Four Chiefs’ Roadless Letter: Our Colorado Experience Was Different on Fuel Treatment and Need for Road Maintenance

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this is a photo of a house next to a roadless area from the Colorado Roadless effort.

Comments on Roadless are due Friday. As a person who worked for six years on Colorado Roadless and read many, many public comments, including all of them during one iteration, I encourage you to be clear upfront whether you want to keep it as is, change it, or remove it. Most of the people I know want to change it. Those of us with experience in Colorado, Idaho and Alaska, employees, former employees, and the public, probably have some ideas about how to tune up  the 2001, and how not to.  If you have particular issues with it, or things you think are important to keep, be clear about those also.

As a goal for a tune-up, I can’t say it any better than Chris Wood said on an old TSW post on the Idaho Rule.

“The Idaho rule is a demonstration of what can happen when common sense is applied to a common problem for the common good,” Wood said.

Certainly this kind of “once every 25 year tune-up: could be initiated with the same goal.

I ran across this letterfrom four former Forest Service Chiefs on Roadless, so I thought it would be interesting to take a look.
The four Chiefs seem to be in the “fix it’ camp, but they might be in the “don’t do anything but if you feel you need to fix it, here are our ideas for the process.”

We urge you to consider additional alternatives that would require a collaborative, transparent process to identify potential changes that would protect roadless values and allow additional flexibility for addressing wildfire risks to communities.

I disagree with two of their arguments, which I don’t think would matter so much, except I’ve seen the same arguments in other letters as well.
From the letter:

There is the assertion that the Rule restricts fire prevention and wildfire suppression efforts and that more flexibility is needed to reduce fire risk near the urban-wildland interface. The 2001 Rule specifically permits activities aimed at preventing and mitigating wildfire risks. In fact, nearly 2 million acres of roadless areas have been treated to reduce fire risk in recent years. Significantly more resources need to be directed toward the critical work of reducing fire risk in and around human habitation-the wildland urban interface.

We don’t know how much of the 2 mill acres they cite was managed fire, prescribed fire or mechanical treatment. It would be interesting to know, and where exactly those projects were.
But the fact is that D and R state and federal administrations all agreed that the 2001 language needed to be clarified, and exceptions made for fuel treatment in those plain words. 

I. Colorado Did Not Agree That Thing are Fine with the 2001 Language With Regard to Fuel Treatments

In Colorado, we found the language of the 2001 Rule to have two problems in terms of fuel treatment. One is legal and is due to the language of the tree-cutting provisions, and the other deals with on-the-ground conditions and the need for temporary roads.

Legal

Here’s the language in the 2001 Rule.

1) The cutting, sale, or removal of generally small diameter timber is needed for one of the following purposes and will maintain or improve one or more of the roadless area characteristics as defined in § 294.11.

(i) To improve threatened, endangered, proposed, or sensitive species habitat; or

(ii) To maintain or restore the characteristics of ecosystem composition and structure, such as to reduce the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire effects, within the range of variability that would be expected to occur under natural disturbance regimes of the current climatic period;

So suppose you had a stand of dead lodgepole next to a community as in the photo above. Is it generally small diameter? Yes, compared to bigger trees elsewhere.  But all the trees are more or less the same size, so I suppose folks could go to court and argue that if they are all 8 inches, you can’t take any trees out because they are not “smaller” diameter compared to others in the stand.

Remember this case on the Los Padres?

The panel held that the Forest Service’s conclusion that the Tecuya Ridge Project was consistent with the Roadless Area Conservation Rule was arbitrary and capricious. The panel held that the Forest Service’s determination that 21-inch dbh trees were “generally small timber” was arbitrary and capricious.

Since timber production is not a big  value on the LP, a person might think that fuels practitioners made this decision.  This language meant that the requirements of the Roadless Rule. clearer language in the Rule might have saved everyone time and effort.

You could also argue that a stand of lodgepole burning up is a “characteristic disturbance regime” of the current climatic period. Throughout history, lodgepoles have started after fires, grown old, got attacked by bark beetles, died and burned up.  Sounds pretty characteristic.

But the climate is changing.. so. Climate change is not specifically addressed in the 2001 Rule, because it wasn’t as much a part of the general discussion then. T

Instead, in the Colorado Rule (which I would argue is also way more wordy and complex than necessary) hazardous fuel reduction near communities is called out specifically. There are other requirements, but I didn’t post them all here.  Also note that the Colorado Rule was finalized under a D Federal and D State Administration.

Notwithstanding the prohibition in paragraph (a) of this section, trees may be cut, sold, or removed in Colorado Roadless Areas outside upper tier acres if the responsible official, unless otherwise noted, determines the activity is consistent with the applicable land management plan, one or more of the roadless area characteristics will be maintained or improved over the long-term with the exception of paragraph (5) and (6) of this section, and one of the following circumstances exists:

(1) The Regional Forester determines tree cutting, sale, or removal is needed to reduce hazardous fuels to an at-risk community or municipal water supply system that is:

(i) Within the first one-half mile of the community protection zone, or

(ii) Within the next one-mile of the community protection zone, and is within an area identified in a Community Wildfire Protection Plan.

On-the-ground conditions

I’m not familiar with the Idaho Rule but if we believe Google AI

Permitted fuel treatment activities
Fuel treatments are permitted in certain Idaho Roadless Areas (IRAs), particularly those designated as “Backcountry/Restoration”. The permissible activities include:

Within a community protection zone: Reducing hazardous fuels is allowed if the project retains large trees appropriate for the forest type.
Outside a community protection zone: Treatments are permitted if there is a significant risk that a wildfire would adversely affect an at-risk community or municipal water supply.

In Colorado, we found that the “no temp roads” was a handicap in reducing fuels, even near communities. In some places we visited, you can’t run prescribed fire through unless you remove some fuel. In some places, stands are too thick to thin, drop the trees and pile or broadcast burn. Temp roads are needed to remove material, even just to prepare the area for a prescribed burn. That’s why the Colorado Rule specifically allows this, with RF approval and distance limits:

The Regional Forester determines a temporary road is needed to facilitate tree cutting, sale, or removal (§ 294.42(c)(1)) within the first one-half mile of the community protection zone to reduce the wildfire hazard to an at-risk community or municipal water supply system;

II. Other Colorado Rule Exceptions.  The Chiefs ask in their letter:

Are there changes in the past 25 years that require additional allowances or exceptions? If so, we encourage an open conversation with the community of interests to address potential changes to the Rule.

I agree that some kind of public process is necessary, and I have ideas  of what and what not to do.  But we already know that folks in Idaho and Colorado identified some that are not limited to those states.

In Colorado, those included water conveyance structures, fuel treatment, linear construction zones (tightening up on following the Bull Mountain Lawsuit), a ski area, and methane drainage wells. Idaho had others.  That’s the beginning of a possible list.

III. Permanent Roads that Require Funding Were Never the Issue (at least in Colorado)

One argument of the four Chiefs and others that sounds plausible is this one:

This begs the question; how many roads do we really need within the national forest system and how much do they cost to maintain? The maintenance backlog on roads and other Forest Service facilities has gotten worse and will continue to degrade as more personnel are fired or leave the agency and budgets are cut. Why invest in new roads when the Forest Service cannot maintain its existing infrastructure investments?

Until you look under the hood.  Temp roads for removal of fuels wouldn’t be maintained.. because they’re.. temporary and the contractor or purchaser builds and removes them. The only possible permanent roads we ran across are those that would be maintained by the people building them.. for dam maintenance, access for power line maintenance, or whatever. As far as I can remember no one ever asked for permanent roads in roadless areas.  Maybe that’s something the Admin wants to do? But we don’t know that.

Maybe some people in Idaho wanted new permanent roads? Hopefully someone will engage here who worked on the Idaho or Alaska Rules and we can get a better idea of the different approaches to fuel treatments and temporary roads.

HCN: Decades of public-lands planning, overturned in a day

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From High Country News, an excerpt:

Decades of public-lands planning, overturned in a day

The House voted to nullify three Bureau of Land Management plans, and critics fear many more could follow.

On the sagebrush plains of eastern Montana, cattle graze alongside mule deer, and pumpjacks rise from coal seams. For nearly a decade, the future of this landscape was hammered out in the Miles City Resource Management Plan, a compromise shaped by ranchers, tribes, hunters, energy companies and conservationists. Now, with one vote in Washington, Congress has thrown that bargain into doubt, and with it, decades of public-lands decisions across the West.

Finalized in November 2024 after years of debate and litigation, the Miles City plan is one of the nation’s largest, governing 12 million acres of BLM land and 55 million acres of federal mineral estate across eastern Montana.

But on Sept. 3, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to overturn three Bureau of Land Management plans, including Miles City, under the Congressional Review Act, the first time the law has ever been applied to land-use planning. Legal experts and conservation groups warn that the consequences could be far-reaching, enabling Congress to unravel decades of environmental protections and management decisions on public lands.

The Long Awaited Unification of Federal Land Fire Services: Lots of Coordination and Integration, FS Keeps Wildfire

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Tim of the Hotshot Wakeup has a public podcast on this.
Lots to see and talk about.
Here is the link to the USDA memo. It’s called Improving the Performance of the National Wildland Fire System with Targeted Federal Reform.
Here’s the DOI version. Neither is too long to read, so what do you think?

Sounds like most of the questions we had were answered. From the DOI version:

For the purposes of this Order, “unification” shall not be considered synonymous with “consolidation”; rather, “unification” shall mean the strategic alignment of resources, including
but not limited to, the following:
a. physical resources like aviation and vehicles;
b. pay, benefits, retirement, training, and human resource systems;
c. consistent application of firefighting strategies, which differs from tactics that are situational;
d. technology for early fire detection; and
e. modernization of communication and life safety tools to ensure cross-team coordination when jointly fighting wildland fires

The below seems to describe the relationship with land managers (also from DOI). We don’t have the details but it sounds like the land managers call them in for suppression and maybe prescribed fire? Would like more detail on this one.

While authority over the program, its appropriations, firefighters, and managers will be shifting to the USWFS Fire Chief, line officers in the Department’s land management
Bureaus will continue to share responsibility for delivering on the wildland fire mission. Pre-fire risk reduction, fire response, and post-fire rehabilitation and repair all require
interdisciplinary work across numerous fire and resource programs. The restructuring will in no way impede consistent collaboration with land managers to ensure aggressive
fuels treatment strategies, effective and nimble wildfire response, and thoughtful post-fire recovery. Nothing in this Order shall be construed as relieving Bureau line officers from
their responsibility to manage public lands in a manner that aggressively addresses their relevant wildfire risk

My fave of course is this one, but the research portfolio review should be all feds, NSF, NOAA, NASA, DOE all have snouts in the federal wildfire research trough. I know these Secretaries don’t have the authority, but if I were the Secretaries, I would forward a request to the White House requesting cooperation from those agencies.

To ensure wildfire research and technology investments are fit-for-purpose and field-ready, I hereby direct DOI in coordination with USFS, to take the following actions:
o Establish a joint governance structure to coordinate wildfire-related research, technology deployment, including new solutions in early fire detection, and IT modernization and integration across the Federal wildfire community within 60 days.
o Conduct a joint review of wildfire research portfolios to identify duplication and ensure alignment to support operational priorities, and firefighter and public safety within 120 days.
o Assess and make recommendations to modernize standards for Personal Protective Equipment to ensure the long-term health and safety of wildland firefighters within 270 days.
o Initiate design of a unified Wildfire Enterprise IT architecture with secure, interoperable systems accessible to Federal, Tribal, State, and academic partners; propose a timeline for implementation within 60 days.

This is also important.. remember the PM 2.5 drama?

o Work with USFS and the Environmental Protection Agency to eliminate regulatory barriers for prescribed fire and the use of fire retardant, including revising the exceptional events rule, and permitting requirements within 270 days.

I don’t know how this would affect the current fire retardant lawsuit.

Looks like the FS wildland fire org will become stovepiped administratively, similar to LEOs.

(i) Develop proposals for a restructuring of the internal wildland fire organization, consolidating fire leadership that reports directly to, and is accountable to a Forest Service Deputy Chief. Implementation of this revised structure will begin by April 1, 2026. (ii) Assess wildland fire staffing, organization, position descriptions, and job classifications to ensure consistency and develop recommendations for standardization across the agency. Implementation of these recommendations will begin by April 1, 2026.

I’m sure that many are hoping the below will help people and organizations get paid.

(ii) Immediately initiate the modernization, consolidation, and simplification processes for grants, agreements, and assistance to increase accessibility, accelerate reimbursement, and eliminate administrative delays; propose a timeline for implementation within 30 days.

Questions.. what are Geographic Area boundaries .. is that a wildfire thing?
Does the joint “Administratively Determined hiring program” mean going through a different organization than ASC?

Monday News Roundup: CWG and FACA, Bear Gulch, Petition Against Forest Supe and More

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This prescribed fire on the Teakettle Experimental Forest (see last story) is one of California’s Climate Investments. https://www.caclimateinvestments.ca.gov/2020-profiles/fh-research

Before we head back to the DOE CWG report, a few news tidbits and a partial “rest of the story”..

1. DOE Report and FACA Claims. The report itself was rescinded due to a lawsuit about FACA. My question is “it really giving the government advice” as would require a FACA committee, or “starting a discussion about the science” as DOE more or less claimed?  Let’s look at what plaintiffs say:

But federal law does not permit agencies to create or rely on such secret, unaccountable groups when engaged in policymaking. In the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), Congress mandated transparency in the establishment and operation of any federal advisory committee, including by requiring that the group’s formation be promptly disclosed and that its meetings, emails, and other records be open to the public. Here, Defendants did not disclose the Climate Working Group’s existence until months after it began working, and not a single meeting or record has been made public other than the group’s report. Defendants also violated FACA’s prohibition on stacking an advisory committee with adherents of only one point of view; the Climate Working Group’s members were all chosen for their skepticism of climate science, and the group does not have a single member that agrees with the consensus of the overwhelming majority of the scientific community on the effects of climate change.

Apparently the report was cited in the proposal to rescind the Endangerment finding… but if the study had been contracted to a university, say, and the results were cited in the proposal, would that have been OK?  It seems to me that in our humble world, we cite studies all the time (in environmental documents related to federal decisions), including those contracted by agencies or written by agency employees (and the five scientists could have been contracted or given temporary employment).  But our FACA Committees generally just give policy advice. Members represent different constituencies and may use scientific reports as a source of info, or not. Anyway, I’m still going to comment on the report.

2.  Bear Gulch Fire- The Rest of the Story I thought this impassioned defense of the IMT of the wildfire by the City of Santa Monica was interesting..  it caused me to wonder whether the FS or BLM would have defended their folks with such gusto. As reported by The Hotshot Wakeup.

The city of Santa Monica issued a statement Friday correcting recent inaccurate media reports suggesting that Deputy Fire Chief Tom Clemo coordinated with federal immigration enforcement agents during the Bear Gulch Fire response in Washington state…

During the team’s 14-day deployment, Deputy Chief Clemo, per incident protocol, forwarded allegations reported to him of fraudulent billing practices engaged by Oregon-based private contractors providing hand crews to support the firefighting efforts. A federal criminal investigation — led by federal law enforcement officers — uncovered thousands of hours of falsified timecards, totaling over $250,000 in suspected theft over the course of the incident.

As part of that federal investigation, federal authorities engaged U.S. Customs and Border Protection — not Deputy Chief Clemo — to interview members of the contracted crews. It was through those interviews that two individuals were found to lack work documentation, and one individual was discovered to have an outstanding warrant.

Looking back on the previous coverage of this incident, it seems like the national media swooped in and left (just when it got interesting), which raised some questions in my mind.

a. There is much immigration enforcement going on in different places.. why did two people on a contract crew attract national media attention?

b. Why were so many stories about it, but as more info has come out, there doesn’t seem to be follow-up? Except in places like The Hotshot Wakeup.

c. Many stories said (and THW agreed) that this would cause poor morale among firefighters.  I recognize that that’s a bad thing, but I’ve worked in many areas that gave me poor morale without it being seemed to be important to anyone.  Are some peoples’ morale more important than others? Or are emotions just more frequent in reporting than they used to be?

d. Some of the stories implied that the wildfire workforce could go down, placing people in danger. At the same time, THW has been getting phone calls from contract crews saying that they haven’t been called out this year. It seems to me like that is relevant, but the reporters probably weren’t aware of this context, since they don’t usually follow wildfire.

3. Bipartisan wildfire bill introduced, and N95 masks authorized.

The Fire Ready Nation Act passed the Senate unanimously on Wednesday, according to Montana Senator Tim Sheehy. The bipartisan bill was introduced in January by Sheehy and Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, with the main purpose of establishing the Fire Weather Services program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to help prevent, forecast and fight wildfires.

4.  Inherently Governmental? GNA State Job for South Dakota is posted here.. It seems like a great job, but I’m still confused as to the work seems to be preparing and administering federal contracts (or state contracts?) on federal land. If someone could explain how administering federal contracts isn’t what we called in the old days “inherently governmental” or how this actually works, I’d appreciate it. FWIW, I’m not against it, I’d just like to understand it.

5.Petition Against Forest Supervisor. I think that this is the first I’ve heard of this happening and I think it’s a bad idea (in case you’re wondering). How can you blame one forest supervisor for all the forces that have worked against completing fuel treatment projects? Here’s a link to the petition. I thought it was interesting that an experimental forest (Teakettle) figured in the petition. Here’s what it says:

Researchers have been warning about Teakettle for decades. They secured funding for prescribed burns, worked tirelessly to make their science accessible, and partnered with the Forest Service to get treatments done. They removed obstacles one by one — securing CAL FIRE funding, solving planning challenges — only to face new delays and resistance from leadership. Despite everything being lined up for a large-scale prescribed burn, Sierra National Forest leadership slow-walked the process until it was too late.

This outcome was a choice. Leadership chose inaction. They chose to delay rather than act with urgency. They chose to let fuels accumulate instead of removing them while it could still make a difference. As a result, centuries-old trees — some over nine feet in diameter — were incinerated. Teakettle, a crown jewel of old-growth forest and a world-class research site, is gone.

We cannot continue to accept this pattern of excuses, delays, and catastrophic losses.

Other forests in Region 5 face the same lawsuits, the same environmental reviews, the same funding challenges — yet they are completing fuel reduction projects, maintaining roads, and keeping public access open. Leadership makes the difference. A strong forest supervisor can set priorities, push projects forward, and work with partners to overcome barriers. Unfortunately, under the current leadership of Dean Gould, Sierra National Forest has fallen behind, leaving our communities, wildlife, and firefighters at risk.

This is one of those “there must be more to it than meets the eye” stories, please contact me if you have additional information. The Lookout has some good satellite images of the Garnet Fire here.

Federal Lands Litigation – update through September 4, 2025

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I’m a little behind, but there’s a bunch of Forest Service stuff here.

FOREST SERVICE

  • Daniel Boone NF wildlife habitat enhancement project

Court decisions in Kentucky Heartwood v. U. S. Forest Service (E.D. Kentucky)

On August 13, the district court revisited this challenge to the South Red Bird Wildlife Habitat Enhancement Project, involving logging, thinning, herbicides and other treatments on 55,000 acres on the Daniel Boone National Forest.  We saw the complaint here, and a ruling on supplementing the record here, but not the original district court decision.

In that decision, issued March 28, 2025, the court found that the administrative record supported the project’s compliance with NEPA (sediment/landslides, amount of early seral stands on private lands, and oak recruitment success), NFMA (a standard for exposed soil) and ESA (informal consultation based on prior programmatic Biological Opinions).  However, the record did not address additional information provided by plaintiffs after the decision was made.  The court deferred its decision on these issues and remanded it to the Forest Service to provide a response, without enjoining the project.

The August 13 opinion resolves these remaining issues in favor of the Forest Service based in its 10-page Supplemental Information Report.  The Court found that the Forest Service did not act arbitrarily and capriciously in choosing not to prepare an SEIS or otherwise alter the project based on Heartwood’s post-decisional concerns about sediment.  It was also justified in not finding that information in acoustic bat survey results warranted reinitiation of ESA consultation.

Voluntary remand in Backcountry Horsemen of Missoula v. Marten (D. Montana)

On August 19, the district court rejected plaintiff’s request for vacatur the of construction of five communication repeaters, in particular one within a designated Wilderness Study Area.  The Forest Service had agreed that on remand it will address the NEPA violations alleged in the Complaint by rescoping the Repeater Project decision, seeking and considering public comment, and reconsidering whether the categorical exclusion cited by the agency as the basis for its decision was appropriate.  The court found that the disruptive consequences, particularly related to safety, of removing the repeater, outweighed the seriousness of the alleged procedural errors.  A key reason for not vacating the decision was the likelihood that the Forest Service would make the same decision after complying with NEPA.  The court ordered the completion of proper NEPA procedures within two years.

(While this was in the West Pioneer Mountains, I can vouch for the difficulty communicating by radio in the East Pioneers in 1977 when I was working in the backcountry and was supposed to check in daily – they could hear me, but I couldn’t hear them.)

Court decision in Standing Trees v. U. S. Forest Service (D. New Hampshire)

On August 20, the district court upheld the Tarleton Integrated Resource Project and Peabody West Integrated Resource Project on the White Mountain National Forest.  The latter is a 3,000-acre project area, including parts of an Inventoried Roadless Area, with silvicultural treatments proposed on 2,220 acres, and the Tarleton Project authorizes vegetation management, wildlife, and recreation activities on a 755-acre project area.

The court found that the Forest was not required to fully evaluate alternatives submitted by plaintiffs because they represented a “partial implementation of the full proposed action.”  It accepted the EAs’ analysis of effects on water quality, the northern long-eared bat, scenic and recreational resources, forest health, and climate.  The court did not agree with plaintiffs that the Peabody Project violates Forest Plan standards for scenery and eligible Wild and Scenic Rivers, or that neither Project contributes to the conservation and recovery of the northern long-eared bat, giving “substantial deference” to the agency’s interpretation of its forest plan.  The opinion is here. 

Of note, a coalition including groups sometimes considered to be advocates for conservation filed an amicus brief stating that the projects further the goals of recreation and timber management in the 2005 Forest Plan, which many of them had worked on.  Plaintiffs responded that the Forest Plan is now over 20 years old, outdated and that there are no plans for revision (the article erroneously states it is a 2025 plan).

In June, the plaintiffs filed a similar lawsuit against approval of the Sandwich Vegetation Management Project, discussed here.

New lawsuit:  Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. Johnson (D. Montana)

On August 22, plaintiffs sued the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service to stop the Bull 2 Project on the Lolo National Forest because of its effects on important spawning areas and critical habitat for federally threatened bull trout.  According to the complaint, it would authorize commercial timber harvest on 6,652 acres.  The complaint alleges violations of ESA (no-jeopardy determination for bull trout), NEPA (especially cumulative effects on the watershed of many other smaller projects), and NFMA (failure to comply with the forest plan by creating an “exception” to standards for aquatic ecosystems).  The article links to the complaint.

Court decision in Sierra Snowmobile Foundation v. U. S. Forest Service (E. D. California)

On August 28, the district court held that the Forest Service complied with the law with its issuance of the Stanislaus National Forest Over-Snow Vehicle Use Designation Record of Decision, which significantly reduced the acreage open to cross-country motorized OSV use from that previously and historically available to recreationists.  The court found compliance with NEPA and NFMA.

The court held that the Forest Service had adequately justified the exclusion of areas in the Forest under 5,000 feet or that do not receive twelve inches of snow from OSV use.  The Forest Service also responded adequately to public comments.  Intervenor Defendants WildEarth Guardians also challenged the effects analysis for Sierra Nevada red fox and Pacific marten, but the court found that the Forest Service “sufficiently examined the information before it to substantiate its conclusions regarding OSV access to Sonora Pass and other areas.”  It also adequately analyzed effects on the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog, which is listed as endangered, and the Yosemite toad, which is listed as threatened. The court also found that the Forest Service did use the best available scientific information, as required by 36 C.F.R. § 219.3.

New lawsuit:  Nez Perce Tribe v. U. S. Forest Service (D. Idaho)

On August 29, the Nez Perce Tribe sued the Forest Service over its decision to approve an open-pit gold and antimony mine near the South Fork of the Salmon River in remote central Idaho.  It is expected to be the sole domestic source of antimony, which is used in munitions and batteries. The Forest Service’s decision authorizes Perpetua Resources Corp. to mine three open pits, establish ore processing facilities, build roads and transmission lines, and impound over 400 acres of the Meadow Creek valley with 120 million tons of mine tailings.  The EIS acknowledges significant impacts.  Plaintiffs claim violations of NFMA planning regulations requirements for project-specific amendments, NFMA’s requirement to be consistent with obligations for impaired streams, NEPA (narrow purpose and need statement and range of alternatives), and hardrock mining regulations.  The complaint is here.

Temporary Restraining Order granted in Friends of Bell Smith Springs v. U. S. Forest Service (S.D. Illinois)

On August 29, the district court granted a TRO in the case discussed here because logging had commenced, was expected to be completed in three weeks, and would likely cause irreparable harm to plaintiffs’ interests.  Plaintiffs said the Forest Service changed the name of the project, which led to its no-bid sale not being discovered.  The court’s order is here.

  • California wild horse roundups

Two lawsuits were filed in August against two planned gathers of wild horses in California.

On August 11, three individual plaintiffs argued that the agencies’ proposed removal of more than 600 wild horses from the Montgomery Pass Wild Horse Territory, which they describe as vital to the region’s ecological balance.  According to the plaintiffs, the Forest Service and BLM have failed to adopt the legally required Herd Management Area Plan for nearly four decades, and they also accuse the agencies of mismanaging water, fencing, recreation and habitat in ways that force the horses out of their protected territory.

On August 25, three individuals and the Wild Horse Education organization filed a lawsuit to halt the Modoc National Forest’s plan to do another roundup in the Devil’s Garden Plateau Wild Horse Territory.  Plaintiffs in this case state that the Forest Service needs to finalize a nearly completed new plan, then do an actual census before considering a roundup within the parameters of allowable numbers.  Plaintiffs provided a map that shows the context for wild horse management in northern California and Nevada.  The court denied the motion for a Temporary Restraining Order on August 30, and that order is here.

BLM

Court decision in Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation v. U. S. Department of the Interior (9th Cir.)

On August 22, the circuit court affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, and enjoined an exchange of BLM land that was formerly part of the Fort Hall Reservation of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes for land owned by the J.R. Simplot Company.  When the Tribes ceded the land, Congress established conditions under which it could disposed, which did not include facilitating the expansion of a phosphogypsum waste facility using FLPMA authorities.

Court decision in Cascadia Wildlands v. U. S. Bureau of Land Management (9th Cir.)

On August 27, the circuit court affirmed BLM’s authorization of the Big Weekly Elk Project in the Coos Bay District, upholding compliance with NEPA and FLPMA.   The FLPMA ruling centered largely on how BLM interpreted a provision in its resource management plan regarding “modifying nesting habitat” for the marbled murrelets — a term the court called “ambiguous,” which allowed the court to uphold any “reasonable” interpretation by BLM.  Plaintiffs said the restriction prevented logging in stands of trees adjacent to murrelet nests, while BLM said the phrase referred only to direct impacts on nesting areas.  The court found BLM’s “narrow” interpretation to be reasonable.  The NEPA ruling accepted BLM’s scientific conclusions about edge effects on murrelets.  The court also cited the EIS for the RMP, incorporated by reference, as a reason why an EIS was not needed for this project.  The opinion is appended to the article.

Court decision in National Parks Conservation Association v. U. S. Bureau of Land Management (E.D. California)

On August 29, the district court approved the decision by BLM to amend the California Desert Conservation Area Plan and grant a right-of-way to Eagle Crest Energy Company to “construct, operate, maintain, and decommission a gen-tie [electrical] line and water supply pipeline” necessary for a pumped storage electrical generation project.  The affected area is adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park.  With regard to NEPA claims concerning groundwater, desert tortoises and bighorn sheep, “The Court concludes that BLM properly considered and tiered to the 2012 FERIC (FERC) EIS and that the creation of its own independent EA, rather than an EIS, is proper.”  The court also supported the decision to have only one action alternative, in part because it was an EA.  The amendment to the plan complied with FLPMA because of the absence of threats to the two wildlife species.

ENDANGERED SPECIES

Court decision in Skipper v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (S.D. Alabama)

On August 21, the district court held that the Service’s designation of Units 7 and 8 as “occupied” critical habitat for the black pinesnake and its economic impact analysis were arbitrary and capricious. Historical threats include habitat fragmentation from urbanization, agriculture, fire suppression, and road mortality in longleaf pine ecosystems in portions of Mississippi and Alabama. These critical habitat units are largely private lands in Alabama.  The court found that, “the Service’s reliance on sparse, decades-old anecdotal sightings of an elusive species renders its occupancy determination speculative at best.”  The court also refused to follow a 9th Circuit approach that excluded the costs incurred as a result of listing from its analysis of the effects of critical habitat designation, and faulted the FWS for not including “public attitudes and their impact on the economic analysis.”  The article is from a local county source, and there is a link to the opinion.

Court decision in New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association v. U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (D.C. Circuit)

On August 22, the circuit court upheld the decision of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to deny a petition to remove the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher subspecies distinct population segment from the list of species protected by the Endangered Species Act.  The court rejected plaintiff’s challenge to the FWS methodology for identifying the listed entity as a subspecies.  The article includes a link to the opinion.

OTHER

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. Arizona Department of Water Resources (Arizona state court)

On August 4, the Center filed a lawsuit against the Arizona Department of Water Resources, citing concerns that the city of Benson’s groundwater supply is below the standard for new housing as required under state law, in light of a proposed development of 28,000 homes and ongoing development of an aluminum plant.  That groundwater is linked to the 57,000-acre San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, which is allegedly one of the most important bird migration corridors in the Western Hemisphere and is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Standing granted to plaintiff in Oregon Natural Desert Association v. Meink (D. Oregon)

On August 26, the district court granted plaintiff standing to sue the Air Force for its use of canisters of chaff (small aluminum-coated glass fibers that are ejected from the aircraft to confuse enemy radar systems), as well as flares (pyrotechnic devices used to misdirect heat-seeking missiles) in what the Air Force has designated the Paradise North Military Operations Area.  It’s “known to others as a section of the Owyhee Canyonlands” managed by the BLM.  ONDA brought a citizen-suit under the Clean Water Act to require the Air Force to halt the training exercises until they secure appropriate permits.

  • Wildfire liabilities

New lawsuit:  U.S. v. Southern California Edison Co (C.D. California)

On September 4, The United States filed two lawsuits seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages against Southern California Edison Co., alleging the company’s negligence caused the deadly Eaton (Angeles National Forest) and Fairview (San Bernardino National Forest) fires in January, which burned tens of thousands of acres of National Forest System lands.  According to the DOJ, the Eaton Fire ignited from faulty power infrastructure, and the Fairview Fire from a sagging power line, both owned, maintained, and operated by SCE.

Negligence claim dismissed

Meanwhile, the Oregon district court dismissed one claim in the government’s lawsuit against PacifiCorp for more than $900 million in damages stemming from the 2020 Archie Creek Fire.  The court said the government did not specify how PacifiCorp’s alleged lack of care in maintaining its power lines caused the Archie Creek Fire in southwestern Oregon, dooming its “negligence per se” claim.  The government also brought claims of trespass by fire, common law nuisance and breach of license, and the court would allow repleading the negligence per se claim.

 

Would Use of the CRA on RMP’s “Destabilize Land Management”? “Open Pandora’s Box?”

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It seems like there are folks out there who are trying to get people worried about things.  I hesitate to call it “fear-mongering” after last time (when I said the land sales dog wasn’t going to hunt), but I think we need to dive in to some of the more histrionic claims.  We disagree and always will about how federal lands should be managed. I just think we need to be honest about the processes and how each Admin deals with getting its own way.  We can also favor a consistent application of process across Admins, and advocate for stopping  the partisanization spiral of doom wherever we see it.

BLM sources tell me that prior to Trump 1, BLM line folks mostly decided on preferred alternatives in RMPs but Trump 1 changed that and politicals made the calls.. This may not be true, so people who know, have at it in the comments.  Then, in the Biden Admin, the local folks were told by phone call by the then-Director and another individual exactly what to do.  I don’t know why those politicals didn’t write it down, as it seems likely we would find out anyway. Perhaps it’s a legal thing? Certainly elections have consequences, so they are entitled to do that, but that’s not the traditional way.  Picking a side might help politicals get their next job, but it’s heck on the career folks and the communities.

Then there’s this comment in Outdoor Life, which is kind of funny given what we have observed with at least the Rock Springs RMP:

“These RMPs aren’t political documents,” they say, speaking only on condition of anonymity. “They’re developed from the ground up, with people who live on and around these public lands helping direct the priorities of the agency. In my view, having a top-down, politically motivated decision like this is absolutely contrary to the local control that most conservatives say they want.”

Here’s a quote from a fellow at the Sierra Club:

Today’s votes set a dangerous precedent for the management of our public lands,” says Athan Manuel, director of the lands protection program at the Sierra Club. “RMPs are carefully crafted plans developed with robust input from local communities, Tribes, and local stakeholders—they’re examples of how our system should work. It’s concerning that House Republicans without expertise or local connections would inject themselves into this process, overrule the people most affected by the plans, and introduce chaos into the management of millions of acres of our most treasured public landscapes.”

Perhaps it was the last Admin’s RMP phone pals who didn’t have expertise or local connections.. just a guess. Maybe some of the House reps are from those districts..  It sounds like someone is saying that the Biden Admin never did what we know they did.  It would have been helpful if the source had not been anonymous; it’s a “former BLM staffer” so conceivably not speaking out of turn.  By the way, here’s the representatives of the Governor’s Task Force who gave recommendations on the Rock Springs RMP:.

And here’s a story on Governor Gordon’s appeal:

Kimberlee Foster, BLM Rock Springs field manager, said Gordon’s appeal will be handled by BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning. It will be Stone-Manning’s call to decide if more modifications are made to the plan based on the governor’s recommendations, or to keep it as is.

What was that about “overruling”  “the people most affected by the plans” again?

**********

“House members just effectively joined the administration’s efforts to dismantle and undermine federal agencies like the BLM by voting to undo decades’ worth of local planning,” says Justin Meuse, government relations director at The Wilderness Society. “Overturning land management plans in this unprecedented way could throw our public lands into chaos, threatening to expose thousands of permits, leases and rights of way to legal challenge.”

My question is… if the new plans took effect early this year, wouldn’t they just go back to the old plans?  And how many new permits and leases have been issued since then? Also if I remember that once a lease is issued, it has a certain legal standing.

Now, we can imagine that certain members of Congress may take issue with the decisions of several recently-decided RMPs. Perhaps especially those with ROD’s issued after the election.  It was not easy to find them, but it looks like the Rock Springs RMP (discussed here), the Central Yukon Planning Area (11/12/2024). AI generated these:

December 19, 2024 Approved Resource Management Plan Amendments for Utility-Scale Solar Energy Development
January 8, 2025 North Dakota Resource Management Plan/Environmental Impact Statement

and the Outdoor Life article included Miles City (12/03/24).

Now the hoopla seems to be about Congress using CRA.  CRA has timelines- which maybe someone can explain because it seems kind of opaque.

So taking this at face value, we have to ask the question:

Why doesn’t Congress just ask the Admin to withdraw the decision and pick another alternative?  After all, that’s what the Biden Admin did with Alaska Roadless, and of all those recent RMP’s it seems likely that the Admin would agree with withdrawing them.

Back to CWP- I still don’t understand how this would affect “every management plan”; and there are valid existing rights.. this seems like quite a stretch.  What am I missing?

As Center for Western Priorities Deputy Director Aaron Weiss explains in a new blog post, if courts interpret this action broadly, every management plan written since 1996 could be challenged in court—potentially invalidating oil and gas leases, grazing permits, and threatening public access to trails and campgrounds.

This regulatory limbo threatens not just energy and ranching, but the entire recreation industry that fuels local economies across the West. Without modern management plans, land managers would be forced to revert to outdated frameworks from decades ago, written before today’s recreation economy took off. Outfitters, guides, and businesses that depend on reliable access for rafting, off-roading, and other outdoor activities could face years of uncertainty, permit delays, and costly litigation.

The Senate’s vote could mark the start of a new era of instability for public lands. For a closer look at the potential legal and economic ripple effects, read the full analysis on CWP’s Westwise blog.

It seems to me that those newer plans tend to be more restrictive about (certain forms of) recreation, so I’m not sure about “outdated frameworks.” I can’t say about RMP’s but I’m having a great time recreating on a National Forest with a 1984 plan (and a travel management decision in litigation, I think) so there’s that.

Climate Model Output Uncertainties Not Communicated to Research Users: Comments on the CWG Report II

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I was originally going to do three posts on the  DOE CWG report, but the series is expanding.  Today I’m going to talk about a series of disconnects between climate research and potential users of climate research, including some other ways of thinking about and communicating uncertainties.

Regional Models Fit For What/Whose Purpose?

From the CWG report:

The IPCC acknowledges limitations in the accuracy of regional climate model outputs. This example shows that users need to assess model projections carefully on a case-by-case basis since local biases might be sufficiently large that the models are simply not fit for purpose. As has recently been noted by two leaders of the modeling community (emphasis added)
… for many key applications that require regional climate model output or for assessing large-scale changes from small scale processes, we believe that the current generation of models is not fit for purpose. (Palmer and Stevens 2019)

I became curious as to “fit for what purpose” and “who decides?”.  So I looked at Palmer and Stevens (open access) which turns out to be a “science op-ed” pointing out that models are not as helpful as they could be, with the perspective of needing lots more bucks to be better.  The authors think that overstating model accuracy has led to lack of investment in making them better.

As climate scientists, we are rightfully proud of, and eager to talk about, our contribution to settling important and long-standing scientific questions of great societal relevance. What we find more difficult to talk about is our deep dissatisfaction with the ability of our models to inform society about the pace of warming, how this warming plays out regionally, and what it implies for the likelihood of surprises.

My bold.  And this is where “fit for purpose” comes in.

The deemphasis of this type of information, while helpful for focusing the reader on the settled science, contributes to the impression that, while climate models can never be perfect, they are largely fit for purpose.However, for many key applications that require regional climate model output or for assessing large-scale changes from small-scale processes, we believe that the current generation of models is not fit for purpose.Figs. 2 and 3 develop this point further by showing how, on the regional scale and for important regional quantities (7), these problems are demonstrably more serious still, as model bias (compared with observations) is often many times greater than the signals that the models attempt to predict.

Again, my bold. You might be thinking.. uh-oh.. whose purpose? Who decided? Is the purpose for the climate science community or for users of models?  Were the users asked what their needs were? Why are we using regional models to inform land management decisions if we haven’t figured out what purposes they are fit for? And how can people write papers about impacts on plants, like corn or forest trees, whose growth depends on micro-not even regional -climates if the climate models are not “fit for purpose” in some undefined way?

Stories:  Long ago, I was chatting with forest economist Richard Haynes one day, and he mentioned something that stuck with me.   He had worked on (I think it was the ICEBMP scientific assessment) and said “those biologists develop models and don’t do sensitivity analysis on their assumptions.” It stuck with me because I thought it was interesting how different disciplines operate with apparently different views of treating uncertainties.  Years later, a co-worker and I (we were the Climate Change folks  in R-2) went to the Temple of Climate (NCAR in Boulder) to talk to folks there who were collaborating with the BLM (on a pointless research project IMHO but whatever).  I asked the question “do y’all do sensitivity analysis on your assumptions?” and they said they couldn’t, because the models were too big and it would have taken too much computing power.  That’s the time it became clear to me that we were being asked at the Forest Service to incorporate model outputs in our management, without the uncertainties being provided with the information.

Uncertainties are hard. I get it.  Economists have various ways of dealing with it in terms of math.  We forest genetics folks gave projections with caveats in words.. like “you can expect to get this kind of increase in growth on plantations in this area, managed like this, unless conditions change, like hurricanes or bugs or ….” so the uncertainties were communicated directly to the decision maker. In fact, it reminds me of an apocryphal story of the Timber Years in Region 6.  The story was that genetic improvement could have been put into models, and Pete Theisen, the Regional Geneticist, was asked if we could cut more now, based on those projections.  His answer was no, we have to wait and see.  We’ll see more about this idea in the next post.

My point here is that many disciplines have developed ways of dealing with uncertainties. Often these are explicitly communicated via words, or math, or both, to users of the information.  Or the expert just says something like “that’s our best guess.” And the user of the information would balance that with other factors, each with their own associated uncertainties. But perhaps, as the Palmer and Stevens paper suggests, in the rush to influence policy, some climate scientists have not been upfront about the uncertainties around their projections, and especially those that matter most to us..at regional and local spatial scales.  What to do? Some ideas in the next post.

We Need to Reframe and Reorient the Climate Sciences- Comments on the CWG Report I

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One of my favorite sports is tilting at windmills.  I know that USDA won’t pay much attention to any comments I might have about the reorganization (nor did the prior Admin).  So I thought, if I’m going to be ignored, why not aim higher?  This is the first of three posts on my comments on the DOE CWG report. The first post is “maybe climate folks could learn something from  us”; the second is “ways to handle uncertainty” and the third “what about the wildfire section”?

It turns out that DOE produced a report by some climate scientists that looked at the climate modeling and impacts literature and stated that they wanted to open a discussion.  Some say that the document is related to the EPA endangerment finding.. personally, I think that’s a legal question and will be resolved there.  If you read about the report in the media, it’s a lot of “good guys” vs. “bad guys” talk.  Scientists are supposed to disagree, and trying to maintain a line of “the right way to think or we’ll say bad things about you” hasn’t really worked.

But what neither side seems to be asking is “how can we move from debating the details of attribution, for example, into understanding the trade-offs of moving forward? Fundamentally, how can we expect the physical sciences of climate to answer the question of “what should we do”?  Doing things, and not doing things, toward any end, requires trade-offs.  Trade-offs that one discipline, or even a small set of subdisciplines, can’t describe, and don’t have the institutions set up to examine.

So I think both “sides” have it wrong in terms of discussing details of climate science instead of what we’re going to do about it.  So I decided to take the report at face value, and first looked at the wildfire section.

From there, I noticed that the relationship of  “climate science” and their arguments pro and con are very different from the way that say, wildfire scientists, or wildlife biologists are involved in policy in say, federal lands policy.   Generally, managers and policy makers have questions, and then round up the relevant disciplines to answer the questions.  With climate policy, it seems like the climate scientists have determined that it is a serious problem and then arrived at preferred answers.  Chris Wright thinks it’s a problem, too, one of many, including energy access. So we all think it’s a problem, and then.. isn’t the question what to do about it? Which leads us to considering trade-offs, and the US has a model for considering trade-offs in analyses.

And we could also refocus climate science to be more user-centered. What if we asked ourselves “how accurate do climate projections have to be for my variable of interest in my specific location to make a difference in management choices?”  And of course,once we had arrived at that, we could ask the climate scientists if their model results were accurate enough for those purposes.  This view centers the information needs of specific decision-makers, not the climate science community. People have pointed out that the scenarios were originally designed for research purposes and then applied to policy.  This is bad juju (we did the science without asking you and you must use it or you are not using the best science! ) in any field, but the stakes are especially high in climate world.

Opportunity to Reframe How Different Scientific and Engineering Disciplines Contribute to Policy.

In the policy sciences, we say that framing the issue is key to involving the right disciplines and stakeholders in developing the information needed for comparing approaches to solutions. It seems to me that all this discussion of “what climate science says” centers atmospheric and other physical sciences as the de facto arbiter of what “science” can contribute to public policy.
Instead, I would recommend that DOE (and perhaps more broadly; but DOE would be a first step), step way back from the current positions and debates and instead frame two
questions:

1) What is the best mix of energy sources to promote in the next 20 (or pick a time) years, considering:

a. Cost to consumer
b. Carbon
c. Other pollution
d. Environmental impacts
e. Impacts and costs of obtaining material and transmission
f. Social acceptability of placement of facilities and transmission
g. Ability to respond to disruptive events
h. National and other security
i. Workforce availability and training
j. What happens to materials afterward (recycle, storage)
k. Demand projections
l. Potential efficiency increases
m. Expected improvements in technologies

Many of these will change through time and maybe the analysis would have to be updated every five years.  When I worked for the FS, this would have been much more useful to me (not the least of which would be to use in NEPA docs) than the National Climate Assessments.

The analysis should explicitly consider uncertainties, including climate model projections, economic uncertainties, and technology development and deployability uncertainty (the technology horserace). As a bystander, one of the most annoying things about this has been that some academics have arrived at the correct conclusion, in their eyes, without engaging explicitly with the experts on these trade-off questions.

It seems to me that a debate on the footprint of geothermal would be more easily resolved, and of greater utility, than a debate on different ways of projecting global average temperature in 2070. Having a NEPA like organizational framework for dealing with the alternatives and disagreements about various numbers and uncertainties seems more comprehensible to the rest of us, and is likely to lead to a less partisanized and more politically robust approach to decarbonization.

2) Since most agree that carbon is an international issue, and what other countries are doing, what should be the US’s unique role in energy leadership?
a. Natural gas to replace coal
b. Innovations for cheap, low carbon energy
c. ?

As the involved scientists, engineers and practitioners in all the relevant fields worked together to conduct this analysis, one question they might consider is “what questions can climate scientists answer that might influence our analysis?” and “what are the uncertainties around those answers?”

I expect that we might find that many of the contested topics in the climate science-including the ones in the CWG report-are only peripherally relevant to the questions as framed above.  Any choice has trade-offs; and examining the trade-offs carefully is not the role of a particular branch of science.  Such an effort is also likely to break down the current climate science battles that have already gone on too long, while the rest of us want to analyze the options and move on.

 

USDA Extends Comment Period for Reorganization Plan: Rick Cables’ Comment Letter

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From Farm Policy News:

Politico’s Samuel Benson reported that “the Agriculture Department has quietly extended the public comment period for its controversial reorganization plan to Sept. 30, doubling the length of time provided for input on an initiative that has drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans since it was unveiled last month.”

“USDA released the plan for public comment on July 24 for a period that was originally set to last 30 days. A department webpage that earlier this week listed the deadline as Aug. 31 now says it is Sept. 30,” Benson reported. “‘The additional days in the comment period are to ensure everyone who wants to submit feedback, can,’ USDA spokesperson Alec Varsamis said in a statement. ‘This aligns with our original intent to hear from our stakeholders.’”

“Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle criticized USDA over its rollout of the plan, which calls for relocating much of its Washington-area workforce to five regional hubs across the country,” Benson reported. “Senate Democrats — led by Agriculture Committee ranking member Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sen. Adam Schiff of California — sent a letter earlier this week urging Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to extend the comment period to at least 60 days.”

Originally I wasn’t going to comment on the reorganization plan, but this extension makes it easier.  Helpfully,  the Rocky Mountaineers (Region 2 Retiree Group) forwarded the below comment from former Regional Forester Rick Cables, which I pretty much agree with. That being said, please use this opportunity to post links to your own comments, or your organization’s comments, and the rest of us will have a leg up on writing ours.. it’s always easier to edit than to write an original.  My comments on his comments are at the end.

Here’s Rick’s letter:

Thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment on USDA’s Memorandum SM 1078-015, the proposed Reorganization Plan.

My name is Rick D. Cables, and I devoted 37 years of service to the U.S. Forest Service before retiring in 2011.

During my career, I served at every level of the agency, including as District Ranger in Arizona, Forest Supervisor in New Hampshire and Colorado, and Regional Forester for both the Alaska Region and the Rocky Mountain Region.

I remain deeply committed to public service and to the enduring mission of the U.S. Forest Service, which I continue to believe is the finest natural resources conservation organization in the world.

My comments are offered in the spirit of strengthening the Department’s reorganization effort, with specific attention to its implications for the Forest Service.

General Observations

I commend USDA for the vision, energy, and transparency that underpin this reorganization effort. The plan’s four guiding pillars are sound:

1. Aligning USDA’s workforce with financial resources and priorities

2. Bringing USDA closer to the people and communities it serves

3. Eliminating unnecessary layers of management and bureaucracy

4. Consolidating support functions for greater efficiency

These principles are essential to renewing USDA’s effectiveness, and I fully support their intent.

The Forest Service Mission

The reorganization of the Forest Service should be designed to strengthen the agency’s ability to fulfill its core mission: to protect and sustain the health of the 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands, while providing for their multiple uses.

While the agency delivers many important discretionary programs, caring for and protecting these lands—through stewardship, resource management, and wildfire suppression—is not discretionary. It is the fundamental reason the Forest Service exists.

I strongly support the principle of decentralization—placing employees closer to the communities they serve and reducing reliance on Washington, D.C. This was the very design envisioned by the Forest Service’s first Chief, Gifford Pinchot, who embedded rangers and decision-makers in rural communities across the West. That principle remains as relevant today as it was at the agency’s founding.

On the Elimination of the “Regional Layer”

The USDA plan contemplates eliminating the Forest Service’s “regional layer.” I interpret this to mean the removal of Regional Offices and associated staff, not the elimination of the concept of geographic regions themselves.

While it is true that Regional Offices have grown into large bureaucracies—averaging 300-350 employees per office in 2023—this was not their original purpose. The intent was for Regional Foresters to serve as the Chief’s delegated “field generals,” empowered to make timely, place-based decisions, and to build essential relationships with governors, members of Congress, tribal governments, and key stakeholders.

Removing Regional Foresters and their delegated authority would force controversial or complex decisions upward to Washington, D.C. This would have the opposite effect of Pillar #2—concentrating decisions in the capital rather than dispersing them closer to the land and the people.

A recommended alternative:

– Retain Regional Foresters and the existing regional geographic boundaries.

– Reduce Regional Office staffing dramatically, limiting each to a lean, strategic staff of 25–40 employees. This would reduce up to 2000 high graded positions.

– Reallocate the saved resources and positions to Ranger Districts and National Forests, where they will have the greatest impact on mission delivery.

This approach would preserve the critical role of Regional Foresters while eliminating unnecessary layers of bureaucracy, thus advancing Pillars 1, 2, and 3 simultaneously.

On the “Hub” Concept

The hub model may be well suited to agencies such as NRCS and FSA, which do not directly manage vast land bases. However, the Forest Service’s scale, complexity, and need for cross-boundary collaboration make the hub

model less appropriate. The agency’s mission depends on geographically based leadership and decision-making capacity.

Pillar 4: Consolidating Support Functions (Human Resources)

I offer particular caution regarding the consolidation of Human Resources (HR) functions. The previous USFS centralization of HR services in Albuquerque was intended to increase efficiency and reduce costs. In practice, it achieved neither and proved deeply unpopular among employees who often experienced inadequate service.

Rather than consolidating HR further, USDA should consider a distributed model:

– Embed HR professionals across field locations, Forest Supervisor offices, and other existing facilities.

– Utilize today’s advanced technology to coordinate, share workloads, and deliver consistent oversight.

– Close or significantly downsize centralized facilities such as Albuquerque, reducing lease costs and improving service delivery.

This would provide more responsive, place-based HR support, strengthen recruitment and retention, and align with the principle of bringing USDA closer to its people. Human Resources are critical to mission delivery and HR professionals will be more effective if co-located with field units.

Conclusion

In summary:

– Eliminate bloated Regional Offices, but retain Regional Foresters as delegated leaders with small, strategic staffs.

– Reinvest saved resources into field units closer to the land and public.

– Avoid overextending the “hub” model to the Forest Service.

– Modernize Human Resources delivery through distributed, technology-enabled staffing.

These adjustments would, in my view, preserve the strengths of the Forest Service, advance all four pillars of the USDA plan, and ensure that decisions remain connected to the land, the people, and the mission.

Thank you once again for the opportunity to provide comments. I appreciate USDA’s commitment to strengthening both the Department and the Forest Service, and I am hopeful these suggestions will be useful as the reorganization moves forward.

****************

I agree with Rick that RO’s have become bloated, but there is also a real question, as the Transformation process analyzed, of  figuring out exactly where and how many people are needed, and what is the best structure for sharing.   For example, one Forest hired a Tribal Coordinator.  Does each Forest need one?  Should some Forests share a position (like we used to do in R-6?)?  How many would need to share? What’s the workload? Rick’s 25-40 could be mostly relational and not technical.. but then where would the technical expertise reside and how would it be shared?  Just thinking about litigation, paralegal, and FOIA, plus specialized engineering skills and so on.   I’m not sure the FS has even done a study of the different shared services now available and which ones work best and why.

Sidenote.. during some of the ASC drama in Region 2, Rick suggested our Region work with BLM Denver on HR and withdraw from ASC for poor performance.  I don’t think this was possible but was a creative idea.  This was probably when our new Forest Supe at the time, Dan Dallas, had trouble getting paid, and was probably 20 or so years ago.  It would be an interesting case study for a public administration student as to why a federal agency could go so long, with a unit critical to success, with so many problems not getting fixed.

Roundup- Bonnie Op-ed on Roadless; Boren Move?; Wildfire Report Due Next Week and Longer-Term Timber Contracts

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I’ve been working on some climate stuff and will post that later (and also have some energy posts to catch up on), but while I was focused elsewhere several interesting pieces surfaced.

1.Roadless.  I’ve been keeping track of who is holding the “keep but tweak Roadless” position.   Robert Bonnie, whom you might remember as a member of the Biden and Obama Admins at USDA, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times.  Did that bring back the memories.. we had many discussions and differing maps about what was WUI.  Interesting, TWS had its own WUI maps, as I recall, as did other groups including the FS.  Then there’s the “how far, from what size of community, is WUI?” question.  But we didn’t include infrastructure nor watershed protection.

One way to allow forest thinning and prescribed burns to reduce the wildfire threat is to amend the roadless rule. Currently the rule allows new road construction only for forest management activities in cases of “an imminent threat of flood, fire or other catastrophic event that, without intervention, would cause the loss of life or property.” This standard is far too narrow and invites litigation over what qualifies as an imminent threat. The Forest Service is thus often reluctant to propose actions in roadless areas, given the high likelihood of delay and adverse court decisions that waste the agency’s time and resources.

But the Trump administration could update the rule to permit temporary roads in roadless areas that are near neighborhoods along the wildland-urban interface to allow for forest thinning or other ecological restoration.

Could such an exception be abused by timber industry allies in the administration? Not likely, since under current law, forest management projects are subject to public input and are required to be consistent with land management plans that use the best available science.

There’s also a legal precedent. After the rule was issued, governors from Idaho and Colorado initiated their own roadless rules for national forests in their states. Both rules supersede the 2001 rule and allow for limited forest management and road construction to address the threat of catastrophic wildfires in more populated areas while still protecting millions of acres for wildlife, water resources and recreation.

When I oversaw the Forest Service during the Obama administration, we defended the rule established under Jim Risch, Idaho’s Republican governor (and now senator), when it was challenged in court, and worked with John Hickenlooper, Colorado’s Democratic governor (and now senator), to design and defend his state’s rule. Bipartisanship and even consensus are possible on roadless policy.

The Trump administration isn’t much interested in either, but it has chosen to leave the Colorado and Idaho rules alone. Why not simply adopt the same approach in all states?

A bit of history that Robert left out is that the Colorado Rule originated as part of the State Petitions Rule, which was initiated by the Bush Administration.   And for Colorado, the process survived both R and D State and Federal Admins.  I agree that temp roads for WUI thinning is a good thing to work on, but there might also be specific instances of incidental difficulties (dam maintenance for those not in “imminent threat” of collapse; roads for power line maintenance; small boundary adjustments) that might be worth looking at.  Personally, I’d like to see more “adaptive management” occur in regulations and policies.

Note to current employees.  I haven’t mentioned this before, but many of the folks on the Planning Staff who worked on Colorado Roadless were not fans of the project.  In fact, among them it was known as CRAP- the Colorado Roadless Area Project.  I suppose they were not fans of the Bush Admin and didn’t want to engage, or  didn’t see it going anywhere.  So perhaps if you are working on something you consider dumb and pointless, it’s possible that some day in the future someone with D credentials will point to it and say “that was a good thing, we should do more of that.”  Who knows?

I, on the other hand, thought it was fun (I think “as much fun as a person can have legally at work”), especially working with the State, public meetings, advisory committee meetings and so on, regardless of what was ultimately going to happen.  Sometimes it’s hard to think about “it’s the journey, not the destination,” but when I look back it’s the journey I remember, and the destination will always be out of my and possibly your hands.  Whew! That was philosophical.

2. Trump Admin Gives up on Confirming Boren?

An alert TSW reader found this from Interior. It sounds like authority is being redelegated to some individuals.. Michael Boren is among them. A possible switch from Undersecretary at USDA-hood due to difficulties being confirmed? Or two different people with the same name? I’d try to confirm Schultz as Undersec and select a career Chief.. but I don’t know if Schultz would be confirmable either, depending on political topography and horse–trading potential.

3.  Wildfire Consolidation Plan Due Next Week. This is an interesting story from the Daily Montanan.. you don’t see too many stories about “things that haven’t happened yet.” But it’s a nice reminder that the due date is coming up..

The story talks about the group “Partners in Wildfire Prevention” which the story says is:

Partners in Wildfire Prevention, a coalition which includes clean energy interest groups, economic organizations, the Western Fire Chiefs Association and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, said there’s not enough attention on the issue of wildfires at the national level. They view the order as some acknowledgement of that and are hopeful it improves fire response.

I was curious about why clean energy groups specifically would be involved in wildfire, and also about the nature of “economic organizations.”
The coalition is much broader than usual, including traditional groups like RVCC, as well as newcomer Megafire Action, as well as many groups much less traditionally involved with wildfire (e.g. Caregiver Action Network). Here is the list, you need to scroll down. Perhaps we need to make a table of all the coalitions currently involved in wildfire and wildfire resilience so we can keep track.

4. Long-Term Contracts/Projects Update
From the AFRC newsletter.. it would be handy to understand how the contracts and the NEPA interact exactly. There are probably documents out there somewhere but maybe someone can answer these questions in a paragraph.
How do the forest plan, project NEPA and priority setting with FS and partners interact with each large landscape project? When the purchaser completes the NEPA process, who decides what kind of NEPA? EA, EIS for the planning areas with or without condition-based NEPA, CE’s?

The Colville National Forest is preparing its third A-to-Z style contract, which the purchaser completes the NEPA process and oversees implementation. The first two projects, Mill Creek and Chewelah, each treated more than 50,000 acres. The new Powers Lake Area project is expected to be of similar scale, continuing to bolster the Colville timber program, which now sells roughly 130 million board feet annually.
In Montana, the State and the Forest Service recently signed a Shared Stewardship Agreement to formalize a framework for addressing high-risk forests. The 200,000-acre landscape spans portions of the Flathead and Kootenai National Forests. Under this agreement, Montana DNRC will take on implementation of authorized restoration goals with a 20-year mutual commitment to planning and execution using the Good Neighbor Authority.
Meanwhile, the Bitterroot National Forest is pursuing a 10-year Integrated Resource Stewardship Contract for projects within the Bitterroot Front Landscape Planning Area and possibly other areas across the forest. Approximately 13,000 acres are planned for treatment over the next decade, with potential expansion to adjacent areas. Four project areas may be offered at contract award for immediate implementation, with additional areas to be added annually as funding allows. The effort includes at least 90,000 CCF, approximately 45 million board feet, of commercial timber.
On the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest, a Request for Information has been issued for the End of the World Planning Area, with objectives focused on reducing insect and disease risk, mitigating wildfire hazards, and improving vegetation and water quality. A long-term 10-year G-to-Z Integrated Resource Stewardship Contract is being considered, covering about 17,000 gross acres, with net treated acres expected to be lower following unit layout. Over the life of the contract, more than 50 million board feet of commercial timber could be offered. A public meeting to discuss the project is scheduled for September 10 in Grangeville, Idaho, followed by a site visit.