Update on Sen Tester's FJRA from NewWest

by: Matthew Koehler

Thu Jul 29, 2010 at 09:51:01 AM MST

Schneider writes:

"It could be different this time around, but right now, it looks like another loss for Montana.

It all depends on Senator Jon Tester's willingness to change course on his beleaguered Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, S. 1470. Tester's bill has had a hearing before the same subcommittee, back on December 17, but the bill has yet to be reported out of committee because of major disagreement among subcommittee members on parts of the bill. The subcommittee won't report it out onto the floor in its present form, so it can't get in an omnibus bill, which means it has no chance of becoming law.

It's complicated, but in short, other subcommittee members and the U.S. Forest Service don't like Tester's mandated logging provisions, nor his special intrusions on the Wilderness Act of 1964 by allowing ATVs and helicopters in certain designated Wilderness areas. The committee suggested removing these provisions from S. 1470, but Tester refused."

Sure looks like Senator Tester and the collaborators should have taken more seriously the substantive concerns expressed for over a year now from many public lands conservation organizations in Montana and around the country, as well as from the Forest Service, Obama Administration, ENR Committee and a host of retired Forest Service chiefs and officials.

However, none of those slick ads or feel-good, flowery rhetoric could gloss over the very real substantive concerns with key provisions within the FJRA.

If this bill doesn't pass, Montanans should not forget that it was the unwillingness of Senator Tester and the Collaborators (including Montana Wilderness Association, Montana Trout Unlimited, National Wildlife Federation, RY Timber and Sun Mountain Mountain Lumber) to compromise a little bit. Over the past year they've done a fine job selling and promoting their proposal as the best thing since sliced bread through one-sided meetings and panels, but Senator Tester and the Collaborators weren't so great at working together with those who had concerns with the substantive parts of the FJRA, including the Senate's ENR Committee, the U.S. Forest Service, the Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign, Beaverhead County and a host of other citizens, who are equal owners of these public lands.

On the other hand, if the bill does pass, it will only be because the concerns brought up for over a year now by the likes of the U.S. Forest Service, the Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign, Sierra Club, NRDC and others have finally been addressed. As I've been saying all along, the ENR Committee will not let Tester's bill move forward with the mandated logging, profoundly negative budgetary implications and motors and military helicopter landings in Wilderness, among other issues.

Finally, I should point out that, in addition to protecting over 660,000 acres in Montana as Wilderness, the ENR Committee draft also establishes a "National Forest Jobs and Restoration Initiative" that would "preserve and create local jobs in rural communities...to sustain the local logging and restoration infrastructure and community capacity...to promote cooperation and collaboration...to restore or improve the ecological function of priority watersheds...to carry out collaborative projects to restore watersheds and reduce the risk of wildfires to communities." Much of this work would be carried out through stewardship contracting. The ENR Draft also adds language requiring that any project carried out under the bill must fully maintain old growth forests and retain large trees, while focus any hazardous fuel reduction efforts on small diameter trees.

That ENR Committee draft doesn't sound half-bad, eh? Too bad Senator Tester's declared it "dead on arrival."