Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins Issues Order to Cut Down Our Public Forests

Rollins issued the Secretarial Memo in response to a directive from Trump to increase U.S. timber production by 25%. 112,646,000 acres, 59% of U.S. Forest Service land, are at risk.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins released a Secretarial Memo April 4, 2025, opening 112,646,000 acres of federal forestland to expedited timber harvest. Rollins declared an “Emergency Situation Determination” (ESD) on these public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Rollins was directed to issue the plan as part of President Donald Trump’s March Executive Order seeking to expand American timber production by 25%. The USFS is housed within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Rollins tried to justify the order, saying in a statement:

“Healthy forests require work, and right now, we’re facing a national forest emergency. We have an abundance of timber at high risk of wildfires in our National Forests. I am proud to follow the bold leadership of President Trump by empowering forest managers to reduce constraints and minimize the risks of fire, insects, and disease so that we can strengthen American timber industry and further enrich our forests with the resources they need to thrive.”

The Secretarial Memo is targeting USFS land the agency considers “high risk” for wildfires and disease or insect damage.

USFS LAND DETERMINED “HIGH RISK OF WILDFIRE” SHOWN IN YELLOW:

USFS LAND CONSIDERED “HIGH RISK” FOR INSECT & DISEASE DAMAGE:

“Nobody should be fooled into thinking that this secretarial order or Trump’s executive order are anything more than a handout to the industry to basically log-baby-log on our public lands,” Randi Spivak, the public lands policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity, explained to Georgina Gustin at Inside Climate News. “Nobody should be fooled that this has anything to do with wildfires.”

(NOTE—Georgina is one of the best reporters around on the climate, agriculture, and land management beat. You should DuckDuckGo her work.)

Opening additional USFS land to logging comes as Trump’s Trade War continues to impact the domestic and global economy. The U.S. is both a major exporter and importer of lumber and wood products.

The Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC) reports that the U.S. exported $9.8 billion in wood products in 2023. This makes the U.S. the 4th largest exporter in the world. Key export customers are Canada, China, United Kingdom, Japan, and Mexico. U.S. wood product imports were more than twice as large as exports, reaching $24.8 billion in 2023. Wood product imports come primarily from Canada, China, Brazil, Chile, and Vietnam.

Some wood products from Canada face the lower 10% tariff baseline alongside key agriculture inputs like potash and fertilizer. Canada is a main supplier of U.S. dimensional lumber used primarily in the construction industry. Wood product prices are likely to increase, both due to tariffs and potential price gouging by timber companies taking advantage of the market uncertainties.

Logging on publicly-owned Forest Service tracts is controversial. The logging industry tends to support public land logging expansion, and timber sale leases can be cheap for wood product companies. Many people and organizations oppose public land logging. Others support a more limited public forest management strategy of thinning dense stands, clearing brush, and removing diseased trees and invasive species. Their goal is to retain the forested character of USFS land while creating healthier, more wildfire-resistant ecosystems.

Agriculture Secretary Rollins listed the following “emergency action” management practices in the Memo:

• Salvage of dead or dying trees;

• Harvest of trees damaged by wind or ice [Note: or other natural disasters];

• Commercial and noncommercial sanitation harvest of trees to control insects or disease, including trees already infested with insects or disease;

• Reforestation or replanting of fire impacted areas through planting, control of competing vegetation, or other activities that enhance natural regeneration and restore forest species [Note: the restoration of forest species includes prevention, suppression, and eradication of insect, disease and invasive species outbreaks];

• Removal of hazardous trees in close proximity to roads and trails;

• Removal of hazardous fuels;

• Restoration of water sources or infrastructure [Note: the restoration of water sources includes watersheds];

• Reconstruction of existing utility lines; and

• Replacement of underground cables.

Rollins invoked section 40807 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in the memo. The Trump Administration is attempting to fast-track logging on USFS forests by “simplify” permitting, removing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) processes for timber sales, and reducing “implementation and contracting burdens,” and other attempts to skirt the nation’s bedrock environmental policies.

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The Cocklebur covers rural policy and politics from a progressive point-of-view. Our work focuses on a tangled rural political reality of dishonest debate, economic and racial disparities, corporate power over our democracy, and disinformation peddled by conservative media outlets. We aim to use facts, data, and science to inform our point-of-view. We wear our complicated love/WTF relationship with rural America on our sleeve.