BLM Announces Comment Period Extension on the BLM's Proposed Planning Rule (1 Viewer)
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Today's the day people. Here is my public comment letter.
Attention: OMB Control Number 1004-AE39
To: Whom it may concern,
Federal Register Notice:
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 4310-84P
Bureau of Land Management 43 CFR Part 1600
[LLWO210000.L1610000]
RIN 1004-AE39
Resource Management Planning
To Whom This Concerns
I am writing to register comments and concerns regarding BLM's 2.0 Planning effort, 81 Federal Register 9674 [February 26, 2016] I appreciate both the opportunity to comment and the extension of the deadline for comment. Like many other concerned desert users that happen to live in California, I have been preoccupied with sorting out the ongoing mess of a separate but related BLM planning effort: the DRECP. While the extension of the comment deadline in the 2.0 planning effort has not provided me with sufficient time to address this planning effort with the depth of analysis I am used to providing, it is still better than having missed the comment period altogether.
A. NEPA- While it is laudable that the Bureau has chosen to formally acknowledge and integrate the utility of scoping as a phase of the planning process, in the last forty years the federal courts have also provided much jurisprudential guidance regarding the requirements of due process and NEPA that should also be integrated.
1. Access to documents. In an ironic twist, this letter serves in part as anecdotal evidence of this issue. One of the reasons I am not providing the clear references to the 2.0 document the Bureau requested is that I was not provided reasonable access to a PRINTED copy of the regulation. While it is laudable that the Bureau has twice extended the deadline for scoping comments on the 2.0 effort in order to provide a greater QUANTITY of time for comment, without reasonable access to printed copies of planning documents, the QUALITY of access remains the same.
There are specific legal requirements when it comes to providing access for those who are legally blind. There are just as many, if not more, members of the public interested in participating in these so-called public processes that have extreme difficulty viewing these increasingly voluminous documents electronically. The medical consequences of having to focus for hours on a computer monitor are well known. While electronic dissemination is unarguably more efficient, convenience should not be mistaken for compliance. The Bureau must re-commit itself to supplying printed copies of planning documents in all field offices and appropriate regional libraries. I have requested on several occasions in the last six years that local field office provide printed copies of planning documents. Sometimes they have been forthcoming, others not. As mentioned, the 2.0 planning document was one of the 'nots'.
The irony here is that the Bureau might offer in its defense that this requirement is an onerous burden given that planning documents are becoming increasingly lengthy. The length of the documents is fast becoming its own challenge to compliance, as the due process and NEPA requirements of making the planning process understandable to the common man have not changed. The intentions of NEPA would be stood on its head if the Bureau could use the complexity and length of these documents, and the commensurate effort to print and distribute them as a reason to relieve themselves of responsibility for providing meaningful access to them. Never have I personally witnessed a more apropos application of the maxim 'Two wrongs don't make a right.'
2. Notice-Means. Several years ago, the California State Office of the BLM initiated a process to update their own handbook on planning processes. I requested at that time an opportunity to participate in formulating better procedures for engaging the public. I wrote a letter to the State office regarding it. I have no idea what became of that. I would like to think that it helped form the genesis for the Bureau's recognition that the entire planning process was due for an overhaul.
At this juncture, the Bureau should avail themselves of the opportunity to integrate a century of jurisprudence on the subject of notice into the 2.0 planning process. The internet was not contemplated by those who crafted NEPA and FLPMA. This has been a double-edged sword for the Bureau, as the speed at which notices can be propagated has increased exponentially, but has often caused the Bureau to fall back on razor-thin margins for providing it. The increasing diversification of our population, and its commensurate cross section of citizens interested in these public process require at the very least that the Bureau explore the possibility of posting in the 21st century version of 'public places.' Just because NEPA creates a threshold requirement in the spectrum of notice opportunities is no reason for the Bureau to cling so tenaciously to the lowest rung of the ladder.
The Internet is only one example of how the times have changed. While I would readily agree that the details on implementing notice requirements are better left to the fleshing out of handbooks, I think the Bureau should at least explicitly commit themselves to exploring these options by specifically naming and integrating them into the language of the final planning document.
As another example of acknowledging the changes in the way we communicate, the Planning Document should specifically address the possibility of creating an electronic mailing list for interested parties. Local, regional, state and national offices should ALL be looking at creating databases FOR THEIR INDIVIDUAL OFFICES of interested parties, where interest groups can 'check the boxes' across the cross-section of Bureau activities which they want to be kept apprised of. Mining, grazing, recreation, wilderness, ROW permits, etc. As each office has resource specialists for these areas, so too should the lists be organized.
3. Notice-Content. I wish I could be more helpful in terms of specific suggestions here. The NEPA requirements for the content are clear. They mirror those of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. They require sufficient specificity to provide a person of average intelligence with a reasonably clear idea of what is going on, what is being proposed. However, with the amount of controversy and litigation surrounding just this point, it is clear that not enough care is being taken in the crafting of Federal Register notices to avoid this potential issue.
Because I am not privy to all the internal structuring of the Bureau, I cannot distinguish if this is from a lack of staff, or a lack of qualified staff. All I know from an outsider's perspective is that I have witnessed numerous instances in the recent past in which notices were deficient to meet legal standards. Because of my specific legal training, and immersion in land use planning, I have been able to ascertain what in fact what was being proposed. However, my personal abilities are no substitute for the common man standard. I cringe at the thought of creating another layer of bureaucracy,much less another unfunded mandate. But I also know that the current situation is unacceptable, and carries with it an unnecessary risk of litigation.
4. Meaningful opportunity-Time. The second part of the due process requirement of the 14th currently diverges from the NEPA standard. On its face, NEPA only requires that there be an opportunity for comment. The 14th amendment has long been interpreted to require that the opportunity be "meaningful." Because the clear intention of NEPA was to infuse the due process requirements into the administrative process, court decisions have analyzed these requirements together. Unfortunately, the Bureau has not done anything overtly to recognize and codify this jurisprudence into the regulations.
Rather than suggesting an overhaul of NEPA itself, which is not appropriate to this planning effort, I am suggesting that the Bureau acknowledge the specific ways in which NEPA compliance can and should interface with the Bureau's specific planning efforts. First and foremost is the idea anecdotally acknowledged by this very planning effort: that the amount of time allowed for comment, one cornerstone of a 'meaningful opportunity' be commensurate to the matter at hand.
For example, there was a huge public outcry upon the release of the DEIS for the DRECP was released, which was basically a wholesale restructuring of the CDCA...AND a renewable energy plan all rolled into one. The loudest of all the complaints was that this huge planning document, was going to be given a typical 90 day public comment period. Without belaboring all the flaws of the DRECP, just the fact that the Bureau was comfortable with proposing a 90 day comment period shocked the conscience of the public. Once again the sad, cartoonish image of the Bureau tenaciously clinging to the lowest rung of the ladder.
IT should be the task of a qualified NEPA coordinator to INDEPENDENTLY analyze the breadth and complexity of a planning document and decide WITHOUT REGARD FOR POLITICAL agenda what constitutes an appropriate timeframe for public involvement. Instead, what we currently have is a mindless conformity to a 30,60 or 90 day timetable that is almost guaranteed to invoke a knee-jerk reaction of outrage from the public. This surely cannot be the 21st century's version of democracy.
5. Meaningful opportunity-Completeness of Information. Again, the DRECP process is illustrative of a 'what not to do' scenario. A political agenda forced the DEIS through its public participation component without benefit of maps that included access roads. While we know that in the specific instance of the DRECP this happened because of the delays in the WEMO planning effort, my point here is to illustrate that with increasing frequency the Bureau is challenged with moving multiple planning efforts forwards simultaneously, or with overlapping timeframes. In these instances, it is [and if not, SHOULD BE] the job of a qualified NEPA coordinator to examine the interplay of overlapping planning efforts and prepare an analysis of the potential conflicts and resultant NEPA consequences of the proposed timing of these efforts. This is similar in my mind to the brief fiscal analysis provided to voters in their pamphlets.
The 2.0 Planning effort should, in addition to identifying potential NEPA conflicts created by incomplete information and incompatible deadlines, suggest that either the conflicts be eliminated by suspending a conflicting planning effort, or proposing NEPA complaint ways in which the defect can be ameliorated after the fact thru post-enactment PUBLIC involvement. Unfortunately, the general tenor of the 2.0 Planning document as it currently has been crafted is exactly the opposite. 2.0 envisions an atmosphere in which local and regional offices have more ministerial discretion to perform functions that the public believes should be open to public examination. At this early stage of planning, it would be a simple matter to include language that guaranteed that local actions will still be open to public scrutiny. I suggest that the Bureau create some language on this subject. Chances are, whatever it is, the public will find fault with it, and thru the process of fault-finding, we can develop a consensus on a better idea. That IS democracy.
B. FLPMA. While I am fully cognizant of the need to update and improve this 40 year old planning architecture, I am also mindful of the legal obligation to do this in a manner that is both transparent to the public and legally defensible. The well-settled mantra of FLPMA over the last four decades has been multiple-use and sustained yield. This comment period is not the appropriate forum for debating the strengths and weaknesses of how that mantra has operated in fact. I note only that in the most general sense, we as a species have continued to consume the resources of this planet at an unsustainable rate.
That said, it is extremely obvious that the 2.0 planning effort, while paying lip service to the multiple use sustained yield principle, sets a clear course towards more conservation. Based on my previous statement, I think that you can see that I am in agreement with need for this shift. However, there is a difference between agreeing with the 'ends' and with the 'means.
As a land use attorney, I am not sure that this paradigm shift from multiple use to conservation is too fundamental to be handled purely administratively. FLPMA was an act of Congress. Those whose livelihoods and leisure pursuits have been based on the consumptive use of the desert will no doubt challenge the attempt to reinterpret the sustained-yield side of the equation to allow for the amount of conservation that 2.0 seeks to embrace. While it is possible that a court will ultimately decide that FLPMAs mandate for 'sustained-yield' allows the BLM sufficient latitude to make this shift administratively, it is also quite possible that it will not. [As a side note, even a novice in politics would recognize that asking Congress to formally designate this change would be impossible: curtailing resource consumption does not win votes!] Given this unlikelihood, it is not hard to see that the Bureau is not really left with any other choice than to pursue this objective on its own. It doesn't eliminate the risk, but it does help give it context.
C. Landscape level planning. Like many, I continue to be lured by the theoretically superior opportunities offered by landscape-level planning. Long before there was a DRECP, we all recognized at some level that resource management was often fragmented by multi-jurisdictional boundaries. Unfortunately, having only the DRECP as a reference point for the implementation of landscape-level planning, it's no wonder the public and myself would recoil from further expansion of this concept.
First and foremost, the worthy goal of landscape-level conservation envisioned by the DRECP was hijacked by developers and subverted into a cap and trade program in which species protection became nothing more than a commodity. With a track record like that, you can easily see why the public would RUN from the idea of more landscape-level planning.
In a more general sense, the Bureau's previous attempt to institute landscape-level planning has left the public with an uneasy sense that the opportunity to reduce fragmented management carries with in an unnecessary risk of abuse. I apologize for the use of the word abuse, but I am on a very short deadline to finish this letter. To use the word abuse would be to imply that the Bureau was purposeful in circumventing its obligations. What I really mean to say is that 'streamlining' carries with it the stigma of potentially subverting public participation.
For as much as the 'fragmented' [vs landscape]method of planning falls short of providing consistent management across a resource area, it has the benefit of allowing more public input along the way. When things are proposed in small pieces[ i.e. when changes are incremental], the public can more easily 'get their head around' what's going on, the LOCAL public has more ideas about how to participate based on their LOCAL understanding of LOCAL issues. When planning efforts get larger, the public becomes more intimidated, feels less informed about 'the big picture', and thereby less competent to provide meaningful participation. IF it is NEPA's job to ensure that the public not be 'lost' in the process, then landscape-level planning will have a tough road of insuring NEPA requirements are met.
D. Discretionary actions. The planning rule proposes to extend the amount of discretionary actions performed at the local level. The problem I see with this proposal is very similar to the one with landscape-level planning. The possibilities for abuse thru dilution of public participation are the same. The current system is slow, awkward, and expensive for the Bureau to manage. But is a system everyone is adapted to, and one in which people more than not feel there are safeguards in place for reasonably well-informed members of the public to participate and seek redress.
The antithesis of this would be the amount of discretion evident in the management of ACECs, where all the public learns about the Bureaus plans are at the implementation phase, post facto. With little or no say in the formation of these planning areas, and basically none in the implementation strategies, the public, myself included, feels shut out of the system.
Unfortunately, it is my general understanding that 2.0 envisions the expansion of exactly this kind of discretionary action. Because the manner in which these areas are managed is largely beyond the public's ability to challenge, I would not support any effort to increase local discretion in making these designations.
These are my thoughts for the initial planning phase. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mark Algazy, Esq., member
BLM Desert Advisory Council
Attention: OMB Control Number 1004-AE39
To: Whom it may concern,
Federal Register Notice:
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 4310-84P
Bureau of Land Management 43 CFR Part 1600
[LLWO210000.L1610000]
RIN 1004-AE39
Resource Management Planning
To Whom This Concerns
I am writing to register comments and concerns regarding BLM's 2.0 Planning effort, 81 Federal Register 9674 [February 26, 2016] I appreciate both the opportunity to comment and the extension of the deadline for comment. Like many other concerned desert users that happen to live in California, I have been preoccupied with sorting out the ongoing mess of a separate but related BLM planning effort: the DRECP. While the extension of the comment deadline in the 2.0 planning effort has not provided me with sufficient time to address this planning effort with the depth of analysis I am used to providing, it is still better than having missed the comment period altogether.
A. NEPA- While it is laudable that the Bureau has chosen to formally acknowledge and integrate the utility of scoping as a phase of the planning process, in the last forty years the federal courts have also provided much jurisprudential guidance regarding the requirements of due process and NEPA that should also be integrated.
1. Access to documents. In an ironic twist, this letter serves in part as anecdotal evidence of this issue. One of the reasons I am not providing the clear references to the 2.0 document the Bureau requested is that I was not provided reasonable access to a PRINTED copy of the regulation. While it is laudable that the Bureau has twice extended the deadline for scoping comments on the 2.0 effort in order to provide a greater QUANTITY of time for comment, without reasonable access to printed copies of planning documents, the QUALITY of access remains the same.
There are specific legal requirements when it comes to providing access for those who are legally blind. There are just as many, if not more, members of the public interested in participating in these so-called public processes that have extreme difficulty viewing these increasingly voluminous documents electronically. The medical consequences of having to focus for hours on a computer monitor are well known. While electronic dissemination is unarguably more efficient, convenience should not be mistaken for compliance. The Bureau must re-commit itself to supplying printed copies of planning documents in all field offices and appropriate regional libraries. I have requested on several occasions in the last six years that local field office provide printed copies of planning documents. Sometimes they have been forthcoming, others not. As mentioned, the 2.0 planning document was one of the 'nots'.
The irony here is that the Bureau might offer in its defense that this requirement is an onerous burden given that planning documents are becoming increasingly lengthy. The length of the documents is fast becoming its own challenge to compliance, as the due process and NEPA requirements of making the planning process understandable to the common man have not changed. The intentions of NEPA would be stood on its head if the Bureau could use the complexity and length of these documents, and the commensurate effort to print and distribute them as a reason to relieve themselves of responsibility for providing meaningful access to them. Never have I personally witnessed a more apropos application of the maxim 'Two wrongs don't make a right.'
2. Notice-Means. Several years ago, the California State Office of the BLM initiated a process to update their own handbook on planning processes. I requested at that time an opportunity to participate in formulating better procedures for engaging the public. I wrote a letter to the State office regarding it. I have no idea what became of that. I would like to think that it helped form the genesis for the Bureau's recognition that the entire planning process was due for an overhaul.
At this juncture, the Bureau should avail themselves of the opportunity to integrate a century of jurisprudence on the subject of notice into the 2.0 planning process. The internet was not contemplated by those who crafted NEPA and FLPMA. This has been a double-edged sword for the Bureau, as the speed at which notices can be propagated has increased exponentially, but has often caused the Bureau to fall back on razor-thin margins for providing it. The increasing diversification of our population, and its commensurate cross section of citizens interested in these public process require at the very least that the Bureau explore the possibility of posting in the 21st century version of 'public places.' Just because NEPA creates a threshold requirement in the spectrum of notice opportunities is no reason for the Bureau to cling so tenaciously to the lowest rung of the ladder.
The Internet is only one example of how the times have changed. While I would readily agree that the details on implementing notice requirements are better left to the fleshing out of handbooks, I think the Bureau should at least explicitly commit themselves to exploring these options by specifically naming and integrating them into the language of the final planning document.
As another example of acknowledging the changes in the way we communicate, the Planning Document should specifically address the possibility of creating an electronic mailing list for interested parties. Local, regional, state and national offices should ALL be looking at creating databases FOR THEIR INDIVIDUAL OFFICES of interested parties, where interest groups can 'check the boxes' across the cross-section of Bureau activities which they want to be kept apprised of. Mining, grazing, recreation, wilderness, ROW permits, etc. As each office has resource specialists for these areas, so too should the lists be organized.
3. Notice-Content. I wish I could be more helpful in terms of specific suggestions here. The NEPA requirements for the content are clear. They mirror those of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. They require sufficient specificity to provide a person of average intelligence with a reasonably clear idea of what is going on, what is being proposed. However, with the amount of controversy and litigation surrounding just this point, it is clear that not enough care is being taken in the crafting of Federal Register notices to avoid this potential issue.
Because I am not privy to all the internal structuring of the Bureau, I cannot distinguish if this is from a lack of staff, or a lack of qualified staff. All I know from an outsider's perspective is that I have witnessed numerous instances in the recent past in which notices were deficient to meet legal standards. Because of my specific legal training, and immersion in land use planning, I have been able to ascertain what in fact what was being proposed. However, my personal abilities are no substitute for the common man standard. I cringe at the thought of creating another layer of bureaucracy,much less another unfunded mandate. But I also know that the current situation is unacceptable, and carries with it an unnecessary risk of litigation.
4. Meaningful opportunity-Time. The second part of the due process requirement of the 14th currently diverges from the NEPA standard. On its face, NEPA only requires that there be an opportunity for comment. The 14th amendment has long been interpreted to require that the opportunity be "meaningful." Because the clear intention of NEPA was to infuse the due process requirements into the administrative process, court decisions have analyzed these requirements together. Unfortunately, the Bureau has not done anything overtly to recognize and codify this jurisprudence into the regulations.
Rather than suggesting an overhaul of NEPA itself, which is not appropriate to this planning effort, I am suggesting that the Bureau acknowledge the specific ways in which NEPA compliance can and should interface with the Bureau's specific planning efforts. First and foremost is the idea anecdotally acknowledged by this very planning effort: that the amount of time allowed for comment, one cornerstone of a 'meaningful opportunity' be commensurate to the matter at hand.
For example, there was a huge public outcry upon the release of the DEIS for the DRECP was released, which was basically a wholesale restructuring of the CDCA...AND a renewable energy plan all rolled into one. The loudest of all the complaints was that this huge planning document, was going to be given a typical 90 day public comment period. Without belaboring all the flaws of the DRECP, just the fact that the Bureau was comfortable with proposing a 90 day comment period shocked the conscience of the public. Once again the sad, cartoonish image of the Bureau tenaciously clinging to the lowest rung of the ladder.
IT should be the task of a qualified NEPA coordinator to INDEPENDENTLY analyze the breadth and complexity of a planning document and decide WITHOUT REGARD FOR POLITICAL agenda what constitutes an appropriate timeframe for public involvement. Instead, what we currently have is a mindless conformity to a 30,60 or 90 day timetable that is almost guaranteed to invoke a knee-jerk reaction of outrage from the public. This surely cannot be the 21st century's version of democracy.
5. Meaningful opportunity-Completeness of Information. Again, the DRECP process is illustrative of a 'what not to do' scenario. A political agenda forced the DEIS through its public participation component without benefit of maps that included access roads. While we know that in the specific instance of the DRECP this happened because of the delays in the WEMO planning effort, my point here is to illustrate that with increasing frequency the Bureau is challenged with moving multiple planning efforts forwards simultaneously, or with overlapping timeframes. In these instances, it is [and if not, SHOULD BE] the job of a qualified NEPA coordinator to examine the interplay of overlapping planning efforts and prepare an analysis of the potential conflicts and resultant NEPA consequences of the proposed timing of these efforts. This is similar in my mind to the brief fiscal analysis provided to voters in their pamphlets.
The 2.0 Planning effort should, in addition to identifying potential NEPA conflicts created by incomplete information and incompatible deadlines, suggest that either the conflicts be eliminated by suspending a conflicting planning effort, or proposing NEPA complaint ways in which the defect can be ameliorated after the fact thru post-enactment PUBLIC involvement. Unfortunately, the general tenor of the 2.0 Planning document as it currently has been crafted is exactly the opposite. 2.0 envisions an atmosphere in which local and regional offices have more ministerial discretion to perform functions that the public believes should be open to public examination. At this early stage of planning, it would be a simple matter to include language that guaranteed that local actions will still be open to public scrutiny. I suggest that the Bureau create some language on this subject. Chances are, whatever it is, the public will find fault with it, and thru the process of fault-finding, we can develop a consensus on a better idea. That IS democracy.
B. FLPMA. While I am fully cognizant of the need to update and improve this 40 year old planning architecture, I am also mindful of the legal obligation to do this in a manner that is both transparent to the public and legally defensible. The well-settled mantra of FLPMA over the last four decades has been multiple-use and sustained yield. This comment period is not the appropriate forum for debating the strengths and weaknesses of how that mantra has operated in fact. I note only that in the most general sense, we as a species have continued to consume the resources of this planet at an unsustainable rate.
That said, it is extremely obvious that the 2.0 planning effort, while paying lip service to the multiple use sustained yield principle, sets a clear course towards more conservation. Based on my previous statement, I think that you can see that I am in agreement with need for this shift. However, there is a difference between agreeing with the 'ends' and with the 'means.
As a land use attorney, I am not sure that this paradigm shift from multiple use to conservation is too fundamental to be handled purely administratively. FLPMA was an act of Congress. Those whose livelihoods and leisure pursuits have been based on the consumptive use of the desert will no doubt challenge the attempt to reinterpret the sustained-yield side of the equation to allow for the amount of conservation that 2.0 seeks to embrace. While it is possible that a court will ultimately decide that FLPMAs mandate for 'sustained-yield' allows the BLM sufficient latitude to make this shift administratively, it is also quite possible that it will not. [As a side note, even a novice in politics would recognize that asking Congress to formally designate this change would be impossible: curtailing resource consumption does not win votes!] Given this unlikelihood, it is not hard to see that the Bureau is not really left with any other choice than to pursue this objective on its own. It doesn't eliminate the risk, but it does help give it context.
C. Landscape level planning. Like many, I continue to be lured by the theoretically superior opportunities offered by landscape-level planning. Long before there was a DRECP, we all recognized at some level that resource management was often fragmented by multi-jurisdictional boundaries. Unfortunately, having only the DRECP as a reference point for the implementation of landscape-level planning, it's no wonder the public and myself would recoil from further expansion of this concept.
First and foremost, the worthy goal of landscape-level conservation envisioned by the DRECP was hijacked by developers and subverted into a cap and trade program in which species protection became nothing more than a commodity. With a track record like that, you can easily see why the public would RUN from the idea of more landscape-level planning.
In a more general sense, the Bureau's previous attempt to institute landscape-level planning has left the public with an uneasy sense that the opportunity to reduce fragmented management carries with in an unnecessary risk of abuse. I apologize for the use of the word abuse, but I am on a very short deadline to finish this letter. To use the word abuse would be to imply that the Bureau was purposeful in circumventing its obligations. What I really mean to say is that 'streamlining' carries with it the stigma of potentially subverting public participation.
For as much as the 'fragmented' [vs landscape]method of planning falls short of providing consistent management across a resource area, it has the benefit of allowing more public input along the way. When things are proposed in small pieces[ i.e. when changes are incremental], the public can more easily 'get their head around' what's going on, the LOCAL public has more ideas about how to participate based on their LOCAL understanding of LOCAL issues. When planning efforts get larger, the public becomes more intimidated, feels less informed about 'the big picture', and thereby less competent to provide meaningful participation. IF it is NEPA's job to ensure that the public not be 'lost' in the process, then landscape-level planning will have a tough road of insuring NEPA requirements are met.
D. Discretionary actions. The planning rule proposes to extend the amount of discretionary actions performed at the local level. The problem I see with this proposal is very similar to the one with landscape-level planning. The possibilities for abuse thru dilution of public participation are the same. The current system is slow, awkward, and expensive for the Bureau to manage. But is a system everyone is adapted to, and one in which people more than not feel there are safeguards in place for reasonably well-informed members of the public to participate and seek redress.
The antithesis of this would be the amount of discretion evident in the management of ACECs, where all the public learns about the Bureaus plans are at the implementation phase, post facto. With little or no say in the formation of these planning areas, and basically none in the implementation strategies, the public, myself included, feels shut out of the system.
Unfortunately, it is my general understanding that 2.0 envisions the expansion of exactly this kind of discretionary action. Because the manner in which these areas are managed is largely beyond the public's ability to challenge, I would not support any effort to increase local discretion in making these designations.
These are my thoughts for the initial planning phase. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Mark Algazy, Esq., member
BLM Desert Advisory Council
