USFS employees' ties to enviro groups investigated

A Republican lawmaker says some Forest Service workers may have leaked information to environmentalists and is asking the agency to turn over information about its employees' affiliations with environmental groups.

In a July 28 letter to USFS Southwest Regional Forester Eleanor Towns, House Resources Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, asks for names and professional backgrounds of all USFS and Agriculture Department employees involved in litigation that prompted recent USFS decisions limiting grazing in Arizona and New Mexico. He also seeks the names of those involved in meetings on the matter (Greenwire , 6/26).

He asks Towns to answer 19 questions by August 15, including whether any employees "are members of" or "have any contact with" environmental groups such as Forest Guardians, Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club and Wilderness Society (Steve Yozwiak, Phoenix Arizona Republic, 8/7).

Resource Committee spokesperson Steve Hansen says the committee is investigating whether USFS employees illegally leaked documents to environmental groups suing the agency over alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act and other laws. Such allegations come "mostly from the livestock industry." Hansen: "When you have accusations that federal employees are leaking information to organizations that are suing the government, then it's very relevant in finding who's doing this and being able to put a stop to it."

Towns said USFS attorneys are assessing Young's request. Towns: "My gut tells me that somehow I'd be crossing the line with [a] potential for [violating] freedom of speech [and] privacy acts" by turning over the information (Keith Easthouse, Santa Fe New Mexican, 8/7).

Environmentalists condemned Young's demands and the probe of the committee, calling it a "witch hunt." Forest Guardians President Sam Hitt: "I think Don Young is the Joe McCarthy of the 1990s. Anyone who stands up for the environment, Don Young brings to his knees."

But Hansen said "it's pretty clear that anybody ... who has done nothing wrong here is sleeping fine tonight" (AP/Albuquerque Journal, 8/7).

A Tucson Arizona Daily Star editorial says Young's inquest "represents one more disturbing, but routine, incident of congressional disrespect for environmental laws and their enforcers. In a word, Young finds worthy of a hostile investigation the fact that a federal agency moved to follow the law" (8/8).