The Forest Service has opted to set aside a restructuring of its environmental planning processes, citing "disruption and confusion," as well as legislative restrictions on using further funds for competitive sourcing activities.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said that the plan – based on a "feasibility study" completed last fall of the agency’s planning law, the national environmental policy act – would have led the Forest Service to pull biologists and other specialists out of national forests, and reassigned thousands of employees posted throughout the country to six operational centers.
About one quarter of the agency’s workforce would have been affected by the streamlining plan, PEER said, noting that the restructuring of NEPA was meant to facilitate potential outsourcing.
However, Congress has barred the agency from further competitive sourcing efforts for the rest of fiscal 2008. GAO recently issued a report highly critical of the agency’s competitive sourcing efforts. GAO said the agency lacks a realistic strategic plan and adequate guidance to help ensure that it can effectively carry out job competitions.
In a February 20 memo to senior agency staff and managers, Forest Service chief Abigail Kimbell wrote that the agency would hold off on streamlining NEPA processes and would instead focus on other efforts such as a transformation of its Washington and Northeastern area offices.
"At a later time, we will revisit recommendations from the NEPA feasibility study," Kimbell wrote, adding, "We, however, expect local managers to consider the feasibility study as they seek to increase NEPA efficiencies."
