How it Works: It establishes an entirely new forest management tool called Fireshed Management Areas (FMAs) under the guise of addressing fuel related forest fire risk.  FMAs are established by political appointees, and don’t exclude special land categories like endangered sp. Critical Habitat, Wilderness, or National Parks. The bill says that within FMAs, projects are exempt from NEPA requirements leaving impact review up to the discretion of newly formed teams of political appointees likely to include logging interests. Along with all this the bill also drastically reduces the window of opportunity for the public to file suit.

And crucially, the bill doesn’t include ANY funding.  Not for ecological forestry (clear cut it is!) and not for proven methods of reducing losses to people and property like home hardening, defensible space programs at the urban-wildlife interface, and careful prescribed burning led by local indigenous and other fire practitioners.  

The bill’s foundational idea for addressing wildfire risk is to clear cut- if the trees are at the lumber store, they can't burn.  And not only that-  the plan is to clear cut in places that have been protected for decades or centuries and do it with congressionally given authority.