Letters

In a letter sent today, the National Association of State Foresters—along with the Congressional Fire Services Institute, International Association of Fire Chiefs, and the National Volunteer Fire Council—explained why the Conference Committee should adopt the Senate's method of funding State and Private Forestry (S&PF) Community Project Funding and Congressionally Directed Spending Proposals. We would appreciate your [read more]

January 27, 2022 The undersigned forestry associations urge you to cosponsor the “Returning Worker Exception Act” (H.R. 3897). H.R. 3897 provides critical H-2B visa cap relief for seasonal businesses that include employers of H-2B forestry workers. In addition to raising the visa cap, the bill has program integrity measures, including increasing enforcement and penalties to [read more]

The National Association of State Foresters, along with other members of the Forest-Climate Working Group, signed on to a letter urging House leaders to pass the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in a bipartisan manner. We commend the bipartisan support in the Senate-passed version of the bill for leveraging U.S. forests and forest products to [read more]

In a letter to congressional leadership today, the National Association of State Foresters and a host of other forestry and tree organizations showed their strong support for the House Agriculture Committee’s $40 billion forestry package. The House Agriculture Committee’s $40 billion forestry package includes support for shared priorities across the diverse spectrum of urban and [read more]

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]