The U.S. Agriculture Secretary visited Missoula Friday to announce a blueprint to prioritize work for the U.S Forest Service.
Supporters say it will modernize the agency and cut unnecessary red tape. Opponents, however, counter it will undermine the nation’s laws aimed at protecting the environment.
Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue says the Forest Service has metaphorically been bound in bubble wrap for far too long.
“We kind of became paralyzed about a lot of the things that we needed to do.”
Moments later at Missoula’s Aerial Fire Depot and Smokejumper Center, Perdue signed the memorandum outlining the Trump administration’s new priority list for forest service work. That list includes speeding up environmental impact reviews done for proposed projects under the National Environmental Policy Act.
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