WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?
Secrecy Clouds Credibility of Poll on Tester’s Wilderness Bill
Let's clear up concerns about the poll right now. Put the questions in the comment section, so we can move on to getting a good bill written and passed.
By Bill Schneider, 9-04-09
Anybody following the build-up to the official announcement of Senator Jon Tester’s (D-MT) wilderness bill, what he calls the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, probably read the stories and commentaries about refusals from Tester’s staff and the coalition of environmental groups and timber industry reps drafting the bill to release any advance details to the press. This refusal fueled a lot of skepticism, to say the least, and cast a negative shadow on what otherwise would’ve been a grand event for Montana--our newly elected senator stepping up to the bar and making an sincere attempt to end Montana’s Wilderness Drought.
Now, they’re doing it again.
Three weeks ago, the coalition released the results of a poll conducted by Harstad Strategic Research, a well-known pollster based in Boulder, Colorado, and used primarily by democrats, which found that roughly 70 percent of Montanans supported the bill. (Click here to read the story.)
It may be true that most of us support the bill, or at least the concept of it, but some people don’t believe it. They let me and several other members of the media know about their doubts, mainly claiming that the questions and sample were “loaded” to guarantee the desired result.
Granted, people casting doubt on the survey are the same people who already oppose the bill, ironically from both the left and right of the political spectrum. And, I might add, people Tester’s staff and the coalition treat like bugs on the windshield. They have little interest in including “non-supportive” people in the process.
We’ve heard a lot about how the process of drafting this bill was very open. Well, I say, no way. Perhaps the Three Rivers Challenge and the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project came close to being all-inclusive, but definitely not the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership Project (BDP), which has become the bulk of Tester’s bill.
After meeting with some local groups and governing bodies, a handful of coalition members wrote the BDP and refused to change anything thereafter. Then, the same people worked with Tester’s staff to write the bill. Nobody else was allowed to participate or even know it was happening.
Now, we hear Senator Tester welcomes everybody to be part of the process, but will that really happen? Will any meaningful changes be made in this bill? I hope so, because it needs it badly (more later on that point), but I worry about the stake being already driven deep in the sand with little chance of change lest the so-called coalition fall apart.
In other words, a few timber industry reps and a few environmentalists have decided what they can agree on. Now, they have little interest in what the rest of us, the outsiders, the voters, want, so this is the bill we have now and probably the bill we’ll have in the end.
Regardless of claims of openness, the truth is only insiders, those who support the essence of what Senator Tester is doing, have been welcomed into the process. This doesn’t make it a bad bill, but it sure makes it an exclusive, not inclusive, process--not what we want for our first Wilderness bill in 26 years. The recent poll gives us another case in point.
I made two formal requests to coalition leaders to see the actual wording of the questions and get information about the sample polled, but they flatly refused to release anything or even talk on the record about the poll, how it was done or who paid for it. Plus, I know at least two others in the media who made similar requests.
I was actually among those initially did not question the ethics or methods of the poll, but now, after getting stonewalled for no valid reason, I’m starting to wonder. What do they have to hide? What do they have to gain by not releasing the questions and real information on who was surveyed?
I can answer that. They have nothing to gain, but a lot to lose, which in mind is what they’ve done again--turn a positive event into a negative outcome.
I suspect some commenters, probably those who insist on abnormity, will jump into the comment section and say I am among those who turns the positive into the negative, but I don’t see it that way. All the coalition has to do is open up and reap the rewards.
I know these surveys cost money and those who pay for them consider them proprietary. And I can see that some of the scientific methodology that goes into survey being proprietary, but the wording of the questions?
I was told that the coalition primarily intended to use the poll internally to see what arguments against the bill might be sticking and which ones were lost in the public wind. If this is the main purpose of the poll, no problem, but that isn’t how the coalition used it. The coalition quickly sent out a press release applauding the positive results. As soon as this happened, in my mind at least, it ceased to be an internal document.
Earth to coalition members and Tester’s staff. Let’s clear this up problem right now. Put the survey questions and specifics of how the sample group was selected into the comment section of this column to show us you have nothing to hide and that the poll wasn’t loaded or skewed. If you don’t do it, well, don’t blame people for having doubts.
Footnote: For a chronology of four years of NewWest.Net’s extensive coverage of this issue, click here.
[End of article]A lot of damage has already been done, because the covert actions display an attitude. Previously I was a supporter of Tester: now I no longer trust nor support him. Just another elitist politician and his chosen group imposing their "superior" wisdom on everyone else.
Comment By steve kelly, 9-03-09Montanans are getting a clearer picture of what privatization of our national forests means. Federal agencies are required by law to disclose information to the public (media included). If they refuse, the public has the option of taking the dispute to court. More often than not, the courts have ordered the agency to produce the information. The public not only loses its land, it loses its right to know what's being done to what was once their land.
The there is no equivalent disclosure process required in the legislative arena or in private business practice. For Tester and his insider pals, this is the beauty of the process. No one is accountable, everybody is on the outside looking in, unless you're "in." Without transparency (wasn't that a campaign promise?) our public lands are vulnerable to abuse and corruption far beyond anything we've experienced under agency management.
This is proving to be a bad idea, not well thought out, and poorly executed.
I was kinda wondering with most of the Lumber mills closed and most loggers either moved or sold their chain saws to live, it seems rather odd to have to start all over again being this Govt wanted and did shut the people out of our forests.Close the mills,bring in the Grizzly Bear and wolf,kick everyone out because our land just became Grizzly Bear Habitat and Tester wants to save the Forest...create jobs...for who??? With years of Plum Creek/RailRoads and BLM it is a wonder we have any forest left.Most of Plum Creeks land traded from Rail road land is NOW, realities property.No one logging.So I think that these deals between all these protectors of our forests are nothing but land stealers for something down the road.Last best place????For who?I just don't trust any one any more and I too voted for Tester in hopes he would end the continued deadly exposure to Tremolite asbestos of more people/families moving to Libby being told Libby is a safe place,since 1999.This is a deadly lie and Jon Tester has done NOTHING to stop these continued killings of innocent people.Jon Tester and Max Baucus and Rehberg and Governor of Montana ALL..sell Libby as safe.Again, I trust no one.I tell all to stay away from Libby Mt BECAUSE it is not safe to ANYTHING THAT BREATHES. Where are these worthless polititions protecting the people????Where????
Comment By Arthur Jay, 9-03-09Hear ye, Hear ye.. Bring out your crazies, your conspiracy theorists, and your knee-jerk reactionists. Create a website, and give them a place to dig dirt hills and yaak at each other all day long.
Meanwhile, Montana moves forward without you.
Yah I know...at the hands of these goons.Libby continues to expose people to die.Who cares????
Comment By Rick Meis, 9-03-09Why does a journalistic publication like NewWest get caught up in the mis-speak of calling Tester's industry jobs bill a wilderness bill? It is not a wilderness bill. It is a jobs bill with some remnants of wilderness attached. The bill goes against what many of us who supported Tester believed he stood for and flies in the face of real wilderness legislation.
Wilderness should not be looked at as scraps to appease some politically oriented types who call themselves environmentalists. Wilderness, as a designated management tool, should grasp the concept of biodiversity and the conservation of the last of our nation's wild lands, clean waters and wildlife. It should, and so should the people who promote it, strive for biological integrity. That is not something that the Tester jobs bill comes close to doing.
American Wilderness: Love it or leave it alone!
1) Is the author of this story familiar with how legislation is drafted? Please, name some legislation that was ever drafted in open committee. Remember, this is effectively still a DRAFT.
2) People who have a problem with legislation that don't want to publicly state their reasons always pick on the "process".
3) They paid for the poll. It's their information. If you want your own "unbiased" info, generate your own poll.
Any journalist, or investigator, or cop, or lawyah, knows implicitly that the answers one gets depend a lot on the questions asked and the answers allowed.
The questions I'd ask in my poll:
Do you think your national forests are being well managed?
Did you know that since 2000, about six million acres of Montana's forest land has either burnt or had beetle kill?
Whaddayathinkaboutthat?
What would you do if you were boss?
Thanks Bill for the write-up, you are correct, the B-D Partnership was a rigged process. With the B-DP making up the bulk of the Tester Logging Bill (mandating a logging cut that is way higher than the B-D foresters believe reasonable) the Bill itself becomes rigged. Tester’s cronies have a lot to gain, cheap timber that exploits the private landowners ability to get a fair price, (especially in light of the fact that there is no market for lumber and with the backlog of unsold homes and depressed market likely wouldn’t be for several years) turning a grazing privilege into a right and maintaining those grazing rights within what little wilderness is called for until one of these cronies, probably NWF pays big bucks to retire them are just two examples. Like so many others I was fooled by Tester’s promises of “transparency” which turns out to be just another buzz word and the poll continues this deceit.
Comment By Bill Schneider, 9-04-09Rick,
In response to yoiur question as to why I use the adjective, "Wiilderness" to describe the bill.
My Thursday column is commentary, and after reading every word of the bill, I concluded that it is more of a Wilderness bill than a jobs bill or forest management bill. The Wilderness component, albiet far from what I'd like to see, still greatly outweighs any impact from the mandated cuts or timber management sections. Yes, Tester's staff and the coalition refer to it as a jobs bill, but that's just political sugar-coating and media manipulation, in my opinion.
If it is a jobs bill, well, I say the Wilderness component will create more jobs--and long-term jobs--than the timber management mandates.
Having said that, I totally agree with you that this isn't the way to address the Wilderness issue and that this bill should include many more deserving areas.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Bill
I received the following as a pdf e-mail attachment (all I'm at liberty to disclose), with Harstad logo at the top. Note all-caps portion (which formatting is only edit to original).
To: Interested Parties
From: Chris Keating, Harstad Strategic Research, Inc.
Date: August 7, 2009
Re: Key Findings from a Montana Voter Poll on the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act
HARSTAD STRATEGIC RESEARCH conducted telephone surveys among 503 active registered voters statewide in Montana. Interviews were conducted from July 27-29, 2009.
Key Findings
More than 7-out-of-10 Montana voters favor the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act –while just 15% of Montana voters oppose it.
VOTERS HEARD THE FOLLOWING FOUR PART DESCRIPTION OF THE FOREST JOBS AND RECREATION ACT:
CREATE JOBS IN MONTANA BY DIRECTING THE FOREST SERVICE TO USE LIGHT-ON-THE-LAND LOGGING AND FOREST RESTORATION PROJECTS AIMED AT IMPROVING FOREST HEALTH AND REDUCING FOREST FIRE RISK;
EMPLOY FOREST STEWARDSHIP CONTRACTORS TO RESTORE MONTANA’S DAMAGED STREAMS, FOREST ROADS, CAMPGROUNDS AND TRAILS;
GUARANTEE THAT MOTORIZED VEHICLES WILL HAVE ACCESS TO DESIGNATED RECREATION AREAS;
PROTECT MONTANA’S WILDLIFE HABITATS AND WATERSHEDS BY DESIGNATING CERTAIN PLACES AS WILDERNESS AREAS IN THE BEAVERHEAD, DEERLODGE, LOLO, AND KOOTENAI NATIONAL FORESTS.
AFTER HEARING THIS DESCRIPTION, an overwhelming majority 73% of voters in Montana say they favor the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, including 42% who strongly favor it.
Support for the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act is broad-based and includes substantial majorities in all of the following key groups of Montana voters:
Voters of various political persuasions: Democrats (81% favor), Independents (77% favor) and Republicans (62% favor);
Voters in the 7 more urban counties (76% favor) and voters in the 49 more rural counties (69% favor);
Men (75% favor) and women (72% favor);
Young and old: age 18-39 (75% favor), age 40-59 (75% favor), and age 60+ (70% favor).
The outdoor job and recreation communities demonstrate strong support for the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act including:
Voters in households that participate in outdoor recreation activities such as camping (73% favor), fishing (72% favor), and hunting (69% favor);
Voters in households that go off-road on mountain bikes (79% favor) and all-terrain vehicles (69% favor);
Voters in households that work in an industry related to tourism or outdoor recreation (74% favor), work in farming or ranching (65% favor), or work in logging, mining or drilling (65% favor).
The July 27-29, 2009 Montana Statewide Voter Survey was conducted by Harstad Strategic Research, Inc., the national public opinion research firm in Boulder, Colorado. The results of this survey are based upon 503 random telephone interviews among active registered voters in Montana, using a voter list. The random sample of 503 has a worst-case 95% confidence interval of plus or minus 4.4% about any one reported percentage.
Bill - Your commentary seems reasonable and objectively gathered and written. You presented several valid and worthy points. Thanks.
Comment By Timothy Border, 9-04-09“If it is a jobs bill, well, I say the Wilderness component will create more jobs--and long-term jobs--than the timber management mandates.” Bill I could not agree with you more with regards to this statement. Why then for example, do the commissioners of Beaverhead County insist on protecting that which is less of an economic benefit return than what they support, while cementing their support of Testers Logging Bill by stating it will be a greater economic benefit? I s that not part and parcel to the debate over subsidized grazing, logging, and continued degradation of the ecology.
Comment By problembear, 9-04-09this thing is so dead right now....i never like to kick dead horses bill, it just stirs up the blow-flies.
i sure hope tester gets some savvy staff members soon. cause this looks like the kind of work that can kill a career before it even gets off the ground. i like jon and would like to see him do something i voted for him to do some day. obviously there are some idiots giving him bad advice here.
unemployment is at 9.7% jon. there should be some pretty good people available now. avail yourself of some talent....please. good god you need to hire some talent pronto. this isn't even sausage. it looks like a pail of something conrad left behind in the walk-in and forgot about.
what is it they say in the biz?...........this thing just doesn't have any legs...........
Comment By the real mike, 9-05-09I'm sorry; but, the comments from the poor guy from Libby keep echoing. Couldn't Tester make his big splash by helping out the poor people in that poor massacred town? Couldn't he and the rest of Montana's politicians work together to get a stimulus package for Libby? Miners aren't my favorite group; but, those people need and deserve a hand and they don't deserve to just be forgotten. Grace and the rest of the goons shouldn't be allowed to just push the story out of the news and stall until the plaintiffs are all dead.
Comment By Looking better everyday., 9-07-09Bill, the more you and Skinner trash it, the more I like it.
Comment By George Vincent, 9-25-09Several years ago a polling firm in Utah came up with figues on support for the Red Rocks bill. I asked to see the questions. They had no problem sending them to me along with their entire analysis.
Thanks for digging, Bill. Clearly, "Tester's" pollsters have something to hide. If the survey actually described the bill as reported by MTCitizen, it's no wonder. That description is like asking "Are you in favor of Mom and apple pie?"
Tester's logging bill gets a 'no' in Helena IR poll, 66% to 34%
Question of the Week: Do you support Sen. Jon Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act?
The "no" responses were the majority by a wide margin - 404 to 210 who replied "yes."
http://www.helenair.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_fd3e01d2-b16d-11de-b70d-001cc4c03286.html