Marc Heller has an article about the Keystone Agreements here. I’ll talk about that tomorrow. He didn’t cover many of the questions that Dave Mertz, I and other retirees had. Also interesting (and annoying) that Marc could get answers from the FS and Dave and I (and others who have been asking) could not, after weeks of reaching out to different offices and levels. We had to FOIA to get copies of the agreements themselves, which I’ll attach, also tomorrow.
**********************************
Maybe some of you, like me, are old enough to remember the old TV show “Sledgehammer.” His catchphrase was “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” The problem was, oftentimes, he did
not know what he was doing. I wonder if, with these Keystone Agreements, the Forest Service is asking us to trust them because they know what they are doing. We do know that they are
committing a whole lot of federal dollars through these agreements, and there doesn’t seem to be much transparency.
To be fair, the Forest Service was provided a lot of money through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and they had to figure out how to utilize that
funding in a short period of time. Were all of these Keystone Agreements a logical way to bank that money and put it to good use later? Maybe so. Or was it a convenient way for the Forest
Service to claim accomplishments and take some of the load off of them? Maybe it was both?
In the interest of finding out more about these agreements, I sent an email with several questions to the Forest Service’s National Partnerships Office. To date, I have not had a response. I would
imagine that a response will need to be cleared by higher-ups, so it may take a while. Here are the questions I asked:
(1) We have obtained copies of the Master Agreements with the various NGOs through FOIAs. We are interested in the details contained in the associated Special Project Agreements (SPA), particularly the financial information. Shouldn’t this information beavailable to the public? We believe it is important to know how the Forest Service is spending federal dollars through these agreements. Do we need to file FOIAs to obtain this information or could it just be available online? If not, why not? We realize there would be some proprietary information that would need to be redacted.
(2) How are accomplishments being tracked through these agreements? Who is providing oversight, Grants and Agreements? The Partnerships Office?
(3) What is the process of awarding the NGOs funding? Do they receive the dollars and then projects are developed? What are the overhead rates of the various NGOs?
(4) Are the Keystone Agreements being used to avoid Federal Acquisition Regulations and federal hiring difficulties?
(5) We are hearing that Forests are having budget difficulties this fiscal year and that it will impact their ability to hire employees. In hindsight, was it wise to put so much funding into the Keystone Agreements rather than into NFS? Could a lot of this funding have been put into IDIQ contracts instead?
(6) Are Keystone Agreement accomplishments being claimed when the funding is awarded rather than when the work is actually accomplished?
I have other questions that I did not bring up. How much funding has already been provided through the various Special Project Agreements? It appears that through these agreements, the
Forest Service still has a number of obligations. These projects are not turnkey. If that is the case, are they really saving the Forest Service that much work? Are they a good bang for the
buck? Do these organizations have the expertise to accomplish this work up to Forest Service standards? Who is ensuring compliance with the associated NEPA documents? Are these
organizations doing some inherently governmental tasks? I could go on.
I would be interested in getting other’s thoughts on all of this. Can you help answer some of these questions? It would be good to hear from you!
Great piece hopefully some with some direct insight will respond. I question how much news releasing can the USFS do or is it all approved br the administration. I hope someone is tracking the use of the large influx of dollars and what is accomplished with it-and if accomplishments are minimal who will take the heat. I don’t think the USFS can get the job done without the help of congress and various partners
Sadly, it seems that the political polarization of Congress has spread to the Forest Service. In the past, I liked thinking that the USFS was mostly immune to partisan politics. I would bet that is not the case, today. Congressmen hear all sorts of ‘alternate facts’ regarding the Forest Service, along with some pretty crazy conspiracy theories. This is a direct cause of the ‘political paralysis’ affecting our lawmaking bodies.
Most certainly, Republicans will lament funding the Forest Service, after they see all those ‘accomplishments’. Democrats will also resist more funding, as well. Mitigating 80 years of fire suppression and poor silviculture cannot happen in just a few years. It will be another massive government failure, based on an impatient and ignorant polarized Congress.
John, I have every confidence we will get there sooner or later.. and I hope that our concerns about accountability don’t get confused with partisan politics in case the House Committee asks these kinds of questions. Hopefully both parties (and the rest of us non-affiliated) care about accountability.
Here’s a sneak preview from FSEEE’s up-coming newsletter:
On March 13, the National Wild Turkey Federation crowed about its “new Participating Agreement with the USDA Forest Service, marking a significant step in bolstering efforts to continue the great work that is being accomplished.” The press release gushed about the Federation’s new funding “entirely from federal dollars authorized in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.” These public tax dollars will pay for the private Federation’s “personnel costs, including travel, and supporting essential meetings like Partner Coordination Meetings and Industry Coordination Meetings to foster effective communication and collaboration among stakeholders.”
So when a journalist colleague asked me for “a plain language translation” of NWTF’s verbose, self-congratulatory release, I was happy to oblige (tongue firmly planted in cheek) as if the Forest Service had written the same news release:
The Forest Service is pleased to announce that it is outsourcing more jobs that were previously performed by its own employees. “We have a real problem hiring people,” explained Deputy Chief Chris French. “We don’t know why, but our centralized Albuquerque Service (sic) Center just can’t seem to process the paperwork.”
The solution to this hiring crisis is to make significant investments in the private sector because they have promised us that there are people who want to do this work and they can hire them. Thanks to the generosity of American taxpayers and their representatives in Congress, the Forest Service has a record amount of cash to spend. Paying someone else to find and hire the people we are unable to is a win-win solution.
Our partners include the National Wild Turkey Federation. “We like the Federation because turkeys like clearcuts and we like to log,” explained Mr. French. “We’re giving NWTF more money to hire the overhead and administrative staff necessary to find the people out there who want to work in the woods,” he continued.
Eventually, if all goes well, NWTF will hire the non- union, low-skill workers who can be taught how to use a chainsaw without hurting themselves. If they exceed our expectations, NWTF will find heavy equipment operators who have the big machines (the bigger the better!) needed to cut, chop, smash, masticate, and pile all the ultra-hazardous fuel that threatens almost everyone who lives in our great nation.
“We wish we could do the contractor and hiring jobs ourselves,” said French, “but we’re thrilled that NWTF has stepped up to the plate to take on this critically important task.”
“I can’t think of a better way to Build Back Better than to outsource federal civil service jobs to the private sector,” mumbled a satisfied Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack between bites of a succulent wild turkey.
Is this different from Trump replacing federal employees with political hacks?
Seems like good ol’ fashioned machine politics to me. Boss Tweed would be proud. Note that there’s nothing competitive about these agreements; none of that lowest bidder stuff to get in the way of rewarding one’s friends.
Thanks Andy! Outsourcing to private folks, bad, outsourcing to 501c3s, good. It’s so hard to keep track…
Andy, your response made me chuckle. Agreed, I’d like to see more USFS boots on the ground. However, from what I’ve seen, the NWTF has been an excellent partner and does or oversees good work.
With the hiring and contracting difficulties that the FS has, these keystone agreements are definitely being used to get staffing and contracting done that the FS is unable to do in a timely manner. But now Grants & Agreements is getting backed up/overwhelmed too. But really, these keystone agreements are not that different in principle from the Good Neighbor Authority agreements with the states where a State Department of Forestry takes on work for the FS – this may include NEPA, sale preparation, sale administration, and followup treatments. The problem is that the NGOs don’t often have the same level of expertise as a State Department of Forestry or the Forest Service. When you need to get something done and your own agency can’t get to it, it’s nice to have some choices that still allow you to get the work done…..this definitely was not how I thought these “partnerships” would work, but it sure saves a lot of frustration….
How did you think they would work? Just curious.
I didn’t think they would be used to work around clogs in FS hiring and FS contracting.