OVER THE WEEKEND IN MONTANA
Vilsack Warms Up on Tester’s Bill
Secretary of Agriculture indicates new direction on Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, but no resolution on mechanical treatment mandates. Only supportive county commissioners were invited to the party.By Erin Alisa Zwiener, Guest Writer, 3-09-10
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| Mark Petroni (ight) explains mechanical treatment to, from left to ight, Sherm Anderson, Tom Vilsack and Jon Tester, during a meeting at Sun Mountain Lumber. Photo by Erin Alisa Zwiener. | |
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Last December, during a congressional hearing on the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act (NFJA), the Department of Agriculture’s testimony was anything but encouraging to Senator Jon Tester (D-MT). However, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack unrolled a new approach to this controversial bill on Saturday including clear support for its wilderness and timber infrastructure objectives.
“The components of (the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act) are absolutely in line with the goals of the administration,” said Vilsack. “This has to succeed, because it provides a good example for other communities who have similar resources.”
Vilsack had traveled to Montana to gather information about the communities and landscapes impacted by the bill, which would designate over 600,000 acres of wilderness in western Montana and mandate 10,000 acres of “mechanical treatment” annually for the next 10 years. If passed, the legislation would impact the management of the Lolo, Kootenai and Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forests.
During his visit to Montana, Secretary Vilsack attended a stakeholders’ meeting at Sun Mountain Lumber and a community meeting in Deer Lodge. Later, he flew over the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest to observe the impacts of mountain pine beetle mortality.
Tester, who introduced the FJRA last year, has been working closely with the USDA and the Forest Service (FS) to allay concerns expressed by Harris Sherman, Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and the Environment, at a hearing of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests. Sherman’s critiques focused on two issues: creating a harmful precedent and the feasibility of the mechanical treatment mandate.
“We have to make sure [this bill] works for the Forest Service,” Tester said.
In January, Tester announced 21 proposed amendments to the FJRA, one of which would add language clarifying that the bill is a pilot project. Vilsack said that while he’s still concerned about the possibility of setting a precedent of legislating the planning process, this amendment does help alleviate his worries.
“A pilot is not a precedent,” Vilsack said. “It’s a response to a unique set of circumstances.” But he added that legislation is not an appropriate management tool for every national forest or grassland.
In the December hearing Sherman called the 100,000 acres of mandated mechanical treatment “likely unachievable and perhaps unsustainable,” and Vilsack would not say if the USDA has rethought this position. Instead, Vilsack said he was visiting Montana to observe, and he has not come to a firm conclusion about the mechanical treatment mandate.
While touring the Sun Mountain mill, Vilsack discussed the mandated treatment levels in detail with Mark Petroni, who served as the Madison District Ranger on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest for 19 years. Petroni, a strong supporter of the FJRA, said the FS has identified approximately 280,000 acres for treatment on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest alone.
At the stakeholders meeting, collaborators discussed the opportunities of monitoring the implementation of the mechanical treatment and National Environmental Policy aspects of the bill. Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation and one of the primary collaborators, said this process may shed light on how to reform FS planning policy or even the National Forest Management Act.
“This bill is not about compromise. It’s about a wilderness component and a forest jobs and restoration component,” said France. “I would encourage the administration to support this bill as a test of how we can manage our forests better.”
Commissioners from Broadwater, Missoula, Granite and Powell County lent their support to the FJRA at the community meeting. They discussed the importance of the timber industry to their economies and managing the landscape to protect their communities from fire.
Representatives from Beaverhead and Madison Counties, from where much of the opposition to the bill’s wilderness provisions has stemmed, were conspicuously absent. According to Beaverhead County Commissioner Garth Haughland, his office was not formally notified of or invited to participate in either meeting.
After the commissioners spoke, Tester and Vilsack took questions from the public, often tag-teaming to explain the bill’s concepts. Although most attendees were supportive, some had concerns about the mechanical treatment provisions. Howie Wolke, an outfitter and a long time wilderness advocate, expressed his concern about logging in the backcountry under the guise of wildfire protection and asked whether the bill adequately protects inventoried roadless areas from harvesting.
“Logging the backcountry is a waste of taxpayer money and is not effective for controlling fire,” said Wolke. He added that he would like to see language added to the bill prohibiting mechanical treatment in inventoried roadless areas.
Vilsack responded that nothing in the FJRA would overturn or alter the implementation of the Roadless Rule. Tester added that another proposed amendment to the bill would prioritize the Wildland Urban Interface for mechanical treatment and said that he didn’t believe roadless areas would need to be treated to reach the 100,000 acres mandated over the life of the legislation.
Bill Schwarz, a Deer Lodge area rancher, agreed that the forests should be treated to reduce the risk of wildfire. He asked what protections were in the bill to keep lawsuits and injunctions from precluding or delaying timber harvesting.
After explaining that this legislation cannot eliminate the risk of lawsuits, Tester said, “I firmly believe that this bill will speed up the litigation process and give judges more direction.”
Throughout the day, Vilsack returned to the USDA’s overarching goal. “I am as deeply concerned about the health of rural America as you all are about your forests,” he said. “We have got to get the message to cities and suburbs that they need (healthy rural communities) to survive and thrive. . . We are working with the Senator’s office. I’m confident that we’ll come up with a plan that will maintain forest jobs infrastructure and be sustainable.”
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Comments
Sets a dangerous precedent for other national forests to be explicitly controlled by "stakeholders"(IE lumber companies, ranchers and U.N.conspiracy nutjobs).
670,000 acres are designated wilderness, out of a possible Three Million which is hardly the majority.
The West Pioneers Roadless area is cut from 248,000+ acres to 25,000+ acres of wilderness and 129,000+ acres would be designated a recreation area. That still leaves around 100,000 acres of roadless lands in the west pioneers unaccounted for.
25,000 acres of wilderness out of a 248,000 acre roadless area is really just inadequate to ensure the breeding pop. of Wolverines, Grizzly bears etc. remain stable.
The Sapphires roadless area is almost cut in half.
With 900,000 acres of roadless forest makred open fro mechanical treatment on the BHDL I fail to see how this bill is in the best interest of keeping our roadless lands Wild if not designated wilderness.
It does nothing to ensure or strengthen protection for roadless lands, but rather repeats mistakes such as mandated logging that the forest service has lived through time and time again.
What is the fate of the remaining 2.3 + million acres of roadless lands on the 3 National Forests that Tester's bill deals with.
Some already has been designated a recreation area which I hope means bicycles and not ATV's, that designation only appears to weaken protection for these roadless areas.
What about the all those roadless acres makred yellow, how do we know these forests won't be exploited if the bill appears to remove their roadless designation and marks them open to harvest.
I know you claim everything is consistent with the roadless rule, but do the lands being makred in yellow become exepmpt from roadless status?
As a fourth-generation Montanan, I grew up in the Bitterroot Valley. In a career of 68 years, I gained a special appreciation of Montana’s unprotected roadless wild lands, richly endowed with their world-class wildlife. This grew out of my 12 years of research in the Bob Marshall, Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church-River of No Return wilderness areas, and my experience in national forest backcountry on timber and range surveys and fire lookout fireman jobs.
After earning my master’s degree in forestry and wildlife management in 1951, I was employed as a wildlife biologist with the Forest Service and state wildlife agencies in Montana and Idaho. I then served as assistant conservation director with the National Wildlife Federation in Washington, D.C.
I was associated for more than 20 years with the Wilderness Society, including 12 years as its executive director. During my tenure, I worked for the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act and other public land legislation, including the groundwork for the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
It is with this background and with a deep personal concern that I share reservations about Sen. Jon Tester’s logging and recreation bill, S. 1470. This measure was conceived in private and written by four corporate logging entities and a few conservation “collaborators.” Deliberations purposefully excluded major players – the Forest Service, local county governments, watershed and irrigation interests, local and state land, wildlife and wilderness interests, and a broad segment of other user groups.
Despite the best intentions of Tester, this ill-advised measure poses a serious threat to our national forests and other publicly owned lands. Specifically, the logging mandated by S. 1470 is unprecedented and represents an unscientific override of current forest planning, leading the head of the Forest Service to tell the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests that the logging levels in S. 1470 are unachievable and unsustainable.
Tester’s bill mandates logging at least 7,000 acres a year for 10 years in southwestern Montana’s Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest, over seven times the sustainable harvest rate of 975 acres per year, established by Forest Service professionals. In their opinion this is unachievable, unsustainable and – at projected subsidies of at least $1,400 per acre – unaffordable.
For northwest Montana’s Kootenai National Forest, Tester mandates logging 30,000 acres of grizzly bear habitat. Wildlife biologists say this will “be the last nail in the coffin” for the struggling, isolated remnants of what used to be a vibrant grizzly population in the once-wild Yaak.
The long-term jobs our communities need should come from the Forest Service’s enormous backlog of restoration and habitat improvement programs. These can furnish steady flows of pure water, better fishing and hunting, irrigation and community water supplies and continued sustainable harvests from our timber producing lands.
If Congress were to endorse Tester’s bill, more than 100 years of federal resource protection laws could be overridden by any interest group that gains the ear of any congressman or senator. We need not open this Pandora’s box of special loopholes and subsidies for a handful of corporations.
Our wilderness and roadless wild lands are an irreplaceable part of our Montana heritage. They deserve the fullest possible protection. Tester’s bill places them in jeopardy.
Stewart Brandborg, a recipient of the Robert Marshall Award, the Wilderness Society’s most prestigious honor, lives in southwest Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. This opinion piece was taken from Brandborg’s testimony before the U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests. His full testimony is available at testerloggingbilltruths.wordpress.com.
Is there no end to throwing taxdollars at losing business propositions? These Democrats are stinking drunk with power, and want to spend more of your money. Oh, I forgot, they spent that long ago, and now have to borrow from your grandchildren, who will have to pay back the Chinese government and the Fed, who both keep buying 10-year U.S. Treasury notes, ultimately backed by you, the taxpayer. What about this is not crazy bad?
Secretary Vilsack spoke with authority, and his comments were testament to Senator Tester's close work with the USDA and the USFS. Tester's 20+ proposed changes, and this subsequent endorsement by Sec. Vilsack, are a clear indication of Tester's desire to address the concerns of constituents and key stakeholders, including the Forest Service, and to act on what he hears.
This is the truth (it's not partisan) and exactly what is going in Tester's bill.
No matter how much Tester and the like have disguiesed it this is a bailout/handout to powerful timber interets.
It throws out a few crumbs of wildernss by protecting 670,000+acres of wilderness out of a possible 3,000,000+ acres of wilderness quality roadless lands and the rest is an absolute favor to Tester's campaign contributors to continue the same failed practices and policies that have led to the crumbling of the timber industry in the first place (namely unsustainalbe, tax payer subsidized logging)
Mr. Brandborg states very clearly in the article I posted above that the long term restoration jobs in MT need to be restoring/maintaining the tremendous backlog of forest servie work in the state.
This bill is a well orchestrated, well funded attemt at bypassing our national forests, public input and environmental laws.
"We got a statement from 'a USDA spokesperson' on what to make of Vilsack's comments and Sherman's testimony. I'll get you the exact copy soon, but to paraphrase: Uhhhhh, they're both right? We have concerns, but a pilot project's certainly an option if those concerns are addressed."
I'm in an all day workshop today, but I'll pass along the USDA spokesperson's statement of clarification as soon as I get a copy. Suffice to say, if the snip above is indeed a correct paraphrase of the USDA's position, I'm not sure the Forest Service or Obama Administration's position on the Tester bill has changed very much since the Dec 17, 2009 hearing.
After all, it appears the Forest Service/Obama Administration is saying that all these substantive concerns with the Tester bill need to be addressed (concerns pasted below and available at the link to their official testimony), after which time the Obama Administration might support Tester's bill as a pilot project.
That's a far, far cry from the Montana Wilderness Association's Gabe Furshong saying above that Vilsack has given a "pledge of support" to the Tester bill and MWA's Zack Porter commenting above about the "subsequent endorsement by Sec. Vilsack."
And given the fact that Tester's office, and bill supporters such as the Montana Wilderness Association, have basically flat-out refused to even acknowledge these substantive concerns for 9 months now, much less engage in an open discussion about the Forest Service's substantive concerns, I have to wonder what the real likelihood is that Senator Tester or the Beaverhead Partnership would even go for all these changes in bill requested by the Forest Service?
Like I said, I'll post the official statement from the USDA spokesperson regarding this matter when I get a copy. If anyone else has a copy of that statement, please feel free to post it also, as it seem pretty relevant to any future discussion on this matter. Thanks.
What follows are direct statements from the official testimony of the US Forest Service and Obama Administration as delivered before the Senate's ENR Committee on Dec 17, 2009 by Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment Harris Sherman (Source: http://energy.senate.gov/public/_files/ShermanTestimonyonS1470121709.pdf):
"If the Committee decides to go forward with a bill, we would urge you to first, alter or remove the highly specific timber supply requirements, which in our view are not reasonable or achievable.
Secondly, we like to urge you to amend the National Environmental Policy Act related provisions, which in our view are flawed and are legally vulnerable.
Thirdly, we would urge you to consider the budgetary implications to met the bill's requirements. If we were to go forward with S1470 it would require far greater resources to do that and it will require us to draw these monies from forests within Region One or from other Regions.
And lastly, there are a number of other issues that I have flagged in my written testimony that we think needs to be addressed and hopefully corrected."
"The levels of mechanical treatment that are called for in S1470 are likely unachievable and perhaps unsustainable."
"There is the likelihood that if Congress were to move forward and pass legislation such as we are talking about today, that other regions will want to do so similarly. Now, if that happens, my concern is that there will be somewhat of a Balkanization that occurs between the different regions in the country. Those who are first in may get funded and those who come later may find there are less funds available. There will be certain "haves" and "have nots" that result from this process. Then in someways there is no longer a true national review, an effort to sift out what priorities ought to exist across the country."
Very interesting news. Thanks for posting that tidbit!
Actually Jake I sent you a response yesterday.
After identifying myself I asked that you respond to my questions/concerns about the bill and respond to the article I posted above and sent you.
You have failed to do either.
Your first repsonse consisted of "who is %*(my intials.)
After I identified myslef your second response consisted of
"Sure. Anything specific because I posted my general response on NW."
Your general response does'nt answer my questions/concerns, nor does it respond to the article by Mr. Brandborg. Your going to actually have to respond toi me as a person Jake, rather than issuing a blanket statement and expecting everyone's questions/concerns to be answered.
Why have'nt you resonded to my questions/concerns?
Why have'nt you responded to the article by Mr. Brandborg?
I have asked very specific questions Jake, such as why the west pioneers is only designated 25,000+ acres of wilderness out of a 240,000+ roaldess area?
The article I sent you also expresses clear concerns that I share regarding mandated timber harvests on the BHDL.
To claim I have'nt asked you anything specific is both dishonest and a diversion tactic.
STILL WAITING JAKE.
"Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation and one of the primary collaborators, said this process may shed light on how to reform FS planning policy or even the National Forest Management Act."
The thought that the bad policies might not only be replicated on other national forests but even incorporated in NFMA is an awful proposition.
“This bill is not about compromise. It’s about a wilderness component and a forest jobs and restoration component,” said France."
Given the huge net loss of wildland and wildlife habitat protections proposed in this bill, it is astonishing that Tom France indicates he has not yet begun to compromise. What about the wolverine denning habitat in the West Pioneers, for one example? It would be seriously compromised by a designated snowmobile Wreckcreation Area. There are too many other examples of compromised wildland wildlife habitat protections to list here.
France's collaboration is true to the French sense of the term. He betrays the wildlife he is supposed to represent.
Biomass Crop Assistance Program to Spur Production of Renewable Energy, Job Creation
USDA Farm Service Agency Seeks Comments on Proposed Rule
WASHINGTON, February 3, 2010
As President Obama announced earlier today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture today issued a proposed rule for the new Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) that intends to spur the expansion of dedicated non-food crops for renewable energy and biofuel production. A public comment period will continue for 60 days after the rule is published in the Federal Register.
"Advancing biomass and biofuel production holds the potential to create green jobs, which is one of the many ways the Obama Administration is working to rebuild and revitalize rural America," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Facilities that produce renewable fuel from biomass have to be designed, built and operated. Additionally, BCAP will stimulate biomass production and that will benefit producers and provide the materials necessary to generate clean energy and reduce carbon pollution."
Authorized in the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, BCAP is designed to ensure that a sufficiently large base of new, non-food, non-feed biomass crops is established in anticipation of future demand for renewable energy consumption. BCAP is intended to reduce the financial risk for farmers, ranchers and forest landowners by providing incentive payments to those who invest in the production, harvest, storage and transportation of new first-generation energy crops that displace hydrocarbon-based materials now used for heat, power and vehicle fuel.
On May 5, 2009, President Obama issued a Presidential Directive to accelerate the investment in and production of biofuels. On June 11, 2009, a notice of funds availability (NOFA) was published for certain portions of BCAP, and the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) issued the first payment in August 2009. Early program beneficiaries to date include a Vermont school that will replace 100 percent of its fossil fuel consumption with biomass, a start-up pellet company that uses locally-grown agriculture residues from Iowa farms and a rural electric cooperative that displaces fossil fuels with woodchips to generate low-cost electricity in northeastern Georgia.
BCAP is authorized to fund two main types of activities. First, it provides funding for agriculture and forest land owners and operators to receive matching payments for eligible biomass materials sold to qualified biomass conversion facilities for the production of heat, power, bio-based products or advanced biofuels. The payment rate is intended to assist producers with the cost of collection, harvest, storage and transportation of the biomass to the facility, for up to two years. This is the part of the program covered by President Obama's Presidential Directive.
Additionally, BCAP will provide funding for producers of eligible renewable crops within a select geographical area to receive payments up to 75 percent of the cost of establishing the crop and annual payments for up to 15 years for crop production.
Other proposed notable goals of BCAP include improvements in forest health by removing uneconomical forest thinning, reducing the risk of disease, invasive species and forest fires and providing new options for improving air quality by avoiding open-air burning of scrap biomass.
A copy of the proposed rule is available online at http://www.fsa.usda.gov/bcap
Also, this week's Missoula Indy has some more info on this situation here:
http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/etc/Content?oid=1234818
Finally, regarding this statement from the article, "Mark Petroni, who served as the Madison District Ranger on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest for 19 years. Petroni, a strong supporter of the FJRA, said the FS has identified approximately 280,000 acres for treatment on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest alone."
I was in contact this week with some of the current Forest Service employees who do the actual NEPA analysis for projects on the Beaverehead-Deerlodge National Forest and they told me that while there is indeed a shelf in their office, there is no such thing as a shelf with an analysis for 280,000 acres of treatment on the BHDL. Some...maybe, but most of the analysis is 20 years old. You think maybe things have changed in 20 years?
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Obama Administration raises concerns on eastern Oregon forest bill
By Scott Learn, The Oregonian
March 11 – The Obama Administration raised concerns today about a compromise bill for managing national forests east of the Cascades, saying the bill's mandates to thin 300,000 acres in the next three years may generate "unrealistic expectations" in timber towns.
Harris Sherman, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's undersecretary for natural resources and the environment, detailed six "areas of concern" at a subcommittee hearing led by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on the "Oregon Eastside Forests Restoration, Old Growth Protection and Jobs Act of 2009."
Sherman said the 80,000 acres of thinning the bill calls for next fiscal year would double current levels. "We want to work with the committee to ensure these treatment levels do not affect other forests and programs in Oregon or the rest of the country," Sherman's written testimony says.
Sherman's other concerns included the bill's establishment of a formal science advisory panel, exemptions from the appeals process for some projects and the precedent the bill would set for making national forest decisions outside a national framework.
The La Grande-based Hells Canyon Preservation Council and the Oregon chapter of the Sierra Club are opposing the bill as written.
"Jake Troyer to me
show details Mar 11 (2 days ago)
Sure thing.
The 25,000 acres is designated as Wilderness because they should be and they deserve to be. It is unfortunate the Forest Service didn't recommend any Wilderness in their Forest Plan for the WPs but I'm really glad Senator Tester has. That is a gorgeous area and if you haven't been there yet, I'd recommend a backpack this summer.
After talking with forest users in the area, there a fair number who use the W. Pioneers to snowmobile. The Senator chose to make that a national recreation area so they could continue that use after his staff met with those users.
In fact, almost 95% of the West Pioneers will be protected permanently with either Wilderness or NRA. No logging, new roads or mining will be allowed in this area. It will resolve the WSA question for future generations and forest users.
I'm not saying you're going to agree with this but that is the answer to your question.
I'm also attaching a couple sheets you may find useful.
Thanks,
J"
Notice how Jake, as usual completely fails to even mention my main the point the DENING WOLVERINES. I pointed this out to him and how the "recreation" permits snowmobile use in the high country in winter, despite the fact that they disturb the few dening wolverines up there and could result in their displacement or death; since yesterday i've heard no response from MWA. Aparently Jake and the MWA think only 25,000 out of a 240,000+acre roadless "deserves" wilderness. This is just both a wholy inadequate response (as usual from MWA) and a paltry offering to protect the w.pioneers roadless area. I dont think it's right to allow snowmobile joy riders to have priority over the survival of a species.
Just another substancial concern with Tester's FJRA,
and still wiating to hear back from MWA.
So, here you have Mark Petroni, writing columns about how great the bill is, and the results would be. Then along comes the Ninth Circuit Court, and WHAM, the usual triad of NEC, AWR and WW just scored a nice procedural whack job on a grazing lease overseen by Petroni over sage grouse on the BDNF.
The ruling is amazing, especially Alex Kozinski's high dudgeon dissent. But there ya go....unless the system is reformed, the usual suspects and their symps in the Ninth Circus will keep up the good work.
Here in Montana, Tester and his cronies are hosting public meetings about his wilderness bill at health clubs around Montana, among other places.
Given the subject, the location is ironic: AS IF the topic of Tester’s wilderness legislation is something healthy—the back-to-nature feel of it, all fresh and clean and natural—so let’s all discuss it near those healthy people exercising away on their treadmills, the oblivious glow of exertion in their eyes.
The health club location is ironic because of the SICKNESS Jon Tester is trying to divert our attention from: THE JON TESTER HEALTHCARE PORTA-POTTY BILL, festering away with disease and stink and bile, Tester’s virulent tax bacteria waiting to crawl out of his healthcare Porta-Potty sewer hole, up into the most vulnerable parts of his constituents.
JON TESTER and fellow Montana Socialist MAX BAUCUS are screwing the voters over with their healthcare fiasco, and now the voters are supposed to forget all about their healthcare vote against Montana kids and focus on Tester’s grand Montana Wilderness legislation, like we are too stupid to see Jon Tester’s bait-and-switch, like this pretty white “wilderness” horse is going to carry him away to safety in the Montana backcountry, save his sold-out soul from defeat in the next election.
Here is the real Jon tester: http://immage.de/image-9,2103djontester.jpg,0,0.htmlg
Yeah, JON, you sold out our kids, and Montanans are so stupid they will divert their senses from the stinking healthcare Porta-Potty you are tipping over in the laps of our children’s future.
Metaphorically, it is as though you are sticking a hunting knife in our backs and telling us to ignore it and go exercise on a treadmill, like we won’t feel anything is wrong as you drain our blood away.
You think you can get reelected in the next election by puffing out a bunch of Montana Wilderness smoke?
You want to cloud our eyes and fog our minds with your diversion Wilderness Bill, like we are supposed to forget about the fatal stab you are giving our children’s future?
JON SOCIALIST TESTER, WE ARE GOING TO VOTE YOU OUT OF OFFICE.
We are going to put YOU and the idiots who work for you out of work and send you straight to the unemployment lines where you are sending our children. We are going to take YOUR PAYCHECKS away because we don’t want to give you our tax money to stab us in the back and dump your bait and switch bile on our kids anymore.
Yeah, Jon, we’ll look the other way–at your grand, healthy, back-to-nature WILDERNESS BULL and forget about the Porta-Potty mess you are dumping all over us, the knife you are sticking in our backs. You bet.
During your Furer Obama’s “healthcare summit,” I noticed Nancy Pelosi say:
“We have to pass this or Medicare/Medicaid will go broke.”
So Jon the Socialist, you are taking our money NOW to pay a debt for something that happened long ago. You want my kids’ money to fund a system and services that already took place.
So you are reforming nothing with your “healthcare reform.”
You are stealing our money to pay for your crap legislation. You aren’t from Montana. You sold us out. You are big sky garbage.
This tea bagging government subsidized old welfare Republican is totally subsidized by SOCIALIST Nancy Pelosi types, I imagine you are as well , asshole.
again you've demonstrated how far out of touch the far right is, that they actually think testers bill is a victory for wilderness advocates.
the rest of your rant is really incoherent right wing crazy giberish.
Don't forget, small business is the boat that floats your good lifestyle, and when that is gone, you will stink (yes, poop will eventually lose it buoyancy and drop to the bottom). I mean sink.
you complete and utter whacko
I despise tester and his bill are you that desne,can't you read? I don't work for the govt.
small business an my lifestyle what are you blabbering about?
just another right wing bigot nut who thinks testers bill is a win for wilderness.
What a cluless out of touch moron.
you absolutely bat sh*t house crazy right wing nut
stupid wing nut bigot go home
The main reason this bill continues to gain traction in overall support is that people by and large will support ANY bill ANY where at this point if it has the potential to make ANY progress within this analysis paralysis litigation nation legacy of accomplishing absolutely nothing for decades. The public overall is fed up about the details and nuances of Forest management and don’t really care about scientific specifics if those scientific specifics mean scrapping plans for management that they perceive as potential progress such as fuel reduction or salvage logging projects.
People just don’t want to hear ANY ifs ands or buts at this point they don’t want to hear about any reasons why forest management should remain status quo they just want it to go back to something that more resembles the silvicultural glory days of the 50s and 60s and they by and large do not want to hear about why endangered species, NEPA, market demand for lumber tumbling due to global recession or how salvage logging a burned area can negatively impact bull trout habitat with unnatural sediment loads relates to the inception and specific support or criticism of this bill. The general voting public just wants to hear about the potential for positive change and whatever bill that can potentially get us from here to there will continue to gain and gather support and rightly so. ANY thing that promotes such change will be enthusiastically supported.
This is why right or wrong, scientifically accurate or not Matthew and Wild West, AWR, Stewart Brandborg -FOB et al were essentially prevented from participating in this bills planning process-the other groups knew from the get go that there would never be consensus among one another-so they tried to craft a much more palatable bill targeting the middle ground perspective rather than the much more extreme and less widely supported NREPA.
So now it is only the extremes at either side of the spectrum that want this bill to fail because there’s not enough wilderness designation yet some think there’s too much? Over the past 18 months as this whole bill and its story have evolved it’s become painfully clear, yet again, that no bill is ever going to make all sides even close to happy or satisfied. So- Oh well that’s life -nobodies ever going to get exactly what they want all the time(except for maybe Tiger Woods)- so I’m glad that what started as a mediocre skeleton of an idea for a bill seems to be making progress in to becoming a better bill by fine tuning and modifying some of the specifics(even though Testers staff seems to be ignoring my compatriots attempts to consider our concerns in relation to special forest products-HINT,HINT!-that’s really something that should be addressed in the bill!!! So any body out there with new pertinent information? UPDATE PLEASE
...is reason enough for Senator Tester's office to send out a pre-arranged press release that very much infers that the USFS and Dept of Agriculture supports the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act as written.
Remarkable... I mean, somewhere there has to be archived footage of Senator Strom Thurmond saying to Senator Ed Kennedy, "I really appreciate your leadership on heath care and civil rights issues."
You can watch the exchange between Senator Tester and Chief Tidwell here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdxM87gwwio
One important Q/A exchange in the video - which you do not see highlighted in Senator Tester's press release - is as follows (at the 3:15 to 4:15 mark in the video):
Senator Tester: "How often do you plan on giving the committee the kind of analysis [of progress made on timber, fuel reduction or restoration work] you just spoke of?"
Chief Tidwell: "We'll continue to work with the Committee to address your concerns. Throughout the year we are more than glad to come up at anytime to show the progress we've been making on accomplishments. I would like to reference what we were able to do in 2009. If you look 2009, it was probably the toughest market that we've had with the integrated wood products industry. But we were still able to accomplish close to 97% of our [timber] target in 2009. We also exceeded our wildlife improvement targets and we also exceeded our hazardous fuel improvements targets."
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So, in 2009 the USFS was able to 1) exceed their hazardous fuel reduction targets; 2) exceed their wildlife improvement targets; and 3) accomplish 97% of their timber targets (in the worst lumber market in US History).
How do these facts from USFS Chief Tidwell concerning what the USFS was actually able to accomplish in 2009 jive with the complaints of "Gridlock" we so often hear from Senator Tester and supporters of his bill? Remember, back in September, Senator Tester went so far as to tell a Bozeman crowd that "lawsuits have stopped forest management cold."