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Environmental Analysis and Decision Making: Improving Business Practices

A picture of a pictograph on the side of a natural stone wall on the Salmon-Challis National Forest
Pictograph, Salmon-Challis National Forest. (Photo credit Charity Parks, USDA Forest Service)

Environmental Analysis and Decision Making (EADM) is a change effort that intends to reduce the time and cost of our environmental analysis and decision making processes to produce efficient, effective, and high quality land management decisions to accomplish more work on the ground and be more responsive to the public we serve. While the Forest Service is improving the way we apply and document environmental analysis, we are also working to improve the culture that drives us. This includes strengthening the way we develop and implement projects, how we incorporate innovation, and how we work with tribes, partners, and the American people to identify new and better ways to perform work.

National Historic Preservation Act

The National Historic Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other laws require consultation as part of work done within the scope of those laws. The Forest Service has formed national task forces to explore how we can better meet the requirements of those laws, while improving relationships as we consult with our partners.

The Forest Service is working on several National Historic Preservation Act program alternatives to increase efficiency. The three alternatives described below are expected to be completed in 2020.

  • Phasing Program Alternative: This alternative will eliminate the need to negotiate local programmatic agreements for every large scale project and allow local managers to do more collaboration with partners and focus resources to accomplish more work on the ground.

  • Omnibus Program Alternative: The agency has many individual agreements that streamline historic preservation consultation at the unit level. This alternative will consolidate existing individual agreements, providing a more standardized historic preservation process for identifying activities that may proceed without further review.

  • Infrastructure Alternative: This alternative will allow the agency to focus resources on preserving historically significant infrastructure by identifying administrative buildings that may be decommissioned without a lengthy evaluation process.