This bill addresses forest management and wildfire risk reduction, primarily by increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration through expedited planning and permitting, improving science and technology delivery to practitioners, establishing a community wildfire risk reduction program, modifying existing forestry authorities, improving post-fire rehabilitation, and improving wildfire response.
In total, the bill contains provisions that touch on 54 recommendations of the Commission. The bill is in strong alignment with 18 Commission recommendations, partial alignment with 28 additional Commission recommendations, and in weak alignment with eight more recommendations. Importantly, some components of the bill are largely outside of the Commission discussions (e.g., litigation reform and ESA consultation). Overall, the bill addresses some of the changes the Commission sought to make in speeding and expanding mitigation efforts in the natural environment, centralizing decision support functions, and includes critical emphasis on community risk reduction.
This bill is a Senate version of a bill that passed the House on January 23, 2025 with strong bi-partisan support (279-141). The Senate version of the bill passed out of Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry on October 21, 2025 with a vote of 18-5 and a number of bipartisan amendments.
You can read AWR’s complete bill analysis (updated 10/30/25) here.