Thoughts on the Administration’s Proposed Federal Wildland Fire Service: Guest Post by Eric Horne of Megafire Action

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This is my prep paragraph to Eric Horne’s post below of context for MegaFire Action’s paper on One Department for Wildfire Management  (1) which includes (2)  moving the Forest Service to Interior (what we might call “the whole enchilada” of moves).

If I recall correctly, Michael Rains mentioned that there was a Carter-era  initiative to bring the agencies together. Larry Kurtz often mentions this as a good idea from his perspective, and we’ve discussed it here at TSW several times.

Then there was Service First, which many of us remember as successful but foundering on the shoals of individual agency budget accountability (or personal preference by State Directors or RFs? has a good history been written?  Here’s a link to to GAO Report from 2000 called “Ongoing Initiative to Share Activities and Facilities Needs Management Attention.  Well, I guess it got management attention.. but not in a good way. Like disappearing it.

So given those historic undercurrents that come to the surface from time to time (as included in the Megafire Action report, as far back as Reagan-er Interchange), it is not surprising that folks new to this space (Megafire Action) have surfaced the idea. Be sure to check out their “One Department for Wildfire Management” report  in its entirety.  Please remember to be hospitable and kind to new folks.  As Eric says, we can expect much more discussion around this topic, so hopefully we can set a productive tone for further discussions.

 

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Thoughts on the Administration’s proposed Federal Wildland Fire Service

By Eric Horne, National Policy Director, Megafire Action

The Trump Administration’s newly released “skinny budget” proposes a wholesale restructuring of wildfire management. Acknowledging that the “dispersed nature of the Federal mission creates significant coordination and cost inefficiencies that result in sub-optimal performance”, the budget calls for “consolidating and unifying the Federal wildland fire responsibilities into a single new Federal Wildland Fire Service at DOI, including transferring USDA’s current wildland fire management responsibilities.” Coming on the heels of Senators Padilla and Sheehy’s “Fit for Purpose Wildfire Readiness Act of 2025” and the widely circulated draft executive order, this concept is clearly gaining momentum.

Back in February, Megafire Action laid out the extensive history and potential merits of this proposal—“One Department for Wildfire Management”. We found that unifying wildland fire management and land management under one department would greatly streamline preparedness and mitigation, enhance transparency, strengthen tribal partnerships, and improve resource allocation by leveraging DOI’s centralized budget structure and departmental leadership that has a strong history of managing wildland fire across its agencies.

The Administration’s proposal is currently light on details, though we expect the forthcoming Congressional Budget Justification to shed more light on how and when this consolidation will take place, what programs and functions will be moved from USDA to DOI, and what will be left behind at USDA. While we await further details, we want to be clear about one thing: improved wildfire outcomes and cost synergies will only materialize if land management responsibilities are consolidated into the Department of the Interior alongside wildfire suppression capabilities. Fragmentation between emergency response, prevention and mitigation has too often resulted in year-round disaster management, minimizing long-term risk reduction.

The Administration’s skinny budget references “risk mitigation efforts” for consolidation, potentially including fuels management currently under the Forest Service’s Wildfire Suppression Operations appropriations account, though its inclusion remains unclear. On the other hand, key Forest Service land management accounts appear to be left behind at USDA, with significant budget cuts: $392 million in cuts to National Forest System Management, including “vegetation and watershed management”; and $994 million in cuts to other programs. Moving wildfire suppression to DOI while leaving these critical functions underfunded at USDA would forgo cost synergies with DOI land management agencies, missing an opportunity to save taxpayer dollars while improving performance. Severing wildfire suppression from the Forest Service while underfunding land management agencies which are already in the throes of a workforce crisis would likely result in a significantly worse fire environment.

Kelly Martin, retired Chief of Fire and Aviation at Yosemite National Park, explains that “taking a unified approach to all aspects of fire management is intended to help eliminate duplication and overlap between the two main departments—Agriculture and Interior—over the next 50 years. However, without sustained public and political support for communities and individuals doing wildland fire and land management work, we risk perpetuating the wildfire crisis and facing even more severe fire seasons well into the future.”

Structural reform on this scale comes with real risks and potential opportunities. Success will require that the entire land management and wildfire community engage Congress and the Administration to ensure any reform strengthens responsible land management alongside suppression. Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

Theft of Government Property or an Innocent Mistake?

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The Smokey Wire original reporting

The irrigation half-circle shows an old line where the FS boundary should be. The Custer County GIS shows the location of the FS parcel.

 

The Custer County GIS shows the location of the FS parcel.

 

Perhaps you have heard of the story of Charles and Heather Maude, a ranching family in western South Dakota, who were charged in June of 2024 with theft of government property.  The Maude family owns land on three sides adjacent to a parcel of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland, along the Cheyenne River in Custer County.

Sometime in March of 2024, a hunter reported to the US Forest Service that it appeared that there was a boundary issue between private land and the Forest Service.  An investigation followed that led to Charles and Heather Maude being indicted by a federal grand jury for government theft.  The indictment stated that they “did knowingly steal, purloin, and convert to their own use” land managed by the US Forest Service.  Punishment could have been up to 10 years in prison and fines up to $10,000.

There has been significant press coverage of this case, but it has largely been one-sided.  This is because the case was pending, and the Forest Service was not allowed to speak about it.  What was presented in the press was that the Maudes had made an innocent mistake, and the Forest Service was unreasonable and took a very heavy-handed approach.  Often, it was blamed on the Biden Administration, and that it was a purposeful attack on the Maudes.

All of this led to a lot of politicians and federal officials getting involved, and eventually, the charges being dismissed prior to the trial.  This, in turn, led to a press conference held by the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, with a variety of politicians and the Maude family in attendance.

When you hear one side of a story, it is really hard to get to the truth.  So far, the Forest Service is not talking about the case and presenting its side, even though the case has been dismissed.  I live in Custer County, the same County where all of this occurred.  I decided to look into things and see what I could come up with.  The parcel where this occurred is along the Cheyenne River in eastern Custer County.  It’s a pretty area with rugged hills along the river, but the area in question is on a flat adjacent to the river.  The acreage involved is either 25 acres or 50 acres, depending on which article you read.

At some point after 2020, the Maudes put in place a center-pivot irrigation system on this flat area.  This is confirmed by Google Earth imagery.  A half-circle of irrigated land was established.  Looking at the Custer County GIS records, it clearly shows that about a third of the half-circle was on the Forest Service parcel.  The Maudes apparently claim that they did not know they were putting the irrigation system partially on Forest Service land.  It does appear, however, that a simple internet search of the County’s records would have indeed shown that what they were doing was essentially trespassing onto Forest Service property.

I decided to visit the area in question, and while staying on Forest Service property, it was quite evident that something was amiss.  You could see a line across the irrigation half-circle that indeed closely coincided with the legitimate Forest Service boundary.  What created this line, I am not sure.  It may have been an old fence line or possibly an irrigation ditch.  It does show, however, that there was some recognition in the past that this was the legitimate boundary.

What really happened here?  It’s hard to know because we don’t have all of the information.  What we do know is that only one side has been presented, and it appears that Senator Rounds (SD), Representative Johnson (SD), Representative Hageman (WY), Governor Rhoden (SD), Secretary Noem, and Secretary Rollins have all taken the Maudes’ side.  Did they pursue all of the information, or did they follow an inclination to only believe the Maudes?  It’s hard to know.  As a retired Forest Service employee, it does appear that Rollins threw the Forest Service under the bus.

Are there any issues with all of this?  I would imagine that any similar event in the future would certainly make a Forest Service Line Officer wonder whether the Secretary of Agriculture would have their back.  If the Maude family did intentionally and knowingly construct an irrigation system on Forest Service land, as apparently was charged, is that ok?  What would you do if your neighbor did something similar to your personal property?  Did the Forest Service overreact?  We need more information.  The Forest Service needs to be allowed to talk about the whole affair.  Some news organizations have filed FOIA requests for more information.  Let’s hope they’re successful.

Chris French Testimony on Senate FOFA: Other FS News Including Chief’s Letter: Sec Rollins Talks About Hiring Folks Back

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French Testimony at Senate Ag (video).
Here’s the written testimony. Items of interest. In general, this hearing had a much more professional and collegial tone than the House.. to be expected.  I suspect that the Senate Ag Committee might be more collegial than ENR, but I don’t know that for sure.  It’s more of a gentle, respectful tone of questioning and less partisan grandstanding.

FOFA (Fix Our Forests Act)  is a bipartisan bill in the Senate, introduced by  U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), co-chair of the bipartisan Senate Wildfire Caucus, and Senators John Curtis (R-Utah), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.).

Number of Employees and Changes Could be Clearer

According to this E&E News article, the FS is down about 5,000 people, and French said in his testimony that they had lost 25% of non-fire positions.  I tried to put this together with the numbers in our previous discussion here.

In 2023, 3080 were added of which 740 were fire.
in 2024, 2780 were added of which 690 were fire.
So in two years, 23 and 24, the FS added 5860 permanent positions, of which 1430 were in fire? If we take, say, 28,500 (the average of 2018-2022), that would be about a 20% increase in perms in two years?

If I heard correctly, I think French said the total was 35,000 and so that would be 8750 positions.  It would be handy if the FS would (when the last buyout is done) provided a spreadsheet or table which included the conversion of temps to seasonals and fire/non-fire positions.

Expedited Contract Reviews

Monday I posted “It seems odd that the FS doesn’t have an expedited review process within itself for safety and time-sensitive contracts and purchases, even if DOGE needs to review it.”  As it turns out, they do have one.  French elaborated that there were separate categories for disaster relief and time-sensitive contracts (the example was a seedling contract.)

Chris’s Request for Statutory CE

He asked the Senators to please make CEs statutory so the agency doesn’t have to promulgate them.  Having done that with Limited Timber Harvest, I am 100% with Chris, if Congress knows what it wants to do, why make the agency do extra work? Especially in this time of fewer employees, smaller budgets, and so on.

Weirdest Question

“How would it be possible to do anything other than timber harvesting contemplated in this bill with those kinds of reductions?” Schiff asked.  I think it’s weird because the Congress funds programs, and if they don’t want timber harvesting, the simple answer would be to … not fund it…  And of course, Padilla, the other D California Senator,  introduced the bill…

Invasive Species- Spongy Moth formerly Known as Gypsy Moth

I was surprised to hear in the hearing of a major concern over an insect species I hadn’t heard of.   Of all the funds that were spent predicting future threats to forestsbased on climate models, perhaps we lost track of current forest threats due to invasive species.  Remember the four threats of Dale Bosworth? Andy Stahl wrote this piece in 2010.

Former Chief Dale Bosworth had his Four Threats: fire and fuels, invasive species, loss of open space, and unmanaged recreation. Current (but for how long?) Chief Tidwell’s signature initiative was to be his “Four Pillars”: Restore and Sustain Landscapes, Protect and Enhance Water Resources, Jobs and Sustainable Communities, and Climate Change Resiliency.

But Tidwell’s pillars have fallen before construction even began because he wasn’t paying attention to one minor detail. His boss, Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack, already had “Four Pillars” — renewable energy, broadband internet access, responding to climate change and harnessing local food production.

Perhaps invasive species got lost in the shuffle.  I know it has fallen off the radar screen of some ENGOs previously interested, or fallen under the rubric of “climate change.”  Which is fairly untrue in many cases (think Chestnut blight) and gets lost in the climate generality shuffle.

About the President’s Budget
Don’t forget, the President proposes and Congress disposes. From 2017

“The president proposes and Congress disposes. Congress has the power of the purse strings. I’ve never seen a president’s budget proposal not revised substantially,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said.

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Chief’s Letter: Our Next Steps, Planning for Priorities and Interim Operations During Workforce Reshaping

Thanks to Nick Smith for this link:

As I begin my third month as your Chief, I have come to fully understand the dedication, talent, and professionalism our employees bring to their work and our mission. These last few weeks have been challenging as we’ve shared our appreciation and farewells with many departing colleagues, and there is no doubt that transformational changes in policies and our workforce will continue to reshape how we approach this important work today and into the future. As such, we are implementing interim governance structures and operating plans to ensure proper and intentional coverage resulting from attrition and voluntary separation program departures, such as DRP 1.0, 2.0 and VERA. Plainly, the Forest Service workforce is evolving and will look different by the fiscal year’s end.

My intent is to share a general framework and priorities for the next few months as broader USDA reorganization plans are being finalized. It’s important to understand that these interim and temporary operational plans developed as part of this effort are not reflective or designed to inform broader agency reorganization planning. They are necessary to maintain mission readiness during the reshaping process.

Today, there are several working groups developing interim operational guidance to maintain critical services and support and ongoing work consistent with executive orders and national priorities. In short, we are focusing our resources where they are needed most. This means we’ll be exercising tools like lateral reassignments, additional training in priority areas, and introducing temporary oversight and approval structures for greater flexibility and decision speed. Below outlines our must-dos for minimum mission viability.

Firstly, we will ensure safety above all while supporting our agency’s readiness and response to wildfire suppression efforts. Everything else comes second. Eligible employees may be asked to take training and gain qualifications needed to support these efforts as we head into a potential “above normal” fire season for much of the West.

Next, we will focus on our fundamental work improving the health and productivity of our forests and related actions to support rural prosperity. This includes implementing the executive orders received to date that focus on active forest management, energy, minerals and geology. Lateral reassignment opportunities in these critical areas of our field operations are underway, and we will lean on our partners to assist in areas of greatest need. In addition, disaster recovery projects will continue since they help support economic recovery and community infrastructure needs, as well as improve public safety and critical access.

We have an obligation to provide customer services for visitors while maintaining safe, reliable access to our national forests. The outdoor recreation economy continues to boom with nearly 160 million visitors to national forests just last year, and we anticipate that statistic to remain steady despite our current workforce sizing. Be prepared to lean in and adapt responsibly. Lastly, we must ensure the “business” of our workforce remains steady and smooth by meeting supervisory responsibilities including timely paychecks and approving necessary travel, as well as coordinating training logistics for critical areas.

This week we will share details of our interim operational plans with the National Leadership Council, line officers and subject matter leads as we prepare to implement them. The interim operational framework is designed to ensure a continuity of operations while obtaining maximum flexibility and adaptability. We will adapt and step forward together. If there is an immediate need for mitigation, line officers should elevate through regular channels for awareness and proceed as indicated. Ultimately, adaptability doesn’t mean uncertainty—it means readiness. I’m certain these temporary measures will allow us to adjust confidently and deliberately until we officially transition into our future organizational structure.

In closing, I want to emphasize this agency will continue to evolve on the foundation built on generations of talented and committed professionals—it’s our duty to carry this legacy forward and adapt responsibly to meet our mission requirements for future generations. I’m proud to serve as your Chief and deeply appreciate your patience, grace, and flexibility as we navigate these challenges together.

Secretary Rollins on Hiring People Back

From E&E News:

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told lawmakers Tuesday that  she is planning to hire replacements for key roles across USDA after allowing more than 15,000 employees to leave through a Trump administration resignation program.
“Whether it’s [the Farm Service Agency, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service or] wildlife firefighters … we are actively looking and recruiting to fill those positions that are integral to the efforts,” Rollins said at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the White House’s fiscal 2026 budget proposal for the Agriculture Department. “We’re having those discussions right now.”

Job of the Day

Lead Project Forester, Colorado State Forest Service

Should Vegetation Management NEPA be More Like Travel Management? By Eric Biber

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Views like these are not unusual here (like my wildfire plan amendments)  but they are from a law professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, who used to work for Earthjustice so it comes from a person with a different background than many of us. It came from a regular newsletter called “Legal Planet.”

This is an excerpt, and the entire piece is here. It was written in January 2025, in the context of the House version of the Fix our Forests bill.

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What is a possible path forward?  A key issue is that we spend too much time and effort on review, compliance, and litigation over individual projects, rather than focusing on the big picture.  The scale and the urgency of the problem requires us to think about accomplishing management across large areas – but even examining individual projects at the size of 10,000 acres (as proposed in the bill) will still require hundreds and hundreds of projects to be reviewed and completed.  And note agencies still have to accomplish review and compliance for land-use plans that they are legally required to prepare and maintain.  Those plans do not generally turn directly into on the ground projects – they are usually too vague in their constraints and environmental analysis to do so.  Thus, the agencies are stuck doing two levels of review for all projects.  And it only takes a mistake on one of those two levels to set back the whole program.

Most recent proposals (including in this legislation) would reduce our scrutiny for individual projects.  That perhaps solves one-half of the problem, but it also puts far more weight in terms of ensuring environmental review and compliance on the larger-scale planning process.  Planning has the potential to provide important guardrails to ensure good outcomes – the Forest Service is legally prohibited from taking actions that are prohibited by its planning documents.  But in general forest plans have imposed only limited constraints on individual, on-the-ground projects.  And more generally, the plans have not overall been designed to allow individual projects proceed directly without more environmental review or compliance work.

A better approach might be to do what the agencies already often do with managing off-road vehicle use on their lands.  Those travel management decisions can occur in the planning document itself, and can then be immediately implemented when the plan is approved.  This reduces the number of steps – including the number of opportunities for litigation.

Agencies could enact forest plans (or more likely amendments to forest plans) that create a pathway that specifically identifies when and how active management will occur within the relevant National Forest.  Analysis could draw on what is sometimes called “conditions-based management”, in which specific conditions in terms of forest status would trigger a range of possible responses by the agency.  The plan would impose clear limits on the kinds of projects that could be pursued, such as restrictions around endangered species habitat or riparian areas.  The plan might also put caps on the total acreage that could be treated within certain timeframes.  NEPA review could be undertaken as part of the planning process, along with public participation and engagement.  By doing review at a larger geographic scale, there can be economies of scale for analysis and public participation.  And by focusing the discussion on the larger-scale problem, it might help refocus debates around the need to act, rather than simply just focusing on individual projects that will always have tradeoffs and risks.  Projects that are consistent with the plan and its analysis would be exempt from NEPA, since the review had already been done.

Congress could facilitate this kind of approach.  It could explicitly endorse it, or even mandate it – which might make agencies more comfortable taking a new approach.  It could limit the amount of NEPA analysis for fire management at the plan level, perhaps by restricting the number of alternatives.  It could require the NEPA analysis to consider the risks of inaction with no fire management, which may shape the debate to emphasize the need for action.  It could provide limits on litigation – shorter statutes of limitation for NEPA challenges to fire management projects developed through the planning process, and a limitation on any supplemental NEPA claims for a specified timeframe after the planning process is completed.  It could also mandate greater community outreach for the planning process, and assistance in developing community fire protection plans that are included in the agency’s own planning process.

A model here is what California did in 2019 for accelerating treatment in forests and other ecosystems at the state level – an overarching environmental review process for its Vegetation Treatment Program, which facilitated approvals for many projects on the ground.  California has seen substantial increases in the levels of acres treated since the implementation of the VTP process.

An approach focused on planning decisions at the individual forest level, or at the regional level, allows for agencies to consider the varied ecological and social conditions for different forests and communities.  What works for reducing fire risk in dry Sierra conifer forests will not necessarily work in chapparal in Southern California.  Finally, by allowing for more active management while still maintaining public participation and some accountability through judicial review, this approach may reduce the distrust that has swirled around forest management for the past few decades.  Because at the heart of our challenges in addressing fire risk in our forests is a deep distrust.  Without addressing that distrust, any solutions will be contested and less effective.

Where Are the Jobs: Recreation, Trails and Wilderness?

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Photo: USDA Forest Service

We have seen that there are many openings at the Great Basin Institute and elsewhere for various kinds of folks who have been let go or departed voluntarily from the Forest Service.
A recreation person reached out to me, who had 7 years of seasonal work and 1 year of permanent status.

This individual asked two questions:

Have you or others, written about the possibilities for my areas: Recreation, Wilderness, Trails?

During prior contractions in federal job, what options lead to new jobs in public lands?

Hopefully someone out there has experience and knowledge that you can share. If you don’t feel comfortable commenting in public here, please email me at Sharon at forestpolicypub.com and I can share with this individual.

Meanwhile, Back at the Forest Service… Contracting and Procurement Face Extra Layers and Time for Approval

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USDA Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz visits the Rocky Mountain Research Station and tours the research lab in Fort Collins, Colo., on April 16, 2025. Preston Keres/USDA via Flickr
As we’ve been covering, in the last Administration, the FS gave hundreds of millions in grants without competition. In one of the all-time greatest pendulum swings ever, this Admin has removed purchasing cards from many units and also made it more difficult to do contracting and procurement.

Here’s the link:

The Department of Government Efficiency has instituted new layers of review at USFS, as it has at most federal agencies. Processes that typically took minutes are now taking a month or longer and a wide range of functions are feeling the impact. In some cases, that has led to trash piling up and pit toilets—restrooms that include only holes in the ground, as is common as Forest Service recreational centers and campgrounds—going uncleaned or unemptied.

Getting a contract approved for janitorial services, said one USFS who works on those procurements, previously took a day-and-a-half. With the added layers that DOGE has installed, it now takes six weeks.

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Another Forest Service employee who works in contracting said that even a modification of an existing contract, such as picking up an option year, goes to the General Services Administration and DOGE for approval. What previously took a maximum of 15 minutes now takes about a month to get money out the door.

When a new solicitation occurs, a “requisitioner” establishes what is needed, a senior executive signs off, the budget office approves the use of the funds, a contract coordinator conducts a review before this employee approves the solicitation going out. A new layer of review within USFS then conducts an extra review. The process essentially repeats itself when bids come in to select the best proposal. Once a winner is determined, DOGE personnel can either accept or reject the contract.

Another contracting officer said the process for getting procurements approved has changed 15 times since Trump took office.

The employee said DOGE has denied funding to continue using “sniffers”—a device that measures air quality to detect smoke or other pollutants. It has also eliminated support for a platform that agency firefighters use to get equipment, and for devices that track which of those supplies USFS has in stock.

The Trump administration has sought to put sweeping freezes on federal spending, but those efforts have largely been blocked in court. One contracting employee suggested the contracting restrictions were having the same effect: by making funding so difficult to obligate, it has essentially blocked congressionally appropriated funds from being expended.

‘Operational collapse’

Other employees said it has become difficult to purchase small things that need replacing, like when a trailer jack breaks. One worker said his forest was slated to plant over one million new trees for reforesting, but the contract to plant them has been held up for weeks. The trees become worthless if too much time passes and they are no longer the right size for planting. Another noted DOGE has slowed down the purchasing of firefighting helicopters for his local Helitack crew.

The contracting employee said leadership has expressed that any purchasing related to firefighting will be greenlit, but that has not been the case in practice.

“It’s kind of like they’re talking out of both ends of their mouth,” he said. “‘We’re all about fire and safety but we’re not supporting fire and safety.’”

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It seems odd that the FS doesn’t have an expedited review process within itself for safety and time-sensitive contracts and purchases, even if DOGE needs to review it. At one time when ASC was not paying our employees, our region established a strike team to get people paid. I wonder whether a “time sensitive strike team” might work to reduce the time to get to the DOGE review. Over time, as happened in the past, trust will be built and the reins loosened, but no seedlings should have to die before that happens. IMHO. People who know about this, please share your views in the comments.

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The cuts are having significant impacts. At some USFS locations, employees who work on wildland fire management are being pulled into cleaning duties. They are also working on issues ranging from marking trees for timber sales—Trump has issued an executive order calling for increased timber production, which led USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins to announce USFS will boost logging by 25% and make 43 million acres, or 30% of forested USFS land, available for that purpose—to culling invasive frogs. One employee said the non-fire team as his location has lost 40% of its staffing, meaning firefighters are now doing the alternative work.
The cuts are having significant impacts. At some USFS locations, employees who work on wildland fire management are being pulled into cleaning duties. They are also working on issues ranging from marking trees for timber sales—Trump has issued an executive order calling for increased timber production, which led USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins to announce USFS will boost logging by 25% and make 43 million acres, or 30% of forested USFS land, available for that purpose—to culling invasive frogs. One employee said the non-fire team as his location has lost 40% of its staffing, meaning firefighters are now doing the alternative work.

It’s interesting that many units are still doing prescribed burning (evidence on X with photos). Maybe it depends on how many employees were lost? And of course possibly looming on the horizon is the Mega Fire Agency. Which reminds me that Mega Fire Action has four positions open, including a federal policy advisor.
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E&E Story on Great Basin Institute and Other Grantees Hiring Temporaries for FS Work

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A forestry technician cuts a dead Ponderosa pine tree effected by the blue stain fungus carried by the bark beetle Oct. 2, 2002, in Los Alamos, New Mexico. A Forest Service hiring freeze on seasonal positions means some of those jobs are being outsourced. Phillippe Diederich/AFP via Getty Images

I posted about GBI on May 1, and on May 2, Marc Heller posted about them on E&E News.

The hiring spree illustrates the chronic need for forest technicians and others whose work on national forests picks up in summer — a requirement that’s only grown with the Forest Service’s decision last year to suspend hiring for seasonal jobs not directly tied to wildfire. Organizations like the GBI that routinely work on national forests say they can’t bring on enough people to meet all the demand.
CEO Peter Woodruff told POLITICO’s E&E News that some of his group’s hiring would have occurred anyway through long-term partnerships already in place with the Forest Service. And while the hiring freeze predated the Trump administration, deep steep staff reductions directed by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency have added to the strain, he said.
Indeed, Woodruff said, the GBI would probably be hiring more seasonal workers if not for lingering pauses on Forest Service grants that help make the organization’s work possible.
“This year, it’s an open question. It could be a tough year, or a productive year,” Woodruff said. “It’s hard to say.”

Adding to the uncertainty: The Trump administration has pulled back funding from the volunteer program AmeriCorps. Woodruff said the GBI is AmeriCorps’ largest grant recipient in Nevada, and his group recruits AmeriCorps members for a variety of forest work. In some cases, Woodruff said, federal payments to the GBI are still in limbo, putting additional seasonal hires in doubt. Projects to protect biodiversity — the variety of plants and animals native to forests — have sometimes fallen victim to the Trump administration’s effort to stamp out diversity, equity and inclusion programs, he said.

Woodruff said it’s not clear how many seasonals the GBI will hire. Last summer was its busiest, he said, with 900 seasonal hires across federal, state and other lands. The national forest positions recently posted include a timber sale administrator on the Stanislaus National Forest in California; an archaeology crew leader on the Sequoia National Forest in California; and forestry technicians “to perform timber-sale preparation, vegetation management and restoration projects” in the Sierra Nevada region for $21 an hour.

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While the hiring reflects an urgent need to fill Forest Service gaps this summer, it also fits into a larger trend toward relying on outside organizations to handle many tasks
not directly tied to fighting wildfires. Some of the work involves trail maintenance and other tasks plainly visible to the public. But much of the hiring is for more highly skilled work in preparing timber sales, conducting surveys of sites’ historical value and performing environmental analyses required by the National Environmental Policy Act.
The arrangements have critics who point to a potential lack of accountability when work is taken out of the direct hand of federal agencies. Deals with the GBI and others often aren’t subjected to competitive bidding as they replace civil servants with contractors, said Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics.

It seems to me that  grants by definition are never “subjected to competitive bidding.”  Check out Rich J.’s comment on the intent of grants, cooperative agreements and contracts. And again, I’ll say if it’s so hard for feds to hire or contact because of the difficulties of regulations (and in some cases,  poor organizations and programs like USA Jobs) the ultimate solution would be to streamline and improve, not farm out the work without competition.  And although this piece doesn’t mention it, permanent kinds of work is also being farmed out to grantees. Also grantees are not subject to FOIA, and presently Dave Mertz and I have had to FOIA to find out what the grantees are doing.  The latter could easily be helped by the FS simply posting the SPAs and quarterly and annual reports, or even regular summaries of activities.

For the organizations involved, the relationship with public land agencies can be a financial lifeline; the GBI reported $39 million in various government grants in 2023 out of $44 million in total revenue, according to its most recent publicly available income tax filing with the IRS. Ideally, the Forest Service wouldn’t need to rely on the GBI or other groups for seasonal jobs, Woodruff said.
But organizations that work with the agency say the outsourcing is mostly positive, filling needs the government can’t meet alone — and probably never will — and building relationships with communities. “To me, they’re being creative in a positive way,” said Steve Ellis, chair of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees. “There needs to be more active forest management out there.”
Officials haven’t said how long the hiring pause will last — and the Forest Service is still moving toward reductions in permanent staff. Agency employees familiar with the discussions say jobs not directly tied to fire or timber — such as research or headquarters administration in Washington — are likely most affected by voluntary departures and a future reduction in force.
With those changes looming, and the pre-Trump administration strains still in place, tapping nongovernmental partners makes sense, said Nick Smith, a spokesperson for the American Forest Resource Council. “Contracting with the private sector represents the future of federal forest management,” Smith said in an email.
He added, “The Forest Service will inevitably face continued budget and staffing constraints, even as demands increase — from reducing wildfire risk and addressing climate change to supporting timber production and other land management priorities. Embracing this new paradigm will enable the agency to leverage outside expertise, expand its capacity, and more effectively fulfill its mission in a time of urgent need.”

While Nick Smith mentions contracting in his email,  since the grant idea seems to be catching on, why not have timber sale grants instead of contracts?  Seems like it would also save a great deal of administrative time, paperwork and hassles.

Like I’ve said, I think that this is possibly a good short term fix, but transparency and accountability need to be improved, and long-term, the FS needs to decide what it wants to be when it grows up. There’s also a potential (not with folks like GBI or American Forests, NWTF, Mule Deer, TU or NFF ) for inexperienced entities to receive grants for unclear reasons.

Federal Lands Litigation – update through April 30, 2025

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FOREST SERVICE

New lawsuit

On April 3, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Council on Wildlife and Fish and Native Ecosystems Council filed a lawsuit against the Greenhorn vegetation management project in the Gravelly Mountains on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, which is an area connecting the Yellowstone area to other mountain ranges in Montana. They seek to protect habitat for grizzly bears, lynx, and sage grouse.

New lawsuit (D. Idaho)

On April 14, in a second challenge to the portion of the Crow Creek natural gas pipeline that requires a right-of-way across Caribou-Targhee National Forest lands, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Yellowstone to Uintas Connection said the supplemental EIS that the Forest Service agreed to prepare didn’t comply with NEPA, including not considering reasonable alternatives.  The previous lawsuit, discussed here, focused on several roadless areas that would be affected.

New lawsuit and court decision in Bradshaw v. Jewkes (D. Oregon)

On April 18, four disabled homeless people and two service providers sought a temporary restraining order to block an area closure for the Cabin Butte Vegetation Management Project, which encompassed their camping sites, alleging failure of the USDA to respond to their discrimination complaints.  The lawsuit complaint is included with this article.  On April 29, the district court denied their request.  The closure was planned to begin May 1.

BLM

New lawsuit:  Oregon Natural Desert Ass’n v. Raby (D. Oregon)

On March 13, plaintiffs sued the BLM for a second time over its failure to implement the decision in its 2015 sage-grouse conservation plan to close 13 research natural areas to grazing that were intended to serve as reference sites for sage-grouse management.  In 2022 the court found unreasonable delay and ordered the BLM to stop authorizing grazing in these areas.  This lawsuit is against a January 2025 decision by the BLM that reduces the closure area and provides no additional assurance of implementation.  The article includes a link to the complaint.  (I found it convenient that in its reported argument against a preliminary injunction, the BLM explained that there would be harm to the agency and ranchers because of its low staffing.)

New lawsuit:  Wilderness Workshop v. U. S. Bureau of Land Management (D. Colorado)

On April 10, Wilderness Workshop and Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit seeking to terminate 22 federal oil and gas leases in the Pilot Knob, Huntsman Ridge, and South Shale Ridge areas of Colorado because the leases have been on the books for more than two decades but the leaseholders haven’t brought them into production.  Under the federal Mineral Leasing Act, such leases should automatically expire after 10 years unless the lessee has begun qualifying drilling operations, if a well is producing in paying quantities, or if the lease receives an allocation of production from an off-lease well.

New lawsuit:  BlueRibbon Coalition v. Bureau of Land Management (D. Utah)

On April 10, the BlueRibbon Coalition sued the BLM over the Henry Mountains/Dirty Devil Travel Management Plan in southern Utah.  The Plan is one of 11 travel plans the BLM is completing over the next few years as part of a 2017 court-supervised settlement agreement between the agency, conservation organizations, and ORV groups. Plaintiff ORV group alleges violations of the 2025 EXPLORE Act (expansion of recreation on public lands).  According to plaintiffs (the complaint is linked to the above release), the decision closed recreation access to 612 miles of roads and trails.  According to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, it designates 1,670 miles of motorized vehicle routes, opening 114 miles of routes that were previously closed to vehicles.

Court decision in Cascadia Wildlands v. Adcock (D. Oregon)

On April 24, the district court ordered the BLM to prepare an EIS using site specific data, both of which they had failed to do for the Siuslaw Harvest Land Base Project, a two-decade logging plan for 13,225 acres of the Oregon Coast Range.  The court found that BLM’s approach of tiering to a resource management plan EIS, but without site-specificity, resulted in a failure to address potentially significant issues (including sensitive soils, special status species, and noxious weeds), and that, “substantial questions exist over whether the Siuslaw Plan may have significant impact,” which means an EIS must be prepared.

The court said the landscape plan violated NEPA because, “this is a logging plan where the location of the areas to be logged is well-suited to standard site-specific analysis,” and, “the BLM cannot rely on future site-specific field surveys because such surveys would occur only once the BLM has made a determination of NEPA adequacy (“DNA”)—which is not a NEPA document.”  With  regard to special status species, the court noted that, “Although a larger programmatic EIS need not conduct site-specific analysis, an EA that tiers to such programmatic EIS must conduct site-specific analysis where ‘a critical decision has been made to act on site development,’” and, “The BLM’s repeated statements in the Siuslaw Plan EA that the Siuslaw Plan would not cause a trend towards listing are conclusory, speculative, and devoid of any site-specific analysis.”  The article has a link to the opinion.

ENDANGERED SPECIES

Voluntary remand in Friends of the Wild Swan v. Hammond (D. Montana)

On April 9, the National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service filed documents saying that both agencies would voluntarily rescind approval for the introduction of bull trout, genetically pure strains of westslope cutthroat trout, and mountain whitefish into Gunsight Lake in Glacier National Park (previously discussed here).  The court has granted a voluntary remand.

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. Burgum (D. D.C.)

On April 17, the Center sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for denying Endangered Species Act protections to the brook floater mussel in 2019.  According to plaintiffs, the mussels were once found along the East Coast from Canada to Georgia, and the species is threatened by dams, water pollution, oil and gas drilling, logging, mining and climate change.

OTHER

Court decision in WildEarth Guardians v. USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (9th Circuit)

On April 21, the circuit court reversed a lower court holding, and held that the EA allowing the USDA’s Wildlife Services program to operate on Nevada’s federally protected wilderness areas was “deficient in several ways,” and failed to provide a convincing statement of reasons to explain why the program’s impacts were not significant.  In addition to APHIS, defendants included the Forest Service and the BLM.  Until a new review process is completed, the USDA cannot operate its program in Nevada’s 65 wilderness areas and 62 wilderness study areas.  The circuit court found no violation of the Wilderness Act.  The article includes a link to the opinion.

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (D. Arizona)

On April 14, the Center sued the EPA for failing to provide any records within the required 20 days on the agency’s plans to reconsider its 2009 scientific finding that greenhouse gasses endanger public health.  On Feb. 20, the Center had requested records that document EPA’s recommendations on the “Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act.”  Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) requires EPA to regulate air pollutants if it finds that they “cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”  The EPA formally announced the reconsideration on March 12.  EPA also intends to reconsider all of its prior regulations and actions that rely on the Endangerment Finding.  The release includes a link to the complaint.

  • Energy executive order FOIAs

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of Interior (D. D.C.)

On April 16, the Center sued the departments of Interior, Commerce, Agriculture and the EPA for failing to provide any records on the agencies’ response to Executive Order 14154, “Unleashing American Energy.” Section 3(b) of the Order directs the heads of all federal agencies to “develop and begin implementing action plans” to eliminate a wide range of “agency actions” identified as impediments to energy development. They filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Feb. 20, and FOIA requires a response within 20 days.  The release includes a link to the complaint.

New lawsuit:  Center for Biological Diversity v. U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (D. D.C.)

On April 29, the Center sued the Army Corps of Engineers for failing to provide any records on emergency Clean Water Act and Rivers and Harbors Act wetlands permitting actions and related Endangered Species Act consultation activities taken by the Corps pursuant to President Trump’s January 20, 2025, Executive Order 14,156 entitled “Declaring a National Energy Emergency.”  They previously sent a notice of intent to sue, and a Freedom of Information Act request on March 4.  The release includes a link to the complaint.

  • Employee rights

Court decision in American Federation of Government Employees v. U. S. Office of Personnel Management (N.D. California)

On April 18, the district court found that, “the United States Office of Personnel Management unlawfully directed the mass termination of thousands of probationary employees in all federal agencies.”  The court held that, “No statute — anywhere, ever — has granted OPM the authority to direct the termination of employees in other agencies, and that, “the government fails to rebut evidence drawn from a broad swathe of agencies proving that they were operating under OPM direction.”  A Forest Service employee and briefing paper were cited as evidence by the court.

Court decision in National Employees Treasury Union v. Trump (D. D.C.)

On April 25, the district court issued an order (linked to this article) that temporarily blocks the Trump administration from revoking the union rights of federal workers based on their having intelligence or national security as a primary function.  One of the agencies included was the BLM.

Trump Administration future litigation targets

Here’s a couple of E&E articles speculating on future litigation triggered by recent administration actions regarding energy development.

NEPA shortcuts

“The Interior Department unveiled a plan Wednesday to reduce the length of reviews for some coal and hardrock mines, oil and gas drilling, geothermal development and biofuel projects on public land — while excluding wind and solar energy — from a year or more to a maximum of 28 days.”

“You can speed up all the permitting, you can reduce NEPA all you want, but if you’re leaving … the potential for liabilities because corners have been cut, there are still challenges for the industry,” said Joshua Ballard, CEO of USA Rare Earth, a rare earth company. “There’s still massive risk there.”

Oil and gas leases

“The Interior Department could face a fresh round of lawsuits after officials said Thursday they would no longer require the Bureau of Land Management to create an environmental impact statement for more than 3,200 oil and gas leases across seven states in the West.

The agency’s decision to forgo the multistate environmental review undertaken by the Biden administration still leaves BLM on the hook to do more environmental analysis of the challenged leases, said Kyle Tisdel, a senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center, which represented environmental and public health groups opposing the lease sales.

“We obviously have multiple court decisions and settlement agreements that BLM has entered into that say they’ve got to do something,” Tisdel said.

 

 

Patience Requested for Comment Approvals

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I’ve been approving all comments myself for awhile because some people were going off track, some seemed like AI or bots that weren’t caught by the spam filter.  So I would request some patience. I’ve also discovered that the WordPress app I have been using doesn’t always show unapproved comments on my Apple devices, so I don’t see them until I get to a Windows device. I’m working on troubleshooting that with the WordPress app folks.  Today I’ll be away for large blocks in an area without any phone service, so again please be patient with my approving your comments.

Happy Friday!

Should the Forest Service Have a Vision as to Who Does What Work?

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Here’s what the current situation looks like to me.   A new Admin was elected, which wanted to downsize federal government.  The last time this happened (government-wide) was the Clinton Administration, so many current employees don’t remember.   The Clinton Admin analyzed first and cut second.   This Admin cut first, and is apparently analyzing at present, and trying to recover from some of the previous cuts.  Perhaps all of us (?) agree that that was a bad move (cutting first and asking questions later).  Given that, the FS has a number of ways to get work done.  In this post, I am focused on NFS, but it’s important to acknowledge that R&D (and S&PF via RGNR) also houses some expertise that is essential to NFS.

So in a previous post, I went from “helping” to “volunteering” and skipped many other ways of helping.  It’s the intent of this post to contextualize “volunteering.”

  1. First we have existing what I’ll call “super-grants.”  These include, but are not limited to, Keystone Agreements. For example, the Great Basin Initiative has several positions open now.

Of course, I think that this kind of work is best done by federal employees, because of the learning done over the long-term, because of the interaction between the forest folks and R&D   If getting rid of employees willy-nilly is bad (which I think it is), is farming out work willy-nilly equally or almost as bad?

This is from Data Republican, not 100% sure it’s accurate, but couldn’t find anyone to contact on GBI website for media.

 

Now, I’m not criticizing any of these NGOs.. from my perspective, they are only trying to help. Like we would be, if we volunteered or got paid via:

2. Other grants (including ACES)
3. Contracts
4. Hiring new people (term or perm)
5. Authorities like reemployed annuitants.
6. Volunteers

So when I said, let’s us people with skills “help”, I, I didn’t mean just as volunteers, I meant via all the possibilities.

Now in my view, what the FS hasn’t done, and let’s not let the change in Administration get us all muddleheaded about this.. is decide what jobs are important to keep in-house, based on what criteria. Even though I am not a fan of either granting willy-nilly,  nor firing people willy-nilly, the current situation offers the Forest Service the chance to get its head straight on this.

At one end of the extreme is having one ranger in communities for local relationships, with a grants and agreements person to get funding to grantees to get work done. You wouldn’t need contracting expertise, because the grantees would do all the contracting. Pesky old FARS and government hiring hassles- out the door. Also potential worries about conflict of interest, and the government getting the best pricing. As far as I can tell, the deliverables and funding to grantees should be transparent, but they have not been and their work can’t be FOIAd so those might be concerns.

At the other end is the idea that each unit needs a certain set of skills in-house, and work to be contracted, granted, permitted or concessionaired is overseen by Contracting officers and experts in the disciplines. There is a basic level of expertise required to be available to each District (although resources can be shared among Districts), with higher levels of technical support of various kinds provided by Regions (think recreation special uses or genetics or engineering) or other shared entities (like the Content Analysis Team or other national teams). Maybe the FS can’t afford this. But I don’t think it’s been analyzed.

The latter has been the traditional approach, but there have been major gaps even before the budget crisis of last November.

We can look at all this through (at least) five lenses 1) relationships, 2) federal work and the old “inherently governmental” discussion and 3) what Andy Stahl would call the “bubba” factor or  maybe “economic justice for the working class”, 4) is competition for government bucks still a thing? when is it important? and 5) where should the technical expertise reside?
You can add your own lens in the comments.

Then there’s the question of “how much of farming things out is simply a response to overgrown, byzantine and impenetrable FARS and hiring requirements?  Perhaps some Admin will do something about those. I’m generally full of hope about the future, but on this one, I’m not holding my breath.

Then there is the political angle.. if we are not careful, what are the chances of developing an NGO-industrial complex, similar to the military-industrial complex that lobbies for its funding and whose interests are not strictly aligned with national interests? The FS can’t advocate for itself in Congress, but outside groups certainly can.

As the FS builds back from the retirements and RIFs, I think having a vision for what it wants to be,  what kind of presence to visitors it wants to portray (this is just the National Forest perspective, but lets not forget that some of R&D is essential)  and so on is important.

Right now it seems to be a patchwork.. volunteers here, grantees there, concessionaires here, employees there. These are all no doubt the best creative local adaptations to various conditions and opportunities that presented themselves through time. Can the FS as an organization, though, help everyone to be able to do their work by thinking all this through and organizing and budgeting differently in the long run? I think it’s worth a try.