Policy Primers

The ABC’s of Travel Planning II, or
The Charmed Existence of Snowmobiles

By Steve Ryder, Winter Wildlands Alliance

Introduction

In 2005, the Forest Service published new regulations in the Federal Register1 (commonly called the Travel Management Rule) for managing the Forest Service Transportation System. The Travel Management Rule, found in the Code of Federal Regulations (36 CFR 212), has three sections: Subpart A, “Administration of the Forest Transportation System”; Subpart B “Designation of Roads, Trails, and Areas for Motor Vehicle Use”; and Subpart C “Use by Over-Snow Vehicles.” This article explains the intersection of these three subparts during the travel planning process.

Editor’s Note: this article is meant only as a practical orientation for the layperson, and does not represent the official legal positions of Wildlands CPR or our affiliates. RS 2477 law and policy is very complex and constantly shifting, and it would be impossible to represent the full spectrum of issues here.

Background: Experimental projects using some of the concepts now incorporated in stewardship end result contracting were conducted sporadically on federal lands beginning in the late 1970’s. Broad interest in the idea, however, did not develop until the mid-1990’s, when community-based forestry groups in the West started looking at it as a possible way to re­duce the contentious nature of public lands management.

On June 8, 2006, several months after releasing their new rule, “Trav­el Management; Designated Routes and Areas for Motor Vehicle Use,” the Forest Service published a schedule for its implementa­tion by 2010. And while changes to the Forest Service Manual and Hand­book (necessary for implementing the rule) have still not been released for comment, Chief Dale Bosworth included guidance to help national forests begin the process.

Because travel planning has significant environ­mental consequences, it constitutes a major federal action subject to the National Environ­mental Policy Act (NEPA). This means that citizens have the opportunity to submit alternatives for consideration in a draft environmental assessment (EA) or draft environmental impact statement (EIS). Many travel planning processes produce a range of alternatives that favor motorized recreation at the expense of solitude, natural quiet, and resource and wildlife habitat.

FLREA Background: Attached as a rider to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill and signed into law on December 8, 2004, the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA) extends and expands the Recreational Fee-Demonstration Program (Fee-Demo) begun in 1997. The Fee-Demo program allowed public land management agencies to retain at least eighty-percent of collected revenue from existing and new recreation fees.

During the last five years, the Bush Administration has system­atically attacked scientific integrity in all aspects of govern­ment regulation. They have relied on junk science, innuendo, and anecdotes to support industry-friendly environmental policies or weakened environmental safeguards. This trend has only increased as the Administration’s friends have increasingly turned to a four-year-old law with a misleading name, the Information Quality Act (IQA), in their ongoing effort to weaken federal environmental regulations.

IQA in Theory and Practice

The Clearwater National Forest (CNF) in north-central Idaho began a modest road removal program in 1992, and due to limited funding decommissioned less than 10 miles per year over the next three years. Then, after a winter of severe flooding and landslides in 1996, an unexpected partner appeared: the Nez Perce Tribe had recently received $350,000 from the Bonneville Power Admin­istration, in part for road removal projects on the CNF.

New forest regulations from the Bush administration eliminate protections for wildlife, minimize accountability to science, and take public opinion out of public-land planning. Conservationists argue that the new regulations, mostly finalized on Jan. 5, 2005, contradict the very law they are intended to implement, the National Forest Management Act of 1976 (NFMA). And in late February, conserva­tion groups sued the Forest Service (FS) over the new regulations.