still being clear-cut.

Sharon’s take: It’s still not clear to me (so to speak) why clearcutting still comes up as an issue when the FS hasn’t done it in a while. Anyone who can help with this, especially from Idaho, please comment.

Hearing on Forest Service Management and Trusts by House Resources Committee

Here’s a link to the report. Thanks to Derek!

Also here is a piece from E&E news daily. Below is an excerpt.

Legislative proposals from last Congress

In concept, yesterday’s proposals are similar to legislation introduced last Congress by committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) to require the Forest Service to establish “trusts” under which logging and other projects must meet historic revenue targets. Such projects would be exempt from major environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act, and would set firm deadlines for approvals.

That proposal was vigorously opposed by environmentalists, who argued that it would subject forests to vast clearcutting and create the perverse incentive to cut more logs even if the price of timber was low. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, last Congress said the proposal would reignite the timber wars of the late 20th century.

A separate proposal by Oregon lawmakers last Congress would have transferred roughly half of the 2.4-million-acre O&C lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management to a state-appointed timber trust, under which NEPA and some provisions of ESA would not apply.

But Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), who authored the bill, said their proposal was different because BLM’s O&C lands are statutorily distinct from Forest Service lands. While Forest Service lands fall under laws mandating clean water, multiple use and species protections, among others, O&C lands were designated primarily for timber production.

Trust proposals on Forest Service lands may fly in the Republican-led House but would never pass Congress, he said.

“National forestlands are managed under a whole different set of laws; there is no relationship,” he said. “They may be trying to mimic what we proposed, but there’s no legal authority.”

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), the ranking member on the subcommittee, asked how such trust lands would be chosen, how conservation and recreation interests would be represented, and which environmental laws would still apply.

“State trust lands are set up for a singular purpose, to produce revenue,” he said. “Federal forests on the other hand have a broader mandate and a wider set of management goals, with multi-use options.”

He urged Republicans to avoid “radical ideas” that won’t move in the Senate and to focus on policies that would make forests healthier and safer for constituents.

“Delegating the management of American resources to the states is still in and of itself a radical idea,” he said. “To imagine that the long-standing struggle over the use of our national forests will somehow disappear if they are turned over to the state is just pure fantasy.”

Bishop said yesterday’s hearing was the first of several this Congress to focus on “shifting this paradigm” of federal forest management.

It comes several months after the expiration of the Secure Rural Schools program, which for more than a decade subsidized Western counties where federal timber revenues plummeted in the 1990s. Lawmakers this Congress will be examining ways to extend the law, reform it or return to a commodity-based system favored by many Republicans.


So the problem with having the different houses of Congress controlled by different parties is that they can just agree among themselves, and blame the other house (Party) for not getting together.

So how can we help? We could set up a separate forum of people of all persuasions to discuss A Sensibe Solution. Congress could establish a bipartisan group. Or we could let D governors work it out since it appears to me that some environmental groups don’t think there is a problem, and if D governors are responsible for a state and feel that there is a problem, they may be in the best political space to broker a solution. Maybe that’s why some folks like nationalizing issues; it gets to our currently ineffective Congress and the status quo remains indefinitely.

What do you think? Do we need an extra-Congressional bipartisan policy seeking group? Is there any history of success of such a group we could point to?

Trusts, More Generally- A Guest Post from Steve Wilent

Folks, Here’s an excerpt from my Editor’s Notebook column from August 2012, in which the two main types of trusts are defined, thanks to the folks at the conference mentioned: public trusts and real trusts.

Steve Wilent, Editor, The Forestry Source.
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The conference I mentioned, “Trust Management: A Viable Option for Public Forest Lands?”—sponsored by the Western Forestry and Conservation Association and the American Forest Resource Council—was held in June in Tigard, Oregon. The event featured notable speakers such as Jay O’Laughlin, director of the Policy Analysis Group at the University of Idaho’s College of Natural Resources; Ann Forest Burns, AFRC vice-president; and US Rep. Kurt Schrader, of Oregon. Elaine Spencer, an attorney with Graham & Dunn PC, a Seattle-based law firm, explained a key concept: The difference between a “public trust” and a “real trust.”

Washington’s Department of Ecology, for example, bases its management of shorelines on the public trust doctrine, a legal principle derived from English Common Law: “The essence of the doctrine is that the waters of the state are a public resource owned by and available to all citizens equally for the purposes of navigation, conducting commerce, fishing, recreation, and similar uses and that this trust is not invalidated by private ownership of the underlying land. The doctrine limits public and private use of tidelands and other shorelands to protect the public’s right to use the waters of the state.”

Protection of the trust is carried out through laws such as the state’s Shoreline Management Act.

In contrast, in a real trust, or real property trust, land or some other real asset is held in trust for specific beneficiaries. Washington has about 2.2 million acres of trust land—public land that is managed for timber, agriculture, grazing, and other uses. The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (http://www.lincolninst.edu) describes it this way: “Unlike public lands, state trust lands are publicly owned lands that are held in trust by the state for specifically designated beneficiaries. As trustees, the state Legislature has a fiduciary duty to manage the lands for the benefit of the beneficiaries of the trust grant. These lands are managed for a diverse range of uses to meet that responsibility—generating revenue for the designated beneficiaries, today and for future generations.”

In Washington, the state trust land beneficiaries are schools, state universities, prisons, and other institutions.

Forest Trust Beneficiaries – Forestry Source August 2012-1 a link to Steve’s August 2012 editorial “Forest Trust Beneficiaries – Forestry Source August 2012.

Wyden to tackle forestry issues early in 113th Congress

This is from E&E news and posted here.

Below is an excerpt:

Wyden to tackle forestry issues early in 113th Congress

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said forestry issues will be among his top priorities when he becomes chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee next Congress, including bills to accelerate restoration logging in Oregon and other parts of the West.

Wyden, who once described the Beaver State as the “Saudi Arabia of biomass,” is seen as more supportive of “place-based” forestry bills than current committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who is retiring at the end of this month after 30 years in the Senate.

Wyden said he will push hard for bills such as his S. 220, which would promote active management on 8.3 million acres of forests east of the Cascades, and that he would consider similar bills such as a proposal by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) to accelerate forest restoration and designate wilderness in western Montana.

Wyden said he discussed forestry issues with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the committee’s ranking member, during a recent trip to Alaska, which, like Oregon, saw timber harvests plummet over the past decades as a result of protections for old-growth trees and the species they support.

“I think there are a lot of opportunities to find common ground on forestry,” Wyden said in a brief interview last week. “I think there is a chance to possibly build a coalition between these hard-hit rural communities that are worried about becoming ghost towns and get them off what I really call their own version of a fiscal cliff.”

As chairman, Wyden will have a full slate of forestry issues to tackle, including the expiration of the Secure Rural Schools program, which provides financial aid for timber-dependent counties, a continuing bark-beetle epidemic and increasingly severe wildfires as a result of dry, overstocked forests.