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Eli Dourado
@elidourado
I heard from a source recently that the US Forest Service spends 40 percent of its budget complying with various permitting requirements: NEPA, procedural aspects of the ESA, etc. (Before you ask, no I don’t have hard data—but I would like some…)
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Isaiah Taylor - making nuclear reactors
@isaiah_p_taylor
Replying to @isabelleboemeke
Unfortunately yes. In 2007 the Sierra Club successfully sued the Forest Service to prevent them from creating a Categorical Exclusion (CE) to NEPA for controlled burns (the technical term is "fuel reduction"). The CE would have allowed the forest service to conduct burns without
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David Watson 🥑
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Andy Barr
@andyagtech
This is the kind of query that the incoming tech people in the Administration should work to make possible. It shouldn't take a team of people and many data requests to different sub-agencies to get even a first-order approximation to this kind of question.
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Adam Cook
@cook82291
Yeah, but I think a comparable limitation is exurban sprawl that makes prescribed fire unfeasible regardless of the permitting system. Want defensible WUI? Then upzone cities and stop rebuilding in fire-prone areas
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Jon Cross
@joncross
Bet that’s also the reason they don’t clear around power lines as well. In my state people do controlled burns all the time especially in ditches.
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