Bill speeds up forest projects and limits time to sue over them.
H.R. 471 — Fix Our Forests Act · Filed by Bruce Westerman (R-AR) · 56 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 16, 2025 · Passed chamber
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What it does
The bill sets up a Fireshed Center. It helps agencies, tribes, and states plan wildfire work together. It makes it faster to approve forest projects like removing trees and cutting fuel. The bill cuts the time people can sue over these projects to 120 days. It also lets some forest work skip the normal review process.
Who it affects
People living near forests face more wildfire risk. Faster forest work could help protect them. Companies that do forest work will find it easier to get projects approved. Tribes, states, and local groups can now plan wildfire work with the state.
One thing to notice
The bill makes forest projects faster but gives people less time to challenge them in court. It also skips some reviews that normally happen before big projects start.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
56 cosponsors: 38 Republicans, 17 Democrats, 1 Independents.
- Jan 16, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 16, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and House Committee on Agriculture · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committees on Agriculture, and…”
- Jan 23, 2025 — Passed the House · Congress.gov: “On passage Passed by the Yeas and Nays: 279 - 141 (Roll no. 25). (text: CR H321-333)”
- Mar 6, 2025 — Hearing held · Congress.gov: “Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Subcommittee on Conservation, Forestry, Natural Resources…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
113 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 184 reports from Dec 2025 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $107,958,626 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 9 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 100% of bills with any report.
Bruce Westerman, who sponsored the bill, received $1,113,925 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Chamber of Commerce of the U.S.A. — $54,660,000 in 3 reports
- Google Client Services LLC — $6,920,000 in 2 reports
- Edison Electric Institute — $4,248,610 in 2 reports
- American Association for Justice — $3,610,000 in 2 reports
- American Property Casualty Insurance Association — $3,540,000 in 2 reports
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- Fireshed Center — A new office that helps agencies and groups plan wildfire work together.
- skip the normal review process — Let some projects move forward without the full study that usually happens first.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (50,012 characters) on Jul 10, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,522 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 25, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-21.
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