Cut the Fat, Streamline the USFS and Make It Accountable

With respect to US Forest Service Regional Forester Leanne Martin’s Editorial request for an open checkbook for mismanagement of our national forest.

One thing about our National Forest Service employees, they have more guts than government mules. For the first time in over a hundred years the Forest Service wants special funding to fight forest fires that they refuse to put out. At least in part due to their let it burn policy and destructive backfires, we lost millions of dollars that could have created jobs to help the unemployed and two fire fighters lives.

Funding for upkeep of trails and other recreational areas should be left to those groups the National Forest Service currently caters too, many of which already manage this task.

Instead of special funding, Secretary of Agriculture Sunny Perdue should take a lesson from Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and get rid of those in the Forest Service that lack good management skills. In other words, cut the fat sir, streamline this agency and make it accountable to all citizens. They should also continue to operate within their budget.

I have lived in Missoula more than 70 years and came from several generations in Montana. In the last 50 years I have witnessed the steady decline in good paying wood industry jobs and the steady increase in poverty, thanks to the mismanagement of our forest. Because of this, I believe the folks of Montana would be better served if the National Forest in Montana were managed by the State of Montana within certain guidelines set forth by the USFS.