Lawmakers split over Rep. Matt Rosendale’s (R-Mont.) Forest Information Reform (FIR) Act, arguing over whether one environmental lawyer who opposes it was a “serial litigator” or a “serial justice warrior.”
The FIR Act was one of four bills discussed in this Congress’s first meeting of the Federal Lands Subcommittee of Natural Resources Committee.
The Republicans who now control the House pledged that the hearing would “advance real, concrete solutions to address the most pressing crisis facing our federal forests: catastrophic wildfires.”
The FIR Act would undo the controversial 2015 Cottonwood decision. Detractors see that ruling as a major impediment to managing many of the nation’s overgrown forests, while advocates consider it a crucial advance in the protection of vulnerable species and habitats….