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With the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service all without permanent directors, who knows when the Forest Service can expect a new Chief to replace the retired Tony Tooke. Here are FSEEE’s office pool candidates:

1) Lenise Lago. Lago is currently acting Associate Chief, filling the seat normally occupied by Dan Jiron, who is acting Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment where he oversees the Forest Service. Lago’s permanent position is Deputy Chief for Business Operations, which includes Human Resources. In 2016, she testified that the Forest Service “has worked diligently over the last five years to make meaningful progress” on sexual harassment, citing as evidence that only three instances were reported that year. Whether her testimony is viewed as real progress or a cover-up in light of widely-reported news stories that paint a different picture may affect her chances of becoming the next chief.

2) Leslie Weldon. Weldon has been Deputy Chief for National Forest Systems since 2011. She’s punched her card as district ranger, forest supervisor and regional forester. A biologist by training, Weldon’s rise has been steady and without major controversy (okay, someone on this blog will disabuse me of that naïveté!). She would be the first African-American chief. Cutting against her chances may be a perception that she’s too closely linked to the policies of the Obama administration.

3) Vicki Christiansen. Christiansen is Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry. She’s been with the Forest Service for only 7 years and, thus, did not work her way up the ranks. Her pre-Forest Service career includes stints as Arizona’s and Washington’s state forester. If Trump learns she’s an expert in using explosives to blast firelines, she’s a shoe-in for the Chief’s job.

Question for the reader: Who should be added to the mix?

You know the authoritarians are in charge when firefighters and cops get more money and everyone else gets less. That’s the bottom-line in Trump’s FY 2019 Forest Service budget.

Many dismiss the administration’s annual budget exercise because Congress makes the final appropriations decision. But, the budget reflects the administration’s philosophy and priorities. It guides how political appointees view public lands and the role of government in their management. In this respect, the proposed Forest Service budget is a caricature of the Trump Administration.

Firefighting, already enjoying the lion’s share of spending, gets an 8% boost, which would move it from 41% to 53% of Forest Service discretionary spending. With the entire FS discretionary budget slated for a 16% cut, something else has got to give . . . and give and give and give. The biggest losers are Capital Improvement and Maintenance, i.e., taking care of roads, bridges, buildings and campgrounds, which drops 74%, from $362 to $95 million. State and Private Forestry gets a 43%19% (two funds are shifted to Fire) haircut and Research is slashed by 15%. Timber, which drops 6%, isn’t exempt from the chopping block either. Perennial poor mouth Recreation & Wilderness is cut 9%.

What else goes up? Law enforcement by 2%. Marijuana growers beware!

Consensual sex between co-workers, regardless of their relative power positions, is not harassment nor employee misconduct under federal law and workplace rules. Perhaps the Forest Service should regulate its employees’ consensual sexual relations, but no rules do so now. The status quo is that only harassing, i.e., unwelcome, actions of a sexual nature are barred; consensual sex is not.

This matters when it came to the retired regional forester’s view of what should have happened in regard to Tooke’s consensual affair ten years ago. According to the RF (willieboat007), Tooke’s boss, the forest supervisor, should have “report[ed] this type of Misconduct to Regional Forester,” i.e., herself. She believes that “consent didn’t matter, the Forest Service doesn’t condone this type of conduct.” In fact, the Forest Service is silent when it comes to consensual sex, barring only harassing, “unwelcome” sex. Strike one.

According to the RF, having determined that “misconduct” occurred, an “investigation should have taken place to determine the facts.” Government is allowed to investigate only alleged wrongdoing. Government is not allowed to investigate in the absence of a credible allegation that a law or rule has been violated. In particular, government is not allowed to investigate an employee’s private, consensual sexual affairs. Doing so violates the Fourth Amendment’s right to privacy. If Tooke’s lover had said their affair was “unwelcome,” that fact would justify an investigation (USDA employee relations manual calls for misconduct investigation of “sexual harassment”). But, simply reporting the existence of an affair is insufficient to establish a probability of misconduct. Strike two.

According to the RF, had the investigation revealed consensual sex between Tooke and the “young lady,” the RF would have issued a “letter of warning, letter of reprimand with or without time off and/or removal from the supervisor position, or letter of termination.” In other words, she would have punished Tooke for something that broke no law or rule, based on an investigation that invaded Tooke’s privacy. Strike three.

Maybe the times “they are a changing,” as some have commented on this blog. But, until the law changes, too, government agencies and their managers are required to follow the law as written, not as they wished it were. There’s a reason Tooke received only a “verbal reprimand,” i.e., no disciplinary action at all. He didn’t break any rules.

Sex in the workplace is a risky proposition at best. Between employees with different status positions, sexual relations are even less wise. When unwelcome or coerced, workplace sex is also illegal. While there’s room to debate whether Tooke acted illegally or broke workplace rules (I don’t think he did) by having consensual sex with a subordinate and supporting her professional advancement, there’s no disagreement that doing so showed very poor judgment. Because Tooke hasn’t been Chief long enough to know whether he’d be missed, I’m ambivalent about his continued tenure.

I’m more concerned with the collateral damage the retired Southern regional forester has done to the government’s confidential system for resolving sexual harassment and other employee-related conflicts and complaints. Ten years ago, the regional forester was Tooke’s superior, as far above him as he was above the employee he was sleeping with. She learned the facts of the Tooke affair, including the disciplinary action taken (a verbal reprimand — not good enough in her view) in the course of her official duties. The fact that Tooke received a reprimand at all is a confidential personnel matter. The fact that the Forest Service investigated Tooke’s sexual activities is a confidential personnel matter. Personnel information of this type is protected by law from disclosure. Whether retired or not, the regional forester had no right to disclose this confidential information to a U.S. Senator. That she could face criminal prosecution or civil damages for doing so is her brief, not mine.

It’s not just Tooke who has been harmed by the regional forester’s zeal to punish a Forest Service bad boy. The “young lady” she expresses concern for has had her privacy violated, too. The “young lady” did not ask to be a pawn in the regional forester’s #metoo tell-all. The “young lady” did not seek to out her former lover, nor did she claim harassment or harm. The government, and its agents (whether retired or not), are barred statutorily and constitutionally (4th Amendment) from investigating her intimate sexual relations or disclosing those facts to a politician or news media.

In her zeal to get Tooke, the regional forester has damaged the cause she claims to believe in. She has impeached the credibility of the Forest Service’s solemn promise that every employee’s personal and confidential information will remain secret — not spread all over tabloid pages, the halls of Congress, or this blog.

I await willieboat007’s response.

Yesterday, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue abolished, in name only, the U.S. Forest Service. Also APHIS, FSA, NRCS, and every other agency under his purview: “From today forward, you will hear all of USDA leadership, from the Office of the Secretary on down, begin to refer to us as OneUSDA. Not as APHIS or as the Forest Service… not as Rural Development or as FAS… and not as distinct agencies sitting in the same office, like FSA, RMA, and NRCS.”

Turns out there is more than one OneUSDA. There’s the 2014 human resources One USDA, which “tries to keep it simple” with “a breath of fresh air that reminds us that sometimes simplicity is the way to go.” And the 2013 “One USDA speaking with One Voice” communications strategy. Then there’s the OneUSDA Digital Strategy, which will:

Ensure that data is open, accurate, clearly described, structured, machine-readable, and digital services are optimized for mobile use . . . Establish more agile acquisition and budget processes that support the procurement and management of digital technologies. . . . Develop additional guidance through policy to address open data, digital signatures, performance and customer satisfaction measurement, and mobile optimization . . . Refine and expand the use of enterprise data taxonomy to standardize commonly used data for business intelligence purposes . . . Develop open data strategy that addresses the framework for sharing critical information at key decision points throughout the entirety of the enterprise . . . Identify, prioritize, and modernize existing data that are not currently available to the public . . . Deploy a virtual dynamic inventory of open data at usda.gov/data, populated by digital agency data inventories . . . Deploy a virtual enterprise geospatial reference repository to promote data quality with metadata best practices, templates, conventions, and other USDA branding standards . . . Provide guidance and training to data SMEs to develop web APIs, structure unstructured content or information, and to incorporate customer feedback for product improvements.

Uh . . . okay.

Here at FSEEE (there is only one) we’ve started an office pool for the date on which a Forest Service receptionist answers the phone “OneUSDA.” You can join the fun by submitting your date in the comment section.

All trees fall down. Some fall when they are alive. Some fall after they die. Some fall when they are young. Some fall when they are old. Wind knocks trees over. Trees fall over from root decay. Trees also fall after being burned in forest fires.

Wait a second . . . go back and click on that last link. The one about trees falling over after forest fires. Most of those lodgepole pine trees are still standing. And they’ve been standing long enough for the aspen in the understory to sprout and grow.

So how long does a tree stand after being killed by fire? It’s an area of research almost wholly neglected by so-called tree hazard evaluations (“There are no scientific publications, however, that evaluate, test or compare the [tree hazard] procedures or methods”). Ecologists, however, have studied snag persistence to assess wildlife habitat.

In a western Idaho study, for example, 95% of Douglas-fir snags were still standing four years after fire. Over 80% remained up-right 11 years later.

If the Forest Service thinks wilderness should remain closed until the fire-killed trees have fallen over of their own accord, they’ll have to lock the public out for years. The Forest Service could treat wilderness trails as it does roads and cut the potentially hazardous trees, if doing so “preserves its wilderness character.” Or the Forest Service could do as it has in Idaho — open the wilderness and warn visitors to “abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

Pacific Crest Trail thru-hikers had better be ready for a lot of detours in Oregon this summer. In November and December, after fire season-ending rain and snow storms, the Forest Service issued orders closing three of Oregon’s most popular PCT segments (e.g., Three Sisters & Mt. Jefferson), along with their associated wilderness areas and connecting trails. The reason? “Public Safety.”

This summer, fires burned parts of the wilderness areas that have been closed to the public. As with most western Oregon fires, the burns are a patchy mosaic of burn intensities. Ridge tops tended to burn hotter; valley bottoms cooler; many acres not at all. Fires are not uncommon in these Douglas-fir/western hemlock forests, with a return interval on the order of 100 years. The popular French Pete trail traverses through forests with numerous fire-scarred trees, snags killed by previous fires, and other fire-affected structure typical of the area’s old-growth forests. This trail, like dozens of others, is now closed to the public.

The Wilderness Act directs the Forest Service to manage wilderness areas for “their primeval character and influence” to “preserve natural conditions.” Wilderness areas are to be “affected primarily by the forces of nature” and “offer primitive and an unconfined type of recreation.” The Act’s only reference to safety is an exception to the ban on motorized equipment (e.g., aircraft) if “required in emergencies involving the health and safety of persons within the area.”

Even if the Wilderness Act countenanced a nanny state approach to wilderness management, the Forest Service did not explain its closure decisions, nor invite public comment on whether it’s too dangerous to hike in these woods. People do die in wilderness areas. They drown, freeze, fall off mountains, and have heart attacks. Trees cause about 1% of wilderness-related fatalities.

The default condition of national forests is that they are open, by law and without permit, to dispersed recreation. The Forest Service must follow the law when it decides to lock the public out. Under the Administrative Procedures Act, the Forest Service must explain its reasons, including how the facts support its conclusions. The Forest Service did not do so. The agency must also follow NEPA’s procedures, including explaining the degree to which its closure decision affects “extraordinary circumstances,” such as wilderness. The orders have an obvious and profound effects on wilderness and Pacific Crest Trail users, eliminating all forms of dispersed recreation. The Forest Service made no attempt to comply with NEPA.

What should our nanny state do?

What happens if forest fire ignitions are not suppressed? It’s a tough experiment to perform, but some old Forest Service data may help answer. In 1923, the Forest Service published an analysis of fires in 12 California national forests (excepting southern California) that ignited between 1911 and 1920. The data include suppression costs, which are a good proxy for suppression effort. Recall that 1910 was the “Great Fire,” which ushered in the era of Forest Service fire suppression. In 1911 fire suppression was almost non-existent with costs on the 12 forests totaling $18,746. That’s $450,000 in today’s dollars. Compare to 2015’s $500 million spent by the Forest Service suppressing fires in California (even more in 2017), and the numbers show the Forest Service puts about 1,000 times more effort into suppressing fires today than it did in 1911. In 1911 there were no air tankers, no fire engines, and few roads into the national forests. In sum, 1911 is a pretty good proxy for what happens when ignitions are not suppressed.

So what did happen to ignitions in 1911? Click on the table above: 70% remained smaller than 300 acres, while 30% exceeded 300 acres. [“C” fires are those greater than 300 acres]

Hispanic Heritage Month began on September 15 and ended yesterday. Or so says the U.S. Forest Service’s homepage. However, unlike the other four banner ads, which click through to provide information on Fall Colors, wildfires, and the like, the Hispanic Heritage Month banner ad links to nothing. The Wayback Machine says that the Forest Service’s Hispanic Heritage dead link first showed up on its homepage on October 10, five days before the month-long observance’s end. For those who wish to know about National Hispanic Heritage Month, click on this link.

Add together the structures lost to every national forest wildland fire this year and their sum would be a rounding error compared to the more than 1,500 2,000 3,500 5,700 7,000 8,400 homes and businesses lost in the on-going Napa Valley fires.

Radical environmentalists are being blamed for the devastation: “White wine-swilling San Francisco liberal elites created the conditions that fueled these catastrophic fires,” explained a House Natural Resources committee spokesman.

Nearby federal wilderness areas remain unaffected.

[Satire alert!]