Biden’s oil plan: The good, the bad and the illegal: E&E News Story

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The State gets 48% of bonus bids which would stop with no new leasing. Of course bids would be lower anyway, as other payments due to market conditions.

Here’s a shout-out to Heather Richards of E&E News for diving into this with this story. This is extremely complicated stuff so if anyone can help clarify, please do so!

1. No fracking? No oil and gas drilling at all? No new leases? No new permits? If you’re confused..

The campaign’s proposal includes a first-day promise to ban new permitting, which approves specific drilling plans, and bar new leasing, which gives prospectors a 10-year property right to develop federal minerals.

The president-elect’s platform has also pledged an end to hydraulic fracturing on public lands, a contentious development technique that is ubiquitous in the U.S. oil patch and has long stoked criticism from environmentalists.

But if you ban new O&G permits and leases, then isn’t fracking a subset of what you have already ended by not allowing new O&G permits and leases? It’s almost as if people use fracking interchangeably with O&G sometimes, but not other times.

2. End to leasing.. “just say no,” plus four years of intensive plan and EIS production?

An end to leasing is widely viewed as the most feasible part of the Biden oil and gas proposals, according to experts.

“The leasing part is very doable. The permitting part is a lot harder,” said Kevin Book managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC.

A lease is a property right to develop federal minerals. And there are several ways that the administration can simply stop selling these leases temporarily, as the Obama administration did with coal in 2016 when it overtook a review of the federal coal program, Book said.

The Biden administration could make more long-term gains by penning regulations and management plans that make less land and water available for leasing in the future, he said.

Over time, a leasing ban strategy could take a bite out of federal oil and gas production with long-term implications that could outlast a four- or eight-year presidential tenure, according to Book.

The analyst firm Wood Mackenzie said in a brief Saturday that an end to leasing on federal land would be “minimal” in the near term. With offshore, the ban would play out gradually. By 2035, production would be roughly 30% less than if leasing had continued, the firm estimated.

I wonder about the “minimal” could be minimal changes in production/CO2, but not so much minimal in terms of payments to states from bonus bids. And of course if COVID/low prices have major effects bids would go down unpredictably anyway.

3. End to permitting.. more difficult, and less legal

A permitting ban, which Biden has targeted as a day one priority when he enters the White House, represents a trickier attempt to reduce oil and gas activity, Book said.

Once a company that holds a lease wants to take action to develop those minerals, it files an application for permit to drill with the Bureau of Land Management, for onshore wells, and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, for offshore.

If permitting is blocked, a company could argue the federal government is violating its legal right to develop, said Watson, the former Interior assistant secretary.

“I would question legally if that would be so easy to do,” Watson said. “What would be the grounds for that and then what would be the action?”

4. D Governor Asks for Waiver From Fracking Ban

In another E&E news story, Heather Richard talks about some implications of a ban for a largely Democratic relatively low-income state, New Mexico, and the request of the Governor (talked about as a potential new Cabinet member) for a waiver.

A painful fracking ban?
It was not a huge surprise when New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat who signed the 2019 Energy Transition Act committing New Mexico to hit 100% renewable energy by 2045, said she’d ask for a fracking-ban waiver, if a president were to institute one.

I can’t help but point out that former candidate and current Senator Sanders introduced a bill to ban fracking. His home state still uses oil and natural gas. Vermont, according to EIA:

“Nearly 3 out of 5 Vermont households heat their homes with petroleum, 1 out of 5 use natural gas, and almost 1 out of 6 burn wood for heat. More than one-third of Vermont schoolchildren attend facilities heated by wood products.”

Perhaps New Mexico legislators should introduce a bill to reduce carbon emissions and local environmental pollution by banning dairy cattle across the United States?
I think part of a unifying kind of policy is making sure that climate interventions are developed jointly with communities, States and Tribes, and that benefits and costs are spread fairly across the country, and across races, classes and cultures, as justice might require. That’s certainly easier to write in a position statement than to do.

NFS Litigation Weekly November 6, 2020

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The Forest Service summaries are here:  Litigation Weekly November 6 2020 FINAL

The Forest Service email indicated “no updates for November 13.”

COURT DECISIONS

Environmental Protection Information Center v. Carlson (9th Cir.).  On October 27, 2020, the 9th Circuit Court of appeals denied the Forest Service’s petition for panel rehearing and denied the intervenor’s (Sierra Pacific Industries) petition for en banc rehearing, concerning the improper use of the road maintenance categorical exclusion for Ranch Fire Tree Project on the Mendocino National Forest.

Bitterroot Ridge Runners Club v. Forest Service (9th Cir.).  On October 27, 2020, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Bitterroot National Forest’s 2005 Travel Management Plan’s closures to motorized and mechanized use.

High Country Conservation Advocates v. United States Forest Service (10th Cir.).  On October 29, 2020, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion for Injunction Pending Appeal  concerning the West Elk Mine and the Colorado Roadless Rule’s  North Fork Coal Mining Area exception on the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, and Gunnison National Forests. The 10th Circuit’s order prohibits West Elk Mine’s use of new roads in the roadless area constructed in June 2020.  This article updates this complicated story.

NEW CASES

Alliance for the Wild Rockies, v. Marten (D. Mont.).  On October 23, 2020, Alliance for the Wild Rockies filed a complaint in the District Court of Montana against the Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, concerning the Environmental Assessment, and Decision Notice for the Soldier-Butler logging project on the Lolo National Forest

Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Task Force v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (D. Mont.).  On October 26, 2020, Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Task Force did the same.

This article on the lawsuit focuses on the designation of the area by the forest plan to be managed for connectivity between grizzly bear populations.

EarthJustice has filed a Notice of Intent to Sue the Secretary of Energy, Bonneville Power Administration, U.S. Corps of Engineers, U.S. Department of Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,Bureau of Reclamation, Secretary of Commerce, and NOAA regarding the effects on listed salmon of their coordinated operation and maintenance of federal dams, reservoirs, and related facilities, power marketing and other actions in the Columbia River basin as reflected in their Joint Record of Decision for Columbia River System Operations dated September 28, 2020.  That was discussed further here.

 

BLOGGER’S BONUS

On November 2, the U. S. Supreme Court held its hearing in Fish and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club regarding an attempt to obtain draft biological opinions from the Fish and Wildlife Service for EPA regulations.  Its holding on how “Exemption 5,” which allows withholding predecisional and deliberative records, could affect how all federal agencies administer the Freedom of Information Act.

On October 31, the Federal District Court for Colorado denied a government motion to alter its judgment against the government in its efforts to delist the species where the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to explain why it changed it methodology for assessing the species.  The court held, “Because the Court is limited to assessing the explanation publicly provided by the FWS in its decision, not explanations proffered for the first time in litigation, the fact that the FWS has now tendered such an explanation now insufficient.”

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted another stay, this time holding up permits related to stream crossings that could result in effects on listed aquatic species.  Here is some interesting background on the role of the Forest Service in this controversial decision:

The Forest Service “was not in the driver’s seat” when it came to making a final decision, Peter Gaulke wrote in an email to colleagues. FERC was.

“It is fair to say there were pains of adjustment as we tried to merge our USFS way of business with the FERC way of business,” Gaulke wrote in a Nov. 28, 2017, review of the process.

“This was not easy and still has a level of discomfort for the Forest and the Regional Office,” the email stated.

Gaulke’s email, provided to The Roanoke Times in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, is “shocking and eye-opening,” said Rupert Cutler of Roanoke, who oversaw the Forest Service as assistant secretary of agriculture from 1977 to 1980.

“It proves that the Forest Service felt emasculated and victimized by the FERC-dominated MVP decision-making process,” Cutler said.

A part-time Colorado resident who documents his disrespect for public lands on social media was banned from entering millions of acres of U.S. Forest Service lands because he posted a picture on Instagram of himself defecating in Maroon Lake.

AFRC’s Take on Eastside Screens

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FYI, from the American Forest Resource Council’s October newsletter:

AFRC Submits Comments on the Eastside Screens EA
On October 12, AFRC submitted comments in response to a Preliminary Environmental Assessment (PEA) published by the Forest Service that considers amendments to a set of guidelines known as the Eastside Screens. The PEA specifically proposes amending that portion of the Eastside Screens that prohibits harvest of any tree over 21 inches in diameter. See August Newsletter for a summary of the findings in the PEA.

Our comments urged the Forest Service to adopt the alternative that best meets the goal of the EA, which is described as “maintaining the abundance and distribution of old forest structure.” The effects analysis outlined in the PEA was based on a robust review of scientific literature and concluded that the Adaptive Management Alternative would permit the “development of more open late old structure than all other alternatives.” As such, AFRC expressed our full support for adoption and implementation of the Adaptive Management Alternative in order to maximize the attainment of the goals of the proposed amendment and the goals of the Eastside Screens.

We are hopeful that AFRC is not alone in its support for the scientifically supported replacement for the 21-inch rule and that the Forest Service adopts this alternative that will allow its forest management professionals the flexibility to effectively manage the diverse forest ecosystems in eastern Oregon without the burden of an arbitrary diameter limit. /Andy Geissler

FS Chief Christiansen’s Job Appears Secure

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Two former Obama officials, Robert Bonnie and his long-time associate Meryl Harrell, are the Forest Service-relevant Biden transition team members. They are also two of the three authors of a “transition memo” that frames their advice regarding USDA actions and policies through a climate lens.

Chief Christiansen may be heartened to read the memo’s caveat that “Notably, the Forest Service has no political positions; the Secretary should maintain that tradition . . .” Unsurprisingly, it appears her tenure as Chief will be secure after January 20, if she survives the Trump purge.

What other takeaways do ambitious readers glean from the memo?

PERC’s Report on Tribal Co-Management for Bears Ears

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In 2017, I posted this about former Interior Secretary Zinke asking for a legislative fix so Tribes could co-manage parts of Bears Ears. It should also appeal to the Biden Administration. I ran across this report on different approaches to Tribal co-management by PERC. When I read it, I wondered, “could this approach apply more broadly- to more federal lands (possibly everywhere, after some pilot approaches are tested?).

Opportunities

The original presidential proclamation creating the Bears Ears National Monument did not establish a formal tribal co-management requirement. There are several ways Congress and the Interior Department could now implement formal co-management. Two potential solutions, elements of which can be combined, are:

1) Create a trust to manage cultural and natural resources.
Such a trust would be a legal arrangement in which a board of trustees would manage the natural and cultural resources of Bears Ears while maintaining federal land ownership. The Interior Department and Congress would establish and enforce policies and regulations by which the trust is administered to ensure standards of performance. A formal written agreement would specify parameters for resource protection and use, such as the trust’s ability to limit visitation to fragile cultural and archaeological sites. The trust would then determine precisely how to meet these parameters.

The trust board could be composed of Native Americans and representatives of nearby communities to ensure tribal co-management and local input. To protect cultural areas and provide recreational opportunities, the trust could be structured so that some trustees have primary responsibility for tribal co-management of cultural resources while other trustees have primary responsibility for recreation or conservation.

A trust for Bears Ears could have a number of provisions, including:

*Give trustees autonomy to make decisions about how to manage and use resources while holding them accountable to meet federally determined goals for the trust, such as the types of resources to be protected and the need for financial self-sufficiency.
*Allow the trust to set, charge, and retain 100 percent of fees for access and resource use and to invest those fees as it sees it in conserving the monument.
*Require the trust to become financially self-sufficient after a predetermined period of time, perhaps 3 to 5 years, so the trust does not become dependent on Congress for funding and is able to make trade-offs between competing resource uses. Sources of finances can be a combination of fees generated by visitors, resource users, and charitable contributions.

2) Grant Native Americans legally binding or even exclusive rights to manage the region’s antiquities on federal land.

Currently, four national park units, including two national monuments, are jointly managed by the federal government and tribal partners and could serve as models.

Substantive Native American co-management could include a number of provisions such as:

*Allow Native Americans to control access and retain 100 percent of income generated from visitors. This would ensure antiquities sites are not overrun by tourists and would also provide resources to help protect sites from vandalism, theft, and inadvertent damage.
*Create a formal management structure for Native Americans, such as a trust, so that they have a substantive management role rather than the current advisory role.
* Formalize rights to historical Native American uses of the area, including grazing livestock, gathering wood for heating homes, gathering food and hunting game, harvesting plants for medicinal and ceremonial purposes, and performing religious ceremonies.
* Establish a fair and transparent process to sort out competing Native American claims to co-manage antiquities sites on federal land.

A Unification Approach to Bears Ears: Let’s Swear Off Political Sharp Sticks in the Eye

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Conservation Lands Foundation board member and former Interior Secretary at a meeting in Durango, Colorado. Photo by Steve Lewis, Durango Herald.
Lisa Friedman of the New York Times wrote an interesting article about the top things the new administration could do for the environment.

Most of her nine are about climate change. Of most interest to us, is perhaps one she calls “Restore Wildlife Areas”

According to her, Mr. Biden has pledged to take “immediate steps to reverse the Trump assault on America’s national treasures” including major cuts in 2017 to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments as well as opening parts of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. He has said on the first day of his administration that he will sign an executive order to conserve 30 percent of US lands and waters by 2030.”

We’ll be continuing to discuss the details of a 30 x 30 goal.

One concept I’ve never heard political writers talk about is what I would call the “sharp stick in the eye” factor, which I think deserves more exploration. Bears Ears was monumentized following the loss of an election. We have heard from the same people that it’s bad for Supreme Court nominees to be picked too close to an election, but the same folks argue that it was fine to Monumentize an area where many elected officials are of the opposing party after an election. It seems to me that these positions are inconsistent, and I’ve found that inconsistent and or illogical positions are often guideposts to decisions that are ultimately political (in the sense of pleasing someone at the expense of others). Anyway, to me that was an intentional sharp stick in the eye. It will be interesting to see if we agree on the SSE (sharp stick) factor. I’d give Bears Ears an 8 on a 1-10 scale.

I don’t think the “uniting” approach would be to “immediately reverse” what the Trump Administration did. That would be just another sharp stick in the eye.. haven’t we had enough of those? What about sitting down again with folks in the area and concerned groups looking at a variety of alternatives without the drama of the Nationally Significant Focus by Some Groups as a Symbol. Certainly the only choice is not “these 2016 lines with these 2016 restrictions”. As Chris Wood said about the 2001 Roadless Rule, “it wasn’t written on stone tablets.”

Despite the fears, we didn’t see any oil and gas nor additional uranium development. Maybe, as we have seen, increasing recreation in the area would be bad for the environment, or people come whether or not it’s a Monument, or people overuse trails and spread Covid to locals. Seems like the last four years have had changes that could be considered in such a discussion.

Mark Squillace, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, tells the story of when he accompanied Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit to affected communities to discuss Grand Staircase-Escalante national Monument. The way his story goes, talking person to person with Babbit may have actually changed minds, or at least reduced the atmosphere of antipathy. (Of course, that’s Mark’s side of the story, but we don’t have another one, so I’ll go with it.)

Here’s my unifying approach based on that:
1. Send the Secretary out there (presence is a great symbol) as part of a public comment period
2. Determine to listen respectfully to the other sides, including elected officials from the other party (!). As the President-elect said, they are not your enemy.
3. Do a deal with the goal of stability.. “can everyone live with this?”

Actually, it sounds a lot like plain old collaboration. It’s also what states have to do regularly, which is why I like former western governors and DNR directors for Interior Secretaries.
It’s interesting to think about why it is that when the stakes are higher than at the State level, it seems like collaboration takes a back seat and “winner takes all” takes over. But internationally, we’d reject that approach in supporting peace processes. Perhaps national politics are some kind of anomaly. Not in a good way.

I ran across this article from only five years ago from the Durango Herald on Babbitt’s then-current activities:

The pushback from the energy production industry is a major obstacle, but Babbitt said he has long held the belief that the two, preservation and industry, can co-exist.

“How many of you know, that there is gas production at the Canyon of the Ancients?” Babbitt asked the crowd of about 30 members and non-members. “The opponent says you’re taking things off the slate of use and production, that the land is just being set aside for weak environmentalists. But (oil and gas) can be managed with minimal impact. It is possible to make them work together.

And one reason the BLM is taking such good care of that place is because they’re looking over their shoulder,” he said. “That’s the model for the entire West, and it began right here in Durango.”

I think by “they” in the last sentence Babbitt meant local people given the context. Also Babbitt talks about BLM’s National Conservation Lands which sounds like it could be an alternative to monumentizing, especially when an Administration starts with enough time for such a process.

Vail Wilderness Overrun by Hikers and the NoCoPlaces 2050 Partnership

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There’s an interagency effort to deal with increased recreation in northern Colorado called NoCoPlaces 2050. Here’s a link. They have a research page that looks interesting, including behavioral science.

This is from an article from the Vail Daily News.

Consultant Steve Coffin said virtually every place within a six-hour drive of the Denver area is seeing increased pressure on public lands.

Coffin is one of the coordinators of a group called NoCo 2050 places. That group has brought together public land managers, local government representatives and others to look into possible strategies to address the growth in public land use.

Most of that pressure is coming from the Front Range. Coffin said that 94% of the state’s population growth in the past decade has been concentrated on the Front Range. That’s why the mountains on the east side of the Continental Divide have seen so much pressure on public lands.

The idea behind NoCo 2050 Places is, in part, to encourage greater cooperation between agencies and take a broader view of how to manage the pressure on the state’s special places.

Langmaid attended — virtually, of course — a meeting of civic leaders, an offshoot of the NoCo 2050 Places project.

Langmaid said the ideas discussed by that group include both a broad vision and talk about the future.

“What I told the group is that this is not in the future, it’s right now, and were behind the curve,” Langmaid said.

Part of the problem is that public land agency budgets continue to dwindle, especially as more of those agencies’ funds end up committed to fighting wildfires.

What that means is that towns depending on tourism will have to spend more of their money on public private partnerships with government agencies.

In addition to increased pressure on local government budgets, Langmaid said there are other potential problems.

“If you start restricting access, do you create inequities?” Langmaid asked. Those inequities could include blocking access to those who don’t have the access or skills to make on-line reservations. If fees are charged, is that a barrier to lower-income users?

“These are big questions,” Langmaid said.

No silver bullets
No one has yet come up with solid answers to these and other questions.

In addition, Langmaid said it’s time to rethink destination marketing.

“We need to be looking at destination management with as much fervor as destination marketing,” she said. Successful marketing doesn’t mean communities — or public lands — are ready for the impact visitors bring.

Vail has already funded cooperative projects with the Forest Service including the Front Country Ranger program. The town is also working with the Forest Service and Colorado Parks and Wildlife on a “landscape level” project to improve wildlife habitat and lower fire danger on more than 4,000 acres on the north side of Interstate 70 starting at the town shops and East Vail.

“We’re the ones creating the problem; we have a responsibility to (help address it),” Langmaid said.

While any system to restrict trails into public lands will take time, Stockmar said perhaps the town could take some action on its own.

“We do have authority over (trail) access points,” Stockmar said. “We have the very thin potential leverage that (users) are on town land.”

Whatever solutions come to pass, Langmaid said it’s important for the town and users to maintain “a very high quality experience with wilderness values” on those well-used trails.

Themes in the Vail Daily story that we’ve mentioned before:
* Education not necessarily working without enforcement.
* Reducing numbers and/or improving behavior.
* Adjacent communities possibly restricting public access.

Assuming the Best About Federal Employees and Their Challenges: Why Not?

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When I was a post-doc at North Carolina State University I worked for a Pioneering Research Scientist (the top level of scientists in the Forest Service), Dr. Gene Namkoong. He used to say something I can’t remember exactly, but it was something like “when the Forest Service does something bad, don’t assume malevolence or bad faith when they could have simply been disorganized, made a mistake, or so on.” I can’t remember his exact words, but it gave me the impression of good people bumbling along in a complicated system. Gene died a few years ago, or I would ask him.

Assuming the best about people (I suppose it could be argued that the FS is an institution and not people, but does that matter in this context?) is a long held spiritual value, at least in some traditions.  Another value is humility. Still another value is being “impeccable with your word” as in the Four Agreements. Political races, in fact, partisan politics itself, encourage the opposite.  Thankfully we are out of this for now, and President-elect Biden has spoken a great deal about unity- specifically, that people who think and vote differently are not our enemies.  Hopefully The Smokey Wire’s work, seeing through the recurrent partisan spin, hearing the voices of people who think differently, and trying our best to understand each other, will help with the new administration’s efforts.

Remember when the 60-day royalty rate reduction for oil and gas folks was being covered?  That was the end of the story for many.  In Colorado, though, we do have folks who investigate further, thanks to Colorado Politics and their story here.

There was a GAO review of the process.
When developing its temporary royalty relief policy, BLM did not follow guidance for developing new policy contained in its directives manual, including considering a policy’s savings and costs. BLM’s directives manual provides guidance for developing policies that are short-term in nature and are meant to be provided to BLM employees quickly. Among other things, the directives manual says BLM should consider the effects of any temporary policy, including budget impact, costs, and savings, when developing temporary policies such as the temporary royalty relief policy.BLM officials told us that they did not use the directives manual to develop the agency’s temporary policy for royalty relief because of the limited time that the agency had to develop the policy during the early months of the agency’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, BLM’s directives manual states that emergency notifications—in this case, the temporary royalty relief policy—should not be used to circumvent the BLM directives system. By evaluating its temporary royalty relief policy, including the extent to which the policy met BLM’s objectives—preventing unrecoverable loss of oil and gas resources and ensuring a fair return to the government—and the likely costs, such as forgone revenues—BLM could better inform its decisions about granting royalty relief in the future under the agency’s regulation authorizing ongoing royalty relief.
Reading the GAO report, I had a great deal of sympathy for the BLM folks faced with implementing these old and unclear regulations, and was not surprised that they were not consistent from state to state. Let’s give our agency folks a break as they deal with Covid and related crises. It’s much more difficult to do things than it is to criticize others who are doing things. Think of writing a book versus a book review. I’m not saying that agency employees are always perfect, but would it hurt to give them the benefit of the doubt?

Yale Hixon Center Webinar on Mass Timber Friday November 6, 2020

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This webinar may be of interest. It seems like some academics are saying we shouldn’t cut trees for carbon reasons, while others are saying we should cut them and use them instead of other products, and that will be better for reducing carbon in the atmosphere. As we’ve discussed here a number of times. Mass timber also has the possibility of changing the conversation as it can use smaller diameter material. If that could become commercially feasible in dry western forests, the conversation could change around “fuel treatments would be OK if the FS didn’t take big trees, but the FS is tempted to take out too many big trees to make a sale commercially feasible.”

In the description it says that “the majority of future population growth will occur in cities.” I don’t think that we know that.. in our area, people are moving from other states to get more open space due to Covid. Changes like working at home, buying online and so on may make cities less attractive. I guess at this point in time it’s hard to tell if Covid is a blip on the screen of trends, or somehow a reset button for how we live and work. If anyone is available to watch this and write a summary, please send to me. Here’s a link to registration

This virtual conference is co-convened by the Hixon Center for Urban Ecology, Yale School of Architecture, Yale School of the Environment, and the Center for Industrial Ecology and will focus on the potential of mass timber as a primary building material in cities. There is growing evidence that replacing traditional urban building materials such as steel and concrete with mass timber has multiple benefits, ranging from reduced environmental impacts to structural resilience and cost savings. In fact, using mass timber at scale in urban areas offers the chance for much needed short term carbon emission reductions in the building sector; the majority of future population growth will occur in urban areas, and most of the buildings to host this growing population still need to be built. A transition from mineral to biogenic building materials then offers a double carbon benefit, the upstream carbon savings in material production and the long-term carbon storage over a building’s lifetime. This half-day conference will explain the potential of mass timber and how it differs from other construction (session 1) before it explores the environmental implications of substituting building materials (session 2).

At 1:30 ET they’ll have this session, which looks particularly interesting.
Session 2: The implications of material selection in building design on the carbon budget This session presents the carbon benefits of biogenic building materials in urban areas compared to current steel and concrete applications, discusses to what extent existing forests could meet a potentially sharp increase in timber demand, and the importance of sustainable end-of-life management options for mass timber applications, namely component reuse and recycling. As an alternative path towards low-carbon buildings it will also discuss the potential of novel low-carbon technologies for steel and concrete to become less carbon-intensive materials.

Setting the Table for Unity: An Extravagantly Immodest Proposal

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Today (perhaps) is the last day we don’t know what color of Administration we’ll have. So I’ll propose something that either party could adopt. I’m going to focus on the idea of uniting and getting better policy. Here are my assumptions: 1) a diversity of ideas to select from promotes better policy 2) wide swings don’t help anyone (the Freudenthal (D former Governor of Wyoming) view) 3) you can favor your friends without punishing your enemies (this is something that perhaps can’t be measured, but can be sensed). We discussed pretty much the same topic in August here, along with the Freudenthal quote. We’ve also talked about the role that the Western Governors could play in terms of Living With Fire.

It seems odd to me that as a citizen, I can weigh in on, as an individual, a 500 acre fuels reduction project. But I can’t weigh in on the priorities of an administration. Citizens can via interest groups, but when was the last time you observed an interest group taking a poll of its members before it determined a policy (let alone a political party!). I always say a political party is a bit like the old church expression “pray pay and obey” without the “pray.”

What if the new administration scoped its priorities? Even though this is an immodest proposal, I’m just talking our own little world of FS and BLM, and private forest issues not, say, immigration or health care or climate change.

Of course, that is a naive idea. We don’t have much of a choice on priorities.. we had a dichotomous choice for Prez and that decision leads directly to whatever they and their allies want done. Even if we voted for a party, most of us have no ability to influence their agenda.. it’s take it or leave it. And we don’t even know for sure what the elected will do, as the people running take more extreme positions to attract votes in the primaries and then moderate to try to win the general election- and some proposals are chiefly symbolic- not feasible or legal. Even the folks who voted for them have no control over what they ultimately do. I get that.. but we don’t have any input (as opposed to control, a relatively tiny ask IMHO) either. Unless we agree with favored interest groups. And so it goes. And so the labels on the chairs outside the Secretary of Interior’s office are changed back and forth from industry to environmental groups, when most of us would want to arrive at some agreement and move on to the next issue. And most of us don’t serve on the boards of companies and NGO’s that exert their influence on administrations.

I’m thinking of some kind of advisory committee, which would be tasked with reviewing, helping select and developing options, with the help of agency folks and others in an open process. This does happen in rule-making, (think ANPR) but the solution to every problem is not rulemaking (nor undoing the previous administrations’ rules). And solutions can be micro and macro or a combination. But if we focus on rulemaking, we’ve already privileged some points of view and skill sets and left out others. This advisory committee could also review how changes are working and recommend course corrections. One of the problems we have is that Party A will start something and Party B will throw it out instead of trying to fix it. Some (most) problems are way too complex for the first tweaks to work perfectly. And an advisory committee could outlive the reigns of Party A or Party B and be a unifying and centering force.

But how to select people to not just replicate partisan warfare? This is where the new administration could decide to “set the table for unity.” When Colorado took up working on a state Roadless Rule, different parts of the government picked members of the task force (members also covered a range of interests).

We can imagine some ratio of appointed by party in power, appointed by party not in power, and of most interest, those unique individuals that are agreed upon by both parties. These folks tend to have talent and experience in bringing people together, and are pretty much the folks who do the heavy lifting on arriving at agreements. We can also imagine variations like “what if the environmental folks picked the oil and gas person?” or “what if the oil and gas people picked an environmental group representative?” We could also throw in some folks designated by the Western Governors since most federal land is located in the west.

At the end of the day, it’s still fine for decisions to be made by an Administration’s circle of friends. But I think with this approach, the Administration would be much more knowledgeable about other paths and practical and political trade-offs.

I’d be interested in any examples you all have of: getting direct public input on priorities, long-term valued advisory group, and other ways of setting the table for unity. We also have a substantial scientific literature on successful collaboration that might be applied to such an effort.