Here’s a link to the E&E news story. I can’t tell if this is really concern about priorities and accomplishments, or some form of political theater, or both.
Agency Chief Randy Moore has told lawmakers he doesn’t think thinning more acreage, by cutting vegetation or lighting prescribed fires or both, is necessarily the best way to show the Forest Service’s progress on that front. What works better in Moore’s view is treating the right acres in the right places, which may not mean much more land area.
That approach, however, isn’t getting great reviews from Republicans. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the ranking member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called the idea “ridiculous” at a recent hearing. He accused the Forest Service of changing the metric to skirt responsibility for treating fewer acres in national forests.
Now, House appropriators are demanding additional information on just what Moore means, putting that request in the report language accompanying the fiscal 2025 Interior spending bill.
Seems like the Chief could report acres for now, and explain in words why those are the right acres. Maybe maps of where projects occurred, and a table of who prioritized them, what was done, and costs? Is it just theatrical bashing, or are there real questions there? We can’t tell from here in the cheap seats.
That bill passed the House Wednesday. The Senate Appropriations Committee marks up its own bill Thursday, after which report language will be released.
The math is daunting for the Forest Service. The agency says 63 million of the 193 million acres it manages are at high risk for wildfire, and last year it treated slightly more than 4 million acres.
Does anyone know where the table is that shows mechanical treatments, PB and Wild Fire With Benefits acres?
That was a record high. Moore touted it in a column posted on the Forest Service web site in November 2023, calling the work progress toward the agency’s initial goal of addressing the 250 highest-risk areas in the West.
“Going into this year, we know we must keep our focus and build upon this accomplishment. With more than 19 million acres still left to treat, this year we plan to exceed last year’s accomplishments as we realize the capacity we built throughout the past year,” Moore said.
However, officials say the total acreage treated will decline in 2024, as will timber harvests for the coming fiscal year — a seeming contradiction that prompted the exchange with Barrasso at the May 17 hearing.‘Where did they get these numbers’
In the House report, appropriators would direct the Forest Service and Interior Department to tell Congress within 45 days how the agencies will report on outcomes beyond acres treated. Whether the language makes it into a final House-Senate measure remains to be seen, and it wouldn’t have the force of law — but failing to follow such directions can put agency heads in trouble with appropriators.
House appropriators said in the report, “The committee believes that using proven, existing, commercially available advanced decision support tools and analytics are important for accomplishing this task and evaluating the real-world outcomes of forest treatments and ensuring Federal investments yield the highest returns in terms of risk mitigation and forest system health.”
This is really confusing because (1) acres treated is not an “advanced decision support tool”, it’s just counting.. acres treated, and doubles and all those problems. We all understand that if you’re going for acres, you might focus on areas that are cheap or easy, and highest priority areas may not be cheap or easy, in fact, they probably don’t involve harvestable timber at all, in many places. (2) Chief Moore isn’t getting rid of counting acres, but adding more info, it sounds like. I’d just prefer that he used words and maps versus some potentially bogus computed numbers, but that’s just me. Maybe this is a communication problem
At the Senate hearing, Moore said he’d welcome a chance to discuss the matter with lawmakers. And forest policy groups said Moore has a point — to an extent.
“Right treatment, right place, right scale, right timing makes sense,” said Nick Smith, a spokesperson for the American Forest Resource Council, representing the timber industry. What doesn’t make sense, he said, is that the Forest Service seems to veer from its own prior messaging.
The agency’s own 10-year wildfire strategy calls for treating 20 million acres of national forests and 30 million acres of other lands.
“Where did they get these numbers and why did they set them as goals if it’s not about quantity and that’s the wrong metric?” Smith said.
To Nick’s point, I think they had to come up with a number, they used what they had at the time, and “the right acres” is a much more complicated question than acres, let alone “conditions have changed to help fire suppression or make forests more resilient.” Communities, Districts, Regions and states are in competition for federal bucks, so we can imagine that any supposedly scientific efforts to prioritize will have winners and losers. Some of us remember many previous efforts in that direction.
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The Justice 40 Initiative- a bit of a sidetrip:
Plus there is the “Justice 40” initiative which conceivably applies to the Forest Service.
For the first time in our nation’s history, the Federal government has made it a goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal climate, clean energy, affordable and sustainable housing, and other investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.
Last year, the White House issued formal Interim Implementation Guidance directing all Federal agencies to identify and begin transforming their programs covered under the Justice40 Initiative – which agencies are currently implementing.
What kinds of investments fall within the Justice40 Initiative? The categories of investment are: climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure.
Do fuel treatments count as a “climate change” investment? I think you could argue it either way, depending on how much you wanted access to the buck fountain. Well, it turns out that every agency has to come up with a list of covered programs. Here’s the Forest Service’s list.
Forest Service
18. Abandoned Hard Rock Mine and Orphaned Oil and Gas Well Reclamation
19. Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program∗,3
20. Hazardous Fuels Management*,3
21. Ecological Health Restoration Contracts*
22. Financial Assistance to Facilities That Purchase and Process Byproducts for Ecosystem Restoration Projects*
23. Landscape Scale Restoration Water Quality and Fish Passage*
24. Recreation Sites*
25. Restoration Projects Via States and Tribes*,3
26. Restore Native Vegetation on Federal/Non-Federal Land*,3
27. Revegetation Effort to Implement National Seed Strategy*
28. Climate-related Training
29. Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Partnership
30. Reducing Wildfire Risk to Tribes, Underserved, and Socially Vulnerable Communities
31. Tribal Authorities
32. Urban and Community Forestry Program
33. Land and Water Conservation Fund∗ Denotes programs that received funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, P.L. 117-58.
3 These programs and funding line items are listed as covered under the Justice40 Initiative because of the inclusion
criteria set. In practice, these items fund a broad array of different activities, and therefore will likely not be subject
to the development of a comprehensive benefits methodology or reporting.
And of course, the un-ground-truthed, sometimes bogus maps, using data from private actors, that we covered here and here. Might be fun for some GIS students to map where all the $ for those programs went, and if it matches the CEQ/EPA maps.
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I’m glad that Marc Heller interviewed Nick Smith. and Tony Mazzo of SAF.
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I do not know what “lighting prescribed fires” are/means. I would appreciate some help on this. Thank you. A Call to Action [rev. 17.9], page 21, concludes:
“…Let there be no doubt, the health of America’s forests is declining. Wildfires are destroying lives and property, reducing air quality, altering critical wildlife habitat and killing millions of animals
needlessly. Forests in declining health, the impacts of a changing climate, and the expanding Wildland-Urban Interface, has created a volatile mixture that has led to the current national emergency. Now, it is time to step forward with a concentrated effort [5-7 years] and begin to address the 19-20 million acres annually of forests across our country that need some type of restorative action – about 8 million acres each year on the National Forests.”
I agree that the right kind, place and time is a good thing. 20 million acres over 10 years on National Forests [ about 2 million acres each year] will not constitute real, meaningful change even if the 3 “rights” are perfectly met. There has simply been too much neglect [lack of forest maintenance] over the past 30+ years.
Very respectfully,
I am sorry about my previous comment. I saw “lighting” and my mind concluded “lightning.” I have no excuse for my incompetence. I do understand that Rx Fire begins by “lighting” it [the Prescribed Fire]. I just have not personally used that verb in front of Rx Fire before.
Sharon said:
“I can’t tell if this is really concern about priorities and accomplishments, or some form of political theater, or both.”
It’s both. It’s always both.
Hi Michael: I’ve found that age is a great go-to excuse for misreading things these days — and is often responsible in many cases. Lighting is much closer to lightning than lightening, which seems to be the error of choice among younger readers.
The positive result of your mistake is an opportunity to cite a key point in Call to Action. Maybe good to post a few other relevant sections from that document during the current fire season? Jon, for example, cites authorities that support his perspective that a century of fire suppression, rather than 35 years of federal mismanagement, are largely responsible for current conditions. What portion of Call to Action addresses that point, and what authorities can be cited in response to Jon’s assertions?
It would probably be a good thing to total the amount of acres at risk where timber sales are difficult to impossible, for many various reasons.