When we critique Admin actions, we can choose from a couple of assertions..
1. We disagree with the idea
2. Well, there may be a problem, but they are going about solving it the wrong way
3. The proposed actions don’t meet their stated objectives
It seems to me that we may have better luck convincing the Admin and/or Congress to change course with points 2 and 3.In particular, I am convinced that the folks zeroing out FS R&D don’t understand what they do. Or they do understand.. that FS R&D does uniquely practical and useful research and forms a body of expertise that can’t be generated from random 2-3 year extramural grants, and are playing budget games. Nevertheless, this is an opportunity to highlight the good work that they do.
So for the next little while, until the Congress passes the budget, I plan to post a useful example of FS R&D work daily. Any R&D folks out there can help me out by sending candidate researcher or projects to my email.
We’re going to explore the intersection of MF and other topics of interest.
First I’d like to point out that the Chief’s Letter is for this year. And what did he actually say?
There may be very limited opportunities for in-season prescribed fire or the use of natural ignitions to safely reduce future wildfires outlined in the Interagency Standards for Fire and Fire Aviation Operations (Red Book). We will also use those procedures in Preparedness Level 3. If those opportunities exist, they should be well understood by partners and key stakeholders through open, collaborative preseason and ongoing dialogue, as well as risk shared with both regional foresters and the national headquarters.
This doesn’t sound like the 10 AM rule; it sounds like “let’s be particularly careful.” Why would he say that this year?
I. What’s Different About this Year- Resources
We have all read about losing possibly 75% of red-carded folks. But then those people were hired back. Then there are folks with more time in who may have voluntarily retired. But they could be hired back (Chris French talked about getting approval to hire folks back while they are on pre-retirement Admin leave.) So we don’t know (I’m sure there are people who are working who do know, but as a group we don’t now) how well set-up personnel resources are this year, or later in the year when some are traditionally let go. And of course, suppression depends on them. What about contracts? Theoretically those are not held up (emergency) but again, we do not know. The people who do know probably aren’t talking. Then next year, folks could be transitioning to the proposed Wildfire Service (I’m not sure that’s going to happen, but if it does, it would also be a good argument for increased caution).
Managed fires require people around to monitor them and get after them if they take off. Those same people could be helping out on other fires. If folks are watching a fire and it starts to take off, other people and resources are needed which wouldn’t have been needed if it had been suppressed if/when there was an opportunity. There are only so many people and resources to go around..ergo the Chief’s letter.
************
Intersections Not Unique to This Year
2. Unpredictable and Extreme Fire Behavior. You might call this Wildfire-a-Geddon. We have all read that “climate change is making fires more frequent and intense”, but we can see a pattern of a) increasing human caused ignitions at bad times of the year, b) past fire suppression has led to fuel accumulation and c) climate has changed. Whatever the reason, if wildfire are exhibiting unpredictable and extreme behavior, and we intend to manage them at least in part by predicting their unpredictable behavior, there is a tension, at least in the verbiage. Perhaps not in the actual practice.
3. Climate Change. This could go either way.. “climate is making fire conditions worse, so put everything out right away while you still can.” Or “climate change makes the need for landscape scale fuel treatments essential, the only way to go is MF.”
4. New Technology. If you have been following detection and suppression technology, it’s becoming clear that we’ll be able to hop on fires quickly. So choices will have to be made about MF sooner- or it might be easier to just put it out. At the same time, these capabilities may enable better control of MF. We’ll have to see how these technologies change the landscape, but they are out there.
5. Smoke. Since the advent of climate change funding, researchers have figured out that wildfire smoke is bad for you. If we are looking at MF vs. PF, MF tends to go on for weeks or months, so would probably lose out. However, the stories from the Coconino suggest that communities may tolerate it up to a point and MF can be backed off when local folks have reached their maximum tolerance point. Of course, this is location and wind direction dependent.
6.Fire Retardant Use. I have heard that more retardant is used on MF. I don’t know if this means just because the sum of MF and Full Suppression Fires is larger than just FSFs. I don’t even know whether it’s true. Or like everything else it may vary by locality and whether MFs ultimately escape. It’s possible that some TSW folks heavily into this space may know more.
7. Targets for MF Possibly Leading to Risk-Taking by Employees?. The discussion around Timber increases in targets with fewer employees is thought by some that corners will be cut. It seems to me that the same case could be made for making MF a way of achieving fuels targets, since the employees may well be some of the same folks. I haven’t talked about the explanations of the FS’s proposed outcome-based measures, but this seems to be a good time to introduce an excellent answer to my question that I received from the WO Press Office:
1. Do “natural disturbances” on slide 12 include WFU/managed wildfire? What else is included?
For the outcome performance work, we’re using anything that can cause a landscape-scale change to vegetation and fuels that would affect fire behavior in future wildfires. Our FY23 outcome-based performance metrics consider treatments and disturbances across Wildfire Crisis Strategy landscapes that change the arrangement of fuels.
There are five categories of treatments included in outcome-based performance calculations:
1) mechanical treatments;
2) prescribed fire;
3) wildfire that met hazardous fuel treatment criteria;
4) all other wildfires; and
5) other natural disturbances (e.g., insects, windthrow, etc.).
All treatments and disturbances are considered “treatments” for the purposes of the outcome-based performance metrics shared during the webinar. FY24 outcome-based performance metrics will consider all of the above as treatments with the exception of (5) other natural disturbances which will not be included. We have learned that insect and disease doesn’t really capture vegetation change in the right way for this analysis.
I had hoped that this particular idea would not survive the new Admin, but if I understand this correctly, the FS was planning to use “outcome-based performance measures” based on treatments influencing vegetation, including all wildfires. In discussions with fire folks of the “why don’t management teams take more risks with MF?” persuasion, I pointed out that the risks of things going awry might be problematic for their careers, but the real risk is to others’ lives and property. It seems to me that aligning goals between employees and locals is key to developing social license. And it sounds like that that’s what the Coconino has done. But as folks say “trust is hard to gain but easy to lose.” Any organizational structure which oversees MF, in my view, needs to explicitly consider that.
6) NEPA. I am agnostic as to what form this should take for MF. My suggestion was to put plan revisions on hold until Forests could develop a wildfire amendment including MF and approval of POD establishment and maintenance. And What NEPA best fits “opportunistic firing operations for fuel treatment”? I’m not sure it qualifies as an emergency in the traditional sense. Should active and passive MF require the same NEPA approach?
Do you have other intersections or concerns? What do you think about these?
Last week we found out that most of us are for some use of managed fire, but have concerns, so this week we will dig into some of them. If you haven’t, you might want to review the piece from last week on how the Coconino uses managed fire, including the linked video (Mormon Fire Staff Ride) on how they make decisions. One question has been about the NEPA enabling this.. my source mentioned the 4FRI EIS and the LMP. Jon looked at the LMP here.
I’d like to introduce the “deck of cards” concept. I think when we talk about forests, or MF or any other treatment, we all have our own experiences and specific examples in mind. For me, I’ve had long-term MFs that I’ve driven through the smoke of for months. When I worked for the FS, we had (seemed like) several presentations on the Little Venus Entrapment of 2006, peer review here.
Point being, in my deck of MF cards, I had only “lightning ignited fire started in wilderness that is allowed to skunk around and is monitored.” I didn’t have anything like the Coconino’s firing operations in pre-treated areas, or 320K acres as Frank Carroll questioned about the Black Fire. If I had had those cards in my deck, I might have thought differently about managed fire. So perhaps many disagreements about MF (and forests in general) reflect what cards an individual is holding.
If you look at it through that lens, it seems like there might be (at least) two categories of MF, passive MF and active MF.
To understand why we disagree, then, we need to go to the next level.. which cards are you thinking of when you espouse a position? Since most of us turn out to be 2’s (not BAU and not full stop with MF) maybe we can further in exploring what we fear, what we would like to improve, how to build trust, and so on.
For the Coconino, it seems like the main difference between a PF and an MF is a fortuitous natural ignition which enables all kinds of resources otherwise inaccessible. And of course, obvious pre=planning NEPA process with potential litigation; the risk of not having funding when the process is complete, and so on.
***************
What cards are you holding and do they reflect active or passive MF?
I agree with the idea of consolidating duplicative programs, or at least checking to see if they are duplicative.
I have to point out two areas in which I think the Budget write-up is wrong, as well as inconsistent. It is also against the intentions that I think this Admin has.. which is to focus on what we might call “science for the people” or scientific work of practical value, that answers questions that folks in forest management and farmers want to know. In my view, by targeting forumula funds and FSR&D, they are actually short-circuiting opportunities for the public to influence research priorities and design, and in fact, produce practical research. It leaves people further divorced from direct influence over research priorities. It seems to me based on the stated goals of this Admin, it would be better to identify more direct methods of people influencing R&D portfolios rather than getting rid of the ones that are working.
This comes from my experience at NIFA and with the Fund for Rural America, a research, education and extension program that Congress funded in the hope that it would generate some useful information. The utility of USG research has been a long-standing concern of theirs.
1. NIFA
The Budget eliminates wasteful, woke programming in NIFA, such as activities related to climate change, renewable energy, and promoting DEI in education that were prioritized under the Biden Administration.
My only thought is that if certain Admins prioritize things, then other Admins can de-prioritize them. I’d prefer a system that focuses on non-partisanized topics, but that’s just me.
In addition, the Budget reduces funding for formula grants because they generally do not achieve the same results as competitive programs.< Instead, the Budget focuses on the President’s goal of advancing the competitiveness of American agriculture through the merit-based Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. The Budget protects funding to youth and K-12 programs such as 4-H clubs, tribal colleges, and universities. This investment would help prepare future generations of farmers. It also ensures HBCUs are amply funded.
What does the bolded piece even mean? I remember when employees came over from NSF to tell us at NIFA that formula funds were old hat, and the cool new way of doing business was better.bringing combos of scientists in to decide funding. It seemed to me one of those beliefs which needed to be taken on faith, as I never saw a formal analysis. Having seen both sides, I think it depends on how each is administered, and of course, what you think are the appropriate results (who interprets “better”?). Users are not allowed on the panels, and there was no separate way for us to hear from them what issues were important to work on. Individuals or groups decide and submit proposals.
There can be good formula and bad formula administration. Before formula funds were diverted into competitive grants (and there was a sizeable chunk of funding), some schools used to have formal groups of users advising them on issues that they thought needed research. So if a state was beleaguered by some pest, for example, they didn’t have to enter a US wide competition (where scientists alone rated proposals) to get grant funds. Deans would figure out a way to get it done with the research and extension capacity available. Of course, that was at its best- it could also be a slush fund for the Dean to award to his or her favorites, or to use to recruit scientists, or I’m sure there were other uses.
On the other hand, competitive grants can be more scientist generated.. what scientists think is useful. And there can be quite a gap between what scientists think is useful compared to what forest managers or farmers think is useful. For example, Chelsea Pennick is trying to round up funds to research “why previous biomass efforts haven’t been successful” and Frank Carroll has questions about managed fire, to whom does he take them? At least in the old days, you could sit down with a human being (Dean or substitute) and make your case.
As I looked into this, I noted that some odd things about how forests are included, for example in the NAREEEAB board (it’s interesting that social scientists and economists don’t count as “academic or research societies”, they instead count as “industry, consumer or rural interests.” And there is one position out of 15 for a forest person. Also interesting is that the NAREEEAB has subcommittees, apparently at the behest of Congress. This sounds like a great idea..but I don’t know how it has worked out.
SCC studies the scope and effectiveness of research, extension and economics programs affecting the specialty crop industry. It reports its research findings and makes recommendations for improving these programs, with the goal of making U.S. specialty crop production more efficient, productive and profitable.
But wouldn’t it make more sense to study such things for forest research across agencies (perhaps there can’t be an interagency FACA committee?). Within the USDA, there is the Forestry Research Advisory Committee or FRAC. However, on the FRAC webpage I didn’t see anything recent. This could be a broken link problem.. hard to tell.
2. Other Intramural USDA (ARS, NASS and ERS)
It’s interesting that giving money to land-grants to decide is bad (formula funds) but giving it intramurally via ARS is fine. Which is not to criticize ARS nor FS intramural. And looking back, I wonder if part of the formula funding critiques were really about other universities getting access to USDA funds.
The Administration is committed to prioritizing research that supports American agriculture. However, many of the current ARS facilities are in disrepair. The Budget reduces funding for research sites across the Nation that have exceeded their ideal lifespan and reduces funding for research projects that are not of the highest national priority. The Budget also makes small reductions to the Economic Research Service and National Agricultural Statistics Service to stop climate-politicized additional scopes added by the Biden Administration while ensuring all critical analysis and data collection continues.
I wonder who is deciding which research is of “the highest priority”? It seems to me that university administrators and faculty have to thread the needle of “what the scientific community thinks is currently cool to study” “what farmers and land managers in the State need” and “what is fundable by the current mix of programs among federal agencies.” I don’t envy them.
3. Intramural Forest Service (Forest Service R&D)
The President has pledged to manage national forests for their intended purpose of producing timber. The Budget reduces funding for the Forest and Rangeland Research program because it is out of step with the practical needs of forest management for timber production, but maintains funding for Forest Inventory and Analysis, a longstanding census of forest resources and conditions.
You’ve gotta be kidding! For some of us, getting an FS researcher interested is our only hope. How can the Admin say that the ARS is doing useful work and the FS is not? It’s just bizarre. I wonder if anyone actually believes that. Of course, some projects are more useful, in that sense, than others. But I’m sure that’s equally true of competitive grants funded by NIFA and intramural research at ARS.
Finally, we have to leave USDA because there is some overlap between what USGS does and what FS R&D does.
4. USGS
USGS provides science information on natural hazards, ecosystems, water, energy and mineral resources, and mapping of Earth’s features. The Budget eliminates programs that provide grants to universities, duplicate other Federal research programs and focus on social agendas (e.g., climate change) to instead focus on achieving dominance in energy and critical minerals.
Now some of us remember when agencies like BLM lost their R&D arms with the combo into USGS. Which meant again, that there is no institutional link between what managers feel they need and getting research done. At the time, it was kind of the same with Forest Health folks and FS R&D. “Your problems are too practical for us.” “OK, we’ll do the work ourselves.” “You can’t because that’s research and you are not funded to do research.”
My broader point is that if, as I think, some USGS research overlaps with FSR&D, then it won’t anymore if FS R&D is gone.
Of course, NSF is also in the mix. Check out this project at Univ of Montana. It sounds good (although, in this abstract, kind of nebulous), but you could see the FS funding it.
This Regional Innovation Engines Development Award is focused on precision forestry and rangeland management. It will be a new economic driver in the Northern Rockies/Northern Plains region by applying technology, tools, and data to the emerging field of precision forestry and rangeland management. This project, led by the University of Montana, brings together researchers and partners from the Plains University Innovation Alliance, the Montana Wood Products Association, the Nature Conservancy, the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium in addition to state Climate Offices, economic and workforce offices in the Montana Governor’s Office, and venture capital firms. Through this innovative partnership between public institutions, Tribal Community Universities, and private industry, the team will create a dynamic economic development ecosystem and an expert knowledge base that will address critical issues related to land management with national and global relevance. As a key aspect of the effort, the Development Award will demonstrate the application of recent and emerging technologies to manage the land to maximize the economic benefit of federal, Tribal, and private forests and rangelands while minimizing ecological impacts such as fire, drought, and flood. Technologies such as lidar, autonomous aerial systems, satellite imagery, sensor arrays, and predictive modeling can increase forest and rangeland production by improving the available data for use by land managers. This will enable more precise policy and decision-making and improve environmental risk mitigation.
1) If you haven’t seen, please go back to my post yesterday on Managed Fire. Perhaps because of the Supreme Court case, it doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention. And we haven’t heard from other parts of the country whether the Arizona approach is similar to how other areas go about doing MF.
But on to science..
It seems to me that this is an opportunity to get folks together to get a handle on better managing the USG R&D portfolio. I’m talking about serious change and so it would have to be some kind of bipartisan institution maybe begun in this admin, but dedicated to making better use of the R&D budget, making decisions and prioritization more transparent, and ensuring that research intended to be applied.. can actually be applied. Maybe that’s too big an ask, but I would at least like to see us start on that path. In this effort, little science (us) would have a voice along with Big Science (say, the usual OSTP suspects).
2) People are very concerned about One Wildfire Agency in terms of losing local capacity. But I’m the only one concerned about centralizing fire research in the Intelligence Center (or will it be centralized?) I’m concerned on the basis of losing FS research- the kind of useful work you find in the screenshot above – as more aggressive and larger research agencies may be empowered to set research agendas. More satellites and high tech (nothing wrong with high tech), less emphasis on communities and human firefighters. The idea that you can understand something without understanding any of the moving parts or mechanisms. Maybe it’s my time in DC, trying to hoover up any scraps from the Big Science funding table, and I think that very careful structuring of how R&D is designed, prioritized and funded is important.
3) The previous Admin had an open-access effort, I think that’s a really important to keep up or expand. Fortunately, the linked article on paywalls is not paywalled.
In Washington, D.C., these shifts prompted both Republicans and Democrats to urge the federal government to revise its access policies. In 2013, then-President Barack Obama attempted to strike a compromise—via the 1-year embargo rule—between publishers and open-access advocates.
But many—including Biden, then Obama’s vice president—were not happy with that deal. In a 2016 speech, for example, Biden noted, “The taxpayers fund $5 billion a year in cancer research, but once it’s published, nearly all of that sits behind [pay]walls. Tell me how this is moving the [scientific] process along more rapidly.”
4) In addition to some kind of cross-checking that different agencies (or within agencies) aren’t doing duplicative research, I’d like to see a clearer check on research panels for “research that is supposed to be helpful to policy makers or managers or resource professionals.” That would involve a check on whether something is already known, and whether more knowledge is actually helpful to anyone. Perhaps reviewers are too polite to say “I think we already know this” or “no one cares about that plant and its future under modeled climate change.” Often I found in the FS that folks in NFS would relationally not want to question what R&D folks were doing- “why annoy them?” and “it’s their funding.” This can also be true for university researchers (as I was advised “don’t question them, they’ll write even worse things about us”). So my view is that to get an unbiased look you would need to select people out of the relational line of fire.
5) I think perhaps only in JFSP is there a direct link from managers and resource professionals questions and what gets prioritized, designed and funded. For example, I think we could know how different parts of the country do managed fire, how they do it, what communities think and so on. We have excellent literature on PF, MT and community views. Perhaps a group could have an annual review of what is being studied (broader than, but inclusive of, USG funding) and what gaps there are, and move from their to actually funding work determined to be useful.
6) I don’t mean to pick on these people, certainly they are the right people, FS, USGS and Forest folks. From the abstract, and the FS has an open version on their website here.
However, lack of natural ponderosa pine regeneration in undisturbed forests (i.e., no occurrence of stand-replacing events) may require management treatments to promote regeneration.
In addition to effects on near-surface temperature and soil moisture, management conducive to natural regeneration was associated with the density of competing tree species, understory litter and debris cover, and adult tree cone production.
***********
Our results show that existing forest management treatments have the potential to promote natural ponderosa pine regeneration in the SWUS, but will require assessment and modification through time to remain effective.
********
I think there are questions around “is climate change impacting the things we already know about forests?” and maybe this was it. Another way to prioritize would be.. “hey these things we’ve noticed are different and they seem problematic, what can we do about them?” Of course, the scientists were supported by the Climate Adaptation Science Center; but isn’t every management or non-management practice now considered “climate adaptation”? When I was working, it seemed like there was a burgeoning business in creating new centers with new administrative structures that seemed duplicative, at least to us users. When we asked questions about that, I remember USGS folks saying “it’s too late Congress already funded them, you get to help us decide where to put them.” USGS has Adaptation Science Centers, USDA has Climate Hubs. Is anyone checking for duplication or gaps?
Something very similar happened with the National Science Foundation (NSF). In 2023, the Academies called out NSF for not meeting its legal obligation to share data: “Granting access to data on all applicants for program assessment purposes, as is called for in the legislation mandating this review, and establishing processes that would allow for structured evaluation of policies and procedures would help NSF understand the effectiveness of its initiatives and how its programs could be improved.”
Despite expectations from policymakers and statutes that data from science agencies be available for analysis, both of us—longtime open science advocates who have worked in various government and industry positions and who are writing only in our personal capacities and not on behalf of anyone else—have heard top researchers complain that they can’t get access to information on unfunded proposals, or, on the rare occasions when they do, access is conditional on allowing the agency to veto any publications using the data.
Without knowing what proposals go unfunded, there is no way to know whether agencies are supporting a wide range of ideas or favoring a narrow theory. Are “high-risk, high reward” proposals getting a chance? Have hard-won changes in grant policies actually helped early-career researchers? Do the questions researchers ask change in response to demands from Congress or calls from citizen groups? These questions seem both valuable and straightforward. Yet metaresearchers (those who research how research is done) are unable to address such topics with any certainty. The public cannot know, for example, how many NIH grant applications come from historically Black colleges or universities, or how many researchers propose to study gain-of-function in viral genomes, without knowing what is included in all R&D grant applications, funded and not.
..
Researchers could make more efficient progress by using past grant proposals to refine their approach and so avoid wasting months or even years on unrealistic proposals, particularly if reviewers’ comments and scores are also shared. They could learn whether they are pursuing projects already deemed unpromising by funding agencies, which could prompt them to try other areas, or to have a pre-application conversation with a program officer to gain a better understanding of an agency’s interest. Researchers with similar interests would be able to discover each other’s work and potentially join forces, leading to stronger proposals, more impactful research, and collaborations formed much earlier than those enabled by publications and conference presentations.
Though agencies can look across their own applications for insights, access to a complete picture of the research landscape across the federal government would allow funding agencies to make more informed decisions about funding priorities. As articulated in the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act signed into law by President Trump in 2019, when agencies can share and access information across the government, they are able to more efficiently identify research trends, understand the derivative impacts of their own work, and craft decisions and policies informed by evidence. They can also build more effective, cross-agency initiatives, such as NSF’s Smart Health funding opportunity, designed to support cross-agency efforts to incorporate information science in health care
8) Indirect costs caps. There has been much concern about NIH reducing its caps. A reasonable person could wonder “why shouldn’t all USG research have the same caps?” I’ve never really heard this kind of thing discussed. Certainly it would seem to be easier for grant administrators and PIs to deal with. I ran across this guide to indirect costs from my old agency, NIFA (that is one agency in one department- USDA!).
GREENWIRE | The Trump administration said Wednesday it will further truncate environmental reviews by eliminating Biden-era guidance to consider greenhouse gas emissions and climate change when weighing new energy projects.
“when weighing new energy projects”
But the way I read the federal register notice, it’s for all projects.
Here’s the link to the CEQ interim guidance from 2023.
It involves using what is surely one of the most bogus numbers ever calculated– the Social Cost of Carbon. To be fair, I don’t think the people at CEQ understood how it was calculated.
This is in the footnote to the 2023 guidance:
This guidance is not a rule or regulation, and the recommendations it contains may not apply to a particular situation based upon the individual facts and circumstances. This guidance does not change or substitute for any law, regulation, or other legally binding requirement, and is not legally enforceable. The use of non-mandatory language such as “guidance,” “recommend,” “may,” “should,” and “can,” describes CEQ policies and recommendations. The use of mandatory terminology such as “must” and “required” describes controlling requirements under the terms of NEPA and the CEQ regulations, but this document does not affect legally binding requirements.
I was exhausted from just reading the guidance (and didn’t make it all the way through), let alone figuring out how to incorporate it in a NEPA doc. I wonder whether NEPA folks at any agencies took it seriously?
There would have been a way for CEQ to work with agencies to figure out a relatively simple way to consider GHGs. Needless to say, the 2023 guidance is not that. Maybe if they’d done that the agencies would have found it useful, and it wouldn’t have been tossed by the next Admin. I think that that is also good advice for this Admin.
“In preparing an EIS, an agency also must determine the scope of the environmental effects that it will address. The textual focus of NEPA is the “proposed action”—that is, the project at hand. 42 U. S. C. §4332(2)(C) (2018). The agency therefore will obviously seek to assess significant effects from the project at issue. But how far will the agency go in considering the indirect effects that might occur outside the area of the immediate project—for example, due to emissions or run off from the project carried elsewhere by air or water? And will the agency evaluate the environmental effects from other future or geographically separate projects that may be initiated (or expanded) as a result of or in the wake of the current project? And what if another agency also possesses regulatory authority over a related project?
In analyzing those scope questions, it is critical to disaggregate the agency’s role from the court’s role. So long as the EIS addresses environmental effects from the project at issue, courts should defer to agencies’ decisions about where to draw the line—including (i) how far to go in considering indirect environmental effects from the project at hand and (ii) whether to analyze environmental effects from other projects separate in time or place from the project at hand. On those kinds of questions, as this Court has often said, agencies possess discretion and must have broad latitude to draw a “manageable line.” Public Citizen, 541 U. S., at 767 (quoting Metropolitan Edison Co. v. People Against Nuclear Energy, 460 U. S. 766, 774, n. 7 (1983)).
To tie all of this together: When assessing significant environmental effects and feasible alternatives for purposes of NEPA, an agency will invariably make a series of fact-dependent, context-specific, and policy-laden choices about the depth and breadth of its inquiry—and also about the length, content, and level of detail of the resulting EIS. Courts should afford substantial deference and should not micromanage those agency choices so long as they fall within a broad zone of reasonableness. As the Court has emphasized on several occasions, and we doubly underscore again today, “inherent in NEPA . . . is a ‘rule of reason,’ which ensures that agencies determine whether and to what extent to prepare an EIS based on the usefulness of any new potential information to the decisionmaking process.” Public Citizen, 541 U. S., at 767. A reviewing court may not “substitute its judgment for that of the agency as to the environmental consequences of its actions.” Kleppe, 427 U. S., at 410, n. 21.
Some courts have strayed and not applied NEPA with the level of deference demanded by the statutory text and this Court’s cases. Those decisions have instead engaged in overly intrusive (and unpredictable) review in NEPA cases. Those rulings have slowed down or blocked many projects and, in turn, caused litigation-averse agencies to take ever more time and to prepare ever longer EISs for future projects.
The upshot: NEPA has transformed from a modest procedural requirement into a blunt and haphazard tool employed by project opponents (who may not always be entirely motivated by concern for the environment) to try to stop or at least slow down new infrastructure and construction projects. Some project opponents have invoked NEPA and sought to enlist the courts in blocking or delaying even those projects that otherwise comply with all relevant substantive environmental laws. Indeed, certain project opponents have relied on NEPA to fight even clean-energy projects—from wind farms to hydroelectric dams, from solar farms to geothermal wells. See, e.g., Brief for Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, et al. as Amici Curiae 19–20.
All of that has led to more agency analysis of separate projects, more consideration of attenuated effects, more exploration of alternatives to proposed agency action, more speculation and consultation and estimation and litigation.
Delay upon delay, so much so that the process sometimes seems to “borde[r] on the Kafkaesque.” Vermont Yankee, 435 U. S., at 557. Fewer projects make it to the finish line. Indeed, fewer projects make it to the starting line. Those that survive often end up costing much more than is anticipated or necessary, both for the agency preparing the EIS and for the builder of the project. And that in turn means fewer and more expensive railroads, airports, wind turbines, transmission lines, dams, housing developments, highways, bridges, subways, stadiums, arenas, data centers, and the like. And that also means fewer jobs, as new projects become difficult to finance and build in a timely fashion.
A 1970 legislative acorn has grown over the years into a judicial oak that has hindered infrastructure development “under the guise” of just a little more process. Id., at 558. A course correction of sorts is appropriate to bring judicial review under NEPA back in line with the statutory text and common sense. Id., at 525. Congress did not design NEPA for judges to hamstring new infrastructure and construction projects. On the contrary, as this Court has stressed, courts should and “must defer to ‘the informed discretion of the responsible federal agencies.’” Marsh, 490 U. S., at 377.
**********
The ultimate question is not whether an EIS in and of itself is inadequate, but whether the agency’s final decision was reasonable and reasonably explained. Review of an EIS is only one component of that analysis. Even if an EIS falls short in some respects, that deficiency may not necessarily require a court to vacate the agency’s ultimate approval of a project, at least absent reason to believe that the agency might disapprove the project if it added more to the EIS. Cf. 5 U. S. C. §706. For example, in a case like this one, even if the EIS drew the line on the effects of separate upstream or downstream projects too narrowly, that mistake would not necessarily require a court to vacate the agency’s approval of the railroad project. Cf. Vermont Yankee, 435 U. S., at 558.4″
For many of us, the decision-making processes involved in managed fire are not transparent. Especially since we are so used to lengthy NEPA processes prior to a decision. So I have been talking to some folks in R3. I am trying to understand this, so any corrections or knowledge of local difference would be appreciated. I’m not sure when this Mormon Fire Staff Ride was posted (it would be handy if folks thought to place dates) and maybe it’s outdated, but at least it’s a good starting place for looking at how decisions are made.
Basically, in some of 4FRI’s case, it sounds like the NEPA was already done via the 4FRI EIS for prescribed fire in various units. Something ignites, and then more decisions are made, about how to protect various resources, about the weather, about resource availability, about smoke and where it’s going, and these conditions have to be tracked in real time. In a way, it reminds me of condition-based management.
For NEPA folks here, it is in the Coconino LMP
The Flagstaff Ranger District managed a natural ignition for resource benefit for the first time in 2009. The Coconino National Forest Land Management Plan and Fire Management Plan permit this management approach outside of designated Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas and congressional designated wilderness areas, where more restrictive standards apply. Over the succeeding years, the district became more and more experienced and active in using this tool, with increasing numbers and sizes of fires as conditions and locations allowed.
The 2015 Camillo Fire was the largest fire on the Coconino National Forest at that time (23,866 acres) and represented a significant increase in the size and complexity of fires managed for resource benefit.
***********
Some other thoughts from folks who reached out:
1.Trust is key. Local folks have a great deal of experience.
Obviously a local workforce with a track record of success should not be messed with.
2. There isn’t a prescribed fire budget the way there is for MF because MF comes out of mega-suppression-bucks. If it’s a PF the Ranger pays for it, if it’s a MF the Chief pays for it.
3. MFs can order up more resources and have them on call. Engines, medics and so on. Perhaps being safer than PF, or able to be riskier with this backup? Maybe this is just a function of bucks, or there are other bureaucratic complexities- charging overtime?
4. There are many actions that take place during MFs as time passes that perhaps folks aren’t aware of. Units are decided on and “prepped”, archeological sites protected, duff removed from around pine trees and probably many other actions. In the example, there are units with separate decisions.
5. A key thing seems to be communications with local communities.
6. Some areas are too rough for PF.
Talking to these folks, it seems to me that at least in this part of Arizona, MF is a bit of a hybrid between a traditional PF and a pure suppression WF. Having a lightning ignition seems to generate mucho bucks and potentially less NEPA cost per acre for fuels that would otherwise need PF. Because the SW may have wetter summers due to the monsoon, does that give them an advantage in doing MF that others don’t have? What are others’ experiences with MF, the decision process, and where communication and trust works better and less well?
I don’t have any insight into the new Admin’s reorganization plans, I did hear rumors. Retired employee Kathy Kurtz was kind enough to share with me various Transformation documents from the 2007-ish period. I am going to try to scan her file in and post, but here’s one page from a presentation.
FWIW there was another option for four zones that split 1&4 from 2&3. One advantage to the three zone is that Wyoming would only have one RO to deal with. I suppose Idaho also.
The below came in as a comment from Anon.r.one, and I thought I would post it instead and also place it “in conversation,” as they say, with Jim Zorne’s and my own comments.
*******************
From anon.r.one:
I’m going to preface this comment with the recognition that managed fire may not be advisable in all locations or ecosystems, but that in some ecosystems it may be a (the) critical disturbance feature to maintain said ecosystem. As usual, the thrust of my comment will come from a wilderness perspective although the original post addresses a more managed space.
I want to reject the notion that managed fire should be “managed for resource benefit.” First, and maybe to Sharon’s broader point, I find the idea that we can determinatively state that the fire is beneficial to a resource to be classically hubristic. Every fire will have winners and losers at various spatial and temporal scales and who are we to make that declaration. However, we should also recognize that fire played an integral role in creating and managing that ecosystem.
In large landscapes (Wilderness), fire is managed to ‘allow fire to play its natural role on the landscape.’ I prefer this statement to ‘resource benefit’ as there is an implicit understanding that there may be negative outcomes in some places for some species for some time, but the larger natural process itself is more important in regulating the ecosystem. To quote a Forest Plan, “fire managers strive to manage the natural role of fire while protecting values from adverse impacts of fire,” and “wilderness areas provide opportunities for visitors to experience natural ecological processes and disturbances with a limited amount of human influence.”
To Jim’s point about Region 8, what is fire’s “natural role” when it was used as a tool by Native Americans? What does “natural” mean in situations where fire suppression occurred and with climate change (many believe that cc is unnatural)? If R8 doesn’t seem to need MF, is that for a practical reason (too many cabins), a cultural/historical reason, a Native American practice reason, or an “ecological” reason? We can tell from the House FOFA that white oak regeneration is in trouble (and that white oak has fans in the House), and yet the solution is not thought to be MF.
I think it is appropriate to use ‘beneficial’ when describing prescribed fire as fire itself is being used to attain some specified objectives. I’m in agreement with Sharon in keeping prescribed fire and managed fire separate when considering benefits.
You can put me down for the 1.5 camp. There are areas where managed fire is fine (the discussion and analysis has already happened) and areas where there needs to be more discussion. I’m also on board with PODs’n’more, for now. For my WUI areas, I favor mechanical treatment followed by prescribed fire and subsequent maintenance burning. https://research.fs.usda.gov/firelab/projects/lubrecht#overview
My goal would be to have enough treatments that ignitions in specified locations would be permitted to come to existing treatment boundaries.
There’s also some thought that perhaps the HRV doesn’t matter as much as the Future Range of Variability (FRV). “The HRV can still play a role by providing insight into how adaptive traits align with changing disturbance regimes to confer adaptive resilience, but under the FRV the safe operating space is shifting.” https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1617464114
That piece was a op-ed by scientists.. “Wildfires across western North America have increased in number and size over the past three decades, and this trend will continue in response to further warming. As a consequence, the wildland–urban interface is projected to experience substantially higher risk of climate-driven fires in the coming decades. ”
Also they seem to be from the “we’ll have to let fires run through communities” camp ..from the paper:
Key aspects of an adaptive resilience approach are (i) recognizing that fuels reduction cannot alter regional wildfire trends; (ii) targeting fuels reduction to increase adaptation by some ecosystems and residential communities to more frequent fire; (iii) actively managing more wild and prescribed fires with a range of severities; and (iv) incentivizing and planning residential development to withstand inevitable wildfire.
It’s odd to me that these folks are from Colorado, where we a) spend many fed and state dollars on fuel reduction, b) fire tends not to be “more frequent” because it takes a long time for trees to grow back, and c) even with building codes, people would prefer not to have fires running through their communities and have to evacuate. Anyway, back to Anon.R. One:
Mike really nails down some of my thoughts with this comment, “I was personally involved with suppressing several small fires in this zone. What if we had managed some of those fires instead?” I echo his sentiment; it is interesting to reflect on fires personally suppressed and quashed over the years that have been burned over by subsequent large fires. How large would that original suppressed fire have grown with the retroactive knowledge that heavy rain would come in a week or two? Would that unknown burned patch have moderated or even stopped the subsequent fire?
And that is one of the key questions.. will conditions continue to be favorable, or more favorable than future conditions might be? That’s a tough one.
We can put out fires while the conditions allow for it (in cooler and wetter years) and with lots of resource availability. But when we get into hotter and drier years, it doesn’t matter what we do once the fuels attain a certain dryness, and we are left with only the catastrophic 97th percentile fires. I think most people agree that we don’t want only the 97th percentile fire on the landscape. This is where I see the benefits of managed fire (and not following a 10am guideline), letting those fires burn in the cool and wet years to allow for more heterogeneity on the landscape in preparation for the years that we can’t control anything. (I thought about adding this to the Chief’s letter commentary but refrained for clear reasons).
Obviously, managed fire of this type can only be applied in certain areas with appropriate natural or man-made features, and which have previously been analyzed for the effects of fire. Quoting from a Forest Plan again, “fire is a primary ecological process that has shaped and maintained forest and non-forest ecosystems that in turn sustain the native plant communities and animal species.”
Many thanks for your thoughts, Mike, Jim and Anon.r.one!
