More news emerging on new Forest Service Chief ...

. . . and it doesn't look good. To wit:

1. Kimbell began her career in the mid-seventies as forester with the Bureau of Land Management in one of the most recalcitrant, backward, stubborn, and timber-oriented districts that agency has to offer: Medford, Oregon.

2. From the company town of Medford she moved to Kodiak, Alaska, still as a forester. "Forester" meant, then as now, a person who transforms forests into clearcuts, if possible, otherwise plantations of some kinder, gentler model.

3. From Kodiak, Kimbell advanced to District Ranger on the Colville National Forest. There is only one way you got to advance from grunt to District Ranger in the mid eighties, and that's by appeasing big timber. The Colville was what the Forest Service called a "working" forest back then. No lazy, dissolute, slacking forest, the Colville was expected to churn out plenty of logs. And it did. (Googling around just now I discovered this from the official website of Utah's Fishlake National Forest: "A 'working forest,' the Fishlake is managed for livestock grazing and timber management. In the coming years, increased interest in mineral, oil and gas reserves may extend to portions of the Fishlake National Forest." It seems the folks in Utah aren't ashamed to boast about their forest's work ethic, just like in the old days.)

4. After a brief stay on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest from 1988-1991, again as a District Ranger, Kimbell advanced to Forest Supervisor of . . . the Tongass National Forest, a position she held from 1991 to 1997.

This bio should quickly dispel any hopes folks may have about her willingness to consider other values over corporate ones. It is a certain kind of person required to supervise the Tongass National Forest, and it is a certain kind of person that is going to pass muster with Mark Rey, the former timber lobbyist and current Undersecretary of Agriculture, who no doubt played a very large role in her selection as Forest Service Chief. As I have often said, you can't expect much variety when you have industry representatives running your government. It's going to come down to how willing you are to oversee a transfer of wealth from the public into private hands, and my money is on Kimbell being all-too-willing to make it happen.

Official bio is here (USDA website).

Probably the most thorough article yet (not saying much) is here (Billings Gazette). This article is actually more interesting for what Bosworth admits about global warming than for anything it says about Kimbell.

--Zadig