WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service today for failing to release public records about the Trump administration’s plans to rapidly expand logging in the nation’s forests.

“People deserve a full and transparent accounting before Trump and his flunkies try to hand over our nation’s forests to logging interests,” said Kristine Akland, Northern Rockies director at the Center. “Rushing to cut down treasured places like Montana’s Flathead National Forest or Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest without public input or environmental review robs future generations of the chance to experience these iconic landscapes. These forests belong to all of us, not just the timber industry.”

In March President Trump directed the secretaries of Commerce, Interior and Agriculture to design plans that would “facilitate increased timber production,” expand their legal authority to extract timber, and eliminate protections that create an “undue burden” on cutting down trees.

In April Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins issued a memorandum declaring an emergency across 110 million acres of national forest. An analysis by the Center found that the area covers tens of millions of designated wilderness areas, wilderness study areas and inventoried roadless areas, as well as more than 300,000 acres of research natural areas, which the Forest Service typically manages to protect from all human activity. Most of these areas are important habitat for imperiled species like grizzly bears, Northern spotted owls, Canada lynx and many more.

Under a 2021 law, logging projects proposed within “emergency” areas would receive reduced environmental review. The law also limits opportunities for opponents of harmful projects to challenge them in court.

The Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request in April seeking public records about how the administration developed these plans and what its next steps are to eliminate forest protections. So far, no records have been released. The Act is meant to ensure public access to information about the functioning of federal agencies by guaranteeing a response within 20 business days of a request.

This FOIA lawsuit is part of the Center’s wider effort to seek public records underlying the Trump administration’s anti-environment agenda. These records include emails and other documents detailing critical work abruptly ended by mass firings and layoffs across government, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to the Fish and Wildlife Service, and funding cuts to international wildlife conservation programs.

Today’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Center expects to receive records from the suit in the next two to three months.