Does anyone really give a damn about the new planning rules?

Time was when forest plans generated tens of thousands of comments from interested citizens, but no more, at least not in disenfranchised rural areas where the common folk long age recognized that the Forest Service could not care less about what they think or want from national forests.

We know whereof we speak on this heartbreaking issue because we helped pioneer the public response process in the late 1980s, when the Forest Service was still actively managing the West's great forests - and still contributing to the nation's wood supply. But those days are gone, and so too is the credibility of the Forest Service's entire planning process.

I cannot name a single individual who attends "scoping sessions" or "planning rule http://www.fs.fed.us/emc/nfma/includes/2009_06_30_SJ_Order.pdfindustry staffers who'd rather have a root canal and environmental activists who have turned what's left of federal forest "management" into a giant cash cow, courtesy of beleaguered taxpayers.

In the 1980s and 1990s, we routinely generated 40,000 to 80,000 comments on forest plans and planning rules. But beyond the local or regional level, the federal government hasn't been interested in hearing from the nation's citizens - those who live closest to the national forests and have a stake in their management, or mismanagement, for nearly 20 years. So the current dog and pony show is just that: a dog and pony show designed to allow the Forest Service to dot all of its' "I's" and cross all of its "T's," but no one should think that this process matters or that anything good will come of it.

Keeping all of this in mind, here are three links that will either help or hopelessly confuse anyone who wants to know more about the new planning rule.

http://www.fs.fed.us/emc/nfma/includes/2009_06_30_SJ_Order.pdf will lead you to the federal court ruling that has the Forest Service in litigation hell.

http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-30174.pdf will lead you to the Federal Register for Friday, Dec. 18, 2009, wherein the Forest Service describes the pickle it is in and attempts to explain its way out.

http://fs.usda.gov:80/wps/portal/fsinternet/!ut/p/c4/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os3gjAwhwtDDw9_AI8zPwhQoY6BdkOyoCAPkATlA!/?ss=119987&navtype=BROWSEBYSUBJECT&cid=FSE_003853&navid=091000000000000&pnavid=null&position=BROWSEBYSUBJECT&ttype=main&pname=Planning%20Rule-%20Home describes all of the politically correct facilitated and moderated meetings and workshops the Forest Service is hosting around the West. But don't expect to find any answers here concerning [1] how the input will be used or [2] whether it will be part of the administrative record that forms the agency's defense in future litigation.

http://blogs.usda.gov:80/usdablogs/planningrule/ will take you to a planning rule blog, though no one can tell us whether or not such input is legal. Back in the "good old forest planning days", the Forest Service told us [from on high] that postcards and comment forms we developed to make it easy for folks to comment on forest plans would not be counted, and that only original and "substantive" written comments would be considered. Now it seems that comments posted on Twitter and Facebook and other so-called "social networking" sites are just fine with the Forest Service. We've come a long way baby, and it's all straight downhill from here.

Jim Petersen, The Evergreen Foundation