GUEST COMMENTARY: DON'T USE PUBLIC LANDS AS BARGAINING CHIPS
Tester, Say “No” to Quid Pro Quo Wilderness
Senator Tester should abandon this failed model for public land policy.By Janine Blaeloch and Steve Gilbert, Guest Writer, 7-09-09
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| Kent Peak in the Sapphire Mountains Wilderness Study Area. Photo by George Wuerthner | |
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In response to Senator Jon Tester’s call for input, Western Lands Project (WLP) wants to convey its concerns and hopes regarding his potential sponsorship of Montana wilderness legislation.
In the past several years, particularly under the Republican majority in Congress, there has been a disturbing trend toward legislation that comingled wilderness designations with non-wilderness provisions. These have included land exchanges, sales, and outright giveaways of public land, as well as complex land use provisions designed to override existing land management plans.
Western Lands Project and dozens of other grassroots organizations opposed these bills, which we came to call “quid pro quo wilderness,” because these bills circumvented environmental laws and public processes that normally guide such decisions and traded land and resources in one place for wilderness protection in another. Many proposals bypassed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a cornerstone of U.S. environmental law that provides for analysis, transparency, public involvement, and deliberative decision-making.
Fortunately, once the Democratic majority was regained, policy turned away from quid pro quo wilderness. We fear, however, that the three “wilderness” proposals Tester is considering bringing through Congress--the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership, Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Project, and Three Rivers Challenge, will give renewed, undeserved credibility to this kind of legislation.
All of these projects involve public lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service for the American people--citizens from Ohio, New York, Florida, North Dakota, Arizona and 45 other states. Appealing though it may be to promote the idea of local interests forging “collaborative” agreements regarding wilderness and land use, the fact is, these are national public lands.
Releasing roadless acres to logging as a tradeoff for wilderness designation, lifting restrictions on motorized use to win support from OHV riders and snowmobilers--whatever these closed-door negotiators may have come up with--these schemes leave the public in the dark and use our public lands and resources as bargaining chips for Wilderness.
There is a forest planning process in place that gives voice to the public through NEPA and through open-door public hearings and meetings. Not one of the proposals being considered for Tester’s legislation used this process, although the Beaverhead-Deerlodge, Lolo and Kootenai forests have all produced (or are in the process of producing) forest plans that do adhere to NEPA.
Steve Gilbert (WLP Board member) is a Montanan and a strong wilderness advocate and lover and traveler of wild places. He was a proud member of Montana Wilderness Association, Yaak Valley Forest Council, Trout Unlimited, and National Wildlife Federation, the “collaborators,” until they allowed themselves to be drawn into the trend of negotiating away public land to loggers, road-builders, and motorized recreationists in return for wilderness designation.
However well-intentioned, the organizations and individuals promoting these tradeoffs are not only endangering public land, they are undermining critical environmental laws and regulations created to protect the public interest. Their plans erode the integrity of the Wilderness Act and cement precedents that would make all wilderness and public lands more vulnerable than they already are.
We are urging Senator Tester to reject this harmful model for public land policy. He must allow the Forest Planning process (with public involvement) to determine what areas can be logged, what will be open for motorized recreation, and what should be protected. Because only Congress can designate Wilderness, we hope he will use his authority to bring more of Montana’s wilderness under official protection, yet allow the other land use decisions to remain under the transparent, deliberative NEPA process.
Editor’s Note: Janine Blaeloch is director and Steve Gilbert is a board member of the Western Lands Project.
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Comments
The Western Lands Projects in their own newsletter openly support the NREPA wilderness bill.
"There is a forest planning process in place that gives voice to the public through NEPA and through open-door public hearings and meetings. Not one of the proposals being considered for Tester’s legislation used this process, although the Beaverhead-Deerlodge, Lolo and Kootenai forests have all produced (or are in the process of producing) forest plans that do adhere to NEPA."
Janine or Steve, please explain to all of us how the NREPA wilderness bill that you openly support meets the criteria that you set above.
PS - NREPA and NEPA are two good, though very different things.
As has been said here and elsewhere, we don't know exactly what Tester's plans are, but the template he's working off of--the three proposals from self-selected groups--would circumvent forest planning already in place or ongoing.
It would override Forest plans by changing and/or expanding motorized use areas (based on their own political calculations rather than environmental factors/public input/planning). It would expand logging into roadless areas and/or areas NOT designated to be logged under forest planning.
NREPA doesn't bypass any public process that could be used to do what it does. The Tester grab bag would--no doubt in more ways than we yet know about.
So, when's the last time you saw any significant change in a Forest Service Plan that resulted from public comment through the NEPA? The NEPA comment process as currently implemented is an expensive and largely meaningless hoop though which agencies must jump periodically. The pro-wilderness comments on all previous Forest Service NEPA plans in Montana have produced exactly zero acres of new wilderness in 3 decades. A colaborative process as developed by the Beaverhead-Deerlodge process promises to provide movement and win-win solutions rather than continued stagnation. It certainly can't produce worse results than continued reliance on the demonstrably failed model called NREPA that hasn't and will never create any new wilderness because it isn't supported by the congressional delegations of any of the states involved.
There's a big difference between having the opportunity and the right to participate in decisions through NEPA--with a long-established process, and the right to file an appeal or ultimately a legal challenge if the laws is violated--and having the (usually) eleventh-hour opportunity to weigh in on legislation already drafted, and having no legal recourse.
And there is no question that collaboration can produce worse results when it proposes to open up new and/or roadless areas to logging or consign new areas to motorized use.
That's why I don't support any more wilderness. The other side wants designation, while still leaving existing multiple-use areas open to litigation, closure, prohibitions and whatnot. I'm willing to bet that Tester's bill, when it finally leaks down to the rabble, frontloads designation with no real protections for multiple use activities on the other, nonwilderness parts of the package. The entire arsenal of obstructionist law will remain. So the selected loggers and motorheads who threw everyone else under the bus to supposedly protect their own fannies, are going to find themselves isolated and cut off in the long run.
Dya think the hardliners on the left (those not getting Pew wilderness money) are going to stop litigating? And dya think the MWA or other "collaborative" members will SERIOUSLY restrain the actions of their former friends to protect their new "friends?" Nah.
Until multiple use gets equal protection under the law, same as wilderness gets protection, the goalposts will always move the wrong way.
Ecosystems and roadless areas lose big when Congress undermines sound science and longstanding environmental protection laws. Not a "win-win" by a long shot. And as for opinion about the "failed" NREPA strategy, Montana had 6.4 million acres of roadless lands that qualify for wilderness designation. It's 6.4 million acres today. You have to admit, NREPA supporters must be doing something right. What special right do you think you or your fellow "collaborators" have to exempt public lands from federal laws and reduce that hard-fought 6.4-million-acre roadless inventory on behalf of out-of-state mill owners?
None of these projects would need legislation if they could pass NEPA muster. That's the point. If they could, then who could possibly object to a Legislative EIS for each. Fat chance.
The QPQ process depends upon assembling local "stakeholders" as if they were the only owners of public lands. We are ALL owners of those lands.
Once assembled around the roundtable, "environmental" organizations such as Trout Unlimited, Nature Conservancy, and others are negotiating terms for cutting deals which they have no right to represent the rest of us by.
There are two opposite meanings to the terms "collaboration", and "compromise" they claim to practice. Unfortunately, the QPQ negotiation process is more about cooperating traitorously with an enemy of the best interests of the public, and acceptance of standards that are lower than is desirable.
So, in other words, all Tester is doing by putting the Beaverhead Partnership bill in his legislation is encouraging and codifying public lands management by self-selected special interests groups or corporations who have signed Confidentiality Agreements among themselves while excluding everyone else who is an equal owner of these lands. Is this really how we want the future of public lands management decided? I strongly say “no” and I hope other people do too!
Just because it's creative and collaborative, it's not necessarily wrong.
One major concern with this bill is the notion that we can use money generated from logging to pay for needed restoration work. That strategy has largely failed to pay for much restoration work even when lumber demand and prices were high. Now that there's no demand for lumber and lumber prices are in the toilet and we're in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression this strategy is even more bankrupt.
For example, the Beaverhead Partners have already proposed a test pilot project called the East Deerlodge Valley Project. The Forest Service analyzed the project area and found 3000 acres suitable for logging. The Beaverhead Partners objected to "only" 3000 acres of logging and instead proposed 10,000 acres for logging (I have the actual maps). Funny thing is, for every acre of more logging above 3000 acres, the project actually loses more and more money. How such an approach pays for restoration is a real mystery.
Questions like these should be asked at Tester's press conference on Friday.
Also, what follows are snips from Wildlands CPR's response to Tester Wilderness Bill Announcement available at http://www.wildlandscpr.org/blog/controversial-mt-wilderness-land-management-bill-due-out-friday
"Wildlands CPR has not been part of that partnership, but we reviewed their initial draft proposal very carefully and had both significant concerns about and some praise for the proposal. If the final bill looks a lot like the draft, however, then we're not quite sure they'll succeed with the restoration they propose.
....Tester's office explains that the legislation will be released on Friday, and that it is not simply a wilderness bill, but a land management bill. And that's exactly what concerns us…
Way back in 2004, when lots of groups were starting to work on collaborative wilderness/land management bills, Wildlands CPR put together a special issue of our newsletter with a series of articles dedicated to that specific topic and our positions on it. We don't think Congress should legislate Forest Plans - it doesn't make sense to us because of how severely it ties the hands of land managers.
...we don't think there's enough money in the timber sales to pay for the restoration through stewardship contracting, so we're worried that the restoration wouldn't really happen, even though the logging would. We also have serious questions about thinning in lodgepole pine forests, which are dependent on stand-replacing (a.k.a. catastrophic) fire for regeneration. "
http://mtlowdown.blogspot.com/2009/07/tester-to-unveil-major-forest-bill.html
"An early draft of the bill releases four Congressionally mandated Wilderness Study Areas. These are areas that are under consideration for possible Wilderness designation and receive the same protections as Wilderness. Under the draft version of the bill, the Lost Creek Scenic Area, the Big Hole National Recreation Area, the West Pioneers Recreation Management Area and the Yaak Special Management Area will be released from that special designation and opened to timber harvesting, off-road vehicle use and grazing."
If you think this will decrease federal spending on a per-acre basis on lands in this bill, you have completely missed the point. Collaborators are expert in using government budgets to run their "private" programs. Bait-and-switch is the game, wake up. Read the bill, add up all the duties of "the Secretary" and you will see this for what it is: a massive unfunded mandate. How do you really think below-cost forests can generate a positive cash flow to do all the "good" things being promised? Where's the market for wood fiber? China? In the U.S. taxpayers pay the mills to haul it away.
I don't recall making that point, Steve.
And before you tell me to "wake up," you might want to know that I worked in the Tongass NF for several seasons and I know exactly what the cozy relationship between the FS and the timber industry can be. And as much as anyone, I've fumed at a system that feels rigged to benefit the lobbyists and the corporations and screw the tax payers.
At the same time, I think you are using a broad generality to make your point (admittedly with a fair bit of existing evidence to support it). But broad generalities of how things have happened in the past don't necessarily dictate how things have to be in the future, which seems to be the assumption you're operating under in this case. Logging will continue to happen on National Forests, and any approach that approaches the issue from the perspective that there should be "no logging" is doomed to be sidelined.
The "inefficiencies" of the status quo that I spoke to in my previous post refers to the absolutely lethargic way in which decisions are made and management strategies changed with the existing system. I see this as a pro-active approach to trying something different. Is it perfect and does it make everybody happy? No. Not anymore than the traditional way of going about this does, nor any other attempt that might involve other organizations that are currently feeling excluded in this process. But frankly, I see a lot of bruised ego and whining going on here, combined with an "if it's not completely perfect and we don't get everything we want, than we'd rather advocate in favor of the totally ass-backwards traditional system which has gotten us nowhere," instead of looking at the big picture of how this could strategy could improve planning processes for all (or at least most) involved parties in the future.
I took "bloated" followed by "inefficient" to mean budget excesses, and/or waste (dollars and resources). The FS, like all bureaucracies, is a function of its budget. Don't try to put words in my mouth. I am not advocating the ass-backwards, traditional system in any way. Quite the contrary. I have more than once publicly advocated an end to the FS as we know it. But would never turn management over to these clowns. "This strategy," as I see it, is a continuous neoliberal campaign that began in 1980 with Reagan/Watt to weaken the agency, outsource its authority and jobs, deregulate its regulatory mechanisms and privatize our public assets. The only thing that stays the same is who pays - our taxdollars will, as always, be wasted on greedy corporations, only now non-profits are on the take too. Neoliberal running quickly toward neo-feudal, is not conservative, right?
"on the take" is an interesting choice of phrases to apply here, but still appropriate--
Idiom Definitions for 'On the take'
"Someone who is stealing from work is on the take."
Free market environmentalism (FME) practiced by most national "environmental" groups requires the converted, (often with excellent personal records of prior environmental accomplishments) to "steal from (their past) work", that is, stealing credibility from prior accomplishments to advance the corporate FME agenda.
In the spirit of QPQ, the "converted" gets a good retirement package in return for delivering a convincing yet slightly altered advocacy for "the environment" employing "win-win" market based solutions. Tester's legislation fits this FME bill "to the T" so to speak.
Having come from the corrupted USFS ranks on the Tongass yourself, along with your talking points makes me wonder if you aren't on the TNC staff running the next QPQ Bill up our collective taxpaying asses: that is, the Tongass Futures Roundtable(TFR), currently attempting the same shame as Tester's corporate treat.
To answer your questions--
Why?:
Money. There are millions of corporate foundation dollars going to the "environmental" collaborators on the Tongass sitting at the roundtable. Paid to orchestrate privatization, deregulation, devolution of governmental functions and democratic principles.
Who?:
TNC, TU, NRDC, SEACC, TWS, SCS, (Funded By: Wilburforce Bullit, Campion, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundations)
Smithhammer, say it ain't so-- are you or are you not working for any of the preceding "non profits"-?
I guess we'll have to trust your answer to be truthful. Better yet, whaddya think of that TFR?
Twist the interpretation of "on the take" however you want, the bottom line is that your use of it in this case amounts to nothing more than melodramatic vitriol.
Go back and read my post again. I never said I worked for the FS in the Tongass - I merely said I worked in the Tongass.
Nor am I on the payroll of any of the above-mentioned NGOs. I am a member of TU.
Btw, your use of acronym-ization of phenomena like "FME," is a laughable attempt at legitimization of a feeble argument (or LALFA, as it is called in certain circles...)
For a more balanced treatment, I'd recommend reading Ring's article in HCN:
http://www.hcn.org/issues/41.12/taking-control-of-the-machine