{"id":15936,"date":"2025-10-24T21:39:57","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T03:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/u-s-sen-bennet-votes-no-on-hickenloopers-fix-our-forests-act\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:52:10","slug":"u-s-sen-bennet-votes-no-on-hickenloopers-fix-our-forests-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/u-s-sen-bennet-votes-no-on-hickenloopers-fix-our-forests-act\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Sen. Bennet votes \u2018no\u2019 on Hickenlooper\u2019s \u2018Fix Our Forests Act\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Sens.
Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

WASHINGTON \u2013 U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper\u2019s bipartisan \u201cFix Our Forests Act\u201d advanced out of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry this week after an 18-5 vote, with Sen. Michael Bennet voting \u201cno\u201d on the legislation.<\/p>\n

The bill is aimed at improving forest health and wildfire resilience by expediting forest management projects. The House version passed earlier this year but has been stalled in the Senate.<\/p>\n

Bennet serves on the committee and expressed opposition to the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cColorado\u2019s national forests underpin our economy and Western way of life. They protect critical water supplies, support agriculture and outdoor recreation, and sustain diverse wildlife habitats,\u201d Bennet said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Bennet said many Coloradans have voiced concerns about the current version of the Fix Our Forests Act, including that it eliminates opportunities for public and tribal participation and limits the ability of communities to ensure projects follow the law.<\/p>\n

\u201cTribes and local communities are crucial partners for forestry projects in Colorado, and their early engagement in project development often accelerates projects, rather than slows them down,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cAs I have said from Day 1, their voices must be included in this process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet is also concerned about the wildfire crisis in the West. He wants the Forest Service to be fully funded, instead of the reduction in workforce that the service has seen since January. He said the Fix Our Forests Act does not provide resources to implement wildfire risk reduction projects or restore land management agency staff.<\/p>\n

The Sierra Club national chapter released a statement opposing the bill\u2019s advancement. The grassroots environmental group said the bill claims to address wildfires, but instead enables timber companies to increase logging activities in national forests. The bill includes provisions that would increase the cutting of old-growth and mature trees, weaken environmental protection laws, including the Endangered Species Act, and limit public input and judicial oversight of logging projects in national forests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more than telling that Congressional Republicans are focusing on a handout to the timber industry instead of reopening the government,\u201d said Anna Medema, Sierra Club\u2019s associate director of legislative and administrative advocacy for forests and public lands. \u201cCritical public services are running out of funding, federal workers are missing paychecks, but the Trump administration and its allies can find the time to advance a bill giving logging CEOs free rein in our national forests. If they were interested in doing what\u2019s best for our national forests, Congressional Republicans would reopen the government and fund the Forest Service. Instead, they\u2019re trying to sneak through a favor to their allies in the timber industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durango resident Dan King, vice-chair of the Southwest Colorado chapter of Sierra Club, echoed the national chapter\u2019s stance, saying the group \u201cabsolutely opposes\u201d the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur administration, not so much Colorado state government but the federal administration, is trying to forget about the fact that we\u2019re in a climate crisis, so we see that in the West when it comes to fire and water impacts and they\u2019re interrelated,\u201d King said in an interview with The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

King said thinning forests doesn\u2019t necessarily make them healthy. He is also concerned about bypassing environmental review and weakening provisions for already existing laws, like the Endangered Species Act. However, with the right review and adjustments, the bill could be supported by the Sierra Club and other groups and residents, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want healthy forests, you need to have good science. You need to rely on that science. And so if I saw more of that in the Fix Our Forests Act, I think that\u2019d be great,\u201d King said. \u201cThere\u2019s pluses in the act, but there\u2019s more minuses than pluses and that\u2019s why we as a Southwest Sierra Club group stand with the national group, as well, in saying that the Fix Our Forests Act as written is not the best kind of policy we\u2019d like to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bennet said he remains committed to working bipartisanly to improve the bill and hopes to support the bill when it comes before the full Senate \u2013 if changes are implemented.<\/p>\n

Hickenlooper, on the other hand, \u201ccheered\u201d the committee passage of the bill as \u201cone of the most significant steps forward in federal wildfire policy in recent decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a wildfire crisis across much of the country \u2013 our communities need action now,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cWildfires won\u2019t wait. After bipartisan committee passage, the next step is a full Senate vote. The Fix Our Forests Act will make our communities and environment more resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n

King said he trusts there\u2019s a strong message coming out of Southwest Colorado against the current Fix Our Forests Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are the front lines of so many environmental public lands challenges, and we have the ability as citizens to stand up, educate ourselves, keep our elected officials accountable and provide a better place for future generations,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n

Abigail Hatting is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a senior at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ahatting@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Environmental bill advances out of Senate committee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[918,28,1651,25,1566,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-forests","tag-headlines","tag-sen-john-hickenlooper","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet","tag-u-s-senate","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15936"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19926,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15936\/revisions\/19926"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15936"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}