How environmental analysis inadvertently drains the Forest Service budget

During a visit to her native Washington State, U.S. Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen told an audience her agency was failing to meet the challenges of unhealthy forests and catastrophic wildfires. She admitted the agency is not reducing the risk, and “America’s forests are in crisis.” With at least 80 million acres of National Forest System lands at risk of severe fire, Chief Christiansen understands the depth of this crisis and is working to change the culture and practices of her agency. The Forest Service took an important step forward by releasing proposed changes to modernize how the agency complies with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). This environmental law, initially approved by Congress in 1969, requires federal agencies to report the potential environmental effects of proposed actions. Most agencies comply with this law without draining their financial and human resources, even for major infrastructure projects. Opponents of forest management are predictably attacking this effort in partisan terms, though the Forest Service’s approach may bring the agency in closer compliance with existing regulations issued by the Obama administration’s Council on Environmental Quality. And if the agency successfully completes this process, the Forest Service will be better positioned to utilize many of the new tools and resources that have been recently approved by Congress with bipartisan support. Changes are needed because the Forest Service has been negatively influenced by anti-forestry activism and the real and perceived threat of litigation over NEPA compliance. Consequently, the agency developed a risk-averse culture, requiring its people to spend more time preparing paperwork when they should be actively managing and mitigating the threats to multiple-use public lands, especially those that have been identified as suitable for timber harvests. The Forest Service’s current NEPA compliance guidelines date back to 1992, at a time when timber harvests and other management activities dramatically declined on national forests. Anti-forestry groups have exploited NEPA to bring forest projects to a halt, preventing the agency from reducing fuel loads and promoting the natural resiliency of the forests. In the past 30 years, forest science and technology has improved significantly, and public lands managers understand the benefits of logging, thinning and prescribed burning for healthier forests, improved wildlife habitat, and cleaner air and water for nearby communities...MORE 

Nick Smith is executive director of Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities, a non-profit, non-partisan grassroots coalition that advocates for active management of America’s federally-owned forests.

Inadvertent? I don't think so. The lawsuits are filed to limit or prohibit certain activities on federal land. Those lawsuits have been highly successful, and resulted in the layer upon layer of analysis in NEPA documents. 

...it typically takes the agency over three years to complete an environmental impact statement and over two years to complete an environmental assessment.  It’s estimated the Forest Service spends more than $356 million annually to conduct NEPA analysis and compliance requirements on forest management projects.

Now add in the costs and time frames for the BLM, NPS, USFWS, BIA, EPA, Dept. of Transportation and so on, and you begin to see the magnitude of the costs and delays involved in implementing this one federal law.

Also on the "cost" side, would be the thousands of small or medium sized projects that are not even attempted because of the cost and time frames incurred.

This is not an "inadvertent" outcome. It is the result of highly planned and well funded actions by the environmental community, and none of this will change until Congress amends and clarifies the law.

Rep. Bob Bishop, former chairman of the House Resources Committee, stated in 2017:

"... we can both better protect the environment and allow for thorough review and processing of critical economic, energy and infrastructure activities in a timely manner. These concepts are not mutually exclusive. But it simply won't happen unless Congress acts to clarify NEPA's intent, scope and limitations.

Problem is, Congress has done nothing to amend the act, and as a result of the 2018 elections, is unlikely to do anything positive in the near future.