FOREST SERVICE WANTS TO PAY MORE IN MONEY-LOSING TIMBER SALE
From: SitNews “After losing nearly $2 million on a major timber sale, U.S. Forest Service officials are pushing for additional payments to a Southeast Alaska logging company, according to documents posted Monday by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).” Read ...
TONGASS TIMBER SALE SHORT ON TIMBER
From: KTOO Public Media “Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, based in Silver Spring, Maryland, has published Forest Service documents on its website detailing a review of timber sale contracts on the Tongass National Forest. This spring, PEER highlighted a Forest ...
AFTER PROMISING FIXES, NATIONAL PARK SERVICE FACES RENEWED CRITICISMS OF TOXIC CULTURE
From: Government Executive “The NPS culture is instead breeding corruption, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Specifically, PEER accused the agency of shielding its malfeasant and poorly performing managers from proper discipline, despite clear evidence of ...
WATCHDOG GROUP CLAIMS ‘BIASED HIERARCHY’ PERSISTS AT NPS
From: Federal News Radio “An independent watchdog group says senior National Park Service officials have continued to receive immunity from disciplinary actions despite findings of misconduct. The charges leveled by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility continue the ...
Shutdown Threat Risks Stalling Work, Pushing Out Staff
From: Bloomberg BNA “Jeff Ruch, the director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said in an email to Bloomberg BNA the logistics of closure were unclear. The prospect of deep funding cuts “raises questions as to whether CSB should open any new investigations no ...
WATCHDOG: PARK SERVICE MANAGEMENT NOT HELD TO SAME STANDARD
From: Federal Times ““In the Park Service, immunity for its managers appears immutable,” PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch said in a release. He continued, saying that the only saving grace was that Caldwell had not been placed in charge of procurement and that “lower-level ...
STRUGGLING U.S. NATIONAL PARKS FLOODED WITH VISITORS
From: Environment News Service “An already thinning Bureau of Land Management is warned to get ready for further staff cutbacks, with possible buyouts if Trump targets are not met, according to agency documents posted June 21 by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, ...
LAWSUIT FILED TO FORCE USFS TO DISCLOSE THE FATE OF PROMISED TIMBER REFORMS
From: SIT News “One 2016 “Washington Office Activity Review” uncovered by PEER found that two large Tongass commercial timber sales each racked up big monetary losses. In addition, required inspections to prevent timber theft were bypassed. The review called for “an independent ...
OUT AND ABOUT: BLANKET PHONE COVERAGE PROPOSED FOR PARKS
From: The Spokesman Review “Yellowstone National Park would be blanketed with strong 4G cell coverage under a multisite expansion entering its final approval phase, according to comments filed this week by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).” Read more . . . ...
CHARGES DISMISSED IN HORSE DEATHS AT THREE-WAY
From: The Copper Era “That case has now been dismissed following an assertion of federal sovereign immunity, according to watchdog group PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility). In a news release last week, the group took issue with how the incident was handled, calling ...
“ADOPT” A STORM DRAIN: CLEAN WATER STARTS HERE
From: NM Political Report “Initial funding was provided by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the family-run Roros Foundation, and the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. Local advertising agency iostudio donated a decommissioned Windows-based laptop to ...
TWO HORSES AND MULE DIE OF DEHYDRATION IN AZ APACHE-SITGREAVES FOREST
From: Sonoran News “An attempt to criminally prosecute U.S. Forest Service employees for acts of cruelty to animals resulting in the death of two horses and a mule has been dropped, according to court records posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The ...
3 BLM STATE DIRECTORS REMOVED IN REORGANIZATION – SOURCES
From: E&E News “Nedd sent an agencywide email to all staff June 16 acknowledging that the budget cuts, if implemented, “could mean 1,000 fewer full-time equivalent employees across the Nation,” according to a copy of the email obtained by Public Employees for ...
INTERIOR DEPARTMENT REORGANIZATION WILL HIT NEW MEXICO’S LANDSCAPES, COMMUNITIES
From: NM Political Report “The BLM’s workforce has declined by one-fifth since 2010, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which notes that despite being the smallest federal land agency, BLM has the largest jurisdiction, overseeing a total of 245 ...
PRESIDENT TRUMP LOOKS TO SLASH NEARLY 4,000 INTERIOR DEPARTMENT JOBS
From: New Hampshire Public Radio “BLM, even though it’s one of the most thinly staffed agencies in federal service, is also central to the Trump plans to increase energy production on public lands. So I don’t understand how they do that by taking almost one quarter of the ...
OCEANS: LAWMAKERS HEAR WHETHER MARINE SANCTUARIES SHOULD SINK OR SWIM
From: E & E News “The natural resources director of Aleutians East Borough in Alaska, Ernest Weiss, brought up the proposal to create an Aleutian marine sanctuary. It was proposed by the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and later turned down by NOAA. Weiss ...
OCEANS: LAWMAKERS TO REVIEW MARINE SANCTUARIES
From: E & E News “NOAA determined that the nomination, led by the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, was “not sufficient”. The hearing comes as the Trump administration is reviewing several marine monuments designated in the past couple of ...
DO WI-FI AND CELL SERVICE BELONG IN OUR NATIONAL PARKS?
From: Motherboard Vice “”Pursuit of bigger bandwidth puts Yellowstone on a never-ending cellular treadmill. Yellowstone’s custodians are doing more to service smartphones than to fix its crumbling infrastructure,” Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for ...
TRUMP’S INTERIOR SECRETARY DEFENDS HIS PLAN TO CUT AT LEAST 4,000 STAFF
From: Think Progress ““According to Trump’s fantasy plan, BLM is supposed to achieve ‘energy independence’ before its coffee break, stimulate rural ‘job creation’ by lunch and do it with substantially less resources,” said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that BLM ...
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT PLANS TO CUT 1000 JOBS IN FY2018
From: Bloomberg Government ““Jeff Ruch, the group’s executive director, told Bloomberg BNA June 21 he’s concerned that the BLM and other federal agencies may turn to involuntary employee separations–known in the federal government as reductions in force–to implement ...
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