Multiple Use

National Forest Management: Is Politics Trumping Science?

By Brooke Hewes, 12-26-05

Underlying much of the heated debate about National Forest management today are a couple of loaded - and surprisingly hard-to-answer - questions: Do a cluster of recent changes in forest management, notably those relating to forest planning, motorized use and roadless designation, signal an increasing politicization of public land management? And, more specifically, did partisan political maneuvering (and by extension campaign contributions) trump science in shaping these changes?

As the University of Montana’s College of Forestry and Conservation’s Professor Martin Nie points out, the nuances of political influence largely occur in a black box: whether politicians are influenced by contributions, or whether contributions are made based on like-minded politics is difficult to know. Most of the folks I've spoken with think that, indeed, the new Forest Service planning rules are enabling elected political officials and appointees to make the crucial decisions on public lands - decisions that have long been the province of federal servants. (For some advocates of the changes, that's part of the point). But rather than string together a conclusion, I will present and let you, New West readers, do the deducing.

Let's start with the hearing convened three weeks ago in Missoula by Senator Conrad Burns (R-Montana), which was supposed to examine the "challenges and opportunities in region one forest planning." Some 500 people gathered to hear testimony from the U.S. Forest Service, academia, timber interests, a wilderness advocate, a motorized use group and a wildlife biologist. Burns’ stated purpose was to ensure that the agency was meeting its multiple-use mandate -- a standard established by the 1960 Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act that requires the USFS to consider and balance all uses of the agency’s 193 million acres, such as logging, wilderness and recreation. Specifically, Sen. Burns was concerned about planning revisions on the state’s largest national forest, the 3.38 million-acre Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in Southwest Montana.

The timing of the hearing certainly raises some eyebrows. Burns is up for re-election next November, and right now he and his party are in trouble. Last week Burns returned $160,000 in campaign contributions linked to indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff; earlier this year, Burns was listed as one of the most corrupt members of Congress in the Citizen's for Responsibility and ethics in Washington’s report "Beyond Delay"; and finally, the political tide in Montana seems to be turning blue. A recent Montana State University poll found that while Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer’s approval rating is 69 percent, Burns’ is down from 63 to 48, his lowest yet. Six years ago, when the two raced for the same U.S. Senate seat, Burns got 51 percent of the vote while Schweitzer received 47 percent.

Nie thinks the meeting was more theatrics than anything else.

"Burns was trying to convey to his constituents that these issues are on his mind," he said, adding that placating voters is not the same as writing or really affecting policy. Plus, he said, Burns’ interpretation of the agency’s multiple use mandate (more logging?) and suggestion that forests are somehow synonymous with Iowa corn fields in no way represents how the rest of Montanans feel.

Some people I spoke with shared a hunch connecting Burns to the pocket of certain motorized user groups, but in looking through the campaign contributions for the 2001-2006 election cycle, I found no red flags.

Brian Hawthorne, public lands director for the motorized-use advocacy group the Blue Ribbon Coalition, said his group didn’t push Burns into the meeting, but was happy the Senator addressed what he calls "cumulative" road closures in Montana.

"I certainly hope he can help us," said Hawthorne.

When considering Burns’ motivations (and I do realize that anything beyond his stated "concern" is speculative), there is another facet to consider: the upshot of the recently released draft forest plan on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. As of November 2005, when the comment period on the Beaverhead/Deer Lodge forest closed, 249,000 acres were recommended for wilderness and 216,000 acres for logging, bringing recommended wilderness up from 174,000 acres in the current plan, and logging down from 676,000 acres. Indeed, Burns had some questions. Unlike the other national forests in Montana that are revising their management plans (what Courtney accurately described as forests' "constitutions" last spring), the Beaverhead/Deer Lodge is revising under the old planning regulations.

When the new forest service planning regulations were passed this time last year, they were called an "early Christmas gift to the timber industry" by Washington D.C.-based Defenders of Wildlife. In an attempt to save money, time and resources while revising forest plans (which happens roughly every 15 years) and interpreting them (which happens each time a new project is proposed on the ground), the new rules shift the actual decision from the planning level to the project level. Containing "broad policies to help guide future decisions on the ground," the forest plan is now only a vision, a strategic aspiration (which essentially codifies the Supreme Court ruling in is what actually affects the environment.(PDF)

Supporters of the changes say the new process will be cheaper, more efficient and more amenable to public input.

Tom Rhodes, Region One planner for the USFS, thinks plans will now take two to three years instead of the six to eight, and cost around $1.5 million instead of many millions. Partly, he says, that's because NEPA reviews, which previously happened at both the planning and project level, now will happen only once.

Also, says Rhodes, the agency will now create only two proposed plans, or alternatives, for each forest based on public input, as opposed to the five alternatives typically presented under the old regulations. The change will make the process less contentious, according to Rhodes, because the two alternatives will already reflect public compromise.

John Gatchell, conservation director for Montana Wilderness Association and one of the five speakers at Burns’ meeting, doesn’t think this is the time for efficiency.

"Stream-lining is not helpful," he said. "To make decisions, [the public] needs to first agree on a common picture of what our public lands should look like."

Any rule-making carried out without charting a vision for our public lands, Gatchell said, is premature. Professor Nie agrees, likening the situation to the "whack-a-mole" game (I prefer Cady Shacking): You can delay NEPA requirements, but they aren’t going away and will just pop up elsewhere.

"Instead of one bigger fight," he says, "we’ll see lots of smaller fights and more overall litigation."

The new rules also give the Forest Service far more discretion: the new regulations are replete with non-committal language replacing standards with guidelines, objectives for commitments, etc. The plans, Nie says, will open the door to more political decision making: "These new regs give the (Forest Service) more discretion, and that discretion can be used at the site-specific level, or by higher level Washington-based political appointees. I believe the latter method will be used quite a bit."

Whether or not forest policy has yet been politicized, in other words, the increased agency discretion certainly opens the door to intervention by politicians. Not everyone thinks that's a bad thing; indeed, one of the arguments for the changes is that elected officials are much better able to represent the views of those impacted by forest policy than career civil servants. But taking the policy out of the hands of agency specialists can certainly cut both ways, politically speaking.

"A White House bent on preserving National Forests from resource use could do wonders with such malleable language, as could a more industry-friendly one," Nie said at a Bolle Center discussion in March. "Be careful what you wish for, in other words."

Former Chief of the Forest Service Jack Ward Thomas, like most everyone who has anything to say about the agency’s management strategies, says forest management has always been a struggle between politics, science and money, between local and national rule making. Much of which, he says, has boiled down to expensive paperwork and little effective planning.

"This situation, which is quite real, is frustrating because of the enormous costs in time and money," Thomas said. "This, more and more frequently, creates costs that are so high that it becomes cheaper to do nothing than to carry out many management activities."

Even though few seem to be satisfied with the changes, there is actually widespread agreement that something needed to be done.

A case in point is the Bush Administration’s revocation of the Clinton-era Roadless Conservation Rule this summer, and the more recent rule on motorized use in our national forests and grasslands.

Both areas needed to be addressed. But the shape and intention of the new rules raises questions. Is it appropriate for governors and county commissioners to be assessing and recommending roadless areas? And are motorized use restrictions, as some have suggested, nothing more than an empty attempt by the Bush Administration to quiet aggravated opponents?

Final fodder for debate: Last week the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned District Judge Donald Molloy’s 2003 ruling >in favor of the Bitterroot National Forest’s approval of a post-burn timber sale. Molloy’s reasoning rested on the very question at hand: shouldn’t the Forest Service, given their training and expertise, make such decisions? In the appeal, dissenting Judge McKeown agreed with Molloy, saying that the court had "crossed the line from reviewer to decision maker" and is in no position "to substitute our judgment for that of the Forest Service."

Perhaps these are distinct incidences without a common thread. Maybe, as Tom Rhodes suggests, the facade of increased politicization a more interested public and more responsive elected officials, which in a democracy should both be welcomed and expected. Furthermore, while none of this is entirely new: the process is, has been and always will be political (Sharon Sweeney from the Lolo National Forest told me she is not aware of anything more political than forest planning). Maybe it has to be that way.

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