We Need to End Illegal Deforestation

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, in 2022, the world lost more than 16 million acres of forest, an area bigger than West Virginia. Deforestation accounted for about 10 percent of the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions and 40 percent of all tropical deforestation as a result of illegal clearing.

Put another way, deforestation would rank as the third largest country in terms of overall carbon emissions, underscoring the need to address this problem as part of a global solution to the climate crisis.

Nearly half of the tropical deforestation is estimated to be the result of just four commodities--beef, soy, palm oil, and wood products that drive this deforestation. The people who are engaged in illegal logging are some of the worst people on the face of the planet. They engage in bribery, theft, crimes against indigenous people whose rights are trampled on, or worse, actual violence directed against them.

There is, of course, a solution: Deny people who grow crops on illegally forested land access to the American economy.

There is precedent here, too. I had amendments to the Lacey Act focusing on disallowing illegally harvested timber to be imported to the United States. That earlier legislation was based on the success of the original Lacey Act that protected endangered species and wildlife. It is commonly accepted and simple to administer, although not always easy.

It required companies to control their supply chain and to be able to document that control and respect for requirements of legally sourced product. It formed a framework not just for American law, but it modeled the European Union, Australia, and Japan who modeled their actions on my bill.

Now, we have an opportunity to expand this approach to soy, cocoa, palm oil, beef, and rubber commodities. There is rough agreement that this approach has promise and the large companies are concerned about the legal, practical, and reputational consequences for being involved with products that are grown on these illegally harvested lands.

We have introduced bipartisan legislation, the FOREST Act with Senator Schatz, to codify the conversation and to advance this policy to choke off this practice.

The goal of the legislation is to encourage responsible companies to observe requirements to avoid products from illegally harvested timberland.

It will require adjustment in terms of mindset and procedures to have control of the supply chain, but helping provide a framework is necessary to change these engrained habits.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support our legislation to use the tools of trade and supply chain control to end the environmentally destructive pattern of commodities from illegally harvested land. It is going to be hard, but it will be worth the effort.

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