As we shall see in the next series of posts, our forest and federal lands world of NEPA has become a piece of a much larger discussion of “permitting reform” that is being pursued by significantly more powerful political actors, and hosts of very smart policy wonks in Coastal think tanks. Permitting reform, as framed, is much broader than NEPA; it includes all FERC, NRC and any other permitting efforts you can think of. And yet perhaps our experience may be able to add to the discussion.
Imbedded in the document is a CEQ report.. “NEPA Litigation Surveys: 2001-2013.” The FS seems to win the prize for most NEPA cases filed for the years I checked. I don’t know why CEQ appears to have stopped in 2013.
Is looking at FS data when discussing an example of the ever-popular science “streetlight effect?”
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U.S. Forest Service data is not representative for clean energy
Defenders of NEPA argue that critics exaggerate review delays by relying on unrepresentative anecdotes, claiming that statistics show NEPA reviews to be far less burdensome. For example, in the Roosevelt Institute policy brief, Jamie Pleune claims to debunk the idea that “NEPA-mandated analysis is the primary source of permitting delays.”[4] She points out that the median time for the U.S. Forest Service to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) — the most rigorous type of NEPA review — is only 2.8 years.[5] Pleune says she chose to look at the Forest Service because it is “the only agency that collects comprehensive, reliable data regarding NEPA decision-making at all levels of review.” While that may be true, it doesn’t mean the Forest Service is representative of other agencies. The White House Council on Environmental Quality surveyed review times across federal agencies in 2020, and found they take an average of 4.5 years.[6] And the Forest Service is not even the primary agency tasked with reviewing clean energy projects. In fact, out of the 90 clean energy projects that required an EIS over the last thirteen years, only two were completed by the Forest Service.[7] When we look at the agencies responsible for reviewing most energy and infrastructure projects, we see a very different picture.[8]
The U.S. Forest Service is housed within USDA, which has a below-average EIS completion time of 3.31 years. Of the federal agencies most frequently tasked with reviewing clean energy infrastructure projects,[9] only the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has a lower average completion time than the Forest Service. The Department of Energy, along with the Bureau of Land Management at the Department of the Interior, conducts NEPA reviews for clean energy projects and takes far longer on average. Other departments tasked with reviewing important initiatives, such as congestion pricing (DOT) and nuclear energy (NRC), have some of the highest average review times.[10]
But even in the case of the Forest Service, no one should be proud of taking three years to review projects. These years-long reviews have often led to disastrous results. For example, in 1999, delays in the NEPA process for the prescribed burning of the Six Rivers National Forest resulted in the wildfire that the prescribed burning was meant to prevent from occurring. That even routine reviews take multiple years is an indictment of NEPA, not a defense.
Who decided that the denominator is even relevant to the question of whether and what the problem is? If we go back to my example of “gender discrimination only occurs at a small percentage of universities, so it’s not a problem”, we could add two- year colleges to the denominator, and gender discrimination would be an even tinier percentage .. but certainly a problem to those who experience it. Who gets to decide what is a problem worth dealing with is a function of power, not math.
2. Categorical exclusions under NEPA can be misleading
Perversely, because the NEPA procedure has expanded over the last half-century to touch nearly every federal action, defenders of the status quo can claim that major reviews (EISs) make up only a tiny fraction of all NEPA reviews. For example, the Roosevelt Institute suggests that NEPA’s impact is exaggerated because 95% of projects receive “categorical exclusions,” or CEs, expedited reviews for projects that don’t have a significant impact on the environment. This argument has also been made by U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, ranking member on the House Committee on Natural Resources. Unfortunately, this statistic misrepresents reality. In response to the administrative burden imposed by NEPA (and case law interpreting it), the number of categorical exclusions for minor actions has exploded, inflating the denominator for what counts as a “project.”
It is true that the vast majority of reviews under NEPA receive categorical exclusions and don’t go through a substantive review process. However, this is largely due to the fact that a surprisingly large set of federal actions must undergo a NEPA review, including those that have no plausible environmental impact. Although the law was originally created to force agencies to assess the environmental impact of “major federal actions,” “major” action was left undefined in the statute. In 1974, a court decision read the term “major” out of the law, effectively requiring the government to review virtually every federal action, including U.S. Treasury paying staff members, USDA conducting educational programs, or the DOE preparing internal administrative documents.[11] Categorical exclusions have proliferated in response to this reality, vastly inflating the denominator for projects.
The vast majority of CEs are for minor actions and cannot be used for major projects except in rare cases where Congress has created legislative CEs. And CEs often require agencies to file paperwork justifying why small actions should avoid years-long reviews. Although completion times for CEs are shorter than the more rigorous Environmental Assessments (EAs) or EISs, they can still create delays of up to a year.[12] While roughly 12,000 substantial environmental reviews occur each year,[13] the roughly 230,000 categorical exclusions each year[14] inflate the denominator.
And of course, litigation and litigation-prep…and what I would add to the below discussion is that it’s not just NEPA claims, it will be FLPMA/NFMA claims, ESA claims, MBTA claims and any other ones that people with lawyers who don’t want projects can use. I’d also add that the below discussion does not go into the timeframes associated with litigation, sending projects back to the agency, redoing and relitigating.. possibly because the info is not collected. And when folks point out specific cases, it’s “anecdotal.” It seems to me as if it will always be anecdotal if people don’t collect information on it.
Litigation risk slows down all infrastructure projects
NEPA reviews are ripe targets for litigation seeking a judicial injunction against a project. This procedural vulnerability makes suing agencies under NEPA an effective means of blocking all kinds of energy infrastructure.
Defenders of NEPA argue that litigation of NEPA decisions is relatively rare — for instance, the Roosevelt Institute points out that “only an estimated 0.22 percent of NEPA decisions are litigated.”[15] But this statistic doesn’t capture how the expectation of potential litigation shapes decision-making by federal agencies and project sponsors. And the denominator is (again) inflated by trivial categorical exclusions that are almost never challenged in court.
It makes sense that the vast majority of NEPA decisions aren’t litigated, since they’re overwhelmingly administrative CEs for things like hiring staff. If we look instead at how many lawsuits there are for every important infrastructure project,[16] the calculation changes dramatically: between a quarter and a third of Final EISs get challenged every year.[17]
The ability to sue projects derives from the Administrative Procedures Act, which allows anyone to sue an agency on the basis that it did not take a sufficiently “hard look” at a project under NEPA review. However, what counts as a “hard look” at environmental impact is entirely a matter of case law and judicial interpretation. NEPA’s mandate to “review environmental impacts” is unconstrained and undefined in statute. As a result, NEPA has been wielded as a cudgel: by NIMBYs protecting their property values, companies blocking potential competitors, and short-sighted conservationists blocking clean energy.
Successful litigation against a NEPA review puts pressure on agencies to perform longer reviews in the future. When lawsuits successfully kill a project, the rulings explicitly state that a NEPA document failed to account for some environmental impact, forcing future agency reviews to include that impact.
But just the threat of potential litigation is enough to incentivize agencies to expand their reviews.[18] To avoid potential lawsuits, agencies try to produce litigation-proof reviews that go above and beyond existing case-law standards. A 2014 GAO survey found that these documents are often a waste of agency time:
“Although the number of NEPA lawsuits is relatively small when compared with the total number of NEPA analyses, one lawsuit can affect numerous federal decisions or actions in several states, having a far-reaching impact. In addition to CEQ regulations and an agency’s own regulations, according to a 2011 CRS report, preparers of NEPA analyses and documentation may be mindful of previous judicial interpretation in an attempt to prepare a “litigation-proof” EIS. CEQ has observed that such an effort may lead to an increase in the cost and time needed to complete NEPA analyses but not necessarily to an improvement in the quality of the documents ultimately produced.”[19]
Litigation’s effect on document preparation helps explain the massive expansion of NEPA documents from a handful of pages in the early 1970s to the current average of 1,626 pages.[20]
Opponents of reform argue that NEPA is not the problem per se: instead, agencies are chronically underfunded and understaffed to perform NEPA reviews. But agencies are stretched too thin largely because the procedural requirements have ballooned. Increasing procedural requirements while holding staffing constant drives up wait times. To strengthen agency capacity, reformers need to ensure staff can use their time effectively, not spend years trying to avoid frivolouslitigation.
In the next post, we’ll discuss some of IFP’s ideas for reform.
I wrote the below as an introduction to a paper on zones of agreement on climate and forests. This paper was rejected by the funders, so I will post pieces here. Anyway, I’d appreciate your thoughts and any other research or links on the topic. My point was that we have many studies on how the FS operates, interviewing staff of all kinds and levels.. and yet relatively little on people and organizations who are calling the policy shots. Or maybe there is a substantial body of literature out there and somehow I missed it.
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Environmental groups of various kinds are powerful political actors in the US at the federal level especially around federal lands issues in the West. Their influence can occur through election funding (e.g. The Wilderness Society PAC spent $465K in one House District in New Mexico[1] in 2020, the Environmental Defense Fund $10 million[2]), through lobbying efforts to Congress and the Administration, through obtaining high-level policy positions in administrations, as well as litigation and the ensuing settlements, organizing media campaigns and grassroots lobbying. These influences appear to be growing. A review of the activity of environmental super-pacs in the 2020 election can be found in this piece[3] in E&E news. Some examples:
“NRDC President Gina McCarthy, a former EPA administrator, helped write Biden’s expanded climate and jobs plan — a level of direct, public involvement for green groups that’s virtually unprecedented in presidential campaigns.”
As stated in a letter by board chair John Dayton of Defenders of Wildlife, “Programmatic successes, unprecedented financial stability, significant advances in both development and marketing, victories in the courts, legislative efforts on the Hill and beyond and Defenders’ ever-increasing stature within the environmental community..”
Despite the importance of these organizations, a comprehensive search on Google Scholar led to very few relevant journal articles. Research is needed to understand better the influence of these organizations, how it is exerted, how their policy preferences are established internally, including, for organizations with members, the role of membership, the role of coalitions within the ENGO sector, the relationships of these organizations and media outlets, and diversity of those involved in funding and decision-making. Additionally, the complete landscape of ENGOs is difficult to describe. ENGOs are local, regional, national and international; interested in single issues or landscapes or regional, national and international.
Diversity and inclusion in the traditional sense have posed challenges to these groups (e.g. Defenders[4]) as it has to many others. This Yale 360 article[5] summarizes the situation and the work of Dorceta Taylor. In the Green 2.0[6] report of 2014, 88 percent of staff and 95 percent of boards were white. We can imagine other kinds of diversity as well, academic and work experience backgrounds, physical location (do they live in a fire-prone area?) and so on. Many of these questions have not been addressed in the academic literature.
Looking one funding level up, it may also be possible that supporting charitable foundations may influence the views of ENGOs. For example, the Hewlett Foundation gave $38 million in 2020 “to conserve biodiversity and protect the ecological integrity of half of the North American West for wildlife and people.” [7] This included expenses for other groups such as the Western Conservation Foundation ($4.8 million), the National Wildlife Federation ($3.2 million), Western Energy Project ($3.6 million), Pew ($1.6 million) and others. Another example is the Wilburforce Foundation, whose grantmaking strategies in the Southwest include priorities for “permanent protection for prioritized landscapes”[8] in the Great Basin and the Southwest. It raises the question “who prioritized them?” and “what was the role, if any, of inhabitants, their elected officials, and Tribes?”
In Doug Bevington’s book “The Rebirth of Environmentalism: Grassroots Activism from the Spotted Owl to the Polar Bear”[9], he distinguishes between what he calls “grassroots biodiversity groups” and mainstream environmental groups, with litigation being the tactic of choice for grassroots groups (e.g., p. 36 “litigation was an appealing tactic for the grassroots groups because it did not necessarily require extensive resources.”) His is probably the most detailed explanation of the internal dynamics of one group, the Center for Biological Diversity. For example, on page 203 he describes the listing petitions prepared by Center attorneys who had “taken a personal interest in species outside of the issues she or he was initially funded to work on.” And states “if the activities of the staff were to be entirely determined by its funders, these listings might not have happened.”
To what extent are such donations influencing the agendas, direction, and tactics of the recipient organizations, compared to members, staff and boards? These questions could be addressed by a series of interviews such as Bevington did for his book.
Another book that examines ENGO’s strategies and tactics is Pralle’s Branching Out Digging In: Environmental Advocacy and Agenda Setting[10]. It compares the expansion and containment of conflict in the Clayoquot Sound conflict in British Columbia and compares it to the Quincy Library Group effort in California.
To summarize, there is not a great deal of academic literature available on these topics of organizational strategies, decision-making and so on among ENGOs in the United States.
There, on the other hand, is a substantial literature on ENGO’s in developing countries (e.g., Ayana et al. 2013[11]) .
As Hoberg (1997)[12] outlined, federal forest policy in the US has been effectively transformed by a strategy of ENGOs in nationalizing and taking issues to court during the spotted owl period. During this period, “local” was thought to be tied to “extractive industries.” Since then, collaborative governance and community-based participation in forest and biodiversity decisions have gained ground. There are also today’s concerns with diversity, equity and inclusion as well as openness and transparency that may raise the profile of more local voices. These developments may open opportunities for environmental peace-making with national ENGOs as local collaboratives and their networks inform the national policy discussion
[9] Bevington, D. 2009. The Rebirth of Environmentalism: Grassroots Activism from the Spotted Owl to the Polar Bear. Island Press, 2009, 285 pp.
[10] Pralle, S. 2007. Branching Out Digging In: Environmental Advocacy and Agenda Setting, Georgetown University Press.279 p.
[11] Ayana, Arts and Wiersum 2018. How environmental NGOs have influenced decision-making in a “semi-authoritarian” state: the case of forest policy in Ethiopia. World Development (109): 313-322.
[12] Hoberg, G. (1997). From localism to legalism: The transformation of federal forest policy. Western public lands and environmental politics, 47-73.
A gray wolf is seen in the Sequoia National Forest. Michelle Harris, Samantha Winiecki-Love, Ryan Slezak and Colibri Ecological Consulting/via the California Department of Fiash and WIldlife
The journey started on Wildfire Today.. this headline intrigued me..
A keystone species — an organism that helps define an entire ecosystem — is calling the fire area home again, 150 years after being hunted and driven out.
I became curious about what the current definition for a keystone species is. When I was with the FS I had to attend numerous presentations by wildlife researchers who all had rationales for why their species was a keystone species. It was kind of an interior joke to me .. how far would they go in rationalizing their “keystone-ness?”
It was interesting to see how folks like WEF and NRDC defined keystone species..according to WEF (the World Economic Forum, who knew that they were interested?) the gray wolf is a keystone species.
In short, keystone species enable other species to survive, occupying a key role in the ecosystem they are part of. Without them, their ecosystems would be dramatically different or even cease to exist.
I’ve been many places around the west before reintroduction and expansion of wolf populations, and thereafter. They don’t seem dramatically different to me. Maybe because “dramatically” has no scientific definition. Or because our state wildlife folks manage deer and elk populations such that they don’t need extra carnivores to keep the populations down (and some populations of deer and elk are apparently having trouble with numbers even without wolves). If you’re going to argue “it’s better with wolves”, I need more than “that’s the way it used to be.” Because nothing else in our environment is exactly the way it used to be.
As a native Californian, I never thought of the Porterville area as “southern California.” I’d go for Central Calif, or the southern Sierra. And I’m not so sure the wildfires themselves drew them to that area. There are plenty of wildfire acres north of the Windy Fire.
“If you walk through a burned landscape with lots of dead trees, you’ll be surprised by the vibrant life which springs from the ashes,” says Andrew Stillman, an ecologist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
The female traveled about 200 miles from the nearest known wolf pack, scaling the mighty Sierra Nevada mountains.
Why did the wolves move so quickly into a burned landscape? When fires kill trees, more sunlight is able to reach the blackened soils; this stimulates dormant plants such as grasses to sprout. The nutritious grasses attract deer and other species, offering wolves a buffet.
I think the question is rather “why did the wolves go through so many other burned landscapes and settle on this one?”
The return of the predators has also led to some conflict with humans: McDarment and other reservation residents say wolves have killed their livestock.
But that link goes to a generic Sci Am article on wolves and livestock predation studies.
It looks like the California wolves were just news of the day bait for more generic statements by UBC ecologist, a senior scientist at Los Alamos, a UCLA ecologist, a Cornell bird ecologist, and a fire researcher at Natural Resources Canada. So what’s up with that?
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I then went looking for “livestock killed on the Tule Reservation” and ran across an article in the Guardian.
The Guardian, like many news organisations around the world, is working to find new ways to fund our journalism to ensure we can continue to produce quality, independent journalism in the public interest.
Increasing philanthropic support for our independent journalism helps fund impactful Guardian reporting on important topics such as modern-day slavery, women’s rights, climate change, migration and inequality.
But can they call themselves completely “independent” if they take others’ funds, when those others have definitive worldviews? Check out this link to “philanthropic partnerships”
The Guardian is different. We have no billionaire owner or shareholders to consider. Our journalism is produced to serve the public interest – not profit motives. And we avoid the trap that befalls much US media – the tendency, born of a desire to please all sides, to engage in false equivalence in the name of neutrality
They seem very certain of what they think is correct.. personally I’d prefer some humility. Anyway, back to the wolves.
The land on the reservation is high desert meets alpine, 55,000 acres of scrub and redwoods bordering Sequoia national forest.
Many of us live or have lived in the Sierra foothills.. we wouldn’t call it “high desert”; nor is the Sequoia National Forest “alpine” at that point. And it’s Giant Sequoia, not “redwoods.” A reporter could have easily found this excellent website on the reservation vegetation by the Tule River Tribe, which has all the details a person might want.
The fires brought another change: wolves.
After the blaze, the reservation became a perfect place for den sites and hunting. Wolves love open forests, too, and the reservation had plenty – plus beefy cows. In July, a gray wolf pack was spotted in nearby Sequoia national forest after a nearly 150-year absence in southern California.
If the fires brought the wolves, why did it take them two years to get there?
They need to hide, says Jordan Traverso, the communications lead for California’s department of fish and wildlife, because while many in California’s left-leaning cities cheered the wolves’ return, those living in and around them, like cattle ranchers, have little recourse if a wolf kills their livestock, which is why wolves are “so controversial”.
Just in case we didn’t know how the reporter feels about California (he is a Californian, if you go to his webpage you find that he writes on all kinds of topics):
That also explains why California is actually a progressive paradox: it is both an environmental bellwether that influences everything from emissions to endangered species policy, which boosts conservation, but it’s also filled with large-scale agriculture and industrial farming which can often pollute and destroy the land.
Actually I don’t think California has much of a say in endangered species policy, which I think the feds have pretty well sewn up.
Then there are several generic quotes from a Montanan on wolves.
Wolves are neither monster nor romantic symbol – and they rarely attack humans or livestock. When the government reintroduced 41 wolves to Yellowstone national park in 1995, ranchers in Montana and Wyoming were up in arms. Over the next eight years, wolves killed just 256 sheep and 41 cattle in those states (states with millions of livestock).
“Instead of decimating cows,” Wolke says, “wolves reduced elk numbers, so willow and aspen trees came back. So did birds and beavers, which improved wetlands.”
While no one knows how many cows have been killed here, wolves cause less than 4% of US cattle deaths.
I tried to look up sheep and cattle deaths and found that.. people disagree. I did find the USFWS says that there were 154 cattle deaths in 2016 in Wyoming alone. Of course, if you use the 8 years after reintroduction, there were probably fewer wolves on the landscape than the 377 they counted in Wyoming alone in 2016.
Impacts to livestock from wolves creates costs borne by livestock producers, including mortality from wolf predation and other indirect impacts. These costs are unevenly distributed and localized, with some producers suffering greater losses than others. Although wolf depredation is a small economic cost to the livestock industry as a whole, the impacts to individual producers can be substantial.
.7,12 For those impacted by wolf predation, the economic and emotional impacts can be substantial. Both direct and indirect losses could significantly affect the livelihood of individual ranchers operating on thin profit margins in volatile market
Anyway, back to the Guardian piece:
It seems wolves are all locals want to talk about. Fear is the central theme, says Greg King, the author of The Ghost Forest: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods. “Ranchers fear for their livestock and humans fear for themselves. Fear is destructive. Maybe we can’t have it all.”
King is from Humboldt County.
And when locals get spooked, wolves often pay the price. Case in point – December 2018, when a northern California rancher saw a wolf feeding on a calf. Investigators determined the calf probably died of pneumonia, but that wolf was found dead on the side of a road, riddled with .22 caliber rounds. A rancher was arrested, but officers couldn’t prove that he pulled the trigger, so they let him go. That could happen here.
I’m not sure that once counts as “often.”
The LA Times says that the wolves reappeared in Giant Sequoia National Monument.
“Wolves rewild the landscape and that’s good not just for the wolves but for entire ecosystems,” said Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity.
“California years ago laid out a welcome mat for wolves, and we can keep it there if we don’t get led astray by old fears and misconceptions,” she said.
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It’s interesting that Ms. Weiss’s background is in law and advocacy, and not ecology nor wildife.
In any case, gray wolves occupy a small part of their historic range. Scientists say a comprehensive recovery plan encouraging their return is crucial to returning ecological stability across thousands of square miles of still-wild habitat.
Among them was ecologist Chad Hanson, who, in an interview, said the wolf pack has become, of all things, the beneficiary of wildfires that jump-started new generations of nutritious grass and shrubs that attract deer they prey on.
“Higher ungulate abundance provides prey for wolves,” he said. “Logging reduces habitat for deer, adversely impacting endangered wolves.”
That kind of talk leaves some federal forest managers and timber industry advocates quietly seething.
But I thought scientists had given up on “ecological stability” as a concept? Maybe that was only ecologists or only some ecologists? Thousands of square miles of “still wild” habitat? Is the southern Sierra “still wild”? And Hansoniana also leaves many scientists “quietly seething.”
Could Hanson be the source of the strain in all this reporting of “fires attract wolves”?
So let’s look at the journalists involved Louis Sahagún of the LA Times; Adam Popescu an independent journalist (who wrote the Guardian and the Scientific American versions); and Hunter Bassler is a reporter in Saint Louis who writes for Wildfire Today. Which is not to criticize them, certainly most of us couldn’t cover the range of stories that they do in any meaningful way. As we said about climate science, they have to work with the systems they have. And currently, apparently outlets can’t afford to pay people to keep this kind of expertise in their newsrooms. The outlets that can afford it like E&E news, are not accessible to the average citizen nor many not-for-profits. And the folks who fund journalism have definite worldviews that they promote. It’s not a pretyy picture.
A recent Rocky Mountaineers (Forest Service retiree organization) annual gathering included a field trip to the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. Wall, South Dakota is also the home of the National Grasslands Visitor Center that tells the story of the National Grasslands.. an important part of our country’s natural heritage. For those of you who like field trips, you can get some of the fun without the travel. Travis Mason-Bushman (with the hat) and all those young people we met are outstanding at telling their stories and answering questions. They are dedicated, committed, professional with a depth of knowledge and experience. I know I can shuffle off this mortal coil and these folk will take care of the National Grasslands and Forests just fine.
One of the videos has some breathing at the beginning, which is distracting, but it goes away.
The story of the black-footed ferret recovery is very interesting, including how they are being managed to protect from disease, and their genetics. The black-footed ferrets that are alive today in the United States come from a foundation of seven ferrets.There’s even a discussion in the video of using high-tech techiques.. cloning.. to increase genetic diversity. Tissue samples of Willa, a captured ferret from Meeteetse, were cryopreserved when she passed away. They were thawed and used to produce a cloned ferret who was an exact clone of Willa. Unfortunately she (Elizabeth Ann) required surgery and cannot be bred. If you’re interested, this from the Meeteetse Museums has all the juicy and technical details. The mechanisms that organisms have to continue to live, thrive and survive small population sizes are not really understood. Estimates of MVP are based on many assumptions of things we don’t know and don’t understand. It’s a mysterious human process by which “best guess at this time” is transmuted into “scientists tell us” and then directly into policy.
This is the story of some dispersed recreation challenges the District has. This area is adjacent to the Badlands National Park, which has limited camping, and camping has mushroomed. While the District has little recreation funding or staff; they are doing what they can.
Travis does a great job, as always, explaining the history of the Grasslands. I don’t see it exactly the same way, though. Travis says something like “people determined that the land was best left alone” which I don’t think is how people thought in the 1930s. They wanted to get vegetation back.. hence reseeding and shelterbelts, so that the land could be used for grazing. The idea was also to show neighboring farmers better practices.
The area along Crow Creek near Briggsdale was the first reclamation and demonstration plot in this area. Seventy acres of meadow improvement began with the construction of two dams and three diversion ditches to spread the flood water over the meadows and provide limited irrigation on other areas. Throughout the other acquired areas, existing fences were torn down, moved or new fences constructed to surround an economically manageable pasture. Springs were developed and wells dug. Windmills were erected and “catch basins” constructed to collect as much run-off water as possible. The policy was “no cow would have to go more than three-quarters of a mile for water.” The plowed and denuded lands were planted to mostly crested wheatgrass, an introduced species from Russia which is well adapted to our climate and is palatable to livestock. Trees were planted to form wind breaks and provide habitat for wildlife. Within two years, the planted grasses revegetated the plowed areas and grazing was allowed on a limited basis.
And
This was not accomplished without trials, anger and frustration. Attempts were made to have the land returned to private ownership, but were defeated. The deep-seated individualism of the westerner made it difficult for them to accept a change from the old ways. Successful demonstrations and evident restoration of the land occurred and gradually the new, proven methods of land management were accepted by most of the population, both association members and nonmembers.
One of the reasons I bring this up is that it reminds me of watershed restoration which seems agreed upon and in some senses easier than some of the ideas we have now about “ecological restoration” which requires, in some cases, attempting to bring back all the plants and animals that previously lived there (at the correct densities and age structures, but of course not the same genetics). “We don’t want dirt to blow away and we want vegetation to cover the soil, hopefully something edible for cows” is a water and soil based restoration.. and fast forwarding, if we were to focus on these basics (soil, water, and air) and let the plants and animals fall where they may, the work of restoration would be simpler. Then hydrologists and soil scientists would be in charge instead of economists, endangered species biologists, historic vegetation ecologists, or climate modellers. It would be an interesting thought experiment, anyway.
In researching this post, I ran across an interesting website called the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Many interesting topics to browse there, and here’s the entry for climate.
The Great Plains, therefore, has a large range in both annual and daily temperatures. During the midwinter months (January and February), when cold, dry air from central Canada dominates, temperatures are very cold, with mean temperatures varying from 40ºF across the Southern Plains to as low as 10ºF across the Canadian Prairies. During midsummer (July and August), when the Plains are dominated by either warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico or warm, dry air from the Southwest, mean temperatures increase to approximately 80ºF through the Southern Plains and approximately 66ºF across the Canadian Prairies. This gives the region a much larger range in annual temperature than is found elsewhere in North America. For example, the range in mean monthly temperature between January and July in Omaha, Nebraska, is approximately 56ºF, while in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and San Francisco, California (each at a similar latitude), the ranges are 46ºF and 14ºF respectively.
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The year-to-year variability in temperature and precipitation across the Great Plains is very large. This variability is especially evident in the recurrent problem of drought. The very warm and often dry summer weather that is characteristic of the Plains leads to high evaporation and transpiration (water loss from plants) rates. Soils are often depleted of their moisture, leading to stressed natural and cultivated vegetation. A measure of the lack of available soil moisture for plants, the soil moisture deficit, has been calculated for the entire Great Plains region for the period 1895 through 1994. From this it is clear that the Plains as a whole has undergone recurrent periods of drought over the last century, especially during the 1930s (the Dust Bowl years) and the 1950s. The large annual (within one year) and interannual (year-to-year) variability of Great Plains climate makes the region a natural laboratory for studying the effects of climate variability on a host of problems associated with the interaction of humans with their environment.
Perhaps the people, animals and plants of the Great Plains have something to teach us about adapting to any changes in climate and climate variability.
The forest carbon sink of the United States offsets emissions in other sectors. Recently passed US laws include important climate legislation for wildfire reduction, forest restoration, and forest planting. In this study, we examine how wildfire reduction strategies and planting might alter the forest carbon sink. Our results suggest that wildfire reduction strategies reduce carbon sequestration potential in the near term but provide a longer term benefit. Planting initiatives increase carbon sequestration but at levels that do not offset lost sequestration from wildfire reduction strategies. We conclude that recent legislation may increase near-term carbon emissions due to fuel treatments and reduced wildfire frequency and intensity, and expand long-term US carbon sink strength.
My comment: The authors state that:
We use data from >130,000 national forest inventory (NFI) plots to clarify the potential effects of planting and increased fuel management on carbon trajectories in the conterminous United States (Fig. 1). We constructed 30-year projections of the NFI based on Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 2 [13] and five general circulation models under Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 to assess forest carbon stocks and fluxes associated with two fuel treatment levels and one planting scenario (Fig. 1, SI Appendix).
Shared Socioeconomic Pathway 2 is a “middle of the road” narrative, while RCP8.5 is considered an extreme scenario that essentially assumes no future efforts to reduce atmospheric CO2. Some call it implausible.
Why not include a more optimistic scenario to balance the extreme RCP8.5? Or just go with the middle of the road model?
It’s part 2 of what he thinks needs to be changed in the NWFP. Kerr talks about his views and looks at the recommendations of The Making of a Northwest Forest Plan and The World’s Largest Ecosystem Management Plan: The Northwest Forest Plan After a Quarter-Century. I’m sure you NW-ers will find something to discuss.
1. I was kind of surprised that Westsiders felt like they knew what was best for dry forests. I’m not sure about this..
It’s still stand-density reduction, whether the trees being removed are dead or alive. As Jerry and Norm have told me many times, if a dry-forest stand burns before it is treated (thinned), the best course is to leave the larger trees that would have been left and take the smaller trees that would have been removed in a restoration treatment had the stand not burned.
2. The NWFP was just the beginning, folks want the same thing on private lands (now why wouldn’t people invest in private timberlands?)
The NWFP should call for terrestrial habitat restoration on nonfederal lands as well—better yet, to reconvert private timberlands to public forestlands.
3. At least the recommendations cited here, seem related to past views of ecological stability vs. dynamism, and only incorporate climate change in ways that support what they thought 30 years ago.
(NJG) UTILIZE TREATMENTS, INCLUDING THINNING AND BURNING, TO RESTORE OLD DRY FORESTS TO APPROXIMATIONS OF THEIR HISTORICAL STATES
(AK) Amen, with a however. Burning must always occur, either as the only treatment or the follow-up treatment after scientifically sound thinning.
Some folks here are concerned that burning can be more dangerous due to climate change-induced factors of heat and drought. Others model and say the trees are all going to die in the next 50 years. When and how do we consider climate change impacts?
4. If AGW is real then lots of species will move around and may be more successful than the natives. If that happens should we/can we afford to kill them all off? Is the NSO in some kind of sacred category or how many species will we do this for?
CONSERVING THE NORTHERN SPOTTED OWL
(NJG) • KILL BARRED OWLS TO PROTECT NORTHERN SPOTTED OWLS ON AT LEAST A PORTION OF THE SPOTTED OWL’S RANGE.
(AK) Amen and hallelujah. See my Public Lands Blog post entitled “B. Owl v. N. S. Owl.” ”[A]t least a portion should, praise be, “all” of the spotted owl’s range.
5. And always, wolves are moving back so…end livestock grazing and reduce road densities. And yet somehow their ranges are expanding without ending livestock grazing, or timber harvesting, or reducing road densities.
Gray wolves are returning to the NWFP area and need to be made more welcome. Wolf-friendly measures include equitably ending livestock grazing and reducing road densities.
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With the FACA committee, I suppose that this is only the beginning of these discussions.
OSU “scientists,” citing taxpayer-funded and peer-reviewed economic, forestry, and climate research, have determined that “climate change” has cost Northwest tree farmers a loss of $6 billion dollars over the past 20 years. This “finding” is being sensationalized in much of the press, but even the more sober and usually realistic Oregon Business is reporting that: “The increased prevalence of wildfires and droughts due to climate change did not account for all of the value depreciation, but it was a significant driver. The study suggests that recent climate change is responsible for lowering timberland values by $6.2 billion, or 55% of the total devaluation.”
The assumption seems to be that increased wildfires are a direct result of drought caused by climate change, resulting in risks to landowners causing decreases in property values that are apt to reduce tax rolls if we don’t do something about it. Fortunately, there is a glimmer of hope:
“Our research results indicate that any policy that can successfully reduce the spread of wildfire could reduce risks for timberland owners and provide economic benefits in the form of higher land values,” writes David J. Lewis, a natural resource economist at Oregon State, who coauthored the study, in an email to Oregon Business. “The key question (not answered in our research) is whether the administration’s new wildfire strategy will actually be successful in reducing wildfire risks,” referring to the White House’s plans to develop a national strategy to estimate the impacts of climate change on the value of the nation’s natural capital, including forests, minerals, oceans and rivers.
An underlying problem is that no one has demonstrated that the climate is actually changing in this region, that droughts have resulted, or that the increase in regional wildfires is a result of those speculations. On the other hand, the regional increases in wildfire severity and extent have been clearly predicted using traditional scientific research methodology for more than 30 years because of radical changes in federal forest management policies and practices.
And these fires are occurring almost exclusively on public lands, and not private — even though the climate is remarkably similar for both ownerships. But don’t let facts get in the way of a good sales pitch. University professors need to eat, too.
New lawsuit: Wilderness Watch v. U. S. Forest Service (D. Mont.)
On November 8, Wilderness Watch filed a complaint against the Buffalo Creek Project in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area on the Custer Gallatin National Forest. The Project would use helicopters to supply rotenone to poison non-native rainbow trout in over 40 miles of stream, and introduce Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Yellowstone cutthroat trout were not naturally found in this stream reach, but removing rainbow trout would benefit native Yellowstone cutthroat downstream in Yellowstone National Park. Plaintiffs allege violations of the Wilderness Act. (The article includes a link to the complaint.)
Court decision in Central Oregon Wild Horse Coalition v. Vilsack (D. Oregon)
On November 14, the district court adopted a magistrate judge’s findings and agreed that the Ochoco National Forest did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act or the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act by approving a forest plan amendment for the Big Summit Wild Horse Territory that would reduce its current wild horse population by more than half. (The article includes a link to the opinion.)
Court decision in Powder River Basin Resource Council v. U. S. Dept. of Interior (D. D.C.)
On November 6, the district court denied a preliminary injunction sought against the Converse County Oil & Gas Project in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, comprised of 407 separate applications for permits to drill, and a land-use-plan amendment to the Casper RMP. The court determined that plaintiffs did not have standing to bring claims against the APDs, “because they have not alleged an affected area for any of the APDs they challenge, and therefore have not alleged that any of their members use the affected areas such that enjoining the APDs would provide the relief they seek.” That the APDs “collectively contribute to a vast affected area which can be gleaned from Defendants’ environmental analysis in their final EIS” was insufficient to establish standing.
However – plaintiffs did have standing to make NEPA claims against the plan amendment and its EIS because they had established use of the larger “project area.” The court found a low likelihood of success or irreparable harm and did not issue an injunction. (One of the factors in the harm analysis was plaintiff’s delay in bringing the lawsuit, in part because they “lacked the financial and human capital” to do so for two years.)
This is the second recent case by this judge where standing was denied for failure to establish effects on plaintiffs from specific locations (see the New Mexico and Wyoming drilling case here). (Judge Chutkan is also the judge presiding over the January 6 case against former president Trump.)
New lawsuit: Willamette Riverkeeper v. Teitzel (D. Oregon)
On November 7, Willamette Riverkeeper, Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management over the agency’s authorization of the Big League Project in the Calapooia and Mohawk River Watersheds. The Project includes over 1000 acres of timber harvest, and was based on an EA. Issues include impacts on endangered salmon, recently burned forest, spotted owl habitat and carbon storage in older forests. (This article has a link to the complaint.)
Court decision in Sovereign Inupiat for a Living Arctic v. Bureau of Land Management (D. Alaska)
On November 9, the district court dismissed two challenges against ConocoPhillips’ Willow project within the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, saying plaintiffs failed to show that the federal government made significant mistakes when it approved the project. This lawsuit followed a successful challenge in 2020 to block the project after the Trump administration approved it. After that suit, federal agencies involved in the approval process revised their analysis, and in March the Biden administration approved a project slightly smaller than the one approved by Trump. The main issues involved greenhouse gases, and the judge found, “there is a limited scientific capability in assessing, detecting, or measuring the relationship between a certain GHG emission source and localized climate impacts in a given region.” (The article includes a link to the opinion.)
The Nevada federal district court has dismissed claims by three local Native American tribes against the Thacker Pass lithium mine on BLM lands. The plaintiffs had argued that the BLM had failed to consult with the tribes. The court agreed with the government’s argument that the consultation is ongoing and therefore not ripe for legal challenge (despite the fact that construction of the mine is also ongoing). An earlier district court decision is currently on appeal to the 9th Circuit. (Some of our earlier discussion of this project is here.)
The Nevada federal district court sentenced a Nevada man to six months in prison to be followed by one year of supervised release and $7,303.05 in restitution for damaging and removing part of a centuries-old petroglyph at Gold Butte National Monument in southeastern Nevada, a felony violation of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act.
A second lawsuit has been filed regarding the management of the Stone Cabin herd of wild horses on BLM and national forest land east of Tonopah, Nevada. In October, a rancher sued the BLM because they weren’t moving fast enough to round up horses on land where he has permits to graze cattle. Wild Horse Education has now challenged BLM’s 10-year horse gather decision for the herd based on an EA. They allege it ignores a 1983 Herd Management Area Plan, and seek to stop any further roundups. They say the BLM “will often jump into a settlement with a permittee without hesitation.”
Court decision/settlement in Conserve Southwest Utah v. U. S. Dept. of the Interior (D. D.C.)
On November 17, the district court agreed to the BLM and Fish and Wildlife Service’s request to remand the BLM’s grant of a right-of-way to the Utah Department of Transportation for construction of a new four-lane highway through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area in southwest Utah, a critical habitat for the Mojave Desert tortoise. The Utah Department of Transportation and Washington County, Utah (intervenors) had opposed the settlement, and the court did not vacate the right-of-way. This press release includes links to the opinion and the announcement of the review by the agencies.
On November 7, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized the designation of an experimental population of gray wolves in Colorado under section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act. This was in response to a statewide voter-led initiative passed in November 2020, which we discussed here. The designation provides greater management flexibility.
New lawsuit: Mountain Valley Pipeline v. Daniel Guidry and Ashley Stecher Wagner (W.D. Virginia)
On November 8, the developers of the Mountain Valley Pipeline sued two protesters it says blocked construction by illegally attaching themselves to the land and construction equipment being used to build a segment of the pipeline in the Jefferson National Forest last month. The developer is asking for undisclosed compensatory and punitive damages, and an injunction barring Guidry and Wagner from entering the construction area, blocking access to it or helping others interfere with construction. (The article includes a link to the complaint.)
New lawsuit: Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Office of Surface Mining and Enforcement (D. D.C.)
On November 8, CBD and Appalachian Voices alleged that the Office and the Fish and Wildlife Service are violating the Endangered Species Act by allowing continued harm from coal mining to the endangered Guyandotte River crawfish, threatened Big Sandy crawfish, and the endangered candy darter (a fish). The species are found in West Virginia, Virginia and/or Kentucky. The claims revolve around a 2020 Biological Opinion addressing permits to mine private land pursuant to the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act. Coal mining facilities can impact species up to 12 miles downstream. (The article includes a link to the complaint.)
New lawsuit: Environmental Protection Information Center v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service
On November 9, plaintiffs targeted a September 2020 incidental take permit issued to Sierra Pacific Industries for its plans to conduct logging operations on more than 1.5 million acres of Northern California over a 50-year period. The permit would allow death from logging activity of 115 northern spotted owls and 649 California spotted owls. Plaintiffs argue that additional protection is needed due to climate change. More in this article.
The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and the Institute for Fisheries Resources filed a lawsuit against 13 tire manufacturers in U.S. District Court in San Francisco alleging that toxic concentrations of 6PPD-quinone, a chemical that extends the life of tires, is killing coho salmon, Chinook salmon, steelhead trout and other wildlife. They allege that ESA requires an incidental take permit before allowing such harm to these listed species.
Court decision in California Construction and Industrial Materials Association v. County of Ventura (California Court of Appeal)
On November 13, the California Court of Appeals, upheld a set of land use ordinances to protect creeks, rivers, and other pathways used by wildlife to travel between key habitat areas including the Los Padres National Forest.
Mounted wilderness ranger and packer Jim Leep on patrol.
By Les Joslin
With the Green Lakes Trailhead Information Station at the primary eastern entrance to the Three Sisters Wilderness up and running, I spent the summer of 1993 training volunteer wilderness information specialists to staff that station, staffing it myself on days a qualified volunteer was not available, and patrolling the trails when the station was staffed.
Late that summer I met the other volunteer wilderness ranger on patrol a mile or two north of the Green Lakes—some six trail miles north of the Green Lakes Trailhead—while I was surveying campsites in that relatively remote stretch of the wilderness. I knew this volunteer mounted ranger and packer had begun service that summer, but this was the first time our trails had crossed.
We introduced ourselves. Jim Leep was a retired Portland, Oregon, police officer who, by all reports, was doing a superb job that summer doing what mounted rangers and packers do—serving wilderness visitors and transporting trail crew camps, equipment, and such materials as signs, sign posts, and water bars. And he was doing it for free, using his own saddle stock and pack string.
We compared notes. In response to his questions, I explained how and why I was serving as I did on a contract—almost as a forest patrol officer but without enforcement authority. Then, recognizing competence and professionalism when I saw it, I noted he labored under so such federal government employment restrictions as I did. “You should be a seasonal employee of the Forest Service,” I told him.
For the next dozen years he was, epitomizing the “forest ranger” on wilderness trails as he and his saddle and pack stock patrolled the Deschutes National Forest third of the Three Sisters Wilderness, always available and able to handle any assignment or challenge that came his way. Jim and I worked closely together, sometimes against unexpected and unnecessary odds, to do a full range of real jobs well. Jim had great people skills, and related especially well to the many equestrian wilderness visitors.
Years later, after our Three Sisters Wilderness years were behind us, Jim and I sectioned the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail through Oregon—from the California line to the Washington State line–together. And, when my book Three Sisters Wilderness: A History was published by The History Press in 2021, Jim was the wilderness ranger on the cover and in half a dozen of the photographs which illustrate the book.
Our friends at E&E News had a piece on it. What was interesting to me is the framing.
The Forest Service’s approach has rankled opponents of old-growth logging and those who say even forests that aren’t quite that old shouldn’t be heavily harvested. But the timber industry and its allies in Congress say the findings underscore a point they’ve made for years: that cutting down trees for wood products from time to time is a part of keeping forests healthy.
Coming from what we might call the areas with much need for fuel treatments and little timber industry (like much of the interior west), it seems like our voices aren’t heard in this debate. I don’t think the timber industry is looking for “heavy” harvests.. I think they are saying that they can use some of this stuff that is removed. This is the old dichotomy.. “logging” supported by “timber industry” and leaving things alone. I feel like the discussion could be back in the 80’s. The other people that aren’t heard in this framing are all those collaborative folks working on zones of agreement and trying to find common ground.
I’m going to quote from the E&E news summary which I think is good (but haven’t double-checked numbers).
1. Logging for timber is not as big a threat to old growth and mature forests as are wildfires, insects and disease.
In slides shared with forest industry representatives and provided to E&E News, the Forest Service said wildfires have eliminated 2.6 million acres of mature forest and 689,000 acres of old growth since 2000 on lands managed by that agency and the Bureau of Land Management. The agency defines old growth as areas that haven’t been logged, for instance, and mature forest as areas that may have been logged in the past and have grown back substantially on the way to becoming old growth again.
In the same period, 1.9 million acres of mature forest was lost to insects and disease, while 134,000 acres of old growth suffered that fate.
“Tree cutting,” which the agency said includes logging but might include other actions, took 214,000 acres of mature forest and 10,000 acres of old growth on Forest Service and BLM lands, the agency said. “Currently, wildfire exacerbated by climate change and fire exclusion is the leading threat, followed by insects/disease,” the Forest Service said in the slides. “Tree
cutting (any removal of trees) is a third relatively minor threat.”
But is, say thinning, a “threat” or is it “protection” from climate-change exacerbated drought or wildfires?
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Sidenote:
Meanwhile, this was not explicitly stated by anyone, but reminds me of an argument I’ve heard in different contexts.
Even if certain activities have only a little impact, those are the ones we can control, so we should further reduce them. Something like bats and white-nosed syndrome, or or many species and climate. It tends to be the same old activities that need to be reduced, based on this argument.
Or wildfire smoke and other sources of pollution.. “Smoke, Screened: The Clean Air Act’s Dirty Secret” as per this article, or this one.
The wildfires, though, could force the EPA’s hand. They could compel the agency to bump Chicago and East St. Louis to a higher nonattainment level and, as a result, trigger tougher remedial actions.
But obviously the remedial actions wouldn’t involve stopping the Canadian wildfires, it would involve ratcheting down the usual PM 2.5 suspects in that state.
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2. Back to the E&E news article:
In total, the inventory shows the 193 million-acre national forest system has about 25 million acres of old growth, 70 million acres of mature forest and a little more than 50 million acres of younger forest. The system includes grasslands and other landscapes.
Older forest is likely to increase over time as younger areas age, the Forest Service said. The increase, estimated at 5.5 percent by 2070 on Forest Service and BLM lands, will slow after that point, officials said, based on agency modeling.
****************** 3. Timber Wars Redux…
To logging critics, the Forest Service’s analysis doesn’t offer much relief. “Current rates of logging are not the only indicator of the precarious state of older forests in the nation,” said Dominick DellaSala, chief scientist at Wild Heritage, a Berkeley, Calif., project of the nonprofit Earth Island Institute.
DellaSala said less old growth is being lost recently because harvests in decades past “nearly liquidated the entire ecosystem.”
Barely a quarter of the nation’s old forests are in protected areas, as in designated wilderness, said DellaSala, who’s called for a halt to logging in old-growth areas. The U.S. needs a “national rulemaking process that protects all remaining older forests and large trees from logging as they are not safe from ongoing or future threats,” he said.
But about 30% are in Roadless, which are not apparently protected to DellaSala. Some people say this because they are not “permanent”. To my mind, as a person who has worked on a tediously litigated (no offense to readers who litigated) Roadless Rule, this is not a meaningful distinction. And 18% of NFS is Wilderness. So that adds up to 48%.
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4. “As much as 81 percent of mature and old growth is in areas with little logging capacity, according to the agency.”
This is an interesting number. It could be interpreted as:
1. The timber industry wouldn’t have that much of an impact if we let them have at the 20 percent (not a popular interpretation, I grant you).
2. Folks who want to thin for mature and old growth protection (either fuel reduction or increasing drought resistance) are going to need megabucks, because currently there are not markets and viable substitutes for burning into the atmosphere. (We know this)
3. Maybe this isn’t really about logging? So maybe the controversy is between dry forest folks who want thinning (even with no industry available) and wet forest folks who don’t? It’s interesting that the article mentions the Tongass and not the millions of acres of MOG pinyon juniper from this fact sheet.
Pinyon and juniper woodlands are the most abundant forest type in the federal inventory of mature and old-growth forests, with 9 million acres of old-growth pinyon-juniper across BLM and Forest Service lands and an additional 14 million acres of mature pinyon-juniper.
4. Another framing than the aged and decrepit Timber Wars would possibly that Some Mesic/Coastal ENGOs exert an outsized influence over dry forest policy in their quest for a national MOG rule.
As we shall see in the next series of posts, our forest and federal lands world of NEPA has become a piece of a much larger discussion of “permitting reform” that is being pursued by significantly more powerful political actors, and hosts of very smart policy wonks in Coastal think tanks. Permitting reform, as framed, is much broader than NEPA; it includes all FERC, NRC and any other permitting efforts you can think of. And yet perhaps our experience may be able to add to the discussion.
