The E&E News article on the hearing did not mention Mr. Desautel’s testimony, and I didn’t see it covered elsewhere other than Tribal news sources, so I thought I’d focus a post on it.
Thanks to Nick Smith for the link to this video of Cody Desautel on Indianz.com. Below is an excerpt from the Indianz.com story.
Cody Desautel, president of the Intertribal Timber Council and executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, testifies about federal forest management at a hearing on April 17, 2024.
Desautel, a Colville citizen, spoke of the need to include tribal governments in federal forest policy. He specifically pointed to the risks that tribes face from wildfires on federal lands, many of which include treaty territories. Federal lands also lie adjacent to a number of reservations.
“When these lands don’t receive adequate management, or are severely damaged by wildfires tribes feel the impact,” Desautel stated in his written testimony.
Desautel appeared at a hearing before the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands, which is part of the House Committee on Natural Resources. The hearing was called to discuss a Republican-led draft forest management bill that has not yet been introduced in the 118th Congress.
Let’s take a look at which of the ideas in the Westerman Bill that the ITC supports. Here’s a link to his written testimony.
The legislation primarily uses a combination of priority firesheds identified in the “Wildfire Crisis Strategy” and existing national Fireshed Registry ratings to prioritize fuels reduction projects. The ITC recommends adding a provision that allows states and Indian tribes to identify and request additional areas for assessments and treatment. Wildfire is a complex phenomenon that can be unpredictable. Many of the areas most devastated by wildfire in recent years do not appear on the Registry at all. Likewise, areas that have burned in recent years are treated at a lower risk of future wildfire. While that may be true in the very short term, large areas with standing dead snags may pose a much greater risk of catastrophic fires as time goes on. We recommend more research about how to calculate wildfire risk from these massive dead zones on federal lands
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Treat Tribes the Same as Other Governments for Implementation (NEPA) Authorities
The ITC appreciates that the bill authorizes tribes to request participation in producing the fireshed assessments. Tribes are best situated to define risks, strategies for reducing the threat of those risks, and determining the benchmark goals for their communities. For the sake of parity, we request that Tribal Forest Protection Act projects on federal lands be provided the same implementation authorities, such as emergency NEPA procedures and categorical exclusions. This would be helpful in accelerating TFPA treatments across the country.
A prime example of this is the Tule River Tribe’s TFPA project in the Sequoia National Forest in California. The NEPA process for the project, intended to protect giant sequoias from stand-replacement fire, took roughly a decade to get through. By the time of implementation, wildfire was already affecting the sequoia stands. Congress ultimately stepped in to create emergency authorities for fuels treatment.
ITC would recommend that the Bureau of Indian Affairs be included as a member of the Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program. The BIA is included as a representative in the Fireshed Center and Public-Private Wildfire Technology Deployment and Testbed Partnership, and should serve in the same capacity to protect tribal interests in this program.
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The Colville tribe is working through a similar situation where a TFPA project that shares 10 miles of boundary with the reservation was approved in 2014, later reduced because of the 2015 Northstar fire, and had the NEPA decision litigated in 2023. Now –10 years later—we are working on a new version of the project with no treatment accomplished on the ground to date. While tribes understand the importance of environmental review, we also understand that we must live with those decisions and justify our actions to our tribal membership. Decisions that impact natural and cultural resources are not things we take lightly.
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The ITC appreciates the inclusion of traditional ecological knowledge in the definition of “Best Available Science” used in the fireshed assessments. This can be a critical tool to better understand the historic forest characteristics and fire behavior. It will be important to respect the tribal sovereignty of our 574 federally recognized tribes, and ensure we have a process for collection and protection of this data that meets the needs of each tribal government. The ITC also appreciates the inclusion of cultural burning as a designated fireshed management project. For many tribes this will be a critical tool to accomplish their risk reduction goals.
The ITC supports the bill’s provisions that address full tribal inclusion in Good Neighbor Authority, and adding the National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to that authority. We also support extending the length of stewardship contracting authority. To ensure we have the infrastructure needed to accomplish these fireshed management goals we will need a healthy forest products industry. To achieve this, we must have long term commitments to forest products supply chains. The Wildfire Mitigation and Management Commission also recommended investments in wood processing facilities and the wood utilization sector more generally.
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Litigation Reform
The bill’s provision on litigation reform mirrors existing direction from Congress in the Healthy Forests Restoration Act. Since federal forests are often managed by the whim of federal courts, we believe it is reasonable for Congress to direct courts to weigh the long-term effects of fuels reduction versus wildfire impacts to untreated areas. With approximately half of the reservation burning over between 2015 and 2021 we have firsthand experience with fire effects on untreated areas. Although we have an active forest and fuels management program, we are not funded to work at the pace and scale needed for our forest types. The consequence is high severity wildfire in many of untreated areas. It would be irresponsible to assume “no action” means “no impacts” as we continue to see the growing impacts past management practices and climate change.
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Better Accounting of Accomplishments
We also support better reporting of fuels reduction projects by type and effectiveness. A true accounting of footprint acres with a quantified risk reduction will help track our success, and inform future investments and projects. We would recommend the work done by the Department of the Interior to consider the “avoided costs” of various fuels treatments.
The ITC also supports the creation of an interagency group focused on technology development and deployment. The Wildfire Mitigation and Management Commission had 16 recommendations dedicated to the integrating modern science and technology. By collaboratively combining the resources of the federal agencies, academia, and private industry we can utilize existing tools, and develop new tools that improve our effectiveness in achieving these wildfire risk reduction goal.
On the whole, the ITC supports the intent of this legislation to accelerate the pace and scale of high priority fuels work on federal lands. The ITC requests that the Committee review additional recommendations to Congress from the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission report, particularly those that involve tribes and tribal forest and fire management
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How much sovereignty do Tribes have over different National Forests (I assume it varies by Forest)? How would the Tribal rights be balanced, say if a Tribe were concerned that a project to protect their hunting and fishing or other rights were held up by litigation in court? This seems like an interesting legal area.. maybe someone knows more about this.
I, too, “believe it is reasonable for Congress to direct courts to weigh the long-term effects of fuels reduction versus wildfire impacts to untreated areas.”
It’s not the role of courts to weigh “effects” on the land. It’s their job to make sure that the agency considers the relevant factors and makes a decision based on them that is not arbitrary. An EA would normally do this, but apparently they would make this a requirement for using this CE. (It would be nonsensical to tell the agency it doesn’t have to analyze the effects, but tell the courts to do it.)
Tribal rights to national forests would be defined by the treaties of each tribe. The treaties vary but generally address the right to continue subsistence activities.
E.g.
https://narf.org/vacate_repsis/#:~:text=On%20March%2028%2C%202024%2C%20the,Ten%20Bear.
The anadromous fish cases for example establish that dams affecting treaty fishing rights can be judicially reviewed. I think it would be a stretch for a court to say that not implementing a project that might prevent a fire could impair treaty rights. That would imply an affirmative management obligation in treaties that I don’t think exists.