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Barack Obama  |
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Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.
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Forest Service
Mon Oct 17, 2011 at 14:04:05 PM MST
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Please consider contacting Senator Tester and let him know your views on the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act (FJRA).
Via EMIAL: http://tester.senate.gov/Conta...
Missoula
130 W Front Street
Missoula, MT 59802
Phone: (406) 728-3003
Washington, D.C.
724 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-2604
Phone: (202) 224-2644
Whoops, beyond this I meant to post to Dennis Rehberg's donation page.
(Diary corrected from copy-paste hell by Rob Kailey)
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Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 08:54:54 AM MST
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The Tuesday, February 22, 2011 edition of the Missoulian included this article, which detailed Senator Tester's talk at the annual Salish Kootenai College Career Fair in Pablo.
According to the article:
In response to other questions from the crowd, Tester also said:
• His Forest Jobs and Recreation Act will likely be re-introduced soon, probably attached as an amendment to another bill because it is Montana-specific, and Congress otherwise would not get around to considering it. "We'll drop it in very soon, probably without much fanfare," Tester said. "We've already been through that part, and had the fanfare."
It's very strange that Senator Tester would claim that his so-called Forest Jobs and Recreation Act will likely be re-introduced soon. Why? Because the truth of the matter is that Senator Tester has already, in fact, re-introduced his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
According to the official website of the Library of Congress (which tracks all federal bills), the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act was re-introduced by Senator Tester on Feb 3, 2011 (three weeks ago) and was "Read twice and referred to the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources." Tester's mandated logging bill has been given bill number "S.268," so anyone can view the bill language for themselves by visiting this site doing a search via the bill number.
It's worth pointing out that the current version of the FJRA that Senator Tester has introduced this session of Congress differs from his original bill in a number of significant ways. However, it unfortunately seems very clear that Senator Tester will not be looking to hold a Senate hearing on the new version of his bill. Nope, it seems clear that Senator Tester will again try the questionable maneuver of attaching his FJRA as a rider to a piece of unrelated, must pass legislation, such as the upcoming appropriations bills.
Perhaps this the reason why Senator Tester said he doesn't want much "fanfare" for his mandated logging bill this session of Congress? Perhaps this is why he told the folks up in Pablo that his bill wasn't re-introduced yet, when in fact it was already re-introduced on February 3, 2011? Did Senator Tester forget he already re-introduced the bill?
What hasn't change in this session of Congress are the serious, substantive concerns expressed by many Montanans - as well as Americans - with Senator Tester's FJRA. Concerns and opposition has come from not only the 50 plus conservation organizations (including 16 from Montana) that make up the Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign, but also conservation groups such as the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility - some of the most respected environmental groups in our nation. Concerns have also been expressed publicly from some of the former Chiefs of the Forest Service and a host of former Forest Service supervisors and district rangers.
Despite some minor changes, Senator Tester's FJRA bill would still have members of Congress mandating how and where logging takes place in our forests; would turn some of Montana's federal wildlands (including Wilderness Study Areas protected in the late 1970s by former Montana Senator Lee Metcalf) into permanent motorized recreation areas; would allow motors and other non-compatible uses in Wilderness and would cause negative impacts to the Forest Service budgets in our region.
The future of America's national forest legacy is much more important than blindly supporting some politician who apparently thinks the best way to manage America's public lands is through mandates and interference from Congress...but then forgets to tell a public gathering that the bill has already been reintroduced in Congress.
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Tue Jan 04, 2011 at 07:36:25 AM MST
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Wow! So now our Senator Tester is simply resorting to crass name calling instead of actually addressing any of the substantive concerns with his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. Incredible!
Here are the facts of the matter. Over the past two year many Montanans – as well as Americans – have expressed serious, substantive concerns with Senator Tester's FJRA. Substantive concerns included things like the mandated logging provisions, motors in Wilderness, negative impacts to Forest Service budgets in our region and turning some wildlands into permanent motorized recreation areas.
Concerns have come from not only the 50 plus conservation organizations (including 16 Montana organizations) that make up the Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign, but also conservation groups such as The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Biological Diversity and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Concerns have also been expressed publicly by some of the former Chiefs of the Forest Service and a host of former Forest Service supervisors, district rangers and officials with direct knowledge of forest and wilderness management.
But "extremists are extremists and I don't really care," right Senator?
Here are some other specific substantive concerns with the Tester bill. Notice how Senator Tester and bill supporters don't seem to talk very much about these specifics.
Take, for example, the 229,710 acre West Pioneers Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRA), which includes the 151,00 acre Metcalf Wilderness Study Area (WSA). What Sen Tester’s bill would do is turn 129,252 acres of this IRA into a permanent, motorized Recreation Management Areas (RMA). Seriously, do we really want politicians ignoring the USFS’s travel plans to just legislate where they want motorized recreation permanently permitted? Of course, our recommendation would be to designate the entire 151,000 acre Metcalf WSA as Wilderness and eliminate the permanently motorized RMA, returning the management of that area to USFS travel planning, where it belongs.
Or take, for example, what Tester’s bill would do to the West Big Hole IRA, a 213,987 acre area along the crest of the continental divide that provides linkages and connectivity between the Greater Yellowstone area and forests to the west and north. The Tester bill would turn just 44,084 acres of this IRA into two small, far-apart Wilderness Areas while turning much of the IRA into a single, large, permanent, motorized National Recreation Area (NRA) totaling 94,237 acres. The large NRA would be twice as large as the two proposed Wilderness areas together and access to these two proposed Wilderness areas would be forced to use the motorized NRA trails.
Those are just two examples contained in the bill. I can provide more examples if anyone likes. However, it's hardly an "extremist" point of view to want to protect the Wilderness Study Area legacy set aside by former Montana Senator Lee Metcalf in the late 1970s.
While Senator Tester likes to say this is a jobs bill for the timber industry, new home construction in America is down 70% and overall US wood consumption is down 50%. Just where are all these forests Senator Tester wants cut down going to end up?
And while Senator Tester says in a recent article that the Forest Service "needs some different tools," the fact is that the Forest Service ended 2009 with more timber volume already under contract to loggers and mills in our region than any point in the last decade. The Forest Service in Montana also has more logging, thinning, fuel reduction and restoration projects in the pipeline than at any point in recent memory.
Politicians and Congress stepping in to mandate more public lands logging in this context is irrational. Furthermore, Senator Tester giving the newly elected GOP majority in the US House cover to introduce their own bills mandating more logging, oil and gas development, mining and grazing on federal public lands in their own states is irresponsible and threatens America's public lands legacy.
It sure seems as if Senator Tester has decided to re-introduce his FJRA without listening to these substantive concerns and without making the required changes to his bill. If he wants to introduce a true Wilderness bill and create some recreation areas, OK. Let's start an open, inclusive and transparent process to get that done. After all, Congress is the only way to designate more Wilderness.
However, despite the rhetoric from Senator Tester and the "collaborators," the Forest Service currently has all the tools they need to complete logging, fuel reduction and restoration. That's always been the case. Ask any forest supervisor or district ranger in Montana and they will tell you the same thing. They have all the tools they need. What's missing is a market for lumber and paper products (because of the Great Recessions) and funding from Congress to complete needed restoration work (because of trillion dollar wars and tax breaks for millionaires).
Plus, didn't we just have 8 years (2001-2009) of the Forest Service under the control of former timber lobbyist Mark Rey and President George W. Bush, where at every opportunity the skids were greased for more logging? They signed into law the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, they passed executive orders for the Healthy Forest Initiative allowing categorical exclusions (less environmental review, less public input, etc) for all kinds of logging and fuel reduction projects, etc.
I'm sorry, but it's just an ignorant statement – or a bald-face lie – to tell the public that we need politicians to step in and mandate logging on America's public lands or else nothing will get done. Any look at the actual current program work of the Forest Service in Montana and our region proves this point.
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Tue Dec 21, 2010 at 08:42:30 AM MST
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The blog over at the Missoula Independent includes this post, which links to a speech Senator Tester gave this past Saturday regarding his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
One thing that stood out was Senator Tester repeating the notion that his bill was "popular with over 70% of Montanans." Here's some info which calls into question the validity of that statement.
The FJRA has been written about and debated extensively here at LiTW over the past few years. A sampling of some of these articles may be found here.
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Fri Dec 17, 2010 at 09:04:03 AM MST
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(Alternative title could be: "When is a Poll Not a Poll and When Do 16-Month-Old Survey Results No Longer Matter?")
FYI: This was just sent to all Montana media outlets. -mk
Hello:
Yesterday you likely received a "Fact Check" memo from Kristi Ponozzo of the Montana Wilderness Association on behalf of the Montana Forest Coalition.
The first item on that memo (pasted below) included the results of an internal messaging survey members of the Montana Forest Coalition commissioned and paid for. I would like to tell you a little more information about that messaging survey.
First, the memo you received never identified the fact that the date of the survey was August 2009, over 16 months ago. There is a reason the memo didn't include this simple fact. Over the past year and a half many Montanans have had an opportunity to read the actual language of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act and, upon learning more about what the bill would actual do, many Montanans from all walks of life have expresses serious concerns and raised substantive questions about the bill.
This begs the question: Is it really accurate or honest to drag out a survey from 16 months ago in an attempt to supposedly demonstrate current public opinion? I mean, what if the Democratic Party sent you a press release today proclaiming "Poll shows Obama Approval Rating at 80% 69%?" After all, in February January 2009 this was President Obama's approval rating.
Second, when the results of this survey were originally made public through a release from Montana Trout Unlimited in August 2009, Montana Outdoor Writer Bill Schneider wrote an article, Secrecy Clouds Credibility of Poll on Tester’s Wilderness Bill.
In that article Mr. Schneider stated: "I made two formal requests to coalition leaders to see the actual wording of the questions and get information about the sample polled, but they flatly refused to release anything or even talk on the record about the poll, how it was done or who paid for it. Plus, I know at least two others in the media who made similar requests."
Even more revealing, in that same article Mr. Schneider wrote:
"I know these surveys cost money and those who pay for them consider them proprietary. And I can see that some of the scientific methodology that goes into survey being proprietary, but the wording of the questions? I was told that the coalition primarily intended to use the poll internally to see what arguments against the bill might be sticking and which ones were lost in the public wind. If this is the main purpose of the poll, no problem, but that isn’t how the coalition used it. The coalition quickly sent out a press release applauding the positive results. As soon as this happened, in my mind at least, it ceased to be an internal document."
So as you can clearly see, the people who commissioned this survey openly admitted to Mr. Schneider it wasn't an objective, scientific poll of public opinion. Rather it was an internal survey to figure out which talking points worked for them or which ones didn't work quite as well.
A few months later, on October 27, 2009, Bill Schneider was finally provided the exact wording of the survey question and he wrote another article with this update:
"Question No. 7. Back on September 4, [2009] I devoted my column to the secrecy surrounding a poll conducted by the coalition of green groups and timber companies pushing Tester’s wilderness bill. I’d made several requests to have the exact wording of poll’s questions released before posting that column, but the coalition refused. Since then, after a pint of microbrew and a few more emails, Matt McKenna – who also works with former President Bill Clinton, now has his own communication firm in Bozeman called Jackson Creek and has been recently hired to speak for the coalition – decided to release the exact wording of the key question....Here’s the exact wording of question. You make your own judgment as to whether it biases the results.
Q 7. Let me briefly describe the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, which would do the following:
* Create jobs in Montana by directing the Forest Service to use light-on-the-land logging and forest restoration projects aimed at improving forest health and reducing forest fire risk;
* Employ forest stewardship contractors to restore Montana’s damaged streams, forest roads, campgrounds and trails;
* Guarantee that motorized vehicles will have access to designated recreation areas;
* Protect Montana’s wildlife habitats and watersheds by designating certain places as Wilderness areas in the Beaverhead Deer Lodge, Lolo and Kootenai National Forests.
Do you FAVOR or OPPOSE the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act that I just described?"
Notice that when Mr. Schneider was finally provided a copy of the question, after waiting nearly two months, the question was actually identified as Question No. 7. Having been personally involved with a few of these messaging/talking points surveys over the years, I can assure you there were 6 similar questions about this issue prior to Question No. 7, and perhaps there were even a few questions, which followed Question No. 7.
This is important because apparently those who commissioned this survey liked the fact that the specific wording of Question No. 7 garnered the greatest support (73%).
Now again, that's all well and fine if the coalition wanted to use that information to form their own talking points. However, as Mr. Schneider pointed out above: "the coalition primarily intended to use the poll internally to see what arguments against the bill might be sticking and which ones were lost in the public wind. If this is the main purpose of the poll, no problem, but that isn’t how the coalition used it. The coalition quickly sent out a press release applauding the positive results."
This begs many questions. For example, did, perhaps, questions 1-6 push those surveyed to the results in Question No. 7? Were there other questions and messaging talking points similar to Question No. 7 that didn't garner as much support? And if so, why weren't those results made public?
To my knowledge, no scientific, objective poll regarding the public's support or opposition of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act has actually been conducted. And with the information presented here I hope you will see that it's less than accurate and honest for the Montana Wilderness Association and Montana Forest Coalition to send out on December 15, 2010 an August 2009 internal messaging survey to supposedly demonstrate current public support or opposition to the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Matthew Koehler
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From Kristi Ponozzo:
Regarding the popularity of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act:
According to Harstad Research, 73% of Montanans surveyed said they favored Sen. Tester’s legislation, based on a description that the legislation will:
* Create jobs in Montana by directing the Forest Service to use light-on-the-land logging and forest restoration projects aimed at improving forest health and reducing forest fire risk;
* Employ forest stewardship contractors to restore Montana’s damaged streams, forest roads, campgrounds and trails;
* Guarantee that motorized vehicles will have access to designated recreation areas;
* Protect Montana’s wildlife habitats and watersheds by designating certain places as Wilderness areas in the Beaverhead Deer Lodge, Lolo and Kootenai National Forests.
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Thu Dec 16, 2010 at 19:38:58 PM MST
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Note: Senator Tester's mandated logging bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, was attached to this massive $1.3 Trillion omnibus spending bill, which now appears dead, according to breaking news out of DC. Democrats abruptly drop spending fight
By Andy Sullivan
SNIPS: Democrats abruptly abandoned a fight over spending on Thursday and said they would instead extend government funding on a temporary basis, a move that gives Republicans a greater chance to enact the deep cuts they have promised. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said nine Republicans had agreed to back the bill, which likely would have given him enough votes to pass it. But Republican support evaporated in recent days, he said. "In reality we only have one choice, and that's a short term" funding bill, Reid said on the Senate floor.
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Wed Dec 15, 2010 at 18:04:05 PM MST
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As you may have heard, Senator's Tester's "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act" was attached to the Senate's $1.3 Trillion (and growing) omnibus spending bill.
Basically, Senator Tester has managed to attached his bill to this completely unrelated trillion-dollar-plus spending bill, which, it's my understanding, must pass by this weekend, or the federal government will shut down and you won't get your that Christmas card from Aunt Donna in Monday's mail, among other inconveniences.
By far, the most comprehensive collection of documents, releases, quotes, charts and comments related to Senator Tester's bill is at the MT Lowdown blog of John S. Adams, the Great Falls Trib's capital bureau chief. I'd encourage everyone to spend some time over there, review the information and share your opinions. This is an important issue.
My views views on this issue have been well documented over the past few years. Many Montanans have expressed serious, substantive concerns with this bill, including the mandated logging provisions, motors in Wilderness and turning some wildlands into permanent motorized recreation areas. That's a major reason why the bill never made it out of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, never made it to the floor of the US Senate and never was introduced in the US House.
Instead of honestly listening to these concerns, Senator Tester apparently decided to work behind the scenes to attach a different version of his bill to this completely unrelated $1.3 trillion spending bill that's nearly 2000 pages long. It's unfortunate that Senator Tester has chosen such a course.
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Sat Dec 11, 2010 at 08:32:32 AM MST
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This week, Senator Tester and his staff have acknowledged they are working behind the scenes in this lame-duck session of Congress to attach his mandated logging bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, to a completely unrelated $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill, which is a 'must-pass' bill required to fund the US Government through September 2011.
This is despite the fact that the FJRA never made it out of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, never made it to the floor of the US Senate and never was introduced in the US House.
Many Montana's from all walks of life still have serious, substantive concerns with the FJRA.
It's unfortunate that Senator Tester is pursuing such a questionable, and some might say underhanded, tactic to pass this bill. Back in 2006, didn't state Senator Tester campaign against Senator Burns for using just these types of questionable, undemocratic tactics?
Don't forget that this past summer Senator Tester had his chance to have the FJRA approved by the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee. That version would have designated over 660,000 acres in Montana as Wilderness and would have moved some important watershed and restoration work forward.
However, Senator Tester blew that chance because he and four timber mills were completely unwilling to compromise on the mandated logging provisions and allowing motors within Wilderness. Amazingly, to date, the Great Falls Tribune is the only newspaper in the state which feels this is a newsworthy, important development to let Montanans know about.
TAKE ACTION: Please take a moment to contact Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) and ask him to NOT include Senator Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act (FJRA) in the Senate's completely unrelated $1.2 Trillion omnibus spending bill. Please call (202) 224-3934 or send an email via http://inouye.senate.gov/Contact/ContactDKI.cfm.
Also, please contact Senator Tester and let him know that you strongly disapprove of his FJRA, as written, and his underhanded tactics to get it passed. The fact is that FJRA never made it out of the Senate ENR Committee, never made it to the floor of the Senate and was never even introduced in the US House. Secretly attaching it to an unrelated, must-pass $1.2 Trillion spending bill is disgraceful. Please call (202) 224-2644 or send an email via: http://tester.senate.gov/Contact/
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Wed Oct 13, 2010 at 09:27:09 AM MST
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( - promoted by Jay Stevens)
Threatened bull trout - and bull trout habitat - got some good news this week as the Obama Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service greatly expanded protections for waterways critical to the restoration of threatened bull trout.
According to the AP:
The final rule issued by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service represented a major expansion of the streams, lakes and reservoirs protected as critical habitat for the fish, primarily on federal lands in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Nevada, and a reversal of Bush administration policy on endangered species.
The new ruling protects 19,000 miles of streams, which is five times more than the 2005 rule, and 490,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs, which is more than three times greater than previously ordered. But the 754 miles of marine shoreline in Washington state was a reduction to make room for U.S. Navy testing grounds.
Faced with a lawsuit, Fish and Wildlife agreed last year to revise the 2005 critical habitat designation after an inspector general's report found it was among dozens of decisions improperly interfered with by former deputy assistant secretary of Interior Julie MacDonald, who resigned in 2007.
Montanans, and others, who value native fish and their habitat should celebrate this important critical habitat designation for bull trout. Much of the credit goes to two Montana-based organizations: Friends of the Wild Swan (sorry, no website) and Alliance for the Wild Rockies. A chronology of the issue from 1985 to 2009 is available here.
You can bet the lobbyists and political supporters of the timber, mining and grazing industry will blast this designation of critical habitat for the threatened bull trout. After all, now logging, mining, grazing and oil and gas development projects on public lands will now have to more fully take bull trout, their habitat and their recovery, into account.
In the coming days and weeks, it will also certainly be interesting to see if Montana Trout Unlimited, the National Wildlife Federation and the Montana Wilderness Association support and celebrate the Obama Administration/USFWS's new bull trout critical habitat designations...or if these "Tester bill collaborators" will stand with their new friends in the timber industry in opposition to these new rules. Stay tuned....
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Wed Oct 06, 2010 at 08:17:40 AM MST
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( - promoted by Jay Stevens)
(In the spirit of full disclosure: This research was funded by a science grant from the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative to Dr. Ana Sala and the WildWest Institute. Funding from USDA NRICG 2002-35107-12267 and from the Aldo Leopold Wilderness research Institute (USDA FS RMRS-ALWRI 4901) allowed sampling in remote frequently burned stands. Cameron Naficy was the staff ecologist for the WildWest Institute until 2008, when he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research in the Patagonia region of Argentina. Naficy currently is a PhD student in the Geography Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His research is in disturbance ecology, paleoecology, ecological restoration, tree ecophysiology, forest mortality processes and biogeography of temperate forests and montane grasslands. Geographically, his work is focused in the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Idaho, USA and in Patagonia. - MK)
Below is a copy of the press release sent out by the University of Montana. Click here to download the entire study.
MISSOULA - Historically logged forest sites are denser and potentially more prone to severe wildfires and insect outbreaks than unlogged, fire-excluded forests and should be considered a high priority for fuel-reduction treatments, according to a new University of Montana study.
Anna Sala and Cameron Naficy, the lead researchers in the study, published an article on these findings in the most recent issue of the journal Ecological Applications. Sala is a professor in UM's Division of Biological Sciences, and Naficy graduated with a master's degree from UM in 2008.
Sala and Naficy's study compared logged, fire-excluded sites to unlogged, fire-excluded sites in forests mainly consisting of ponderosa pines. The study covered a broad region spanning the Continental Divide of the Northern Rockies, from central Montana to central Idaho.
The findings contradict much of the conventional wisdom defining current U.S. forest policy, which assumes that increases in forest density, which in turn increase the susceptibility to severe wildfires or insect outbreaks, are primarily caused by fire suppression.
"This is an important finding because it highlights that vegetation management can result in long-lasting changes to forests that are likely to affect how large-scale disturbances, such as wildfires or insect outbreaks, play out on the landscape well into the future," Naficy said.
"Furthermore, it shows that previously harvested and unharvested forests have very different restoration needs and fire hazard potential," Sala said. "This recognition should go a long way in helping land managers to prioritize restoration and fuel-reduction efforts where they are most likely to be successful."
For more information, call Sala at 406-243-6009, e-mail sala@mso.umt.edu or e-mail Naficy at cameron.naficy@colorado.edu .
Naficy, Cameron, Anna Sala, Eric G. Keeling, Jon Graham, and Thomas H. DeLuca. 2010. Interactive effects of historical logging and fire exclusion on ponderosa pine forest structure in the northern Rockies. Ecological Applications 20:1851-1864. [doi:10.1890/09-0217.1]
Increased forest density resulting from decades of fire exclusion is often perceived as the leading cause of historically aberrant, severe, contemporary wildfires and insect outbreaks documented in some fire-prone forests of the western United States. Based on this notion, current U.S. forest policy directs managers to reduce stand density and restore historical conditions in fire-excluded forests to help minimize high-severity disturbances. Historical logging, however, has also caused widespread change in forest vegetation conditions, but its long-term effects on vegetation structure and composition have never been adequately quantified. We document that fire-excluded ponderosa pine forests of the northern Rocky Mountains logged prior to 1960 have much higher average stand density, greater homogeneity of stand structure, more standing dead trees and increased abundance of fire-intolerant trees than paired fire-excluded, unlogged counterparts. Notably, the magnitude of the interactive effect of fire exclusion and historical logging substantially exceeds the effects of fire exclusion alone. These differences suggest that historically logged sites are more prone to severe wildfires and insect outbreaks than unlogged, fire-excluded forests and should be considered a high priority for fuels reduction treatments. Furthermore, we propose that ponderosa pine forests with these distinct management histories likely require distinct restoration approaches. We also highlight potential long-term risks of mechanical stand manipulation in unlogged forests and emphasize the need for a long-term view of fuels management.
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Thu Sep 30, 2010 at 06:22:11 AM MST
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( - promoted by Jay Stevens)
This commentary from Dr. Thomas Michael Power, Research Professor and former Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Montana, was on Montana Public Radio earlier in the week.
Dr. Power's piece is a good history lesson, as well as a lesson in Economics 101. Hopefully Senator Tester, his staff and those supporting his misguided Forest Jobs and Recreation Act (here and here) take heed.
Power's piece is below the fold...
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Wed Sep 22, 2010 at 07:24:02 AM MST
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( - promoted by Jay Stevens)
A new report from one of the nation's leading National Forest policy experts - Dr. Martin Nie of the University of Montana's Bolle Center for People & Forests - provides an in-depth look at some of the key policy issues and concerns associated with so-called "Place-Based Legislation" in general, and Senator Tester's "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act," specifically. The report and research was requested by the Rocky Mountain Region of the U.S. Forest Service.
Here's a snip from the report's conclusion (emphasis added):
...[T]here are significant problems to the place-based legislative approach to national forest management. To begin with, the historical record of place-based forest law does not lend confidence to the approach in principle. By most accounts, cases like the Herger-Feinstein Quincy Library Act have engendered more conflict and problems than the legislation has resolved. This is mostly because these site-specific laws must somehow be paid for and then reconciled with the cumulative body of environmental laws that govern the national forests.
These problems are not insurmountable, but Congress and the USFS should oppose forest-specific legislation until a number of more fundamental and systematic concerns are addressed. Most important are the questions of how these laws would fit into the preexisting statutory/planning framework and how they would be financed.
If replicated more broadly, place-based legislation would disunify the National Forest System and create a number of problematic precedents. Chief among these are legislated timber treatment mandates that would set the stage for future Congressional abuse. If enacted into law, these mandates would also have the unintended consequence of jeopardizing fragile agreements and negotiations going on elsewhere; as some timber interests would certainly use this precedent as new leverage in their bargaining positions. As one Congressional Staffer involved in a place-based negotiation says, if Senator Tester's timber supply mandate gets through the gate, then he expects a similar sort of demand being made by the timber interests at his table.
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Sat Sep 18, 2010 at 07:33:27 AM MST
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This week the Western Wood Products Association reported that the Western lumber industry in 2009 posted its worst year for production in modern history, and that the outlook for this year is even more dismal.
Key Findings
• Overall, U.S. demand for lumber in 2009 was less than half of what was consumed in 2005.
• The amount of lumber used for residential construction is down 76% compared to 2005.
• The lack of home building in the U.S. contributed to the historic decline. Just 554,000 houses were built in 2009, a 39 percent decline from the previous year and a staggering 75% decline from 2005.
• Low demand translated into even lower prices for Western lumber products. The estimated wholesale value of the 2009 production was $2.69 billion, down 26 percent from 2008. Five years ago, Western mills produced 19.3 billion board feet of lumber valued at $7.7 billion.
• Since 2005, output from Western lumber mills has fallen by some 46 percent.
Given the fact that overall lumber demand in the U.S. is down 50% since 2005 and housing starts are down 75% since 2005 one really has to question the motivation and economic rationale of those who are calling for Congress to step in and mandate more public lands logging.
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Thu Jul 29, 2010 at 09:51:01 AM MST
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Today, NewWest.net's "Wild" Bill Schneider has an interesting article looking at the chances of a public lands omnibus bill coming out of the 111th Congress, and more specifically, what where Senator Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act fits into that equation.
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.
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Wed Jun 16, 2010 at 15:08:12 PM MST
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( - promoted by Jay Stevens)
According to John S. Adams at Montana Lowdown:
"Sen. Jon Tester will hold a conference call with reporters tomorrow [Thursday] morning to share details of a new draft of his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. It's not yet clear whether a full version of this latest draft will be available tomorrow or not."
As it stands right now, it sure seems as if the ENR Committee's draft (PDF Link available here) is far superior to Senator Tester's FJRA as originally introduced...so it will certainly be interesting to review the new FJRA draft coming from Senator Tester's office tomorrow.
It's unfortunate that Senator Tester proclaimed the ENR Committee's draft "Dead On Arrival." In my view, the ENR Committee's draft is a giant step in the right direction and certainly worthy of consideration. The fact of the matter is that the ENR Committee's draft would protect over 660,000 acres in Montana as Wilderness, which is one of the big goals we've heard touted by the collaborators.
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Fri Jun 04, 2010 at 07:07:34 AM MST
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( - promoted by Jay Stevens)
Yesterday, members of the Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign called on Senator Tester to make public a new "Discussion Draft" version of the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act (FJRA) that was put together by the US Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee and given to Senator Tester last month.
Since the Committee's draft includes significant new language, we believe it's in the best interest of all Montanans and Americans for Senator Tester to make a copy of the Committee's draft available for public review and input. This step will ensure transparency and give all members of the public an equal opportunity to review the new draft language.
The Committee's new draft drops the controversial mandated logging levels on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Kootenai National Forests and drops Senator Tester's 12-month timeline for environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, which the head of the Forest Service called "flawed and are legally vulnerable" during last December's Senate hearing.
The Committee's new draft also adds language requiring that any project carried out under the bill must maintain old growth forests and retain large trees, while focus any hazardous fuel reduction efforts on small diameter trees.
The Committee's draft drops several of the controversial Wilderness provisions, including those allowing helicopter landings for military training exercises and herding livestock with ATVs in Wilderness, but other provisions that compromise the integrity of the proposed Wildernesses remain in the new draft.
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Fri Apr 23, 2010 at 05:15:24 AM MST
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The full version of Earthjustice's letter to Senator Tester is available here
April 7, 2010
The Honorable Jon Tester
United States Senate
724 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-2603
Dear Senator Tester:
On behalf of Earthjustice, we wish to comment on some key provisions of S. 1470, The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2009. Earthjustice supports watershed restoration and protection of wilderness-quality lands in Montana and elsewhere. Earthjustice also recognizes the work of many people, especially you and your staff, in drafting S. 1470. However, we have serious concerns about certain provisions of S. 1470 that we urge you to address during any further consideration of the bill by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Our concerns involve the bill's mandate for mechanical treatment of timber on 70,000 acres of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and 30,000 acres in the Three Rivers Ranger District of the Kootenai National Forest, as well as its constraints on compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
Earthjustice is the nation's largest non -profit environmental law firm. Since our founding in 1971, we have provided legal representation at no cost to over 700 clients nationwide to protect our air, water, public lands, wildlife, and public health. Our Northern Rockies Office is located in Bozeman, Montana, where we have represented state, regional, and national environmental organizations in many cases to protect wildlife and public lands in Montana and the northern Rockies since 1993.
Full Letter Here
Additional information:
The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act vs. The Wilderness Act: Analysis by Wilderness Watch - click here.
FJRA Comments from Members of the Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign - click here.
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Tue Apr 20, 2010 at 07:39:09 AM MST
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( - promoted by Jay Stevens)
What follows is the official testimony from Montana's Wilderness Watch to the U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests regarding Senator Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act (S. 1470). For those who don't know, Wilderness Watch's executive director George Nickas is easily one of America's most foremost and respected experts when it comes to the Wilderness Act and Wilderness management and policy.
The following information represents an easy to understand comparison between the Wilderness Act and current Wilderness policy versus certain Wilderness provisions within the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, S.1470.
In order to allow all members of the public easy access to this information, please note that the page numbers below correspond to the exact page numbers of the bill, available for download right on Senator Tester's website.
Thank you. - MK
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Thu Mar 25, 2010 at 07:42:30 AM MST
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Stewart M. Brandborg, a fourth-generation Montanan, is a founding member of the Last Best Place Wildland Campaign. "Brandy" grew up in Montana's Bitterroot Valley, where his father served as the Supervisor of the Bitterroot National Forest from 1935 to 1955. Brandy spent over a decade researching wildlife in the Bob Marshall, Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness areas and he was later employed as a wildlife biologist with the Forest Service and state wildlife agencies in Montana and Idaho. From 1964 to 1976, Brandborg served as executive director of The Wilderness Society. Brandborg played an instrumental roll in the passage of America's Wilderness Act in 1964 and other landmark public land legislation, including groundwork for the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. - mk
Tester Logging Bill Threatens Our National Forests
By Stewart M. Brandborg
I am a fourth-generation Montanan who grew up in a U.S. Forest Service family. Guy Brandborg, my father, served as Supervisor of the Bitterroot National Forest from 1935 to 1955. I still fondly remember Gifford Pinchot, during one of his last western trips, visiting my father in front of our fireplace. And, I still marvel at Bob Marshall's one-day hike from White Cap Creek on the Selway River up and over the Bitterroot Divide down Boulder Creek in time to join my family around the dining room table for supper.
After earning my Masters degree in Forestry and Wildlife Management in 1951, I worked over 12 years as a wildlife biologist with the Forest Service and state wildlife agencies in Montana and Idaho.
I was associated over 20 years with The Wilderness Society, including serving as its executive director from 1964 to 1976. In these years, I was privileged to advocate for the protection of our public lands legacy, presenting the case for wildland preservation across the nation. During my tenure, the U.S. Congress passed landmark public lands legislation, including the Wilderness Act of 1964, and laid the groundwork for the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
For 70 years now, I have been involved with public lands issues. With this background, it is with deep personal concern that I share serious reservations about Sen. Jon Tester's Logging and Recreation Bill, S. 1470.
Despite the best intentions of Senator Tester, this ill-advised measure, as written, poses a serious threat to our National Forests and other publicly-owned lands. Specifically, the logging mandated by S. 1470 is unprecedented and represents an unscientific override of current forest planning, leading the head of the Forests Service to tell the Senate Committee at last December's hearing that the logging levels in S. 1470 are unachievable and unsustainable.
I also agree with the Forest Service that unfunded mandates in this bill would result in other National Forests in Montana and the region having their funds raided to support excessive logging on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge. The Forest Service described this serious concern as "balkanization" of our national forest system.
The Tester bill is described by supporters as the product of collaborative effort that brought all stakeholders together in its drafting. In fact, the Beaverhead-Deerlodge portion of the bill was originally conceived and contrived by a few logging mills and a few conservation groups.
The initial deliberations of the Beaverhead Partnership excluded major players - the US Forest service, local county governments, watershed and irrigation interests, local and state land, wildlife, and wilderness interests, and a broad segment of other user groups - who have concern for the long-term protection of our National Forests.
Back in September, I, with a delegation including scientists and a retired Forest Service ranger, met with Senator Tester's staff in an attempt to improve the bill. While we appreciated the meeting, our suggestions and concerns have been ignored. Unfortunately, this appears to be typical treatment of those concerned about S. 1470. If you support the bill, you are welcomed into the collaboration. If you have concerns with the bill, too bad. This is not how America's public lands should be managed.
If Congress were to endorse Senator Tester's bill as written, over 100 years of federal resource protection laws, set in place through the bipartisan actions of 50 Congresses, could be overridden by any interest group that gains the ear of any Congressman or Senator. We need not open this Pandora's Box of special loopholes and subsidies for a handful of corporations. We need not forsake our remaining public wild lands heritage.
There are plenty of needed, well-paying forest jobs in road reclamation, watershed restoration and replanting with native species. These forest restoration jobs promote steady flows of pure water for improved wildlife habitat, better fishing and hunting, irrigation and community water supplies and continued sustainable harvests from our fiber producing lands. Fuels reduction projects within community protection zones will, based upon best available science, most efficiently and effectively protect homes and lives while providing even more jobs.
In years past, Congress responded to the voice of the American people and protected our public lands legacy from raids by special interest groups. I hope we can stop Senator Tester from breaking up America's National Forest system for local commercial interests.
Stewart M. Brandborg lives in the Bitterroot Valley with his wife, Anna Vee. In 2001 he received the Robert Marshall Award, - The Wilderness Society's highest honor - for his notable influence on American's Wilderness legacy.
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Sat Mar 20, 2010 at 23:01:53 PM MST
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Over 140 FD, search, rescue, law enforcement, and EMS personnel from Flathead and Glacier Counties - many, if not most, volunteers - headed to Essex, MT today for a day long practice and drill simulating an avalanche of a passenger train. Remarkable inter-agency cooperation and collaboration with Amtrak and BNSF. The responders had communication problems - that region is a well known dead zone for transmissions and with so many agencies responding, choosing a frequency that would work for everyone...well, it didn't work. That's something to work on.
But the agencies were able to establish some clear command and get the rescue pretty well coordinated, despite that. I think it is amazing to see so many people turn out; giving up a nice Saturday so they can be a little better prepared to answer the call and work tirelessly and selflessly to save the lives of people they don't even know.
After a long, hard, day, a lot of fire, EMS, and rescue personnel are sleeping a little sore tonight...but our corner of the world might just be a little safer for everyone.
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