Roadless Rumble

Schweitzer Tells Bush Off on Roadless Change

By Courtney Lowery, 6-07-05

	Scott Poniewaz/New West

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has (figuratively) told President Bush to either put up or shut up on the administration’s new roadless rule.

The administration announced last month that it had overturned the Clinton-era roadless rule, opening up 58 million acres of roadless land in the West (6.9 million in Montana) to road building. That is, unless governors petition otherwise. Governors now have 18 months to make the decisions on these lands, a responsibility that does not sit well with Schweitzer.

“They’ve given me a broke-down baler and a vice-grip and told me to bale hay,� Schweitzer told New West Tuesday afternoon.

In non-farmer terms, Schweitzer is saying the State of Montana has neither the money nor expertise to deal with such a decision.

In a letter to President Bush, Schweitzer writes “The Forest Service has been trying to resolve this issue for upwards of 30 years with little to no success. With each succeeding plan, the issues have become more contentious and irreconcilable. Now your administration, without the benefit of public hearings, has issued a final rule that asks the states to shoulder this burden both administratively and financially.�

Other states are of course struggling with the new rule as well. Colorado already has a commission created to help with the process, but the other states either aren't sure what to do or aren't particularly happy with change. (With the exception of Idaho's Dirk Kempthorne, who loves the new rule, surprise, surprise.) Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal echoed Schweitzer's sentiments, saying right after the announcement, “This is really a costly exercise in futility for the states and a mechanism for the Forest Service to deflect political pressure."

The Schweitzer's office points out that in Montana alone, the Forest Service employs 2,375 people, with a budget of more than $47 million. And those employees are experts in making such decisions – hydrologists, foresters, biologists, entomologists … “you have it they’ve got it,� Schweitzer said.

“I have one guy,� he added, meaning natural resource advisor Mike Volesky.

Schweitzer asks in the letter that the administration shop out the Forest Service’s expertise and budget to help the governors make the decision.

If the administration wants governors to make the call, Schweitzer said, “They can just detail for the forest service, then we’ll do it for them.� But that’s something the Governor doesn’t think will happen anytime soon, so he’s setting out this summer to meet with county commissioners across the state to gather information about how Montanans want their roadless areas managed. It’s an attempt, he said, to “hold this farm together with a little baling wire.�

Schweitzer is very obviously leaning toward trying to keep Montana’s roadless areas as is. In his letter to Bush, he details how important these areas are for “family recreation� and he points out that already, the Forest Service has a $588 million backlog in Montana of existing forest roads needing work. By putting more money into maintaining existing roads, Schweitzer said, we’d still be creating more jobs for rural Montana and we wouldn't be building new, more expensive roads.

In the end, it will still be the administration's call whether or not the areas stay roadless, another thing that sticks in Schweitzer's craw. Once the petitions are made, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns still has the right to yay or nay the petition. If the petition is a yay, it then all goes to the Forest Service's rule making process.

(Sidenote: Schweitzer used the situation to use one of his "remember in high school?" moments, in which he likened the situation to a principal and the superintendent asking the student council to draw up an idea on an issue and when it does, the principal says "Ah, I don't like this" anyway. Good analogy, I thought.)

"I get the responsibility, but not the authority," he said.

This whole thing, Schweitzer said, is a trend with the Bush Administration – turning over burdens to governors with no money to match.

“It’s just another unfunded mandate. They say ‘you’re responsible but we’re not helping and we’re taking away your assets,’� he said. “This is an administration that has it all backward. Remember Truman? … This administration says ‘by the way, I’m passing the buck to you.�

Cases in point: Amtrak reform, roadless area, national security (Schweitzer points out that as the administration tells states they have to do their own homeland security and natural disaster relief, it simultaneously takes away the National Guardsmen and women and the aircraft the state uses to battle forest fires, an issue that has had the Governor hot under the collar more than once.)

He’s happy to have local control, but Schweitzer says the federal government is forgetting that states can’t just print up more money when someone has a new idea like the administration can in D.C.

“I have to deal with real dollars, real people, real problems and come up with real products,� he said.

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