Of course, Earthjustice doesn't know that the 70,000 acres is only 2.5% of the forested acres on the Beaverhead Deerlodge forest. Why should they, no enviro does. Why let perspective get in the way of self riteous pontificating. Brave eco warriors. This is a good business oportunity for EJ. I'm sure they good score some huge billable hours litigating this under the EAJA-booya!

Indeed, any proposal to limit litigation will be strongly fought against, regardless of the impacts on the forests and local communities. They care not to "preserve the forests", only to "preserve the controversy" and the lawsuit and donations gravytrains. The cutting of ANY merchantable tree is labeled as "a giveaway to the timber industry".

Bahahaha logger of rapid city and fotoworn making their typical prejudiced, nonsensical bigoted comments.

Tester's FJRA is terrible bill that the people of MT don't want.

We state the truth and you merely engage in childish namecalling. I'm totally fine with Tester's Bill not passing but, that won't save your forests from destruction. Tester will get more votes for re-election by saying, "Well, I TRIED!". Eastern lawmakers will be able to say "I voted against Wilderness logging". Montana residents will "enjoy" the unhealthy impacts of smoke, erosion and losses of habitat when the eco's promise "natural and beneficial" destruction. Welcome to "1984, the Sequel"!!!

Remember, I'm NOT supporting Tester's Bill. I AM supporting Obama's new Planning Rule changes that the eco-groups and the mainstream media DON'T want you to know about!

Fotoware your always here spewing your fear mongering fire rhetoric no matter the topic.

I comment and minutes later yourt posting about all the forests are gonna be burned.

Logger speaking the truth..laughable.

Logger is the one who called names.

I merely called him uot for the bigot he is.

My unique lifetime experiences have had me seeing, up close and personal, many of our country's biggest and most destructive fires. I've seen, in person, the results of what firestorms do. I've seen near-100% mortality from both fires and bark beetles. I've seen the accumulated fuels piled up and ready to incinerate our public lands. Yes, you CAN choose to ignore my educated warnings and observations but that will not save us from highly-destructive wildfires that won't stay confined to public lands.

In fact, you are helping me make my points by showing the public the contrast between someone who can present scientific observations and facts, as opposed to your, how shall I put this, "anecdotes".

Were'nt you the one claiming the plumas national forest burned so bad becuase of wilderness.

When in actuallity the plumas is a 1.2 million acre forest with onloy around 25,000 acres of wilderness that is some of the only prisitne land left in the forest.

Once again no matter the topic you rant about firestroms and beetles. This article is about /tester's FJRA assault on the wilderness act, not fire and beetles.

Choose an apprpriate place for your "anecdotes" and stop filling the comments section of every article with your endless rhetoric.

Roadless areas and wiloerness are not the tinder boxes you make them out to be. Logged/roaded areas are more likely to burn more intensly and severly. You obviuosly have a fire backcground and old school "we need to control all fire" mentality.

Perhaps you should find a better use of your time now that you're retired.

EarthJustice, the lawyerly arm of the Sierra Club, advertised as "free" legal help for the needy and powerless who oppose US Govt management of anything, is about money. Tester's bill is just a chance for EJ to back their armored car up to the Justice Dept. loading dock, and take on another load of taxpayer money from the Equal Access to Justice Act. I imagine, when and if they do litigate, threaten to litigate, appeal, whatever, the Tester Bill IF it is signed into law, even the above letter will be billed against the Feds as part of EJ's effort to save the world from change. The only thing in this world that does NOT change is the efforts of EJ to litigate against Uncle Sam. It is who they are, and what they do. And it pays like a slot machine. Milk that baby like a champion Holstein, grandma's goat. Make the Feds dot an "i" or cross a "t", and you can charge them $600 an hour for your effort...Really, was this letter from EJ unexpected?

Another out of stater with right wing crazy opinions on anything to do with conservation.

So exactly what is EarthJustice doing in Bozeman? Is it a franchise? Fast food legal ops. Or just another NGO carpetbagger in state just to tell you how to run your lives? The Sierra Club is from San Francisco..because that is where the money was to start it. Tax forgiven money for seed, and then grow the garden of the EAJA, and keep it producing forever.

EJ is a legal whore outfit, and will work anywhere it feels it can make enough in return to support itself and expand. They do have a business plan. It ain't Father O'Pinquepeter doin' his local charity work. It is a mega corporation, a legal mega corporation, latched onto the Justice Dept. like a remora, feeding on the Congressional screw ups, the substandard legal advice and work from the Justice Dept. attorneys assigned to congressional committees and subcommittees....you do have to know that the top tier lawyers feed on the screw ups of those below them in expertise, experience, and intelligence. So the smart ones are working on Wall Street, the notso smart ones who aspire to work on Wall Street do their due diligence as US Attorneys, and the rest are run of the mill corporate lawyers...

So EJ doesn't keep Todd True around because he is cheap and easy. True is on a mission. He does have a lot of smart young lawyers working for him, because there are no longer jobs in journalism, and so activists go to law school today. But the real smart ones are still on Wall Street.

There was a large, well attended, expansive conference in Reno last week on Wildland Fire Litigation. Attorneys educating themselves more on how to win suing railroads, utilities, and any other outfit that might cause a fire to damage adjacent properties. Faculty came from all over the U.S. Suing for damages, in these United States, is big business. The US Attorneys have prevailed in lawsuits in the last several years for $102 million dollars against the Union Pacific Rail Road. Last year they got Pacific Gas and Electric for $14 million dollars. But Earthjustice and others have been getting legal fees from the Feds up to and more than a $Billion dollars per year. That is not chicken feed. A billion bucks is a lot of money. In fact, in some years, the USFS pays more in legal fees to EAJA lawyers than they spend on fire fighting. FEMA has to come up with the rest in bad fire seasons.

So the US Govt is suing to gain damages from wildland fire the fire originates on private land, and then it burns US Govt land. You can't sue them when their fire burns your land. And, if fire is supposed to be this wonderful natural event that does wonders for forest health, how does the US Attorney's office claim damages for lost timber value in wilderness, lost habitat, and loss of "grandeur of the landscape?"

It is about money. It is always about money. Tester's bill is about money, and how to make some and how to not have to spend so much. It will be challenged because that is where the money is.

This not right wing ranting. It is asking why the double standards?

"It is about money. It is always about money. Tester's bill is about money, and how to make some and how to not have to spend so much. It will be challenged because that is where the money is."

This not right wing ranting. It is asking why the double standards?"

You actually think the reason people have a problem with Tester's bill is becuase of money.

Sure it has nothing to do with the dismantling of the forest serice, the destruction of roadless lands an the elimination of public input in public lands decisions.

Why are you ranting about fires here, Tester's bill is not making forests healthy or better prepared for fires or beetles.
He wants to log the last rugged backcounrty, that will make fires burns more intense.

Your absolutely ranting and your absolutely right wing.

I worked on the Bitterroot for 3 months. Plenty long enough to see the horrid state of the forests up there. Plenty long enough to see that the future is quite bleak as far as wildlife and recreation are concerned. The simple fact that Tester even proposed such a flawed bill is proof enough that Montana's forests are DOA.

AND, that people like "jay" want to "preserve" such a situation. AND, ya know, just "over the hill" was a 400,000 acre Let-Burn fire in Idaho not long ago. When (and not if) we see a replay of the 1910 mega-fire, just HOW MANY entire towns will burn down from a fierce wind-driven firestorm?? (Remember the Oakland Hills Fire?!?!?)

and the endless beetle and fire fear mongering continues.

fotoworn is another out of stater, 3 months wow..

BTW Fotoware there's nothing in the wilderness act or roadless rule that prevents performing opreations that would decrease the threat of fires or beetles if a signifigant threat is posed to a certain area. That could mean thinning, but probally not any trees of commercial value. Tester tries to disguise commercial logging in roadless areas as necessary for fire prevention and beetles, but other politicians have tried that before and science prooves that logging the backcountry does'nt reuduce fire and beetle risks but INCREASES THEM.

Your reliance on generalities and rhetoric are your downfall, jay. The Wilderness Act is VERY specific about activities in designated Wilderness. "Commercial logging" means something different to you than to me. A merchantable-sized tree in Montana has a minimum diameter of 9". Thinning trees in the 9-16" range makes for a very nice "commercial" timber sale that benefits in many ways. However, it is my opinion that pre-Clinton Roadless Areas MUST stay roadless. Until Obama completes his own Roadless Rule, following established law, as he has promised, I would not make grandiose plans involving those lands.

The study you are thinking of concerns the old style of logging called "overstory removal", and generates plenty of logging slash, validating your claim. However, that style of logging went out around 1990, in most National Forests. Today's style of surgically-precise thinning and fuels reduction projects utilize whole-tree yarding, eliminating most of the logging slash within the projects. They also enhance the trees natural defenses by making more water available to the remaining trees.

I'm concerned that any fiddling with the Wilderness Act would set a precedence for existing Wilderness. Just the same, I am also concerned that any changes could mean that unworthy areas could be turned into Wilderness, as NREPA seeks to do. Hey, I'm even against grazing in the Wilderness Areas.

I hope people will take this opportunity to learn, instead of repeating the same old, tired idealistic dogma drama. Jay, when the hole you are digging gets too deep, it's time to stop digging.

"out of state"....hmmmm. And here all along I thought this was a discussion about Federal lands.

Hit a chili feed soon, Jay. You need a blowout to get your eyes opened to the world and your head out of your speaking organ.

Jay sez: Tester "wants to log the last of the rugged back country". Let's see, 57% of the BDNF is "roadless". Now how exactly is logging 2.5% in 10 years gonna "log the last of the back country"? Revolutionary thought.

logger-

obviously you don't know tester's plan for the 1.8 million acres of roadless lands on the BHDL.

you and bearbait are retired right wing nutcases buzz off.

Now, boys, play nice.
Who expected anything different from the subsidiary of the zero cut, zero hunting, zero everything Sierra Club/Earthjustice cadre?

Actually, they won't rest until they've punished every dead forester for the eco-sins of the distant past! Also, the next 5 generations will also "suffer the sins of the father". Nothing like fundamentalist eco-dogma, eh?

and the lunatic right wing ravings continue...

AND, I've NEVER voted for ANYONE named Bush! Sorry Jay, but your broad brush doesn't paint the truth! At least you got the "ravings" part right, describing yourself.

I prefer to call myself "left brain-right wing". The environmental movement could use a little more left brain thinking and less right brain feel good poetics extolling the spirit of the wild.

and the retired bitter old white men contine their anti-wilderness, anti-enviro, right wing lunatic ravings.

And the troll skulks on. Jay, hurry up and graduate already.

Hmmmm, and look who's calling who a troll. So, is there some sort of graduation involved when your education is in marketing or do you just join whichever carnival will take you?

Faker Mike,
You're precisely the epitome of my point. Google me all you want, yet by golly don't let anyone know who you actually are and the context of your own bomb-chucking trollery. What environmental group, or leftie politician, do you work for?

HEY!!! ALL LOGGERS,WOOD GATHERERS AND OUT DOOR FOLKS.Thought you may want to know.How many of you were/are exposed to Tremolite asbestos from the trees within a 20 mile radious of the WR Grace Mine in Deadly Libby Mt.??? One test sample of bark found 530 MILLION Tremolite asbestos fibers in ONE GRAM of bark.One gram of bark is the size of the tip of your little finger.NOW, imagine what that ONE tree contains??? That ONE GRAM of deadly bark, WILL kill all of Libby again and again.Those who logged or did anything to disturb this deadly asbestos fiber may have exposed yourselves and family...just as us miners did...We did not know either, until it was too late. Course, who has kept this from you all??? Not me. Your welcome.ps(that 530 million fibers found was a tree closest to the mine site but ALL trees tested, found Tremolite asbestos in the bark...Some of those loggs went to Thompson Falls mill leaving a trail of deadly exposure, kinda like what the Railroad left from Libby....Oh well.