Watchdog opens probe into whether federal grant was used to bolster Alaska’s timber industry

The Agriculture Department's inspector general has opened an inquiry into whether the Forest Service broke any rules after federal funds were funneled to a timber industry group trying to lift logging restrictions in Alaska. The watchdog is reviewing a $2 million grant to the state of Alaska. Typically, such grants from the USDA's State Fire Assistance program go to wildfire prevention and response. But the state used the money to support its efforts to strike down decades-old federal limits on tree cutting in the 16.7 million-acre Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska. The state gave more than $200,000 of the grant from the Forest Service to the Alaska Forest Association, a timber group, to provide the industry's perspective on the Trump administration's rollback of protections on the forest. Politicians, conservationists and loggers have long fought to decide the fate of the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest. The Trump administration is seeking to exempt nearly 9.5 million acres of the Tongass from restrictions on road building and other logging activity implemented by President Clinton nearly two decades ago. On one side of the issue are state government leaders, as well as Alaska's Republican congressional delegation, which is cheering the move aimed at aiding Alaska's ailing timber industry. On the other side are many Democrats in Congress, along with their conservationist allies, who lament the loss of more old-growth trees that help guard against climate change...MORE