BILLINGS, Mont. — The Biden administration is advancing its plan to restrict logging within old-growth forests that are increasingly threatened by climate change, with exceptions that include cutting trees to make forests less susceptible to wildfires, according to a U.S. government analysis obtained by The Associated Press.
The analysis, which is expected to be published Friday, shows that officials intend to reject a blanket prohibition on old-growth logging that's long been sought by some environmentalists. Officials concluded that such a sweeping ban would make it harder to thin forests to better protect communities against wildfires that have grown more severe as the planet has warmed.
''To ensure the longevity of old-growth forests, we're going to have to take proactive management to protect against wildfire and insects and disease,'' Forest Service Deputy Chief Chris French told the AP. Without some thinning allowed on these forests, he said there is a risk of losing more trees.
The exceptions under which logging would be allowed are unlikely to placate the timber industry and Republicans in Congress, who have pushed back against any new restrictions. French asserted that the impacts on timber companies would be minimal.
''There's so little timber sales that occur right now in old-growth ... that the overall effects are very small,'' French said.
The U.S. timber industry employs about 860,000 people, which is about 30% fewer than in 2001, according to government data. Much of their work shifted in recent years to timber from private and state lands, after harvests from national forests dropped sharply beginning in the 1990s due to new policies, changing lumber markets and other factors.
The proposed changes on old-growth mark a shift for an agency that has historically promoted logging. They're expected to be finalized before Democratic President Joe Biden's term ends in January, and they come after he issued a 2022 executive order that directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to identify old-growth forests across the nation and devise ways to conserve them.
That order touched off a flurry of disagreement over what fits under the definition of old-growth and how those trees should be managed.