“Politicization” and the Forest Service: What Do We Mean?

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TR and GP
TR and GP

Relevant Maxims

Use the press first, last, and all the time if you want to reach the public. Get rid of the attitude of personal arrogance or pride of attainment or superior knowledge.

Don’t try any sly or foxy politics, because a forester is not a politician.

Ed raised this issue in our discussion of the Shield Snafu here, and it seems like a rich and important area. What do we mean when we say that? Traditionally, we were attached to the idea of having a career Chief.. yet if that would mean that all key decisions were kept from her/him (not saying that that is the case, I have no idea) because they are made by politicals, would that still be valuable? I don’t know.

So I thought I would expound on my opinion, and let others give their impressions. After all the Dept of the Interior has a new secretary, the USDA (will get) a new undersecretary.. perhaps one of their future staff folks will read this and consider it in deciding how to approach their work.

First, federal agencies are in the executive branch. So when one party wins, they get to have their buddies take the reins, and have primary seats on the policy advice team. They also get to reward people of varying talents, experience, and management capabilities with political jobs; often overseeing large organizations.

Let’s take a look at this article on the new Interior Secretary, Sally Jewell.

“When you think about this appointment, it’s the first time you have someone—a CEO—from our industry coming into the Department of the Interior,” Frank Hugelmeyer, OIA’s CEO, tells Quartz. “I actually find this curious, that this is a big surprise. When you look at Treasury secretaries, they’re often from the investment world. So we see this as completely appropriate and overdue.”

So if it’s OK to get CEOS (“appropriate and overdue!”) from industry for secretaries, do all industries count? Like the CEO of Monsanto for USDA Secretary? And did that work well for SEC? .. anyway, that’s a bit of an aside..

But you know, I don’t really think it’s about policy. I don’t. I don’t even care if they picked Salazar and Sherman to have an in with Colorado in the last election (pickin’ people for political purposes) as long as they’re good folks. I think it’s about how you work with the career folks and whether you treat them with respect (as fuzzy wuzzy as that is).

Like if your buddy is a neighbor to a timber sale, do you go through channels to ask questions? Do you assume your buddy is right and your employees are yo-ho’s? Do you make glaring press-covered mistakes about diversity and then flagellate others as your penance? Do you appear to spend scarce government funds on secret dumb ideas that don’t seem to have any practical role? Do you call some science folks going to a conference and tell them they can’t go because it’s a swing state during an election and could be targeted as wasteful?

I worked in DC during three administrations (close enough to observe a lot of behavior), so I have seen some things. You can read Jack Ward Thomas’s journal for some of the things he found annoying. Again, my hypothesis is that it’s not what politicals believe so much, as the actions they do to carry out their policies and how they treat career employees in general (not just their buddies). Like trusting them to do their communications job, and just jumping on specific ones when they screw up. In a large organization, people will always screw up..so keeping them from doing their job is not really a solution. At least I didn’t learn that in any management course I took.

I remember a new Undersecretary coming in once, and I attended a meeting where he was talking to alumni of our mutual school. He gave me the impression that he thought of the FS as a bunch of dinosaurs who would staunchly resist all inklings of Goodness and Light. At the time, I remember looking up a quote, something about “if you want to change people, first you have to love them” but I can’t find it now. Maybe that’s a bit strong. Or as I used to say about Ronald Reagan “if he really believes that federal employees are so useless, why does he want to be out boss?”

Anyway, what does “politicization” of the FS mean to you, good or bad? You are welcome to share your experiences.

Forest Service Gets to Keep Pine Tree Logo, But Controversy Points to Larger Problem: By Char Miller

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forest-service-usda-logosI, too, think there’s something creepy about the way this was handled (as well as other actions of the USDA vis a vis FS employees and citizens).

Here’s a link and below is an excerpt.

Yet so reluctant was USDA leadership to admit defeat at the hands of the Old Smokeys — the thousands of Forest Service retirees who wrote impassioned emails and letters to the secretary and his minions challenging the department’s action; so cornered were they by the onslaught of negative public opinion, that they would not allow Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell to make the announcement directly to his 30,000 employees and would not identify a particular person with the 13 words exempting the agency from the rebranding effort.

How apt that the department set its notice in the passive voice. By doing so it took no responsibility for its actions, an adept evasion that Czarist Russia’s faceless bureaucrats routinely practiced and which Fyodor Dostoyevsky took such dark pleasure in pillorying.
Although there is no crime in being thoughtless (or evasive), the punishment in this case was meted out by those who once had worked within the system and now fought against its mindlessness. All credit for preserving the pine-tree logo goes to the agency retirees, the large number of FSx who remain committed to resolving some of the vital challenges confronting the 193 million acres of national forests their former employer stewards.

As I wrote in my column last week, they swiftly responded to what they interpreted as an attack on the Forest Service’s legacy, and on the honorable work and years of devoted service that they had given to the agency, the Department of Agriculture, and by extension the American public.
By leaping into the fray, they turned back Secretary Vilsack’s ill-conceived and ill-considered rebranding campaign. Their quick reactions also testify to the inescapable value of an engaged citizenry to a democratic society.

Smokeys..arise! You have nothing to lose but your non-confrontational style and cultural disinclination for conflict!

Planetary Boundaries as Millenarian Prophesies and Midwest Thunderstorms

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A couple of interesting items from Roger Pielke, Jr.’s blog..

First he posted this guest post by Steven Rayner.

Planetary Boundaries as Millenarian Prophesies: A Guest Post by Steve Rayner

This is a guest post by Steve Rayner, Oxford University, and is distilled from a forthcoming book chapter that Steve has co-authored with Clare Heyward, also of Oxford University. The full citation is (and please see the original for the broader argument and references):

S. Rayner and C. Heyward, 2013 (in press). The Inevitability of Nature as a Rhetorical Resource, Chapter 14 in Kerstin Hastrup (editor), Anthropology and Nature (Routledge, London

You gotta think that a chapter entitled “the inevitability of nature as a rhetorical resource” will be of interest to us.

Check out the guest post here.
Below is an excerpt.

…..

The rhetoric employed in the plenary sessions was especially striking in its efforts to establish the present as a uniquely defining moment for the future of humanity requiring urgent action on a global scale which seems slow in coming. Nobel laureate Elinor Ostrom declared that, “We have never faced a challenge this big.” Johan Rockström drove home the point claiming that “We are the first generation to know we are truly putting the future of civilization at risk.” Apparently, those who lived through the Second World War or the prospect of mutual nuclear annihilation in the 1960s were deluded in their estimation of the challenge they faced or the consequences for civilization, to say nothing of Old Testament prophets who only had the authority of God that destruction was imminent if people did not mend their wicked ways. Lest there be any doubt that behavioural change was the goal, Dutch political scientist Frank Biermann spelled out the imperative that “The Anthropocene requires new thinking” and “The Anthropocene requires new lifestyles.”
,,,,,,

At first sight, the contemporary resurgence in catastrophist thinking might be understood as a response to improvements in our understanding of critical earth systems resulting from research-led improvements in scientific understanding. However, I have not been able to identify any new empirical studies to justify the claim that, “Although Earth’s complex systems sometimes respond smoothly to changing pressures, it seems that this will prove to be the exception rather than the rule.” (Rockström et al 2009:472). Leading ecologists have long suggested that the general assertions of systems theorists that “everything is connected to everything else” and “you can’t change just one thing” are actually less robust than is often claimed. It seems that most species in many ecosystems are actually quite redundant and can be removed without any loss of overall ecosystems character or function (e.g., Lawton 1991, but for a contrasting view, see Gitay et al 1996). While it is doubtless the case that there are many non-linear relationships in natural systems, it is another matter as to whether non-linearity dominates and whether we should, as a matter of course, expect to find tipping points everywhere. Indeed, a recent review challenges Rockström et al.’s claims, arguing that out of the planetary boundaries posited, only three genuinely represent truly global biophysical thresholds, the passing of which could be expected to result in non-linear changes (Blomqvist et al, 2012).

The same report also challenges the idea that the planetary boundaries constitute “non-negotiable thresholds”. The identification of the planetary boundaries is dependent on the normative assumptions made, for example, concerning the value of biodiversity and the desirability of the Holocene. Rather than non-negotiables, humanity faces a system of trade-offs – not only economic, but moral and aesthetic as well. Deciding how to balance these trade-offs is a matter of political contestation (Blomqvist et al, 2012:37). What counts as “unacceptable environmental change” is not a matter of scientific fact, but involves judgments concerning the value of the things to be affected by the potential changes. The framing of planetary boundaries as being scientifically derived non-negotiable limits, obscures the inherent normativity of deciding how to react to environmental change. Presenting human values as facts of nature is an effective political strategy to shut down debate.

I particularly liked the last line…

then there is a detailed discussion of Munich Re’s paper on thunderstorm.. here.

My favorite line is also the last..

Misleading public claims. An over-hyped press release. A paper which neglects to include materially relevant and contradictory information central to its core argument. All in all, just a normal day in climate science!

I’ll go post something on the blog that it’s not just climate science..I suspect it’s really all sciences. Something about a culture of competition where press releases run amok. But even broader than science, as Ron C. says in comment #10

The same behavior occurs in the world of advertising, where it has been seen that:
“The Large print giveth,
The Small print taketh away.”

Dogwood Alliance and International Paper Find Common Ground

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Peace is breaking out all over..
Here’s the link…

Dogwood Alliance and International Paper Find Common Ground

Work to Focus on Forest Conservation in Southeastern United States

MEMPHIS, Tenn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Apr. 10, 2013– International Paper, the world’s largest paper company and Dogwood Alliance, one of the Southern United States leading forest conservation organizations, announced an agreement today that will help advance science based forestry improvements in the world’s largest paper producing region. The former foes will map forests around International Paper’s southeastern operations to identify whether any endangered forests or high conservation value areas exist. This mapping will help ensure that IP is not sourcing from any endangered forests as per its long-standing company policy and will also identify mutually-agreed upon areas where conservation can be focused. In addition, IP and Dogwood Alliance will work together to discourage the conversion of natural hardwood forests to pine plantations.

This collaboration builds on initiatives recently announced by International Paper. The first is IP’s membership in the World Wildlife Fund’s Global Forest & Trade Network in North America. Additionally, IP announced a $7.5 million five-year project with the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to restore and conserve forests in the Coastal Carolinas, Cumberland Plateau and Texas/Arkansas Piney Woods regions. Finally, IP announced an increase in its sourcing of Forest Stewardship Council certified fiber by more than 1.2 million tons during the past five years, and expects to triple that increase by the end of 2014. The company continues to support multiple certification standards as part of its public goal of increasing certified fiber.

“IP has a clear, built in need to maintain healthy forests; our business creates the economic basis for millions of acres of land to remain as forests over long periods of time,” said Teri Shanahan, International Paper’s vice president of Sustainability. “Engaging with our critics is an important part of our process of continuous improvement. We look forward to working with Dogwood, because it’s clear that, although we approach it from markedly different perspectives, they are as passionate about the forests as we are.”

“IP’s leadership on FSC certification and its recently-announced commitment to fund conservation in regions that have long been a priority for us opened the door for transitioning our formerly adversarial relationship to one of collaboration,” said Danna Smith, Executive Director of Dogwood Alliance. “We are pleased to work with IP on these initiatives, that, when combined with our collaborative effort, set a leadership standard within the Southern forest industry.”

The collaboration will kick off with a 2013 pilot project to map forests around IP’s mill in Riegelwood, N.C. (near Wilmington). After the pilot project, IP and Dogwood Alliance will evaluate the framework used and modify it as necessary with the intent of applying it across additional IP southeastern operations.

This affiliation represents an unprecedented relationship between Dogwood and IP. Dogwood Alliance has been critical of International Paper in the past, though it has increasingly worked with industry leaders to find innovative business solutions that protect Southern forests.

Until today, International Paper has not been able to reach agreement with Dogwood Alliance although the company’s focus on sustainable forestry practices has led to collaborations with a broad set of stakeholders in the conservation community.

How Many Snags Do Birds Need??

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With our discussions about burned forests and blackbacked woodpeckers, here are some views of the Power Fire, on the Eldorado National Forest. Initially, the wildfire seemed to be of mixed severity but, as the summer wore on, more and more insect mortality caused previously green trees to turn brown. After Chad Hanson took his appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court, this project was halted with about 75% of the dead trees cut. The court decided that not enough analysis was done regarding the blackbacked woodpecker, despite only 55% of the burned area in the project.

In this picture, seven years after it burned, most of those foreground snags were in a helicopter unit, with a fairly large stream buffer at the bottom. At least 5 times we marked additional mortality in that unit. Also important is the fact that we were cutting trees which still had green needles, using the new fire mortality guidelines of the time. As you can see, the density of snags should be quite sufficient in supporting multiple woodpecker families.

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This patch of snags was clumped, below a main road and above a major streamcourse.

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Another view of abundant snags within a cutting unit, and a protected streamcourse.

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You can see that both large and small snags were left for wildlife. After 6 years, surely some snags have already fallen, as expected. Not every acre can, or should, have birds on every acre. Since this is predominantly a P. pine stand, the combination of high-intensity fire and subsequent bark beetles caused catastrophic losses of owl and goshawk habitat, including nest trees. You can also see that reforestation is, and will continue to be problematic, with all that deerbrush coming back so thick.

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National Forest Foundation webinar on IRR: Tuesday April 16, 2013

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NFF logo(mastr) RGB-smMarek Smith posted this as a comment, but I thought it might be overlooked .. here goes:

Upcoming National Forest Foundation webinar on IRR, for those interested.

U.S. Forest Service Integrated Resource Restoration: Regional Updates
Tuesday, April 16th, 2013 | 2:00-4:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time

We invite you to join us for an “Integrated Resource Restoration Update.” In this session, Forest Service leadership and staff from the pilot regions will share information about:
• The Integrated Resource Restoration (IRR) pilot program in Forest Service Regions 1, 3, and 4
• Fiscal year 2012 pilot program implementation –achievement of restoration goals, administrative efficiency, and program integration
• How community interests and partners can engage in the IRR process
• Next steps for IRR implementation
Click below to RSVP for the upcoming peer learning session on Integrated Resource Restoration!

http://www.nff.wildapricot.org/Default.aspx?pageId=471105&eventId=616595&EventViewMode=EventDetails

Sustainable Forest Certification Wars..

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fscvssfu

Check out this piece in Forbes about the Certification Wars in Canada . I think it’s worth reading just to remember that there are other forest environmental issues besides public lands in the U.S.

For those of you who don’t follow this debate, remember that we couldn’t certify our local dead lodgepole to either standard because it doesn’t come from managed forests. Hence the EPA got credit fro greenness for importing bamboo from China for its building in central Denver, while dead lodgepole from around the corner was not “less green” but appeared to be “less green” due to the structure of the certification industry.

Even the Forest Service has touted its LEED buildings. I don’t know about you, but I feel that the FS has some very, very smart engineers and we should be paying all the bucks we have for this to get information from them about the best investments to make to make buildings greener and save the taxpayer bucks at the same time. This would be rather than pay some firm to certify that we are using less energy. Especially when they wouldn’t count the FSs’ own wood as sustainable.. So off that soapbox..

Between SFI and FSC..

Are there significant differences between the competing schemes? Independent observers see a convergence of standards as pressure for transparency on both groups has grown. Canada’s EcoLogo and TerraChoice, part of Underwriters Laboratories Global Network, each rate SFI and FSC identically. A United Nations joint commission recently concluded: “Over the years, many of the issues that previously divided the systems have become much less distinct. The largest certification systems now generally have the same structural programmatic requirements.”

University-based researchers who have scrutinized the two labeling programs have found few meaningful differences. For example North Carolina State professor Frederick Cubbage, North Carolina State University Forest Manager Joseph Cox and a team of researchers concluded that while SFI and FSC “have a slightly different focus, both prompt substantial, important changes in forest management to improve environmental, economic, and social outcomes.”

The convergence in standards has not stalled the politicization of the labeling competition. The two systems are currently going head to head in the US. The FSC has been entrenched because of the support from the US Green Building Council. USGBC adopted FSC standards in the mid-1990s, when it was the only game in town, for its LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system. It’s remained loyal because of fierce lobbying by green activists. Hundreds of cities and agencies in the US now mandate LEED standards, which means that FSC receives preferential treatment in building projects across the country.

This has created some unintended consequences. Because FSC label accounts for just one quarter of North American’s certified forests, three quarters of the wood from the continent’s certified forests are not eligible for LEED sourcing credits. As a result, LEED creates incentives for green building projects to import wood from overseas, resulting in the browning of the supply chain from excess carbon emissions generated by shipping costs. Nonetheless, activist greenies have dug in their heels, determined to do everything in their power to delegitimize competing systems.

The USGBC has never explained why only FSC forests can receive LEED credits. Michael Goergen, Jr., CEO of the Society of American Foresters, has criticized the USGBC for not including other standards, stating, “FSC or better is neither logical nor scientific, especially when it continues to reinforce misconceptions about third-party forest certification and responsible forest practices.”

Some believe LEED FSC-only framework has led to a loss of jobs. Union leader Bill Street of the International Association of Machinists stated that the “ideological driven ‘exclusivity’ of FSC means that systems such as LEED contribute to rural poverty and unemployment while simultaneously adding economic pressure to convert forest land to non-forest land uses.”

Growing concern about the rigidity of the LEED program has led to the emergence of a competing green building initiative in the US. Green Globes, run by the Green Building Initiative, recognizes the SFI and is now in the running along with FSC to be the preferred federal certification program. The Defense Department, one of the earliest LEED adopters and a huge source of new construction, is currently not allowed to spend public funds to achieve LEED’s “gold” or “platinum” certification because of questions about whether the added costs are justified by the benefits.

What’s odd about this is that it is linked to biotechnology in forests.. but the problem with biotechnology in forests in North America is not a lack of acceptance. It is, and always has been, a lack of penciling out.

Now.. to relate to our usual business.. remember that these groups:
Rainforest Action Network, Friends of the Earth and World Wildlife Foundation, Greenpeace, ForestEthics and the Dogwood Alliance seem to believe that if you follow FSC guidelines you are being sustainable. That is, removing forest products and actually using them can be done in a sustainable way.

Forestry bills: ‘Trojan horses’

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From Environment & Energy News today in below. The letter mentioned is here:

Enviro Groups Letter on Forestry Bills

 

Enviro groups call GOP forestry bills ‘Trojan horses’

Phil Taylor, E&E reporter

Published: Thursday, April 11, 2013

A handful of Republican bills aiming to reduce the threat of wildfire and provide new revenues to rural counties would thwart collaborative efforts to manage the nation’s forests and could harm wildlife habitats, said a coalition of 27 environmental groups.

The groups yesterday sent a letter to leaders on the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Environmental Regulation calling the bills “Trojan horses” that would mandate unsustainable levels of logging.

“We should be looking forward, seeking collaborative solutions with broad bipartisan support, not reverting back to decades-old ideas that are destined to fail,” said the coalition, which included the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, the Geos Institute and Defenders of Wildlife, among many others.

The panel this morning is meeting to discuss a handful or forestry bills, including a pair of legislative proposals seeking to wean counties off Secure Rural Schools payments by increasing timber harvests on federal forests.

The schools program for the past decade has provided billions of dollars to compensate counties whose economies suffered from the decline in federal timber sales. Now that the program has expired, lawmakers are considering ways to extend it or revive logging levels on public lands.

A draft bill by Natural Resources Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) to be considered today would require the Forest Service to designate areas where it would harvest at least half of the timber that is grown each year, a proposal that would presumably significantly increase logging on public lands.

“We strongly oppose legislative proposals that mandate intensive logging or place our public forest lands in a ‘trust,’ so that federal agencies or an appointed board are required to generate mandated revenues for local counties through intensive commodity extraction and other industrialized development that are likely unsustainable and damaging over the long run,” the groups said.

Hastings’ bill, which would seek to replace Secure Rural Schools through the establishment of “Forest Reserve Revenue Areas,” would permit logging, including clear-cutting, by relaxing laws including the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act, said Anne Merwin, director of wilderness policy at the Wilderness Society.

“Even though the new Hastings bill might technically keep NEPA and ESA ‘intact,’ it creates such huge loopholes and such biased requirements that in practice they would almost never meaningfully apply,” she said.

The coalition said it would support the continued use of resource advisory committees under Secure Rural Schools and the Forest Service’s Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration program, which brings diverse stakeholders to the table.

Hastings has said his bill is necessary to loosen the federal restrictions that have led to significant reduction in timber harvests on federal lands, leading counties to rely on ever-diminishing revenues from Secure Rural Schools. The Forest Service from 2011 to 2014 plans to increase annual harvests by 25 percent, to 3 billion board feet, but that is still far less than the 12.7 billion board feet it harvested in the mid-1980s.

“The federal government’s inability to uphold this promise and tie our forest lands up in bureaucratic red tape has left counties without sufficient funds to pay for teachers, police officers and emergency services; devastated local economies and cost thousands of jobs throughout rural America; and left our forests susceptible to deadly wildfires,” Hastings said in a statement last week. “This draft proposal would simply cut through red tape to allow responsible timber production to occur in those areas and make the federal government uphold its commitment to rural schools and counties.”

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) yesterday said he had a chance to meet with Hastings recently in Pasco, Wash., to discuss Secure Rural Schools, among other issues, but that he has yet to review Hastings’ bill.

Wyden last Congress said he opposed Hastings’ previous bill, H.R. 4019, to transition away from Secure Rural Schools, which set similar mandates for forest management.

“Chairman Hastings is to be commended for recognizing the problems faced by rural, resource-dependent communities,” said Wyden spokesman Keith Chu. “Senator Wyden enjoyed meeting with him recently and looks forward to working with him on legislation that will address these problems and can earn majority support in both houses of Congress.”

Wyden is working with Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to extend Secure Rural Schools for at least one year, though the proposal will be a tough political sell to Republicans who feel the program is fiscally unsustainable and fails to provide adequate jobs in the woods.

The environmental groups today said they also oppose H.R. 818 and H.R. 1345, which seek to reduce wildfire risks by thinning overstocked forests.

The bills by Reps. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) and Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), respectively, “fly in the face of best science and evidence about effective solutions to protecting communities and forests from wildfire,” the groups wrote. “While these bills purport to protect public lands from wildfire and disease, in reality they fast-track a huge range of projects with limited-to-no public review, federal oversight, scientific support for efficacy of wildfire or disease suppression tactics, prioritization of public safety, or protections for our most sensitive places.”

News Story on Objections.. Missoulian

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Thanks to Rob Chaney for writing a story on this.. there’s been a great deal of silence out there in Medialand on this. Here’s a link..

Western Environmental Law attorney and Lewis and Clark Law School professor Susan Jane Brown has served on a federal advisory board reviewing the new Forest Service rules. She said her biggest concern about the pre-decision objections was the lack of evidence they would improve anything.

“Over the years, we’ve heard a lot about ‘analysis paralysis,’ ” Brown said. “But in the scholarly research on that issue – whether administrative appeals slow down or delay or preclude forest management – there’s no support that links administrative appeals and delays in project implementation. There are many confounding factors in play, so pointing the finger at administrative appeals is hasty.”

I don’t know about scholarly research (if a tree falls in a forest and a scientist is not there to observe it, has it really fallen?), but if there is an appeal period with no appeal, the project goes to implementation. How can someone say that appeals and their resolution does not slow things down? This is not clear. Also, I know field folks that have used HFRA objections successfully and prefer them.
It seems like evidence to me. I wonder what kind of evidence Brown is looking for? If we did interviews of people on forests and published it somewhere, would that count as “evidence”? Ah.. but there is no budget particularly to do that kind of research (the People’s Research Agenda). It seems odd that a person who (if Rob was carefully quoting) dismisses something everyone can plainly see, was selected for a FACA committee on a related subject.

Craig Rawlings of the Forest Products Network said timber mill owners he’d spoken with had a different view.

“It almost forces these litigants to participate in the process,” Rawlings said. “Right now they just wait until everything is done and then file appeals. That does drag it out longer. I think the industry is very optimistic about it.”

The appeals process has been around since 1993. The objection process debuted in 2003 as part of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, and Congress applied it to all EAs and EISs through the new Forest Rule last year as an anonymous rider on an appropriations bill, according to Brown.

The objection does not apply to what the Forest Service calls categorical exclusions, which are supposed to be small projects that don’t warrant a full NEPA analysis. It also doesn’t apply to permits for grazing, special use, access and mining. Those actions still face post-decision appeals.

I’m not sure that that’s clear about CE’s I think the Administration decided to wait for the court case to work its way through (Grandaughter of Earth Island) instead of making a point of it in the regulation.

Also, I think Rob is referring to 251 appeals (for the permittees) people can have 215, now 218 objections for those projects as well (just not the permittees).

The new rule took effect March 27. However, Forest Service officers have some leeway with existing projects whether to shift them to the pre-decision process or continue with the post-decision appeal procedure. Smith advises district rangers and forest supervisors on the issue, and has been running about 50-50 on staying with the old or adopting the new rule.

Anyone who can further help clarify, please chime in.

The ESA petition process

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The ESA petition process
The ESA petition process

Lot of good discussion around the black backed woodpecker recently.  Maybe everyone else is way ahead of me, but I have to admit that I wasn’t clear on how the ESA process worked (I only deal with the actual listed species).  There’s been plenty of debate today on advocacy vs. science, appropriate science  and the motivation of “petitioners”.  Hopefully this helps shed a little light on the process and how the USFWS considers science.  Thanks to John Persell for prompting me to do some more research.  The USFWS site is clunky, but here’s an overview:  http://www.fws.gov/endangered/what-we-do/listing-overview.html