By The Herald Editorial Board
Among a wide responsibility for generating revenue from and protecting some 5.6 million acres of the state’s forestlands, tidelands, rangeland and more as head of the state’s Department of Natural Resources, the Washington commissioner of public lands also is known as the chief of the state’s largest fire department.
The current commissioner, Hilary Franz, oversees one of the state’s larger agencies with about 2,200 full-time employees, including about 1,400 full-time and seasonal firefighters during the wildfire season, protecting the state’s lands but also called to respond to fires on a total of 13 million acres of state and privately owned land. That’s a job of increasing importance as Washington experiences a growing threat of wildfire, driven by changes to the state’s climate and past mismangement of fires.
The job has an impact on budgets for the state and for local governments — school districts, counties and junior districts — that receive revenue from those lands from timber sales and other leases. Last year, the DNR’s timber sale revenue totaled $209 million, while its total revenue for all public lands was $474 million.
Franz during her two terms in office has worked to encourage more investment — $500 million over eight years — by state lawmakers not just in beefing up the DNR’s firefighting resources, but also in better managing the health of forests and taking preventive measures, including thinning, disease management and proscribed burns.
It may be too simplistic to measure the effectiveness of Franz’s campaign for those efforts solely by the number of acres burned in recent years in the state. So far this year, wildfires have consumed more than 327,000 acres in the state; that’s double the 164,000 acres that burned in 2023. But both years were below the state’s 10-year average of about 500,000 acres lost to wildfires each year; and far better than the more than 1 million acres lost in 2015, along with the lives of three firefighters. Washington this year also fared much better than its neighbor to the south; Oregon lost some 1.5 million acres so far this season.
Still it’s not a stretch to credit the advocacy for more firefighting resources, better coordination among state and federal agencies and revitalized campaigns for defensive preparations by individual landowners and communities for playing a significant role in reducing the impacts from wildfires in recent years.
And it also calls for a commissioner of public lands who will most effectively continue Franz’s legacy.
Franz, a Democrat, did not seek reelection to the office this year, instead running for the congressional seat in the state’s 6th District. Franz, however, wasn’t one of the top two to come out of the August primary for the Olympic Peninsula-centered district.
The race to succeed Franz was notable for a tight race among three candidate for the top two candidates in the August primary; after a hand recount, only 49 votes separated Democrat Dave Upthegrove and Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson for the second spot, behind Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican.
Upthegrove — yes, that is his actual last name, he said — is a member of the King County Council, first elected in 2014, and served in the state House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013, where he served as chair of the environment committee and on a House select committee on Puget Sound. He has a bachelor’s degree in environmental conservation, with a graduate certificate in energy policy.
Herrera Beutler served in the U.S. House, representing the 3rd Congressional District, from 2011 to 2023 and in the state House from 2007 to 2010. She has a bachelor’s degree in communications.
Both candidates credit Franz for her work in increasing funding for the agency and its firefighting and forest health efforts and would look to continue those efforts while continuing its role in managing state lands for the benefit of local school districts and other local governments that received revenue from timber sales and other land leases.
There are, however, differences between both in priorities and focus.
Upthegrove said he’d look to make improvements to where and how timber sales are made, including deferring harvest on some mature lowland forests that aren’t old-growth but have similar ecological characteristics. Some might be suitable for health work through thinning but would be set aside from harvest. His plan would set aside some 77,000 acres of what he deems critical legacy forests. But that set-aside, he said, would have minimal impact on revenue for schools and local governments because he would seek to purchase private forestlands that are placed on the market to offset lost revenue.
Nor does he believe that this will leave mature forests vulnerable to wildfires.
“There are a lot of good ecologists and fire professionals who have demonstrated that these older forests are more fire resilient,” he said. “There can be a very happy medium here — if we’re managing for fire — where we can still retain these old-growth characteristics while investing in clearing underbrush or some very targeted non-commercial thinning.”
At the same time, Upthegrove said he’s committed to the state’s production of lumber and wood products.
“I envision a strong, healthy wood products industry in this state in perpetuity, and that this will be an important part of the trust,” he said.
Herrera Beutler said one of her goals is to fulfill its revenue mission to those local districts but also to return the agency to a position where more of its revenue is returned as an investment for its forest health and fire prevention work. She disagrees with Upthegrove’s planned set-aside of additional timberland, noting that about 800,000 acres of state land already has been set aside for conservation, leaving only 49 percent for sustainable harvest. Setting aside another nearly 10 percent of that wouldn’t be sustainable, she said.
The drawback to purchasing private land to offset what’s removed from harvest, she said, would also remove that land from the state’s tax rolls.
“That’s $2 billion worth of timber alone; you think the Legislature is going to be able to replace that?” Herrera Beutler said.
Noting rural school districts that are now facing potential budget cuts, removing land from production, then replacing it by removing private land from tax rolls would be a hit for many districts, she said.
“We don’t have the luxury of waiting 40 years to see if setting it aside works,” Herrera Beutler said. “We actually should learn from what we know, using the best science, the best technology, the best innovations. We should be actively and sustainably managing that trust land.”
The next commissioner also will have work ahead in persuading the Legislature — facing increasing demands on its budget for education, transportation and public safety — to continue its commitment to protecting trust lands and the revenue it generates.
Upthegrove said during his time in the Legislature he maintained good relationships across the aisle with fellow lawmakers, relationships he’d seek to renew in his advocacy for the DNR and for the taxing districts that depend on trust lands, including looking at other funding sources for those districts.
Herrera Beutler also claims a bipartisan ethic, noting that she worked with an Oregon Democrat in Congress to pass legislation that funded forest roads and jobs in Southwest Washington’s Gifford Pinchot National Forest and other national forests while working to restore salmon stream habitat. She counts the last three presidents — Obama, Trump and Biden — as having signed her legislation.
“I feel like the secret sauce is actually finding someone on the other team to work with you and do it,” she said.
Considering the now amplified importance of this office, state residents are fortunate to have two candidates with considerable backgrounds of knowledge and legislative experience to choose from.
Upthegrove’s concern for the agency’s environmental responsibilities is no less important than Herrera Beutler’s regard for the financial constraints that state and local governments now face.
Yet, we believe Herrera Beutler would hold those interests in a balance that would better assure the sustainability of public lands for their diverse purposes.
Voters should elect Herrera Beutler to the post.
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