Republicans add measure to strip forest protections to wildfire bill, endangering Dem support
Source: The Hill
06/11/26 3:00 PM ET
Republican senators have thrown a wrench into an effort to pass a wildfire prevention bill, adding a controversial amendment seeking to nullify Clinton-area forest protections. It’s a move that Democrats say makes the underlying legislation less likely to pass, since they won’t get behind the move to strip protections from 59 million acres of national forest.
“I think it dimmed the prospect of the underlying bill becoming law dramatically,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) told reporters on Thursday.
“Whether you’re from Oregon or Washington or Montana or New Mexico or Colorado, we’re all struggling with wildfire prevention,” Heinrich said. “This turned that bipartisan effort into a deeply partisan lightning rod … this is the exact opposite of what you do if you want to actually pass legislation.”
The wildfire bill itself sets forest management requirements for federal lands, including increasing how many trees the government will intentionally cut in order to thin the forest and prevent fire. The amendment in question, from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), would block the 2001 Roadless Rule, which bars road construction, logging and other activities such as drilling and mining in national forests that are currently undeveloped. The rule covers about 30 percent of National Forest System lands.
Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5920524-wildfires-national-forests-roadless/
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