crs_reports: R48973

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

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R48973 Vegetation Management for Wildfire Mitigation Along Electric Power Line Rights-of-Way on Federal Lands 2026-06-08T04:00:00Z 2026-06-10T15:23:01Z Active Reports Alicyn R. Gitlin   Congress has shown interest in protecting lives and property from catastrophic wildfires and in protecting electric grid reliability. Electric power line rights-of-way (hereinafter, power line ROWs) often cross multiple land jurisdictions, which may include one or more parcels of federal land. Power line owners and operators (hereinafter, operators) are responsible for clearing vegetation (e.g., trees), both to prevent wildfire ignitions and to protect power line facilities from wildfires on the surrounding landscape. Operators do this by various means, including removing, cutting, or replacing vegetation. Four federal land management agencies (FLMAs) administer the vast majority of federal lands in the United States: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Park Service (NPS), and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) within the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), and the Forest Service (FS) within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Each has its own management mission and purposes. The majority of power line facilities on federal lands are on lands managed by BLM or the FS, which adhere to the same statutes regarding vegetation management along power line ROWs (43 U.S.C. §1772), though each has its own regulations and policies. Vegetation management along power line ROWs on NPS and FWS lands is generally guided by each agency’s regulations and policies. Power line ROWs also cross lands under the jurisdiction of other federal departments or agencies and are managed according to their unique missions and policies. Operators whose power lines affect the bulk-power system, defined as those “facilities and control systems necessary for operating an interconnected electric energy transmission network (or any portion thereof)” and the electric energy “needed to maintain transmission system reliability” also must adhere to mandatory and enforceable reliability standards (16 U.S.C. §824o). The reliability standards are developed and enforced by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a designated not-for-profit organization that is certified by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the government agency that oversees the bulk-power system. Operators of power lines that affect the bulk-power system and are located on federal land must comply with both the reliability standards and the requirements of the FLMA that manages the underlying land. The relevant FLMAs must approve operators’ vegetation management plans (which may be part of more comprehensive facility operation and maintenance plans) and the implementation of activities within those plans. Statute directs the Secretary of the Interior (for BLM lands) and the Secretary of Agriculture (for FS lands) to create processes for reviewing and approving these plans and the activities within them, and guides the contents of these plans. Vegetation management typically involves a recurring cycle of inspection and maintenance. Vegetation management is commonly split into emergency and routine (i.e., nonemergency) activities, which generally have different processes for notifying and receiving approval from the relevant FLMA. Emergency activities address vegetation that presents an imminent threat of disrupting electric service or creating a fire or safety hazard and must be treated before the next routine maintenance cycle. Hazard trees are trees or shrubs at risk of falling near or into power lines, and might be pruned or removed as part of emergency or routine vegetation management activities. Ongoing congressional debate includes how best to protect natural and cultural resources on federal lands in place and the appropriate ways to manage vegetation to mitigate wildfire risk. Some stakeholders assert several potential issues, including a lack of consistency between land jurisdictions, onerous regulations, lack of agency capacity, staff turnover, or poor coordination and information sharing, for causing administrative delays and vegetation management challenges. Congress is considering legislation with provisions that aim to reduce administrative delays and jurisdictional inconsistencies, including the Fix Our Forests Act (S. 1462/H.R. 471) and the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 (H.R. 7567, a 2026 farm bill). https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R48973/R48973.2.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/HTML/R48973.html

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