Sponsor
Doug Lamalfa
Representative · R-CA
Representative · R-CA
Official title: To improve the ability of the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior to carry out forest management actives that reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires, and for other purposes.
Introduced January 3, 2025 by Doug Lamalfa · Last progress January 3, 2025
The bill speeds and scales up forest hazard‑reduction and utility vegetation work—reducing wildfire and outage risk and lowering project costs—at the trade‑off of shrinking environmental, historic‑resource, and public‑review safeguards, which could increase risks to species, cultural sites, and local oversight.
Rural communities, utilities, and land managers can remove hazardous trees and manage vegetation faster (using categorical exclusions and streamlined approvals), reducing wildfire and power‑outage risk and speeding post‑disaster recovery.
Local, state, and federal partners can carry out much larger collaborative restoration and fuels‑reduction projects (up to 10,000 acres), enabling landscape‑scale treatments that can lower wildfire risk and restore habitat over broader areas.
Reduced NEPA/administrative burdens, faster automatic approvals (60–67 days), and higher small‑sale thresholds (e.g., $50,000) speed project delivery and lower transaction costs for restoration, salvage, and maintenance work.
Expanding categorical exclusions and exempting routine rights‑of‑way work from NEPA, ESA section 7, and NHPA section 106 reduces environmental and historic‑resource review, increasing the risk of harm to species, habitat, and cultural sites.
Applying large (up to 10,000‑acre) categorical exclusions and limiting review reduces transparency and public input for big projects, making it easier for sizeable mechanical treatments to proceed without full local scrutiny.
Limiting or eliminating requirements to reinitiate ESA consultation and narrowing ESA review windows can weaken protections for listed species, raise legal risk, and invite litigation that could delay or complicate projects.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Creates NEPA categorical exclusions and shorter review periods for hazardous-tree and vegetation management, expands categorical-exclusion project caps to 10,000 acres, revises Good Neighbor Authority receipt rules, and limits certain ESA reinitiation requirements.
Creates new categorical NEPA exclusions and shortens review timelines to speed removal of hazardous trees and vegetation on National Forest System and public lands, expands the acreage caps for certain collaborative restoration projects, and narrows circumstances that require reinitiating Endangered Species Act consultation for forest and BLM land-use plans. The bill also changes how timber-sale receipts are handled under Good Neighbor Authority, authorizes disposal of timber without appraisal during extreme risk events, encourages use of targeted grazing for wildfire risk reduction, and allows utilities to remove and (in some cases) sell vegetation under special-use permits or easements.