The "Fix Our Forests Act" and "Save Our Sequoias Act" — deceptive bills that destroy forests rather than protect them — can't win a vote on their own merits, so their sponsors attached them to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act as Senate Amendments 5890 and 6039.

Defense bills should set defense policy, not roll back the environmental laws protecting national forests and giant sequoia groves, some of the oldest living ecosystems on the continent. These amendments claim that exploitative logging is necessary for “wildfire prevention,” but studies show that thinning forests does not protect communities from fires; research demonstrates that forests typically burn fastest and most intensely in areas where logging previously occurred.

These policies gut your right to go to court over illegal logging, starting the legal clock the day an analysis is published rather than the day a decision is signed, so agencies can simply run out the clock then approve clearcuts and old-growth logging — even in wilderness areas — without oversight. The public is effectively stripped of their right to challenge the destruction of their public lands.

They also open every giant sequoia grove, including groves inside national parks and other protected wilderness areas, to industrial logging with no limits on tree size or age. The science doesn't support it: sequoias depend on high-intensity fire to regenerate, while logging equipment has been found to crush roughly 83% of naturally regenerating seedlings. This spring, agencies logged Yosemite's Mariposa Grove without public notice and these amendments would make that the norm.

Tell your senators to oppose SA 5890 and SA 6039, and keep them out of the NDAA.

Want to do more? Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your senators' offices directly.