GAO-02-920R Fuel Reduction Projects

United States General Accounting Office

Washington, DC 20548

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.

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.

 1

U.S. General Accounting Office, Forest Service: Appeals and Litigation of Fuel Reduction Projects,

GAO-01-1114R (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 31, 2001).
Page 2 GAO-02-920R Fuel Reduction Projects

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.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

 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).
Page 3 GAO-02-920R Fuel Reduction Projects

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

(360243)