Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Simpson says Trump administration may move federal land agencies to the West


Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson says the Trump administration is looking at reorganizing federal land agencies to move more people out of Washington, D.C., and closer to the land they manage in the West. Several efforts were made in previous administrations to move the U.S. Forest Service out of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and into the Department of Interior, where other land, water and fish, and wildlife management agencies are housed. Simpson, speaking at a conference on public lands convened Tuesday by the Andrus Center for Public Policy at Boise State University, was skeptical that the Department of Agriculture would want to give up the forestry agency. “That’s a discussion were going to have, but I think you’ll see more coordination between the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management,” Simpson said. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Simpson talked specifically about moving the BLM headquarters, which manages 247 million acres across 12 Western states, to a Western city like Denver. Simpson said he put a plug in for Boise, home of the National Interagency Fire Center that coordinates U.S. wildland firefighting. “His view is that we have too many people working in Interior in Washington, D.C., when the work that needs to be done is out in the states and particularly in the West, and he wants to move a lot of the management decisions and a lot of the people from Washington out to the states,” Simpson said. “I think that’s a good thing.”...more

Notice how Simpson, an influential member of the House Appropriations Committee, defers to USDA when it comes to the placement of the Forest Service. Does it make the most management sense? Is it the most efficient use of federal resources? Will it save the taxpayers money? Never mind, what matters is whether USDA "would want to give up" the Forest Service. Its not what the public wants, its what USDA wants that will be the deciding factor. As long as that remains to be the Republicans attitude, little will change for the better.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Movement of the USFS to the Department of the Interior is the prelude to having all lands under the stewardship of the FS become National Parks. That would be the end of resource management on those lands. No more timber, grazing, mining and the other uses which congress in its past wisdom thought the people of the United States should use. That probably would not happen under this administration, but the good ole left will return to get this done in the future. It has always been one of their favorite items.
But, under the current leadership in the FS this might not be such a bad deal. The best deal would be to sell off all BLM, FS and most Park Service administered lands to the highest bidder.

Anonymous said...

....."to the highest bidder."
If that was any of the Eco-extremists billionaires out of Hollywood, or Ted Turner,Bill Gates types, then most Americans would never see those places ever. No grazing of beef cattle, no timbering, no mining, no hunting , no trapping, no shooting ranges, no lead based "affordable ammo".....more fences, locked gates, less roads = eco's & .gov win.
,Imnotarobot

Anonymous said...

Now you are getting the picture!