The Royal Forests- Congressman McClintock on the Forest Service

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John of England signs Magna Carta. Illustration from Cassell's History of England (1902)

Disagreement, up to and including violence, around land ownership and use is part of our Homo sapiens heritage. In one sense that is encouraging- it’s not likely that if we were better at our work of land management, all the conflict would go away. And it’s definitely cheery that we have moved away from violence.

Yesterday when I read this comment from David Beebe here

The clearer path begins by understanding the corporatization of Congress and the agencies it funds, corporatization of the media, and corporatization of civil society in general puts the best interests of the commons and the commoners at a distinct disadvantage.

It reminded me of something I had recently read- Congressman McClintock’s views of the commoners, particularly, these comments on the Royal Forests in this letter from Congressman Mclintock to Chief Tidwell.

You can find out more about Congressman McClintock’s views here.

Combined, these actions evince an ideologically driven hostility to the public’s enjoyment of the public’s land – and a clear intention to deny the public the responsible and sustainable use of that land.

Most recently, the Forest Service has placed severe restrictions on vehicle access to the Plumas National Forest, despite volumes of public protests. Supervisor Bill Connelly, Chairman of the Butte County Board of Supervisors writes that “The restriction applies to such activities as: collecting firewood, retrieving game, loading or unloading horses or other livestock, and camping.” He writes, “The National Forests are part of the local fabric. The roads within the National Forests are used by thousands of residents and visitors for transportation and recreation. These activities generate revenue for our rural communities, which are critical for their survival.”

This is not a small matter. The Forest Service now controls 193 million acres within our nation – a land area equivalent to the size of Texas.

During the despotic eras of Norman and Plantagenet England, the Crown declared one third of the land area of Southern England to be the royal forest, the exclusive preserve of the monarch, his forestry officials and his favored aristocrats. The people of Britain were forbidden access to and enjoyment of these forests under harsh penalties. This exclusionary system became so despised by the people that in 1215, five clauses of the Magna Carta were devoted to redress of grievances that are hauntingly similar to those that are now flooding my office.

Mr. Speaker, the attitude that now permeates the U.S. Forest Service from top to bottom is becoming far more reminiscent of the management of the royal forests during the autocracy of King John than of an agency that is supposed to encourage, welcome, facilitate and maximize the public’s use of the public’s land in a nation of free men and women.

After all, that was the vision for the Forest Service set forth by its legendary founder, Gifford Pinchot in 1905: “to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run.”

Is This Any Way to Decarbonize Energy?

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We know that coal is the worst GHG producer, so we move to natural gas (which has other environmental effects). But we are for biomass (or not?) and for solar and wind (except …). Here’s a story from Reuters about a new lawsuit against a solar plant. Now there may be areas that are better and worse- and our system of independent entrepreneurs may not select the best places. So do we need some system of centralized planning to make the transition?

We now have lawsuits against coal, natural gas and solar. So there’s a great deal of no’s- an entire legal industry- but how do we get to “yes”?

Given our previous discussion on the use of lawsuits as a tactical tool for environmental protection, I think these quotes are interesting.

The legal brawl comes as the U.S. is racing to adopt renewables. In the United States, renewable energy, including solar, makes up just 8 percent or so of electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That figure was expected to jump to 13 percent by 2035 — but that was before the Green vs. Green feud.

Even though Williams and her cohorts support the broad goal of reducing dependence on fossil fuels, they say it comes at too high a cost if it means building on undeveloped land. Helping their case: the proposed plants are often slated for areas with threatened or endangered animals, including kit foxes, kangaroo rats, rare lizards, and others.

Now, the groups have gone from complaining to litigating. That means solar companies must take funds and management time that would have been spent on developing their plants and spend them instead on fighting lawsuits. For some companies, the likely result is that plants won’t be built

And..

Those who didn’t quickly dusted off a well-worn playbook: using environmental laws to fight a development project.

Lawyers say the moment state or local government approves an environmental plan offers the best opportunity to sue to block a plant, using the federal law known as the National Environmental Policy Act or state law such as the California Environmental Quality Act as grounds. Having threatened or endangered species of plants or animals on a site gives the suits far more heft, they say.

Save Panoche Valley, the organization Williams helped create, and its allies filed a lawsuit in November alleging that the county approved subpar environmental and water assessment reports and improperly canceled conservation agreements to keep the land in agricultural use. Threatened or endangered animals such as the San Joaquin kit fox, the giant kangaroo rat and the blunt-nosed leopard lizard receive special mention throughout the lawsuit. The county doesn’t comment on allegations in pending lawsuits, said assistant county counsel Barbara Thompson.

Getting the permits rescinded is the ultimate goal, the groups say. But almost as good is simply delaying the process. “A long drawn-out one would be a victory too,” says Garthwaite, who believes Solargen would simply run out of money and time to keep fighting.

Solar Millennium is getting a lesson in going to great lengths with its proposed 250-megawatt Ridgecrest plant, mostly on private land in California’s Kern County. Officials are worried about the effect on the Mohave ground squirrel, so Solar Millennium is considering whether to fund a two-year study to evaluate the squirrel population in the area. Phil Leitner, the independent biologist leading the study, says if the study goes ahead, he plans to trap squirrels, put radio collars on them, and take tissue samples from their ears to determine their genetic makeup.

Back in the Panoche Valley, the environmental reports and the permitting process have eaten up almost two-thirds of the money Solargen has raised. Among the bills: paying for scat-sniffing dogs to run up and down the hills, looking for traces of the endangered San Joaquin kit fox.

Are all these lawsuits evidence that something is awry with our system of larger scale policy development and planning? Our country clearly needs energy, and needs to transition to cleaner energy. Is there a clearer path from here to there?

Practical Wisdom For Land Managers

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Jim Fenwood sent this in..

Here’s a sample chapter of a new book entitled Practical Wisdom by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe.

Rules and incentives may improve the behavior of those who don’t care, though they won’t make them wiser. But in focusing on the people who don’t care—the targets of our rules and incentives—we miss those who do care. We miss those who want to do the right things but lack the practical wisdom to do them well. Rules and incentives won’t teach these people the moral skill and will they need. Even worse, rules can kill skill and incentives can kill will.

It would be interesting to peruse this book and see if there are potential applications in our line of work. It would be interesting to hear from our wise elders and their experiences. Posts on this topic are welcome.

Beaverhead Deerlodge- Another “Who’s At the Table?”

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Here’s a link to a newer lawsuit on the Beaverhead Deerlodge plan.

County Commissioner Mike McGinley said the Forest Service’s plan included wilderness areas that were never before considered and don’t meet the criteria for the highest level of land protection under federal law. And he said the plan, which guides management of the 3.3-million acre forest, was crafted after closed-door meetings between then Beaverhead Forest Supervisor Bruce Ramsey and the partnership members.

It seems like once again the issue is who was at the table. Is this an argument for formal advisory committees which include governments? Where should cooperating agencies and others fit? I hope that folks in Montana will share their insights.

My Take on the “Science Integrity” Guidelines

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If you haven’t been following this issue, OSTP (the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President) (for whom I once worked on agbiotech regulation- great perks, BTW, highly recommended as a DC experience!) released some guidelines, based on a President’s Memo, here.

Some people are aware of the situations which apparently triggered the perceived need for these guidelines. However, it is not really clear at this point what those were, nor how the memo or the guidelines would help resolve similar problems. As regular readers know, I am a fairly concrete thinker. It could just be that the concepts are too abstract for me. Nevertheless, in some old jobs I’ve had, I would be one of the folks in the agencies charged with implementing the guidelines. I can’t help but think we have better uses for the time of a small army of GS-14s and 15s than writing more policy on something that doesn’t seem very clear. Or even necessary, if we can’t clearly articulate what we are trying to keep others from doing. Even in our humble daily world of administrative appeals, we try to link facts found and conclusions drawn.

Also of concern is that Roger argues that in some cases the problem was not caused by the agencies (who are required to “fix it”) but by the EOP, when the agencies “did it right.” See his comments here.

By the way, if this is a policy on the use of science in policy development, then its development should follow its own rationale- it should use science and technology policy scholars (e.g., Jasanoff, Pielke, Sarewitz) to give scientific advice in its development.

Anyway, in this guest post for Roger Pielke, Jr.’s blog, I attempt to make sense of the President’s memo. Also, the comments and thought of David Bruggeman are of interest. My post is part of a series on Roger’s blog.

The New Yorker on the Decline Effect

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A colleague sent this link to me.. for sheer curiousity, it’s hard to beat.

The decline effect is troubling because it reminds us how difficult it is to prove anything. We like to pretend that our experiments define the truth for us. But that’s often not the case. Just because an idea is true doesn’t mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe

Who’s at the Table and Who Decides?

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Observing the stories in the press on our favorite topics over the past two weeks, I found a common set of questions that I hope can illuminate the controversies. ”Who’s at the Table and Who Decides?” There is another thread, in some of these stories, of the appropriate role of state and local governments.

In this post, we’ll examine the settlement of case against four forest plans (82 Rule) in southern California.

Here’s the link to the below quote. http://lakeconews.com/content/view/17531/931/
Here’s the link to another piece on the settlement on this blog.

SAN FRANCISCO – Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. has announced a settlement that requires the U.S. Forest Service to reconsider its plans regarding wilderness lands in four national forests, including the Los Padres, home of the endangered California condor. “With this settlement, the state of California will now play an active role along with the Forest Service in determining which areas of Southern California forests will be preserved as wilderness,” Brown said. The settlement resolves a lawsuit brought by Brown and various state agencies and environmental groups against the U.S. Forest Service for its plans to allow roads to be built through hundreds of thousands of acres of wild lands in the Los Padres, Angeles, Cleveland and San Bernardino national forests.

Who’s at the table? The plaintiffs (listed in the agreement) and the Forest Service and DOJ.
Who decides? The Department of Justice and the Forest Service and the plaintiffs, which in this case includes the State of California.

It appears to me that the State and groups that used the tactic of litigation moved the decisions in forest plans from being an open process, where the FS decides, to a not- open process where it is not so clear who decides. If land management allocations are ultimately to be made in the courts, because plans are so complex that it is difficult to do one perfectly- especially when people are paid to find flaws- perhaps it tells us that more conflict resolution, and not more analysis is what is needed. Again, I think it’s OK to use that as a tactic, but using that as a tactic has potential negative ramifications, from the perspective of openness and transparency, that need to be acknowledged.

It looks like the settlement imposes roadless-rule like requirements or, in other words, establishes a policy for federal lands in part of the State. We have had the discussion before on this blog about whether settlement agreements actually set policy. This seems to be an example of that.

Happy Holidays!

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Jason Kirchner of the U.S. Forest Service attaches the official tree permit to his office’s holiday tree Friday after he and Mark Grant cut the tree down on National Forest land near Coeur d’Alene. It cost only $5 to cut a tree on National Forest or BLM land, but the tag must be attached to the tree before leaving the forest. Kirchner is a public affairs officer and Grant is a fire management officer. (SR Photo: Jesse Tinsley)

We are entering a peaceful period for the next couple of weeks while people are on vacation. This is a season where Peace is celebrated in many spiritual traditions. Which reminds me of honoring and thanking the environmental conflict resolution professionals we deal with in our daily work. So here’s a shout out to all of you-wherever you are. I’d particularly like to thank the folks at the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution (and their subcontractors) for their excellent work on the Planning Rule.

In the spirit of the season, here’s a quote on their homepage:

“ Politics and issues come and go, but in the end, we’ll all be remembered for the way we treat other people. ”

Morris K. Udall

Here’s a link to a blog post from Craig Zelizer of the international conflict resolution community on “10 Actions for a More Peaceful 2011.”

Happy Holidays to all, and I’ll be back the 3rd of January or thereabouts.

County Payments, Jobs, & Forest Health

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I thought some of our readers might be interested in a recent paper by Headwaters Economics examining ideas for reforming the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act (SRS) and Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT). 

Here is the PDF Reform_County_Payments_WhitePaper_LowRes

and the link http://www.headwaterseconomics.org/tools/reforming-federal-land-payments-to-counties/

This outfit does some really neat work and this paper is no exception.  Both programs are about to expire and the paper explores eight options in how to possibly move forward.  Some of the most interesting ideas are to change the distribution formula to give proportionately higher payments to counties based on various things, such as:

A) giving preferential assistance to counties with the greatest need

B) Linking payments to a County’s willingness to control federal costs by reducing development in wildfire-prone areas

C) Linking payments to the value of ecosystem services provided by federal public lands

D) Distibute higher payments to counties with protected public lands

Also included in the paper is an interactive mapping tool with which you can mess around and see how the various options would impact a particular county, and in some cases a Congressional District.

Transparency and Open Government: A Guest Post by Jim Fenwood

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His first day in office President Obama issued his Memorandum on Transparency and Open Governent . He explained the need for the memorandum as follows:

Our commitment to openness means more than simply informing the American people about how decisions are made. It means recognizing that government does not have all the answers and that public officials need to draw on what citizens know. And, that’s why as of today I’m directing members of my Administration to find new ways of tapping the knowledge and experience of ordinary Americans.

To further these ends, the General Services Administration (GSA) is soliciting comments through its Open Government Initiative wiki. The GSA describes the project as:

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. . .a concept for next generation citizen consultation, namely a government-wide software tool and process to elicit expert public participation (working title “ExpertNet”). ExpertNet could:

1. Enable government officials to circulate notice of opportunities to participate in public consultations to members of the public with expertise on a topic.
2. Provide those volunteer experts with a mechanism to provide useful, relevant, and manageable feedback back to government officials.

Questions:

Will this be the new model for public participation in rule-making?

How should it supplement or relate to the NEPA process?

Jim Fenwood is a retired wildlife biologist living in Atlanta, GA. An eternal optimist, he believes in world peace, Ivory-billed woodpeckers, and Planning Rule revisions.