Outside Mag on the NEPA process

[Irrelevant]

https://www.outsideonline.com/2400593/us-forest-service-public-commenting

I encourage you to grunt through the first couple of paragraphs, it gets better after that. I know some people on here will disagree with the stance taking by Wes but I think it has some valuable info that many of us likely aren't aware of.

 

[Foxtrot1]

I work with NEPA every day, todays standards for completing an EA are not what they were when the law was originally passed. Go back and compare one from 30 years ago to a modern one. The article is correct about the FS being underfunded and understaffed. The combination of rocketing costs of wildfire seasons and litigation over every action they propose has the FS is in a no win situation for implementing management activities. Overall, I think expanding the Cat ex's is a good thing that will expedite forest management. That said, 4,700 acres is a large block to be covered by one. As far as I am concerned they could remove old growth stands from that cat ex and focus on managing 2nd growth stands. So much of the effects of this change will depend on each forest's management plan and it's leaders. In many ways logging (esp. old growth stands) faces the same hurdles as wolf and bear management. An uneducated public has strong emotional ties that spill over into environmental litigation. The public should have feedback into the system, but there needs to be a streamlining of the system to allow management to happen. Across the country we are seeing population declines in species that prefer early successional habitat. In many areas this has been due to the reduction of timber harvesting in the past 30 years.

 

[Carnage2011]

The NEPA process had great intentions, but we have hit the point where the environmentalists are using technicalities to stop all logging operations. I believe Trump's actions are simply to allow logging to continue without it getting shut down in court every time. There are definitely some concerns with the way it is being worded, but there has to be some sort of compromise from where we are today.

 

[Oak]

The problem is that we want our cake and we want to eat it, too.

 

[Irrelevant]

I think we can all agree that more logging should be allowed, i.e. not litigated. But if I had to choose between more logging or a public comment period (which is kinda what it feels like the choice is), I'm going to choose the comment period every time.

 

[jmveverka]

Here is an opposing view to the article first posted here. We need to be able to manage forests. Not everything proposed by this administration has some nefarious plot lurking behind it. While many of the regulations (environmental, business, etc.) on the books were born out of good intentions, they have grown to have unintended consequences such as being barriers to do business or grinding all possible progress to a halt. https://www.fredericksburg.com/spor...NnohkeYnVHTpcjol2hL3LDrmCNcCbPQat3YnEjjCPQKKk

 

[BigHornRam]

Outside Magazine is where Mark (MFB99) gets his talking points from.

Crazy stuff being proposed with these CE's.

"Proposed categorical exclusions would be for restoration projects, roads and trails management, recreation and facility management, plus special use authorizations that issue permits for outfitters and guides, community organizations, civic groups and others seeking to recreate on national forests and grasslands. The improvements are expected to reduce process delays for routine activities by months or years."

 

[Irrelevant]

grinding all possible progress to a halt.

Progress... what does that mean? In my mind the idea of progress in nature must be based on the idea of conquering nature, taming her to fit our wishes and our needs, and from what I've witnessed includes a fair bit of rape and pillage along the way.

Like I said, I think we can all agree that more timber harvest would be a good thing in a lot of areas. Old growth not being one of them; and not in my backyard without at least giving me the option to speak against it.

 

[Ben Lamb]

I too strongly believe that we should have much less public involvement in how our public lands are managed.

We've lost the RAC's throughout most of the west. We lost significant increases in better management when congress screwed us on BLM 2.0, we're now gleefully charging forward in limiting how we can influence management of public lands, but it's all cool because we can kill the last critters in abundance on wildlife refuges.

Hunters, we like to eat our own.

 

[icebreaker12]

The NEPA process and frankly the ESA needs to be completely overhauled. The only thing that is scary is what happens when you open Pandora's box.

 

[TrickyTross]

I personally am in favor of the changes. Here on Pisgah-Nantahala NF in the Western NC, multiple shovel ready projects are greatly slowed while invasive species encroach/overtake areas, habitat continues to decline for multiple wildlife species, and fuel loads continue to build. Our office has a Good Neighbor Authority signed with the USFS and we cant even get our Special Project Agreements finished because many projects are having to re-do their EIS and EA because of special interest groups abusing NEPA and going against CEs in our area. Its frustrating and when a project can begin, the cost have increased. Its a sad state of affairs on many Eastern Forest.
Its interesting to see when we go to proposing restoration of an area here, that the term "old-growth" is used to describe an area. The definition changes based off of who is using the term, however one thing remains consistent- the restoration needs to put the area back as close to the time at European contact. Which was when my woods were dominated by the American Chestnut, Bison, and elk. So, that would mean increasing back to the historical ranges of grasslands where areas that are deemed "old-growth" currently reside. The Cherokee and Catawba have records both in writing (from explorers journals) as well as in their spoken history about the areas they harvested timber and farmed. Their histories also speak of coordinating runners and burns of mountains if a lighting strike did not occur between certain moons (every 3 harvest moons was what I had the privilege to listen to). Its interesting to see when history and science are actually discussed when we talk about management. I wont go nuts on the multiple peer-reviewed studies that show the need for ESH as spoke of above, or how in the article shared above that Ken Perotte wrote about thew study that showed of the 207 species studied only 14 could survive in "old-growth" for the duration of their lives. In the East, we need disturbances for the overall mosaic of the landscape. Maybe NEPA needs to be amended for a regional scale?

 

[BluegrassBilly]

"Proposed categorical exclusions would be for ... special use authorizations that issue permits for outfitters and guides, community organizations, civic groups and others seeking to recreate on national forests and grasslands. The improvements are expected to reduce process delays for routine activities by months or years."

Sounds like a dream-come-true for Big Fin!

 

[RobG]

The flowchart on page 8 of this pdf shows the process.

 

[one ate E grain]

Good comments here http://forestpolicypub.com/2019/08/08/is-the-forest-service-trying-to-evade-the-public/ from various people, some of whom used to be FS managers researchers etc. Some not so great comments too, just gotta wade through them.

 

[davinski]

EA's have really snowballed into giant resource-sucking projects in and of themselves. I deal with different lettered agencies, but I doubt they're much different than the USFS. Today's catexes are nearly what EA's were 10 years ago. And there are specific rules about NOT compartmentalizing a big project into smaller bite-sized catex-able projects that said lettered agencies are usually well-versed in. So I would say BS on that "could be stacked..." assumption in the article unless they have specific examples. I haven't read much more than the one linked article, but I'd be cautiously optimistic that maybe there's more good than harm in the overall effort. I kind of liked when Trump, way early on, waived around a giant stack of paper, an EA, complaining that the consultants made millions and spent years drafting the report...and things should be done differently. And I'm one of those consultants! (we don't make that kind of coin on an EA, I'm still trying to find out what project that was) The spirit of NEPA is sound but the way it has been working out in recent years, down at the project level trying to get things done, or at least decided, you never get a resolution one way or another. They just drag on for years and years.

 

[Nameless Range]

I haven’t read into this enough to have a strong opinion. But some mountain bike groups that I follow on social media think it’s the bees knees, and will make it easier to expand their trails and access on public lands. To hell with those who bring up concerns about advertised and expanded recreation’s affect on wildlife on public lands!

So I admit my default position is skeptical.

 

[Nameless Range]

I thought this was a fairly balanced article on the proposed changes. Still not sure what to think ultimately

The Forest Service's Proposed NEPA Changes Could Have a Noticeable Impact on Mountain Bikers

The US Forest Service has proposed big changes to the policy that guides its decisions on public lands. It could result in the exclusion of public from the decision making process. Some see this as a good thing for trail maintenance and construction, while others see it as a step backward.

www.singletracks.com

 

[Deleted member 16014]

I know enough to know that EA's and even EIS's vary in execution VASTLY among field offices and ranger districts. There are districts that roll EA's through no problem, while the neighboring one might take 5+ years to hiccup their way to no decision and restart scoping. I expect an expanded suite of categorical exclusions hitting the books would turn out in a similar fashion. If a litigant smells blood in the water from a cat-ex leaning too hard on the sideboards, they will take it to court just like they do with the EA/EIS and current categorical exclusions. Whether more CE's is a good or bad thing is too case specific to say in my opinion.