New GAO Report on Appeals and Litigation
Here’s the link. Also check out Matt Koehler’s piece in New West and the comments.
If you look at the comments, it turns out that in Region 1, 36% of projects that can be appealed are appealed, and 87% of those that can be objected to are objected to.
I reviewed this GAO report’s predecessor prior to its publication (and they did not incorporate my comments in the final report). I was concerned at the time that the conclusions were a function of the scale. To me, to be fair reporting, if results vary by spatial scale you would carefully talk about that in the narrative.
To imply that nationally there is no problem, so complaining is unfounded, when one or more regions has a problem seems arbitrary. Based on that logic, if one of your family has serious health issues, but the rest don’t, you can’t shouldn’t be complaining about the health care system.. after all if you take the average for your family, it works. It’s a framing or judgment call.. is it a problem if any of your children have a problem, or is it only a problem once you average them all out?
In Region 1 that older study showed that 48% were appealed and 90% of appealable decisions were appealed. If you had been there, your world would have been full of appeals.
Here‘s a Clark Fork Chronicle piece by Ellen Simpson that also talks about the R1 Conundrum.
And here’s one from the Montana Standard “forest lawsuits high in region.”
sharon
sorry to bother you with this request, but could you please email me a copy of the GAO report? the link did not work for me.
best
matt
Matt- it worked for me. So I emailed you a copy. Others, if you have trouble, please let me know.