"Forests: Old Growth, New Fight: Tongass Timber Slows Wildfire Bill"

"The old-growth timber industry's fight for survival in Alaska may be complicating congressional efforts to reach a long-term solution to costly wildfires.

Senate aides and lobbyists told E&E News that Sen. Lisa Murkowski's focus on protecting southeast Alaska's shrinking old-growth timber business is one potential wrinkle as lawmakers balance environmental and forest industry interests in search of a compromise, possibly in a spending bill covering the rest of this fiscal year.

As the Republican chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and often a swing vote on issues in the Senate, Alaska's senior senator is a key player in the wildfire and forest management debate. She told E&E News on Wednesday she's still working toward including a wildfire measure in a broader bill but didn't elaborate.

A wildfire deal could offer Murkowski a way to slow the Forest Service's transition to second-growth timber in the Tongass National Forest — a shift she doubts is economically viable within the 16-year window the agency envisions — and to increase access to parts of the nearly 17-million-acre forest for logging."

Marc Heller reports for E&E Daily January 26, 2018.