NCBA Supports Legislation to Mitigate Wildfire Risks in Forests

Garrett Edmonds, government affairs director with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and Public Lands Council, says that wildfires plagued the nation in 2024 and NCBA is focused heavily on the newest piece of legislation called the Fix Our Forest Act, which addresses the National Environmental Policy Act.

“I definitely think that there are sound science out there. I think when we talk about Forest Service being able to do projects to mitigate this, these risk, again, it gets caught up in the burdensome regulations that are out there. You know, one of the pieces of legislation that we're very supportive of right now is the the fix our Forest Act, sponsored by Chairman, Bruce Westerman of the House Natural Resources Committee, we were happy to see it pass the House and this legislation ultimately, you know, one of the key components that it does is it expedites a lot of those NEPA reviews to allow the agency to get projects up off the ground and implement it to reducing those wildfire risk.”

Edmonds says this act will allow the agency to implement forest management practices,

“Bringing in the intraagency strike teams to speed up the time it takes to get those projects in place. You know, when you're talking about forest management projects, they still have to go through a review, and so this allows the agency to work through that a little quicker, especially to get ahead of mitigating those fuels risks.:

Garrett Edmonds with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the Public Lands Council.