I asked Frank Carroll to write a piece on what he thinks Forest Service leadership should do differently..here’s what he sent. Thank you, Frank! I’m sure this will lead to some interesting discussion.
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It’s time to clean house in the upper ranks of the USDA Forest Service. The just-concluded election offers an opportunity to do so. As in life, so in government; the status quo requires a reset periodically to recognize and adapt to changed conditions. There is precedent for executive action to rewire government agencies to be responsive to the realities of the incoming administration and radically new approaches.
Following Western settlement and government efforts to rescue an agricultural Eden from the vast arid West by building and operating water impoundments to irrigate fields and provide power to newly rising communities, the USDI’s Bureau of Reclamation (BoR) found itself without a portfolio and facing bureaucratic extinction. Nimble thinkers in politics and government recast the Bureau as a flatwater recreation outfit and changed its mission and political support base accordingly. A new social license gave them a very popular water sports constituency and left them intact with the engineering technicians and professionals to maintain the complex system.
For over 90 years, Forest Service Chiefs sought to operate above the fray of Senate confirmation hearings and wrangling for political appointments. Agency leaders asserted their leadership as a professional class of neutral experts overseeing the greatest good for the greatest number over time. It worked for almost a century. Career Chiefs were tolerated and even encouraged. When the Agency’s mission, workforce, and ecosystem services were fully functional, clearly understood, and socially licensed by a supportive public, there was no need to shake up the sober and highly respected foresters and range scientists who make sure trees and grass grow sustainably, in perpetuity.
Today, the Forest Service is a mess. Deeply in debt (a billion dollars this fiscal year alone) and reduced for its social license to dependence on its role as a wildland fire department, the Agency is badly off course. Lacking accountability and poorly led and managed, the decentralized model that once made the outfit among the most effective in government has fallen into a caricature of past competence. The Chief has abandoned his role in sustainably managing our natural resources. He gives millions of dollars and direct management responsibility to outside, environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) to manage what he will not or cannot.
Many employees no longer report to the office to share the synergies of working together, provide immediate access to the public, build esprit de corps, raise new generations of employees by mentoring and daily example, share knowledge, skills, and common sense, and form the beating cultural heart of their local communities. No champions have risen in the ranks since the pandemic to redefine its role in the larger government. Without a solid footing and a firm base of public and cooperator support, no future path would compel the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE pronounced doggie) to keep the Forest Service going in its current state.
The Forest Service never recovered from the profound effects of the upheaval around agency management prerogatives following the Forest Wars of the 1990s in the Pacific Northwest. Spotted owls and the greater good suffered from myopic political compromises that crashed traditional community relationships with the National Forests and Ranger Districts and subjected the Agency to narrow political and environmentalist interests for which the Chief had no social license. Top-down decrees sought to “save spotted owls” at the price of sustainable rural economies. Agency strength and capabilities dwindled as increasingly restrained leadership searched in vain for a new place to land.
As Service leaders teetered on the brink of irrelevance in their search for a path forward, the disruptive power of the late pandemic struck like lightning on a summer afternoon, further isolating, confusing, and shredding any hope of leveraging the synergies of people and communities that long served as the bedrock of ecosystem services and public confidence in the Agency. The forest and grassland bureaucracy found itself stumbling into its old white-hat standby, wildfire management, as its raison d’etre.
Fear of the pandemic, low morale in the transition from natural resources management to virtually full-time wildfire management, failed legal support to back the multiple-use mission against often-frivolous lawsuits, lost public confidence in the government, and employee personal work preferences in an otherwise rudderless agency conspired to scatter the Green Machine and her people to the wind, leaves randomly falling wherever whimsy might lead.
The Chief and the Executive Leadership Team surrendered management priorities and future direction to a “Fauchian” cabal of misinformed CDC initiatives, uninterested OGC attorneys, a focus on work consolidation for its own sake, and a new focus on employee-centric remote work and telework. After all, any duty station and work method would do in an agency without meaningful purpose and direction. Employee safety and comfort became the single focus of agency leaders. Chief Moore has promised to keep employees safe and protect their salaries as his preeminent mission. “The goal of the agency,” he wrote, “[is] to ensure we continue to pay and take care of all employees currently working for the Forest Service.” The motto “Caring for the land and serving people” is a dim memory from a formerly very intentional provider of a wide array of ecosystem services.
As the pandemic unfolded, absent scientific evidence and without the courage of their convictions, fearful leaders first cajoled and then intimidated the workforce into accepting the medical judgment of people no one trusted and the management advice from people no one knew. Employee confidence hit rock bottom, replaced by the fiction that any activity was better than no activity and that any path would be acceptable in the crisis. Employees retreated to their homes, sealed the doors, and joined the Laptop Class of teleworkers now under universal condemnation because of excesses of illiberal bureaucratic power to grant any boon to those who do not directly contribute to the financial health and capacity of the Nation. Those who spend our taxes are less cautious with our collective bank accounts than those who pay taxes or make a living from private efforts and sacrifice.
Suppose telework and remote duty stations were a good idea on a limited basis. In that case, they are now anathema to a Nation resurgent in its need to ramp up economically vital industries, including our War industries, to support the international interventionism of the past four years worldwide. A new sheriff has arrived with a new message: get back to work. As Van Elsbernd so presciently observed, when the Agency decides to do something, you’d best figure out how to get it done or get out of the way before you find yourself under the bus.
As in World Wars One and Two, the urgent priority for our precious natural resources is to provide raw materials for our weak but rising industrial base. Focused on intentionally using wildfire to “restore fire to fire-dependent ecosystems,” Forest Service leaders have neither recognized nor pivoted to the most urgent change in National priorities in the current century. The lack of a coherent policy and compelling leadership on issues related to the new priorities, like healthy and efficient ecosystem services, means the Executive Leadership Team has been asleep at the wheel.
A new Chief and Executive Leadership Team will have urgent priorities to address in the first two years of the Trump administration.
1. Forest Service wildfire suppression and control policies aimed at sustainable outputs and outcomes in perpetuity (living functional forests) have been replaced by “alternative suppression strategies” like “monitoring.” The new leaders mustquickly pivot to a regulated, transparent, and accountable fire suppression and control policy that prioritizes private property, public safety, agency accountability, and environmental protection. There is currently no legal basis for intentional wildfire use and no adequate or comprehensive effort to document and disclose cumulative effects. Alternative arrangements from CEQ have now fallen away along with the Chevron deference, both of which provided cover for current
policies.
2. Common fire-retardant chemistries pose environmental and health concerns due to their compositions, which contribute to nutrient pollution, threaten water quality, inhibit plant growth, and pose potential health risks to the public and firefighters. Phosphorous and magnesium chloride are famously ill-suited to safe effective use in either ground or aerial operations. Continuing lawsuits for the past 15 years increasingly threaten the viability of what should be one of our most effective suppression and prevention tools. The EPA Safer Choice program has identified new chemistries that are more effective and much safer, and that require much less handling and maintenance than current products. They can be sprayed or dropped in advance and work bone dry until washed away in fall rains.
3. An otherwise promising agency contracting system, VIPR Virtual Incident Procurement, has been preempted and neutralized. The Agency organization in charge of VIPR insists on forcing a potentially effective, computer-based system that would quickly order equipment and services for emergencies, into a 1960s style review and authorization maze of old school, Soviet-style bureaucracy. Urgent reform of the incident management system for wildfire response is needed by separating emergency and non-emergency operations, promoting
district-level contracting, and increasing efficiency through proactive planning and resource management within 24 months. As it stands, VIPR is several steps back from improved service, embracing instead a slow and unresponsive jobs program for underemployed SES and GS Fantastics who work from home in scattered teams and stove-pipe organizations who answer to no one. The entire premise for system success, that all contracting would proceed directly from the Ranger District to the contractors, is subsumed under a suffocating and employee-centric management scheme.
Leadership change is key to an entirely new outlook and performance expectations. The new Chief will be a disruptor, a person in a hurry, and a change agent on an epic scale. The mediocre comfort zone, the shattered and scattered agency employees and organizations, and the days of working from home in a place far removed from your physical duty station are ending.
My peers and I would tell you it’s going to be alright. All will be well. Current employees will get it figured out through attrition, resignations, voluntary transfers, and by making themselves committed and dedicated members of Smokey Bear’s personal friends, the United States Forest Service.
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Frank Carroll is managing partner of Professional Forest Management, LLC, PFMc, a full service forestry and grassland consultancy.
Republicans also MUST take a large chunk of the blame, by not wanting to fund ‘active management’, in favor of ‘smaller government’. They decided that smaller amounts of work could get done by inexperienced Temporary Employees, while the Republicans ‘saved pennies’. They didn’t care that the Forest Service was failing, as long as Congress was ‘saving money’.
TAKE…. THE….. BLAME!!
I’m, I like to think, a pretty open-minded participant on here, more often than not. I certainly don’t bleed green, don’t work there, and also don’t hold ranks with the types that basically see the USFS as an extended wilderness management agency. So, I credibly don’t think I can be taken as too much a partisan here. And I’ll start with a positive note, that is, this broken clock might be right three times a day over the standard two. 1: Upper leadership probably will be changing. 2: Responsiveness is lacking (at least in appearance). 3: Accountability is needed (meaning showing results). Too bad there’s no serious indication of follow through as to how to meet these.
Points to that effect: 1: no actual follow through on points, the policies outlined at the end in no way follow from the talking points that lead to them; 2: the irrelevant culture war hash; 3: no remotely serious indication of what functions would go where; and 4: nostalgia isn’t a policy or program.
1, no follow through on the otherwise suggestive comparison with BoR. I wanted to know, what constituency did Caroll see the USFS building itself around? I don’t think the USFS knows what it’s doing post timber and range wars of the 90s either. But you make strong claims implying you know a better way or a comparison that will illustrate a better way, and then just don’t follow through. Ok, so what’s the story? What constituency? What reinvention? All I got was wildfire policy bad, environmentalists bad, telework bad, CDC bad (non sequitur, that).
2, the culture war hash. Canned phrases like “precedent for executive action to rewire government agencies” (did he copy-paste that from Elon’s ghostwritten WSJ op-ed?). I encourage one to look up Sarah Isgur (she was in first trump admin) and David French’s “advisory opinions” podcast episode on this as a primer. They’re not big gov’t cheerleaders, to say the least. But they pretty thoroughly debunk the idea that there’s any unproblematic “mandate” out there that enables whole cloth reinvention. The executive absolutely has the ability to restructure within certain bounds but it’s not clear what this “mandate” is or how it would apply to whatever it is Frank wants the FS to do.
Related, the near-liturgical use of “well, Chevron is over”. Did any ruling citing Chevron support current fire policy? Maybe it did, I legitimately don’t know. But I do know that it seems to be a thing now to cite the end of Chevron deference as a magical reason for whatever you want to happen, happening.
And “Fauchian” seriously? The man may have overreached but this is irrelevant at best. Relitigating the pandemic can be left to comment sections of your nearest crank site.
3, workstations and duty locales. Yes, the agency absolutely needs capacity at the ground level. There need to be economic incentives to be there. What functions go best where is a perennially useful discussion to have in a decentralized agency. Does he think that the agency isn’t trying to hire people at districts? What kind of restructuring would revitalize the agency? Let’s say you’ve got folks on the ground and staffed up ranger districts to some ideal degree, what about the staffing levels of Forests, RO, WO (both DC and detached) employees? Where do you house given functions? I’m seriously asking. There’s a condition on the essay prompt here: you don’t get to just say “no telework” “office synergy” or whatever canned crap. Or “GS fantasics” which is almost laughable. Didn’t Carrol retire as a GS13 PIO type or something? Pot, meet kettle. I imagine Carrol would crow about inflation given the election results, weird that people (including gov employees) respond to rational economic incentives.
4, nostalgia & the good ol’ days vision. Yes, the FS was highly regarded back in the day. But there are at least three sub-points to bear in mind here. A) nostalgia-coded arguments like his always freeze one point in time as a static thing that you can somehow ‘go back’ to. Here’s it appears to be late 60’s to mid 80’s. But consider B) you can’t have the arrangements of yesteryear without the political arrangements of yesteryear. The dismissal of “myopic political compromises” (presumably those of Jack Ward Thomas?) is awfully glib. Timber and range interests used to rule, and now they don’t. That’s the political reality. C) like the above, the economic realities are ignored. Rural towns are gutted, yes. Is it just USFS-heavy former mill towns? Sure doesn’t look like it. I get that it sounds nice to invoke the good-ol lil’ clapboard ranger station as the beating heart of whatever white-bread community you imagine with the mill and the loggers and the ranchers etc. etc. But future rural realities aren’t going to just look like the past.
A conclusion of sorts as this is already too long: Carrol does recognize real problems. But this almost-essay lacks focus on any one point and concludes by a totally random-seeming denouement. Boiled down, what I am left wondering is:
-What constituency is the FS needing to reinvent around? Given multiple use, it would seem to be, well, more than one? If so, which ones?
-What functions go where in terms of agency staffing? Can he answer this question in any detail?
-Can Carrol answer any of these questions without delving into culture war points about Fauci, bureaucrats, whatever?
And here’s what I think: Most important is responsiveness of the agency to targets, to public requests, and to Congressional committees that hold the purse-strings. This includes being seen being responsive. How you get there is less important. Leadership should absolutely consider new ways of doing business to make this refocusing, but there’s a tension here where Carroll cites innovation and disruption but only ever points to going back to some idealized past version of the FS. Fundamentally, people don’t like bureaucracy, but also depend on it to an often unrecognized degree. So doing the tasks of a bureaucracy in a “non-bureaucratic” way to meet mandates in a transparent, fast(ish) way. Eliminating check-box type steps in planning, NEPA, and public engagement. Not being cagey on wildfire strategy. Better websites. All these I can get behind.
While I didn’t read the whole thing carefully enough, this foray into reality-based thinking needs to go farther. Imagine what it would take to remove all the environmental guardrails embedded into our National Forests. Is that even realistically possible? With the filibuster still in place, it’s unlikely that such guardrails could be removed, much less survive the courts.
Well said, Anonymous.
FC… “Top-down decrees sought to “save spotted owls” at the price of sustainable rural economies. Agency strength and capabilities dwindled as increasingly restrained leadership searched in vain for a new place to land.”
Not surprisingly, I see things differently. I served as Siuslaw NF Supv in OR 1992-99. Chaos ruled. The FS mgmt paradigm from 1950-1990 was anything but sustainable, and the econ crash of rural communities was coming, sooner or later. It landed in 1991, compliments of a fed judge.
The FS ably served timber interest for decades, while largely ignoring the growing ire of about 1/2 the US that wanted fed lands to pay more attention to things like recreation, clean water, fish/wl, ecological (rather than economic) sustainability, and “naturalness”.
When we found ourselves in serious whitewater with a leaky boat, Siuslaw reinvented itself (on the need for entire FS to change, I agree with Frank) because we HAD TO. For the last 30 years they have managed successfully with strong tailwinds and social license. It was tough and nasty for a few years but the long-term benefits continue. As Frank implores, we found “a new place to land.” It can be done.
Jim,
I cannot speak to the outcome on the Siuslaw NF and the current situation.
I worked the last 1/2 of my career in R1 and the past 10 or so years and the current situation in the Northern Region is anything but sustainable…speaking to the land and the FS itself.
The only thing that really works around here in the National Forests is Mother Nature and she continues to “bat last”. The USFS itself almost seems to be hamstrung by its own policies, NEPA and frivolous lawsuits as well as vacant offices and much of staff that doesn’t have a clue or interest…it’s just a job! The days when USFS employees bled green are long gone – good or bad.
Frank has done a wonderful job with this article, illumanating what needs to be done ASAP. The current USFS Chief and his must burn, just burn and then burn again sycophants need to go.
Some really interesting comments on here so far! Frank went through some FS history and his thoughts on how the FS got where it is today. He also shared some thoughts for the future. Anonymous did an excellent job of challenging some of Frank’s positions. And Jim, it is always good to hear your perspective, someone who was actually in the thick of some of the events that Frank detailed.
How will things play out with the change of administration, and what changes should be made for the FS to be successful moving forward? Frank, you offered a few things. We know you want people back in the office, and that may happen and there is some value there. However, there will be consequences. A number of positions over the years have been filled remotely because there were no qualified people who applied to the position at the duty location. Ever tried to fill a Timber Contracting Officer position? There are not many out there clamoring to move for a new job. Many talented people will be lost if this happens. Doesn’t mean that it’s not the thing to do, but there will be consequences.
Frank and others seem to be ok with a significant downsizing of the FS workforce. There are always efficiencies to be had in an organization and sure a workforce analysis is probably appropriate. But large-scale downsizing? The old “Do more with less.” I don’t think the FS is going to be expected to do less but instead do more. And yes, with far fewer people.
And of course, there is the bogeyman of managed wildfire. So yes, that may come to an end with the new administration. We will be back to the old “we can log ourselves out of this problem.” Yep, that’s the ticket. Even though numerous mills around the country have closed over the years, for a variety of reasons, we’re still clinging to that strategy. We’ll somehow get new mills online. Look into 4FRI and see how that has worked out. We can also go back to the old 10:00 am policy. That worked pretty well in allowing fuels to build up over decades. There is no new thinking here, it is back to the future. “Why, back in my day, we did it this way and it worked well!”
I remember being in a lookout tower on the Olympic NF in 1990, the height of the Spotted Owl, and there were clearcuts as far as the eye could see. Is that what we want to go back to? Were those the good old days?
Frank and others seem to think that the new administration will usher in needed change, and I hope it works that way. I guess we’ll have to see in four years if the FS was successful in doing more with less. If putting out all fires right away was the right thing to do. If they are able to dramatically increase treated acres through timber harvesting. If they are able to retain talented, motivated employees. If they are able to staff senior leadership positions with truly capable people. I don’t think the FS has much of a bench for that, so they’re going to have to get them from somewhere.
We’ll just have to see how it all plays out. Let’s schedule a session in four years to offer a critique.
Why anyone with any self-respect whatsoever would subject themselves to a management position under a tyrannical cabal of Earth haters says far more about those folks than it does about the incoming bomb throwers in USDA and Interior.
Spot on Frank, my only concern is who will step up and yank the FS back into serving their mission. DOGE might just be the mechanism to self correct an Agency that is incapable of doing it themselves. Time to put some log trucks back on the road….
Some context to Jim’s comments – I was the last person hired permanently in Timber on the Waldport RD of the Siuslaw NF, in 1990 we still planned and laid out timber sales. In 1991 the shit hit the fan with an unwelcome court decision, everything came to a halt. Talk about chaos, before the court decision, we had about 60 FTE’s on district, by the time Jim showed up we were down to 25 FTE’s, and no Timber Department. Our DR Connie Frisch, Bless her heart, tried to find us all jobs (tried to send me to 2 places in ID, 1 in MT and 1 in AK) and only had a RIF as a last resort. Fortunately I had some GIS experience and got moved into a new career. and with some help from Jim on to R3.
Please check your facts on remote work. I saw a recent analysis by Department of the percent of employees who work remotely/telework. USDA is primarily the Forest Service and it had the highest percentage of in-office workers (~80%) of any Department in the US Government. Most of the employees in the Forest Service work on a Ranger District and are field-going for most of the year…
A. this sounds interesting. Please share the analysis, if a document you can email to me.
The WO Contracting and FAM officials currently in charge of the VIPR program are improperly gutting it with a eye on only how they can continue to build their high grade/salary kingdom. These officials are too busy having unnecessary meetings all across the nation so they can spend government funds staying in nice hotels, eating, and drinking and partying. Their recent poor decisions are to no longer provide hands on inspections of equipment (that’s right, unsafe equipment will be rolling down our public highways and putting us all at risk); and their plans to get rid of the employees who have the experience and passion to put together a viable VIPR program are dooming the best practices of the program. An investigation needs to be done of those WO people in charge, including waste, fraud and abuse of the public’s money while they go partying around the agency.
There is a lot of org/admin research out there on the birth-growth-senescence-death of organizations. Much like intervention with addicts, the hoped-for outcome is to arrest the decline before death occurs. Good organizations recognize the signs and initiate steps for credible reinvention. Fed agencies often slide into tepid muddling along. I sure hope the FS WAKES UP to stop the slide. I’m not convinced the Trump admin (with USDA politicos, and a new Chief) can deliver the good into a better future. Cutting more isn’t the answer (Remember USDA’s John Crowell circa 1980s asking for 20 bbf?!)
Right on. Good comprehensive analysis. Let’s see if it happens.
The National Forests of the interior west defiantly need to “cut more”! Not as in the 70’s & 80’s, but in forest restoration with fuel reduction/restoration thinning. There are numerous articles from FS research showing the benefits of this type of forest management, particularly in dry site forests of the interior west. Unfortunately, the FS is hamstrung by, among other laws and regulations including NEPA, frivolous lawsuits, and likely a lack of interested and knowledgeable staff to implement this type of forest management on a large scale. Meanwhile, mother nature continues to implement her own form of forest management thru catastrophic wildfires that are prominent across the west today – of which no one likes the outcome. Yet the USA is the largest importer of wood products second only to China. The National Forests are a great treasure and resource, but they continue to have catastrophic wildfire due to mostly NEGLECT!
No matter what the role of the Forest Service is in the future, we must all remember that: Mother Nature always bats last.
This is an outstanding opinion Tim, I think words matter; I usually say something vague or misleading or inflammatory and just hush. However, you threaded that needle of increasing harvest toward restoration goals! We can never get back to harvest levels of the 1970’s, nor should we, but we can sure beat what we’re doing now.
And, as Dave Mertz mentioned about 4-FRI, the government cannot print enough $ to entice new industry to establish! The results are, paying $4,000 acre to piddle around in somewhat confusing objectives that silviculturally are misaligned. Once industry is gone, it’s gone for good. I used to have a timber staff officer on the A-S that quipped he had poured more concrete on his front porch than the 4-FRI contracting wannabes ….🤣
Of course, we talking about Interior West, or West of the 100th Meridian. To actually view “good” forest management, head east. The South, Great Lakes and Appalachian’s are doing a better job. The South has it figured out, that’s why Weyerhaeuser is dropping a half billion Samolians in Arkansas for a Glue-Lam plant. I would be remiss to not also acknowledge Vaagen Brothers out of Colville (amongst other places) WA for having it figured out! And, as has been mentioned in other posts, the FS is losing, or has lost the institutional knowledge to put the pieces of forest management back in place….
“Yet the USA is the largest importer of wood products second only to China.” The USA also ranks in the top 3 for wood volume exports, so what are we to make of that?
Different products?
Yes, wood is used to make many different products.
Andy:
The National Forests are not contributing to those exports. The only thing that is being exported from the National Forests is SMOKE!
I believe there is a law on the books that prohibits export of National Forest timber. It appears private industrial forests are working and doing commerce as I’m pretty sure they are intended. Meanwhile train car after train car rolls thru/into the USA with softwood products from Canada and plywood from Russia…and sawmills shut down for lack of available NF timber. I don’t recall the “Greatest Good…” including smoke, cities in ash and millions of $$ spent suppressing fires. It all adds up to NEGLECT.
I don’t know why you think national forest wood products cannot be exported. The ONLY export restriction is for unprocessed logs from national forests in certain western states. Lumber, plywood, paper, furniture, etc., made from national forest logs are ALL export eligible.
Export restrictions are for “raw” logs (unprocessed, and West of the 100th Meridian. And even that, there are restrictive quantities that Congress meddles in, from time to time. It used to be no more than 20% raw volume could come from NF lands (West of the 100th).
Products that have had primary manufacturing are exempt. As a note: there are huge quantities of “pellets” from the South and East (forest products) being exported….
Read my post there Andy…I said NF TIMBER
Jim Z did a great job of follow-up and I believe answered your comment.
Tim, your post talks about “train car after train car rolls thru/into the USA with softwood products from Canada and plywood from Russia.” The casual reader could be forgiven for thinking that you believe “plywood” and other “softwood products” that derive from national forest trees cannot be exported. Thanks for clarifying.
I’ll take a hard pass on your exporting only SMOKE hyperbole. 😂