The race to be named the top boss of the state's public lands is getting crowded with five Democrats and two Republicans on the ticket.
The primary is less than two weeks away with ballots arriving on voters' doorsteps. The candidates' views align on some issues, such as building on progress made to wildfire response and preparedness. They differ on how to manage cutting and selling lumber from state forests that support public funding.
No one person or entity, other than the federal government, has more influence over Washington's landscape than the state lands commissioner, who presides over about 6 million acres of the state's forest, range, agricultural, aquatic and commercial lands — with firefighting responsibilities covering 13 million acres of public and private land.
Current Commissioner Hilary Franz announced last year she would not seek a third term and instead pursue higher office. In the Aug. 6 primary, voters will narrow the field to two candidates, who will then face off in November.
Leading the pack in fundraising is Metropolitan King County Council member and Democrat Dave Upthegrove, who has described himself as leading with "strong conservation values" with endorsements from the Sierra Club and King County Executive Dow Constantine. The former state representative has raised over a half-million dollars, refusing money from the timber industry.
Across the aisle is former U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican from Battle Ground, Clark County. Herrera Beutler is second in fundraising and has accepted donations from the timber industry, with American Forest Resource Council, Sierra Pacific, Dunn Lumber and Western Forest Products among her biggest donors.
The two candidates are trailed in fundraising by career firefighter and Democratic state legislator Kevin Van De Wege, as well as Democrat Patrick DePoe, former Makah vice chair and DNR's director of tribal relations. DePoe and Van De Wege also received donations from timber groups including the American Forest Resource Council. Republican Sue Kuehl Pederson, who ran against Franz in 2020, has the state GOP's endorsement but has only raised $26,000.
DePoe has support from Franz and at least 16 tribal nations. Van De Wege boasts endorsements from Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, the Snoqualmie Tribe and dozens of labor and firefighters unions.
Two other Democrats, Jeralee Anderson and Allen Lebovitz, have together raised less than $5,000 and have few endorsements listed on their websites.
The position comes at a critical moment when fire risk has ramped up across the state, claiming lives and resulting in more fire starts on the wetter west side of the state for the first time in recorded history. The election also comes during a time when debate on how to manage the state's forests has reached a boiling point.
How should we manage our state's forests?
Some environmental groups are calling on DNR to reimagine its role amid a changing climate.
They want the agency to conserve some older forests for habitat, carbon sequestration and water quality, something they see as a higher purpose for public lands. In some cases, they have sued to stop the sale of these forests to commercial logging companies.
The next leader must juggle these conservation demands with a duty to sell trees and lease lands to fund essential services at counties and schools that rely on DNR's land management for revenue. Some believe that duty could be interpreted more loosely after a 2022 state Supreme Court ruling.
As commissioner, Upthegrove has pledged to preserve so-called legacy forests, which are not considered old growth but are stands of older trees believed to promote biodiversity, provide animal habitat and combat climate change better than forests logged more recently. Upthegrove has previously supported efforts to pause local timber sales until the agency develops a policy to protect these forests.
If elected, Upthegrove said he would direct DNR to harvest timber on other younger parcels while developing long-term revenue alternatives. This could include acquiring more land for the trust or distributing trust money more progressively toward low-income timber-dependent counties.
"What I'm advocating isn't a reduction in harvest but changing where we harvest," he said.
Meanwhile, Herrera Beutler believes managed forests — where some timber is harvested — are healthier forests and that the agency needs to push back on "extreme anti-forestry activists."
Herrera Beutler represented timber and other natural-resource-dependent communities spanning Southwest Washington, including the Vancouver area. She believes the crux of the position as lands commissioner is balancing duties to the communities that receive revenue from timber harvests and the need to conserve lands for habitat.
She said before considering adjusting the rate of timber harvest, the agency needs to make sure enough is being harvested to meet the obligations to rural communities and forest health.
"In our state, we have swung the pendulum from this giant commercial logging operation over the last 150 years — of everything, public land, private land — to where now, I think people have been told you've got to set it all aside, it all has to be set aside in order for it to be healthy," she said. "And what we're seeing is, it's a balance."
DePoe says he's no stranger to this balance.
He's running on a platform of bringing people together and elevating the voices of tribal and rural communities. He supports maintaining the current rate of timber harvest, but if new protections are needed for state forests amid a changing climate, he said, those conversations should be collaborative and go back to the people.
"I understand the impacts on rural communities because I come from a rural community," DePoe said. When natural resource-dependent communities lose jobs, he said he's seen and deeply understands the impact on community members' mental health.
Native American leaders like Billy Frank Jr. helped bring communities and government officials to the table in the past to resolve these conflicts and develop the foundation for policies today. DePoe would like to oversee that same relationship to map out a path forward for managing public lands.
Van De Wege said he would support sticking to the schedule laid out by the state's sustainable harvest calculation. Conservation groups have had some "big wins," he said, and around half of the state's forests will never be harvested again. The state should manage the rest of the forests for fire, creating jobs and generating revenue for local governments, he said.
Lebovitz is calling for a new, more selective approach to cut fewer trees and help generate old-forest characteristics.
Instead of clear-cutting, foresters would choose harvests based on the value of the trees, leaving behind a diversity of canopy heights, ages and tree species in state forests, he said. Lebovitz also said he would replant cut forests with a mix of native species instead of monocrops to boost wildfire resilience, sequester more carbon and conserve water.
Wildfire and other issues
Franz worked with the Legislature in 2021 to pass a package of funding — $500 million across eight years — for wildfire preparedness and response. That included money for prescribed fire, homeowner preparedness, as well as new technology, including cameras and aircraft, to more quickly spot and respond to fires in hard-to-reach areas.
Most of the candidates agree that the current commissioner made good strides on wildfire preparedness and response, but more work is needed.
Last year, more fires started on the west side of the Cascades than east, and two fires in Spokane County claimed lives and destroyed more homes and other structures than any other wildfire in state history.
Upthegrove said he is interested in expanding forest health work like thinning and prescribed burns to Western Washington and investing in monitoring the effectiveness of these treatments.
He also said he would convert more seasonal wildfire jobs into permanent ones.
Herrera Beutler commended the previous commissioner's efforts to improve the state's wildfire strategy but said communities need to have more input.
She wants to reduce reaction times — from the time a call for assistance is made to the moment help arrives — which might include using more local contractors. She'd also like to see more collaboration with federal agencies and an emphasis on replanting stands after a fire.
DePoe noted that the funding Franz secured for wildfire preparedness will expire in 2029. As commissioner, he wants to show the success stories from those efforts and secure additional funding to do more work.
He'd also like to see the agency look to leadership from tribal nations and place a greater emphasis on traditional ecological knowledge, like expanding the use of prescribed burns, including on prairie and grasslands, to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires.
"Those are some of the things that we've practiced for generations," DePoe said.
Van De Wege, a career firefighter, has said his "No. 1 priority" is wildland fire and said as commissioner he would seek to strengthen the state's firefighting force. That might look like boosting pay and extending funding for thinning and prescribed burns.
As commissioner, Pederson would want to educate residents that DNR does not have the capacity to treat all forest land to prevent wildfire, as it currently strives to do in its 20-year plan, and that there are simple fixes homeowners can take to prevent their homes from burning down.
Most of the candidates have said they would keep Commissioner Franz's existing ban on commercial net-pen fish farming in state waters. A 2017 net-pen collapse off Cypress Island released 260,000 nonnative Atlantic Salmon in the Salish Sea.
Van De Wege, however, said he doesn't want to "close the door" on the possibility and could see "a potential of a heavily regulated, heavily permitted scenario" where some fish farming is allowed. He said the industry and the science have advanced since the net-pen collapse.
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