Does One Size Fit All?

oregon timber harvest

Too many years ago, I served on a timber industry committee charged, among other things, with figuring out whether it was better to advocate the calculation of “allowable sale quantities” in board or cubic feet. Board foot measure estimates how much lumber can be sawn from a log, with allowances for saw blade width (“kerf”), slabs (the left-overs after squaring off a round log), and sawing strategy. Cubic foot measure is the geometry-based volume of a log.

Ceteris paribus, the number of board feet equivalent to one cubic foot is proportional directly to log diameter. For example, a small-diameter log has a bf/cf ratio of about 4, while a large-diameter log’s ratio is about 6.

Today, almost all serious measures of timber are made in cubic feet, except for pulpwood and biomass, which are measured by weight. That’s because cubic foot measure is widely regarded as a more accurate representation of total wood volume, less subject to the vagaries of milling technology and scaling judgment.

Which measure one chooses makes a difference in how one sees the world of wood production and supply. “Everyone” knows that Oregon’s timber harvest has dropped precipitously since the early 1990s. And, so it has, measured in board feet (the blue-line curve).

But a funny thing happens when Oregon’s harvest is measured in cubic feet (the red-line curve). Not nearly so dramatic a decline. The reason is pretty simple. Oregon’s plantation forests grow a whole lot of wood, producing much more growth annually than the old forests the plantations replaced. Cubic foot measure, which is much less sensitive to tree diameter, more accurately captures that volume than does board foot measure.

“How to Respond to Criticism” by Fred Kofman

verbal aikidoNow, I am not a particular fan of Linkedin. It seems like it’s always on the edge of virus-like behavior, and doing unwanted things. At one point I must have clicked the wrong key and it sent messages inviting everyone I knew and also that of my husband. I got so mad at them I quit and closed my accounts. However, because SAF has a group there full of interesting material for this blog, I decided to rejoin it.

I was surprised yesterday to find something timely and useful pop up from Linkedin. It could also be because the other groups I belong to are the National Council for Dialogue and Deliberation and the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution, or perhaps a direct message from the Universe.

Of course, whether these two pieces are worth the loss of privacy is not exactly clear. I hope that you don’t need to be on Linked In to read these pieces.. they are by a fellow named Fred Kofman entitled “How to Respond to Criticism” parts 1 and 2. Here is the “linked in” link to part one..and below is an excerpt.

The only way to win a fight with a colleague is not to have it. Beating him will get you, at best, a defeated resentful opponent.

Here are four general strategies that reduce conflicts. They don’t guarantee you will avoid them, but minimize their probability.

Should they happen, they increase your odds of resolving them constructively. They create a positive predisposition towards collaborative relationships.

If you face an arrogant attack, they will help expose its irrationality, not only to you, but also to others who might frown upon your critic’s strong-arm tactics. If you face constructive criticism, they will help you and your critic turn the fight into a dance.

These strategies are not “nice” in the sense that they allow anybody to state whatever opinion they want. They are “clarifying” in the sense they eliminate the fog of war that prevents rational discussion. They are rules of engagement similar to the ones of the scientific method, which focus on reason and evidence. They take hostility out of the equation, allowing for a logical consideration of the different points of view.

* Speak with humility. Present your argument in safe language, as I described here. Own your opinions. Present them in first person as the conclusion of your reasoning process. This gives others the chance to present a different opinion without clashing with yours. For example, when you say, “In light of the evidence from the focus groups, I believe that the marketing campaign is ready to launch.” you make room for your counterpart to say, “I disagree. The focus groups may have liked the ads, but our retailers are not convinced.”

* Listen with respect. Pay attention to others’ arguments, as I described here, especially when you disagree with them. Reciprocity is the most powerful influence you can exert. If you genuinely try to understand their perspective, they are more likely to try to understand yours. For example, when you say, “It worries me that the retailers are not convinced, what do you suggest we do about it?” you neither discount his data nor yours. This allows both of you to examine all perspectives.

* Choose your battle. If the disagreement is a matter of personal preferences, there is no need to agree. It is futile to argue whether chocolate “tastes” better than strawberry. It may taste better to you, and it may taste worse to him. Unless a joint decision is necessary, it is best to agree to disagree. The desire to “be right” fuels fights that serve no practical purpose.

* Choose your battlefield. Culture can be defined as “the way we do things around here”. If you live in a culture where might makes right, your humility and respect will weaken you. Bullies will always win out in bully-land. Or at least until the group is eliminated by fitter competitors. Reason always beats force in the long term. If you don´t want to go the way of the dinosaurs, evolve to a more rational niche.

Here is a link to his second piece.

And we are pretty respectful here, generally, but once in a while some folks veer off track a bit..

R: “Do you think there is a place for dangerous language? I think the dangerous language comes across a lot stronger. It’s punchier and has a bigger impact. It’s like swearing, sometimes you want to have a bigger effect and therefore a swear word might be more appropriate.”

M: “When stakes are high, I find dangerous language dangerous. It comes, as you say, a lot stronger, like a punch with a big impact. I don´t know anybody who likes to get punched. If you want to hurt people, this is a great way to do it. If you want to collaborate with them, why would you want to intimidate them with swear words?”

R: “But sometimes (sometimes) it is perfectly normal to use more colorful language. Sometimes things ARE stupid, don’t you think?”

M: “No, I don´t think things ARE stupid. I think stupidity is in the eye of the (arrogant) beholder. I do believe that it is perfectly normal to use colorful language, and that is why it is perfectly normal for people to abuse each other, destroy relationships and waste energy in fruitless arguments. I also find it is perfectly normal for companies to collapse because arrogant bullies cannot work together.”

Here is a link to the author.

Silviculture and the Northern Spotted Owl

For those of you interested in the NSO, there’s a fine article in the new edition of the Western Forester, an SAF newsletter:

“Potential for Silviculture to Contribute to Conservation of Spotted Owls,” by Larry L. Irwin and Jake Verschuyl

Here’s the concluding chapter (spoiler alert!):

Efforts to model forest succession and likely NSO responses in dry forests under several management scenarios suggest a bleak scenario for owl habitat within the <10 yr window described by the 2011 revised recovery plan. In the short-term or at small spatial scales it is argued that forest-health type thinning would likely result in a decrease in available owl habitat even when compared to habitat lost through catastrophic wildfire during the same time period. After several decades, however, the forests treated silviculturally were considered to have more NSOs than those not treated. A majority of federal scientists now caution, despite acute short-term pressures facing NSOs, that successful management and restoration of dry forests will require a long-term, landscape or eco-regional perspective that involves active silviculture.

The entire article is worth a read. So’s the rest of the same edition.

http://www.forestry.org/northwest/westernforester/2013/

Congress: “Time Has Come” to Repair Forest Management Laws

Here is a recent article by Alan Kovski, who’s work has been discussed here previously: https://ncfp.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/forest-service-tries-to-blend-strategies-of-forest-restoration-fire-risk-reduction/

 This article is reproduced with permission from Daily Environment Report, 73 DEN A-6 (Apr. 16, 2013). Copyright 2013 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033) <http://www.bna.com>

Here is where a PDF of the complete April 16, 2013 BNA Daily Report can be obtained:(whoops — forgot how to link a PDF form to these posts. Will fix ASAP, if I can).

Lawmakers Stress Time Has Come To Revamp Federal Forest Management

By Alan Kovski | April 15, 2013 09:50PM ET

(BNA) — Five Bills on Forest Management

Key Provisions: Congress is preparing for action to force the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to allow more timber cutting on federal lands.

Potential Impact: The bills could boost rural economies and reduce the risk of wildfires.

What’s Next: House Natural Resources Committee action is expected.

Members of Congress are preparing for action on bills to force the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to allow more timber cutting on federal lands to benefit people in rural areas and reduce wildfires.

Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee and author of one of the bills, stressed during an April 11 subcommittee hearing that the time for action has arrived. “We are going to move forward with legislation,” he said.

Above all else, lawmakers cited the poor economic conditions in many rural areas-including poverty and high unemployment-as a motivating factor. Lawmakers also said selective tree cutting would increase the health of forests by reducing the size and severity of wildfires and insect infestations.

“Right now, multiple counties in my district and in Western Oregon are approaching insolvency,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said in explaining legislation he and two colleagues have been circulating in draft form. “Many of these counties have real unemployment at or above 20 percent. Poverty is widespread and crippling.”

Like Hastings, DeFazio wants action soon. “The bottom line is, doing nothing is not an option,” DeFazio said.

Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said his rural district with extensive national forests is losing people as they give up on finding work in the area. “We’re depopulating in eight of my counties,” he said.

Limits Proposed on Environmental Analyses

The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation discussed several bills aimed at revamping forest management practices, changes that would boost timber companies and sawmills and through them the communities.

Hastings, DeFazio, and several other members of Congress expressed particular concern about the scheduled expiration of the Secure Rural Schools program Sept. 30. Many rural school districts depend on a share of timber sale revenue for their survival.

A bill written by Hastings, the Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act (number not yet assigned), would require designation of parts of national forests where revenue would be generated from sales of materials. Annual volume of such materials would be no less than 50 percent of sustained yield.

The bill would limit National Environmental Policy Act requirements by specifying no need for the study of alternatives and by limiting each analysis to 100 pages. The bill also would provide categorical exclusions for proposed actions involving less than 10,000 acres, devised in response to catastrophic events, or developed for community wildfire protection plans.

“This draft legislation is intended as a starting point,” Hastings said.

Bills Would Speed Up Action

Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) spoke about his bill, the Healthy Forest Management and Wildfire Prevention Act (H.R. 818), which would force the Forest Service and BLM to expedite hazardous fuels reduction, which typically means a mix of tree thinning, deadwood removal, and prescribed burning. His bill would use the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 as a model.

The Self-Sufficient Community Lands Act (H.R. 1294), proposed by Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), would establish “community forest demonstration areas” in national forests and create boards of trustees to manage those areas, with a mix of federal, state, and private interests on the board.

A share of revenue would go to local schools and communities, either through the formula of the soon-to-expire Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 (16 U.S.C. 7111), or the older formula of the Forest Service section in a 1908 law (16 U.S.C. 5000).

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) vividly described the destructive effects of wildfires in his state as he advocated for his Catastrophic Wildfire Prevention Act of 2013 (H.R. 1345). The bill would expedite Forest Service and BLM work to prevent fires through such means as tree thinning. It also would speed up and limit the scope of NEPA environmental analyses.

Honoring of 1937 Law Sought

The O&C Trust, Conservation and Jobs Act (no number assigned yet) drafted by DeFazio and fellow Oregon Reps. Greg Walden (R) and Kurt Schrader (D) would force BLM to honor a 1937 law known as the O&C Lands Act, which was written to require that BLM lands in southwestern Oregon be managed to produce timber harvests for the economic well-being of local counties. Under that law, 50 percent of timber revenue goes directly to counties.

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), ranking member of the subcommittee, agreed on the need for action but expressed frustration that Democrats were excluded from the drafting of the chairman’s bill. He objected to elements in the Republican bills that would involve “skirting public opinion” and would mandate timber harvest levels.

“This is grandstanding and not legislating,” Grijalva said.

But Grijalva, too, indicated there was a need for action. “There’s a crisis in our forests,” he said, noting a growth in the size and severity of forest fires. “I’m ready to sit down with my colleagues and try to work out something that has a realistic chance of becoming law.”

Administration Opposed to Some Bills

At the April 11 hearing, Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell said the Obama administration opposed the Tipton, Labrador, and Gosar bills, notably because they would shift some degree of authority to states from the federal government.

Tidwell argued that the Forest Service already has goals for expanded timber harvests, within the limits imposed by constrained budgets and the low prices that the service has been seeing for its wood.

Republicans on the subcommittee were uniform in their criticism of the administration for requesting an increase in federal funds for purchasing land when the government is so deeply in debt that it is cutting many programs. They said the administration is not effectively managing the land the government already owns.

Question of Which Public Served

Members of Congress and Tidwell circled around the question of what public was being served by the administration’s public land policies.

Tidwell said the administration was “driven by what we hear from the public.” Lawmakers emphasized the public in communities adjacent to federal lands.

“You keep saying that the public wants this,” Labrador said. “What public are you talking to?”

Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) asked Tidwell whether the Forest Service prioritizes or weights its estimates of public input to recognize that local communities have more at stake. There needs to be a weighting, Thompson said.

“There’s no weighting going on,” Tidwell said. “We don’t prioritize.”

National environmental groups in recent years have resisted the idea of showing greater concern for the economics or opinions of local communities near the forests. National land belongs to the whole nation, including environmentalists and others in cities far from the forests, they argue. 

For More Information

The forest management bills discussed during an April 11 House Natural Resources subcommittee hearing are available, along with prepared testimony and an archived hearing webcast, at http://naturalresources.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=326329

Mill Closes: “inability to secure a sufficient supply of logs from the surrounding federal forests”

From the Grants Pass (Oregon) Daily Courier.

http://www.thedailycourier.com/articles/2013/04/17/breaking_news_free/news1.txt

Anyone know about Rough & Ready Lumber? Is the lack of logs the only factor?

Rough & Ready Lumber closes, lays off 85 workers

 

CAVE JUNCTION — Rough & Ready Lumber Company announced Wednesday the closure of its lumber mill, a major local employer that recently celebrated its 90th year in business in the Illinois Valley. The business will lay off 85 employees.

In a news release issued Wednesday afternoon, company officials said the decision is the result of the mill’s inability to secure a sufficient supply of logs from the surrounding federal forests.

“We deeply regret having to close the family lumber business that my grandparents founded in 1922,” said Jennifer Phillippi, CEO and co-owner of Rough & Ready.

Link and Jennifer Phillippi and Joe Krauss are the third-generation of family members to operate the mill. Many employees are third-generation, too. Rough & Ready is known for producing high-quality wood products that are used in doors, windows and exposed beams.

Over the years the family continued Rough & Ready’s tradition of reinvesting in the community, including a $6 million biomass cogeneration facility in 2007, Forest Stewardship Council green certification for sustainably produced wood products, and an investment in the region’s first small log mill, according to the company’s news release. Rough & Ready was poised to begin a new $2 million sawmill project in 2014.

“But, we can’t justify the cost with an inadequate, unpredictable log supply supporting only one shift,” Phillippi said. “It’s like sitting in a grocery store not being able to eat while the produce rots around you.”

 

Once a thriving wood products region, Josephine and Jackson counties in 1975 were home to 22 sawmills, according to the news release. By 2003 six remained, and for the last several years R & R has been the lone sawmill operating in Josephine County.

The company has worked closely with federal and state policy makers since the early 1990s on solutions to the stalemate over federal timber harvests, and the creative ideas and leadership coming from Gov. Kitzhaber and Oregon congressional Reps. Peter DeFazio, Greg Walden and Kurt Schrader have been encouraging, Phillippi said.

“The outlook seemed especially hopeful,” said Phillippi, “when Senator Wyden was appointed chair of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, but we are disappointed that little has changed. The status quo just isn’t enough to sustain us, even with an improving economy and our customers begging for more of what our employees are so good at making.”

Rough & Ready announced that it would provide mill employees with severance pay and assistance in finding new jobs.

State Trust Model for Federal Lands?

An article from the Bose (Idaho) Weekly:

Timber! State Officials Give OK to Significant Lumber Harvest

Posted by on Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 9:38 AM

The Idaho Land Board, made up of Idaho’s top state officers including Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, has approved a 2014 plan to harvest nearly 250 million board feet of timber, the largest planned harvest in decades. In contrast, Idaho’s 2002 timber plan volume was 175 million board feet.

In this week’s Boise Weekly, which hit the stands this morning, we report on Boise State Public Radio’s recent “Community Conversation” on public land management where state officials champion Idaho’s management of 3.6 million acres of endowment lands.

“About 1 million acres of that land is forested, and that generates about $50 million in income,” said Dave Groeschl, state forester and deputy director of forestry and fire at the Idaho Department of Lands, referring to the financial returns of timber sales and commercial interests that are generated for Idaho public schools.

Idaho House Speaker Scott Bedke, a cattle rancher from Oakley when he’s not wrangling lawmakers at the Statehouse, took it one step further, suggesting that Idaho’s endowment land management should serve as a role model for a Gem State takeover of federal land management.

“I think we can all agree that we do a very good job at managing the [endowment lands]. We should do the same thing, if given the chance, with federal lands,” said Bedke. “Now think about this for a moment,” he said, offering another hypothetical: “Imagine 400,000 acres set aside with proceeds dedicated to public education. Think about another 500,000 acres to help us with funding for roads. Another 500,000 acres could go for health and welfare. And we’re talking about 37 million acres of that land in Idaho.”

But Jonathan Oppenheimer, senior conservation associate with the Idaho Conservation League, vehemently disagreed.

“Look, we all want to have the best public education for our children, but selling off our public land is no way to achieve that,” he said. “These lands are the legacy of all Americans, they’re not just owned by Idaho. This is a radical idea.”

A couple of comments:No one seriously expects the federal government to turn National Forests over to states. And “selling off our public land“? Ain’t gonna happen. However, placing some USFS land into a trust to be managed in the same manner as Idaho’s endowment lands has merit. For example, in the Northwest Forest Plan area, I can see placing all Matrix lands into trusts, one for each NF, for example, where the board of directors guide the harvesting that, collectively, equals the 1 BBF annual harvest that the Northwest Forest Plan was supposed to provide for, but never has. The trusts also would oversee the management of other resources – recreation, water quality, etc. — multiple use, but with a minimum allowable (sustainable) cut. The management of LSRs and other land allocations would continue as is.

Rat Poison is the new DDT and Marijuana is the Problem: Column by Char Miller

An illegal marijuana grow site in Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California. | Photo: USFS Region 5/Flickr/Creative Commons License
An illegal marijuana grow site in Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California. | Photo: USFS Region 5/Flickr/Creative Commons License

Here’s the link and below is an excerpt.

The fisher is of particular interest. Despite its name, the furry mammal does not live in or near the coast but instead occupies remote, closed-canopy forests, sites that are prime landscapes for illegal marijuana grows. Akin to a weasel, it pursues a wide diet ranging from fruits to small mammals to birds, and has been known to take on the most bristly of forest creatures. It is the “only animal tough and clever enough to prey regularly on porcupines,” observes the Center for Biological Diversity — “no easy feat.”

However skilled a killer it might be, the fisher is not able to discern whether its dinner is laced with rodenticide. This has led to a spike in its mortality, further diminishing its already declining population. That’s the word from scientists working for the Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project, out the College of Natural Resources at UC-Berkeley; they have launched the first in-depth analysis of the threats this toxin poses to this rare species. Of the 58 fisher carcasses they autopsied, the data revealed some troubling patterns:

79 percent were exposed to one or more AR [anticoagulant rodenticides] chemical. The number of AR compounds detected per animal ranged from 1 to 4. Both first and second generation ARs were detected, with brodifacoum being most common and detected in 44 of the 46 (96%) exposed fishers, followed by bromodiolone (16 of 46; 35%), diphacinone (8 of 46; 17%), chlorophacinone (four of 46; 9%), difethialone (one of 46; 2%), and wafarin (one of 46; 2%).

The lethality of the chemicals listed is only part of the picture. Another facet is the spatial distribution of the dead Pacific fishers; their bodies were widely distributed across northwestern California and in the southern Sierra Mountains. The fact that there was no clustering of deaths by specific location “indicates that fishers are encountering these poisons in remote, natural forest regions within their home ranges.”

CBD litigated and the fisher listing proposal is due in 2014.. on the CBD website they say the problems are logging and development that caused “habitat destruction”; yet if people are finding them dead scattered around, it might indicate that the habitat is OK. And if people are already doing things that are illegal to fishers, it doesn’t seem like the threat of violating ESA will stop them. Unless you can litigate counties or the Feds to force them to do more law enforcement? But you gotta wonder if the threat of citizens in the forest being killed is not enough to get sufficient law enforcement, why fishers would apparently count more than forest visitors. Not to speak of “what is the rural equivalent of the “broken window” theory?” in terms of letting lawlessness go forth..

It makes me wonder whether some of the toughest environmental problems might not being addressed by groups that specialize in litigation, due to litigation not being the tool to solve the problem. Kind of an example of the old joke..

“Man searches diligently under lamp-post at night. Explains to passer-by that he has lost his keys. “Did you lose them under the lamp-post?” “No.” “Then why are you looking under the lamp-post?” “Because there’s no light anywhere else.”

I’m not saying litigation shouldn’t be a tool in the toolkit, but if we are to have safe and economically vibrant rural communities and sustainable forests, it will take a great deal more than that. Or as I used to say when I wored in NEPA, documenting environmental effects is necessary, but not sufficient, to meet section 101 goals, i.e.:

Federal Government, in cooperation with State and local governments, and other concerned public and private organizations, to use all practicable means and measures, including financial and technical assistance, in a manner calculated to foster and promote the general welfare, to create and maintain conditions under which man and nature can exist in productive harmony, and fulfill the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations of Americans.

Forest Service to Ohio: Give us back the money

There was somethin’ funny about this but I didn’t quite get it until I read this analogy here

Suppose your employer announced a 5-percent reduction in income and, because of that, a 5-percent reduction in pay for all employees.

Would you expect him to demand that you return 5 percent of the pay you’ve already received for the year?

Probably not.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has yet to decide his response to the Forest Service demand for retroactive cuts.

But that’s the scenario facing the state of Ohio.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, the Budget Control Act of 2011, also known as the sequester, cut the budgets of three programs: the Secure Rural Schools program, the 25 Percent Fund and the Grasslands program.

But a bunch of these states voted for this Administration.. if this is how you treat your friends..??

A great opportunity to tick off governors…

Ohio wasn’t the only state told to return funds. Forty other state governors received similar letters. New Mexico Watchdog discovered that state’s amount was nearly $600,000.

The National Governors Association sent a letter to Tidwell challenging the legality of the demand.

“Other than general references to the March 1, 2013, sequestration…,” the letter stated, “… the March 19 letters provide no specific legal citation to support this demand to return obligated funds.”

Despite the “Forest Service” title on this, I wonder where the decision was really made. Forest Service folks don’t have the culture for generally ticking partners off for the heck of it…

PEER: Alaska Wastes Millions on Fruitless Lawsuits

The following press release is from PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility). One has to wonder if any of the information and facts below concern Senator Murkowski in the least.  Also, I assume since some commenters on this site regularly rail against any and all lawsuits from environmentalists that these same commenters will take the state of Alaska to task for these fruitless lawsuits that are costing taxpayers so much money. – mk

Washington, DC — The State of Alaska is forfeiting substantial public dollars pursuing fruitless lawsuits against federal wildlife and forestry laws, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The lawsuits highlight the lack of independent legal analysis prior to the state charging off to litigate against political windmills.

Documents obtained in public record requests filed by Rick Steiner, a retired University of Alaska professor and PEER Board member, indicate that the state’s attempt – instigated by Governor Sarah Palin, and then continued under Gov. Sean Parnell – to roll back federal protections for the polar bear cost the state budget approximately $1.5 million, the bulk of which came from retaining an outside law firm. Not only was the state utterly unsuccessful but it duplicated a suit already filed by the Alaska Oil and Gas Association and other industry groups.

Similarly, Alaska’s recently dismissed lawsuit seeking to invalidate the federal Roadless Rule governing more than 14 million acres of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests cost the state another $200,000.  These state cost numbers reflect only costs incurred by the state Attorney General. The U.S. Department of Justice likely spent comparable amounts of taxpayer funds successfully defending these state lawsuits, thus doubling the ultimate cost to public treasuries both in Alaska and the nation.

In addition, state costs are currently being calculated for Alaska losing its 2010 case seeking to conduct aerial wolf control in the federal Unimak Island wilderness, filed against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service; and in losing its 2011 case to overturn the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s endangered species listing for Cook Inlet beluga whales.

“Alaska would have had more environmental impact by dumping a couple of million dollars into a pit on the Governor’s residence front lawn and setting it on fire,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that Gov. Parnell has not been shy about decrying “reckless lawsuits by environmental groups” while filing his own. “Public funds should not be used to subsidize political tantrums played out in court.”

A 2008 public records request by Steiner had revealed that the state’s own marine mammal experts agreed with the federal position that polar bears were in fact threatened due to shrinking Arctic sea ice. The Alaska legislature then appropriated $2 million to convene a “scientific” conference to gin up support for its stance against all federal ESA listings, but the conference was canceled.

Political intimidation in Alaska state service is not limited to scientists, however. In Alaska, the state Attorney General is a gubernatorial appointee. Thus, attorneys inside the state Department of Law are not in a position to exercise independent legal judgment about the soundness of arguments pressed by their employer. Gov. Parnell, a former ConocoPhillips executive, has been especially aggressive in pushing lawsuits against the federal government.

“These misguided lawsuits are making the State of Alaska into a legal laughingstock,” said Steiner, who also revealed that Gov. Parnell halted state planning for the effects of climate change. “In the polar bear listing case, the experts for the plaintiff (the State of Alaska) agreed with the experts for the defendant (the U.S.), and it was clear the state case was bound to fail,” he said. “These expensive episodes underscore the need for an independent, elected Attorney General to ensure that our state’s future legal filings are truly in the interest of citizenry of Alaska, and not simply the political interests of the current governor.”

Ironically, Sarah Palin’s Attorney General Talis J. Colberg, who filed the polar bear suit in 2008, recently expressed reservations as well about the political appointment of Attorney Generals in Alaska, writing: “I think it was a mistake to make the chief law enforcement officer of the state an at will employee of the governor…I believe Alaska would be better off with an elected attorney general.” Forty-three states now have elected Attorneys General.

###

Look at state polar bear suit costs

See Tongass roadless rule suit costs

Read Talis Colberg essay

View suppressed views of state marine mammal experts

Revisit Alaska’s abandonment of climate change planning

Forest Service Cutting Suppression by 37% in 2014? And Responding to Climate Change?

I picked this up from a Colorado Springs news clip..

Here
is the link to the story, below is an excerpt.

Colorado Sen. Mark Udall, chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, questioned U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell Tuesday about how the agency plans to grapple with budget cuts that could impact its ability to fight fire this season.

The forest service expects to add next generation, or modernized air tankers, to its fleet this month, but will still have to deal with cuts to its fire suppression programs. In short, although it has yet to get seriously underway, wildfire season 2013 could be an expensive endeavor for the agency.

As of last week, the 2014 budget was a done deal–and the forest service announced that it will be cutting funds to its fire suppression program by 37 percent. For the committee of senators from Oregon, Alaska, Wyoming, Colorado and Minnesota, that will come as big blow, particularly as the country gears up for another potentially record-breaking wildfire season.

Both fire suppression and preparedness funds were cut, Tidwell told the committee. There are about 87 million acres of forest lands that need fuel treatment–the cutting down of trees, and thinning of forests to make them less of a breeding ground for megafires–but the forest service’s hazardous fuel reduction budget will be focused entirely on red zones, where people live.

That doesn’t mean that other forest lands won’t get the treatment they need, Tidwell said; instead, those projects will be funded by other projects besides hazardous fuels reduction.

The sequester will also impact the agencies wildfire fighting resources–it has cut 500 firefighters and between 50 and 70 engines from its pool, Tidwell said.

“We’ll start off the season with less resources,” Tidwell told the committee. “Because of the sequester it will probably just cost us more money when it comes to fire.”

Watch the two-hour committee hearing and read Tidwell’s witness statement by clicking here.

My other question would be that if the President said that climate change is a priority as in story here, and fires are worse, in some part, due to climate change, then wouldn’t it be logical to increase what you spend on fire?

But as Bob Berwyn points out here. at the same time, the Park Service is getting an increase in the 2014 budget. According to Bob, these increases include:

Key increases include $5.2 million to control exotic and invasive species such as quagga and zebra mussels, $2.0 million to enhance sustainable and accessible infrastructure across the national park system, and $1.0 million to foster the engagement of youth in the great outdoors. These increases are partially offset by programmatic decreases to park operations and related programs totaling $20.6 million.

If we are working on climate change, and the budget is the “policy made real” then WTH??? Is climate change only about helping energy industries go low carbon, or is it also about mitigating impacts? We could easily spend more bucks studying potential future impacts than dealing with today’s impacts. Seems to me you gotta pick a lane.. either fires are worse due (partially) to CC or they are not. If they are, they should be part of the Climate Change budget and actions.