Role of local and state governments

For Sale – half million acres of federal lands

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La Citta Vita, Flickr

The ball is rolling on selling federal lands for housing with the creation of a task force that would identify federal land that would be suitable for housing.  The task force would be run by the Departments of the Interior and Housing and Urban Development.

“The aim of Trump’s new task force is to identify the land parcels suitable for building. It will then transfer or lease them out to public-housing authorities, nonprofits or local governments to develop homes.  The land might occasionally be sold to private developers, according to a HUD representative.  The federal agencies would determine that on a “case-by-case basis” in coordination with the local government.”

Really?  One might suspect this money-grubbing Administration would sell the most valuable land and to the highest bidder.  Especially if this is going to be used to finance its sovereign wealth fund.

No mention here of whether the Forest Service or national forest lands would be involved – it could be limited to lands not otherwise “designated,” including national forests.  The other interesting thing is this:

“Developing even 512,000 acres of the Bureau of Land Management’s lots could yield between three million and four million new homes across western states such as Nevada, Utah, California and Arizona, according to a preliminary analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C., center-right think tank.”

It’s hard to picture where those acres would not be, given that …

“Only a small portion of U.S. government-owned land is near cities with housing shortages. About 47 million acres, or 7.3% of all federal land, falls within metropolitan areas that need more homes, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of government land maps and housing-shortage data from the National Association of Realtors.

In a few cases, local housing shortages overlap with an abundance of federal land in the area, such as Salt Lake City and Las Vegas.  This policy could make a big difference for those housing markets.”

But what about Seattle, Portland, Spokane and … Missoula.  The prices in many northwestern national forest-adjacent cities (and towns) indicate a housing shortage in these places.  This article says the Secretaries want “affordable” housing, but it’s hard to imagine what kind of constraints that would put on the process – anywhere that has a housing shortage has an affordable housing shortage, and I can’t imagine this federal government adding requirements to local real estate deals to ensure housing affordability.  Given the lack of guardrails being recognized by this Administration, I can  imagine that any community that is interested could be coming into some new real estate.

“HUD will pinpoint where housing needs are most pressing,” and Interior “will identify locations that can support homes while carefully considering environmental impact and land-use restrictions,” the agencies’ secretaries wrote in the Journal’s opinion piece.

So they say.  Will they consider the effects on national forest management of expanding the WUI?  Land management plans should have identified lands suitable for disposal (or maybe a process for doing that) – would this matter?  (Maybe someone with a WSJ subscription can pry out some more details about what these Secretaries have in mind.)

“Conserving and Restoring Terrestrial Wildlife Habitat Connectivity and Corridors in the United States”

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Center for Large Landscape Conservation

 

One of the hills I died on near the end of my Forest Service career was an attempt to get national forest planning to coordinate with future plans for adjacent ownerships to provide for wildlife habitat connectivity among them, including local government planning and land trust conservation easements.  I thought the Forest Service could play a leadership role in coordinating this.  The response I got was that anything to do with private lands was a “third rail” that they didn’t want to go near.  This sounds different.

On October 21, a Department of Agriculture memo announced “a Department-wide effort to support connectivity of wildlife habitat on working landscapes through the management of National Forests and voluntary conservation assistance on private agricultural lands.”  Specifically, a new Secretary’s Memorandum directs USDA agencies to:

  • Incorporate consideration of terrestrial wildlife habitat connectivity and corridors into relevant planning processes, programs, and assessments.
  • Improve the coordination, compatibility, and delivery of USDA planning processes and programs to improve outcomes for terrestrial wildlife connectivity.
  • Increase inter-jurisdictional coordination with states, tribes and other federal departments.
  • Coordinate within USDA to implement the actions outlined in this memo, with the goal of improved delivery of USDA programs and outcomes for terrestrial connectivity.

Needless to say, I like the recognition in the first bullet that planning, specifically recognized later to include “FS land management planning,” is important to a desired outcome that requires designing bridges connecting multiple owners; otherwise, the result may be bridges to nowhere or with missing spans.

The memo recognizes that “A recent revolution in animal tracking, remote sensing, and computational analysis is improving the prioritization of conservation and restoration actions.”  It also notes, “The agency’s 2012 planning rule, which governs land management planning across these lands, included requirements for evaluating, maintaining, or restoring connectivity” (my contribution to posterity).  The directive includes a specific proposal related to forest planning:

  • Improving planning through Forest Service analytic tools, including a Climate Risk Viewer that identifies climate change-driven risks to key resources, such as corridors and connectivity, as well as migration corridor tool development among the National Forest System, Research Stations, and partners.

Because “Federal lands often serve as anchor points for wildlife, but most of the country’s wildlife reside on private lands,” much of the emphasis may be on supporting private land conservation.  However, “this collaboration will build on the crucial connection between public lands and the private lands around them.”  (Or at least to the extent that a Secretary’s memo can accomplish anything.)

Presidential election has consequences for BLM plan?

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The Rock Springs (WY) office of the BLM has recently released a draft of its resource management plan.  The DEIS includes the traditional four alternatives:  no-change, protection, development, and “balanced.”  As Governor Gordon’s natural resources policy advisor put it, “In this case they kind of broke precedent and chose (alternative) B, the most resource-restrictive development.”  A retired BLM employee has alleged that presidential politics played a role.

The most balanced plan for managing millions of acres of federal land in central Wyoming — and the alternative that Bureau of Land Management employees and others put the most time, effort and money into — was rejected by the past two presidential administrations, a retired BLM employee said.

The Trump administration likely would have pushed Alternative C because it favors more drilling for oil, he said.

But the Biden administration has gone to the opposite extreme, so the BLM now is pushing forward with Alternative B, which designates 1.8 million acres as “areas of critical environmental concern” (ACES).

Evans said it’s disheartening that two presidential administrations boosted the plans with the least amount of effort put into them.

“The science and the work to do that was all done on D,” Evans said. “And it’s kind of a shame that what the people in the field office and the cooperators spent all that time doing was rejected.”

Now many of those same BLM insiders who worked for years and spent millions of dollars fleshing out a balanced alternative instead have to push the administration’s preference and sell it to Wyoming residents and officials.

The State of Wyoming is considering suing over the plan (even though is not final yet).  Road management and minerals are key issues.

Based on my experience, I would agree that there may not be a precedent for selecting the most resource-restrictive land management plan alternative .  I also have not seen this level of direct political involvement in picking an alternative in Forest Service planning.  Typically in the Forest Service, any political “wants” would be built into the “balanced” alternative that would end up being selected.  Please let us know if anyone has had a different experience.  (Maybe this is a result of the different structures and cultures of the Forest Service and BLM.)
I have mixed feelings about this approach, where all but one are essentially straw alternatives.  Legally, all action alternative must be given equal treatment in the effects analysis, but that doesn’t preclude more serious thought being put into to the design of one alternative.   If one of the others is actually selected it would create the problem the employee described here – it has to be prettied-up at the end of the process.  I think it is important to meaningfully evaluate all reasonable alternatives, but there is a difference between “reasonable” meaning “what would meet the purpose and need” and “reasonable” meaning, “what the agency could realistically select.”  I think what is missing from public disclosure is the actual iterative alternatives that are considered in building the preferred alternative.
On October 9, the BLM extended the public comment period to January 17.  I guess that would buy them more time to refigure out the details of this alternative, or as they point out “In any resource management planning process, the final plan may mix and match portions from all the alternatives.”   “Rebalancing” them I suppose.

Climate change in the courts – a win for Montana youth plaintiffs

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I mentioned this Montana lawsuit in an earlier litigation update since it was going to be the first case going to trial nationally involving youth plaintiffs demanding action on climate change in a state court.  Since then, we’ve been debating climate science a little here, so here’s an update.  The trial happened and the court ruled in favor of Plaintiffs on one claim (2023.08.14-Held-v.-Montana-victory-order):  a recent change in Montana’s environmental policy act (MEPA), which prohibited consideration of impacts on climate for proposed projects, “violates Plaintiffs’ right to a clean and healthful environment and is facially unconstitutional.”  The state also failed to show that “the MEPA limitation serves a compelling government interest.”

The Montana state constitution includes this specific right, so the applicability of this outcome elsewhere is uncertain, but Plaintiffs’ attorneys (who are representing youth plaintiffs in other climate cases) are optimistic that it may provide some momentum.

The Washington Post had an interesting take on factual questions related to climate change:

In a pivot from its expected defense disputing the climate science behind the plaintiffs’ case, the state focused instead on arguing that the legislature should weigh in on the contested law, not the judiciary.

Michael Gerrard, the founder of Columbia’s Sabin Center, said the change in strategy came as a surprise: “Everyone expected them to put on a more vigorous defense,” he said. “And they may have concluded that the underlying science of climate change was so strong that they didn’t want to contest it.”

The state’s defense was unsuccessful. Judge Kathy Seeley determined that the state’s emissions could be fairly traced to the legal provision blocking Montana from reviewing the climate impacts of energy projects. She further wrote that the state’s emissions and climate change have caused harm to the environment and the youth plaintiffs.

If the WaPo article isn’t viewable, here’s another with more background on the case.

(It was interesting when I looked for a meme to include with this post – they seem to be dominated by not-very-clever climate change denialism.)

Coordination with Counties – Lincoln National Forest Plan Revision

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Since Sharon has invoked my name twice recently, and not particularly correctly, with regard to the role of local interests in national forest management, I thought I would refocus that discussion on how this is supposed to work for local governments during forest planning using a current example that came along.  It involves the participation (or lack thereof) by a county in New Mexico in the forest plan revision process for the Lincoln National Forest (where a final revised plan is expected soon).

The 2012 Planning Rule §219.4 requires “coordination with other public planning efforts.”  It requires a review of “the planning and land use policies of … local governments, where relevant to the plan area,” which must be displayed in the EIS for the revised forest plan.  It concludes, “(3) Nothing in this section should be read to indicate that the responsible official will seek to direct or control management of lands outside of the plan area, nor will the responsible official conform management to meet non-Forest Service objectives or policies.”

On March 1, the Eddy County Board of County Commissioners approved a resolution opposing the revised plan.  They stated that, “it is clear that the USFS failed to review, consider and identify planning conflicts between Eddy County and the proposed plan.”  Those alleged conflicts include:

  • would increase restrictions for cattle ranchers with reduced cattle grazing levels and increased financial burdens on cattle producers
  • “creates large areas restricted and potentially inaccessible to the County to fulfill its public health and safety duties”
  • “creates areas that will no longer allow proper wildlife management control increasing the danger to Eddy County citizen’s lives and property”

Eddy County’s resolution asked for a “coordination agreement” between the County and the Forest Service, “To establish roles and responsibilities for both parties, ensuring the citizens of Eddy County are still provided with the necessary services they depend on.”

I would agree that these are all arguably things that should be considered by the Forest Service, depending on what the specific plans or policies of the County say regarding these issues.  (Unlike some earlier attempts at county “coordination,” they do not attempt to claim they have their own plans for national forest lands.)  There is also nothing wrong with a “coordination agreement” to establish roles and responsibilities for “planning efforts,” but this is not something recognized by the Planning Rule, and is not a requirement.  Moreover, the roles and responsibilities for national forest management are established in federal law and regulations; what local residents “depend on” does not dictate national forest management (as indicated by the highlighted language above from the Rule).

In this case, it appears that the County is also trying to close the barn door too late.  According to the Forest, “In 2019 we reached out to Eddy County, inviting them to become a cooperating agency (in accordance with NEPA), which would have allowed them to be more deeply involved in the process of developing the plan, however we received no response from the county. Additionally, Eddy County did not provide any official comments on the forest plan to us.”  (Failure to comment on the plan about the omissions they claim here would disqualify them from filing an objection and probably from suing.)

 

 

National Forest State Park

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Sweetwater Lake, located in remote northeastern Garfield County in the Flat Tops Wilderness Area, is set to become Colorado’s first state park on federal land after it was acquired by the U.S. Forest Service in August 2021.

“Colorado’s first state park on federal land.”  This came across as an oxymoron, but why not?

This land acquisition followed a common pattern, where a non-profit conservancy (The Conservation Fund) acquired private property until the federal government had the funds (Land and Water Conservation Fund) to purchase it and add it to a national forest (White River).  (From Colorado Parks & Wildlife, linked below.)

This Land and Water Conservation Fund purchase followed the acquisition of the property in 2020 by The Conservation Fund, which was made possible by a loan from Great Outdoors Colorado and local fundraising efforts such as the “Save the Lake” Campaign organized by Eagle Valley Land Trust.

A little less common (to me any way), the Conservation Fund is also continuing to fund management, according the Eagle Valley Land Trust:

“We’re also excited to announce our Sweetwater Lake Stewardship and Equity Fund, which will assist the Eagle Valley Land Trust and our agency partners in activating the property for public use and enhancing opportunities for underserved communities to enjoy the space for years to come.”

There is an existing Forest Service campground on adjacent land.  The Forest Service had this to say in the formal announcement from Governor Polis:

“Sweetwater Lake has tremendous ecological and cultural values and outstanding opportunities for recreation.  This partnership allows the White River National Forest to incorporate the local expertise of the Eagle Valley Land Trust and the recreation management and wildlife expertise of Colorado Parks and Wildlife to best serve visitors to the area,” said Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Frank Beum.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife added:

“Colorado Parks and Wildlife is excited to modernize facilities and provide updated and sustainable recreational services through this partnership. Our main priority is to conserve the unique character of the area while improving access to this incredible property,” said Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Dan Prenzlow.

None of this said much about the State’s authority and responsibility, but I don’t know why they couldn’t lease the site and manage it as a permittee.  I don’t know if any other states have done anything like this, but as questions continue to come up about how to manage growing outdoor recreation this might be an option in some other places.

Working Lands, Working Communities: WGA Workshop and Interesting Survey Results

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The Utah workshop for the WGA (Western Governors’ Association) Chair Initiative, Working Lands, Working Communities, will be held on Sept. 29-30 and include a keynote by Gov. Spencer Cox.

The opening workshop for the central policy effort of WGA Chair, Idaho Gov. Brad Little, will feature conversations between federal, state and local policymakers and stakeholders. They will examine emerging issues, share success stories, and provide a forum for the development of bipartisan strategies to improve cross-boundary management of lands, mitigate wildfire risk and restore ecosystems.

WGA will livestream both days of the workshop on its YouTube Channel and Facebook page. You can also follow along via live tweets from WGA’s Twitter account. To view the sessions on YouTube, click on the links below at the scheduled times. Register to watch.

All times are Mountain Daylight Time.

There’s also a Colorado workshop on October 7-8.

As background for these sessions, WGA did a survey. There’s much interesting and discussable findings here, I’ll just highlight the “proliferation and lack of connection and possibly utility of collected data” one.

Question 2: How can federal agencies more effectively collect and utilize local‐ or state‐level data – including quantitative and qualitative information – in decision‐making processes that impact western working lands?

According to survey respondents, local data is often available, but lack of staff and funding capacity, partnerships, and communication between agencies creates complications in considering all data, assuring data is high quality and reliable, and fully capturing the story the data tells. Additionally, the lack of established standards for data collection and processing can lead to difficulty integrating data from multiple sources.

The lack of data standards and consistency was a reoccurring theme across multiple responses. Established standards would allow amalgamated data from non-governmental, local, state and federal sources to be efficiently compared and utilized. Varying methods of collection and processing lead to agencies not accessing or using potentially valuable data without creating new systems or procedures. Many respondents noted the need to update databases and database software to reflect new data, science and the use of modern software tools.

Other respondents noted that there needs to be agreement on what data is important for a particular end goal. Additionally, that data needs to be translated into an understandable narrative that provides useable, useful information to the reader. Due to lack of data standards, data may be shared, but other groups may not know how to properly interpret that data. Respondents specifically noted that State Forest Action Plans and the Shared Wildfire Risk Mitigation Tool are being underutilized for developing shared priorities, and could be excellent systems for quantifying project accomplishments.

Lack of capacity for adequate data collection was another common response throughout the survey. Some respondents explained their staff lack the necessary training to use data collection equipment and software, while others simply lack staff members and resources altogether. Building a chain of partnerships between every level of group or agency collecting data was a proffered solution. State agency resources may allow local groups to increase capacity for effective data collection, and in turn, states could work with federal agencies to provide collected data. These partnerships could include NGOs and universities engaged in relevant research as well as private landowners. Often, members of one organization or agency don’t even know what data has already been collected and processed by another.

I bolded the “agreement on data” because that seems to be an ongoing theme..as well as “coordination” of data; some us us remember discussions of why BLM and the FS couldn’t collect the same data. I think that was in the 1980’s…

Dr. Taylor’s Definition of Internal Colonialism and its Application to the Interior West: Does Partisan Politics Distract Us From Justice?

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Yesterday, the Colorado Springs Gazette ran an essay by Vince Bzdek. It was about Governor Polis disagreeing with Biden Admin policies on Covid and agreeing with (some previous) Trump Admin policies. I really liked one quote which I think it particularly relevant to TSW topics:

Not all problems have a left and a right. Some problems are just problems, and the minute we Velcro ideology onto some problems, they often become bigger, uglier, less solvable problems.

It will be interesting to look through that lens at various topics. One that comes to mind is the question of what we might call domestic imperialism (I think I first heard that from Matt Carroll at WSU, a rural sociologist). Another related topic was raised by Patrick McKay in this comment. I see actually two levels here: (1) justice (social and environmental) implications of distant folks making decisions with impacts on local communities, and (2) given that this is our current political/legal system, to what extent are the “on the ground” decisions made by the personal predilections of local officials? I see the first as more of a political science question, and the latter as more of a “how does this work in practice?” question. Both are worth reflection and discussion, I think. For this post, I’ll stick to #1.

In Dr. Dorceta Taylor’s, of Yale School of the Environment, book “The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection“, she traces the history of race, gender and class

Let’s look at what she calls “internal colonialism”.

In addition to colonial expansion, countries seek to bring their hinterlands or peripheral regions under the control of the central government. Such moves toward internal colonization result in tensions or conflict between the country’s core or center and its periphery. The core develops exploitive relationships with the periphery, using the hinterland’s natural resources and cheap labor to enhance or sustain the development or expansion of the core. If the periphery has indigenous or culturally distinct people, the core often discriminates against them. The core monopolizes trade and commerce, thus forcing the peripheral region to develop as a complementary economy of the core. The economy of the core typically relies on one or a few exports. The movement of laborers in the periphery is determined by forces outside of the region. Economic dependence of the internal colony is reinforced by legal, political and military measures. The periphery is often characterized by lower levels of service and low standards of living than the core (Blauner 1969, 1972, 1982; Hechter 1994; Horvath 1972; Taylor 2014.

While Taylor focuses on the role of peripheral regions in providing natural resources, it may be just as IC (internal colonialist) to require peripherals to provide certain kinds of recreation by limiting land uses.

Which reminds me of a personal story:

When we started the journey that would become Colorado Roadless, Senator Hickenlooper was Mayor Hickenlooper of Denver. We had a public meeting in Denver and Hick spoke about how important it was to protect recreational opportunities because those opportunities attract businesses and people to Denver. I was standing next to our Regional Forester and said something like “he seems to be forgetting that rural people have their own agency.. sounds colonialist to me!”. Of course, that was Hick’s job as Mayor, to make sure his own folks’ interests were taken into account. Still, this can easily be the modus operandi for any state with urban and rural populations. That not only are urban interests prioritized, but their views on what should occur on rural lands imposed via having the majority of voters.

Circling back to Bzdek’s comment, here’s a question: if the Interior West were not occupied by people who vote Republican, would ENGO’s, the media and other opinion leaders be more sensitive to their quest for (we can disagree about how much) autonomy and political power over the lands they inhabit?

RVCC Report on Good Neighbor Authority

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Here is a link to a report by Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition (RVCC) on the use of Good Neighbor Authority- extensive and comprehensive. There’s a section on key findings that’s a good summary. Below are the implications.


Key Implications

• Use of GNA will likely continue to look different across states and forest types due to differences in timber value, proximity to market, state capacity, existing agency programs and priorities, restoration needs, and other factors.

• The frequent inclusion of commercial restoration in Good Neighbor agreements among states most actively using the authority suggests the ability to generate and retain revenue is contributing to greater engagement with authority.

• State and region-level variation in GNA tracking and reporting, as well as trends toward writing agreements broadly and flexibly, could make it difficult to evaluate and report accomplishments and outcomes associated with GNA in a unified way. Such reporting may be important as the statute governing state management of revenue is set to expire in 2023 and would need reauthorization to continue.

• Across the states we examined, the authority was largely being used as a tool to implement projects that had been planned under NEPA, as opposed to state and federal partners planning projects with the express intent of implementing them through the authority. This trend suggests that thus far, GNA has not generally been used or considered as an avenue for collaborative planning.

• Counties and tribes were largely just beginning to explore the authority’s utility for accomplishing restoration and capacity-building goals.

• Positive perceptions among state and Forest Service employees about GNA’s potential to increase capacity for implementing restoration activities on federal lands, utilize and leverage specific expertise and capabilities of state agencies, increase treatment efficiency, and strengthen relationships between states and the Forest Service suggest the tool itself and the state-federal partnership it perpetuates will remain strong.

• There remains a need to more systematically evaluate and define the additive benefits of GNA. This could be aided by new or modified systems for tracking revenue generation and expenditure, partner contributions, and non-commercial restoration accomplishments associated with GNA timber sales.

Notes from Sharon:
* As to the Tribes just beginning to use the authority, I believe at the present time Tribes currently can’t keep funding the same way States can; and a change is currently being worked on in Congress.
* I liked how the authors separated and defined non-commercial and commercial restoration activities; seems very helpful.
*As to “new or modified systems for tracking”, I think the accomplishment and expenditure system for vegetation management could use a total revamp (including GNA), based on the kind of information needed to manage effectively today, not whenever it was developed. Including transparency with States, Congress, and stakeholders. Even without that, it seems useful to develop some kind of standardized approach before units diverge too much.

Where should fire suppression be a “fact of life?”

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Sharon referred to “where fire suppression is a fact of life.”  I referred to the planning question of identifying where those areas are.  It seems to me that would be either where fires won’t ever occur (hard to imagine), or where they can’t be allowed to burn.  The reason in the latter case would depend on some kind of values at risk.  I continue to be amazed at how unwilling the Forest Service is to attack this problem from that direction – minimizing the values at risk in areas that are likely to burn.  In particular, their engagement (or lack thereof) with local community planning for developments and infrastructure.  And there are other reasons besides fire risk, in particular fragmentation of wildlife habitat that reduces connectivity.

Any way, here is an example from the Croatan National Forest.

The 2002 Croatan National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan stated that around 70 percent of the Croatan is home to short interval fire-adapted ecosystems—like pine trees and pocosins.

Low-intensity, prescribed fires allows nutrient cycling to occur. Without them, the entire structure and composition of species are subject to change.

“These are fire-maintained habitats, without prescribed burnings, it is like trying to save a salt marsh without the tide,” said Fussell.

Longleaf pine restoration is especially dependent on prescribed fires as the exposed soil helps the seeds to germinate and they control the population of competing pine variations.

Prescribed burning is harder to do the more fragmented an ecosystem is and the closer it gets to development. Because it is harder to burn in smaller areas, prescribed burnings have decreased in recent years, said Fussell.

The Forest Service has a legal imperative to NOT allow the structure and composition of species to change.  Where adjacent development has already occurred, fire suppression is probably going to be a “fact of life,” but that fact should be motivating the Forest Service to participate in local planning to encourage future development consistent with the fire regime on the adjacent national forest.  It’s difficult to understand why no one from the Forest Service was interviewed for this article, since they should be on the forefront of these kinds of discussions.  (They evidently did get involved in some highway planning in order to continue prescribed burning, which at least suggests they recognize the problem.)

This article cites some research that reiterates the findings of the Forest Service “Forest on the Edge” program (which I contributed to along the way).

By 2030, a study from 2009 by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and other industry professionals, projects that 16 million new housing units will be built around national forests across the United States. A projected 662,000 will be built in national forests.

“New houses will remove and fragment habitats, diminish water quality, foster the spread of invasive species and decrease biodiversity,” stated the study.

This is happening everywhere, and the Forest Service needs to be more assertive in trying to minimize the areas “where fire suppression is a fact of life.”