Congress

Why aren’t forest plan goals accomplished?

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Terry Seyden offered this on another thread, but I’d like to hear some other opinions, or better yet, facts.

“The principal reasons most forests are not anywhere near meeting their forest plan timber and wildlife habitat goals, in my opinion, lie in the fact that congress funds targets at levels well below what the plans call for.”

If someone can explain “why” – how the process of getting from forest plan timber numbers to annual targets actually works, please share!  And how is that process different for wildlife habitat goals?

FOIA Improvement Act – coming next year

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I saw FOIA from the government side when I was a regional FOIA coordinator as an unfunded mandate that made agency staff drop their priority work, but then sometimes get bogged down in attempts to deny requests under changing administration policies regarding the “presumption of openness.”  But when I hosted a FOIA conference, I invited a newspaper reporter as a guest speaker to offer the rest of the world’s perspective.  Which is a lot like the one in this editorial.

Cache of Legislative Bills

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I think that this is a Red Squirrel from Great Britain, but you get the idea...
I think that this is a Red Squirrel from Great Britain, but you get the idea…

I don’t know if Phil Taylor, E&E News Reporter, reads this blog, but kudos to him or the headline person for using “cache” of bills. We usually hear “flurry” of bills, but there could be a “confetti storm” of bills…any other suggestions would be appreciated..

(sorry this is long, I didn’t know what to pick out).

Major environmental groups are torn over a massive package of parks, wilderness and development bills that has been attached to the fiscal 2015 defense authorization bill, a bipartisan, bicameral measure that appears poised to pass Congress.

If passed, the package negotiated by leaders on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources and House Natural Resources panels would be by far the largest array of public lands measures to advance in Congress in nearly six years.

But some prominent greens say the environment got a raw deal, pointing to Republican-backed provisions to privatize public lands in Arizona and Alaska for mining and logging and to expedite permits for grazing on more than 100 million acres of public lands in the West.

And on the far right, at least one senator is preparing to do all he can to defeat the parks and wilderness provisions when the defense bill reaches the chamber floor.

“We’re not happy about how this thing unfolded,” said Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s lands protection program. “The losses far outweigh the wins.”

Manuel said he was particularly concerned with bills by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to authorize a land swap near Superior, Ariz., to facilitate development of Rio Tinto PLC’s Resolution Copper project and by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) to convey roughly 70,000 acres of the Tongass National Forest to the Juneau, Alaska-based Sealaska Corp., mostly for logging.

“We should not be privatizing federal lands at the behest of a mining company,” Manuel said. “We should not be privatizing public lands that are sacred to Native Americans.”

Multiple green groups also expressed grave concerns with language by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) to expedite grazing permits, a provision they warned could undermine the Bureau of Land Management’s ability to save the greater sage grouse from an Endangered Species Act listing.

Manuel said the Sierra Club would be reaching out to allies on the Armed Services panels and the House Rules Committee to see whether certain provisions can be removed from the bill, but he said changes at this late stage are unlikely.

Congress is under a tight time frame to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — considered a must-pass bill — and Senate Armed Services leaders on both sides of the aisle are urging colleagues to vote on the package without amendments.

The Rules panel is set to meet at 3 p.m. today to discuss the bill, and a House vote could occur by week’s end.

Green groups were under no illusion that a public lands package would be free of what they view as “poison pills.” The 2009 Omnibus Public Land Management Act, for example, contained a provision by Murkowski allowing the possible construction of a road through an Alaska wilderness area to improve public safety for a predominantly Native Alaskan town.

Wilderness Society President Jamie Williams today blasted the inclusion of “destructive provisions” in NDAA such as Resolution Copper, but said “other aspects of this legislation will secure significant conservation gains and should be passed without delay.”

“The Wilderness Society is pleased to see Congress poised to act on a number of bipartisan wilderness and public lands bills that have awaited passage for years,” he said. “These measures protect invaluable drinking water sources; wildlife habitat; and places to hunt, camp and experience our great outdoors while strengthening local economies and enhancing the quality of life for countless Americans.”

Pew Charitable Trusts Director of U.S. Public Lands Tim Mahoney said the package is a good deal for conservation and should be passed.

“We support this,” he said this morning, noting that the wilderness provisions support locally crafted compromises to preserve the public estate. “That doesn’t mean we’re exceedingly comfortable with everything in it.”

But others including Andy Kerr, an environmental lobbyist who splits his time between Washington, D.C., and Oregon, said pro-environment lawmakers sold out.

“I can be bought, but I’m not cheap,” he said, saying he’s made past sacrifices to achieve conservation gains.

Kerr said he’s pleased to see the package includes roughly 250,000 acres of new wilderness designations in a handful of Western states, but he said many, if not most, of those lands do not face imminent threats. There were other wilderness bills left on the table, he said, including at least four in Oregon.

“Just putting some acres on the scoreboard at the cost of other lands is not a good way to behave,” he said.

Kerr was particularly opposed to the grazing permit language, which he said has changed significantly from a bill by Barrasso, S. 258, that passed ENR with bipartisan support a year ago. “The language was pounded together in a back room,” he said, warning that, with passage, the listing of sage grouse will be “inevitable.”

The grazing language was strongly supported by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the Public Lands Council (PLC), both of which backed the underlying package.

“Sen. Barrasso and Rep. [Raúl] Labrador [R-Idaho] have led the effort to bring security to federal land grazing rights and provide needed efficiencies to the land management agencies — the included provisions would do just that,” said Dustin Van Liew, executive director of PLC and NCBA for federal lands. “The energy and natural resource committees of both chambers should be commended for working to find agreement and relative balance in the lands package included in the NDAA, primarily including only legislation that has had bipartisan support and committee hearings this session.”

Bobby McEnaney, who oversees public lands and wildlife protections for the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the lands package “a mixed bag” but said he has “pretty big concerns” with how the grazing provisions affect the National Environmental Policy Act, which mandates transparency in public lands decisions.

Those concerns are shared by Defenders of Wildlife, said the group’s legislative counsel, Sandra Purohit. “They may come back to be problematic for whichever side of sage grouse you’re fighting on,” she said.

Neither NRDC nor Defenders has taken a position yet on the overall package. The National Parks Conservation Association will be supporting it, a top official there said.

Support from lawmakers

In Congress, support for the lands package appears strong, and some who oppose it do not appear geared up for a fight. There’s enormous bipartisan pressure to pass NDAA, which has occurred annually for more than 50 years.

“The process [for passing the lands bills] is wrong, and I’ll say so on the floor,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), ranking member of Armed Services. But “unfortunately, when you come into very complicated legislation, you have to have some things you don’t want, some things you do want. We have to have a defense authorization bill. That’s the must. There will be some things I don’t like.”

Inhofe predicted the bill would pass.

An email to the office of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), a top critic of parks and wilderness packages, was not returned this morning. But Roll Call reported this morning that Coburn on Nov. 19 sent a letter to Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) saying he intends “to utilize all procedural options at my disposal as a United States Senator, including objecting to any unanimous consent agreements or time limitations, if NDAA contains extraneous public lands provisions such as authorizing new National Park units, expanding wilderness areas, creating new National Heritage Areas, or expanding the federal land base.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) this morning said she had not seen the contents of the lands package but expects she will support it.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) likewise said she plans to support the package.

“There are definitely things in there that I don’t support individually, but I think everything has been worked through the process,” she said.

The leaders of the energy and natural resources panels in both chambers this morning issued statements touting the lands package’s balance between conservation and development.

“The agreement offers a balanced approach to public lands management, providing opportunities for new job creation and energy and mineral production, while simultaneously protecting special areas,” said House Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), who had a bill of his own to designate a Manhattan Project national historic park in Washington, Tennessee and New Mexico included in NDAA.

Murkowski, the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the package will benefit Alaska.

“This package includes important provisions that will boost communities throughout our state, including the settlement and finalization of lands issues in southeast Alaska, the conveyances of land for community development in Anchorage, and at Fort Wainwright,” Murkowski said.

The package also carries strong support from the Montana delegation, New Mexico’s Democratic senators and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Colorado.

Kathleen Sgamma, vice president for government and public affairs at the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, an oil and gas trade group, said she was happy to see the package include a bipartisan measure to extend and expand a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas permit streamlining program.

“The bill will ensure that funding for basic permitting continues into the future while providing some regulatory certainty for federal onshore energy development,” she said.

Major provisions of the package would:

Convey 110,000 acres out of federal ownership for economic development including mineral production, logging, infrastructure and community developments including a cemetery and shooting range.

Enhance private funding for national parks through donor recognition; issue a commemorative coin to recognize the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016; and designate “a select number of new park units that have strong local support.”

Designate roughly 245,000 acres of wilderness, nearly half of which is already managed as such due to roadless or wilderness study area status.

Release 26,000 acres of current wilderness study areas to multiple use.

Permanently protect the American side of the North Fork of the Flathead River Watershed in Montana by barring future mining or drilling on 430,000 acres.

Here’s a link to the story and here’s a link to the bill.

ESA lawsuits: fair and balanced

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Environmental litigants seem to be a favorite target these days of both Congressional hearings and criticism on this blog.  So after reading (here) about a recent lawsuit that led to DE-listing of species, I decided to look into what these anti-environmental plaintiffs were trying to accomplish with it.  What we have (here) is an exact mirror image of the litigation strategy to list species under ESA, and the same reason they won – failure to meet deadlines.

In this example, plaintiff’s reasons for de-listing have nothing to do with the species or restrictions resulting from the listing.  The species will still be protected.  As the other article says, the lawsuit was merely “symbolic.”  Harassment maybe.  Now wasn’t defending against it a good use of our tax dollars?

Just saying – it’s ok to talk about whether limiting litigation is a good idea, but let’s not suggest that judicial review inherently favors any particular position.

 

Science, Law, and the Press: Idealized vs. Real

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I’ve been thinking about how people use the terms “science” as in ” policies are better if they’re based on science”; and law as in “environmental laws are great because Congress made them, but if Congress messes with any of the case-law derived interpretations, that would be bad.”

It’s almost like there’s an idealized institution that people appeal to in some arguments, while sometimes ignoring or downplaying the realities of the institution. I think it will be helpful to talk about in future discussions how that plays out..for example, are Franklin and Johnson’s involvement with prescriptions on O&C lands making it “science.” What if it were two other scientists who developed a different prescription, would that still be “science”? It’s not hard to imagine other ecologist/economist pairs that could come up with other prescriptions.

Now, Congress’s messiness is laid out for the whole world to see through the press. But in my experience dealing with Forest Service projects wending their way through the system, I saw the “real” side of “science” (which I already knew about); the courts, and the press. Now I am not saying that any of them are any worse than any other; but they are all human and not perfect institutions. Human behavior in groups tends to be fairly similar and is not always perfect. When we talk about institutions, then, it seems to me, we should generally be talking about the institution as real and not as idealized.

Now people who are in the trenches on projects and see this firsthand, do not really have a voice. As agency folks, you are not allowed to question (in public) some of the issues or problems you see. For one thing, that might make powerful folks angry at the FS. For example, on one case, one of our attorneys said “we think the judge has the law wrong on this, but we won’t tell him because he is a young judge and we don’t want to have him biased against the FS for his career.” The fact that others critique the FS, but the FS can’t (usually) engage in meaningful public back and forth means that only one side is represented to the public, as we’ve discussed before.

Which also brings up that none of the feedback loops in the table allow for public discussion of claims and counterclaims, as we have on this blog. It’s too time-consuming, perhaps, but not having a place for that to occur seems to me to also be a problem. And we have to look at who is involved in the discussion and how members of the public get involved or not.

institutional feedback 2

I am interested in your thoughts on this table. One thing I thought we might be able to do on this blog, that might be helpful, would be to keep tabs on some of the journals and post relevant information on this blog so that these critiques are more available in the public sphere.

What do you think about the table? What would you change or add? What ideas does the table generate in your mind?

Largest “Dealbreaker” Ever?!?

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This may shock some readers but, I am actually against HR 3188. I don’t support any logging in Yosemite National Park, or in the Emigrant Wilderness, other than hazard tree projects. What is also pretty amazing is that others in the House have signed on to this bill. It seems like political “suicide” to go on record, being in favor of this bill. However, I am in favor of exempting regular Forest Service lands, within the Rim Fire, from legal actions, as long as they display “due diligence” in addressing endangered species, and other environmental issues. Did McClintock not think that expedited Yosemite National Park logging would be, maybe, the largest “dealbreaker” in history?

Here is McClintock’s presentation:

 HR 3188 – Timber Fire Salvage

October 3, 2013
Mr. Chairman:
I want to thank you for holding this hearing today and for the speedy consideration of HR 3188.
It is estimated that up to one billion board feet of fire-killed timber can still be salvaged out of the forests devastated by the Yosemite Rim fire, but it requires immediate action.  As time passes, the value of this dead timber declines until after a year or so it becomes unsalvageable.
The Reading Fire in Lassen occurred more than one year ago.  The Forest Service has just gotten around to selling salvage rights last month.  In the year the Forest Service has taken to plow through endless environmental reviews, all of the trees under 18” in diameter – which is most of them – have become worthless.
After a year’s delay for bureaucratic paperwork, extreme environmental groups will often file suits to run out the clock, and the 9th Circuit Court of appeals has become infamous for blocking salvage operations.
We have no time to waste in the aftermath of the Yosemite Rim Fire, which destroyed more than 400 square miles of forest in the Stanislaus National Forest and the Yosemite National Park — the largest fire ever recorded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
The situation is particularly urgent because of the early infestation of bark beetles which have already been observed attacking the dead trees.  As they do so, the commercial value of those trees drops by half.
Four hundred miles of roads are now in jeopardy.  If nearby trees are not removed before winter, we can expect dead trees to begin toppling, risking lives and closing access.  Although the Forest Service has expedited a salvage sale on road and utility rights of way as part of the immediate emergency measures, current law otherwise only allows a categorical exemption for just 250 acres – enough to protect just 10 miles of road.
By the time the normal environmental review of salvage operations has been completed in a year, what was once forest land will have already begun converting to brush land, and by the following year reforestation will become infinitely more difficult and expensive – especially if access has been lost due to impassibility of roads.  By that time, only trees over 30 inches in diameter will be salvageable.
Within two years, five to eight feet of brush will have built up and the big trees will begin toppling on this tinder.  You could not possibly build a more perfect fire than that.
If we want to stop the conversion of this forestland to brush land, the dead timber has to come out.  If we take it out now, we can actually sell salvage rights, providing revenue to the treasury that could then be used for reforestation.  If we go through the normal environmental reviews and litigation, the timber will be worthless, and instead of someone paying US to remove the timber, WE will have to pay someone else to do so.  The price tag for that will be breathtaking.   We will then have to remove the accumulated brush to give seedlings a chance to survive – another very expensive proposition.
This legislation simply waives the environmental review process for salvage operations on land where the environment has already been incinerated, and allows the government to be paid for the removal of already dead timber, rather than having the government pay someone else.
There is a radical body of opinion that says, just leave it alone and the forest will grow back.
Indeed, it will, but not in our lifetimes.  Nature gives brush first claim to the land – and it will be decades before the forest is able to fight its way back to reclaim that land.
This measure has bi-partisan precedent.  It is the same approach as offered by Democratic Senator Tom Daschle a few years ago to allow salvage of beetle-killed timber in the Black Hills National Forest.
Finally, salvaging this timber would also throw an economic lifeline to communities already devastated by this fire as local mills can be brought to full employment for the first time in many years.
Time is not our friend.  We can act now and restore the forest, or we can dawdle until restoration will become cost prohibitive.

What Rep Daines Mandated Logging Bill Would Mean for National Forests in Montana

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Here’s some new information to consider regarding Rep Doc Hastings (R-WA) and Rep Steve Daines (R-MT) mandated logging bill, the so-called “Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act” (HR 1526), which passed the US House on September 20.

In Montana, it’s estimated that Rep Daines’ mandated logging bill would result in a 6 fold increase in National Forest logging across the state. However, the logging mandates contained in Daines’ bill would impact each National Forest differently. As such, it’s estimated that Daines’ bill would result in:

•  300 X’s more logging on the Helena National Forest;
•  150 X’s more logging on the Lewis and Clark National Forest;
•  30 X’s more logging on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest;
•  13 X’s more logging on the Lolo National Forest;
•  7 X’s more logging on the Gallatin National Forest;
•  6 X’s more logging on the Kootenai National Forest; and
•  4 X’s more logging on the Flathead National Forest.

(Note: Compared with 2012 National Forest timber sale volumes)

These dramatic increases in logging would be achieved by undermining America’s public lands legacy by simply having members of Congress mandate dramatic increases in industrial logging by exempting all National Forest logging sales up to 15.6 square miles in size from public input, environmental analysis and gutting the Endangered Species Act.

Rep Daines’ “Logging Without Laws” bill also has the US Congress simply closing the US Federal Court House doors, forbidding any citizen lawsuits on certain types of industrial logging projects, which is inherently undemocratic. Daines’ bill applies to all of America’s 155 National Forests, not just those National Forests in Montana.

New information also reveals that, contrary to claims by Rep Hastings and Rep Daines, rural counties throughout America would get less money for roads and schools under the Hastings/Daines mandated logging bill than what they current receive through Secure Rural Schools funding.

While Rep Daines, Senator Tester (D-MT) and the timber industry claim “gridlock” prevents National Forest logging, between 2008 and 2012 the US Forest Service sold enough logging sales in Montana and North Idaho to fill over 239,000 logging trucks, which if lined up end-to-end, would stretch for 2,048 miles.

Fortunately, President Obama has threatened to veto Rep Daines mandated logging bill.  The battle now goes to the US Senate, which in theory should be against mandating huge increases in National Forest logging through “Logging Without Laws” and gutting the Endangered Species Act, limiting public input and environmental analysis.However, the fact that Senator Tester and Senator Baucus (D-MT) have their very own mandated National Forest logging bill (the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act) already introduced in the US Senate all bets are off and basically anything can happen in the Senate.

Certainly it doesn’t help the political situation that Sen Tester, Sen Baucus and groups like the Montana Wilderness Association, National Wildlife Federation and Montana Trout Unlimited also support politicians mandating huge logging increases of our National Forests through Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act (FJRA). Make no mistake, both the Daines and Tester bill would be an extreme and radical departure from over 100 years of America’s public lands legacy.Remember, Montanans have been bombarded since 2009 with a million dollar plus advertising and public relations campaign supporting Tester’s mandated logging bill paid for largely by the out-of-state Pew Foundation.

According to official tax forms, as far back as 2009 the Pew Foundation’s Campaign for America’s Wilderness actually hired the Montana Wilderness Association as an “Independent Contractor” to the tune of $304,500.00 in just 2009 alone. Montanans have also witnessed one-sided, down and pony show “public meetings” on Tester’s bill in which only hand-picked supporters of Tester’s bill were allowed to speak to the crowd. And who hasn’t noticed the dozens of canned, scripted Letters to the Editor (most of which from college students without a firm grasp on these issues) cheerleading for Congress to mandate more logging through Tester’s bill?

Let’s also not forget that all summer long we watched the Montana Wilderness Association spend some of their money on an Ad campaign making Rep Steve Daines (a “Tea Party” member of the House) out to be some great “bi-partisian” and encouraging Daines to work together with Senator Tester and Senator Baucus to support Tester’s mandated logging bill. Honestly, how good of a strategy is it to publicly encourage a “Tea Party” member of the US House to work together to support mandated logging of our public national forest lands? How naive must you be to actually think that getting Rep Daines involved with Tester’s mandated logging bill wouldn’t actually make Tester’s bill that much worse?

While the Montana Wilderness Association was busy all summer courting Rep Daines to be their new BFF not one single person from the Montana Wilderness Association (or any of the other environmental ‘collaborators’ supporting Senator Tester’s mandated logging bill) managed to uttered one single peep of protest, concern or opposition about Rep Daines’ very own mandated logging bill, which cuts the public process, NEPA analysis and effectivness of the ESA.

And what about the Montana Wilderness Association’s “timber mill partners” from their much lauded private “collaboration?” Do you think the Montana timber industry supports Rep Daines mandated logging bill? Of course they do! And one can assume the timber industry has no problem dropping Montana Wilderness Association like a bad habitat once the industry gets what they really wanted in the form of Rep Daines mandated logging bill.

In December 2009, as I sat in the US Senate’s Energy and Natural Resource’s Committee hearing room, I heard Montana Wilderness Association’s director Tim Baker (who is now Gov Bullock’s “Natural Resource Adviser”) tell the Committee that MWA wouldn’t support Tester’s bill is the logging mandates were removed. So too, Sun Mountain Lumber owner Sherm Anderson told the Committee the timber industry wouldn’t support Senator Tester’s mandated logging bill without the Wilderness acres. Well, looks to me like Montana’s timber industry has dumped MWA in front of Daines’ mandated logging bus. All is fair in love and legislation, I guess.

“Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act” (HR 1526)

• Creates a legally-binding public lands logging mandate with no environmental or fiscal feasibility limits, and reestablishing the discredited 25% logging revenue sharing system with counties that was eliminated over a decade ago.

• Public participation and Endangered Species Act protections would be severely limited in Rep Daines’ bill. The bill creates huge loopholes in NEPA and such biased ESA requirements that in practice these laws would almost never meaningfully apply. For example, any project less than 10,000 acres (that’s 15.6 square miles) would be categorically excluded from environmental analysis and public participation, and the Forest Service would be required to submit a finding that endangered species are not jeopardized by any project, regardless of its actual effect on the species.

• Rep Daines successfully attached an amendment to the bill that would forbid the US Federal Courts from ever issuing injunctions against Forest Service logging projects based on alleged violations of procedural requirements in selecting, planning, or analyzing the project.

• Another amendment successfully added to the bill has the US Congress closing the US Federal Court House doors for any national forest timber sale resulting from the 2013 wildfires. Essentially this results in “Logging Without Laws,” as one entire branch of the US Government (the Judicial branch) is forbidden from hearing this issue.

If you’d like more “policy-wonky” information about Daines’ mandated logging bill check out this fact sheet.

Senate Committee Hearing: Challenges and opportunities for improving forest management on federal lands

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img_chairman

A reader sent me this link: here’s his review:

Bill Imbergamo’s hit it out of the park with his oral and written testimony. I wanted to give him a hug.

Norm Johnson was awesome about the variable retention and science, children’s books, etc

Risch was spot-on also.

If you haven’t watched, I highly recommend it. VERY worthwhile investment of time.

So far I managed to get to a part where Wyden notes that NEPA “requires a strong stomach” or something equivalent, somehow I couldn’t find it when I went back..

There’s a great deal to think about here.. I am not as sanguine as the Chief about large landscape NEPA. If someone wants to, couldn’t they go to court after a big blow down or fire (or new climate models or ???) and ask for a redo on the basis of new information and changed conditions? Fundamentally, it would require a change with some folks giving up power, which people usually don’t do voluntarily. Especially those who really believe that they have the right perspective.

The Black Hills doesn’t have any of those ESA animals which are involved in all the Montana and other lawsuits.. is that a coincidence? Perhaps not as applicable as a person might think. I feel like the Administration likes to think things will be fine if collaboration is done and they do huge NEPA. I am a fairly optimistic person but I don’t see that changing, say, Mr. Garrity’s view on the couple of R-1 timber sales because the NEPA is at a larger scale.

The pilots have a great deal of attention and support, in terms of getting various barriers out of the way. Even if the pilots are successful, this does not necessarily predict that everyday kinds of work will be equally successful. My optimism tells me that we would get further by determining what the real barriers to active forest management are.

Anyway, there’s a lot here. What’s your favorite quote? Did you want to hug anyone?

Oregonian Editorial Board on Forest Roads

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While we’re waiting for the objections rule, thought I’d post a few miscellaneous items..

Here’s a link and below are some excerpts.

Forest owners, logging companies and those who value gainful employment won a significant victory Wednesday in the U.S. Supreme Court, which opined that logging roads are not point sources of pollution requiring discharge permits under the Clean Water Act. The lopsided, 7-1 decision reversed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, whose wisdom promised, warned Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in 2011, to “bury private, state and tribal forest lands in a wave of litigation.”

Party time, right?

Not quite. As important as the decision is for forest owners, some of them are keeping the bubbly on ice until Congress makes the long-standing policy challenged by environmental groups a matter of law. Can you blame them, given the determination of litigants to keep right on litigating and prodding?

and

Meanwhile, environmental lawyer Paul Kampmeier told The Oregonian’s Scott Learn last week, his organization, the Washington Forest Law Center, will keep right on “pushing EPA to do something …” And why not? As Kampmeier pointed out, “The court generally ruled that the ball’s in the EPA’s court.”

The most effective way to provide long-term security for forest owners is to change the law, as legislation sponsored during the last Congress by Wyden and others would do. Unfortunately, the legislation died despite gathering a bipartisan collection of sponsors. It deserves another shot.

This seems to be another of those “Congress should act” kinds of things…perhaps we need a grassroots movement for “Congress stepping up” in some of these areas? Perhaps a “sustainable forests and national forest communities” Manifesto?

Objections Rule to Be Released (?) and a Recap on “Contacting Your Representatives”

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This came across me email from the LM Tribune online here.

The U.S. Forest Service is changing the process by which citizens can challenge timber sales and other actions.

Under the new guidelines, which are expected to be unveiled this week, people who want to challenge agency actions will be required to fully participate in the public review process and file formal objections prior to forest supervisors making final decisions.

Some of you may remember that I wrote my Senators asking why this had been requested by Congress last year and still hadn’t been completed. That was part of the post here Paid Gladiators and Unpaid Peacemakers: There Must Be a Better Way.”

Here is what happened:

Senator Udall’s office first wrote back and said they received my email. In about six weeks they sent a copy of a letter they sent to the Chief asking about it and for the Forest Service to write me back (I expect this became “controlled correspondence”). I never heard from the Forest Service, but if the objections rule is coming out, that’s what I wanted. As I noted before, they had a place for natural resources in their drop down menu.

Senator Bennett’s office never wrote back to say they received my email. About a month and a half in they sent a form letter saying that they noted my concerns and would take them into consideration (which actually wasn’t the point). This office’s dropdown didn’t have a place for natural resources so I had to select “environment.” For the State of Colorado. Really.

They are both in the same party, so it appears that it’s not a partisan issue.
Ed had mentioned in a previous comment here

In response to your great suggestion about working with (talking to) our fed reps, I have to share from an Idaho perspective. As you likely know, Idaho has gone totally to the right, with extreme GOP control at all levels, county, school boards, House and Senate. OK, I accept that we of the other persuasion are vastly outnumbered.
But I have, on a few occasions, emailed my federal reps in DC. Their electronic sites are a real test of how determined you are to finish. Layer after layer of background and categories before you can insert your message. And you go through this again and again, each time you want to confer. Can’t help but wonder if all this preliminary junk is really intended to screen us out so we won’t “bother them”.
And knowing that I and “them” are so politically separated, my efforts are half-hearted. Tried the phone a few times, but again how many comments to some intern answering the phone are really passed accurately to the congressmen or senators. Doubtful.
A real challenge to be an environmental Democrat in Idaho.

I know some of the rural economic groups have training in working with elected officials and even trips to DC, I wonder if some information is written down that could be shared here about how to work with Congressional folk? The retired feds may have some pent-up desire for this… but in some cases it has to be them who will have to find solutions to the problems we’ve identified.