New policies and directives from the Trump administration regarding public lands could have major implications for Oregon, where over 50% land is managed by the federal government.

These include a memo earlier this month from the Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins limiting the National Environmental Policy Act environmental review and approval process for logging projects on over 50% of US Forest Service land. 

The memo follows executive orders from the Trump administration calling for the immediate expansion of timber production, proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act and funding and staffing changes for federal agencies. 

Erika Wolters, an associate professor of political science whose research focuses on public support for public lands, said the proposed and issued directives impact several environmental laws. 

“Trump signed an executive order declaring an emergency timber harvest, allowing the age of harvested trees to be older than previously established. He has also set about bypassing public comment through the National Environmental Policy Act, specifically the requirement for an Environmental Impact Statement, which set out a 90-day public comment period,” Wolters said in an email.

NEPA requires US agencies to assess the environmental impact of their actions and take public opinion into account before making land management decisions. Wolters noted that public comments are the platform in which individuals and groups can make their opinions heard and “establish standing to sue if the government does not adequately address concerns.”

Furthermore, she noted that President Trump is considering making changes to the Endangered Species Act, which requires different federal agencies to take certain actions to protect endangered species and prohibits activities on land that could cause harm to endangered species. 

“He wants to revise the Endangered Species Act, specifically omitting/redefining ‘harm’. Harm is key to protecting habitat on which listed species depend. If ‘harm’ is removed, there will be less protection for listed species because of habitat loss,” Wolters said. 

These changes to NEPA and could potentially lead to increases in logging in Oregon, but various non-regulatory factors are at play, too.  

Mindy Crandall is an associate professor of forestry whose research focuses on the forest products industry and the rules and regulations that dictate how forests are managed. Crandall explained that for timber companies to harvest on public lands, they need to follow requirements outlined in the Endangered Species Act, the National Forest Management Act and NEPA.

“The NEPA process requires that federal agencies document and disclose the environmental impacts of their actions. And so some of the thinking is that if we can sidestep the NEPA process, more timber sales will go through,” Crandall said. 

While streamlining the NEPA approval process could increase timber sales, Crandall noted that several non-regulatory roadblocks can still prevent timber sales from proceeding. 

“The Forest Service is losing a lot of staff, and every timber sale has to be overseen. It has to be put up for bid. Someone has to go in and cruise it and figure out how much timber is there and what the appropriate starting bid should be, and things like that. So it’s not really clear how they’re going to have the staff necessarily to ramp up a lot of timber sales,” Crandall said.

She also noted that many of the logistics of timber production in Oregon have changed in recent years, and that even if more land is opened up to timber production by the Forest Service, timber sales are not guaranteed to go through. 

“Over the last 30 years, the infrastructure, the processing infrastructure, in this state, has changed. A lot of mills have closed,” Crandall said. “The location of where the mills are is increasingly kind of along the I-5 corridor. So the infrastructure isn’t in the same places that it used to be, and it’s not always like our mills are located really close to federal lands.” 

According to Crandall, changes in infrastructure also make it difficult for old-growth trees, which could be made open to harvesting, to be worth harvesting. 

Few timber processors are still maintaining equipment that can process large wood diameters, making it more economically challenging to process older wood, even if it is available for harvest.

This potential reluctance to cash in on newly available timber is only furthered by the economics of timber sales, which often rely on long-term investment strategy. Adding more supply to the market can cause the price of timber to go down. 

Potential tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber could offset price decreases and increase domestic demand. Even so, tariffs might not sufficiently counterbalance the effects of the lack of production capacity and infrastructure. 

“People are looking for an assurance that a supply is going to be coming for 20 years before they’re going to invest in something like a new mill or adding a lot of extra capacity,” Crandall said. “So in the short run, you know, there might be some room for the Forest Service to add timber to our processing supply here in the state, but if they add too much, then it’s going to impact private timber now.”

Furthermore, the effects of federal funding cuts, layoffs and decreased hiring of federal workers in natural resource agencies have raised concerns from both Wolters and Crandall that sufficient staff might not be available in Oregon’s state forests and national parks this summer to help with campground, trails and other park maintenance. 

This issue has raised concerns of potential understaffing issues at public parks similar to those experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I think a lot of us in Oregon kind of take our federal lands for granted. You know, we don’t really think about the cost to keep them up, what that takes,” Crandall said. “It may be a shock how much we really rely on that recreation infrastructure, both for our own personal well-being, but also for our state’s economy.”

Both Wolters and Crandall emphasized that there is uncertainty about these policies and how they will affect the timber industry and Oregon’s ecosystems. They both noted that courts could weigh in on the legality of the executive orders and the rehiring of public employees, which could affect how policy changes play out. 

According to Wolters, the fate of the Trump administration’s actions on public land, ecosystems and industry remains to be seen pending action from other governmental branches. 

“This is kind of a big question, right … whether it’s demoralizing federal land management agencies, or civil servants at agencies like the EPA, or whether the courts or legislature intervenes to maintain functional agencies that can carry out their mission and their directives pertaining to environmental laws,” Wolters said.