America deserves a fuel reduction program in our forests that protects two American icons: green trees and green money. Unfortunately, the current statute adopted by Congress, the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, does not protect the most valuable trees in our national forests, and the U.S. Forest Service recently wasted our money when it hired a public relations firm to pretend that it does.

There is a bipartisan consensus in Congress that some thinning is appropriate in the forest, but not the thinning of centuries-old large trees. Under the current statute, the Forest Service would be allowed to finance a thinning plan with profits from selling large trees in the national forests. This plan can be likened to forcing a sick person to sell their good kidney to earn money to treat the bad one: the sick person ends up with no kidneys at all. Financing fuel reduction projects by cutting down big trees and selling them is unnecessary and wrong. We should free the Forest Service’s well-trained scientists to make their decisions based on science, not on economics. To achieve healthy forests, as advertised in the act’s title, we need a thinning policy based on the best available science, not one based on padding the coffers of the federal government.

What is especially astounding about the Healthy Forests Restoration Act is that the Forest Service has spent federal tax dollars trying to dupe taxpayers into thinking that it is a good idea. It hired a public relations firm, OneWorld Communications, to help sell the controversial Sierra Nevada Framework plan to the tune of $113,000. According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the firm’s secret strategy emphasized that public “perception is key,” and it urged the Forest Service to simplify its message and adopt the slogan “Forests with a Future.”

Besides the fact that it is questionable public policy for federal agencies to spend tax dollars to convince the public that their plans are good ones, it is illegal to do so. Congress passed a federal law stating that appropriated funds may not be used to pay a publicity expert unless the funds were specifically appropriated for that purpose.

Congress needs to keep close tabs on the Forest Service and how it uses its funding. The Forest Service’s illegal expenditure of taxpayers’ money to snow the public into believing in what it does ought to be investigated by the Department of Agriculture’s Office of the Inspector General.

Instead of selling large trees to generate money, our federal agencies ought to consider the size of the trees that should be thinned for scientific reasons, and study alternatives in the National Environmental Policy Act. We must work to prevent further erosion to this science-based process.