USFS doesn't track employees' affiliations

The U.S. Forest Service is unlikely to provide House Resources Committee Chair Don Young, R-Alaska, with information he is seeking about USFS employees' affiliations with environmental groups, because the agency doesn't compile that kind of data, USFS officials say.

Young on July 28 wrote the USFS Southwestern office asking for, among other information, the names and professional backgrounds of all USFS employees involved in litigation that led to a federal plan to fence off cattle from endangered species habitat. He also asked whether the employees are members of or contribute to environmental groups involved in the litigation (Greenwire, 8/10).

The letter came after ranchers said they were shut out of the USFS decision to limit grazing. Erik Ness of the New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau called the letter "absolutely" appropriate: "If they've got this raging conflict of interest, they should recuse themselves. Judges and congressmen do it all the time -- why shouldn't they?"

USFS spokesperson Carolyn Bye said the office is not aware of its employees' "political affiliations" because it doesn't collect such information. Bye: "[Young] asked us if we're aware, and our response will be that we're not aware."

The scope of Young's inquiry has sparked agitation among environmentalists and at the Agriculture Dept., which oversees the USFS. Wilderness Society Pres. William Meadows: "What's next, library records?" (Valerie Richardson, Washington Times, 8/14).

USDA spokesperson Tom Amontree, who said the USFS carries out policy "without regard to individual beliefs," asserted that First Amendment protections bars the department "from hauling in our employees and interrogating them about their personal interests" (Al Kamen, Washington Post, 8/14).

A Lewiston [ID] Morning Tribune editorial: "[I]t is mystifying how someone so unaware of Americans' basic constitutional rights could be entrusted with a chairmanship as important as Young's" (8/10). The Santa Fe New Mexican: "As for forest rangers belonging to [environmental groups], that's their right as citizens of the nation Young represents in Congress (8/12).