MISSOULA, Mont.— The Center for Biological Diversity submitted comments today challenging a sweeping U.S. Forest Service plan to allow commercial logging across more than 5 million acres in six national forests in Montana and Idaho. The agency authorized the Blowdown Emergency Project to move ahead before completing the environmental reviews typically required for projects of this scale.

“This is exactly the kind of environmental plundering we feared when the Trump administration started dismantling our nation’s bedrock environmental laws,” said Kristine Akland, Northern Rockies director and a senior attorney at the Center. “The Forest Service has manufactured an emergency to justify logging 5 million acres, putting endangered wildlife and land that belongs to every American at risk. It’s incredibly sad how eager the administration is to bulldoze our natural heritage.”

Although the Forest Service describes the project as an emergency response to windstorms in December 2025 and March 2026, the proposal would authorize far more than the removal of downed trees. It would allow clearcutting, shelterwood harvests and other logging methods that could remove healthy trees not damaged by the storms.

The only description available to the public of what is possibly the largest single logging project in U.S. history is an 8-page document that fails to disclose many of the areas proposed for logging, the amount of timber that could be removed, where roads could be built or the endangered animals it could harm. The agency has given members of the public just seven days to comment on the proposal.

The Center called on the Forest Service to address these deficiencies by disclosing the full scope of the proposal, identifying all logging locations, completing an environmental review before logging begins, and providing the public a meaningful opportunity to review and comment on the project.