plum creek -- a low-hanging fruit
Obama Chimes In on Plum Creek, Forest Service Agreement
By Matthew Frank, 7-09-08
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| Barack Obama at the Montana Democratic Party's Mansfield-Metcalf Dinner in Butte in April. Photo by Anne Medley | |
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Barack Obama, who is ramping up his efforts to woo Montanans, weighed in this week on the “closed-door" deal between the Plum Creek Timber Company and the Forest Service that could pave the way for development of Plum Creek timberlands in the state.
The story has been roiling in the state for months now, but just recently made the national news circuit. When the issue hit the pages of the Washington Post the Obama campaign was moved to chime in, Obama staffer Nayyera Haq said.
In a written statement released Tuesday, Obama wrote:
At a time when Montana’s sportsmen are finding it increasingly hard to access lands, it is outrageous that the Bush administration would exacerbate the problem by encouraging prime hunting and fishing lands to be carved up and closed off. We should be working to conserve these lands permanently so that future generations of Americans can enjoy them to hunt, fish, hike and camp.
On Saturday, the Washington Post published its article about the negotiations between timber-lobbyist-turned-Forest-Service-overseer Mark Rey and Plum Creek. Other news organizations latched on, including Grist and the Las Vegas Review-Journal. (The latter published an editorial about “environmental extremists” in Montana succeeding in sinking the timber industry and now suffering the consequences.)
Montana Sportsmen for Obama on Tuesday had blasted Plum Creek and the Forest Service on the issue as well.
The story surfaced in the handful of national outlets just after Plum Creek offered another news hook by announcing purchase of 320,000 acres of Plum Creek land by two conservation groups. Montana Sen. Max Baucus, who made the deal possible through a mechanism he inserted into the Farm Bill called it “the largest land purchase, for conservation purposes, in American history.”
The access/development issue is low-hanging fruit for Obama in a state he has a legitimate shot at winning—not too many people here, and surely not the key sportsmen constituency, want to see any of Plum Creek’s 1.2 million acres of timberlands, often publicly accessible, converted into subdivisions.
Is it politically motivated? Sure, but Steve Doherty, a member of Sportsmen for Obama and chairman of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commission said, “(Obama) might also be wanting to do the right thing. Sometimes they coincide.”
In response to Obama’s statement, Plum Creek released one of their own today, stating the company “also supports land conservation and has a strong history of conservation in the U. S. and in Montana,” citing the 320,000 acres it sold that “will help keep these forests in productive timber management and protect the area’s clean water and abundant fish and wildlife habitat, while promoting continued public access to these lands for fishing, hiking, hunting and other recreational pursuits.”
Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey expects to formalize the road easement deal with Plum Creek next month. It would “clarify” road use easements to ensure Plum Creek access over Forest Service land for development purposes, not just timber extraction.
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Comments
“Any and all communications between the US Forest Service and Plum Creek Timber Company regarding forest-road agreements, including discussions as they relate to real estate development. This would include, but not limited to, communications between all officials with, or representatives of, Plum Creek Timber Company and the US Forest Service, including Undersecretary Mark Rey and Forest Service Washington Office employees (including one WO-detached Lands Staff employee located in the Regional Office in Missoula, MT) between January 1, 2004 and May 13, 2008. . . [including] phone conversations, phone notes, meetings notes, emails, letters and faxes.”
Predictably, the government has been slow to respond as I'm still awaiting these requested public records/documents.
"some timberland" doesn't even come close to describing the Plum Creek buy. 300,000 acres, fully 1/4th of Plum Creek's land in the state.
do you think the other 3/4ths would go undeveloped without money from this sale?
I know what impacts wildlife and access more: developing land. Do you?
I can also say for sure that cash on hand is not / was not an obstacle to developing Plum Creek land.
Sorry to be a know-it-all, but for many reasons that I don't particularly feel like enumerating here, it really is quite obvious.
I said early on, in February, that Hillary would not get the nomination because Bill was not going to lose that revenue stream he has developed, which is tens of millions a year. I have no idea how he might have torpedoed her chances, but he did. My spouse and a college prof girl friend went to see Bill, and the spouse says "dead eyes--he has dead eyes", and she had front row seats. Bill was not into it for Hillary. It was the Bill show, and he was there to do his carney shill deal and impress you with his vast knowledge of all things governmental from the lefty point of view. And if it helped Hillary, damn, he might have been doing it too well! It is, was, and always will be about money, this political thing. Someone has an interest in their money and your politics on every front, and will do whatever it takes to gain advantage. Baucus' deal with PCT is for Baucus first, and if there is a real gain for Montana, so be it. It is OK to screw the rest of America to benefit your state, a state without the political will to manage growth and zone for all those Big Sky values so ardently supported with other peoples' money.
But the most egregious pig butt part of his doings, was Baucus giving Weyerhaeuser a $182,000,000 tax break. Here this company is, selling their Canadian lumber into the US market for billions of dollars a year, hugely profitable since they orchestrated the end to public land logging competition with their NGO friends and beneficiaries, and they had to get a comparable benefit to PCT's, but they had no land in Montana so they got their tax rate cut from 35% to 15%. Oh, and when the Bush tax cuts sunset, their tax cuts are still in place. Long term planning, vision, and well placed friends in Congress to slip an abuse or two into the earmarks-in-the-night conference committee sausage making, with farmers taking the blame because it is in the Farm Bill, which is of course, the farm subsidy bill when it is noted in the press. One big paint brush, that Farm Bill.
So, Obama can claim all he wants by attaching himself to Baucus on this deal, but he was not in the Senate chambers at any time during the discussion of the bill, nor was he on the conference committee. But we know what kind of underhanded pork deals he will approve as President. And what his Democrats will over ride a veto for, and which Republicans can be easily bought.
Max Doesn't Need To Campaign.
The genius voters of Montana had a crowded field to choose from, while the brilliant journalism industry here were so focused on interviewing IN THE FLESH PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES they pretty much ignored the rest of the field. So, the most familiar name, Bob Perpetual Gadfly Kelleher, got checked off among a pack of nobodies with no name recognition.
Of course, this deal was in the works for a long time before then, but so marginal it never made it through the "public" process -- but as the POWERFUL chair of a committee of a seniority-not-talent ranked institution, good old Max was able to swing things.
As for Obama, he has no understanding other than the line his friends, who in turn lack understanding of the real dynamics here, are spouting. What a country. It will be even better after the election.