Bureau of Land Management

Retired Law Enforcement FS Employee Quoted in Wall Street Journal, and the Non-Partisan Table of Past Indiscretions

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I try to stay away from Partisan Political Drama, especially Department of the Interior Political Drama, but had to share this editorial board piece in the Wall Street Journal about a Forest Service law enforcement retiree. I had to sign up for the Wall Street Journal to access it so I thought I’d share the FS retiree part of the article so you all don’t have to.

In responses to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Ms. Stone-Manning attested she was never “a target” of the investigation. She says she knew nothing of the plot and does not recall “ever discussing tree spiking” with the perpetrators. Her excuse for not immediately turning them in to authorities was that she “did not actually know if they had done what the letter described.”

Public documents have cast suspicion on this version of events, but now the former lead investigator of the 1989 crime has come forward with evidence suggesting Ms. Stone-Manning’s testimony is false. Michael Merkley, a retired special agent for the Forest Service, in a four-page letter to the committee says Ms. Stone-Manning was “not an innocent bystander.” After an investigation led his team to search the Missoula residence where Ms. Stone-Manning and other Earth First! members had lived, he says, a grand jury served subpoenas “on persons suspected of having knowledge of the incident, including Ms. Tracy Stone-Manning.”

Mr. Merkley reports that Ms. Stone-Manning through his investigation was “vulgar, antagonistic, and extremely anti-government” and refused to provide the hair, handwriting and fingerprint samples ordered by the grand jury until threatened with arrest. She refused to answer questions, leaving investigators in the dark for years about the suspects.

Mr. Merkley says that in 1992 he made contact with another woman in the group, who exposed the spikers and Ms. Stone-Manning’s involvement. But this woman also “recounted a conversation she had overheard wherein Ms. Stone-Manning along with other co-conspirators planned the tree spiking and discussed whether to use metal or ceramic spikes in the trees.” This testimony, he says, inspired the grand jury to send Ms. Stone-Manning “a ‘target letter’ which meant she was going to be indicted on criminal charges.” She negotiated a deal “to gain immunity in exchange for her testimony.”

Meanwhile, backing up Mr. Merkley is a new interview in E&E news with John Blount, a ringleader of the operation, who went to jail for 17 months. While Ms. Stone-Manning was not “heavily involved in the planning,” he says she “knew about it far in advance, a couple of months before we headed out.” He provided details of the plan, saying Ms. Stone-Manning was supposed to mail the letter from Billings, in order to throw off investigators.

Anyway, we have seen various problems with high level appointees of various kinds.. and the press tends to be remarkably partisan in their ways of reporting.

So.. I think we need to develop a “Non-Partisan Table of Past Indiscretions” so we can apply the same criteria to appointees from different groups.

1. What was it?
2. How long ago?
3. Was it a one-off or continuing?
4. What kind of evidence is there?
5. Was law enforcement involved, if so how?
6. What job is it exactly? Should we be more careful about a Supreme Court Justice than a BLM Director?

Feel free to add other criteria to the Table.

Finally, it seems a bit odd that the Admin knew about it and nominated her anyway. Because President Biden said he was trying to unify the country, and this doesn’t seem like the way to do it. IMHO. Perhaps it’s intended to be a sharp stick in the eye to someone.. but who and why? Certainly not Montana loggers?

Many sources state that BLM morale has been bad since the Trump Administration. If I worked there, both this nomination and the level of “sticking by” that’s occurring wouldn’t help my morale. I’d prefer a retired diverse career person who was widely respected by the rank and file. You?

BLM apparently leaderless

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Speaking of “politicals” making decisions, here is the latest on one of them, following the announcement that BLM’s acting director would not be nominated for the position.

The Trump administration’s method of keeping the controversial acting head of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in power even after his nomination is withdrawn is likely not legal, according to experts who have reviewed the orders.

But Pendley is still running the agency because of succession orders dictating that the acting chief will lead the department if the director role remains unfilled.

Legal experts say the succession orders are dubious because the officials whose tenure has been questioned are the ones assigning themselves their new positions. The order was written and signed by Pendley, essentially giving himself the authority to act as director.

That runs afoul of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act and allegedly the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.  This law limits temporary appointments to 210 days.  Not mentioned in this article is the consequence of such an illegal appointment, which is  – (Congressional Research Report, citing 5 U.S.C. § 3348(d)):

Unless an acting officer is serving in compliance with the Vacancies Act, any attempt to perform the functions and duties of that office will have no force or effect.

The most direct means to enforce the Vacancies Act is through private suits in which courts may nullify noncompliant agency actions…  The Vacancies Act renders noncompliant actions “void ab initio,” meaning that they were “null from the beginning,” by providing that such actions have “no force or effect.”

Do you suppose anyone might sue to void any of Pendley’s illegal political decisions?

WGA Webinar Today on Covid-19 Impacts to Natural Resource Management

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Sounds interesting.. would anyone like to watch and share highlights/your thoughts? If so, please add in the comments below.

The Western Governors’ Association will host the webinar, COVID-19 Impacts to Natural Resource Management, from 10-11 a.m. MT on May 22.

The webinar will examine emerging challenges facing natural resource management professionals as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Panelists will discuss impacts to wildfire mitigation and suppression, invasive species management, wildlife management and more. Beyond immediate challenges, panelists will discuss potential long-term implications of COVID-19 to cross-boundary natural resource management.

This webinar is part of a series produced under the WGA Working Lands Roundtable. The Roundtable continues implementation of WGA’s natural resource-focused initiatives and serves as vehicle for discussion on cross-boundary working lands management.

Moderator: Kristen Averyt, Climate Policy Coordinator, Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.

Panelists: Dan Prenzlow, Director, Colorado Parks and Wildlife; Grant Beebe, Assistant Director, BLM Fire and Aviation; Lloyd B. Knight, Administrator, Division of Plant Industries, Idaho State Department of Agriculture.

Register for webinar

BLM Great Basin fuel break EIS

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The BLM has released its final decision to implement 11,000 miles of fuel breaks in six states.  The figure is in miles because the fuel breaks would be constructed along roads and right-of-ways.  Given our discussion of the Forest Service trend towards large landscape “condition based” management decisions, this language from an article quoting the BLM piqued my curiosity (my emphasis added):

According to Jennifer Jones, a spokeswoman for the BLM, the program will help streamline the implementation process by reducing or eliminating the need for environmental analysis. Once the plan is finalized and funding available, said Jones, “offices will be able to use it immediately and for many years to come.”

The timeline for implementation and the location of fuel breaks will depend on what offices develop plans and apply for funding.

The BLM’s notice of availability added:

… these potential treatment areas cover approximately 38 million acres within the project area boundary.

The goal of these Programmatic EISs is to significantly minimize the subsequent National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) work required to approve on-the-ground projects.

(A second EIS will address “fuel reduction and restoration” over the same area.)

These statements sound like the more conventional approach to programmatic NEPA analysis (such as has been done for the use of herbicides).  They are intended to provide context for subsequent site-specific analysis that will produce overall savings in planning efficiency.  They make no pretense that this large scale analysis would necessarily be a substitute for site-specific analysis as some Forest Service proposals have stated. This kind of “merely programmatic” analysis has sometimes been given more leeway by the courts because a subsequent site-specific analysis would follow that would address site-specific issues and effects that have not been addressed.

The BLM decided also to do an EIS, unlike some of the Forest Service efforts that used an EA.  This analysis of effects of fuel breaks is also probably more site-specific than area-wide, “condition-based” Forest Service proposals because they know where the candidate corridors are, and they know the area of BLM lands where no action would be taken (away from these corridors).   (The scientific validity of fuel breaks is also discussed.)

Trump Administration takes on BLM planning

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An internal BLM document (linked below) may be the first step in revising the agency’s planning regulations (Planning 3.0?).  The proposal to remove NEPA requirements for land management plans is getting some attention.

The BLM may propose a land use planning rule that will “remove NEPA requirements from the planning regulations,” referring to the National Environmental Policy Act, according to the document on possible changes to such rules that was shared with states and former BLM officials.

The U.S. Forest Service similarly attempted to exempt national forest plans from NEPA during the George W. Bush administration, but a federal court struck down that effort in Citizens for Better Forestry v. USDA in 2007 because it violated NEPA and other federal laws.

“If the BLM proceed with this proposal, it will certainly be challenged, and I suspect that, like the FS [Forest Service], the BLM will lose,” Mark Squillace, a natural resources law professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said.

But it looks good to try, I guess. Current BLM regulations require an EIS for its plans, and the Forest Service explicitly required an EIS for forest plan revisions in its 2012 Planning Rule after its earlier rules were struck down for trying to avoid NEPA compliance.  This effort by BLM is in addition to the recent proposed changes in the CEQ NEPA regulations discussed here.

Here’s a little background on BLM planning requirements:

Dec. 12, 2016 BLM publishes its Planning 2.0 Rule, which updates land use planning procedures.

Feb. 7, 2017 The House of Representatives passes a resolution to repeal the rule under the Congressional Review Act (CRA).

March 7, 2017 The Senate passes a resolution to repeal the rule under the CRA.

March 28, 2017 President Trump signs the resolution disapproving the rule. Under the CRA, BLM may not promulgate a rule that is “substantially the same.”

(Maybe we’ll get to see lawsuits about what “substantially the same” means.)

O&C and Monumentizing: Dueling Rulings

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From the SF Chronicle

I’m following up on Jon’s idea that laws help us figure out what are “right” decisions. I think the O&C story is a illustration of how the laws’ interpretation by the courts can be not particularly helpful if a decision has to be made in real time (that is, before the end of litigation, appeals and so on.) I know many TSW readers know a great deal about this..so hopefully can give us additional information and perspective. Here’s a link to this op-ed in the Mail-Tribune (from Medford? Hard to tell from website).

A federal judge’s ruling that 40,000 acres of former Oregon & California Railroad lands in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument must remain in timber production is far from the last word on this question, and even if it is eventually upheld, it would affect only a portion of monument land and perhaps much less than the 40,000 acres in the ruling.

Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled in a case filed by the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry group. The AFRC argued that the expansion of the monument declared by President Barack Obama in 2017 improperly overturned the intent of Congress when it passed the O&C Act in 1937, designating more than 2 million acres of forest in 18 Western Oregon counties for sustainable timber production. Congress had granted title to the lands in 1866 to the railroad company as incentive to complete the Oregon portion of the Portland to San Francisco railroad. When the company failed to sell the land to settlers as required, Congress took it back in 1916, and added more acres from a similar land grant in 1919. The O&C Act placed all those lands under the jurisdiction of the Interior Department to be managed by the Bureau of Land Management for permanent forest production.

This E&E News story is also interesting with more legal details..

Here’s AFRC’s side of the story (from their newsletter):
In late 2019, the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. issued favorable rulings in two major cases enforcing the O&C Act. (October and November 2019 newsletters). The Swanson III case seeks to
require BLM to offer its declared allowable sale quantity (ASQ) each year, which is one of the mandates of the O&C Act. The other case involves challenges led by AFRC and the Association of O&C Counties to the 2016 Resource Management Plans (RMPs) for western Oregon BLM lands.

Judge Leon ruled in September, “Every year, BLM is required to sell or offer for sale an amount of timber that is not less than the declared annual sustained yield capacity of the timberland subject to the O&C Act.” He also found that “the record establishes that BLM has repeatedly failed to comply with the O&C Act’s timber sale mandate.” In November, he ruled that the 2016 RMPs violated the O&C Act’s mandate that all O&C timberlands “shall be managed” for “permanent forest production” under sustained yield principles. This is because the RMPs set aside 80% of the land base into “reserves” where harvest is severely curtailed.

The court instructed the parties to file proposals in these cases as to the appropriate remedy, which were submitted on January 27. The plaintiffs’ proposal, incorporating both Swanson III and the RMP challenges, involves preparation of an amended or revised plan, an ongoing requirement to sell the ASQ, and interim direction on volume while the plan is being reviewed. The government’s proposals ask in large part for the Court to return BLM to an open-ended administrative process while keeping the existing plans in place. Response briefs will be filed in late February and a final order could be issued any time after that.

In the November ruling, Judge Leon also invalidated President Obama’s expansion of the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument that encompassed about 40,000 acres of O&C lands. Both the government
and intervening environmental groups have appealed the ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, also called the “D.C. Circuit.” Resolution of the appeal is likely to take at least 12-15 months.

Does anyone know why the “government” chose to appeal the decision?

Brown’s Canyon Monument Planning, BLM’s Use of the Online Story Map, and the “Sustainable Alternative”

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I hope that this is a correct map.

I received an email from the Colorado Mountain Club this morning asking me to weigh in via public comments on the Brown’s Canyon management plan, which is joint between the BLM and the Forest Service. The Sustainable Alternative is interesting from the “how local collaborative work should be considered” perspective, and also “what people disagree about when there is no oil and gas nor fuel treatments, and grazing is off the table based on the legislation.” This is the message from CMC about what our comments should say.

Main messaging:

The Sustainable Alternative was developed through a collaborative process by a group of over 20 local Chaffee-county based citizens and organizations who represent decades of use and close observation of the area now designated as Browns Canyon National Monument. The Sustainable Alternative has broad community support from over 100 local businesses, residents, and decisionmakers, as well as various regional and national organizations. The Sustainable Alternative also has local government support, including the City of Salida, the Town of Buena Vista, Chaffee County Commissioners, and the Town of Turret.

The development of the Sustainable Alternative was very intentional in prioritizing the protection of Monument resources, objects, and values, while balancing increased need for recreational access and conservation. The vast community support signifies the balanced and reasonable approach put forth. The Sustainable Alternative seeks to ensure the Monument is protected for generations to come. We believe local residents, businesses, and cities should have a voice in creating reasonable management for Browns Canyon National Monument – we are asking the Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service to adopt recommendations put forth in the Sustainable Alternative, rather than a top-down from political voices in Washington, DC.

OK then, but I don’t think that those are the only two alternatives. From the text of the Sustainable Alternative:

In general, the BLM and USFS, in collaboration with cooperating agencies, should provide enough professional staff and law enforcement officers to ensure compliance with BCNM regulations and pertinent laws. The monument should be managed to accommodate current and future uses. Most importantly, the agencies should be careful not to invite more activity than can be sustainably managed, such as by providing maintenance-intensive infrastructure, developments requiring frequent staff patrolling, and by undertaking high-visibility programs to promote visitation to the Monument.

It does seem like folks pursue a Monument designation hoping to get more management bucks. Then they are many times disappointed by not getting more bucks,  and also having more visitation due to the enhanced visibility.  This could lead ultimately to a net loss in funding per visitor.   But has anyone ever seen the BLM or FS spending money to promote visitation to a spot? It seems to me that that is usually the role taken by local businesses and governments, whom I’m guessing are not going to do that, given what they say in these comments.

They also suggest that it’s more efficient for the PSICC to do the monument plan under the 2012 Rule than to do an amendment regarding this piece of land. It’s hard for me to agree that it would be either efficient or particularly straightforward.

As an alternative approach and as previously stated in Friends of Browns Canyon and The Wilderness Society’s comments on the Planning Assessment, submitted in September 2018, it is much more efficient and straightforward to develop the monument management plan under the USFS 2012 planning regulation rather than trying to stitch 2012 rule amendments into a 1982 rule plan.

So I read on and in the Sustainable Alternative there were some surprising (to me) thoughts about roadless:

Similar to recent Federal legislative initiatives to release on WSAs, there are currently state-based pressures to remove roadless area protections. For example, Utah Governor Herbert recently petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture to revoke and rewrite the national Roadless Rule as applied to The Aspen Ridge Roadless Area provides a uniquely undamaged landscape with wilderness qualities. Utah’s forests to open these lands to development. (See https://governor.utah.gov/2019/03/01/utah-submits-request-to-the-department-of-agriculture-regarding-federal-land-maintenance and https://ourforests.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/UtahRoadlessRulePetition_28Feb2019.pdf.) In light of these known and anticipated pressures, as well as the need for clear management prescriptions to be outlined in the RMP for future agency officials, it is important for the USFS to consider proactive management to preserve the wilderness character of the lands within the Aspen Ridge Roadless Area, such as those suggested in the following recommendations.
2. Recommendations
• The USFS should use the current planning process as an opportunity to recommend wilderness for the entirety of Aspen Ridge Roadless Area within the monument.
• The USFS should include language in the RMP, providing commitment to manage the Aspen Ridge Roadless Area under the same protections even if the roadless area designation were to be removed.

Holy Smoke! The folks who wrote this either didn’t know that the FS and Colorado had spent a great deal of in developing our own State Roadless Rule and that that is currently the law of the land in Colorado, or are generally promoting Utah-phobia just for the heckuvit.

Anyway, I did think that the BLM’s use of the “online story map” was interesting, and the webinar. The webinar seems like a great idea so many people can easily participate. Maybe FS plans have something similar, but I have not been keeping up. Check it out!

Recovery planning for the Gunnison sage-grouse

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The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a draft recovery plan for the Gunnison sage-grouse in Colorado and Utah.  The Center for Biodiversity doesn’t like it, but more to the point, they like less how the BLM is managing Gunnison sage-grouse.  More to the point because recovery plans are not mandatory, while federal land management plans can be – and plan components must be mandatory to be considered “regulatory” enough to carry much weight in ESA listing and delisting decisions.  As the FWS said, “Establishing durable regulatory mechanisms that are binding and enforceable, such as revised land use planning amendments, will be important for recovery.”

CBD:

The recovery plan comes on the heels of BLM decisions not to designate any Areas of Critical Environmental Concern for Gunnison sage-grouse in the Tres Rios and Uncompahgre Resource management plans, and to adopt inadequate safeguards for the birds’ habitat in recent land-use plans. For example, although the draft recovery plan calls on federal land-management agencies to improve their resource management plans and protect suitable habitat within four miles of breeding sites, the BLM’s August 2019 proposed resource plan for its Uncompahgre Field Office protects only habitats within 0.6 miles of breeding sites. The BLM admits this would “fall short of minimum protection standards to maintain sage-grouse viability.”

“Bringing the Gunnison sage-grouse back from the brink requires decisive and concerted action, but instead we have two federal agencies working against each other,” said Michael Saul, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Fish and Wildlife Service is urging federal land managers to improve protections for public-land habitat, but the BLM is moving in the opposite direction. This is a recipe for extinction for this beautiful bird. We’ll do everything possible to keep that from happening.”

The timing is also such that BLM plans were released prior to the draft recovery plan.  That means that the BLM should start taking another look at how their plans address this species and take into account the new information and recommended measures.  The same is true for the 10% of sage-grouse habitat that occurs on national forest lands. BLM is not subject to NFMA, so its obligation to maintain species viability to avoid listing under ESA is not as clear as for the Forest Service.  Forest Service plans must “contribute to recovery” of listed species, so failure to address elements of this recovery plan when it is final should raise serious questions.

In addition to specific conservation measures like the four-mile buffers for breeding leks, the draft recovery plan provides some specific desired conditions that could be included in land management plans:

2. Regulatory mechanisms or other conservation plans or programs, such as land-use management plans, reduce and ameliorate threats associated with habitat loss and degradation in all populations, such that:

A. Habitat in Dove Creek is improved and maintained at a quantity calculated to support a HMC of 30, although this criterion is not measured by achieving the target HMC.

B. Habitat in CSCSM is maintained at a quantity calculated to support a HMC of 7, although this criterion is not measured by achieving the target HMC.

C. Habitat is improved and maintained in Gunnison Basin, San Miguel, Piñon Mesa, Crawford, and Monticello at a quantity calculated to support the target HMCs as listed in Table 1.

At a minimum, the land management agencies will need to explain how these plans contribute to meeting their requirements under ESA to manage their programs to promote recovery of listed species, which should include how they are implementing the final recovery plan.

Trump Administration sage-grouse plans stopped

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The district court for Idaho has enjoined the Trump Administration’s attempt to cut back protection of sage-grouse on BLM lands in Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada/Northeastern California, and Oregon from that provided by plan amendments in 2015. (A similar decision has been pending for national forest plans.) The changes made in the 2019 amendments to BLM land management plans can not be implemented, and the provisions in the 2015 amendments will apply (projects must be consistent with the 2015 amendments) until the case is decided on the merits.  (A link to the opinion is included with this news release.)

Moreover, the court telegraphed the merits pretty clearly:

“… the plaintiffs will likely succeed in showing that (1) the 2019 Plan Amendments contained substantial reductions in protections for the sage grouse (compared to the 2015 Plans) without justification; (2) The EISs failed to comply with NEPA’s requirement that reasonable alternatives be considered; (3) The EISs failed to contain a sufficient cumulative impacts analysis as required by NEPA; (4) The EISs failed to take the required “hard look” at the environmental consequences of the 2019 Plan Amendments; and (5) Supplemental Draft EISs should have been issued as required by NEPA when the BLM decided to eliminate mandatory compensatory mitigation.”

(1) “The stated purpose of the 2019 Plan Amendments was to enhance cooperation between the BLM and the States by modifying the BLM’s protections for sage grouse to better align with plans developed by the States. While this is a purpose well-within the agency’s discretion, the effect on the ground was to substantially reduce protections for sage grouse without any explanation that the reductions were justified by, say, changes in habitat, improvement in population numbers, or revisions to the best science contained in the NTT and CTO Reports.” The agencies did not fulfill their duty to explain why they are now making a different decision based on the same facts.

(2) The no-action alternative did not meet the purpose and need, and there was only one action alternative. “Common sense and this record demonstrate that mid-range alternatives were available that would contain more protections for sage grouse than this single proposal.”

(3) The BLM prepared six EISs based on state boundaries, but failed to provide the “robust” cumulative effects analysis this situation required. In particular, “connectivity of habitat – requires a large-scale analysis that transcends the boundaries of any single State.”

(4) “Certainly, the BLM is entitled to align its actions with the State plans, but when the BLM substantially reduces protections for sage grouse contrary to the best science and the concerns of other agencies, there must be some analysis and justification – a hard look – in the NEPA documents.” The court took particular note of the EPA comments that were ignored, and Fish and Wildlife Service endorsement of the 2015 amendments in deciding not to list the species under ESA because they adopted scientific recommendations (see below).

(5) Compensatory mitigation measures were eliminated after the draft EIS, which “appears to constitute both “substantial changes” to its proposed action and “significant new circumstances” requiring a supplemental EIS.

The case provides a good example of how science is considered by a court, which allowed declarations from outside experts to determine if relevant environmental consequences were ignored. The court relied heavily on earlier scientific reports that included normative “recommendations,” but the court focused on their scientific conclusions, such as “surface-disturbing energy or mineral development within priority sage-grouse habitats is not consistent with the goal to maintain or increase populations or distribution,” and “protecting even 75 to >80% of nesting hens would require a 4-mile radius buffer.” The Final EISs stated that there would be no measurable effects or they would be beneficial to sage-grouse, but the BLM either had no analysis or ignored this contrary information.

 

2016 election consequences for Colorado federal lands

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The Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management over the last several years have been developing long-term Resource Management Plans for more than 3 million acres of BLM lands in Eastern Colorado and the Uncompahgre Plateau and in the Rio Grande National Forest.  According to this article, the state and local communities are not happy.

The Trump-driven shift toward more oil and gas development on public lands worries Colorado politicians and conservation groups that are steering the state toward increased protections. Agencies within the same department seem in conflict. Long-studied plans are changing between between draft and final reports, with proposed protections fading away and opportunities for extraction growing…

“What we are seeing is the full effect — in proposed actions — of the 2016 election at the local level,” Ouray County Commissioner Ben Tisdel said.

The article goes into detail about the effects on the Uncompahgre Field Office’s proposed plan:

County commissioners from Gunnison, Ouray and San Miguel counties have filed protests with the BLM over the Uncompahgre Field Office’s proposed plan. The counties have been involved with the planning for eight years. In 2016, the counties submitted comments on the plan outlining concerns for the Gunnison sage grouse and listing parcels the agency should protect and retain as federal lands.

“Alternative E proposed doing all the things we specifically asked them not to do,” said Tisdel, the Ouray County commissioner, adding that lands his county wanted protected were listed in the 2019 plan for possible disposal by the agency. “We thought we had a pretty good product in 2016 and now we have this new alternative, Alternative E, that goes way beyond anything we had seen before and is awful in ways we never thought of before.”

With regard to the Rio Grande National Forest revised forest plan:

The move from that September 2017 Draft Environmental Impact Statement to the final version released in August has riled conservationists and sportsmen. Goals established for air quality, designated trails, fisheries management, fire management, wildlife connectivity and habitat were scaled back in between the draft and final versions.

Colorado’s governor has weighed in on the BLM plan (in language consistent with the Western Governors Association policies):

The resource management plan’s “failure to adopt commitments consistent with the state plans, policies and agreements hinders Colorado’s ability to meet its own goals and objectives for wildlife in the planning area,” Polis wrote.

The BLM had an interesting response:

“There is room to adjust within the RMP, which has a built-in adaptive management strategy,” he said. “We are ready to respond as the state’s plans are complete.”

So they plan to do whatever the state wants them to do later?  “Room to adjust within the RMP” appears to mean that they don’t have to go through a plan amendment process with the public, which seems unlikely to be legal for the kinds of changes the state appears to want.  (It definitely wouldn’t work for national forest plans.)

The Western Energy Alliance blames the governor for being late to the game:

It doesn’t get a complete do-over just because something new happens, like Gov. Polis issues a new order.”

But it does apparently get a complete do-over because a new federal government administration says so.  There may still be some legal process (e.g. NEPA) questions this raises.