Congress

BiPartisan LWCF Effort Expected in January/More Congressional Land Allocation Decisions

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Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), likely or soon to be (?) chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, is promising to make a pending public lands package a priority. Natural Resources Committee

Here’s a Colorado-centric take on this from the Grand Junction Sentinel, from an interview with Senator Gardner. What I think is interesting is the pay grade of the folks making the land allocation decisions (Congressfolk) and yet it has still taken 10 years for 61K acres. The San Juan Plan Revision (2013) also took a long time but covers everything. Allocation- not easy work. If anyone has a synopsis of the provisions of the current bill, please send to me or post a link in the comments.

However, Gardner said another bipartisan agreement was reached for the fund to be one of the first bills the Senate takes up in January.

“So that is very good news for public lands in Colorado, very good news for a number of bills for Colorado and very good news for the Land and Water Conservation Fund,” he said.

Gardner said the January legislation will include a number of public-land provisions of importance to Colorado, addressing wildfire, water supply and sportsman issues and adding forest and national monument acreage.

As considered this week, the public-lands package didn’t include the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act, a decade-old proposal currently being pursued by U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. It would protect about 61,000 acres in southwest Colorado through a mix of wilderness designation and other land management actions.

It was left out of this week’s package due to a lack of bipartisan backing.

Gardner isn’t a sponsor of the San Juan bill at this point.

Said Gardner, “I support moving the bill forward. There’s some issues that I hope can be resolved. I hope that this bill can pass and receive support from our colleagues.”

He said some concerns surrounding water that were raised about the measure have been addressed.

“There are one or two others (issues) that need to be worked out but I’m confident they will be,” he said.

U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Colo., continues to have some concerns about the San Juan bill.

“There is still not local consensus on the San Juan Mountain Wilderness Act,” said his spokesperson, Kelsey Mix. “Congressman Tipton is open to meeting with Senator Bennet to discuss how this bill could be improved.”

There’s also a story on LWCF status in the E&E news here but don’t know how much can be seen behind the paywall.

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Update: Thanks to Kitty Benzar, here is a copy of the last bill.  We can do searches on it, but still have no overall description and analysis.  I got lost in the local land exchanges. I guess by Omnibus, they really mean Omnibus.

Idaho county votes down wilderness

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Follow-up:                                   

Voters rejected the proposal for the Scotchman Peaks Wilderness, 5,672 to 4,831.  As a result, Senator Risch will not reintroduce his legislation to designate the area, and wilderness legislation has no chance of passing without local Congressional support.  So to a limited degree we have local control of a national forest, but as the article points out, management under the forest plan, which recommends the area as wilderness, won’t change.  (The article suggests that Congress couldn’t change the forest plan; of course it could, but I don’t think there is a precedent for it.)

The unfortunate thing is that the voters seem to have been misinformed (which is something I would hope a congressman would take into account).

“The philosophy with wilderness areas is let it burn,” said Bonner County Commissioner Dan McDonald.

And, perhaps most importantly, (Forest Service spokesperson) Cooper said Forest Service personnel can and do manage forest fires in both recommended and designated wilderness areas. “We still do manage wildfire,” she said.  In 2017, the Forest Service sent smokejumpers into the Salmo-Priest Wilderness area to fight a forest fire.

My own interpretation is that suppression response depends on the values at risk, and wilderness area values, aren’t lost when they burn (in fact probably the opposite) – like other areas managed primarily for conservation or recreation, which is how this area is being managed now. 

Voting for/against Wilderness

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Seriously.  Bonner County, Idaho is holding an advisory vote on whether its residents want the Scotchman Peaks area to be designated as Wilderness.  Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, has indicated he will follow the advisory vote result.

One one hand, this is a good way to get information about policy preferences that opinion polls and candidate elections may not.  But really, how much weight should one county’s vote carry in making decisions about national forests?

Here’s a detailed fact-check developed to help voters.  Importantly, this area has been recommended for Wilderness in the Idaho Panhandle and Kootenai revised forest plans.  Watch for the results of the referendum on the May 15 primary ballot.

Montanans like their Wilderness Study Areas

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But their elected representatives don’t.

The results of a new poll show that a majority — 57 percent — of Montanans wanted WSAs to continue to be protected, and another 24 percent said they wanted a more case-by-case review of how the areas should be used.

Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Greg Gianforte, both Republicans, have introduced bills in Congress to open up areas now protected as WSAs.

The University of Montana’s Crown of the Continent and Greater Yellowstone Initiative commissioned the poll of 500 Montana voters and hired both Republican and Democratic firms to conduct the survey. It found that only 11 percent of those polled favored Gianforte’s proposal to eliminate protections for 29 WSAs.

“They were opting for something other than what’s proposed in Congress,” said pollster Lori Weigel, who led the Republican half of the bipartisan polling team.

Daines and Gianforte discounted the poll, noting they had the support of local county commissions for their legislation.

Obviously the county commissions did not get this support from their constituents, and they have been accused of selective listening.

Daines’ staff challenged the validity of the poll.

David Parker, a Montana State University political science professor, said after reviewing the survey questions, “I object to the notion it’s a push poll. It’s pretty innocuous the way it’s worded.”

Parker said the UM poll appeared consistent with other regional surveys showing strong bipartisan support for public land protection.

I guess this is what happens when a popular issue is not a high priority for voters.  You look the other way on the environment and vote for someone who’ll give you your tax cut.

Here’s a summary of some of the other findings of the survey – including:

When asked by the pollsters if they would support or oppose dedicating additional, existing public lands as wilderness areas in Montana, 57 percent expressed support and 35 percent said they would be opposed.

Federal lands, “Utah-style”

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Three Republicans running for election this year discussed weakening the Antiquities Act and Endangered Species Act, dropping the filibuster rule in the U.S. Senate and rewriting federal public lands policy to require state approval of new regulations.

“It’s not that lawmakers in the East — and for me that’s everything east of Denver — it’s not that they’re evil, they’re just stupid,” he (Bishop) said, drawing chuckles from some in the audience. “When we talk about public lands to Easterners, they just don’t have the same concept. They think everything is Yellowstone.”

I would say they might think everything “should be” Yellowstone, and who’s to say they are wrong.  It’s their land too.  Maybe Bishop is the one who is stupid.

“”It’s going to take an educational effort, not just a political effort” to push back against what he called radical environmental groups, he (Romney) added, referencing decisions such as Trump’s national monuments order, which has been challenged in court by Native American groups, environmental groups and others.  “There are some in the environmental lawsuit industry that may not care very much about the underlying facts,” he (Romney) said. “They’re just going to file lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit because that’s how they get paid.”

The underlying facts are what the lawsuits are based on.  And apparently “radical” means “willing to go to court.”

Separation of Powers in Action: The Cottonwood Fix

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Indeed, the idea of separation of powers among judicial, legislative and executive branches in the US is intended to provide checks and balances. This one (the Cottonwood Fix) is a little hard to figure out unless you are familiar with the details of how ESA is carried out, that is, consulting and reconsulting on plans and projects. I used the description from an AFRC attorney in his Congressional testimony here. As always, others are free to post their own perspectives. Shorthand.. Circuits disagree, Executive branch asks Supremes, they decline and Congress fixes.

According to Fite, the fix was bipartisan

“It is no surprise that this common-sense legislation has attracted the support of lawmakers from both parties, from state and local governments, and prominent environmental groups including Trout Unlimited and the National Wildlife Federation. AFRC offers the strongest possible support, as do many industry groups including Intermountain Forestry Association, Montana Wood Products Association, California Forestry Association, and Federal Forest Resource Coalition.
In brief, S. 605 will allow projects to move forward under existing forest plans if an appropriate plan-level ESA consultation is completed. It will eliminate any requirement for the Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management to reinitiate consultation due to new ESA listings or critical habitat at the plan level—and only at the plan level. The bill does not change existing law regarding applicable requirements to consult on individual projects, new forest plans or plan
revisions. The Ninth Circuit requires consultation on new plans, while the Tenth Circuit does not. S. 605 leaves this circuit split in place.

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The Obama Administration, including Secretary Vilsack, asked the Supreme Court to review Cottonwood in 2016, but was denied. That fall, the Forest Service began the arduous process of consulting on 11 National Forests and more than 35,000 square miles of lynx habitat. This July, the Forest Service completed its biological assessment—the first piece of the consultation process. It is unclear when a biological opinion will be complete at the plan level. Then, project-level analyses will have to be reviewed against the plan-level opinion. This process will not be completed in 2017 and will likely stretch well into the 2018 forest management operating season. Of course, each step will be subject to multiplying lawsuits and injunctions.

Since nearly every forestry project already undergoes ESA consultation, this plan-level exercise has no real conservation benefit. A plan-level analysis generally assesses an amount of specieswide impact that is sustainable. Projects can proceed as long as their impacts fall within the plan-level approved impacts. When a project is evaluated without plan-level clearance, there is no such buffer for the agency to rely on. Therefore, ESA consultation at the project-specific
level is likely to be more conservative.

S. 605 simply and directly fixes Cottonwood. It provides that re-initiation of plan-level consultation is not required due to a new species listing or critical habitat designation. It does not affect any applicable requirement to consult on a new plan or a significant plan revision. The bill applies to both the Forest Service and the BLM, which each manage significant forestlands.

Info Request: Language/Analysis of Omnibus Appropriations Bill

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Steve started with this post. I’m sure that somewhere, someone, in fact many people are paid by their employer to follow this and write an assessment for their members. This thread would be a good spot to collect them, and we can look at a variety of perspectives and discuss them.

Please post links to the relevant language (not the whole bill) and any analysis thereof. If you have a document, email me and I will upload it. Thanks to all!

Politicians vs science

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Ideology was on display at a grandstanding event on the Lolo Peak Fire.

Secretary Sonny Perdue, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Congressman Greg Gianforte and Senator Steve Daines got a briefing from the fire management team, and then held a short press conference.

Senator Daines repeated a refrain that Montana Republicans have been saying for years: That lawsuits from extreme environmental groups are preventing the U.S. Forest Service from carrying out logging and thinning projects that would remove trees and prevent wildfires… “It is the lawyers who are – funding for these extreme environmental groups — who are having a tremendous impact, devastating impact on allowing us to move forward here on some common sense timber projects,” Daines said.

Both Perdue and Congressman Greg Gianforte pointed to a 5,000 acre logging project called the Stonewall that was approved by the Helena Lewis and Clark National Forest outside Lincoln in 2016. That was then put on hold in January by a judge responding to a lawsuit from the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council. That area is now burning as part of the Park Creek fire sparked by lightning this summer.

But, after listening to audio of the press conference this afternoon, the dean of the Forestry School at the University of Montana, Tom DeLuca, cautioned against expecting too much from a timber sale or wildfire  fuel management projects…  On a windy, hot day, a fire will carry right through that understory or in those crowns regardless of whether it’s been thinned or not. It does change the behavior…  There are also studies that try to quantify how much more severe wildfires are in recent years due to climate change. DeLuca says it’s clear that human-caused climate change from burning fossil fuels is making fire seasons longer and more intense.

Sen. Daines says, “We go through warmer cycles, cooler cycles, droughts, excessive precipitation. We are in a warm cycle right now, we are in drought conditions here in Montana consequently we’re having a severe fire season.”

(Climate scientist Steve) Running says.., “”What I heard is the kind of evasive response, ‘yeah weather’s always changing and we’ve had dry seasons and fire seasons before,’ and so the implication that there’s nothing really new and this is just part of natural cycles. Of course in the climate change research community we’ve well documented in dozens and dozens of peer reviews papers that the fire season’s getting longer and overall we’re burning more acres than in the past and that we’re on a trend of longer fire seasons and bigger fires,” Running says…  It’s always the case that if you pick any one year out you can say there’s been other years like this, but when we study climate, we’re studying decades, multi-decadal trends, and we clearly document multi-decadal trends of longer, warmer summers and more, bigger fires.”

At least Perdue agreed, “There obviously is climate change …”

Forest “Christmas tree” bill out of House committee

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No, not that Christmas tree (they are searching the Kootenai National Forest for that one).

 

This one.  This is the Westerman bill that the House hung all the hopes of active forest management on:  “the Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2017.”  Similar legislation in 2015 passed the House, but died in the Senate.

“To expedite under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and improve forest management activities on National Forest System Lands, on public lands under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management, and on tribal lands to return resilience to overgrown, fire-prone forest lands and other purposes.”

Just about everything that has been suggested before (and stopped by Obamacrats) is in there to make it easier and attractive to do things.  Categorical exclusions, expedited salvage, expedited project ESA consultation and reduced/eliminated forest plan consultation, litigation restrictions, county payments, less road decommissioning, elimination of eastern OR/WA old growth harvest restrictions, elimination of Northwest Forest Plan survey and manage requirements, O & C land management changes, wildfire disaster funding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The beginning of state management of national forests

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A group of Western senators, including Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo, both R-Idaho, have introduced a bill to allow states to implement their own conservation plans to protect sage grouse and their habitats, in lieu of federal management.

Congress would be allowing states to override the decisions by the Forest Service and BLM to amend their plans to protect sage grouse, which would amount to letting states take over planning for national forests to the extent that it can be tied to sage grouse in any way.