In this Western Perspective University of Montana professor Martin Nie interviews Mark Rey, who served from 2001 to 2009 as Undersecretary of Agriculture under President Bush. In this capacity, Rey headed the U.S. Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service.
In doing research and interviews I've come to learn that there is often an inverse relationship between insightfulness and rank. That is, the higher ranking of a governmental and non-governmental representative, lower is the chance for a substantive, critical, and candid interview. There are exceptions to this rule of course, and my previous exposure to Mr. Rey gave me some hope that he too would fall into this category.
I noticed during Rey's previous trips to Missoula that when asked a question, he would actually answer it, sometimes in such excruciating bureaucratic detail that the questioner seemed sorry to have asked it. I took note of this brilliant strategy for pedagogical purposes—students beware!—and then set out to get a substantive departing interview with Mr. Rey.
In forest policy circles, Rey achieved a sort of mythical stature. So often was he called the "Darth Vader" of forest policy that he kept a Darth Vader helmet-telephone in his old office. But for all the intergalactic strife over national forest management during the Bush years, what's to show for it? Where have be been and where are we going? I hoped the former Undersecretary would reflect on these sorts of questions.
Rey agreed to the following arrangement without hesitation: I send him interview questions (as found below) before our interview in Washington, D.C. and he agrees to allow the full transcript of the interview be published by Headwaters News. (My inspiration here was the Center for the American West's series on former Secretaries of the Interior). The interview was tape-recorded and lasted more than three hours, resulting in 38 single-spaced transcribed pages. Wonks can download the transcript of the entire interview, and more casual readers can toggle between selected questions and answers.
This approach allows readers to draw their own conclusions and commentary—without filter. Unless you count my framing of questions, with which Mr. Rey often takes issue. Though some follow-up questions are asked, I chose breadth over depth so to cover as many topics as possible. Some interesting terrain is covered along the way, from the never-ending fight over roadless lands to new opportunities in carbon markets and ecosystem services.
As expected, Rey usually answered my questions with history, substance and detail. And when he ducks a question, he does so with some eloquence. Some of his answers deserve a rebuttal and/or clarification. Alas, I could only sequester the man for nearly four hours, but I suspect that others will answer his remarks with their own analyses and counter-narratives.
Rey says that his tenure as undersecretary was no more controversial than others who have occupied the position. He is most proud of his work associated with the Healthy Forests Initiative and the Healthy Forest Restoration Act (HFRA), the conservation/forestry titles of the 2002 and 2008 Farm Bills, and fixing USFS budget problems.
As for regrets, they are twofold says Rey: "One: That I didn't get to serve in a period of budget surpluses and the second is that I didn't serve during a period of above-average rainfall." Regarding the former, Rey is skeptical that USFS budgets will get much bigger given growth in entitlement and defense spending, though he believes creating a new fire-fighting budget will relieve some pressure on the agency. In talking finances, Rey also explains how the USFS could play an important role in the development of private markets for ecosystem services.
As for healthy forests, Rey says that "none of the accusations lodged against the Healthy Forests Initiative or HFRA have come to pass." When asked about those who view the "healthy forests" strategy as a Trojan horse, a way to cut more timber under the guise of fuel reduction, Rey is skeptical: "If this was a Trojan horse, it was so small that I dare say you couldn't have fit a single Athenian in it." Those making such claims, says Rey, are simply no longer central to the debate.
With some regret, Rey believes that the Supreme Court may likely determine the fate of 59 million acres of USFS managed roadless lands, despite some of the traction and resolution found at the state level, such as Idaho's new roadless rule. A new approach was needed to the roadless saga, he says, and he believes that giving states a larger role to play in the process was a constructive break through.
A new approach to forest planning was also necessary he says. The process of writing forest plans under the old regulations became untenable according to Rey: "The planning process was creating an exercise that took longer to produce a result than either the Manhattan or the Apollo projects."
With these and other issues, Rey committed himself to finding a different path than those explored before him. He recalls, for example, telling his former boss, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Venneman, that if she picked him for the Undersecretary position he would make one pledge to her: "That I'll come to work every day committed to, as best I can, find ways to make entirely new mistakes and not the same old ones." So, at worst says Rey, "We've redeemed that commitment."
Two issues confounded Rey more than others during his tenure and took him by surprise: the 2004 decision to ground a large air-tanker fleet for safety reasons, and second, negotiations between the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Plum Creek Timber Co. over disputed easements in western Montana in 2008. In the Plum Creek case, the timber Co. and USDA proposed to amend reciprocal easement agreements that would have allowed new owners of Plum Creek lands to access residential subdivisions in exchange for some stipulations in how the roads and new subdivisions would be managed in the future.
He has a lot to say about the Plum Creek controversy, including a history of how we got to this point, and who is ultimately to blame for the development and costs associated with private lands adjacent to national forests. In his view, the USFS was essentially being asked to regulate private lands as usually done by state and local governments. "I believe that unless the state legislature changes Montana law [allowing majority landowners to veto county zoning initiatives], the very things that Missoula County and others were afraid were going to happen, will in fact happen, and they will have to bear the brunt of that."
The closed-door negotiations between the USFS and Plum Creek, and the precedent that would be set by the proposed easement amendment caused considerable controversy. Plum Creek abruptly pulled out of the process, purportedly to be a "good neighbor." But Rey is less charitable in his interpretation: Plum Creek pulled out of the process to reduce their litigation risk he says. "By pulling out of the process they could assure that there would not be a final decision that could then be litigated by a third party. So now, the status quo ante is that they have their rights and a third party is going to have to object to whatever they decide to do using only the bare language of the easements that have been in existence, in some cases, for 40 years."
Plum Creek's logic is simple in this regard says Rey: "A: We want to clarify we have these rights. B: In order to not have the Forest Service jack us around, we're willing to agree to some things we don't have to agree to, but C: if, in the course of executing that agreement, we're going to create an avenue for some third party to challenge our rights, then the hell with it. We're out of here."
Like so many other issues confronted by Rey during his tenure, the Plum Creek story is far from finished. Their resolution awaits the new, yet-to-be confirmed, Undersecretary.
Read the entire transcript here.
Martin Nie is Associate Professor of Natural Resource Policy in the College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana. His latest book is The Governance of Western Public Lands: Mapping Its Present and Future (Kansas University Press, 2008). |
