History Snippet: Fairfax on NEPA 1978

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There’s much (potential for) change bubbling away in the NEPA-sphere, but like improving various aspects of the Forest Service, these ideas and concerns have been in the air for awhile.  Here’s a letter in Science from Sally Fairfax in 1978 (yes, almost 50 years ago…). P.S. If you have a copy of her paper on RPA and the Forest Service, or know how to contact her, please let me know.

Interview With San Bernardino County Fire Chief Dan Munsey: The Hotshot Wakeup

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From what I’ve observed and heard, it seems like the push for One Wildfire Agency may have come from externals, including partners, who have to deal with several federal agencies, as well as some wildfire employees who would prefer to have bosses and direct leadership from the fire world.

I think everyone would prefer to have bosses who know and understand their work, so I don’t think that that’s unusual.

The Hotshot Wakeup had a very interesting interview today with San Bernardino County Fire Chief Dan Munsey.

If you don’t have time to listen, Munsey did note that the people working on the One Agency appreciate the connection with land management, and are working on how to do that; and even mentioned planning. The barriers to technology adoption (aka multi-agency bureaucracies) sounded par for the technology (or any other topic) course.  He also mentioned the importance of access via roads (ties in with Don Amador’s recent post).

I don’t think the interview is paywalled, but if it is, let me know.

Also, here is Munsey’s testimony before the House Committee on Natural Resources on May 15, 2025. It’s got some interesting ideas about joint land management and history. That’s where I got the above photos.

Here’s THW’s summary of the interview:

Today, I welcome San Bernardino County Fire Chief Dan Munsey to discuss what he believes are the four biggest lies in the wildfire industry, and what the actual truths are behind those lies.

The Four Lies the Chief Addresses:

  1. There is a large wildfire crisis. (Truth: We have a land management crisis.)
  2. There is a fire insurance crisis. (Truth: We have a crisis of homes burning down.)
  3. The Palisades and Eaton Fires were very destructive “wildfires.” (Truth: These were urban conflagrations with a small wildfire component.)
  4. There is a wildfire technology crisis. (Truth: There is a wildfire technology adoption crisis.)

We then discuss the leadership of the new wildfire agency, the reality of moving forward with it, and I ask him if California can realistically achieve success with its wildfire land management under the new “Make America Rake Again” campaign.

Chief Munsey oversees the largest fire protection district in the Nation, spanning almost 20,000 square miles and serving a population of nearly two million. The Chief has testified before Congress multiple times, advocating for better wages, improved technology adoption, and the maintenance of trails and forest roads to help wildland firefighters access wildfires.

Listen, and we can discuss below in the comments.

Another Impassioned Plea for Forest Service R&D: from Phil Aune

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From Coram Experimental Forest in Montana. I could have picked any Experimental Forest or Range and found ongoing research equally useful.

 

The piece below is from Phil Aune, by way of Evergreen Magazine.  The Evergreen piece starts with a linked piece by Michael Rains called “Eliminating the Gold Standard in Conservation Science” The below is  Phil’s reply to Michael.

Since Phil and I were both involved in silviculture research, and he is much better at writing about it than I am… I thought I’d repost here. Plus I love the Heinrich Cotta quote.  At one time, part of my job in DC was defending the Experimental Forests.. currently the poor USG cousin of the  (to the Science Establishment) LTERs.

Phil doesn’t mention it, but I also remember the Elevational Transect Study that Tom Conkle did and published in 1973.  It made many of the geneticists of my generation leery of willy-nilly seed movement, and today I still look askance at folks who think they can predict which trees will grow where in 100-200 years based on down-scaled climate models. In fact, I tried to run down whether the elevational transect study is with us today, but had trouble finding anyone who knew.

Anyway, hat’s off to Phil!

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Side note

If you are confused about the budget bill vs. appropriations bills .. join the club.  Hopefully Andy or others will correct me if I get this wrong.. but here’s what the American Society for Cell Biology says..

If you’ve read recent news about Congress trying to pass “the budget,” you may have noticed that even Washington, D.C. reporters don’t always have a firm grasp on the details of what they’re covering.

The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) that’s been debated in Congress is not the federal budget. It’s actually a budget “reconciliation” bill. Reconciliation was originally designed to help Congress cut back when the federal checkbook exceeds the budget plan. But over time, this once-technical, green eyeshade tool has been used as a powerful way for the party in control to advance major policy priorities.

Reconciliation has been used to reshape significant federal programs. For example, President Clinton used it to “reform” the welfare system and President Biden used it to pass the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act—his two signature legislative achievements. It has also been used to deliver significant tax reductions.

This year, the BBB will use the Reconciliation process to make certain tax cuts permanent. Current versions of the bill suggest that lost federal revenue from these tax cuts will likely be offset by reductions in Medicaid and other safety net programs.

While the media focuses on the BBB, a separate and critical process is underway: the development of the actual Fiscal Year 2026 spending bills. Members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees are currently working on funding plans for all federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

If this is true, then R&D supporters can still work with Appropriators, particularly the Interior Environment and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

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Anyway, back to Phil.

The House version of the Big Beautiful Bill for the 2026 Appropriations basically zeros out both the State and Private and the Research and Development branches of the USFS.  Gone with a stroke of pen is over a 100 years of cooperative forestry efforts with the States and over a 100 years of Research and Development efforts.

We both spent a great part of our careers in R&D and the collective R&D efforts have led to the vast scientific knowledge base for management of federal, state, and private forest lands.  One of the key features of our R&D work was our abilities to establish long term data sets that most universities cannot do considering the shorter-term nature of their Masters and PhD efforts.

Some examples of long term research that I was personally involved with in our Redding, California silviculture sab’s efforts:

  1. 50 year results of the Blacks Mtn. Experimental Forest Methods of Cutting Trials initiated in the late 30’s.
  2. Blacks Mtn Interdisciplinary Biodiversity Study initiated in the early 1990’s involving large scale plots utilization two vastly different forest management treatments featuring high structural diversity and low structural diversity, subdivided by grazing/no grazing, and subdivided by prescribed fire/no fire.  These studies are now approaching 30 years of response measurements.
  3. Garden of Eden fertilizer trials initialed in 1985 by Dr. Robert Powers where fertilizers, insect control, and brush/grass control were established on multiple sites throughout California.
  4. Long Term Soil Productivity Studies.  The National Forest Management Act calls for the agency to do research and monitoring on the long-term productivity effects of their management practices (paraphrased).
  5. In the late 80’s a group of soil scientists met with Chief F. Dale Robertson to express their concerns that nothing had been done about this mandate since the passage of FNMA.  The Chief agreed to a proposal they presented and found several million dollars to establish the National Long-Term Soil Productivity Research effort.
  6. The same research design was established in just about every forested region of the U.S.  As an example, three loblolly pine locations were established including east Texas (dry sites), Louisiana (high sites), and South Carolina (coastal plains).  These were set up as 30 to 40 year efforts to determine short-rotation effects on soil productivity.
  7. We had five major mixed conifer sites focusing on a 100 year rotation cycle.  All of the sites were established in the early 1990’s across the nation.  They are all approaching 25 to 30 years of age.  Publications have been presented posting results at age 5, 10, and 20 years.
  8. Swain Mtn Experimental Forest Shelterwood regeneration experiments initiated in the 1960’s and 1980′.
  9. Levels of Growing Stock studies for Ponderosa Pine and True Firs in the 1970’s.  The Ponderosa Pine LOGS study covered the entire ponderosa region.
  10. Similar to all of these long term studies were other local efforts across every USFS Experimental Forest in the nation.  The Madison Forest Products Lab has developed studies in all aspects of wood and cellulose utilization.

Last year I was at the Lab in Madison and as I approached the parking lots there were a couple of truck loads of Vaagen Timbers mass timber panels at the testing lab. As we move into nano technology and cell level wood technology, the national need for a large wood technology is needed more than ever.

The stupidity of canceling out the all R&D efforts of the USFS is staggering.  It reminds me of German Scientist Heinrich Cotta who said in 1816 (paraphrased):  “Amongst the problems in forestry are:

  1. The many sites our crop grows on.
  2. The long time it takes to grow our crop.
  3. Those who practice much write little.
  4. Those who practice little, write much.

Over 200 years later, those who practice little are writing much to destroy not only USFS Research and Development, but USFS efforts for continuing cooperative efforts with the States.

Those who have practiced much have collectively also written much, but after the Big Beautiful Bill, the USFS research and development effort will be silent if things stays the same in the final big but not so beautiful fill.

 

 

Landownership Adjustments: the Eastern Sierra Landownership Adjustment Project

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As I said before, I didn’t think that Senator Lee had made his case that land exchanges and sales of federal land couldn’t be done through existing methods; and that new legislation was needed.  While those provisions are now gone, as I predicted, it made me curious as to what existing methods were out there.   What I heard from BLM folks was that “we can already do those things,” much like what I’d heard about the Public Lands Rule.  In terms of examples of exchanges and sales, Bill Dunkelberger (retired Forest Supervisor of the H-T) sent me the example of the Eastern Sierra Landownership Adjustment Project.  The way it’s structured made me think of ways that communities, agencies and Tribes may work together to do PODs and evacuation routes and other wildfire-related planning.  Anyway, here’s a link to the report.  It would be interesting to get an update from any of you working in the area.

Here’s what they set out to do:

Surrounded by an array of public land holdings, the communities in the Eastern Sierra are uniquely protected from over development even as they are sometimes constrained from logical and sustainable growth. With almost 97% of Inyo County and 94% of Mono County owned by public agencies, the Eastern Sierra lacks private land within and adjacent to existing communities. Administering these vast acreages of public land is a task that is sometimes complicated by isolated private parcels. The goal of the Eastern Sierra Landownership Adjustment Project (LAP) is to examine landownership patterns and exchange opportunities to maximize local resource management efficiency, community planning and expansion potential.

LAP Vision Statement

Federal and state agencies, Inyo and Mono counties, local tribes, interested citizens, organizations, and private landowners will collaborate to explore and develop options to create a landownership pattern in the Eastern Sierra that better complements collaborative regional goals while preserving private property rights F focusing on opportunities to concentrate development around existing communities and infrastructure; provide workforce housing; maintain agricultural opportunities; protect water and other natural resources and open space; and consolidate agency lands.

The Sierra Nevada Conservancy funded the LAP in 2008 and an Advisory Committee consisting of representatives from the BLM, USFS, Mono and Inyo Counties, individual citizens, and the Sierra Business Council worked collaboratively to guide the project to completion of its stated goals:

  • Conduct an inventory of all potential agency lands available for disposal and identified for acquisition, and create a GIS
  • Disseminate information pertaining to land disposal policies, constraints, and opportunities, and make the GIS land inventory accessible to the
  • Conduct public workshops to identify community needs that could be addressed through the project, and identify potential landownership
  • Based on the land inventory and community input, work collaboratively to facilitate mutually beneficial landownership adjustments and institutionalize policies to guide future

Now my BLM friends said it was fairly easy to do all this under FLPMA, but weren’t sure about the FS. I’m just going to copy these authorities, and hope that currently knowledgeable people will let us know whether they are still accurate.  There were specifics about the Inyo and HT forest plans, but perhaps they have been revised since then.  But forest plans were important pieces of the puzzle. Apologies for any formatting errors.

2.1.1          U.S. Forest Service

Standards and Guidelines

These  Federal level  policies  and  standards  govern  all  National  Forests.  For  Forest@level  policies  and standards  that provide  more  specific  guidance, see  the  individual sections  for the  Humboldt-Toiyabe and  Inyo  National Forests.

  • Land exchanges are a discretionary and voluntary transaction between the Federal government and a non-Federal party (36 CFR 254.3.a).
  • A determination must be made that the public interest will be well served (36 CFR §254.3.b), which may include:
    • The opportunity to achieve better management of Federal lands and resources;
    • To meet the needs of State and local residents and their economies; and
    • To secure important objectives, including but not limited to: protection of fish and wildlife habitats, cultural resources, watersheds, and wilderness and aesthetic values; enhancement of recreation opportunities and public access; consolidation of lands and/or interests in lands, such as mineral and timber interests, for more local and efficient management and development; consolidation of split estates; expansion of communities; accommodation   of existing    or    planned    land    use    authorizations;    promotion    of    multiple use    values; implementation of applicable  Forest  Land  and  Resource  Management  Plans; and  fulfillment of  public needs.

The authorized officer must also find that (36 CFR §254.3.b.2.):

  • The resource values and the public objectives served by the non@Federal lands or interests to be acquired must equal or exceed the resource values and the public objectives served by the Federal lands to be conveyed,  and
  • The intended use of the conveyed Federal land will not substantially conflict with established management objectives on adjacent Federal lands, including Indian Trust
    • Exchanges must be consistent with Forest land and resource management plans (36 CFR
    • 254.3.f, the Land Exchange Handbook [FSH 5409.13 Chapter 30]).
    • The non@Federal party must be the owner of the non@Federal land to be exchanged, or be in a position to acquire and convey it prior to initiating the land exchange process (the Land Exchange Handbook  [FSH  13  Chapter 30]).
    • Properties must be equal in value, or either party may make them equal by cash payment not to exceed 25% of the Federal value. Payment may be waived to the non@Federal party up to 3% or $15,000, whichever is less. (36 CFR    254.12)
    • Unless otherwise  provided  by  statute,  the  Federal  and  non@Federal  lands  involved  in  an exchange must be located within the same state (36 CFR §254.3.d, Federal Land Policy and Management  Act  of  1976 [FLPMA]).
    • Exchanges must be conducted with United States citizens (FLPMA).
    • Marketing considerations: The authorized officer has the responsibility to design land exchange transactions that consider the best marketing configuration. See the Land Exchange Handbook (FSH 13 Chapter 30), for examples.
    • Reservations or restrictions on the Federal lands shall be required only when needed to protect the public interest or to satisfy a requirement of law, such as those concerning wetlands, floodplains, heritage sites, and so forth (36 CFR §254.3.h., the Land Exchange Handbook [FSH 5409.13 Chapter 30]).
    • The use or development of lands conveyed out of Federal ownership are subject to any restrictions imposed by the conveyance documents and all laws, regulations, and zoning authorities of State and local governing bodies (36 CFR 3.h.).
    • Lands must be properly described on the basis of a standard survey or as allowable by law (36 CFR 3.j.).
    • See 36 CFR §254.3.i for hazard substance
  • Federal regulations and policy provides for cost sharing and the assumption of costs, and allows for individual Forests to determine the assignment of costs and responsibilities (36 CFR 254.7, the Land Exchange Handbook [FSH 5409.13 Chapter 30]).
  • The authorized officer shall undertake an environmental analysis (36 CFR §254.3.g). See the Land Exchange Handbook (FSH 5409.13 Chapter 30) for a listing of environmental analysis and protection
  • Various exchange configurations can be considered (the Land Exchange Handbook [FSH 13 Chapter 30]) including assembled land exchanges, phased closing, multiple transactions, multiple conveyances (direct deeding), and dual authority exchange.
  • Appraisal requirements are set forth in 36 CFR §254.9. An appraisal is based on fair market value of the highest and best use of the land as set forth in 36 CFR 254.9(b).

General Exchange Act

  • The non-Federal land must be valuable chiefly for National Forest purposes.
  • The National Forest land must be non-mineral in character, or the minerals must be reserved and their value considered in the exchange (with  BLM  approval).
  • Requires that lands acquired be within proclaimed National Forest Service

Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA)

  • Authorizes acquisition  of  land  for  access  across  non-Federal  lands  to  units  of  the  National Forest
  • Requires the Secretary of Agriculture to give full consideration to State and local needs as well as Federal
  • Requires lands exchanged to be of equal value, within 25%.

Exchange for Schools Act (Sisk Act)

  • Allows for the exchange of not more than 80 acres of National Forest System land to a State,  county, municipal government, or public school authority without limitation to the amount of cash equalization payment made by the non-Federal part
  • Lands may be conveyed to a State, county or municipal government only if the entity was using the land on January 12, 1983, and for the same use
Tools
  • Exchanges (the Land Exchange Handbook [FSH 13 Chapter 30]):
    • Land for Land, including  partial  interests  such  as  severed  mineral  estates,  rights-of-way easements, leasehold interests, and long-term or perpetual easements.
    • Legislated Exchanges: Passed by an Act of Congress, and may override the requirements of USFS regulation and
  • Land for Timber: acquisition  of  non@Federal  land,  or  interest  in  land,  in  exchange  for National Forest timber or the value  generated  from  the  timber  harvested  in  accordance  with a National Forest timber
  • Competitive Land Exchange: when the Federal land is unique and similar private party transactions are  limited  or  non@existent  or  there  is  a  known  competitive  interest  in  the Federal
  • Exchange with States and Federally Recognized
  • Exchange through the Bureau of Land
  • Administrative Site Exchange: may facilitate acquisition of new administrative sites, conveyance of sites that are no longer needed to accomplish the Forest Service mission, or both. Resource lands may not be conveyed for a new administrative
  • Limited sale ability to schools via the Sisk Act
  • National Forest Townsites: up to 640 acres of National Forest System lands adjacent to or contiguous to an established community in California may be sold for fair market value if those lands would serve indigenous community objectives that outweigh the public objectives and values of retaining the lands in Federal See 36 CFR Section 254, Subpart B.
  • Small Tracts Act: provides for the resolution of land disputes and management problems by conveying through sale, exchange, or interchange three categories of land: parcels encroached on, road rights-of-way, and mineral survey fractions. See 36 CFR Section 254, Subpart

 

 

USDA Soon to Publish Interim Final Rule with One NEPA Regulation for All USDA

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E&E News had an article that included information about this. There was an interesting quote from our friend Ted Zukoski:

“This proposal will bar the American people from offering input on the vast majority of massive logging projects that will be approved under Trump’s ‘log, baby, log’ plan,” said Ted Zukoski, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, about USDA’s proposal in a statement.
He added, “The public’s ability to hold federal agencies accountable is the crucial foundation of America’s environmental laws and we’re going to use every tool in our arsenal to defend it.”

Here’s a link to the document. I’m hoping that people who are paid to do so, possibly including the people who worked on it,  will provide a summary of the general changes and the changes specific to the FS and what that means now and in the future for agency practitioners, contractors and partners involved in the work.

Please add any analysis you find, as well as your own views, in the comments.

Help Wanted: Interpreting Cut and Sold Report

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Note: I am away but still am the only comment moderator for now. I’ve been told that I’ll have cell coverage when I get to where I’m going this afternoon, so there may be slowness associated with approving comments depending on various factors.

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Help!  I was trying to communicate that only some California forests have timber industry and markets, so that it is unlikely that timber industry will be doing anything to speak of in the future.  So I went to the Cut and Sold Report and tried to interpret it. Here is 2024 for Region 5. I know there are many people out there who can help with this so please speak up.

Some obvious questions..

1. What is the sold number?

2. What causes a cut volume to be negative?

3. What causes a cut value to be negative?

4. To get an idea of how much the Angeles and Cleveland’s 100 and 150 MBF is.. I tried using this and made up a 16 inch 80 foot tall tree, which is 34 bf. So if they were all that size it would take 3000 trees to get to 100MBF.   think the cut and sold report may include firewood but I’m not sure if that’s on this table or not, if we’re trying to get at “timber industry” timber products.I guess it wouldn’t matter unless you want to track carbon impacts, and then what it is used for definitely does matter.

Also of interest is the lower value of 3424/141 =$24/MBF versus $66 per MBF on the Angeles or 1705/2230 $.76 on the Mendocino.

I’m hoping that someone out there will be able to interpret these numbers. I’m sure it all makes sense to those who watch these things regularly, but I need a Cut and Sold Report 101.

What the Hell are They Thinking? Post by Jim Petersen from Evergreen Magazine: NAFSR Letter

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This county level map of 2024 General Election results disproves the urban “red state” legend. There are no “red states.” What we have are blue pockets floating in a sea of red. Alaska, which has boroughs, not counties, voted RED but wasn’t included in this map. Source: Reddit

Jim Petersen gives an impassions plea for Forest Service Research and Development.  Thanks to him for taking this out of the paywall for us! Here’s the link and also posted it below.  It’s hard for me to write about what a bad idea it is.. it’s so bad, but thanks to Jim for filling the gap.  Like I’ve said previously, I’m a little worried that the R’s tend to want to reduce everything and some D’s may not care about this kind of research, which could leave a hole of support.

Fortunately for all of us, NAFSR has written a letter of support that you can modify if you want to contact your Representatives and Senators. This is the link (but it didn’t work for me) and I also uploaded it here.

Anyway, back to Jim’s essay.

The U.S. House of Representatives has zeroed out the Forest Service’s entire research budget for Fiscal 2026.

Forest Service research is not code for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion or any other social construct currently dominating news cycles and social media.

IT’S SCIENCE for heaven’s sake! The rock solid foundation that gives credence to the Forest Service’s management goals and objectives. The decadal forest plans.

NONE of the lofty goals described in the bipartisan Fix Our Forests Act now winding its way through the U.S. Senate can be reached if President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” aka the 2026 Appropriations Act does not include the Forest Service’s research budget.

It is thus up to the Senate reinsert this budget in the 2026 Appropriations Act.

What they hell were House members thinking? The Forest Service can’t magically restore dying National Forests if there is no money for research that supports the Fix Our Forests Act. Do House members realize vetoed their own forestry bill?

Here’s a list of what the House majority defunded – and here’s hoping the Senate restores the Forest Service’s research budget.

Gone: The Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wisconsin. A world class facility that includes machines that replicate pulping and papermaking processes on a pilot scale, others that test the compression and tensile strengths of various wood species and a nearby three-bedroom house filled with monitoring gear that tests wall and roof assemblies for mold and moisture levels, concrete foundations poured on the ground versus poured foundations that have vented crawl spaces. Also roofing systems made from tile, asphalt and cedar shingles and non-slip walkways on playgrounds to help handicapped kids get around more easily.

Self-adhering postage stamps were invented at the Madison lab. With special clearance, you can visit the in-house lab that did it. It works under the watchful eyes of U.S. Treasury agents. We’ve hosted several tours at the Madison lab when the late Chris Risbrudt was running it, so we know its work very well.

Gone: The Madison lab’s satellite research facility on the University of Minnesota campus in St. Paul. Only its Forest Inventory and Analysis [FIA] group survives, albeit with a much smaller and still unknown budget.

Charles “Hobi” Perry is Program Manager for St Paul’s FIA shop. When we were working on our FIA: The Gold Standard report in 2019 he spent two days walking us through FIA’s entire interactive map system.

EG FIA QR 1.28
EG FIA QR 1.28.pdf • 2 MB

These dazzling maps are available from every Forest Service Research Station and its satellite facilities in the nation. https://www.fs.usda.gov/ivm/ You are a mouse click away from huge data sets that describe every forest condition on every forest in the nation. The insect, disease and wildfire maps will be of particular interest since reducing wildfire risk at the heart of the Fix Our Forests Act.

Here’s a more complete rundown of the research labs and satellite facilities:

Northern Research Station https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/nrs Madison, Wisconsin, 21 labs in 20 Midwest and Northeast states.

Pacific Northwest [PNW] Research Station, https://research.fs.usda.gov/pnw Portland, Oregon, 11 labs in Oregon, Washington and Alaska

Pacific Southwest Research Station, https://research.fs.usda.gov/psw, Albany, California, with satellite labs in Fresno, Redding, Riverside and Davis.

Rocky Mountain Research Station, https://research.fs.usda.gov/rmrs, Fort Collins, Colorado, and its Fire Science lab in Missoula, Montana https://research.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/labs/locations/missoula-fire-sciences-laboratory and its FIA lab at Riverdale, Utah https://research.fs.usda.gov/rmrs/labs/locations/riverdale-forestry-sciences-laboratory

Riverdale and Missoula have been Evergreen’s go-to labs for 30 years. The Fort Collins lab assembled the prioritized risk maps showing which National Forests in the West were the most at risk from insects, diseases and wildfire.

Southern Research Station, https://research.fs.usda.gov/srs, Asheville, North Carolina. SRS deals mainly with private forest landowners because federal forests in the 13 state region account for only 6 percent of all forestland in the South. Forest diseases, prescribed burning, T&E species and product marketing are big deals at SRS.

Gone: The annual U.S. Forest Service/National Woodland Owner survey completed annually by Brett Butler, an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Department of Environmental Conservation. (www.fia.fs.fed.us/nwos/)

We’ve learned a great deal about private landowner management objectives from Butler’s annual survey. When we last interviewed him he told us that the woodland owners that he randomly surveys name three interlocking management objectives they pursue: growing and harvesting trees, fish and wildlife habitat conservation, forest health and protecting the beauty of their Tree Farms.

These objectives might seem to be mutually exclusive but they aren’t where woodland owners are concerned. These are our nation’s truest forest stewards. Their management objectives are much different from those of publicly-traded Real Estate Investment Trusts that annually pass their profits to individual shareholders. REIT’s harvest their trees between ages 20 and 40.

Woodland owners typically hold their trees for much longer periods before harvesting. The time cost of money principles observed by REITS mean next to nothing to woodland owners. We have pictures of woodland loggers sitting on logs at lunchtime reading their Bibles.

There are close to 10 million woodland owners in the U.S. This link https://www.stateforesters.org/timber-assurance/legality/forest-ownership-statistics/ leads to a National Association of State Foresters website loaded with information concerning all of our nation’s forest owners, including those who participated in Butler’s 2021 survey.

One of the many things you will discover from reading this survey is that timber is a byproduct of wider woodland owner commitments to forest stewardship. They are huge consumers of the research legacies that Forest Service scientists have developed over the last 90 years.

Prerequisite to this body of work are more than 350,000 survey plots located on public and private land from coast to coast – each inspected every 10 years. The “how to” instruction check list that surveyors pack with them is 96 pages long.

Many of the surveys are done by biologists or silviculturists who live in the woods for days at a time, cook on the tailgates of their pickups and sleep under the stars.

Some of the survey plots date from the 1930s but the first plots were laid out in 1909 by Thornton Munger, a Yale Forestry School graduate. Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the Forest Service, sent him west in 1908 to investigate a ponderosa pine insect infestation in Central Oregon. He was subsequently named the first director of the Pacific Northwest Research Station in Portland.

Gone: The U.S. Forest Service’s Fire Sciences Lab in Missoula, Montana – one of only two like it in the world. Dick Rothermel, who developed the Rothermel Fire Speed Model, is rolling over in his grave.

His analyis of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire in which 12 smoke jumpers and one ranger were killed is titled The Race that Couldn’t be Won. You can find it on the Internet. It has probably saved hundreds of wildland firefighters from fiery deaths.

Gone: The Forest Service’s Priest River, Idaho Experimental Forest, founded in 1911. Its earliest scientists studied fire behavior and silvicultural practices but its present day research program includes forest ecology, tree genetics and diseases and forest hydrology.

Harry Gisborne led this lab in its early years. To understand the impacts of wind on wildfire, he built a wooden platform atop a tall fir tree at the station so he stand there and measure wind speeds and monitor shifting wind patterns.

Gisborne died with his boots on walking down the trail that led from the Mann Gulch Fire to the Missouri River. He had hiked to the site in November 1949 to test his theory of what caused strong wind gusts to push the wildfire up a grassy slope where it swept over 14 smoke jumpers. A heart attack killed Gisborne on the same trail that rescuers used to carry the charred remains of 13 who were killed by the fire He was 56.

Gone: Funding for every research station and project in the nation. Their websites describe research programs that the House has zeroed out of the big but not so beautiful bill.

Why is this history important and why did the Forest Service’s research labs fall into the cross hairs of flinty-eyed House budget hawks?  Because they see their actions as a cheap and easy way to polish their election year bonafides. What the hell are they thinking?

The next general election occurs Nov. 23, 2026. It will be a day of reckoning for the GOP. If Democrats retake the House, a common occurrence in midterm elections, there won’t be any more happy talk about “fixing” our National Forests because Democrats living in urban and metropolitan areas don’t much care what happens in the rural West where most federal forestland is located

Budget hawks beware. You are practicing your bonafides on the backs of millions of RED state voters. But the nearby county level map reveals there is no such thing as a red state. There are only pockets of blue floating in a sea of red that stretches from sea to shining sea.

The red areas hold more than 90 percent of the nation’s public forestland. The Forest Service’s research lab customers live there. Most vote.

Voters in the blue pockets are the ones who are dying by the thousands from breathing carcinogenic wildfire smoke.

And the lesson? First, do no harm.

The Facts About Rescinding Rules and Some Other Roadless Ruminations

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The Secretary announced that she is rescinding the 2001 Roadless Rule.  However, what I forgot to mention before is that Admins can’t willy-nilly get rid of regulations.  If that were the case, the USG would be even more of a cluster than it is.  Fortunately, George Washington University has a Regulatory Studies Center, which explains all the processes that can be used.. and previously I had skipped ahead to the pain of doing a new rule, without explaining that they need to do one.

To modify or overturn a regulation that does not fit any of the above circumstances, an agency would have to go through all the procedures required to issue a new regulation. These steps are governed by the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 and include developing a legal record justifying the proposed change (including technical and economic analysis), and seeking public comment on that record and the proposed regulatory (deregulatory) action. The agency would have to respond to public comment, which may lead to modifications to the draft regulation, before it issues a final rule. These steps generally take at least a year, but the story won’t likely end there.

When the final rule is issued, two records will exist, one developed to support the original regulation and a second that supports its elimination or modification. The revised rule will almost certainly be litigated, with parties that supported the original rule pointing to the earlier record to defend their objections. This legal process may take years to resolve.

I can see why the media uses the expression “rescinds Rule”, at least in the headlines, because the Admin did.. but we can imagine a new Rule.  It’s somewhat predictable.  It will be a massive donation generating device for ENGOs,  97% of public comments will be against it no matter what’s in it. In fact, the ENGOs can probably reuse press releases from previous State rulemakings.  By the time it’s done, it will either go to court and be overturned, or there will be a new Admin who will redecide and select the no-action (keep the 2001) alternative.  As I recall, that’s what happened in Alaska.

My idea since so much of this is repetitive and would benefit from knowledge gained from previous efforts, that this Admin call back retirees and find the folks who worked on Alaska, so hopefully no one else will have to spend their time learning about this fairly arcane topic.

Now the argument could be made that the 2001 Rule didn’t take climate change into account and therefore the increased risk of catastrophic wildfire- climate-induced megafires..requires attention to different issues in the analysis.. and it would indeed be interesting to see this Admin make that argument.

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For those of you who don’t remember, the Bush era State Roadless effort was for States with Roadless Problem Children to step up to the plate and do a state-specific rule. Only Colorado, Idaho and Alaska (longer story) ever stepped up.  I infer from that that no one else (even the much- maligned Utah) really cared. Of course, as I can attest from experience, doing a Rule is a great deal of work and I suppose getting someone else to do it (like the Feds) doesn’t carry the same burden. Nevertheless..

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The media coverage has been interesting.. once again the LA Times continues its deference to Chad Hanson as a mouthpiece for “many of the scientists”. Their virtual rolodex of California fire scientists must be sparse. What’s up with that?

Experts say decades of suppressing fires in California has enabled a buildup of vegetation that is fueling larger and more frequent conflagrations. However, many of those same experts have warned that clearing brush is not the same as large-scale logging or clear cutting — which can eliminate fire-suppressing shade and moisture and lead to new growth of more combustible non-native plants and grasses.

So I guess the reporter assumes that the FS will embark upon “large-scale logging and clearcutting” as part of fuel treatment projects.. regardless of forest plans, and other restrictions. Looking on the bright side, perhaps they’ve moved from “fuel treatments don’t work” to “they might work, but the FS won’t do them properly.”

I agree with Chris Wood here:

Chris Wood, who helped develop the 2001 Roadless Rule when he worked at the Forest Service and now serves as chief executive of the conservation group Trout Unlimited, said the policy is “one of the most significant and popular conservation achievements in the history of the United States.”

“Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the Forest Service, once described conservation as ‘the application of common sense to common problems for the common good,’” Wood said. “Let’s hope common sense prevails and the administration reconsiders its proposal.”

At the same time, I recall that Chris has also been quoted as saying “the 2001 Rule was not written on stone tablets.” Both things are true, it is popular and a general good thing.. and it, like anything else, could probably be improved by better mapping, consideration of PODs, and climate change.

And so it goes.  I just hope the Admin minimizes the impact of this rulemaking on the current workforce.