My Page: Matthew Koehler

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." [more]

GUEST COMMENTARY

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. [more]

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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. [more]

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. [more]

Over the past year I've written a few articles about the US pulp and paper industry figuring out how to use an unintended tax loophole in the 2005 highway bill to basically transfer billions in US taxpayer funds right into their own packets. [more]

Over the past year I've written a few articles about the US pulp and paper industry figuring out how to use an unintended tax loophole in the 2005 highway bill to basically transfer billions in US taxpayer funds right into their own packets. [more]

Yesterday, the General Accounting Office (GAO) – the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress – issued a brand new report titled, "Information on Appeals, Objections, and Litigation Involving Fuel Reduction Activities, Fiscal Years 2006 through 2008." According to the report, 98% of Forest Service fuel reduction projects (and more than 99% of the acreage) were implemented without any litigation. [more]

Note: The following perspective is from Bill Worf. Mr. Worf was born in 1926 on a homestead in Eastern Montana and grew up on a ranch through the Great Depression. When World War II came along, Worf left high school to join the Marines. He fought in the battle of Iwo Jima.

Worf joined the Forest Service in 1950 and spent 12 years in Utah on the Uinta, Ashley and Fishlake National Forests. Worf then became the Supervisor of the Bridger National Forest in Wyoming. When the Wilderness Act passed in 1964, Worf was sent to the Forest Service National Office to head the development of Regulations and Policy for implementation of the Wilderness Act. In 1969, he was assigned to the Regional Office in Missoula as Director for Wilderness, Recreation and Lands, a position he retired from in 1981. He lives in Missoula. [more]

There is no such thing as "catastrophic wildfire" in our forests, ecologically speaking. That is the central conclusion of a report released this week by the John Muir Project (JMP), a non-profit forest research and conservation organization. The report, "The Myth of Catastrophic Wildfire: A New Ecological Paradigm of Forest Health", is a comprehensive synthesis of the scientific evidence regarding wildland fire and its relationship to biodiversity and climate change in western U.S. forests. It stands many previously held assumptions on their heads, including the assumptions that forest fires burn mostly at high intensity (where most trees are killed), and that fires are getting more intense, as well as the assumption that high-intensity fire areas are ecologically damaged or harmed. The report finds that the scientific evidence contradicts these popular notions. [more]