Alaska Oil and Gas Leases Cancelled Due to …Poor NEPA?

Now, I’m not a lawyer,  but I have sat in many meetings with OGC folks about cancelling existing oil and gas leases.  So I was surprised by this :

Here’s  the NPR story.

“They just yanked those leases,” Sullivan said. “But now we’re going to get ready for the next lease sale. Give me a break. Who the hell in their right mind would invest money in a lease sale when they just watched the first lease sale get yanked?”

The administration is required to hold at least one more lease sale in ANWR. Senior administration officials said they “intend to comply with the law” in regards to that mandate which requires another lease sale by December 2024.

The original sale, held during the last weeks of the Trump Administration, drew unexpectedly little industry interest. Major oil companies did not participate, and the state of Alaska was the largest bidder.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski told reporters on the Hill she wants to put pressure on Biden to reverse his decision but cautioned that it’s “incredible to think that people are going to trust this administration on anything related to oil in Alaska.”

Haaland said the environmental reviews done under the Trump administration to allow the lease sales were “fundamentally flawed and based on a number of fundamental legal deficiencies.”

According to a Biden White House release, this includes failure to adequately analyze a reasonable range of alternatives and properly quantify downstream greenhouse gas emissions, as well as failure to properly interpret the 2017 tax law.

The administration said Wednesday’s announcement “does not impact valid existing rights” from developing leases.

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So it sounds like, based on this, Admin’s can simply state that the previous analysis was wrong and revoke decisions? Folks can always find flaws in any analysis.. one would think that since our usual suspect ENGOs did not litigate this project that they didn’t see those fundamental flaws quite so.. clearly.  And yet, we can suspect they didn’t want these leases, because at least some are supporting this decision.

I don’t particularly like the idea of possibly endlessly recursive NEPA.. suppose the Admin were to find “fundamental flaws” in the last ten years of Forest Plan EIS’s.

It will also be interesting to see how this is portrayed politically; looks like at least one Alaskan D is not on board.

“I am deeply frustrated by the reversal of these leases in ANWR,” said Democratic Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola. “I will continue to advocate for them and for Alaska’s ability to explore and develop our natural resources, from the critical minerals we need for our clean energy transition to the domestic oil and gas we need to get us there.”

According to AIDEA, the non-wilderness section of the ANWR where its leases are located contains approximately 7.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil and 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The agency said a large share of economic development and jobs supported across Alaska’s indigenous and rural North Slope communities are related to oil and gas development.

Deb Haaland claims that this commitment recognizes Indigenous Knowledge, but doesn’t acknowledge that different Indigenous groups disagree about the project.  I guess that some Indigenous folks’ views count more than others.

“With climate change warming the Arctic more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet, we must do everything within our control to meet the highest standards of care to protect this fragile ecosystem,” Haaland said in a statement. “President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history.”

“The steps we are taking today further that commitment, based on the best available science and in recognition of the Indigenous Knowledge of the original stewards of this area, to safeguard our public lands for future generations,” she continued.

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Coincidentally, journalist Matty Iglesias on his Substack this morning made the claim that:

The current Biden policy is to support domestic oil production for economic and geopolitical reasons, even while investing in long-term decarbonization via technological progress. The old Schumer policy was to try to take advantage of the pandemic to crush the domestic oil and gas industry.

I think we can safely say we are entering pre-election silly season.

 

Alaska Roadless Rule: II. Rationales for Decision: It’s Too Hard to Change, and Besides Protection Can Be Handled in a Forest Plan

After yesterday I found this link to the public comments  There were 106 K so perhaps it took a year to analyze them.  I don’t know how many were form comments; usually roadless brings out quite a few of those.  Which might not be helpful at discerning what the public thinks about reinstatement vs. Alternative 2.   I doubt if many of the commenters, at least for the form comments, were even aware of alternative 2.

Here’s one example:

We need to protect our wild spaces more so now than ever. The importance of the Tongas National Forest and the people who call it home can not be understated. Enough of our world is “improved” upon already. We have options other than timber, and other areas to get timber. Preserve at least some of this world as it should be.

In reality, just as with Trump’s choice of removing the Roadless Rule, I think the real reason is that key groups wanted it.  Which is fine, of course, but someone had to write a rationale for the rule text.   I think some explanations are better than others. So let’s examine them.

(1) Adopting Alternative 1 also takes appropriate consideration of consultation with sovereign Tribal Nations, which uniformly and strongly supported Alternative 1.

That is cool that the Tribes all agreed “uniformly and strongly.”

(2) Although Alternative 2 serves many of the same values as Alternative 1, Alternative 2 would introduce potentially confusing changes both to the location of designated Alaska Roadless Areas and to the management prescriptions associated with certain management categories. Alternative 2 also lacks a history of implementation consistent with the 2001 Roadless Rule and the 2016 Forest Plan, potentially complicating implementation.

Doesn’t any new regulation “introduce potentially confusing changes”.. think 2012 Planning Rule, new oil and gas or grazing regulations? or Monumentizing? Don’t they also “lack a history of implementation”?  But sticking to Roadless,  how come Coloradans and Idahoans could handle these complexities but the Department thinks Alaskans can’t?  Thumbs down on this one.

(3) The minor environmental advantages of Alternative 2 do not outweigh Alternative 1’s other advantages and those environmental benefits could be achieved under Alternative 1 through alternative planning and program mechanisms that provide greater flexibility for achieving program goals.

The Forest Service employs various planning and project-specific efforts to maintain and restore watersheds by strategically focusing investments on watershed improvement projects and conservation practices at the landscape and watershed scales. For example, watersheds have unique characteristics and can best be addressed through Forest Planning and site-specific planning.

This is an interesting argument.. “we don’t need to put this in a reg.. because protections on the other 110 K Unroaded Roadless acres can be handled during.. Forest and site-specific planning. Whoa. I thought. This argument is that watershed protection is best achieved through Forest Planning and site-specific planning.  But then why do you need a Roadless Rule at all?  This sounds like an argument for “no Rule.”  For me, that’s a double thumbs down.

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What about renewable energy?

Now, one of the things that Colorado Roadless limited was “linear construction zones” for building pipelines, powerlines, etc.  We had a fascinating time and a court case with the 2001 Rule talking about whether those are “roads” so in the CRR limited them.  I think this is a nice wrap-up of what is allowed in roadless areas with regard to energy infrastructure in the response to comments.

As they say:

The 2001 Roadless Rule has and will continue to accommodate access for qualified mining, energy, and community infrastructure needs while also conserving the multiple ecologic, social, cultural, and economic values
supported by roadless areas on the forest….

 

The Federal Power Act (FPA) grants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the authority to issue and administer licenses for hydropower projects. For projects located on NFS lands, section 4(e) of the FPA requires FERC to assure the project will not interfere or be inconsistent with the purpose for which the forest reservation was created or acquired. While section 4(e) of the FPA gives the Forest Service the authority to impose mandatory conditions in the FERC license to ensure the adequate protection and use of forest land and resources, these 4(e) conditions cannot usurp FERC’s role in deciding whether to license a hydropower facility. In short, if FERC decides that a road is necessary for facility development, the Forest Service cannot veto the project or road, but rather is limited to imposing reasonable terms and conditions necessary for the adequate protection and utilization of the forest. The 2001 Roadless Rule (at 36 CFR 294.12(b)(3) (2001)) provides that a road may be constructed or reconstructed in an IRA if ‘‘[a] road is needed pursuant to reserved or outstanding rights, or as provided for by statute or treaty.’’ The FPA is one such statute.
The 2001 Roadless Rule also does not prohibit the construction or maintenance of transmission lines. While new temporary or permanent roads are not permitted in IRAs, temporary linear construction zones can be authorized to facilitate the construction of transmission lines, along with other applicable exceptions set forth in the 2001 Roadless Rule. The courts have sustained that interpretation on more than one occasion. The USDA has acknowledged that the restriction on road construction, including the construction of access roads, may pose a challenge for transmission routes that cross IRAs, potentially increasing construction and maintenance costs.
However, based on analysis for previous transmission projects on the Tongass, roaded alternatives are not necessarily less expensive to construct and maintain than those relying on other means of access. Construction and
maintenance costs depend on terrain, distance to communities, and other factors. Helicopter access, temporary construction zones, and/or trails can also be used to provide access and may even be less expensive than the road construction and maintenance costs associated with permanent roads in remote areas. In addition, the rights-of-way granted in section 4407 of Public Law 109–59, as amended, also allows for specified roaded access in the forest for transmission lines and other utility systems.

 

I’m sure that there is other interesting stuff in the response to comments and other sections, so if you find something please put it in the comments below.

 

 

 

Alaska Roadless Rule: The Biden Administration Did Not Select the Environmentally Preferable Alternative: I. The Alternative Not Chosen

In the possibly least surprising news ever in our world, the Alaska Roadless Rule has been reinstated.  Because Roadless geekhood is part of my lived experience, and because we can’t really expect reporters to understand the ins and outs of Roadless, I’ll take a stab at explaining it in some detail, because I think some interesting points were missed in the news coverage I saw.

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First, a question for our legal TSW folks:

If a District Ranger said specifically what she wanted to do, in say the details of a NEPA project, and announced it in advance, that would be considered “pre-decisional” and we were told that was not a good thing to do; not sure if it’s actually illegal or just bad NEPA practice, or doesn’t build trust with the public.

However, the President said very clearly that he wanted to reinstall the Alaska Roadless Rule specifically.  So that seems pre-decisional also..unless Presidents don’t follow the same rules.  But his (in this case) ideas are carried out via the regulatory process.  So is pre-decisional only an issue for projects and not regs?

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Great Thing

First, they made a new decision from the old EIS, which is great for not making FS employees and others do more work when the ultimate outcome was known. So kudos to the Admin for that!

Why Did it Take So Long?

Looking at their project site, it looks like they did an ANPR on November 23, 2021. I couldn’t find the reading room for the ANPR comments, so I don’t know how many they had.

Now, you might say, this is 2023, why did it take so long? I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who knows the answer.  There were a set of other decisions announced at the same time, and I heard much pressure from ENGOs recently, so maybe they were saving it for an opportune time.

Anyway, here’s the link to the Final Rule.

Which Alternative was the Environmentally Preferred and Why?

What interested me was Alternative 2, which according to the summary in the text:

Alternative 2 provided limited additional timber harvest opportunities in comparison to Alternative 1 by removing protections from certain areas designated as roadless in 2001 while maximizing protection for unroaded
areas by adding other Roadless Area designations. It removed from roadless designation approximately 142,000 acres that were substantially altered by road construction or timber harvest conducted during periods when the Tongass National Forest was exempted from the 2001 Roadless Rule.
Alternative 2 also would have added 110,000 acres of unroaded lands as Alaska Roadless Areas that were not designated by the 2001 Rule, and by extension, remained undesignated in Alternative 1 (the 2020 Rule).

Now, Alternative 2 was designated the Environmentally Preferable Alternative

As described in the 2020 Alaska Roadless Rule decision, Alternative 2 has been determined to be the environmentally preferred alternative, although the environmental benefits of Alternative 2 in comparison to Alternative 1 are minor. While Alternative 2 would designate and manage slightly fewer acres (approximately 32,000 acres) as Alaska Roadless Areas relative to the acres of Inventoried Roadless in Alternative 1, it would increase conservation of roadless characteristics and values because all the acres designated and managed as Alaska Roadless Areas under Alternative 2 are undeveloped at this time. Specifically, Alternative 2 would remove the roadless designation from 142,000 acres that are designated as Inventoried Roadless Areas under Alternative 1, but have already been roaded, harvested, or substantially altered, and therefore do not currently possess the roadless characteristics and values the 2001 Roadless Rule is intended to conserve. At the same time, Alternative 2 would designate as Alaska Roadless Areas approximately 110,000 acres that are undeveloped land but that were not designated as Inventoried Roadless Areas under the 2001 Rule and, by extension, are not designated as such in Alternative 1. Alternative 2 limits timber harvest opportunities, road construction, and road reconstruction, on the most acres of undeveloped land out of all the alternatives considered.
All other action alternatives considered in the 2020 FEIS involve sizeable roadless area reductions. For this reason, Alternative 2 is the environmentally preferred alternative.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this stuff, the 2001 Rule included lands that were logged and roaded, because of the problems with the maps at the time and the process that they used (including being in a hurry). Knowing that, they put an exception in the 2001 Rule for these areas (the term of art is “substantially altered” but you can substitute Roaded Roadless without any loss of meaning.)

If you look at §294.12, you’ll find that you can maintain classified roads in roadless areas, and also reconstruct them but only if there are environmental threats.

and for timber harvest §294.13 (b) 4: Roadless characteristics have been substantially altered in a portion of an inventoried roadless area due to the construction of a classified road and subsequent timber harvest. Both the road construction and subsequent timber harvest must have occurred after the area was designated an inventoried roadless area and prior to January 12, 2001. Timber may be cut, sold, or removed only in the substantially altered portion of the inventoried roadless area.

In simple language, the 2001 Rule allows continued maintenance of roads (and reconstruction for environmental problems) and timber harvest on “substantially altered acres.”

So back to Alternative 2. It sounds like the idea was to swap out “Roaded Roadless” for new “Unroaded Roadless ” acres.  This is what the Colorado Rule did.  Given that explanation, let’s go back to why Alternative 2 was designated environmentally preferred .  It would take the 142K acres already roaded, harvested, and substantially altered out, and designate 110K new Unroaded Unharvested acres to put under new Roadless protection.  So that is how the Department concluded:

Alternative 2 limits timber harvest opportunities, road construction, and road reconstruction, on the most acres of undeveloped land out of all the alternatives considered.

My next post will talk about the Department’s stated rationale for not selecting the environmentally preferable alternative in this case.

If you have any questions or corrections please put them in the comments. This is complicated stuff!

Alaska Roadless Rule: What About Hydropower and Rare Earth Minerals?

The Christian Science Monitor has a story on Alaska Roadless here.  I’m not an Alaska expert, but my Roadless Geek antennae started quivering when I read the the below bolded statements.

Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, is the state’s senior senator. Her opposition to the Roadless Rule is “not only about timber,” she says in a phone interview. She says the rule hampers access to mineral resources and hydroelectric sites. The goal, she says, is to “make sure people can actually access the region.”

Mr. Watson, the former Craig mayor, hopes that a new mine extracting rare earth metals, elements in demand for electronics and high performance magnets, will soon open at an inaccessible site on the island, the first such mine in the U.S. But he says red tape could slow approval of a road to the location, even though the Roadless Rule permits transportation corridors in support of such nonlogging activities. “We’d like to have things happen on this island that will allow us to survive,” he said.

Eric Jorgensen, managing attorney of EarthJustice’s Alaska office and veteran of more than a dozen lawsuits countering challenges to the Roadless Rule, says Mr. Watson’s and Sen. Murkowski’s concern is “not based in reality.” He says that “even if red tape were a problem, that would not be a rationale for gutting the rule,” as the Forest Service could solve that issue without allowing new logging roads.

Since we had issues and even litigation about a linear construction zone for a pipeline under the 2001 Rule, I was surprised that the writer (or perhaps Mr. Watson?) said that the 2001 Roadless Rule “permits transportation corridors in support of such nonlogging activities.” It almost sounds as if only “logging” roads are not allowed by the 2001 Rule.

Here’s what the Rule says exactly. It’s short and simple.

§ 294.12 Prohibition on road construction and road reconstruction in inventoried roadless areas.
(a) A road may not be constructed or reconstructed in inventoried roadless areas of the National Forest System, except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section.
(b) Notwithstanding the prohibition in paragraph (a) of this section, a road may be constructed or reconstructed in an inventoried roadless area if the Responsible Official determines that one of the following circumstances exists:
(1) A road is needed to protect public health and safety in cases of an imminent threat of flood, fire, or other catastrophic event that, without intervention, would cause the loss of life or property;
(2) A road is needed to conduct a response action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) or to conduct a natural resource restoration action under CERCLA, Section 311 of the Clean Water Act, or the Oil Pollution Act;
(3) A road is needed pursuant to reserved or outstanding rights, or as provided for by statute or treaty;
(4) Road realignment is needed to prevent irreparable resource damage that arises from the design, location, use, or deterioration of a classified road and that cannot be mitigated by road maintenance. Road realignment may occur under this paragraph only if the road is deemed essential for public or private access, natural resource management, or public health and safety;
(5) Road reconstruction is needed to implement a road safety improvement project on a classified road determined to be hazardous on the basis of accident experience or accident potential on that road;
(6) The Secretary of Agriculture determines that a Federal Aid Highway project, authorized pursuant to Title 23 of the United States Code, is in the public interest or is consistent with the purposes for which the land was reserved or acquired and no other reasonable and prudent alternative exists; or
(7) A road is needed in conjunction with the continuation, extension, or renewal of a mineral lease on lands that are under lease by the Secretary of the Interior as of January 12, 2001 or for a new lease issued immediately upon expiration of an existing lease. Such road construction or reconstruction must be conducted in a manner that minimizes effects on surface resources, prevents unnecessary or unreasonable surface disturbance, and complies with all applicable lease requirements, land and resource management plan direction, regulations, and laws. Roads constructed or reconstructed pursuant to this paragraph must be obliterated when no longer needed for the purposes of the lease or upon termination or expiration of the lease, whichever is sooner.
(c) Maintenance of classified roads is permissible in inventoried roadless areas

In Colorado, we didn’t see any exceptions for dams (except when their condition is “imminent threat” of flooding)- we had quite a discussion about how this might be defined (!) and addressed in the state-specific Rule. Perhaps the mine under discussion is a patented claim so there would be access? The Forest Service has been litigated successfully for approving road building for patented mining claims (in this case, within the Frank Church Wilderness) and made the Forest Service do extra analysis (not sure what’s happening with this now.)

It seems reasonable to me to question whether the 2001 would allow roads for new hydroelectric facilities or mines. Conceivably, rare earth mines and hydropower are new uses that have increased in importance since 2001 and are also positive in terms of carbon mitigation. Perhaps a mine could be accessed by water. Does anyone have more information on this?

Alaska Roadless: The Creative Middle Alternatives

We’ve talked before about the history of the Roadless Rule in Alaska (should the Tongass have been included in the first place, litigation and so on). In my view (as a card-carrying State Roadless Rule veteran), the purpose of a State Rule is to take the nationwide 2001 Rule, which was a mark on a wall and fairly quickly constructed, and figure out improvements that fit the State. We have had 20 years of case law since 2001, and some of it is not really all that clear. How this works out in practice is that if someone wants to do a project, it depends on whether Environmental Groups with Lawyers like the project or not. It’s a bit like having an approval process for projects in your community by individuals often living far from the area affected, and perhaps not as familiar or sympathetic with the concerns of those living in the area. Perhaps they see it as an “iconic landscape” or a reservoir of carbon or biodiversity. It doesn’t feel fair because you can’t go into their communities and tell them what not to do to protect the environment.

There are many interesting concepts in the “middle alternatives” of the Alaska Roadless Rule that are worth discussing. Unfortunately, to me, the preferred alternative (I would bet not the FS’s call, after all, they did all this creative work) the exemption from 2001 was selected as the preferred. I still think it’s worth sharing all the ideas for common ground that the public and folks from the Forest Service and State came up with. Perhaps it’s not too late for whoever is deciding to change..it seems to me as if it would bolster the inevitable court case to select an alternative that incorporated the complex public comment on offer. This, to me, would be a case for not having a preferred in advance- selecting one (at least THAT one) possibly just further polarized people.

Here’s a link to a powerpoint from last fall from which I copied the slides below. I particularly like this idea of the “community use priority” as it takes into account community needs by requiring that projects need approval by community government (check out all the alternatives in the powerpoint, I only put a few below). You can click on them, as well as the “reimagining” slide above) to make them larger.



Should Timber Industry Workers Help the Forest Service Pick Trees for Helicopter Logging in Alaska?

The Center for Western Priorities has a great newsfeed, but sometimes you have to look past their anti-Interior bias. For example, this morning they posted this..
“Logging gets priority in Trump’s Interior Department” where they blended the wildfire carbon kerfuffle Matthew linked to here with an Alaska logging project.

CWP says “The Interior Department’s attempts to help the timber industry don’t stop there. Newly released documents show the administration has partnered with the state of Alaska and the timber industry there, paying $300,000 annually for five years so that industry can pick which trees should be cut in an upcoming sale in the Tongass National Forest.”

Oh, well. They linked to this WaPo story. Given the need to fit the Dominant WaPo Narrative, I thought the writers did a good job of explaining both sides and picking people to ask questions who are directly involved. I also think the old-timer, passing on skills angle is interesting- perhaps Alaskans on TSW can enlighten us more about this?

1. Earthjustice attorney doesn’t like industry picking trees.
2. State forester tries to place the Trump factor in context of the longer term decision making process and points out that FS staff are there in the units also.
3. Sitka Conservation Society understands need for industry to be involved, and also wants the public more involved in decisions.

Earthjustice staff attorney Tom Waldo said in an interview that federal experts — not the logging industry itself — should identify the trees, since they are charged with balancing the forest’s commercial appeal with protecting its overall health and the species within it. Earthjustice, which is challenging the sale on the grounds that the Forest Service has failed to fully inform the public about it, obtained the documents through a Freedom of Information Act and provided them to the Energy 202.

“Here they’re vesting a really lot of power in the hands of someone with a very specific interest in the timber,” Waldo said. “The very best trees for logging are also the best trees for wildlife habitat.”

But Alaska State Forester John “Chris” Maisch said in an email that the logging site was selected during the Obama administration, underwent extensive environmental review and any final decisions are made by government officials. The Forest Service staff lacks the expertise to pick the trees that are both commercially appealing and can be safely felled and lifted via helicopter, he said.

Industry foresters are working with Forest Service staff “in the units and are not doing this work independently.” Maisch said.

“It’s a team effort with experienced foresters passing this skill set to the next generation,” he said, adding that protections are put in place if trees with bird nests “or other sensitive habitat is identified.”

Andrew Thoms, executive director of the Sitka Conservation Society, said it is understandable that the Forest Service wants to tap the expertise of those in the private sector. “The only people who know how to pick out these trees are the old timers.”

But he added that it is crucial to involve the public in these decisions, especially since the most massive cedar and spruce trees in the Tongass stand the best chance of propagating their species. “You want them to put out seeds, because there’s a reason they’re a thousand years old.”

Let’s Dive Into: Proposed Alaska Roadless Rule

 

 

 

I’ve told my story before about working on the 95 RPA Program sometime in 93 or 94, 27 years ago, bringing the issue of roadless to the group then known as Chief and Staff, when Jack Ward Thomas was Chief.  Someone at the meeting said “but what about Alaska?” and the idea was dropped. I often wonder what would have happened if someone in the  group had said “well, Alaska is different, we could leave them out and go ahead with the others.”

And so here we are (27 years later) with a draft Roadless Rule for Alaska out for public comment.  Having been involved in Colorado Roadless and the massive misinformation onslaught by many groups and media (a veritable blizzard of hit pieces), I am going to wade in to asking “what’s actually in the draft rule? and how does that relate to how it’s portrayed?”.

I’ve sent a note to the AK Roadless folks asking whether they have information on these topics easily accessible. But perhaps others out there have information to share. This Salon piece aroused my curiosity with the “science” angle. Also the headline seemed a bit over the top “Forest Service moves to open “America’s Amazon” to loggers””.

Trump’s National Forest Service is using a refuted scientific theory to justify building roads in our country’s largest national forest, what some call “America’s Amazon.”
Loggers want to raze trees more than 1,000 years old. 
The Forest Service says guidelines from the United Nations’ climate authority would be followed. Two scientists whose research was cited in the U.N. study says the Forest Service is espousing junk science.
The “more than 1000 years old” link comes from an op-ed in the LA Times authored by Chris Wood and Mike Dombeck.  Reasonable people may well disagree about 2001 Roadless history.
“The final rule allowed for new road construction on a case-by-case basis, for firefighting, forest health, energy development and access to private holdings, but it seriously restricted new timber sales.”
I don’t actually see a clause in the 2001 Rule for roads for “forest health.”  Somehow I can’t read 294.12 and get that. Can anyone help?
The science thing… there are several IPCC reports that talk about climate change and forests. We’d have to look up which one is cited in the FS documents.  Also, having your work cited in a document is not the same as having your thoughts be the same as the consensus.  And, of course,  Salon uses the term “refuted” instead of the more accurate “disputed.” But when are consensus IPCC  findings “junk science”and when not? After Solstice Break we’ll look at this issue in depth as part of a new feature called “Why People Disagree About Forest Carbon.”
The Tongass stores more carbon removed from the atmosphere than any other national forest in the country in its old-growth Sitka spruce, hemlock and cedar trees. It  helps protect Alaska, which is warming more than twice as fast from climate change as our planet overall. The forest holds about 650 million tons of carbon or about half of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions in 2017.

I also think it’s interesting to equate the total storage of the forest with annual emissions of the US. A person could also argue that if Alaska is warming twice as fast, those trees are in trouble anyway.  But wait, this E&E News story says..

Even though 9.2 million acres of inventoried roadless areas would be freed from the roadless rule, only 185,000 acres would be added to the areas that may be considered for timber harvest, the Forest Service said.

Overall harvest projections remain at 17,000 acres of old growth and 11,800 acres of young growth over the next 100 years, levels envisioned in the 2016 Tongass land management plan.

“The proposed rule does not change the projected timber sale quantity or timber demand projections set out in the Tongass Forest Plan,” the Forest Service said in the documents. “The alternatives examine different mixes of land areas and timber restrictions that would incrementally increase management flexibility for how the forest plan’s timber harvest goals can be achieved, but does not fundamentally alter the plan’s underlying goals or projected outcomes.”

Based on the FS point of view, they are trying to switch around where they get their 28,800 OG and YG acres per year. Wikipedia says the Tongass is 16.7 million acres. Is that .2% of the total acres per year? How relevant is it then, to talk about the carbon on the entire forest as relevant to this decision?

150,000 acre “project” on the Bitterroot

Well, not exactly, maybe.  This could be a good example of how to get the public involved early enough in the process for timber harvest decisions that the locations have not been determined yet.  But consider that the decision-maker is the same one who applied “condition-based” NEPA analysis to the Prince of Wales area of the Tongass, which has ended up in court.

Bitterroot National Forest Supervisor Matt Anderson has added a new “pre-pre-scoping” stage to the process, not part of the traditional process in which a set of options is presented to the public for review and analysis.

The new approach is meant to get the public involved prior to coming up with any specific actions being planned for any specific location.

That much I like the sound of.

“There is confusion,” said Anderson. “It’s hard for the public to get involved. We are asking ‘What do you want to see? What’s your vision?’” He said the agency was “starting at the foundational level, not any particular location.” He said it was important to get to those particulars but the way there was to first describe the “desired future condition that we want and then look at the various ways we can achieve it.”

Asked about the fact that the current Forest Plan describes a desired future condition for the Bitterroot Front that involves returning it to primarily a Ponderosa pine habitat with little understory, Anderson said that is in the current plan, but that the plan is about 30 years old. He said a lot has changed in that time on the ground. There have been lots of fires and areas where no fires have occurred, and the fuel load has gotten extremely high. He said current conditions need to be assessed and they were currently compiling all the maps and other information they need to get an accurate picture of what is on the ground today in the project area.

This should raise a concern about how this process relates to forest planning, since forest plans are where decisions about desired conditions are made.  However, old forest plans typically didn’t provide desired conditions that are specific enough for projects, so that step has occurred at the project level.  Under the 2012 planning rule, specific desired conditions are a requirement for forest plans, but the Bitterroot National Forest is not yet revising its plan. Whatever desired conditions they come up with should be intended as part of the forest plan, and the public should be made aware of this.  If the new decision is not consistent with “Ponderosa pine habitat with little understory,” they’ll need an amendment to be consistent with the current plan.  (I’d add that changes in the on-the-ground conditions over the last 30 years shouldn’t necessarily influence the long-term desired condition.)

“The Tongass is so different than the Bitterroot,” said Anderson. “There is not much similarity. I’m not trying to replicate that process here. It was a conditioned-based process up there. It’s like comparing apples to oranges.” In reference to conditioned-based projects, he said, “One difference with this project is that some of that will be pre-decision and some of that will be in implementation. We are trying to shift some of the workload to the implementation stage.”

He said they have a slew of options, from traditional NEPA, to programmatic NEPA to condition-based NEPA “and we are trying to figure it out.”

He insists that the NEPA process will be followed with the same chance for public comment and involvement on every specific project that is proposed in the area.

There’s some ambiguous and possibly inconsistent statements there.  Condition-based NEPA seeks to avoid a NEPA process “on every specific project.”  I could also interpret shifting workload to “pre-decision” and  “the implementation stage” is a way to take things out of the NEPA realm.

And then there’s this:

In response to the notion that the huge project is being driven by timber targets and not health prescriptions, Anderson said that the Regional Office had set some timber targets for different areas of the region, but that those targets were not driving the analysis.This project has nothing to do with meeting any target,” said Anderson.

This feels a little like “There was no quid pro quo.”  Would timber harvested from this project not count towards the targets?  (I’d like to see  targets for achieving desired conditions.) All in all this project would be worth keeping an eye on.

(By the way, here’s the latest on Prince of Wales.)

What’s Going on in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest? Why? Guest Post by Jim Furnish

From Jim Furnish:

Much attention has focused on the Tongass recently (yet again) with the Trump administration’s avowed intent to scrap adjudicated roadless areas protections dating back to 2001. Some cheer, some moan. Here we go again. It is inarguable that the Tongass is the most extraordinary and unique national forest, especially in the political sense.

A brief context: TR created the Tongass in 1907 and it slumbered until the 1950s when the Forest Service established two massive 50-year contracts with Ketchikan and Alaska Pulp Companies (KPC and APC), intended to assist in Japan’s recovery from WWII. These two monopolistic entities dominated a huge logging uptick. While the Monongahela NF controversy over clearcutting is well-chronicled, a similar conflict erupted in Alaska resulting in an injunction that was also resolved by NFMA in 1976. Later, after decades of subsidized exploitation of Tongass old-growth forests, KPC and APC closed their mills in the mid-1990s and the FS canceled both contracts. Controversy has dogged industrial logging ever since, though timber harvest volumes plummeted from the 50-year provision of 13 billion bf contracted to KPC and APC to current levels of only 25-35 mmbf/yr.

Today, Tongass-dependent timber industry in SE Alaska hangs by a thread with one remaining OG mill – Viking in Craig – and a few artisanal specialty product mills. These are beset by headwinds like constant litigation, distant markets, uncertain supply, high labor costs, old technology, and now tariffs. Most tribal land logging is exported, as is up to one-half of federal log volume.

But politics exerts influence on the Tongass like no other national forest. The size of West Virginia, the Tongass “owns” nearly all lands except for the boroughs (like Juneau), thus the forest supervisor serves as an “almost governor” for all of SE Alaska. The Forest Service has an outsized influence over all affairs, which often puts them in conflict with local, state, and national elected officials who interject themselves in all manner of FS affairs. I think it’s reasonable to say that most conflicts originate with any FS pro-environment initiative, such as roadless area protection, pushing buttons of a traditionally pro-commerce Alaskan congressional delegation. Failure to tiptoe this tricky tightrope has shortened several careers.

The latest iteration involves a demand by the Obama administration that the FS all but eliminate OG logging by transitioning to now-commercial second growth. The FS produced an amended Tongass Forest Plan in 2016 granting themselves a 16-year glide path, claiming that second growth was not yet commercially viable (I strongly disagree, based on Catherine Mater’s exhaustive analysis of the FS’s own inventory data). The new Governor Dunleavy and President Trump administrations sparked a renewed effort to rescind roadless protections of about 9 million acres and pump life into a dying industry with more subsidies and more logging. Yet another Draft EIS is available for review. Agriculture Secretary Perdue favors dropping all roadless protections. As Trump often says, “We’ll see what happens . . .”

Tongass transition to young-growth – are we there yet?

The Tongass National Forest is being managed under a 2016 amendment to its 2008 forest plan that addresses the Forest’s transition away from old-growth timber harvesting.  The amendment accelerated the transition in the plan from 32 years to 16 years, but there has been continuing controversy over how long that process should take.   Here’s the latest in an extended article from E&E News:

A new complication in the debate over the young-growth transition comes from Catherine Mater, a forest products engineer from Oregon who recently completed an inventory of 43 areas within the Tongass under a contract with the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station. There’s enough young growth coming online to provide around 55 million board feet of timber annually for decades, she said, or more than double the total timber volume the service reported cut there in fiscal 2018. Mater found 138,760 acres of young growth — between 55 and 80 years old — suitable for harvest. All of it was within 800 feet of Forest Service roads and away from steep slopes and other environmentally sensitive areas.

Of course there’s still pushback from the “timber companies and industry-friendly politicians, who want more thinning and bigger clear cuts.”

What caught my attention though was these comments from the Tongass spokeswoman:

Forest Service managers stand by their estimates that the young-growth transition won’t be complete before 2033, Fenster said. “If, once the analysis is complete, it shows the projections in the forest plan were not valid, then the Forest Service would have to consider alternatives to incorporating new information into the forest plan estimates,” Fenster said.

The projected volume of young growth was a fundamental assumption in the 2016 amendment, so I don’t think the Forest has the option of ignoring how it could affect the decisions it made in the forest plan.