Trump Axes Logging Protections for 44 Million Acres of National Forest

Current conditions: Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas brace for up to a foot of rain • Tropical Storm Juliette, still located well west of Mexico, is moving northward and bringing rain to parts of Southern California • Heat and dryness are raising the risk of wildfire in South Africa.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Trump to ax logging protections from 44 million acres of national forest

The Trump administration has started the process to roll back logging protections from more than 44 million acres of national forest land. On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins proposed undoing a 25-year-old rule that banned building roads or harvesting timber on federally controlled forest land, much of which is located in Alaska. “Today marks a critical step forward in President Trump’s commitment to restoring local decision-making to federal land managers to empower them to do what’s necessary to protect America’s forests and communities from devastating destruction from fires,” Rollins said in a statement. “This administration is dedicated to removing burdensome, outdated, one-size-fits-all regulations that not only put people and livelihoods at risk but also stifle economic growth in rural America.”

Environmental groups slammed the proposal for jeopardizing wildlife habitats and putting waterways at risk. “Communities depend on clear water filtered by roadless areas, animals depend on the unfragmented habitat that can only exist where there are no roads, and anglers depend on clean water in the streams where trout and salmon swim,” Ellen Montgomery, the director of Environment America’s great outdoors campaign, said in a press release. “We cannot let these essential forests be carved up by roads, obliterated by chainsaws, and contaminated by mines.”

2. Climate 101 is in session

Heatmap’s new Climate 101 series aims, as Heatmap deputy editor Jillian Goodman explained, to be “a primer on some of the key technologies of the energy transition.” That includes “everything from what makes silicon a perfect material for solar panels (and computer chips), to what’s going on inside a lithium-ion battery, to the difference between advanced and enhanced geothermal.”

This might be especially helpful for those still trying to find their way into the climate conversation, but we hope there’s something here for everyone. For instance, did you know that contemporary readers might have understood Don Quixote’s “tilting at windmills” to be an expression of NIMBYism? Well, now you do!

3. Federal permitting agency signs deal with Alaska to streamline infrastructure approvals

The federal Permitting Council signed a first-of-a-kind memorandum of understanding to work together with Alaska’s government to streamline permitting on critical infrastructure projects across the state. First established in 2015, the agency was designed to improve transparency and speed up the greenlighting of infrastructure approvals. But it had yet to forge such a close pact with an individual state. “Our team is ready to work with Governor Dunleavy to bring Alaska back into the energy spotlight, ending the neglect of the Biden Administration and bringing Alaska’s incredible natural resources to the rest of the world,” Emily Domenech, the Permitting Council’s executive director, said in a statement.

Domenech — a former staffer for House Speakers Kevin McCarthy and Mike Johnson who went on to serve as a senior vice president at Boundary Stone, a firm founded by alumni of the Obama-era Department of Energy — acted as something of a Republican sage for the clean energy industry. In an interview with Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin after last November’s election, she urged the industry to forge closer relationships with members of the current congressional majority. “If you ask Republicans to be for or against the IRA as a whole, they’ll be against it,” Domenech said, “But Republicans think about energy as a regional issue. So instead of forcing this one size fits all approach, IRA advocates would be smart to give people room to support only the policies that make the most sense for their state or region.”

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4. Energy Department promises HALEU nuclear fuel to 3 more companies

The Department of Energy selected another three companies to receive a special kind of nuclear fuel from its growing stockpile. HALEU — pronounced HAY-loo, an acronym for high assay low enriched uranium — is a reactor fuel enriched up to four times as much as traditional reactor fuel. The fuel is needed for all kinds of novel reactor designs, particularly those that use coolants other than water. Until recently, however, Russia’s state-owned Rosatom had enjoyed a virtual monopoly over its global supply. The Biden administration set aside billions for HALEU production. In April, the Trump administration selected five companies to receive some of the government-procured supply, including Westinghouse, Bill Gates’ TerraPower, and the Google-backed Kairos Power. Now the agency has picked another three:

• Microreactor developer Antares Nuclear, which is working on going critical by next July under another Energy Department program
• Standard Nuclear, the atomic fuel startup that needs HALEU to manufacture its specially-coated TRISO fuel pellets.
• Abilene Christian University and Natura Resources for use in a new molten salt research reactor under construction in Texas.

5. Federal agents arrest firefighters battling Washington blaze

Two firefighters battling the Bear Gulch fire on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula were arrested by federal law enforcement Wednesday. The reason for the arrests is unclear, according to the Seattle Times. Over three hours, federal agents from Border Patrol carried out an “operation on the fire,” demanding identification from members of two private contractor crews who were among the 400 firefighters battling Washington state’s largest active blaze. The Incident Management Team from the National Interagency Fire Center suggested that the action did not interfere with the efforts to tamp down the flames.

The American West is primed for wildfires right now. Following a lull in June and July, Heatmap’s Jeva Lange wrote that “the forecast for the Pacific Northwest for ‘Dirty August’ and ‘Snaptember,’ historically the two worst months of the year in the region for wildfires,” was full of warning signs, including low precipitation and abnormally high temperatures.

THE KICKER

Living, gnawing weedwackers.Vesper Energy

The 1.36 million solar panels at Vesper Energy’s Hornet Solar farm in Swisher County, Texas, one of the United States' largest single-phase solar projects, were overgrown with vegetation. So naturally, the company brought in sheep. More than 2,000 white, wooly ovines arrived this month and were allowed to roam the facility’s six square miles. “As Texas continues to lead the nation in solar energy growth, solar grazing highlights how innovation can support rural economies, preserve farmland, and strengthen the state’s reliable energy future,” Vesper said.