Politics

Practice of Science Friday: How Local Politicians May or May Not Influence Number of Projects and Level of Analysis

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In the  comments from yesterday, Forrest Fleischmann mentioned this study, and I think it’s worth looking at the study a bit more.

What Forrest said in the comments was:

By contrast, local people living near federal lands in the US have very substantial political rights to express their opinions and participate in decision-making both through formalized processes (e.g. through NEPA and NFMA and associated public comment processes) and a wide variety of informal political processes at multiple levels (e.g. our recent research suggests that local politics has a fairly direct influence on agency decision-making beyond notice and comment procedures – https://academic.oup.com/jpart/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jopart/muab037/6364117). And local people in the US often exert leadership over decision making on forest lands because unlike in India, in the US individuals, tribes, and local governments own forest land, and also have various opportunities to exert leadership over the management of public land.

 

First, I’ll say that local decisions are not what I was originally talking about. I’m thinking more of national rules like Roadless or Planning. From the discussions in DC around the 2012 Planning Rule, I think local officials didn’t have much of a bite at the apple (although it was too complex for most to follow, probably). Bur originally I was speaking of things like Monument declarations and legislation (such as the potential Reconciliation bill or Wilderness bills) that do not take public comments and do not have EIS’s. These larger scale decisions (like not funding fuel treatments outside WUI) or keeping OHV’s out of newly Monumented areas, may have little local involvement (a trip by the Secretary of the Interior?). Projects can only occur within those larger decisions which seem to be made elsewhere. Like Washington D.C. for example, where issues tend to get scrunched into a partisan framing and often lack local or even regional context.  George Hoberg at University of British Columbia tracked that back to the intentional nationalizing of issues by major ENGO’s around the time of the spotted owl intentionally to counter what was seen to be “pro-timber localism”.

Still, given that the study looks at more local kinds of decisions, let’s look at the abstract:

Research on political control over government bureaucracy has primarily focused on direct exercises of power such as appointments, funding, agency design, and procedural rules. In this analysis, we extend this literature to consider politicians who leverage their institutional standing to influence the decisions of local field officials over whom they have no explicit authority. Using the case of the US Forest Service (USFS), we investigate whether field-level decisions are associated with the political preferences of individual congressional representatives. Our sample encompasses 7,681 resource extraction actions initiated and analyzed by 107 USFS field offices between 2005 and 2018. Using hierarchical Bayesian regression, we show that under periods of economic growth and stability, field offices situated in the districts of congressional representatives who oppose environmental regulation initiate more extractive actions (timber harvest, oil and gas drilling, grazing) and conduct less rigorous environmental reviews than field offices in the districts of representatives who favor environmental regulation. By extending existing theories about interactions between politicians and bureaucrats to consider informal means of influence, this work speaks to (1) the role of local political interests in shaping agency-wide policy outcomes and (2) the importance of considering informal and implicit means of influence that operate in concert with explicit control mechanisms to shape bureaucratic behavior.

I think that this study may suffer from a current trend I’ve noticed in many other studies. The ability to use large datasets leads to conclusions that seem based on correlation without delving into any mechanisms for why the correlation might occur, nor testing different hypotheses about those proposed mechanisms. There’s also the question for such datasets, why is a given scale chosen? Some have argued that academic journals like worldwide conclusions best. Yet mechanisms may be different at different scales, as well as correlations. My old example is an economic one. If you close a mill in Forks, Washington, then that economy is impacted, but the economy of the State is not. So the answer you get depends on the scale you pick.

But let’s take it from the other end. Why do FS workers initiate “extractive” actions (are cattle and sheep really “extractive”?)

Oil and gas leasing and permitting is run by BLM and is leased by them based on a complicated process that we have discussed here, or you can read about on their website. Given that, we’d have to go back to BLM and see whether oil and gas leasing decisions are affected by local representatives. They can be, but that works both ways, to not lease or to lease; and which restrictions go where. This is something that would require further analysis to make a conclusion in my mind, because the BLM and FS can be quite different.

Many grazing leases are in the interior west. The interior west is full of Republicans. Ergo, Republicans want to extract and that’s the reason there are grazing leases. I would say not. Historically, the Interior West (not coastal here, I think that would require further analysis) has been an area with grazing (due to lack of water for food crops) and mining, including, as our minerals friends would say “fluid minerals.” Therefore, there are grazing leases, oil and gas leasing decisions, and mining decisions to be had. For some reasons, which only historians and political scientists can tell us, many local officials are Republicans (perhaps that’s what the authors meant by the coyly worded “congressional representatives who oppose environmental regulation.”) But there are not more grazing leases because there are Republicans.

Timber harvest is a different kettle of fish.  As we can see here at TSW, the dynamics are very different in coastal states than in the Interior west. They’re probably even different in different parts of, say, California. It’s also super confusing as so many projects with timber harvest have a variety of purpose and needs, and the existence of mills and so on. If we just look at the handy Headwaters chart for states and volume of timber produced, we see that two heavily Democratic states have the highest volumes (328K cut California, 402K Oregon). It’s actually pretty interesting to take your State where you might know the Congressfolk involved and look at the forest volume sold. Of course, if we looked at the number of projects with a timber component, it might be different. let’s take fuels treatment projects with a timber component.  For example, there were many bucks (and their own CE) associated with getting fuel treatment done around Lake Tahoe. Did all those bucks come due to Congressman McClintock? I think not.  Indeed,  the number of fuel treatment projects in each Congressional District is likely to be associated with how much money that unit gets passed down to them via the DC-Regional-Forest-District budgeting process.

As to “rigor of analysis” I’d say that all O&G  decisions are likely to get litigated, so they’d all be pretty rigorous. Most grazing decisions are not (where I worked) so that would be a function of the local unit’s NEPA culture. As to vegetation treatments, it might be that the presence of environmental groups who might litigate and local officials of the “support environmental regulation” persuasion are correlated due to the presence of people in the community with those views. But would the FS “depth” of analysis be related to the likelihood of being litigated, or the presence of local officials of a given philosophical persuasion? I don’t know but it could be teased out via experimental design. Or I guess we could ask the people currently working how they decide.

My point is that correlation is not causation. To understand causation, we’d have to talk about specific mechanisms for “informal and implicit” means of influencing decisions. It seems like this is an increasingly common way to do research- take big data, on as large a scale as possible, and correlate. We’ll look at more of these studies in the future.

Budd Falen: Standing Up for Rural Constituents

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Salon

Karen Budd Falen was the Deputy Solicitor for Parks and Wildlife in the Department of Interior for three years, and she left with the rest of the Trump administration, capping off a notable career in opposing public lands.  She appears to come by that view honestly, being raised on a Wyoming ranch and representing ranchers as an attorney (including the Bundys).  She reflects in this short piece on her legacy of changing the Endangered Species Act regulations and National Environmental a Policy Act regulations to promote more “local control” (as well as with the Land and Water Conservation Fund).

I take issue with her arguments in both cases that the laws the regulations implement (ESA and NEPA) were intended to allow social and economic considerations to play the role she has provided for them.  These statutes are both clearly aimed at the “natural environment,” and not local “custom and culture.”  Remarkably, she appears to admit that, “the listing of a species should be based only on science,” but then she has made it harder to do that with various changes in the ESA implementing regulations (which go beyond those she describes here in relation to critical habitat).

My fundamental disagreement with her and those she represents concerns this statement (and I suspect it may be a reason for differing opinions on this blog):

In my view, local elected officials should have more sway on issues directly affecting them than someone from midtown New York who has never faced the realities of making a living from the land.

The major gloss-over here is that endangered wildlife and federal lands don’t belong more to local people and their elected officials.  Her view that local interests should have more influence is not supported by either of these laws, and it is not the view held by most of the people that these resources do belong to.  Should the Biden administration not reverse these regulations, courts will have another opportunity to slap down the misinformation from her, and organizations she has worked for like the Mountain States Legal Foundation, that has led to ideas like “county supremacy” limiting how national forests are managed.

(Here is a little background from just before Trump decided she could not get confirmed as BLM Director.)

“Tracking Biden’s environmental actions”

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The Washington Post has put together a “scorecard” for “environmental actions” to be taken by the Biden Administration to reverse over 200 Trump policies in seven categories, sorted by how hard they would be to overturn.  Those marked by dark orange are already “overturned,” those in lighter orange are “targeted,” and the rest “not yet targeted.”  Overall, 8 have been overturned, 60 have been targeted, and 139 are not yet targeted.  Here’s the categories and total amounts.

Air pollution and greenhouse gases (64)

Chemical safety (14)

Drilling and extraction (61)

Infrastructure and permitting (26)

Transparency (2)

Water pollution (13)

Wildlife (27)

Public land management may be affected by actions in several of these categories, but “Drilling and extraction” includes logging, so I’ve copied some of that list above.  Among the priority actions (overturned or targeted) include Utah national monuments, timber harvesting on BLM lands, the protest process for federal timber sales, the Tongass roadless rule, and fracking rules.  Also, in the “wildlife” category, ESA critical habitat designation, spotted owl critical habitat and Endangered Species Act consultation have been targeted.   Not yet targeted include many things we have discussed on this blog, such as:  the Eastside Screens old growth plan amendment, the executive order encouraging logging on federal lands, sage grouse protection, Twin Metals mine leases near Boundary Waters, the Tonto NF copper mine, Forest Service NEPA regulations, and CEQ NEPA regulations.  It’s also interesting to note the number of these that are “under litigation,” which may also provide leverage to undo Trump actions.

I hope this is something they will continue to update with successes and failures and new targetings.

Team-building for Congress and Other Unlikely Proposals to Promote Unity

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President Biden again stressed unity and civility in his Inaugural Address. Last week I wrote an op-ed, published in the Colorado Springs Gazette with some helpful, if potentially unpopular, suggestions. Here’s a link.

I think our country needs to take a deep breath now that this election is over. I don’t think the problem is really the existence of people who disagree with each other-we always have- but rather the way we disagree, and how politicians and the current media business models tend to inflame those disagreements. If we frame the problem this way, the goal would be simply to calm the seas of civic life.

President-elect Joe Biden wants to promote unity. Based on my experience in DC, both as a career federal employee, and assignments In Congress and at the White House, I’ve got a few suggestions.

First, Congress clearly needs the mother of all team-building sessions. As a veteran of many, I’d suggest AOC and Lauren Boebert be assigned to the same small group. No one will be assigned their office until they’ve worked in a small group composed of Members from both parties and have signed on to five agreed upon proposals.

Second, have you ever noticed that proposed federal regulations have public comment periods, and yet legislative proposals don’t? If they did, everyone would be able to weigh in, not just interest groups of various kinds.

Each interest group wants something that’s best for them, not necessarily for the public. They could start with the list of all the proposals developed in the above team- building.

Third would be no Twitter accounts for elected officials. If the past four years have shown us anything, it’s that Tweeting instead of press releases is anathema to thoughtful public discourse. I actually went on Senator Cory Gardner’s once and felt like I needed a cleansing ritual afterwards. People were simply nasty. Why intentionally provide a safe space for hate? I’d make a rule that like career feds, elected officials can’t have their own Twitter accounts.

Fourth would be no money seeking for elected officials. I volunteered to work on now-Governor Jared Polis’ campaign via the website, but I never heard back except with emails asking for donations. Perhaps because I was on that list, I also received emails from an account in his name after he was elected, asking for more donations. Not a good look for public officials, in my opinion.

When people take their oaths of office, I think they should also suspend all donation seeking or other activities related to campaigning or future campaigns. They would only be able to campaign for themselves and only starting, say, four months before the election. That way we would know for sure they were working on what we were paying them to work on (governing, not stumping).

Fifth, we need a bipartisan Internal Peace Commission led by retired legislators and others with input from academic and practicing conflict resolution folks. We’re always talking about “using the best science” in policy. What policy could be more important than making our mutual public life better? Good policies flow from good people, quality and open discussions, and working in good faith.

It’s a simple idea. We know what’s broken. Let’s take a deep breath, reset our mistrust and hate levels to zero and get at it.

Other suggestions?

A Unification Approach to Bears Ears: Let’s Swear Off Political Sharp Sticks in the Eye

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Conservation Lands Foundation board member and former Interior Secretary at a meeting in Durango, Colorado. Photo by Steve Lewis, Durango Herald.
Lisa Friedman of the New York Times wrote an interesting article about the top things the new administration could do for the environment.

Most of her nine are about climate change. Of most interest to us, is perhaps one she calls “Restore Wildlife Areas”

According to her, Mr. Biden has pledged to take “immediate steps to reverse the Trump assault on America’s national treasures” including major cuts in 2017 to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments as well as opening parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. He has said on the first day of his administration that he will sign an executive order to conserve 30 percent of US lands and waters by 2030.”

We’ll be continuing to discuss the details of a 30 x 30 goal.

One concept I’ve never heard political writers talk about is what I would call the “sharp stick in the eye” factor, which I think deserves more exploration. Bears Ears was monumentized following the loss of an election. We have heard from the same people that it’s bad for Supreme Court nominees to be picked too close to an election, but the same folks argue that it was fine to Monumentize an area where many elected officials are of the opposing party after an election. It seems to me that these positions are inconsistent, and I’ve found that inconsistent and or illogical positions are often guideposts to decisions that are ultimately political (in the sense of pleasing someone at the expense of others). Anyway, to me that was an intentional sharp stick in the eye. It will be interesting to see if we agree on the SSE (sharp stick) factor. I’d give Bears Ears an 8 on a 1-10 scale.

I don’t think the “uniting” approach would be to “immediately reverse” what the Trump Administration did. That would be just another sharp stick in the eye.. haven’t we had enough of those? What about sitting down again with folks in the area and concerned groups looking at a variety of alternatives without the drama of the Nationally Significant Focus by Some Groups as a Symbol. Certainly the only choice is not “these 2016 lines with these 2016 restrictions”. As Chris Wood said about the 2001 Roadless Rule, “it wasn’t written on stone tablets.”

Despite the fears, we didn’t see any oil and gas nor additional uranium development. Maybe, as we have seen, increasing recreation in the area would be bad for the environment, or people come whether or not it’s a Monument, or people overuse trails and spread Covid to locals. Seems like the last four years have had changes that could be considered in such a discussion.

Mark Squillace, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, tells the story of when he accompanied Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit to affected communities to discuss Grand Staircase-Escalante national Monument. The way his story goes, talking person to person with Babbit may have actually changed minds, or at least reduced the atmosphere of antipathy. (Of course, that’s Mark’s side of the story, but we don’t have another one, so I’ll go with it.)

Here’s my unifying approach based on that:
1. Send the Secretary out there (presence is a great symbol) as part of a public comment period
2. Determine to listen respectfully to the other sides, including elected officials from the other party (!). As the President-elect said, they are not your enemy.
3. Do a deal with the goal of stability.. “can everyone live with this?”

Actually, it sounds a lot like plain old collaboration. It’s also what states have to do regularly, which is why I like former western governors and DNR directors for Interior Secretaries.
It’s interesting to think about why it is that when the stakes are higher than at the State level, it seems like collaboration takes a back seat and “winner takes all” takes over. But internationally, we’d reject that approach in supporting peace processes. Perhaps national politics are some kind of anomaly. Not in a good way.

I ran across this article from only five years ago from the Durango Herald on Babbitt’s then-current activities:

The pushback from the energy production industry is a major obstacle, but Babbitt said he has long held the belief that the two, preservation and industry, can co-exist.

“How many of you know, that there is gas production at the Canyon of the Ancients?” Babbitt asked the crowd of about 30 members and non-members. “The opponent says you’re taking things off the slate of use and production, that the land is just being set aside for weak environmentalists. But (oil and gas) can be managed with minimal impact. It is possible to make them work together.

And one reason the BLM is taking such good care of that place is because they’re looking over their shoulder,” he said. “That’s the model for the entire West, and it began right here in Durango.”

I think by “they” in the last sentence Babbitt meant local people given the context. Also Babbitt talks about BLM’s National Conservation Lands which sounds like it could be an alternative to monumentizing, especially when an Administration starts with enough time for such a process.

Setting the Table for Unity: An Extravagantly Immodest Proposal

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Today (perhaps) is the last day we don’t know what color of Administration we’ll have. So I’ll propose something that either party could adopt. I’m going to focus on the idea of uniting and getting better policy. Here are my assumptions: 1) a diversity of ideas to select from promotes better policy 2) wide swings don’t help anyone (the Freudenthal (D former Governor of Wyoming) view) 3) you can favor your friends without punishing your enemies (this is something that perhaps can’t be measured, but can be sensed). We discussed pretty much the same topic in August here, along with the Freudenthal quote. We’ve also talked about the role that the Western Governors could play in terms of Living With Fire.

It seems odd to me that as a citizen, I can weigh in on, as an individual, a 500 acre fuels reduction project. But I can’t weigh in on the priorities of an administration. Citizens can via interest groups, but when was the last time you observed an interest group taking a poll of its members before it determined a policy (let alone a political party!). I always say a political party is a bit like the old church expression “pray pay and obey” without the “pray.”

What if the new administration scoped its priorities? Even though this is an immodest proposal, I’m just talking our own little world of FS and BLM, and private forest issues not, say, immigration or health care or climate change.

Of course, that is a naive idea. We don’t have much of a choice on priorities.. we had a dichotomous choice for Prez and that decision leads directly to whatever they and their allies want done. Even if we voted for a party, most of us have no ability to influence their agenda.. it’s take it or leave it. And we don’t even know for sure what the elected will do, as the people running take more extreme positions to attract votes in the primaries and then moderate to try to win the general election- and some proposals are chiefly symbolic- not feasible or legal. Even the folks who voted for them have no control over what they ultimately do. I get that.. but we don’t have any input (as opposed to control, a relatively tiny ask IMHO) either. Unless we agree with favored interest groups. And so it goes. And so the labels on the chairs outside the Secretary of Interior’s office are changed back and forth from industry to environmental groups, when most of us would want to arrive at some agreement and move on to the next issue. And most of us don’t serve on the boards of companies and NGO’s that exert their influence on administrations.

I’m thinking of some kind of advisory committee, which would be tasked with reviewing, helping select and developing options, with the help of agency folks and others in an open process. This does happen in rule-making, (think ANPR) but the solution to every problem is not rulemaking (nor undoing the previous administrations’ rules). And solutions can be micro and macro or a combination. But if we focus on rulemaking, we’ve already privileged some points of view and skill sets and left out others. This advisory committee could also review how changes are working and recommend course corrections. One of the problems we have is that Party A will start something and Party B will throw it out instead of trying to fix it. Some (most) problems are way too complex for the first tweaks to work perfectly. And an advisory committee could outlive the reigns of Party A or Party B and be a unifying and centering force.

But how to select people to not just replicate partisan warfare? This is where the new administration could decide to “set the table for unity.” When Colorado took up working on a state Roadless Rule, different parts of the government picked members of the task force (members also covered a range of interests).

We can imagine some ratio of appointed by party in power, appointed by party not in power, and of most interest, those unique individuals that are agreed upon by both parties. These folks tend to have talent and experience in bringing people together, and are pretty much the folks who do the heavy lifting on arriving at agreements. We can also imagine variations like “what if the environmental folks picked the oil and gas person?” or “what if the oil and gas people picked an environmental group representative?” We could also throw in some folks designated by the Western Governors since most federal land is located in the west.

At the end of the day, it’s still fine for decisions to be made by an Administration’s circle of friends. But I think with this approach, the Administration would be much more knowledgeable about other paths and practical and political trade-offs.

I’d be interested in any examples you all have of: getting direct public input on priorities, long-term valued advisory group, and other ways of setting the table for unity. We also have a substantial scientific literature on successful collaboration that might be applied to such an effort.

Request for Posts: Ideas for a New Administration

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It’s that time again… I’m looking for contributions on “ideas for a new administration”. A blog post is 500-700 words. I’m sure many of you have ideas. Why share them on The Smokey Wire?

We can help you refine your ideas through our usual vigorous exchange and review. My thinking is that any administration tends to hear from the folks on “their side” of issues, and they could potentially be limiting the ideas that they consider. We can also help you think of ways your idea could be implemented (statutory or rule change, etc.)

The Forest Service (as well as other institutions) is not always known as a place where creative ideas are greeted with enthusiasm, so any current employees may find a supportive environment for their creativity here.

Here are some possible ticklers:

(1) One candidate said that his goal is to unite people across partisan lines. Maybe the other candidate will decide to do that also? What programs or processes would you suggest to convert that idea from words to behavior? What metrics could we use to rate him on this in four years?

(2) What do you see as a “low hanging fruit” that would help save money or make things run better?

(3) What is something that could really help federal lands and the people who manage them, but neither party has been interested in. Possibly because politically there is no powerful group pushing for it and the political calculus doesn’t work out to push it. But.. it would help.

Please send potential posts to my email. It’s under the donate widget to the right. All can add more ticklers or brief ideas below. For whatever reason you might wish to do so, anonymous submissions are welcome.

Forest plans and legislation – Blackfoot-Clearwater wilderness proposal

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Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project map, Feb. 2018.

Wilderness designation has always been controversial in Montana.  No new wilderness areas have been established by Congress since I believe 1977, and unlike most states there has never been statewide wilderness legislation.  The Blackfoot-Clearwater proposal to designate 90,000 acres on the Lolo National Forest was locally developed and has been pending in Congress for several years.  Its development included addressing issues related to motorized and mechanized recreation that we have been discussing here, and designates areas for both.  This article provides some background, and includes a link to the written statement from the Forest Service regarding the proposed legislation.

The statement relates to forest planning in a couple of ways.  First, the Forest Service uses the Lolo National Forest forest plan as the foundation for its position on the legislation.

We also have concerns about implementing section 202, which establishes the Spread Mountain Recreation Area for the apparent purpose of enhancing mountain biking opportunities. The Lolo’s current land and resource management plan identifies this area as recommended wilderness. This area is characterized generally by steep topography, sensitive soils, and contains sensitive fish and wildlife habitat. Trail 166 is the main access into this area. This trail is not maintained, not passable by riders on horseback, and becomes difficult to locate after the first mile. While we acknowledge the interest in expanding opportunities for mountain biking on the Lolo, we are concerned that the site designated for the Spread Mountain Recreation Area is not well-suited for this use, and that this designation could create conflicts with wildlife and other recreation uses.

Two of the three wilderness designations in Title III are consistent with the recommendations made in the existing Lolo National Forest land and resource management plan. The third designation (West Fork Clearwater) was not recommended in the management plan to be Wilderness, it was allocated to be managed to optimize recovery of the Grizzly Bear.

One might argue that the 1986 forest plan is outdated, and recent local efforts should be given greater consideration.  However, those efforts have not been through any formal public process, so I commend the Forest Service for using its forest plan.  I’m not sure whether NFMA’s consistency requirement applies to taking positions on legislation, but it is probably the right place to start.  The proposal is also interesting in its legislative designation of two “recreation areas,” taking these decisions out of the forest planning process.

The Lolo is scheduled to begin its forest plan revision process in 2023, and the Forest Service is also concerned about the interaction between the revision process and this legislation.  It sounds like mostly a budgetary concern:

Our primary concerns pertain to Title II. Section 203 which would require the Forest Service to prepare a National Environmental Policy Act analysis for any collaboratively developed proposal to improve motorized and non-motorized recreational trail opportunities within the Ranger District within three years of receipt of the proposal… If passed in its current form, this bill could require recreation use allocation planning for site-specific portions of the Seeley Lake Ranger District ahead of the broader plan revision process, which would forestall the Lolo’s ability to broadly inform land use allocations across the forest through the plan revision process… If enacted, the explicit timeframes currently contained in the bill could result in prioritizing the analysis of a collaboratively developed proposal to expand the trail system over other emergent work.

But they might also be suggesting that the site-specific recreation planning would benefit from waiting until the forest plan is revised.  (Or maybe they just don’t like deadlines.)

National forests in the presidential campaign

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I found two articles in my newsfeed this morning from sources I have rarely or never heard from, and on both sides of the political canyon.  Both are related to the respective campaigns.

People for the American Way used a Forest Service case to make their point about the risk of more conservative judges being nominated by a Republican administration.  Here’s the headline: “Trump Judge Tries to Permit Forest Service to Proceed with Commercial Logging of Trees Without Assessing Environmental Impact: Confirmed Judges Confirmed Fears.”  They provide a reasonable summary of EPIC v. Carlson (which we reported here), but attack the dissent written by the Trump appointee, saying, “If it had been up to Trump judge Lee, however, that would not be the case, risking significant environmental injury.”

I’m not sure there is anything particularly unusual about this case – traditionally conservative judges seem to be more willing to defer to agency expertise (though Trump refers to agency expertise as “the swamp”).  I do think it is unusual for a national forest lawsuit to be dragged into a presidential campaign.

Then there was the logger who spoke at the Republican National Convention, and was featured in Breitbart.

“Under Obama-Biden, radical environmentalists were allowed to kill the forests,” Dane said.

“Under President Trump, we’ve seen a new recognition of the value of forest management in reducing wildfires,” Dane said. “And we’ve seen new support for our way of life—where a strong back and a strong work ethic can build a strong middle class.”

“We want to build families where we’re raised and stand by communities that have stood by us,” Dane said. “We want that way of life available for the next generation, and we want our forests there too.”

The debates about the “value of forest management in reducing wildfires” of course haven’t been settled.  But I’m more interested here in the idea that it should be the role of government to perpetuate anyone’s industry, job, hometown or “way of life,” logging in particular.  (I always thought Republicans wanted to limit the role of government.)

BLM apparently leaderless

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Speaking of “politicals” making decisions, here is the latest on one of them, following the announcement that BLM’s acting director would not be nominated for the position.

The Trump administration’s method of keeping the controversial acting head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in power even after his nomination is withdrawn is likely not legal, according to experts who have reviewed the orders.

But Pendley is still running the agency because of succession orders dictating that the acting chief will lead the department if the director role remains unfilled.

Legal experts say the succession orders are dubious because the officials whose tenure has been questioned are the ones assigning themselves their new positions. The order was written and signed by Pendley, essentially giving himself the authority to act as director.

That runs afoul of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and allegedly the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.  This law limits temporary appointments to 210 days.  Not mentioned in this article is the consequence of such an illegal appointment, which is  – (Congressional Research Report, citing 5 U.S.C. § 3348(d)):

Unless an acting officer is serving in compliance with the Vacancies Act, any attempt to perform the functions and duties of that office will have no force or effect.

The most direct means to enforce the Vacancies Act is through private suits in which courts may nullify noncompliant agency actions…  The Vacancies Act renders noncompliant actions “void ab initio,” meaning that they were “null from the beginning,” by providing that such actions have “no force or effect.”

Do you suppose anyone might sue to void any of Pendley’s illegal political decisions?