Merge Forest Service into Interior?

The House Appropriations Committee has asked the Government Accountability Office to examine the possibility of merging the Forest Service into the Department of the Interior. This idea is raised about every decade or so and is beaten down by a combination of special interest groups who all fear they might lose from such a change.

About a decade ago, however, the Antiplanner made a prediction that the next administration that proposed such a merger would succeed, mainly because many of the special interest groups that once relied on the Forest Service — timber companies, ranchers, and miners — have been so shut out of the national forests that they would have no incentive to stop such a merger.

The ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee observes that national forest management has ” gone away from production and more towards preservation, and it seems to me that the natural move has made it over under the umbrella of the Department of the Interior.” The only problem with that is that, historically, the Interior Department (through its Bureau of Land Management) has been even more rapacious than the Forest Service, which is why environmentalists always joined the coalition against merger.

The GAO says it is only looking at whether such a merger would save money and “result in a more efficient, effective and coordinated management of federal lands.” Of course it would, if you believe the bigger-is-better theory of management. If, however, you believe Peter Drucker, or any of dozens of other management consultants, or if you are familiar with any one of many public or private megamergers, you would be pretty skeptical of any claimed savings.

There is nothing preventing the Forest Service from coordinating with Interior agencies today, and in fact it does so all the time. Many towns that once had BLM and Forest Service offices now have joint offices that manage both national forests and Interior lands. The agencies all work closely together on fire and other issues that cross their boundaries.

Kamagra jelly is a soft drug and is recommended for buy generic levitra those diagnosed with age-related sub-fertility, endometriosis, unexplained infertility or male factor infertility. Extended commander levitra internships can give employees experience in making changes in field settings. All these psychological issues are major risk factors for impotence. generic cialis prices He would be a priest, and he viagra 100 mg discover for source would work with children. Merger ideas are typical of the top-down thinking that comes out of Washington, though it is slightly disappointing that they are coming from a member of a party supposedly dedicated to small government and decentralization (only slightly because everyone knows that as soon as elected officials get inside the beltway they forget all their principles).

If there is no reason to favor such a merger, is there a reason to oppose it? I think so. The Department of Agriculture is quite different from the Interior Department in many ways. I spent 15 years criticizing the Forest Service, and was often involved in BLM and Park Service issues as well. I was well aware that, of the three agencies, the Forest Service was the most responsive to the public, the most decentralized, and the most innovative. In its own way, it was also the most efficient.

There is a lot to be said for keeping agencies small and numerous rather than big and few. There is much to be said for competition in government — it is not the same as competition in the private sector, but it still helps. Merging the Forest Service into Interior would result in the loss of those advantages.

The Forest Service today is not the Forest Service I knew. Its main constituency today is the fire suppression industry — fire accounts for 45 percent of the Forest Service’s budget, while timber at its peak accounted for only 40 percent. I don’t know how the fire industry would view a merger, but I suspect it is new enough that it has no tradition opposing mergers and so probably would not get in the way.

The Forest Service’s second biggest constituency today is environmentalists and recreationists. Today’s environmentalists probably believe the rhetoric about how wonderful the Park Service is, so they might go along with the idea that moving into Interior is the same as moving towards a more preservationist department.

In short, a merger would do little more than rearrange the deck chairs. It won’t make much difference on the ground, though it might cut the legs off of the few innovators who are left in the agency. No one should particularly favor it, but no one will particularly oppose it, so if the next administration gets behind it, a merger will probably happen. But anyone who really wants to reform public land management should look for bottom-up reforms, rather than top down.