Are Political Appointees “Unprecedented” in the Forest Service?

The below are my thoughts on the E&E News piece Steve W. posted. Many of us remember happenings during the Clinton Administration. Perhaps that was so long ago, it is not worth mentioning. But to be picky about words, “unprecedented” has a meaning that is not “rarely”.

I”ve written about the different ways in which workers can be considered to be “political.” Let’s break down some distinctions..and maybe there are more?   What kind of appointment are they on? Where are their offices/cubicles located (NRE or Yates building or both)? What are they actually doing in terms of day-to-day activities? Most of these things are difficult or impossible to tell from the outside.   At least when I worked in the Yates Building during the Clinton and Bush Admin, I could see new people roaming the hallways, and some had offices in the building. I used to think that the best test was “do they leave when the party in power changes?”, which would fit folks in SES who are hired under one Admin and leave at the next one, but they are not formal “political appointees.” Think of Doug Vilsack for example, BLM State Director in Colorado (and son of Sec. of Ag. Vilsack) who came over from the State DNR and left after the election. I guess technically not political, but certainly there’s a bit of a political vibe there.

Basically, I think our taxonomy of who is a “political appointee” has never been fully explored. Then there are employees who make their way from political jobs to GS-15s, even line positions, prior to the next Admin. But those also are not “political” per se.

If I were going to look at a couple of vectors, I’d look at “how did you get in Federal Service?”

Anyway, there was general interest when the two new senior advisors were appointed and I wrote about it here last fall. I even read Verhayen’s book and wrote about it.

So what are the new items of interest about these folks that led to this story? Let’s look at the headline and tagline and think a little deeper.

Political hires break with tradition at the Forest Service
By bringing political appointees to the Forest Service, the Trump administration puts accountability to the White House at the top of the agency’s agenda.

But wouldn’t that be true of any Admin who puts political appointees in the Yates Building? Like I have mentioned previously, during the Obama Admin, I was told to visit a public affairs person seated in the corner of 4NW- the Chief’s Office area. Was this person a “political appointee”? Or just concerned about general alignment with “the Department”? Who knows? And does it work the other way? Generally in the past, FS detailees were often found doing important work at NRE. I think the career/political connections are actually more complex that perhaps is visible from the outside. Much seems to depend on mutual trust or lack thereof.

Anyway, remember the retardant issue during the Biden Administration, where the Sec of Ag was apparently overruled by a person at CEQ.. that also put “accountability to the White House at the top of the Department’s agenda” but wasn’t actually framed that way in any news I saw at the time.

Former Forest Service officials said it’s unusual if not unheard of for the agency’s chief to both manage and be managed by political appointees.

There have always been appointees around, as far as I know. And the Undersec is a political appointee, so of course any Chief is managed by political appointees. They can even get rid of Chiefs they don’t appreciate. So we are left with “it is unusual for chiefs to manage political appointees”- do these “former Forest Service officials” not remember Chris Wood (who worked for Chief Dombeck). Mark Gaede was often seen in the Yates building also; and his views seemed to be taken seriously, and he wasn’t a career person- was he a political appointee? Without looking at his paperwork, how would we know? It may be unusual but definitely not “unheard of.”

The arrangement is a reflection, they said, of the Trump administration’s desire to exert more control over the forest agency, steer it toward greater timber production and make it look more like the Bureau of Land Management, which is led by a Senate-confirmed political appointee and has wider policy swings when White House administrations change.

There are many actors within the Trump Admin with decidedly different goals. I suspect that these unnamed FS retirees don’t know any more than the rest of us about intentions of an Admin. And as I’ve said before, as far as I can tell, western R’s are not very happy with the wide policy swings of the BLM. Yes, there are weirdly ideological people in the Admin (as in every Admin I’ve worked with) but will they win out?

Tidwell and others are mourning what they see as the potential end of a professional forestry staffer atop the 30,000-employee Forest Service.

This is a little confusing in terms of wording, also, and I think elides two different concepts. There is “a career fed” vs. a “forestry professional”. Some of you may remember the drama when Max Peterson became Chief…(an engineer!). Or even Mike Dombeck (a fish bio!) or Jack Ward Thomas (a wildlife.. researcher!). These people were all career feds, although let’s be honest, every Chief has to align with Admin priorities or they will find themselves sidelined or mistreated in various forms. I remember our RLT being told about various annoying things that had happened to a Chief, and I remember thinking “if I were Chief X, I would just quit, that’s obviously what they want.”

There is a view that given all that alignment, it’s more honest in a way to have a “real” political person at the helm. I don’t share that view, but it exists, and way predates the Trump Admin, as it was a topic of discussion when Chief Thomas was chosen.

“The Forest Service was established under the principle that no political appointees would enter that agency,” Miller said. While there’s always been political pressure applied, he said, the Forest Service was built to resist it — including by having a chief whose term lasted from one administration into the next.

None would enter, or none would become Chief? Because they have been entering for awhile. And Chiefs have been removed and replaced if the new Admin does not prefer them. And many of us may remember a Chief being moved out to a different position in the Department, housed in the basement of the South Building. I could even find that in Google AI when I asked specifically about the Chief and the basement (you definitely have to ask specific questions):

This administrative move stemmed from the Clinton Administration’s push to accelerate reforms and environmental policy shifts within the agency, particularly concerning timber management in the Pacific Northwest. The reassignment was essentially a transfer to a “departmental” status rather than a literal relocation to an office in a basement, though historically, some Forest Service units or reassigned staff were housed in the basement of the USDA South Building

Back to the story:

Those reassurances don’t fully convince Kevin Hood, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics and himself a former Forest Service manager. While those jobs may not be filled with political appointees now or ever, Hood said, the posts could have been advertised instead as SES “career-reserved” to dull any suggestions of political influence.

I dug into the details of the process in this post. My sources tell me most of the applicants are career folks, so that’s good.

Putting political appointees in senior roles at the Forest Service could test the chain of command, said Steve Ellis, a retired Forest Service official who retired as deputy director, the top career job, at BLM. The danger, he said, is that people in those roles could call local forest managers directly rather than working through the chief, an exercise in political influence that’s new to the Forest Service.

Again, those of us who remember the Clinton Admin remember that very thing happening with regard to specific projects on Forests not desired by Admin friends who happened to live nearby. So this can happen even if politicals stay housed at NRE (in the USDA building, or wherever they are now.). If they want to reach down, it doesn’t seem to matter what office they are in.

Another interesting quote was from Mary Jo Rugwell of the Public Lands Foundation:

Whether they’re political hires or not, state directors may be more accountable to governors than the Forest Service’s regional foresters have been.
“You have to develop a close working relationship. That governor needs to trust you,” Rugwell said.
The connection can grow distant, Rugwell said, when political officials in Washington wield too much influence.
Rugwell said that from what she could see, during the Biden administration local officials too often didn’t have the authority to make their own decisions. “It was driven from above,” she said.

So even where there are state directors, as with the BLM, their decisions can be overruled from DC. At the same time, some groups are afraid that having State Directors gives too much power to States. And yet, we saw several instances during the last Admin when State Directors were left out of the loop, and the wishes of governors overridden by Biden Admin appointees. So perhaps State Directors are not threats to federal decisions as some groups’ talking points have made them out to be.