Oregon’s Wood Product Manufacturing Industry Is Still Important, Especially in Rural Areas

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This is an article by Brian Rooney, the Regional Economist for Douglas and Lane Counties in Oregon. It’s pretty interesting about Oregon and the forest products industry.  Thanks to Treefrognews  for this one! Below is an excerpt. Interesting employment projections at the end of the article.

Smaller Harvest, Technology, and Economies of Scale Contribute to Decline

Several structural shifts in the wood products industry have contributed to the long-term employment decline. First, there was a drop in timber harvests from environmental concerns in the early 1990s. As harvest from federal lands reduced the amount of available raw material to mills, employment dropped, indicating that harvest reductions were a cause for the employment loss in the early 1990s.

Graph showing Oregon employment and timber harvest levels

New technologies brought another structural change to the industry by making lumber mills less labor intensive. Employment continued to drop even after harvest levels stabilized in the late 1990s, and employment did not increase much despite a housing construction boom in the mid-2000s. Jobs in wood product manufacturing per million board feet harvested dropped steadily after 2000, at least partly due to technology.

Lumber production per worker in Oregon is another way to look at efficiency gains. By combining Western Wood Products Association production data with sawmill employment data, we can create a measure of lumber production per worker. It increased rapidly in the early 2000s, going from 806,000 board feet per worker in 2000 to 1.1 million in 2005. It then dropped back to 791,000 board feet during the Great Recession. It’s likely that mills cut production through fewer hours to some extent instead of letting go of workers during the recession. After the recession, production per worker increased to the elevated levels it had reached before the recession, reaching roughly 1.2 million board feet in 2012. Production per worker has stayed close to 1.2 million board feet per worker through 2022 but dropped to 1.1 million board feet in 2023.

In addition to new technologies, smaller mills were shuttered, creating efficiency through economies of scale (larger mills can produce more per worker). The average production of sawmills operating in the western U.S. increased as smaller mills were shuttered and efficiency increased through economies of scale and new technology. Between 1990 and 2021, the number of mills in the western U.S. dropped from 600 to 144 while average production per mill increased from about 35 million board feet per year to 102 million board feet per year. The number of mills has since dropped to 141 and average production per mill dropped to around 97 million board feet per year in 2023.

Graph showing sawmills operating in the Western U.S. 1990-2023

Wood Products Are Still Important in Oregon, Especially in Rural Areas

Even with the long-term decline, wood product manufacturing is still a large industry in Oregon. In 2024, there were 22,400 jobs and roughly $1.5 billion in total payroll in the industry. While statewide the industry makes up only 1.1% of total employment and 1.1% of total payroll, the concentration is much higher in some counties, especially rural ones. For instance, in Curry County, 8.1% of total employment and 11.7% of total payroll was in wood product manufacturing. Most of the counties with a high concentration of employment in wood product manufacturing are rural.

Table showing Oregon counties measured by wood products manufacturing percent of total employment and payroll in 2024

In counties where the percent of total payroll exceeds the percent of total employment, average wages are higher in wood product manufacturing than the overall average wage. This is the case in most of the rural counties listed, indicating that wood product manufacturing provides some of the higher paying jobs in rural counties.

Jobs Generally Pay Well and Do Not Require High Levels of Education

The top 20 occupations in wood product manufacturing are mostly medium wage but do not require high levels of education. Most of the top 20 occupations have a typical entry-level education of a high school diploma or less. Some of the more technical occupations like industrial machinery mechanics and electricians have average annual wages of more than $70,000 a year and have a typical entry-level education of a high school diploma, providing opportunities for those who don’t pursue a college degree.

Table showing top 20 wood product manufacturing occupations in Oregon

Looking Ahead

Employment projections from the Oregon Employment Department show that wood product manufacturing employment is expected to gain 700 jobs (3%) between 2023 and 2033. The plywood and engineered wood products, and other wood products subsectors are expected to have 3% growth while sawmills and wood preservation is expected to drop 3%.

Like many industries, wood product manufacturing has an aging workforce reaching retirement age. This creates demand for workers through replacement needs. Aside from gaining 700 jobs between 2023 and 2033, there are expected to be roughly 8,900 openings from people leaving the industry and the labor force, largely due to retirements.

Back to the Future?: Potential Changes to FS R&D- E&E News Story and Additional Context

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I’ll put some thoughts in this, but also dive into some history that may help explain where FS R&D is and how it got there to provide some context.

 

GREENWIRE | The Trump administration is gearing up to redirect the Forest Service’s scientific work toward timber and wildfire and away from pests, diseases, forest ecology and the effects of climate change.

I’m not sure about this.. it seems to me that traditional organismal biology positions such as entomology, pathology, physiology and genetics have been downplayed for some time.  In fact, the Forest Service seems a bit like some universities.  In the case of some universities, user-oriented disciplines like entomology and pathology are now only found in Extension, whereas in the Forest Service they are found in Forest Health (part of State and Private).  This is not the fault of FS R&D, with limited budgets, they felt they had to go for bigger science bucks like climate change or other Big Science fads like sequencing genomes. I remember sitting with a Station Director at the SAF Convention in Rochester, NY in 1988 who blithely said “we’re tapped into the bucks for climate now and we’re never going back to helping you (NFS).”  I’m not blaming them.. given the conditions it was the choice to make.

Also, about wildfire research, I am wary of proposals such as the Wildfire Intelligence Center in FOFA that could be seen as NOAA and NASA poaching wildfire research funding. Let’s face it, FS R&D is a minnow among the sharks of the Big Science world.  It’s interesting that Nick Smith’s news roundup today had precisely that, NASA working with DOD on prescribed fire. One of the most amazing things to me about the way federal R&D works is that no one ever checks for duplication. Perhaps that’s what the Wildfire Intelligence Center will do.. but I have my doubts.

The realignment of the forest agency’s research priorities has been in the works for weeks and reflects staff reductions — some already completed through deferred resignations, others on the way — as well as forthcoming spending proposals that would be left to Congress to decide, according to employees and outside organizations familiar with the administration’s thinking.

The fallout of the shift in the Forest Service’s focus would ripple not just through national forests but on state and privately owned land across the country, where the agency’s research guides land management practices.

Preliminary budget-related communications within the Agriculture Department and the ever-changing internal roster of employees and their jobs offer clues about where the research mission may be headed, said an employee who shared some of the materials with POLITICO’s E&E News.

Three agency employees familiar with the administration’s thinking said the approach aligns with long-simmering views within the Forest Service and in Congress that the agency’s research mission is overdue for some tweaking, if not an outright overhaul.

Congress has long been concerned that federal R&D in ag and forestry has departed from utility.  Hence (in the distant past) the Fund for Rural America and other efforts.  Tensions within the Department about “listening to stakeholders too much” led to the firing of my boss at the time, the head of the Fund for Rural America.  Putting stakeholders on panels! Some folks had come over from NSF, and earnestly believed that R&D direction and funding needed to be of the scientists, by the scientists and for the scientists. I acknowledge that formula funds at the land grants could be a Dean’s slush fund, but some universities also had councils of stakeholders to advise on R&D priorities with their USDA research funds. So slowly and subtly the connection was broken and research has slowly drifted away from stakeholder involvement.

But outside organizations and some employees said there’s a danger that the administration will go too far, losing seasoned researchers and weakening the Forest Service’s ability to apply long-term research to current, everyday problems.

That’s true not just on the 193 million acres the Forest Service manages but in privately owned forests across the country that depend on the agency for up-to-date science on everything from disease outbreaks to the likely consequences of the warming climate. Challenges await cities large and small as well, where Forest Service research — and grants, up until now — support urban tree-planting programs.

A USDA spokesperson declined to comment on forthcoming restructuring or spending proposals, saying in a statement it would be inappropriate to speculate on future restructuring or funding.

But, the spokesperson said, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins “fully supports the President’s directive to improve government, eliminate inefficiencies, and strengthen USDA’s many services to the American people,” adding, “Secretary Rollins is committed to ensuring critical research and essential services remain uninterrupted.”

Research on long-term issues can include forest ecology over 30 years, said Richard Guldin, a former research official in the Forest Service’s Washington office and a board member at the National Association of Forest Service Retirees. While the administration may be focused on more immediate problems — like wildfire — short-term needs and long-term trends go hand in hand, he said.

“We need to figure out how to help the national forest land managers begin to apply what we are learning,” Guldin said. “You do the long-term research, and it has to be good — but it has to be good for something.”

For those who haven’t followed this, there has been a long-standing tension between what (some) R&D scientists want to study, and what NFS managers think would be useful.  This led to folks like forest health folks with Ph.D.s doing their own work (so-called “administrative studies”) because R&D scientists (and university folks) weren’t interested (nor funded).   I have never been a fan of the “we scientists will determine how to frame the problem, what and how to study it, and then tell you all what to do.”  In my view, that’s not what FS R&D nor the land-grants institutions should be doing.  It tends to divide, when finding out knowledge should bring people together, in my view.

A vast research mission

Federal spending on forest research and development has climbed slightly in recent years, from $296 million in discretionary appropriations in fiscal 2022 to more than $300 million the past two fiscal years. The Biden administration requested increases, citing the need for more information about climate change and expansion of markets for wood products, among other priorities.

Do we need “more information about climate change?” Or do we deal with the impacts as they manifest themselves in real time?  For some time, current problems are not funded in pursuit of predicting future problems.

The Forest Service is the world’s largest research organization, the Biden administration said in its budget request for the current fiscal year. The mission includes 76 experimental forests, four experimental ranges and four experimental watersheds.

I don’t know what “largest” means in this context.. certainly not in funding.  Maybe acres?  All of USDA (ERS, NIFA, FS, ARS) is a drop in the science bucket. See the chart at the top.

A forest products laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, explores alternative uses for wood, such as in tall building construction. The Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, Montona, has a 66-foot-high combustion chamber that allows for burn tests in controlled conditions, according to the Forest Service.

The budget also covers five research stations, distributed in each region of the country. And the agency’s forest inventory and analysis program — which the administration has signaled will remain a top priority, according to employees — provides crucial data about the condition of the nation’s forests.

One of the reasons FIA is so popular is that it has a strongly supportive group of stakeholders, and regularly listens to their feedback.

Still, research accounts for just 4 percent of the Forest Service’s budget, according to the agency.

A 2017 report by the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities said the number of researchers in federal land management agencies has plummeted in recent years, particularly in areas such as plant pathology and entomology. Even the forest products lab — which the Trump administration has marked as a higher priority — lost most of its workforce in the decades after World War II, the report said.

Corporations, too, have retrenched on research, the report said, and universities don’t spend as much on applied forest research as they once did.

My research colleagues in industry lost their jobs when the tax changes encouraged forest products companies to sell their land.  And universities are subject to the same science market forces.. practical work isn’t cool nor funded.

Deep cuts at the Forest Service research probably couldn’t be made up by universities or other nonfederal entities, researchers and other people close to the programs said.

In part, that’s because forest research that takes decades to play out on the ground doesn’t translate into quick profits for the wood products industry, said Peter Madden, president and CEO of the Endowment for Forestry and Communities, based in Greenville, South Carolina.

But forest health — which may take a hit in the President Donald Trump budget — can’t really be separated from forest products, Madden said. The emerald ash borer has clobbered markets for ash trees, and in Canada, a bark beetle outbreak “literally wiped out a lot of those markets, a lot of those communities that depended on timber.”

Biodiversity and forest health are big issues, Madden said, “but I don’t really see private industry spending the money.”

Having watched the demise of industry R&D, it was never about “quick profits”.. forest genetics has never been very quick.  And then there is NCASI, which had done much good work.

Realigning Forest Service research could go along with the priorities of some congressional Republicans. In recent years, Republican appropriators have called on the agency to refocus research on wildfire and wood products.

Like I said, I don’t see R’s as the danger to wildfire research.  And wood products..both sides of the aisle are interested in uses for biomass, if that’s the same thing.  I wonder exactly what the appropriators said?

Gaps and concerns

A study by the National Academy of Public Administration in 2021 also pointed to organizational troubles in the Forest Service’s research and development, including a lack of coordination and conflicting views about which science takes priority.

Research is critical to the agency’s mission, the report said. “However, pressure to undertake more applied research and focus on delivering existing science to meet near-term needs raises concerns about how to maintain support for basic research.”

The study added, “Moreover, for many of R&D’s internal agency partners, station research is associated with a university-style approach to research with little attention to addressing mission challenges.”

Does the FS need to do “basic research”? Isn’t that NSF’s job? And “little attention to addressing mission challenges” is fairly standard over the past 30 years or so, but to be fair if you tell your scientists to get their own funding, and Big Science doesn’t care about small landowners or the national forests, what were they supposed to do?

Focusing on one type of research without paying enough attention to others overlooks the complexity of forest science, said Matt Betts, a forestry professor at Oregon State University and lead scientist for an ecological research program at the school’s H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest. The program is cooperatively managed with the Forest Service.

I don’t think, technically speaking, the Andrews belongs to OSU.

“It’s hard to do research in isolation,” Betts said. Someone who invests in forests to make wood products, for instance, needs to know how fast certain trees grow based on conditions, as well as how wildfires spread, he said.

If the Trump administration is serious about boosting timber harvests by 25 percent, Betts said, forest research will be even more critical — and some of it is more suited to the government than to industry.

Sometimes, forest science and business practices don’t exactly overlap. To meet demand for wood, timber companies often don’t want to wait until a Douglas fir tree, for instance, has hit its target of 80 years for full maturity. Instead, they cut it at 35 or 40 years old, he said.

Last I checked, economics was also a science. Hopefully we’re not back to de-emphasizing the social sciences- so 20th century.  After all, both Rs and Ds want to use small diameter woody material from thinnings rather than burn it.  Why have we been unsuccessful for the last 30 years of trying? What can we do about it?  FS economists and some university folks are studying that.

Gaps constantly emerge in forest knowledge, too, Betts told E&E News. A generation ago, many people believed old-growth forests were a waste, he said. Now, he said, researchers believe protecting old-growth forests is a way to balance environmental needs with maintaining the timber industry — a point Betts and others made in a paper in Science magazine Thursday.

“We still don’t really know how forests work,” Betts said. “The more I learn, the more I realize we don’t know about forests.

Two New Acting Regional Foresters: Blum and Newburn

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The Forest Service Chief is announcing today that Gordie Blum will serve as Acting Regional Forester for the Eastern Region, effective May 1, 2025, and that Ben Newburn will serve as Acting Regional Forester for the Intermountain Region, effective April 28, 2025.  Blum will temporarily succeed Regional Forester Tony Dixon as he reaches his retirement date after 34 years of dedicated service.  Newburn will temporarily succeed Regional Forester Mary Farnsworth, who is retiring after 38 years of dedicated service.

Gordie Blum Bio:  

Gordie Blum comes to the Eastern Region from his position as director of Recreation, Heritage and Volunteer Services in the USDA Forest Service Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

 

Gordie has over 30 years of federal service. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1991-1997, he began his career with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Chicago, Illinois before joining the Forest Service in 2000 as the communications director for the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. He has also been a legislative affairs specialist in Washington, D.C., the deputy and acting forest supervisor on the Willamette National Forest in Eugene, OR, Pacific Northwest Region Recreation, Lands and Minerals Director in Portland, and Eastern Region Recreation Director. Throughout his career he has served in numerous acting leadership assignments; including USDA Natural Resources and Environment liaison, deputy director of Fire and Aviation Management, and acting forest supervisor on the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.

Gordie has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin, and a Master of Arts from the State University of New York. He is also a graduate of the Federal Executive Institute, and the USDA Senior Executive Service program. A father of two and husband to his wife for 30 years, Gordie enjoys all sorts of outdoor activities and doing restoration work on their property in southern Wisconsin.

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Ben Newburn Bio:

 

Ben Newburn has been selected as acting regional forester for the Intermountain Region, following his role as the region’s director of Fire & Aviation Management since 2021.

Newburn attended Eastern Washington University where he earned a degree in biological sciences with an emphasis in botany. He brings over 25 years of land management experience to the position, gained through his work with both the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service. His previous roles include deputy forest supervisor, deputy regional director, and various positions in Fire & Aviation Management in Montana, Washington, California, and Utah. He has also served as an incident commander on several significant and complex incidents.

Ben, his wife and their young son enjoy a variety of outdoor activities, traveling, and sports. In his free time, Ben renovates their home in Ogden, Utah.

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On Divesting, Transferring, Privatizing Public Lands: It’s Not Fearmongering- Guest Post by Martin Nie

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Martin was the co-founder of The Smokey Wire’s predecessor A New Century of Forest Planning back in 2009.  Note: it arrvied in my inbox nicely formatted, any formatting issues are my fault.

Martin Nie is Professor of Natural Resources Policy and Director of the Bolle Center for People and Forests at the W.A. Franke College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of
Montana. He writes here as a public citizen and is in no way representing the University of Montana or the Montana University System.

A post in response to the Smokey Wire’s coverage and criticism of the op-ed written by former Chiefs of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), as published in the Denver Post on April 13, 2025. I
was heartened by this letter and the willingness of former Chiefs to speak out and defend our National Forests and public lands writ large. I was dismayed, however, in how the piece was
covered and the statement that widespread fears of divesting and privatizing public lands is standard “fear-mongering” that so exhausts some contributors to the blog.

“Oh for Gifford’s sake! Here we go again with the standard privatization fear-mongering…State’s don’t want them [i.e., public lands], and the private dog (except for local housing) won’t hunt,” states Sharon Friedman, making clever reference to the first Chief of the USFS Gifford Pinchot.

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Cambridge on Fearmongering: “the action of intentionally trying to make people afraid of something when this is not necessary or reasonable.”

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Current fears about the divestiture and privatization of federal public lands are anything but fearmongering. I hope to write more substantively about this when given a moment, but a few
scattered comments and observations.

First is to at least recognize the history of public lands and the centrality of this debate through the years. Public anxiety is deeply rooted in the past. We could go back to where most public
land histories begin—not with Indian Title—but with the story of federal acquisition, disposal, and retention of federal public lands. Or to the gilded age or progressive-era to see the tensions
between public goods and concentrated wealth and the implications for our shared lands (as told in meticulous detail by John Leshy in Our Common Ground: A History of America’s Public
Lands.).

“For Gifford’s sake”? No. Pinchot would be all over the Chief’s letter, just as he warned his peers about the dangers of privatization, corporate control, the “Economic Royalists,” State
ownership of National Forests, and “concentrated wealth’s…strangle hold over the general welfare” back in his day (Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground, 1947, p. 508). My lord, his
third principle of conservation is “to see to it that the rights of the people to govern themselves shall not be controlled by great monopolies through their power over natural resources.” (Ibid;
see also the collective work of Char Miller, including Gifford Pinchot: Making of Modern Environmentalism).

Pinchot also saw the relationship between state ownership and control and the move towards privatization. He writes in 1920:

“It has been my experience that a Legislature can seldom be induced by considerations from outside to take action against the opposition of interests dominant in the State” [and] “[j]ust as the waterpower monopolists and grazing interests formerly clamored for State control, well-knowing they could themselves control the States, so now the lumbermen will be found almost without exception against Federal and for State control, and for the same reason.” Gifford Pinchot, “National or State Control of Forest Devastation,” Journal of Forestry (Feb. 1920).

The general period of disposal, goes the usual narrative, ends with passage of the Federal Land Policy Management Act (FLPMA) of 1976, where Congress declares a national policy that:

The public lands be retained in federal ownership, unless as a result of the land use planning procedure provided for in this Act, it is determined that disposal of a particular parcel will serve the national interest.

Some limited options here for disposal, which are now being fully exploited. 1976 is still a good demarcation point for the Sagebrush Rebellion, where most histories and contemporary writing
about privatization begin.

But calls for land transfers to States and related privatization schemes start way earlier and these earlier battles are a more helpful guide for today’s variation. They were most famously tracked
and analyzed by the writer and historian Bernard DeVoto, whose writing for Harpers is just as relevant today than it was when he was targeted by the FBI and McCarthy for being a public
lands-loving Communist. He traced all the innovative land grab schemes of his day, many of  which were framed as federal transfers to States: “The plan is to get rid of public lands altogether, turning them over to the states, which can be coerced as the federal government cannot be, and eventually to private ownership.” (“The West Against Itself,” Harpers, 1947).

My sense is that DeVoto was the first to expose the strategy of defunding, defaming and discrediting public land agencies as a pretense to sell the idea of why it is necessary to fix the
(manufactured) problem by transfer or divestment. It’s the story of the old Grazing Service, whose budget was slashed by 60 percent at the end of its days, what DeVoto called a “classic
demonstration on how to assassinate a federal agency.” He also detailed how the “skinning knife” would be used on the USFS: “The idea was to bring it into disrepute, undermine public
confidence in it by every imaginable kind of accusation and propaganda, cut down its authority, and get out of its hands the power to regulate…” (“Two-Gun Desmond is Back,” Harpers, 1951).

It’s also part of a larger story brilliantly told by Nate Schweber in This America of Ours: Bernard and Avis DeVoto and the Forgotten Fight to Save the World.  My point here is that these are not new tactics or concerns. The case for and against the privatization of public lands and National Forests was also a major theme of scholarship and wonky policy analysis throughout the 1970s and 1980s. This had a particularly economic-oriented flair (see e.g., the collective work of Marion Clawson, including The Federal Lands Revisited (1983). Heated exchanges in the scholarly literature, conferences and symposia, and elsewhere were common and provided some of the ideas and reasoning now being used by those pushing transfer or privatization (see e.g., Adrien Gamache, Selling the Federal Forests (Symposia at College of Forest Resources, University of Washington, 1983). Here is where you find unsettling discussions of how best to convey our public lands to private interests, from highest-bidder to first-in-time, first-in-right.

But let me pick up the pace to get to present-day:

*Instead of an economic framing and arguments for efficiency, different legal strategies are used post-FLPMA to challenge the Constitutionality of public lands in the 1980s through 2000s, all to force their transfer or sale. From Equal Footing and Enclave Clause to Tenth Amendment and everything in between. They fail.

*Utah passes a resolution seeking the transfer of public lands to State ownership in 2012. The language comes from the American Lands Council, providing template cookie-cutter bills and
rhetoric that spread throughout the West and are introduced into every State legislature other than California. How would transferred lands be managed? As State trust lands (which are not public lands)? Will there be protections against disposal and conveyance to private interests? Most fail to say and those that do fail.

*Political protest and confrontation. The Bundy’s and Bunkerville. The occupation and seizure of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. A district court in Nevada calls it “simply delusional to
maintain that all public land within the boundaries of Nevada belongs to the State of Nevada.” (Bundy v. Nevada, 2019).

*Okay, States can’t force the disposal of federal lands. So Utah’s Representative Jason Chaffetz introduces congressional legislation authorizing the disposal of 3.3 million acres of federal land.

*He loses big. #Keep It Public and related campaigns go bigger.

*The transfer and privatization movement learns a lesson and changes tactics. Instead of directly seeking land title and ownership, the movement produces bill after bill that would transfer
control over public lands to States and non-federal actors. Control instead of ownership. The power to make decisions without the costs of firefighting, roads, culverts, and so on.

*Along the way, Republican Party platforms, as a matter of course, contain planks calling for the sale and/or transfer of public lands. At the federal and state level. Do party platforms matter?
Not really but Project 2025 most certainly does. It says little about the National Forest System but its chapter on the Department of Interior was written by William Perry Pendley, the (sort-of)
Director of the BLM during the first Trump Administration and author of “The Federal Government Should Follow the Constitution and Sell Its Western Lands” (2016).

Fearmongering? States don’t want them?

*Let’s jump to present-tense and start with Utah’s Hail Mary throw to SCOTUS and now the lower court in State of Utah v. U.S (2025). Building on decades of futile legal arguments, the
State changes course and challenges federal ownership and management of ~18.5 million acres of “unappropriated land” in the State. “The time has come to bring an end to this patently
unconstitutional state of affairs” says the State. Utah is joined by several others, including Idaho, Alaska, Wyoming and the Arizona legislature….and other public land powerhouses like
Nebraska and Texas. The lawsuit now covers tens of millions of acres of public land.  What lands are “unappropriated,” a term not used in the Constitution or found in the major public land statutes? Answer: Those lands managed as multiple use. My elk camp is on “unappropriated public lands.”

*The zone is flooded with Executive and Secretarial Orders that wreck purposeful havoc on our public lands. Engineered chaos. The civil servants hired to fulfill the tasks required by statute are
let go, rehired, lather, rinse and repeat. The agency is given new marching orders in Executive Order 14225 (Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production) and related step down
guidance, but not with the resources and personnel. The press releases and talking points of the future: the USFS can’t get the job done and that’s why it’s necessary to transfer or privatize these lands or their management.

*Who now has special access in the Department of Interior? The Political Economy Research Center (PERC), a think tank out of Montana that just can’t seem to escape the views of its prior
leadership and his calls for the privatization of federal public lands (Terry Anderson, “How and Why to Privatize Federal Lands,” Cato Institute, 1999).

*For Senator Mike Lee, Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and long-time champion of land transfer to the States and privatization, public lands are better viewed as
“Underutilized Space.” His HOUSES Act (the Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter Act) aims to privatize federal lands to increase available housing in the West. (Not as
sweeping of plan as is Homesteading 2.0, a similar vision advanced by the American Enterprise Institute and one that would auction off 850 square miles of developable BLM land.)

*Republicans in the House of Representatives, led by House Natural Resources Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark) debate sales of public lands in the budget reconciliation, as a way to fund tax
cuts and build housing. It dies in the Senate. (E&E Daily, 4.2.2025).

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I’ll stop here and will fill in the details and gaps later. Or Maybe we crowdsource this chronology?

But this isn’t fearmongering. The public has every right and reason to be twitchy as hell when it comes to the transfer and privatization of public lands. It’s like when I had to eat lunch with bullies at my cafeteria table in grade school, I always kept my elbows up and one fist free. At the very least, I was aware of my surroundings and the context in which I ate. And context matters here too because the privatization threat is like knapweed and cheatgrass and not limited to auction-like proposals or threats via arcane budget rules and processes. The corner-crossing case in Wyoming is illustrative and you couldn’t get a better cast of characters to illustrate the new gilded age and what it means for our public lands (see Iron Bar Holdings v. Cape et al., 10 th Cir. 2025).

Now some might say that I need to relax because these proposals are deeply unpopular and keep losing in venue after venue and that the past is not prologue. But this is only because of constant public pushback and organizing—what some call fearmongering. It isn’t. It’s the latest chapter, and the most serious chapter, of public lands in my lifetime.

Chag Sameach, Happy Resurrection and Happy Easter!

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Pasque flower in Colorado https://www.elevationoutdoors.com/go-outside/the-pasque-flower-harbinger-of-spring/ The common name pasque flower refers to its flowering period in the spring during Passover (in Biblical Hebrew: פֶּסַח pāsaḥ). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsatilla

 

I’m taking off for until Monday, but will still be approving comments. On Monday, we’ll have something exciting, the lovely and talented Martin Nie (co-founder of The Smokey Wire’s predecessor A New Century of Forest Planning)  will return after 15 or so years for a special treat/post entitled “On Divesting, Transferring, Privatizing Public Lands: It’s Not Fearmongering.” So I’ll see you back here then, and for those celebrating this weekend (Passover ends, and this year that Orthodox and other Christians celebrate Easter on the same day):

Wishing you a joyful and meaningful Passover,

Wishing you peace, joy, and renewed faith this Pascha,

Happy Easter!

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If you weren’t here in 2023, you might enjoy my previous post on arguments “for the sake of heaven” and the schools of Hillel and Shammai.

And this still reminds me a bit of TSW discussions.

Mordcha: Why should I break my head about the outside world? Let them break their own heads.
Tevye: He’s right. As the Good Book says, “If you spit in the air, it lands in your face.”
Perchik: That’s nonsense. You can’t close your eyes to what’s happening in the world.
Tevye: He’s right.
Avram: He’s right and he’s right? How can they both be right?
Tevye: You know, you’re also right.

— Fiddler on the Roof

Colorado’s New Wildfire Insurance Bill: Giving Homeowners Credit for Mitigation

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In Oregon, they are still battling over their wildfire risk map and associated policy interventions. Colorado has taken an interesting approach focused on transparency and landowners getting discounts for their mitigation work, which has the support of both homeowners and the insurance industry. It’s always interesting how the state “laboratories of democracy” work out. Nice article by Robert Tann of the Glenwood Springs Post Independent.

Colorado lawmakers have reached a consensus with insurance industry representatives over a bill that seeks to regulate how carriers determine a homeowner’s wildfire risk and the premiums they pay.

House Bill 1182 passed the Senate on Friday after being approved in the House last month. The bill is now poised to head to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk.

Polis has mentioned tackling the rising cost of homeowners insurance as a top legislative priority, calling for lawmakers to pass reform measures in his State of the State address.

Colorado has seen a dramatic increase in insurance costs in recent years as weather events, intensified by climate change, drive up homeowners’ risk.

According to a study by the state-run Division of Insurance, premiums for single-family homes jumped 52% between January 2019 and October 2022. In the High Country, where wildfire is an even more present threat, some homeowners have reported premium increases upwards of 1,000%.

At the heart of House Bill 1182 is an effort to give homeowners more credit for steps they take to protect their homes and reduce their risk.

“People are doing different kinds of mitigation work thinking that the insurance company will be impressed and give them a discount,” said Rep. Brianna Titione, D-Arvada, during debate on the House floor last month, “and a lot of times what they’re doing is irrelevant to what the insurance company thinks is best for the property.”

Under the bill, insurance carriers would be required to consider mitigation efforts when assessing a homeowner’s wildfire risk. Companies would also need to share information on their risk models with the state’s insurance division, explain to homeowners how their risk is calculated and what they can do to lower it, and allow homeowners to appeal their risk score.

Titione, a bill sponsor, said the measure “is about promoting transparency and accountability in the wildfire risk scoring and the models and empowering Coloradans to make informed decisions about mitigation.”

Bill sponsors agreed to several amendments brought forward by the insurance industry.

That includes holding homeowners’ mitigation efforts to an industry-recognized standard, such as the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety’s Wildfire Prepared Home program.

The program certifies homes that meet a set of criteria as being “wildlife-resilient” and is currently recognized by insurance carriers in California and Oregon as a way to lower premiums.

Carole Walker, executive director for the Rocky Mountain Insurance Association, said that having standards for mitigation work in House Bill 1182 could open the door to having the program recognized by insurers in Colorado.

“We all believe in mitigation, but just mowing the grass is not enough,” Walker said.”What we’ve found is there needs to be actionable mitigation that people are doing, and this helps us verify it, and once it’s verified, that’s something that the models can consider.”

Other amendments allow insurance companies to directly lower a homeowner’s premium rather than adjusting their models to account for new mitigation work. Walker said this gives carriers more flexibility to adhere to the bill since not all models work the same.

The bill also narrows what information must be shared between carriers and the state when it comes to modeling software and ensures that a company’s intellectual property is kept confidential. Changes were also made to exempt nonresidential commercial properties from the bill and to push out the bill’s implementation date from January to July 2026.

Walker stressed to lawmakers to be mindful of not passing policies that would drive insurers out of the state due to overregulation. She said the bill’s amendments “come to what I think is a good opportunity for education around what the models do and meaningful mitigation steps that are verifiable.”

House Bill 1182 received broad bipartisan appeal, passing the House by a vote of 45-18 and the Senate by 33-1. House lawmakers must still approve changes made in the Senate before the bill can go to Polis’ desk.

What’s Changed Since 2007 Review of HFRA Implementation.. and What Hasn’t

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I’ve been thinking about how much the current FOFA is a this decade’s version of HFRA and the Healthy Forest Initiative.  It’s actually surprising how similar the ideas are “delineate an area”, “use special authorities”. Been there, done that.

I asked “what worked and what didn’t?” and “what can we learn?”  If you were around then, please add your own observations.  I did find this 2007 review of HFRA implementation.

INTRODUCTION
Following the exceptionally severe wildfire seasons that punctuated the past decade, the Administration and Congress authorized a suite of administrative and legislative tools to expedite the reduction of hazardous fuels and restoration forest health. These Healthy Forests authorities include the Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI), the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (HFRA) and expanded authority for stewardship contracting and agreements. These authorities call for increased collaboration with stakeholders and provide streamlined administrative processes. The goal is to increase the acreage treated annually and to reduce overall treatment costs.

Although the Forest Service has strongly encouraged the use of Healthy Forests authorities over the past three years, Forest Service personnel and stakeholders have voiced frustration over their implementation. In response, the Forest Service conducted an internal review of its use of Healthy Forests authorities during the 2006 field season.
The purpose of the review was to 1) gauge Forest Service employees’ understanding of Healthy Forests tools, 2) identify opportunities to improve the tools, and 3) determine how Forest Service leadership can better support the use of Healthy Forests authorities. The review noted both significant barriers and challenges to Healthy Forests implementation and elements of successful Healthy Forests implementation. This report includes  recommendations to address the barriers and improve Healthy Forests implementation.

Overall, the review team found few major problems with the use of Healthy Forests authorities. While some region-specific issues exist with the use of Healthy Forests tools, there are also several common trends that are applicable more broadly. This report documents the review findings and recommends actions to improve the implementation of Healthy Forests authorities nationwide.
The Executive Summary highlights the major findings and recommendations. These and some additional findings and recommendations are detailed in the Discussion section that follows. The Appendices include regional summaries, briefing papers on the threat assessment centers, coordinated resource offering protocols, strategic placement of treatments, and numerous useful references for field personnel wanting to improve the efficiency of their fuels reduction and forest health programs.

DISCUSSION
Barriers and challenges to successful Healthy Forest implementation
Aside from environmental challenges such as continuous drought, insect and disease outbreaks and overly dense vegetation, many units nationwide are also experiencing social, economic, institutional and cultural challenges.

Social
The Healthy Forests authorities strongly emphasize collaboration. While some units have successfully engaged in collaboration with local communities, others are having trouble establishing collaborative relationships for a host of reasons. For example, some communities are engaged in collaborative planning, but are unable to fully realize their goals due to challenges from outside the local area or the collaborative group. In other locations community collaboration groups have expanded their collaboration, broadening the geographic area from which to draw partners while focusing on activities on a smaller geographic area.

This seems like it may have been fixed since 2007?

Economic
The declining forest products industry presents a continual challenge to the implementation of Healthy Forests activities, particularly with biomass utilization and stewardship contracting. In many regions, the milling infrastructure necessary to process biomass from hazardous fuels treatments or merchantable timber from stewardship contracts is absent or inadequate.
The shrinking availability of infrastructure has coincided in some areas with a loss of individuals with the necessary skills to perform forest restoration work. For example, the Rocky Mountain region has recently experienced a surge in the oil and gas industry; as these industries have increased their wages and workloads, individuals who once worked in the forest products industry have transitioned into the more lucrative oil and gas business.
Further, the low value of timber removed reduces economical treatment options, forcing many national forests into expensive service contracts to remove the hazardous fuels. Continuously rising fuel and transportation costs are often cited as contributing factors to the increasing costs of service contracts and as impediments to economically viable biomass utilization and stewardship contracting.

Seems like, except for the O&G industry, this has possibly gotten worse (Montana mills).

Institutional
Although external factors such as the economics and politics of a particular area affect Healthy Forests implementation, review participants also noted that procedural obstacles to the use of Healthy Forests authorities exist within the Forest Service itself. With continuously expanding workloads, many units expressed frustration with their inability to provide adequate staff and expertise to all of the projects in their program of work. In effect, Healthy Forests projects are sometimes given lower priority for staffing than forest plan revisions, major EISs for fire recovery, other large scale projects and high priority planning work.

Further, Forest Service personnel cited the lack of integration between staff areas as a major challenge to Healthy Forests implementation. Without clear communication between resource program managers, it has been difficult for units to incorporate Healthy Forests projects within their larger program of work. Many units requested strong, clear, consistent guidance from all levels of Forest Service leadership on how to integrate Healthy Forests authorities into existing policies and procedures.

I would guess the FS Implementation memo is designed to get at this, but perhaps only for the areas with existing (or should I say remaining) infrastructure.

Cultural
While the barriers mentioned above do not hinder Forest Service personnel from specifically using or attempting to use Healthy Forests authorities and tools, they do create a climate of frustration when Healthy Forests projects do not come to fruition, whether designed specifically with the newer authorities or with traditional ones. This is where the corporate culture of the Forest Service or of an individual can affect use of Healthy Forests authorities. In the face of this frustration, personnel who tend to take a conservative approach to accomplishing their work are reluctant to adopt new techniques and prefer to stick with tools with which they are familiar. On the other hand, the “early adopters” recognize the benefits of the newer tools and aggressively use them even if their initial attempts are not fully successful.

Again, the FS implementation memo appears to seek to abjure conservatism in using authorities and technologies.   The below part of the Secretary’s memorandum has a bit of a “continuous improvement” ring to it, so perhaps attention will be paid regularly to progress and impediments?  I really, really hope that the FS will make these reports public and we won’t have to FOIA them.

e. REPORTING
Each calendar year, the Forest Service shall report to Natural Resources and Environment on the use of emergency authorities that will include those actions taken pursuant to this Forest Health and Fuels Reduction Emergency Situation Determination detailing:
• Status of any ongoing environmental analysis or compliance actions;
• Listing of completed (signed decision) or future compliance actions;
• Status of any ongoing consultation, including the National Historic Preservation Act and Endangered Species Act;
• Status of any ongoing coordination with local or state emergency management offices or other federal agencies;
• Status of coordination and consultation with federally recognized Tribal governments and/or Alaska Native Corporations; and
• Listing of any completed (implemented on the ground) or future mitigating emergency actions, to include number of acres treated or anticipated to be treated

Back to the 2007 Review..the Biomass section is good, but also depressing.  If you’re interested, check it out.

Bit o’History: Employee Survey from 2007

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I ran across this in my files..since probably everyone from then is retired, I thought it worth sharing.  Some problems seem to be resolved (or adjusted to, like “burden shift”), while others are the same or worse.

X Forest Integrated Resource Review

September 2007

 Major Themes from Employee Surveys

 

Workload

  • Frustration and stress cause by heavy, complex workload.
  • Too many priorities and initiatives; targets too high.
  • Overworked ID teams – too many projects, too few specialists.
  • Burden shift – everyone must be an expert in travel, HR, computers, budget, etc.
  • Mandatory training takes too much time.
  • Need more LEOs to enforce travel management, etc.
  • Failure to meet planning deadlines.

 

Working on the Right Things

  • Too much time spent on planning vs. implementation, monitoring, on-the-ground work.
  • Three themes are too vague, hard to measure
  • Need to focus on travel management
  • Pay more attention to recreation – increasing demand!
  • Roads and trails are deteriorating
  • Too much attention to public/interest group/political demands vs. needs on the ground.
  • Good work in partnerships and volunteers.

 

Leadership

  • Leaders need to say no more often to members of the public seeking permits, land exchanges, etc.
  • Leaders need to set firm, clear priorities and say no to other expectations.
  • Leaders need to communicate more, be more open about decisions.
  • Leaders don’t deal with performance issues.  Need to hold people accountable.
  • Leaders need to recognize and reward good work.

 

Service First

  • Frustration with Service First: two sets of procedures, targets, priorities, etc.
  • Service First provides good service to the public.
  • Service First promotes integration.

 

Workforce Planning

  • Cuts in workforce resulted in huge workloads.

  • Employees feel their work isn’t respected.

  • Employees stressed about coworkers losing their jobs.  Morale is low.

  • Were the right cuts made?

  • Leadership didn’t communicate well about workforce planning, withheld information.

  • Impact on effectiveness (fire suppression, fuels, etc.).

  • Wellness program reduced, but did it save money?

Western Governors Would Like Direction for Government-to-Government Consultation in Approps Report Language

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I thought folks might be interested in what the Western Governors Association said in their testimony on the FY 2026 Appropriations to the House Interior Committee. Since WGA is a bipartisan outfit, I think it helps to discern what is mainstream from what might be partisan saber-rattling, or taking saber-rattling too seriously.

So naturally they want to be included with Tribes in government-to-government consultation. This doesn’t seem unreasonable, given the Constitution. Here are a few paragraphs on that:

The agencies within the Subcommittee’s jurisdiction wield significant influence over vast areas of the American West. Ninety-four percent of all federal lands are located in the western states, and the federal government owns over 46 percent of the land within WGA states and territories. This Subcommittee’s work is vitally important to Western Governors, as it affects public lands management and federal agency interaction with other levels of government and the public.

There is a natural tension between state and federal governments that is embedded in the U.S. Constitution. These sovereign governments must have a close and productive working relationship to promote efficiency and maximize returns on taxpayer investments. Improving the partnership between states and territories and the federal government is central to WGA’s mission and is reflected in WGA Policy Resolution 2024-01, Strengthening the State-Federal Relationship.

Western Governors were encouraged by past Committee report language directing federal agencies to provide appropriate feedback and decision rationale related to tribal input received via meaningful consultation in their decision-making processes. Similar direction to federal agencies for government-to-government consultation with states and territories, which is required pursuant to Executive Order 13132, Federalism, would improve the co-sovereign relationship between states, territories, and the federal government.

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If you haven’t, it’s probably worth taking a look at that Clinton-era EO. I think it’s still on the books, but I don’t think that there is any enforcement. To be sure, many EOs start with a burst of enthusiasm, but if there is no one watching, the requirements tend to get submerged in agency business-as-usual over time.

This is from the WGA Policy 2024-01:

13. Federal agencies have suggested to states that there are legal or other barriers to state consultation, such as: federal agency policies restricting ex parte communications; concerns about the applicability of Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) procedures to meetings between state and federal officials; and issues with sharing information that would otherwise be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
14. Federal agencies do not adequately incorporate state data and expertise into their decisions. This can result in duplication, inefficiency, and federal decisions that do not reflect on-the-ground conditions. Consideration and incorporation of state, tribal, and local data and analysis will result in federal actions that are better-informed, more effectively coordinated among all levels of government, and tailored to the communities they affect.
15. Many of these issues stem from a profound misunderstanding throughout the federal government regarding the role and legal status of states. Over the past several years, Western Governors have worked to improve the federal government’s understanding of state sovereignty, authority, and state-federal consultation; meaningful structural change, however, has yet to occur.

And the Governors’ Policy Statement:

2.Improving state-federal communication and coordination is a goal that transcends party lines, and it is among the Governors’ highest priorities. The Governors urge Congress and the Executive Branch to make fundamental changes to realign and improve the state-federal paradigm.

Clearly these concerns are much broader than just federal lands. But we have to look no further than the Rock Springs RMP or the Lava Ridge Wind Project to see that sometimes states concerns have been overridden.

Back to the WGA testimony.

Responsible land management can only occur when federal, state, and local stakeholders collaborate to improve the health and resilience of our lands. Likewise, proactive fish and wildlife conservation is most effective when leveraging the cooperative efforts of state, territorial and federal officials across multiple disciplines. To this end, Western Governors support funding for reasonable proactive management efforts to conserve species, including engaging stakeholders to implement early, voluntary conservation measures. Western Governors also
believe that federal agencies should explore revised Government Schedule criteria and use detail positions and shared staff between nongovernmental partners, state, and federal agencies to
increase interagency coordination.

For those interested in wildfire, here are the relevant paragraphs.

Reducing wildfire risk also requires conducting active forest management at an unprecedented pace and scale. This, in turn, relies on a handful of enabling factors, including a qualified land management workforce and infrastructure to transport and realize the value of extracted biomass. Western Governors support many of the recommendations in the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission’s final report. The Commission called upon Congress to provide funding for federal public health agencies to address the smoke-related impacts of wildland fire. The Commission also supported the creation of incentives for state, local, and tribal governments to invest in the development of fire- and smoke-adapted communities. Western Governors appreciate Congress’ increased attention to the issue as demonstrated in recent years’ appropriation acts. Western Governors also appreciate USFS’s investments in forest health as part of the Wildfire Crisis Strategy (WCS) and request continued funding for wildfire risk reduction within and outside of designated WCS priority landscapes.

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In addition, given the unique character of the West and the region’s attainment challenges, funding should be appropriated for EPA to assist western states in research on background, interstate, and transported ozone. This is especially important as smoke from wildfires causes air quality to exceed the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter and ozone, affecting public health, safety, and transportation. The Exceptional Events Rule creates a process for excluding wildfire smoke from regulatory significance; however, this process is presently burdensome and demonstrating a given wildfire’s contribution of pollutants to the local airshed creates a strain on state resources. As a result, Western Governors support funding for technical assistance, grants, and state personnel to support exceptional event demonstrations that exclude wildfire smoke from regulatory significance.