“Fix Our Forests” Cleared the House Bipartisanly: Let’s Take Our Own Look II.

We left off in Post #1 with the Lake Tahoe Management Unit CE. I guess a question could be asked of the groups against the 10K acre CEs..

The LTBMU has had such a CE (10K acres) legislated since 2000. Do the people feel left out of decisions there? Has anything bad happened to the environment due to hazardous fuel projects?

SEC. 111. Modification of the treatment of certain revenue and payments under good neighbor agreements.
Tribes get to keep funds like other governments from sales of forest products under Good Neighbor Authority projects.

SEC. 112. Fixing stewardship end result contracting.

This one is interesting:

SEC. 113. Intra-agency strike teams.
(a) Establishment.—The Secretary concerned shall establish intra-agency strike teams to assist the Secretary concerned with—

(1) any reviews, including analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), consultations under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (16 U.S.C. 470 et seq.), and consultations under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.), with the intent to accelerate and streamline interagency consultation processes;

(2) the implementation of any necessary site preparation work in advance of or as part of a fireshed management project;

(3) the implementation of fireshed management projects under such section; and

(4) any combination of purposes under paragraphs (1) through (3).

(b) Members.—The Secretary concerned may appoint not more than 10 individuals to serve on an intra-agency strike team comprised of—

(1) employees of the Department under the jurisdiction of the Secretary concerned;

(2) employees of a different Federal agency, with the consent of that agency’s Secretary;

(3) private contractors from any nonprofit organization, State government, Indian Tribe, local government, quasi-governmental agency, academic institution, or private organization; and

(4) volunteers from any nonprofit organization, State government, Indian Tribe, local government, quasi-governmental agency, academic institution, or private organization.

(c) Sunset.—The authority provided under this section shall terminate on the date that is 7 years after the date of enactment of this Act

I would only add, given our other discussions, a formal (independent) evaluation and recommendations in the last year of this authority.

blockquote>EC. 114. Locally-led restoration.
(a) Threshold adjustment.—Section 14(d) of the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (16 U.S.C. 472a(d)) is amended by—

(1) striking “$10,000” and inserting “$55,000”; and

(2) by adding at the end the following: “Beginning on January 1, 2025, and annually thereafter, the amount in the first sentence of this subsection shall be adjusted by the Secretary for changes in the Consumer Price Index of All Urban Consumers published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor.”.

(b) Fireshed management projects.—Beginning on the date that is 30 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall solicit bids under section 14 of the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (16 U.S.C. 472a(d)) for fireshed management projects under section 106.

Maybe someone can explain what this is getting at?

Also changes to Joint Chiefs Landscape Restoration Partnership Program and the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program.

Then there Subtitle C. Litigation Reform. I’ll skip that for now, as it will be a separate post.

Sec 122..seems to be the Cottonwood Fix.

2 thoughts on ““Fix Our Forests” Cleared the House Bipartisanly: Let’s Take Our Own Look II.”

  1. Re: Section 114 of the bill (locally-led restoration). Under section 14 of NFMA the Forest Service need not advertise for competitive bidding sales with an appraised value of $10k or less. The bill would raise that threshold to $55k, inflated annually in accordance with changes in the CPI. The purpose of this section appears to be to enable the FS to award fireshed management projects to local businesses without competition.

    That said, I don’t see anything in this language that would prevent the FS from awarding the project to anyone, local or not. Perhaps there are geographic limits elsewhere in the bill – I haven’t checked. (Yes, “local” appears in the section heading, but courts differ in how much weight they give to headings, and in any case “local” is not otherwise defined in the bill.)

    Reply
    • Well, unless there’s something I’m missing, I’m not a fan of getting rid of competitive bidding. The mistrusting might wonder why there are many 52 to 54K sales all going to the same company.. Seems to me that streamlining bidding (envelopes opened in two weeks or whatever) might be more effective. Folks are likely to be local because they’re not making that much money anyway and there are transportation costs.. I could be wrong.

      Reply

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