Update From Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition

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Many thanks to Claudia Elliott for this guest post.

About a hundred people gathered at Calaveras Big Trees State Park on Dec. 14 to hear — and provide — updates to efforts to save giant sequoias. The purpose of the meeting was to allow members of the Giant Sequoia Lands Coalition to report accomplishments in the group’s first full year of operation.

The natural range of the giant sequoia is in a narrow belt of the southern and central Sierra Nevada where they grow in about 80 groves interspersed with other conifers. The region has been hit hard with high intensity wildfire in the past few years and the loss of giant sequoias has been shocking.

With snow on the ground outside the meeting room, speakers representing coalition members shared their progress on accelerated efforts to reduce fuels during 2022 and other efforts.

Collectively, according to a report prepared for the event, coalition members conducted restoration treatments — including thinning and prescribed fires — on 4,257 of 26,000 acres in 36 of approximately 80 giant sequoia groves.

Although much remains to be done, this was more than twice the 2,000 acres set as a goal for the year.

Fuel was reduced around more than 4,000 giant sequoia trees and coalition members planted more than 248,000 native conifers, including giant sequoias.

In addition to the work in the field, the coalition reported that numerous scientific studies were advanced this year and public outreach and education efforts resulted in placement of more than 10,000 stories about giant sequoia issues in the media.

The work cost about $10.5 million, according to the report, and involved 824 people.

You can read the report here.

And you can read a special edition of my weekly Giant Sequoia News newsletter here.

The coalition has just unveiled its website here.

“Proforestation” It Aint What It Claims To Be

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‘Proforestation’ separates people from forests

AKA: Ignorance and Arrogance Still Reign Supreme at the Sierra Club.

I picked this up from Nick Smith’s Newsletter (sign up here)
Emphasis added by myself as follows:
1)  Brown Text for items NOT SUPPORTED by science with long term and geographically extensive validation.                                                                                                                                                        2) Bold Green Text for items SUPPORTED by science with long term and geographically extensive validation.
3) >>>Bracketed Italics for my added thoughts based on 59 years of experience and review of a vast range of literature going back to way before the internet.<<<

“Proforestation” is a relatively new term in the environmental community. The Sierra Club defines it as: “extending protections so as to allow areas of previously-logged forest to mature, removing vast amounts of atmospheric carbon and recovering their ecological and carbon storage potential.”          >>>Apparently, after 130 years of existence, the Sierra Club still doesn’t know much about plant physiology, the carbon cycle or the increased risk of calamitous wild fire spread caused by the close proximity of stems and competition driven mortality in unmanged stands (i.e. the science of plant physiology regarding competition, limited resources and fire spread physics). Nor have they thought out the real risk of permanent destruction of the desired ecosystems nor the resulting impact on climate change.<<<

Not only must we preserve untouched forests, proponents argue, but we must also walk away from previously-managed forests too. People should be entirely separate from forest ecology and succession. >>>More abject ignorance and arrogant woke policy based only on vacuous wishful thinking.<<<

Except humans have managed forests for millennia. In North America, Indigenous communities managed forests and sustained its resources for at least 8,000 years prior to European settlement. It is true people have not always managed forests sustainably. Forest practices of the late 19th century are a good example.                                                                                                                                                 >>>Yes, and the political solution pushed on us by the Sierra Club and other faux conservationists beginning with false assumptions about the Northern Spotted Owl was to throw out the continuously improving science (i.e. Continuous Process Improvement [CPI]).  The concept of using the science to create sustainable practices and laws that regulated the bad practices driven by greed and arrogance wasn’t even considered seriously.  As always, the politicians listened to the well heeled squeaky voters.  Now, their arrogant ignorance has given us National Ashtrays, destruction of soils, and an ever increasing probability that great acreages of forest ecosystems will be lost to the generations that follow who will also have to cope with the exacerbated climate change.  So here we are, in 30+/- years the Faux Conservationists have made things worse than the greedy timber barons ever could have.  And the willfully blind can’t seem to see what they have done. Talk about arrogance.<<<

Forest management provides tools to correct past mistakes and restore ecosystems. But Proforestation even seems to reject forest restoration that helps return a forest to a healthy state, including controlling invasive species, maintaining tree diversity, returning forest composition and structure to a more natural state.

Proforestation is not just a philosophical exercise. The goal is to ban active forest management on public lands. It has real policy implications for the future management (or non-management) of forests and how we deal with wildfires, climate change and other disturbances.

We’ve written before about how this concept applies to so-called “carbon reserves.” Now, powerful and well-funded anti-forestry groups are pressuring the Biden Administration to set-aside national forests and other federally-owned lands under the guise of “protecting mature and old-growth” trees.

In its recent white paper on Proforestation (read more here), the Society of American Foresters writes that “preservation can be appropriate for unique protected areas, but it has not been demonstrated as a solution for carbon storage or climate change across all forested landscapes.”

Proforestation doesn’t work when forests convert from carbon sinks into carbon sources. A United Nations report pointed out that at least 10 World Heritage sites – the places with the highest formal environmental protections on the planet – are net sources of carbon pollution. This includes the iconic Yosemite National Park.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes active forest management will yield the highest carbon benefits over the long term because of its ability to mitigate carbon emitting disturbance events and store carbon in harvested wood products. Beyond carbon, forest management ensures forests continue to provide assets like clean water, wildlife habitat, recreation, and economic activity.
>>>(i.e. TRUE SUSTAINABILITY)<<<

Forest management offers strategies to manage forests for carbon sequestration and long-term storage.Proforestation rejects active stewardship that can not only help cool the planet, but help meet the needs of people, wildlife and ecosystems. You can expect to see this debate intensify in 2023.

Eagle Take Permitting Streamlining USFWS Rule

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Jon and SJ’s discussion of owls reminded me. of this proposed reg about eagles.

I don’t really understand too much about this proposed rule, but I do like what appears to be the capability of FWS to have already figured out that something they did in 2016 isn’t working and needs to be changed.. and they are changing it.  It also looks like “permitting reform.”

We propose amendments to these regulations to better align with the purpose and need described in the 2016 PEIS. In the 2016 Eagle Rule, the Service sought to:

(1) increase compliance by simplifying the permitting framework and increasing certainty;

(2) allow for consistent and efficient administration of the program by Service staff;

(3) regulate based on best available science and data; and

(4) enhance protection of eagles throughout their ranges by increasing implementation of avoidance, minimization, and mitigation of adverse impacts from human activities.

Since implementation of the 2016 Eagle Rule, it has become clear that the Service’s amended permitting structure did not fully achieve the goals of the 2016 PEIS. For bald eagles, populations have continued to grow. While this is good news in terms of preserving the species, it also means that bald eagles are interacting more often with human activities and infrastructure, resulting in a higher demand for permits authorizing the disturbance take and nest take of bald eagles. The current permit framework places an administrative burden on the public and the Service that is not commensurate with what is required to effectively preserve bald eagles. For golden eagles, a goal of the 2016 Eagle Rule was to increase compliance and improve consistency and efficiency relating to permitting golden eagle take at wind-energy projects. However, those goals have not been realized. While participation in the permit program by wind energy projects has increased since 2016, it still remains well below our expectations. Low application rates and permit-processing requirements that some have perceived as burdensome have resulted in few permits being issued for wind projects as compared to the number of operational wind projects in areas where golden eagles occur. As a result, golden eagles continue to be taken without implementation of conservation actions to offset that take.

The current permit framework places an administrative burden on the public and the Service that is not commensurate with what is required to effectively preserve bald eagles.

I think that’s probably true of many areas in the broad area of permitting.

Also perhaps someone could explain.. as to the golden eagles, are they saying that people are taking eagles without permits? Wouldn’t that require some enforcement action? Or is it too hard to figure out who is doing this?  Hopefully someone out there knows more about this.

I did find some news stories about the broader topic of wind farms and eagles, but not about these tweaks to the regs.

Is Permitting Reform Paternalistic? And- Let’s Discuss: Manchin’s Permitting Reform Bill Specifically

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This proposed bill language of the current bill would affect the FS and BLM with regard to certain projects (not of the veg management persuasion). The link takes you to the full bill, the the section by section, and a summary of the changes.

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Sidenote: The permitting reform discourse, as opposed to the permitting reform bill.  As Marcela Mulholland of Data for Progress pointed out at the Breakthrough Institute conference that I posted about here,  the (at least “progressive”) discourse around permitting reform is not very productive.  It’s like the concept itself is wrong (everything is currently perfect), which seems kind of irrational.  What human, let alone government, activity, can’t be improved?   Why is the concept, as opposed to the reality, such a flashpoint? A person, apparently on the New York State Climate Action Council, and I had a discussion on Twitter that reflects this.. I actually thought it was kind of funny.

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Oh, and I thought this op-ed on the Hill by Catherine Wolfram “Progressives should have supported Manchin’s permitting reforms: Here’s why” had some good points.

Indeed, the arguments that the progressives make against carbon pricing are exactly why they should have supported Manchin’s permitting reforms. Blocking fossil fuel projects makes it more costly to deliver energy with existing fossil fuels. In effect, it creates a kind of carbon price, just one that’s haphazardly applied, usually extremely high, and where the revenues accrue to fossil fuel producers instead of the government. At the end of the day, low-income households’ energy bills go up.

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But let’s move on to what’s specifically in the bill.

Projects are defined as “those projects for the construction of infrastructure to develop, produce, generate, store, transport, or distribute energy; to capture, remove, transport, or store carbon dioxide; or to mine, extract, beneficiate, or
process minerals which also require the preparation of an environmental document under the NEPA and an agency authorization, such as a permit, license or other approval.

It seems to me as if it’s mostly speeding up things (documents and disagreements and litigation) that can otherwise languish (and don’t we know it…). That’s what it says in the summary.

WHAT THE BILL DOES: Accelerate, not bypass. The bill will accelerate permitting of all types of American energy and mineral infrastructure needed to achieve energy security and climate objectives, without bypassing environmental laws or community input.

Here was the one I thought will be interesting to observe (if this passes):

Sec. xx15. Litigation Transparency
Topline Summary:
• Requires public reporting and a public comment opportunity on consent decrees and settlement agreements seeking to compel agency action affecting energy and natural resources projects.

Detailed Summary:
• Subsection (a) defines civil actions, consent decrees, and settlement agreements covered under this section.
• Subsection (b) requires that agencies publish online the notice of intent to sue and the complaint in a covered civil action not later than 15 days after receiving service. The subsection also requires agencies seeking to enter into a covered consent decree or settlement to publish online the proposed consent decree or settlement and provide an opportunity for public comment not later than 30 days before filing the consent decree or settlement with a court.
• Subsection (c) requires an agency to consider public comments received on a proposed consent decree or settlement agreement under subsection (b) and authorizes agencies to withdraw or withhold consent if the comments disclose facts or considerations that indicate that the agency’s consent is inappropriate, improper, inadequate, or inconsistent with any provision of law.

What do you all think about this, and about other parts of the bill?

Brian Potter’s “How NEPA Works”: A View of NEPA From a Very Studious Newbie

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It’s kind of fun to read when new folks try to describe NEPA world. I really like how Noah Smith rounded up different folks’ thoughts. 

To my mind, Smith did some pretty amazing round up and interpretation work. For this discussion, though, I’d like to start on the first article, by Brian Potter on Substack called “How NEPA Works.” Brian Potter seems to be a policy wonk type at a think tank who has taken an interest in this topic.

So many interesting things about this article. Lots of references to the work of NEPA for the 21st Century and various Mortimer and Stern papers including their “exploring across agencies” paper from 2009.

The paper has lots of comparisons across agencies. Some unfortunately do not separate the FS out from USDA (nor BLM from DOI) so we can’t really compare them.

So many possible discussion topics, but this one could be particularly of interest- it’s a section called NEPA, the Courts and Uncertainty, and I think Potter does a better job than I ever have of explaining why NEPA litigation can be seen as a problem to those working on analyses.

An example of this is the threat of lawsuits incentivizing the inclusion of more and more research in environmental analyses, regardless of its merits:

An excellent illustration of excessive analysis due to management uncertainty is the Beschta Report. Commissioned by the Pacific Rivers Council in 1995, eight scientists drafted a paper, “Wildfire and Salvage Logging,” commonly known as the Beschta Report.

The paper has never been published in any scientific or professional journal, nor has it ever been subject to any formal peer review. In 1995, Forest Service scientists and managers expressed strong reservations about the report, which contains many unsubstantiated statements and assumptions. Nevertheless, the courts have sometimes shown support.

Groups have challenged postfire recovery projects on the grounds that the Forest Service has failed to consider the Beschta Report. In four cases, the courts have ruled that Forest Service decisions violated NEPA because the associated records did not adequately document the agency’s consideration of the Beschta Report. In two other cases, courts have ruled in favor of the Forest Service on this issue.

In view of the court record, forest planners might feel compelled to thoroughly document their consideration of the Beschta Report’s principles and recommendations, even though the underlying land management issues are already addressed in the record. That includes documenting why some elements of the Beschta Report are not relevant to the specific proposed project.

The court record has inspired some groups to demand that the Forest Service consider other papers and articles supposedly relevant to proposed actions. Sometimes the proffered list of references exceeds 100 entries. To minimize the risk of adverse judicial opinions, land managers might feel constrained to fully document within the body of the NEPA document their detailed consideration of each and every paper or article.

Potter considers that even changing NEPA regulations can increase risk and uncertainty.

This mechanism seems to be behind the length of NEPA documents. The 1978 CEQ regulations state that an EA should generally be less than 75 pages, and an EIS should generally be less than 150 pages. But the uncertainty of what’s needed to comply with NEPA, and the natural risk aversion of government agencies, pushes these documents to be longer and longer.

In practice, figuring out what “bulletproof” entails is difficult. Stern 2014 gives an example of the Forest Service trying to figure out what sort of watershed analysis model is most likely to hold up in court:

…In one case, for example, an IDTL asked the Regional Office whether they could use a particular watershed model that had been used elsewhere. Personnel in the Regional Office instructed the team not to use the model because it would represent a departure from the traditional approach used on the specific forest and could expose the process to additional external scrutiny by setting a new precedent. The IDTL described the response from the Regional Office after the ID team submitted their preliminary report, which did not include the model.

“It was like [from the Region], ‘Hey, you need to run some models because there was this court decision, and it was up-held because they had model information, so you got to run the model for this.’ [laughing] It was kind of like, ‘okay that’s a 180 from what you told us initially.’ And then after the model was run, and we sent the document out, [the Region came back and said], ‘Oh jeez, maybe you shouldn’t have run the model because… the court case was reversed.’ [laughing]”

The uncertainty that the NEPA process creates – how thorough of an analysis will be required, how long it will take to perform, what sorts of mitigations will be required, what sorts of follow-up analysis will be required, will the analysis get litigated – makes it difficult to plan projects with substantial NEPA requirements. A mining executive noted that the NEPA process has resulted in the US having unusually burdensome permitting requirements by world standards:

In considering a new project the first thing I am asked is how long will it take and what will it cost to get it permitted. I can answer this question with a high degree of confidence in most jurisdictions around the world, with the exception of the United States. When I first began working with NEPA in the mid 1980s the time and cost to prepare an EIS for a mining project took about 18 months and cost about $250,000-$300,000. Today [2005] an EIS for a mining project may take 5-8 years and cost $7-8 million or more, before factoring in expected appeals and litigation of the ultimate decision. Thus, it is very difficult to make business decisions in the US under the current permitting environment on federal lands.

Reitze 2012 notes that NEPA is used to increase the costs and unpredictability of fossil fuel development, in an attempt to make renewable energy more attractive by comparison. And Glen 2022 notes that uncertainty around NEPA litigation also makes planning renewable energy projects (in this case, wind power) more difficult and risky. A transmission line executive noted in 2009 that the uncertainty and unclear case law around considering climate change impacts had created a “nightmare” for him.

This uncertainty also makes changing NEPA somewhat risky. Experts have noted, for instance, that rules to accelerate NEPA processes or impose maximum timelines might result in more of them being challenged in court (by failing to take the proper “hard look”). One consultant for energy projects suggested that the Trump-era NEPA changes (which have since been rolled back) were likely to increase project uncertainty and delay of energy projects in the short term, as the changes would result in increased litigation.

Potter goes on to talk about that it’s not entirely NEPA and NEPA is an umbrella.. and a variety of other topics we are familiar with. Are you surprised by any of his paper?

California group begins development of 2 industrial pellet plants

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From Biomass Magazine. Seems like a very positive development. The Sierras are loaded with dead and dying trees, and the die-off in recent years is continuing. The state’s existing mills and other users of dead trees and debris have not been able to keep up with the vast amounts of material that need to be removed or treated, and the accumulations of fuels are likely to add to wildfire risk. These two pellets plants will help, but more are needed. I’ve talked to folks who study the forest-products industry who say that California, a net importer of products such as OSB panels, has more than adequate supplies of raw material.

California group begins development of 2 industrial pellet plants

Golden State Natural Resources, a California-based nonprofit public benefit corporation, is developing two industrial wood pellet projects within the state as part of its effort to increase forest resiliency and reduce the risk of catastrophic forest fires.

GSNR has purchased sites in Tuolumne County and Lassen County to develop the proposed projects. The planned capacity of the Tuolumne site is 300,000 tons per year, with the Lassen site expected to produce 700,000 tons per year. Wood pellets produced at the proposed plants will be railed to port for export to customers that use the biobased fuel for energy production.

A Spin Too Far: Garrity’s Op-ed on BLM’s Clark Fork Face Project

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Gosh, for whatever reason it seems to be BLM week here at The Smokey Wire! Thanks to Nick Smith for this.

Matt Garrity had an op-ed in the Montana Standard about the project.

It’s incredibly disappointing, but the Bureau of Land Management is no better under Tracy Stone-Manning’s leadership than under Trump. While the examples pile up nationally, here in Stone-Manning’s home state the agency is attempting to dodge required public review and comment for a massive 16,066-acre clearcutting and burning project that will bulldoze 22 miles of new roads in the Garnet Mountains in grizzly, bull trout, and lynx critical habitat.

What is it about BLM that seems to invoke hyperbole? “No better than under Trump” today, or yesterday “the President’s clean energy agenda can’t happen unless one person is confirmed”?

Somehow I doubt whether Director Stone-Manning has been involved in this project. Perhaps there’s a Montana subtext I don’t understand, but saying bad things about people publicly on one hand, while you ask them to do something, on the other hand, has never worked for me.

But let’s look at Garrity’s specific claims about this project. TSW readers have seen more than our share of fuel treatment and other projects.  Certainly  people can, and do, disagree about what to do where and sometimes why.  But it might be good to 1) agree on what’s in the EA and 2) assume that the BLM employees have good intentions.

Is it a 16,006 acre “clearcutting and burning project”? Here’s what the draft EA says..

Is there burning? Yes.  Is there thinning? Yes. Are there clearcuts?  Well, no, depending on your definition, of course.  Like the Pisgah-Nantahala, for structural and species diversity reasons (also climate resilience) to get new trees established, some openings are necessary. Is that a “clearcut”? There’s actually a photo in the EA of one of these..(there are many great photos in the EA, at the end, of all kinds of proposed treatments and conditions).  It seems to me that defining a clearcut might be handy.. to me there are size of opening and number of living trees left are both important.

Will it “bulldoze” 22 miles of new roads?

Yes, 16 miles of new permanent roads (not open to the public) and 6 miles of temporary roads to be obliterated within three years of treatment.

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The context for this project is unusual (at least to non-Montanans).  The BLM is part of a larger landscape that is mostly non-fed. They only have 10% of the project area.

 

Also, of the 23,666 acres of BLM in the planning area, 19% (4,519 acres) have no treatment proposed. Those lands are largely unroaded and were excluded from proposed treatment due to their value as secure habitat.

Apparently, industrial forest ownership was sold to future homeowners effectively making “new WUI”.  There are  > 2600 structures in the planning area, according to Montana State Library GIS data from 2020.

What was once a large industrial forest ownership, is now overwhelmingly (48% of the planning area) small, nonindustrial private landowners who are constructing homes and buildings in the forest (see table 1). This subdivision and rural development have effectively transitioned the entire planning area to Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI) when measured as a proximity to structures (See Appendix D, map 9.7). Because of this shift in ownership and use of the private land, the BLM’s forested parcels represent an increased risk from wildfire to the private structures and improvements and also to the safety of the residents and firefighters. It is these twin realities: the deviation from NRV and the expansion of the WUI that necessitate this project.


This gives you some idea of how these varying ownerships look from the air. You can click on this photo to enlarge.
Here’s the purpose and need:

Specifically, treatments are needed to:
1. Protect life, property and firefighter safety in and near the wildland–urban interface and promote resilience to wildfire by reducing forest fuel loading and breaking up homogeneous stand conditions.
2. Restore healthy ecological conditions by increasing the acreage of forest communities that are moving towards the midpoint of NRV.
3. Maintain and enhance native and sensitive plant communities; this includes maintaining and enhancing limber pine (Pinus flexilis) populations where present.
4. Improve ecological health by increasing resistance and resilience to forest insect and disease outbreaks.
5. Provide local and regional economic benefits through harvest of forest products and capturing the value of dead and dying timber while it remains salvageable

As I’ve said, dead trees store- but do not sequester- carbon, so insect and disease problems have carbon implications, as well as potential fuel hazards..

And this area has been designated high priority by the State (all lands, all hands and all that):

There are 142 pages in this draft EA and lots of information.

According to Garrity:

Carey should have ordered a full Environmental Impact Statement instead of trying to sneak the project past the public with no scoping, the lower-level analysis of an Environmental Assessment, and an illegally-shortened public review and comment period.

But there was scoping and public involvement, as detailed in this document. I suppose we could disagree on the definition of scoping as well, but it sure looks scoped to me. See for yourself. According to the folks involved:

Since we had already had two public meetings and scoping which did not indicate a overwhelming amount of public interest, a two week public comment period was identified. Once it became clear folks wanted a longer comment period, we made that change. This change was initiated prior to the opinion piece in the Standard.

The fact is that there was scoping, and the comment period is now 45 days.

Despite the legal requirement that the agency carefully consider public comments, the whistleblower also said there is no intention of taking input from the public or modifying the project prior to issuing a final decision.

Truth is the friend of time and all that. We’ll circle back and look at the response to comments in the final EA.

The way I see it is that the BLM, like the FS, is in a “darned if you do, darned if you don’t” position here. They would like to do WUI fuel treatment projects as residents, fire departments and others are legitimately concerned. They will be blamed if they don’t get them done. They received all kinds of $ from Congress to do them. But if they don’t do an EIS, then they will be criticized by folks like Garrity for not involving the public enough or writing a 120 page document instead of five alternatives and a 600 page document, or whatever. At the end of the day, it seems to me that it’s about finding zones of agreement among people – not more pages of analysis.

And according to Monday’s table, Montana BLM staffing is down by 23% to do all this.  So disagree about the project all you want, but give these gals and guys a break!

Senate Energy Committee Biased Against Women?

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As a card-carrying woman, I got a chuckle out of this from the Center for Western Priorities..  There are actually plenty of women out there… who wouldn’t have had these nomination difficulties. Basically everyone knows that.  Or maybe the Committee would like to see more people of color? And of course, being a former career person, it’s hard for me to imagine that lacking one link in the political chain of command will put “the commitments in the IRA at risk.” From my contacts, it appears that Daniel-Davis is actually doing the job as acting.. and therefore all the same work is getting done.

But perhaps being acting and signing decisions is a problem (as per Pendley and the court case).

A federal judge has ruled that a controversial Trump official who has overseen a vast weakening of public lands protections cannot continue in his position since he has not been approved by the Senate.

Call me crazy, but maybe a better solution would be to nominate a candidate that the Senate will confirm? Pretty much everyone could come up with a list, including people of color. I continue to wonder what all this is really about. It seems hard to argue on the one hand, that the Biden Admin’s goals won’t be met without this one position… and it’s so important.. it’s not worth our time to find one of the many that the Committee could support. It seems like a bit of a rerun of the Tracy Stone-Manning nomination. But I don’t think for a minute it has to do with gender.

The U.S. Senate seems to be singling out and obstructing qualified women nominated to leadership positions in the U.S. Department of the Interior, writes Center for Western Priorities Executive Director Jennifer Rokala. The Senate committee tasked with advancing these nominations to the full chamber, chaired by Senator Joe Manchin, has taken nearly a full month longer on average to vote on female nominees than male nominees.

From Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning to Laura Daniel-Davis—who was nominated to be Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management in 2021—women nominated for leadership positions in the Interior Department have faced intense scrutiny and undue delays by male members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee throughout their confirmation processes. Daniel-Davis, who is still not confirmed, was asked to appear twice before the committee over the past year and a half—a highly unusual occurrence. 

The Interior Department is the steward of our public lands, water, wildlife, and natural resources. It is also a leader in promoting our country’s clean energy future, as the agency charged with permitting large-scale onshore clean energy and offshore wind development. The position of Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Land and Minerals Management oversees almost all of this development, making it a central role in realizing Biden’s ambitious climate and clean-energy goals. 

Over 100 women who have worked with Daniel-Davis throughout her career are calling on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to bring her nomination up for a vote in the Senate before the end of the year, when her nomination is set to expire. Schumer has so far prioritized the confirmation of judicial nominees.

“It is not an exaggeration to suggest that leaving this position vacant puts the commitments agreed to in the IRA at risk, not to mention the president’s clean energy and climate goals,” the letter states.

For those of you not following this..

The assistant secretary for land and minerals management oversees four bureaus within Interior: the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

And BOEM seems to be doing pretty well without an assistant secretary..example.. Or maybe an assistant secretary would help with.. hiring more BLM folks? See today’s other post.

Scott Streater E&E News Piece on BLM Staffing and Hiring – and More Questions

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Above chart given to Scott Streater of E&E News.

Folks, Scott Streater (reporter at E&E News) and I were not in collusion here..but I guess folks are naturally wondering two years into the new Administration, how has the BLM progressed in fixing what went wrong during the Trump Administration. And perhaps there were forces responsible for loss of folks (like the natural post-Covid forces or retirement of more Boomers) that didn’t have to do with Trump. The Forest Service is also down and having trouble hiring people. And according to this tweet by Kelly Lunney, Interior Deputy Secretary Tommy Beaudreau says:

Finding qualified engineers who understand drought, water issues for Reclamation is a challenge, says Interior official @DepSecBeaudreau @EnergyDems hearing. Hopes to finish hiring 400 new staff (they are about 1/4 there) in coming year @SenMarkKelly

So, we might wonder, for BLM and FS folks, to what extent are the right kind of people not being hired due to 1) they’re not out there (universities aren’t producing them), 2) they don’t want to work for the Feds 3) they don’t want to work in the places BLM and FS (perhaps not so much BOR?) want them to (with DC being a special case of high cost of living); maybe they prefer remote work, 4) they don’t want to do the work that Feds have (field as opposed to computer), or 5) can’t make their way through the federal hiring processes? Please feel free to add your own reasons and your own experiences.

So let’s go back to Scott Streeter’s article from yesterday and see if we can pick up inklings about those questions for BLM.

can’t tell if it has a paywall, here’s the link to his story.

Note: The differences between these BLM numbers and the ones I noted in the previous post from “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government” are still puzzling.

But the bureau’s overall staffing level now stands at 12,183 authorized employees, marking a significant increase after dropping during the Trump administration below the minimum 10,000-employee threshold BLM has said it needs to oversee the 245 million acres the bureau manages, according to the table of organization chart obtained by E&E News.

BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning has said doing so is her top priority after former President Donald Trump’s Interior Department reorganized the bureau’s headquarters, prompting hundreds of staffers to leave.

Logic, here.. if they are down 3,073 positions and the Trump Admin prompted “hundreds” of staffers to leave.. it’s not really about the Trump Admin is it? I guess unless you’re DOI comms…

The vast majority of the vacant positions — 2,732 in total — are at BLM’s 12 state offices, according to the chart.

I thought this was particularly interesting..

For example, 46 percent of the 72 permanent positions within the energy, minerals and realty management department that oversees all onshore energy development, including oil, natural gas and coal, as well as renewable energy, were vacant as of Nov. 19, the chart shows.

I have a couple of hypotheses here.. perhaps the Admin’s obvious dislike of fossil fuels might lead to some kind of hostile work environment- or perhaps be just a little demoralizing? Or no one wants to go to work in a seemingly dying field? Or perhaps back to universities aren’t churning them out, or the positions require experience in the field at higher levels and that’s missing? Would be interesting to interview some of these folks (or recent retirees) and get their views.

As to headquarters employees:

“Headquarters employees are continuing to feel the strain brought on both by the continued vacancies and the overall reduction in the workforce that occurred with the move West,” Paulete said in an email. “Employees are burdened with doing multiple jobs to cover vacancies and have a workload to cover that previously had been done by multiple positions that were eliminated” during the Trump years.

She added that union representatives have reached out to BLM to work with the bureau on strategies to solve the issue, but so far she said the bureau has yet to take them up on the offer.

It sounds like there was both a reduction in number of HQ people, and the move itself. I hadn’t actually picked up on that before. Although staff reductions in one place do tend to pile up work in other areas, if the same work is done the same way. But in the case of NM there was apparently no actual reduction, and people are still overworked.

But Davidson said “the high vacancy rate” remains a top concern for BLM New Mexico staffers.

“The number of vacancies impacts workplace conditions for employees because many staff have been asked to work two or more jobs resulting in overworked and burnt out staff,” Davidson said in an email.

She also said BLM is too slow to approve employee requests to work remotely and that the “private sector” and other government agencies that “offer higher wages and remote positions” have successfully poached bureau staffers, adding to the vacancy issues.

“We hope the agency will fill more positions remotely to retain the workforce we need to serve the public,” she said.

I thought this was particularly interesting, as it brings up possible interagency federal competition with higher wages and remote positions, and the observation that people are easier to hire if they can work remotely. I’d like to know more about which series are being poached by the private sector. I’d think foresters in NM, not so much.

In addition to increased funding, BLM is also working to ease the hiring process in the name of filling vacant positions.

Stone-Manning told employees at town hall meetings at the Oregon-Washington office in August and the Colorado office in September that the bureau wants to reduce the time it takes to obtain security clearances and has already cut in half the amount of time needed for conditional preappointment screenings and the number of days needed to process temporary promotions and work details (Greenwire, Oct. 4).

She also said that BLM is conducting a workforce assessment of the bureau’s personnel structure to determine where there are gaps in expertise and specific job skills, and to identify where new positions might need to be established.

It seems to me that there might be a need for “best hiring practices” across the federal government since so many Bureaus and Agencies seem to be struggling.

And to end with a dose of humor, apparently the Hotshot Wakeup Person lost access to his Instagram account because someone reported this as “dangerous and harmful.”

Request to Journalists -The Rest of the Story: What Happened with BLM, the HQ Move, Morale, and Hiring?

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Remember a few years ago when there were many stories in the news about BLM employee morale and the HQ move to Grand Junction. I think it would be useful for one or more journalists to do an update… how many HQ employees have actually been moved back to DC since the Biden Administration came in? Are the same jobs now in Grand Junction or remote? How many career Assistant Directors and Deputy Assistant Directors (if any) are duty stationed back in D.C.? How many political hires are working for BLM? What does the org chart look like and how is it different from the previous Administration? How well is the current system actually functioning in the views of employees?

What do employees think about apparent nepotism with the State Director position for Colorado- Doug Vilsack being the son of Tom Vilsack, the Secretary of Agriculture? Supposedly BLM lost a lot of career employees due to Trump and his politicals… did the BLM hire any of them back (that wouldn’t be hard if they actually wanted to come back, I wouldn’t think). How are they doing with hiring new career employees? Rumor is the agency has had about a 30% overall career vacancy rate. There’s been much about Forest Service hiring, especially fire hires, but what about BLM- are they having the same or different problems?

As we discussed at the time, there’s value in having career folks with field experience develop positive working relationships with politicals to help them avoid mistakes and hopefully make better decisions. If the career folks with field experience are not in the office, how is that working? In a post-Covid remote work world, can trust still be built without presence “down the hall”?

Anyway, I think an update from our journalist friends would be valuable.

Just for grins, I took a look at the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings, which we have looked at before, and there were some interesting things about BLM.  I have no clue how accurate their data are (or not), but these figures show the workforce being larger than it ever has been, whereas as I said above, the rumor is that they are down 30%.  And these figures don’t show a dip during the Trump period, which is curious.  There actually seems to be a big dip between 2012 and 2014. from 8422 to 7699. Currently they are at 10,451 according to this.

Once again, I have no idea how the “Best Places to Work” folks weigh the data, but here’s how they see trends in “engagement and satisfaction”.

It would be great, IMHO, for someone to put all the pieces together here and see what’s going on. Now I don’t know whether any journalists will actually address these questions, but feel free to add in the comments other questions of interest to you.