a historical view of funding federal land management: the us forest service. paul hirt associate...
TRANSCRIPT
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A Historical View of Funding Federal Land Management:
the US Forest Service.
Paul HirtAssociate Professor of HistorySenior Sustainability Scholar
Arizona State University
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The Problem
• The accomplishments of federal land managing agencies are largely determined by what that agency is empowered to do by policy and enabled to do by its budget.
• An agency may have a mandate, yet lack the financial resources to fulfill it.
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The Problem
• There is a historical and continuing disjunction between natural resource management planning and natural resource management funding that stymies balanced integrated management and goal-accomplishment.
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Dimensions of the Problem
• Resource management planning is largely a professional exercise; budgeting is political.
• Resource planning is long-term; the appropriations process is annual.
• Congress will often direct an agency to achieve certain objectives and authorize an adequate budget for a task, then unabashedly fail to provide the funds to accomplish the tasks.
• This is Congress’s prerogative. It is standard practice.
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Dimensions of the Problem (cont.)
• Budget politics shift with every election and especially with changes in party majorities.
• Specific budget line items become the main focus in appropriations debates rather than the whole.
• Each interest group lobbies for its favorite budget items, and against their competitor’s interests.
• “Crises” and popular initiatives get funding while other budget items languish or get cut.
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Funding National Forest Management
• Originally a lump-sum budget from Congress to administer national forests.
• Gifford Pinchot sought to retain receipts to fund management, but Congress wanted more oversight and control.
• Timber sale and grazing fee revenue returned to Treasury.
• USFS not authorized to harvest timber on its own; must contract with private sector to accomplish management objectives.
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Funding National Forest Management
• Early efforts to earmark funds for certain activities: – 25% Payments in Lieu of Taxes (1908) – 10% returned receipts road fund authorized 1913– Knutson-Vandenberg timber sale area betterment
funds (10% authorized in 1930, unlimited retention of timber sale receipts permitted after NFMA in 1976)
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Publication date: 1996
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Line Item Budgeting
• Over 20th century Congress & OMB become more explicit about funding for distinct programs: – Timber sales administration– Road construction – Recreation – Grazing– Wildlife– Watershed and soil – Fire suppression – Research and cooperative forestry
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Hirt, A Conspiracy of O
ptimism
, p. 212
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Budgeting Imbalance Under Eisenhower Administration
Hirt, A Conspiracy of Optimism, p. 211.
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Hirt, A Conspiracy of O
ptimism
, p. 237.
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Hirt, A Conspiracy of O
ptimism
, p. 258.
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On budget politics during the 1970s-1980s, see:
V. Alaric Sample, The Impact of the Federal Budget Process on National Forest Planning (Praeger, 1990).
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Events in the Late ‘60s and ‘70s
• National Timber Supply Bill of 1969: to reduce lumber prices & stimulate home construction, would earmark all timber sale funds for intense silviculture to maximize production.
• RPA & NFMA: attempt to address disjunction between planning and funding, arising out of battle between Nixon and Congress.
• Expansion of K-V funds earmarked for “timber sale area betterment” in NFMA (originally authorized in 1930 Knutson-Vandenberg Act).
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Forest Fire Funding—A special case
• Fire control/management has had its own historical trajectory and is treated differently than other forms of resource management funding.
Horseshoe II fire, Chiricahua Mountains, 2011)
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Blank Check for Fire SuppressionIn 1908 Congress passed a law allowing the Forest Service to overspend its budget during fire emergencies and send it a bill afterward.
(S. Pyne, America’s Fires, 26.)
Gifford Pinchot, first Chief of the U.S. Forest Service.
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(S. Pyne, America’s Fires, 56.)
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(S. Pyne, America’s Fires, 47.)
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(S. Pyne, America’s Fires, 71.)
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Monument Fire, Huachuca Mountains, 2011
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Wallow Fire, White Mountains, 2011, largest fire in Arizona history.
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S. Pyne, America’s Fires, p. 48.
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Doug MacCleery, Reinventing the United States Forest Service, http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/ai412e/AI412E06.htm
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Summary of Funding Mechanisms 1
• Lump sum budget with agency discretion– perceived as undemocratic and insular
• Line item budgets with careful OMB and congressional oversight – Chronic problem of imbalanced funding of
integrated resource management• Earmarks and receipts retention (10% road
fund, K-V funds) • Blank check for “emergencies” (fire)
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Summary of Funding Mechanisms 2
• Performance based funding – attempted during Eisenhower Administration:
increase in timber sale and road budgets were tied to higher timber harvest quotas. What about resource goals lacking measurable outputs?
• Market-based funding – Randall O’Toole, Reforming the Forest Service
(1988): make all national forests run on direct receipts, end subsidies, marketize all forest uses.
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Closing Thoughts…
• These are “public lands”; not a for-profit business.• These are biological resources not a storehouse of
commodities. Many ecosystem services cannot be effectively dollarized.
• No silver bullet. No funding mechanism can solve all problems and none is without risks. “All of the above”?
• Funding will always be politicized. • “Democracy is the worst possible form of
government…except for all the rest.” (W. Churchill)