Action Alert! Speak out against the misnamed “Fix Our Forests Act”

We urgently need your help to stop the ‘Fix Our Forests Act’ (H.R. 471) moving through congress right now. This misleadingly-named bill seeks to greatly increase logging on federally managed public lands, under the guise of wildfire suppression. 

Email or call your Senators and tell them to oppose H.R. 471. You can find your Senators and their contact information here. If you live in Oregon, you can email Senator Ron Wyden here, and Senator Jeff Merkley here. 

The result of this bill would be lawless logging on National Forests, with virtually no public review or participation. Under the bill, the public may be barred from challenging logging under broad circumstances, and virtually no scientific analysis or rationale would be required. 

H.R. 471 would funnel needed resources away from work that would actually help protect people from fire. Working directly adjacent to homes and communities offers the best protection from fire– not logging in the backcountry. Providing funds for making homes fire-resistant, emergency infrastructure and support, and fire preparedness are essential for helping people stay safe and provide the assistance the need. Unfortunately, this bill funnels money away from such efforts, and instead focuses on counterproductive, ineffective logging in the backcountry. (For citations and more details, you can read our factsheet here.)

H.R. 471 puts drinking water, streams, and imperiled wildlife and their habitats at risk. Logging on National Forests is already causing widespread damage to biodiversity and to clean, cold water in streams. The greatly increased logging proposed in this bill would have widespread and disastrous effects on forest and stream ecosystems on federal public lands. (You can find citations here).

H.R. 471 would worsen the climate crisis by increasing CO2 emissions. Unlogged forests store vast amounts of carbon, and are a crucial part of the climate solution if they are left standing. Logging is a major source of carbon emissions, further worsening the climate crisis. For example, logging is the largest source of CO2 emissions in Oregon. (For citations and more details, you can read our factsheet here.)

In addition, the bill would increase livestock grazing on federal public lands, under the false claim that this would help reduce fire severity. The opposite is true– livestock grazing tends to increase the spread and establishment of invasive grasses, which are generally much more flammable and tend to promote increased fire frequency and severity. (For citations and more details on these issues, you can check out the Western Watersheds Project report here)

Take Action Now:

1. Contact your Senator and urge them to oppose H.R. 471 
2. Promote home hardening and effective fire protection measures
3. Protect clean water, the climate, and biodiversity

Help protect our communities with solutions that work – solutions like Rep. Huffman’s recently reintroduced Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act, H.R. 582, that rightly focuses protection activities where people live and work, rather than wasting money on the failed fire strategy of destroying forest and shrub ecosystems in the wildlands.

Here are some extra resources and related news articles:

• This Bill to Reduce Wildfires Might Actually Make Them Worse (article in the New Republic)
• The Misleadingly Named Fix Our Forest Act Would Do Anything But (Op Ed about the Fix Our Forest Act in the Hill).
• Sharp divide in Oregon over bill to step up logging to prevent wildfires (Op Ed in Oregon Capitol Chronicle)
• Stopping the Spin webinar, hosted by the John Muir Project with participation from Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project