Planning Rule Development Process

Update on Planning Rule Process

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From the Planning Rule Team:

We’ve learned a tremendous amount about what should be in a new planning
rule since the Notice of Intent (NOI) was issued last December. We
received over 26,000 written comments on the NOI, over 300 blog comments
and have had over 40 public meetings attended by over 3000 people. We’ve
worked hard to get input from Tribes through our regional and national
Tribal roundtables; from scientists through the science forum and
scientists’ continued involvement throughout the roundtables; from Forest
Service employees through various internal feedback mechanisms; and from
other federal agencies through the Federal Interagency Working Group.
We’re committed to building a proposed rule and draft environmental impact
statement (DEIS) that reflect the diverse opinions and common themes that
have emerged from the public involvement process.

We’ve now entered a new phase of the rule development process. We are
currently finalizing the proposed rule and DEIS for clearance by the
Department of Agriculture and Office of Management and Budget. We expect
the proposed rule and DEIS to be published in the Federal Register in late
December.

We are committed to keeping planning rule development open, transparent and
participatory. Please take advantage of the following opportunities to
stay engaged over the coming months:
* We will continue to send out periodic updates on this listserv.
Encourage other people who you think would be interested to join as well.
Sign-up can be accessed from the right hand column of the planning rule
homepage or by going directly to this link.

* Check back often to the planning rule website for the latest information.

* While we won’t be looking for additional blog comments on the rule
substance until the proposed rule comes out in December, the planning rule
blog will continue to host discussions on what the public engagement
process should look like when the proposed rule is released. Visit the blog
here.

* You can also follow the Forest Service on Twitter here.

We will seek formal comment on the proposed rule and DEIS, and will hold
additional public meetings when the proposed rule and DEIS are published in
December.

Thank you again for your involvement in the rule development process. Your
continued participation in the process will be critical to its success.

Planning Without the Mess?

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From www.theonion.com

One of my favorite political scientists (Elizabeth Theiss-Morse) co-authored a book a while ago entitled Congress as Public Enemy: Public Attitudes Toward American Political Institutions (1995).  The authors remind us, if we ever needed reminding, that the democratic process is slow and often characterized by compromise, uncertainty, disagreement and conflict.  But the authors find in their exhaustive survey that Americans tend to actually dislike such democratic processes, including debate and publicly hashing things out, seeing it not as informed debate but rather as haggling or bickering.

 They conclude that:

People do not wish to see uncertainty, conflicting opinions, long debate, competing interests, confusion, bargaining, and compromised, imperfect solutions.  They want government to do its job quietly and efficiently, sans conflict and sans fuss.  In short, we submit, they often seek a patently unrealistic form of democracy.” Americans, they find, want “stealth democracy”—democracy without the mess.  They want, for example, both procedural efficiency and procedural equity.  “Just as people want governmental services without the pain of taxes, they also want democratic procedures without the pain of witnessing what comes along with those procedures.”

 Americans, it seems, are quite demanding. 

I keep thinking of this work as I read letters submitted to the USFS regarding the new planning rule.  I’ve now read dozens of these things.  And one thing most seem to have in common is a desire for an expedited and more efficient planning process.  Of course, who wouldn’t want such a thing, it’s boilerplate. 

But then, in the next breath, most of these letters demand the USFS to analyze something in more rigorous fashion.  This runs the gamut from analyzing ecosystem services, climate change, watersheds, restoration areas and priorities, biodiversity, cumulative effects, motorized recreational access, tribal reserved rights, and multiple possible timber production levels. 

It seems that even those groups whom have complained most loudly in the past about the process predicament and various planning pathologies want the agency to study something of their interest in more thorough fashion in the future.  Take, for example, the letter written by the Blue Ribbon Coalition, whom “fear we are poised on the brink of creating a fatuously self-indulgent planning process even further removed from the ground.”  (btw, I’m stealing the great line “fatuously self-indulgent, just excellent). 

But then, without hesitation, the letter asks the agency to study various things in more detail, like properly analyzing lost recreational opportunities.  The group also wants the USFS to include in plans at least one EIS alternative that enhances the importance given to recreation in the agency’s multiple use sustained yield mandate.   

I’m guilty of this too.  So the question, perhaps, is whether we have a patently unrealistic understanding of democracy…and planning?  And if so, what gives?

Martin Nie

Addressing Watershed Health in the Forest Service Planning Rule

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The management of water resources in National Forests and Grasslands continues to be an important topic in the development of the new planning rule, and was discussed at last week’s National Roundtable.  While the meeting presentations were intended to focus on the more general topics of forest restoration and resilience, some participants at the meeting wanted to speak specifically about water. 

There is substantial interest in this topic.  The importance of water and watersheds as a unifying principle in the planning rule was discussed previously on this blog.  The Forest Service’s inability to address watershed restoration was also previously discussed, as well as problems integrating scientific information with observed watershed conditions. 

The planning rule website contains some of the initial concepts proposed to be included in the rule for addressing watersheds:

  • Each Forest Supervisor would assess existing conditions and trends of aquatic systems, riparian systems, connectivity, wetlands, floodplains, and the flow processes.  The roles and contributions of each forest would also be determined.  Watershed vulnerabilities and risks would be identified.
  • Each Forest Plan would be required to address the maintenance or restoration of water resources, including protection for lakes, public water supplies, shorelines, source waters, streambanks, streams, wetlands, and other bodies of water from detrimental changes in water temperatures, blockages of water courses, and deposits of sediments.
  • Monitoring would be implemented to evaluate watershed health and status, trends, and risks associated with public water supplies and source water protection areas.

Earthjustice and Pacific Rivers Council released a concept paper last week with additional suggestions about what the planning rule should do.  The proposal suggests that the planning rule should require forest plans to establish riparian reserves, prioritize protection and restoration of key watersheds with the highest aquatic integrity, establish measurable watershed conservation objectives and indicators of aquatic ecosystem integrity that are directly linked to management standards and monitoring, describe road removal objectives and road density standards, provide for connectivity and watershed processses, and integrate monitoring of watershed integrity into project design.

A new General Technical Report from the Pacific Northwest Research Station released in June also lists several planning actions that should be considered to protect watersheds from population pressures, land uses, and rapid climate change.  It suggests that planning should set priorities for watersheds and specific effective protection measures, based on predicted vulnerabilities to climate change and other stressors.   Scenario-based planning should be used to design contingency plans based on plausible events or impacts.   The document also lists considerations in protecting watersheds from energy development, fire and fuels projects, infrastructure development, recreation, water use and diversions, timber harvest, and livestock grazing.

Some researchers have also outlined a “no-regrets” strategy to watersheds and planning for potential hotter and drier conditions.  Based on scenario planning, a Forest Plan could establish baseline protections and make sure that watershed systems are better able to adapt to whatever comes along. 

In a search for a streamlined, easy-to-implement planning rule, the specifics of watershed management may be left out of the proposed text.  However, there is strong support for water planning as a central feature of the rule.  One watershed program manager told me that the rulewriters should avoid making the same error that many in the Forest Service do, assuming that the concept of restoration only appeared on the scene when foresters started writing about it in the 1990’s and 2000’s. Watershed restoration has a much longer history in the agency and the scientific community, and is one of the foundations for why the Forest Service came into existence.  Watershed maintenance and restoration could be the cornerstone of the philosophical underpinning of the rule.

Changes Proposed to NFMA Species Viability Requirements

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Proposed changes to the NFMA planning rule species viability provision were presented to the public at last week’s National Roundtable on the proposed planning rule in Washington D.C.  The viability provision, intended to fulfill the diversity requirement of the National Forest Management Act, has been the most contentious element of previous attempts to change the NFMA planning regulations (or rule).

The proposal would make five major changes to the species viability requirement of the existing 1982 rule.

1. The requirement would apply to all species, not just vertebrates. The following categories of species would need specific attention in a forest plan: (1) contribution to recovery of Threatened or Endangered species; (2) conservation of “species at risk” to preclude listing (species at risk are candidate, proposed, and other species for which loss of viability is a concern across the range of the species); (3) conservation of “species of concern” to prevent extirpation from the plan area (“species of concern” are rare within the plan area but are relatively secure throughout their range.)

2. The plan would need to provide “ecological conditions” (rather than “habitat”) to support viable populations of native species in the plan area.  Ecological conditions would include components of the biological and physical environment that could affect diversity of plant and animal communities and the “productive capacity of ecological systems.”  The components could include not only habitat, but roads and other developments, human uses, and non-native invasive species.

3. Rather than selecting “management indicator species” to monitor, there would be a “strategic” selection of a “small set” of focal species. Focal species would be those whose status and trends are likely to be responsive to changes in ecological conditions, permit inference to the integrity of the overall ecosystem, and provide meaningful information regarding the effectiveness of the plan in maintaining diversity of plant and animal communities. The rule would require two levels of monitoring – the first level would be specific to the forest, and the second level would require coordination between the Forest Supervisor, Regional Forester, and Station Director for those species whose range is wider than a forest.

4. The rule would contain language similar to the 2005/2008 rule that provided for species at two levels or “filters.” The first level, is the “ecosystem level”, and the plan would guide the maintenance or restoration of structure, composition, processes and diversity of healthy and resilient ecosystems (lots of buzzwords there – new terms of particular importance are “restoration” and “resilience” – the rule attempts to relate those two terms by explaining that the goals of restoration are to assist in the recovery of resilience and adaptive capacity of ecosystems) Also, the idea is intended to be consistent with NFMA’s diversity provision that uses the notion of “community.” The second level would be the species level, but like the 2005/2008 rule, the intent is that most plan direction would respond to the first level and not the second.

5. Specific language would be added to the rule to explain that the species viability obligation is “within the authority of the Forest Service” and the “capability of the land.” This addresses cases where factors affecting viability are outside of the agency’s control. Note that these provisions may also be relevant when changes in climate would change the capability of the land.

The draft proposed rule will begin the clearance process in the Forest Service and the Department throughout August and Sepctmber. In October, it will be submitted to OMB and other federal agencies. The proposed rule and DEIS will be published in December, with public comment from January to March.

Further information is available on the planning rule website.

Planning Rule Text Reviewed at Fourth National Roundtable

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Proposed text for a new Forest Service planning rule was shown to the public at a Fourth National Roundtable last Thursday and Friday in Washington D.C.  Approximately 90 public participants and about 35 Forest Service employees discussed the specifics on how the rule might guide Forest Plan revisions and amendments.  About 20 people also watched the proceedings online and participated in a “virtual” discussion forum.

The meeting began with the Forest Service rule-writing team discussing what they had heard at previous meetings, and what concepts they were proposing.  They focused on five key areas: collaboration, monitoring, recreation and other multiple uses, plant and animal diversity, and ecosystem restoration and resilience.  Then participants were broken into smaller groups for further discussion.  On the second day, the Forest Service planning team talked about the overall planning framework (assessments, revisions, monitoring) and addressed additional questions about climate change, water, social considerations, fire, roads, and the objections process.

Several key issues emerged from the discussions. 

There is considerable confusion about how a planning process will address multiple uses given several ecological concepts that are embedded in the rule, such as restoration, ecosystem resilience, ecosystem services, and sustainability.  For some, those ecological concepts are too fuzzy and are confusing. 

There is general agreement with the principles of collaborating with the public and other governments, but many felt there isn’t much in the proposed language about how collaboration will be conducted.  There are questions about basic requirements, how all views will be considered, and how it will be related to decision making. 

There is also agreement about the increased emphasis on monitoring, especially the requirement to include broad-scale monitoring larger than a specific National Forest.  However, there is confusion about how monitoring data will be used, and what role monitoring will play in triggering plan revisions and amendments, or changes to projects.  There are questions about how to respond fast enough once a problem is identified through monitoring.  There are also questions about how monitoring data will be available to the public.

A complete report of the discussion is available on the planning rule website and blog.

The development of the planning rule is moving quickly.  Using feedback from the Fourth roundtable, the planning rule blog, a National Tribal Roundtable, and internal Forest Service discussions, the Planning Rule Team will finish a draft of the proposed rule and write a Draft Environmental Impact Statement.  The draft proposed rule will go through clearance in the Forest Service and Department of Agriculture throughout August and September.  In October, the Department will submit the proposed rule and DEIS to the Office of Management and Budget and for review by other federal agencies.  The proposed rule and DEIS will be published in December 2010, with public comment from January to March 2011.

New Posts on FS Planning Blog

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Next week July 29th and 30th is the Roundtable in DC. Here is the agenda. Info on webcasting does not yet seem to be available; I will post when I find out.

If you have ideas you might want to respond to these new blog posts on the official blog by next Thursday or Friday (and crosspost them here if you want). Here’s the note we received on the new blog posts.

We’ve posted the approaches to Monitoring and Evaluation, Resilience,
People and the Environment, and Recreation we are considering for the
proposed planning rule to the Planning Rule blog at
http://blogs.usda.gov/usdablogs/planningrule/ and to the Planning Rule
website at http://fs.usda.gov/planningrule.

Framework for New Planning Rule Posted on Forest Service Blog

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The concepts for the new framework are posted here.

Here are the questions:

Please take a moment to provide us with your thoughts on:

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Whether the concepts are clear.
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What you like about them.
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If there are any major gaps or flaws in the approach.

We encourage posting whether on this blog or the official one or both..we’ll probably highlight and link here the ones we think most interesting on the official blog.