Business of Land Management | The Smokey Wire : National Forest News and Views

All the News That Fits the Narrative; Rock Springs RMP, Schuller Interview with EPA EJ Administrator

November 2, 2023 by Sharon

We’ve been having a discussion on various aspect of the Rock Springs Wyoming RMP. A few things have come my way that are of interest relating to that, and also the role of communities.
******************
First, Tisha Schuller talks with the deputy assistant administrator for EJ at EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights on her Energy Thinks podcast. I didn’t listen to the whole thing but she shared a few quotes.
On EPA’s growing focus on EJ:
“It is the first time in government—not just in the United States but in the history of humankind—that we have real funding at the same time that we have real political support not only to change the systems and structures of governance but to do so in an equitable way.”

Hmm.. count me skeptical as to the role of one federal agency (or even the current Admin, which is, after all one of three branches of the federal government) in changing “the systems and structures of governance” in an “equitable way.” Not that I have a problem with equity, but I think its use and meaning are contested.

And
On placing communities at the head of the table:
“None of us want to live in a place where we’re not heard. None of us want to live in a community where things are done to it and you don’t have anything to say about it. None of us want to live in that place. Communities with EJ concerns want to be heard.”

“Communities with EJ concerns” is a term also used in the proposed NEPA regs (more on those next week). Rather than define what EJ communities are or aren’t, we now have communities with concerns. For example, my somewhat neighboring community of Kiowa is not thrilled about new high voltage powerlines (this is all private as part of Colorado’s Power Pathway, so no federal nexus except for endangered species and National Park viewsheds). There are quite a few different parameters that could be indexed in different ways (for example, east of there is a food desert). So depending on the way you index, it could be an EJ community or not. If you were to define what one is. But any community seemingly could have EJ concerns, and is there an arbiter of what are legitimate concerns or not? It’s all not exactly transparent or clear. In my experience, when people dream up abstractions and are intentionally not clear about who is in and who is out.. other people are making the determination, usually for small or large political reasons.

Of course, there’s “being heard” and “having your say determine the outcome”; plus not all people in communities agree. People in the federal land management space know this landscape quite well over many decisions large and small. It seems in the broader world of new energy buildout, other organizations and NGOs are discovering these complexities.

*****************
The NY Times on Rock Springs decision..

This was quite timely. Note the tagline ..

Explosive reactions to the proposal, which would limit drilling, show how the president’s climate policies are crashing into walls in some oil and gas states.

The journalist, Lisa Friedman (no relation) seems like a nice person. At one Society of Environmental Journalists meeting I attended, she (and other reporters from Coastal Media) seemed extraordinarily interested in Pendley’s (he was there) attitude toward climate change. As if somehow the BLM were the key to worldwide decarbonization. It felt a little weird to me, especially since I wanted to ask him about e-bikes. Oh well.

As a candidate, Mr. Biden pledged to end new federal oil and gas leasing. And, as president, he has said he wants to conserve at least 30 percent of public lands and waters by 2030. Both are part of an aggressive agenda to curb climate change, though Mr. Biden has approved some large fossil fuel projects. Political and legal concerns have played a role in those decisions.

I guess you can state that “conserving” 30 percent of land” is an “aggressive approach to curb climate change, but I wonder whether if the protected areas don’t allow fuel reduction.. they actually do that. Plus some of us might see a conflict between renewable build-out and “conserving.” Without a map, though, why would we believe that they are compatible? Otherwise it’s just political arm-waving attempts to placate renewable and ENGO interests. And as we have seen with the BLM conservation rule and the proposed CEQ NEPA regs, when renewable buildout and “protection” meet, renewables lose.

“We are in a bit of a bubble here right now with Ukraine and the Middle East,” said Mark Squillace, a law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Mr. Squillace said if oil prices climbed there could be heightened interest in federal oil and gas leasing, but only in the short term.

Mark is another great person, and I’d like to think we’re in a “bubble” but I don’t know what our foreign policy will be nor how others will react. The fact is that no one knows.

“I think we all know that in the next 20 years or so there’s going to be a whole lot less oil and gas production, because of the trends that we’re seeing with electric vehicles and renewable energy,” Mr. Squillace said. Wyoming, which also is grappling with collapsing demand for its coal, he added, “should, of all states, know the consequences of not managing their land.”

I don’t understand exactly what that means.

Ah.. the “backlash”

The backlash began almost immediately. Lawmakers accused the Biden administration of trying to pull Wyoming “back to the Stone Age.” Governor Gordon sent a letter to the Bureau of Land Management director asking the agency to withdraw the entire plan. A local sheriff declared he would not enforce the plan if it were finalized.
The director of the Bureau of Land Management’s field office in Rock Springs, Wyo., Kimberlee Foster, told a local news outlet that her staff members had begun receiving threatening calls were being investigated by the F.B.I. “It’s not really about specifics in the document,” Ms. Foster said. “The hate has been more political in nature.”

Pivot to “incipient Bundys”. Lawmakers quote.. Governor Gordon’s letter (which was pretty mild for a politician), a sheriff.. yup.

“The situation is ripe for this sort of anger to come to the surface,” said State Senator Brian Boner, a Republican. He noted the federal government already owned nearly half, 48 percent, of Wyoming land. “You feel like you don’t really have a voice in the way your state moves forward, and in this instance there’s a significant threat to peoples’ livelihoods,” he said.

So let’s go back to Tisha’s podcast:

None of us want to live in a place where we’re not heard. None of us want to live in a community where things are done to it and you don’t have anything to say about it. None of us want to live in that place

What’s interesting about the Times story is that it’s all about oil and gas, not about the process, which is what Gordon’s letter was about. Does not mention the political back and forth concern, as in the Cowboy State Daily report discussed previously, and as we shall see there’s other info not included.

Indeed “all the news that fits the narrative”. Oil and gas bad and not needed, check. Republicans bad, check. Westerners dangerous and incipient Bundys, check. Are the facts wrong? Probably not. Does fitting the info to a narrative leave a lot out and not actually help our understanding of what’s going on? Yes.

Good thing we have the Cowboy State Daily and Wyofile!

BLM Proposed Public Land Rule: A New Policy- Service Last?

July 3, 2023 by Sharon

Sorry folks, trying to squeeze these Proposed Rule posts in before July 5…I plan to have a draft comment posted here if you want to use it as an outline for your own comments and submit them on the 5th.

A great news story would have been “Strange Bedfellows: Under the Sheets of the BLM Proposed Rule- Unusual Alignments”.

In this post I’d like to talk about an obvious question that would also make a good news story. Given that we have two federal land management agencies with multiple use missions, with adjoining and interspersed ownerships, does this Proposed Rule move toward or away from an integrated approach between agencies and external partners? From the standpoint of government coordination, efficiency and cost (would that there were a Common Sense Government political party!) what direction does this Proposed Rule take us?

First of all there’s the OIRA thing, pointed out by the solar folks. Seems to me also that the Admin is speaking with a forked tongue on this.. it’s a really big change but.. we didn’t need to have OIRA review of the Proposed Rule (and we can use a CE).. pick a lane, people! OIRA review is based on a 1993 Executive Order by President Clinton:

The objectives of the Executive Order are to enhance planning and coordination with respect to both new and existing regulations; to reaffirm the primacy of Federal agencies in the regulatory decision-making process; to restore the integrity and legitimacy of regulatory review and oversight; and to make the process more accessible and open to the public. For all significant regulatory actions, the Executive Order requires OIRA review before the actions take effect. Under EO 12866, OIRA has up to 90 days (which can be extended) to review a rule. This review helps to promote adequate interagency review of draft proposed and final regulatory actions, so that such actions are coordinated with other agencies to avoid inconsistent, incompatible, or duplicative policies. (my bold)

We’ve already talked about introducing a new concept to partners.. “intactness,” which isn’t exactly like any other word used by anyone else in the federal lands space. And redefining “conservation” to mean something different from USDA, which has an agency with conservation in its name.

Here’s how the Proposed Rule presents the problem:

Public lands are increasingly degraded and fragmented. Increased disturbances such as invasive species, drought, and wildfire, and increased habitat fragmentation are all impacting the health and resilience of public lands and making it more challenging to support multiple use and the sustained yield of renewable resources. Climate change is creating new risks and exacerbating existing vulnerabilities.^[1]
To address these threats, it is imperative for the BLM to steward public lands to maintain functioning and productive ecosystems and work to ensure their resilience, that is, to ensure that ecosystems and their components can absorb, or recover from, the effects of disturbances and environmental change. This proposed rule would pursue that goal through protection, restoration, or improvement of essential ecological structures and functions. The resilience of public lands will determine the BLM’s ability to effectively manage for multiple use and sustained yield over the long term. The proposed rule, in acknowledging this reality, identifies and requires practices to ensure that the BLM manages the public lands to allow multiple uses while retaining and building resilience to achieve sustained yield of renewable resources. This proposed rule is designed to ensure that the nation’s public lands continue to provide minerals, energy, forage, timber, and recreational opportunities, as well as habitat, protected water supplies, and landscapes that resist and recover from drought, wildfire, and other disturbances. As intact landscapes play a central role in maintaining the resilience of an ecosystem, the proposed rule emphasizes protecting those public lands with remaining intact, native landscapes and restoring others. (my bold).

I bolded the statement that seems identical to what we all understand about the Forest Service and how it plans to meet its multiple use mission. And yet the way the PR (proposed reg) talks about “intactness” is different than the FS. It’s about another set of drawing lines on maps; with criteria that the FS does not have.

Now it seems like having lines on a map for intactness (however later defined) would take acres off the table for renewables, strategic minerals, and fuel treatments, as naturally pointed out by the solar folks. So conservation would effectively trump climate mitigation in terms of renewable energy and strategic minerals. Which would be indeed a major policy call, and perhaps should be discussed formally with DOE.

Anyway, if BLM can’t see a way clear to manage for resilience without these extra, confusing, and employee and partner time and money-sucking exercises, and the Forest Service can, and has a plan to do so which seems pretty excellent to me..

Maybe, just maybe, they should have a chat? Preferably ASAP.

Solar Industry Fried About Proposed BLM Reg (2): It’s a Big Change.. But No OIRA and a CX

June 19, 2023 by Sharon

As environmental compensation for several solar farms, renewable energy developer Avantus retired grazing rights on 215,000 acres of federal land in California’s Kern County, including some with Joshua trees.(Avantus via LA Times)

Apologies to all who are not interested in the proposed BLM regulation. I haven’t seen anything much in the press on it so thought I would dive in. Plus we only have 15 more days, and it’s not an ANPR like the MOG for the Forest Service, meaning we all have another go at the MOG (when it is a proposed rule) but not this one.

Other than Sammy Roth at the LA Times, who has been covering the protection/renewable energy tension for some time, I haven’t seen much coverage of the details of the regulation other than a bit of “good people want it, bad people don’t”.

Back to the solar industry letter: they raised two points that are worth further examination.

Is it or Ain’t it… a Big Change, and if Not, Why Are We All Here?

Why No OIRA?

In addition to these potential unintended consequences, the Proposed Rule is a major agency action that would substantially alter the status quo of BLM’s management of federal lands and therefore should be scrutinized to examine its economic and environmental consequences. Among other things, the Proposed Rule:
• Requires OIRA Review. BLM’s effort to shield the Proposed Rule from OIRA review is inappropriate. At a minimum, it must be subjected to the detailed policy analyses required of “major rules” under the CRA, “significant regulatory actions” under Executive Order (EO) 12866, and “significant energy actions” under EO 13211.

Assuming that the solar folks did their homework (does anyone know where to look for this in the reg?), I guess that answers my question as to how the proposed regulation did not encounter some resistance from USDA about redefining “conservation” differently from long-standing and widely popular USDA programs. In addition, it seems highly likely that DOE would be equally concerned about taking land off the table for solar and wind. It seems to me that the Admin can’t argue that:

By putting conservation on an equal footing with other uses, the proposal would help guide responsible development while safeguarding important places for the millions of people who visit public lands every year to hike, hunt, camp, fish, and more.

It’s a big thing that needs to be done, but not big enough to require OIRA. As we used in say when working with Roadless, “they need to pick a lane.” Except that politically generated proposals don’t have to. Speaking with a forked tongue is an inherent tendency of all politicos, but I still think we need to point it out when it occurs.

A Categorical Exclusion?

Back to the solar folks.

• Requires Full NEPA Review. BLM proposes to comply with NEPA by applying a Departmental categorical exclusion (CX) typically used for “policies, directives, regulations, and guidelines that are of an administrative, financial, legal, technical, or procedural nature or whose environmental effects are too broad, speculative, or conjectural to lend themselves to meaningful analysis and will later be subject to the NEPA process, either collectively or case-by-case.” The Proposed Rule goes well beyond what is appropriate for consideration under a CX, and BLM should prepare an EIS analyzing the Rule’s environmental and economic impacts, including an evaluation of the potential negative consequences for renewable energy development on federally managed lands.

Some of us remember a NFMA Planning Rule that was required to have an EIS done when a CE was originally used. I spent a large number of hours discussing this with lawyers so am hoping that some of them can shed some light on why or why not this kind of “procedures and definitions” only kind of reg deserves (or doesn’t) an EIS.

If a) the Proposed Rule is finalized with a CE and 2) people with funding for attorneys don’t like the Rule, it seems probable that, like the Planning Rule, an EIS would ultimately be required.

***********

More next time..

BLM kicks off process to develop new West-wide solar plan

December 6, 2022 by Sharon

Here’s the press release from yesterday…

As part of this update, the BLM is considering adding more states, adjusting exclusion criteria and seeking to identify new or expanded areas to prioritize solar deployment.

it should be interesting to watch how 30×30, EJ and Tribal co-management goals are woven together by the BLM in this decision.

“This Administration is committed to expanding clean energy development to address climate change, enhance America’s energy security and provide for good-paying union jobs,” said Secretary Haaland. “Our review of these proposed projects in Arizona, and a new analysis of the role public lands can play in furthering solar energy production, will help ensure we keep the momentum going to build a clean energy future, lower costs for families and create robust conservation outcomes on the nation’s lands and waters.”
“We take seriously our responsibility to manage the nation’s public lands responsibly and with an eye toward the increasing impacts of the climate crisis. The power and potential of the clean energy future is an undeniable and critical part of that work,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel-Davis. “The Bureau of Land Management is working diligently to ensure that its processes and pace maintain the momentum we are seeing from industry.”
In 2012, the BLM and the Department of Energy issued a Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Solar Energy Development in six southwestern states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The 2012 Solar PEIS identified areas with high solar potential and low resource conflicts in order to guide responsible solar development and provide certainty to developers. A decade later, in light of improved technology, new transmission and ambitious clean energy goals, the BLM is updating the 2012 Solar PEIS. As part of this update, the BLM is considering adding more states, adjusting exclusion criteria and seeking to identify new or expanded areas to prioritize solar deployment.
A notice to update the BLM’s 2012 Solar Programmatic EIS will be published in the Federal Register this week. This will begin a 60-day public comment period, with interested stakeholders invited to submit written feedback or participate in one of many upcoming in-person and virtual public scoping meetings. Following the public scoping period, the BLM will develop a draft programmatic environmental impact statement for public review and comment.
Secretary Haaland also celebrated initial reviews for new, major solar projects proposed on public lands in Arizona. First, the scoping meetings will soon be announced for environmental analysis of the proposed Jove solar project, which would produce up to 600 megawatts of utility-scale renewable energy from solar photovoltaic modules on 3,495 acres of public land located in southeastern La Paz County. Second, there will be a two-year segregation of more than 4,400 acres of public land associated with two proposed utility-scale solar energy projects. The segregation action supports review of the proposed 250 megawatts Pinyon Solar project in Maricopa County, and the proposed 300 megawatts Elisabeth Solar project in Yuma County.
During the trip, the leaders also announced that the BLM is issuing updated guidance to improve consistency in processing rights-of-way for utility-scale solar projects under the variance process established by BLM’s 2012 Western Solar Plan, which is used for solar projects outside of Solar Energy Zones.

Interim policy changes for partnership and cooperator agreements

July 28, 2022 by Sharon

I know there are many FS partners out there in TSW-land, and you have probably heard this already, but it sounds important.

From Chief Moore:

Today (July 22) I issued interim policy direction that makes it easier for existing and potential partners and cooperators to work together with the Forest Service to achieve mutually beneficial goals. (Read my letter and related attachments at the end of this article.) Specifically, I am directing broad inclusion of values partners bring to the relationship when determining how and when match requirements in partner agreements are met; removing the policy requirement for “substantial cash contributions;” and identifying a process to reduce, and in some cases waive, match requirements that are not statutorily required.
For decades, the Forest Service has known we can’t succeed alone. Today, climate-driven stressors and disturbances such as drought, wildland fire and insect epidemics know no boundaries. Recognizing that we, as land managers and landowners, are all in this together, the Forest Service and our partners have long worked collaboratively across shared landscapes to reach our mutual goals.
The Forest Service regularly joins with Tribes, states and many other partners to address complex and interconnected issues: working with and through partners is a powerful method for achieving shared goals on National Forest System lands and across management jurisdictions. Partners bring resources, knowledge, networks, skills and capacity that leverage agency resources and better enable us to accomplish impactful work.
Partnership grants and agreements are a key tool to facilitate this collaboration: the Forest Service currently has more than 3,500 partnership agreements reflecting the power of partnership and one of our agency’s core values—interdependence.
To better enable our work with partners, the Forest Service took a hard look at our grants and agreements process and found that, in some cases, policy requirements for cash matching or substantial cash contributions have impeded expanding work with partners at the scales needed, including for wildfire risk reduction and implementing Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding. In some cases, this has created insurmountable barriers for current and potential partners and Tribes to contribute their expertise and capacity in shared service to the health and resilience of America’s forests and grasslands.
Therefore, we are taking a number of actions to modernize our approach to partnerships and make partnering with the Forest Service easier, more accessible and more equitable.
First, I am directing that all the valuable contributions a partner may bring to our relationship be considered, some of which we may have been overlooked or undervalued in the past. In addition to financial resources, volunteer and other in-kind support, these contributions include access to networks and communities that are underrepresented or underserved or increase social license to support critical work; indigenous traditional ecological knowledge; creativity and innovation for effective public outreach and education; experience in managing work projects; and capabilities for project design and management and for subject matter expertise that complement the skills of agency employees or fills a gap in agency capacity.
Second, a policy determination from the early 1990s led the Forest Service to require a separate substantial cash contribution from partners when, as part of an agreement, they contract for goods or services from a third party to complete project-based work. We have no statutory requirement for this practice. Therefore, I am ending this requirement effective immediately.
Third, to live up to one of the agency’s other core values—diversity—I am taking steps to make it easier to partner with tribal governments and partners who work with underserved communities, in recognition of our trust and treaty obligations to Tribes, our commitment to serving all Americans, and the importance of gaining benefit and knowledge through relationships with communities that have been historically underrepresented in our partnerships. Consequently, effective immediately, I am waiving policy match requirements (those not required by statute) for all agreements with tribal governments and creating a process to waive policy match requirements for partners that will serve underserved communities.[1] I also am delegating authority to deputy chiefs, regional foresters and station directors to approve reduced policy match requirements on a case-by-case basis to as low as 5% based on the need and capability of a partner.
I am also directing that agency staff identify and use flexibility where allowed by statute to apply the intent of this direction to statutory match requirements, including for State and Private Forestry programs and International Programs where appropriate. A cross-deputy area team consisting of Washington Office and field leadership will help implement this direction and will develop additional guidance and supportive materials in consultation with the Office of the General Counsel.
Modernizing our approach to partnerships will allow us to accomplish more mission-critical work and better serve all Americans. With additional resources and funding available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, our commitment to confronting the wildfire crisis, and our goal of increasing equitable access and use to all national forest and grassland visitors, it is more important than ever that we welcome more partners with valuable services and contributions into partnership agreements.
Through the interim policy I established today, we are taking steps to make this possible, while also living up to not only to our agency’s values, but also our responsibilities to taxpayers and the people we serve.
Chief Moore’s letter: Match and substantial cash contributions policy changes
Attachment A—Authorities specifying a statutory match, waiver reductions not allowed
Attachment B—Authorities specifying a statutory match, waiver reductions allowed
Attachment C—Frequently used authorities with no match required
[1] See Executive Order 13985: Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities through the Federal Government.
Editor’s Note: Provide feedback about this column, submit questions or suggest topics for future columns through the FS-Employee Feedback inbox.

Latest on Potential BLM Move to Grand Junction

May 30, 2018 by Sharon

Senator Bennet at Colorado National Monument last year

This is an interesting and detailed piece by Joey Bunch of the Colorado Politics on the potential BLM move to Grand Junction.

A couple of thoughts.. note that this isn’t a partisan effort in Colorado:

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Denver, has been pushing the BLM deal with Gardner for almost a year. He, too, is convinced there’s nowhere better than Grand Junction.
“The values of Coloradans on the Western Slope align with the core mission of the BLM,” Bennet told Colorado Politics. “We must ensure this move is more than symbolic and provides the resources necessary to manage our public lands and improve agency decision-making.”

Also, I am thinking we might actually get better public servants in Grand Junction. I tried to hire people, both when I worked in Research and Development, and when I worked in NEPA, in the Washington Office, and many of the folks I considered to be the best wouldn’t move. If you are seeking diverse people, who are often at a low percentage of the total pool to start with, it can make hiring someone in DC almost impossible. For the Forest Service, and possibly the BLM, cities where regional offices are located, and D.C. are the most unattractive of possible locations. This was even true when I worked for USDA CSREES now NIFA, it was just too expensive for most folks to uproot their families and move.

On the other hand, perhaps in this day and age a “headquarters” is an outmoded concept and everyone should be working at home to save government $ and carbon. It’s tough to be in administration in this day and age, and I don’t envy folks who have to figure these things out. I do like the ideas below.

Swift said that while the agency hasn’t started naming specific cities, they have set some criteria for new homes for BLM: A reasonable cost of living, proximity to public lands, good quality of life and good schools and no more than two flights away from D.C. — say, like, Grand Junction Regional Airport to Denver International Airport and east to Washington.
In March, Tipton had Zinke sitting before him in a House Natural Resources Committee hearing. He used the opportunity to try to get the Interior boss on the record about the issue.
Zinke obliged.
“My concern is making sure we’re going to a community that has a high quality of life, that’s affordable to the GS-5 to GS-7 (employees), great communities where we can attract millennials who will want to live there,” he told Tipton.
A GS-5 federal employee earns up to about $38,000 a year. A GS-7 tops out at about $46,000 annually.
“Colorado certainly fits that description,” Zinke said.

Wuerthner: Blame the market, not environmental regulation

June 14, 2016 by Steve Wilent

From High Country News, hcn.org….

June 14, 2016

Blame the market, not environmental regulation

By George Wuerthner/Writers on the Range

Critics of public lands like to say that timber jobs declined and mills closed over the last 20 years because environmental protections such as the Endangered Species Act and other laws made the cost of logging skyrocket. This complaint is repeated so often it is usually stated as unqualified truth.

If you believe the rhetoric, the way federal lands are managed has been the problem. If only there were more private owners of the land, local economies would prosper, and there would bestable, long-term stewardship.

If only that were true. But if you compare the mostly private wood-products industry in the state of Maine to the West’s experiences on public land, you find that environmental regulations had little to do with the demise of logging.

Ninety percent of Maine is forested, and more than 93 percent of the state’s land is privately owned, mostly by large timber companies that sell trees to the wood-products industry. If private lands lead to prosperity and healthy landscapes, Maine should be the poster child for the country. And unlike the West, Maine, imposes minimal regulations on private landowners. There are also almost no listed endangered species in Maine to harry the timber industry.

Yet today, the forest-products industry in Maine is a shadow of its former self. In 1980, there were 25 pulp and paper mills in the state. Today, two-thirds of those mills are gone. Since 1990, the state has lost 13,000 of its approximately 17,000 paper-industry jobs, including more than 2,300 in the past five years. The decline continues. Associated wood products companies in Maine have also seen a decline – everything from wood furniture, wood flooring and clothespin producers have closed up shop.

The decline in both employment and production in Maine was caused by the same forces that drastically cut forest industry jobs in the West: foreign competition, which brought in cheaper wood products, technological advances and new automation that allowed computers instead of people to run machinery. High energy prices and labor costs also played a role as plastic and steel moved in to replace wood.

Think about the brightly colored plastic Adirondack chairs for sale at Home Depot now replacing the wooden chairs on which they are modeled. Instead of wood rafters, steel-beam has replaced two-by-fours in some construction, and so forth. The decline in newspapers and print materials has also dramatically altered demand for pulp production. All of these factors are affecting the West’s wood industry as much as they affect Maine.

These days, most of the new sawmills and pulp mills built in the United States are in the South. Trees grow faster there, and unlike the Western United States, they can reach harvestable age in a decade or two. To the timber industry, the longer you have to wait to cut trees, the higher the risk. Your trees might die in a forest fire, a beetle outbreak or some other natural event. So locating your mills in places where you can grow a tree to merchantable size quickly is a smart business practice.

Furthermore, most of the Southern timberlands are flat and accessible year-round. In the steep mountains of the West, road construction costs are far greater, and snow limits seasonal access.

So that’s the picture: The decline of the Western wood products industry – like that in Maine – occurred because of economic realities that favor other regions of the globe. Blaming environmentalists, endangered species protection, or environmental regulations is easy. But blame fails to explain a changing world, or help us understand its nuances.

Unlike Maine, the West has an alternative. Its abundant public lands – in particular its wilderness areas, national parks and monuments – provides the foundation for another future for the region. While not all the changes that come with the “new” economy are welcome – take sprawl and increased impacts from recreational users – they can be managed if we make intelligent choices.

The West boasts iconic wildlands like Grand Canyon and Yellowstone national parks, the Owyhee Canyonlands and the Gila Wilderness. In the end, federal ownership and protection of wildlands and open spaces is far superior to the Maine model of private ownership and maximized profits. Our model gives us the chance to manage forests sensibly, and it offers at least some potential for a more sustainable future for Western communities.

George Wuerthner is a contributor to Writers on the Range, an opinion service of High Country News (hcn.org). He lives in Bend, Oregon, and is an ecologist who has published 38 books about Western environmental issues.

Forest planning could promote efficiency by “standard work”

April 1, 2016 by Jon Haber

The Colorado Department of Transportation and U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service have developed a new process for protecting federally listed species. “When fully implemented, the improvements made through SWIFT will also save CDOT hundreds of hours of report writing and tens of thousands of dollars of consulting fees every year.”

“SWIFT is a programmatic statewide review that assesses impacts to these protected federal species and implements pre-determined standardized conservation measures to avoid or minimize impacts to the species and associated habitat – a great example of using the Lean principle of “standard work”. SWIFT provides these standardized impact assessments and mitigation measures for 92 common CDOT construction activities for all threatened or endangered species in the state as well as candidates for future listings. SWIFT is a tool to expedite project delivery by providing project teams with consistent impact determinations for similar work and predictable conservation measures.” (“Lean” is a management principle that means creating more value for customers using fewer resources.)

The Forest Service has completed similar programmatic consultations on land management activities that may affect listed species. The result is to streamline consultation on projects that fit the pre-determined conditions. However, individual managers can choose not to follow them and incur higher consultation costs. Forest planning should consider the costa and benefits of allowing this discretion, and consider incorporating plan components that promote standardization of conservation measures for projects in the plan area.

The Forest Service has also worked with the consulting agencies to adopt uniform conservation and mitigation measures across the range of certain species in its forest plans (such as for Canada lynx). However, in general, the Forest Service resists the idea of adopting “standard work” principles in its forest plans, preferring to characterize this in derogatory terms as “one size fits all.” It seems to prefer to allow local managers to invent their own wheels, as indicated by proposing changes in range-wide conservation strategies during individual plan revisions, and avoiding the use of mandatory standards that all projects would have to comply with.

Most managers (like those with CDOT) would recognize this as a costly and inefficient process. What does it buy? Comparing the costs and benefits of Forest Service decentralized decision-making would be a good exercise for the GAO on behalf of federal taxpayers.

Career Ladders for Temps?!?! Maybe Soon!

August 3, 2015 by Larry Harrell Fotoware

More interesting news for “disposable” employees!

http://nffe.org/ht/display/ArticleDetails/i/105694

NFFE-Backed Temporary Employment Reform Legislation Approved by Senate Committee

There may come a time when temporary employees actually have a career ladder!

“Thousands of wildland firefighters and other dedicated seasonal workers have been stuck for too long in dead-end jobs, not because of a lack of merit on their parts, but because of flawed regulations that do not recognize their years of service,” said Mark Davis, Vice President of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE) and past President of the NFFE Forest Service Council. “Many others leave and take their years of experience with them because of blocked career paths. After years of work, I’m optimistic that we are about to fix that.”

Of course, this is most directed towards firefighters, as so many timber temps have been jettisoned or have found “other employment”. Most temps would say that there is plenty of work to do, outside of their 1039 appointments but, that issue is not being addressed. The higher-ups choose to continue to embrace the 1039 appointments, thinking that policy is “good enough for Government work”. There really is nothing stopping the Forest Service from changing their policies on 1039 appointments. Truthfully, I’d like to see the temporary appointments scaled back to 800 hours, essentially forcing the Forest Service and other Agencies to hire more 13/13 permanent positions. Yep, make it too costly and “inconvenient” for them to continue using temps to do work that is needed, each and every year. It’s up to OPM to impose more rules, to stop the abuse of the temporary hiring authority.

Denver Post on Sally Jewell

February 7, 2013 by Sharon

Here’s more on Sally Jewell, plus an interview..below is an excerpt.

Jewell was born in England but moved to the Seattle area before age 4. She has led Kent, Wash.-based REI since 2005. She served as chief operating officer for five years before taking the top job and worked for nearly two decades in commercial banking before that. She also has worked as an engineer for Mobil Oil Corp.
Jewell emerged as a frontrunner for the Interior post in recent days, edging out better-known Democrats such as former Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire and former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter. The Interior job traditionally has gone to politicians from Western states. Salazar was a Colorado senator before taking over at Interior in 2009.
Jewell donated $5,000 to Obama’s re-election effort and has supported other Democrats, campaign finance records show.
Jewell is the first woman Obama has nominated for his second-term Cabinet and a prominent representative from the business community.
Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune called her a champion in the effort to connect children with nature.
Tim Wigley, president of the Western Energy Alliance, which represents the oil and natural gas industry, said Jewell’s experience as a petroleum engineer and business leader “will bring a unique perspective to an office that is key to our nation’s energy portfolio.”

Sharon’s thoughts: In comparison to Salazar, or even Ritter, Ms. Jewell has never lived the day-to-day public lands conflicts, and seems to have an urban background, seeing the challenge as “connecting urbanites with nature.” However, let’s face it, we are not doing that well ourselves with resolving disputes, and she could possibly help change the “battle for the environment” culture through a fresh way of looking at our world. It’s not “we pure enviros” and “those evil timber/oil and gas/skiing/OHV beasts” as much as how are we going to live together, take care of our moutains, our prairies, our deserts, our water and wildlife, and our people, rural and urban. There is an area of common ground ripe for exploration by new and different people, with new and different ideas. In my opinion.