Forest Service Plans to Relocate Jobs Out of Forests

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, says the resulting reorganization will affect one in four Forest Service jobs, shrink its firefighting force and "rigidify" resource planning.

A feasibility study of the restructuring plan prepared by consultants Management Analysis, Inc. of Vienna, Virginia dated August 10, 2007 projects a nearly 20 percent reduction in environmental positions within the Forest Service.

The plan, called a "Business Process Reengineering," would consolidate virtually all work performed under the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, the basic law that shapes agency resource management actions.

Nearly 8,000 employees out of the agency's 30,000 person workforce now perform work related to NEPA. Almost all of this work is done at the forest level.

From left, Colin Hardy of the U.S. Forest Service Fire Sciences Laboratory, and Lloyd Queen, director of University of Montana's Center for Landscape Fire Analysis, near the 2005 Valley Road Fire in Idaho. (Photo courtesy UM)

Nearly half of all Forest Service employees doing NEPA work - a total of 3,564 employees - also perform all-hazard duties when required.

Under the Business Process Reengineering, all functions related to NEPA would be moved into six "eco-based Service Centers" where forest planning would be standardized.

The purpose of this study, the consultants wrote, was "to identify ways to improve the United States Forest Service's approach to performing activities related to compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act."

PEER warns that this "agency-wide displacement would remove thousands of employees with fire-fighting responsibilities from national forests and relocate them in service centers.

The consultants suggest that the service centers should be "in cities close to colleges/universities" and "near other federal agencies and state offices."

PEER says the restructuring is likely to result in job cuts, as "a main objective of the Reengineering is to combine work now done on 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands. "

In her September 21, 2007 transmittal letter to her top management, Forest Service Chief Abigail Kimbell wrote "I support all the study findings and request your comments on the proposed implementation method."

The full original plan called for restructuring NEPA functions followed by inviting private consulting firms to bid for the newly consolidated work. But Congress cut off any more funding for outsourcing of Forest Service jobs in the FY 2008 omnibus appropriations law.

Still, the Service appears set to proceed with the centralization and downsizing recommended by the consultant.

"It is awfully late in the Bush administration to begin a gigantic game of bureaucratic musical chairs with thousands of people's jobs that may be reversed by the next Forest Service chief," said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "Rather than relying on consultants, the Forest Service should first consult Congress, the public and its own employees."

In recent years, the Forests Service has lost a long string of environmental lawsuits brought under NEPA, among other statutes. Plaintiffs win NEPA suits by showing that the agency did not consider major potential impacts of its plans.

While the NEPA Feasibility Study notes that "The vast majority of Forest Service projects require familiarity with conditions on the ground where the activities take place," the plan it recommends would remove virtually all of the agency experts from the places they know," PEER warns.

"The Forest Service should first find out why they are losing so many NEPA lawsuits before charging off in an expensive and possibly wrong direction," said Ruch, an attorney who pointed out that the consultants admit in their report that the Forest Service has no "quality standards" for NEPA work.

In 2003 and 2004 fiscal years, the Forest Service lost 44 court cases in which the agency was found guilty of violating environmental laws by a federal court.

The list of 44 cases is limited to cases where the court found both that the Forest Service violated the law and that its position could not be "substantially justified." In those instances, the agency was ordered to pay the attorney fees of the environmental group bringing the lawsuit. As a result, the Forest Service made payments to environmental groups totaling $2.2 million over those two fiscal years.

To view the feasibility study, click here.

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