Letters

To follow up a recent conversation shared by President Joe Biden and NASF Wildland Fire Committee Chair and Washington State Forester George Geissler in Idaho, NASF President and Connecticut State Forester Christopher Martin sent a letter to POTUS with state foresters' insights into infrastructure funding and the Civilian Climate Corps. If the bipartisan “Infrastructure and [read more]

The National Association of State Foresters is one of seven national forestry groups calling on Congress to increase funding for wildfire fuels mitigation and forest health protection. Bold action is needed to sustain forests, protect public safety, and prevent the conversion of forests from carbon sinks to carbon emission sources. The scale of wildfires and [read more]

NASF has written a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in support of building a new USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) biocontrol facility in Hawaii. The new facility would provide needed resources for invasive species control efforts in the Asia-Pacific region while bolstering national biological control capacity for the protection of native forested ecosystems. Click [read more]

In response to recent reports that the White House will be setting up a Wildfire Resilience Interagency Working Group, NASF has requested a meeting with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to support this effort and coordinated wildfire response. Click below to read the letter in full.

Today the National Association of State Foresters wrote to the director of the White House Office of Science, Technology and Policy regarding forthcoming guidance on an Executive Order (EO) issued January 18, 2021 called “Protecting the United States from Certain Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).” Federal UAS policy, particularly with respect to federal grant funding, is [read more]

The National Association of State Foresters has written a letter in support of the Invasive Species Prevention and Forest Restoration Act of 2021 (H.R. 1389), applauding the bill's aim to improve programs intended to prevent the introduction and impacts of non-native forest pests. NASF represents the directors of the state forestry agencies in all 50 [read more]

The National Association of State Foresters and eleven other natural resources organizations have sent a letter to House and Senate leadership requesting that forests be included in a final infrastructure package. Investing in Wildfire Resilience. Restoring America’s forests, watersheds, and rangeland – upgrading our natural infrastructure – is an opportunity to build climate resilience and [read more]

The Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (H.R. 2773) represents a pragmatic, state-focused investment that can prevent one-third of our nation’s fish and wildlife from becoming threatened or endangered while creating a significant number of jobs that support the outdoor economy and other key sectors, such as agriculture, and forestry. NASF has supported the Alliance for America's [read more]

In a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Interior, Environment and and Related Agencies, fifty organizations stated their support for increased fiscal year (FY) 2022 funding for the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. We urge Congress to support FIA at no less than $93.5M in [read more]

In a Dear Colleague letter to the chair and ranking member of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, members of the House asked that funding for the State Fire Assistance and Volunteer Fire Assistance programs be increased in fiscal year (FY) 2022 to help state and local agencies fight wildfires across the [read more]