You are entitled to your opinion. That doesn’t mean anyone has to care about it, though.
I see the irony of that as I fill Pete’s shoes writing this week’s column, but the value of opinions has been on my mind lately. This is both because of our current communication environment—where everyone thinks their opinions deserve attention—but mostly because of recent events.
On March 2, the BLM released its sage-grouse scoping report. It summarized public comments received between Oct. 11-Dec. 1, 2017 on possible changes to the greater sage-grouse plan. In general, the amendments would loosen restrictions on public land use in the 10 states with greater sage-grouse habitat. The comment period generated at least 220,000 comments.
On March 8, the Western Values Project called for an audit of the BLM’s public comment system. The group and several other environmental nonprofits claim that about 100,000 comments have “gone missing.” BLM representative Donald Smurthwaite acknowledged that a “breakdown in technology” meant about 46,000 comments were not included in the scoping report. However, he said they were mostly form letters and online petitions.
Of course, environmental groups love those. They are easy to circulate and take almost no effort. They easily generate hundreds of thousands of “comments” and the illusion of vast public agreement. Someone—including people not in the U.S., let alone affected by an issue—can just type their name and click a button to voice “their” opinion. Since that (digital) paper army is valuable in the battle of public sentiment, it’s no surprise the groups are fussing over uncounted form letters.
Western Values Project’s Deputy Director Jayson O’Neill claimed the BLM had ignored public comments by not including them in the report. He called it “both undemocratic and un-American.”
But here’s the thing: Public comment periods are not democratic.
A comment is not a vote. The laws governing public comment periods make this very clear. Most requests for public comment outline this too. For example, the Federal Register notice for the sage-grouse comment period (FR Doc. 2017–21958) said the BLM was especially interested in the comments of the governors of sage-grouse states.
Not all comments—or opinions—are created equal. Nor should they be.
In everyday life, the opinion of an experienced expert is far more valuable and worth listening to than is the opinion of a green, uneducated novice with no skin in the game. The ability to yell louder will not make the novice’s opinion magically worth more.
Similarly, upping the “volume” of a form letter by getting hundreds of thousands of supposed stakeholders to “sign” it will not make its contents any more valuable. And the government seems to know that.
The scoping report says that over 80,000 so-called comments were just repeated submissions of 17 different form letters. That flood of regurgitated “opinion” was counted as… 17 comments. Similarly, the 94,000 “signatures” attached to five different online petitions were counted as five comments. These things all came from 22 different environmental groups, including usual suspects like the Center for Biologic Diversity, Earth Justice, and the Environmental Defense Fund. They all advocated more restrictions on public land use.
Out of the over 220,000 comments, less than 0.5 percent—only 1,040—were unique. This painfully tiny fraction held 4,666 “substantive” points, according to the BLM. This means they were on-topic, based on scientifically-sound reasoning, and/or presented new information relevant to the issue.
Of those valuable comments, the report said that most were from state and local government representatives, energy groups, and “livestock grazing interests.” As in, likely experts on land management and the needs of the local landscapes.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Voicing opinions worth listening to is not easy, but ranchers are no strangers to putting in the effort needed to get the job done right. It takes time, effort, and expertise. That dedication is a strength the ranching community can bring to public discourse just as easily as to managing the ranch.
Don’t let the volume of yelling novices with no skin in the game discourage you. Your two cents is worth far more than face value because you are the expert here. People will listen. The government is listening. Your opinion counts, but only if you keep making it worth counting. — KERRY HALLADAY
