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Followup to the acres question earlier. I wrote the AP folks and they said they got the number from the press release, which said
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins issued a Secretarial Memo (PDF, 2.9 MB) to establish an “Emergency Situation Determination” on 112,646,000 acres of National Forestry System (NFS) land (PDF, 19.8 MB).
Certainly that’s over half. Which of course does not obviate other restrictions, like Wilderness, Roadless, etc. In fact, it only applies to EAs and EIS’s that meet other designation and plan requirements. But I can see why a press release would not go in to those details. So that explains it- the origin of what might be considered cascading misunderstandings.
Our friends at Center for Western Priorities were quick to jump on this in their newsletter this AM…
The Trump administration has removed protections for over half of the National Forest System via the issuance of an emergency order related to wildfire risk. The order covers more than 110 million acres of forest land and will fast-track timber production by removing National Environmental Policy Act regulations in the name of wildfire mitigation.
Guess what the link goes to? Not the AP story, the WaPo story. And so the cascade continues.
What’s with Secretary Rollins’ reference to “National Forestry System” lands? There is a National Forest System, but no “National Forestry System.”
Yes, well, clearly we should volunteer as copy editors at the USDA press office.
I remember the stories of Ag Sec Earl Butz calling us those $&@#% forestry folks, who operate at their own leisure……. 🤣🤣. Long time ago.
This is the usual quote..
Earl Butz, Richard Nixon’s controversial secretary of Agriculture, was a profane man known for his hair-trigger temper and rough handling of subordinates. So when the chief of the Forest Service stood him up for a meeting, Butz unloaded in response: “There are four branches of government,” he reportedly snarled, “the executive, legislative, judicial and the Gawd-damn U.S. Forest Service.”
From an essay by Char Miller on the occasion of Vilsack attempting to rebrand the FS https://www.hcn.org/wotr/dont-mess-with-the-forest-service/.
That’s it! 🤣🤣🤣
What if it said removing NEPA “requirements” instead of regulations? Or bypassing (some) NEPA regulations. There are now things that don’t have to be done. To the casual reader, this might look like semantics.