SOS Forests

DOI Responds to W.I.S.E. Letter to Salazar re WFLC

On March 6, 2010, in my capacity as Executive Director of W.I.S.E., I wrote an Open Letter to Ken Salazar regarding the reconvening of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) [here]. In that letter I observed that in the past the WFLC:

… did not work with stakeholders but instead was a closed door, exclusionary, non-transparent Federal advisory group that violated various laws with impunity. The laws repeatedly violated by the WFLC include the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

I also observed that:

The WFLC excluded the public and the press from their meetings. They did however seat deep-pocket lobby groups including the Nature Conservancy and the Wilderness Society. Federal funds were passed to these lobby groups through the WFLC. The lobby groups also provide a “revolving door” of high-paying positions to former government employees formerly seated on the WFLC.

and furthermore:

During closed door meetings in 2008 the WFLC directed the five Federal land management agencies under their purview to adopt Appropriate Management Response (AMR) and Wildland Fire Use (WFU). The agencies did so without implementing any NEPA process, without public comment or review, and in violation of the laws listed above.

As a result, numerous wildfires were allowed to burn without aggressive suppression actions. Tremendous destruction and degradation of natural resource values occurred.

Finally, I advised Sec. Salazar that:

The WFLC in its prior manifestation violated transparency and the rule of law with disastrous consequences.

Please be advised that if you reconvene the WFLC under the previous format and model, you will be doing a great disservice to America.

Yesterday I received a response from DOI, a very nice letter from Pamela Haze, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget, Finance, Performance and Acquisition acting on behalf of Ms. Rhea Suh, Assistant Secretary for Management & Budget and CFO.

That letter in its entirety follows:

United States Department of the Interior
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20240
APR 12, 2010

TO: Mr. Michael Dubrasich, Executive Director
Western Institute for Study of the Environment
33862 Totem Pole Road
Lebanon, OR 97355

Dear Mr. Dubrasich:

The Administration and Congress have directed the Secretary of the U. S. Department of the Interior and Secretary of U. S. Department of Agriculture to prepare a Cohesive Strategy for wildland fire management. The Secretaries are committed to working collaboratively with Tribal, State and local governments, and with citizens to develop and implement a Comprehensive Strategy that will address wildfire preparedness and suppression, hazardous fuels reduction and landscape restoration, and promotion of fire-adapted communities. In the collaborative spirit of this direction, and pursuant to provisions of law, including the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act exemption to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) is being reconvened to, in part; provide oversight and direction for the Cohesive Strategy, and to exchange views, information and advice relating to other wildland fire management activities.

The WFLC is an intergovernmental committee of Federal, State, Tribal, County and Municipal government officials convened by the Secretaries of the Department of Interior, Agriculture and Homeland Security, that is dedicated to coordinated implementation of wildland fire policies, goals and management activities. The Council provides strategic oversight to ensure policy coordination, accountability and effective implementation of Federal wildland fire management policy and related long-term strategies to address wildfire suppression, assistance to communities, hazardous fuels reduction, habitat restoration and rehabilitation of the Nation’s forests and rangelands.

Federal membership on the Council includes the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Deputy Undersecretary for Natural Resources and Environment, and the Chief of the Forest Service; the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management, and Budget and the Directors of the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the U.S. Geological Survey. The Administrator of the U.S. Fire Administration represents the Department of Homeland Security.

In addition to the Federal officials, the Council includes seven non-Federal members comprised primarily of senior elected officials of State, Tribal, County and Municipal governments, including a State Governor who is a member of the National Governors’ Association, a State Governor who is a member of the Western Governors’ Association, the President of the Intertribal Timber Council, a County Commissioner who is a member of the National Association of Counties and a Mayor who is a member of the National League of Cities. These elected officers, along with a State Forester and a Fire Chief at the request of the Senior Elected Official to whom they report, are invited to participate in the Wildland Fire Leadership Council because of their interest in and statutory responsibility for wildland fire management. The elected officials making designations may delegate alternates in writing to attend in their absence.

In accordance with enabling the WFLC Memorandum of Understanding, meetings may be open to the public and exchange with individual members of the public in attendance is encouraged through designation of a “public comment” time on the agenda or by other informal means. The Council will strive to keep its meetings open to the public to the fullest extent possible.

Thank you for your commitment to the principle of collaboration in restoring and conserving our nation’s forests and rangelands.

Sincerely,

Rhea Suh
Assistant Secretary
Policy, Management and Budget

Some important policy positions were stated in the letter.

1. The WFLC does not want to be called a Federal Advisory Committee. That bugs them. They want to be called an “intergovernmental committee”. Something called the “Unfunded Mandates Reform Act exemption to the Federal Advisory Committee Act” allows them to skirt FACA and avoid compliance with that law.

Their lawyers put that together for them. In 2007, in response to my complaints, Federal attorneys drew up a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that declares the WFLC to NOT be a Federal Advisory Committee but, they hoped, to allow registered lobbyists to continue to participate [here]. However, the attorneys advised the WFLC that “representatives of NGOs may not serve on the WFLC, unless the council becomes an advisory committee subject to the FACA.”

So they are between a rock and a hard place. They want to include deep-pocket lobby groups including the Nature Conservancy and the Wilderness Society, but if they do that then they have to comply with FACA, which means open meetings.

The issue is still up in the air. At the first “reconvened” WFLC meeting on March 17, 2010 [here], they proposed yet another revision of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). So the matter is still pending.

In the meantime, Ms. Haze acting for Ms. Suh made the claim in the above letter that “meetings may be open to the public”. The word “may” in this case means maybe yes, maybe no. Essentially it means the matter is still pending. However, in the spirit of compromise and goodwill, and thinking positively, I responded to Ms. Haze and Ms. Suh with the following email:

April 16, 2010

Dear Ms. Rhea and Ms. Haze,

Thank you very much for your letter of April 12 explaining the reconvening of the WFLC.

You noted that WFLC meetings “may be open to the public and exchange with individual members of the public in attendance is encouraged through designation of a ‘public comment’ time on the agenda or by other informal means.”

Further you noted that “The Council will strive to keep its meetings open to the public to the fullest extent possible.”

In light of the foregoing, would you please be so kind as to give me ample advanced notice of the WFLC meetings, including dates, times, and places, so that I may strive to attend and exchange comments with the Council.

Also, may I please be included on the list of recipients for the upcoming agendas and previous minutes, both in full, for WFLC meetings.

Thank you.

Mike Dubrasich, Exec Dir W.I.S.E.
33862 Totem Pole Rd.
Lebanon, OR 97355
admin@westinstenv.org
541-259-3787
https://westinstenv.org

The Western Institute for Study of the Environment is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational corporation and a collaboration of environmental scientists, resource professionals and practitioners, and the interested public.

Our mission is to further advancements in knowledge and environmental stewardship across a spectrum of related environmental disciplines and professions. We are ready, willing, and able to teach good stewardship and caring for the land.

W.I.S.E. provides a free, on-line set of post-graduate courses in environmental studies, currently fifty Topics in eight Colloquia, each containing book and article reviews, original papers, and essays. In addition, we present three Commentary sub-sites, a news clipping sub-site, and a fire tracking sub-site. Reviews and original articles are archived in our Library.

So… if they are true to their word, and if the WFLC meetings are now open to the public (and press) in order to facilitate dialogs during “public comment” periods, then naturally they will send me their schedule and agenda so that I might attend and engage in said dialogs.

Because without an agenda and schedule announced in advance of the meeting, the public cannot know when and where the WFLC is meeting. For instance, they possibly might have met April 15th without public notice in some room in some building in some city, but nobody but a select few insiders knows where.

2. The letter from Ms. Haze and Ms. Suh mentions that the WFLC is working on something they call a “Cohesive Strategy for wildland fire management”. We discussed that new program as soon as we found out about it [here].

But since we are not on their mailing list, we didn’t get any details. Evidently the WFLC insiders did get some details, because according to the March minutes:

Before April 15, 2010, the WFLC members will be provided with details of this CS blueprint approach including, process structure, locations of workshop, categories of invitees, a plan for tribal consultation and how this will meet the requirements of the FLAME Act.

Furthermore, the workshops are already underway, or at least that was the plan:

Ideally up to six local CS workshops will be conducted between April 15, 2010 and June 1, 2010.

If you are experiencing cognitive dissonance, welcome to the club.

The DOI claims that WFLC meetings are open to the public and that the public is invited to exchange comments with the Council during special “public comment” periods. Further, the WFLC claims to be holding workshops on their new “Cohesive Strategy”. But the public has been kept completely in the dark as to when and where these “open” meetings and workshops are being held.

The claims and the reality of the situation seem to clash. One thing is said, another is done.

Or so it seems to me.

But there is some hope that Ms. Haze and Ms. Suh can clarify all this, if they respond to my email. Ideally, the WFLC will make public announcements of their meetings and workshops well ahead of time so that the interested public, who are the owners of the Federal Estate after all, may attend and participate.

That’s an important point. It is our land, our forests, our watersheds, and our communities that are at risk from catastrophic wildfire. Those things do not belong to government functionaries or lobby groups. Instead they belong to the public, as do the buildings the WFLC meets in and the offices where they work, and their computers, phones, desks, pencils, etc.

When it comes to stakeholders in this matter, no stakeholders can hold a candle to the principal stakeholders, the public.

Excluding the public, as the WFLC has done during its entire existence, is excluding the principal stakeholders.

But maybe that’s changing. We shall see.