Trump Admin Announces Bold New Plan to Save Our Forests: Remove Them

The Secretary of the Interior delivers an early Christmas present for the timber lobby overlords.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced a bold new wildfire strategy this week. To protect America’s forests, he would like to remove the trees. No trees, no fire. Why didn’t anyone think of that before? It’s the policy equivalent of preventing housefires by bulldozing the neighborhood. In Burgum’s telling, the trees are the problem, the chainsaws are the cure, and the revenue from timber sales is the secret bonus level.

And right on cue, the timber industry perked up like a dog hearing a cheese wrapper crinkle. Nothing gets a lobbyist moving faster than the promise of “forest management” that looks a lot like an all you can cut buffet. Burgum packaged the idea as common sense.

He said that when logging crews are active in a forest, the fire risk goes down (scientific studies be damned!), adding that firefighting costs taxpayer money (who knew!) while timber leasing puts money in the government’s pocket. A tidy little narrative for anyone who believes wildfire is an accounting problem…