This is the accessible text file for GAO report number GAO-03-689R entitled 'Forest Service: Information on Decisions Involving Fuels Reduction Activities' which was released on May 14, 2003. This text file was formatted by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) to be accessible to users with visual impairments, as part of a longer term project to improve GAO products' accessibility. Every attempt has been made to maintain the structural and data integrity of the original printed product. Accessibility features, such as text descriptions of tables, consecutively numbered footnotes placed at the end of the file, and the text of agency comment letters, are provided but may not exactly duplicate the presentation or format of the printed version. The portable document format (PDF) file is an exact electronic replica of the printed version. We welcome your feedback. Please E-mail your comments regarding the contents or accessibility features of this document to Webmaster@gao.gov. This is a work of the U.S. government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States. It may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety without further permission from GAO. Because this work may contain copyrighted images or other material, permission from the copyright holder may be necessary if you wish to reproduce this material separately. May 14, 2003: Congressional Requesters: Subject: Forest Service: Information on Decisions Involving Fuels Reduction Activities: Human activities--especially the federal government's decades-old policy of suppressing all wildland fires--have resulted in dangerous accumulations of brush, small trees, and other vegetation on federal lands. This vegetation has increasingly provided fuel for large, intense wildland fires, particularly in the dry, interior western United States. The scale and intensity of the fires in the 2000 wildland fire season made it one of the worst in 50 years. That season capped a decade characterized by dramatic increases in the number of wildland fires and the costs of suppressing them. These fires have also posed special risks to communities in the wildland-urban interface--where human development meets or intermingles with undeveloped wildland--as well as to watersheds and other resources, such as threatened and endangered species, clean water, and clean air. The centerpiece of the federal response to the growing threat of wildland fires has been the development of the National Fire Plan. This plan advocates a new approach to wildland fires by shifting emphasis from the reactive to the proactive--from attempting to suppress wildland fires to reducing the buildup of hazardous vegetation that fuels fires. The plan recognizes that unless these fuels are reduced, the number of severe wildland fires and the costs associated with suppressing them will continue to increase. Implementation of the National Fire Plan began in fiscal year 2001; full implementation of the plan is expected to be a long-term, multibillion-dollar effort. Reducing the buildup of hazardous forest fuels is typically accomplished through a number of treatment methods. Most often, federal land managers use controlled fires (prescribed burns) or mechanical treatments such as chainsaws, chippers, mulchers and bulldozers. Other means include using livestock grazing and herbicides. On federal lands, these activities are managed by five agencies: the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, all within the Department of the Interior, and the Forest Service within the Department of Agriculture. In fiscal year 2001, the first year the National Fire Plan was in effect, the Congress substantially increased funding for hazardous forest fuels reduction--from $108 million in FY 2000 to $401 million in FY 2001. The Congress continued this increased funding level for 2002 and 2003. Among the federal agencies, the Forest Service receives, by far, the largest portion of these funds. Since the National Fire Plan began emphasizing the need to reduce forest fuels buildup and the Congress has supported this initiative with substantially increased funding, concerns have been raised about delays in implementing forest fuels reduction projects. Essentially, these concerns focus on whether Forest Service decisions to implement specific forest fuels reduction activities are being delayed by the appeals and litigation of these decisions. In August 2001, we were asked to report on some limited aspects of this issue. We provided this information to the congressional requesters on August 31, 2001.[Footnote 1] In 2002, the Forest Service also analyzed specific aspects of this issue and provided its findings to the Congress.[Footnote 2] While the subject of these reports was the same, the specific objectives and scope of the analyses differed considerably. Not unexpectedly, these differences led to different analytical results. Accordingly, in the summer of 2002, you asked us to perform a more comprehensive analysis of the issue.[Footnote 3] Specifically, you asked us to determine: the number of decisions involving fuels reduction activities and the number of acres affected in FY 2001 and FY 2002, the number of decisions that were appealed and/or litigated and the number of acres affected in FY 2001 and FY 2002, the outcomes of the appealed and/or litigated decisions and the names of the appellants and plaintiffs, whether the appeals were processed within prescribed time frames, the number of acres treated or planned to be treated by each of the fuels reduction methods,[Footnote 4] and: the number of decisions involving fuels reduction activities in the wildland-urban interface and inventoried roadless areas.[Footnote 5] To respond to your request, we conducted a Web-based survey of all 155 national forests. The survey focused on all Forest Service decisions with a forest fuels reduction component that were issued in fiscal years 2001 and 2002.[Footnote 6] We obtained a 100 percent response rate from the national forests, and we have partially completed our verification of 10 percent of the reported decisions for accuracy. In discussions with your staffs, we agreed to provide you with a briefing on the preliminary results of our work, with a final report to follow when we have completed our analysis and verification. This briefing occurred on May 9, 2003. As we pointed out at the briefing, there are some limitations to the information provided. First, we have not yet completed our verification work, so some of the preliminary information in the briefing and this report may change. However, on the basis of the partial verification work we have done, we do not anticipate significant changes to the reported information. Further, as with any survey, the information obtained from the national forests was self-reported, and we were not able to independently ensure that all decisions were reported. In addition, the Forest Service does not have a common definition of a fuels reduction activity. Accordingly, if the Forest Service decision documents explicitly stated that the purpose of an activity was fuels reduction, we accepted it. Likewise, if the decision documents did not include an explicit discussion of fuels reduction, we did not include the decision in our analysis. Finally, the Forest Service does not have a uniformly applied definition of the wildland-urban interface. Consequently, individual forests may have their own definition or no definition at all which could result in inconsistent data. Enclosure II contains the information we provided during our May 9, 2003, briefing with your office. This report briefly summarizes our preliminary answers to your questions. In brief, the national forests reported the following: 762 decisions involved fuels reduction activities in FY 2001 and FY 2002. The fuels reduction activities in these decisions covered 4.7 million acres. The national forests originally reported 851 decisions involving fuels reduction activities. Of these, we eliminated 67 because respondents did not identify fuels reduction as a stated purpose of the activities. We also eliminated 22 decisions because they may not have been issued in FY 2001 or FY 2002. 180 decisions were appealed affecting 900,000 acres. These decisions represented 24 percent of all decisions or 59 percent of appealable decisions. Generally, decisions that were categorically excluded from the requirement to prepare an environmental impact statement are not appealable; 457 decisions covering 3 million acres were not appealable. Conversely, decisions that were issued after preparation of an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement are appealable; 305 decisions covering 1.7 million acres were appealable. All decisions can be litigated; 23, or 3 percent of decisions were litigated, affecting 100,000 acres. The outcomes of the 180 appealed decisions and 23 litigated decisions are as follows: Of the 180 appealed decisions,[Footnote 7] 133 required no change before implementation (i.e., the Forest Service affirmed its original decision); 16 were modified to some degree (i.e., the Forest Service allowed the decision to be implemented with changes); 19 were reversed (i.e., the Forest Service did not allow the decision to be implemented); and: 12 were withdrawn by the Forest Service, but it was unclear if changes were required. 84 interest groups and 39 private individuals appeared as appellants in FY 2001 and FY 2002. Of the 23 litigated decisions, 10 were still in the courts at the time of our survey; 5 were settled by agreement of the parties; 3 were reversed, overturning the Forest Service's decision; 1 was upheld by the court; and: the outcomes of 4 were unknown because the respondents did not report their status. 27 interest groups and one private individual appeared as plaintiffs in the litigated decisions. The national forests processed 79 percent of appeals within the prescribed 90-day time frame. The national forests reported many reasons for exceeding the 90-day time limit 21 percent of the time, including the following: in general, staffing was inadequate; insufficient staff were available around the holiday season; appeals were backlogged; and settlement of some appeals was imminent. The national forests planned to use prescribed burning on 3.3 million acres and mechanical treatments on 800,000 acres. In addition, the national forests reported using other methods on 1.1 million acres (mostly because of an annual firewood removal program at one forest). Because the same acreage can be treated by more than one method, the sum is greater than the total acreage treated. The national forests issued 464 decisions involving fuels reduction activities in the wildland-urban interface covering 1.5 million acres of planned treatments. Of these, 163 were appealable, and 84 were appealed. 73 decisions involved fuels reduction activities in inventoried roadless areas covering 200,000 acres of planned treatments. Of these 73 decisions, 39 were appealable, and 24 were appealed. We provided a draft of this report to the Forest Service for its review and comment. The Forest Service generally agreed with the information presented in the report. In commenting on the report, however, the Forest Service had one major concern. Specifically, the agency believes that we should not have included a 1 million acre personal use firewood program at one forest in the material presented because, in their opinion, it unnecessarily skews the data by increasing the amount of acreage with fuel reduction activities. However, we did not change the report to omit the information because, as the Forest Service agrees, it was reported and documented as a fuels reduction project by the agency. Nonetheless, in the interest of full disclosure, we highlighted the unique nature of the project in the information we are providing, as appropriate. In addition, the agency provided some editorial comments that we considered in finalizing the report. As arranged with your offices, unless you publicly announce its contents earlier, we plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days after the date of this report. At that time, we will send copies to the Secretary of Agriculture; the Chief of the Forest Service; the Director, Office of Management and Budget; and other interested parties. We will make copies available to others upon request. This report will also be available on GAO's home page at http://www.gao.gov. If you have any questions or need additional information, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or Cliff Fowler at (202) 512-8029. Major contributors to this report include Carolyn Boyce, Curtis Groves, Roy Judy, Nicole Shivers, Patrick Sigl, and Shana Wallace. Barry T. Hill: Director, Natural Resources and Environment: Signed by Barry T. Hill: Enclosure: List of Requesters: The Honorable Scott McInnis: Chairman, Subcommittee on Forests: and Forest Health: Committee on Resources: House of Representatives: The Honorable Larry E. Craig: Chairman, Subcommittee on Public Lands: and Forests: Committee on Energy and Natural Resources: United States Senate: The Honorable Jeff Bingaman: Ranking Member, Committee on Energy: and Natural Resources: United States Senate: The Honorable Gordon Smith: United States Senate: Enclosure: [See PDF for image] [End of figure] [End of section] FOOTNOTES [1] U.S. General Accounting Office, Forest Service: Appeals and Litigation of Fuels Reduction Projects, GAO-01-1114R (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 31, 2001). [2] U.S. Forest Service, Factors Affecting Timely Mechanical Fuel Treatments Decisions (Washington, D.C.: July 2002). [3] We received a request from Representative McInnis and Senators Craig and Smith in July 2002. We received a separate request from Senator Bingaman in August 2002. [4] The same acreage can be the subject of more than one decision. [5] Inventoried roadless areas are defined in 36 C.F.R. part 294 subpart B as "areas identified in a set of inventoried roadless area maps, contained in Forest Service Roadless Area Conservation, Final Environmental Impact Statement, volume 2, dated November 2000." [6] Our work focused only on national forests, national grasslands were not included. [7] We have not yet analyzed to what extent activities planned under the reversed and withdrawn decisions still occurred after problems leading to the reversal or withdrawl were resolved.