Wildfire bill quietly strips environmental review from forest projects
H.R. 7578 — TORCH Act · Filed by Mike Kennedy (R-UT) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Feb 13, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill streamlines federal forest management by creating categorical exclusions (exemptions from environmental review) for hazard tree removal, wildfire mitigation, and utility vegetation management on federal lands. It raises acreage caps for restoration projects from 3,000 to 10,000 acres, expands grazing and timber sales as wildfire-reduction tools, and exempts utility companies from separate timber-sale requirements when removing vegetation near power lines. Critically, it suspends Endangered Species Act consultation requirements when new species are listed or new information emerges about impacts to listed species—meaning agencies need not revisit land plans even if conditions change.
Why we flagged it
The bill's stated purpose is wildfire mitigation, but its operative mechanism is systematic exemption of forest management from environmental review, ESA consultation, and public input. The wildfire framing is genuine but serves as cover for a broader deregulation agenda that benefits timber operators and utilities.
What the text implies
- Section 401 suspends ESA consultation when new species are listed or new information emerges—agencies can ignore changed circumstances without revisiting land plans, effectively freezing species protections at the moment of plan approval.
- Section 302(d) exempts utility vegetation management from extraordinary circumstances review, meaning even projects in sensitive areas bypass the safety valve that normally triggers full environmental review.
- Section 303 allows utilities to sell removed timber without a separate timber sale, creating a revenue stream for private companies while bypassing competitive bidding and public oversight of timber extraction.
- Raising acreage caps from 3,000 to 10,000 acres (Sections 104, 105, 402) means larger projects can proceed under categorical exclusion, compounding the loss of environmental review.
- Good Neighbor Authority amendments (Section 201) allow states and tribes to retain timber-sale revenue, creating financial incentives for aggressive tree removal that may not align with ecological restoration.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Citizens lose procedural rights to environmental review and legal challenge of forest management projects affecting endangered species and public lands. While wildfire reduction is a legitimate public goal, the bill achieves it by gutting transparency and consultation requirements rather than by improving project quality—a trade-off that favors agency speed and private beneficiaries (utilities, timber operators) over public accountability.
Who stands to gain
- electric utility companies
- timber operators and forest products companies
- state and tribal governments (via retained timber revenue)
- grazing permit holders
Named in the bill
Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of the Interior, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Forest System, electric utility companies, governors and Indian tribes, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (ESA consultation authority), Council on Environmental Quality (NEPA authority)
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Feb 13, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Feb 13, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Natural Resources and House Committee on Agriculture · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on Agriculture, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $290,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 11 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Mike Kennedy, the sponsor, reported $532,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Edison International — $290,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (14,361 characters) on Aug 19, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 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 Jun 2026 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 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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