Sponsors (2)
The bill directs funding, technical assistance, and market-building toward reducing beetle-driven tree mortality and protecting water and infrastructure while creating local jobs, but it concentrates resources on prioritized projects and federal lands, risks favoring better-resourced applicants, can produce local environmental trade-offs, and may leave some private lands or lower-priority ecological areas under-supported.
State, tribal, and local governments (and the communities they serve) will receive grants and technical assistance to remove beetle-killed trees and restore forests, lowering local wildfire risk and hazardous fuels in affected landscapes.
Projects that protect municipal drinking water supplies and other critical infrastructure will get selection priority, helping secure community water sources and reduce erosion/sedimentation damage to downstream infrastructure.
Communities can get support to expand local wood-processing capacity and develop markets for byproducts (mass timber, wood energy, affordable housing), creating local jobs and converting beetle-killed timber into usable products.
The program focuses federal resources on National Forest System lands and prioritized projects, meaning private lands and some nearby communities may receive little or no federal help for beetle infestations.
Competitive grant structure favors applicants with greater staffing and grant-writing capacity, disadvantaging smaller local governments and some Tribes from accessing funds.
Tying final payments to project completion attestations could create short-term cashflow stress or disputes that delay payments for recipients who depend on timely reimbursement.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes a Forest Service grant program and cooperative agreements to fund removal, restoration, monitoring, and wood-processing capacity in response to mountain pine beetle outbreaks.
Official title: Direct the Secretary of Agriculture to issue competitive grants and enter into cooperative agreements to respond to and address mountain pine beetles, and for other purposes.
Introduced August 6, 2026 by Michael F. Bennet · Last progress August 6, 2026
Creates a competitive Forest Service grant program and a cooperative-agreement authority to help states, tribes, and local governments respond to mountain pine beetle outbreaks on National Forest System lands. Grants and agreements fund removal and processing of beetle-killed trees, fuels reduction, reforestation, watershed protection, monitoring, workforce and wood-processing capacity, and related restoration efforts. Priorities give preference to projects that protect municipal water supplies and critical infrastructure, reduce wildfire risk in the wildland-urban interface, address areas with heavy beetle-caused mortality or poor natural regeneration, and align with State forest action plans or watershed strategies. The Secretary of Agriculture must disburse funds promptly after project completion and can provide technical assistance through APHIS and USDA Rural Development for monitoring, treatment, workforce, and wood-product market development.