Forest Service
Scope and Methodology Used to Determine Number of Appeals and Legal Challenges of Fiscal Year 2001 Fuel Reduction Projects Gao ID: GAO-02-920R July 9, 2002Congress appropriated $205 million to the Forest Service for fiscal year 2001 to reduce hazardous accumulated fuels. In an effort to put as much of these appropriated monies on the ground as quickly as possible in fiscal year 2001, the Forest Service identified and funded those hazardous fuel reduction projects for which it had completed the necessary environmental analyses. As of July 2001, the Forest Service had completed the necessary environmental analyses to implement 1,671 hazardous fuel reduction projects in fiscal year 2001. Of those, 20 had been appealed, and none had been litigated. Appellants included environmental groups and individuals.
GAO-02-920R, Forest Service: Scope and Methodology Used to Determine Number of Appeals and Legal Challenges of Fiscal Year 2001 Fuel Reduction Projects
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Reduction Projects' which was released on July 11, 2002.
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July 9, 2002:
The Honorable Scott McInnis:
Chairman, Subcommittee on Forests & Forest Health:
Committee on Resources:
House of Representatives:
Subject: Forest Service: Scope and Methodology Used to Determine Number
of Appeals and Legal Challenges of Fiscal Year 2001 Fuel Reduction
Projects:
Dear Mr. Chairman:
Last summer, on the basis of your Subcommittee‘s request, we reviewed
certain issues related to efforts of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture‘s Forest Service to reduce accumulated hazardous forest
fuels. At that time, the Congress had appropriated more than $205
million to the Forest Service for fiscal year 2001 to be used to reduce
these accumulated fuels. In an effort to put as much of these newly
appropriated monies on the ground as quickly as possible in fiscal year
2001, the Forest Service identified and funded those hazardous fuel
reduction projects for which it had completed the necessary
environmental analyses.
Concerned that appeals and litigation were delaying the implementation
of these projects, your Subcommittee asked us to identify (1) the
number of hazardous forest fuel reduction projects for which the Forest
Service had completed the necessary environmental analyses and funded
implementation in fiscal year 2001, (2) the number of these projects
that had been appealed or litigated, and (3) who had appealed or
litigated the project decisions.
We provided your Subcommittee with a report transmitting this
information.[Footnote 1] In summary, we reported that as of July 18,
2001, the Forest Service had completed the necessary environmental
analyses to implement 1,671 hazardous fuel reduction projects in fiscal
year 2001. Of those projects, subsequently 20 (about 1 percent) had
been appealed, and none had been litigated. Appellants included
environmental groups, such as the Forest Conservation Council, and
individuals.
Many areas of the nation are gripped with severe drought this fire
season, making the excessive fuel build up on the national forests that
we have written about for years even more dangerous. The combination of
these conditions raises the potential that the 2002 fire season will be
one of the worst fire seasons on record. In this context, the issue of
what impact appeals and litigation have had on hazardous fuel reduction
projects will likely be raised. As such, you asked us to provide you
with information clarifying how we developed the data contained in our
August 31, 2001, report.
In developing data for that report, we obtained from Forest Service
headquarters a list of planned hazardous fuel reduction projects, by
national forest, which the Forest Service had identified for
implementation in fiscal year 2001. We then called each of the Forest
Service‘s nine regional offices and asked them to identify whether any
of the hazardous fuel reduction projects that were planned to be
implemented in fiscal year 2001 had been appealed or litigated, and if
so, the identity of the appellant or litigant.
There are a number of methodological issues that we would like to
clarify. First, since the Subcommittee‘s concern at that time was to
determine whether appeals or litigation were delaying projects that had
already completed the environmental analysis phase and were to be
implemented, we only obtained the appeals and litigation information
that affected these projects during fiscal year 2001. We did not obtain
any information on appeals and litigation that may have occurred
earlier in the development of these projects. Enclosure II to our
August 31, 2001, report lists the projects that were to be implemented
and were appealed in fiscal year 2001, and the status of those projects
as of mid-July 2001. Second, when obtaining the number of hazardous
fuel reduction projects for which the Forest Service had completed the
necessary environmental analyses, we did not determine the nature of
the environmental analyses. That is, we did not determine which of the
1,671 hazardous fuel reduction projects the Forest Service determined
were within a categorical exclusion from an environmental evaluation
under the National Environmental Policy Act and which ones were not
within such a categorical exclusion.[Footnote 2] When the Forest
Service determines the project qualifies for a categorical exclusion,
the project is not subject to administrative appeal. Finally, because
your Subcommittee asked us to provide the requested information as
quickly as possible, it was agreed with the Subcommittee‘s staff that
we would not verify the information that the Forest Service provided to
us.
As arranged with your office, unless you publicly announce its contents
earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 2 days
after the date of this report. At that time, we will send copies of
this report to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee
on Forests and Public Lands, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources; the Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Forests &
Forest Health, House Committee on Resources; interested congressional
communities; and the Chief, Forest Service. This report is also
available at no charge on GAO‘s home page at http://www.gao.gov.
Please call me at (202) 512-3841 if you or your staff have any
questions about this report. Key contributors to this report were
Chester Janik and Marcia McWreath.
Sincerely yours,
Barry T. Hill:
Director, Natural Resources and Environment:
Signed by Barry T. Hill:
FOOTNOTES
[1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Forest Service: Appeals and
Litigation of Fuel Reduction Projects, GAO-01-1114R (Washington, D.C.:
Aug. 31, 2001).
[2] A categorical exclusion is a class of actions that an agency has
determined has no significant environmental impact, and accordingly for
which the agency does not conduct environmental analyses under the act
(40 C.F.R. 1508.4).
