Latest / The Wild Idea / The Wild Line: Advocates Notch a Win for Endangered Species, the Forest Service Considers Chainsaws and Mining in Wilderness

Transcript

The Wild Line: Advocates Notch a Win for Endangered Species, the Forest Service Considers Chainsaws and Mining in Wilderness · The Wild Idea

• 0:00
  Welcome to The Wild Line, where land stories are the lead stories. This is our report for April twenty-fourth, twenty twenty-six.
• 0:08
  Bill, let's start with a big, if perhaps only temporary, win. The House of Representatives was scheduled on Wednesday, Earth Day I'll note, to take up the ESA Amendments Act, which proposes to drastically weaken the Endangered Species Act by rewriting key portions of the bedrock environmental law, decreasing protections for imperiled wildlife. Instead, Republican leadership pulled the bill from consideration, offering a temporary reprieve. What makes this story so interesting to me is that it's clear House leadership's decision to remove the bill from the House floor came in direct response to pressure from House Republicans in Florida and New York, who themselves have been lobbied just this very week by a coalition of groups involved in an Endangered Species Act fly-in. I was lucky enough to attend their happy hour on Wednesday night, and Bill, the mood was triumphant. I saw friends from Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Oceana, Animal Welfare Institute, American Bird Conservancy, and so many more, and they were joined by hundreds of local advocates, all of whom sacrificed time away from their daily lives, and many of whom were experiencing a lobby week for the very first time. For those locals to see their advocacy translate so directly, so immediately, and so effectively into a legislative win was something really, really thrilling to watch. And while I wanted to caution them that it doesn't always work quite so easily, it felt much better to let them celebrate their successful efforts. We spoke to Dalton George, National Organizing Director for the Endangered Species Coalition, about the fly-in this week.
• 1:43
  I think the most important thing is that shows like the potency in this, right? [chuckles] Like you bring regular people across the nation to D.C. to say, "This doesn't represent us," and that works, and it sounds kitschy, right? [chuckles] Like it sounds so cliché, um, but that's like the one thing that I think everybody needs to understand is there is still such an immense amount of power you have by just getting folks to the Hill to share what matters to them and, and why they're passionate, um, about wildlife. And I saw that in my meetings and was lucky enough to have some folks with a lot of skin in the game that, um, that, that made it very easy, where I could just lean on them.
• 2:18
  If you'd like to hear more from Dalton, you won't have to wait long. He'll be joining us on next Tuesday's Wild Idea episode to talk about these issues and many more. Again, kudos to these local advocates and their national partners. What a week for them.
• 2:31
  Some of those same bipartisan congressional champions of endangered species were hard at work on related legislation this week. The Wildlife Corridors and Habitat Connectivity Conservation Act, sponsored by Democrats Don Beyer of Virginia, Zoe Lofgren from Florida, and Republicans Vern Buchanan, also of Florida, and Brian Fitzpatrick from Pennsylvania, was dropped on Earth Day, and this was welcome news to Christian Hunt, Director of National Wildlife Refuges and Parks Program at Defenders of Wildlife.
• 3:01
  Yeah, so this bill would create a national framework, uh, by which to identify, designate, and manage, uh, corridors for the benefit of wildlife across federal lands. Um, it would require agencies to coordinate rather than planning in isolation. Uh, it would support collaboration with states, tribes, landowners, and, um, importantly, it would also authorize substantial annual funding. So taken together, we think it represents really a generational advancement in the evolution of public lands law and is something, uh, we strongly support. You know, I think, I think it's just worth mentioning for folks that, you know, in this country we have,
• 3:54
  needless to say, just an incredible repository of habitats across BLM lands, national forests, refuges, and parks. But all of these places are managed by different entities for different purposes and subject to different political pressures, and all of this works in tandem, of course, to fragment
• 4:21
  landscapes for wildlife. So as soon as wildlife, you know, crosses a jurisdictional boundary which they don't recognize, they might encounter clear cuts or strip mines or grazing, you name it. So
• 4:35
  if the BLM and Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service are all
• 4:43
  sort of pieces in the puzzle box, if you will, this legislation, we believe, is really the hand that would lift them out and connect them all in a way that finally works for, for wildlife. So again, we think it's such an important piece of legislation and is something we really hope gains momentum, uh, in both the near and long term.
• 5:06
  Elsewhere on The Hill, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins were both called in front of Congress to defend President Trump's recently released budget. Secretary Burgum faced tough questions from Democrats on House Appropriations Committee on the proposed budget for the Department of Interior, which slashes the Interior Land Management Agencies to the bone, and was challenged on the legality of his move to merge two agencies into what is now called the Marine Minerals Administration. Those two agencies, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, were made separate following the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
• 5:41
  Meanwhile, Secretary Rollins faced questions from Senate appropriators and was unable to provide a number when Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico asked her a direct question on what the reorganization of the Forest Service is going to cost U.S. taxpayers.
• 5:56
  We caught up with Tracy Stone-Manning, former Director of the Bureau of Land Management and current President of the Wilderness Society, to ask her about the impact of the proposed reorganization beyond just the dollars and cents.
• 6:06
  What the administration is ultimately doing is creating chaos and disruption, and I think they're doing it intentionally. They know that a move like thiswill force people to leave the agency. And, uh, with, uh, with all those people walking out the door will be an understanding of how things are supposed to work. And that's gonna cause, um, such long-term damage to an agency that's already knocked back on its heels with, you know, thousands of people being deferred or retired or fired. You know, pick, pick your verb. Of course, this is really bad for our public lands. It's also really bad for people, public servants who for decades have served all of us, uh, in taking care of, of our shared public lands. And, uh, this administration unfortunately looks at people as though they're, um, dis- ex- ex- you can just dispense with them. Uh, and that's what this move is gonna do, and that's why it's so heartbreaking.
• 7:07
  More of the week's headlines following this short break. And back to the Wild Line. Speaking of the Forest Service, using the Freedom of Information Act process, or FOIA, the organization Wilderness Watch was able to secure internal emails within the Forest Service that seem to indicate an agency bias toward considering the end of clear interpretation of the Wilderness Act around the use of chainsaws in designated wilderness. The Wilderness Act prohibits the use of motorized equipment in wilderness areas with very rare exceptions. Of all the agencies that manage wilderness, the Forest Service has historically been the most clear on chainsaw use as a measure of last resort. These emails seem to indicate that years of pressure from outfitters and guides, specifically in the state of Idaho, have resulted in the Forest Service bringing in an external resource to reconsider this policy, which again, is a policy that just follows the law. As someone that has spent years using crosscut saws to clear wilderness trails and using chainsaws outside of wilderness, this idea that chainsaws are going to solve a trail maintenance issue is absurd. The challenges to keeping trails open is not a horsepower issue. It is a human capacity issue. You see, before you ever start to cut that tree from across the trail, you've already expended 90% of the time on other logistics. So the fight over the last 10% of the work misses the mark. In an era where we're cutting the agency staff to levels well below minimum, it is laughable to argue that the problem is the tool. On top of that, it is so antithetical to the Wilderness Act's intent, which is our humility, that this resource is not about our convenience. Kudos to Wilderness Watch for digging into this topic. I am sure this will not be the last time we have to bring this to light.
• 8:53
  Preach, Bill.
• 8:55
  Decision-makers within the Forest Service have also quietly proposed a rule change that conservation advocates are calling a massive giveaway to the mining industry. Under current regulations, any mining company that wants to explore for minerals on national forest land has to submit a plan to the Forest Service, which evaluates environmental impacts and opens the process to public input, giving communities a chance to raise concerns about impacts to trails, wildlife, or drinking water before any digging begins. The proposed new rule would introduce a, quote, notice level operations concept, allowing companies to explore up to five acres of Forest Service land without needing agency approval and without any opportunity for environmental review or public input. If the Forest Service doesn't respond within 60 days of a company's filing, the exploration is automatically approved with no public notification required at any point. In other words, you could show up at your favorite trailhead one day and find drilling equipment already in the ground. Polls show 70% of Western voters oppose fast-tracking mining projects by limiting environmental reviews and local input, and 65% oppose building industrial roads in undeveloped public lands for new mines. Yet this new rule is moving forward anyway. The public comment period on this closed April 21st, but the broader fight over mining access to public lands is far from over. Bill and I will keep you updated.
• 10:14
  And here's a story for you fans of huckleberry bear claws. And in one final Forest Service development, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest announced this week that commercial huckleberry permits will not be issued in 2026. The decision reflects the Forest's commitment to tribal treaty rights and came after consultations with the Yakama Nation, Tulalip Tribes, and the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, and at the tribes' request. Personal use huckleberry picking remains open under existing Forest Service regulations.
• 10:46
  Bill, let's end the show the same way we started it, with some good news, this time out of Northern California. The Great Redwood Trail Agency Board has approved its master plan, the long-awaited blueprint for a rail-to-trail conversion that, when complete, will be one of the longest such projects in the United States, winding through five Northern California counties from the San Francisco Bay through wine country, redwood forests, and all the way to Humboldt Bay. This newly approved plan covers 231 miles through the northernmost three counties, Mendocino, Trinity, and Humboldt, and it's built along the former Northwestern Pacific Railroad line. The project is designed to serve hikers, cyclists, equestrians, kayakers, and even commuters while also functioning as an ecological restoration corridor. The plan clocks in at 738 pages and is the result of more than three years of community engagement. So while the board vote itself was quiet, the milestone is a big deal for a region that has been watching this project slowly take shape for years. State officials are even hinting at a major funding announcement that's coming soon.
• 11:50
  Boy, am I excited to hit that trail. That is our report for April 24th. We will be back next week with another edition of the Wild Line. And next Tuesday on the Wild Idea podcast, we visit with the youngest mayor in North Carolina, Dalton George. Our conversation covers leadership, hellbender salamanders, and his role as national organizing director for the Endangered Species Coalition. Until then, act up and run wild.
• 12:14
  [upbeat music] The Wild Line is a production of Wild Idea Media. Production and editing by Bryn Russell at Podlad. Digital support by Holly Wilcheski at Daypack Digital. Our theme music, Spring Hill Jack, is from Railroad Earth and was composed by John Skehan. The executive producer is Lara Hodge. Learn more about us at thewildidea.com.
• 12:38
  [upbeat music]