mineral, timber, energy, or rangeland resources were forced to incur a new set of costs
aimed at protecting amenities. Decisions formerly restricted to the protective confines of
subgovernmental politics were expanded through media attention and tactical maneuvers
to policymaking venues that were more receptive to environmental concerns (Hoberg,
2001). Industry reactions varied. Earlier complaints about agency decisions that
constrained the managerial discretion of ranchers or company officials were reflected in a
series of “sagebrush rebellions” occurring throughout the twentieth century (Graf, 1990;
Davis, 2001), movements that gave voice to antiregulatory sentiments. And natural
resource user groups gradually began to borrow some of the same political and
organizational tactics that served environmentalists well in the 1970s and 1980s (Switzer,
1997). By the mid-1990s, industry and environmental groups had achieved a degree of
parity in Washington that increased the difficulty of securing policy goals through the
legislative process (Kraft, 2007).
To be sure, the legislative arena remains the best possible route to the attainment
of policy goals. Enacting statutes ensures greater permanence and a sense of legitimacy
not found with other forms of policymaking (Harris and Milkis, 1996). But this is
unlikely to happen unless a motivated public official (or policy entrepreneur) is able to
combine a natural disaster or focusing event with a majority coalition of political allies
and ready made policy options (Kingdon, 1995). This occurred in 2003 when President
Bush skillfully exploited an especially intense and destructive wildfire season to obtain
passage of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, a statute requiring federal land
management agencies to reduce fire risks by thinning national forests; i.e., harvesting
trees (Vaughn and Cortner, 2005).
3
Convention