Here’s what the current situation looks like to me. A new Admin was elected, which wanted to downsize federal government. The last time this happened (government-wide) was the Clinton Administration, so many current employees don’t remember. The Clinton Admin analyzed first and cut second. This Admin cut first, and is apparently analyzing at present, and trying to recover from some of the previous cuts. Perhaps all of us (?) agree that that was a bad move (cutting first and asking questions later). Given that, the FS has a number of ways to get work done. In this post, I am focused on NFS, but it’s important to acknowledge that R&D (and S&PF via RGNR) also houses some expertise that is essential to NFS.
So in a previous post, I went from “helping” to “volunteering” and skipped many other ways of helping. It’s the intent of this post to contextualize “volunteering.”
- First we have existing what I’ll call “super-grants.” These include, but are not limited to, Keystone Agreements. For example, the Great Basin Initiative has several positions open now.
Of course, I think that this kind of work is best done by federal employees, because of the learning done over the long-term, because of the interaction between the forest folks and R&D If getting rid of employees willy-nilly is bad (which I think it is), is farming out work willy-nilly equally or almost as bad?
This is from Data Republican, not 100% sure it’s accurate, but couldn’t find anyone to contact on GBI website for media.
Now, I’m not criticizing any of these NGOs.. from my perspective, they are only trying to help. Like we would be, if we volunteered or got paid via:
2. Other grants (including ACES)
3. Contracts
4. Hiring new people (term or perm)
5. Authorities like reemployed annuitants.
6. Volunteers
So when I said, let’s us people with skills “help”, I, I didn’t mean just as volunteers, I meant via all the possibilities.
Now in my view, what the FS hasn’t done, and let’s not let the change in Administration get us all muddleheaded about this.. is decide what jobs are important to keep in-house, based on what criteria. Even though I am not a fan of either granting willy-nilly, nor firing people willy-nilly, the current situation offers the Forest Service the chance to get its head straight on this.
At one end of the extreme is having one ranger in communities for local relationships, with a grants and agreements person to get funding to grantees to get work done. You wouldn’t need contracting expertise, because the grantees would do all the contracting. Pesky old FARS and government hiring hassles- out the door. Also potential worries about conflict of interest, and the government getting the best pricing. As far as I can tell, the deliverables and funding to grantees should be transparent, but they have not been and their work can’t be FOIAd so those might be concerns.
At the other end is the idea that each unit needs a certain set of skills in-house, and work to be contracted, granted, permitted or concessionaired is overseen by Contracting officers and experts in the disciplines. There is a basic level of expertise required to be available to each District (although resources can be shared among Districts), with higher levels of technical support of various kinds provided by Regions (think recreation special uses or genetics or engineering) or other shared entities (like the Content Analysis Team or other national teams). Maybe the FS can’t afford this. But I don’t think it’s been analyzed.
The latter has been the traditional approach, but there have been major gaps even before the budget crisis of last November.
We can look at all this through (at least) five lenses 1) relationships, 2) federal work and the old “inherently governmental” discussion and 3) what Andy Stahl would call the “bubba” factor or maybe “economic justice for the working class”, 4) is competition for government bucks still a thing? when is it important? and 5) where should the technical expertise reside?
You can add your own lens in the comments.
Then there’s the question of “how much of farming things out is simply a response to overgrown, byzantine and impenetrable FARS and hiring requirements? Perhaps some Admin will do something about those. I’m generally full of hope about the future, but on this one, I’m not holding my breath.
Then there is the political angle.. if we are not careful, what are the chances of developing an NGO-industrial complex, similar to the military-industrial complex that lobbies for its funding and whose interests are not strictly aligned with national interests? The FS can’t advocate for itself in Congress, but outside groups certainly can.
As the FS builds back from the retirements and RIFs, I think having a vision for what it wants to be, what kind of presence to visitors it wants to portray (this is just the National Forest perspective, but lets not forget that some of R&D is essential) and so on is important.
Right now it seems to be a patchwork.. volunteers here, grantees there, concessionaires here, employees there. These are all no doubt the best creative local adaptations to various conditions and opportunities that presented themselves through time. Can the FS as an organization, though, help everyone to be able to do their work by thinking all this through and organizing and budgeting differently in the long run? I think it’s worth a try.
Speaking as a PM that is hiring through one of vacancies you listed, GBI is a good fit simply because 1) we cannot hire a seasonal workforce this year and 2) our program of work far exceeds our internal capacity. Beyond simple utility, GBI has another benefit for the FS: one of their institutional values is providing entry level work for people who are young in their careers. With any luck at least a few of their hires will ultimately be directly hired by the FS and come to us with prior work experience. And for those who move on from GBI to the private sector (thinking here of ologists) at least they will have some perspective as to how we manage our resources and be better equipped to provide their agency clients a better product. At least that’s how I am crossing my fingers
Thanks, Tim! It’s good to hear from someone involved. I like the idea of employees learning and being rated before being hired by the FS. I used to work with someone who disagreed with the FS mission and it was painful for everyone around her, for years.
On the other hand (I am reminded of the Thomas Sowell quote “there are no solutions, only trade-offs.” I think that perhaps hiring practices of NGOs might not align with FS hiring practices, education and diversity requirements (if the latter still exist), Veterans preference and others. So at the end of the pipeline there might be a mismatch.
I wonder because in the past I tried to hire diverse folks from universities who didn’t have that as a priority (at the time) and the link between “what employers wanted” and “what the system produced” was suboptimal, at least for a time.
I first asked this question in 1978 when the Idaho Panhandle National Forests were using Department of Labor employees under CEPA to mark timber.
Never got an answer and it seems nobody has ever read NFMA, but me.
From NFMA…….
National Forest Management Act of 1976
(g) Designation, marking when necessary, and supervision of harvesting of trees, portions of trees, or forest
products shall be conducted by persons employed by the Secretary of Agriculture.
Thanks, Vladimir, please tell us where that’s located in NFMA.
Here is the link to NFMA: https://www.fs.usda.gov/emc/nfma/includes/NFMA1976.pdf
It is under Section 14: Timber Sales on National Forest System lands.
and again, this is a copy and paste…..
National Forest Management Act of 1976 11
(g) Designation, marking when necessary, and supervision of harvesting of trees, portions of trees, or forest
products shall be conducted by persons employed by the Secretary of Agriculture. Such persons shall have no
personal interest in the purchase or harvest of such products and shall not be directly or indirectly in the
employment of the purchaser thereof.
In 1976, after working for the private sector for a couple of years I returned to Berkeley for graduate school. There was a graduate level class in Forest Policy taught by a visiting economist from the WO of the Forest Service.
It was a great class, he picked one major court case a week and we went through the Congressional Record, other legal documents, and of course the decision of the Federal judge.
I remember the review of the lawsuit on the Organic Act of 1897. Everybody in class thought the judge a idiot, UNTIL we read the Congressional Record and supporting documents.
Here is the language from Wilkipedia: In May 1973, the League successfully sued the Department of Agriculture over the clear-cut logging practices in the Monongahela National Forest as being contrary to the Organic Act of 1897 which stated that only “dead, physically mature and large growth trees “individually marked for cutting” could be sold. The appeals court upheld the lower court’s decision in August 1975.[8]
Congress really did want the Forest Service to mark EACH INDIVIDUAL tree.
When NFMA passed Congress, I noticed that they fixed it by including the current language. Then in 1978, when I working on the IPNF I asked my question and everybody ignored it. I raised it later in my career and it was ignored again, and again. At that point, I was in recreation or planning so had no timber credentials anymore so I was just ignored. I never made an issue of it I just wanted an answer to my question.
I never got a explanation why the Forest Service was not using Forest Service employees to mark timber sales. It is a great job, and when I threw away my last blue work shirt with timber marking paint splatters it was a sad day.
I suspect Congress does want the timber sales laid out and marked by Forest Service.
Anybody know what law the Forest Service is using to justify not using Forest Service employees to lay out timber sales???
Am I the only person that has read NFMA???
From what you’ve said, I suppose that folks will ignore it until legally challenged. And who would challenge it? Maybe someone who wants to make it more difficult for the FS to do timber sales.. or the union? Then there is a bit of a technological question, suppose the operator was using some kind of computer application.. would the fact that the FS had designed or approved the program “count” as the FS having done marking?
I think NFMA should be revisited after 50 years.. maybe the universities (not just law schools) could organize a review involving all kinds of interested groups and citizens. Maybe someone’s doing that?
I love this country!!!
Years ago, in a Soviet military document there was this statement:
“The problem with planning to fight a war with the United States is that they do not feel any obligation to follow their written war documents in battle.”
I even had the Speaker of the Washington House tell me to ignore the law I asked him to change an obscure law so I could start a new business!!
I like NFMA, though some of the science that the law is based on is out of date.
My priority would be to get interested groups and citizens together to save our National Forests from deforestation due to wildfires.
Hi Vladimir: You might be interested in the work National Wildfire Alliance (NWA, formerly NWI) has been trying to accomplish the past 15+ years. Our exact priority is “to get interested groups and citizens together to save our National Forests from deforestation due to wildfires.”
I think Sharon is right – why sue over this (until now any way)? But also, I’d look at the meaning of “employed by” in the context of the rest of this section. Are the next two sentences there in case a USDA employee was also in the timber business, or to allow anyone not directly involved in the timber business (or just this timber sale?) to be “employed” in marking trees?
Sharon said:
“Now in my view, what the FS hasn’t done, and let’s not let the change in Administration get us all muddleheaded about this.. is decide what jobs are important to keep in-house, based on what criteria.”
As we may have previously discussed, the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act does establish some criteria. Under that act, federal agencies are generally supposed to use:
o contracts for projects that primarily benefit the government;
o grants for projects that primarily benefit the grantee; and
o cooperative agreements for projects in between, such as mutually beneficial non-commercial arrangements. (Readers will be familiar with the cooperative agreements the FS has with states governing mutually benficial fire response.)
This is only a 30k foot summary – the act itself is available here:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/31/subtitle-V/chapter-63
Like many federal laws, the FGCAA doesn’t always work well in the public lands states, where identifying the primary beneficiary of a given project can be challenging (e.g., repairing a washed out trail helps the FS, but also benefits the local communities who are the trail’s most frequent users).
Making things even more complicated, the FS has a plethora of assistance authorities. CRS lays them out here:
https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R45219/R45219.9.pdf
See especially Table 1 at pdf pp 8-9. I’m guessing the table includes Wyden and Granger-Thye authorities, although it does not use those colloquial names.
In light of these authorities, the FS has provided further grant/agreement guidance, including a priary benficiary test, at FSH 1509.11:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/regulations-policies/handbook/150911-10-grants-and-agreements-administration-0
See sec. 13. I don’t know how clear this guidance is or how consistently it’s administered. In the agency’s partial defense, I’d say that this is all fairly complicated stuff, and I’d suspect that at least some of the on-the-ground administration tends to follow whatever practice has been in existence on that district or forest for any extended period of time.
Thanks for these cites! I have run into some Forest folks who thought there was potential for confusion in reporting and rules for all those different authorities (just in the veg management/timber space).
Nicely done. There are many ways to improve mission attainment. As you stated, analyze first, then adjust. Sometimes, for shock value to jump start what an Administration believes they need, “cut first and stand back” is a tactic. Former President Reagan used this method a lot. But, he thought out the “stand back” tactic. The current Administration just needs to “think a bit first and then move out.” This method just requires a tiny bit of visioning; ever so slightly.
As I have said before, this is a great opportunity for the Forest Service to adjust. The agency has become stale. It happens. Remember, “the Mission Area designations will prove to be the demise of this organization.” The Forest Service has a direct and indirect role on most of America’s forests (and forests are more than just trees). Well then, make some easy adjustments to begin with this sanction and build on success.
Lots of very low hanging fruit here. Instead of declaring the agency should, for example, have 3 “zones” across the country—one in the middle and 1 on each side (very thoughtful, right?), let the landscapes dictate the stewardship. As a Chief, call for a suite of landscape scale regions (LSR) based on their symmetry. Then, encourage one leader and 2 others—one in charge of “lands” and one in charge of “science and technology development” to steward the entire LSR. This is such as easy lift. Allow a current “Station Director”, for example, to be the lead of “science and technology” in a specific LSR. And stop this nonsense that our Sun rises and sets on the “193 million acres of National Forest and Grasslands.” Make sure that the leader of the LSR has experience in all lands stewardship, science delivery and some aspect of business operations.
Then, “let success guide your success.” Chart out a 5 year implementation plan. The lead for “fire management needs to have a strong background in land maintenance and technology transfer.
This would be a marvelous opportunity to re-take the conservation legacy of a once great organization. The trick will be to sooth the current Administration so they do not become so reactionary with every little “stimulus.”
And, eventually, create a “Department of Natural Resources Stewardship.” In just a couple of months, the current USDA Secretary had been abducted by the “wheat, corn and soybeans” syndrome. It always happens. Let’s revisit the real reason Pinchot asked President Roosevelt to help him out a bit. It was that USDA would not bother him and his new bureau. Now, the problems are so much more complex; you need USDA assistance with linking-pin functions.
Or, have a Chief that likes to mix it up with the three branches of government. 4 of the 9 Chiefs that I worked for easily fit this bill, so I know they are out there. Maybe the new Chief is like those 4. Then, maybe the new Department could be moved as a more future tactic.
I hope the Forest Service can take advantage of this opportunity and that the new Administration could have one of the finest natural resources conservation program directions ever if they can be just a bit patient and ask questions. Recall, “when you don’t know what you don’t know” vulnerability and being tentative will smother you.
Nothing that I have said here is new. Since I had the opportunity to learn in all the Mission Areas of the old Forest Service, I know these ideas will be very powerful for a more contemporary path now and ahead allowing a new agency to become fresh once again.
Very respectfully,
I’m sure there is a number of conservatives out there who would love to go back to using Temps to ‘manage our forests’. To go back to hiring teenagers and training them to ‘cut the profitable trees’. I’d bet that even the loggers would be fine with this flawed concept, too.
I certainly would have left the Forest Service as a Temp to work for GBI. I’d bet that they would actually appreciate the work of people like me, unlike the the attitude of the USFS. Better pay, more respect and opportunities to advance.
Jonas, what makes you think your work is unappreciated? And I think Larry would say that he wasn’t a teenager, and didn’t “mark to cut the profitable trees.” Are you disrespecting temporary employees?
I’m disrespecting the people who prefer to use cheap, untrained Temps instead of experienced Permanent Seasonals. It’s a simple concept with a simple solution. It’s certainly more “efficient”.
I don’t know of a single supervisor who prefers working through the hiring system annually to having permanent seasonals. My experience is that permanent positions are harder to get, because the unit has to be assigned the positions and then they might be fought over by different parts of the unit. And the reason is that somewhere someone must allocate perms on the basis of likely budgets, otherwise there will be a budget shortfall, as last November. Point being, no one “chooses” to hire every year when they don’t have to.
There are people in the chain of command, and in Congress, who WANT to go back to the old way of using Temps, solely because they are cheap. Well, taxpayers are currently getting what they paid for. Mismanagement and poor leadership imposed on the Forest Service. The costs of using Permanent Seasonals, as opposed to Temps, is incredibly minimal, and highly efficient.
When will someone actually fix these many problems, instead of preserving them? Some of us are willing to see what happens after a total (or significant) collapse of the Agency.
I don’t think Congress cares whether they are temps, perm seasonals, contractors, concessionaires or (hired or contracted by) greantees/partners as long as fires get put out, permits are worked on, and recreation sites are kept up, and the FS stays within its budget.
Jonas, I don’t know where you are getting your information, but you seem to be full of crap! Can I say that? Yes! I started as a seasonal marking timber, and I guarantee we were experienced before we went to squirting paint! We were tested constantly, with both “hot” (cutting down the trees and measuring) and “cold” (arguing over the trees as they were left standing). Miss two check scales and you went back to punching trees! Let me know if do not know what that means….
As for “management”; I would never sacrifice quality over a buck. As a Forest Supervisor, I went out with the marking crews in areas of difficult prescriptions, or contentious WUI designations.
Your words are empty, in my opinion……
And you are still stuck in time, 30 years ago. I’ve trained over 100 ‘warm bodies’ in my career. No forestry experience, whatsoever. You cannot say that was not a cost-cutting move, and people like you supported the continued practice. People like you didn’t step up and point out the problems. THAT is weak leadership.
So many who come here aren’t happy with the Forest Service, especially during the last 30 years. None of the leadership wants to accept the blame.
Actually, I have no idea what you are even talking about. I retired in 2017, so your analysis is as empty as your assumptions.. are you a forester? If not, YOU may be the problem that is still festering in the tank and file today. I doubt you have much of an idea what the FS actually even does; maybe listening to buddies at the bar talk about what they do?
The number of employees are dominated by limits on FTE’s, just because you want to hire a perm, or perm seasonal, if you have no margin, you can’t do it – no matter how much you can justify. Like I said, until you make some sense you are wasting everybody’s time….
In a nutshell, your answer perfectly shows my argument. Pretending there was never any problem, at all. It’s no wonder that you did nothing about it. The blame still goes to the Forest Service leadership, for not even addressing the problems. Passing the buck, just like the last 30 years.
And it continues today. Leadership is afraid to even talk about it. Chris French says that we don’t even need the field-going lower level employees.
Can you share when and where Chris said that?
Sharon, I saw it in this forum. He mentioned having “digital boundaries” and “designation by description”. This leaves timber crews with nothing to do. No timber cruising. No timber marking. No unit boundary marking. We can probably also assume no need for stand exams, either. Condition-based GPS DxD is French’s vision for the future.
You do know that there are more “field-going lower level employees.” than timber folks? You were generalizing. I see that as part of the family of “jobs that may be changed or eliminated due to automation and AI.”
Sharon: Can you just block this guy? This is nothing but mindless trolling and these jerks offer nothing but mindless insults and dubious credentials. The “repeat offenders” are pretty easy to spot and only degrade these discussions with their cries for help and attention.
Do not expect realistic answers here based on how things have been the last 10-15 years. You are 1000% spot on in your assessment of this mess.
Sharon, I think I’ve got “anon” and Jonas pegged as two mediocre, lower level paper pushers, who are feeling around, trying to be relevant in a world they have little history in. Just using catch phases and things in the media currently, that feed on hype and hysteria. Nothing of value, nor actual citations of “who said what”. It’s too bad really, if they would truly open up instead of opting out, maybe they could be heard….
I think I’m done with all their crazy talk!
Hi Jim: You and me, both! “Crazy talk” is a nice way to characterize the irritating and counter-productive trolling spewing from these two.
I have been a fairly regular participant and co-moderator on this blog for more than a dozen years, but last night I did something I have never considered before. I spent about an hour “trashing” Anon and all of his distracting insults — and my responses — from my posts over the past three months.
They can be read, or even reinstated, by other co-moderators if they want, but I have had enough of that crap. It adds nothing and only compromises meaningful discussion.
I think you have sized these two nitwits up perfectly. Jonas might not be so “clever” or cowardly as Anon by possibly using his real name, but they’re both dumb as rocks and should have been called out and dealt with much sooner.
No real upside to trolls, and these two need to go someplace else with their nonsense. In my opinion, based on experience.
Hilarious!
It’s funny when people become caricatures of themselves, in public. And flinging around so much name-calling and assumptions, too.
All, both Anon and Jonas occasionally have content imbedded in their generalities and generally accusatory tone. That’s why I’ve put them in a separate category than other “individuals with troll-like behaviors.” It’s actually kind of hard to draw the line sometimes. And I don’t really understand how these negative interactions get started.
I’d delete the folks that say others are “mediocre” or “dumb as rocks.” And to me, it looks like everything Jonas said would qualify as “opinion based on experience,” which seems to be the standard for some others.
We don’t have to delete them entirely.. just their comments that use those pejoratives. But it is a slippery slope…
I guess someone felt otherwise, both about “opinion based on experience” and even more troublesome “facts” as they would place them in quotation marks, which is highly unscientific and highly unbecoming of a “PhD”, but here we are I guess.
What a wonderful time to be alive in 2025 with the internet, where someone has an abundance of free time, no worries about their professional career, and feels a need to censor things. We all know who that is, and is not, that.
It’s not very clear, but if those criticisms were aimed at me … the quotation marks are quoting a frequent participant who often uses this phrase regarding his remarks. I’m not a PhD (J instead of Ph), but I guess I’m a scientist since I’m a forester. I was supporting Jonas and suggesting NARROWING the scope of censorship to the personal attacks (which your comment kind of borders on). It’s true I have no career ambitions any more, but my time is still precious.
They were aimed at Bob. Not you. He went on a late night deletion rampage, and clearly aimed at the other site admins to ‘do something about it’ if they felt otherwise. So all the links and papers and discussions are now gone. It’s just sad the state of things.