2012 Technical Advisory Panel Meeting April 23-27, 2012

141 Pages·2012·0.76 MB·English

by  Forest Service

Collaborative Forest Restoration Program
2012 Technical Advisory Panel Meeting
April 23-27, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
Panelists present at the meeting:
Mike Matush, NMED-Surface Water Quality Bureau
Danny Gomez, USDI Bureau of Indian Affairs
Timothy Pohlman, USDA Forest Service
Robert Berrens, PhD, University of New Mexico
Bryan Bird, Wild Earth Guardians
Thomas Jervis, Audubon New Mexico
Dick Cooke, Village of Ruidoso
Daniel Barrone, Olguins, Inc.
Brent Racher, Restoration Solutions, LLC.
Panelists absent from the meeting on Monday:
John Olivas, NM Wilderness Alliance [excused]
Lawrence Vincent, PhD, UNM-Taos Academy of Science and Environmental Studies
[excused]
10:15 Welcome and Introductions by Walter Dunn
Mr. Walter Dunn, Assistant Designated Federal Officer, introduced himself and asked the panel to
introduce themselves.
10:20 Review of Purposes, Desired Outcomes and Agenda by the Facilitator
Ms. Rosemary Romero, Facilitator, welcomed everyone and asked those attending to sign in. She
pointed out the extra copies of applications for the public’s use. She explained that the
negotiations by panel members are displayed on the screen. Each day a specific time for public
comment is reserved for the written comments submitted.
Ms. Romero reviewed the purpose, desired outcomes, and agenda for the panelists. The agenda is
amended. The Federal Advisory Committee (FACA) ethics training is removed from the agenda
and more time is given to revise bylaws.
She announced the alternate location on Friday in the other building across the street.
She explained that Mr. Dunn has acted as the Chairperson in previous years but this year a
panelist will be chosen by the panel to be the chairperson.
Mr. Jerry Payne announced there would be no barbecue this year but would plan to go out to
dinner tonight.
10:27 What It Means to be a Federal Advisory Committee by Walter Dunn
Mr. Dunn explained the Federal Advisory Committee details. All deliberations are open to the
public and the notice must be announced 15 days before the meeting. Public comments are
scheduled every day.
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Monday, April 23, 2012
The Federal Register announcement also spells out the process by which the public can address
the panel and the public may respond to requests from the panel – grant applicants as well as
Forest Service staff.
The panelists’ names are on the GSA website along with other Federal Advisory Committee
panelists. The names are accessible so the public can contact panelists if they wish. That means
any document discussed by the panel is available for review and copying by the public without
need to use the Freedom of Information Act. Multiple copies of every application the panel will
discuss are available here. All personal notes by panelists used to develop ideas on scoring are
not subject to public disclosure.
The ethics training could not be done because training personnel were not available.
The key part of that is the conflict of interest issue. The bylaws for the panel clarify the ethics
issues and say that the person with the conflict of interest shall leave the meeting room during the
discussion of that proposal. When a panelist is in doubt it is best to recuse and leave the room.
This process of leaving the room is effective and strictly done with all advisory committees.
Ms. Romero asked the panelists to please remind her when leaving the room. The time of leaving
and time of returning will be included in the minutes. Conflict of interest forms were available to
the panelists. She listed the conflicts of interest that had been declared:
Mr. Dunn said that record of when people left and returned had helped him.
This is the last meeting for this panel. Next month, new panelists will be chosen to serve for 2
years.
The renewal of the charter had not yet been received yet. Under the current charter, the
recommendations go to the Secretary of Agriculture. We have a delegated authority from the
Secretary to the Forest Service and it has expired. The charter delegates the authority to the
Regional Forester. So the panel recommendations will go back to the Secretary of Agriculture for
final determination. We are hoping the new charter will be approved prior to submitting the
recommendations. The appointment of panel members can only be done by the Secretary of
Agriculture. A member may serve a maximum of 6 continuous years and can then apply at a later
date for reappointment later on. The charter calls for staggered memberships so some will be for
2 years and some for 3 years. Mr. Berrens and Mr. Racher now have served 6 years.
Mr. Dunn presented a Certificate of Appreciation and an official letter from the Secretary of
Agriculture to Dan Barrone and Brent Racher for their service.
For the panel’s information, he explained the absence of panelists who had served in the previous
year. Ann Watson retired from the panel and moved to Australia. Coleman Burnett also left the
panel because she went to work for the State of New Mexico. Shawn Fischer had child care issues
that prohibited her from participating.
He added that John Olivas will be here tomorrow. Larry Vincent was called to Jury duty and
hoped the courts realized the importance of his service here.
Mr. Dunn concluded with the clarification that the panel advises but doesn’t decide. This panel
has been especially effective as evident by the number of recommendations the agency has
accepted. All were accepted except for those that had a problem come up afterward. Other than
those administrative problems, all were accepted as recommended by this panel. But the decision
is up to the Secretary of Agriculture.
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Ms. Romero briefly reviewed the identified conflicts of interest. 03 = Brent Racher, 05 = Dick
Cooke, 13 = Mike Matush, 17 = Bryan Bird, 37 = Brent Racher and Dick Cooke and 18 = John
Olivas She reminded the panelists that raising name flags was the way to be acknowledged by the
Facilitator to speak.
10:48 Review/Revise Panel Bylaws by Mr. Walter Dunn
Mr. Dunn - The panel can identify a chairperson who becomes the Designated Federal Official.
He reviewed the bylaws. He had indicated in his e-mail that the function of the Designated
Officer for Secretary of Agriculture is that the policy allows the Designated Federal Official or
the Assistant Designated Federal Official. So the panel has to select a chairperson for this
meeting.
On page 3 of the bylaws is the role of panel members. He read the Chairperson’s duties. The
Chairperson writes a certification letter certifying the accuracy of the minutes and signs off on it.
Mr. Dunn cannot sign off on it. So both the report and the minutes need to be signed by the
Facilitator and the Chairperson. He also explained that conflicts of interest were not relevant to
his signature that affirmed the report and minutes accurately reflected the recommendations of the
panel.
The staff (Ali San Gil, Jerry Payne and Walter Dunn) will take care of editing on the screen and
make sure we have our reporters doing minutes. Staff won’t modify those but will still clean up
the report with formatting and spell check.
Mr. Barrone thought it would be nice to have consistency in the chairperson from year to year.
Mr. Dunn clarified that this chairperson is for this meeting only. But members of the panel who
have not exceeded their 6 years could reapply. On paper, all members have ended their
appointment, however.
Mr. Racher assumed that Mr. Barrone would reapply.
Ms. Romero clarified that the Chairperson works with the Facilitator but Mr. Dunn’s role as
resource person would continue here.
Mr. Dunn agreed. He would also serve as intermediary between applicant or coordinator and the
panel, for instance with things not thought to be in the application that were in it. If the panel
starts going beyond its mandate in the charter, his job was to say, “Whoa.”
Mr. Cooke asked what happened with those comments that were submitted.
Mr. Dunn said he delivered them to the panel as input to the panel and they must go into the
report.
Mr. Barrone asked what the total allocation for CFRP was for this year.
Mr. Dunn said the appropriation was $4 million. From that, $800,000 is used to run the program
including the workshop.
Ms. San Gil said the total for allocation to projects is $3.1 million.
Mr. Dunn referred to the bottom of page 2 in the bylaws. The panel will not consider new
information [presented after the application was submitted] that was required by the RFP if it
constitutes a substantial change to the original proposal. The panel may consider information
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Monday, April 23, 2012
provided in response to a request for clarification or a factual correction. There is additional
guidance in the RFA.
11:10 Panel members select a chairperson
Ms. Romero asked for any question on the chairperson’s responsibilities for this meeting. The key
thing is certification of accuracy of minutes and report. If the panel members wanted to have
discussion amongst themselves regarding the choice, a room across the street was available.
After a brief discussion by panel members, Mr. Jervis moved that the panel appoint Mr.
Racher by acclamation. Mr. Barrone seconded the motion and it passed unanimously.
Mr. Brent Racher accepted the responsibility to serve as the Chairperson.
Mr. Jervis asked if his signature was affected by his conflicts on 03 and 37 applications.
Mr. Dunn said that was a perfect example why we have reporters doing the minutes.
Ms. Romero added that when Chairperson Racher left the room because of his conflict of interest,
Mr. Dunn will step in as chairperson.
Mr. Payne said if there was any potential challenge, they could refer to the meeting minutes.
Mr. Dunn pointed out that the report of many grant review panels were only five pages. And if
people wanted to find out more, they would have to dig into the minutes. He was in favor of
transparency in a report with all the strengths and weaknesses with the backup in the minutes.
11:15 Revision of bylaws
Ms. Romero asked what revisions were needed to the bylaws.
Mr. Dunn noted that some entities like a city council would place a time limit on public comment.
The place this group would do that is in the bylaws. A limit didn’t have to be placed on public
comment but the panel could choose to do that.
Ms. Romero said in the Santa Fe City Council they often put a limit on public comment of 2 – 4
minutes. If there were lots of people to speak, it might be limited to 2 minutes. She suggested 2-3
minutes for each public comment. She felt 3 minutes was actually a long time and a lot could be
said in that time.
Mr. Jervis recalled an extended comment last year but didn’t think it was more than 3 minutes. In
the absence of a problem he didn’t think a limit was needed.
Ms. Romero recalled from last year the person submitting the written comment was asked to read
the comment verbatim but wasn’t allowed to add other things off their written comment. If the
panel wanted that, then there was no need to have a time limit.
Mr. Dunn read from the Federal Register on public comments, “… public input will be provided
and individuals who provided written statements prior to the public input session will have the
opportunity to address the panel…”
Chairperson Racher asked if to be consistent with the bylaws, the written public comment would
be read by the Designated Federal Officer or read verbatim by the public member.
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Mr. Dunn explained that the purpose for having it written was for the public member who could
not be present but it wasn’t limited to that written statement. Once they address the panel, they
could say what they wanted to say. It did not have to be read.
Ms. Romero clarified the process last year was that she would read the comment into the record
or the public member could read their own written comment but they could not deviate beyond
that.
Mr. Dunn clarified that the new guidance from the Federal Register statement doesn’t say they
could only read what they wrote.
Chairperson Racher asked if their guidance was the Federal Register or the by-laws.
Mr. Dunn said the panel could further refine the Federal Register statement in the bylaws if it
wished.
Chairperson Racher asked the panel if they wanted to limit to 3 minutes.
Mr. Berrens felt they didn’t have to have a time limit but three minutes was okay.
Mr. Cooke objected to that. He didn’t think it was the way they should do things as long as the
speaker stuck to the subject.
Chairperson Racher said they were just told they couldn’t require them to stick to the written
comment.
Mr. Dunn said the written comment becomes part of the report.
Mr. Bird asked if an alternative would be to limit it to a reasonable time period.
The panel continued discussion and agreed that three minutes would be the time limit for public
comment.
Ms. Romero said the change to the bylaws on the time limit that didn’t violate the federal
regulations.
Chairperson Racher agreed. It would be for a 3 minute cap for public comment then.
At 11:30 Ms. Romero checked what the panel wanted to do and reviewed the schedule again.
The panel decided to break for lunch and start the afternoon schedule at 12:45 and staff would
make copies of the subcommittee report.
11:30 Lunch
The Panel reconvened at 12:56 p.m.
12:56 Review Sub-Committee Report
Ms. Romero went to final recommendations of the Sub-Committee Report that were on page 10.
She asked if the panel had anything to add.
Mr. Matush – They have a good variety of people reviewing these programs with a lot of pluses
and minuses. The recommendations to the Region on the projects came in strong or came in
weak. It is an excellent skill. One thing they had to do was follow how this developed and to have
the committee make the recommendations. This was an excellent move.
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Mr. Dunn said they needed to have some kind of feedback to the panel as a reference point. They
needed to pick out what lessons were learned that could lead to action in improving the process.
Mr. Matush didn’t see any changes this time in the process.
Ms. Romero said they could walk through each of the categories.
The sub-committee made no recommendations under project categories so they would stick to the
three categories they had now.
The second section was desired outcomes, conclusions and recommendations for the CFRP
Technical Advisory Panel. The subcommittee discussed the positive or negative impact of the
projects including improvement in local management skills and on the ground results. The
subcommittee looked at each of the projects and noted where they felt those happened.
II-A – were reviewed.
Mr. Matush said the subcommittee felt pretty good about the projects.
Chairperson Racher thought the discussion went very well in the subcommittee.
Mr. Matush recalled the subcommittee felt it frustrated everyone since they couldn’t get anywhere
without the planning. The subcommittee had a lengthy discussion about implementation of plans.
Ms. Romero pointed out in II-A-4 the subcommittee decided not to give special treatment to
planning grantees when they applied for implementation grants.
Mr. Dunn said planning recipients may have expected to get special treatment but getting
planning grants didn’t mean you get extra points for implementation applications.
Mr. Cooke thought it seemed funny that the RFP didn’t address that. He felt implementation
should come after planning.
Mr. Jervis said by the nature of multi-party planning they should have a leg up after planning.
Maybe that tells you something about it. They should ask if the planning was funded but not the
implementation whether that money was wasted. Another interpretation was that the folks could
get out there and do collaborative work and if they couldn’t come up with a superior proposal,
maybe they shouldn’t get funded.
Mr. Matush – just because you have a plan doesn’t mean you can successfully implement it after
you have planned it. Some applicants went to a "phase 1/ phase 2" approach and the
subcommittee didn’t feel that should give them more points.
Some of the sub-committee felt the Forest Service should come up with planning funds separate
from CFRP.
II-B
Mr. Gomez asked if multi-party monitoring was just for planning or also for implementation and
utilization in II-B-2.
Ms. Romero thought it was just the planning.
Mr. Gomez asked that be made clear that it was just for planning proposals.
II-C – Lessons learned.
6 CFRP Technical Advisory Panel Meeting Notes, April 23-27, 2012
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Mr. Jervis noted on #3 that on a few proposals this year, the District Ranger in the support letter
committed to getting fire on the ground. It happened less often than he would like. He thought
that should be added to the strength list.
Mr. Bird said it was on the strength list.
Mr. Berrens said that was stated elsewhere in the report on page 7.
Mr. Cooke didn’t think it was a black and white decision to make on it. Ms. Romero didn’t have
specific language.
Mr. Pohlman asked if the public official referenced in #3 was for educating them on adjacent
public lands or if it pertained to influence fire use on private land.
Mr. Matush said this was for examples like of a small town and adjacent land would be the city or
something similar to that.
Mr. Pohlman asked if it was to get local officials’ support got use of fire on private lands. Mr.
Matush agreed.
II-D - there were no comments.
Review Reports of the Planning Projects (4)
Mr. Dunn – the material the panel looks at was multi-party assessments of completed projects –
some as much as 5 years before. So in this panel, the applications they reviewed were vastly
more sophisticated than those looked at 4 years ago.
Ms. Romero referred to the list of them starting on page 12.
Mr. Gomez asked clarification on #6, page four. He thought it was just for planning projects.
Chairperson Racher noted that three of them were on watersheds. Some of them were
implementation projects.
Ms. Romero asked if there was any way to make #6 clearer.
Mr. Gomez suggested the way the parties entered into implementation after the planning or some
wording to that effect.
Ms. Romero said that would be at the end of priorities.
There were no other comments on that section.
Ms. Romero went next to review of implementation projects starting on page 12 under Appendix
A. There were quite a few there.
She read #9 – The panel should take into consideration return on investment and long term
marketability on utilization projects in terms of quantity of material that would be utilized in
terms of acres to be treated. The panel should look at new or innovative projects that are
presented at a realistic scale.
Ms. Romero asked for any comments on Utilization projects.
Mr. Cooke referred to #7 on page 5 – The project would result in the treatment of a significant
number of acres.
Mr. Matush – we kept going back to conversations that were not treating enough acres. There was
a large-scale proposal that would treat 9,000 acres and nothing in the proposal that said they
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Monday, April 23, 2012
would get all the acres. The subcommittee felt the project might not serve its potential if they only
treated a few acres. There was a lot of discussion on it. There was basically not enough
utilization.
Chairperson Racher – They were talking about utilization project reports. The statement might
not have been directed to implementation but the wording, rather than “may have met,” – how
much was utilized that would cause the result of that utilization. So it should become, “if the
project resulted in …”
Ms. Romero – the suggested language was “The report should determine if the project would
result in the treatment of …”
Mr. Dunn – the CFRP grantee receiving funding doesn’t mean the grant money that crosses
jurisdictions. There are things that can be done over time that benefit the agency. That may be the
case but not necessarily.
Ms. Romero recapped that suggested language – “The report should determine if the project
would result in a significant number of acres.
Ms. San Gil clarified that the report referred to is the report at the end of the individual project. It
is like the final project report so she didn’t think they could answer a question “if the project
would result.”
Ms. Romero concluded that #7 would say, “The final project report should determine that the
project resulted in a significant number of acres.
Mr. Matush said that was the deliverable.
Mr. Payne said this tied in with equipment disposition. At the end of the grant we have to do a
disposition report on what the disposition of the equipment was. The applicant could keep it if
they agreed to continue to use it for the purpose of the grant. There was a new form SF-428 on
life of equipment. It was a touchy issue and maybe next week they would have changes at the
meeting in Flagstaff. The equipment couldn’t be encumbered or used as collateral. If they wanted
to keep the equipment, they could buy it from the Forest Service or the Forest Service could take
it and re-grant it to someone else or leave with them to use for the purposes of the grant.
Mr. Payne was on the task force working on it and didn’t have all the answers yet. They had used
the forms a couple of times in Arizona and would soon use it in New Mexico.
Mr. Matush asked what would happen if it was not in use.
Mr. Payne said Forest Service could take it back. The project had the requirement to keep it
insured and to maintain it. The task force was working that out. In the past the Forest Service
gave incorrect advice. When giving the applicant title to the equipment a 1099 was issued to them
which made it taxable income and the applicant would have to insure it and maintain it.
Repossessing equipment was very difficult. The applicant would have to work out the taxable
issue with their accountant.
Mr. Barrone asked if there was a determination on the value if they were going to buy it.
Mr. Payne said it was to be fair market value, not depreciated value. If it dropped below $5,000
then the Forest Service would release its interest. Giving it to non-profits didn’t look promising.
He asked General Counsel to approve a plan. In the code of regulations there was a reference to
IRS depreciated values.
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Implementation
Mr. Pohlman asked at #4 if this referred back to applications from several years ago.
Ms. Romero agreed – it was older projects.
Mr. Payne noted that the commitments this year were better by far. The NEPA documents were
also. We have talked about that in the workshops quite a bit.
Recommendation Format Changes
VII – Proposed Final Recommendations
Ms. Romero said the recommendation was to develop a template on #6.
Ms. San Gil explained that the templates had to be approved at OMB before they could be used.
Mr. Bird clarified that on page 14, CFRP 11-06 was Forest Guardians.
Mr. Berrens moved to accept the subcommittee report as amended with gratitude to the
subcommittee. Mr. Gomez seconded the motion and it passed by unanimous voice vote.
1:47 Review Application Evaluation Process by the Facilitator and Panel
(This includes missing information and new information introduced during the Panel
Meeting.)
Mr. Dunn asked first to review the RFA. He recommended looking at the bylaws for guidance.
Ms. San Gil displayed the RFA.
Mr. Dunn explained that the RFA is the evaluation addressed in the applications. He asked the
panel to review the process first and after that, to determine how to deal with proposals that were
missing required information.
Ms. Romero went to page 4 – Evaluation Criteria Process.
Mr. Berrens noted that page 2 stated what would disqualify a proposal for lack of elements.
Screening has been done by staff beforehand and staff might not have caught everything. If a
panel member found a missing element he suggested pointing that out before going forward with
the review.
Chairperson Racher recalled that staff had eliminated proposals in the past and the panel never
saw them. He explained that this year was different in that the panel was seeing all of them and
were being asked to consider these missing things.
Mr. Dunn recalled the panel last year discussed extensively the word “must.” versus “should.”
Staff tried to make that clearer in modifications to the RFA this year to use “must” for everything
that was required.
Staff reviewed based on things like applicability and federal regulations. Last year there were
projects they couldn’t get to. After recommendations staff had to do another review before a
decision could be made.
Mr. Jervis considered this requirement unambiguous and there was no excuse for applicants to
miss things that were on that list. This was where forest liaisons in the past fell down on the job.
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Monday, April 23, 2012
It was the liaison’s responsibility to shepherd these through and make sure the elements were
there.
Chairperson Racher said the panel had a continuing effort on these elements. A lot of them were
small things. He commended the staff on their effort to catch them. It was now something the
panel needed to deal with.
Mr. Gomez asked if they could substitute interest forms instead of letters.
Chairperson Racher didn’t think so.
Mr. Payne explained that the panel could recommend that for the future but not for this RFA.
Mr. Gomez said the interest form of collaborators was not a letter but it did indicate their
participation.
Mr. Berrens said the coordinators did a good job but couldn’t force applicants to do everything
required. On the letter of commitment he argued that the proposal should be eliminated if the
letter was not there. He felt the panel was bound to treat them all the same way.
Mr. Dunn clarified that project partners were sometimes identified in the proposal. Once
identified in the budget, that needed a letter.
Mr. Jervis thought the sense of it was that most proposals came in at the last minute and that was
why these things happened.
Mr. Barrone commended the staff for jumping in and reviewing them and bringing back to the
applicants that they missed something. It was getting better every year and more competitive. So
the panel needed to live with it and follow the RFA.
Ms. Romero re-read the bylaw on additional information.
Evaluation Process (page 4, third paragraph)
Ms. Romero read the paragraph that described how the panel would review the application on the
scoring sheets and the limits on recommendations in each category.
Mr. Dunn said the panel would be using the same scoring sheets as last year. The criteria shown
on the scoring sheet was their best attempt to translate the purposes of the Act. Staff made two
changes this year. The one that was a struggle last year was “Will the proposed project replant
trees in deforested areas, if they exist, in the proposed project area?” This year the scoring sheet
just used a yes-no answer.
The other one without a numerical score was to consider the effect on long term management. In
the panel’s scoring you should consider what would be the return on this investment long term. It
is a qualitative response.
Chairperson Racher asked how the yes-no answer would fit into the cumulative score.
Mr. Dunn said that had to be reflected with a score on it. It was not a weakness if the project
didn’t have those. So the panel would deal with that in substantive strengths and weaknesses. It
would increase the acceptance of it if they did. But in the responses he got about it, proponents
would say that they didn’t get any weaknesses but didn’t get funded. So the more people could
see why they did not get the highest ranking, the better it was to list strengths and weaknesses.
10 CFRP Technical Advisory Panel Meeting Notes, April 23-27, 2012