The Western Way joined other like minded common sense and free market based conservation groups this week urging Congress to support a permanent fix to the “Cottonwood” decision which would improve forest restoration and reduce the risk of wildfires.
With broad support for a permanent Cottonwood fix and a clear need for immediate action, it’s time for Congress to address this problem. Senator Steve Daines’s Cottonwood proposal (S. 1540) and Representative Matt Rosendale’s Forest Information Reform Act (H.R. 200) would allow forest managers to get back to restoring forests and recovering species.
The Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) details what the “Cottonwood” decision is and why it needs to be fixed:
The 2015 Cottonwood v Forest Service ruling, requires the Forest Service to halt forest restoration projects throughout a forest whenever a new species is listed, critical habitat is designated, or other new information is discovered about a species in that forest. The projects can’t proceed until the Service consults with the Fish and Wildlife Service over whether to change its overarching forest plans, a slow and expensive process.
Pausing projects to protect vulnerable species may sound reasonable, but the reality is that this is a duplicative and distracting process. The Service already analyzes this new information before proceeding with specific projects, ensuring that no harm can come to species. The additional plan-level analysis is a duplicative bureaucratic obstacle.
A temporary legislative fix was put in place in 2018, but it expired in March 2023. With Cottonwood left unchecked, Forest Service Deputy Chief Chris French estimates projects could grind to a halt in 87 forest plans across the West. According to French, completing duplicative analysis for all of these forest plans would take “somewhere between 5 and 10 years and tens of millions of dollars.” With an 80-million-acre forest restoration backlog, that’s time and money the Forest Service does not have.
That’s why this bipartisan congressional action is so welcome. It’s past time Congress establishes a permanent fix for Cottonwood.
Read more about why a fix for Cottonwood is urgently needed here.