Information on the Forest Service Appeals System

Gao ID: T-RCED-89-43 May 18, 1989

GAO discussed the Forest Service's appeals system to assess the number, processing time, and backlog of unresolved appeals, as well as whether appeals delayed timber sales. GAO found that: (1) the number of appeals increased from 584 to 1,298 between fiscal years 1983 and 1988; (2) nearly all delays were due to problems with Forest Service environmental analyses that did not meet all documentation requirements; (3) although the Forest Service has revised its environmental analysis procedures to ensure that analyses meet all requirements, the delays will continue for some time because of the absence of a sufficient inventory of future year sales with completed environmental analyses that could substitute for delayed sales; (4) rebuilding this inventory sufficiently to avoid further delays will take another 2 years and will require additional funding dedicated to sales preparation; and (5) the Forest Service will also need to dedicate additional funding to prepare its yearly target volumes in order to maintain this inventory level.



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