Strong analysis of the categorical exclusion loophole. The point about using NEPA shortcuts to bypass meaningful public comment exposes the core strategy here: legally maintaining federal ownership while functionally handing managment control to the state. Seen this playbook in other resource extraction contexts where the procedural workaround becomes the substantive outcome. The Dixie National Forest timing detail is the kind of specific evidence that makes this more than just specualtion about motives.
I know many western states are frustrated by the risks imposed by poorly maintained National Forest; by that I mean the hotter dryer conditions experienced by climate change and the rising fuel levels in the forests creating conditions for catastrophic fire events with groups of competing interests refusing to give an inch in negotiations towards a workable solution. In the end, all sides lose to extremely hot destructive fires destroying the delicate ecosystem and timber.
Personally I think we need fire crews, loggers, biologist and ecologist collectively working year round to reduce forest fuel to historically maintainable levels to strengthen the national forest eco system.
There's definitely work to be done in that realm. The concern I've been hearing here is that fire suppression is a cover for more extractive practices, and that the forest management plans aren't all that robust.
Yes, an environmental group from the San Francisco area made that resource extraction claim about the work done to help protect the redwoods in Yosemite, which goes exactly to the frustration experience that I was trying to articulate. In that particular case, it was environmentalist going after environmentalist.
Strong analysis of the categorical exclusion loophole. The point about using NEPA shortcuts to bypass meaningful public comment exposes the core strategy here: legally maintaining federal ownership while functionally handing managment control to the state. Seen this playbook in other resource extraction contexts where the procedural workaround becomes the substantive outcome. The Dixie National Forest timing detail is the kind of specific evidence that makes this more than just specualtion about motives.
https://www.opb.org/article/2022/07/19/decades-of-good-fires-save-yosemite-s-iconic-grove-of-ancient-sequoia-trees/
I know many western states are frustrated by the risks imposed by poorly maintained National Forest; by that I mean the hotter dryer conditions experienced by climate change and the rising fuel levels in the forests creating conditions for catastrophic fire events with groups of competing interests refusing to give an inch in negotiations towards a workable solution. In the end, all sides lose to extremely hot destructive fires destroying the delicate ecosystem and timber.
Personally I think we need fire crews, loggers, biologist and ecologist collectively working year round to reduce forest fuel to historically maintainable levels to strengthen the national forest eco system.
There's definitely work to be done in that realm. The concern I've been hearing here is that fire suppression is a cover for more extractive practices, and that the forest management plans aren't all that robust.
Yes, an environmental group from the San Francisco area made that resource extraction claim about the work done to help protect the redwoods in Yosemite, which goes exactly to the frustration experience that I was trying to articulate. In that particular case, it was environmentalist going after environmentalist.