New GAO Report (Yet Again) Confirms that Public Participation & Litigation Don't Delay Fuel Reduction Projects

On October 29, 2003, the House Resources Committee, under the leadership of Congressman Richard Pombo, issued a misleading release about the findings of an October 24, 2003 General Accounting Office (GAO-04-52) study entitled, “Information on Forest Service Decisions Involving Fuels Reduction Activities.” The new report confirms, once again, that administrative appeals (the opportunity for the public to make suggestions to the Forest Service on proposed projects that have reached the final planning stages) and litigation do no cause any delay to fuel reduction projects.

In fact, the new study found that 95% of the 818 Forest Service fuels reduction projects in FY 2001 and 2002 were ready for implementation within the standard 90-day review period. Furthermore, the study showed that 97% of the 818 Forest Service fuels reduction projects in FY 2001 and 2002 preceded without litigation.

The most recent GAO study, which reviewed 818 fuel reduction projects from FY 2001 and 2002, showed:

• 486 were categorical exclusions (CEs), meaning they were not open to administrative appeals, but were still open to litigation.
• Of the 818 projects open to litigation, only 3% were litigated (25 projects).
• Of the 332 projects open to administrative appeal, 194 were appealed and 138 were not.
• Of the 194 appealed projects, 79% (153 projects) were processed within the standard 90 day review period.

Therefore, a careful review of the findings reveal that 95% (777 out of 818) of the fuel reduction projects from FY 2001 and 2002 were ready for implementation within the standard 90 day review period, while 97% of the 818 projects went forward without litigation.

Numerous Studies Have Proven that Analysis Paralysis Is A Myth

Time after time, when the General Accounting Office - the nonpartisan, investigative arm of Congress - and other researchers look at appeals and litigation of fuel reduction projects their findings completely contradict claims of "analysis paralysis" by Mark Rey, the Bush Administration and the logging industry.

• August 2001: GAO report (GAO-01-114R, Fuel Reduction Projects) found that of 1,671 fuel reduction projects proposed by the Forest Service during FY 2000 and 2001 only 1% (20 projects) were appealed and zero were litigated.
• July 2002: Forest Service releases its own report, Factors Affecting Timely Mechanical Fuel Treatment Decisions. Report concluded that 48% of all decisions made in FY 2001 and 2002 for mechanical treatments of hazardous fuel were administratively appealed. Specifically, the Forest Service said that of 326 decisions subject to administrative appeals, 155 were appealed, and in addition 21 decisions (6%) had been litigated - figures that completely contradict the GAO findings.
• September 2002: Documents obtained from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the National Forest Protection Alliance reveal that the U.S. Forest Service spent just a few hours gathering information for their much-heralded July 2002 report. In the FOIA response, Frederick Norbury, Director of Ecosystem Management Coordination for the U.S. Forest Service, admitted that "The timeframe for gathering the information used to develop the report was limited to hours. Thus, much of the information was provided orally in telephone interviews with a variety of Forest Service employees throughout the country."
• April 2003: Two reports from researchers at Northern Arizona University show that 1) administrative appeals are on a significant downward trend since 1998; 2) 35% of all such appeals are filed by ordinary citizens; 3) in order to answer basic questions such as: How many administrative appeals are processed by the Forest Service annually, who the appellants are, and type of projects being appealed the researchers found it necessary to construct their own database because the Forest Service doesn't keep a database of this basic information; 4) on average, each national forest faced only 1.3 administrative appeals of timber sales per year since January 1, 1997; 5) projects identified by the Forest Service as "fuel reduction" accounted for only 4.2% of all administrative appeals nationally and projects identified by the Forest Service as "prescribed burn" represented only 2.5% of all appeals nationally.
• May 2003: Another GAO report (GAO-03-689R, Forest Service Fuels Reduction) found that 97% of the 762 fuel reduction projects proposed by the Forest Service during FY 2001 and 2002 went forward without litigation. The study also revealed that 95% of these 762 fuel reduction projects were ready for implementation within the standard 90-day public review period.
• September 2003: According to an analysis of the May 2003 GAO report by NRDC, only 2% of all the acreage slated for fuels reduction in FY 2001 and 2002 by the Forest Service was litigated. Even more striking is the fact that only about 1% of the acreage was subject to any interim injunction by the Courts.
• September 2003: A GAO report (GAO-03-805, Wildland Fire Management) found that (1) federal agencies have failed to identify lands at risk of fire; (2) federal agencies have failed to make community fire protection a priority and (3) the main reasons fuel reduction projects could not proceed were due to the weather and the diversion of fuel reduction funds to fight wildfires. The report also found that opposition was not a leading factor in slowing fuel reduction projects: "While the issue of formal public resistance, such as appeals and litigation, has recently been contentious, only a few local land unit officials we visited indicated that this type of resistance had delayed particular fuels reduction treatments.”
• October 2003: Yet another GAO report (GAO-04-52, Information on Appeals and Litigation Involving Fuels Reduction Activities) found that 97% of the 818 fuel reduction projects proposed by the Forest Service during FY 2001 and 2002 went forward without litigation. The study also revealed that 95% of these 818 fuel reduction projects were ready for implementation within the standard 90-day public review period.