The following is an excerpt from the article I linked in my comment #1:
“It’s not just the Forest Service,” said Mr. Dunn. “Since the beginning of the year on a lot of issues — Endangered Species Act issues, federal land-management issues, easements and use of federally controlled property — we’ve seen federal agencies become extremely defiant toward any sort of local input and extremely adverse to allowing people to continue to use things they’ve used in some instances for 100 years.”
He said there is speculation that John Podesta, who became White House senior counsel in December, initiated the tougher policies. A former head of the left-wing Center for American Progress, Mr. Podesta is known as a staunch environmentalist and hard-liner on climate change.
Local Forest Service employees have acknowledged that their orders are coming from Washington, Mr. Dunn said.
Still another factor to consider is that as the old guard resource oriented employes are retiring or other wise leaving, the new, younger employes taking their place are more likely to be brainwashed by the environmental movement and are more likely to have the attitude of “Oh, we’ve been appealed, we can’t do it” or “There’s no use trying that. We’d just get appealed” instead of standing up and trying to fight for what is right. This especially extends to the government lawyers who will look at an appeal and say “We aren’t going to bother fighting it - we’ve got bigger fish to fry.” It’s enough to make folks say, “Yeah, whatever, ok.” when a new edict comes down from Washington. (And, I will admit, there are way too many of the new breed all to ready to push whatever new scheme the overlords send their way....)