Forest Policy - Forest Practice

Congressional "Pay to Play" Oversight Hearing Dave Iverson

On Wednesday (10 AM EDT) the House Resource Committee's Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands in concert with the Subcommittee on Water and Power is having an oversight hearing titled "Pay to Play: Implemention of Fee Authority on Federal Lands". Here is a link to the Committee's website where you can click on the Calander for hearing info. Or go directly to the hearing info.

Here is what I offered up as testimony, pleading that Congress find means to eliminate general access fees to our National Forests:

TESTIMONY OF DAVE IVERSON BEFORE JOINT SUBCOMMITTEES: NATIONAL PARKS, FORESTS, AND PUBLIC LANDS and WATER AND POWER, COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES, JUNE 18, 2008

Chairman Grijalva, Chairwoman Napolitano and distinguished members of the subcommittees:

Thank you for the privilege to comment on the important matter of recreation access fees. My name is Dave Iverson. I recently retired from the US Forest Service after nearly 30 years work in planning, operations research, economics and social sciences. I served my entire career in the Intermountain Region. I am a founding board member for Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FSEEE.org), a non-profit based in Oregon. I have served as FSEEE's board president for the last 15 years.

I have spent a lifetime wandering around the national forests, national wildlife refuges, and BLM lands in Utah and surrounding Western states. Early experiences in the mountains and brushlands greatly influenced my choices to work as a conservationist and environmentalist. When growing up our family traditions were Nature-centered, with vacations and family reunions all staged in our national forests. For working class Americans, free access to our national forests played an important role in helping us develop as American citizens and members of the community of life on Earth.

In both my government and nonprofit roles, I have watched and participated in the "recreation fees" debate for many years. I see no problem with special use fees for campgrounds, picnic areas, and boat launch sites, in part because these are long standing traditions and use fees are low. I see no problem with entrance fee collection for some of our outstanding National Parks to help welcome and orient visitors, fund interpretation and upkeep of needed trails, bridges, roads, to fund law enforcement activities, and more.

But I am steadfastly against general access recreation fees as have recently surfaced in our national forests. Here is why: First, as owners of the national forests, people ought not to be charged to access their land.

Second, in our culture we are bombarded throughout their lives with markets and marketing. We have commercialized almost everything. People desperately need space for reflection and re-creation far apart from the maddening drone that symbolizes over-commercialization of everything. Public lands provide a perfect backdrop to provide such far-from-commercial-culture experience. For many years they provided this backdrop. Unfortunately, and particularly in the National Forests, public land managers are busily, even gleefully turning the national forests into theme park amusements. This is tragic.

Third, fees that are kept within bureaucracies distort incentives and distract public servants from important conservation and preservation concerns. There continues to be far too much focus on marketing and outright money-grubbing among US Forest Service managers and staff these days. This too is tragic.

Providing citizens free access to their lands has other spin-off benefits. If we can find means to encourage citizens to seek "back to Nature" experiences we might find a useful counterbalance to the ever-more-individual, ever-more-frenzied, pace of our gadget filled TV/computer culture that is driving our citizens, our young people in particular, away from both community and Nature.

It appears to me that at minimum the cumbersome nature of fee collection – likely the whole idea of fees – drives many away from our national forests at a time when we are seeing fewer and fewer children taking interest in Nature apart from TV feeds.

Providing free access to public lands is an idea whose time has come once again. The amount spent on such is a pittance in relation to defense, health care, education, welfare and just about any other government program. It can't possibly be a serious consideration when weighed against the benefits of helping citizens connect, once again, with the magnificent public places of the national forests, parks, and other public lands.

Please find means to rid the American people of the plague of generalized recreation access fees.

{Update 4/18: Hearing in Process}

As I watch/listen to the oversight hearing, I am impressed with what appears to be some progress on the "fee" front. In particular, I see that at least in theory general access recreation fees are disallowed. This is progress, to the extent that it is true. But it may not be true in practice--members of the second panel disagree with Administration spokespersons from the first panel in this point.

Additionally, there has been some progress on the cumbersome nature of fee collection. Maybe a general, annual federal pass may be the ultimate answer, with appropriate due consideration given to those lacking means to pay, and with due consideration to, e.g. foreign visitors, school children, etc. But that "resolution" in essence would be to charge for access to all public lands. If that is to be the case -- not my desire -- then at the very least we could get rid of the many, maddening signs (and backup enforcement officials) that now exist.

Note that as long as fees are kept at sites collected, perverse incentives continue to exist as federal managers will and do tend to over-emphasize developed over dispersed recreation, and will tend to over-develop popular sites. However, I do agree with USDA Undersecretary Mark Rey that hardening some over-loved sites is indeed necessary and fees do help defray some of these costs.

Mark Rey Dodges Contempt of Court Charges Dave Iverson

Missuola, MT — For several months Federal Judge Donald Molloy has threatened to throw the Forest Service's USDA boss Mark Rey in jail for foot-dragging relative to Molloy's specific judicial mandate to comply with NEPA relative to fire retardant drops on national forests. Molloy believed that an incarceration threat for "contempt of court" might spur the Forest Service into action to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act relative to fire-related government actions—specifically, in this case, fire retardant drops. Yesterday, Judge Molloy let Rey off the hook — for now — but took the opportunity to scold the Forest Service and Rey for what Molloy called "systematic disregard of the rule of law." Here's more from The Missoulian, Feb 28:

… U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy cleared Rey, the Bush administration's top forest official, and the Forest Service of contempt and withdrew his threat to jail Rey or ground all fire retardant air tankers until the agency evaluated the environmental impact of the chemical slurry.

Molloy did not rule on the merits of the Forest Service's environmental analysis, and the watchdog group whose lawsuit prompted the showdown said it planned to take new legal action to challenge the agency's finding that aerial retardant causes little harm to fish and other aquatic creatures.

"We accomplished what we wanted to do, which was to make the Forest Service follow the law," said Andy Stahl, director of the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, based in Eugene, Ore.

In his testimony, Rey apologized for the Forest Service's tardiness in following the judge's order to complete an environmental analysis of the potential harm from ammonium phosphate, the primary ingredient in retardant dropped on wildfires.

But Molloy was not mollified and forced Forest Service employees in their testimony to acknowledge their "systematic disregard of the rule of law."

Before announcing his ruling, Molloy delivered a blistering criticism of the Forest Service, saying only a threat of contempt prompted the agency to comply with the nation's top environmental laws - the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act.

The judge also questioned the federal government's battery of lawyers who handled the case, dismissing their "attempts" at explaining the delays and their "parsing of words to create unjustifiable arguments."

Rey and other Forest Service officials maintained they had acted in good faith, but Molloy said it was "shameful" that it took a threat of contempt to make the agency comply with the law.

"Something's remiss," Molloy said. 'I don't know if it's the lawyering or an institutional matter." …

I'm inclined to think it an institutional matter — the Forest Service believes it is on a divine mission to do good work — to do "good projects on the ground" — instead of rightfully seeing itself as an agency of government that must justify its work both to three branches of government as well as to the American people in complying with various environmental statutes. More details here, related to NEPA compliance responsibilites.

NEPA Outsourcing Dead, for Now Dave Iverson

On February 20, Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell officially killed 'NEPA outsourcing' — that is, "put on hold" both NEPA related OMB-led "competitive sourcing" as well as Forest Service-led "NEPA Business Process Reengineering". In a letter to Forest Service top brass, Kimbell laid out these reasons:

… the recently-enacted Omnibus Appropriations Act directed that we not use any funds for further competitive sourcing activities. At a time when we are in the midst of ongoing Transformation efforts and the continuing transition to the Albuquerque Service Center, we want to avoid additional disruption and confusion that could come with overhauling our critical NEPA processes.

But Chief Kimbell left the door ajar for future tinkering, and suggested that result from the NEPA Feasibility Study [PDF] provide guidance for NEPA Streamlining, do be done "locally" for now, but perchance more broadly in the future:

Recognizing that NEPA processes are at the heart of our decision-making, it is important that we retain a strong linkage between Forest Service employees and those analytical procedures. It remains important, however, for us to seek long-term strategies to improve NEPA efficiency. I appreciate the comprehensive analysis and informative data in the Feasibility Study. It serves as a foundation for future work. Results from the Study—coupled with open communication—will help us identify and analyze best strategies for streamlining NEPA processes in the future.

Two quick points: First, NEPA is not an analytical procedure, and mistaking it for such perpetuates a Forest Service culture that continues to lose in court and frustrate both the courts and the public. Second, just what might one find in the NEPA Feasibility Study to provide useful guidance toward "best strategies" for streamlining NEPA compliance? Once again we ask, " What will it take to get the agency to think about the distinctions between procedures required by NEPA and the process of making decisions regarding management of the National Forests?" And we reiterate our earlier plea for reframing.

George Wuerthner Gets it Right on Fire, Ecosystems, Management Dave Iverson

A friend took a moment to read through and summarize George Wuerthner's critique of Forest Service (and others) mis-aligined assumptions re: fire, ecosystems, and management 'fixes'. Time for the Forest Service to wake up! Time to abandon ideas of 'quick fixes' to complex ecological problems! Some of us think it is at least time. Here is my friend's summary:

1. For most forest types, and perhaps even all forest types, it is simply not known if there is an unnatural accumulation of fuels that is outside the historic range of variability. It seems most large wildfires are more closely correlated with weather and climate patterns rather than fuel conditions.



2. Accordingly, for most forest types, and perhaps even all forest types, it is not known if there is an effective way to treat any unnatural fuel accumulations that may exist in a way that:



• actually reduces fire hazard or risk
• reduces fire hazard or risk for any more than a short window of time
• does not do more environmental harm than good by:
• causing soil compaction and erosion
• creating roading and increased access and human use
• altering insect, disease, and decay biota
• altering wildlife habitat


3. Humans cannot treat forests at a scale that would make any significant difference in the occurrence of large wildland fires, even if there are fuel buildups which are creating an unnatural hazard or risk and were effective treatments which are known to reduce them.



4. Humans are not capable of implementing silvicultural treatments with a sufficient degree of precision at a large enough scale to accomplish objectives for hazard or risk reduction, even if there are fuel buildups which are creating an unnatural hazard and risk and were effective treatments which are known to reduce them.



5. Corollary: Some silvicultural treatments can be accomplished at a very localized level and small scale with sufficient precision to protect human development from catastrophic wildfire. Silvicultural treatments can effectively reduce fuel buildups at a small scale where the expense can be justified, and treatments can be repeated periodically to maintain hazard and risk protection. However, these treatments can only be effective if done in conjunction with architectural treatments and land use zoning and restrictions to protect buildings. It must be recognized though that there are significant costs attributable to:
   • capital and labor for repeated, intensive, and precisely implemented silvicultural treatments;
   • loss of attributes of the natural forest ecosystem and other environmental degradation where these forest fuels treatments are implemented;
   • and limitations imposed on type and location of development.

If Wuerthner gets it wrong, we'd like to know where and to what extent. Comments are open…

'Confirming Evidence' Trap: Ecological Restoration Edition Dave Iverson

It is well known among decision science practitioners that we are prone to seek evidence to confirm preconceived biases. Government agencies are no less prone. Neither the US Congress. Enter George Wuerthner (Ecological Projects Director, Foundation for Deep Ecology) in a Jan. 18 letter to Senator Ron Wyden, arguing that thinning forests to help "restore" human-distrubed forests to functioning ecosystems may be based on flawed assumptions. Wuerthner's letter stems from Wyden's recent suggestion that he will likely introduce legislation to thin forests to "Increase Forest Health, Reduce Fires, Increase Jobs".

It will prove interesting to see whether or not Wuerthner's arguments hold sway in the Congress. And it will prove interesting to see what impact they may have on the Forest Service and/or the courts. Here, in part, is Wuerthner's argument:

Dear Senator Wyden;
18 January 2008

In light of the legislation you are considering, I wanted to make you all aware of a potentially flawed assumption about fire regimes, particularly as it applies to lower elevation ponderosa pine and also secondarily to Douglas fir and western larch. …

Most ecologists agree that stand replacement fires are the norm for mid-high elevation forests. That is, fire suppression which is thought to have influenced low elevation forest types, has not significantly altered moister forest types. That would include west side Doug fir forests, as well as higher elevation fir, spruce, and other conifer forests that dominate the Cascades, Blue Mountains and so forth. Thinning to reduce fire hazard or risk in these forests is a waste of time since when forests are ready to burn, they burn with vigor that thinning does not influence. More on that later.

However, there is a growing controversy about interpretation of fire history and the influence of fire suppression surrounding even the lower elevation drier forests. Most of the research on ponderosa pine fire dynamics has been influenced by the so-called "southwest US" model. This model has held that fires in ponderosa pine, in particular, burned very frequently and seldom experienced stand replacement or high intensity blazes. As such, many believe that fire suppression has caused these forest types, and subsequent fires in them, to be outside of the historic range of variability.

I wanted to make you aware that new research that is increasingly questioning this assumption.

For one, large blazes we are experiencing today are likely more the consequence of climatic conditions than fuels—in all forest types. And changes in fire behavior and intensity that deviate from past fire regimes such as they are understood, may be more a consequence of climatic change than anything to do with fire suppression or forestry practices—not that these are inconsequential, but that climate and fire weather (wind, drought and low humidity) may be the big driver in all large blazes.

This has big implications for what is the appropriate management response.

Secondarily recent research … has begun to question whether even the model of high frequently/low intensity blazes as typically ascribed to ponderosa pine forests is accurate.( See http://jfsp.nifc.gov/conferenceproc/Ma-01Kaufmannetal.pdf) Many of the assumptions about fire behavior and fire regimes are based on older research that is now being challenged. …

There are other recent studies confirming the same basic conclusion—the historic range of variability in ponderosa pine forests may not be as simple as often implied. Thus management prescriptions based upon this model MAY BE FLAWED.

Bear in mind that many fire history reconstructions are full of errors. …

There are other problems with past fire studies enumerated as well, not the least of which is the expectation that ponderosa pine always experienced frequent fires, thus researchers tended to find confirmation of that assumption and did not seriously critique the study methods used to reach such conclusions.

That does not mean that generalization about ponderosa pine fire regimes in the region are scientifically suspect, but at the least, one needs to review all past studies with caution and see if current characterizations of fire regimes in the area are accurate or suffer from many of the flaws outlined in the Baker paper [William L. Baker, Thomas T. Veblen, Rosemary L. Sherriff (2007) February 2007, Fire, fuels and restoration of ponderosa pine-Douglas fir forests in the Rocky Mountains, USA Journal of Biogeography 34 (2), 251–269].

I suspect that PNW and Rocky Mountains forests, particularly mixed ponderosa pine and Douglas fir/western larch forests are not as out of whack as assumed. And at the very least, what was the past condition may not be relevant to the present situation of global warming which is changing climatic conditions.

In addition there is increasing evidence that climatic conditions are the drivers of most large fires in the West. …

There are two major consequences of climatic controls on fires. The first is that the vast majority of all fires go out without burning a substantial amount of acres. That's because under most conditions, forests just don't burn all that well. These small fires seldom burn more than a hundred acres.

However, when the weather/climatic conditions are severe, almost everything will burn. The vast majority of all acreage burned in any season occurs in a few very large blazes, typically burning 50,000 acres or more, with a few reaching into the hundreds of thousands of acres. This is an important point. Our management policies, including thinning projects, are directed towards stopping or reducing the few very large fires, not the normal run of the mill fires.

However, these blazes are driven by low humidity, high temperatures, extended drought and most importantly wind. Humans can't control these factors. Notice that I did not mention fuels. It appears that under these circumstances, fires will roar through all fuels types, and even very lightly stocked stands will burn. Note that in the Biscuit Fire of 2002 very lightly stocked Jeffrey pine stands burned. These stands are naturally thinner than what you could find even in a very aggressive thinning program. Thinning might work to slow or half fires under less than severe conditions. However, under less than severe conditions, aggressive fire fighting can usually stop a blaze anyway. It is under severe conditions when fire fighting is ineffective that thinning is also ineffective.

Keep in mind that opening up a forest by thinning can actually have the opposite effect than intended. Removal of trees can increase the likelihood of a large blaze, and result in higher mortality of trees, especially during severe fire weather conditions by increasing solar insulation that dries fine fuels, and increasing wind penetration. See Hanson and Odion 2006. Fire severity in mechanically thinned forests versus unthinned forests of the Sierra Nevada, CA.

A further problem with thinning is that thinning, even where proponents suggest it is effective, will readily admit that effectiveness declines rapidly over time. Once you open the canopy up and remove competing vegetation, you encourage rapid new growth of shrubs and small trees, which are the fuels that carry a blaze. So thinning is not a one time cost, but rather an on-going long term cost that will require frequent follow up treatments. If you are not willing to continuously rethin the forest (and/or allow natural fires to burn), you have to ask how likely is it for any particular patch of timber to burn, in any particular year. Probability is actually quite low.

However, it is my view that thinning is not an effective means of reducing fire hazard under extreme fire conditions. Note that I qualify by saying extreme. Most of the evidence suggesting thinning is effective is from fires that were burning under less than extreme conditions at the time when the fire front reached the thinned sites. And for every study/observation suggesting that thinning halted or slowed fires, there are other anecdotal observations and/or studies finding that thinning were not effective in halting big fires. Typically what I find is that wind is the big factor. If wind is roaring along at 50 mph or more, no thinning is effective. If there is little or light wind than thinning may work. But again it is exactly under the conditions when there are high winds that big blazes are created and driven—so these are the fires we are concerned about. …

[D]ue to global climate change, we are seeing a shift back to a drier, warmer climate which is responsible for the larger blazes we are seeing. In a way, the occurrence of large blazes like the Biscuit Fire is perfectly normal—not an aberration. It is Nature's way of adjusting to the new climatic realities. Given these realities we can not hope to fire proof our forests. Rather the only reasonable response is for home owners and communities to take greater responsibility for reducing fire risk. Many studies have shown that fire proofing a home with metal roofs, removal of brush around a home's perimeter, etc. is far more effective for fire proofing a community than trying to thin the forest. Additionally land use zoning that keeps people from constructing homes in harm’s way is also important.

A further problem with trying to fire proof the forest by thinning is the creation of disturbance from logging operations can have many negative ecological effects including the spread of weeds to sedimentation from logging roads to the removal of large woody debris from the site. Logging is not a benign activity. Active restoration fueled by logging dollars and logging practices may in the end be worse than just allowing passive restoration to occur. (See my book on Wildfires for a good overview and refresher on the ecological differences between logging and fire). Any presumed benefit from restoration must be weighed against the impacts associated with logging—and all impacts must be accounted—and they frequently are ignored.

George Wuerthner
Ecological Projects Director
Foundation for Deep Ecology

NEPA Outsourcing Games Continue Dave Iverson

If you care about Public Lands and their use and abuse by the agencies that manage them, you should keep close tabs on what the US Forest Service is doing as per compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). And you should closely watch what it is doing with TO its NEPA practitioners — people charged with keeping the agency honest in compliance.

Late last year the US Congress disallowed the Administration from considering outsourcing the people who manage what the Forest Service calls the "NEPA Process" via OMB "Competitive Sourcing" mandates (you have to dig deep into the Omnibus Appropriations Act for details). So now the game shifts to what the agency calls "Business Process Reengineering". Preliminary indicators are not promising.

In a study undertaken by the US Forest Service and shared internally last August, [PDF], there are strong hints that the course forward will involve clustering agency NEPA practitioners into regional service centers. It seems that the agency believes that NEPA compliance is about analytics, not public engagement in deciding proper direction and action for policy, programs, and projects. I disagree, as I noted in SOURCED! — NEPA Next in Line.

NEPA is not the problem with what the Forest Service labels "process gridlock", as I outlined earlier. Rather, appropriate NEPA compliance is a way forward for the agency and the Congress to begin a much-needed rethinking of the Forest Service's vision, mission, policies, and programs. And to begin for the first time to serioully seek means to comply with the laws that govern it.

We will be watching as the "FS Business Process Reengineering" moves along. Too bad we can't watch closely via the Forest Service's new management blog which, unfortunately, was relegated to the Intranet — a firewall away from public scrutiny. (But we would welcome any hints as to the success of the blog from agency folks).

Public Employees For Environmental Responsibility (PEER) has more today, beginning:

The U.S. Forest Service is on the verge of approving a massive restructuring that will remove land management planning from individual forests, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The resulting reorganization will affect one in four agency jobs, shrink its on-the-ground firefighting militia and rigidify resource planning. …

Ninth Circuit Court Strikes Down FS Fuels Treatment CE Dave Iverson

In Oct. 2005 I suggested — tongue in cheek — that the Federal Government just write a blanket provision saying, "Henceforth all federal 'good projects on the ground' will be exempt from NEPA, NFMA, ESA, the National Historic Preservation Act, …". Acting out their rightful role as guardians of balanced power in government, the courts have steadfastly maintained that such would not be allowed—that in fact such administrative arrogance would ultimately prove to be a coffin of their own design.

Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals put a few more nails in this particular Administrative coffin, ruling in part: "We conclude that the Forest Service failed to assess properly the significance of the hazardous fuels reduction categorical exclusion and thus it failed to demonstrate that it made a 'reasoned decision' to promulgate the Fuels CE based on relevant factors and information. Accordingly, its promulgation of the Fuels CE was arbitrary and capricious." The rest is here: SIERRA CLUB v. BOSWORTH, 12/05/07 [PDF: 32pp] I found this "Discussion" particularly illuminating:

Continue reading "Ninth Circuit Court Strikes Down FS Fuels Treatment CE"

The Forest Service and the Carbon Offsets Game Dave Iverson

Writing in High Country News, Rick Craig suggests that the US Forest Service's entry into the carbon offsets game is ill-advised. Here's a snip:

Salvaging the Atmosphere: The Forest Service Joins the Carbon Offsets Game, Rick Craig, High Country News, Oct 15: … On July 25, Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell announced the launch of the Carbon Capital Fund, which will sell carbon offsets to fund tree planting on national forests. … The idea sounds logical enough. In fact, the theory that forests can suck up excess carbon and cool the planet helps drive a market that doubled its revenues last year to $110 million. But the Forest Service's entry into the carbon offsets game comes as doubts about tree planting mount. Scientists are skeptical about its benefits, and the honesty of the unregulated market has been questioned in congressional hearings. Worst of all, critics feel, is the tacit permission offsets give buyers to continue their carbon-emitting lifestyles.

Visit the Web site of the National Forest Foundation, the Forest Service's nonprofit arm, and its Carbon Footprint Calculator can tell you how many metric tons of CO2 emissions you are responsible for. If the result leaves you feeling guilty, don't worry. For just $6, the fund lets you offset 1 ton of carbon by supporting tree-planting projects on the national forests. The transaction is based on the theory that forests act as "carbon sinks," soaking up the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere.

But in temperate forests, the concept has not held up well to scientific analysis. Forests do take carbon out of the atmosphere temporarily, but they don’t remove it from the active carbon pool, because their carbon is released when they rot or burn. Cambridge botanist Oliver Rackham, author of a history of Britain's forests, has said that telling people to plant trees to stop global warming is like telling them to drink more water to keep down rising sea levels. …

For an agency with increasingly stretched budgets, however, selling that commodity makes a difference. … And with the agency's million-acre reforestation backlog, there's no shortage of places for consumers to relieve their carbon guilt. [NFF hypertlink added]

See also:

Privatization by Many Means: Carbon Offsets Edition, Forest Policy …, Aug 27
Carbon Offsets: Modern Day 'Indulgences'?, Ecological Economics, Feb 20

The Big Green Fire Machine is Hungry Dave Iverson

If you've ever wondered why the Forest Service is so interested in Carbon Trading, and "Global Climate Change Initiative" — e.g. FS Strategic Plan or Chief Kimbell's Oct. speech on "Globalization" — simply follow the money trail. Last week Dan Berman noted that the Forest Service is in line to receive up to a Billion Dollars a year from sale of carbon credits:

Senate cap-and-trade bill could mean billions for firefighting, Dan Berman, E&E Daily, Nov 2: Federal fire suppression efforts stand to benefit greatly from a cap-and-trade auction for carbon credits, thanks to a provision added to a Senate bill late last week.

The bill could mean $1.1 billion per year for Forest Service and Interior Department firefighting costs between 2012 and 2050, relieving the annual strain on agency budgets. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) added the provision to a substitute amendment from Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) before a Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee approved the underlying legislation last week. …

Some argue that this will spell relief for budget taps the Big Green Fire Machine, or the Fire-Military-Industrial-Complex as Wildfire called it, has on agency budgets. But in another way "free money" will add more incentives for extant fire fighting procedures to become even more entrenched and resistant to change. This "dark side" suggests that we ought to be wary of this and any other pot of "free money".

NEPA is Not the Problem Dave Iverson

For years the Forest Service has complained about "process gridlock", "analysis paralysis", which it claims bog the agency down by slowing project implementation to a crawl and diverting dwindling agency funds. The finger of blame is often pointed at the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and its procedural requirements for analysis and documentation. Most recently, in the Forest Service has announced preliminary plans it claims will trim about $90 million from its annual costs for "NEPA process".

WAIT A MINUTE! Is "NEPA" really the problem causing paralysis and gridlock? Isn't there more to decision making than just the analysis of potential environmental effects of a proposed action required by NEPA? Isn't there an array of laws, regulations, directives, policies, and other factors that impose process rquirements, and costs, for decision making by a government agency? Is the issue being looked at too narrowly by focusing only on NEPA, or is NEPA mistakenly being blamed for the broad spectrum of legal and other requirements for agency decision making?

The recent A-76–related NEPA "Feasibility Study" (internal, not available for public review) (Jan 14 Update: Feasibility Study now daylighted here: [PDF]) notes:

… The term "NEPA process" is commonly used … to refer to suite of activities including project identification, information gathering, environmental analysis, compliance with substantive environmental laws, and responding to administrative and legal challenges. In many cases, [the NEPA process] is viewed as the agency decision-making process. (emphasis added)

So which is it? Are we talking about the analysis of potential environmental effects of a proposed action as required by NEPA, or are we talking about the entire administrative process the Forest Service uses to make proposals and decisions for actions, including the process requirements of other laws and regulations, and the political, social, budgetary, and other considerations that drive decisions to act?

What will it take to get the agency to think about the distinctions between procedures required by NEPA and the process of making decisions regarding management of the National Forests?

If form indeed follows function, isn't it imperative to thoroughly think through what the agency does before trying to create an organization to do it? Most certainly, the Forest Service does more than "NEPA". However, its "NEPA" Feasibility Study appears at times to encompass not just NEPA, but administrative decision making.

A similar fuzzing of lines occurs in the Forest Service’s 1900-1 course, which while being billed as "NEPA" training, seems to encompass many of the broader aspects of administrative decision making. The curriculum for this course is being revisited, and it would seem equally important to clarify whether this is a "NEPA" course or an "administrative decision making" course. If it is the former, then where do Forest Service employees receive formal instruction in decision making? If it is the latter, by focusing on NEPA does it do justice to the other aspects of administrative decision making?

Just below is a graphic representation of the many legal and other influences on administrative decision making. While there is some overlap with NEPA, there are aspects of each that fall partially, and sometimes entirely, outside of NEPA. Together, these make up the minimum components for any Forest Service decision to take action. Where are these elements of decision making addressed in any discussion of organization or training designed to alleviate process gridlock?

Where Key acronyms (With Wikipedia hyperlinks) are:

• APA: The Administrative Procedure Act of 1946
• NEPA: The Environmental Policy Act of 1969
• NFMA: The National Forest Management Act of 1976
• ESA: The Endangered Species Act of 1973
• NHPA: The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966
• CAA: The Clean Air Act of 1963
• CWA: The Clean Water Act of 1972

Note: We recognize that both the chart and list above exclude some important laws that need to be fleshed out in training and education. Note further that dates associated with laws are just the beginning dates for laws that have since been amended.

Isn't it time to starting thinking more explicitly about "function" — the elements of decision making — before charging off after organizational "form" and related training needs? Training is indeed important, but if the Forest Service never questions fundamentals of process, efforts to restructure/revamp training are likely to be the stuff of "rearranging deck chairs…" rather than much-needed re-framing.

For further consideration, here is a link to a PowerPoint that fleshes out some preliminary thoughts as to how the Forest Service might better organize its thinking/training/process to help employees deal with the broad task of decision making, rather the focusing in on what is but one element of the "Decision Process".

SOURCED! - NEPA Next in Line Dave Iverson

Following recent trends in the rest of the US Government, the Forest Service continues with wave after wave of outsourcing (or in-house "clustering") accompanied by downsizing. Feeling frustrated and helpless to right what I think wrong, I refer to those affected as having been SOURCED! or CLUSTERED! Hence the title for this post.

Back in 1995 I remember Luna Leopold telling Forest Service managers that they were presiding over the destruction of America's public forests. Today it seems that Forest Service managers are presiding over the destruction of the Forest Service itself. Maybe I'm an incurable cynic — maybe? — but it seems like we are in a crises breeder-reactor. As crises deepen, increasingly no one wants to talk about it.

The Forest Service's recently accelerated downsizing began with Information Technology and Contracting, then spread to Personnel (which now carries the title "Human Capital" following a brief moment when employees were equally demeaned by the label "Human Resources"). Right now the downsizing wave is threatening a domain that the Forest Service calls NEPA: the process for compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. Never mind that NEPA can't quite be envisioned to be a staff function. Never mind that the responsibilities and requirements of the NEPA Act seem to many to be nothing if not "inherently governmental" — therefore not something to be SOURCED!

It gets worse: One way the Forest Service circumvents Competitive Sourcing mandates, that stem from OMB circular A-76, is by re-labeling the "sourcing" outside A-76 as "Business Process Re-engineering". The results are too often similar, resulting in clustered service centers and fewer employees.

In the "Age of Information", with emergent mass-communication networks, no one disagrees that in there ought to be some shifting from clerical worker' help to self-help. Still, bureaucratic managers seem too focused on "clustered service centers" and not enough focused on the real needs of real people both now and in the future. No one seems willing to talk through, "what work?" and "What is work?" for the 21st century. No one seems willing to talk through "Who needs to do whatever it is that is 'work'?"

The NEPA study, formally the "Feasibility Study of Activities Related to … NEPA Compliance Final Report", August 10, 2007 seems to miss the mark on every front. It is the stuff of questionnaires anchored in the air, "data calls" that mask the emptiness of the inquiry, then volumes of data fed back to NEPA practitioners as if to mask the emptiness. Someday soon, maybe we'll be able to daylight the study. Until then, I'll leave my damning 'take' of the study as one opinion—an opinion that seems to be shared by many who are voicing similar concerns internally.

A few specific problems with the "Feasibility Study":

• Failure to recognize the relationship between NEPA compliance and administrative decision making under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) Wikipedia: APA
• Failure to demonstrate that NEPA compliance practices and responsibilities are not "inherently governmental"
• Failure to fully evaluate both sides of the "contract it out" v. "working-it-inside" puzzle, thereby biasing results in favor of "contract it out":
• Failure to fully evaluate time spent administering contracts in complex, nuanced, and ever-changing decision and analysis contexts
• Failure to fully evaluate the costs of "farming out" responsibilities and tasks that are inherently tied to "public trust" issues that requires relationships to be built and maintained.

A few references related to A-76 and/or the NEPA "Feasibility Study":

• Internal Organization and External Contracting for the NEPA Process: Lessons from the New Institutional Economics and Strategic Organizational Design [PDF], Kenneth Richards et al., September 20, 2007
• Testimony on "Defining 'Inherently governmental' work, and problems arising from agencies being forced to try to 'blend' contractor and federal workforces", [PDF], Jacqueline Simon, American Federation of Gov. Employees AFL-CIO, December 19, 2005

When, if ever, will the Forest Service begin serious inquiry into how it ought to function in the 21st Century? It certainly hasn't done so to this point, and if the recent foray into "Transformation" is any guide, the agency is not about to engage in serious organizational inquiry any time soon.

{Updated: 10/11/07}

RPA/NFMA – Time To Punt Dave Iverson

Dick Behan once — likely more than once — called for the repeal of RPA/NFMA (the Renewable Resources Planning Act of 1974 as amended by the National Forest Management Act of 1976). Here is part of Behan's reasoning:

… Idealized, perfect planning that is mandated in law [and Regulation], and constrained only by an agency's budget, will exhaust that budget. … There will come a time when the Forest Service can do nothing but plan ….

… The agency has a long tradition of hard work, dedication, and "can-do" management; but we have given it, this time, an impossible task.

RPA/NFMA cannot be made to work. Its flaw is fundamental: it is a law, and it needs to be repealed. We failed, in our collective problem solving, by placing too much faith in planning and placing far too much faith in statute. It is time to punt.

The Key is Better Administration, Not a Better Law
Certainly we need to plan, to make assessments, and to write programs to submit to Congress. And we need &$8230; forest-level [site planning.]. … But planning can be done without statutory coercion, and it can be with a great deal less than perfection in mind. …

[from: "RPA/NFMA—Time To Punt", R.W Behan, Journal of Forestry, December 1981, via ingentaconnect]

Instead of following Behan's sage advice, the Forest Service blundered on—for three decades spanning several iterations of 'NFMA Rule' rewrites. Behan was (and is) an advocate for planning and management (as separate organizational functions). Still, he does not now and did not then see daylight in the path the Forest Service has taken. Behan adds:

… [P]lanning is, finally, only planning—a precondition, not a substitute, for management.

In the management of the national forests, we need to improve or construct some new approaches to problem volving—other than seeking legislative remedies and resorting to subsequent litigation. I believe a new pattern of public forestry is in order, in which the forest manager sees his task as actively solving public problems, not passively executing public laws. …

Time to reconsider? If not now, when? Why does the Forest Serivce seem incapable of learning? Sally Farifax's assessment of 'NEPA as a paper-chase' comes to mind as well. So does Herbert Kaufman's The Paradox of Excellence, pointing to the broader culture of the Forest Service laying the foundation for its own demise, or at mimimum 'very painful' transformation.

Instead of talking through the nature of administrative governance for the 21st century, the Forest Service seems to be attempting yet-another tweak of the NFMA rule, yet-another tweak of its own organizational structure via a "transformation" effort hidden behind intranet firewalls, and more without giving a moment's thought to the reality that 'form must follow function', not the other way around.

Behan's wisdom rings as true today as it did almost three decades ago. And it appears to be even more absent from the minds of FS managers than it was then.

Privatization by Many Means: 'Carbon Offsets' Edition Dave Iverson

Professor Bill Willers, emeritus professor of biology, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, claims the American people are being duped (privatized) into losing their public lands — "losing one of the greatest gifts it has to convey to future generations." The latest in a long line of privatization schemes, says Willers, comes in the form of the Forest Service's Carbon Capital Fund Program. Is Willers right? If wrong, where so?

Voluntary 'Carbon Offsetting' as Strategy for Privatizing America's Public Lands, by William Willers, [Common Dreams, Aug 22]: … There is a new twist to the carbon offsetting policy that is particularly insidious in that it is linked with the loss of public ownership of America’s public domain. On July 25, 2007, the U.S. Forest Service announced a "Carbon Capital Fund" that would allow one to "offset" personal CO2 emissions by purchasing vouchers, the cash then being applied to tree planting in national forests. The Service has a website at which a well-intentioned citizen can determine one's annual "carbon footprint", which the Service reports to be, on average, 10.73 metric tons. At $6 per ton, that would indicate an annual individual "investment" in the Fund of $64.38. In other words, the U.S. Forest Service is seeking voluntary donations from citizens for "management" that for generations has been paid for by taxes. (Consider also the irony that the massive clearcutting projects of the Forest Service in recent decades has been linked to global warming http://www.stopclearcuttingcalifornia.org/ ).

But there is even more to this Carbon Capital Fund in that it is being done in concert with a tax-exempt organization, the National Forest Foundation (NFF). Generally, governmental bureaus funded by federal taxes do not solicit private funding as a means of support. But in 1990 the NFF was established by Congress "…to encourage, accept and administer private gifts of money and property for the benefit of the U.S. Forest Service, and to conduct activities that further the purposes and programs of the National Forest System." In fact, NFF president Bill Possiel claims credit for the Carbon Capital Fund: "We came up with the idea because everyone is looking at what they can do in terms of climate change." …

The NFF provides a route for the transfer of funding responsibility away from the public sector. Its Matching Awards Program stipulates "NFF funds awarded through this program can be disbursed only as a match to cash contributions from a non-federal source." Instead of funding the Forest Service directly and completely, Congress has made tax money available only if matched from the private sector. Federal funding of NFF in 2006 totaled nearly four million dollars.

Industry groups support NFF programs not only because donations are tax-deductible but also because they provide a means by which corporations and their public relations organizations can then advertise their concern for the environment. Moreover, because corporations are the truly significant players in "the private sector", they will ultimately be the real benefactors in the privatization of public domain. …

This is part of a long-term strategy to privatize the public's forests, a process implemented during the Reagan Revolution through stepwise defunding of land management agencies in the name of "trimming budgets". The process continues to this day and has forced the U.S. Forest Service to seek funds from the private sector simply to continue on. Nor is the larger plan confined to the national forests alone but includes the federal lands generally — BLM lands, national parks and wildlife refuges as well, collectively nearly a third of the nation. At about the time the NFF was being created, corresponding foundations were established in the form of the National Park Foundation and the Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The coordinated effort to privatize federal lands has included the "Sagebrush Revolution" of the 1970s, the "Wise Use Movement" of the 80s and 90s, and the more recent "free-market environmentalism" that consists of a network of corporations and conservative foundations and think tanks intent on gaining control of what was intended to belong collectively to "We the People". Right wing economist James Beckwith, writing for the Cato Institute in 1981 with reference to public parks, summed up the strategy bluntly in his call for "…ascending radicalism from reform through volunteerism and privatization of services to the outright abolition of public ownership and transfer of parks to private parties."

… [N]ow there is the Carbon Capital Fund that gets the average citizen into the privatization project by exploiting the altruistic instinct to volunteer in reducing global warming. In being the first governmental entity to sell carbon offsets, the U.S. Forest Service is certainly providing a pilot project that can reveal avenues into other agencies and toward a further privatization of society.

Free market economist Beckwith was a savvy strategizer who understood that too sudden a takeover of public land would trigger citizen reaction, so he proposed that privatization be introduced by degrees, with the most "tentative step" being recruitment of volunteers and later "the contracting out of support services to private firms operating for profit." The public, it seems, is presently like the fabled frog in gradually heated water, unaware that it is losing one of the greatest gifts it has to convey to future generations.

Recreation Fees as 'Public Lands Shakedown'? Dave Iverson

Ted Williams minces few words in letting us know that all is not well in 'Rec Fee Demo Land'. Increasingly, people are questioning the wisdom of the fees. As one Forest Service observer puts it, "We're going to have to do more with less until we do everything with nothing." Here's a snip:

FEES HAVE BECOME A PUBLIC LANDS SHAKEDOWN, Ted Williams, [Aug 24]: … With little public or congressional oversight the Forest Service assesses recreational facilities for profitability. The ones that generate least revenue -- remote campgrounds and trailheads, places to which lovers of wildness and quiet would naturally gravitate -- are now first to get disappeared. Bulldozers are knocking down campgrounds, dismantling latrines, removing fire pits. You won’t even be able to park. The agency is financing the process with $93 million in fee receipts; in effect, charging you for the rope it hangs you with.

As abusive as [Recreation Access Tax] RAT fees are in their own right, the Forest Service is abusing them further by playing fast and loose with the law. The Recreation Enhancement Act requires that fees be charged only if there has been “significant investment,” defined as six amenities: security services, meaning staffers who check to see if you’ve paid, parking, toilets, picnic tables, trash receptacles, and signs.

A site has to have all six. But the Forest Service has dreamed up a way of getting around the law by designating sections of forest as “High Impact Recreation Areas” (HIRAs). One corner of a HIRA might have a sign; another, perhaps two miles away, a trash can. Three miles from both might be a parking lot; the law makes no reference to anything like an HIRA. The Forest Service flouts even this bizarre interpretation of the law. Last year it admitted to Congress that 739 HIRAs didn’t have the six amenities. Moreover, there are at least 3,000 former Fee Demo sites outside HIRAs that are still charging fees, many of them illegally.

When Christine Wallace, a Tucson legal secretary, refused to pay a fee on a Coronado National Forest HIRA in Arizona, she was prosecuted for what amounted to hiking without a license. While the law allows the Forest Service to charge all manner of fees, it specifically prohibits entrance fees. Accordingly, a court found that the agency had acted illegally.

But the Forest Service appealed, and in January 2007, won a reversal. If the ruling is not struck down by Wallace’s motion to reconsider or by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where it seems headed, case law will criminalize exiting your vehicle on your own public land without first finding a ranger station, if one is open, and coughing up money that even the motorized-recreation axis that hatched RAT fees never intended for you to pay.

RAT fees are more than just a ripoff. They’ve become a replacement for squandered wealth, an incentive for continued profligacy, and an excuse for the White House to keep slashing appropriations for public-lands management. …

Scott Silver explains the derivation of RAT:

". . . officially known as the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, [it is] commonly referred to as the Recreation Access Tax (RAT), See: The Rat is Vermin, Earth First! Journal.

Posted by Dave Iverson on August 27, 2007 at 01:43 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 20, 2007

FS Manual and Handbook as Wiki
Dave Iverson

Suppose that the US Forest Service operated the FS Manual and Handbook System like Wikipedia, letting any and all edit Manual and Handbook materials to improve them on the fly. The result would likely be chaos, at least at first.

People like me would edit it all out of existence, echoing my long standing belief that the Manual and Handbook system is a big contributor to 'process gridlock' in the Forest Service. Others would dutifully build it back in, piece by piece. And so on.

But suppose we change the rules of engagement a bit. Suppose that instead of Wikipedia-like rules of engagement, the FS were to allow any and all to edit, but have the system keep unofficial 'competing' versions of the Manual and Handbook at it evolves (and not just keep such in the 'record' as does Wikipedia). In addition, let each group set up associated commentary on their Manual and Handbook versions and any other competing versions they see fit to comment on. Let the comments build on top of comments. Then find some means to deliberate and decide on what ought to be.

Finally, let each group develop a blog (weblog) if they so choose, to chronicle the development of their parts of the Manual and/or Handbook and any battles or alliances with other groups that occur.

In short, why not let folks defend their own work, challenge the work of others, and improve the process unfolds? To what ends:

More gridlock? Less?

More adaptation? Less?

More bureaucracy? Less?

More fun? Less?

Posted by Dave Iverson on July 20, 2007 at 02:55 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 13, 2007

Agency Culture and Transformation
Dave Iverson

US Forest Service Chief Gail Kimbell recently sent a letter to Forest Service leaders, daylighting a report [PDF, "discussion draft", 46 pp] from Dialogos International on FS culture, transformation efforts, safety and more.

The report and accompanying studies show how all improvement efforts are grounded in and guided by organization culture and culture improvement. The studies were begun with an eye toward safety, but it soon became clear that safety could only be dealt with as part of a much broader organzaional transformation.

Noteworthy, the report highlights what I'll call 'Forest Service cultural impediments' that limit success in the short- and longer-run. The report, a "discussion draft", argues, among other things, that these "impediments" are "critical 'high leverage' points that must be addressed and transformed." They include:

• Ceding Power — "[T]o the regions …[resulting in a] lack of a clear, central focus …"
• Mission Confusion — "… [C]ompeting stories about the right and central focus of the Agency"
• Family "Collusion" — "… [P]eople tend to use ["FS family"] as a defense, attributing that others do not understand as we do, and seeking to fend off positions of external stakeholders. …"
• Lack of Straight Talk — "… People often seem to be unwilling to speak out and name difficulties that they see, and attribute that to do so is to run serious risks. …"
• Capability Trap — "… [A] phenomenon where people are working increasing hard but where overall capability … is not improving and can in fact be deteriorating. …"
• Impaired Learning — "… Errors are not generally embraced as opportunities for improvement, particularly now, in a climate where people fear that the admission of error may lead [to retribution] …. Many suggested that the Agency has been poor at reflection on itself, and learning from reflection. … [A] proliferation of rules and requirements … tend[s] to have the effect of creating compliance, but not internally motivated commitment to change and learn."
• Physics of Accidents — "… Changing environmental settings … and budget pressures result in more demanding conditions that need to be faced with the same or fewer resources…. More intense circumstances, fewer people covering greater distances, simply icrease risks and chances for error.
• Initiative Proliferation — "… [Tending] toward a fragmentation of focus.

The Chief asked that both the cover letter and study be distributed widely and that senior leaders in the Forest Service "hold and promote regional change dialogues, and report results" back to the Chief.

My question is whether the letter is being taken seriously, and by whom. It would be a mistake to think that the important conclusions drawn from the studies be limited to wildland fire and safety. We will keep an eye on this as various "transformation" efforts continue.

Note: For Chief Kimbell's letter and recent news from Transformation players, see this post in Adaptive Forest Management

Posted by Dave Iverson on July 13, 2007 at 03:49 PM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

May 18, 2007

Forest Service Decentralization Myths, and a Few 'Transformation' Suggestions
Dave Iverson

Here are thoughts from a colleague. We begin with the ever-present management conundrum of centralization v. decentralization, and how the Forest Service has worked it into a Catch 22. Then we move to a few suggestions to get out of organizational traps we've fallen into:

THE CIRCULAR MYTH OF FOREST SERVICE DECENTRALIZATION

The Forest Service is organized as a decentralized agency in order to allow field managers the flexibility to make decisions that are responsive to local conditions and needs;

BUT, the Forest Service maintains a voluminous system of Manuals, Handbooks, Directives, Desk Guides, publications, and direction letters which govern the minutia of virtually every decision a Forest Service officer must make, not to mention the micromanagement of its daily affairs by political appointees;

BUT, in meetings, training, and other communications, the Forest Service reiterates the folklore of decentralization, fostering an institutional culture that believes the Forest Service is a decentralized organization, which leads to disregard of the centralized direction;

BUT, woe to the Forest Service officer who gets caught deviating from the centralized direction under the mistaken belief that the decentralized organization allows the flexibility to make local decisions based on local considerations;

BUT, afterhours and water cooler discussions laud the ingenuity of the Forest Service officer who disregards the centralized directives and regulations in order to get good things done on the ground, contributing to the culture that wants to believe the Forest Service is a decentralized organization;

BUT, if a Forest Service officer makes a decision that the central authorities do not like, the response is to create more centralized direction in an attempt to insure it never happens again;

BUT, if a Forest Service officer fails to make a decision the central authorities want to see made because the officer believes he or she is precluded from doing so by the centralized direction, the officer is reprimanded by the central authorities for failing to be creative in interpreting the central direction;

BUT, the institutions which hold the Forest Service accountable for its actions, the courts, Congress, Office of the Inspector General, and the Government Accountability Office, measure the agency's performance by its adherence to its centralized standards;

BUT, the state congressional delegations which hold great sway with the Forest Service locally decisions impugn those officers who adhere to the centralized direction if doing so does not achieve the results the delegations want;

BUT, when displeased with a decision, the public at large views failure to follow the centralized direction as evidence of agency corruption;

BUT, when pleased with a local decision the public at large couldn't care less about the central direction;

BUT, the central direction nonetheless grows exponentially, along with internal conflicts and inconsistencies, such that keeping up with and deciphering the central direction becomes nearly impossible and it is increasingly ignored or disregarded;

BUT, once created, central direction almost never goes away. Much of it is antiquated, out of date, self contradictory, redundant or simply wrong. Nonetheless, when central direction is updated, it almost always increases in volume, complexity, and indecipherability;

BUT, as volume increases and direction is restated, the potential for internal inconsistency and inconsistencies between laws, regulations, manuals, handbooks, desk guides, instruction letters, and supervisory instructions increases, and the ability to find useful information declines further;

BUT, the intent of this internal direction is to make employees more effective at their jobs;

BUT, the central directives are used by employees in rote decision making exercises rather than true deliberation, and are used in lieu of training and career development that would actually make employees more effective at their job of making decisions that are responsive to local conditions and needs;

BUT, "staff specialists" become so caught up in the rote exercise of following the centralized direction that adhering to the direction becomes the end rather than the means of accomplishing real work;

BUT, the Forest Service is organized as a decentralized agency in order to allow field managers the flexibility to make decisions that are responsive to local conditions and needs.

(RETURN TO BEGINNING OF DOCUMENT)

---

SO, WHAT TO DO TO GET OUT OF THIS LOOP?

1. Admit that the organization is not entirely decentralized. The Forest Service is a government agency (not the Nature Conservancy, Weyerhauser, or the Boy Scouts) which is governed by one set of laws. Since the Constitutional authority over the National Forests resides with Congress, the role of the Forest Service is to "faithfully execute" those laws, on the entire National Forest System.
   
   
2. These laws need to be consistently interpreted and applied by the Forest Service across the country. Since the laws are not comprehensive or without room for interpretation, clear, concise regulations are needed to fill in the gaps and insure that the laws are consistently applied.
   
   
3. Existing regulations are not clear, concise, or succinct.
   
   
4. The existing mechanisms for drafting regulations are not adequate. Drafting good regulatory language is an art form. There should be a small, permanent staff of professionals to draft regulatory language. Since regulations are promulgated by the Secretary, and not the Forest Service, this staff should work for the Under Secretary's office. This is not to suggest that Forest Service technical professionals and OGC should not have input into rule making, but the drafting of rules should be by qualified professionals, not technocrats on detail.
   
   
5. Burn the Directives system. Some very small portions of the system should be made into rules, but the vast majority of the system should go away.
   
   
6. Replace the Directives system with weblogs (i.e. blogs) and wiki systems for assisting employees in doing their work. These systems are evolving, self-correcting information tools that allow technical professionals to share experiences, approaches to problem solving, and to evaluate and critique what others are doing. Instead of the rigid, top-down, cookbook approach to problem solving that is present in the existing directives system, this is a dynamic, evolutionary to help competent professionals do their jobs, and for the agency to monitor how work is being done, and make corrections as needed.
   
   
7. Develop a workforce of competent, independent, thinking, accountable professionals. The current work force is not educated, trained, equipped, organized, or motivated to do the job they are supposed to be doing, which is to administer the National Forest System. While there are some subject matter areas of expertise that are capable of performing components of this overall job, (e.g. fire suppression, timber management, road engineering) the agency as a whole is not equipped to accomplish its overall mission.
   
   
8. Skill sets for accomplishing this mission need to be reevaluated, and there must be a commitment to professional development toward these skill sets. Currently, employees come from a pool of seasonal and temporary employees educated natural resource, engineering, and other applied sciences who stumble their way through years of initiation rites into career paths that are available and convenient. Needed skill sets should be identified and employees brought in on pre-identified career paths based on education, interests and skills, and then cultivated through training and job assignments to do those jobs.
   
   
9. There is nothing in particular that qualifies natural resource and other technical professionals to perform in the Regional Forester, Forest Supervisor, and District Ranger line positions. These jobs primarily require management, diplomacy, and public administration skills that have no correlation to the education and aptitudes of the traditional natural resources professional, but in many ways are antithetical to those technical skills. These line offers function more like governors and mayors over large land areas than natural resource managers. Qualifications for these jobs need to be completely rethought.
   
   
10. Once the agency is reorganized along these lines, employees need to be given freedom to use these tools and skills to make decisions that are responsive to local conditions and needs, bounded by clear statutory and regulatory sideboards. Employees should be accountable for mistakes and unacceptable deviations from these limited standards, but in a way that primarily allows for learning and correction, not discipline and reprimand, except in extreme or repetitive cases.

Posted by Dave Iverson on May 18, 2007 at 02:23 PM Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

April 04, 2007

Science and Dissent: 'Deal with it' Says Federal Judge
Dave Iverson

Last Friday, a Seattle-based US District Court (9 page Order [PDF], Judge Ricardo S. Martinez, 3/30/2007) set aside the "Aquatic Conservation Strategy" (ACS) for the Northwest Forest Plan. The set-aside itself is not of import here. Rather, the reasons for the set-aside and the implications going forward are our concern. The Court found at least two fundamental procedural problems in reviewing the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (FSEIS—associated with the Clinton-era Northwest Forest Plan). First, the Court found the FSEIS had failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in moving from one standard to another. In the finding, the Court relied on this standard,

[W]here an agency has previously made a policy choice to conform to a particular standard, and now seeks to amend that standard, "the Agencies have an obligation under NEPA to disclose and explain on what basis they deemed the standard necessary before but assume it is not now."

Such review has implications in many fora, including any future EPA regulation of CO2 and other "Greenhouse Gases", and 100+ federal forest plans in the US.

Second, the Court found that the agencies failed to disclose dissenting scientific opinion in the body of the EIS, noting that "dissenting views of responsible scientists were neither set forth in substance, nor their import discussed, in the FSEIS. … Further, several of the … scientists' responses regarding original intent of the ACS were misrepresented in [an] appendix." The Court found, specifically:

Even if the scientists' opinions had been adequately and accurately stated and discussed, their relegation to the comment and response section of the appendix was improper under NEPA. … Disclosures and discussions must be in the body of the EIS itself. … Furthermore, within that body of the EIS, the agency must not only recite dissenting opinions, it must "analyze," "respond to" and "discuss" them. … None of that was done here.

Somehow I think we'll hear more about both concerns/finding as we continue to expand our horizons in the political/administrative/judical world we live in.

Posted by Dave Iverson on April 4, 2007 at 09:41 AM Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

April 01, 2007

Federal Judge Strikes Down 2005 NFMA Planning Rule
Dave Iverson

On Friday, Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton, United States District Court for the Northern District of California, surprised some in the Forest Service, enjoining the 2005 National Forest Management Act [NFMA] Rule. Here is the 60-page Order [PDF].

Others like me were not surprised, but rather had long felt that the both the Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture had mis-interpreted key court decisions to grant themselves broader powers to exclude matters, particularly "programmatic" matters, from National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] and Endangered Species Act [ESA] compliance procedures. This Court has now set about to clear up this mis-conception.

In addition to (or in conjunciton with) specific NEPA and ESA compliance measures, the Court found that the Department had violated the Administrative Procedures Act [APA] in failing to "provide notice sufficient to fairly apprise interested persons of the subjects and issues before the agency."

In particular the Court found that both the "categorical exclusion" from developing an Environmental Impact Statement for forest plans and the related-via-the-2005-Rule need to develop an Environmental Management System [EMS] were well beyond the bounds established by the principle, established in case law that "a final rule must be a logical outgrowth of [a] proposed rule."

In its APA violation, the Court focused specifically on language used by the Department that the 2005 Rule "embodies a paradigm shift in land management planning." The Court in "Analysis" says,

The relevant law is clear the an agency cannot promulgate without notice and comment a final rule the constitutes a "paradigm shift" form the proposed rule for which there was notice and comment.

There is much to talk about in the 60 page order, talk that will keep the Forest Service abuzz for some time. Still, I found nothing to be surprised over. I've been talking about this prospect for quite some time with colleages. See, e.g.:

• Time To Kill Forest Plan EIS Categorical Exclusion? (2/2/2007)
• A Simpler Way (11/3/2006)
• Forest Service '2005 Planning Rule' Now in Court (11/2/2006)
• Jeremiah was a Bullfrog Forest Planner (9/15/2006)
• EMS to the NEPA Rescue (7/18/2006)
• The Curious Case of Forest Planning and the EMS (4/21/2005)

Posted by Dave Iverson on April 1, 2007 at 05:07 PM Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

March 17, 2007

Wikis and Blogs: Signs of Life in the Forest Service
Dave Iverson

Yesterday I got an email from Forest Service video producer Steve Dunsky who recently initiated a blog to help agency employees at all levels better understand the importance and practicality of wikis and blogs. He indicated that he has been working wiith Public Affairs specialists, IT specialists, and others in the Forest Service and sees signs of an 'awakening' re: blogs and wikis.

Note: Unfortunately, most FS stuff is on the agency's Intranet, therefore not viewable by most agency constituents. Although there are advantages to Intranet for a few things, I believe that most everything ought to be done in the sunshine of the internet. Just think, for example, of a spin-off benefit of no more (or very few) Freedom of Information Act requests. Webpages could suggest, simply, that people search for what they want on the internet.

The email noted a couple of other blogs of interest. It seems that Forest Servcie Public Affairs folks are increasingly attuned to the importance of these new tools. Here are my thoughts as to how the Forest Service or any other agency might benefit from them:

First, to cut down on the current blizzard of emails (and attachments) blogs would be used by staff groups and professionals clustered in 'communities of practice' to announce upcoming events, to share salient new information, and to share progress on ongoing projects.

This would also cut down on too-frequent and too-often-mindless conference calls. The wiki/blog culture of doing work in real time with continuous feedback and update possibilities, would also enrich in-person meetings and eliminate some of the announcement/one-way-communication feeds of 'new' by hierarchical authority that plagues most conferences.

Second, wikis could be used universally for 'knowledge bases', that would be referenced and to some extent vetted in the blogs. My desire is that wikis be constructed with 'comment' features common to blogs, so that some vetting would be internal to the wikis. The beauty of these features is that comments can be either about posted subject matter or about earlier comments. The idea is that comments build on comments as well as on 'posted' materials. There is an aspect of community that attends to well-used blogs, and no doubt wikis too, although I too have much to learn in the wiki arena.

Both blogs and wikis would also be highlighted on, and compliment more-traditional websites that would provide 'first looks' and site-map navigational and other access to professional communities of practice, staff groups, and organization writ larger.

To gain a perspective as to the emergent popularity and utility of both wikis and blogs, here is a link to a special feature on wikis and blogs in the current issue of Business Week Online, 3/17/07.

UPDATE 3/21:

To better understand the reluctance to wander into wiki/blog space, and necessary precautions to think through before jumping in, consider this:

Most Business Tech Pros Wary About Web 2.0 Tools In Business
By J. Nicholas Hoover
InformationWeek
2/24/2007

For all the mind-numbing buzz about Web. 2.0, most business collaboration and information sharing remains mired in endless e-mail strings and scheduled conference calls. More than half of business technology pros surveyed by InformationWeek are either skeptical about tools such as blogs, wikis, and online social networks, or they're willing but wary of adopting them. What gives? …

Despite the risks and problems, a solid minority of the 250 business technology pros surveyed by InformationWeek are behind this IT strategy push that has come to be known as Enterprise 2.0 (even if the overplayed 2.0 terminology makes some people wince). Nearly a third, 32%, describe their Web 2.0 strategies as fully engaged, our survey finds.

Reticent companies ignore the movement at the peril of their competitiveness. Within a few years, rich, collaborative software platforms that include a slate of technologies like wikis, blogs, integrated search, and unified communications will be the norm. Employees will expect to work that way, and it'll be up to IT to solve the still significant problems and deliver. …

Security isn't the only barrier to Enterprise 2.0; it's just the most glaring problem IT will have to solve….

[H]ere's a sobering statistic for Enterprise 2.0 true believers: For eight of the 13 tools we asked about, at least 20% of companies say they've made the tools available but they're hardly used. … [Steve Ellis, executive VP of Wells Fargo's wholesale solutions group of Wells Fargo] says the tools will matter and get adopted only if they're delivering information people need. …

Many of these tools are starting to converge, giving employees more control over how they want to see and share their knowledge. … Integrating these new technologies with legacy systems is another challenge ….

But is it all worth the effort? Collaboration technologies are notorious for their "soft ROI." At Wells Fargo, they're not bothering to cook up a dollar value for each collaboration app. "I can just go out and tell our boss I know we'll be better off," Ellis says.

Yet Ellis and his team must have a case for how it will make the bank's customers better off. Wells Fargo is only now experimenting with voice over IP, and Danny Peltz, executive VP of the company'