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Senate committee hears Forest Service support for Fix Our Forests Act but flags staffing and funding shortfalls
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Summary
At a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing on S.1462, the Forest Service backed many provisions of the Fix Our Forests Act while warning of workforce losses, proposed budget cuts, litigation delays and remaining technical changes needed to implement the bill effectively.
WASHINGTON — The Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee on Thursday reviewed S.1462, the Fix Our Forests Act, hearing testimony from Chris French, acting associate chief of the U.S. Forest Service, who said the agency supports many of the bill’s provisions but urged technical changes and warned that staffing and budget gaps could limit implementation.
The bill, introduced by bipartisan senators and described at the hearing as the first major standalone forestry bill in more than two decades, would expand authorities the Forest Service and partners use to reduce wildfire risk, streamline some National Environmental Policy Act procedures and broaden tools such as Good Neighbor Authority and stewardship contracting.
“The Senate draft of the Fix Our Forests Act works to address these issues,” French told the committee, and USDA “supports the bill and would like to continue to work with the subcommittee on technical changes.” He said USDA particularly backs expanding categorical exclusions under NEPA, lengthening stewardship and results contracting from 10 to 20 years, and changes to Good Neighbor Authority that would allow retained timber receipts to fund road construction.
French also spelled out limits and concerns. He recommended that the hazard-tree categorical exclusion be established statutorily rather than left to agency rulemaking, and said USDA does not support incorporating containerized systems into wildfire suppression response under a provision referenced as section 306 “given firefighter safety and other operational concerns.”
Committee members pressed French on practical barriers to doing more restoration work. He said litigation in several regions — particularly parts of the West and Pacific Northwest — increases the cost of projects by roughly $100,000 to $125,000 each and can double the time to deliver treatments. “For a community that is looking for us to perform a hazardous fuels reduction project…we may propose it and be ready to implement it within about a year and a half. But if it goes under litigation, we may not actually be able to implement it for 3 to 4 years or longer,” he testified.
Several senators raised concerns about staffing and funding. French and senators at the hearing repeated that the Forest Service has lost thousands of employees this year; depending on the exchange, participants cited figures of more than 4,000 and “a little over” 5,000 employees who have left or taken voluntary separation. French said primary wildland firefighters were exempted from workforce reductions but that many other employees with skills important to fire response had departed and that the agency is prioritizing wildfire response while working with interagency and state partners to fill gaps.
Committee members also questioned whether states and local partners have the capacity to take on more work if the agency’s budget shrinks. French said capacity varies by state and that the bill’s changes to Good Neighbor Authority and cooperative agreements could help scale work with states, tribes and counties. He added that the Forest Service expects to rely more on private partnerships and states if supplemental funding declines.
On forest products and markets, French described the forest products sector as “essential” to reduce wildfire risk by creating markets for material removed during thinning and said the industry has contracted over recent decades because of market forces and reduced supply from federal lands. Senators from timber-producing states urged measures to sustain mills and to use reforestation trust funds or other mechanisms to avoid diverting funding from existing programs.
The hearing included discussion of other provisions tied to forest health: support for prescribed fire authorities and liability protections, upgrades to a proposed Wildfire Intelligence Center with state representation, incentives for nursery capacity and white oak resiliency language included in a companion bill. French said USDA supports the subtitle on prescribed fire and the White Oak Resiliency provisions but asked for minor technical edits to align with existing laws.
No committee vote occurred at the hearing. Senators and the agency agreed to continue technical work on language and to provide follow-up information on workforce numbers, litigation timelines and other implementation questions.
Why it matters: Committee members framed the bill as a bipartisan opportunity to expand tools for landscape-scale restoration and wildfire prevention. Witnesses and senators warned, however, that expanding authorities without assured funding and sufficient staff, and without mechanisms to speed project delivery in highly litigated places, may limit the bill’s real-world impact.
What’s next: Committee members kept the record open for questions for the record and asked USDA to deliver follow-up data on workforce changes, use of supplemental funds and the costs and timing of litigated projects.
