Cantwell and Stabenow Lead Bicameral Letter Calling on Biden Administration to Swiftly Restore Tongass National Forest Protections

01.24.22

Cantwell and Stabenow Lead Bicameral Letter Calling on Biden Administration to Swiftly Restore Tongass National Forest Protections

22 Senators, 50 Representatives write, "Restoring Roadless Rule protections in the Tongass will support regional economic growth, boost outdoor recreation opportunities, protect irreplaceable wildlife habitat, provide enduring climate benefits, and uphold Indigenous rights."

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and U.S. Representative Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) led a bicameral group of lawmakers in sending a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack asking the administration to act swiftly to fully restore the Roadless Rule in Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

"We write today in support of reinstating safeguards for the more than 9 million acres of National Forest System lands in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska," the members wrote. "We look forward to working together on this issue and broader efforts to improve federal forest policy, fight climate change, and uphold our responsibilities to Indigenous communities."

Senator Cantwell led a July 2019 bicameral letter to then-Agriculture Secretary Purdue expressing concerns over the Alaska Roadless rulemaking process, including the lack of adequate consultation with local stakeholders, and urging the Department to schedule additional scoping meetings in other areas of the country like Seattle. In August 2019, she blasted the Trump Administration over its decision to move forward with eliminating protections for the Tongass. Most recently, in November 2020, she led a bicameral letter to former Secretary Purdue Outlining Deficiencies in the Trump Administration plan to log in the Tongass.

Senator Cantwell has long been the leading Senate champion to protect the 2001 nationwide Roadless Rule, which limits costly roadbuilding and destructive logging on roadless landscapes across the National Forest System. The rule helps protect hunting and fishing opportunities, provide critical habitat for 1,600 threatened or endangered species, lessen wildland fire risk, and supply clean drinking water to millions of Americans in 39 states and more than 350 communities across the United States.

As Chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Senator Stabenow has made historic investments to protect our land and water and access to outdoor recreation, all while addressing the climate crisis. In the 2018 Farm Bill, Stabenow authored the most significant conservation investments of any farm bill to date. And she led the effort to defeat the rider to exempt the Tongass and Chugach National Forests from the national Roadless Rule. More recently, she pushed the USDA Inspector General to look into potential misallocation of grant funds by the Trump Administration to weaken protections for the Tongass. Her work protecting national forests is extensive. Most recently, she was instrumental in including the REPLANT Act in the bipartisan infrastructure deal to fund the planting of over a billion trees in national forests.

In addition to Senators Cantwell and Stabenow and Congressman Gallego, the letter was also signed by 49 U.S. Representatives and 20 other Senators including Tina Smith (D-MN), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Edward Markey (D-MA), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (D-VA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM).

The full text of the letter is available below and HERE.

The Honorable Tom Vilsack

Secretary of Agriculture

U.S. Department of Agriculture

1400 Independence Avenue, SW

Washington, DC 20250

Dear Secretary Vilsack:

We write today in support of reinstating safeguards for the more than 9 million acres of National Forest System lands in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. Restoring Roadless Rule protections in the Tongass will support regional economic growth, boost outdoor recreation opportunities, protect irreplaceable wildlife habitat, provide enduring climate benefits, and uphold Indigenous rights.

We agree with the conclusion of the Administration and the Courts that the process undertaken by the previous Administration to revoke the Roadless Rule was rushed and opaque, and that it ignored the input of Alaska Native Tribes and local communities. That is why we were encouraged by the Department's July announcement that it would be fully reinstating the Roadless Rule as part of the Southeast Alaska Sustainability Strategy (SASS), which rightfully refocuses agency resources on higher-value restoration and recreation initiatives over historically wasteful and destructive logging projects. The SASS fortifies the local Alaska economy which is dominated by sustainable fishing and tourism industries that rely on intact Tongass ecosystems. In addition to protecting jobs, a full reinstatement will save taxpayers an average of $30 million annually that the Forest Service has been spending to subsidize the small remaining timber industry in Southeast Alaska.

The SASS and Roadless Rule reinstatement would also support the cultural and subsistence needs of local Indigenous communities. Roadless areas of the Tongass are traditional homelands to Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian Alaska Native communities who rely on undisturbed lands and waters for their culture, subsistence, and livelihoods. We trust that under your leadership, the Department will honor the request of Alaska Native peoples to protect the Tongass and work with them to implement the priorities of Indigenous groups, including full government-to-government consultation throughout the development of the SASS and the restoration of the Roadless Rule.

The Forest Service also has a duty to respond to the increasingly urgent climate crisis. With the Tongass holding the equivalent of nearly 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide, nearly two times what the United States emits annually from burning fossil fuels, it is essential that carbon remains sequestered and not released to the atmosphere. We appreciate that the Biden Administration has already committed federal agencies to increase forest protection over the coming decade in United States' "Nationally Determined Contribution" submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. At the most recent Convention held in Glasgow, President Biden stated that "conserving our forests... is an indispensable piece of keeping our climate goals within reach." We believe following through on these commitments requires the full protection of the Tongass and its carbon-storing old-growth trees, as well as permanent implementation of the SASS to end large-scale old growth logging.

Given the many public benefits to protecting the Tongass and fully reinstating the Roadless Rule, it is not surprising that this issue enjoys bipartisan backing. The original Roadless Rule was implemented in 2001 with unprecedented public support for protecting some of our nation's most pristine public lands, including large parts of the Tongass National Forest. That wide bipartisan favorability continues today. In fact, 96 percent of the people who participated in the recent public comment period on the rollback of the rule in Alaska expressed support for maintaining the protections. In the last two fiscal years, House-passed Interior and Environment Appropriations bills have limited funding for new logging roads in the Tongass, while bicameral legislation has been introduced to codify the protections afforded under the 2001 Roadless Rule, including in the Tongass National Forest.

For all of these reasons, we urge the Administration to swiftly reinstate the Alaska Roadless Rule. We look forward to working together on this issue and broader efforts to improve federal forest policy, fight climate change, and uphold our responsibilities to Indigenous communities.

Sincerely,

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