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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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omnibus spending bill
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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