Ignoring for the moment that planning for anything in government right now is impossible, I’ve updated the spreadsheet that the Forest Service used to maintain to let everyone know the status of forest planning across the country. (Maybe they still have one available internally, but it’s no longer on the website.) Any way, here it is: 2025 planning status
This is based on my review of the websites provided in prior years by the Forest Service (some of which were not valid, so I found another). Feel free to correct anything.
Briefly, it shows 14 forest plans “in revision,” 30 plans that have never been revised, 63 plans that were revised under the 1982 regulations, and 18 revised under the 2012 Planning Rule. 78 plans are currently beyond the 15-year deadline in NFMA for being revised.
One thing that has surprised me a bit is the sparse media coverage of planning, but maybe that’s just because not much has been going on. Here’s a recent sample.
A couple of plan amendment stories:
- Manti-La Sal NF adopts Bears Ears NM plan
- Nantahala-Pisgah petitioned to rework revised plan after hurricane
This site provides information on BLM planning from June 2024. (Thanks, BLM!)
You can update the Nebraska – To being placed on hold, they have “extended the pre-assessment” phase for an unknow amount of time. With everything going on and the work load of the Planning Services, I believe they are focusing on the other plans in Region 2, and getting them further along in the process.
Thanks! “Pre-revision” technically isn’t “in” revision any way, but since they had this info on their website I thought I’d include it. (Hopefully they will update that.)
Here’s an interesting twist on a BLM plan (which I suppose could have implications for the Forest Service). https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/02/06/trump-administration-shuts-down-controversial-biden-era-rock-springs-management-plan/
“The Bureau of Land Management’s controversial management plan for millions of acres in the Rock Springs area has been shut down by President Donald Trump’s administration, Wyoming officials announced early Thursday.
Newly-appointed Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum on Wednesday was granted the authority to review and revise all resource management plans (RMPs).” This is followed by a lot of speculation about “do we pick a different alternative, or do we just revert back to the previous RMP?”
https://eplanning.blm.gov/eplanning-ui/project/13853/510
From what I can tell from this, this plan is a done deal, and you can’t “shut down” a plan. I think you are stuck with this plan until the proper process is followed to change it. This is authority that already exists, granted by statute, not by any Secretary. Another example of this Administration grandstanding with meaningless promises that get everyone wound up.
A more reasoned response: https://www.wyomingpublicmedia.org/natural-resources-energy/2025-02-06/trumps-unleashing-american-energy-could-undo-blms-rock-springs-plan-but-not-before-litigation
Jon and lawyer friends, if the Biden Admin could just pick another alternative for Alaska Roadless, why couldn’t the Trump Admin just pick another alternative for an RMP? You could argue that the Biden Admin was grandstanding when it said it would strike down Alaska Roadless.
As to the Rock Springs RMP, people were already wound up for various reasons I’ll talk about in another post.
I understand that the Alaska Roadless Rule was “repealed” by another rule that went through the public rule-making process. That was the “proper process” needed to reinstate application of the 2001 Roadless Rule to the Tongass. In the case of an RMP, the proper process would be the normal public planning process, which could reinstate the prior plan or “pick another alternative” (or come up with something completely new). There is also some speculation that the Congressional Review Act could be used: https://wyofile.com/gop-led-congress-could-toss-rock-springs-plan-in-2025-using-an-unprecedented-move/
But they wouldn’t have to do another planning process, they just did one (over many years) replete with public comments, etc. Couldn’t they just issue another ROD from that analysis without the Congressional Review Act?
I don’t think so, but someone could prove me wrong. Maybe they could reissue the draft with the same alternatives/effects, take comments, and reissue the final with a different decision (explaining why in a non-arbitrary way). It also might be more defensible if they just want to “withdraw” the decision and default to “no action.” This happens with projects, but defaulting to a prior plan seems more problematic, and I don’t think I’ve seen it done.
This is a good question for our legal folks here.
Sharon,
I apologize for being off your main subject line, 2025 Forest Plan Revision Schedule —
(A new quarter-century of forest planning?)
Your very succinct response about Alaska Roadless helps to keep our lawyer friends employed. The RKS RMP was brought up (hence my subject matter apology). That RMP was ROD before President Trump’s memo and EO. Your point of the Executive picking a last minute ill conceived alternative for AK roadless or our local RKS RMP is the crux of many costly planning processes that apparently are never meant to end (federal and local coffers and denizens living in the areas generally suffer).
The Rock Springs RMP story goes back to the direction envisioned during the Jack Morrow Hills Coordinated Activity Plan under then Secretary Babbitt during the time period when the USFS redefined “transportation” (to travel management) and “production” (veg only – not economic); then later an SEIS under Bush administration if memories serve correctly. Much of the ACEC/WSA dispute of today came from alternative mapping discounted more than 20 years ago, in part, on account of all of the checkerboard lands involved, split-estate, legislative jurisdictions, &c..
It is really too bad that institutional knowledge from the past has been lost over the last decade (and I have no problem mentioning names in your forum) from folks like John Marker (OR), John Sandor (AK), Jim Freeman (MT), Chuck Hendricks (CO) among many others. If only they could speak from the grave ( including Jim Furnish) or assisted living facilities or those still in their homes.
One example of politics overcoming discourse is when I was a locally elected cooperator during the Ashley NF plan early 2000’s. The team planning leader (who was directed solely for planning and moving forest to forest) flat refused to allow for my constituents’ concerns of providing fire crew leadership into our winter time pre-decisional meetings to present them with, and discuss the publication, Forest Health and Fire, An Overview and Evaluation by Dick Pfilf, John Marker and Bob Averill that was presented at the Rawlins WY Conference November 2002. Higher ups politically deep-sixed any notion of that endeavor nation-wide. One of the authors, Dick Pfilf, at the aforementioned Rawlins conference, stated, in part:
“The most critical relationships for those on national forests [are] with county governments…It was, and is, always in the national interest to have healthy forests; and it is always in the local interests to have healthy forests. The differences of opinion [are] about what constitutes a healthy forest and what is the best way to achieve it.”
Yet, here we go again.
An example of politics getting in the way of management as far as California’s recent devastation is concerned occurred at the NAFSR annual meeting held at McClellan, CA back in May 2004 when there was around 6 Western State’s (and part of NE and SD) and Alaska local government push to get federal agencies (USFS, USFWS, BLM), cities, villages and counties to cooperate on veg treatments surrounding what came to be WUI via the Lincoln NF successful (in my opinion) coordination’s with counties and planning and zoning departments (Cloudcroft, Ruidoso, &c.) and with the Mescalero Apache Indian Tribe with help from USFWS leadership (use of goats that were off limits at that time) and from NM State Forester Butch Otter and Gov. Richardson (re: aftermath of Rodeo-Chediski and smaller, but hot Penasco fires). On the forest and range tours during the McClellan annual meeting 21 years ago, issues were brought up by all in attendance of what could possibly occur catastrophically, including within metropolitan areas…but once again politics entered the fray in the interim.
Back to the RKS RMP ROD…The past 12 years of planning between cooperators on that plan revision finally made headway with an acceptable alternative selection that WY was willing to support and BLM appeared to be okay with and not surprisingly that spanned two Presidential administrations. That preferred alternative and previous 12 years of work was administratively turned on its head in a matter of 6 months via authority of EO 14008 and 13990 and corresponding federal legislation according to BLM’s response to the WY Governor’s consistency review and appeal. Since USFS RARE I, RARE II and resultant 1984 WY and UT Wilderness Acts until present day, we have politics entering the system and tit-for-tat EO’s that continue to rule the day to the eventual detriment of everyone’s needs, especially surrounding our high elevation water catchments such as found in the Upper Platte drainage headwaters areas for example. Almost 25 years ago I responded to many friends in the USFS “…that the Courts will decide how our forests and rangelands will be managed.” Here we go again.
I appreciate your time and efforts at moderating this site…just my two cents worth to you from someone outside of your crew, looking in from time to time. I don’t expect this reply to you to be placed on your forum since it seems out of your original subject line.
That’s OK, your comment and experience is still appreciated.
https://drgnews.com/2025/02/06/rounds-leads-legislation-to-increase-timber-sales-in-the-black-hills-national-forest/
One other planning thing: The “Timber Harvesting Restoration Act” would codify forest plan ASQs (calculated as an optimal maximum) as a benchmark for evaluating national forest timber production accomplishments. This used to be a common internal practice, but actually this would be a good way to determine if the ASQ needs to be changed to reflect reality (like the Black Hills has been trying to do). I have no idea what this would mean for plans revised under the 2012 Planning Rule, where there is no ASQ. But hey, at least somebody is paying attention to forest plans.
Adopting the Bears Ears plan will likely backfire in some aspect with the new administration.
The articles about Nez Perce Clearwater and Bridger Teton seem pretty accurate to me, although I suspect the Nez Perce Clearwater may get litigated over the Great Burn issues.
At the risk of being repetitive, I’d recommend the new Admin sets up a FACA committee to review the success of the FS plan revision process since the 2012 rule was promulgated and recommend changes. We know the FS tried a bunch of things, including centralizing, but none seem to be working in terms of getting plans done. So, time to take stock and think again? I thought adaptive management was a thing?
Interesting take on “centralization”; I was lucky (?) enough to work on multiple priorities and projects that incorporated all sorts of centralization, including “Zones, Pods and Clusters. These areas of entertaining diversions certainly clumped up around mainly timber. fire and Planning. After having been successful at getting a Plan to signature on a Forest, I followed your old stomping grounds in Region 2. Even before my arrival, I was told about the centralization of a Planning team to work on the Regions Plans. My first, and almost last comment to the RF was “who’s crazy idea was that?” And as luck would have it, it was the Forest Sups who wanted to try that pathway. I was shocked! I think the idea of possibly saving money foreshadowed the reality that time would not be saved, and one of those “clusters” was about to manifest itself!
Just as in the fire discussions, the closer to the work the workers are, the more ownership and team building around the central theme is garnered…..
The latest on the Tongass plan revision – comment opportunity on the draft Assessment (but I couldn’t find the date of the actual release). “Nearly all assessments mention climate change as a future challenge.” It will be interesting to see how climate change is DE-emphasized (erased?) in the final Assessment. https://www.ktoo.org/2025/02/12/forest-service-seeks-feedback-on-tongass-national-forest-assessments/
And then there’s this: https://www.kstk.org/2025/02/18/wrangellites-gather-friday-night-to-support-national-forest-service-employees/
“Val Massie, a community planner for Spruce Root, joined in on the walk too. Spruce Root is a non profit organization that promotes economic development to people who reside in historically Southeast Alaska Indigenous communities.
She said the layoffs will also impact her collaboration with tribal members on the new Tongass National Forest revision plan. Now, everything is unknown.
“A lot of this work just got halted and complicated by all of these really chaotic communications and job cuts,” Massie said. “It’s really tough because we’ve made all this progress and people have come together to voice their values (on the revision plan).”
She said the person she’s been working with the most on this plan revision was let go for no clear reason.”
The latest on the Blue Mountains plan revisions – public meetings this month. https://elkhornmediagroup.com/blue-mountain-forest-plan-meetings-begin-this-month/