Northwest Forest Plan advisers told their committee will be disbanded
The group, appointed under former President Joe Biden, has completed its core assignment, but still has some remaining goals
Federal officials are preparing to disband an advisory committee tasked with guiding policies for millions of acres of national forests in the Pacific Northwest, according to two committee members.
Tribal leaders, environmental advocates, timber representatives and local government officials were among the 21 members of the Northwest Forest Plan federal advisory committee. They’ve been meeting in person over dayslong meetings since summer 2023, hashing out how to tackle wildfires, pests and diseases across nearly 25 million acres of national forests in Oregon, Washington and Northern California.
On Thursday, officials with the U.S. Forest Service told committee members the agency was likely to dissolve the group in the coming weeks. Some members said they had been expecting this news, given President Donald Trump’s goal of eradicating most of the Biden administration’s efforts.
“We all knew that this was a possibility,” environmental attorney and committee member Susan Jane Brown said. “So everyone’s disappointed, but not terribly surprised.”
The Forest Service pulled the committee together during the Biden administration to help amend the decades-old Northwest Forest Plan, a set of policies that came out of the timber wars of the 1980s and ’90s.
The committee’s primary task was to create a set of recommendations on how the forest plan should be amended, like how much logging could happen and where, and how to protect endangered species from logging impacts. The committee also focused on how the federal government should work alongside tribes in managing millions of acres of their ancestral lands, something that wasn’t done in the initial plan.
The committee delivered its recommendations to the Forest Service last year.
“It’s always disappointing when a process like this comes to an end,” Travis Joseph, president of the timber association American Forest Resource Council, said. “That said, we did our job. We did what was asked of us.”
The committee still had other tasks on the table. One of them was considering restrictions on commercial huckleberry harvesting in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, the only national forest with a large-scale commercial huckleberry program.
As reported by High Country News, huckleberries are considered an essential first food for the Cowlitz Indian Tribe and the Yakama Nation, but tribal members have had to compete with commercial pickers for the few productive bushes they could find. Commercially picked berries often end up in soaps, syrups and candies sold in tourist shops around the Pacific Northwest.
Federal forest policies that forced tribes to stop setting fire to the land — a cultural practice that helped foods like huckleberries grow — and decades of aggressive fire suppression have also hindered huckleberry growth, making the berries difficult to come by.
Even when the committee is officially dissolved, Brown and Joseph said members will likely continue to advocate for forest policies.
“We are now just ordinary members of the public again, and we can submit comments and we can meet with the Forest Service just like other members of the public do,” Brown said. “Many of us have that desire to continue forward.”
The Forest Service included many of the committee’s recommendations in its draft amendment, and the agency is accepting public input on that draft through March 17. Many environmental groups oppose the draft, saying it doesn’t include strong enough protections for old growth forests.
Northwest snowpack watchers get the federal ax
Federal cutbacks are reducing the Pacific Northwest’s ability to manage its water supplies.
Agencies that keep tabs on Northwest rivers and snowpack have been losing their scientists under the Trump administration.
Snowpack in Washington state is currently 16% below normal. In Oregon, it’s 12% above normal. That information comes from hundreds of snow-monitoring stations scattered throughout the Northwest.
They’re run by a federal agency called the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which has lost more than half its staff this year.
"They're just basically taking a hammer and smashing everything up," Oregon State Climatologist Larry O'Neill said. "And you know, maybe it'll decrease costs for a short time, but their service will be significantly degraded.”
He said the conservation service no longer has enough people to maintain high-tech snow gauges in remote locations.
Some federal agencies have been re-hiring employees after a court order, but most are under White House orders to plan for deeper cuts, next week.
As Trump cuts workforce, federal unemployment claims in WA double
As the Trump administration pushes to dramatically downsize the federal government, new state data released this week show a big uptick in federal workers applying for unemployment benefits in Washington.
As of March 5, 952 federal employees have filed unemployment claims with Washington’s Employment Security Department this year — about double the number of claims from the same time period last year, which saw 472 claims.
Some of the claims were filed before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, but the majority came after he took office and authorized billionaire Elon Musk and the new Department of Government Efficiency to pursue a large-scale slashing of the federal workforce. Most of the layoffs so far have been targeted at recently hired or promoted federal workers in their probationary period.
The two federal departments with the most unemployment claims in Washington are the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with 190 federal workers filing claims this year, and the Department of the Interior, with 116 claims. Those two departments house the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, which have both seen significant cuts.
Other affected departments include the Department of the Treasury, with 93 claims; the Postal Service, with 65 claims; the Department of Veterans Affairs, with 64 claims; the Department of Energy, with 49 claims; and the Department of the Navy, with 45 claims.
There are about 76,000 total federal employees in Washington, according to the latest quarterly data. The unemployment figures released this week reflect only people who have submitted claims for benefits with the state, so the total number of federal workers in Washington affected by Trump’s layoffs could be higher.
King County is the county with the most impacted federal workers, with 207 claims filed this year. Pierce County had 82 claims and Kitsap had 59.
In a news release, employment security commissioner Cami Feek said her department is “monitoring the status of the federal situation and actively working to support federal workers every day.”
The new administration’s push to slash the federal workforce is facing legal challenges. This week, Washington joined a lawsuit challenging the administration’s order to fire workers in their probationary periods. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order in the case last week and ordered the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to rescind orders firing employees at several federal agencies.
In a statement, state Attorney General Nick Brown described Trump’s aggressive downsizing of the federal workforce as an “all-out assault on public service.” He said the state believes at least 1,000 federal workers in Washington have lost their jobs as a result of the president’s actions.
“These firings don’t save the public a dime, but they do make government less responsive, particularly in the communities across the nation where these employees live and serve,” Brown said.
In Washington, federal workers and their supporters have staged a number of protests against the firings in recent weeks.
Information about applying for unemployment benefits as a federal employee can be found on the Employment Security Department’s website. The department is encouraging federal employees seeking new jobs to visit the state’s WorkSource offices for resources.
Financial education graduation requirements gets Washington House approval
Washington high school students would have to take a financial education class under a bill passed by the state House on Friday.
The class would focus on giving students knowledge and skills to make decisions regarding personal finances.
Rep. Skylar Rude (R-Walla Walla) says it could prepare students for real world experiences.
“Young people that are exiting high school some of their first decisions may include renting, understanding a lease, renters’ insurance and the liability included in that, how to purchase their first car and understanding auto insurance, how to get higher ed financing," he said.
Olympia Republican Alex Ybarra voiced some concerns, wondering if mandating the class would result in fewer math credits being required.
“Most of our students in the state of Washington are doing terrible in math. And if we get this particular credit, I’m just guessing we’re going to use that particular credit and replace another math credit. And so I’m just afraid we’ll be losing those math credits," he said.
The bill overwhelmingly passed, 94 to 3, and now goes to the Senate. If signed into law, it would be a requirement for students graduating in the class of 2031.
Washington lawmakers vote to mandate Native education in public schools
The Washington Senate wants all school districts to teach the history of their local Native American tribes in social studies classes.
The chamber has voted 35-14 to require districts adopt a state-approved curriculum called Since Time Immemorial. Many districts, including Spokane, are already teaching it. In Bellingham, Democratic Senator Sharon Shoemake says her local district works with the Lummi Nation to share it with students, including her two sons.
“I’ve seen them talk to me about our tribal neighbors and a better understanding of the plants and the animals and the lands around us and the Indigenous peoples’ relationship with them. That’s been really powerful to me. It’s been really powerful to some of our neighbors and Indigenous friends," she said.
Sen. Paul Harris (R-Vancouver) voted against the bill.
“We actually love our tribes. We love the history that they bring. We love all the things they do for our state. But the problem is, once again, we’re mandating to our schools and not giving them a thing and we’re telling them what to do," he said.
The bill now moves to the state House.
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Reporting contributed by April Ehrlich, John Ryan, KNKX Murrow Fellow Nate Sanford, Steve Jackson, and Doug Nadvornick.