TORCH Act

Key Points

• The bill creates a new fast-track process for removing hazard trees near roads, trails, and recreation sites on national forests, covering projects up to 3,000 acres without requiring a full environmental review.
• Wildfire prevention projects that can skip certain environmental reviews would triple in size from 3,000 acres to 10,000 acres, letting land managers treat much bigger chunks of forest at once. This applies to fuel breaks, wildfire resilience projects, and collaborative restoration projects under existing law.
• Electric utilities would gain much broader authority to clear vegetation near power lines on federal land, with the hazard tree zone expanding from 10 feet to 50 feet and vegetation management plans getting automatic approval within 60 to 67 days.
• The Forest Service would develop a strategy to use livestock grazing as a wildfire prevention tool, including targeted grazing on vacant allotments during droughts or fires and using grazing for post-fire land recovery.
• Federal land managers would no longer need to redo endangered species consultations when a new species is listed or new information emerges about a species already covered in an existing management plan. This removes a key environmental safeguard to keep forest work moving faster.
• The Good Neighbor program is expanded to fully include Indian tribes as partners who can enter agreements to manage federal forests and keep timber sale revenue to fund additional restoration work.