The Antiplanner

KISS Planning

17th March 2010

KISS Planning

posted in Public lands |

The Forest Service has a problem. In 1974 and 1976, Congress passed laws requiring an elaborate forest planning process. That process turned out to be an utter failure. The plans collectively cost billions of dollars to produce, but they didn’t solve any problems and took so long to write that most were obsolete before they were signed.

Most people in the Forest Service know that planning is a waste, but the problem is that the planning laws are still on the books. Faithful Antiplanner ally Andy Stahl (who frequently comments on this blog) has a solution: rewrite the planning rules to create a highly simplified planning process that requires the absolute minimum under the law.

As Stahl — who directs Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics — observes in a series of posts on a blog called A New Century of Forest Planning, the law only requires that forest plans contain each forest’s “planned timber sale program.” But planners (and the current forest planning rules) go far beyond this and try to write an “umbrella document” guiding all national forest activities. Since this is a big job, the plans must be followed by a second level of expensive and time-consuming environmental analyses for each timber sale or other project.

Stahl’s proposed revision of the planning regulation is based on KISS — Keep It Simple Stupid. His rule mainly just quotes the law itself to set forth the minimum requirements for a plan. He fleshes this out a bit by creating a process in which all of the environmental analyses are contained in the plan itself — thereby eliminating the secondary analyses. The plans would be revised every three years or so, instead of the current 10 to 15 years, but the net effect would be a huge reduction in paperwork.

As it happens, the Forest Service is revising its forest planning rules and may give Stahl’s ideas serious consideration. Such simplifications could also be applied to other planning laws, such as the metropolitan transportation planning process required by Congress. This could save taxpayers millions of dollars per year and avoid the inevitable failings of long-range planning.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Public lands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 8 responses to “KISS Planning”

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  1. 1 On March 17th, 2010, Dan said:

    Most people in the Forest Service know that planning is a waste

    Bullsh–.

    This is not to say the FS isn’t burdened with bureaucratic cronies and incompetents, having driven out the talent long ago with the shenanigans by the Larry Craigs of the world.

    DS

    posted on March 17th, 2010 at 6:44 am

  2. 2 On March 17th, 2010, Borealis said:

    I am rather surprised by Andy Stahl’s suggestion for forest planning. It would be nearly impossible to write such a plan and do project level analysis in less than five years — and yet the plan is only good for three years? That does not seem workable.

    In addition, it has proven to be very difficult to do land management planning and project planning in one step. It might seem like it would be more efficient, but it has failed almost every time it is tried, especially if there are any controversial or complex issues.

    posted on March 17th, 2010 at 7:55 am

  3. 3 On March 17th, 2010, Scott said:

    Let all the lefties live in the forest, so they cannot harm others,
    away from people who appreciate freedom & responsibility.

    posted on March 17th, 2010 at 9:04 am

  4. 4 On March 17th, 2010, Tad Winiecki said:

    I believe that the descendants of the Asians who came here 10,000 years ago managed the forests better than the Forest Service so we should turn over forest management to them, the Indian tribes.
    If people want to live in the forest in permanent structures they should build them out of reinforced concrete and cover them with dirt so they would be safe from fire and falling trees. Otherwise they could live in tepees, tents, travel trailers or motorhomes which could move out of the way of a fire quickly.

    posted on March 17th, 2010 at 2:08 pm

  5. 5 On March 17th, 2010, Andy said:

    Forestry was probably the first profession of planning. The first dedicated forestry school was established by Georg Hartig at Dillenburg in Germany in 1787, though forestry had been taught much earlier in central Europe.

    In 1886, the first issue of the Romanian academic magazine Revista P?durilor(Forestry Review) was published.

    The first in North America, the Biltmore Forest School was established near Asheville, North Carolina, on September 1, 1898.

    The whole point of forestry is to think a tree generation or more ahead.

    posted on March 17th, 2010 at 5:10 pm

  6. 6 On March 21st, 2010, the highwayman said:

    Scott said: Let all the lefties live in the forest, so they cannot harm others,
    away from people who appreciate freedom & responsibility.

    THWM: O’Toole’s already living in the woods.

    posted on March 21st, 2010 at 1:50 pm

  7. 7 On March 21st, 2010, Scott said:

    railman, way high,
    So what?
    You are trying to implore false logic.
    Nothing was said about the only people living in the forest are lefties.

    And if you think O’Toole is a lefty, you are are really out of touch with gaining any meaning from these posts.

    posted on March 21st, 2010 at 2:25 pm

  8. 8 On March 23rd, 2010, C. P. Zilliacus said:

    Lest anyone think otherwise, planning for the national forests also takes place in the East.

    For example, consider this story from WTOP Radio in Washington, D.C. about a new planning document for the George Washington National Forest, located in Virginia and West Virginia.

    posted on March 23rd, 2010 at 6:08 am

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