Forest Service Chief details his agency's `analysis paralysis'

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 29, 2002 | by Sean Paige

U.S. national forests are aflame in what already is shaping up to be one of the most hellacious summer wildfire seasons in memory. But the only federal agency that can do anything about it can't do anything about it, according to the man in charge. Why? Because it is so gummed-up by procedural red tape and lawsuits from environmental groups that virtually all efforts actively to manage America's disease-ridden, fire-prone national forests have come to a halt.

The man on the hot seat is U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Chief Dale Bosworth, who inherited a heck of a mess and has talked with admirable candor about the "analysis paralysis" infecting an agency that manages nearly 200 million acres of public land.

To illustrate his point, Bosworth recently released The Process Predicament, a report outlining the symbiotic relationship between procedural paralysis within USFS and the obstructionist tactics employed by environmental groups opposed to virtually all human meddling in the forests. The report provides numerous case studies in which both have conspired to harm forests, and shows why those who claim to care about nature most may be the single biggest obstacle to caring for it in a crisis.

One case it doesn't highlight, but might have, is that of Arizona's Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. In 1999 a proposal to thin out dangerously fire-prone stands was appealed and challenged in court by the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. That fact is largely beside the point today, after large parts of the forest (and nearby towns) were engulfed in the recent conflagrations in that state.

"Despite a century of devotion to conservation, the Forest Service today faces a forest-health crisis of tremendous proportions," according to the report. This includes more than 70 million acres that are susceptible to wildfire and tens of millions more that are diseased, insect-infested or under assault by invasive species. Yet in spite of the need for action, USFS field personnel spend as much as 40 percent of their time doing redundant and unnecessary paperwork and analysis to justify actions that they assume will be appealed or challenged in court. That represents a cost to taxpayers of $250 million. And the resulting decision-making process is "so complex" and "fragile" and "prone to failure," according to the report, that the advantages all lie with those who have seized control of the Forest Service and other land agencies through saturation litigation and adroit use of the courts.

Bosworth said in recent congressional testimony that unless "the procedural knot" tying the agency's hands can be untangled, it will be "difficult to impossible" to tackle the forest-health crisis. "We are extremely frustrated with the status quo," said Bosworth, who understands that any effort to reform the process will be controversial. "At the end of the day, those who are determined to keep projects from going forward ... are afforded a considerable advantage by the dysfunction of our decision-making process," he said. "They will not cede that advantage without a struggle."