Sponsors
The bill expands native-seed supply, restoration capacity, local contracting, and university partnerships to improve reforestation outcomes, but it creates modest new federal costs and risks concentrating benefits with better-resourced institutions unless safeguards ensure equitable, locally focused implementation.
Rural communities, local and state governments, and forest ecosystems gain greater access to native seed and seedlings, improving reforestation and restoration success after fires or other disturbances.
Local nonprofits, tribes, and multistate coalitions receive new funding and contracting opportunities to carry out restoration work, potentially creating local jobs and contracting revenue.
Institutions of higher education can partner directly with the Forest Service to support research, workforce training, and technical assistance for restoration projects, strengthening local capacity and science-based management.
Taxpayers may face modest additional federal spending if expanded contracting and grant authority leads to new funded programs.
Smaller local groups and rural communities may be disadvantaged because implementation could favor organizations with strong grant-writing and administrative capacity (e.g., universities and larger nonprofits).
Shifting eligibility to more research and institutional partners could divert program focus away from immediate, local land-management needs if not carefully managed.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes the Forest Service to partner with states, tribes, universities, nonprofits, and coalitions to collect native seeds and produce seedlings for restoration and adds higher education as eligible collaborators in a restoration program.
Introduced August 5, 2025 by Teresa Leger Fernandez · Last progress August 5, 2025
Authorizes the Forest Service to use contracts, grants, and agreements to partner with state forestry agencies, tribes, institutions of higher education, nonprofits, local partners, and multistate coalitions to collect and maintain native seeds (including managed seed orchards) and to produce seedlings for revegetation and ecosystem restoration. It also explicitly adds institutions of higher education as eligible collaborators in the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program.