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ACCOUNTABILITY, POLICIES, AND 

TACTICS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT 

WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE 

INTERIOR AND THE U.S. FOREST 

SERVICE 

OVERSIGHT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND 

INVESTIGATIONS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

Tuesday, July 28, 2015 

Serial No. 114–17 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Natural Resources 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 

or 

Committee address: http://naturalresources.house.gov 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES 

ROB BISHOP, UT, Chairman 

RAU ́ L M. GRIJALVA, AZ, Ranking Democratic Member 

Don Young, AK 

Louie Gohmert, TX 

Doug Lamborn, CO 

Robert J. Wittman, VA 

John Fleming, LA 

Tom McClintock, CA 

Glenn Thompson, PA 

Cynthia M. Lummis, WY 

Dan Benishek, MI 

Jeff Duncan, SC 

Paul A. Gosar, AZ 

Rau ́l R. Labrador, ID 

Doug LaMalfa, CA 

Jeff Denham, CA 

Paul Cook, CA 

Bruce Westerman, AR 

Garret Graves, LA 

Dan Newhouse, WA 

Ryan K. Zinke, MT 

Jody B. Hice, GA 

Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS 

Thomas MacArthur, NJ 

Alexander X. Mooney, WV 

Cresent Hardy, NV 

Vacancy 

Grace F. Napolitano, CA 

Madeleine Z. Bordallo, GU 

Jim Costa, CA 

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, CNMI 

Niki Tsongas, MA 

Pedro R. Pierluisi, PR 

Jared Huffman, CA 

Raul Ruiz, CA 

Alan S. Lowenthal, CA 

Matt Cartwright, PA 

Donald S. Beyer, Jr., VA 

Norma J. Torres, CA 

Debbie Dingell, MI 

Ruben Gallego, AZ 

Lois Capps, CA 

Jared Polis, CO 

Wm. Lacy Clay, MO 

Jason Knox, Chief of Staff 

Lisa Pittman, Chief Counsel 

David Watkins, Democratic Staff Director 

Sarah Parker, Democratic Deputy Chief Counsel 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS 

LOUIE GOHMERT, TX, Chairman 

DEBBIE DINGELL, MI, Ranking Democratic Member 

Doug Lamborn, CO 

Rau ́l R. Labrador, ID 

Bruce Westerman, AR 

Jody B. Hice, GA 

Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, AS 

Alexander X. Mooney, WV 

Vacancy 

Rob Bishop, UT, ex officio 

Jared Huffman, CA 

Ruben Gallego, AZ 

Jared Polis, CO 

Wm. Lacy Clay, MO 

Vacancy 

Rau ́l M. Grijalva, AZ, ex officio 

(III) 

CONTENTS 

Page 

Hearing held on Tuesday, July 28, 2015 ............................................................... 1 

Statement of Members: 

Dingell, Hon. Debbie, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Michigan ........................................................................................................ 6 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 8 

Gohmert, Hon. Louie, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas .............................................................................................................. 1 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 6 

Statement of Witnesses: 

Brown, Dave, Sheriff, Skamania County, Washington ................................. 9 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 11 

Ehnes, Russ, Executive Director, National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council, Great Falls, Montana ............................................................. 17 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 19 

Larkin, Paul Jr., Senior Legal Research Fellow, Edwin Meese III Center 

for Legal and Justice Studies, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, 

DC .................................................................................................................. 27 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 28 

Schoppmeyer, Christopher, Vice President for Agency Affairs, Federal 

Law Enforcement Officers Association, Washington, DC .......................... 20 

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 22 

Questions submitted for the record ......................................................... 25 

Additional Materials Submitted for the Record: 

ACLU—American Civil Liberties Union, Washington, DC, July 28, 2015 

letter to Chairman Gohmert and Ranking Member Dingell ..................... 43 

List of documents submitted for the record retained in the Committee’s 

official files .................................................................................................... 52 

Utah to BLM: Rein in your cops, Brian Maffly, The Salt Lake Tribune, 

October 19, 2014 ........................................................................................... 2 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON ACCOUNTABILITY, 

POLICIES, AND TACTICS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE 

INTERIOR AND THE U.S. FOREST SERVICE 

Tuesday, July 28, 2015 

U.S. House of Representatives 

Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations 

Committee on Natural Resources 

Washington, DC 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., in room 

1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Louie Gohmert, 

[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Gohmert, Westerman, Hice, 

Radewagen, Mooney, Bishop (ex officio); Dingell, Huffman, and 

Gallego. 

Mr. GOHMERT. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations will come to order. 

This subcommittee is meeting today to hear testimony on accountability, policies, and tactics of law enforcement within the 

Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service. 

Under Committee Rule 4(f), any oral statements at this hearing 

are limited to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member. This 

will allow us to hear from our witnesses sooner and let Members 

keep to their schedules. 

Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that all other Members’ 

opening statements for this meeting be made part of the hearing 

record if they are submitted to the Subcommittee Clerk by 5:00 

p.m. today. 

Hearing no objection, so ordered. 

Also, I politely ask that everyone in this hearing please silence 

your cell phones. Make sure that there is nothing that goes off. 

When I was a judge, I would have my bailiff confiscate any phones 

that went off; and then you had to do a couple hundred hours of 

community service to get it back. I do not have a bailiff here as 

such; so I just have to ask that you keep your cell phone silent, 

please. Thank you. 

All right. I will now recognize myself for 5 minutes for an 

opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. LOUIE GOHMERT, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. GOHMERT. Today we are discussing the accountability of law 

enforcement within our land management agencies. I would like to 

recognize from the start the important work of hundreds of law enforcement employees from the Department of the Interior to the 

U.S. Forest Service. These men and women risk everything to 

2 

protect our iconic landmarks, natural resources, as well as critical 

energy infrastructure. 

Just last year, 38-year-old Forest Service Officer Jason Crisp and 

his K-9 partner were killed while pursuing an armed murder suspect. That was a horrible tragedy, and his sacrifice should be remembered by all of us. 

Clearly, there are many, many excellent officers out there just 

doing their job day in and day out. Unfortunately, we have come 

to learn of situations that place local law enforcement officers at 

odds with their Federal counterparts. 

I would like to enter into the record an article from the Salt Lake 

Tribune published in October of 2014, entitled ‘‘Utah to BLM: Rein 

in Your Cops.’’ 

The article begins, ‘‘Public Enemy No. 1 for rural Utah sheriffs 

just happens to be a fellow peace officer named Dan Love, the 

Bureau of Land Management’s special agent in charge.’’ 

[The article submitted for the record by Mr. Gohmert follows:] 

Utah to BLM: Rein in your cops 

By Brian Maffly 

The Salt Lake Tribune 

Published October 19, 2014 10:12 am 

Law enforcement • Sheriffs say federal rangers overstep their authority 

and blame Utah-Nevada special agent for escalation of conflicts. 

Public Enemy No. 1 for rural Utah sheriffs just happens to be a fellow peace 

officer: Dan Love, the Bureau of Land Management’s special agent in charge. 

Elected law enforcement officers from Nephi to Blanding call him an arrogant and 

dishonest bully who has little regard for local authority and dodges accountability, 

derailing a collaborative approach to police work on the state’s federal lands. 

Love reportedly just laughed when Garfield County Sheriff James ‘‘Danny’’ 

Perkins relayed ranchers’ complaints about federal officers removing plastic feed 

tubs from the range and threatening the ranchers with litter citations. 

He drew early controversy during an undercover probe of artifacts trafficking in 

Blanding in 2009. More recently, Love led the BLM’s aborted roundup of Cliven 

Bundy’s cattle following an armed standoff with anti-government protesters at the 

Utah-Nevada border. 

While tensions with federal authority are hardly new to Utah, local officials say 

friction has intensified with Love at the helm of BLM law enforcement in Utah and 

Nevada. 

Now top state officials want Love gone. ‘‘This is untenable,’’ said Lt. Gov. Spencer 

Cox. ‘‘There comes a time when personalities get in the way of productivity.’’ 

For his part, Love is not talking. 

Local officials may share some of the blame for the poor relations. According to 

court filings, elected leaders and even deputies have confronted BLM rangers, publicly challenging their authority. 

But Love’s critics say his intimidating attitude and unwillingness to consult with 

counties exemplify a ‘‘culture of arrogance’’ that undermines cooperation in Utah’s 

remote reaches. The public loses, safety is compromised and tax dollars are wasted, 

Utah’s rural sheriffs say. 

‘‘This refusal to coordinate, coupled with a lack of any meaningful oversight, has 

created a perfect environment where the abuse of federal law enforcement powers 

can occur,’’ Perkins recently testified before a congressional committee. 

For example, Perkins and San Juan County Sheriff Rick Eldredge say, rangers 

pull over citizens without probable cause, even in areas where they have no jurisdiction, ‘‘bully’’ ranch hands, berate tourists for parking vehicles off dirt roads and illegally close roads. Federal officers refuse to help with searches and rescues, or when 

they do, they get in the way. 

3 

BLM law enforcement officials would not speak on the record, but an agency 

spokeswoman said BLM does takes complaints seriously. 

‘‘When we receive specifics regarding these allegations, we look into the incidents 

and take corrective action if appropriate,’’ Celia Boddington said. ‘‘However, it is difficult for us to address allegations when they are either not reported to us or reported several months after the event.’’ 

Still, the agency is revising its command structure to make law enforcement 

responsive to local concerns. 

‘‘We enjoy positive and constructive relations with the majority of sheriffs,’’ 

Boddington said, ‘‘and couldn’t get our job done without working closely with them 

and their teams.’’ 

—— 

Broken accords • One recent flap surrounding Love stems from the contracts the 

BLM signs with some sheriff’s departments, compensating them for patrolling public 

lands and conducting searches and rescues. 

State and local officials allege Love recently ‘‘terminated’’ such contracts with five 

counties as retribution for the state’s enactment last year of HB155, which limits 

the authority of officers employed by federal land agencies. 

While discussing the contracts with BLM’s top law enforcement official, Salvatore 

Lauro, recently, Cox asked him to assign a new special agent in charge for Utah. 

‘‘They are not willing to make that replacement at this time,’’ Cox said, ‘‘but they 

are willing to work toward improving those relations.’’ 

The lieutenant governor said he and other state officials have negotiated face to 

face with Love, and have gotten nowhere. 

‘‘If I was going to battle, I’d want him beside me,’’ Cox told a recent meeting of 

Utah’s Commission on Federalism. ‘‘But I don’t want him instigating a war.’’ 

Love has declined lawmakers’ invitation to speak at legislative committees. BLM 

officials won’t discuss individual employees and wouldn’t make Love available for 

an interview. 

But they denied retribution played any role in the contract decisions. 

According to Boddington, the BLM allowed the contracts to expire after higherups found them legally defective during routine reviews. Agreements with Kane, 

San Juan, Emery, Juab and Grand county sheriffs—worth about $178,000 a year— 

expired in 2012. 

‘‘The BLM’s review of the contracts was underway prior to the bill introduction,’’ 

she said. ‘‘There is no connection of any kind between our review and HB155.’’ 

To patrol Utah’s 23 million acres of public lands, the BLM employs 15 uniformed 

rangers or field officers. Seven special agents who investigate violations of federal 

law related to public lands and natural resources also work for BLM, which administers about 40 percent of Utah’s land base. All report in varying degrees to Love, 

who has served in the top spot for less than a decade. 

—— 

Threat to public safety? • The situation has become so tense, or perhaps juvenile, 

that federal and local officers sometimes threaten to arrest each other. 

Garfield and at least three other counties have passed resolutions declaring 

federal authority unwelcome, alleging BLM law enforcement presents a threat to 

‘‘health, safety and welfare.’’ 

Retired rangers say the tensions date back to the 1970s, when the BLM began 

assigning field rangers. Controversial BLM operations, such as the artifact raids in 

Blanding or the Bundy standoff at Bunkerville, Nev., bring ‘‘long-simmering’’ 

resentments to the surface, said Ed Patrovsky, who patrolled the 3.2-million-acre 

Craig district spanning parts of nine northwest Colorado counties. 

‘‘The problems lie on both sides,’’ Patrovsky said. ‘‘Some sheriffs are territorial. 

They see federal officers as competitors rather than cooperators. Some of the federal 

officers come in with the same attitude.’’ 

He said the BLM’s hiring patterns in the past two decades have contributed to 

the problem. Instead of recruiting rangers from other land agencies, it now tends 

to tap agencies such as the Border Patrol and Bureau of Prisons. 

‘‘They are hiring rangers that don’t have the natural resource ethic that ties them 

to the land,’’ Patrovsky said. 

Still, today’s widespread anti-federal sentiment complicates rangers’ jobs. 

‘‘Things can snowball and gather their own momentum without any fault on the 

part of the ranger,’’ said Patrovsky, who was deputized by the Moffat County sheriff 

4 

during his years in Craig. ‘‘There is an atmosphere of fear and intimidation out 

there and rangers are afraid to speak out.’’ 

It is common for Utah sheriffs to deputize U.S. Forest Service and National Park 

Service officers, but no BLM rangers are currently deputized in Utah. 

—— 

‘He had no jurisdiction’ • BLM arrest statistics seem to undermine claims of an 

overbearing presence. Rangers made just three arrests in Utah in 2012, and issued 

27 citations and 110 warnings. 

County officials, however, say they are more concerned with incidents that don’t 

wind up in court, but illustrate a lack of respect toward the sheriff’s role as a county’s chief law enforcement officer. At a recent congressional hearing, Garfield 

County Commissioner Leland Pollock likened BLM law enforcement operations to 

‘‘the Gestapo.’’ 

Perkins said tourists have complained they will never return to Garfield County 

after their treatment by rangers in the Grand Staircase Escalante National 

Monument. 

In his legislative testimony, Eldredge said a BLM ranger confronted him on his 

family’s property adjacent to BLM land and the Ute Mountain Ute community. The 

ranger, who didn’t recognize the sheriff, erroneously admonished Eldredge against 

driving on tribal land. The ranger backed off and apologized when Eldredge identified himself, but the sheriff was in no forgiving mood. 

‘‘He didn’t even know whose land it was,’’ Eldredge told lawmakers earlier this 

month. ‘‘He just wanted to give me a bad time. Even if it was [land administered 

by Bureau of Indian Affairs], he had no jurisdiction to tell me stay off.’’ 

Many county leaders don’t hesitate to praise BLM Utah Director Juan Palma, 

regarded as a warm public servant committed to bridging the federal-state divide. 

But whatever goodwill Palma builds, Love and officers under his command put 

a match to it, local officials say. 

Pollock points to an effort by Garfield County officials to hammer out a law 

enforcement contract with the BLM, similar to the agency’s agreement with neighboring Kane County. Garfield County is also home to the Grand Staircase 

monument, and last year, its six-deputy department spent $70,000 on helicopter 

time and 265 staff hours rescuing monument visitors. 

Love refused to execute a contract, according to Pollock. 

‘‘We budgeted based on my negotiations with Juan Palma, and all of the sudden 

he said he couldn’t do it,’’ Pollock said. ‘‘That’s sick and wrong. We hired a deputy 

that would have made the Grand Staircase a safer place, and this one guy killed 

it.’’ 

Meanwhile, Perkins contends the BLM ranger assigned to the county refuses to 

coordinate with deputies on searches and rescues. He once prematurely called in a 

helicopter, Perkins said, which sat idle for four hours before it returned to base, refueled, and came back with another pilot. 

—— 

BLM cops and civilians • Counties also complain that BLM law enforcement 

operates at cross purposes with its own civilian land-management staff. 

Perkins and Pollock cited an incident where a ranger posted roads with closed 

signs shortly before the opening of a limited entry hunt. Locals complained to the 

BLM field manager, who determined that the roads should be open, according to the 

sheriff. 

But when the manager took down the signs, the BLM ranger threatened to arrest 

him. The ranger kept his hand on his holster as if preparing to draw his service 

weapon, Perkins said, and the BLM manager told the sheriff he felt his life was in 

danger. 

In a more documented case, BLM law enforcement clashed with civilian 

colleagues in Garfield County over a dead body. 

Love and a team of FBI agents unearthed human remains discovered in the national monument in 2008, reasoning the site could be a crime scene. The monument 

archaeologist objected, however, believing the site was likely historic and any excavation should have been led by scientists. 

The archaeologist was baffled that law enforcement did not notify him of their 

plans, and that Love failed to return his phone calls, according to BLM documents 

obtained through a records request. 

5 

The archaeologist was excluded as the cops dug up the body with a TV crew 

filming. The remains turned out to be that of an American Indian who died in the 

19th century. 

All sides agree better cooperation would minimize such disagreements and make 

the job of law enforcement easier. The challenge will be re-establishing trust. 

It may seem improbable that a single officer could become so notorious, but hearings right here in this committee have confirmed 

that the BLM is able to ignore the authority of local sheriffs and 

other elected officials without repercussions. 

One county commissioner described their issues with BLM as 

‘‘bullying, intimidation and a lack of integrity.’’ 

Appeals from the highest levels of the Utah state government 

were met with open ears from Bureau officials, but zero action was 

taken. This particular officer continues to make new friends and 

has popped up in the news again for his adoration of Choco Tacos 

and demands for superstar treatment at outdoor hippie festivals. 

We could easily conclude that this was just one rogue officer and 

surely he will be dealt with, but that is not the case. If we have 

a system that allows this to continue, then these accountability 

issues will remain unchanged and repeated. In fact, I have heard 

surprising stories from local authorities and government officials in 

my own district regarding abuses or callous ignoring of the needs 

of local officials who have difficulty getting needed cooperation from 

Federal authorities in charge of land within their county. 

Once we come to a better understanding of how these problems 

have been able to persist, we can move to a suitable corrective action. We have four witnesses today offering a variety of perspectives with experience we value. From their testimony we will hear 

how something in the implementation of this ‘‘stove-piping’’ of authority is foiling responsive, efficient, and accountable performance. 

I invite our witnesses to tell us how this can be better understood 

and addressed. 

I am also concerned that Federal law enforcement have actively 

usurped state authority. I want to know how this occurs and how 

it must stop. Local sheriffs are elected and held accountable by 

their constituents. Regardless of the party in the White House, 

Federal officers’ accountability only seems to be present if there is 

adequate congressional oversight and if congressional consequences 

exist for any impropriety. Even so, it is nearly impossible to dismiss a Federal employee. 

At some point, we will welcome input from the Administration; 

but it is my understanding that they were unwilling to send representatives from the sub-agencies we requested to testify at this 

hearing. That type of callousness is the very type that we must 

either stop, or defund the noncompliant bureau, agency, or 

department. 

Nevertheless, we will continue to dialog and look forward to uncovering ways to bring accountability to Federal law enforcement. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gohmert follows:] 

6 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. LOUIE GOHMERT, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

Today we are discussing the accountability of law enforcement within our land 

management agencies. I’d like to recognize from the start the important work of 

hundreds of law enforcement employees from the Department of the Interior to the 

U.S. Forest Service. These men and women risk everything to protect our iconic 

landmarks, natural resources as well as critical energy infrastructure. Just last 

year, 38-year-old Forest Service Officer Jason Crisp and his K-9 partner were killed 

while pursuing an armed murder suspect. That was a horrible tragedy and his sacrifice should be remembered by all of us. 

Clearly there are many, many excellent officers out there just doing their job day 

in and day out. Unfortunately, we have come to learn of situations that place local 

law enforcement officers at odds with their Federal counterparts. 

I’d like to enter into the record an article from the Salt Lake Tribune, published 

in October of 2014, entitled ‘‘Utah to BLM: Rein in Your Cops.’’ The article begins, 

‘‘Public Enemy No. 1 for rural Utah sheriffs just happens to be a fellow peace officer: 

Dan Love, the Bureau of Land Management’s special agent in charge.’’ 

It may seem improbable that a single officer could become so notorious, but hearings right here in this committee confirmed that the BLM is able to ignore the authority of local sheriffs and other elected officials without repercussions. One county 

commissioner described their issues with BLM as ‘‘bullying, intimidation and lack 

of integrity.’’ Appeals from the highest levels of the Utah state government were 

met with open ears from bureau officials, but zero action was taken. This particular 

officer continues to make new friends and has popped up in the news again for his 

adoration of Choco Tacos and demands for superstar treatment at outdoor hippie 

festivals. 

We could easily conclude that this is just one rogue officer and surely he’ll be 

dealt with. But that isn’t the case. If we have a system that allows this to continue, 

then these accountability issues will remain unchanged and repeated. 

In fact, I have heard surprising stories from local authorities or government officials in my district regarding abuses or the calloused ignoring of the needs of local 

officials who have difficulty getting needed cooperation from Federal authorities in 

charge of land within their county. 

Once we come to a better understanding of how these problems have been able 

to persist, we can move to a suitable corrective action. We have four witnesses today 

offering a variety of perspectives with experience we value. From their testimony 

we will hear how something in the implementation of this ‘‘stove-piping’’ of authority is foiling responsive, efficient and accountable performance. I invite our witnesses to tell us how this can be better understood and addressed. 

I’m also concerned that Federal law enforcement have actively usurped state authority. I want to know how this occurs and how it must stop. Local sheriffs are 

elected and held accountable by their constituents. Regardless of the party in the 

White House, Federal officers’ accountability only seems to be present if there is 

adequate congressional oversight, and congressional consequences for any impropriety. Even so, it is nearly impossible to dismiss a Federal employee. 

At some point we will welcome input from the Administration, but it is my understanding they were unwilling to send representatives from the sub-agencies we requested to testify at this hearing. That type of callousness is the very type that we 

must either stop, or defund the non-compliant bureau, agency, or department. 

Nevertheless, we will continue to dialog and look forward to uncovering ways to 

bring accountability to Federal law enforcement. 

Mr. GOHMERT. At this time I would like to call upon our Ranking 

Member, Mrs. Dingell, for her opening statement. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. DEBBIE DINGELL, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mrs. DINGELL. Good morning and thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to give my thanks to all the witnesses this morning for 

taking the time and the trouble to testify, and I want to give particular thanks to Sheriff Brown and Mr. Schoppmeyer for their 

service. 

7 

Law enforcement within Federal land management agencies is 

no easy task. Conservation law enforcement officers face challenges 

that are significantly different than those faced by nonconservation law enforcement. The breadth of the crimes that they 

confront and the laws that they enforce are unlike any other. 

As the Chairman has raised, there may be some problems; but 

we need to respect and understand the importance of what law enforcement is doing in these conservation areas. 

A study of the crimes confronted by the Forest Service law 

enforcement officers found that they fall into three categories. The 

first is urban-associated crime, which includes arson, body dumping, gang activity, and other types of criminal behavior. 

The second is drug activity, like armed defense of marijuana 

cultivation on Forest Service land, or methamphetamine labs—that 

is always a hard word. 

The third is violence perpetrated by members of extremist and 

nontraditional groups, like satanic cults, survivalists, and militia/ 

supremacy groups. These groups are tough. 

The law enforcement officers there protect the resources we 

depend on every day and provide for public safety. While these officers’ mandates are unique, the officers and the work that they do 

is under attack. 

We will hear today about a proposal to weaken enforcement 

mechanisms for the Lacey Act by decriminalizing it, despite the use 

of illegally harvested plant or animal products, like ivory, to fund 

terrorist groups. 

Like I do every night before our hearings, I was doing my late 

night study. The Chairman raised the issue of ‘‘stove-piping.’’ So I 

learned last night that it was instituted after years of pressure 

from watchdogs and Congress and was implemented to make 

Forest Service law enforcement more effective, fair, and 

independent. 

So I want to make sure, as we are looking at it, that we are fair 

and objective on all of it, while I recognize that there may be 

issues. 

And we will hear about the FOCUS Act, which would remove the 

ability for the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA enforcement officers to carry firearms. 

The work performed by land management agency law enforcement is just as challenging, just as important, and just as dangerous as other law enforcement jobs. These Americans put their 

lives on the line whenever they report for work in an effort to 

protect us and our natural resources. 

The Chairman mentioned Jason Crisp. I want to talk more in detail about him. Before starting with the U.S. Forest Service as a 

law enforcement officer in 2004, Jason Crisp served with the 

McDowell County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina for 7 years. He 

developed a reputation as a selfless person who was eager to provide assistance. 

In 2014, Officer Crisp was investigating the case of a couple 

found dead in their home. There was evidence of a struggle and a 

missing vehicle. Police soon began to suspect that the couple’s son 

was the killer. Over 100 officers from six agencies joined the manhunt. At about 3:00 p.m., the suspect purportedly ambushed Officer 

8 

Crisp and his K-9 partner. He shot the dog and Officer Crisp, took 

Crisp’s gun, and kept running. 

An Avery County Sheriff’s Deputy, and troopers assigned to 

Burke County who were near the shooting, attempted to save 

Officer Crisp’s life, but they were unable to. 

Soon after, the suspect was found and refused to drop his 

weapon. The suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 

U.S. Forest Service Officer Jason Crisp is survived by his wife, 

Amanda and his sons, Garrett and Logan. He was 38 years old. 

I hope as we undertake these hearings that we will always 

remember the contributions and sacrifices of our law enforcement 

officers. 

I yield back the balance of my time. 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Dingell follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HON. DEBBIE DINGELL, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

Good morning and thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to give my thanks to all the 

witnesses for taking the trouble to testify today. And I also want to thank both 

Sheriff Brown and Mr. Schoppmeyer for their service. 

Law enforcement within Federal land management agencies is no easy task. 

Conservation law enforcement officers face challenges that are significantly different 

than those faced by non-conservation law enforcement. The breadth of crimes they 

confront and the laws they enforce are unlike any other. 

A study of the crimes confronted by Forest Service law enforcement officers found 

that they fall into three categories. The first is urban-associated crime, which includes arson, body dumping, gang activity, and other types of criminal behavior. The 

second is drug activity, like armed defense of marijuana cultivation on forest service 

land, or methamphetamine labs. The third is violence perpetrated by members of 

extremist and nontraditional groups like satanic cults, survivalists, and militia/ 

supremacy groups. They protect the resources we depend on every day and provide 

for public safety. 

While these officers’ mandates are unique, the officers and the work they do is 

also under attack. 

We will hear today about a proposal to weaken enforcement mechanisms for the 

Lacey Act by decriminalizing it, despite the use of illegally harvested plant or animal products like ivory to fund terrorist groups. We will hear about why we should 

remove a management structure called stove-piping that was instituted after years 

of pressure from watchdogs and Congress, and which was implemented to make 

Forest Service law enforcement more effective, fair, and independent. And we will 

hear about the FOCUS Act, which would remove the ability for Fish and Wildlife 

Service and NOAA enforcement officers to carry firearms. 

The work performed by land management agency law enforcement is just as challenging, just as important, and just as dangerous as other law enforcement jobs. 

These Americans put their lives on the line whenever they report for work in an 

effort to protect us and our natural resources. 

Before starting with the U.S. Forest Service as a law enforcement officer in 2004, 

Jason Crisp served with the McDowell County Sheriff’s office in North Carolina for 

7 years. He developed a reputation as a selfless person who was eager to provide 

assistance. 

In 2014, Officer Crisp was investigating the case of a couple found dead in their 

home. There was evidence of a struggle and a missing vehicle. Police soon began 

to suspect the couple’s son to be the killer. Over 100 officers from about six agencies 

joined the manhunt. 

At about 3 p.m., the suspect reportedly ambushed Officer Crisp and his K-9 

partner. He shot the dog and Officer Crisp, took Crisp’s gun and kept running. An 

Avery County Sheriff’s deputy and troopers assigned to Burke County, who were 

near the shooting, attempted to save Officer Crisp’s life, but were unable. Soon 

after, the suspect was found and refused to drop his weapon. He died of a selfinflicted gunshot wound. 

U.S. Forest Service Officer Jason Crisp is survived by his wife, Amanda, and his 

sons, Garrett and Logan. He was 38 years old. 

I hope we will always remember the contributions and sacrifices of our law 

enforcement officers. I yield back my time. 

9 

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the Ranking Member very much for her 

opening statement. 

Now I will introduce the witnesses. We are very pleased that you 

arrived here, and have done so voluntarily; and obviously, you do 

not come for the big bucks because you do not even get reimbursed. 

That is why we appreciate so much your appearance here today, 

all four of you. Thank you. 

First we have Sheriff Dave Brown of Skamania County, 

Washington. We also have Mr. Russ Ehnes, who is the Executive 

Director at the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation 

Council. Next is Mr. Christopher Schoppmeyer, who is the Vice 

President of Agency Affairs at the Federal Law Enforcement 

Officers Association. And finally, we have Mr. Paul Larkin, Jr., 

who is the Senior Legal Research Fellow with the Edwin Meese 

Center for Legal and Justice Studies at The Heritage Foundation. 

Let me remind the witnesses that, under our Committee Rules, 

oral statements are limited to 5 minutes. You have a timer in front 

of you. Your written statements—I know that my colleague and I 

both do late night work in preparation, and we have read your 

statements. We are greatly appreciative of your written statements, and those will be entered as part of the record, regardless 

of whether you get that finished within 5 minutes or not. If you 

care to expand on that within your 5 minutes and bring up something that is not in the written testimony, it will still be part of 

the record. 

When you begin the light on the witness table will be green. 

When you have 1 minute remaining, the yellow light will come on, 

and when your time has expired, the red light comes on. At that 

time it will be gaveled to complete. 

So the Chair recognizes Sheriff Brown for your opening statement. You are recognized for 5 minutes, Sheriff. Thanks for being 

here. 

STATEMENT OF DAVE BROWN, SHERIFF, SKAMANIA COUNTY, 

WASHINGTON 

Sheriff BROWN. Thank you, Chairman Gohmert, Ranking 

Member Dingell, members of the committee. 

I am here today to testify on behalf of the Western States 

Sheriffs’ Association and the more than 800 sheriffs in the 15 

states that we represent. 

The nearly 200 million acres of Federal forestland managed by 

the U.S. Forest Service represents a national treasure of incredible 

value, the treasure of natural beauty and resources deserving 

sound management and protection. U.S. Forest Service has been 

tasked with that management and protection to include the dedicated law enforcement officers, or LEOs, who enforce resource 

protection laws. 

With over 28 years of law enforcement experience in Skamania 

County, including 9 years patrolling the Gifford Pinchot National 

Forest, I routinely worked with district rangers and LEOs. The 

productive working relationships I developed in the late 1980s and 

early 1990s changed in 1993 when U.S. Forest Service law enforcement investigations became an independent entity under central 

direction from Washington, DC. 

10 

This restructuring, commonly called the ‘‘stove-pipe effect,’’ took 

place just 1 year prior to the implementation of the Northwest 

Forest Plan. The effect of this over time has served only to distract 

LEOs from their primary responsibility of resource protection by 

shifting their focus to law enforcement functions traditionally addressed by county sheriffs. 

Additional LEOs were added to patrol efforts. K-9 units and 

radar enforcement capabilities were added. Traffic enforcement off 

national forest system roads became common, and individuals were 

often arrested on state warrants. 

Funding also provided to sheriffs for cooperative law enforcement 

contracts declined. It became evident the Forest Service law enforcement was no longer focused on resource protection. While 

Skamania County has no Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, 

managed land, sheriffs across the western states struggle with 

similar issues in witnessing the BLM migration away from resource protection. 

These actions were recognized by county sheriffs as being outside 

the scope of authority and jurisdiction of both the Forest Service 

and the BLM. 

The failure of the ‘‘stove-piping’’ of Forest Service law enforcement was the subject of a congressional hearing in 1998. The 

issues we are discussing here today are the same issues that were 

discussed without resolution 17 years ago. 

There have, however, been some successes in the past 4 years. 

We began building stronger relationships with the Forest Service. 

The Western States Sheriffs’ Association has worked together with 

the Director of Forest Service Law Enforcement and Investigations 

to create a Memorandum of Agreement, including a template when 

sheriffs are considering providing state authority to an LEO. 

In the agreement, the Forest Service acknowledges the sheriff is 

the chief law enforcement officer in the county. As such, the sheriff 

is accountable and responsible to the citizens for promoting a law 

enforcement philosophy for their county, including our public lands. 

County sheriffs, the managers of Federal law enforcement agencies, 

and the public deserve a positive working relationship and open 

lines of communication. 

I submit there are five immediate remedies to accomplish this. 

First, eliminate the stove-pipe structure of the Forest Service law 

enforcement. Reintegrate the Special Agents in Charge and the 

LEOs into the regional and local structure to reconnect the Forest 

Service law enforcement with the county sheriff and the lands they 

protect. 

Two, create a local law enforcement council chaired by the sheriff 

to include Forest Service and BLM representatives for effective 

local oversight. 

Three, review the Code of Federal Regulation and eliminate language that assimilates state crimes or state statutes into Forest 

Service and BLM enforcement. 

Four, examine staffing levels of the Forest Service and the BLM 

law enforcement agencies and align those levels to the management activities on the lands they protect. 

Five, expand cooperative law enforcement agreements with the 

county sheriff. 

11 

While these hearings are important to expose the issues and 

openly debate them, right now is the time for action. Now is the 

time to take substantive steps to rebuild trust among sheriffs and 

our Federal partners. 

I urge this committee to examine all of the written testimony. I 

am confident you will reach a course of action to improve our public 

safety services for all citizens who live near and/or visit our treasured national forestlands. It is they we all serve. 

Thank you for your time, and I am available for questions. 

[The prepared statement of Sheriff Brown follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SHERIFF DAVE BROWN, SKAMANIA COUNTY, WASHINGTON; 

PRESIDENT, WESTERN STATES SHERIFFS’ ASSOCIATION

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Dingell, and members of the committee: my 

name is Dave Brown and I serve as the Sheriff in Skamania County in Washington 

State. 

I am here today to testify on behalf of the Western States Sheriffs’ Association, 

and more than 800 Sheriffs in the 15 states we represent. 

The nearly 200 million acres of Federal land managed by the U.S. Forest Service 

represent a national treasure of incredible value. A treasure that deserves sound 

management and resource protection. 

The U.S. Forest Service has been tasked with that protection, including the 

dedicated Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) who enforce resource protection laws. 

Historically those LEOs were assigned to the District Ranger and worked closely 

with local law enforcement, particularly the elected county Sheriffs. My nearly 29 

years of law enforcement experience includes 9 years of patrolling the Gifford 

Pinchot National Forest in Washington State, where I routinely worked with LEOs 

and district rangers. 

The productive working relationships I developed in the late 1980s and early 

1990s saw a dramatic change after 1993 when USFS Law Enforcement and 

Investigations became an independent entity within the Forest Service, under central direction from Washington, DC. This restructuring has commonly been called 

the stove-pipe effect. The result of this restructuring quickly created a disconnect 

with local communities and, in essence, created a national police force. 

The District Ranger and Forest Supervisor as well as the Regional Forester no 

longer had budgetary authority, supervisory or operational control over law enforcement activities on the forest. When this happened, the local county Sheriff had no 

incentive to meet with the District Ranger or Forest Supervisor to discuss operational objectives for law enforcement on national forest system lands within the 

county and expect any reasonable progress on addressing enforcement concerns. The 

negotiation of cooperative law enforcement agreements was no longer in the purview 

of the District Ranger as the stove-pipe provided that the Special Agent in Charge 

(SAC) was solely responsible for this effort. The SAC can often be responsible for 

oversight on multiple national forests spread out over as little as two states and 

sometimes across four to five states. The ability for a county Sheriff to have a strong 

working relationship with the SAC became an impossible task for most sheriffs due 

to distances between the Sheriff’s Office and the forest headquarters where the SAC 

is assigned. 

This stove-pipe served only to distract LEOs from their primary responsibility of 

resource protection by shifting their focus to other policing functions best left to 

local law enforcement. As time progressed through the 1990s and into the early 

2000s, additional LEOs were added to the patrol efforts of the USFS and funding 

that was provided to Sheriffs for cooperative law enforcement contracts continued 

to decline. 

Over time, the USFS law enforcement and investigations division began to add 

K-9 units and radar enforcement capabilities. Traffic enforcement both on and off 

National Forest System roads became a common occurrence. LEOs began seeking 

assistance from county Sheriffs to house arrestees on Federal charges in the local 

jail. It became evident in many counties across the West that the USFS law enforcement component was no longer focused on resource protection and timber related 

issues. 

In some instances, LEOs began arresting individuals on state warrants and transporting them to the local jail. These actions were recognized by county Sheriffs as 

being outside the scope of authority and jurisdiction of the USFS law enforcement 

component. 

12 

Most western states only recognize a Federal LEO to have authority over Federal 

crimes on federally managed lands. It became apparent to sheriffs in many jurisdictions that some USFS LEOs were generating a multitude of citizen complaints. 

Those complaints were most often filed with the Sheriff. The Sheriff, having no supervisory authority over a Federal officer was obligated to pass the information on 

to a patrol captain or SAC. In many cases, there was never a response back or any 

apparent investigation into the actions of the LEO. I experienced this specific scenario in Skamania County throughout the late 1990s into the early 2000s. The point 

here is that there appeared to be no accountability within the structure of the USFS 

law enforcement component and no willingness to communicate with the local sheriff or the community regarding the actions of the LEOs. As these actions continued, 

citizens began to express concerns for their personal safety, feeling as if they were 

being harassed and targeted. While additional complaints were forwarded to the 

local supervisors and sometimes directly to the Washington Office, in my particular 

case, there appeared to be no desire to deal with the officers’ actions. 

This new order was, for all intents and purposes, a Federal police agency attempting to patrol and enforce the Code of Federal Regulation, a code that had been revised to assimilate state crimes in a manner that mirrors those responsibilities 

mandated to the county Sheriff. 

This failure of the ‘stove piping’ of the USFS Law Enforcement and Investigations 

was the subject of a congressional hearing in 1998. A copy of that hearing has been 

submitted as a part of the written testimony and supporting documents packet. The 

very issues we are discussing today are the same issues that were discussed 17 

years ago. 

While I am aware the committee is seeking information from Sheriffs regarding 

BLM law enforcement, my county has no BLM managed land. I have, however, 

spent much time listening to Sheriffs across the other western states regarding 

similar issues. There are examples out of the state of Utah that illustrate a heavy 

handed approach by the BLM rangers and Special Agents in more than one case. 

The tactics and operations utilized in these cases go well beyond the boundaries of 

decent, professional and appropriate conduct of any law enforcement officer. There 

have been specific issues arising out of San Juan County, Utah that eventually led 

to the deaths of three citizens of that county. These were instances of suicide and 

one can argue that it was the result of the manner in which the BLM approached 

the case and how they interacted with those involved. These cases were related to 

the closure of a trail in the Recapture Canyon area of San Juan County Utah and 

an alleged artifacts theft case in San Juan County, Utah. These cases deserve review by Congress and should well articulate the lack of oversight and accountability 

of the part of the BLM law enforcement. 

There should be no question as a matter of state statute as to who the Chief Law 

Enforcement Officer of the county is. The elected sheriff is responsible for determining the law enforcement philosophy of the unincorporated land mass of the 

county including our national forests lands. 

There can be no argument that there are some county Sheriffs who do not recognize the USFS law enforcement as a legal and legitimate entity. Some go as far as 

to dispute the constitutional basis that allows this organization to exist. The 

Western States Sheriffs’ Association does not dispute the legitimacy of the USFS 

law enforcement component but does hold the belief, based on state law, that the 

Sheriff is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the county. 

That belief is firmly held by our membership. The county Sheriff, an elected representative of the people, is responsible for determining the law enforcement philosophy as it relates to the protection of life and property within their jurisdictional 

boundaries. 

It should be stated that there have been many successes in the past 5 years. The 

Director of Law Enforcement and Investigations for the USFS has genuinely 

reached out to the Western Sheriffs since 2011. Together we have built a stronger 

working relationship with both the Director and the Deputy Director. There has 

been an ongoing effort to unite the Sheriffs across the West with the Special Agent 

in Charge responsible for the Federal law enforcement activities on the public lands 

in their county. It has been evident that recent complaints regarding the actions of 

individual LEOs are being heard now and in some cases there appears to be a concerted effort to address those complaints. The Western States Sheriffs’ Association 

worked together with the Director to create a Memorandum of Understanding that 

provides a template for Sheriffs to use when considering providing state authority 

to a LEO. In the agreement, the USFS recognizes the Sheriff as the Chief Law enforcement Officer of the county. There is language that provides the ability to house 

Federal inmates at local jails and to incorporate LEOs into the Sheriffs training 

programs. 

13 

This philosophy should extend to all policing efforts on federally managed lands. 

This philosophy should be instilled into the leadership of the USFS and the BLM. 

We cannot serve the county residents and visitors who use our Nation’s public lands 

when we are divided on the philosophy, method, and manner in which we treat the 

people we serve. 

Both county Sheriffs and the managers of Federal law enforcement agencies deserve a positive working relationship and open lines of communications. I submit 

there are a number of effective remedies that must be considered: 

1. The first of these remedies can be found in the recently signed Memorandum 

of Understanding (MOU) between the Western States Sheriffs’ Association 

and the USFS Director of Law Enforcement and Investigations. This document calls for the creation of local Law Enforcement Councils (LECs). In this 

model, the county Sheriff chairs the Council which is comprised of adjoining 

county Sheriffs and local USFS law enforcement leadership. These LECs provide the greatest opportunity for open communication on a variety of issues 

and all occurs at the local level where it stands the best chance of being 

effective. 

2. Eliminate the stove-pipe structure of the USFS LE&I. Reestablish the 

operational structure that inserts the Special Agent in Charge back under the 

supervision and direction of the Regional Forester. At the same time, put the 

LEOs back into the command structure of the local district ranger. By reintegrating the SAC and the LEOs into the regional and local structure, there 

will be a greater opportunity to reconnect USFS law enforcement with the 

county Sheriff and create the necessary local focus in order to conduct the important work of protecting our treasured National Forests. 

3. Conduct a widespread review of the Code of Federal Regulation currently in 

use by USFS and BLM law enforcement. Every effort should be made to 

eliminate all language that assimilates state crime or state statutes into 

USFS and BLM enforcement. The enforcement of crimes against persons and 

personal property crimes is, and should continue to be, the primary role of 

the county Sheriff. 

4. Examine the staffing levels of the USFS and BLM law enforcement agencies. 

It is the belief of the Western States Sheriffs that the LEO and Ranger positions are across the two agencies could be reduced. The costs savings recognized through the reduction should be distributed back to the county Sheriff 

through the cooperative law enforcement agreements. This additional funding 

would potentially allow the county Sheriff a better ability to respond to and 

investigate criminal activity on our public lands. 

While it seems we have made progress in alleviating some concerns of Western 

Sheriffs, we continue to be vigilant to ensure there is no expansion of authority and 

that the USFS law enforcement continues to recognize the authority and responsibility of the county Sheriff. 

The Sheriff is chosen by the people of the county to serve as their elected law enforcement representative. The people did not choose the Forest Service or the 

Bureau of Land Management for this function. If the local sheriff desires the assistance of the Federal law enforcement officers, there is a mechanism in place to accomplish this. Sheriffs, under state statute, have the authority to cross-deputize 

LEOs. As mentioned earlier, this can also be accomplished through MOUs such as 

the one in place now. 

The health of our national forests has been on the decline for the past 20 years. 

Since the implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan the annual timber harvests 

on National Forest lands in the Pacific Northwest has dropped dramatically. This 

effect has led to a decline in local economies, a reduction in local and state government services, and has had a severe impact on public safety services in many counties across the West. 

Is it merely a coincidence that in 1993 the stove-pipe structure for USFS Law 

Enforcement was created? Perhaps it was intentional that this was done in order 

to protect the jobs of the law enforcement officers within the agency. Traditionally 

funded through timber receipts and general appropriations, the law enforcement division was now its own entity and no longer dependent on timber harvests. This 

would prove to be beneficial for the LE&I division considering the decline in timber 

funds after the Northwest Forest Plan was implemented. Since that time, the ability 

of the Forest Service to carry out its mission has declined and many positions have 

been lost due to lack of funding. At the same time, the law enforcement division 

has expanded, creating more positions and increasing their budget for many years. 

14 

The original function of resource protection and timber related criminal investigations were no longer the priority due to decline in management of our national forests. However, the desire to morph into a traditional police force has been realized 

and perpetrated in counties across the West. It is possible this stove-pipe structure 

was intentionally carried out to preserve and grow the USFS law enforcement component during a time when the normal, recognized functions of the agency were and 

have continued to suffer. 

While these hearings are important in order to expose the issues and openly debate them, right now is a time for action. Now is the time to take a substantial step 

to rebuild trusts among Sheriffs and our Federal partners. Now is the time to truly 

evaluate the levels of enforcement capabilities of our national forests law enforcement providers and to finally realize that the county Sheriff is in the best position, 

from a matter of law, to effectively deal with crime on our Nation’s forest. I urge 

this committee to take the time to review all of the written testimony. I am hopeful 

that you will recognize and appreciate our position and reach out to our leadership 

and the USFS law enforcement leaders. By doing so, we will continue to have opportunities to dialog with each other and hopefully reach consensus regarding a course 

of action that improves our public safety services to citizens who recreate and visit 

our national forestlands. 

Attachment 

***** 

Supporting Documentation Provided by Kane County Utah Sheriff Tracy Glover 

I am the Sheriff of Kane County Utah. I have about 4,000 square miles that 

borders Arizona to the south. I have about 90 percent Federal land in my county 

including the Dixie National Forest, part of Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion 

National Park, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the Grand Staircase 

Escalante National Monument. I regularly work with Federal law enforcement including the U.S. Forest Service, the BLM and the National Park Service. I have 

been in Law enforcement for the past 18 years. I took office as the elected Sheriff 

January 5, 2015 after serving as the Undersheriff for Sheriff Lamont Smith for 15 

years. The comments shared in this document are my opinions based on my own 

personal experiences. 

I could tell many sad war stories but I think it is more useful to discuss the broad 

issues in order to solve the broad problem. 

I think it is important to start with the basics in Federal law enforcement. We 

must always discuss jurisdiction separate from authority. 

We must separate the agencies instead of making the common mistake of lumping 

them all together under the ‘‘Federal law enforcement’’ label. 

Authority 

The USFS, BLM and National Park Service each have law enforcement divisions 

that are unique and different in their roles and responsibilities. Each Agency has 

been created by some piece of enabling legislation that lays out the legislative intent 

of Congress at the time of their creation. Each respective piece of enabling legislation is where the individual agency draws their unique law enforcement authority. 

Jurisdiction 

The National Park Service works under three types of jurisdiction: Exclusive 

(Yellowstone, Yosemite, etc.); Concurrent (Grand Canyon, etc.); and Proprietary 

(Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Glen Canyon NRA, etc.). 

The USFS and the BLM only work under proprietary jurisdiction, which is limited 

in scope to the basic jurisdiction of a landowner. As opposed to exclusive and concurrent jurisdictions, the scope of proprietary Jurisdiction does not include Federal 

criminal enforcement or prosecution and does not allow the assimilative crimes act 

(18 U.S.C. 13) to be used for the Federal prosecution of assimilated state crimes. 

It is important that sheriffs, legislators, upper level managers and cabinet officials 

understand that not all Federal agencies are created equal. Federal agency philosophies must be adjusted to fit the type of authority and jurisdiction each respective 

agency is working under. 

Because I am aware of your vast knowledge of USFS practices, I am going to 

focus my comments toward the BLM. 

The Problem(s) 

Over the past 15 years, the law enforcement philosophies of the BLM seem to be 

transforming at a rapid pace. I would only be speculating if I were to state where 

15 

the changes are being driven from, but there is no question that there have been 

marked changes. One explanation might be a response to the designation of large 

tracts of land under the BLM’s management as National Monuments. Another 

might simply be a new and more aggressive philosophy that arrived with personnel 

changes in the upper levels of law enforcement within the BLM. Either way, we as 

sheriffs have good reason to be concerned with the duplication of our traditional duties. What used to be a routine call to the county sheriff is often a call to a Federal 

LEO. What used to be a handful of friendly Federal rangers protecting natural resources has now turned into thigh-rigs, riot gear, Federal K-9 units and tactical 

teams with POLICE written down their sleeves and on their backs. Line managers 

are now encouraged to only call the Sheriff as a last resort and to rely on rangers 

as much as possible. 

Across Utah, successful long-term law enforcement contracts were cut with no 

reasonable explanation. We were told that the BLM State Director wanted to keep 

the contracts in place, as did the local BLM managers, the sheriffs and county commissioners. We were told that the decision to cut the contracts was made by the 

Special Agent in Charge and were not given any opportunity to revise practices or 

review the scope of work. 

Since Bill Woody resigned as the director of law enforcement for the BLM, trust 

between rural Utah sheriffs and BLM LEO leaders has eroded significantly. There 

have been a series of botched law enforcement raids, protest events and public meetings that have undermined the Sheriff’s role in his community all across southern 

Utah and Nevada. There are many solid officers that work under the BLM, USFS 

and NPS umbrella. Public trust for the men and women that serve in BLM law enforcement is at an all time low. Sheriff’s are constantly being urged to step up and 

exercise our authority as the lead law enforcement agent in the county. The aggressive change in philosophy on the Federal level continues to cause state, local and 

Federal relationships to struggle. And the sad thing is that it does not have to be 

this way. 

The Solution 

If possible, we must find our way back to a place where the Federal agencies have 

unwavering confidence in their local sheriff. I often remind the folks at my local 

BLM office that I am their sheriff too. We must convince the Federal LEO leaders 

that we are not a threat to them but instead we are passionate about fulfilling our 

statutory responsibilities as the County Sheriff. We are proud of what we do and 

we want them to be proud to be forest rangers, park rangers and BLM rangers. Resource protection is what they signed up for. It should not feel degrading for them 

to pass along law enforcement duties to us. Their reluctance to rely on us is a 

learned behavior. As sheriffs we are willing to work together in partnerships as long 

as we all respect the traditional law enforcement roles that have been successful for 

hundreds of years. The philosophy of BLM law enforcement should be adjusted from 

the aggressive and confrontational style that is becoming more common, to more of 

a focus back on resource management. Coordination and cooperation with the local 

sheriff in all law enforcement matters should be the ultimate goal and Federal LEO 

personnel should be made to feel comfortable in doing so. Line managers should also 

be encouraged to coordinate and cooperate with their local sheriff regarding needs 

and concerns that exist in their respective management areas. Contracts for additional local law enforcement should be reviewed and offered where appropriate, 

effective, efficient and desirable. The intent of Congress in FLPMA to achieve maximum feasible reliance on local law enforcement is pretty clear. This concept should 

be the shared desire of sheriffs and Federal agencies alike. 

It has been my experience that when this model is followed, problems cease to 

exist and progress is sure to follow. I have never been more frustrated than when 

my BLM contract was cut and my local manager was not sure whether he could 

still call me or not. It took years and great effort to develop the successful, effective 

relationship that existed and only one poor decision to call it into question. 

What we need is simple shift in the aggressive philosophy and newly established 

practices of Federal law enforcement personnel accompanied by some good oldfashioned effort on the part of the county sheriffs. 

Sheriff Tracy Glover 

Kane County Utah 

16 

Additional Supporting Material for the Record; Submitted on Behalf of Sheriff Tracy 

Glover, Kane County, Utah 

When I mentioned ‘‘an aggressive change in philosophy on the Federal level continues to cause state, local and Federal relationships to struggle’’ I was referring 

to both the appetite for expansion within BLM law enforcement as well as specific 

experiences we have shared over the past several years. It seems that the goal is 

to have enough BLM law enforcement to handle POLICE issues on public lands 

without the need to involve the local Sheriff. I believe it is mandatory under the 

rules of FLPMA that the BLM ‘‘achieve maximum feasible reliance on local law 

enforcement’’ and this concept is what I would like to get back to. 

Over the past 15 years, the management of BLM lands has taken on a much different look in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona. As national monuments have 

been created and resource and travel management plans have been amended, closures and restrictions have been steadily increasing. Tensions have also increased 

as people feel they are losing their access and heritage. Counties have pursued litigation to protect rights of way which has created the appearance of an adversarial 

relationship between entities. 

Through all of this, my BLM experience on a local level has been mostly positive. 

Somewhat surprisingly, we have managed to maintain a very successful law enforcement contract with local BLM officials. We have been very responsive to their needs 

and they have developed great confidence in the Sheriff’s Office. Even with that, 

there have been times during the contract years that BLM law enforcement seemed 

threatened by our ability to work with our local managers. What was once a relaxed 

relationship based on a level of respect for the Office of Sheriff shifted to a strained 

relationship with BLM law enforcement management. 

Example: 

On one occasion, I was made aware of a OHV protest and counter protest that 

was to occur on the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument (GSENM) in 

Kane County. After contacting the leaders of both sides and in the spirit of coordination, cooperation and mutual respect, I contacted the GSENM office in Kanab. I had 

short notice as the ride was set for Saturday morning. I set up a meeting with the 

monument manager and upper management as well as law enforcement officials on 

the previous Thursday. The meeting was joined telephonically by officials from the 

BLM State Office. I informed the group of the intent of both sides of the protest. 

I told them of my meetings with both leaders and that I had laid out ground rules 

to keep the conflict peaceful. I was completely forthcoming with them and asked 

that they hold back the BLM law enforcement presence as I was assembling a large 

contingent of deputies to handle any problems and conflicts that might arise. Everyone at the table and on the phone agreed that this would be the proper approach 

agreeing that adding BLM law enforcement may escalate the situation. 

By the next day, I received a phone call from a BLM law enforcement official stating that the U.S. Attorney wanted them to document the activity at the protest and 

stating that they would have a few plain clothes investigators present with cameras. 

I thought this was reasonable and agreed that we would watch for them and work 

with them as needed. Then Friday evening at about 9:00 p.m., I received a call from 

a BLM investigator informing me that they had changed their minds and that they 

were going to have a large contingent of uniformed BLM rangers present for the 

protest. I felt completely undermined and wished I had never contacted the BLM 

in the first place. As Saturday morning came, BLM rangers and investigators 

showed up. Some of them were wearing tactical gear with POLICE written down 

their sleeves and across their backs. At least one of them was wearing his handgun 

in a tactical thigh holster with many extra magazines exposed. All were holding 

cameras and photographing each protestor as they passed on the road. It was then 

that I first asked myself, when did the BLM rangers become the POLICE? 

There have been a few other recent examples of BLM law enforcement officers 

gearing up in tactical gear and taking POLICE action. Some of these have been 

highly publicized. There are many BLM law enforcement rangers that I have 

worked closely with and have great respect for. These officers understand their role 

in the system and respect the other disciplines that are in place. I continue to be 

concerned that the selection and training processes employed by the BLM is now 

centered around a more hardcore, tactically capable, police officer rather than a 

friendly ranger who’s primary reason for signing up was to protect the resource 

managed by the agency. 

Relationships have remained solid between my office and local land managers 

while strained with BLM law enforcement leaders. At one point, about 3 years ago, 

17 

the BLM elected to discontinue all law enforcement contracts in Utah. There is 

much speculation about why this happened but the bottom line is that it was a very 

unfortunate move. BLM managers have complained about the lack of contracts, 

Sheriff’s have complained, County Commissioners have complained as well as state 

elected officials. For me, the contracts were much more than a quality service for 

a discounted fee. The contracts represented the ability for the BLM to rely on the 

local Sheriff for law enforcement services and that is just what they accomplished. 

Shortly after cutting the contracts, the BLM expanded their law enforcement division to include a mid level law enforcement regional manager. 

I would like to see the law enforcement leadership within the BLM shift their philosophy. I would like to get back to a place where they recognize the sheriff as the 

law enforcement official in the county. I would like to see BLM law enforcement 

leadership genuinely come from a position of support for the County Sheriff and follow the direction in FLPMA in achieving maximum feasible reliance without feeling 

like it threatens their position. I would like to see less of a tactical, hard core BLM 

officer hired and trained but instead, a friendly ranger that knows he/she can call 

on the Sheriff to provide whatever level of law enforcement is needed at any given 

time. Every sheriff has access to the tactical resources and technical assets that may 

be required to handle any law enforcement incident within our respective counties. 

We are happy to step up and do our jobs even when it is awkward. 

Sincerely, 

SHERIFF TRACY GLOVER, 

Kane County Sheriff’s Office. 

***** 

The following item was submitted by Sheriff Brown for the record and will be 

retained in the Committee’s official files: 

—Transcript of June 23, 1998 Oversight Hearing on Forest Service Law 

Enforcement, Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you very much, Sheriff. I appreciate that 

statement. 

At this time we will now hear from Mr. Ehnes. You are 

recognized to testify for 5 minutes, sir. 

Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF RUSS EHNES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL OFF-HIGHWAY VEHICLE CONSERVATION 

COUNCIL, GREAT FALLS, MONTANA 

Mr. EHNES. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, and members of 

the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the accountability, policies, and tactics of law enforcement within the 

Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service. 

My name is Russ Ehnes, and I am the Executive Director of the 

National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council, or NOVCC. 

We are a 501(c)(3), nonprofit, educational foundation. We have a 

25-year history of working in partnership with the U.S. Forest 

Service to improve the management of off-highway vehicles’ opportunities nationwide. 

Through that period, NOVCC has conducted dozens of offhighway vehicle management workshops across the Nation in every 

Forest Service region. We have also published a book entitled, 

Management Guidelines for Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation; and 

we will soon release a comprehensive off-highway vehicle trail design, construction, maintenance and management guidebook. 

18 

The common theme in all of these workshops and publications is 

the ‘‘four E’s,’’ and the ‘‘four E’s’’ are engineering, education, enforcement, and evaluation. The concept is simple. If managers 

apply proper engineering to trails and facilities, educate the public 

about how to use them responsibly, use enforcement when needed 

to address compliance issues, and evaluate the results and make 

adjustments, then OHV use will be successfully managed, sustainable, and fun. 

The ‘‘four E’s’’ are a simple and proven technique, and it has resulted in high quality, sustainable off-highway vehicle recreation 

opportunities across the Nation. 

NOVCC is a strong proponent of enforcement, which is one of the 

‘‘four E’s’’ and one of the most important tools in the land manager’s toolbox. Enforcement is critical not only for compliance, but 

is also an important educational tool. Not every encounter with the 

public results in a citation, nor should it. 

Enforcement also contributes to visitor safety and to visitor sense 

of security while recreating on public lands. For the off-highway vehicle community, issues arise when the Forest Service supervisor 

and the district rangers cannot use enforcement to augment their 

management programs. 

My personal example is similar to examples that NOVCC hears 

about across the country. I am currently the President of the Great 

Falls Trail Bike Riders Association, or GFTBRA. We have a very 

robust and successful partnership with the Lewis and Clark 

National Forest. GFTBRA contributes hundreds of hours of volunteer work every year, has a dozen certified sawyers, and employ 

two full-time seasonal workers to maintain trails. We’ve published 

over 80,000 maps in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service. The 

result is one of the best managed trail systems in the country. 

In spite of these efforts, we still have compliance issues on holiday weekends in several locations. The few people causing the 

problems tend to be less involved in clubs. They’re typically very 

casual users who show up once or twice a year on a holiday weekend and ride near campgrounds illegally. We know where they will 

be. We know when they will be there, and we know what they will 

be doing. Several years ago we asked the Forest Supervisor for 

help. We asked him to have the enforcement officers visit three key 

areas at key times. 

He agreed that the timing was right and that the need for enforcement was critical, but could not promise that it would happen 

since he was not sure that this would be the top priority for his 

law enforcement person. He could only ask to see if it was the top 

priority of his LEO. 

I mentioned we have a very strong partnership with the Lewis 

and Clark National Forest. Several years ago, we had a GFTBRA 

sponsored trail ride that was permitted in the Little Belt Mountains. At those rides, we inspect each and every vehicle to make 

sure they are in compliance with state sound limits, spark arresters, and to make sure that each vehicle is registered with its OHV 

decal. We also require the participants to wear helmets even 

though it is not required by state law. 

Unbeknownst to us at that ride, and also unbeknownst to the 

recreation planner that we had worked with to coordinate the 

19 

event, the U.S. Forest Service LEO set up a check station on a 

route leading into and out of the event. He did not issue any citations. Everyone was legal. However, the level of trust that we had 

worked to build with the Forest Service was damaged. Many of the 

riders wondered, ‘‘Why didn’t the LEO just stop at our staging area 

to check us? ’’ Many riders felt ambushed. 

The issue is pretty simple as I see it. Forest supervisors are 

charged with managing national forests, and one of the most important tools in their toolbox is not dependably at their disposal. 

While cooperation between the supervisors and the law enforcement officer is generally the rule, it is the exception that causes 

problems for our community. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ehnes follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RUSS EHNES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL OFFHIGHWAY VEHICLE CONSERVATION COUNCIL (NOHVCC) 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member and members of the committee, thank you for 

this opportunity to testify on the Accountability, Policies, and Tactics of Law 

Enforcement within the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service. 

My name is Russ Ehnes and I’m the Executive Director of the National OffHighway Vehicle Conservation Council or NOHVCC. NOHVCC is a 501c3 non-profit 

educational foundation with a 25-year history of working in partnership with the 

U.S. Forest Service to improve management of off-highway vehicle opportunities nationwide. Through that period NOHVCC has conducted dozens of Off-Highway 

Vehicle Management Workshops across the Nation in every Forest Service Region. 

We have also published a book entitled, Management Guidelines for OHV Recreation 

and will soon release a comprehensive OHV trail design, construction and maintenance guidebook. 

The common theme in all these workshops and publications is the ‘‘four E’s,’’ 

which are Engineering, Education, Enforcement, and Evaluation. The concept is 

simple: if managers apply proper engineering to trails and facilities, educate the 

public about how to use them responsibly, use enforcement when needed to address 

compliance issues, and evaluate the results and make adjustments, OHV use will 

be successfully managed, sustainable and fun. The ‘‘four E’s’’ are simple and proven 

and have resulted in high-quality, sustainable OHV opportunities across the 

country. 

NOHVCC is a strong proponent of enforcement, which is one of the ‘‘four E’s’’ and 

one of the most important tools in the land manager’s toolbox. Enforcement is critical not only for compliance but is also an important educational tool. Not every 

encounter with the public results in a citation, nor should it. Enforcement also contributes to visitor safety and the visitor’s sense of security while recreating on our 

public lands. 

For the OHV community, issues arise when the Forest Supervisor and District 

Rangers can’t use enforcement to augment their management programs. My personal example is similar to other examples that NOHVCC hears about across the 

country. 

I’m currently the President of the Great Falls Trail Bike Riders Association or 

GFTBRA. We have a very robust and successful partnership with the Lewis and 

Clark National Forest. GFTBRA contributes hundreds of hours of volunteer work, 

has a dozen certified sawyers, employs two full-time seasonal workers to maintain 

trails, and publishes maps in partnership with the USFS. The result is one of the 

best managed trail systems in the country. 

In spite of all these efforts, we still have compliance issues on holiday weekends 

in several locations. The few people causing the problems tend to be less involved 

in clubs. They are typically casual users who only ride once or twice a year on holiday weekends and ride near campgrounds illegally. 

We know where they will be, we know when they will be there, and we know 

what they will be doing. Several years ago we asked the Forest Supervisor for help. 

We asked him to have the enforcement officers visit three key areas at key times. 

He agreed that the timing was right and that the need for enforcement was critical 

but couldn’t promise that it would happen since he wasn’t sure that this would be 

the top priority for his law enforcement people. He could only ask to see if his top 

priority was also the top priority of the Law Enforcement Officers. 

20 

As I mentioned, GFTBRA has a strong partnership with the Lewis and Clark 

National Forest. Several years ago GFTBRA sponsored a permitted trail ride in the 

Little Belt Mountains. We inspect each vehicle for sound limit and spark arrester 

compliance and to be sure each vehicle has an OHV decal. We also require helmet 

use even though it is not required by law. Unbeknownst to us and the recreation 

planners we worked with to coordinate the permit and event, the USFS Law 

Enforcement Officer set up a check station on a route leading into and out of the 

event. He issued no citations. Everyone was legal. However, the level of trust we 

had built with the local Forest Service managers was damaged. Riders wondered 

‘‘why the LEO wouldn’t just stop at our staging area to check us? ’’ Many riders felt 

‘‘ambushed.’’ 

The issue as I see it is pretty simple. Forest Supervisors are charged with managing our National Forests and one of the most important tools in their toolbox is 

not dependably at their disposal. While cooperation between the Supervisors and 

the Law Enforcement Officers is generally the rule, it is the exception that causes 

problems for the OHV community. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. I appreciate your testimony. 

At this time we will hear from Mr. Schoppmeyer. You are 

recognized for 5 minutes for testimony. 

STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER SCHOPPMEYER, VICE PRESIDENT FOR AGENCY AFFAIRS, FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT 

OFFICERS ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. SCHOPPMEYER. Thank you, Chairman Gohmert, Ranking 

Member Dingell, and members of the Subcommittee on Oversight 

and Investigations. 

Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to provide 

testimony relative to this hearing. 

My name is Chris Schoppmeyer. My retirement last year marked 

34 years of service as a Federal law enforcement officer. My service 

to the country included time in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

as a wildlife inspector and refuge law enforcement officer and as 

Special Agent within NOAA, National Marine Fishery Service, 

Office of Enforcement. 

I also served in local government for 25 years as a conservation 

commissioner and then chairman of the town’s Forensic Oversight 

Committee for the town of Newmarket, New Hampshire. 

This provides me with decades of experience with local government issues and conservation issues. I understand and can talk 

about the Federal land use and law enforcement issues from both 

Federal and local government perspectives. 

In addition to my government work, I serve as the Vice President 

for Agency Affairs for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers 

Association, where I created the Federal Law Enforcement Officers 

Association Environmental and Natural Resource Working Group 

composed of all land management agencies in the Departments of 

the Interior and Agriculture, as well as the Environmental 

Protection Agency and the NOAA Fishery Service Office of 

Enforcement. This working group was created to address agency 

and legislative issues specific to nontraditional law enforcement. 

With regards to my testimony, I am going to address three points 

that directly and adversely affect our members who are Federal 

law enforcement officers from the Forest Service, BLM, the U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency, Criminal Investigation Division. 

21 

The first issue I will address is the need for expanded use of offhighway recreational vehicle use on our national forests and other 

public lands. The use of the OHRVs has skyrocketed in recent 

years to include the use of seasonal machines, such as snowmobiles. This increase has been documented on both state, county, 

and local lands, as well as private lands. 

In many states you must attend and successfully pass the mandatory OHRV course before you can legally operate an OHRV on 

any lands. OHRVs provide access to environmentally sensitive and 

designated wilderness tracts that are set aside to protect flora and 

fauna species that are in decline or at risk of becoming imperiled 

or extinct. 

The use of checkpoints applies to all OHRV users, regardless of 

their being permitted or not. The fact is that the use of the checkpoint is not limited to just the permit; it involves checking for proper safety equipment, awareness of regulations specific to the area, 

and safe operation of the OHRV for the protection of the rider and 

the public in the area. This could include detecting individuals who 

may be operating an OHRV or snowmobile under the influence of 

alcohol or narcotics. 

Expansion of OHRVs on our national forests and other public 

lands presents other problems for the scarce number of Forest 

Service officers, whose uniformed officer numbers have decreased 

from 750 FTEs to less than 450 officers, according to senior managers of the Forest Service LE&I. 

The cultivation of marijuana groves in remote locations by DTOs, 

namely the Mexican cartel and other elements of organized crime, 

have significantly increased over the past decade, with evidence of 

marijuana groves being discovered as far north as the Upper 

Peninsula of Michigan. 

The expanded use of OHRVs is already negatively impacting 

both public and private lands. I cite my home state of 

New Hampshire where OHRV regulations are enforced by conservation officers of New Hampshire Fish and Game. Despite the 

requirement of successful completion of the OHRV course, the 

number of fatalities increases and compliance is still an issue. 

The second issue I will discuss just briefly is how dangerous conservation law enforcement is. Conservation law enforcement officers are nine times more likely to be assaulted with a dangerous 

weapon than traditional police officers. I only have to cite the two 

examples that the Ranking Member already did; and for the sake 

of time, I will only briefly mention that Officer Jason Crisp and his 

K-9, Maros, were brutally murdered in North Carolina. 

The same on January 1, 2012. The National Park Service Law 

Enforcement Ranger Margaret Anderson was shot and killed while 

attempting to stop a fleeing suspect in Mount Rainier National 

Park. Unbeknownst to her, he was already wanted for serious felony crimes in the Seattle, Washington area. 

The last point that I would like to discuss is on the regulations. 

I will address the premise that the Forest Service regulations do 

not require intent when violating, and result in overcriminalization of these regulations. Whether knowingly or 

unknowingly violating Forest Service regulations is the basis for 

enforcement action, it is usually based on the facts at hand, 

22 

observations made, previous violation patterns, and the discretion 

of the Forest Service officer as to the level of action imposed. 

The majority of regulatory offenses are petty in nature, but can 

range from a verbal warning to an arrest in the most extreme 

cases. 

What I would suggest here, Mr. Chairman, is that—in my part, 

in the eastern side of the United States, we have very good relations between Federal, state, county, and local. I cite the other day 

a carry-out by New Hampshire Fish and Game in the White 

Mountain National Forest where we had the cooperation of the 

Forest Service, the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department, and 

Pinkham Notch Rescue Squad. We had all of these local volunteers 

and, I have to say, that it is really astounding to me that we have 

such problems out West. 

That concludes my testimony and I’m happy to take any 

questions you have. Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schoppmeyer follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHRIS J. SCHOPPMEYER, VICE PRESIDENT FOR AGENCY

AFFAIRS, FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS ASSOCIATION

Chairman Gohmert, Ranking Member Dingell, and members of the Subcommittee 

on Oversight and Investigations, good morning and thank you for the opportunity 

to provide you testimony relative to this hearing. 

My name is Chris Schoppmeyer and I am the Federal Law Enforcement Officers 

Association, Vice President for Agency Affairs. I have served in this position as a 

National Officer for 71⁄2 years. During my tenure I created the FLEOA 

Environmental & Natural Resources Working Group composed of all the Land 

Management agencies in the Department of Interior, as well as the Environmental 

Protection Agency and NOAA Fisheries Service, and the U.S. Forest Service within 

the Department of Agriculture. This Working Group was created to address agency 

and legislative issues specific to non-traditional law enforcement. 

I mandatorily retired at age 57 in February of 2014, after having served for 331⁄2

years in Federal fisheries & wildlife law enforcement with both the U.S. Fish & 

Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries Service. I also served in local government of 

25 years as Conservation Commissioner and then Chairman of the Forensic 

Oversight Committee for the town of Newmarket, New Hampshire, which provides 

me with decades of experience in local government conservation issues. I understand 

and can talk about Federal land use and law enforcement issues from both the 

Federal and local government perspectives. 

Concerning my testimony, I am going to address several points that directly and 

adversely effect our members from the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, National Park Service and the Environmental 

Protection Agency. 

The first issue I will address is the use of Off High Recreational Vehicles (OHRV) 

on our National Forests and other public lands. The use of OHRVs has sky rocketed 

in recent years to include the seasonal use of snowmobiles. This increase has been 

documented on both state, county and local lands as well as private lands. In many 

states you must attend and successfully pass a mandatory OHRV course before you 

can legally operate an OHRV on any lands. OHRVs provide access to environmentally sensitive areas and designated wilderness tracts that are set aside to protect species of flora and fauna that are in decline or at risk of becoming imperiled 

or extinct. 

As a regular method employed to ensure the safety of all public land participants, 

the use of checkpoints applies to all OHRV users, regardless of their being permitted or not. The fact is that the use of a checkpoint is not limited to just the 

permit, it involves checking for the proper safety equipment, awareness of regulations specific to the area and safe operation of the OHRV for the protection of the 

rider and the public in the area. This could include detecting individuals who maybe 

operating an OHRV or snowmobile under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. 

Expansion of OHRVs on National Forests and other public lands presents other 

problems for the scarce number of Forest Service Officers, whose uniformed officer 

numbers have been decreased from 750 FTEs to less than 450 officers, according 

to senior managers at the Forest Service LE&I. 

23 

The cultivation of marijuana groves in remote locations by Drug Trafficking 

Organizations (DTO) namely the Mexican cartel and other elements of organized 

crime has increased significantly over the past decade, with evidence of marijuana 

groves being discovered as far north as the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. OHRVs 

provide easier access to these remote locations and present detection problems for 

the Forest Service as well as the Border Patrol and Customs & Border Protection 

agents. Many times these DTO are heavily armed and can present not only a danger 

to law enforcement but also the unsuspecting public who could be recreating in the 

area. The expanded use of OHRVs is already negatively affecting both public and private lands. I will cite my home state of New Hampshire where OHRV regulations 

are principally enforced by the Conservation Officers of the New Hampshire Fish 

and Game Department. Despite the requirement for successful completion of the 

mandatory OHRV course, the number of OHRV fatalities has steadily increased. In 

some areas of the state, Conservation Officers spend over 50 percent of their time 

enforcing OHRV regulations at the detriment of fish and wildlife protection. 

There is no reason to believe that these problems would not be the same on Forest 

Service and other national lands. 

With the scarce funds available for the Forest & National Park Service’s legislatively mandated law enforcement programs, both agencies struggle to accommodate 

the public’s needs while protecting the natural resources they are entrusted with. 

Congress needs to look at better funding the land management agencies so they can 

effectively manage their programs while protecting the visiting public and the 

natural resources for everyone to enjoy. 

On another issue entirely, there are some who question the Forest Service and 

other land management agencies exceeding their authority, and question the need 

for appropriate arms and equipment. This same argument was fought in the 

Congress before through the Fear of Over-Criminalization and Unjust Seizures legislation, also known as the FOCUS Act. Embedded in the legislation was an attempt 

to disarm the two agencies that principally enforce the Lacey Act, that being the 

U.S. Fish & Wildlife & NOAA Fisheries Service’s Offices of Law Enforcement. On 

behalf of FLEOA’s FWS and NOAA members, we introduced documents in the 

Congressional Record justifying the need for these agents being armed. This critical 

truth remains. Removing criminal law from public land regulation enforcement will 

cripple the good guys in the fight to keep visitors safe, and our greatest national 

treasures accessible to all. 

In 1984, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Law Enforcement Division sanctioned 

and published a study on the Assault Rate on Conservation Law Enforcement 

Officers in the United States. The study was supported by the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation as part of their Uniformed Crimes Statistics Program and completed 

under the direction of then Fish & Wildlife Chief of Law Enforcement, Clark Bavin. 

Since then the study has been updated several times with the National Park Service 

annually publishing assault rates on their Law Enforcement Park Rangers. 

Non-traditional law enforcement officers in the state and Federal Government 

were nine times more likely to be assaulted with a dangerous weapon then traditional police officers, who focus primarily is on the enforcement of laws and regulations involving the protection of life and property. 

The study suggested that the assault rate could be tied to state and Federal nontraditional law enforcement officers having contact with recreational hunters and 

commercial and recreational fishers who possess firearms and edged tools and 

knives. This is complicated by other factors including felons in possession of a firearm while hunting, people homesteading in remote locations on national lands and 

DTO on public lands and the high seas. 

In Federal law enforcement, the National Park Service Law Enforcement Rangers 

continue to have one of the highest assault rates amongst the 65 Federal law enforcement agencies represented by FLEOA. 

These statistics in part lead to increased specialized training for non-traditional 

law enforcement agencies who have to play a duel role when interacting with the 

recreating public. They must be Ambassadors who are expected to always be friendly and courteous while maintaining a professional image and demeanor. 

Many times news accounts paint non-traditional law enforcement officers as being 

over-dressed and armed with heavy weaponry while executing arrests or search 

warrants. It is a reality in today’s society that ALL law enforcement officers receive 

standardized training in areas such as the use of firearms and defensive training. 

Standardized training is also cost effective as many Federal law enforcement agencies don’t have the manpower or material resources to carry out their missions. 

There are instances in high-risk situations where non-traditional law enforcement 

officers may carry automatic weapons and employ other specialized tools that they 

24 

normally would not carry in the performance of their duties. This also includes the 

wearing of agency issued raid jackets and clothing for identification purposes and 

officer safety concerns. This is not only done for liability reasons but for when agencies create task forces or conduct inter-agency operations. Sharing of assets is essential to the efficiency and effectiveness of many smaller Federal law enforcement 

agencies. 

Two examples of how dangerous non-traditional law enforcement can be are: 

On March 12, 2014, Forest Service Officer Jason Crisp and his K-9 Maros were 

ambushed and killed by a double murder suspect hiding in the Pisgah National 

Forest in Burke County, North Carolina. Officer Crisp had served with the U.S. 

Forest Service for 16 years. He is survived by his wife and two children, his parents, 

sister, and two brothers. 

Read more about Officer Crisp and Maros at: http://www.odmp.org/officer/22038- 

officer-jason-m-crisp#ixzz3gr1pKDSy 

On January 1, 2012, National Park Service Park Law Enforcement Ranger 

Margaret Anderson was shot and killed while attempting to stop a fleeing suspect 

near the Longmire Ranger Station in Mount Rainier National Park, in Pierce 

County, Washington. 

Another park ranger had attempted to stop the suspect at a snow-chain checkpoint near the Paradise Ranger Station, but the suspect fled before being intercepted by Ranger Anderson, who had set up a roadblock. Unbeknownst to Ranger 

Anderson, the suspect was wanted in connection to a shooting the previous day 

where four people were wounded. When the suspect reached Ranger Anderson’s 

roadblock, he made a U-turn, exited his vehicle, and opened fire. Ranger Anderson 

was shot before she was able to exit her patrol car. 

After being shot, Ranger Anderson radioed for help as the suspect fled on foot. 

Responding units attempting to reach Ranger Anderson were held at bay for approximately 90 minutes as the suspect continued to fire on them. The suspect’s vehicle was recovered with additional weapons and body armor inside. The suspect’s 

body was found the following day about 6 miles from the initial shooting scene. 

Ranger Anderson had served with the National Park Service for 12 years. She is 

survived by her husband and two young children. Her husband also serves as a park 

ranger in the park and was on duty at the time. Read more about Ranger Anderson 

at: http: // www.odmp.org / officer / 21076-park-ranger-margaret-a-anderson#ixzz3gr35 

BZqE 

In conclusion, the Federal agencies called into question are not here and cannot 

discuss their perspectives on our conversations today. Before passing judgment on 

this and the myriad of other issues related to their protocols and perceived conduct, 

I encourage anyone to consider spending more time with the thousands of state and 

local authorities that have a productive and effective working relationship with 

Federal conservation law enforcement. What I strongly discourage is the furtherance of unfounded emotions or baseless theories that only serve to embroider and 

amplify those who only seek to diminish Federal authority. 

There are people out there that refuse to believe that the Earth revolves around 

the Sun, and because of this simplistic belief, they are willing to exchange an authority controlled by the American people for one of their own, or none at all. This 

kind of personal conviction is a contagion that does not serve the American people 

well, and it does even less to preserve public places that are accessible and enjoyable to the average visitor and family. 

Federal authority is ultimately an expression of the will of the people and in the 

case of conservation law enforcement, it is intended to preserve and keep public 

lands accessible to everyone, not just a few for personal gain. This is not to say that 

the Federal Government is insensitive to the hardships of local economies. There are 

plenty of assistance programs to prove it is very helpful in this regard. The Federal 

agencies work diligently to formulate and respect relationships with state and local 

entities, and they rely on them heavily for back up and joint rescue and law enforcement operations. This is a time-honored tradition that will never change. 

Last, earlier in this testimony I cited only two of many law enforcement officers 

who were killed in the line of duty protecting our nation’s lands and its visitors. 

While it may be politically popular or advantageous to show law enforcement in a 

negative light, every time this occurs it adds fuel to an unjustified fire that leads 

society’s weakest minds down a dangerous path. These weak minds identify with 

messages of false-tyranny and other hateful rhetoric and it provokes them to assault 

or kill officers for no more reason that what they chose to do as a profession— 

helping their community and their country. Ambushes against law enforcement officers are growing in this country, as are assaults and other deadly encounters because of the uniform they wear or their lawful duties. In this country, we have a 

25 

history of shameful treatment against our military women and men during the 

1960s and 1970s. Eventually we learned our lesson and now would not think of 

treating them that way again. We are embarking on the same journey with law enforcement. Must we always learn the hard way? Why do the women and men who 

serve their communities and their country have to pay for it with their lives? I think 

there is a better way. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony at this time and I would be happy 

to take questions from the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Thank 

you for your time and consideration. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY DEBBIE DINGELL TO CHRIS

SCHOPPMEYER, VICE PRESIDENT FOR AGENCY AFFAIRS, FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS ASSOCIATION

Question 1. How are the majority of agency investigations and cases pursued or 

prosecuted (civil versus criminal)? 

Answer. It depends on the agency. The Interior agencies (FWS, BLM, NPS, BOR 

& BIA) use the Central Violations Bureau (CVB) for petty offenses, similar to a traffic ticket or summons from a traditional police agency. These CVB tickets can be 

issued by uniformed officers or special agents of the DOI agencies. For more complex long-term investigations, agencies such as the FWS and their special agents 

will use the criminal system and have the cases prosecuted by 1 of the 92 DOJ U.S. 

Attorney’s Office. The Dept. of Agriculture’s Forest Service handles their cases and 

investigations similar to the DOI, a combination of petty offense summons through 

the CVB system while more complex investigations are prosecuted by the DOJ U.S. 

Attorney’s Office. For the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) they use a combination of civil and criminal remedies for their cases and investigations. 

Question 2. Describe the relationship between agencies and the U.S. Attorney’s 

Office related to prosecutions and investigations. How closely do agencies and the 

AUSA work together? 

Answer. In the majority of the 92 DOJ judicial districts, where they deal with environmental and natural resources investigations, the relationship is excellent. 

Where there may be issues it usually is related to a personality conflict between 

the uniformed officer or special agent and the prosecuting Assistant U.S. Attorney 

(AUSA). 

Question 3. Can any sheriff do the job of a Forest Service law enforcement officer 

or agent as Sheriff Brown suggested in the hearing when he said we should reduce 

Forest Service officers and give sheriffs the savings because they can better respond 

to and investigate criminal activity? 

Answer. The simple answer is no. Deputy Sheriffs are the county law enforcement 

officers and are trained as traditional police officers, with their principal focus being 

on protection of life and property. They are not trained in environmental and natural resource law enforcement techniques and investigations. I believe that Sheriff 

Brown is concerned more with his revenue stream than protecting natural resources. The decrease in revenues received from timber sales on National Forest 

lands is impacting his operating budget and by decreasing the number of Forest 

Service law enforcement officers and assuming their jurisdictional role, he stands 

to increase his budget. That is not just my opinion, it is shared by the majority of 

our Forest Service members. The question to ask Sheriff Brown is what plan does 

he have in place to assume the Forest Service law enforcement role and protect the 

natural resources on Forest Service lands. Deputy Sheriffs will have vast geographic 

areas to cover with no additional personnel, resources or plan in place. 

Question 4. Do you members see themselves primarily as law enforcement officers, 

caretakers of Federal assets or conservationists? 

Answer. Forest Service uniformed officers see themselves as a combination of all 

three. As I testified during the hearing, ‘‘These statistics in part lead to increased 

specialized training for non-traditional law enforcement agencies who have to play 

a duel role when interacting with the recreating public. They must be Ambassadors 

who are expected to always be friendly and courteous while maintaining a 

professional image and demeanor.’’ 

26 

Question 5. For those law enforcement officers and agents supervised by civilians, 

do they think that is a suitable and safe arrangement? 

Answer. You are referring to a management style employed already by the 

National Park Service. The NPS has over 450 sites which are managed by 

Superintendents. This style of management can be effective for the law enforcement 

program as long as the Superintendent supports the law enforcement program. 

What you refer to in Congress and by the other three witnesses during the hearing 

as ‘‘Stove piping’’ is actually known as ‘‘Line Authority’’. Line authority is structured 

so the chain of command is entirely within the law enforcement ranks from uniformed officer or special agent up to the Chief or Director of Law Enforcement. The 

upper management levels above the Chief or Director of Law Enforcement are typically non-law enforcement managers. Line authority can be more effective as long 

as you have strong leaders in the law enforcement leadership positions. 

Question 6. How have law enforcement programs within Federal agencies reacted 

to budget cuts over the last few years? 

Answer. All 65 Federal law enforcement agencies have been radically impacted by 

Federal budget cuts since 2008. From the threat of Sequestration to current day, 

Congress has done a miserable job funding Federal law enforcement programs. The 

number of unfunded mandates has put Federal law enforcement agencies in a various tenuous position, where less dollars are spread out over more programs in 

order to meet the mission responsibilities. It has affected the morale in every agency, with many Federal law enforcement officers leaving Federal service for more 

lucrative and higher paying positions in the private sector. 

Question 7. Describe, in general terms, the relationships between Federal law 

enforcement agencies and state and local law enforcement and other entities? Please 

focus on coordination and cooperation of operations and enforcement. 

Answer. Relationships between Federal law enforcement agencies and their state, 

county and local counterparts largely depend on individuals and geographic locations. In the eastern part of the United States, relations are generally very cooperative. This may be in part due to there being less land locked up by the Federal 

Government’s land management agencies. For instance in the eastern region of the 

United States, there are virtually no public lands managed by the BLM. Out in the 

western United States, lands managed by BLM for grazing have been the source 

of much contention. One only has to look at the Cliven Bundy situation to see the 

source of consternation. Bundy refuses to pay his grazing fees on Federal lands 

while other ranchers complain that they have been paying grazing fees for years 

and threaten to stop paying the grazing fees unless Cliven Bundy comes into compliance. Before Congress takes a position with regards to Federal relationships out 

West, you should hold a second hearing and invite a Sheriff from the eastern half 

of the United States where Federal lands occupy a large percentage of their county. 

I would seek out a Sheriff from a county in the Green Mountains National Forest 

in Vermont or the White Mountains National Forest in New Hampshire. I’m sure 

after they testify Congress will have an entirely different perspective on this issue. 

Question 8. How does it affect law enforcement officers in Federal agencies when 

Members of Congress introduce bills or amendments, or vote for bills or amendments that undermine what they do? How does it affect them when they hear incendiary rhetoric from lawmakers? 

Answer. It not only affects morale but it is a multi-faceted issue. Continual budget 

cuts, lack of staffing and equipment resources are all contributing to the larger issue 

of employee retention. Congress is quick to criticize how Federal law enforcement 

agencies conduct business but fail to find real solutions to problems. FLEOA members generally feel that Congress is more about pomp & circumstance than drilling 

deep into issues and solving problems. An example of this is the aftermath of the 

Michael Brown shooting involving Police Officer Daryn Wilson. Although Congress’ 

intentions were good in proposing expanded use of body cameras, they failed to provide oversight on how the program would be administered. The DOJ, Bureau of 

Justice Assistance, responsible for administering the expanded body worn camera 

program, recommended a grant program for the state, county and local governments, failing to recognize the uniformed components of the Federal law enforcement agencies such as CBP, Border Patrol, and all the land management agencies. 

Congress needs to do a better job in assisting Federal law enforcement agencies 

with funding and other priorities and not be so quick to criticize or introduce legislation without adequately investigating the issues at hand. 

27 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. 

I will now hear from Mr. Larkin. You are recognized for 5 

minutes to testify, sir. 

Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF PAUL LARKIN, JR., SENIOR LEGAL RESEARCH 

FELLOW, EDWIN MEESE III CENTER FOR LEGAL AND 

JUSTICE STUDIES, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, 

WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. LARKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Madam Ranking 

Member, and other members of the subcommittee. 

I am a 1980 graduate of the Stanford Law School and have spent 

the bulk of my legal career involved in the criminal justice system 

in one capacity or another. Among the positions I have held are the 

following: an attorney in the Organized Crime and Racketeering 

Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Justice Department; 

Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Office of the Solicitor 

General at the Justice Department; counsel to the Senate Judiciary 

Committee when it was under the Chairmanship of Senator Orrin 

Hatch; and Special Agent in Charge in the EPA Criminal 

Investigation Division. 

I have also written on some of the subjects that this committee 

will address today and perhaps in the future. 

I would like to make just a few brief points today. First, it is generally a mistake to use the criminal law for regulatory enforcement. For most of Anglo-American legal history, society has used 

the criminal law to punish crimes that violated local, cultural 

mores or norms. The result was that everyone in the community 

knew what was a crime. 

Unfortunately, that is not always the case anymore. Over the 

last 150 years, American law has started to use the criminal process as an enforcement mechanism in the administrative agencies’ 

enforcement of regulatory programs. While there is no problem 

with doing that through an administrative or civil process, there is 

a problem created when you try to use the criminal process. 

The problem is, it can be extraordinarily difficult for people to 

know exactly where the line is between what is permitted and 

what is prohibited; and the result is you can have the same problems that arise from an unduly vague statute, namely, the average 

member of the public may not know exactly what is and is not a 

crime. 

Second, even if Congress wants to use law enforcement to enforce 

regulatory regimes, the job will be better handled, I believe, by traditional law enforcement agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of 

Investigation and the U.S. Marshal Service. 

The public is fully aware of those agencies, but the public, 

however, is oftentimes completely unaware of other more specialized law enforcement agencies, like those you see at particular regulatory agencies. The result is likely to lead to mistakes of identity, 

as well as perhaps the sort of problem you talked about, Mr. 

Chairman, in the overuse of Federal authority. 

But equally important is that it runs the risk that regulatory 

agencies will use their law enforcement agencies on trivial cases in 

order simply to justify their budget and their existence. That is a 

28 

1The title and affiliation are for identification purposes. Members of The Heritage Foundation 

staff testify as individuals discussing their own independent research. The views expressed here 

are my own, and do not reflect an institutional position for The Heritage Foundation or its board 

of trustees, and do not reflect support or opposition for any specific legislation. The Heritage 

Foundation is a public policy, research, and educational organization recognized as exempt 

under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It is privately supported and receives no 

funds from any government at any level, nor does it perform any government or other contract 

work. The Heritage Foundation is the most broadly supported think tank in the United States. 

During 2013, it had nearly 600,000 individual, foundation, and corporate supporters representing every state in the U.S. Its 2013 income came from the following sources: 80% from 

individuals, 17% from foundations, and 3% from corporations. The top five corporate givers provided The Heritage Foundation with 2% of its 2013 income. The Heritage Foundation’s books 

are audited annually by the national accounting firm of McGladrey, LLP. 2See, e.g., Paul J. Larkin, Jr., The Dynamic Incorporation of Foreign Law, and the 

Constitutional Regulation of Federal Lawmaking, 38 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 337 (2015) 

(hereafter Larkin, Dynamic Incorporation); Paul J. Larkin, Jr., Strict Liability Offenses, 

Incarceration, and the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, 37 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 1065 

(2014) (hereafter Larkin, Strict Liability); Paul J. Larkin, Jr., Prohibition, Regulation, and 

Overcriminalization: The Proper and Improper Uses of the Criminal Law, 42 Hofstra L. Rev. 745 

(2014) (hereafter Larkin, Prohibition, Regulation, and Overcriminalization); Paul J. Larkin, Jr., 

problem throughout law enforcement generally. It is not limited 

just to these agencies, but it has perhaps become most acute when 

it is. 

Third, overuse of SWAT teams and dynamic entries and the like 

has led to unfortunate results. Witness what happened when county officers made a dynamic entry into the home of the Berwyn 

Heights, Maryland mayor who was mistakenly suspected to be a 

drug trafficker. The officers shot and killed his two Labrador 

Retrievers and terrorized him and his family. 

Different Federal agencies with regulatory responsibility have 

sought this sort of authority as well, and giving it to them, I think, 

is only likely to lead to more of these sorts of problems. 

Given that—I think it was the Ranking Member who mentioned 

the Lacey Act—let me add just one last point and then I will give 

my remaining time to you. The Lacey Act raises a host of constitutional problems because of the way it is drafted. What the Lacey 

Act does is grant Federal lawmaking authority to foreign officials, 

people who are neither legally nor politically accountable to the 

public or by the courts. 

The result is that the Lacey Act, for those reasons, violates 

Articles I and II of the Constitution as well as the due process 

clause. 

I have explained this at length in an article that was recently 

published by the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. I have 

a copy with me, and if you would like, I would be glad to give it 

to you for submission into the record. 

With that, Mr. Chairman, Madam Ranking Member, I give you 

back my remaining time. I’m glad to answer any questions you 

have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Larkin follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF PAUL J. LARKIN, JR., SENIOR LEGAL RESEARCH FELLOW, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, members of the subcommittee, my name is 

Paul J. Larkin, Jr. I am a Senior Legal Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony are my own and should not be construed 

as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.1

Thank you for the opportunity to testify about law enforcement issues that arise 

in connection with the Federal land management agencies. I have written on some 

of the issues relevant to the Committee’s hearing,2 and I will draw on those publications for this testimony. I will address three issues identified in the headings below. 

29 

Taking Mistakes Seriously, 28 B.Y.U. J. of Pub. L. 71 (2014); Paul J. Larkin, Jr., Public Choice 

Theory and Overcriminalization, 36 Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 715 (2013) (hereafter Larkin, 

Overcriminalization); Paul J. Larkin, Jr., A Mistake of Law Defense as a Remedy for 

Overcriminalization, 26 A.B.A.J. Criminal Justice 10 (Spring 2013). 3See Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan 80 (1651). 4See Max Minzner, Why Agencies Punish, 53 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 853, 858–59 (2012). 5See Jerome Hall, Interrelations of Criminal Law and Torts, 43 Colum. L. Rev. 753, 757–58 

(1943). 

I. The Problem of Using the Criminal Law for Regulatory and 

Nontraditional Crimes 

A. THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COMMON LAW CRIMES AND REGULATORY OR

NONTRADITIONAL CRIMES

1. Using the Criminal Law to Enforce Regulatory Schemes 

The threshold question is whether it is sensible to use the criminal law to enforce 

a regulatory program. In my opinion, the answer is ‘‘No’’ unless there are special 

circumstances present. The reason why is that the two enforcement schemes differ 

in several important ways that make any attempt to marry the two likely to fail 

in most cases. Resorting to criminal law to enforce regulatory programs poses numerous problems not present in the case of traditional ‘‘blue-collar’’ offenses or even 

standard ‘‘white-collar’’ crimes. Those problems stem from several defining features 

of regulatory laws that increase the difficulty placed on an average person to understand precisely where the line is drawn between lawful and illegal conduct. 

The criminal law prohibits conduct in order for civil society to exist and avoid 

bellum omnium contra omnes.3 By and large the criminal code addresses the moral 

code that every person knows by heart and that the private components of a civil 

society—families, friends, neighbors, members of religious or social organizations, 

and so forth—teach the young to incorporate into their everyday behavior. By contrast, contemporary regulatory schemes have a very different history and purpose. 

Regulatory programs grew up, largely in the twentieth century and seek to efficiently manage industries and activities via regulations, policy statements, civil 

rules, rewards, and penalties to incentivize desirable behavior without casting aspersions on violations attributable to ignorance or explanations other than defiance. 

Statutes creating those regulatory schemes define the circumstances in which regulated conduct may and may not be undertaken, delegate authority to agencies to 

promulgate regulations filling out statutory terms, establish permitting and monitoring protocols to ensure that the amount and type of regulated activity does not 

exceed tolerable limits. Almost without exception, regulatory programs authorize administrative agencies to pursue enforcement through civil processes, not criminal.4

The distinction between the civil and criminal laws is an ancient one, with stateadministered punishment traditionally reserved only for a violation of the latter.5

Yet, today many contemporary regulatory programs define unlawful conduct not just 

as a civil wrong, but also as a crime, and empower the government to penalize regulatory infractions through the same criminal process historically used to investigate, 

prosecute, and imprison parties for murder, rape, robbery, theft, and a host of other 

offenses known today as ‘‘street’’ crimes or ‘‘blue-collar’’ crimes. In fact, regulatory 

criminal laws have become a settled feature of modern-day statutory codes, and they 

often impose criminal liability for a host of actions that historically would have been 

considered only civil infractions. 

2. Using the Criminal Law to Create Nontraditional Crimes 

The second category of problematic uses of the criminal law is in the case of what 

I will call ‘‘nontraditional crimes.’’ I would use the term ‘‘traditional crimes’’ to refer 

to three subsets of offenses: (a) the crimes that existed at common law—such as 

murder, rape, robbery, and the like, (b) the similar offenses that contemporary society has added to that list—such as kidnapping, child abuse, peonage, and so forth, 

and (c) and the crimes that everyone knows are part of today’s penal codes, but are 

not strictly analogous to the type of violent offenses or ‘‘street crimes’’ that that 

would fit into the two subsets just noted—such as trafficking in controlled substances like heroin. The offenses in this category could overlap with the category 

of regulatory crimes discussed above, because agency rules may define relevant 

terms or set limits to the amount and type of such conduct that may permissibly 

be done. But some nontraditional crimes will be defined by statute without the 

30 

6The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. § 1030 (2012), is an example. It 

prohibits only certain uses of computers and does not delegate authority to an administrative 

agency to define precisely what uses are impermissible. See generally Paul J. Larkin, Jr., United 

States v. Nosal: Rebooting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 8 Seton Hall Cir. Rev. 257, 260– 

261 & nn. 11–13 (2012) (collecting authorities interpreting the CFAA). 7See Larkin, Strict Liability, supra note 1, at 1088–89. 8See, e.g., Rogers v. Tennessee, 532 U.S. 451, 459 (2001). 9See, e.g., Livingston Hall & Selig J. Seligman, Mistake of Law and Mens Rea, 8 U. Chi. L. 

Rev. 641, 644 (1941) (‘‘[T]he early criminal law appears to have been well integrated with the 

mores of the time, out of which it arose as ‘custom.’ ’’); Larkin, Dynamic Incorporation, supra 

note 1, at 382 (collecting authorities). 10See Michael B. Mukasey & Paul J. Larkin, Jr., The Perils of Overcriminalization, The 

Heritage Foundation, Legal Memorandum No. 146, at 1–2 & nn. 6–7 (Feb. 12, 2015), http:// 

thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/pdf/LM146.pdf; see id. at 1–2 nn. 6–8. 11See id. 

assistance of supporting regulations.6 The common denominator for crimes that fit 

into this category is that they address conduct that is not always unlawful. 

B. THE IMPORTANCE OF THOSE DIFFERENCES

Resorting to criminal law to enforce regulatory programs poses numerous, difficult 

compliance problems not present in the case of traditional ‘‘blue-collar’’ offenses or 

even standard ‘‘white-collar’’ crimes. Those problems stem from several defining features of regulatory laws that increase the difficulty placed on an average person to 

understand precisely where the line is drawn between lawful and illegal conduct. 

Treating regulatory crimes as if they were no different than ‘‘street crimes’’ ignores 

the profound difference between the two classes of offenses and puts parties engaged 

in entirely legitimate activities without any intent to break the law at risk of criminal punishment. In fact, many of the features that make the administrative process 

a desirable, and sometimes necessary, means for implementing acts of Congress 

render inappropriate use of the criminal process as an enforcement mechanism. 

Consider this example. Congress may, and often does, use a broadly defined term 

(for example, ‘‘solid waste’’) in a statute (for example, the Resource Conservation 

and Recovery Act) that delegates to an agency (for example, the EPA) the power 

to implement that law by elaborating or refining the definition of a term (for example, ‘‘hazardous waste’’), by creating a list of specific examples of what that term 

means (for example, ‘‘listed hazardous wastes’’), or by specifying exemptions from 

the term (for example, ‘‘recyclable materials’’).7 By legislating in that fashion, 

Congress can grant the executive branch considerable regulatory flexibility. An 

agency can adapt existing regulations or promulgate new ones whenever necessary 

to address worsening or newly emerging hazards without having to return to 

Congress for specific supplemental regulatory authorization. That practice also enables the agency to invoke its superior technical and scientific expertise regarding 

a particular substance, production process, or medical risk whenever a new problem 

pops up or an old one takes a turn for the worse. Broadly written regulatory statutes granting administrative agencies room to maneuver are valuable because society wants agencies to be able to respond quickly (for instance) to serious health 

threats by revising the rules necessary to forestall or remedy a problem. At the 

same time, the freedom to respond quickly can place individuals at risk of criminal 

punishment for guessing mistakenly about what the law requires because regulatory 

developments can outpace their knowledge of the law. 

The evolving nature of regulations, however, is only one aspect of the notice 

problem. An elementary principle of criminal and constitutional law is that the government must clearly identify particular conduct as criminal so that the average 

person, without resort to legal advice, can comply with the law.8 Historically, that 

requirement posed little difficulty. The government ordinarily could satisfy that obligation simply by enacting and making public a statute that was written in terms 

the average person could readily understand. Throughout Anglo-American legal history, contemporary mores condemned certain conduct as harmful, dangerous, or 

blameworthy, such as murder, rape, robbery, and burglary.9 A legislature could 

readily draft a straightforward, easily comprehensible ordinance outlawing those actions by drawing on language widely understood in the community. That is not the 

case, however, in fields that are subject to regulation or that criminalize nontraditional conduct. 

Start with the quantity of relevant laws. The total number of Federal statutes and 

regulations relevant to criminal conduct is unknown but likely is immense.10 Some 

commentators have estimated that there are more than 4,450 Federal criminal statutes and more than 300,000 Federal regulations that define conduct as criminal or 

otherwise bear on the proper interpretation of the laws that do.11 No one—no 

31 

12William J. Stuntz, Self-Defeating Crimes, 86 Va. L. Rev. 1871, 1871 (2000). 13See, e.g., Larkin, Dynamic Incorporation, supra note 1, at 384. 14See Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452, 461–62 (1997). 15See Kathleen F. Brickey, Environmental Crime at the Crossroads: The Intersection of 

Environmental and Criminal Law Theory, 71 Tul. L. Rev. 487, 502–03 (1996). 16See Larkin, Strict Liability, supra note 1, at 1092–93. 17For a good example, see Vidrine v. United States, 846 F. Supp. 2d 550, 561–69 (W.D. La. 

2011) (involving the issue whether used oil was a recyclable product or hazardous waste). 18 United States v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 617 (1954). 

lawyer, no judge, no law professor—has that knowledge. As the distinguished 

academic and late Harvard Law School professor William Stuntz put it: ‘‘Ordinary 

people do not have the time or training to learn the contents of criminal codes; indeed, even criminal law professors rarely know much about what conduct is and 

isn’t criminal in their jurisdictions.’’ 12 Permitting the government to rest criminal 

liability on the fiction that the average person is conversant with the ins and outs 

of Federal regulatory statutes, let alone the thousands of potentially relevant regulations, borders on the obscene. 

If it is unreasonable to expect that everyone already knows the law, people must 

be able to find it. Yet, even finding every pertinent regulation can be an onerous 

task. Few people are aficionados of the U.S. Code, let alone the Code of Federal 

Regulations or the Federal Register. Given the massive increase in the number of 

Federal regulations over the last century, there is a potentially enormous number 

of ways that someone can violate criminal statutes today. The result makes it almost certain that the average person will be completely unaware of some of those 

ways that he or she can break the law. 

There is an additional complicating factor. Federal Government officials responsible for implementing domestic statutory programs often construe relevant acts of 

Congress and agency regulations in publicly issued ‘‘guidance documents’’ or 

‘‘compliance manuals,’’ as well as in internal memoranda.13 Interpretations that 

have not been promulgated as regulations do not have the same legal status as 

agency rules, of course, but they still may have considerable legal effect. An agency’s 

construction of its own regulations is generally deemed controlling on the courts unless that interpretation is unconstitutional or contrary to the plain text of the rule 

itself.14 An agency’s interpretive memoranda that are not publicly available are tantamount to a form of ‘‘secret’’ or ‘‘underground’’ law.15

Even if the average person can find all of the pertinent regulations and internal 

agency guidance documents, however, there is no guarantee that he or she can 

understand them, given the often-recondite rules that agencies adopt for subjects 

that are technical or scientific in nature. The relevant statutes vest broad authority 

and discretion in the expert agencies in order to permit them the flexibility deemed 

necessary for them to respond to advances in scientific and medical knowledge and 

changes in manufacturing or other productive mechanisms. Regulations promulgated by agencies can form highly reticulated networks demanding a sophisticated 

understanding of technical subjects beyond the ken of the average person.16 The result often is that agency rules, such as the ones promulgated under the Federal 

environmental laws, can be extraordinarily abstruse, demanding almost as much 

scientific or technical knowledge as legal skill to ensure their proper interpretation.17 Yet, fair notice of what the law forbids is a longstanding requirement for imposing criminal punishment. It is settled law that the government cannot criminally 

enforce a law that cannot be understood by a person ‘‘of ordinary intelligence.’’ 18

A technical set of rules thus can create the same notice problems that we already 

acknowledge to exist when a statute is unduly vague. In both cases the average person would not know what has been made a crime. Just as the criminal law does 

not require a person to consult with an attorney in order to avoid liability, so, too, 

it should not demand that an individual resort to a biologist, geologist, or hydrologist before undertaking facially reasonable activity in a legitimate business. 

Another complicating factor with regulatory or nontraditional crimes is that their 

prohibitions may not apply across the board. Murder is always a crime; the criminal 

law prohibits every instance of this conduct, not merely the ones that exceed a defined limit. Every rape is a crime; other factors may aggravate that offense, but the 

basic crime exists in every criminal code. Robbery fits into the same category; no 

one can apply for a permit to commit robberies. By contrast, not every use of a computer is a Federal offense, the disposal of household garbage is not the same as the 

dumping of hazardous waste, and a party can apply for a permit to pollute the 

nation’s waterways. 

The raison d’eˆtre of a regulatory program is that certain conduct cannot or should 

not be forbidden in all circumstances and so must be managed, controlled, or supervised to limit the instances in which it occurs or poses a hazard. A statute may 

32 

19See Edwin Meese III & Paul J. Larkin, Jr., Reconsidering the Mistake of Law Defense, 102 

J. Crim. L. & Criminology 725, 742–43 (2012). 20See United States v. McNab, 331 F.3d 1228 (11th Cir. 2003) (defendant sentenced to 8 years 

in prison for importing undersized, egg-bearing lobsters from Honduras in violation of Honduran 

law). In the Gibson Guitar case, the Department of Justice investigated Gibson Guitar for a violation of the laws of Madagascar even though at least one of the relevant laws had to be translated into English. See Letter Containing a Deferred Prosecution Agreement from Jerry E. 

Martin, U.S. Attorney, M.D. Tenn., et al., to Donald A. Carr & William M. Sullivan Jr. App. 

A, at 6 (July 27, 2012) [hereinafter GIBSON GUITAR DPA] (referring to ‘‘the Department’s 

translation of Interministerial Order 16.030/2006’’), http://www.legaltimes.typepad.com/files/ 

gibson.pdf [http://perma.cc/RQV9-F2WB]. 21 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 21 (1979). 22See, e.g., McFadden v. United States, 135 S. Ct. 2298, 2304 (2015); Elonis v. United States, 

135 S. Ct. 2001, 2008–10 (2015). 23See, e.g., Henry M. Hart, Jr., The Aims of the Criminal Law, 23 L. & Contemp. Probs. 401, 

421–22 (1958); Larkin, Strict Liability, supra note 1, at 1079 n. 46 (collecting authorities). 24See Meese & Larkin, supra note 20, at 744–45. 25 Id. at 744. 26 See id. 27 Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 102 (1997) (‘‘all civil penalties have some deterrent 

effect’’). 28Louise Radnofsky, Gary Fields & John R. Emshwiller, Federal Police Ranks Swell to 

Enforce a Widening Array of Criminal Laws, Wall St. J., Dec. 17, 2011, at A1 available at http:// 

online.wsj.com / article/SB10001424052970203518404577094861497383678.html#project%3DREG 

S121520111215%26articleTabs%3Darticle (‘‘For years, the public face of Federal law enforcement has been the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Today, for many people, the knock on the 

door is increasingly likely to come from a dizzying array of other police forces tucked away 

empower an agency to issue a permit to conduct certain activity, and the agency’s 

rules may define when, where, how, and by whom that conduct may be done. But 

it is more difficult to comply with a carefully nuanced rule than with a diktat forbidding any and all instances of identified conduct. Even the lawyers who practice in 

a regulated industry may not know all of the statutes, rules, regulations, and agency interpretations—which makes hopeless the plight of the average person who 

lacks legal training, or ready and inexpensive access to an attorney.19 The result 

is that it can be difficult for the average person to know when he or she has crossed 

over the line into forbidden territory.20

Historically, mens rea requirements have mediated between the need for flexibility and the duty to notify the public what the law forbids by limiting criminal 

liability to someone who intentionally violates a known legal duty or commits easily 

recognizable blameworthy conduct. At common law, a crime consisted of ‘‘a vicious 

will’’ and ‘‘an unlawful act consequent upon such vicious will.’’ 21 That principle still 

has resonance today.22 The criminal law traditionally has looked askance on negligence as a basis for liability and has treated strict liability crimes with outright 

scorn.23

Regulatory programs, however, often do not treat scienter with the same respect.24 The reason for that slight is that regulatory laws see their goal as protection of the public against particular insults or hazards, such as carcinogens, that 

cause insidious short- or long-term harm regardless of the intent or knowledge of 

the party responsible for their creation or misuse.25 Public health programs, for example, seek to empower agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration or the 

Environmental Protection Agency to intervene in the manufacturing, distribution, or 

disposal processes in order to prevent adulterated drugs from entering the stream 

of commerce, or to keep hazardous waste from poisoning the water supply, regardless of whether the party involved was aware of or oblivious to the dangers that 

his conduct posed.26 Injunctive remedies are reasonable devices for preventing public injury, and after-the-fact civil or administrative fines serve reasonable educative 

and deterrent purposes.27 But the criminal law is society’s most powerful weapon 

against conduct deemed unlawful and traditionally has been brought to bear on an 

individual only when he acted with a wicked intent, rather than merely negligently, 

let alone when no blame at all can be attributed to him. Regulatory laws do not 

see it that way. That creates serious notice and compliance problem for small businesses and individuals. 

II. The Multiplication of Federal Law Enforcement Agencies 

Most Americans have heard of a small number of Federal law enforcement 

agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement 

Administration (DEA), the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshal’s Service, and perhaps 

one or two others. What they do not know is that there is ‘‘a dizzying array’’ of other 

Federal investigative agencies,28 more than 100 of them. The total number of agents 

33 

inside lesser-known crime-fighting agencies. They could be from the Environmental Protection 

Agency, the Labor or Education Departments, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land 

Management or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency known for 

its weather forecasts.’’). 29The General Accounting Office and its successor the Government Accountability Office have 

conducted several studies of the issues posed by numerous Federal law enforcement agencies. 

See, e.g., Government Accountability Office, Federal Law Enforcement: Survey of Federal 

Civilian Law Enforcement Functions and Authorities, GAO–07–121 (Dec. 19, 2006), available at 

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07121.pdf; Government Accountability Office, Results of Surveys 

of Federal Civilian Law Enforcement Components, An E-Supplement To GAO–07–121, GAO–07– 

223SP (Dec. 19, 2006), available at http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/gao-07-223sp/index.html; 

General Accounting Office, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center: Capacity Planning and 

Management Oversight Need Improvement, GAO–03–736 (July 24, 2003), available at http:// 

www.gao.gov/assets/240/239049.pdf; General Accounting Office, Inspectors General: Comparison 

of Ways Law Enforcement Authority is Granted, GAO–02–437 (May 22, 2002), available at 

http://www.gao.gov/assets/240/234071.pdf; General Accounting Office, Federal Law Enforcement: 

Investigative Authority and Personnel at 32 Organizations, GAO/GGD–97–93 (July 22, 1997), 

available at http://www.gao.gov/assets/230/224401.pdf; General Accounting Office, Federal Law 

Enforcement: Investigative Authority and Personnel at 13 Agencies, GAO/GGD–96–154 (Sept. 

30, 1996), available at http://www.gao.gov/assets/230/223212.pdf. 30See U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Federal Law Enforcement, 2008, NCJ 

238250, at 1 (June 2012). 31 Id. 32 Id. at 5 Tbl. 2. 33 Id. at 3, 5 Tbl. 2. 34 Id. at 2 Tbl. 1, 4. 35 Id. at 5 & Tbl. 2. 

could fill out 10 divisions of armed Federal law enforcement officers. The 

multiplication of Federal law enforcement agencies can lead to numerous 

problems.29

A. THE NUMBER OF FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES AND OFFICERS

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), a component of the U.S. Department of 

Justice, conducted a census in September 2008 of 73 agencies and 33 inspector 

general’s offices. BJS concluded that there were approximately 120,000 full-time 

Federal law enforcement officers, parties authorized to make arrests and carry 

firearms in the United States.30 The bulk of those officers—roughly 45,000 or 

37 percent—conducted criminal investigations and enforcement duties. The second 

largest category consisted of police response and patrol officers—about 28,000 officers or 23 percent of the total. Next came immigration or custom inspection 

officers—approximately 18,000 in number or 15 percent—followed by officers performing correctional or detention-related duties—about 17,000 or 14 percent.31

Putting aside inspector generals’ offices, 24 Federal agencies employed 250 or 

more full-time law enforcement personnel—that is, personnel with arrest and firearms-possession authority—with the four largest agencies fitting into two parent organizations; the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice. The U.S. Customs 

and Border Protection (CBP) (36,863 full-time officers) and the U.S. Immigration 

and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) (12,446) are components of the Homeland 

Security Department, while the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) (16,835) and the 

FBI (12,760) are units within the Justice Department. The Homeland Security 

Department also contains the U.S. Secret Service (5,213) and the Federal Protective 

Service (900). The Justice Department also housed the DEA (4,308), the U.S. 

Marshal’s Service (3,313), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and 

Explosives (2,541), three other agencies in the 24 largest Federal law enforcement 

agencies. In addition, 16 Federal agencies employ fewer than 250 full-time officers.32

Among them are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and 

Drug Agency (FDA).33

Several Federal law enforcement agencies appear to be within the Committee’s 

jurisdiction. A few of them are listed among the agencies employing 250 or more 

full-time law enforcement personnel: the National Park Service Rangers (1,404), the 

U.S. Forest Service (644), the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (598), the National Park 

Service Park Police (547), the Bureau of Indian Affairs (277), and the Bureau of 

Land Management (255).34 Two agencies among those with fewer than 250 full-time 

officers also appear to fit within the Committee’s jurisdiction: the National Oceanic 

and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service (149) 

and the Bureau of Reclamation (21).35 Finally, the Office of the Inspector General 

for the Department of the Interior (66) would seem to fit within the Committee’s 

34 

36 Id. at 6 Tbl. 3. 37See, e.g., the Antitrust Civil Process Act of 1962, Pub. L. No. 87–664, 76 Stat. 548 (codified 

in various sections of 15 U.S.C. § 1311) (authorizing Justice Department attorneys to issue civil 

investigative demands to obtain documents from the target of a civil antitrust investigation); 

New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691 (1987) (upholding state law authorizing the warrantless 

search of the premises of vehicle dismantlers and junkyards). 38See Gerard E. Lynch, The Role of Criminal Law in Policing Corporate Misconduct, 60 Law 

& Contemp. Probs. 23, 37 (1997). That phenomenon may explain the provenance of the criminal 

provisions of the Federal environmental laws. Initially, those laws created only misdemeanors. 

See Richard J. Lazarus, Meeting the Demands of Integration in the Evolution of Environmental 

Law: Reforming Environmental Criminal Law, 83 Geo. L. J. 2407, 2446–47 (1995) (footnotes 

omitted). 39The FBI has the broadest authority of any Federal law enforcement agency. The Secret 

Service and Marshals Service are close behind. See Larkin, Overcriminalization, supra note 1, 

at 739 n. 95. 40 Ethics in Government Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95–521, 92 Stat. 1824. 41 Cf. Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654, 727–32 (1988) (Scalia, J., dissenting). 42 ‘‘Federal prosecutors already operate under an incentive structure that forces them to focus 

on the statistical ‘bottom line.’ Statistics on arrests and convictions are the Justice Department’s 

bread and butter. They are submitted to the department’s outside auditors, are instrumental 

in assessing the ‘performance’ of the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, and are the focus of the department’s annual report. As George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley 

puts it, ‘In some ways, the Justice Department continues to operate under the body count 

approach in Vietnam . . .. They feel a need to produce a body count to Congress to justify past 

appropriations and secure future increases.’ ’’ Gene Healy, There Goes the Neighborhood: The 

Bush-Ashcroft Plan to ‘‘Help’’ Localities Fight Gun Crime,’’ in Go Directly to Jail: The 

Criminalization of Almost Everything 105–06 (Gene Healy ed., 2004). 

jurisdiction.36 In sum, there are approximately 3,700 officers under this Committee’s 

oversight jurisdiction. 

B. PROBLEMS CREATED BY GRANTING FEDERAL REGULATORY AGENCIES LAW

ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY

Congress could use civil investigative units for Federal agencies and grant them 

the power to compel private parties to submit to on-site civil inspections.37 Civil 

compliance officers, however, lack the authority and respect given to Federal agents. 

In comparison to civil inspectors, FBI agents wearing ‘‘raid jackets’’ emblazoned 

with the Bureau’s logo will receive far more deference from a judge, a corporation, 

and the public. To take advantage of the nimbus that law enforcement officers radiate, Congress may create a minor crime (that is, a misdemeanor or minor offense) 

so that a regulatory agency can call on the full Federal investigative apparatus for 

inspection purposes, instead of being forced to show up at a plant with hat in hand 

to negotiate with a corporation’s lawyers over the scope of an inspection. Adding 

criminal statutes to an otherwise entirely civil regulatory scheme allows Congress 

to cash in on the leverage that a criminal investigation enjoys with the public and 

the media.38

A closely related factor is the growth of specialized Federal investigative agencies. 

Federal law enforcement agencies differ from state and local police departments 

with respect to the scope of their authority. As an incidence of a state’s ‘‘police 

power,’’ a state can authorize state and local police forces to investigate any and all 

violations of state law. This is not the case for Federal investigators. Just as the 

Federal Government is a polity of limited powers, so too, Federal law enforcement 

agencies have only the authority that Congress grants them. Most people are familiar with agencies, such as the FBI, which has broad investigative authority.39 The 

creation of specialized law enforcement agencies, however, raises a problem analogous to one that existed with respect to the independent counsel provisions of the 

Ethics in Government Act of 1978 40: loss of perspective.41 Agencies with wideranging investigative responsibility see the entire range of human conduct and can 

put any one party’s actions into a broad perspective. Agencies with a narrow charter 

see only what they investigate. If the only tool that one has to use is a hammer, 

everything looks like a nail. The result is that specialized agencies may wind up 

pursuing trivial criminal cases to justify their existence and continued Federal 

funding.42

It also is difficult to change a criminal investigation into a civil inquiry midstream. Differences in evidentiary rules, sources of information, and the certainty 

required to impose sanctions all complicate a hand off between Federal agents and 

administrators. Crimes committed in regulated industries are generally ‘‘whitecollar’’ in nature, which means that Federal investigators need to wade through a 

sea of documents. The easiest way to get documents from the target of an investigation is by issuing the company a grand jury subpoena because a Federal grand jury 

35 

43See Fed. R. Crim. P. 6, 17(c); United States v. R. Enterprises, Inc., 498 U.S. 292, 297 (1991). 44See Peter C. Yeager, The Limits of Law: The Public Regulation of Private Pollution 35 

(1991). 45See United States v. Sells Eng’g, Inc., 463 U.S. 418, 443 (1983). 

has broad investigative authority and there is little that a firm can do to challenge 

a subpoena.43 Once the Federal Government gets its mitts on subpoenaed documents, however, it is extremely difficult for the government to transfer them to civil 

enforcers.44 Federal law enforcement officers cannot routinely disclose grand jury 

materials to their civil colleagues; the government must instead make a showing of 

‘‘particularized need’’ for grand jury materials in order to make use of them in a 

civil proceeding.45 This difficulty gives the government a strong incentive to maintain as a criminal investigation any inquiry begun as such. 

C. PROBLEMS CREATED BY HAVING MULTIPLE FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES

The large number of Federal law enforcement agencies can lead to a variety of 

problems. 

First, the large number of agencies makes it difficult for the public to know 

whether a particular Federal officer in fact is a Federal agent. The public can readily identify local law enforcement officers. Whether police officers or deputy sheriffs, 

state and local police officers dress in easily recognizable uniforms, they interact 

with the public during the course of official business, and they often are friends or 

neighbors in the community. The public is also familiar with officers performing 

purely investigative functions, such as ‘‘detectives’’ or ‘‘inspectors,’’ because numerous films and television shows have portrayed those officers in action. As far as 

Federal law enforcement officers go, the public also knows about the FBI, the DEA, 

the U.S. Marshal’s Service, and perhaps one or two others, but is wholly unaware 

that a vast number of other Federal agencies, such as the EPA, the FDA, and 

NOAA, also employ agents with criminal investigative authority. To most members 

of the public, those are purely regulatory agencies with responsibilities that have 

nothing to do with the criminal law (for NOAA, the public thinks of dolphins) or 

that are more a source of amusement than respect (for the EPA, the public thinks 

of Walter Peck in ‘‘Ghostbusters’’). The public’s inability easily to identify as legitimate members of the law enforcement community parties claiming to be Federal 

agents working for nontraditional law enforcement agencies, to my knowledge, has 

led to dangerous confrontations and, in my view, is certain to ultimately result in 

an unfortunate incident where one party or the other is shot. 

Second, the large number of agencies leads to needless waste. Keep in mind that 

agents are not the only personnel at a law enforcement agency. The problem with 

more than 100 Federal law enforcement agencies is that they may be considerable 

overlap or ‘‘slack’’ in the system that should be alleviated by combining functions. 

For example, while it is important to have lawyers dedicated to working exclusively 

with agents, there may be no need for a separate cadre of lawyers at each Federal 

law enforcement agency. Consolidating agencies could eliminate expenditure on 

needless resources. 

Third, adding criminal divisions to regulatory agencies is hardly a guarantee that 

regulatory crimes will be adequately investigated. That is true for several reasons. 

To start with, there is no guarantee that the agency will have the necessary resources to investigate crimes. There may be an equal or greater number of ancillary 

support personnel who perform missions critical to the success of the agency. As far 

as personnel goes, any agency must have lawyers, evidence collection experts, laboratory technicians, training officers, and administrative personnel in addition to 

the parties authorized to make arrests and carry firearms. (Of course, some agents 

also will perform supervisory functions and therefore would not be available for 

fieldwork.) Agencies must also have offices, vehicles, computers, and other equipment. Moreover, criminal investigation units may not even be welcome in a 

regulatory agency. They may be seen as a drain on agency resources, as a sop to 

whatever parties want the relevant conduct to be made a crime, or as a diversion 

from the agency’s primary mission of pursuing the requisite scientific, technical, or 

economic inquiries necessary to justify promulgating regulations to govern private 

conduct. Some regulatory agency criminal programs may be little more than 

Potemkin Villages, units designed to display an interest in criminal enforcement 

that is not genuine, or serve as the threatened agency component to which a matter 

will be referred if a party refuses to accept a civil or administrative settlement of 

a matter. 

36 

46See, e.g., Radley Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police 

Forces (2014). 47 In some instances, a Federal regulatory agency also may be able to enlist state or local 

police officers for assistance. For example, the New York City Police Department has an 

Emergency Services Unit that functions as a SWAT unit. 

Fourth, the large number of agencies makes congressional oversight difficult, 

particularly when different congressional committees have jurisdiction over different 

Federal agencies. 

III. The Overmilitarization of Federal Law Enforcement 

Media images of tanks and armored personnel carriers in urban streets, heavily 

armed government agents clad in helmets, BDUs, and other military-style gear, and 

sharpshooters waiting patiently for ‘‘Execute’’ orders bring to mind images of the 

Russian Federation’s annexation of the Crimea in 2014 or the former Soviet Union’s 

invasions of Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Afghanistan in 1979. 

Unfortunately, the images also occasionally describe stories about the civil unrest 

that has periodically rent our society or the unnecessary and unwise use of SWAT 

units for law enforcement purposes. Traditional Federal law enforcement agencies— 

the FBI, the Secret Service, the Marshal’s Service, for example—have need of SWAT 

units for the different type of work they do. Entering structures where terrorists are 

plotting their crimes, where violent criminal are ‘‘holed up,’’ or where large quantities of controlled substances are being held for distribution—those and some other 

instances are classic examples of the need for the specialized training and equipment that SWAT units have. Unfortunately, however, other Federal agencies may 

also seek to have comparable units of their own. The proliferation of these units can 

create terrible problems for Federal law enforcement, not the least of which is the 

increasing perception of the American public that law enforcement officers have 

taken on the image and attitude of military Special Forces units. 

Militarization of law enforcement will inevitably lead to incidents that no one 

wants to see happen but that everyone, if honest, knows will inevitably occur. Once 

an agency has a SWAT team, the team will deploy frequently. The team members 

will want to work in that capacity as often as possible because it is far more fun 

to break down a door than to review the boxes of papers that are the grist for the 

mill in a white-collar criminal investigation. The unit’s supervisors will want to deploy the team to prove that it is a necessity. But there are only so many heavily 

fortified biker meth labs, so agency SWAT units will wind up being deployed in settings where there is no good reason for them to be called out—like the incident in 

which suburban Maryland officers mistakenly made a dynamic entry into the home 

of the local mayor and shot his two Labrador Retrievers.46 The result will be needless deaths. 

There are a few additional points to keep in mind. First, there is likely to be a 

very small number of instances in which regulatory and nontraditional crimes need 

the special skills of a SWAT team and only a small number of Federal agencies that 

need such a unit on call. Second, there are several Federal agencies, such as the 

FBI and Marshal’s Service, with officers dedicated to the work done by a SWAT 

team. A Federal agency that believes a SWAT team is necessary can call on one 

of those agencies for assistance.47 Third, Federal agencies need to accept the fact 

that going without your own SWAT team does not make you an inferior law enforcement agency. There is nothing remotely degrading about working in a field that is 

dedicated to the investigation of white-collar crimes. Keeping your neighbors safe 

from grifters is a noble undertaking. Fourth, despite what Ben Franklin said, we 

need to make a trade-off between security and freedom. Militarizing Federal law enforcement agencies will engender suspicion, hostility, and resentment, all of which 

will poison the relationship that the Federal agents need in order to carry out their 

investigative responsibilities. 

Does this mean that there never will be an occasion in which a SWAT team is 

necessary to enforce a regulatory scheme or a nontraditional crime? Of course not. 

Whether such a unit is necessary must be answered in each case based on its own 

facts. After all, violent criminals can commit regulatory or nontraditional crimes. 

But there are Federal agencies with trained personnel, like the FBI and Marshal’s 

Service, which can assist when such units are necessary. 

37 

Conclusion 

Thank you for the opportunity to offer the subcommittee my views on these law 

enforcement issues. I am glad to answer any questions that members of the subcommittee may have, and I also am willing to help the subcommittee in its work. 

***** 

The following item was submitted by Mr. Larkin for the record and will be retained 

in the Committee’s official files: 

—Article: Public Choice Theory and Overcriminalization. Paul J. Larkin, Jr. 

Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, (2013). 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you very much, Mr. Larkin. 

We appreciate all of your testimony today. At this time we are 

going to move into questioning by the Members. I am going to be 

here for the duration of the hearing, so I am going to recognize first 

my colleague and my friend from Georgia, Mr. Hice, for 5 minutes 

for questions. 

Dr. HICE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate 

this hearing to, frankly, examine the accountability of enforcement 

divisions of the Department of the Interior as well as the U.S. 

Forest Service. 

Before I begin my questions, like a number of other Members 

here on the subcommittee, my home state of Georgia was directly 

impacted by the very issue that we are dealing with this morning. 

Both north Georgia and the western portion of North Carolina were 

recently the focal point of a 4-year, multi-Federal and state joint 

operation called ‘‘Operation Something Bruin.’’ 

I do not know if you are familiar with that, but it involved the 

Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Park Service, the Georgia 

Department of Natural Resources, and the North Carolina Wildlife 

Resources Commission, and what they were trying to do was to 

stop a group of individuals who were illegally killing bears in that 

portion of our country. 

‘‘Operation Something Bruin’’ came to a head in February of 

2013 with the prosecution of 51 different individuals on both 

Federal and state charges. Last month our colleague, Mark 

Meadows, who is on the Oversight and Government Reform 

Committee, but chairs within that committee the Government 

Operations Subcommittee, held a field hearing in Waynesville, 

North Carolina, on that particular operation and how it transpired. 

It involved testimony from private citizens as well as Federal and 

state agencies. 

What was found was alarming to me. Media reports as well as 

individual testimony found that at least three of our agents, undercover officers, actually killed bears during that, and they were actively involved in trying to entrap other hunters in that whole 

ordeal. 

There were also accounts of our Federal raids—our agents federally raiding and seizing personal property, damaging property that 

was unrelated to the whole ordeal. 

I commend Chairman Meadows on that particular operation, 

and, Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous consent to include 

letters from Mr. Meadows to the Inspectors General of the 

38 

Department of the Interior and Agriculture and those responses in 

the record if I can, sir. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Without objection, so ordered. 

Dr. HICE. With that, let me begin, Mr. Larkin, with you. Are you 

familiar, by the way, with ‘‘Operation Something Bruin’’ ? 

Mr. LARKIN. I am not as familiar as you are. I have read an article about it; so I am generally familiar with it, but not with the 

specifics. 

Dr. HICE. OK. Based on what I just shared with you about that, 

it is an extremely, to me at least, elaborate example of Federal 

agencies working with state officials in this regard. There were a 

lot of controversies, as I mentioned. 

Do you believe this is a wise use of Federal law enforcement 

resources? 

Mr. LARKIN. No, I do not. I think enforcement of the fish and 

game laws and the like should be left to state and local authorities. 

Generally speaking, they have the authority even if the property 

that is at issue is in the concurrent jurisdiction of the Federal and 

state governments. 

If the property happens to be within the exclusive jurisdiction of 

the Federal Government, then the regulations promulgated by the 

U.S. Marshal Service allow the Marshal to designate state and 

local law enforcement officers as Special Deputy U.S. Marshals, so 

that they can then enforce the state laws in that area. 

Now, the problem here is also a more general one. Federal law 

enforcement agencies have grown up in a haphazard manner over 

the course of the Nation’s history. Originally we started with the 

Marshal Service and the Customs Service—the Marshal Service 

because we needed someone like a sheriff; the Customs Service because the only way we made any money was through the taxes imposed on importation and exportation. 

All of the other agencies have grown up without Congress ever 

stepping back and asking itself this question: What are the crimes 

that only the Federal Government can handle? And there are some. 

Only the Federal Government can handle espionage, international terrorism, state and local political corruption, civil rights 

violations, environmental crimes, interstate complex or very sophisticated fraud. Those are the sorts of crimes that the Federal 

Government should focus on; and it should limit its assets devoted 

to law enforcement to those sorts of matters, not the Fish and 

Game matters. 

Dr. HICE. OK, sir. Thank you. 

I did have some other questions for the sheriff, but my time has 

expired. I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. 

At this time we will recognize the Ranking Member, Congresswoman Dingell, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. DINGELL. Thank you. 

Let me just ask one question following up on that, and then I 

have some questions for Mr. Schoppmeyer. 

From what you just said, are you saying that state and locals 

should be in charge of law enforcement on Federal lands? 

Mr. LARKIN. They should handle the law enforcement crimes that 

state and local law enforcement officers can handle. It does not 

39 

mean that we should denude Federal law enforcement officers of all 

their ability on Federal land. 

For example, were a Marshal or were an FBI agent to see a violent crime committed in his or her presence, that agent should step 

in and handle that; but Federal agents are trained and are qualified to handle crimes that only the Federal Government can. So, 

whenever you divert their time and their assets and their resources 

to handle crimes that state and local people can handle, you take 

away from what they can do. 

You see, the problem often in law enforcement is not that there 

is not a law that deals with the problem. The problem often is 

there are not enough people to investigate the case. 

Take fraud, whether it is an international fraud, an interstate 

fraud, or a fraud that is committed entirely on Wall Street. It is 

a very resource intensive investigation. You do not oftentimes need 

new laws to deal with those sorts of crimes. What you need are 

more agents, more accountants, more lawyers, more assets like 

that to look into the problem. 

If you take the people that you need to investigate those crimes 

that only the Federal Government can handle away from that responsibility and give them the responsibility of handling things 

that the state and locals can handle, you are hurting the Nation’s 

interest in law enforcement. 

Mrs. DINGELL. Well, I want to ask Mr. Schoppmeyer a question 

because my concern is that state and local governments are already 

complaining about the lack of resources to do what they do, and I 

do believe it is critical that we keep our Federal lands safe. So 

where is this delicate balance? 

Congress, I believe, has not done an adequate job of funding our 

land management agencies overall, and it has had an impact on 

law enforcement. 

Mr. Schoppmeyer, would you describe some of the negative consequences of the budget cuts that we have seen over the years and 

perhaps give your observations as to what would happen if state 

and local were to have responsibility for Federal lands as well? 

Mr. SCHOPPMEYER. Well, with all due respect to Mr. Larkin, I 

think some of the points that he is missing here are that the Lacey 

Act, we will take for instance, is the oldest conservation law in the 

United States. It goes back to 1900. Specifically the Lacey Act regulates the interstate or foreign commerce of illegally taken fish, 

wildlife, and plants. In such, as Mr. Larkin talks about, sophisticated complex civil and criminal cases involving the Lacey Act, the 

states are ill equipped to deal with it. The county is ill equipped 

to deal with it. 

Quite honestly, if you did not have NOAA agents and Federal 

Fish and Wildlife agents enforcing the Lacey Act, it would not get 

done. 

The other issue that came up with the FOCUS Act that was introduced by Senator Rand Paul is that, specifically, why don’t we 

just create individual acts to protect rhinos and elephants. Well, 

you just cannot do that. I mean, it has to be wide-sweeping legislation. 

40 

You know, questions are asked, ‘‘Well, why do we enforce other 

country’s laws? ’’ Because they are even more ill equipped than we 

are to deal with these issues. 

I personally would like to be able to know, even if I have never 

seen one in the wild, that a rhino exists and that an elephant exists. When it comes to the resources, the one thing that Mr. Larkin 

and I disagree on is you will never—and we represent the FBI, by 

the way; they have their own agents’ association, but I am the 

Agency Affairs President—I can tell you that you will never see an 

FBI agent unless he is asked into an investigation, because there 

may be other things going on with terrorism funding and things 

like that, that are their other jurisdiction. You are not going to see 

an FBI agent out in the woods. It is just not going to happen. 

Mrs. DINGELL. Well, let me ask you as our time is running out. 

Why is being a law enforcement officer for a land management 

agency different than other law enforcement jobs? 

Mr. SCHOPPMEYER. We go through the same training at the 

Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and then we branch off 

to go to our individual agencies for training. It is entirely different. 

It is called nontraditional law enforcement. 

We protect natural resources. We also protect the public that visits these parks. Visitor safety protection is a high priority with the 

Forest Service, with the Park Service, and with Fish and Wildlife. 

It really does come down to the fact that it is a specialized area, 

and you’ve got to want to be a natural resource law enforcement 

officer. 

Mrs. DINGELL. I am out of time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. 

At this time I will recognize Mrs. Radewagen for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. RADEWAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 

Member. 

Mr. Ehnes, one of our witnesses is very critical of the impact 

your hobby has on the environment. Is this the sort of hostility you 

face from Federal law enforcement, or would this be an example of 

a rare exception that poisons the well at a time when you are trying to build trust with the agencies? 

Mr. EHNES. Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman, it is an attitude 

that does exist in some agencies, and we have done, I think, a very 

good job in many areas of building very strong relationships with 

the Forest Service. 

The stove-piping is helping damage those recreations from the 

standpoint that we have good communications with the Forest supervisors, the district rangers, the recreation staff; and in my personal experience with the Lewis and Clark, I will call all of those 

people friends. We work very closely to make sure that our resource for our recreation is managed well and the people are 

educated. 

In the example that I gave of the checkpoint that the LEO set 

up at one of our rides, it was perplexing to our riders because we 

as an organization feel as though we have a very strong relationship and did not understand why that had to happen that way. It 

would have been a great opportunity for the LEO to introduce himself to our riders and actually enhance the relationship had that 

person come into the camp. 

41 

If the communication or the direction from the Forest supervisor 

or the district ranger would have been in place, that’s probably 

what would have happened because it would have heard about the 

strength of that relationship. 

Mrs. RADEWAGEN. Thank you. 

Sheriff Brown, as an elected sheriff, you have a fundamental 

level of accountability that your colleagues in the Forest Service do 

not. How does this undermine your ability to keep your constituents safe? 

Sheriff BROWN. The difference is exactly that. Much like all of 

you are elected and you have a responsibility to the citizens that 

put you here in Washington, I have that same responsibility. When 

there are problems in my county, those phone calls come to my 

office. 

I cannot deal with either disciplinary issues or officer conduct 

issues with the Forest Service LEO in my county. However, if we 

have a good relationship, and I will tell you that I do today; and 

I can tell you that 15 years ago I did not. Things have changed for 

me in my county, and I have the ability to work with the Special 

Agent and the ability to speak directly with the Director here in 

Washington. 

If there are issues, we can talk those things through; and I have 

to be able to assure the people that elected me, that put me in the 

position that I am in, that those issues are being addressed. Much 

like I would hold my deputies accountable, I expect the Forest 

Service to hold their officers accountable as well. 

Mrs. RADEWAGEN. Mr. Larkin, are there examples of decriminalizing regulatory offenses, or is this a genie out of the bottle 

situation where reversing course is near impossible? 

Mr. LARKIN. I cannot think of any specific instances where 

Congress had decriminalized existing criminal programs in regulatory agencies, but it does mean that Congress should not consider 

this a worthwhile effort. 

For example, it is often the case that Congress adds small-scale 

criminal provisions to different pieces of legislation, maybe making 

something a misdemeanor or a minor offense so they can then 

draw on the existing law enforcement agencies to do the work. 

Over time then you will see that people will try to accumulate 

these crimes into larger crimes and felonies and add to the authority of agencies by creating some new programs. 

In my view what Congress should do is reconsider the entire allocation of Federal criminal investigation responsibilities and transfer the authority that regulatory agencies’ criminal programs 

currently have, transfer these to the FBI. 

Mrs. RADEWAGEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you very much. 

At this time the Chair recognizes Mr. Gallego for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Schoppmeyer, I apologize. Did I say that correctly? 

Mr. SCHOPPMEYER. Yes. 

Mr. GALLEGO. What is the feeling among some of our agents, at 

least how they are feeling especially with the kind of rhetoric that 

Cliven Bundy is putting out there—not the racist rhetoric but the 

anti-government, anti-environmental rhetoric that basically I 

42 

believe puts a lot of our men and women in a very weird and 

awkward position when trying to enforce what we understand are 

our grazing laws? 

Mr. SCHOPPMEYER. Well, I can say this. With regards to the 

Cliven Bundy situation, our agents and officers that were involved 

in that situation, BLM and the other agencies, they are concerned. 

They are concerned about personal safety, they are concerned for 

their families; and that is not an understatement. 

As far as the relationship goes, I find it so bizarre that we can 

have local and county law enforcement be at odds with Federal law 

enforcement in the Cliven Bundy situation during that incident; 

yet several months later during Police Week here, right here in 

Washington, DC, that we can have those officers standing shoulder 

to shoulder to respect those that have fallen. It is bizarre to me 

that that situation can occur. 

Again, with respect to your question, I think there is great 

concern by all of the land management agencies. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Thank you. 

This question is for Mr. Larkin and Mr. Schoppmeyer. 

I am glad that we are starting to focus on just the law enforcement questions regarding the agency, but I also agree that there 

are overall serious questions that must be answered. We are dealing with human lives as well as, I guess, animal lives too. But one 

of the things I think we are missing, is instead of talking about removing criminal penalties from a very effective conservation law 

and taking away firearms of those tasked to enforce the law, I 

want to talk about some of the weapons that are coming down. 

More specifically, I want to talk about the 1033 Program that 

brings surplus heavy weaponry onto local and state law enforcements, as well as Federal land management agencies. Right now 

about 8,000 agencies currently get material through the 

1033 Program from the Department of Defense, including the 

National Park Service. The program was brought to wide attention 

by the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson. 

Since then, we have learned that the 1033 gear has been given 

to schools and colleges. We have also learned that some local law 

enforcement wants to return the equipment, but the Department of 

Defense will not take it back. 

The program was originally intended to focus the materials on 

counter-narcotics operations, and it is not working. There is enough 

common ground that I think in this committee that we can dig into 

the over-militarization question in a very bipartisan way, and I 

hope we do, and I hope it does. 

Mr. Larkin, you have written a lot about over-criminalization. Do 

you think the 1033 Program is only a problem for land management agencies, or are there problems with the program beyond 

that, and the whole concept of it? 

Mr. LARKIN. The latter. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Say again. I am sorry. 

Mr. LARKIN. The latter. 

Mr. GALLEGO. The latter. Thank you. 

Mr. LARKIN. I think what you have is an unfortunate 

circumstance where we have had an over-proliferation of SWAT 

teams and military equipment used by law enforcement 

43 

departments. There are not nearly the number of instances where 

that is necessary. 

The problem is, once you start creating SWAT teams, everybody 

wants one. You could call it the curse of testosterone, if you will. 

You have this problem not only by giving this authority to Federal 

regulatory agencies, but by giving military equipment to too many 

state and local agencies. 

The proliferation or over-militarization of law enforcement is 

only going to endanger the relationships that law enforcement 

needs with the public. 

I was a Federal agent. I worked in the EPA criminal program. 

I could not have gotten my job done without the work of state and 

local law enforcement. If law enforcement damages that relationship, and if both of them damage the relationship with the public, 

no one is going to benefit. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Thank you. 

Mr. Schoppmeyer, the same question to you. 

Mr. SCHOPPMEYER. Yes, I would say that it is on a case-by-case 

basis with the natural resource agencies. We know that there is 

DTO activity up as far as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; and 

quite honestly, your only enforcement up there besides Border 

Patrol and Customs and Border Protection is your land management agencies. 

I, as an agent or officer, would not want to confront somebody 

from the Mexican cartel or something with just a standard firearm 

that is issued to me as a sidearm. 

Then there is the whole issue of the visiting public up in that 

area who quite honestly could run into a very dangerous situation. 

So I think it is a case-by-case basis. 

Mr. GALLEGO. Thank you. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. 

Along those lines, we received a letter from the American Civil 

Liberties Union; and, after consulting with the Ranking Member, 

I ask unanimous consent that this letter be added for the record. 

It is interesting when The Heritage and ACLU agree on a subject 

like this. 

[The letter from the American Civil Liberties Union offered by 

Mr. Gohmert follows:] 

ACLU—AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, 

WASHINGTON, DC, 

JULY 28, 2015. 

Hon. LOUIE GOHMERT, Chairman, 

House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 

Committee on Natural Resources, 

1324 Longworth House Office Building, 

Washington, DC 20515. 

Hon. DEBBIE DINGELL, Ranking Member, 

House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, 

Committee on Natural Resources, 

1324 Longworth House Office Building, 

Washington, DC 20515. 

Re: ACLU Requests Examination of Interior’s Acquisition of Military Weapons and 

Equipment 

44 

1Matthew Renda, Does Yosemite Really Need $435,000 of Military Equipment?, The Edge, 

January 7, 2014. 2The White House, Review: Federal Support for Local Law Enforcement Equipment 

Acquisition, December 2014, available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/ 

federal_support_for_local_law_enforcement_equipment_acquisition.pdf. 3 Id. 

4See ACLU, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing, June 23, 

2014, available at https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/jus14-warcomeshome-report-webre11.pdf. 5P.J. Huffstutter, Raw-food raid Highlights a Hunger, The Los Angeles Times, July 25, 2010. 6 Elizabeth Flock, Education Department Agents Raids California Home, The Washington 

Post, June 8, 2011. 7Supra note 1. 

8 Valerie Richardson, EPA Facing Fire for Armed Raid on Mine in Chicken, Alaska: 

Population 7. Washington Times, October 11, 2013. 

DEAR CHAIRMAN GOHMERT AND RANKING MEMBER DINGELL: 

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) commends the Oversight and 

Investigations Subcommittee of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee for 

holding a hearing on ‘‘Accountability, Policies, and Tactics of Law Enforcement within the Department of the Interior (DOI) and the U.S. Forest Service.’’ We ask that 

the Committee examine the relationship between DOI and the Department of 

Defense (DOD) 1033 program, which provides military weapons and equipment to 

federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. We have concerns with the militarization of DOI bureaus like the National Park Service (NPS), which has acquired 

4,100 pieces of military equipment worth approximately $6 million over the past 25 

years.1

The ACLU believes that the line between military and law enforcement cannot 

be blurred. Our opposition to militarization is consistent with the ACLU’s nearly 

100 year old mission to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that 

the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country. As the nation’s guardian of liberty, and with more than a million members, 

activists, and supporters nationwide, the ACLU advances the principle that every 

individual’s rights must be protected equally under the law, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or national origin. 

The DOD 1033 Program is authorized by Section 1033 of the National Defense 

Authorization Act of 1997. It permits the Secretary of Defense to transfer, without 

charge, excess DOD supplies and equipment to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.2 Since the 1990s, the Defense Logistics Agency has transferred excess military equipment to approximately 8,000 federal and state law enforcement 

agencies and has provided $5.1 B in total property.3 This equipment includes but 

is not limited to, military-grade vehicles, grenades, assault rifles, and night vision 

equipment. 

We have concerns that this program has led to militarized policing, which we 

raise in our recent report, War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of 

American Policing 4. As the nation watched Ferguson Missouri, in the aftermath of 

the death of Michael Brown, it saw a dangerously militarized response by law enforcement. However, militarized policing is not limited to state and local law 

enforcement. For example, in 2010, a multi-agency taskforce, including armed officers from the Food and Drug Agency, raided a Venice, California organic grocery 

store suspected of using raw milk.5 The following year, armed federal agents with 

the Department of Education’s OIG smashed down the door of a Stockton, California 

home and handcuffed a man suspected of student financial aid fraud.6

We are concerned by the relationship between the DOD 1033 program and some 

of the Department of Interior agencies. While the National Park Service handbook 

explicitly limits the agency’s ability to acquire firearms ‘‘to the minimum needed for 

an effective law enforcement program,’’ the service has obtained thousands of handguns, high-powered assault rifles, bayonets, and shotguns through this program. 

And unfortunately, an exact accounting of these thousands of weapons is not known 

as a 2013 Inspector General report identified a poorly managed inventory.7

We fear that the acquisition of military weapons and equipment increases the potential for excessive policing, such as the 2013 raid of a small mining operation in 

Chicken, Alaska. During this raid, a heavily armed and armored multi-agency 

taskforce, including officers from the National Park Service and Fish and Wildlife 

Service, descended upon several mines to search for Clean Water Act violations.8

Alaska Governor Sean Parnell voiced his deep concern, noting that the use of armed 

and body-armor-wearing officers who were relatively unfamiliar with the area put 

45 

9Sean Doogan, Probe Into Raid of Chicken Miners by Gun-toting EPA Investigators Finds No 

Laws Broken. Alaska Dispatch News, March 13, 2014. 

people at risk.9 We worry that these events will only become more frequent and 

dangerous with the continued acquisition of military equipment by law enforcement 

at all levels. 

The ACLU understands the desire to ensure the safety of both federal employees 

and civilians but we question the necessity of military-grade equipment in achieving 

that end. Through greater transparency, more oversight, policies that encourage restraint, and limitations on federal incentives, we can foster a law enforcement 

culture that honors its mission to protect and serve. 

We appreciate the Subcommittee’s commitment to ensuring accountability in law 

enforcement as demonstrated by the call for a hearing and respectfully request an 

examination of the relationship between DOD 1033 and the Department of the 

Interior. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Kanya Bennett, 

Legislative Counsel. 

Sincerely, 

MICHAEL W. MACLEOD-BALL, 

Acting Director. 

KANYA BENNETT, 

Legislative Counsel. 

Mr. GOHMERT. At this time the Chair recognizes Mr. Mooney for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. MOONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Ehnes, in your testimony you singled out an experience 

where law enforcement set up a check station. Can you elaborate 

on what created an issue there and possibly damaged trust with 

the Forest Service? 

Mr. EHNES. Mr. Congressman, yes; and I want to be clear that 

check stations are an important tool in the right areas. I live in 

Montana and have recreated there for 45 years on public land, and 

I nor anybody that I am acquainted with has ever encountered a 

check station on a trail anywhere. So, it is not a tool that gets applied in Montana on a consistent basis. 

There are places where it is appropriate. In this situation, the 

permitted event was with the Great Falls Trail Bike Riders and 

Montana Trail Vehicle Riders. As I mentioned, we go through a 

great deal of effort to make sure that compliance is perfect, that 

our people are examples, and that we use those events to educate 

anybody that we run into. 

I think that had we had the opportunity for enforcement to be 

informed about our relationship with the Forest and have them engaged with us at the trail head, it could have been an opportunity 

for us to build a strong relationship. We really want to work with 

enforcement to help them do a better job, understand how to report 

crimes, all of those things that could have resulted in a better 

outcome. 

The fact that they were out just a little ways from the trail head 

with clearly the intent of checking our members who are the shining stars, if you will, of the OHV community, did damage their 

trust because they felt a little bit ambushed. 

Mr. MOONEY. Thank you for expanding on that. 

Sheriff Brown, a question for you. I have one of the U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife Service Training Centers in my district, actually in 

46 

the county I live in, and I have toured it. They are good people; 

but I also understand you’ve got to have as clear as possible lines 

of delineation of whose job is what, who enforces what, where your 

demarcations are. 

In your opinion, what do you view as the proper role of Forest 

Service law enforcement officers? 

Sheriff BROWN. Well, I think everything that they do that is consistent with their mission. There is no imaginary line where the 

national forest starts and the county ends. The county’s boundaries 

surround the national forest. The sheriff has complete authority 

and jurisdiction on all state laws within that national forest. 

We typically will not enforce Code of Federal Regulation; Forest 

Service will do that. It typically and traditionally was timber theft, 

resource protection issues, especially when there was a great deal 

of logging occurring, which there is not today. So, one might argue 

there is not a great deal of timber theft, but there are a lot of resource issues. 

In addition to that, I think sheriffs across the West concur that 

these armed officers—and by no means are we suggesting we disarm the Forest Service—but these armed officers have responsibility if they are going to be out there to make sure that if 

something is happening that is a detriment to a forest user or 

forest visitor, that they are authorized and trained to take action. 

But, we also want recognition of the sovereignty of the Office of 

Sheriff, and we want the Forest Service to recognize and work with 

sheriffs and communicate with sheriffs. I think that the suggestion 

of the local oversight, the law enforcement councils for local oversight are going to give us that opportunity to work together and 

communicate very specifically on issues that have come out of 

Montana on this trail ride. 

If law enforcement is communicating with the users of the forest, 

with the sheriff in that county, we are going to have a much, much 

better working relationship. 

Mr. MOONEY. And we have a minute left on my time, Sheriff, but 

a follow-up. 

In addition to understanding the proper roles, accountability 

would also be important. It appears sometimes issues between law 

enforcement agencies can boil down to personalities, but they fester 

on because of lack of accountability from various Federal agencies. 

So in your view, what are the options available to increase 

accountability? 

Sheriff BROWN. Two things. The local councils are the first thing. 

If the Special Agent in Charge in my particular case has Oregon, 

Washington, and Alaska. If we are regularly meeting, and through 

the Western States Sheriffs’ Association we created a 

Memorandum of Agreement, the Forest Service has signed onto it, 

and it calls for that accountability issue. 

When a sheriff can make a complaint to a captain or a SAC, and 

that SAC or captain comes back and says, ‘‘Sheriff, here is how we 

have addressed it. Here is the resolution.’’ We then can go back to 

our constituent and say, ‘‘Listen. It is taken care of. I can assure 

you of that.’’ 

Those are the kinds of things I think through local oversight that 

we will be able to resolve much quicker than we have in the past. 

47 

Mr. MOONEY. Thank you. 

I yield back my second. 

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman. 

At this time the Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arkansas, 

Mr. Westerman, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

coming here today for this important hearing. 

I will add that I have a lot of national forests in my district, and 

I spend a lot of time driving through them. Last year on the campaign trail, there was a one-vehicle accident in a very remote area; 

and Forest Service law enforcement were the first ones on the 

scene. They were the first responders. It was in an area where 

there was no cell phone reception, but they were able to use their 

radios and get other emergency personnel there. 

So, they often work in remote areas by themselves, and I think 

the folks on the ground are doing a fantastic job at least in the national forest where I live. 

Mr. Larkin, in his testimony Mr. Schoppmeyer explained that decriminalizing the Lacey Act would cripple the good guys in the 

fight to keep visitors safe and our greatest national treasures accessible to all. Could you give us your perspective on this view? 

Mr. LARKIN. I think he is wrong for several reasons. In the first 

place, the Lacey Act is unconstitutional. As I explained in my written statement, the Lacey Act delegates authority to foreign officials, officials of foreign governments, to define elements of crimes 

that can be prosecuted in the U.S. courts. That violates Articles I 

and II of the Constitution, as well as the due process clause. 

Second, the U.S. Marshal Service or the FBI also have authority 

in the areas that now the Fish and Wildlife Service works. I believe 

that it would be better to transfer the authority that we have now 

given to different agencies, such as the Fish and Wildlife Service, 

to the U.S. Marshal Service or the FBI, so that you can take advantage not simply of economies of scale, but of the greater longterm experience and greater access to SWAT units and the like 

when it is necessary in order to enforce the laws that are necessary 

in those areas. 

Third, state and local law enforcement officers can be made 

Special Deputy U.S. Marshals in areas that are subject to either 

exclusive or concurrent Federal jurisdiction, and so state and local 

law enforcement officers can be used to deal with those sorts of 

crimes. 

Fourth, the Lacey Act is a very specialized statute. The Federal 

Assimilative Crimes Act incorporates, for any particular area that 

is within Federal jurisdiction, state and local offenses. So Federal 

law enforcement officers can enforce those state and local offenses 

even if there is not a similar Federal crime on the books. 

So, eliminating the Lacey Act will in no way endanger the lives 

or safety of the people who benefit from using our national parks. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Thank you. 

Sheriff Brown, I appreciate your suggestions to improve law enforcement with the Forest Service. Some would suggest that they 

are merely a paranoid attempt to reduce the authority of the 

Federal Government. Without legitimizing that opinion, can you 

48 

speak to why this is a question of safety and not just political 

theater? 

Sheriff BROWN. The issue really stems, I guess, or goes back to 

the basic understanding of our community—what does the sheriff 

do and what does the Forest Service do? When it comes to safety, 

the calls that I am getting, the calls that I have received have 

been, ‘‘Sheriff, I got stopped,’’ or, ‘‘I was stopped,’’ or, ‘‘I was contacted by a Forest Service guy wearing a gun. Does he have jurisdiction? Does she have jurisdiction?’’ It is that confusion in some 

of the minds of the people that have had to deal with that. 

Then an explanation, I think, that is warranted that says, ‘‘OK. 

Let me try and explain to you. Here is what they can do. Here is 

how they enforce it under Code of Federal Regulation, and here is 

where their authority starts or stops.’’ 

Well, if that continued contact, in my particular case, rises to a 

point where somebody feels they are being harassed or constantly 

picked on, et cetera, and I cannot get resolution through the local 

patrol captain or the local SAC, which for a lot of years we could 

not, then I think it creates a safety issue. 

Until we open up those lines of communication and we get an 

understanding from all sides that are involved in this, we will not 

resolve these issues. Things are better today than they have been 

in the last 5, 6, 7 years, and I think it is directly tied to the relationship that the Western State Sheriffs has developed with the 

Director of Law Enforcement for the Forest Service. 

We have a new Director at the BLM. We are working on that 

relationship as well. Ninety percent of the public lands in this 

country are out West. I think things for the most part are good, but 

there are places where we have to work on relationships, communication, and an understanding of authority. 

Mr. WESTERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Thank you. 

At this time, I will recognize the Chairman of the Full 

Committee, the distinguished Chairman Bishop, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BISHOP. Thank you. Louie, I appreciate that. 

Sheriff Brown, let me ask you a couple of questions if I could, because I think this is a significant issue; and I appreciate all four 

of you for being here talking about it. I think we need to go into 

greater detail on this particular issue at the same time. 

You talked about how your situation is better than it was 15 

years ago. Is that due to the personalities involved or is there a 

structural reason for that? 

Sheriff BROWN. It is not structural because the Forest Service 

structure for their command has not changed in 15 years. It is 

people. 

Mr. BISHOP. So it is the personalities? 

Sheriff BROWN. In my case, it is a person. There was no accountability for that person in my county. That person has since retired, 

and things began to get a little bit better. 

Mr. BISHOP. It would be nice if we can guarantee that and not 

just rely on the personalities of individuals involved, recognizing 

that if you have the right people almost anything can be done. If 

you do not, everything screws up somehow. 

Sheriff BROWN. That is right. 

49 

Mr. BISHOP. So, Sheriff, I understand that each Forest Service, 

BLM, and other Federal law enforcement agencies have to go 

through several months of training at a training center, different 

ones. Are you aware of any training modules that teach interaction 

with local law enforcement in these training centers? 

Sheriff BROWN. That is a great question. I am not, and in fact, 

that is something the Western Sheriffs have begun talking about, 

and especially with a service provider that may be able to assist 

us in establishing either on-line or in-person training courses that 

will talk about that very thing, that interaction, that scope of authority, the jurisdiction, how we intermingle within our public 

lands, within our counties. 

Mr. BISHOP. So obviously, if we do not have those modules going, 

the sheriffs’ organizations have not had any input into that. That 

would be something structurally that we could do to improve the 

situation. 

What would your view be of having a national law enforcement 

review board for each agency that would include not only the 

Federal line officers, but the county sheriffs that could review 

specific concerns and policy changes? 

Sheriff BROWN. My first thought about that is one more layer of 

bureaucracy is going to muddy the water even more than it may 

already be. I think the best chance for oversight comes at the local 

level; and I think establishing these law enforcement councils at 

the local level where the sheriff, Special Agent from the BLM, 

Special Agent from the Forest Service, the patrol captains and commanders from both of those public agencies are involved are going 

to be our best opportunity for oversight. 

Mr. BISHOP. OK. If I ask you probably the most important reason 

why we ‘‘de-stovepipe’’ these organizations, if we could do that— 

that is not a word, but it is the best I could come up with—‘‘destovepipe’’ these organizations if they would provide better 

coordination with county sheriffs and serve the public? 

Sheriff BROWN. My answer to that is back when the Forest 

Service was, I guess, a strong agency both financially and peoplewise—the district rangers, the Forest supervisors, the regional foresters, those people lived in our communities; their kids went to 

school with our kids; they went to the same churches together. We 

knew each other, we worked with each other, and who best knows 

what needs to happen on the national forest or that particular 

ranger district than a district ranger or a Forest supervisor? 

Those people used to be within the line of authority of the law 

enforcement component as well. When the structure changed, that 

changed, and our relationships began to change. We no longer negotiate co-op agreements with our district ranger. We no longer sit 

and talk about operational planning for law enforcement or functions on the national forest with our Forest supervisor or our 

district ranger. They are not in that chain of command anymore. 

I know there are particular reasons why maybe ‘‘de-stovepiping,’’ 

if you will, will not work; but I think that there has to be a reintegration somehow at the local level of the law enforcement. 

Mr. BISHOP. We need to try that. I realize we have had a lot of 

conversation about Forest Service, but BLM has the same situation. In my state, it is even more significant; and once again, 

50 

dealing with personality, I would like to have some kind of structural concept in there that could minimize those personality conflicts when they do exist, or at least resolve them much quicker 

than they have—even to the example when we had some hearings 

a couple of years ago on Park Service law enforcement, to realize 

you have a couple of different entities, one law enforcement, that 

only actually the Park Service does not even have any control over; 

they are all on their own that deal with only three sections of this 

country. 

All those issues need to be resolved in some particular way, so 

I am glad we are starting this process of trying to find out some 

ways that we can solve these issues without relying on simply the 

right people having the right personalities at the right time. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the Chairman. 

I recognize myself for 5 minutes. 

Following that up, it does seem rather ridiculous that there 

would be any area in the country where a resolution of conflict 

would be resolved after many years or even decades of service by 

one individual, that he finally retires and that makes things better. 

I know Mr. Schoppmeyer mentioned that you do not find FBI in 

the woods. But in east Texas, in my own personal experience— 

having been a prosecutor, a judge, and a chief justice, I have seen 

and read lots of testimony; I have talked to law enforcement officers. We often have FBI in the woods because, Sheriff, they do exactly what you are talking about you would like to see between 

locals and Federal officers, and that is they meet together and they 

talk, and when there is a problem, they get together and they 

coordinate. 

But here again, that also, as you being law enforcement would 

know, takes sometimes a trust. With the FBI, that suffered back 

during the Bush administration under Director Mueller, who back 

then had a 5-year ‘‘up or out’’ policy. We would get somebody good, 

the local law enforcement would start to trust him, and then they 

would be up or out. 

I complained bitterly about that policy. It has changed now, but, 

Sheriff, do you have any formal proposal as to how that structure 

might be set up between local and Federal officials to coordinate 

better? 

Sheriff BROWN. There are models across, I am sure, many states. 

In my particular region, we have two law enforcement councils that 

the membership is made up of all of the local police departments 

and the county sheriffs within a three- to four-county region. And 

those issues are really to talk about common problems. 

In one particular county, it is a county with nine different police 

departments with one prosecuting attorney. That particular prosecuting attorney is dealing with various issues, whether it is tied 

to pursuits, or drug cases, or child sex abuse cases; so there is some 

uniformity in discussions at these local law enforcement councils. 

I am suggesting we can accomplish much the same thing if we 

are meeting with our Federal land manager or law enforcement 

agencies to talk about operational planning—whether the Rainbow 

Festival is coming to your county next year, or whether it is offVerDate Mar 15 2010 09:10 Apr 07, 2016 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00054 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 J:\114TH CONGRESS\OVERSIGHT & INVESTIGATIONS\07-28-15\95713.TXT DARLEN
51 

road vehicle use, or trail use, or trail construction, that’s happening 

a lot in my county that is illegal. 

But those things, I think, have to be talked about. I do not want 

to do the job of a Federal law enforcement officer. I do not want 

to do resource protection issues. By default, we do some of that 

under state law, but I do not have either the resources or the time 

to do that. 

But if they are going to be out there doing it, there are going to 

be times when they are coming across things that are primarily 

and traditionally the role of the sheriff, and we need to de-conflict 

those. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Sheriff, my time is running out, but let me direct 

you specifically to the Gibson guitar case, where as I understand, 

that was a Lacey Act enforcement; and you have Federal law enforcement come busting in, armed to the teeth, and people are just 

making guitars. 

If, in a situation like that, you were notified that in your county 

somebody was manufacturing guitars and there was concern that 

they were using wood that was not properly imported, would you 

be willing to send a deputy along with people in suits and no weapons as they went in and asked for records from the guitar maker? 

Sheriff BROWN. Not only would I be willing, but I would demand 

it in my county. 

Mr. GOHMERT. So, that can be done without arming the Federal 

people to the teeth, correct? 

Sheriff BROWN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GOHMERT. I agreed with so much in the letter from the 

ACLU and so much that conforms to what, Mr. Larkin, you have 

said with one exception. I have seen the difference that it can make 

when local law enforcement, and I would also presume with 

Federal officials, if they have defensive equipment from the military, say, bulletproof vests. 

Would you have a problem with defensive equipment being 

provided? 

Mr. LARKIN. Not at all. That is entirely appropriate. 

Mr. GOHMERT. All right. Thank you. 

My time has expired. Let me consult with the Ranking Member. 

I recognize the Ranking Member for a unanimous consent. 

Mrs. DINGELL. I would ask unanimous consent to enter into the 

record the testimony of Marcus Asner to the Fishery Subcommittee 

in 2013 on why Americans should have to comply with foreign law. 

Mr. Asner testified that other U.S. laws reference foreign laws 

and clarified that the Lacey Act does not penalize those that violate 

foreign law nor implement it. 

As to earlier comments about the Lacey Act, which was passed 

in 1900, being unconstitutional, the Supreme Court has not directly 

addressed it or taken up any challenges. Every circuit court that 

has been asked to consider the issue has upheld the Lacey Act 

against constitutional challenges. 

The argument that the Lacey Act’s reliance on foreign laws is unconstitutional has been described as patently frivolous, without 

merit, and neither original nor meritorious by courts that it has 

been brought up in. 

Mr. GOHMERT. So the request was for the testimony? 

52 

Mrs. DINGELL. To enter this testimony into the record. 

Mr. GOHMERT. Without objection, so ordered. 

Mrs. DINGELL. Thank you. 

Mr. GOHMERT. And the ACLU letter, without objection, is 

entered as part of the record. 

Hearing nothing further at this time, we appreciate all of your 

testimony. We appreciate your time here. If you have anything additionally you would like to have entered into the record, then 

please submit that. The record will be open for 10 business days 

for these responses, and that is under Committee Rule 4(h). 

If there is nothing further in the way of further business, 

without objection, the committee stands adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 11:49 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[LIST OF DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD RETAINED IN THE

COMMITTEE’S OFFICIAL FILES]

— Letter dated January 30, 2014 from Congressman Mark 

Meadows to Phyllis Fong, Inspector General at the 

Department of Agriculture, and Mary Kendall, Deputy 

Inspector General with the Office of the Inspector General at 

the Department of the Interior regarding the legality of law 

enforcement actions taken by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service and U.S. Forest Service during ‘‘Operation Something 

Bruin.’’ 

— Response Letter dated March 25, 2014 from Mary Kendall, 

Deputy Inspector General with the Office of the Inspector 

General at the Department of the Interior, to Congressman 

Mark Meadows regarding his inquiry on the legality of law enforcement actions taken by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

and U.S. Forest Service during ‘‘Operation Something Bruin.’’ 

— Response Letter dated March 26, 2014 from Phyllis Fong, 

Inspector General at the Department of Agriculture, to 

Congressman Mark Meadows regarding his inquiry on the legality of law enforcement actions taken by the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service during ‘‘Operation 

Something Bruin.’’ 

— Letter dated August 4, 2015 from the North American Wildlife 

Enforcement Officers Association to Chairman Gohmert and 

Ranking Member Dingell in regards to the Oversight hearing 

dated July 28, 2015. 

— Testimony of Marcus Asner before the Committee on Natural 

Resources, Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and 

Insular Affairs for hearing titled, ‘‘Why Should Americans 

Have to Comply with the Laws of Foreign Nations? ,’’ dated 

July 17, 2013. 

Æ