An article from Carolina Public Press looks at how “Interest group emails compete to influence NC national forests’ future.”
“Thanks to a federal Freedom of Information Act request, Carolina Public Press has studied thousands of emails and other comments delivered to the Forest Service. This, the second of three articles, examines the comments from individuals representing the views of advocacy organizations that have campaigned to influence the Forest Service’s management strategies.”
Doesn’t mention form letters.
Anyone know of other analyses of letters on other USFS projects?
No, I haven’t.. a couple of comments.
1. For some reason BLM uses a system so everyone can see comments without FOIA ing.. I think that that’s a good idea. Don’t know why some are on the public site and some had to be FOIA’d? Here’s the link.. kind of fun to peruse, especially for us westerners.
2. The newspaper really looked at the issues in depth, good for them!
Also I liked their analyses of the different perspectives “Baptists and bootleggers” and so on.
3. I think I’ll send the reporter a Smokey Wire thank you for in-depth reporting.
BLM does not always use an open public system. Most of the time comments have to be submitted by email and then obtained through FOIA. Most FS comment periods I’ve been involved with work that way too. Both agencies have access to these open public systems but whether to use them or not seems to be a local decision.
Thanks, Kitty. I had seen a few BLM ones (maybe Bears Ears?) and didn’t realize that it wasn’t more widespread.