Yesterday, Arizona Forest Restoration Products Inc. released this statement regarding the Forest Service’s decision to award a massive 300,000 acre timber harvesting contract as part of the Four Forests Restoration Initiative (4FRI) in Arizona to an under-the-radar Montana timber corporation represented by a retired Forest Service official.
A collection of all the posts and comments on this blog related to the 4FRI can be found here.
Thanks for posting Matt, very interesting. Their statement certainly packs a punch. Hard to know how to comment on that, as there are probably lots of ins, outs and what-have-yous that we aren’t privy to.
Only thing that really jumped out at me in their statement was this:
“The reason for AZFRP to exist was to develop, advocate, bid on, win, and ultimately implement the 4FRI restoration contract. Without such a contract, AZFRP has no reason to exist.”
Plenty of smart people have already thought through my next question, but if their whole business model is predicated on winning the contract that they helped develop, isn’t that some sort of conflict of interest, violation of antitrust laws…or at least a risk that should have been accounted for?
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As a followup and to be clear, I’m not suggesting there was any sort of impropriety on the part of AZFRP. I’m sure their involvement was on the up-and-up.
This whole FS-4FRI debaucle (regardless of who is “right”) is giving the “effort” a black eye. Very sad.