Trump orders immediate expansion of US timber production
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Saturday calling for the immediate expansion of U.S. timber production to increase the supply of American lumber.
The wide-ranging executive order calls for the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Chief of the United States Forestry Service (USFS) to:
Issue new or updated guidance to facilitate increased timber production and reduce time to deliver timber
Improve the speed of approving forestry projects
Set a target for the annual amount of timber to be offered for sale from Federal lands managed by the BLM and the USFS
Adopt categorical exclusions to the National Environmental Policy Act
Reduce processes and costs of administrative approvals for timber production, forest management and wildfire risk reduction treatments.
Establish a new categorical exclusion for timber thinning and re-establish a categorical exclusion for timber salvage activities.
The executive order specifically targets compliance with the Endangered Species Act if it slows down timber production, directing agency heads to find ways to “delegate consultation requirements under section 7 of the ESA to other agencies and, if necessary, provide a legislative proposal to ensure consultation is streamlined.”
To achieve streamlined permitting, the executive order says relevant agencies “shall take all necessary and appropriate steps consistent with applicable law to suspend, revise, or rescind all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, settlements, consent orders, and other agency actions that impose an undue burden on timber production.”
The president’s order notes that “heavy-handed Federal policies have prevented full utilization of these resources and made us reliant on foreign producers. Our inability to fully exploit our domestic timber supply has impeded the creation of jobs and prosperity, contributed to wildfire disasters, degraded fish and wildlife habitats, increased the cost of construction and energy, and threatened our economic security…It is vital that we reverse these policies and increase domestic timber production to protect our national and economic security.”
The president issued a second executive order Saturday which calls for an investigation on the “national security risks associated with imports of timber, lumber, and their derivative products.”
In his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order calling for emergency price relief to “lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply.”
On Jan. 31, Trump said he would place tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China, including hardware and lumber imports, prompting the National Association of Homebuilders to ask for tariff exemptions on building materials. Trump paused those initial tariffs on Mexico and Canada but has since announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and issued a memo on “reciprocal” tariffs.
Read: Updated list of all Trump’s actions that impact housing