Next president must shape up federal land agencies

Next president must shape up federal land agencies • By CY JAMISON Cy Jamison, of Billings, was U.S. BLM director from 1989-1993 • Oct 30, 2015 A land deal brokered by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation secured a parcel that helps improve access to BLM land just south of the Bears Paw Mountains close to the Chouteau-Blaine county border. I am a fourth-generation Westerner. I've spent my career managing natural resources. In 1989, when I became the director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, my leadership team and I spent considerable time maintaining and attempting to improve the relationships between Washington, D.C., and Western communities. By its nature, the distance from our nation's capital and the bulk of BLM's footprint, not just measured in miles but also differences in culture and point of view, requires constant attention. Now, 25 years later, that relationship has become a nightmare for many Westerners. The Forest Service and BLM are failing the West. There are at least three reasons for this: planning, environmental reviews and decision making. The majority of each agency's employees try to do a good job, but because of overlapping laws, endless regulatory requirements and stifling litigation, they have become paper pushers and hand wringers. The planning system defies logic. Constant and unnecessary delays so hobble the process that when a plan is finally approved, it has cost too much to complete and is already out of date. Rather than helping people and the land, these plans become handcuffs. From getting a permit to drill on an existing oil and gas lease or approval to stage a fishing contest in a national forest, if an otherwise routine and desirable activity is even slightly different from that envisioned in the plan, you either need a lot of good luck or years of patience to obtain an amendment to the plan. Invitation to sue The same holds true in obtaining environmental reviews. Today environmental reviews are simply an invitation to sue with the results decided by lawyers and judges years after the review starts. Public land management decisions need to be returned to professional land managers. Finally, the management decision process has deteriorated to the point where many managers are no longer held accountable for results. Poor performers are just shuffled around while the rest of us pay for their mistakes. Given this increasingly intolerable situation you'd think the various candidates who want to be our next president would be addressing these issues. Many of them, like many Westerners, are angry at the dysfunction plaguing Washington, D.C., but, as I learned long ago, anger, while sometimes a necessary condition for change, doesn't fix things. Only one candidate seems both angry enough to disrupt Washington, but also prepared to roll up their sleeves and rebuild trust between Washington and the West. Jeb's land plan Last week Jeb Bush laid out a detailed plan to better respect the West — to rebuild the federal land management process. Some of the fixes, like limiting government reviews to two years, will require bipartisan legislation. Others, like giving states and local governments more deference in planning, could be implemented immediately. Regardless, we need more of this: a candidate not only fed up, but willing to lay out exactly what they want to do to wake up Washington and end the nightmare. Will other candidates do the same? I hope so. We not only need a candidate who wants to be president, but one who can govern once they get there. A proven leader who not only understands the West, but also understands that being mad is not enough. Cy Jamison, of Billings, was U.S. BLM director from 1989-1993.