Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production

This EO directs Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to implement various policy changes and guidance to increase the production of timber, lumber, paper, bioenergy, and other wood products.

30, 60, 90, 120, 180, 280.

The Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture, through the Director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Chief of the United States Forest Service (USFS) shall each issue guidance regarding tools to facilitate increased timber production and sound forest management, reduce time to deliver timber, and decrease timber supply uncertainty. The secretaries shall also submit to OMB a report of legislative proposals on this topic (30 days); the Secretary of the Interior, through the Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the Secretary of Commerce, through the Assistant Administrator for Fisheries, shall complete a strategy on USFS and BLM forest management projects under section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) (16 U.S.C. 1536) to improve the speed of approving forestry projects and examine any existing authorities to permit agencies to delegate consultations requirements under Section 7 of ESA to other agencies (60 days); Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture shall submit to the President a plan that sets a target for the annual amount of timber per year to be offered for sale over the next 4 years from Federal lands managed by the BLM and the USFS, measured in millions of board feet (90 days); Secretary of the Interior, through the Directors of the FWS and the BLM, and the Secretary of Agriculture, through the Chief of the USFS, shall complete the Whitebark Pine Rangewide Programmatic Consultation under section 7 of the ESA (120 days); Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture shall consider and adopt categorical exclusions administratively established by other agencies to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and reduce unnecessarily lengthy processes and associated costs related to administrative approvals for timber production, forest management, and wildfire risk reduction treatments (180 days); Secretary of the Interior shall consider and establish a new categorical exclusion for timber thinning and re-establish a categorical exclusion for timber salvage activities (280 days).

No known legal challenges.