There is another election coming up. TSW has been around for the 2012. 2016, 2020, and now 2024 Presidential elections. So now is a good time to ask the question “what would you do if you were appointed to be undersecretary?” What issues would you focus on?
What initiatives that you think are important might appeal more to R’s or D’s? This is the time, before the election results are in, to think outside the box, that is.. way outside the box if possible. And no partisan vitriol today, thank you.
It’s only fair that I give my own.
1. I am concerned that forest policy wonks, (NGO’s and the foundations who support NGOs) focus on the big picture, including getting more money, and the nuts and bolts of doing things, spending the money, and what is accomplished with what degree of difficulty, gets overlooked. So I would go back to the basics. I would host some kind of conversation with FS employees (focused on the District level, but with input from other levels) on what are the main barriers to their work, and their ideas for fixing them, large and small. And of course, going ahead and streamlining the path for folks to try new things. I was part of the Pilot effort in the 1980’s (on the Ochoco) for administrative helpful changes and was able to get the FS paying by check established as a practice. It sounds a bit silly nowadays, but it meant something to us then. And there was the spirit that we could actually identify new, better ways of operating and be supported in making change, which was great for morale.
2. What would it take for the Forest Service to be able to be visible and helpful to the public? As I’ve said, humility and invisibility is a value, but people are doing great work out there and should be, say, appropriately visible. Many forests are doing this, or trying to. What are the obstacles? What few things might make a big difference? Where do human beings matter most? Where should federal employees (not contractors or grantees) matter most?
Planning:
3. Put plan revisions on hold until each “wildfire forest” has a wildfire (including PODs, conditions for WFU, prescribed fire and maintenance, reducing ignitions) amendment and EIS with public involvement and comment.
4. Set up FACA committee (and employee and stakeholder and retiree workgroups) to answer the questions “what values come from forest planning in the 21st century, and can those values be achieved more directly?” with an eye to potentially revising NFMA with bipartisan support.
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Hopefully those ideas will spark something in you. Like I said, there are only certain times we can dream big, and today is one of those before we find out what new Admins want to do and whom they pick for political jobs.
1) If a certain candidate is elected we will be lucky to have all of our NF land in 4 years. The Mike Lees of the country will have their way.
2) Fund from the ground up. Let Districts decide how much “support” they need/want from upper levels and at what expense. Ensure projects are funded wholly without shortchanging. Ensure all permanent positions at Districts are funded without having to chase fires to fund their salaries.
3) Thorough analysis of all permanent positions as to what they are really contributing.
4) Accept much more fire in fire dependent ecosystems.
5) More law enforcement on the ground and better process/organization to prosecute.
6) Less analysis paralysis.
7) More administrative backbone to prevent another Crazy Mtn debacle where a District Ranger was moved out and a Senator assured a mega rich development would be successful in getting a land exchange and the public would lose reasonable trail access.
8) Administrative priority to protect historic public access to their public lands
Interesting! Thanks, Greg! Some thoughts/questions.
1. I thought that the newish budget process did have salaries separate?
2. Is LE a separate line item in Budget Requests to Congress?
3. Is more funding in Lands all that is necessary to protect public access, and is also reorienting DOJ to prosecute necessary? Would this also help with encroachment of various kinds?
Sharon, thanks for taking up these big questions. I like your suggestions for org reform and would support these.
I also think to support org reform, we need to rethink the role and purpose of data and overhaul FS data systems accordingly. Based on nearly 2 decades working to evaluate and learn from FS policies and programs as a partner on the outside that had spent considerable time and energy trying to understand these dynamics from the inside, my observation is that the current data systems have been created/accreted solely to respond to Congressional or other demands for upward reporting. For this reason, the systems do little to help support decision-making.
An example: The FS reports quarterly on the volume of timber harvested and sold by National Forest, Region and State. Surprisingly, the FS is not able to report on where that timber goes or what it is made into–not because they don’t have the information but because that information is stored in paper truck tickets and no one ever required that they digitize it or associate that information with the “cut and sold” data. Even as truck ticket data have transitioned, at least in some places, into a digital record, they still are not compiled or associated with any other data. Further, the standard 2400-17 report that summarizes information on timber harvested and sold at the sale level also includes a field for the county in which the sale took place. Yet getting access to timber harvest by county data can turn into a multi-year wild goose chase to try and find the one person that knows how to pull and compile that data out of some archaic data system.
Data systems should be built to answer the questions line officers and specialists face on a regular basis that could help them make decisions, define trade-offs, and communicate such to the public. It is beyond frustrating when a community member asks what impact a project might have on their community and a line officer can’t (or won’t) tell them where the workforce is likely to come from and where the timber will likely go to be processed.
This is a good idea, but it would cost money, and the land management agencies are historically reluctant to ask for funds for data/analysis capabilities that are not directly and immediately relevant to their day-to-day management activities. This may in part reflect a lack of desire to run such requests through the flaming gauntlet of OMB, and also a fear that should – by some stroke of luck – Congress ultimately appropriate the necessary funds, it will also have cut an equivalent amount from other agency programs.
Chelsea and Rich.. we talked about that about 11 years ago, the discussion was around The People’s Database, you can search on the category and here’s an example from 2013.
https://forestpolicypub.com/2013/04/27/needed-coalition-for-public-access-to-information-on-national-forests-aka-the-peoples-database/
I think a group (FACA?) could generate ideas in discussion with IT and program folks in the FS (and partners who are doing work, and contractors).
I know it would never happen but, I’d like to see the Forest Service ‘fact check’ what members of (both Parties) of Congress are saying. Voters deserve to see the facts, and to see that those facts are addressed by Congress, as a whole.
With regard to being “more visible and helpful to the public” the Forest Service at the field unit level could refocus at the field level on ensuring that knowledgeable and recognizable personnel be more available to the public on the ground by ensuring appropriate orientation of personnel to the agency mission in its entirety rather than on just their narrow specialty and making such personnel more accessible to and visible to the public they serve (or should be serving) by ensuring they perform appropriate aspects of their jobs in the field and in uniform. For several years I and several senior and influential Forest Service retirees promoted establishment and operation of a U.S. Forest Service Academy for entering career professional and technical personnel (a Forest Service officer candidate school, if you will) to inculcate agency appreciation, knowledge, skills and ideals, and appearance and behavior patterns appropriate (and, in my experience and opinion, essential) to successful representation to the public–to no avail. In my opinion, the need for such orientation has continued to increase over time.
Les, I think that with Covid shutting offices, and online work, plus getting many new employees at once, plus a dearth of mid-level employees and retirements would make this idea still or more, relevant.
Let’s shake this up a bit; looks like too many “heavy thinkers”, who have made good points, but does not alleviate the funding and repetitive nature of big government. Lace up your boots ‘cause here we go!
Remove NFS from the WO and make it its own entity. Take all the other Deputy Areas (Business Ops, CIO, Planning, Lands and Special Uses, S & PF, Research and HR) and put them together with the BLM! Reorganize that mess to remove repetitive functions between the two Agencies, making one service area for everything but NPS. NFS would be extractive resources; mining, timber, wildlife, range and recreation. I may have missed something – sorry. Close all Regional Offices and supercharge the Supervisors Offices with those RO staff areas in SO’s that would make sense for that old Region. Those SO’s would become the only other management center between the BLM/FS and RD’s.
That organization would remove at least 1/3, if not 1/2 of the employees, saving $ and streamlining work on the ground. Fire would be in NFS, but not stovepiped as it is now. More boots on the ground – cross trained in resource management and fire/fuels. LE & I would not be under the NFS.
The answer in any of this is more boots on the ground!