As Congress accelerates work to pass two massive new spending bills – the budget Reconciliation ($3.5 trillion) and Infrastructure ($1.2 trillion) packages – lawmakers need to do the math to ensure that money is not thrown to programs that increase greenhouse gas pollution and reduce our ability to overcome the climate crisis. After all, one of the key selling points for each is their claimed climate benefits. Proponents of the Reconciliation package, for example, assert that some clean energy measures included in the bill, along with some in the Infrastructure package, would slash US carbon emissions by 880 million metric tons (0.88 gigatons) of annual CO2 emissions by 2030. However, as discussed below, the very recent elimination of the Clean Energy Performance Program (CEPP) from the Reconciliation package lowers the annual CO2 emissions reduction to only 0.38 gigatons by 2030. Moreover, buried within both bills are expenditures that would take us even further in the opposite direction – among them, massive subsidies for logging and highways that come with a steep carbon footprint. In combination with the elimination of CEPP, these climate-harming aspects of the Reconciliation and Infrastructure packages would actually increase net annual CO2 emissions by 2030 relative to current levels.

But the reality is that logging stimulated by this money will be a big step backward for efforts to curb carbon emissions and promote climate resiliency. While calculating the amount of new logging and associated carbon emissions from the spending bills requires some care, it is nonetheless tractable enough for Congress to do the homework before passing either measure. One relatively straightforward way is to ask how much logging would the $22 billion buy and from there calculate the volume produced (measured in thousand board feet) and associated emissions based on emissions factors (metric tons CO2 per thousand board feet) reported in existing studies. Another way is to consider the acres targeted for logging – 30 million in the Infrastructure bill alone and many millions more in the Reconciliation bill – and estimate emissions using reliable federal data on how much carbon would be removed by logging and how much would likely end up in the atmosphere.



A new report from John Muir Project and Center for Sustainable Economy employs both methods, and the results are disturbing. If passed, the Reconciliation and Infrastructure packages are likely to generate an additional 3 to 4 gigatons of CO2 pollution from logging over the next 10-15 years, as carbon now stored in trees would be lost and emitted into the atmosphere through the wood products life cycle and as newly logged areas give off rather than sequester carbon – an effect that can last ten to fifteen years after logging activities conclude. In terms of 2030 goals, this would take a big bite – 0.25 to 0.34 gigatons – out of the 0.38 gigaton CO2 emission reductions associated with remaining clean energy provisions in the bills (with CEPP eliminated) and would take us farther away from President Biden’s goal of a 50-52 percent reduction from 2005 levels in economy-wide net greenhouse gas pollution , actually causing an overall net increase in annual CO2 emissions of 80 million tons by 2030.

But emissions are just part of the story when it comes to logging and climate change. A consistent conclusion from many scientific studies approaching the issue from many directions is that heavily logged landscapes are far less resilient to the effects of climate change. They are more susceptible to wildfires, flooding, insects, disease, wind damage, heat waves, landslides and harmful algae blooms. These stressors are already on the rise due to climate change – logging makes the effects so much worse.

For example, in fire prone regions of the West, timber plantations burn hotter and faster than natural forests, and logging in general, including thinning, degrades the cool, moist microclimate that denser forests have, resulting in hotter, drier, and winder conditions that increase fire intensity, according to the largest scientific analysis ever conducted on this question. Logged areas produce far less water in the dry season and the waters that trickle out are more vulnerable to harmful algae blooms (HABs) because they’re hotter and laced with a cocktail of chemicals and fertilizers that fuel HAB growth. Hurricanes have a field day in heavily logged areas while real forests with a diversity of ages and tree sizes survive more intact.

Given logging’s double whammy on climate change and climate resiliency, logging subsidies have no place in either the budget Reconciliation or Infrastructure packages. Congress should strike the offending line items and take a hard look at others that also raise climate red flags, like funding for highways.

The current Infrastructure package passed by the Senate in August authorizes $110 billion for highways, roads, bridges and other major transportation projects. While the intent is to focus on the backlog of repairs needed to existing infrastructure, significant portions would be used for new roads or extra lanes – each of which has serious climate consequences by accommodating more traffic and catalyzing the conversion of farm and forestland to suburban sprawl. Case in point is the massive Birmingham Northern Beltline Project, which is being punched through some of the nation’s most productive forests and wetlands and which would be brought to completion if the Infrastructure bill is signed into law. With that money, 3,100 football fields’ worth of forestland would be paved over. But this project is just one of many the Infrastructure bill would support.