When the U.S. Forest Service approved the sale of nearly 70 acres for commercial logging in southern Illinois’ Shawnee National Forest in late 2024, Sam Stearns was furious.Shawnee is the only national forest in the state and one of the smallest in the nation. The agency initially billed the timbe r sale, called the McCormick Oak-Hickory Restoration Project, as a “thinning” operation to remove older trees and make room for younger saplings. But logging operations contribute to habitat loss, and Stearns found the Forest Service’s justification lacking.“Never in the history of this planet has a forest been logged back to health,” said Stearns, 71, who is the founder of the preservation group Friends of Bell Smith Spring. This coverage is made possible through a partnership between WBEZ and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization. Stearns began keeping an eye out for the agency’s public comment period. For months, he and other local environmentalists scoured the web and newspapers for mentions of the sale to prepare for the comment period, but the McCormick Project never turned up.It turned out that the Forest Service advertised the project under a different name — “V-Plow” — and by the time advocates realized it, they were a week into the project’s three-week comment period. In the past, advocates said comment periods for logging operations lasted as long as 45 days.Court documents later showed that the agency initially didn’t receive any bids. It eventually awarded the contract to a buyer in Kentucky in June.The following month, Stearns and other environmentalists sued the agency, trying to block the plan. They cited the presence of endangered bats and potential impacts to a nearby national natural landmark and said the Forest Service had violated the National Environmental Policy Act. Earlier this fall, a federal judge temporarily blocked the project before allowing the logging to proceed. The case is pending. Cypress trees canvas Heron Pond in the Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois. Envoronmental advocates says they’re worried the Trump administration’s fast-tracked logging will hurt the habitat.AP file The legal battle is part of a broader clash between fast-tracking projects and ensuring environmental reviews as required by federal law. NEPA mandates that federal agencies consider the environmental impacts of projects, but it includes a provision for “categorical exclusions" that let agencies bypass full reviews and limit public participation for minor proposals.“This can be a legitimate process, for instance when used for routine things where the impacts are minimal and well established, like campsite or trail maintenance,” said Garrett Rose, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Unfortunately, this administration has [been] working to aggressively expand the exemptions available to [the Forest Service] and minimize disclosure of projects impacted by categorical exclusions.”In 2023, the Biden administration tried to use these shortcuts to speed permitting for projects like renewable energy and broadband internet.But President Donald Trump began pressing the Forest Service earlier this year to fast-track timber harvests on public lands by using categorical exclusions. In some cases, that has meant repurposing those developed by other agencies for other types of projects instead of taking steps to develop a new categorical exclusion.Advocates say they fear the agency is applying categorical exclusions for logging projects more widely to comply with Trump’s directive and limit public awareness and input. Watchdog groups across the country are scrambling to make sure the public has a chance to provide feedback when logging and oil and gas extraction are approved on public lands.Ryan Talbott, a conservation advocate with Wildearth Guardians in the Pacific Northwest, said the Forest Service recently used a categorical exclusion developed by the Tennessee Valley Authority to approve a logging project in Mount Hood National Forest that excused it from the standard public comment process. The agency also used the same categorical exclusion to move a project forward in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.“This all comes back to Trump's timber executive order,” Talbott said. “They're looking for every possible avenue to expedite timber production.” A white tailed deer moves through the Shawnee National Forest.AP file In Indiana, environmentalists scored a rare victory against the Forest Service in September, when a federal judge stopped a logging project in the Hoosier National Forest, siding with advocates who argued that the agency’s plan violated NEPA. The judge ruled that the Forest Service did not properly weigh the environmental impacts of a proposal to log 4,000 acres and open 400 more to clear-cutting — harvesting that removes most trees in an area — in Indiana’s only national forest.In Illinois, in the case involving Stearns’ lawsuit, a Kentucky logging crew harvested about half of the nearly 70-acre timber sale in late August before temporarily halting in early September due to the suit. The loggers have yet to finish the job.“Even if they were getting a premium price for this wood, which I know they're not, those trees would be much more valuable standing, contributing to the health of an ecosystem, than they'll ever be cut like that,” Stearns said. ...read more read less