Be it the invasion of Iraq, domestic spying, government corruption or management of our public lands, the administration’s efforts to gut requirements of accountability is nothing short of stunning. On the public lands management front, the administration has gutted the Forest Planning regulations by:

• eliminating management standards that must be adhered to.

• eliminating MIS (Management Indicator Species) that were used to monitor impacts of Forest Plan implementation.

• eliminating NEPA analysis of the environmental impacts of Forest Plan decisions.

They have also passed legislation allowing for a new Categorical Exclusion for livestock grazing on Forest Service lands that will be used to avoid scrutinizing the impacts of livestock grazing in Environmental Assessments or Environmental Impact Statements.

The Forest Service has recently proposed a rulemaking to allow significant oil and gas development without any assessment of its impacts.

The BLM liked what they saw the Forest Service doing so they also proposed rule changes that would eliminate NEPA analysis for grazing permits renewal, salvage logging and some oil and gas exploration.

And even where they have not been able to change the law or regulations yet, they argue that they are above the law. In a recent case initiated by Biodiversity Conservation Alliance in Laramie concerning violations of Clean Water Act water quality standards caused by livestock grazing, the Forest Service argued that they did not have to meet water quality standards.

One such exercise in unaccountability was the recent Forest Plan Revision on the Bighorn National Forest. While this Plan was revised under the old 1982 Forest Planning regulations, the Washington D.C. and Regional offices insured that the process would be just about as worthless as the Forest Planning process under the new Bush regime regulations. From notes obtained from the Forest of meetings between the Forest and county commissioners in the development of the Forest Plan, it was clear that the Forest Service handed over word-for-word veto power to the commissioners. While the Forest Plan does contain standards, they are all worded in such a way as to be unenforceable.

During the draft stage of the planning process, the protective Region 2 Watersheds Conservation Practices Handbook was added as standards under the Plan, but fear of the accountability that this would create, the Regional office quietly issued an Interim Directive eliminating the requirement to incorporate the Handbook as standards and so those protections were eliminated from the final Plan. Score another victory for our dedicated public servants.

Even though the Bighorn National Forest has suffered from over a century of abusive livestock grazing that has severely impacted soils and currently has the highest stocking rates anywhere on Forest Service lands, the new Forest Plan has no soils or stream bank trampling standards. Why complicate management with unnecessary accountability?

Even though the Bighorn National Forest does have the highest stocking rates in the country and a long history of grazing-related resource degradation, the Forest Plan failed to look at alternative levels of grazing, relying instead on similar Forest Plan direction that has failed to move conditions in the right direction for the last 20 years.

Because the Bighorn National Forest has never had much in the way of public oversight of its grazing program before, we are having some success in holding them accountable to their allotment management plans. Even though the Forest Service documented excessive utilization on a number of allotments on the south end for many year, it was not until we brought to their attention our observations as well as their own, that they are now working on dealing with the violations. We will be keeping a close eye on them this summer to see how they do.

Jonathan Ratner is Wyoming director of WWP. He lives in Pinedale, Wyoming.