Patrick mentioned this Dashboard, so I thought I would post for people who don’t read comments.
As part of that I’ve built a web app for OneVoice with a dashboard comparing open vs. closed roads in every forest and district to identify areas where there are lots of closed admin and ML1 roads that could be opened to the public.
I think that maybe this is a little overly-numeric, and that the locals probably have a good idea of which roads might make sense to open or make into a trail of some kind- what shape are they in now? Would they also be useful for potential fire suppression? How much maintenance would be required?. I’m sure the proportion of open and closed probably has a lot to do with how many roads the Forest had in the first place. Lots to think about and puzzle over, but I always prefer bottom-up exercises.. like maybe the FS could (or has?) put out maps where the public gets to express its opinion about what roads should be open (or closed) and include why they think so.
According to the NY Times, there is an undated secretarial memorandum which they obtained (?). They could have linked to the memo, but did not, which always makes me curious.
The undated Agriculture Department secretarial memorandum, which was reviewed by The New York Times, directs the U.S. Forest Service to identify which closed “roads, trails, areas, airstrips and waterways” in each national forest might be considered for year-round recreation access.
The memo would also immediately allow off-road vehicles in areas that the Forest Service has recommended to Congress should be granted wilderness protections. Right now, ATVs are not allowed in many of those areas, which are treated as if they were protected already. That move alone affects about 5 million acres, primarily in Idaho and Montana.
I’m not sure that an “immediately allowing OHVs in areas” is legal. Perhaps the memo’s undated as it never made it to OGC for review.
If, as some TSW readers say, what exactly is allowed in recommended Wilderness varies by forest or region, then it seems like if you wanted to change it, you would have to amend forest plans, or travel management plans or something.. Note that the reporter carefully said that ATVs are not allowed in “many” of the areas, “which are treated as if they were protected already”.
It seems to me that identifying closed roads that could be opened is one thing- and perhaps not all that controversial, but “immediately allowing” something.. does not sound like the FS at all.
Also note that the memorandum says “roads, trails, areas, airstrips and waterways” but the headline is only about ATV’s. Conceivably also jeeps/SUVs and cars could use roads; hikers, bikers and horses could use trails, and it’s dubious that ATVs would be using airstrips and waterways at all.
Dan Hartinger, the senior policy director at the Wilderness Society, an environmental group, said ATVs, dirt bikes and other off-road vehicles could severely damage wilderness areas.
Maybe he’s talking about wilderness-y areas, not Wilderness, because that would be illegal. You have to read carefully to pick out that these are RWs and not W’s. But I still don’t think you can just do that in 30 days, as plans would have to be amended.
“These are some of the wildest natural areas we have left in our forests,” Mr. Hartinger said. In particular, he argued, allowing off-road vehicles in areas the agency has recommended be protected “threatens our ability to ever protect them in the future if they’re irrevocably damaged.”
Some of the wildest, that is, that is not designated Wilderness already. This seems to call into question the popular (with some) idea of closing roads. If they’re “irrevocably damaged” due to roads, what’s the point in closing them? Maybe the damage is really somewhat revocable?
If I had been the reporter, I might have asked a lawyer about whether this memo contemplates doing things that are legal. But perhaps the story would have been “unsigned memo at USDA describes illegal actions.”
But perhaps this story is just pre-agitation to prepare us for the bigger event:
In the coming weeks, the Forest Service is expected to issue a proposal to rescind a Clinton-era regulation that prevents new road-building in nearly 60 million acres of undeveloped land.
But we know that the current proposal (unless it’s changed, which the Times didn’t say) leaves out Colorado and Idaho, which according to Trout Unlimited leaves 45 million acres. I didn’t look it up myself, but TU tends to follow roadless closely.
Anyway, perhaps a summer intern wrote the memo in question?
WEST GLACIER, MONTANA – SEPTEMBER 16: A large stack of recently cut pine and fir logs are stacked and ready to be trucked out of Glacier National Forest September 16, 2019 near West Glacier, Montana. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) (I’m not sure that there is a Glacier National Forest? This is a photo from the Inside Climate News story)
There is an interesting character on X who calls himself Rodeo Professor. I’d guess he’s a faculty member in wildlife at some Mountain West land grant university. In this tweet, he takes on an article in Inside Climate News about the Bear Palmer project on the Custer-Gallatin. My observations are.. first, what does this project have to do with climate, other than possibly being adaptation to climate? These are the kinds of things that make people skeptical of the “climate” movement. If climate is really a reordering of the importance of everything, or everything that used to be “the environment”, or everything that “climate” audiences might be interested in.. it makes it hard to understand what anyone means when they say climate.
Second, the way the story is written makes the FS look bad, and as RP says:
Whose interests are served by making the American people think the Forest Service is bad at managing trees/wildlife?! It’s actually, in terms of its science and management plans, really good at that.
I get that the CG didn’t answer questions, but reporters can actually quote supporters as well as folks who don’t want the project.
Below is Rodeo Professor’s tweet.
Articles like this are meant to you blackpill because we are “chopping down trees in Yellowstone.” But don’t worry this is completely fake.
First, it’s meant to panic you about timber extraction when the National Forests were created in the 1890s for timber and watersheds. The Multiple Use mandate (a law passed in the 1960s) requires we manage American national forests for co-equal purposes: outdoor recreation, timber, grazing, watersheds, fish and wildlife. This means one “use” under the multiple use framework cannot, by law, preclude the others.
Timber harvest under multiple use should be a source of American pride in conservation. Multiple use is a uniquely American innovation that gives many different types of people and businesses real skin-in-the-game in public land conservation. The 2026 Forest Service is pretty great at balancing conservation science, outdoor recreation, and extraction based livelihoods.
Funny enough, despite what the article is trying to mislead you into thinking, the planned clearcut isn’t really even for timber, it’s mainly to remove dead down trees caused by insects/disease to prevent wildfire. The Biden era emergency declaration they’re using to speed this fire mitigation up is to prevent endless lawsuits from crazy NGOs that make management next to impossible. The proposed Bear Palmer project is less than 1 percent of the 3 million acre Custer Gallatin National Forest. It’s a tiny, localized vegetation removal project. The type of clearcut proposed here *sounds* bad to people who know nothing of Mountain West forests, but it’s well within the Custer Gallatin’s own Biden-era 2022 management plan. Forest management plans are documents that take years of science, manager, and public input to establish a sustainable management strategy including vegetation and timber plans.
The management plan itself says a clearcut like this is the ideal path to regeneration for species like lodgegpole pine because these trees are shade intolerant, meaning they need sunlight.
In some cases, removing dead lodgepole is handy because otherwise seedlings will grow up among jackstrawed dead LLP and become toast in case of a fire.
So regeneration is best after what’s called a “stand replacing disturbance” or a clearcut.
Bear Palmer is a prioritized stand because there is a lot of deadfall due to insect issues or big wildfire risks. Beyond all that, no clearcut happens without an additional NEPA and special assessments of wildlife, old growth, listed species like griz, and so on, beyond the requirements of their own plan. You can read hundreds of pages of these assessments on their website today. Clearcutting is literally *the* preferred regeneration method for lodegpole to reduce wildfire risk and disease within the forest’s own plan and meet ecological objectives for regrowth!
It’s just crazy to me that supposedly environment focused publications can miss the mark so egregiously. Whose interests are served by making the American people think the Forest Service is bad at managing trees/wildlife?! It’s actually, in terms of its science and management plans, really good at that.
I was so astounded by how terrible this article was that I had to look into the author, who is an “award winning Bangladeshi journalist” who recently moved here to do a degree in journalism at the University of Montana. Maybe before writing an article so strangely out of touch with the way we manage national forests like the Custer Gallatin this guy should probably learn a little more about the American system? Who funds the demoralization propaganda website Inside Climate News? Of course it’s the same opaque network of foundations (Ford, MacArthur, Rockefeller) pushing climate extremist degrowth nonsense everywhere else. Only in America do massive foundations push panic agitprop to undermine our own public land agencies/demoralize Americans about our national forest system written by people who got here 5 minutes ago.
I also thought that this was interesting..
Forest Service representatives did not respond to a request for comment or answer questions from Inside Climate News about the project’s goals, wildlife impacts and emergency designation.
So thank goodness that someone knowledgeable is stepping up to tell the Forest Service (and others, to be sure, who were not quoted) side of the story.
[The following opinion piece was written by Kevin Proescholdt, the Conservation Director for Wilderness Watch. Kevin has worked in wilderness policy, legislation, and history for more than a half-century, including working to pass the 1978 Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act through Congress and co-authoring the history of that struggle, Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.]
Fans of the Boundary Waters and Wilderness in general should celebrate the recent decision by Superior National Forest Supervisor Tom Hall on the Fernberg Corridor Project. His decision allows activities outside the Wilderness to proceed, but wisely excludes the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) from the project’s earlier proposed activities.
The Fernberg Corridor Project lies east of Ely, Minnesota, along the Fernberg Road out to Lake One. The Project covers about 175,000 acres, including about 84,000 acres within the BWCAW.
The original project proposal called for intentionally burning off these 84,000 acres of the BWCAW, including lands as far as six or seven miles inside the Wilderness, with the assistance of chainsaws, aircraft, mechanical drip torches, and other motorized tools that are prohibited by the 1964 Wilderness Act.
At issue is not just the motorized/mechanized tools and transportation that would be involved with the Forest Service igniting fires in the BWCAW. Manager-ignited fires represent a form of manipulation of the Wilderness, imposing human values and preferences on the wilderness landscape rather than allowing Nature to choose. Letting nature call the shots is the fundamental tenet that sets Wilderness apart from other lands. It tests our ability to show humility and restraint. And manager-ignited fire can have very different effects on the Wilderness than lightning-ignited fires, in terms of timing, location, which forest stands burn, severity, and other ecological impacts from the burns. Because of these concerns, Wilderness Watch supporters submitted over 2,000 comments opposing this part of the project, and Wilderness Watch filed a formal Objection to the proposed wilderness burning.
The late Forest Service ecologist, Dr. Miron “Bud” Heinselman, who studied the BWCAW’s forests and reconstructed its fire history back to the year 1595, showed that the forests of the BWCAW are a fire-dependent ecosystem, and that fire has helped shape the BWCAW’s forests for millennia. Fire needs to continue to play its natural ecological and evolutionary role in the BWCAW. So why did we object to the proposed burning in the BWCAW?
The Wilderness Act and the 1978 BWCAW Act provide statutory protections for shielding designated Wildernesses from human meddling. These statutes trump even seemingly important ecological purposes like manager-ignited “prescribed” fire in the BWCAW. The Wilderness Act defines Wilderness in part as “untrammeled” or unmanipulated. It preserves the opportunity to witness, experience, and study ecosystems where Nature reigns, and where we humans don’t impose our preferences and desires on the place. The Wilderness Act further states in section 4(b) that the one central purpose of the law is to preserve wilderness character, in other words, an area’s wildness.
The federal courts have upheld this “untrammeled” mandate of the Wilderness Act. Last fall, for example, Federal Judge Donald Molloy of Montana ruled against a stream poisoning project in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness immediately north of Yellowstone National Park. Though this project was also intended to provide an ecological benefit for Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout, it nonetheless contravened the untrammeled mandate of the Wilderness Act.
If human-ignited fire runs counter to the intent of the Wilderness Act, then, how can fire be allowed to play its natural ecological role in the BWCAW? The best wilderness option would allow natural lightning-caused fire to resume its role in the Wilderness, rather than suppressing nearly all those blazes. And Supervisor Hall recognized this path forward in his recent decision on the Fernberg Corridor Project. “This decision increases the opportunity for lightning caused fires to play a natural role within the BWCAW by reducing heavy fuel loading in WUI [wildland urban interface] areas outside the wilderness boundary.”
With the decision to forego the planned burning activities within the BWCAW, the Forest Service decision noted, “Wilderness character would be preserved. The decision complies with Section 4b of the Wilderness Act.”
So the Forest Service made the proper decision to exclude the Boundary Waters Wilderness from the Fernberg Corridor Project. This decision will indeed help preserve the wildness of the BWCAW, while offering a path forward for allowing lightning-ignited fire to resume its natural role in renewing the forests of the BWCAW.
I’ve been reading about this new EO.. there are certainly readers out there who know more than I.
Here’s a link to the EO.
Here are two paragraphs of interest:
I have determined that those statutory authorities, together with executive department and agency (agency) specific land management authorities, provide the appropriate framework for managing off-road vehicle use on Federal lands without retaining the additional specific designation criteria imposed by Executive Order 11644 and Executive Order 11989. I have further determined that technological, operational, and land-management developments since the issuance of Executive Order 11644 and Executive Order 11989 support replacing those specific criteria with a framework grounded in applicable statutory authorities.
Executive Order 11644 and Executive Order 11989 direct agencies to promulgate regulations providing that, where off-road vehicle use is permitted on Federal lands, roads, and trails, such use designations must be made in accordance with ill-defined criteria purportedly intended to minimize resource impacts and conflicts between different users of Federal land. These criteria, which are not required by statute, are difficult for agencies to operationalize due to vagueness, and include “minimiz[ing] harassment of wildlife or significant disruption of wildlife habitats,” minimizing “conflicts between off-road vehicle use and other existing or proposed recreational uses . . . taking into account noise and other factors,” and ensuring that off-road vehicle use in given locations will not “adversely affect [the location’s] natural, aesthetic, or scenic values.” These vague, subjective criteria often result in barriers to energy and timber production and utility maintenance, permit delays, and de facto bans on hiking and other forms of recreation that require accessing remote areas, all while doing little to benefit multiple use of Federal lands.
Yes, but does anyone actually look at those EO’s? Or are there ongoing regulations that somehow reflect the EO outside of statutes (travel management regs in the FS?). EO’s, be they Nixonian, Carterian or Trumpian, don’t have the authority of statutes or regulations. So probably no one was looking at those EOs anyway.
As others have pointed out, I also don’t see barriers to timber production or energy development since those uses require more than OHV’s to do their thing.
Our friends at Center for Western Priorities headlined this as “Trump peals rules”, of course, in reality Admins can’t simply repeal rules.
“Rescinding guidance meant to reduce conflicts in the backcountry and protect wildlife habitat isn’t popular; that’s why Trump tried to bury it by putting this order out on a Friday evening,” Center for WesternPriorities Communications Director Kate Groetzinger told the New York Times.
There are entire structures of regulations built since 1972 and 1977 that do have legal authority, such as the travel management rule. Which would take a couple of years to redo, then there would be litigation, then each forest would have to do another planning exercise, which would be litigated..
Anyway, I don’t see much there of substance. Perhaps closing, or opening, or building new trails owes more to the druthers of the employees on a unit than to any 1972 (or 1977) EO?
Another take was by Jonathan P. Thompson of the Land Desk Substack with the headline “Trump revokes OHV restrictions for public lands.” Hmm.
No, this does not mean unfettered swarms of ATVs will be kicking up dust on your favorite public lands next week. But it does bolster the off-road vehicle lobby’s effort to open up motorized access to federal lands, and takes away one of the long-term planning tools used by land management agencies to protect those places from off-road vehicle use and abuse.
An EO is not a “planning tool”..
I thought that this was interesting.. it’s kind of an “SUVs are OK but not OHVs on the same road” which I don’t think I’ve heard before.
In the nearer-term, Trump’s order could end or diminish the ban on OHVs in national parks, allowing the vehicles to travel backroads in, say, Capitol Reef National Park. This might not sound so bad: If a three-ton SUV can drive there, why not let a smaller side-by-side or four-wheeler on the same road?
The answer lies in the nature of the newer OHVs, namely “side-by-sides” or razors, which more closely resemble souped-up dune buggies than conventional SUVs. While some people use OHVs as mere modes of transportation, the vehicles are more commonly treated and utilized like recreational playthings — very powerful, fast, and noisy toys that tend to travel in herds. They therefore bring their own type of impacts.
So they are noisier than SUVs and “travel in herds”..
Law enforcement officers now spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy trying to keep the OHV drivers on designated routes and in compliance with traffic laws. OHV crashes, often resulting in serious injury, are not uncommon. And each summer several riders surrender to the temptation to illegally leave the road — these are off-road vehicles, after all — and rip across the tundra, causing irreversible damage. Unlike regular vehicles, OHVs tend to travel in herds, spewing exhaust and kicking up dust, their collective buzzing reaching far beyond the roads on which they travel. It has become almost impossible during the high season to completely escape the incessant din of OHVs on the Alpine Loop, even in wilderness study areas.
Of course, people also have serious injuries from skiing and mountaineering accidents. I wonder how many OHVs constitute a “herd”.. in my travels I tend to see one or two at a time. SUVs and cars kick up dust as well. I do agree that the sound can be annoying to those of us who like quiet outside. And there is something to be said for some noise as it alerts people and wildlife of a person’s presence. And mountain bikers, hikers and horses sometimes travel in herds, so there’s that. And certainly other users go off-trail or make user-created trails. And 4x4s are also allowed. Maybe it’s really all about the unique noise of OHVs compared to 4x4s. Perhaps the buzzing sound is too loud compared to 4x4s? Or there is something particularly annoying about the sounds of some vehicles (dirt bikes revving, for example?).
Are alternate days, as with mountain bikes and hikers, a way of dealing with these kinds of conflicts?
Going slower to go fast is often the best approach. Forming interagency teams to develop large-scale forest-wide or regional conservation strategies for the key listed species that are eating our lunch, then issuing a programmatic BO that covers the conservation strategy, is my recommended approach. However, one must be confident the juice will be worth the squeeze, which requires experienced staff and leadership that trusts their staff to know if the juice is worth the squeeze.
Often times, I think larger scale species-specific PBOs are better than smaller scale multi-species PBOs, because single species PBOs don’t require reinitiation if a new species is listed, they allow for the agencies to gather subject matter experts to focus and craft the larger conservation strategy, and they limit litigation risk to a single species. Convincing leadership to form a team that would meet once every week or two over 6 months to a year developing a larger conservation strategy/BA/BO is not easy.
Species-specific large-scale PBOs should include built-in check-in requirements for the agencies to affirm that the baseline and effects analysis have not changed and are consistent with what was analyzed, as well as take limits averaged over 5-year intervals. How projects are determined to be compliant with the PBO would be dependent on the species and activities covered. For some species or covered activities, an annual report on what was done that year would be fine. For species more at risk or when riskier activities are covered, I’d want to ensure the project fits the PBO before the project is implemented. For species that are not doing well and for which an activity is higher risk, the conservation measures should be crystal clear and not allow for much interpretation. For species that are more stable or even have a positive population trajectory or for lower risk activities, more flexible measures are fine. NTM, FWS should be co-authoring the BA with the USFS.
As an example, it baffles me that the USFS/BLM do not have regional gray wolf PBOs covering gray wolf populations in CA, OR and WA, which are growing at rate enviable of any other listed species I have worked with. Most forest projects present little population level concern, but almost every project affects them. It’s an easy no-jeopardy, but we are now issuing way too many one-off cookie cutter BOs for wolf.
Getting the right people in the room can make or break such an effort. You need folks that are solutions oriented and reasonable but also focused on using best available science and clearly rationalizing and documenting any assumption being made. I have seen the wrong people on both sides make things impossible. You don’t want to assign a USFS person with a history of hatred for the ESA and hell bent on maximizing agency flexibility at any cost, just as you don’t want to assign a FWS person that wants to impose conservation measures that are impactable or too onerous to actually implement. Both sides need to come to the table determined to be the best partner to other.
A stray thought, working on a S7 with the USFS is unlike working on a S7 with other federal action agencies. For example, Federal Highways does not have a multiple use mandate, so they typically don’t care what the BO says once it’s been determined the project will require a BO, other than the take statement and terms and conditions. USFS has an invested interest in what the effects analysis in a BO includes. This adds additional complexity to the relationship and makes things take longer.
One of the ongoing mysteries about the Forest Service during the Biden Administration is “how exactly did it happen that they overspent such that they were $740 mill in the hole?”It seems to me that our professional reporter friends were remarkably incurious about how it all went down. Here we were also curious about “why did they hire 6K new folks on soft money?” and “why did they send so many bucks to traditional partner NGOs and also and non-experienced groups (according to the Retiree Info Network, at the behest of one Representative Clyburn) if they were going to end up short?” Was it a serious of choices by politicals, or was there some Department of War-like budget malfunction that still might be a problem today?
There are two basic questions that come to mind. First, how did it happen? What decisions were made and why? The second is what the Biden Administration folks were planning to do about it. Certainly enough FOIAing might have shed some light.
Conveniently, though, we did get a bit of new insight yesterday on question 2 when the Deputy Undersecretary posted this on X.
Today, I sent a response letter to the Senate regarding the reorganization of @forestservice . Sometimes, the truth hurts. The Biden Administration overhired—by thousands—knowing the funding stream was temporary. And on January 17, 2025, Secretary Vilsack received approval to separate 7,000 Forest Service employees. At one point, the Biden USDA even contemplated selling Federal lands to solve their spending problem! They generated hundreds of pages of memoranda, emails, and presentations on how to fix a problem THEY created with their irresponsible spending, prioritization of DEI, and gimmicks for their Democrat friends.
Vaden also attached four images, one is above and the rest below. Marc Heller of E&E News covered this and checked in former Secretary Vilsack and the new FSEEE Director, Kevin Hood.
“Dep. Sec Stephen Vaden is correct in that the Biden Administration overhired while Covid funding was rampant,” Hood said in an email Monday. “The current FS reorganization was triggered by the prior administration in large part to remedy this over budget situation, and then this administration came aboard and made the reorganization part of their own government downsizing effort.” Hood added, “There was definitely a need to reconcile the existing agency structure with the post-Covid congressional budget — some sort of reorganization was coming.”
Maybe I’m missing something, but I thought that the FS ramped up with IRA and IIJA bucks, putatively for climate and infrastructure, respectively. I wonder how Covid fits?
Vilsack on Monday pushed back on Vaden’s assertions, telling POLITICO’s E&E News that the deputy secretary had taken some information out of context, particularly on the fate of public lands.
Vilsack, who’s now CEO of the charitable organization World Food Prize, said he’d spoken internally to USDA staff about how to persuade Congress to boost funding for forest management, such as thinning forests to remove potential fuel for wildfires. The pitch to lawmakers could be, “If you’re not going to invest in it, you shouldn’t have it,” Vilsack recalled telling staff. “I said it to our internal team,” he said, “I thought it was time for us to put the issue on the table.”
If we go back to what Chief Randy Moore said at the Retiree Reunion last year, I quoted a bunch of what he said in this post and here’s what seems to fit with what Vilsack told Heller:
And so took that over to the Secretary. So he said, um, $33 billion. And I said, that’s that’s the answer to your question. And so he said, what if we just doubled what you had from 6 billion to 12 billion. I said, okay, we’ll do about 40% of what we’re being asked to do, but we needed to be grateful if we could get another $6 billion. That would be great. And so the Secretary Vilsack was making a move to do that with OPM and we ran out of time. But here’s what happened. We developed a plan because and we couldn’t in good conscience ask the workforce to do $10 billion more worth of work when we were clearly being underfunded. And so we hired 5,000 additional employees in the agency.
Chief Moore says later that because the FS couldn’t really stop hiring once it got going, they actually hired 5300. Anyway, the common thread is that “Congress isn’t giving the FS enough money, despite ginormous chunks of IRA and IIJA, so.. let’s hire 5K ish people and play budget chicken with Congress?” It still doesn’t add up.
To some of us, it remained mysterious exactly what the Biden Admin planned to do (other than get rid of temps for 2025) to solve the problem., but apparently Vaden found the plans, to reduce staff and reorganize.
On the Forest Service staffing issue, the agency’s budget troubles were widely reported in 2024, when then-Chief Randy Moore announced that seasonal hiring would be suspended to help fill a gap of as much as $750 million. The Forest Service’s troubles were tied to legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which the service used to hire staff to support increased forest work. The Inflation Reduction Act, directed $5 billion to the Forest Service for various projects, many with a focus on climate change and ecosystem recovery.
Vilsack said Monday that those jobs were always considered temporary, although officials hoped some people could stay on as permanent employees left through attrition. “This was well thought-out,” Vilsack said. “When we hired those people, we had the resources because Congress provided them.”
They were always considered to be temporary, although they were permanent hires? The other odd thing about Vilsack’s statement here is that one reason there was such a budget problem was that the Department had asked the FS to use House marks at the time to plan the budget, because the budget bill hadn’t been passed. Whereas generally agencies plan based on last year’s final budget. So they asked the FS to use an intentionally smaller budget than realistic for planning. I would have asked Vilsack “if it was so “well thought-out” then.. what happened? Then why did they ask for the approval to separate 7K employees? And why is the document Vaden posted dated 1/17/2025- after the election but right before inauguration, what exactly was the point? For me, Vaden’s paperwork revelations raise more questions and the Vilsack story still doesn’t add up. Ultimately, we’ll find out, even if we have to wait for some career fed to retire and tell all.
Sorry, all, these images Vaden tweeted are fairly small. I asked him for copies of his trove of info, so we’ll see.
Many of us retirees have been around for awhile and have seen many things (reorganizations, RIFs, Committees of Scientists).. but some things seem particularly odd.
Case in point, The Hotshot Wakeup’s coverage of the Congressionally-mandated study about moving FS wildland fire to Interior.
Here is how I predict that the whole business will ultimately play out. Right now, the Interior Agencies are combining their wildfire folks. That’s why I have cautioned folks not to use the “you can’t separate wildfire from land management” argument.. apparently you can, and Int is currently doing it. Will changes raise issues on both sides that need to be fixed? More than likely.Will it ultimately work better or worse based on what criteria? Who knows?
What I suspect will happen is that Interior will work out all the bugs, and then the FS will be presented with (by its own fire folks) the things that are still problematic in the FS that Interior has solved. Then the FS will change to the better way. At that point, there will be no argument for moving, or a substantially different argument. So.. let’s wait until the bugs are worked out. What’s the hurry?
For example, there will be some things, like what THW also discussed on his show “rat-holing fire resources” that provoke a strong reaction among wildfire folks- that Int is fixing and the FS is likely to also fix in some way.
A difficulty with this discussion is that it (moving FS fire) is sometimes characterized as a “bad Trump Admin idea”. Certainly there are actors within the Trump Admin who want it (and others who don’t, as we shall see). But that gets tangled up with the long-standing wildfire workforce requests for changes, and the fact that some D folks like Megafire Action want to move the whole FS to Interior, and various R Congressfolk resist that. So maybe let’s take the partisan piece out of it for a minute and look at a bit of history.
Back in 2012, retirees met at Vail for a reunion- I attended the wildfire breakout. There were many irate retirees about hiring line folks (rangers and Supes) with no wildfire experience. I could see that requiring wildfire experience for those positions was unrealistic, just based on availability and interest of employees, let alone diversity requirements of various kinds.
From this perspective, fire folks not wanting to report to folks without wildfire experience seems like natural co-evolution. I know that very excellent people have done work to help new line folks understand wildfire, but I’m thinking that this is more of a structural and/or power issue. How can a person who knows little about wildfire make good judgments about rat-holing resources, and why should they be placed in a position to decide?
In other words, the Ranger of today is not necessarily the Ranger of the past, and that’s totally OK. But we can’t necessarily give them the same list of responsibilities and expect them to do just as well. And that’s part of what this is all about, it seems to me, and it seems like a less disruptive path would be to address such concerns directly and internally.
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Anyway, back to THW and the Unification Study. I’d like to go through it both from a policy angle and a political angle.
First, the policy angle. Congress asked for a study. Now if we put our wonky hats on, we know that there are many ways this could be done, by many organizations, using different conclusions based on assumptions. So I think it’s pretty much a waste of time and tax dollars, but whatever. THW points out that what was an RFP is now an RFQ, and he goes into the difference (he deserves a donation just for delving into the details of the difference IMHO). He acquired a copy, and it sounds like a bunch of calculations of what might happen (of course, that’s what Congress asked for.) In the same way that economic studies on the same topic by say, Headwaters and PERC might lead to different conclusions based on different assumptions..
I’ll illustrate what I think is the overwhelming oddity to all this by using the bakery example. Suppose we have two bakery chains, A and B. A has chosen to spin off its sourdough into a separate operation, and has moved all the sourdough bakers into a separate sourdough unit. They are in the process of working through the kinks.
Instead of waiting to get usable information from real people doing the work in a real bakery, B decides to do a study using an unknown set of contractors with a secret list of requirements under a tight time frame. Of course, this is very silly and a waste of time, when they could just wait, and everyone knows it.
When things seem irrational, I’ve learned that the answers are probably political in some sense.
Congress asking for a study was probably a delaying tactic. I would just guess that after the study, folks who want to do it will think the study is great, and those who don’t will find holes of all kinds.
Here in the cheap seats, we don’t know what actors in the Trump Admin are pushing this and why. I doubt the Ag Secretary has a fire in her belly (so to speak) for moving employees out of her jurisdiction. I have heard the Undersec, but that doesn’t help us with why. My guess is that the FS has its hands full with reorganization and this is a major and problematic distraction.
Perhaps this RFP to RFQ process doesn’t seem like a legal choice (as THW laid out, more designed for hardhat purchases than studies), plus the lack of transparency, leaves fodder for future legal disputes over the process, which could hold things up way beyond the due date for the completion of the study. This could be seen as possible internal conflicts between various internal actors. Who knows?
Anyway, it’s all interesting, even if a big waste of bucks is on the horizon. Does anyone know more? You can contact me directly via email if you’d prefer not to comment here.
Endangered Species Act: Permitting Options for Congress.”
To evaluate the permitting impact of these proposals, BPC convened a roundtable in April 2026 that brought together 49 experts from across the political spectrum, including energy and environmental policy practitioners, legal experts, conservation organizations, and industry representatives. Participants discussed provisions drawn from H.R. 1897; the Fix Our Forests Act, or S. 1462; and proposed rules from the Department of the Interior.
There are many interesting ideas about various reforms which others will understand better than I do and may be worthy of discussion. I did find it interesting that the two ideas about fuel treatments, although not particularly novel ideas, seemed to be generally accepted by the group at the roundtable.
Here’s the summary.
Roundtable participants generally agreed that targeted ESA reforms should be part of the broader bipartisan permitting reform effort but emphasized that the scope of those reforms must be carefully calibrated to avoid derailing the larger deal. When House leaders pulled the ESA Amendments Act from the floor in April 2026, they reinforced that concern.
The strongest consensus emerged around reforms that eliminate duplication and direct resources where they are needed most: framing CCAA and incidental take permit reviews as “satisfying” existing requirements, eliminating plan-level reconsultation under the Cottonwood fix, establishing strike teams for wildfire consultations, and preserving compensatory mitigation as a tool to approve more projects. Participants were more divided on narrowing analytical standards, rescinding the blanket rule, and reforming litigation incentives.
Throughout the discussion, participants returned to a common theme: The most productive direction for ESA reform is a focus on recovery. Participants described empowering states and private landowners, investing in agency capacity, and creating incentives for proactive conservation as strategies that reduce pressure on consultation, litigation, and regulation over time. As one participant put it, the goal should be “more restoration, [fewer] lawsuits.”
Here are excerpts regarding fuel treatments.
What ESA Reforms Would Speed Wildfire Response?
The Fix Our Forests Act, or S. 1462, includes ESA-related provisions designed to accelerate federal agency response to wildfire risk. Both options discussed below received strong, unanimous support from roundtable participants.
Policy Option 5: Eliminating Plan-Level Reconsultation Requirements (the Cottonwood Fix)
Under the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ 2015 decision in Cottonwood Environmental Law Center v. U.S. Forest Service, agencies must reinitiate Section 7 consultation on Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land management plans whenever a new species is listed, new critical habitat is designated, or new information reveals previously unconsidered effects. This requirement applies even when no site-specific project is being proposed. The result is that significant agency resources are diverted from project-level reviews to plan-level consultations that may have no immediate on-the-ground consequences. S. 1462 would eliminate plan-level reconsultation requirements, ensuring that Section 7 consultation occurs at the project level when specific actions are proposed.
Roundtable participants strongly supported this option. Multiple participants described it as one of the easiest reforms to support in the entire ESA discussion. Agencies have struggled with plan-level reconsultation even in periods of adequate staffing, and resource drain compounds the capacity problems that already slow project-level reviews. One participant noted that a similar provision is included in the House farm bill, suggesting broader congressional appetite for the fix. No participant raised objections.
Policy Option 6: Establishing Strike Teams To Accelerate Wildfire Consultations
Section 7 consultations for wildfire and forest management projects currently enter the standard agency queue with no expedited pathway, regardless of the urgency of the underlying wildfire risk. S. 1462 would create dedicated strike teams composed of federal employees from multiple agencies, private contractors, and state or tribal staff to accelerate interagency consultations and site preparation work for fireshed management projects. The Senate bill requires that each strike team include at least one employee of the federal agency with jurisdiction over the applicable federal land.
This option received unanimous support. Participants cited the proven track record of both political-level teams, which are empowered to make difficult trade-off decisions, and career-level teams that bring together staff from different agencies to work through permitting issues together. One participant argued that if Congress considers wildfire consultation a national priority, creating focused resources is the appropriate response, and the result would be not just faster decisions but better ones. No participant raised objections.
Wilderness Watch, WildEarth Guardians, and Western Watersheds Project filed a lawsuit yesterday challenging the U.S. government’s policy of allowing federal agents to kill native wildlife, including wolves, bears, mountain lions, and coyotes using poisons, traps, and aerial gunning inside the nation’s most protected public lands– congressionally designated Wilderness areas.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, targets a nationwide program run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services that authorizes federally-subsidized “predator control” across millions of acres of public lands at the behest of the private livestock industry, including within designated Wilderness Areas subject to the strict protections of the 1964 Wilderness Act.
Today there are 803 federally designated Wilderness Areas in the United States, covering nearly 112 million acres, which still only represents less than 5 percent of the country.
Congress established Wilderness Areas under the Wilderness Act to preserve places “untrammeled by man,” where unrestrained wildlife and natural ecological processes operate freely without direct human control. Yet the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are systematically authorizing the killing of native wildlife in Wilderness Areas at the request of the heavily subsidized commercial livestock industry grazing on America’s public lands.
“This case is about whether Wilderness can actually be wild,” said Jennifer Schwartz, senior staff attorney with WildEarth Guardians. “You cannot preserve areas as ‘untrammeled’ while simultaneously deploying federal agents to kill apex predators for the intended purpose of propping up commercial grazing operations.”
The Wilderness Act broadly prohibits all commercial enterprise in Wilderness unless explicitly authorized in the Act. The Act carved out a narrow exception for “the grazing of livestock” to continue where that use predates Wilderness designation. It does not, however, authorize killing native wildlife to prevent domestic sheep or cattle from being predated upon while grazing within these remote and often rugged areas, as federal agencies have implicitly read into the statute.
The case comes as federal courts reassess the deference owed to federal agencies’ statutory interpretations following the U.S. Supreme Court’s rollback of the Chevron doctrine, which had previously required courts to defer to an agency’s interpretation of a law when silent or ambiguous as to the legal question presented.
“In this case, now that the Supreme Court overruled that doctrine, we think we stand a better chance of getting a proper judicial reading of the law based on its plain language rather than the court deferring to the agencies’ misreading of the statute,” said Schwartz.
“Here there is no ambiguity in the statute,” said Cyndi Tuell, Arizona/New Mexico Director for Western Watersheds Project. “Courts have already recognized that Congress spoke clearly to ban all forms of commerce in Wilderness except as specifically provided for in the Wilderness Act’s text, and it certainly did not provide for so-called ‘predator control.’ Wildlife killing is contrary to the Wilderness Act’s core purpose of preserving our wildest natural areas.”
“Killing native species to appease the livestock industry violates the Wilderness Act,” said Dan Brister of Wilderness Watch. “In Wilderness, Congress mandated that the Forest Service protect nature—not industry profits.”
The lawsuit asks the court to establish that the Wilderness Act prohibits “predator control” for commercial grazing operations in designated Wilderness, vacate the federal policies authorizing these activities, and permanently prohibit such practices going forward.
