REPLANT ACT MOTIVATES FOREST RESTORATION AS A WAY TO START COMBATTING CLIMATE CHANGE

The need for forest restoration is urgent due to wildfires and global warming, two interrelated phenomena, and the likelihood of permanently losing our green environment is growing.

Given the undeniable importance of U.S. national forests in storing carbon, this pressing issue must be addressed. Forest ecosystems in the United States alone absorb roughly 15% of the country's yearly carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and store 25% of the carbon that is released.

Congress established the Restoration Fund in 1980, almost 50 years ago, to assist in replanting trees following natural disasters such as wildfires. However, given the rising demands for restoration, its yearly cap of $30 million is now insufficient. This budgetary constraint has resulted in a backlog of approximately 4 million acres that need to be restored.

To address the backlog and the urgent need for restoration, the Repairing Existing Public Land by Adding Necessary Trees (REPLANT) Act was passed in 2021. This bipartisan legislation, which was created by Senators Debbie Stabenow and Rob Portman and U.S. Representatives Mike Simpson and Jimmy Panetta, eliminates prior funding caps and transfers all wood product tariffs to the Restoration Trust Fund. In addition to more than quadrupling funding, the bill does so without increasing tariffs or using taxpayer dollars by leveraging already collected funds.

The funding required to plant 1.2 billion trees over the next ten years is provided by this bill to the U.S. Forest Service, the government organisation responsible for overseeing and preserving national forests and grasslands. The act aims to address the growing amount of forestland that requires reforestation, especially in regions that have experienced natural disasters and are unlikely to recover naturally.

In addition to providing funding for restoration, the REPLANT Act offers other advantages, such as the preservation of water sources that provide drinking water to 55% of Americans and the restoration of wildlife habitats in national forests.

The REPLANT Act is anticipated to generate and maintain almost 49,000 green jobs over the next ten years, particularly helping rural communities that have been negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report released by American Forests, the non-profit group working with the U.S. Forest Service on this legislation.

The act has already achieved considerable success since it was put into effect. The U.S. Forest Service was able to replenish more than 350,000 acres of forest in its first two years, which resulted in a 10% reduction in the agency's backlog. It is anticipated that this reduction will reach 15% by the end of this year, its third year, a milestone that can be attained by continuing to improve vital resources like tree seeds, seedlings, and workforce capacity.

Throughout the newly planted trees' lifetimes, the project could sequester almost 758 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is equivalent to the emissions from burning 85.3 billion gallons of gasoline.

Given that its combined effects will make everyone's future cleaner and more sustainable, the REPLANT Act is a major step in safeguarding future generations.