Update on FS Budget: R-6 Letter and NFFE Letter on New Wildland Firefighter Series

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My plans to attend the SAF Convention have changed, so I will be around posting here after all.

.. in the words of Robert Burns in his poem “To A Mouse”

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

This continues to be true of plans and policies, full of unintended consequences, that’s why the idea of being able to adjust- a la adaptive management- seems so beneficial.  Speaking of adapting, TSW readers sent in a few items of interest on the FS budget.
Below is a letter from Region 6. I’m curious as to what other Regions are doing and saying. Please tell us in comments or email me.
Letter from Region 6:

As we move into FY 2025, it’s important that there is clarity and consistency in our Region for hiring non-fire temporary employees (1039s) and tours for fire and non-fire Permanent Seasonal Employees (PSEs or 18/8s and 13/13s).

As you know, the Forest Service has worked over the last two years to stabilize and strategically grow our workforce. One important action we took nationally was to convert approximately 1,400 non-fire temporary (1039) employees to permanent status. Region 6 held a significant number of those conversions. That change helped provide these employees certainty and better benefits, as well as helping to ensure the agency benefits from a more permanent workforce to accomplish work on behalf of the American people.

We are likely confronting a very budget-limited environment in FY 2025. As leaders, it is our responsibility to plan for the most conservative funding picture. We need to make the best decisions we can now with the information we have. As such, we are planning to use the House Interior Subcommittee funding levels proposed for FY 2025. In addition to focusing on that proposed funding level, we are also navigating the exhaustion of the supplemental funding we received through both the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Additionally, over the last two years, we have absorbed two cost of living increases totaling close to 10%. All these factors mean we are contending with less funding overall in FY 2025 and we need to make adjustments and accommodations.

We are navigating the challenges we face by anchoring to our core values as the guide in our decision making while prioritizing the collective financial health of the agency. As such, in Region 6 the following direction is now in place:
Temporary (1039) Employees
• In FY 2025 we will not be hiring (1039) temporary employees outside of fire.
• Temporary, non-fire employees hired and onboarded in FY 2024, with tours that go into FY 2025, will complete their tours.
Permanent Seasonal Employees (e.g., 13/13s and 18/8s)
• For fire (i.e, employees who charge base 8 salary to WFSE) and non-fire employees, existing tours will not be extended.

• Under certain circumstances when fire activity warrants, extensions may be granted for fire and non-fire PSE extensions. Additional guidance will be forthcoming that will
clarify how employees charge their time if/when their extensions are granted.
• For any Permanent Seasonal employees whose tours cross fiscal years, tours will be honored as specified in individual agreements.

This is a difficult change. Our entire workforce helps us live our core value of Service – to each other and to the public. The services we provide are critical to our Region and the people who live and visit our Forests and Grasslands. We are also all interdependent and we will work to adjust to this change by working together internally as well as our partners communities, volunteers, members of other agencies and Tribes.

As our workforce changes, the amount and type of work we will do will be different than in the past. I know we will all do the best work we can with the resources we have, but it’s a simple reality that producing the same outputs and outcomes with fewer employees isn’t feasible.
However, we will remain focused on our key priority work, especially in our 5 Wildfire Crisis Strategy landscapes. We are putting this hiring direction into place immediately.
Thank you for all that you do to make Region 6 such a success.

Letter from NFFE to USDA and FS on Wildland Firefighter Occupational Series, here’s a link to the letter.

The letter talks about issues around their involvement in the new occupational series, and also draws a line between budget concerns and problems with the series.  I’m not so sure they’re related, and I’m interested in the FS side of the story.

It is our opinion that the Forest Service sought to adopt what amounts to largely a “title change only” new occupational series to avoid a devastating budget shortfall by continuing the exploitation of its workforce. Ultimately, it is management’s responsibility to manage the workforce and address the serious issues employees have raised through the union. We did our best to influence and encourage good decision-making. Now we leave it to the members to determine whether the new series works for them.
We will be recommending that employees do not opt-in to the new series to receive the new title. Employees must apply and compete for an opportunity to be placed in a new career ladder under the 0456 series. The Union intends to use early engagement with the Agency to secure fair opportunity for current employees to be selected for any new career ladder positions. We will educate our members on their right to request desk audits once in the new series. It is unfortunate this effort will result in so many desk audits. Desk audits are administratively burdensome, time consuming and results may not be satisfactory. We asked management to make clear what duties are required of a position and what
duties employees may rightfully refuse to perform without fear of retaliation or discipline. Our union will make sure employees have the knowledge needed to navigate the irregularities within the new job series, if they choose to opt-in.
We will also be approaching Congress regarding our critical need for increased appropriations to support the wildland firefighting effort. Congress has oversight on the implementation of the new occupational series and we anticipate legislative inquiries will result from this letter. We have copied Members of Congress on this letter who support wildland firefighters to this end.
We ask OPM to become directly involved to address our raised issues as appropriate. We call on Congress to act and appropriate the necessary additional funds to pay wildland firefighters fairly and correctly for their work. Until federal wildland firefighters are paid at least commensurate with cooperators, we will continue to be short staffed and under-resourced to meet our nation’s forest management goals.

FWIW I submitted the same list of questions that we crowd-sourced here on the budget to USDA Press Office, as requested by the FS Press Office, and have not received an acknowledgement, which the FS Press Office is usually good about.
I wonder whether, if only fire people are hired, we might have a sort of “reverse militia” in which fire folks are trained to do other peoples’ work?
Anyway, please share any further information you have on the budget and related topics.
There’s apparently an employee webinar on the budget on Monday September 16. It would be great if someone would take notes, or even record it, for the rest of us.

Federal Lands Litigation – update through September 3, 2024

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FOREST SERVICE

Most Endangered Species Act litigation against the Forest Service is about the consultation process and the substantive jeopardy and critical habitat requirements of ESA (§7(a)(2)).  Another requirement is found in §7(a)(1), which imposes a duty on federal agencies to “utilize their authorities in furtherance of the purposes of this chapter by carrying out programs for the conservation of endangered species and threatened species.”  There is a logical link between recovery plans for listed species, forest plans for national forests and “programs” for species conservation.  This has not shown up in any earlier Forest Service court cases that I can remember, but here it is twice in the last month – the first two cases below.

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Forest Service (D. Arizona)

On August 19, the Center for Biological Diversity, Chiricahua Regional Council, Natural Allies, Wild Arizona, and Conservation CATalyst sued the Coronado National Forest over its proposal to build three miles of new road for recreational access to 20 miles of forest roads that are currently closed.  The lawsuit says the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to comply with jaguar and spotted owl recovery plans, as well as violating the forest plan.  Regarding recovery plans,  which are generally considered to be non-mandatory, the complaint says this:

“First, the Coronado Forest Plan provides that “[a]ctivities occurring within federally listed species habitat should apply habitat management objectives and species protection measures from approved recovery plans.”

“Because the recovery plan for the jaguar represents the only existing program for the conservation and recovery of jaguars, the Forest Service violated its affirmative duties under Section 7(a)(1) of the ESA by failing to carry out programs for the conservation of the jaguar.”

The press release includes a link to the complaint.

Court decision in Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Forest Service (D. Arizona)

On August 26, the district court dismissed plaintiff’s claims that the agency’s cost-sharing agreement with the Arizona Department of Agriculture to partially fund a position related to wild horse management violated NEPA and ESA because of the effects of an overpopulation of horses.  The court found, “Plaintiffs have not pointed to any evidence that the AZDA would have altered any aspect of its horse management in light of a discontinuation or alteration to conditions of funding,” and it therefore dismissed claims of NEPA violations and failure to consult under ESA.

Plaintiffs also alleged violations of Section 7(a)(1) of ESA regarding conservation of the yellow-billed cuckoo, southwestern flycatcher, and Yuma Ridgway’s rail.  The Forest Service relied on its forest plan for the Tonto National Forest, and the ESA §7(a)(2) consultation on that, where the FWS opined that the plan “was likely to result in net beneficial effects to federally listed species in the Tonto National Forest.”  The court determined that “a plan placing affirmative constraints on future projects ‘counts’ under Section 7(a)(1),” and that the Tonto forest plan did so and the Forest had complied with ESA.

(I have always thought that a forest plan, especially its mandatory standards, should be evaluated against the requirements of Section 7(a)(1)) (and recovery plans).  Dismissal of this claim here is also an example of how consulting on forest plans can benefit the Forest Service, and an argument against (Cottonwood) legislation that would eliminate it.)

Court decision in Parthasarathi v. U. S. A. (D. Arizona)

On August 22, the district court found that the discretionary-function exception in the Federal Tort Claims act protected the Kaibab National Forest from liability for consequences of an auto accident caused by a cow (under a grazing permit) on a highway.  The Forest Service was under no obligation to construct a fence to keep cows off the highway, despite its prior NEPA decision to authorize one.  Its failure to build a fence and rejection of the state’s proposal to do so qualified for the exception because it, “balanced environmental costs with public safety and determined that the need to protect the natural state of the land outweighed the need to build a right-of-way fence.”

Swan View Coalition v. Haaland appealed

On August 27, the federal government appealed the adverse district court decision on the Flathead National Forest revised forest plan to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.  This case involves evaluation of effects of roads on grizzly bears and bull trout, and was discussed here.

New lawsuit:  Klamath Forest Alliance v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (E. D. California)

On August 28, Klamath Forest Alliance, Conservation Congress, Environmental Protection Information Center and Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center challenged the South Fork Sacramento Public Safety and Forest Restoration Project on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.  They allege that the Project’s logging activities would violate the ESA because they would diminish the likelihood of the northern spotted owl’s survival and recovery.  According to the complaint, “The FWS concluded that such activities would take up to 12 owls from two of the longest occupied territories in a 2.5-million-acre area—including two reproductively successful owl pairs and multiple years of offspring.”

Court decision in U. S. A. v. State of Idaho (D. Idaho)

On August 28, the federal district court agreed with the federal government that state requirements that the federal government own cattle in order to acquire water rights for livestock use violated the Supremacy Clause of the U. S. Constitution.  However, the court agreed that the federal government should be subject to Idaho’s forfeiture-related laws if it fails to use its water rights.  The article includes a link to the court’s decision and order.

New lawsuit

A federal lawsuit has been filed against a West Virginia logger and his logging company for trespassing and harvesting timber in Monongahela National Forest.  While logging on adjacent private land, the loggers allegedly encroached on nearly 10 acres of national forest lands.

A federal judge recently denied the federal government’s request to reconsider a case decided by a jury a year ago that awarded damages to a Black Hills NF district ranger for gender discrimination.  The employee alleged in her lawsuit that she had been subjected to a hostile work environment, excluded from working on special assignments given to male colleagues, excluded from management’s communications with male colleagues, subjected to a verbal threat, and had her ideas routinely dismissed in meetings by male managers. She was ultimately reassigned to another unit in position with decreased authority and duties.  (The article includes a link to an earlier article that provides more details.0

BLM

Court decision in American Wild Horse Campaign v. Stone-Manning (D. Wyoming)

On August 14, the district court approved amendments to BLM’s Green River and Rawlins resource management plans, which would enable the agency to remove two wild horse herds, significantly scale back a third and leave a fourth area intact.  BLM approved the plan last year following a legal settlement with the Rock Springs Grazing Association, which had sued BLM demanding that the bureau remove hundreds of wild horses that were grazing on its property within a roughly 2-million-acre federal grazing allotment in southern Wyoming in a checkerboard pattern of land ownership. “Ultimately, however, the Court finds that each contention fails for either conflating the [BLM’s Resource Management Plan amendment] with a removal decision, misconstruing BLM’s obligations, or [because it is] contradicted by the record,” the judge wrote.  The article includes a link to the opinion.  Plaintiffs have appealed it to the 10th Circuit.

TRO in Hualapai Indian Tribe v. Haaland  (D. Arizona)

On August 19, the district court granted a temporary restraining order against exploratory drilling for lithium on BLM land near the tribe’s sacred spring, as described here.  The court found it likely that BLM violated NEPA and the National Historic Preservation Act.  The article includes a link to the 2-page order.

Court decision in Friends of the Floridas v. U. S. Bureau of Land Management (D. New Mexico)

On August 27, the district court upheld the proposed American Magnesium Foothill Dolomite Mine Project in Luna County, New Mexico against multiple claims of NEPA and FLPMA violations by the BLM.  However, it found that the BLM had not taken the NEPA-mandated “hard look” at the water quality impacts arising from magnesium sludge at the off-site processing mill.  The court remanded the case without vacatur for further analysis.  The article includes a link to the opinion.

New lawsuit:  Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance v. U. S. Department of the Interior (D. D.C.)

On August 28, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance filed a lawsuit against a May decision by the BLM to reaffirm 35 oil and gas leases originally proposed by the Trump Administration in the San Rafael Desert in south-central Utah, including one in what later became the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness.  The review was the result of a settlement of a prior lawsuit.  In addition to NEPA claims, the new lawsuit challenges BLM’s failure to provide a reasoned explanation for its decision to reverse course and not prepare oil and gas planning and analysis for the San Rafael Desert, which the BLM had previously deemed a necessary prerequisite before authorizing future leasing and development in this area.  The article includes a link to the complaint.

OTHER

New lawsuit

On August 12, WRH Nevada Properties, backed by Gallatin Gateway-based Citizens for Balanced Use filed a lawsuit to stop the state of Montana from approving a conservation easement that would prohibit development (but allow logging and public access) on almost 33,000 acres of land owned by Green Diamond Resource Company in northwestern Montana.  The Forest Service had pledged $20 million from its Forest Legacy Program.  WRH owns mineral rights on about half of the land.  They say that the Montana Environmental Policy Act process was not followed appropriately, and that the underlying authorities for the state’s Forest Legacy program are not statutorily authorized.

Court decision in Center for Biological Diversity v. Strommen (8th Cir.)

On August 14, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the district court that a consent decree which requires Minnesota to take additional steps to comply with the Endangered Species Act and protect Canada lynx was fair and reasonable, even though a coalition of trappers who intervened in the lawsuit disagrees.  The decree required Minnesota to put “additional restrictions” on snare and foothold traps in a Lynx Management Zone within 40 days “[b]y whatever regulatory means are necessary, including expedited emergency rulemaking.”  Minnesota allows shortcutting the public rulemaking process when urgent circumstances warrant it, and the court agreed that this situation would qualify.  The court also pointed out that, “nothing prevents (trappers) from challenging the validity of the new regulations in a separate state-court action.”

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. Hobbs (Maricopa County Superior Court)

On August 15, the Center for Biological Diversity, San Pedro 100, and Robin Silver sued the governor of Arizona and the Arizona Department of Water Resources over its decision to approve a guaranteed water certificate for a 7,000-home development project that would affect the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area on BLM lands.  They claim that the BLM has prior federal reserved water rights that have not been accounted for in the process, and seek to revoke the permit because it would infringe on those rights.  (The BLM had objected earlier in the process, but is not involved in this lawsuit.)

Summary judgment denied in Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Citizen Task Force v. Montana (D. Montana)

On August 28, the district court determined that this case must go to trial after continued disputes over expert witnesses.  Plaintiffs challenge the State’s authorization of recreational trapping and snaring for wolves and coyotes, alleging that future take of grizzly bears in legal wolf and coyote traps is reasonably certain to occur under the State’s regulatory scheme.  The court concluded:  “Because the parties dispute most of the material facts related to the evidence regarding when and where grizzly bears are likely to be out of their dens and the impact the State’s regulations have on grizzly bears, (see Doc. 68), those facts must be established at trial.”

 

 

NY Times: Rx Fires Can Save Homes. Why Aren’t More Happening?

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New York Times today: In California, Controlled Fires Can Save Homes. Why Aren’t More Happening?

Excerpt:

The state’s budget maintains $2.6 billion in funding for tackling wildfires and improving forest health. An additional $200 million per year is designated for healthy forest and fire prevention programs, which include prescribed fire projects.

The money is most likely not enough, especially because it is spread across a number of initiatives, said Mark Schwartz, a professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis, who has studied controlled burns and other wildfire management methods.

In addition to the need for more funds, Mr. Schwartz said, controlled burn programs face a number of other hurdles. Already limited in number, firefighters who would staff a prescribed fire are often called away to battle an active blaze. There are also only so many days in a year that conditions are right for a fire, and access is a challenge in some locations. And local communities may oppose a controlled burn, he said.

“It’s hard to wag a finger too much at agencies,” he said. “Getting prescribed fire on the landscape at the scale we’d like is very difficult.”

Yale Forest Forum on Mature and Old Growth

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Old growth seems to be the above.. not the below..

We were discussing how forest policy in the US seems to have been  in the hands of people living in mesic forests.  It’s interesting to look at who exactly counts as an expert on, say, mature and old growth (wouldn’t that be almost all forests?) , and where they are located.  While the Yale Forest School folks were developing this series, I suggested that they get someone from the Interior West.   I suppose Sue Pritchard and SJ are at least over the crest of the Cascades, but PJ people, I guess, need not apply.   In the old bad days, this country didn’t count because it didn’t produce lumber. Now it still seems.. not part of the MOG conversation.

According to this fact sheet,

Pinyon and juniper woodlands are the most abundant forest type in the federal inventory of mature and
old-growth forests, with 9 million acres of old-growth pinyon-juniper across BLM and Forest Service
lands and an additional 14 million acres of mature pinyon-juniper.

Anyway, the talks are recorded and here is the list of speakers and where to register.

Invitation to Write a Post, Posting Break, and SAF Convention

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It’s cone collection season…  Shout out to all the folks, contract, coop agreement, and force account, collecting cones this year!

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All- I will be on a posting break for the next two weeks.  On this break, I’ll still have time to post the work of others, and to comment.  So if you have an interesting story or question or hypothesis about something  that you would like to share, this would be a great time to do it.   Please send your thoughts to me (sharon) at forestpolicypub.com.

There are many of you out there from whom I’d like to hear more outside of the comment format.  My thought is that if you can write a thoughtful comment, you could also write a post.  It would open the knowledge, experience, topics and stories far beyond those of the current contributors.

Also, next week, I’ll be volunteering at the SAF Convention in Loveland, Colorado.  If you’d like to chat, also send an email to the above address.

Again, please consider writing a piece for The Smokey Wire! Not just in the next two weeks of course.

 

The FS Budget Deficit, the Attrition Factor and Generational Change (in Recreation?)

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Hopefully more knowledgeable people will correct or add. Here is what I’ve been hearing.

  1. The Department told the FS that they had act as if the current House budget numbers for 2025 were going to be final. This usually isn’t ultimately the case, but is conservative.

My view if this is true: well, the Department has to pick a number for now, and I can’t argue for any number, over any other as being more realistic.  Plus it’s their call. Here’s what Government Exec said about the numbers.

The Forest Service asked for $8.9 billion in funding in the president’s fiscal 2025 budget request in March.

The House version of the Department of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, released on July 11, includes $8.4 billion for the Forest Service, with a projected 3.5% cut from fiscal 2024 levels, but a 4% increase for wildland fire management.

2.  Not as many people retired as predicted. This is also what Gov Exec reported.

“following the findings of a strategic hiring assessment, workforce attrition was “well below 5%,” which signaled the need for more measured hiring plans.

“On one hand, we should celebrate that our staff are staying because they feel connected to the mission, they feel heard, and they are committed to improving our nation’s forests and grasslands,” said Moore. “To stay within budget and continue to deliver on our core mission, we must implement tighter controls on both internal and external hiring.”

Moore said that the Forest Service will move forward with 157 tentative job offers already made to external candidates and will continue to prioritize internal hiring to promote advancement for agency employees, but will focus future outside hiring on “the highest priority positions”.

Those positions include public health and safety roles, those needed to fulfill critical mission deliverables and highly specialized or difficult-to-fill jobs internally. Moore said the Office of the Chief would approve external hiring based on criteria, including converting permanent Forest Service positions from current student employment programs.”

I’m a little puzzled by how making student positions permanent is also “hiring on the highest priority positions.”  A few more sentences to connect the dots would have been helpful.

If it’s the potential retirees who haven’t retired who are responsible, I think that it’s particularly interesting.  My first guess, as a retiree, is that if I were working now I would be a bit spooked by the recent inflation.  For us oldsters who remember inflation, it hasn’t been a thing for so long that we may have forgotten.  It was a wake-up call, for sure.

Like the Chief said, “people not leaving,” in general, is a good thing. And some of us remember encouragements to retire, such as early-outs and bonuses, and some folks being in retirement limbo waiting for these.  I don’t know if that’s still a motivation.

But having that in the back of my mind, (the generations), I ran across a few other related articles.

First, an op-ed from the WaPo.  Title:

A big problem for young workers: 70- and 80-year-olds who won’t retire

With five generations in the workforce, it’s harder for beginners to get hired or promoted.

Paul McCartney and Al Pacino aren’t the only octogenarians with no intention of retiring. Older workers are increasingly postponing retirement, often because they simply don’t want to quit. As a result, the U.S. workforce is now packed with five generations — from the silent generation down to Gen Z.

There are benefits to having so many experienced workers still active, but for younger people, it can be a major hurdle. The career ladder has become crowded at the top, and this dims professional prospects for those at every rung below. Young workers find it harder to launch their careers and to get promoted. The demographic traffic jam also harms societal cohesion by leaving younger groups behind, according to economists Gabriele Guaitoli and Roberto Pancrazi, who study the issue.
The WaPo op-ed has this interesting chart.

Now if I added up all the workers, and calculated the percentage of 70 and older, I’d get 3%. Let’s go back to the headline.  I don’t think the 3% is the “big problem.” It looks to me, in fact, as if the 45 to 64s are the problem. Of course people don’t retire if they like their job, they need the money (to support other, younger, family members?), or they think economic conditions might get iffy (or iffier).

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Another generational story:

Second, from the Denver Post about visitation to the 14ers going down over the past few years.

Fewer people climbed Colorado 14ers in 2023 than in any year since 2015

Last year’s figure was 37% below the pandemic summer of 2020

Athearn said it’s hard to know what is driving the decline, but he has two theories: Slower population growth in Colorado and changing age demographics.

Colorado’s population grew nearly 15% from 2010 to 2020, according to census figures, but the influx of newcomers slowed over the past two years. Also, Athearn suspects that the baby boomers who popularized backpacking and peakbagging are aging out of the fourteener culture.

“My Millennial colleagues — another massive generation — are buying houses, having kids and taking on more work responsibilities,” Athearn wrote in a follow-up email. “That likely translates into less time or money to get out to play regularly. Meanwhile, my son is in that Gen Z age group. While his friends are all pretty athletic and outdoor-oriented, I know many of his peers are not.

“We may be in a period of shifting age booms and busts,” Athearn added, “where those who have been large cohorts of active folks with time, money and health to be out climbing peaks are now facing lack of time, money or compliant bodies to do this physically demanding stuff.”

Forest Service estimates costs of fighting wildfires in a hotter future

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Report produced by the White House Office of Management and Budget: “Over the last decade, suppression has cost the USDA Forest Service and the Department of the Interior an average of $2.9 billion per year.”

And:

“But according to the analysis, a central estimate across the 10 future climate scenarios shows that lands in the National Forest System would experience a near doubling of the area burned by mid-century (2041-2059). In one scenario, the area burned by wildfire would quadruple (estimates range from a 42% to a 306% increase).

“Suppression expenditures also are projected to rise. A middle-of-the-road estimate is a 42% increase in costs by 2050, to $3.9 billion, while some estimates suggest that costs would increase by 84%. In the decades after 2050, costs could rise by 17% to 283%, with a median annual expenditure of $4.9 billion by late century. The team accounted for inflation by converting all future spending to 2022-dollar equivalents.”

USFS hiring Wildland Firefighters into permanent seasonal positions

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This is from Aug 20….

Hold the line! The Forest Service is Hiring Wildland Firefighters in Oregon and Washington

Release Date: 

Jennifer O’Leary Risdal
Fire Communications Officer
(541) 731 – 0390
jennifer.o’[email protected]

PORTLAND, Ore., Aug. 20, 2024— The Forest Service is hiring Wildland Firefighters into permanent seasonal positions on hand crews, engine crews, hotshot crews, and more. Make a lasting impact on the world around you and unlock opportunities for professional growth and career advancement. Join the Forest Service’s Oregon or Washington fire organization and be a part of the team that is committed to caring for the land and serving people. Our mission is to protect our natural resources for multiple uses for today and future generations.

The Forest Service is holding an in-person recruitment event to fill approximately 200 entry level, GS-3/4 wildland firefighter permanent seasonal positions. Join us on Sept. 12, 2024, from 12 PM to 6 PM PST at any of the following locations:

  • Wenatchee, WA – Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Supervisors Office, 215 Melody Lane, Wenatchee, WA 98801.
  • Redmond, OR – Deschutes County Fairgrounds, OSU Extension Office, 3800 SW Airport Way Bldg. 4, Redmond, OR 97756 *Note, this event takes place from 1:00-6:00 PM PST
  • Mt. Hood National Forest Supervisor’s Office, 16400 Champion Way, Sandy, OR 97055
  • La Grande Ranger District, 3502 Hwy 30, La Grande, OR 97850

Applicants are invited to come and meet regional fire staff, get application help, and learn about the benefits of working for the Forest Service.

Applicants can also apply online. Jobs will be posted on USAJobs.gov from Aug. 23 – Sept. 24 using the direct hire authority. Review the job announcement carefully for deadlines and required information to include in your application. Employment start dates may vary.

For more information visit the National Wildland Firefighting Hiring webpage. Find a detailed list and a map of positions and duty locations on our Regional Fire Hire webpage.

Visit the Forest Service Careers webpage to learn more about career opportunities, benefits, hiring events, and resources to help with the application process.

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Hume, Economists, Patrick Brown, Nature and ICBEMP

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Patrick Brown of The Breakthrough Institute  had an interesting Tweet today.  It reminded me of an apocryphal story of the Forest Service’s Dr. Tom Mills, an economist.  When working as Station Director at the Pacific Northwest Station during the development of the ICBEMP.  
For those of you who weren’t around then, that was the “Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project.” It was finalized in 2000.  I heard it referred to as “ickybump” but have also heard other pronunciations.  This was one of those massively expensive and lengthy effort by scientists to do some kind of regional assessment/analysis/planning.
I think it would be interesting, just as with the NWFP, to take an interdisciplinary group not affiliated with the effort to review the original intent and whether it was successful or not.  It’s intriguing to me which efforts seem to get a formal “lessons learned” and which do not.
As I recall, I was on a WO review of PNW and Tom Quigley seemed to believe that people who didn’t want tree cutting or grazing would change their minds based on monitoring. I remember thinking “do you really understand these people? What are your alternative hypotheses to “more info, folks will agree?”  I also wondered whether the fact that scientists and monitorers would be getting more work (or the Station getting more bucks) make this a bit of a conflict of interest for them?
What disagreements of that time have been resolved since, and which not? Maybe more long-term research on conflict resolution efficacy would have been a useful investment?
Anyway, back to the Tom Mills story.
Supposedly he said something like “I don’t want to see any “shoulds” in this (ICBEMP) report” which led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the authors (according to the story).
Maybe other scientists aren’t as rooted in philosophy as economists.  Maybe they are not required to take courses in the philosophy of science. Maybe, since economists get feedback from the real world sooner, and results can be observable to all without sophisticated equipment, many have more humility.
One more ICBEMP economist story.. I remember Richard Haynes remarking that he was surprised to find that the biologists he was working with didn’t use sensitivity analysis in their models. And yet, some lump all this stuff together and claim the authority of “science.” Others among us remain skeptical.
Anyway, back to Patrick’s tweet.  Patrick’s background is in atmospheric science although he has recently done some work in wildfire, as we shall see.
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Is high-impact climate science really just “science”?

Greg Mankiw’s, Principles of Macroeconomics textbook makes an interesting distinction between the different roles that economists play: “When economists are trying to explain the world, they are scientists. When they are trying to help improve it, they are policy advisers.” He alludes to Hume’s is-ought distinction, saying scientists make descriptive claims about how the world is, not prescriptive claims about how the world ought to be.

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Critically, he says, “Deciding what is good or bad policy is not just a matter of science. It also involves our views on ethics, religion, and political philosophy.” This is a very interesting distinction in the context of high-impact “scientific” publishing on climate change because in order for “science” to be “high-impact” (of sufficient interest to a general readership), it is often incredibly helpful for it to be framed as having important prescriptive implications for contemporary policy debates. The journal Nature, for example, recommends that the end of the abstract/intro paragraph give a “broader perspective” on the findings, which in practice often means “state why these findings are of sufficient interest and palatability to our readership.”

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In the climate science landscape, this recommendation often manifests as studies focused on the physical and biological world but concluding with a prescriptive claim about how the world ought to be (a claim that does not actually follow from the study itself because the study is way too narrow to make said claim).

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These types of abstracts very much blur the lines between Mankiw’s definition of a “scientist” and a “policy advisor.” What’s particularly insidious is that having a strong prescriptive implication on e.g., reducing greenhouse gas emissions acts as a selection mechanism for what studies get published and amplified as the most important “science”. This muddying of the waters between researchers acting as scientists or policy advisors wouldn’t be such a problem except that the public perceives that a journal like Nature is a scientific journal, and thus, it produces more-or-less authoritative truths, not claims that rely on ethical, philosophical, and moral assumptions. This can be partially remedied if the public understands that the prescriptive statements emanating from these journals are subjective and do not deserve the perceived authority typically bestowed upon the idealized concept of “Science.”

I have written about these issues previously: What The Science Can’t Say About Climate Change: thebreakthrough.org/journal/climat
The Social Feedback Loops That Constrain Climate Science: thebreakthrough.org/journal/no-20-
The fact illusion: Objective truth is elusive in (climate) science: patricktbrown.org/2017/07/28/the

 

Forest Service Budget Q&A’s

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Here are the original questions I sent to the Forest Service collected from folks on TSW:

During the Town Hall, the Chief said “BLM has a COLA” that allows BLMers to get more money than FS folks in the same building.  He implied that that was due to energy funding to the BLM in some way.

1.       My understanding is that both locality pay and COLAs are government-wide and set by OPM.  The Chief implied that he couldn’t bring influence to bear on OPM, nor (he implied) could the Secretary.  What exactly is he asking OPM to do or not do?

2.       My understanding is that rents on Forest Service buildings are set by GSA. Is that correct? How are rental rates determined, and do local units have any flexibility on them?

3.       How much funding has gone to the Keystone and Navigators agreements? It seems like that could alleviate some of the problems if they haven’t spent it all.  Is it possible for the currently unspent funds in these coop agreements to be returned?

4.       Does the Forest Service have an explanation for why the shortfall occurred? Were the results of the audit a surprise?

a.       The structural issues (e.g. pay increases, COLAs) are common to all land management agencies; does the Forest Service have an explanation for why they have a uniquely large deficit?

5.       Has there been direction to use KV and BD funds to offset payroll shortfalls?

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The Press Office was helpful in telling me that it wasn’t a Town Hall but rather this session, the Housing Update Information Session which occurred July 15 and was posted August 19. There may be answers related to our questions on the Sharepoint site, but that isn’t available to non-employees as far as I know.

I asked to see those Q&A’s and the Press Office said:

“We don’t have any additional information to provide beyond Chief Moore’s recent budget remarks (Fiscal year 2025 budget updates | US Forest Service (usda.gov)). We won’t speculate beyond what’s already provided in the remarks. Questions related to the budget should be directed to the Department of Agriculture.”

Meanwhile the Hotshot Wakeup posted this on his Substack. I will keep everyone posted as I hear more, if you have more info please email me. Thank you!

In the Rocky Mountain Region, they announced that all seasonal positions or 1039 appointments will be cut, and no extensions will be offered starting October 1st. On top of that, I’ve heard there are conversations about perm staff cutting hours if a 2025 budget is not passed by October as well.

This comes after years of pressing the workforce to stay on longer to complete prescribed burning that was funded in the billions of dollars by the Infrastructure Bill. It seems that will take a back seat now, as it was announced October 1st will be the cutoff, no matter the funding source for the employee’s wages.

Here is the memo that went out to the Rocky Mountain Employees:

Good Afternoon All,

As an agency it is our responsibility and number one priority to pay our employees. In working through the budget challenges, we are currently facing; a decision has been made that no 1039 appointments will be extended beyond the end of the fiscal year regardless of funding source. This applies to all 1039 appointments in the Rocky Mountain Region with no exceptions.