Sponsor
Troy Downing
Representative · R-MT
Representative · R-MT
The bill speeds and lowers the cost of removing hazardous trees and conducting salvage work—reducing local wildfire risk and restoring access—while trading away environmental review and permitting more road-building and larger-scale operations that can harm habitats, water, recreation, and long-term ecosystem services.
Rural communities and homeowners will get faster removal of hazardous dead and dying trees, lowering local wildfire risk and protecting homes, infrastructure, and lives.
Local governments and the BLM can carry out salvage operations more quickly and with lower administrative cost, restoring access and enabling faster post-disturbance recovery of lands and infrastructure.
Rural communities, recreation users, and ecosystems will have reduced opportunity for public input and environmental scrutiny because NEPA review is limited, increasing risks to soil, water, wildlife habitat, and long-term ecosystem health.
Wildlife and natural habitats face increased fragmentation, erosion, and spread of invasive species because the bill allows construction of new permanent and temporary roads to support salvage operations.
Taxpayers and public-lands users could see larger-scale timber or salvage operations on public lands with less oversight, reducing recreation value and other non-timber ecosystem services.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates a statutory NEPA categorical exclusion for specified salvage-harvest and related treatments on BLM lands with size, road, and resource-protection limits and updates year references in a 2010 appropriations title to 2020.
Creates a new categorical exclusion from NEPA for certain salvage-harvest and related forest-treatment activities on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands, allowing specified cutting, removal, chipping, burning, seeding/planting, and limited live-tree removal to proceed without preparing an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement when they meet size, road, and resource-protection limits. Also updates year references in a 2010 appropriations title to read 2020, a technical text change that does not authorize new funding.
Official title: To codify the categorical exclusion proposed in the National Environmental Policy Act Implementing Procedures for the Bureau of Land Management related to salvage harvesting published on April 6, 2026, and for other purposes.
Introduced May 7, 2026 by Troy Downing · Last progress May 7, 2026