Bill Puts Disaster Recovery Cash in Forest Landowners’ Hands Before Restoration Work Begins

When wildfire tears through a private forest or a hurricane levels timber stands, the clock starts immediately. Debris must be cleared. Sites must be prepared. Roads and stream crossings may need repair. Seedlings must go in the ground. But for many private forest landowners, federal disaster assistance has carried a frustrating catch: pay first, and wait for reimbursement later.

Congress has sent the Emergency Conservation Program Improvement Act of 2025 to the President’s desk and is pending his signature. It will automatically become law if it isn’t signed by July 11. This would mark a significant step toward faster disaster recovery funding for private forest landowners, family forestry operations, timber producers, ranchers, and agricultural producers. The enrolled bill, S. 629, amends the Agricultural Credit Act of 1978 and was published by the U.S. Government Publishing Office on June 25, 2026.

For forest landowners, the key change is advance funding. The bill gives eligible owners of nonindustrial private forest land the ability to receive payment before carrying out emergency restoration measures. Under the bill, the Secretary of Agriculture must allow an eligible owner to receive up to 75 percent of the cost of those measures, as determined by the Secretary. The owner must spend the advance within 180 days or return unused funds.

That timing matters on the ground. After a major disaster, landowners may need crews, equipment, seedlings, site preparation, road work, and stream crossing repairs. For family forestry businesses and multigenerational landowners, that liquidity burden can delay recovery, increase carrying costs, and put long-term forest health at risk. USDA’s Emergency Forest Restoration Program (EFRP), administered by the Farm Service Agency, already provides important cost share assistance to help nonindustrial private forestland owners recover from natural disasters. This bill targets the timing gap that can make that assistance difficult to use when restoration work cannot wait.

Importantly, the bill also addresses wildfire eligibility. For the Emergency Forest Restoration Program, the statute will expressly include wildfires, even ones that are not naturally caused, if the damage results from the wildfire’s spread due to natural causes. It also includes wildfires caused by the federal government. That clarification helps landowners who may otherwise face uncertainty when a fire begins through human activity but spreads through drought, wind, fuel conditions, terrain, or other natural forces.

Agricultural producers and mixed operations receive parallel relief under the Emergency Conservation Program. For emergency measures involving farmland or conservation structures that require an immediate response, the bill permits advance payments of 75 percent of the cost of replacement and 50 percent of the cost of repair or restoration, as determined by the Secretary. It also extends the period for using certain funds from 60 days to 180 days, giving producers more time to complete emergency work under real disaster conditions.

The bill does not create guaranteed recovery money. The Emergency Conservation Program ( ECP) and Emergency Forest Restoration Program ( EFRP) remain subject to available funds, agency implementation, eligibility determinations, local enrollment periods, inspections, and program requirements. Landowners will still need to document qualifying damage, work with the local FSA office, obtain required approvals, and preserve records supporting the requested assistance.

That means landowners need to treat disaster recovery as a documentation project from day one. After a qualifying event, records showing pre-disaster conditions, forest inventory, damage assessments, photographs, proposed restoration practices, contractor estimates, ownership and authority to act, insurance communications, maps of affected tracts, and FSA correspondence can affect how quickly relief becomes available. Landowners also need to account for lenders, co-owners, hunting leases, conservation restrictions, carbon contracts, biomass supply agreements, access agreements, and other encumbrances that may affect who can authorize work, who must receive notice, and who may receive or control program funds.

Forest recovery does not pause for paperwork. Landowners and their administrators can prepare now by organizing ownership records, mapping vulnerable tracts, reviewing disaster provisions in timber, grazing, hunting, access, conservation, carbon, and biomass agreements, and identifying local FSA contacts before a disaster occurs.

The Emergency Conservation Program Improvement Act will not do the hard work of forest recovery. But for eligible landowners, it will provide critical cash flow to get started, when timing matters most.

This is a developing situation that should be monitored closely. For the latest information and analysis, please visit our website or contact your Fennemore legal counsel.

Lindsey Morgan is an attorney in Fennemore’s Business Litigation practice group, based on Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. She represents clients in complex business, real estate, and commercial disputes involving significant financial and operational risk, with a focus on forest industry and landowner matters. Her work spans the full arc of a dispute — from identifying pressure points before conflict arises to protecting property and contract rights when it does. When she is not untangling ownership disputes and litigating complex business issues, Lindsey likes to be out in the woods. She can be reached at lmorgan@fennemorelaw.com.