PROTECTS ALL ROADLESS LAND, CREATES 2,300 JOBS

Northern Rockies Wilderness Bill Back in Congress

After many years of failure, will this be the year?

Comment By Mike, 2-11-09

Fantastic news! Lets hope it passes this time.

Comment By Wendy, 2-11-09

Not so fantastic news. Thank God, Grivalja did not become Sec'y of Interior. How about a more balanced approach to resource management? How about the folks who live here and depend on these areas for jobs, recreation, and fuel for the woodstove as well as the soul have a voice, rather than folks like Maloney of NY telling us how to live in the West? When the proponents of NREPA say it will create jobs, they're neglecting to count all the jobs lost by not being able to manage these lands and use them conscientiously for timber, grazing, etc.

Comment By Marion, 2-11-09

Thank you Wendy for that great reply. Enviros are shutting down jobs faster than congress can print money to make more.

Comment By Dave Skinner, 2-11-09

Right, upper East Side Manhattan liberal is lead sponsor. Right, this bill is the product of AWR...how many lawsuits have these champs filed against even the bittiest and most-needed forestry projects, oh like Basin Creek near Butte and the now-dead Clancy Unionville thing first planned in 1997, and held up in court until just this year when NOW IT'S TOO LATE TO MATTER even though the court finally dismissed the complaint...
NREPA is a radical solution, the state already passed a resolution against it last session, SJ 37, which Dave Wanzenreid tried manfully to kill in committee...but it was blasted out onto the floor and passed.
This is Earth First writ.

Comment By steve kelly, 2-11-09

NREPA is national-interest legislation designed to protect national treasures on federal public land. It creates a net increase in jobs. It does not prohibit grazing in designated wilderness areas, explilcitly permitted by the Wilderness Act of 1964. It protects ROADLESS AREAS, which contains small amounts of below-cost, hard-to-access merchantable timber. Congress is printing money as fast as it can to continue to subsidize all the destructive land-use practices worshipped by Dave, Marion and Wendy.

There is no (read SJ 37, it's based upon a lie) private land in the bill.

Compared to deforested moonscapes, the 24 million acres of wilderness protected in NREPA, like any untrammeled forest, could be considered "radical." And if Dave can define "Earth First," I'd be happy to demonstrate there is no evidence to his "writ" claim. There are plenty of cogent right-wing arguments, why hyperventilate?

It's a Montana-made bill, supported by scientists, economists, small businesses and grassroots wilderness advocates from the region and around the county.

PS. If you really want tell New Yorkers to stop sending taxdollars to subsidize Montana's ailing 19th-Century economy, that can perhaps be arranged. Be careful what you wish for.

Comment By Dave Skinner, 2-11-09

Deforested moonscapes? Ya mean like Chippy, Skyland, Fool, Trapper, Fish, Moose, RobertWedgeDorisJockoBiscuitBaldRockandonandon, Steve? Yeah those are MUTCH better than intelligently harvested, fuel-breaked management.
And don't try to disassociate NREPA from it's EF roots, or yourself from yours.
Never mind the "jobs" here are one-time, asset-destruction, option-foreclosing road-rip, to make fake wilderness inappropriately.
Hey, are you gonna run for Congress again against Tyler and Dennis (both of them)?

Comment By Berry, 2-11-09

Regardless of where you stand on NREPA, I just don't see how this bill stands a chance given the political reality. It will be news today, but forgotten tomorrow..again. How many times has it been introduced now, and how many times have western representatives turned their backs on it?

There is a reason too. Nowadays, western congressmen sponsor land management solutions that are hashed out on the ground by diverse interests and stakeholders. Just look at the Owyhee initiative which was introduced by Senator Crapo of Idaho for a good example. Its just one of many wilderness bills across the West that are part of the Omnibus public lands package that will be passing House any day now.

Don't fret too much about NREPA, cuz its not going anywhere.

Comment By Dave Skinner, 2-11-09

Maybe not, Barry, but the simple fact of its introduction is an indicator of the quality of the rocks in that box up on Capitol Hill. And THAT's something to be miffed about, eh?

Comment By stevekelly, 2-11-09

Berry, thanks for not describing Owyhee, or any of the other Pew-funded, quid-pro-quo bills in the Omnibus package, wilderness bills. All these bills are relics of the pre-2006, free-market enviro era. If your crystal ball is working, the decks will soon be cleared for a new round of clean wilderness bills. Ya' never know, the old stakeholder payola formula might just become a political liability. Will "earmarks" and all that "pork" be forgotten too?

Comment By TreeHugger, 2-11-09

I won't bother to comment on this nonsense bill but I am curious to know what Rep. Grivalja meant by his statement..

“A bold plan is needed to preserve and protect what remains of the Lewis and Clark legacy, and this bill would do just that.”

What the hell is the Lewis and clark legacy?

Comment By Greg Beardslee, 2-11-09

Syphilis.

Comment By Larry Kralj, Environmental Rangers!, 2-11-09

Gosh, I think that Wendy is ON to sumthin' here. She's speakin' for the entire west! And by God judgin' from the size of her mouth, SHE REALLY IS! Get OFF it, wendy. You ain't the ONLY one here. You don't represent CRAP exact welfare ranchers and extractive industry. Your schtick gets REAL old. I can see why you're on your high horse. It's the ONLY place that ain't covered in your argument with horse sh*t!

Comment By wes, 2-11-09

Where is this waterfall?

Comment By Mike, 2-11-09

Dave -

Why do you promote a website that relies on national parks while hating the idea of more preservation? You seem to enjoy a fine double standard.

NREPA is a well though out bill tyhat introduces science to the fragemtented landscape of the nothern rockies.

The last eight years have been a time where science was ignored (see the PEanut Factory recall). It's time science is back on the table and priority #1 for our public lands.

Comment By bwaaaah1, 2-12-09

over my dead body!

You losers havent been to any of the areas proposed that includes you Wild Bill.

Radar domes,radio towers in view thats what Wild Bill calls wilderness.

Wild Bill what am I talking about? Have you been there done that?

Comment By Marion, 2-12-09

I thought this is what the omnibus bill was, please expalin the difference. Did they miss shutting the working folks out of some part of the forest in the omnibus bill?

Comment By Doug, 2-12-09

It seems like this issue has drawn some attention, that’s great. It means that Montanans care about their state and the environment. My point is, what’s to protect, the Pine Beetle? What I see in the forest lately is neglect from misguided poorly managed environmental policy. I can’t believe the damage to forest resource like this pine beetle infestation. So the answer is to close it off? Why? so we can protect a dead forest? That makes no sense. Then add insults to injury, instead of someone making a living from the resource we all pool are money together to put the fires out when it burns. What the hell am I missing here and why does this have to be an all or nothing solution?

Comment By Erik Molvar, 2-12-09

Well, I've hiked, and hunted, and fished, and sometimes worked for the Forest Service all over these lands in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho. There are some spectacular wilderness tidbits in these areas, not marred by assorted industrial intrusions; many of them are covered in my book "Wild Wyoming" or my Montana hiking guides.

The reality here is that the areas proposed for wilderness under NREPA are roadless areas with marginal potential for industrial uses - they're too steep, too remote, the timber's too spindly to log, the minerals just aren't there - that's why these areas are still roadless, and haven't been overrun by the timber and mining industries already. Their best use, and strongest contribution to the local economy, is to be wilderness that can be used for tourism, hunting, and fishing.

There's a 2003 study in the scientific journal Population and Environment titled "Environmental Protection, Population Change, and Economic Development in the Rural Western United States" that found that economic growth, average wages, and population growth increased with a greater proportion of public lands that were in a protected status like wilderness. Meanwhile, proportion of unprotected public lands - such as those open to mining and logging - paradoxically had no correlation at all with economic growth or high wages. Don't take my word for it - look it up for yourself!

The bottom line is that for far too long westerners have lived under the myth that industrial use of public lands is good for jobs and economic growth while protection hurts both, when in fact the opposite is true. As a westerner, I'm tired of having our lands fall victim to big industries who strip the land of its resources, carry the profits off to distant states where they have no economic multipliers for the local economy, and then being left with degraded landscapes to clean up. We can do better than that, and it's high time that we move into the 21st Century and claim the right to protect the lands that we love and that support us. NREPA does this, and I'm pleased to support it.

Comment By bearbait, 2-12-09

A 2003 study that wilderness location is about growth and population. The study was made after the "matrix" lands open to logging were also shut down. There was no public land logging on those areas, either, and that is why there was economic pain. And the Wilderness near metropolitan areas was there because it made sense to be close to a large user base. The wealth around the Wilderness areas was already there when Wilderness was passed in Congress in 1964....And, the cities since then have grown towards the Wilderness and public lands, and by their very existence, those lands have driven land prices and home costs sky high because public lands and Wilderness drastically limit its supply in an attractive area made more so by Wilderness as a sales gimmick to people who will probably never visit one. Gee. One of the reasons for the Liar Loan Sub Prime Mortagae Fiasco....Wilderness near significant urban growth areas limits land available and drives up prices. Except, of course, in Clark co, Nevada, Las Vegas, where Senate Leader Reid has been able to manage land trades and get them through Congress so the likes of the Del Webb interests can expand Las Vegas building onto former BLM Wilderness study areas.....homes are cheaper there. Real cheap now that no banks will loan on them. Red lining in Las Vegas...

There is going to be NO, ZERO, economic stability or gain without the use of natural resources. Outsourcing their production has not produced American jobs. We cannot import the building blocks of an economy. We are not Singapore or Hong Kong. Those places of economic power are just the hub of the most destructive resource extraction activities on the planet. Is that what the US is to be? The place where the hummingbird tongue soup is made? The place where ivory is carved? Not going to happen.

This is a country of fat poor people. Think about that. Fat because they don't have to work to live? Fat because they don't have to grow their food? Fat because they are corralled in ghettos by purposeful social policy, the means to move about not provided by transportation debit cards or taxi stamps?

We NEED vigorous, hard work, and lots of it to have a robust economy. Maybe we ought to tax the internet, this media, to the point it would be cheaper to post by using a bicycle messenger to send a message. More, not less, postmen.

The NREPA deal is a pipe dream for radicals who will burn, bomb, and destroy before this is over and settled to THEIR satisfaction. I have experienced monkey wrenched logging equipment, and my son has too, as recently as last year. I remember the burned university labs that did experiments not wanted by radicals. I remember the ceramic spikes designed to maim sawmill workers driven in logs. NREPA is those people's current wet dream.

The first object of it will be to permanently stop continental east west traffic and transportation. The lawsuits and appeals will go on forever, and analysis paralysis will the real situation on the ground. We are talking about interstate pipeline tie ins, electrical transmission expansion, better railroads and highways for moving goods with less energy output. The northern half of the US will be off limits by de facto blockage. The supporters can say all they want, and deny all they want, but we do have a track record of litigation and appeals out there for all to see. If you think that mindset goes away because a bill is passed, you are dead wrong.

The Union Pacific now has their high speed freight rail out of the Port of Los Angeles, and east bound, and along that rail line to the Mississippi river and barges, are sprouting rail siding warehouses to service north-south freeways. The Asian containerized freight is off loaded to be put on trucks to haul it north on the Odd numbered Interstates highways. A true freight transportation grid. NREPA will take out that ability on the northern third of the United States from the ports in Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, all in need of vast upgrades in rail lines. The BNSF and the UP. NREPA crosses the whole of their rail lines, as it does the Interstates that service the northern part of the continental US. Add to that the Hanford and BPA power grid, all the new wind energy production, proposed solar panel ranches, and it becomes very apparent NREPA will be the technology killer for the Intermountain and Pacific West.

The Power in this country emanates from NYC, and spreads to Washington DC, and from there across the country. The west is a colony of the east. Colonial New West perhaps is a better name. This is their new Adirondack Preserve. Transportation and time make it that close by private jet and nominal transportation available today. NYC is as close to Bozeman today as upstate NY was to NYC residents a century ago, in time and convenience. This is not a NREPA for Montana and wildlife. This is a deal for people far away to have like a tschotskie on the mid 18th century Rhode Island made curio shelf. We are their passing fancy. Your livelihood and lifestyle is theirs to use, abuse, and neglect at will. Look at the frigging USFS budget, people. If those East Coast elitists cared in the least for public land care and maintenance, the least they would do would be to make sure the USFS budget was adequate to keep historic building from falling down, and trails cleared of the WFU killed trees and debris torrents. They vote to fund the arts, you know, and that makes them perfect and caring. We do need more elephant turd relgious icons, you know.

You know where most of the USFS timber dollars are generated today? East of the MIssissippi river. A vigorous and robust USFS timber sales program NOT in the West. Of course, their lands are acquired lands, never having been like the Mexican virgin the kid on the corner is selling in Montana as Wilderness. You know, really a virgin. Never used by, say, native peoples, prospectors, trappers, miners, grazers. I have tripped over a picket frigging fence in a Wilderness containing lands purchased by the great "Stimulus Package" of the FDR Depression, the Rural Relocation Act funds..almost fell into the privy hole. The potato patch had become 60 year old hemlock and alder trees. The pasture a tight stand of doug fir reprod. The USFS ranger who bought the place for the Govt told me where to look. He later was the Supervisor on that forest. That untrammeled land still will have contrails in the sky, and if policy is not modified, all that vegetation will get the Melbourne treatment. Hopefully with less loss of human life. Down there, is is being reported today, pleas for tree cutting and underburning on State land were denied to protect "diversity." Show me the "diversity" in totally incinerated forests where most of the human death was from inhaling super heated air. Does diversity provide for those critters and plants with asbestos lungs and leaves?

NREPA is just a blueprint for conflagration across the greatest landscape. A mad man's idea of Eden on Earth. All this one time "repair" of clear cuts. The frigging "repair" is to plant trees, and man always plants too many, and then too many trees become no more than tinder for fire of intensity that kills them all. Wiping your butt on a hoop, that idea.

Connectivity. Birds won't fly through a clear cut due to "fragmentation" but the perfect burn "leaves a mosaic of burn types from total tree removal to light burning through the ground cover and duff." You be messin' with the birds, dude. They can't fly through that "fragmented" area the burn left behind. All the double speak, and situational ethics and answers is confusing to the public and mostly just dishonest salesmanship by people who used to be in the used car or replacement siding business...or should have been.

NREPA is a total physical blocking on a vast area of landscape. The idea that woodland caribou are going to migrate to Utah is insane if only for the wolf population on its out of control upward climb to the apex where they suddenly starve out and die, due to a paucity of prey....or so we would be led to believe...in reality, until the last angus is dead.

Meanwhile, in this white man driven land lockup policy exercise, all sorts of ethnic minorities who neither believe in birth control or abortion are moving to the West and having a large number of children. In towns where a third of the population is Latino, over half of the kids in school are Latino. We are going to have more people who will need more water and resources and acting now to shut them down forever is doubtful public policy for public lands. Never were those lands reserved for recreation or spirit seeking. They were taken off the homestead rolls because people could not make an agrarian living from them. And TR and Pinchot wanted a timber reserve to counter act forest fire loss and cutting of private lands. In the national interest to have a timber reserve, he opined. And protect watersheds for irrigation, and potable water. Those two also made "administrative sites" out all possible hydro power generation sites...dam sites. Ever wonder why the USFS boundary is right where the dam is located? Why it is not in National Park lands? Giff and Teddy had USFS engineers locate and map those sites to be reserved for administrative sites. Lots of ranger stations have been moved to make the new reservoir.

Wilderness is NOT a timber reserve. It is a woodpile waiting for burning by zealots with mad ideas of how man is to survive on the planet. Perhaps too much movie watching when not "saving" the planet. Build the animal crossings over the Interstates and the railroads, now, using stimulus money. If they work, then most of the "fragmentation" talked about will have been mitigated by the free movement north and south the crossings and directing fences will provide. The birds can fly across. The railroads and freeways and dams already did the fish in. Not much you can do to recover extinct salmon, or create structure in a stream with Interstate on one bank and railroad on the other.

Comment By Paul Stephens, 2-12-09

We should have elected Steve Kelly to Congress. He ran twice, at great personal cost. Then, they couldn't say anymore than "no Senator or Representative from the Northern Rockies supports it." If even one supported it, it would easily pass, and maybe the Obama Administration would start to live up to its billing.
Seriously, does anyone subscribing to NewWest think that NREPA is a BAD idea? If so, you're on the wrong website. This is about making the Northern Rockies the Switzerland of Amerika! This is about ecotopia! What's wrong with you people?
Paul Stephens, CasCoGreens, Montana Green Bulletin

Comment By bearbait, 2-12-09

Making the Rockies the Switzerland of Amerika? Ecotopia?

Switzerland's mountains are part of the fabric of their lives. Cog railways to the top of mountains, ski areas with gondolas to the top...little inns and chalets in niches far above timberline. Logging is only prohibited in known avalanche chute areas, where the groves and copses are maintained to protect homes and livings. There is TOTAL riddance of all human activity in the end result of the proposed NREPA...it is a people get the hell out bill and proposal. It is anti human at the landscape level. The value is some ephemeral benefit for "the planet."

Switzerland has people living in their mountains, and valleys. NREPA is the antithesis of that. So to mention Switzerland is a lie, a mind painting to sooth a troubled vision. It will anything BUT the Switzerland of Amerika...and when you have to spell America with this Nazi, White Power inference, you are insulting the very people who you need to support your bill, and whoever you tout for Congress....that cynicism is detrimental to your argument, and, and, a real good reason to determine that you do not tell the truth....how is your peanut business?

Comment By problembear, 2-12-09

bearbait. that is one vigorous robust bit of writing you've got there...you forgot something though. wilderness areas take care of water WAY BETTER than any other designation. ask any scientist. and just like in the old days. water is the limiting factor in the development of the west. we need this bill to keep your vigorous robust machinery you worship from turning what's left of montana into a desert. just sayin'. fires don't ruin watersheds nearly as bad as clear-cuts and roads, and the watershed bounces back from fire much quicker than it does from south facing shelterwood and prescribed cuts with roads. facts is facts.
our water is much safer without messing with these areas. best thing we can do is lock them up and throw away the key to keep your despoilers from drying everything up. seeps, bogs, springs - they all do better in wilderness.

Comment By Mike, 2-12-09

Bearbait -

Your post about Switzerland's mountains explains everything. You do realize that our public lands sytem is the envy of the world? We put to shame Europe because we *don't* crap all over the landscape as much as they do with pointless development.

You really, rally hate the idea of public lands. Especially wild public lands. You constantly champion anything that devalues wildness or fair use by the public.

Comment By Alex Russell, 2-12-09

Whenever the "wilderness" word comes up you can bet all the welfare loving, government hating parasites come out of the woodwork. These guys have never met a government subsidy they did'nt love, government subsidized forest road building for government subsidized logging, government subsidized clean up of their mines, govenment subsidized grazing. These guys have never earned an honest wage in their lives. All they do is cry about about the government and then scream for more government money. Never once have i heard any of these clowns talk about their kids and the future they might inherit. Its all about me, me, me and give me more money. They could'nt care less if their children never learn how to hunt or fish because they want the government to pave the whole forest. The anti-wilderness crowd has done America enough harm, its time for them to go away once and for all.

Comment By Greg Beardslee, 2-12-09

Boy oh boy. Is this a divisive subject or what? Lots of firm opinions here. OK. Two questions.

1. Can we afford the social division that would inevitably result if the NREPA passed?

2. What harm to the wilderness act and the concept of wilderness would occur if the NREPA passed?

Comment By problembear, 2-12-09

greg- good questions
1.small towns near these areas would certainly fracture along the usual fault lines about resource extraction vs resource sustainability. the difference now is the extractive industries are not as powerful or as respected as they once were among citizens or politicians. people now know that the timber beast fed itself burped and walked away without as much as a kiss goodbye when the economy turned sour. and the mining industry defecated on all of us and didn't even bother to wipe the wall of the stall off...and the politicians, well for once they have no fear of the extractive industries now since it pretty much walked out on this state a long time ago and took all it's political play money away...so where does this leave us? some people who still believe that the extractive industries will return to save us (very tiny minority) or the great majority of the people who know that keeping montana unique does not involve seeing how many smokestacks we can put up....it involves saving the best of what montana is all about.....our wilderness. so i think the end result would not fracture this state at all. i think nrepa could actually give people some hope for once in small town montana- at least near these areas.

2.what could it possibly harm to save more wild land in a country which has developed over 95% of itself...

Comment By bearbait, 2-12-09

I know when people start calling me names and breaking out the standard subsidy talk, the asshole with the loose lips has never signed his or her name to a government timber contract, never ponied up the bid deposit, never bought the liability insurance, never had to provide a million dollar performance bond, nor made the payments for the timber, plus the road use fees, the slash disposal deposits, the KnutsonVanderberg deposits for reforestation, hired the road grader to blade the road and the rock replacement required by the contract. If he or she had of, this bullshit about subsidy would evaporate. The money generated by the whole of the timber sale program, at the forest level, was not a money losing deal. It was only when each successive layer of administration laid on their costs at the SO, the RO, and the Chief's Office, that the accounting procedures could put all the miscellaneous costs back to the ranger district as costs of selling that timber. You know the bailout bank bonus payments you liberals whine about? The USFS did the very same deal with timber sale receipts. Every layer of oversight took as much as they could. Just so blathering idiots could rant about subsidies. Figures lie and liars figure. Any car driving down the highway is subsidized, you could say, and provide figures that said so. If the US accountants, and OMB accountants, and the SEC accountants can't see the folly of liar loans and selling hot air as a "collateralized bundled assets" was a bullshit deal, who are you to rail on about USFS subsidizing timber sales. They sure as hell subsidized all of recreation, or hunting, or fishing. You ain't buying a USFS license to hunt or fish. But they are providing the habitat and the feed, offering species protection. Where are you paying for that with a hunting license? When you buy a gun or the bullets, you are subsidizing the bird watchers. When do they pay their fair share? That is a huge business. Selling bird seed to domesticate birds should be taxed. And so should binoculars, spotting scopes and cameras. Freeloaders.

The real deal was that 25% of the gross revenue of the sale stayed in the county of origin because 19th century Congressional wisdom was that no business could withstand 25% of its gross being taken off the top, and that would keep the USFS out of the timber sale, grazing lease, whatever, as a business to build their bureaucracy. Over time, the did that very thing by piling on those "deposits" which were to fund future maintenance of roads, growing timber stands, and overall infra structure. Some charges became Ranger District slush funds. When they quit selling timber, those funds got raided and the money went for new computers or hobos to put in the creek or whatever. None of the thinning money paid by deposits by timber purchasers was ever used to thin the reproduction and the money is gone. It was all a lie. Phoney. False. A fraud. And all supported by the green NGO crowd.

Remember the liberal arts environmental giants talking about the USFS subsidizing road construction. They paid the timber sale purchaser to build the road. It was on USFS property. The only legal way to build the road not using government machinery and employees was to pay someone to build it. So the road was built at a cost determined by USFS engineer appraisers. The timber purchaser got a credit to his timber account at his bid price in mbf of timber that was the USFS appraised price. And, the county got 25% of the road cost applied to their account because the payment was with timber, which they were entitled to 25% of the value of......So Congress, with the urging, lobbying and help of the Sierra Club, et al, convinced Congress that the USFS could not pay to have a road built. The purchaser had to build the road with HIS money. A road had to be built to get to the timber. So the purchaser built the road, and that cost was a part of his timber appraisal. Consequently, now no longer "subsidized" by the Government, he bid less for the timber. The USFS and the county got less money. 25% of the cost of building the road USED to go to the county. Now the purchaser gets it as the purchaser lowers his bid by the road cost. That now makes the bid lower, and all those levels of administration have to take a larger part of a lesser whole, or just less. Hey, it was the USFS OVERHEAD that was being subsidized. Now you taxpayers can pay the whole bill to run the USFS. Suckers. The NGOs screwed you, Joe Sixpack, and their minions tell you what a good job they do for you. Check your pocket book because it is being picked. Now more than ever.

So that load of logs went down the road, having employed a half dozen loggers, and people who serviced logging accounts at the lawyers, the accountants, insurance and bonding sellers, the parts shop, the tire shop, the fabricator shop, the fuel seller, the machinery dealer, the rigging dealer. The load of logs got to the mill and 60 other people worked, and their products paid the bills at the businesses that serviced the sawmills, the truckers and rail roads that hauled the products away. And all the wages were spent in town, the equipment taxed, the inventory taxed, all to support schools and local government. The load of logs was supporting a lot of people, as did the one behind it and the one behind that one. A working economy. Family wage jobs. The resource was trees that could grow back on the very same land they were cut on. And have. Now they are a fire danger, excess forest fuels, a liability and a budget drain for fire protection and response. And the few left in town don't care. They don't have a dog in the fight. Just keep your damned fire out of our sky, our watershed, our eyes, and off our property.

So the Small Business Administration got tagged by Congress to provide minority jobs. The program aimed at women and people of color. On public lands, the African Americans didn't become contractors, nor did women. Mexicans did. Legal and illegal aliens got the SBA set aside reforestation work, and had audited payrolls so they had to pay a government minimum mandated wage for each type of work. In short time, all the SBA title 8(a) contractors were Mexicans with no anglos working for them, and nobody that did not speak spanish. The Mexican reforestation business is almost a criminal industry. They did not bid some work and just turned in a bid that was almost automatically accepted because to not accept it would be to open up to racist accusations. Now we have a second economy working off the Public Lands, the reforestation labor contractor. Lots of people and lots of trees planted. And the end of logging cut that off, and now those people are working when they can at any job. Welfare in the US pays better than a good job in Mexico. And if you have more children, it pays even better. Now those trees need thinning but that involves cutting a tree so all that is appealed and litigated, and mostly stopped. The Mexicans found other work, and gee, some now are back in the forests growing dope, and none of their money every stays in the community. A quarter or more of it goes to Mexico to support family. The most egregious use of alien labor I ever witnessed was the Libby cleanup of asbestos done by SBA contract with Mexicans from far away working while the locals wheezed, starved, and died, with no work because not only was the pearlite business gone, also gone away were the plywood and sawmills. The cleanup was done by people from far away. The Govt was there to help you....in a pig's ass.

So now without trees, and the local rural economies now non existent outside the local ag and tourist business, the towns diminished and then the ranger stations began closing, and the good year around government jobs left. The local schools have fewer kids, and less money per kid, and schools close and towns fold around themselves into nothing after the school closes. No center of community left. And Wilderness will never replace that. Wilderness designation for a thousand miles will not help rural areas. It will not help some future generation unless they are academics interested in ghost towns or are fire recovery students. I say that there will be no replacement, because there were lots of Greenie wishes like "other forest products sales"as in mushrooms and ferns, fir boughs and owl puke pellets. How about meth and suicide, social welfare weekly visits by social workers, auctioneers, and the lucky towns have a doctor or dentist who makes bi-monthly visits if there is money in the State budget.

All the promise about a better tomorrow turned out to be a bitter tomorrow for hundreds of small communities and tens of thousands of people who lost jobs, dignity, and more, and most have left or died. People in big cities bitch about State school support for rural areas diluting the money available for inner city problems and making it harder to have the best of programs in the wealthy suburbs. No shit. Screw people over and over, and the karma comes to bite you on the ass, and you don't like it. "I feel your pain." But you don't live it, asshole. You haven't lived it, and you don't live it. Recession? There are lots of people who can't tell the difference. The good times were taken from them long ago.

You moved to the West with money from elsewhere? That is the Montana story. Those people didn't move here to build a home in the Wilderness. They moved for the clean air and the view, to get away from the ethnic tension of urban areas, and the crime, and now the smoke and pernicious fog of forest fire fouls the summer sky for weeks at a time. That is roadless and wilderness areas improving your lives by fire. Or so the story goes. It is just green house gases killing the earth unless you give your money to Al Gore's Carbon Credits empty shirt. Our economy is in the tank because financial giants were selling options and puts on bundled hot air and piss poor promises. Nothing that could feed a pig or a poor kid, or make someone healthy or clear the water. They were selling bundled papers that contained the hope that mortgage indentured home slaves could make their payments until the home value escalated some more. It didn't. $38 trillion dollars of that hot air has encircled the earth, and that is what global warming is all about. Hot air from Wall Street, Fleet Street. Will o' the wisp financial deals based on finding the pea under the walnut shell. And that is NREPA. The substance is a fart to be captured with a lost Japanese gillnet recovered by Greenpeace and shown to the world as the latest in fine fashion and the vehicle for everlasting peace and species survival. NNNNREPA another one off, dude.

I guess I wouldn't be so distressed about the NREPA if I didn't know that the most probable end result would be the biggest forest fire of the ages. When you start at the Canadian border and go to the south end of Hells Canyon and further, in a one size fits all Big Dubbya Wilderness, surrounded by litigating lawyers riding herd on the hoi poloi, the agencies, inflicting their legalese and cats o' nine lawsuits on the masses, you know the mad ones will want to WFU the whole of it just because they can. Just because there is no base or power or agency or supporter to sway the policy away from total denial of the human existence on this planet, ever, on that landscape. No Nez Perce, no Shonshone, Cayuse, Flathead peoples. By Wilderness designation, their history is erased by official document. People write science fiction horror stories about stuff like this and here we are talking about it like it should happen yesterday. Sorry. Not enough public discussion yet, or in the foreseeable future. And, when the NREPA supporters, the most zealous, are dead and gone, will it make a difference is how the Earth rotates on a moving axis? Will it be a balm to the climate or just another speck of human insanity purported to be of vast importance to the world? WE can't protect the roadless we now have, let alone the existing wilderness. How will it help to create more legal boundaries around land? If I were to talk to someone living her 500 years ago, and we both understood the ramifications of land ownership and boundaries and Wilderness, do you think there would be consensus to have Wilderness at all? The very designation, the lines on the map, are the whole of the problem and the downfall of ecosystem management. Metes and bounds have nothing to do with the sun rising in the east or water running down hill, or warm air rising. Birds flying. Bears walking. All lines do is complicate and obfuscate the process of humans living on this planet. It is what wars are about, and here we go making another place to fight over. Can't leave well enough alone. Let's invade or repel. do something.

Yep, it is those subsidized NYC lawyers, the subsidized Wall Street bankers, the subsidized school kids, who are the problem. And if you looked real close at yourself, you would find that your definition of subsidized applies to you, also. You are subsidized by the ultra wealthy. It is they who are paying the bills of government. If they ever decide to quit paying taxes we are all up a creek....way up. Too far up. And by the way, I don't want to subsidize the healthy and strong with more Wilderness in which to wander. Not fair to those who have been subsidized at the table and are too fat to use the Wilderness.

Comment By bearbait, 2-12-09

Only 5% of the land base of the US is undeveloped? Smoking dope can do that to you. By what measure do we come up with these ridiculous numbers? Gather in Alaska and Hawaii, the last two states. Add all the acres or square miles of US landbase. Add in all the roadless----and do that with a minimum you want to live with forever----can a square mile of land, a section, not have a road or a house or a fence, not be in public ownership, and be called "developed"? 5% is not the number. That is a wrong number, and not the truth. Go seek the truth. Find out. Use Google map. Or Google Earth. The 5% or 95% numbers are false. Just because Congress has not declared it Wilderness does not mean the land is any more developed, developed at all, or not protected. Bad number.

Comment By problembear, 2-12-09

you and your kind are a dying breed bearbait...a dead argument from a dead industry apologist...a tiny minority shrinking with each day. nobody believes the greedheads anymore. writing more and more empty words to bore the living shit out of us will not change that. nobody believes you guys anymore. your industry friends have gorged themselves and left nothing but crap we have to clean up. wilderness sells itself to most people. industry flaks like yourself have lied to the public long enough. the majority of the public in this country don't believe the same old song and dance from you guys anymore. we want change and it is happening...this bill would change things for real and for good for montana. now slink back to your rich man mansion in oregon and leave us poor montanans to settle this once and for all before you become real bear bait.

Comment By Mike, 2-13-09

Bearbait -

Why hasn't "the biggest fire of all time" already occured on proposed NREPA lands? They aren't developed and have never been. NREPA would just add another level of protection.

Your thoughts are unfocused and your logic scattered.

Comment By steve kelly, 2-13-09

Something I've experienced with some consistency over the years is the notion that wilderness bills, or advocates of wilderness protection, "make" or "create" wilderness. To most, it seems simple truth that undeveloped public land is by definition wilderness. Is wilderness damned because it cannot be constructed, engineered or invented? Or because it's irreplaceable? Some species of fish and wildlife don't seem to be able to live without it. Our choices are: destroy what's left, or protect it. So, what's the real harm leaving a small amount of wilderness intact to compare to man's accomplishments?

Comment By bearbait, 2-13-09

Mike: my unfocused and illogical concern is that Wilderness does not protect the asset. It ties it up in a legal knot that inevitably ends with unfought fires that leave the wilderness as conflagrations, and the public servant attitude is "ho hum."

Those pristine areas without wilderness designation ("protection" is an oxymoron) seem to be there because of past fire fighting efforts have limited the extent and scope of past fires.

Fuel levels do increase because trees grow every year, even in droughts, albeit slower. And growing trees crowd less vigorous trees which die and become dry fuels in high summer. I see nothing about wilderness protection that will have set fire in spring or ahead of the first big winter storms, to reduce fuels in a more benign way. Aboriginals did that for thousands of year, and yes, even here as well as in Australia. The fire stick is a tool for landscape management. Random arson and lightning un-fought is poor land management practice under any set of rules. And wilderness is no more than a land management option with rules.

I have a real and logical concern with NREPA being an arterial blockage in transport of people, goods, and services between the coasts. It is a further disconnect of West Coast ports to Asia for export and import because NREPA will freeze the transportation systems at current capabilities. We do have to plan for many more people if immigration is not slowed, and I see no impetus of the party in power to do that now, and to prevent them from impeding immigration reform if they are in minority status. Add to that the coming implosion in California due to non-sustainable growth, social unrest, and economic distress, and you know a portion of that population is going north or east. West is not an option. Nor is south.

My illogical mind says we need to know sooner than later if we can move wild animals on their free will over highways and railroads with over and under passes with fencing funneling them to that end. Start now, and see if it will work. If it does not, NREPA has to be re-examined as to its goal of uninterrupted habitat pre-columbian.

My scattered logic nowhere declares or determines a need to log one tree. All I say is that WFU is a piss poor way to reduce fuels. It is akin to buying lottery tickets to feed your family. But, even though government supports and needs delusional people to buy those tickets so they might buy cigarettes to fund schools with their winnings, on the whole, the idea is poor public policy and so is present Federal land manager fire policy. It is about money and budgets and cheap sons a bitches in Congress from the East coast majority who want their cake, their green voters, and want to eat it all in some slum pumping funding for people who now find generationally not working is a nice comfortable lifestyle. Or poor choice wars using up our rural National Guardsmen and their families like disposable diapers, those people in the Guard because the income allowed them to pay their bills in a use restricted landscape that provided nothing, It now appears you can never quit or retire because they "stop loss" you into tour after tour.

Bill Clinton provided us with the political USFS leadership, the Jaba the Hutt Chief's office and money grubbing top management bureaucracy that now funds their land management responsibility with trickle down funding. The whole of the deal is dysfunctional and thinking the USFS can provide leadership and expertise on any subject with precise and logical thinking ended with RIF program after RIF program, and all the good minds, mountains of experience, are now gone. Even to contract "stimulus" work, the USFS is examining how to get retired Outfit people to contract back the work. Some kinda way to get people back to work: bring retired govt. employees back to their old jobs.

But, if I don't bring up my point of view, is the discussion better off? Will the process only work if you, Mike, are the "decider?"

All I want is a great national discussion about this size of project. Having it snuck through in the night by political force can happen, the Obama Mandate. This is a "forever" deal. Wilderness forever. No going back. No changes. No timeouts, or recounts where the ballot box can be stuffed. This is not Florida or Minnesota local deal. And there will be unintended consequences. Not all good. And we need to have the whole of the deal discussed by other than than zealots pushing for it because they are the true believers. Because they have seen the light. Because they know the ways of Gaia. And this ain't Switzerland or Kazakhstan, where wilderness is part of the used landscape.

Comment By steve kelly, 2-13-09

Bearbait,

Wilderness isn't something you need to worry about so much. It pretty much manages itself, takes nothing from you, and is the (fewer feds, lower taxes) least-cost of all public lands to manage. If it hasn't already made your life less bountiful, designation by Congress will have no detectable influence. Try to have a little faith in the natural processes upon which we all depend.

Comment By Marion, 2-13-09

I agree Steve the wilderness could take care of itself...IF we keep the hikers out too. Then they wouldn't be suing the ground near streams etc for bathroom, spreading weeds on their hiking boots, scaring wildlife, leaving fires burning, trash on the ground, etc. Are you willing for wilderness to be off limits to you too?

Comment By steve kelly, 2-13-09

Marion,

You really had me going with: "....suing the ground near streams etc for bathroom..." I've been involved in a fair amount of federal litigation, but that threw me for a moment. What is and isn't "off limits" really isn't up to me. I don't particularly believe in perfection, so I'll stick with the definition Congress provides in the Wilderness Act. Fair enough? Let's pass NREPA first, we can sweat the small stuff later.

Comment By problembear, 2-13-09

wilderness ain't for everybody, marion. i realize that. i also feel sorry for this tiny minority of people who are incapable of realizing it's importance to our country, both in terms of resource sustainability and in terms of our spirit as a nation. what i will not tolerate however is a tiny minority trying to prevent the majority of americans who want more wilderness from enacting an important bill like nrepa. our children's children deserve at least some respite from the rest of the country they are inheriting. it seems the least we can do to at least not mess these lands up for their sake.

Comment By Dave Skinner, 2-13-09

Doesn't cost?
What about Fool Creek and Ahorn? And what was the big one back in the 1980s that burnt clear across the mountains in one night after being "watched" for a month. Let those things stew in "wilderness" and surprise, SURPRISE they end up in the frontcountry and then the poor folks in the way get blamed. Give me a break.
NREPA's a sham, a fireside Earth First fantasy that has to be sponsored by someone who doesn't know any better. Put Carolyn Moloney alone in the wilderness for a night and see what happens.

Comment By Tom Klumker, 2-14-09

This proposed bill is right out of the play book of The Wildlands Project. Earth Firster Dave Foreman and deep ecologist Dr. Reed Noss enginered this bill (NREPA) or so it seems. Corridor areas for unrestricted wildlife movement between all of these wilderness areas is alone a huge land grab and is actively being pursued by these ecoists by buying up, stealing, lying cheating or whatever it takes to acquire these private holdings to make these so called corridors. We thought they were crazy a few years ago No more! They are doing just what they told us they were tryihng to do. They have all of the Sky Islands (wilderness areas) off limits to all humans, the corridor areas with only limited human use and move all of the rural people into the major cities.

The NREPA is just a part of the plan. The Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 S.22 is a scary bill, and is being moved through congress without debate by Pelosi and Reid.

The whose USof A is mapped out by the Wildlands Project and just doesn't include the NW states.

Bearbait, right on! I wish the proponents of this move would very carefully read and digest what you have written It is not only the timber industry but the grazing industry and the mining industry that continually get the bad press and rap by the elitists and so called new age westerners.

Yes we may be out voted but that doesn't deter our resolve and fight to see some common sense brought into this legislation.

Did any of you read this whole bill? Go back up to the top and hit the little button. My God! This bill is scary. But I and Marion and bearbait and Skinner, what do we know?

Oh and some advocate above, for this massive land grab said that wilderness areas protected and created better and cleaner water and so forth. Maybe he needs to come down to the Gila Wilderness the first designated Wilderness area (1924) and take a look. The fuel buildup, the thick duff and the dense stands of timber, or the ones that haven't burned already and so damn hot that it will be centuries before they even begin to recover, has and I repeat has dried up the spring and streams that used to run year round according to the old timers. The Diamond fire in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness, adjacent to the Gila Wilderness, the Mogollon Baldy fire and the Cub Mountain fires within the Gila Wilderness burned hot, baby hot and scorched the earth. Then we had tremendous erosion and permanent scaring of the landscape in this so called pristine environment. Yeah the water really is better coming from the wilderness! Not!

These wilderness areas were ok until they became protected and the USFS started fighting every fire that burned. Go back up and read bearbaits take on this. For Christ sakes, what is so hard to understand that there are many drawbacks to wilderness designation.

I am qualifying my remarks by stating that I am not anti-wilderness. I think we need to protect these great national treasures, but needs to be done differently than in the past but not put off limits to us humans. Also much of the defacto-wilderness areas this bill has are very extreme. This will lock up public access to much of the 24 millions acres proposed. Or that is the goal of Foreman, Noss and company. But then again they equate humans as being no better that a cat or a rat or a snail, except that humans are much worse and a scourge on the mother earth and the alter of you eco-ist elitists.

Comment By the real mike, 2-14-09

There are no drawbacks to wilderness designation; NREPA will build a strong base for a better northern rockies, a northern rockies that supports a long-term sustainable economy.

The situations that you describe are much different than in the areas covered by NREPA. I have been through most of the areas that you mention, both before those fires and after, and the natural processes in those areas were thrown out of balance long ago. Fine fuels that support ground fires were removed, in several cases by excessive grazing as far back as the period Catron was settled by unreconstructed confederates after the Civil War. Then, without those finer fuels, cooler normal fires did not burn out the smaller trees and brush in a normal manner and, as smaller trees and brush took over, they soaked up the water and shaded out the proper regeneration of those finer ground fuels in a self-reinforcing spiral until a much denser small tree and brush fuel loading was achieved and the whole area blew out. This spiral does not normally develop in wilderness areas. It is spawned by disturbance processes, often in the wake of overgrazing or overly large clearcuts, and will not be perpetuated in the Aldo or Gila once the natural cycle can reinstitute itself. Again, the areas covered by NREPA are mostly much different due to their different histories, moisture regimes, and rate of regrowth in response to disturbance. Your comments aren't credible as examples against a northern rockies wilderness proposal.

...and the proper term is "impugn," not "impune," which is a completely different archaic word meaning something else. The proper way to state the question would have been to ask whether I have "the gall to impugn (not impune) your intelligence and integrity" and it's primarily your overconfidence in the face of the limits of your actual knowledge that I'm impugning. You need to speak to those topics about which you have genuine knowledge. Exaggerated expertise is a common problem in you folks down in Catron.

Comment By jedediah Redman, 2-14-09

I'm hoping for a bill which will exclude mechanized entry and firearms--and prohibit tree farming.

Comment By problembear, 2-14-09

hunting and fishing are both allowed in wilderness. you just have to hike in or use horses. bicycles are not.

Comment By steve kelly, 2-14-09

Tom,

Yes, the NREPA is modeled upon principles of conservation biology (Noss et al.). Applied, these principles have been integrated with economic principles (Power et al.) that recognize the importance of healthy, functioning terrestrial and aquatic (Frissell, Rieman et al.) ecosystems. The concepts are appropriated, the bill is original and very much Montana-made.

PS. The Earth First! label is inaccurate, even though you apparently think it useful to scare away any curious person that might find the science or the bill attractive. Not scary. Your opinion is yours alone unless you care to provide any proof that EF! really exists. Then, if you'd be so kind, how about a 2009 link to THIS BILL introduced in the 111th Congress.

Comment By bearbait, 2-14-09

real Mike: you dodged my question: How will a big W wilderness designation provide for repair, maintenance, and expansion of needed commercial arteries through this pretentious block of landscape? Isn't the end game here an unblocked wilderness from Canada to Mexico? And my question is how we link the West and East coasts in state of the art transportation?

Communications satellites collide and thousands of pieces of ultra high speed debris becomes tiny missiles to destroy working space platforms for communication. Will we need line of sight communication towers in the future on earth? Can you get through this blocking land with that or buried fiber optic lines?

Rail roads exist, and perhaps, there will be a time to have coast to coast high speed rail for both freight and people. Can the appropriate rights of way be created and used or will NREPA be the blocker, the Luddite Land Use Law?

And there are high tension electrical grids in need of expansion, pipelines to lay, and all I can envision is NREPA being a feeding frenzy for lawyers in a very expensive legal and political fight to do the carbon friendly stuff we need to do according to the fellow travelers of the NREPA crowd. I have never seen the ESA have any bit of elasticity like our Constitution has. ESA is now not good law as it has not been able to address changes in technology and climate and other forces in a dynamic world. I can see none of that ability to change with the needs of the US people in the Wilderness Act, either....

In that light, without a long term, proper and open discussion of all the possible outcomes and needs in the long term for public lands in this corridor, it would seem quite premature to go about creating something that could turn out to be a monster down the road. WFU is one such problem. Aboriginal landscape management process which created the forests found by Europeans and others, are not possible within the current framework of the Wilderness Act. And all the ongoing research that is documenting how and why pre-Columbian peoples lived on this land, and where, is neither relevant or germane to the Wilderness Act, and cannot be used to change the tied hands by law situation a Wilderness is after designation. At least in roadless areas, which I do not believe should be exploited for resource extraction, you can use new information to proactively manage the land with other means. I don't think logging roads are needed or wanted, but why wouldn't removing excess fiber by helicopter be a good deal and a viable alternative to fire? And why can't planed plantations from the past be thinned enough to remove fuels if there is already a road there?

The finality of the Wilderness designation, done without years of serious debate and discovery, is not good public policy. That is where the NREPA deal is. Shoving it up the collective American ass is also not good public policy, whether it be "stimulus" or Wilderness. And if that is Pelosi Politics, and it appears that way now, the partisanship and recriminations process will never cease. The problem with Bush was, and is, concerns actions that did not have open and public hearings and exposure. If Obama's "change" and "openness" (which, by the way, was the 1976 mantra of Deng Xiaoping's post Mao regime in China--gaige {change} and kaifang {openness}), are to be believed and practiced, Obama could not in good faith sign a NREPA bill that had not been thoroughly and publicly been debated, especially in the West where it would have the immediate and permanent impacts. People in Baltimore (where the Mrs. Speaker's family politics reign) feel few impacts from New West Wilderness decisions. They are looking for more aid for the generationally unemployed and will not support anything that might take a dime from social services. "Change" is for more of it in their pockets, and "openness" is bookkeeping that tells them how much the local pols are stripping from their money stream. All I am advocating for is a vigorous national discussion when you start designating people free areas larger than some states, and some states added together. There will be no Senator NREPA or Congressman from the area that as a state without people, would garner at least one member of the House of Representatives. We don't and are not supposed to have, parallel governments in these United States. Having the Earth Firsters claiming representation for more landscape than Joe Biden once had is not good public policy. Even if it is the reality today.

Comment By problembear, 2-14-09

obfuscation, paranoid delusions, futuristic science fiction. yawn. is that all you got bearbait? kind of pathetic, and again, so wordy. any links for the gabble you are spewing out? or are we supposed to just pick this up telepathically through the right wing zealot tin foil parabola?

wilderness just is. to most of U.S. that is enough to defend it.

tiny minorities like yours do not speak for the majority in this country. in fact, the more you write, the crazier and the tinier your minority gets...

Comment By Paul Stephens, 2-14-09

I'm sure no one's going to get this far to read it, but my comparison of the Northern Rockies to Switzerland was intended to be politically, culturally, and intellectually (and economically - Switzerland is both the richest and most democratic country in the world).
It is also quite densely populated, considering its terrain. Montana is the size of re-united Germany, or 4/5 the size of France, with less than 2% of their populations. Switzerland has 7.6 million people on 15,000 sqmiles - nearly 8 times our population in 1/10 the area. No, they're not going to have much room for wilderness. We do.
Most of the comments are well-taken. Like most conservation legislation, NREPA is profoundly CONSERVATIVE, i.e., trying to maintain the status quo against the assaults of predatory interests. And it is a fundamental, spiritual "deep ecology" issue. Does anyone have the "right" to despoil the earth - especially at this late date when virtually everything is already ruined or despoiled. No Montana voter or politician should have anything but good things to say in support of NREPA. It is "environmental wisdom" writ large, no matter how one makes her living or what one's lifestyle might be.

Comment By the real mike, 2-14-09

Dearest "bearbait,"

It's really not that I "dodge" your questions; it's just that your logic is so inconsistent and confused and, probably because you're an old ex-logger, you have such an intractable axe to grind (sorry about the pun) on one side of the argument. Under these circumstances, uncoiling your stuff in order to respond to you costs so much in time and energy and yields so little probability that any resulting point will have any clear or beneficial outcome that I just leave your stuff alone.

For example, just looking at your latest posting, I don't really know how to respond to your fear that unbroken wilderness will block commerce between the East and West Coasts. Do you truly think that will be a problem? It really won't and the notion truly is naive to the point of being childlike; but, boy, wouldn't it be a hoot! My grass-fed local beef would be worth a fortune!

Just skimming down, you state that the "ESA is now not good law as it has not been able to address changes in technology and climate and other forces in a dynamic world." Admittedly, the ESA, along with the Wilderness Act, were intended to protect species from those kinds of forces and changes and I join you in wishing both that the ESA was much stronger and much more aggressively enforced and that more land were forcefully protected under the Wilderness Act; but, they are the best things we have going right now. Certainly neither development nor uncontrolled resource exploitation are better options for species preservation.

If your viewpoint were more honest and you didn't always have that intractable axe to grind in the background, waiting to emerge as a "gotcha," it might be worth talking to you when you say that you "don't think logging roads are needed or wanted" and ask "why wouldn't removing excess fiber by helicopter be a good deal and a viable alternative to fire?" Unfortunately, there is no way to interact with you without that axe being there; but, I'll try just once for conversations sake. The truth is, of course, 1) that some things live off that "excess fiber" as it naturally decomposes, 2) that, even when it burns, that "excess fiber" ends up supporting things that specialize in naturally colonizing burned areas, 3) that the "excess fiber" is already being pretty constantly removed from the vast majority of North America and leaving a little won't hurt, and 4) helicopter logging has an impact and is a disturbance process. Now, did my response make any difference in your thinking?

Finally, again with regard to your having that intractable axe to grind, you go on at length about NREPA being "premature," about the need for "years of serious debate and discovery" before enacting NREPA, and about how NREPA is being shoved "up the collective American ass." Do you realize that we have been talking about NREPA for the past two decades and that it has been introduced and debated numerous times and in numerous forms since 1993, all accompanied by a truly revolutionary volume of scientific "discovery" by a literal army of the best scientists in the world? Have you not had the time to pay attention? Were you and your friends so cautious about holding "years of serious debate" about the Bush tax cuts, banking deregulation, subprime loans, allowing snowmobiles into Yellowstone, genetically modified crops, or the invasion of Iraq? I wish you had been!

Look, "bearbait," look at how much time I spent on just this response to you and what was the benefit? You truly are not objectively studying the topic. You really do not want to see the truth. You're just bored and taking some time to sharpen your axe. As a result, you really do not have any credibility on this topic or, in my experience, on any other topic, ever. Unless I'm in a foul mood and need to vent, it just doesn't make any sense to try to interact with you.

Comment By problembear, 2-14-09

bearbait is of a dying breed of timber beast...a quaint reminder of a bygone era and a species whose philosophy is as doomed on modern planet earth as the pterodactyls of the jurassic. with each newborn infant comes new generations of humans who realize their very survival depends on holding the line on any more resource destruction. wilderness is increasingly more popular with each passing generation. the problem is no one is creating more wilderness. that is why we so vehemently defend it.

there are many fine people who believe as bear-bait does. they are not usually evil. they think the same old things that used to work will still work. but times have changed. most of us have moved on and realize we need to do things differently if we have any hope of survival. wilderness - as much of it as we can save - plays a huge part in the hope for future generations. there are many other issues but wilderness is the foundation and the fountain head of any meaningful path toward survival.

folks like bear-bait are really too much of a minority to take seriously anymore. they are slowly sinking into the tarpits of their old worn out arguments and becoming increasingly irrelevant anymore. like i say, with each passing generation the inevitable realization that we need to find a new way to do everything becomes more and more apparent.

Comment By Dave Skinner, 2-14-09

PB,
That was pathetic. So you are SO smart as to know what parts of history to ignore? What happens if the parts of history you ignore are the parts you should have paid attention to? And when you and other like you finally figure it out, have you ever considered it might be too late to matter?
Apparently not. Nice hubris, dude.

Comment By problembear, 2-14-09

like i said dave. most of us are moving on with change. if you want to keep trying to flap those leathery wings of yours go ahead. some of us realize it is time to adapt or die....

Comment By Tom Klumker, 2-15-09

Steve Kelly,

No one said Earth First exists any longer, just that Dave Foreman was the originator and then after being convicted as being part and parcel of the eco-bombing on a power transmission system in Az. and getting a slight slap on the hand he went on to form the Wildlands Project. He has always been in and out of the Wilderness Society. I think he was even on the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club.

The NERPA is 149 pages and the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 (S.22), (you will have to google as I can't link it) is 571 pages long.

Nancy Pelosi has signaled her intention to bring this package (S.22) under the so-called "Suspension Calender", thereby side-stepping the usual hearing and legislative approval process. There are some worthy provision in S. 22 that are supportable on their individual merits. However the bulk packaging of dozens of pieces of legislation ha resulted in a flawed product. The cost of $10 billion, is the total projected cost to the federal govt. on enacting S.22 It fundamentally changes the management criteris by which BLM lands are evaluated for multiple use purposes and also shield new land withdrawals or designations that would not pass Congress on their own merits.

There is alteration in the long standing multiple use management philosophy of the BLM by elevating the purposes to "conserve, protect, restore" above other purposes for National Landscape Conservation System units. The term "values" is used twice in the legislation and it is un-defined. When the National Park Service defined "values" they included such things as viewsheds, soundscapes, and smells. By using such expansive concepts, opponents of multi-use can impose their agenda beyond the boundaries of designated conservation areas and eliminate or restrict economic and recreational access to vast landscape wide areas.

"the real mike"

Quite to the contrary, I do have considerable experience in northern eco regimens namely 30 years in NW Colorado in the Flattops and the Gore Range.

Your are right the Gila is different, but yet it has much in common with northern forested regimens. Our alpine or conifer zone in the 9,000 to 11,000 ft elevations have many similarities. The most catestrophic fuel buildup is in these areas and in particular on the steep north slopes where little to virtually no grazing ever took place. The huge jungle of spruce, fir, and aspen in these areas are a huge concern for the fire people within the Gila National Forest. The Mogollon Baldy Fire and Cub Mtn fires started in these forest regimens and we saw devastating results. These areas are also as documented by many old-timers as being the principle cause of the drying up of the springs and streams coming out directly under these monolithic stands of overgrowth.

Almost in entirety the Flattops Region nof NW Colorado was devastated by beetles in the early 1940's. This was a huge swath of destruction that still exists today, only after 50 or 60 years you are starting to see a green-up of new stands of spruce growing back up through the tangled mass of beatle killed trees. My father could still remember when as a young man he could walk through these virgin forests with a very open and pleasing canopy. That was changed perhaps for many centuries and to this day you can hardly walk anywhere in the Flattops without climbing over this mass of jumbled logs. But this is is also what makes the Flattops Wilderness area still agreat place to visit and partly because of theis unique happening.

With the two pieces of legislation mentioned above I predict that we will see a new Department of Wilderness in the US Government. How else will all of these relatively small parcels of new wilderness areas be managed, signed, patrolled and etc?

I can see it now! The new Wilderness Czar our old buddy and Clinton holdover Bruce Babbitt, becoming the new Secretary of Wilderness. Of course master Harry Reid will railroad that nomination through the same way he and Babbitt did their big land swaps bordering the city of Las Vegas.

I predict Dave Foreman will be elevated to some high position in this new bureaucratic nightmare, perhaps as Corridor Manager.

I see it now, Michael Robinson, Cheif Wilderness Wolf Expert. Boy won't that be just fine and dandy!

Oh and not to forget we will have one of the New West Bloggers, our very own "jedadiah redman" as the new Wilderness Department "Law Enforcement Agency Guy" and by god they will do it without guns!

Comment By the real mike, 2-15-09

Tom, we usually disagree; but, this time, your predictions about a new Department of Wilderness sound delightful! It sure wouldn't be very efficient; office procedures might look downright comical, especially down at that law enforcement level; but, it truly would yield some generally unexpected benefits, even for you.

Comment By Greg Beardslee, 2-15-09

Well, I'm kinda disappointed that no one could answer my questions. I thought they were well framed and worthy of fair debate. Fair debate seems in short supply regarding this subject.

My questions again.
1. Can we afford the social division that would inevitably result if the NREPA passed? My thoughts about this is probably no. This is a very divisive bill with polarizing effects. It is too large to properly review. I am not going to debate the merits or faults of the NREPA or wilderness. I simply think that society will be poorer because of the way people will be at odds for generations.

2. What harm to the wilderness act and the concept of wilderness would occur if the NREPA passed? I think the NREPA, by being huge and overreaching in scope, will likely trigger a reexamination of the wilderness act. I know for sure it is overreaching because of the areas that I am familiar with. I assume that much of the rest of it reaches too far as well. Sorry, but if it ever goes through, because of the problems created, I think that wilderness will be scrutinized. Maybe even diluted or revoked in places.

Does it have a realistic chance of passing? I'm just not sure.

this whole forum has very poor credibility because most of the people posting won't use their names. Because of this reluctance, I feel that most of your opinions are moot.

Comment By bearbait, 2-15-09

real Mike: John Thomas Jr. "bear bait" I am called that by friends because I was cajoled into getting way to close to a cinnamon bear one afternoon in fall, that was really interested whatever it was eating. Way too close. Camera thing.

I guess I have not been real keen on putting my name out there because the zealots of the left are way too involved emotionally in their beliefs, and you start getting the weirdos who think that arson and monkey wrenching are sanctioned by the higher powers of Gaia or whoever. You have never read a threat from me on any blog or thread. I do ask questions, and I do question some opinions and purported facts. I thought that was the objective.

I was at a town hall meeting this afternoon put on by Sen. Ron Wyden, down the street. My town is 40% Latino. Not one at that meeting. In fact, most of the people there were Democrat stalwarts from other towns in the county. I have never heard so much whining since I wouldn't let the dog out to chase a squirrel in the bird feeder. Health care, stimulus, punishing Bush, education and the lack of money, all the entitlement whines from a geriatric white middle class group retired from the university in the adjacent town. There was one Asian woman and a retired prof from India. Mostly minor league politicos from around the county paying their dues as supplicants to their leader. Wyden does, to his credit, draw a line. He told a woman who had not paid a bill of a couple of hundred dollars, that ended up costing her close to ten thousand through all the collections and interest layers, that she had a responsibility to pay her bills and she had the right to process in disagreements over a bill owing. From that, he dodged the issue of controls on collections companies that the woman wanted. On the whole, he spent the afternoon preaching to the choir. And, dissidents like me never get called on to ask a question, as he has aides around the room pointing to the heads of people who will not bring up points exposing faults in the party line. Except, somehow a Natl Guard guy asked if he were going to vote to oust Sen. Finestein from the Chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence since she outed the Predator missiles coming from Paki bases to hammer Taliban on the border last friday. The Guardsman, probably part of the largest deployment from Oregon ever, to guard truck convoys in Afghanistan, is probably looking at witnessing some of his compadres in body bags before this is over with. The Artful Dodger asked for the guy's name and phone number so he could get back to him from Washington. uh, huh.

I did get some face time with his top aide in Oregon, to express my distain for countermanding public policy in Oregon. We have our Governor campaigning to end field burning, and the Green Lobby is all behind that and he is their trusted spokesperson and policy driver in State government. In the meantime, those 40,000 acres of straw, about 3 tons per acre, burn in 15 minutes and are gone, and the smoke mostly goes to elsewhere on the winds. Occasionally, it can get trapped in a box canyon valley and impact a town and residents. But wildland fire on the two thirds of Oregon owned by the Feds does not have to be fought under the WFU policy, and that smoke evidently comes with a clean bill of health. At least, the health issues of field burning smoke are being condemned while wildland fire use smoke is not even considered. So if 40,000 acres of field burning is a great health hazard, how is 400,000 acres of Wilderness fire any less of a hazard and harm to the atmosphere and people? Those kinds of questions have to be answered before you go designating megaWilderness. If we do not, we, as citizens, have not done our due diligence and neither has the government. That is my point in this discussion. The due diligence on the magnitude of the proposal has yet to be done. In my logic, if the government agency that has to act according to a set of circumstance explicitly spelled out, and does so to the best of their ability, and they still cannot get a fuels removal project to fruition on 400 acres, how in the hell can anyone tell me the due diligence has been done on NREPA and is bullet proof best science in the best interests of all citizens of the US? To this point, the document cannot be written and pass muster if a law firm does their due diligence and shops the court in which they want to sue. A Federal judge can be found who will find fault, somewhere, with the document, and that can and does go on for years and years. Once you pass NREPA and it is signed by the President, all fates are to be determined by litigation forever. That, frankly, does not appear to be good public policy.

Comment By Marion, 2-15-09

Greg, you pose a great question. I have never seen the country as split as it is right now. The wilderness push, and even the whole environmental movement on the whole are a big part of this. One reason for the big resistance to the environmental movement in general terms is that so much private property restrictions and some outright takings occur. Americans resist loss of control over their property.
Many folks are concerned over the damage to our forest from the single use policies taking place. First of all it really isn't good for the land. We see the results of that single use policy in the terrible spread of beetles and resulting wildfires. That problem is compounded because fire fighting equipment cannot then be gotten to the fires in a timely manner and an awful lot of destruction takes place.
Certainly I feel this is absolutely the wrong time to be trying to remove any thing that produces jobs. It is absolutely wrong to be pushing our country to the brink of collapse to spend money trying to provide jobs, and at the same time taking jobs away to serve the ideals of a few extremists.
I think there should be a hold on wilderness bills, on new ESA designations, and any new environmental restrictions. So much of those things are the means to give some a feeling (and actual) power over other people.
I have to admit that some of the anonymous comments made make me rather nervous, on the other hand even at 72, I do not intend to be intimidated.

Comment By Greg Beardslee, 2-15-09

John Thomas Jr. aka Bearbait. Your credibility just shot sky high.

Marion, I understand what you are saying, and the idea of a hold on wilderness makes sense in the light of the economy. But I don't know you from John Wayne.

Comment By Dave Skinner, 2-15-09

Hey Tom,
I've been up around Trapper and seen all the dead wood from the big beetle kill of the 50s.
So I've also been up at Diamond Park pre and post blowdown, and was back after the fire. It's pretty much a shock to see all that formerly-green, beautiful spruce gone to rot and ash.
Greg,
The history of the Wilderness Act shows that most well-intended laws tend to get abused as the zealots get a hold of them. ESA is a prime example, so is the Wilderness Act. The problem is the laws are written in an atmosphere of good faith, and therefore carelessly, without thinking "What happens if a fruitcake gets ahold of the process we've created?"
Maybe the passage of NREPA would be a net positive inasmuch as the consequences of the law would be economically, and likely environmentally, devastating. Remember, it took people getting killed in California by wildfire to get even the puny HFRA reform, which was hopelessly munged up by the power freaks. Maybe we need a disaster to see common sense (bwahahahha) resume...my problem is that there will be people unjustly caught in the middle.

Comment By the real mike, 2-15-09

Dearest Greg Beardslee,

I'll respond since you also seem to feel that your questions go ignored and since I did try to respond to "bearbait" (although, as I predicted, it didn't even phase him, he went right back to grinding on that axe).

First, you ask whether "we afford the social division that would inevitably result if the NREPA passed" and the answer is that we cannot afford to let such threats undermine our laws or the concept of majority rule. The truth is that we have always had and always will have social division. We will never have complete, uniform, agreement about anything. There will always be minority opinions; but, under our system, the majority rules, at least eventually. In recent years, the majority has, for the most part, shown remarkable patience, waiting for the next election while "your side" pretty much had its way on so many topics, bending the Constitution this way and that to get its way. Environmental protection has been one of those topics; but, there have been many, just a few examples being the Bush tax cuts, banking deregulation, subprime loans, allowing snowmobiles into Yellowstone, genetically modified crops, and the invasion of Iraq as I mentioned to "bearbait." The truth is that, while NREPA admittedly is a big piece of legislation and will need to be considered carefully, the country is now more united than in many, many, years and "your side" has now been revealed to be a small and shrinking minority (some might say a fringe or extremist element), especially on environmental protection issues in general and very likely including NREPA in specific. I support NREPA and, while I can't guarantee that it will pass, I do know that the majority should rule, even if we let "your side" have its way a bit too much in recent years. "Your side" can try to play games and hope to "gerrymander" things by screaming about local control; but, that is not the way the laws were written and certainly not how "your side" implemented them when the tables were turned. Society will be poorer if we continue to suspend democracy because of veiled threats from a tiny fringe element.

Second, you ask about "harm to the wilderness act and the concept of wilderness" from the passage of NREPA and the answer is much the same. If the majority wants NREPA, yet fails to pass it because of the tantrums, the veiled threats, and the intimidation of a small minority, then the harm will go far beyond the Wilderness Act. Our American System is based on majority rule, not minority intimidation.

Finally, if you feel that I have "very poor credibility" and that my "opinions are moot," then ignore them, just keep grinding that axe.

Comment By bearbait, 2-15-09

If majority rule is the law of the land, please explain why Delaware and California each have two Senators.

Comment By the real mike, 2-15-09

It doesn't matter; all four are on our side.

Comment By Greg Beardslee, 2-15-09

who is real Mike? What is real Mikes name?

How does real Mike know what side I am on?

I'll throw out a bone, I'm independant with my politics. I vote a mixed ticket. I am very disappointed with the war in Iraq. I ride a bike year round in order to save the environment a bit. I haul recyclables with my bike because it doesn't make sense to drive a car for that purpose. I hunt. I love art. I garden a bit, and work on my own old crummy car. My wife and I raised 2 kids and hope they have a good life.

I absolutely hate it when anyone, anywhere, becomes arrogant and imposes their will and values upon others. This may be a christian value but I am clueless about religion.

NREPA comes across as arrogant and overreaching. The scale of it is oppressive. So what side am I on? what are my politics?

I think we should be having a civil debate here. I truly wonder if it is possible to have one though when it comes to the NREPA, and that is my point. It is too divisive, and society cannot afford this division. We need to be working together on truly effective environmental and economic solutions, not fighting with our former friends and neighbors.

Comment By Marion, 2-16-09

Greg, I am a mouthy old woman bent on expressing my opinion. I live alone and you can see the radicalism of some of the folks on here, so I hate to be too much more specific.

Comment By bird, 2-16-09

A person could rationalize designation of another 24 million acres as wilderness if it would satisfy the preservationists and create a compromise that would return forest management and multiple use to the remaining National Forest.

Comment By bearbait, 2-16-09

I was just reading the Economist on line, and the story "Tree Huggers vs. Nerds" is just what you know is in store with the NREPA if actualized. A power line to connect San Diego-LA with existing and proposed wind and solar generated power source in the Imperial valley is being appealed by the usual suspects. Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity. The Economist article provides a map of the gerrymandered powerline that is proof the shortest political distance between two points in not a straight line. It twists, it turns, it does the herky jerky, to miss all the environmental traps, and still is being appealed. Our economic recovery is in fact going to be based not on "shovel ready" projects, but by "appeals exhausted" projects. This issue, of course, is that the usual suspects want the line to carry ONLY green power, from renewable resources. If you have an inkling of what Tesla taught about creating electrical grids, you know how limiting and senseless such a restriction would be in the real world of multiple sources of electrical power to grids, and how much conservation occurs by creating those grids to shuttle excess power from many sources to where it can be used instead of shutting down hydro power generation or other renewables.

My point is this: look at http://www.economist,com/printedition/ and see the map, the effort to avoid Wilderness, etc., to see how obstructive an NGO with huge resources can be to reasonable efforts to provide clean and renewable power can be, after Wilderness has been designated to protect areas. Even then the NGOs of environmental zealots have to try to bollox the effort.

Comment By jedediah Redman, 2-16-09

Most of us have formulated a perfect place in history and would retreat there and forbid any change from ever effecting any change upon that idyllic delusion...

Comment By problembear, 2-16-09

the only really radical viewpoints i see here are those coming from the right wing extraction industry enthusiasts who apparently won't be satisfied until the entire country looks like downtown Cleveland. fortunately it is a tiny minority.

all recent polls show overwhelming support for protection of wildlands accross the country, with the sole exception of Utah.
any fool can see on a map of montana that transmission lines would never be routed through these areas anyway. too steep, too remote from major highways, etc. but the far right has excelled at specious arguments to support their rich friends in the resource extraction industry so that ridiculous red herring is no surprise

Comment By Greg Beardslee, 2-16-09

Bird,
I'm trying hard to understand what you said. Also, who are you really. Name please.

Problembear, It's time to come clean.
Nothing constructive will come from berating others. If you are going to keep talking about tiny minorities, let's see who you are. A minority of one, i'm sure.

Comment By Derek Blount, 2-16-09

All of this makes interesting reading but until this bill is actually introduced in Congress it is just so much dust in the wind. Currently this bill has no bill number and therefore has not yet been introduced.

It is important to remember that some balance must be found between resource extraction and environmental stewardship. Some years back I saw a huge oil pipeline dug up and repaired in northern Michigan. The hole was close to 20 feet deep and just as wide. It was also several hundred feet long as well. When the work was completed the company was required to return the land to the same condition as they first found it. The soil was returned and they planted native plants throughout the area. After a few months you would never know what had happened there.

This was a lesson that said we can do serious work in the environment and still restore the land. This is what we need to work toward. The agencies that are supposed to be stewards of the land must write the leases and contracts so that the land is returned to it's natural state. Perhaps a monthly fee as part of the lease that would be held by the agency and returned at the end of the contract or lease to provide the funds to return the land to it's original condition. Breaking of the agreement would mean seizure of the assets of the company to cover the cost of the work. Just some ideas.

Clear cutting is not the answer but selective cutting might be. It works in Scandanavia. Oil and gas wells can be drilled carefully and when exhausted must be capped and the land returned to it's natural state. Pipelines should also be removed if above ground. Open pit mines must be refilled and restored to the natural landscape. Mine shafts should be sealed to avoid public accidents. Mountain top removal is not acceptable. The erradication of numerous environments is devastating and not reversable without immense cost. Other ways must be found.

We are American's and as such are resourceful and innovative. Find a way to have the resources needed by the country and a beautiful country to live in as well. In your use of the land be like a canoe on water that cleaves the water yet leaves the water unbroken.

Comment By problembear, 2-16-09

so derek. your suggestion is to turn the righties and the greed machine extractive industries loose on our last wild lands because we trust them all the do the right thing.

like they did with our banks..... and our food safety......ummm, well let me think about that for just a sec....no thanks.

greg- who in the hell made you moderator of the damn universe anyway. if you don't like what i write life's tough. chew harder.
i just call it the way i see it. if that is berating you well...if the shoe fits.

polls? wilderness is popular greg. as to why you arrogant greed heads aren't, well workers in this country have learned that relying on the old greed trickle down theory doesn't work all that well. working people in this country want change because they are tired of being screwed by the greed-heads.

as soon as things go south, they lay us all off, stuff their trunks with every dollar they can steal and run for it. this country needs a lot more change than just wilderness but the same old tired arguments to just trust us with your money and resources don't wash anymore. at least not in middle class america. right wing greed sells talking points might still be all the rage at the country clubs, but just dare you to try that crap in Harold's Club at Milltown Montana and you will see some pretty angry laid off stimson workers who would make this look like a love letter.

anonymity is what i choose greg. not your choice there cowboy.
you make your choices. i'll make mine.

Comment By Farmer Fred, 2-17-09

Do people realize what this would do to existing tourism in those areas? Twenty five years ago, many rural areas, after losing their logging industries, turned to tourism such as ATV's, snowmobiles, mtn bikers,etc. Now, some idiot from NY wants those towns to start all over? What is needed is a new type of protection that accomadates those areas current multiple uses. This bill, if it ever happens, would be a death knell to common sense, rural democrats.

Where are the national guard costs at? Surely, after passing something that the majority of the people in those areas do not support, there will be social costs! How are you going to lock out 80k+ snowmobilers and other users? Just cause a greenie says after multiple generations "That you can't use it know, unless it is our way?" Yah, thats going to work!

There is a problem when there is no congressional support in any districts where these actions would occur.

Farmer Fred

Comment By jedediah Redman, 2-17-09

Ol' fred is a lot like the rest of the anti-intellectual crowd who post on this forum...

Comment By Farmer Fred, 2-17-09

I don't know about old fred, but as Farmer Fred I was top senior in soil science at WSU, and went to Graduate school in economics. I've been on numerous state and national boards, and been publically elected 2x with around 70% to a local office. I also spent time working with the NRCS, so I know both sides of the argument. This bill is socially unworkable in its "exclusionary" format.

Put the bong down, Jedediah, and look at the rationality of my argument.

Have a nice day,
Farmer Fred

Comment By problembear, 2-17-09

so farmer fred. just a little bit of post bush crash advice. the wrong way to tell people to listen to you is to tell us that you have been in a position of power for quite awhile, otherwise we might get the idea you are part of the problem. ahem

i would rather listen to an honest logger from milltown who lost his job while you were doing such a fine job of running things there genius.

you'll excuse me if i view your "rationality" with a good deal of skepticism. a lot of your conclusions are based on faith in a greed based corporate/republican/deregulation system which has failed all of us miserably.

Comment By Marion, 2-17-09

Thank you Farmer Fred!!!! It needed saying.

Comment By Greg Beardslee, 2-17-09

I guess am moderator of people who care, Problembear. I'm outta here though, because you and your intolerant attitude can't be reasoned with. By remaining mean spirited and anonymous, I conclude that you care only about yourself. Better take a chill pill. Good trying to visit with you others, it was evident that there is plenty of decent people still out there.

I'm gonna leave everyone with a cute opinion letter from today's Bozeman Chronicle. I really liked it. Bye everyone.

Hollywood attitude comes to Bozeman

Sean Penn, George Clooney, Bill Maher, Whoopi Goldberg, Rosie O’Donnell, Susan Sarandon, Barbra Streisand, The Dixie Chicks, Al Franken and our own Cara Wilder bless us with their caustic and mean-spirited political insight. Ms. Wilder’s all-out assault on former President George Bush’s policies and personal character echo the bias from the Hollywood ilk and liberal media.
As a conservative “type,” (bet you couldn’t tell), I make every effort to study issues and personal integrity when I vote and, almost without exception, I vote a split ticket. Voting blindly for only one political party is what has led to the blatant partisan environment we have in our Congress and the resulting inability to move forward on many issues which affect us all, regardless of political affiliation. Labeling and name-calling only deepen the mire and narrow the tolerance needed to get things done.
I wish our new president all the best for even wanting to tackle the issues facing our nation. I pray that he and all of our elected officials will succeed in turning things around. As we all know, his job is a daunting one, filled with circumstances over which he, at times, will have little or no control. Every president has faced this and he will, too.
Before we publicly draw and quarter our politicians, let’s try and be at least somewhat objective. Incidentally, I do not recall any letters to the editor from Ms. Wilder (or lots of others) concerning our last Democratic president’s lack of moral character and the behavior that defiled our Capitol and who, wagging his finger, looked America in the eye and outright lied to us all.
Winston Churchill said: “If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 40, you have no brain.”
Rich Brauss
Bozeman

Bozeman Daily Chronicle 2/17/09

Comment By bearbait, 2-17-09

I am reading "American Shaolin" by Matthew Polly. His 1993 view of China as he experienced it on his way to Shaolin to learn kung fu with the masters.

"Two goals in a Maoist economy are to keep people working whether their job is necessary of not (idleness is the bourgeoisie's workshop) and to make sure everyone is keeping an eye on everyone else....Deng Xiaoping had set about changing all of this after rising to power following Mao's death in 1976, attempting to shift the economy slowly from communism to capitalism, a gradual privatization. His catchwords were "gaige" (change) and "kaifang (openness)."

So the very words used by the Obama Presidential campaign were not new, and not original. I can only hope he has the success that Deng had in changing China to a capitalist economy. However, from all that has happened to this point in his Presidency, Obama is headed in the opposite direction, and the US is headed pell mell for that failed economic blueprint from Great Britain of socialized industry and the land and money in control of the gentry and sophisticates from their most prestigious universities and titled royalists. I hope us poor people can cope with the dour economy of imported goods and banking excesses, while being ruled by a contentious Labour Party. It is our Anglo-Saxon model.

Comment By bird, 2-17-09

“so derek. your suggestion is to turn the righties and the greed machine extractive industries loose on our last wild lands because we trust them all the do the right thing.”

Current harvest rates on National Forests in Montana are less than 8 percent of the volume of timber that dies annually

Average annual sawtimber mortality on National Forest lands in
Montana between 2003-2007: 1,531,572 MMBF

Average annual sawtimber growth on National Forest land in Montana between 2003-2007: 1,724,894 MMBF

Total sawtimber harvest on National Forests in Montana in 2007…..a six decade low of 87,000 MMBF

Comment By bird, 2-17-09

oops, units are in "MBF" (thousand board feet), not MMBF

Comment By Farmer Fred, 2-17-09

Problem Bear;

Back to reality-The local mill closed the year I came home from college, a lot of my high school friends were loggers. It had something to do with the spotted owl; which is now being eaten/displaced by the barn owl. But, hey-the enviro's were happy, they didn't lose their jobs!

I had watch my hometown take a severe hit due to "enviromental solutions". I have also watched other rural towns take these "economic hits" to please the urban fringe (say, a NY congresswomen). Over time, they adapted by replacing high paying mill jobs with minimum wage expresso stands. A lot of mountain towns have catered to snowmobilers (and other forms of tourism), with some success. It now seems evident that this is not what the fringe left wing wackos prefer; they only want total control for most of our public lands. So, lets start over again with these rural areas, setting them back to zero.

Of course, the enviros will have a new tangent in 20-30 years, probably the "urge" to throw non-conformists totally out of the rockies. Never mind the fact that they built most of the towns and economies in which we now live.

And another thing, problem bear. I was proud to be a successful businessman and create jobs. I still am a productive member of my rural community, and I pay the highest wages for my industry in the western hemisphere in a natural resources field. What have you accomplished in life? You need to re-read my original post. I am not anti-protection; I am anti-exclusionary for the benefit of a certain group! This wilderness bill is way to widespread, and will cause major economic strife if enacted. Yeah, it creates only 2300 jobs while eliminating how many more?

Have a nice day,
Farmer Fred

Comment By Mike, 2-18-09

The problem with your argument Fred is that's it's not just your land, it's everyone's land. Everyone has a say. And I can guarantee you that most people want this bill to pass.

I say this with respect and sincerity:

200 years from now, people will not care about your business, or my business. They will care about wether we set aside some wild and free places in this world free of pollution and development.

That will be the priority.

Big picture.

Comment By Mike, 2-18-09

Dave Skinner -

I'm saddened to see that you continue to bash wilderness areas and even use bigotry("fruitcake") and then wish for some violent event to take place to teach everyone a lesson.

You do this while being part of national park based buisiness.

Very strange.

Comment By Marion, 2-18-09

Recreation is only for the well to do, we have been extremely fortunate in this country to not only have the time and money for recreation, but also to support those who make playing a profession. Unfortunately those able to spend their time playing and not adding to the economy have decided that they are the only ones pure enough to deserve to use the best areas. They do not want those who are supporting them and making it possible to spend thier lives playing, to be able to produce anything because it upsets their delicate sensibilities. The country cannot survive that way.
Once enviros turn this into a 3rd world country, there will be no resources to do more than survive...barely, and even they will have to actually work for that survival.
God provided our country with the means to recycle the long dead dinosaurs to live the kind of life unimaginable even to my parents. I will never understand the desire to throw it away.

Comment By Bill Schneider, 2-18-09

FYI, I just put an update at the beginning of this story.....Bill Schneider

Comment By Farmer Fred, 2-18-09

Mike,

You are right, it is everybody's land. Thats why I prefer multiple uses. I am not against the roadless areas or limiting development. What I am against is limiting recreational use to a priviledged few.

As an example; when the roadless areas were proposed during the clinton era, I supported the concept. I was told by our government that this would not be wilderness, and multiple recreational uses would still occur. Now, the true agenda comes out, and the push is to make it wilderness.

Another example; during the push to ban snowmobiles from YNP, the enviros stated that the winter economy of West Yellowstone would not be harmed because "most riding was done outside the park". This was has some truth to this statement. This proposal takes 90% of those areas away! Thus, short term truth, long term lie.

Thus, I find that most environmentalists (and their movements) are outright liars. They have no long term interests in rural economies (they live in the North east, remember). As I stated in a previous posts, this bill will lose way more than the 2300 jobs gained. Local legislators know this, and this is why they have not signed on.

You also state, "most people want this bill to pass". Kinda odd that population around the Boulder-White Cloud wilderness proposal are against it?

Why don't the enviro movements honest name this bill after what they really intend to do (big picture):

"The Rocky Mountain Rural Economic Genocide Act"

See how history see's this reality in 200 years.

Have a nice day,
Farmer Fred

Comment By runs-with-elk, 2-18-09

Farmer Fred,

It's Barred Owl not Barn Owl///

clueless!!

Comment By Farmer Fred, 2-18-09

Runs with elk;

Your are correct. I had a few other typo's in there as well. My mistake(s). The overall message is correct, however.

Farmer Fred

Comment By jedediah Redman, 2-18-09

Would there was something of substance to look at, fred...

Comment By Ray, 2-19-09

Why is it that people believe wilderness designation is the only way to protect these lands? There are several other designations that would do the same and not cater to such a specific group.

Comment By iokuok2, 2-20-09

Your photo is gorgeous!! When the standard is integrity, the solution is wilderness! In 50 years, the same!

Comment By Marion, 2-20-09

iokuk, in 50 years nothing will be the same, whether man touches it or not. Every storm, every day things change, whether you notice it or not. Birth and death happens every single day in every single place. Look how many of the beautiful places that have been off limits to logging because of their beauty are now a charred wasteland. They changed dramatically despite the enviros "saving' them for the future.
Even enviromentalism has changed, while once they were willing to work to protect something, now they are willing to destroy it if that is what it takes to keep from sharing with anyone else. Very sad.
You need to tear yourselves away from the beautiful sight in your mirror and look at how others see you.

http://www.rangemagazine.com/features/summer-06/su-sr-06-enemies-of-conservation.pdf

Comment By John Gatchell, 2-20-09

"As with past introduction of NREPA no U.S. Senator or Representative from Idaho, Montana or Wyoming has officially supported the bill."

This is the reason this bill -while repeatedly introduced -- is never scheduled for a vote.
Without a vote -- it offers no real protection to wild places at risk.

Comment By Antiquities Act before ANILCA, 2-20-09

Montana should deal with wilderness by designating wilderness where appropriate before the rest of the country decides we can't handle the responsibility we have to future generations of Americans and passes NERPA over our objections.

Comment By jedediah Redman, 2-22-09

It is not everybody's land. It is nobody's land. The notion that land should be possessed is insane.

Comment By Matthew Koehler, 2-23-09

John Gatchell (of MWA): Here are a few questions for you:

Where is the Montana Wilderness Association's Wilderness Bill? Surely a group with "Wilderness" in its name would have a few Wilderness bills already before the US Congress, right? Could you please name any Wilderness bills dealing with Montana currently before Congress that you support?

Does MWA support NREPA, which would protect all of Montana's roadless wildlands? If not, which roadless areas in Montana do you think are not worthy of Wilderness protection?

Thanks.

Comment By problembear, 2-23-09

surely you know the arrogant and aloof john gatchell does not answer direct questions from wildernesss supporters about his "prevent wilderness" stance in an honest and open public forum like this matthew. he prefers a more "private" setting.
you know, like the back alleys where shadows from the street lights of helena allow plausible deniability.

Comment By Admiring incompetence, 2-23-09

Matthew, here's a question for you, what good are you? Has the WildWest Institute ever done anything proactive and positive for western lands? Or is it enough for you to just keep filing logging lawsuits?

Maybe all you do is get in the way of everything, the bad and the good.

Comment By problembear, 2-23-09

so i guess those crickets i hear from john gatchell tell us NO- MWA is doing nothing to advance wilderness legislation for the state of montana. wait- i stand corrected. they are doing something- MWA is actively obstructing NREPA so i guess it would not be accurate to say that MWA is doing nothing. but i sure wish they would .

Comment By Admiring incompetence, 2-23-09

Or, maybe those crickets are an indication that Mr. Gatchell is out doing real work in the real world instead of incessantly debating hypotheticals like you, Skinner, Koehler, Marion and the rest of Montana's biggest losers.

Ya know, if you and Koehler and the rest put your half-witted brains together to actually get off the couch and build consensus around NREPA you might just pass the thing. The problem is, if you actually got off the couch to talk with people and build the consensus you need, it wouldn't look a whole lot like NREPA. ... But ya know, you might just find something is better than nothing.

Sayonara losers.

Comment By Tom Klumker, 2-23-09

Dearest "Admiring incompetence",

Whoever the heck you are, your above posts plainly tell who is actually the imcompetent one. You sonnny boy, you! You are plainly the loser in this thread! What an absurd and sorry attitude!

Comment By problembear, 2-23-09

actually, incompetence, i am a wilderness supporter who has actually put together wilderness bills which are now law. i have testified in front of 3 senate and 4 house committees and have had the good fortune to work with the best advocates in accomplishing exactly what mr gatchell has failed to do in over 25 years.

if his hard work is so effective why has montana failed to produce a single acre of protected wilderness under his watch with MWA?
all i hear from mr gatchell is why we cannot save wilderness. he seems very busy shooting down wilderness proposals but never proposing any. show me the acres.

i will take your queue from the insults you throw to hypothesize that the very industrious mr gatchell is too busy appeasing corporate and legislative contacts to ingratiate himself with those in power and grant-writing and fundraising to bother with saving wilderness.

as far as work goes mr incompetence, i doubt if you or mr gatchell would be able to make it to keep up with my pace all the way through to my first coffee break without collapsing. i was saving wilderness while you two were watching sesame street and eating captain crunch. i formed three seperate citizen's groups voluntarily over the course of 15 years (that means without pay) all while working my real job full time. i still work full time and could still work circles around you two.

the only people i have seen working for wilderness in montana seem to be the volunteers. i see the paid staff of MWA as obstructionists in trying to do the real work of saving wilderness.

Comment By Mickey, 2-23-09

prolembear, if you can do it all single handily, why haven't you? or is that Mr. Gatchell's fault too?

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