Missoula Notebook

If passed, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act would designate the first new Wilderness Areas in Montana since 1983, and I’m up here, in a plane provided by the non-profit Ecoflight, to get a first-hand look at what the bill would actually mean to miles of backcountry in some of the most cherished wilderness in the state. Down below me is the battle zone: forests and landscapes treasured by hikers, loggers, snowmobilers, mountain bikers, horse packers, anglers, hunters, and oil and gas firms, among others. The Tester bill aims to protect wild land while satisfying as many of these groups as possible. But can it succeed?

WHAT ARE THEY HIDING?

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.

Schweitzer Flip-Flopping?

Beyond the eventual success or failure of any bill overhauling the American health care system, another battle looms in Congress: climate change.

The passage of legislation to limit heat-trapping carbon emissions poses the second great challenge for Democrats, many of whom campaigned last year with promises to take action against global warming. In December, President Barack Obama will head to a United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, and the successful passage of a U.S. climate change bill will allow him much firmer standing in any international agreements.

Yet the lead effort to emerge out of Congress so far, the so-called “cap-and-trade” bill, sponsored by Democratic Congressmen Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, is already generating opposition in Montana – and some of it is coming from the left. 

Monday, Aug. 31: Click here for an update.

Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg is lucid and recovering from a three-hour surgery on a broken ankle Friday and a fracture around his eye after his involvement in a boat crash near Bigfork Thursday night, but two members of his staff suffered more serious injuries.

Rehberg, two staffers, Kalispell Republican state Sen. Greg Barkus and his wife, Kathleen were hospitalized in stable condition after their 22-foot boat ran into rocks in the dark near Wayfarer’s State Park.

Dustin Frost, Rehberg’s state director, suffered a head injury and doctors at Kalispell Regional Medical Center are currently monitoring his condition, according to Erik Iverson, a family friend and former chief of staff for Rehberg who held a conference call with reporters Saturday morning.

Follow the stimulus money

Watchdog groups like OMB Watch are having a field day with a fine story from the Associated Press, which reports that remote backwaters—like Whitetail, Montana—are getting millions of dollars in stimulus money ahead of bigger border crossings that urgently need upgrades.

The story by reporters Eileen Sullivan and Matt Apuzzo (view it in full here) shows how Whitetail managed to get $15 million under President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan, despite the fact that “a government priority list ranked the project as marginal.”

How can this be?

Doctors Orders

Sen. Jon Tester sat down at two Missoula hospitals this morning to get a second—and third, and fourth ... and 25th—opinion on the state of the nation’s health care system and what to do about fixing it.

He got an earful.

“We’re doing more tests and procedures than necessary to prove that a problem we know doesn’t exist isn’t there,” said Chriss Mack, a neurosurgeon at Saint Patrick Hospital and one of 25 health care professionals who attended two roundtable discussions organized by Sen. Tester.

Political Commentary: Joan McCarter

In the ongoing red state/blue state, small state/big state public opinion tussle, the small states have been on the losing end lately, with small state Senators having huge influence on two major pieces of legislation, influence that is either significantly weakening, and even threatening to kill, those bills. That leaves plenty of people wondering how it is that a handful of senators who represent a tiny fraction of the nation’s population get to decide for all of us. But I think the real question needs to be whether that tiny fraction of the nation’s population is really being represented, and if not, what are they going to do about it.

Zoning Lawsuit Has No Home

In a rare move, all four judges in the Fourth District Court of Missoula have declined to hear the lawsuit that three Missoula City Council members filed against the city last month.

The case was brought by city council members Dick Haines, Renee Mitchell and Lyn Hellegaard, who have asked the court to order the city to stop its zoning ordinance update, arguing that the city is not following local and state procedural guidelines. The matter can now be offered to a district judge from a neighboring district—or even to a retired judge—who can either accept or decline the invitation to hear it. Eventually, a home for it will be found, officials said.

City Attorney Jim Nugent said he has only seen about six civil suits or political cases in his 30-year career where local judges have recused themselves. Typically, it’s done because the case involves a contested community issue that judges don’t feel comfortable deciding, he said.

Health Care Reform

Is Max Baucus about to do to America's health care system what Phil Gramm already did to the nation's banking system? Let's hope someone stops Baucus before it's too late.

Senator Phil Gramm, the Texas Republican, was a free market zealot who was more responsible than any other politician for the mortgage meltdown that led to the epidemic of foreclosures and the current economic recession. Now Senator Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat, is playing a similar role in the battle over health care reform. Although certainly more moderate than the right-wing Gramm, Baucus is nevertheless using his influence to undermine President Barack Obama's efforts to enact meaningful regulations that would require the insurance and drug companies to act more responsibly.

Just as Gramm argued that the banking industry could police itself without government rules and safeguards, Baucus is tying the hands of Congressional reformers who understand that we can't trust the insurance and drug companies to protect consumers and control costs. If Baucus is successful, health care costs will continue to skyrocket and hurt the nation's economic well-being.
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Wilderness Bill Analysis

I’ve been holding off writing anything about Senator John Tester’s Forest Jobs bill for a while. I’ve talked to many people, both supporters of Tester’s bill and those who have many questions about its implications. As most people in Montana know, Senator Tester combined three different logging/wilderness proposals formulated by collaborative efforts affecting all or portions of the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest, Seeley Lake District of the Lolo National Forest, and Three Rivers Ranger District Kootenai National Forest into one bill that will designate wilderness areas. But the bill also mandates a minimum acreage for logging, new ORV and mountain bike trails, plus some other tax payer supported goodies like the specific subsidy of a biomass plant for Pyramid Lumber in Seeley Lake. He then added some twists of his own.

Unlike some of my friends and associates, I do believe there are some good things in Tester’s legislation and other things that I could live with if there were some modification of the bill’s language.
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