Key legislation to enhance wildlife habitat, reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire and improve overall forest health recently took a step forward in Washington DC. Six weeks after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA), the top legislative priority of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry held a FOFA hearing on March 6.
“This is a nonpartisan emergency that requires a bipartisan response and the Fix Our Forest Act is an excellent place to start,” said Matt Weiner of Megafire Action, a California-based nonprofit looking to enact policy to end wildfires.
According to the National Interagency Fire Center, 64,897 wildfires charred nearly nine million acres across America in 2024 alone. As of early March 2025, 8,000 wildfires burned more than 168,00 acres including destroying more than 18,000 homes and killing at least 29 people in Southern California.
“President Trump and Gavin Newsom both took emergency action to remove regulatory hurdles and accelerate fuels treatment on public lands. The people in charge of managing risk understand that they need to get at this problem, and the Fix Our Forest Act complements these emergency declarations by codifying in statute a process to ensure that these efforts are targeted and successful,” said Weiner.
RMEF is a longtime advocate of active forest management treatments such as prescribed burns and forest thinning.
“Healthy forests are essential to supporting sustainable wildlife populations. However, decades of wildfire suppression coupled with a passive hands-off approach to management has created dense, overgrown forests that impair habitat function, compromise water availability and quality, and elevate the risk of uncharacteristically catastrophic wildfire,” said Ryan Bronson, RMEF director of government affairs, in testimony placed into the public record (see entire RMEF letter below).
FOFA improves forest management across the United States by speeding up and streamlining the review and implementation of forest management projects, strengthens Good Neighbor Authority and removes the duplicative procedural requirements stemming from the Cottonwood decision, a 2015 ruling by the 9th Circuit Court that stifles planned management projects and allows continuous frivolous environmental lawsuits.
“We need regulatory certainty. The Cottonwood decision has created uncertainty for our land managers,” said Tim Vredenburg, director of forest management for the Cow Creek Umpqua Tribe of Indians in Oregon. “The Fix Our Forests Act addresses this and presents an opportunity to update woefully out-of-date land management plans. Agencies fail to do plan revisions because it takes too much time and they’re too expensive. One of the biggest challenges we face is the lengthy bureaucratic review process. We need to streamline this process and we must implement forest restoration projects at a landscape scale.”
Click here to urge senators to vote in favor of the Fix Our Forests Act.
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Below is the official comment letter submitted by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.
March 5, 2025
Chairman John Bozeman Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar
U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture
328A Russell Senate Office Building 328A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510 Washington, D.C. 20510
Chairman Bozeman and Ranking Member Klobuchar,
The mission of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) is to ensure the future of elk and other wildlife, their habitat, and our hunting heritage. Over our 40-year history, RMEF has conserved or enhanced over 9.1 million acres of wildlife habitat, much of which is within our National Forest System. Together, the combined value of RMEF-U.S. Forest Service (USFS) cooperative efforts exceeds $400 million.
RMEF’s nationwide membership base has demonstrated a vested interest in the health of our forest and possess a firsthand understanding of the relationship between managed forests and healthy wildlife populations. It is with this background we wish to offer testimony in support of Chairman Westerman and Representative Peters’ bipartisan “Fix Our Forests Act” (FOFA).
Healthy forests are essential to supporting sustainable wildlife populations. However, decades of wildfire suppression coupled with a passive hands-off approach to management has created dense, overgrown forests that impair habitat function, compromise water availability and quality, and elevate the risk of uncharacteristically catastrophic wildfire. While our public land agencies have the knowledge and expertise to restore the health of our forests, they face insurmountable challenges in the form of frivolous litigation, lengthy and bureaucratic processes, and a culture of complacency.
FOFA provides land managers with tools desperately needed to streamline forest management projects while maintaining the integrity of the environmental review process. The bill strengthens the role of states, tribes, local government, collaborative groups, and other partners in forest management to leverage expertise, optimize investments and maximize outcomes. Essential to enacting meaningful change, the bill includes key provisions designed to deter obstructionists from abusing the judicial system to delaying time-sensitive projects. Additionally, FOFA includes a provision supported by the past three administrations that clarifies a procedural requirement erroneously established in Cottonwood Law Center v. U.S. Forest Service (9th Cir. 2015) that has confused, delayed and prevented critical forest management for nearly a decade. As FOFA moves through the legislative process, we urge you to maintain this provision, which passed from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee under unanimous consent last Congress.
Partisanship has obstructed forest management reform for years while wildfire conditions only worsen. For this reason, we are greatly encouraged by the strong bipartisan vote 279-141 FOFA received in the U.S. House of Representatives. RMEF urges swift consideration and passage of FOFA in its current form. We stand ready to partner with you to advance this legislation and effect meaningful change in our forested landscapes.
Sincerely,
Ryan Bronson
Director of Government Affairs, RMEF