Here is a picture of the woods in Montana. This Douglas Fir tells and provides us with the same story. Mature and Old Growth Forests need to be protected to provide biodiversity, mitigate climate change, and maintain our atmosphere with life-giving gases for all life to survive.
Our forests are under threats (and to use a common phrase by our current administration) threats like we have never seen before! That is true in this case, which is why we need all people to take center-stage and do something. As you read along you will find the many threats posed by this administration. We need and the forests need your help.
Fix Our Forest Act, S.1462, is waiting in the U.S. Senate. This is a misnomer of a name if there ever was one. Although there are improvements over the House version, the Senate version is not a panoply of greatness. There are still many elements wrong with this bill, serious omissions that need to be corrected.
• This bill undermines Section 7 provisions of the ESA whereby it stipulates the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management must consult wildlife agencies when new species, critical habitat or new information is revealed. This decision overturns legal precedent and the Cottonwood Decision.
• This bill undermines judicial review. It restricts the American public’s right to have a say in their own government, thereby allowing illegal actions to continue. The bill dramatically shortens the time to challenge projects in court from six years in most instances to 150 days. The changes to injunctive standards favor logging projects and makes it harder to grant injunctions protecting species under the ESA."
• This bill expands the size of NEPA categorical exclusions from 3,000 to 10,000 acres, without scientific or environmental review. This is an alarming change that could prove devasting to our forests, especially our large, old growth forests which are the most fire resilient. These actions would result in huge acreages of logging projects exacerbating habitat loss and fragmentation.
• This bill fails to provide dedicated funding for home and community hardening, methods proven to save lives as well as infrastructure. It fails to address defensible space and emergency planning.
If these shortcomings aren’t rectified, we will indeed see ramifications from our inaction, perhaps more disastrous than those from action. Again, we need to look in the mirror. Do our forests need fixing? No, but we do. We need to fix ourselves from our own arrogant thinking.
How many people actually believe our forests are broken? How does a forest break itself? Impossible, but our society refuses to realize that whatever we don’t like about our forests, it is because of what we ourselves have done. We need to look in the mirror.
Rescinding the Roadless Rule: This action has received much attention in the public awareness campaign since mid-summer 2025. Here is the latest form the Pew Foundation as recorded in their February 18, 2026 article.
"The USDA’s notice of intent to repeal the roadless rule was followed by a public comment process that ran through Sept. 19, 2025. The notice states that the USDA will release its updated proposal and accompanying draft environmental impact statement, along with a request for additional public comments, by March 2026. A final decision is expected in late 2026".
Needless to say, roadless areas are necessary for potential wilderness designation (when appropriate), wildlife habitat, follows good wildfire science, and is a necessary source for clean air and water; all fundamental building blocks to sustain life.
See table below on Roadless Rule Community Meetings.
