The USFS announced a huge reorganization yesterday. It will be the continual debate around running government like an efficient business, and in the process of such, how much is truly the desire for efficiency and how much is politics?
National HQ will end up in Salt Lake City. Regions will be done away with. State offices will be the norm.
I'm all about using business practices to make government more efficient. That requires following business principles in how changes are studies/debated/arrived at, and how improvements are implemented. The DOGE efforts last year surely did nothing to make a compelling case that the process used or the manner in which changes are evaluated will result in anything beneficial or has any remote resemblance to how a business would do the same thing.
Call me a skeptic. Back in the early 2000s, I had a lunch meeting with someone who was tapped into the "Dispose of Public Lands" movement. He told me his side would eventually prevail, and not in one big sweep. Rather, they had a 25-year plan. It involved making Federal Land agencies ineffective and thus making it easier to transfer ownership to the states, who excel at disposing of lands. If successful in their efforts, the public would view the lands as a liability more than an asset. He gave examples of abuses that prevented better land management via litigation, Congressional/Executive mingling, and I had to nod in agreement that his examples did help further his cause.
Whether that strategy has remained, or is altered over the last 20 years, I took his comments seriously. Seeing the resulting work to defund agencies, defund PILT and SRS, lower financial returns from Federal lands, and politicizing public land policy with each new Congress/Administration, the strategy he explained is well down the path. And many in that land disposal movement who have succeeded him are promoting similar ideas.
Thus, my skepticism whenever politicians come up with ideas to make agencies more efficient. A business would hire consultants to interview management, customers (public land users), vendors, and others critical to the business success. A business would evaluation the market conditions, at the most basic level doing a SWOT analysis, and whatever helped gain as much information as helpful to making the recommended improvements. The consultants would then evaluate a series of alternatives, make recommendations to ownership, then advise on the best way to implement the new ideas.
That's a summary of how business does it. How DOGE did it, and how this USFS restructure has come to be has none of those processes. In my experience, when politicians are in such a hurry that they don't follow business examples, the mantra of "business principles" are merely a marketing bow wrapped around a politically motivated decision by those who hold the levers of power.
Sorry to be skeptical. Well, maybe not sorry. Better stated, a reality I've come to accept after 30 years of engaging in these issues. Only time will tell whether these changes result in better management of our Federal Lands.
If I had a Kalshi account where I could place a bet on such, history says easy money could be earned by betting against that predicted improvement.
National HQ will end up in Salt Lake City. Regions will be done away with. State offices will be the norm.
I'm all about using business practices to make government more efficient. That requires following business principles in how changes are studies/debated/arrived at, and how improvements are implemented. The DOGE efforts last year surely did nothing to make a compelling case that the process used or the manner in which changes are evaluated will result in anything beneficial or has any remote resemblance to how a business would do the same thing.
Call me a skeptic. Back in the early 2000s, I had a lunch meeting with someone who was tapped into the "Dispose of Public Lands" movement. He told me his side would eventually prevail, and not in one big sweep. Rather, they had a 25-year plan. It involved making Federal Land agencies ineffective and thus making it easier to transfer ownership to the states, who excel at disposing of lands. If successful in their efforts, the public would view the lands as a liability more than an asset. He gave examples of abuses that prevented better land management via litigation, Congressional/Executive mingling, and I had to nod in agreement that his examples did help further his cause.
Whether that strategy has remained, or is altered over the last 20 years, I took his comments seriously. Seeing the resulting work to defund agencies, defund PILT and SRS, lower financial returns from Federal lands, and politicizing public land policy with each new Congress/Administration, the strategy he explained is well down the path. And many in that land disposal movement who have succeeded him are promoting similar ideas.
Thus, my skepticism whenever politicians come up with ideas to make agencies more efficient. A business would hire consultants to interview management, customers (public land users), vendors, and others critical to the business success. A business would evaluation the market conditions, at the most basic level doing a SWOT analysis, and whatever helped gain as much information as helpful to making the recommended improvements. The consultants would then evaluate a series of alternatives, make recommendations to ownership, then advise on the best way to implement the new ideas.
That's a summary of how business does it. How DOGE did it, and how this USFS restructure has come to be has none of those processes. In my experience, when politicians are in such a hurry that they don't follow business examples, the mantra of "business principles" are merely a marketing bow wrapped around a politically motivated decision by those who hold the levers of power.
Sorry to be skeptical. Well, maybe not sorry. Better stated, a reality I've come to accept after 30 years of engaging in these issues. Only time will tell whether these changes result in better management of our Federal Lands.
If I had a Kalshi account where I could place a bet on such, history says easy money could be earned by betting against that predicted improvement.
's!
