Shout-out to getting back to me in one day.. a search by a human (student intern!) being at GAO got back to me withthis spreadsheet of previous GAO reports and other documents on the topic of wildfire. Note that you can click on the above spreadsheet screenshot to make it larger. I didn’t find GAO’s regular search to be all that helpful. Some reports may still be missing may still be missing from this list.
Might be interesting and timely for a bunch of graduate students to take a look at problems that have been dealt with vs. ones that haven’t over time. I would be willing to publish such an effort here.
Also this list includes reports, testimony and decisions.
I didn’t know that GAO got involved with protests like this, which looks like the most recent one.
Construction Helicopters, Inc., doing business as CHI Aviation (CHI), a small business of Howell, Michigan, challenges the terms of request for proposals (RFP) No. 1202SA22R9201, issued by the Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, for helicopter support services for wildland fire management. The protester contends that the terms of the RFP are defective because no offeror proposing helicopters configured from surplus military aircraft can meet the solicitation requirements. CHI also argues that the solicitation violates Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations, and treats offerors proposing surplus military aircraft unequally.
We deny the protest.
From my perspective, this is an important list. When I worked for DOI in DC, we shared the responsibility of many GAO wildland fire reports. My job was to shepherd and coordinate the required DOI response(s) to GAO. I enjoyed working with the staff at GAO. Sometimes the response packages were years in the making. Senior management acknowledged the importance of the reports, but for various reasons – mostly the vast complexity of addressing each “deficiency” – there did not seem to be a great urgency to respond. During my tenure, I did not observe any pushback from GAO or any real fiscal consequences of a delayed response. There always seemed to be some new, emerging issue of high importance that eclipsed the issues documented in the GAO reports. I will be interested to see where things go with GAO from here given all that is necessary to respond and comply with the flurry of Executive Orders.
This is an example of what you are saying, there was a cohesive strategy developed but not in time..
Greetings Sharon,
Looking from the outside in, but as an individual impacted by the back and forth, give and take…
USFS/GAO/OMB/Congressional staff, past and present, could retrieve a few more years than those listed in the spreadsheet GAO supplied you; perhaps back into the transition years of the FS. Over the past 50+years, information should be able to be gleaned more reliably since complete digitation of past reports/studies/failures/successes.
“Might be interesting and timely for a bunch of graduate students to take a look at problems that have been dealt with vs. ones that haven’t over time.”
One must then ask themselves, when requesting information, “who, what, why, where, when and how”? That always seems simple enough on the surface, but without accountability for action or inaction little has been accomplished over the past several decades in my uneducated opinion. Most people, whose life, property or other well-being is never threatened by an action or inaction generally are merely box-checkers. I state that from experience.
Perhaps the grad students might look at problems dealt with, or not, beginning with GAO/RCED-99-65, B-281890, April 2, 1999 – A Cohesive Strategy is Needed to Address Catastrophic Wildfire Threats https://www.gao.gov/assets/rced-99-65.pdf This would be a decade after Yellowstone and various challenges in policy thereafter.
Better yet, the employees of the USFS, past who lived it, and present who are experiencing it, should review that report, or similar, as well as NAFSR’s SUSTAINING THE FOREST SERVICE, September 18, 2018 paper, et al.
It would be my personal hope that graduate students AND former and current federal employees might be able to get passed this generational re-invention of the wheel and toward some semblance of agreement for success.
GAO has jurisdiction over all federal contract protests. Forest Service has many every year. A contractor can protest before the request for proposal is posted if they think there is a defect in the requirement or proposed contract (as they did with the example you have). Or after award if they think the government didn’t follow its evaluation plan in their award decision. Wildfire contracts are notorious for protests, often due to the lack of meaningful collaboration with industry as required by law.
Thanks, Tiffany!