The House yesterday passed The “Resilient Federal Forests Act,” H.R. 2936 encouraging and allowing more logging on national forests framed as a way to curtail wildfires.  The vote was 232-188. The Virginia delegation voted in a straight party line with all Republicans (Whitman, Taylor, Garrett, Goodlatte, Griffith, Brat and Comstock) voting in favor of the bill and all Democrats (Scott, McEachin, Beyer and Connolly) voting against.

This bill would be a disaster for Virginia’s National Forests.

At this point there is not a companion bill in the senate but it is likely that the substance of HR 2936 could be included in a larger bill like the 2018 Farm Bill.  Keeping this out of the Farm Bill will be extremely important.  Please contact your congressperson and either thank or voice your displeasure with their vote on HR 2936 and encourage them to keep the language of this awful bill out of other legislation.

Find your representative here and see how they voted here!

Check out our previous post about the Westerman bill and read the full text of the bill for more information.