New West Network

This might be interesting, perhaps even useful?

http://www.gallatin.org/activities.html#r7

Matt,
are you sure Jack Ward Thomas shares your concerns the same way you like to portray them here? He is chief emeritus of the U.S. Forest Service, the same agency whose forest management proposals you and your colleagues keep battling in the courts.
How about the part where he states "Those who wanted wilderness got their wishes – upfront. Those who wanted a “guaranteed” supply of raw material or a certain number of acres to be “treated” are, in gambler’s terminology, “betting on the come."
Doesn't that lend itself to an interpretation like "Those who want guaranteed logging volumes should get their wishes upfront as well"?
Curious ...

Hello "Karhu:" The way the laws and regulations are written, the only way Wilderness can be designated on National Forest land is through an act of Congress. Congress needs to pass a bill designating Wilderness and the president needs to sign it into law. That's the way it works.

However, that's not the way that the federal timber sale program works, so your comparison is one of those apple to oranges things. The US Congress has never before mandated the amount of logging on a national forest. As written, Senator Tester's FJRA/S1470 would mandate logging for the first time in history and this is one of the major concerns you hear coming from many diverse quarters.

Remember, this is what the Under Secretary of Agriculture, Harris Sherman, the top US Forest Service official in America, had this to say about Senator Tester's bill at the Dec 17 Senate Hearing:

"If the Committee decides to go forward with a bill, we would urge you to first, alter or remove the highly specific timber supply requirements, which in our view are not reasonable or achievable.

Secondly, we like to urge you to amend the National Environmental Policy Act related provisions, which in our view are flawed and are legally vulnerable.

Thirdly, we would urge you to consider the budgetary implications to meet the bill's requirements. If we were to go forward with S1470 it would require far greater resources to do that and it will require us to draw these monies from forests within Region One or from other Regions."

"The levels of mechanical treatment that are called for in S1470 are likely unachievable and perhaps unsustainable."

"There is the likelihood that if Congress were to move forward and pass legislation such as we are talking about today, that other regions will want to do so similarly. Now, if that happens, my concern is that there will be somewhat of a balkanization that occurs between the different regions in the country. Those who are first in may get funded and those who come later may find there are less funds available. There will be certain 'haves' and 'have nots' that result from this process. Then in someways there is no longer a true national review, an effort to sift out what priorities ought to exist across the country."

These are not small, trivial concerns, especially to those who have spent decades following public policy related to National Forest lands.

Finally, I'd also like to point out that, according to the Forest Service, the agency ended 2009 with more timber volume under contract to logging companies than at any point in the past decade.

Specifically, right now, the Forest Service in Montana and our region has over 300 million board feet of timber already under contract to logging companies...but because of plummeting demand for lumber, the logging companies aren't doing much logging. To visualize how much timber 300 million board feet is, imagine 60,000 log trucks lined up end-to-end for over 500 miles.

I should also point out that on Lolo National Forest (where an open, inclusive and transparent "collaborative" process exists) there hasn't been one timber sale lawsuit in over 2 years. And on the Bitterroot National Forest (where an open, inclusive and transparent "collaborative" process also exists), there has been only one lawsuit of a timber sale since 2002.

The notion that “lawsuits have stopped forest management cold" (which Senator Tester said in Bozeman this past September) makes for a better rural myth than it does a factual statement. Thanks.

Matt,
I do know how wilderness designation works and I do know how the federal timber sale program works - and the difference between the two.
My point was that you seemed to clip a section out of Jack Ward Thomas' piece and try to put it front of your ideological cart. I meant to point out that there are other parts in that piece that might not lend themselves to work for your philosophy.
Without knowing what Jack Wards exact thoughts were either, the sentence that I tried to interpret sounds like the "trigger" option Congressman Rehberg is proposing: Once a certain area/volume is logged, a portion of the proposed wilderness is designated. This would be to "guarantee" an agreed upon "supply of raw material or a certain number of acres to be “treated”, without being potentially hung up in court. But again, I could be wrong.
In the current proposal of the bill, if passed, the wilderness portion would be at no risk of not being implemented, because, as you correctly state, it is designated by an act of congress. However the logging component could be potentially stalled, again, if things get dragged through the courts again at will.
It's about leveling the playing field, I think. If we agree on that, great.
Matt, I am with you. I am an environmentalist, avid composter, recycler, home-insulator, renewable energy and efficiency promoter. And I used to be more dogmatic about my opinions as well. But the current stalemate how we take care of our public forests cannot continue, and I think Testers bill is a start, not perfect, but a start. I don’t know where I read it but someone recently said something like: Legislation and implementation are not a perfect but a perfecting process. Let’s embrace it.

Mr. Thomas quotes: "Clearly, the governance of national forests is dysfunctional due to numerous, overlapping, contradictory laws continuously and variously interpreted by the courts. That is the problem. These bills are “sick canaries in the mine shaft” – indications that something is dangerously amiss.

Would it not be better to recognize and comprehensibly address that dysfunction?"

Mathew picks and chooses from Jacks editorial to support his own view. He ignores the above. I do believe Mr. Thomas is the one who coined the phrase "analysis paralysis". He is no fan of Mathews past and Garritys current litigation by no means.

AS far as Mr. Shermans assertion that "timber supply requirements are not reasonable or acheivable", consider the following. The Helena forest just announced that they will harvest up to 40 million board foot/year. Thats around 4,000 acres of beetle killed timber harvest. That's a four fold increase from an average of 800 acres/yr. they've harvested for the last five years. Considering the Helena is what, half the size of the Beaverhead Deerlodge, that sounds pretty close to the 7000 acres/yr. under the Partnership proposal. The BDNF won't be far behind.

The BDNF spends 1/10th of its annual budget on the timber sale program(Lord knows where the rest goes). That amounts to around 1.2 million dollars. Montana just got 20 million dollars for MPB mitigation. Do you suppose the BDNF timber sale budget just got a lot bigger?

For the last five years, the BDNF has harvested an average of 500 acres/year. That's .02% of the "forested acreage". At that rate it'll take 50 years to log 1%!

Mathew has wrongly claimed in the past that that low harvest level is what the Forest Service deemed the "biologically sustainable" harvest level. Nonsense. No one can believe that .02% is all that can be harvested sustainably. And no reasonable person can think that the 70,000 acres/decade the Partnership proposes, which is 2.5% of the forested acreage, could harm the "sustainability" of the forest.

What drives the Forest Service timber sale program is budget and political will. Mr. Thomas, and the USFS, wants to keep their fiefdom intact. They're starting to realize if they want to do that and not be replaced with "collaborations" they better start responding to "local" demands. Hence the political will. I've got a feeling the BDNF will achieve harvest levels close to what the partnership proposes on it's own.

Yes, last year the USFS in Montana sold 200 million board foot(MMBF), double the previous year. Obviously in response to SMurfit-stones demand last year for more timber, and also a result of litigation tapering off. However, the average harvest for the previous 8 years was around a 120 MMBF. To little to late.

Perhaps Mathew could tell us specifically how much harvest he would tolerate on the BDNF? What is your compromise proposal. Or is .02% just about right.

Another S. 1470 opposition myth - that logging mandates with the Forest Service are "unprecedented."

First off, it's important to note that Tester's bill mandates acreage to be logged, not board feet, over 10 years.

Second, the Forest Service has identified 1.9 million acres as suitable for harvest in the BH-DL. S. 1470 mandates cutting only a total of 70,000 acres of that suitable area over a decade. S. 1470 actually calls for logging significantly LESS acreage than the FS has deemed suitable (regardless of Undersecretary Anderson's current position on the matter). And it prioritizes areas with beetle-killed trees, urban-wildland interface [for better fire management], and previously logged areas. These are facts.

Third, in looking at precedence, let's take the example of the 50-year contract that the FS had with the Ketchikan Pulp mill in southeast Alaska - a remarkable, 50-year contract that compelled the FS to provide KPC with 200 million board feet of timber (about 10,000 acres of high-volume old growth) per year. What was this, if not a "mandate?" Endeavoring to portray it as something else is merely a matter of semantics.

The Alaska Pulp Mill also had a similar, 50-year contract. These contracts expired in the mid-90's. Did these contracts leave a lasting, damaging legacy on the way our public lands are being managed elsewhere? Hardly. In fact, over the last 60 years, the examples above have certainly been the standout exception - not the rule. But if we're talking about a precedent for mandated logging levels - these examples in southeast Ak. were one obvious example.

Arguments can be made that the mandated logging levels in Tester's bill are sustainable, or that they are not, but that is a separate argument (and one in which the author above has made his opinion abundantly clear).

The bottom line is that claiming that these mandates are "without precedent" is simply not true.

The question has been asked before of what level of timber harvest Koehler would support in the areas encompassed by S. 1470. To the best of my knowledge, that question hasn't been answered. I think many would be curious to hear.

Bruce Smithhammer, I'd like to respond to your statement: "The bottom line is that claiming that these mandates are 'without precedent' is simply not true."

I offer you the following perspective, which was provided to me directly from a former Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment:

"No law to my knowledge has ever established or mandated a specific timber harvest level for any national forest. The APC and KPC timber sale contracts that were a dominant factor in management of the Tongass national forest, set some contractual obligations for the Forest Service to provide timber in return for a commitment on the part of the companies to continue to operate pulp mills in the region. But, even under these conditions, the agency had the flexibility to adjust levels of timber offered for sale to reflect changing conditions in the region. The existence of the contracts did obligate the government to offer timber for sale and this did strongly influence how the Tongass was managed. But, even this was not a specific, mandated level of timber to be sold. This, the Tester bill is precedent setting.

Second, when the idea of mandating timber harvest levels -- or influencing them by setting an expectation in law -- was raised in the context of the FY 96 omnibus funding bill, it was rejected by President Clinton and, in part, resulted in his decision to veto the funding bill that eventually shut down the federal government. The provision I refer to was a rider to the Interior appropriations bill authored by Sen. Stevens to mandate that the Forest Service adopt Alternative P of the Tongass land management plan. This was the high timber alternative so its adoption in law would have set a high expectation that timber sales would increase. But, it was rejected and this provision was eventually stripped from the appropriations act that Pres. Clinton signed."

Also, the current Under Secretary is not named Anderson, as you stated above, his name is Harris Sherman and I will post again some of what he had to say about the way S1470 is currently written:

"If the Committee decides to go forward with a bill, we would urge you to first, alter or remove the highly specific timber supply requirements, which in our view are not reasonable or achievable.

Secondly, we like to urge you to amend the National Environmental Policy Act related provisions, which in our view are flawed and are legally vulnerable.

Thirdly, we would urge you to consider the budgetary implications to meet the bill's requirements. If we were to go forward with S1470 it would require far greater resources to do that and it will require us to draw these monies from forests within Region One or from other Regions."

"The levels of mechanical treatment that are called for in S1470 are likely unachievable and perhaps unsustainable."

"There is the likelihood that if Congress were to move forward and pass legislation such as we are talking about today, that other regions will want to do so similarly. Now, if that happens, my concern is that there will be somewhat of a balkanization that occurs between the different regions in the country. Those who are first in may get funded and those who come later may find there are less funds available. There will be certain 'haves' and 'have nots' that result from this process. Then in someways there is no longer a true national review, an effort to sift out what priorities ought to exist across the country."

Finally, in his guest column, Jack Ward Thomas, the former Chief of the Forest Service, stated, "I do not question the proponent’s integrity or motivations. I applaud their willingness to step forward. But, the approach is flawed, inappropriate, less than fully informed, and has implications for the management of the entire national forest system. It should be debated in that context."

Bruce, why in the world would Under Secretary Sherman and former USFS Chief Thomas make these statements and express these concerns if they didn't believe the statements or concerns to be true? Do you think that a former USFS Chief and the former and current Under Secretary in charge of the Forest Service might know a thing or two about Forest Service policy and regulations? And how new proposed laws and regulations might effect the USFS?

I know you've taken a fancy to discrediting me, but I'm not the one making these statements. Feel free to call me anytime to discuss these issues further. You have my number. Thanks.

As I've already made abundantly clear to you, I'm not the least bit interested in talking to you about this over the phone. If there is a conversation to be had - I am far more interested in having it in the open, where others can benefit from, and also comment.

Your quote from a "former Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment" is classic bureaucratic-speak, imo: "No law to my knowledge has ever established or mandated a specific timber harvest level for any national forest."

What in the world would you call a 50-year contract that compels the FS to provide 200 million bf per year, if not a mandate? As I said above, any debate on that fact is merely semantic masturbation.

And you are absolutely right that the Undersecretary's last name is Sherman, and I know this. It was a typo.

But as to the question, "why in the world would Under Secretary Sherman and former USFS Chief Thomas make these statements and express these concerns if they didn't believe the statements or concerns to be true?" I would have to answer that deflecting the conversation to what the two individuals above "believe" to be true is not the point. I'm as certain as you are that they believe what they are saying. That's not at issue.

I could just as easily trot out a parade of quotes by very knowledgeable people, such as Tom Vilsack, U.S. Agriculture Secretary, who recently pointed out a need for, "a shared vision built on collaboration that will move us beyond the timber wars of the past.”
But having a "quote war" with you is a waste of time. There are many knowledgeable people out there who no doubt "believe" what they say.

You still haven't answered the question, which several people have asked - "what level of harvest would you condone?"

Matt,
I happen to be in pretty routine contact with Jack Ward Thomas, have been for a while, and I must say that you are misrepresenting what the former Chief is driving at.
His concern is a clusterscrew of separate Congressional rules for each forest and each state, when the real need is for systematic reform on a national scale, so that the endemic national dysfunction, to which you and your coalition have definitely contributed, as well as the charming "partners" in this travesty, is dealt with.
He also called a spade a spade, that the wilderness up front versus possible maybe timber harvest is like hoping to fill the middle of a straight, real bad poker.
By the way, SH, has Matt pinned you? If so, then what is your interest in this game? Really?

Darn it,
And Pete, I went to that link of yours. Have you know that I took econ from Stroup, Baden and Anderson and understand there ARE philosophical differences between PERC and FREE.
I've also read Dan Kemmis' paper, in fact I have a copy laying around somewhere as a bad example of unrealistic Kumbaya collaboration. So what was the point, because I don't see it.

Hi David:

Nearly a decade ago there were semi-serious noises about applying a mélange basic economic principles (e.g., incentives matter), some insights from public choice, and federalism into an experiment in national forest management (Region 7).

While these proposals failed the political calculus, and hence remain largely an academic exercise, I don’t think it hurts to remind folks that many smart and serious people took the time to engage this experiment.