Chelsea S Pennick

Accurate information on the movement and utilization of timber sold by the USDA Forest Service (Forest Service) has historically been difficult to access. Such data have useful applications in the appraisal process, for estimating the location and size of economic impacts to people and communities and for planning management actions. There is some evidence that agency utilization definitions lag improvements in industry utilization practices leading to a discrepancy between administratively determined uses and actual uses of timber sold. Furthermore, the relationship between the origin of harvested wood and the location of processing are increasingly important in the context of climate and clean energy policies as many rely on quantification of the greenhouse gas emissions from the harvest, transport and use of wood for various end products. In this study we compare available data on timber harvested from Forest Service administrative reports with mill-reported uses of federal timber collected by USDA Forest Service Research & Development’s National Resource Use Monitoring program in order to demonstrate a method for estimating national forest timber movement and utilization “signatures”.

The number and size of wildfires in the western United States have increased dramatically in the last 30 years. The rising cost of wildfire suppression has become a significant concern for all levels of government, although most attention has been focused on the federal level. Much less is known about the financial impact of expenditures on states, which retain responsibility for suppression on over 480 million acres of state and private forests. This study collected data on state expenditures for wildfire suppression in the western United States from 2005 to 2015 to examine fiscal burdens and compare funding mechanisms used to cover those costs. Our analysis finds that western states expended $11.9 billion on wildfire suppression over the 11-year period and used own-source funds to cover 88 percent of these costs. States displayed a variety of mechanisms for covering their cost obligations with tradeoffs that may affect non-wildfire policy priorities.

Economic conditions in rural communities adjacent to large tracts of public land are disproportionately affected by federal land-use decisions. Policy interventions such as the Northwest Forest Plan have served as natural experiments for testing how management decisions impact communities in the Pacific Northwest. Less is known about how these decisions affect communities in other parts of the West. Using the lens of job opportunities, we analyzed national forest procurement contracts in Montana to identify characteristics associated with the utilization of local versus distant contractors. Results demonstrated that some federal small business assistance programs and work types substantially diminished local business utilization, while others served to keep dollars more local, albeit to a lesser degree. To enhance local business utilization, policy makers may consider strengthening local preference authorities, increasing accessibility by bolstering agency contract management capacity, or adjusting small business assistance programs to work in concert with local benefit goals.