President Donald Trump signed an executive order earlier this month ordering that large parcels of forest be chopped down to limit U.S. reliance on foreign timber days before he implemented tariffs on the country’s largest trading partners.
In the order titled “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production” signed on March 1, Trump claimed the country has enough timber resources to meet domestic demand, but federal policies have barred their full utilization and made the U.S. dependent on foreign producers.
The order allows the U.S. Department of Interior and Department of Agriculture to bypass the Endangered Species Act protections to ramp up timber sales, ultimately resulting in the clear-cutting of massive tracts of federal forests. The agencies are directed to collaborate with the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to set sales goals.
The news comes less than a week after Trump announced he’d selected Tom Schultz, a former Idaho timber executive, to serve as U.S. Forest Service Chief.
Within 90 days of the order’s signing, department heads are to set targets for the annual amount of timber to be offered for sale over the next four years.
“This executive order sets in motion a chainsaw free-for-all on our federal forests,” argued Blaine Miller-McFeeley, senior legislative representative at Earthjustice, an environmental advocacy organization.
“Americans treasure our forests for all the benefits they provide, such as recreation, clean air, and clean drinking water. This order ignores these values and opens the door for wildlands to be plundered for nothing more than corporate gain.”
The organization warns that the executive order will destroy critical wildlife habitats and worsen the effects of climate change.
Federal forests account for about one-third of all the forested lands in the U.S. The country has 81 million acres of protected forest. It’s unclear which of those lands would be targeted by the order.
Other environmental groups decried the decisions, stating the order would harm water quality by creating soil erosion, leading to sediment runoff into waterways, polluting water with dirt and debris, driving wildlife to extinction by requiring the departments to use emergency powers to facilitate logging, and increasing the risk of wildfires.
There are more than 400 species protected under the Endangered Species Act, including grizzly bears, spotted owls and wild salmon.
“This executive order will decimate our federal forests. It will use tax dollars to line the pockets of corporate logging interests, undermine environmental laws, and take public forests out of public hands,” members of the Climate Forests Coalition said in a joint statement on the executive order.
The order is one of the more than 100 the president has signed since being sworn into office.
Other actions Trump has taken regarding the climate and environment include withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, declaring a “national energy emergency,” doubling down on oil and gas exploitation and reversing a goal to make electric vehicles half of new cars sold by 2030.
