New Year, New Hope for NWTF Policy Priorities

2025 kicked off with a new Congress and a new administration. While it is widely thought that a divided Congress produces the best, most durable legislation, the Republican Party now controls the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Supreme Court. What does this mean for NWTF’s priorities?

Before projecting, let’s look back at the 118th Congress that ran from 2023 through 2024.

The 118th Congress which saw a Democrat- led Senate, a Republican-led House and a Democrat-led administration, was a mixed bag for NWTF’s priority issues focused on forest and habitat management, scientific wildlife management and hunting access on our federal public lands. In the “Win” column, the House’s EXPLORE Act (America’s Outdoor Recreation Act in the Senate) passed with strong bipartisan support, creating the first outdoor-recreation-specific law in the U.S. in decades.

EXPLORE, sponsored by Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-AR), eases permitting processes for guides, outfitters and other concessioners as well as users, such as hunters, hikers and other people who want to enjoy our great public lands. It also boosts installing and maintaining infrastructure to make it easier for people with disabilities to access those lands, and codifies President George W. Bush’s executive order that prioritizes recreation, including hunting and fishing, on our national public lands as part of the multiple-use requirements. To emphasize this importance, the bill further reinforces that the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management must create and maintain shooting and archery ranges and limit their closures for specific emergencies only and for a limited time. These are all wins for NWTF members who depend on federal lands for hunting, shooting and other recreation.

Also a win for habitat management and access, former Sen. Mike Braun’s (R-IN) Benjamin Harrison National Recreation Area and Wilderness Establishment Act of 2024 failed to make it to the floor for a vote and died along with his retirement from the Senate to become the governor of Indiana. This bill, which NWTF played a direct role in opposing over two years, would have removed more than 40,000 acres of the Hoosier National Forest from active forest and habitat management and limited how Indianans could access and use these lands.

In the “Loss” column, we had a failed attempt at renewing the 2018 Farm Bill, which expired in September 2023 and is currently functioning through two one-year-long extensions. The Farm Bill is the largest vehicle for private lands conservation, providing the authority and funding for vital habitat programs such as the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the Conservation Reserve Program and many others. It also contains the authorities for the federal land management agencies to partner with states and organizations, such as NWTF, to complete crucial habitat and forest restoration work on these lands.

We also saw the Senate’s Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (Recovering America’s Habitat Act in the House) fail to gain ground after narrowly missing passage in the 117th Congress due to negotiations running out of time.

Looking ahead for 2025-2026, NWTF has high hopes for a number of our priorities that mostly have strong bipartisan support. New committee leadership and membership in both chambers means that many of these bills that we’ve worked on over the past two years will need new outreach and negotiations will start all over, but many of the champions of these bills still remain and will continue to build momentum. Keep a look-out for any Action Alerts from NWTF and help us get these important items across the finish line in this new Congress.

• Fix Our Forests Act (re-introduced by Rep. Westerman) - To expedite under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and improve forest management activities on National Forest System lands, on public lands under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, and on Tribal lands to return resilience to overgrown, fire-prone forested lands. This includes a solution to the 2015 Cottonwood decision that environmental groups have used to sue the government and hinder forest management practices on federal lands nationwide.

• Farm Bill renewal – To ensure private landowners, including family farmers, forest owners and others have access to programs that help them offset the costs of improving wildlife habitat on their lands. To strengthen Good Neighbor and Stewardship authorities and allow for long-term contracts to allow partners more time on the ground improving federal lands and less time applying for renewal contracts every five to 10 years.

• Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (yet to be re-introduced) – To provide much- needed funding to states specifically to manage at-risk wildlife and plant species and to recover them before they have to be protected by the Endangered Species Act.

• Appropriations for the Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service – To continue the vital Wildfire Crisis Strategy in the West, national forest management strategies nationwide and crucial technical support and programs for private landowners.