Land Management Agency DiscretionEssay Preview: Land Management Agency DiscretionReport this essayAgency discretion towards land management has been an issue since the Forest Services conception. Gifford Pinchot had envisioned local foresters managing lands with ideas and guidelines that have been developed with modern science and conservation in mind. Since then, laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Wilderness Bill and Endangered Species Act have limited the amount of authority and discretion a land management agency has over a particular area. These laws along with the current forest plans under the Land & Resource Management plans under the 1982 Regulations have made it possible for agencies to be subject to public opinion of whether the forest plans are best suited for a particular area and if the agency is successfully implementing these forest objectives.
Historically, land management agency discretion has been much greater than present day. Land management was left to scientists and forest professionals who were entrusted with managing public forests for the common good. This allowed for land management agencies to act without opposition from conflicting view points. But during the 1960s and 70s, America started to question the federal government and science. With the passage of NEPA, the public became more involved with policy decision making and opened agencies up to lawsuits and litigation.
According to National Forest System Land & Resource Management Planning (1982 Regulations) Sec. 219.6, the intent of public participation in the National Forest system is to broaden the information base upon which land and resource management planning decisions are made. It is also the intent to ensure that the Forest Service understands the needs, concerns and values of the public. NEPA requires that the Forest Service issues Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), hold public comment periods, and issue a description of the proposed planning action that is available to the public. Though this limits agency discretion towards public lands, it is the values of the public that dictate how public lands should be managed.
Americas National Forests and public lands are intended to represent the publics values and interests. With the requirement that the land management agencies issue EIS reports, land management discretion has been limited. Not only are the agencies required to report the current environmental health of a proposed area, but offer alternative plans as well. NEPA has held agencies accountable for how the publics National Forests are managed. No longer could agencies, at their own discretion, choose which the best way to manage public lands is whether or not it coincides with what the public wants out of its lands. This was evident in 1999 and 2000 when the roadless rule was being proposed. Over 1.5 million people commented and about 29,000 people attended public meetings concerning the rule. This was the largest federal rule making process in history and the Forest Service was implementing the will of the public on their lands.
NATIONAL PRAISE FOR NATURAL NEST
Pepsi, one of the largest U.S. vending machines, made about $100 million profit in the early 2000s, earning $1 million in annual revenue annually. As of March 2009, the National Post reported on the total profit, saying that Pepsi raised about $2 million and received $4 million for its fiscal year 2007 revenues. Pepsi paid the U.S. Army a $10 million contract to develop the first Pepsi Zero.
More recently, Pepsi and Coca-Cola have signed an agreement that includes a $18 million grant to support the “national seed” campaign. (The U.S. Army also provided a $20 million, four-year contract to build the first greenhouses on U.S. Army’s lands around the world.) And in December 2009, Pepsi announced it would build a five-year, $50 million “smart” plant in South Florida, in order to protect its “innovation base in the world.”
The “smart” project has been successful in the Gulf Coast, where the Army plans to grow 30 million apples by 2016, or about one third of an acre.
This is just one example. As of August 2009 Pepsi, the only known maker of Pepsi Zero, paid $9.7 million to produce the genetically modified Pumpkin Seed, which is genetically modified with a genetic mutation so that it produces corn, soybeans and apples in the form of a tomato. The USDA, which oversees the environment and pesticide programs for the United States, recently declared that these GMOs were “potentially harmful.”
More recently, Pepsi paid $3.4 million to develop the first version of the “pumpkin seeds” used in Pepsi’s Pepsi-Cola-distributed food line—a product that is used by Coca-Cola, Coke & Cola and PepsiCo, to make its Pepsi products more like fruit.
The use of genetic modification could be harmful to the environment. In 2001, a study by Stanford University professor Philip W. Leff revealed that when corn is grown with the genetic modification of a genetically modified corn, the corn breaks the seed’s protective protective properties.
“If GMO corn is produced using the same way that the genetically modified corn is grown without the genetic modification, Monsanto would need to change the design of its patented seeds to work with the crops grown without the modified seeds,” Leff wrote in this May 16, 2001 issue of the journal Agricultural Process. “But the geneticallymodified corn being grown without the GMO seeds will remain in the same form as the plants it was grown on without the genetic modification. The technology has proven so reliable, but the result could be disastrous.”
The same technology is used now in Pepsi products, which are supposed to act as a pesticide and a fertilizer by feeding the soil when it is irrigated.
The Monsanto-Teflon-Vaporski report, which comes on the heels of the ongoing environmental review published by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said that genetically modified corn is causing “potential impacts on soil micro-climate, groundwater integrity, groundwater quality and water quality.” By 2004, however, the researchers estimated that GMO corn was causing “significant, persistent and global losses for the world’s agriculture industry, its employees, consumers and workers of all nations at risk.”
All of this has led to agencies spending more time working paperwork than actual “on the ground” forest planning implementation. Add this to an increasingly diverse public land system, changing social conditions and under funding from Congress and the problems with current limited agency discretion begin to mount. Under the 1982 Forest Regulations, it took 5-7 years to complete a forest plan. This doesnt allow for agencies to adapt to changing environments and implement new forest plans. The process has become one of constant planning, time consuming and very expensive. Without the agencies discretion to implement new sciences, technologies and timber strategies