Friday, July 24, 2009
Tester Defends Forest Jobs and Recreation Act
Posted by Jesse Froehling on Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 4:00 PM
Wednesday, a few minutes after the Indy went to press, Sen. Jon Tester held a conference call with reporters to address some of the criticism surrounding the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. For the most part, Tester stuck to his talking points: the bill will put people to work. It will quell some of the elevated risk of wildfire posed by beetle-killed trees. And, most of all, it represents a collaborative effort between Montanans who, Tester said, “you know, wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room as few as 10 years ago.”
Tester also addressed questions raised by environmentalists and researchers in this week’s cover story.
With the mandated logging, researchers claim that Tester is setting a precedent by removing forest management from the hands of the U.S. Forest Service and placing it in the hands of Congress.
“It’s absolutely setting a precedent, there’s no doubt about that,” Tester said. “But I think it’s realistic and entirely doable. Some of the forest service folks have told my staff and told me that they appreciate the possibility of getting some direction on forest management.”
As for the claim that declining market for wood products is permanent, Tester brushes it off.
“I hope we get [the bill] kicked in sooner rather than later and I hope the economy kicks in sooner rather than later,” he said. “We need tree products, there’s no doubt about it. There’s opportunity in the forest for dimension lumber, but also opportunities for biofuels...it can have real positive impacts. Overall, our demand for wood is not decreasing, so we need to be ready to go back to work when [the economy] pops up.”
But Tester saved his most ardent pitch for those who question the bill's environmental precedent:
“Is this going to violate NEPA?” he said. “No, NEPA will be done on a landscape basis. It’s not going to violate any environmental laws. There’re some folks who don’t want to cut any trees. And they’re going to look for any way to do it. They’re going to say I was bought. They’re going to say they were cut out of the process. That’s not the case. They’re going to say this doesn’t follow the federal process and that’s not the case. They can say it all they want but that doesn’t make it true.”
As reporters asked questions, a trend developed. One reporter would address criticism from the ATV community (half a million acres of wilderness designation bars the off-road community from some of their favorite haunts). Then, Tester would field a question from the left about the dropped wilderness-study areas on BLM land. Someone would ask him about jobs in the woods, then somebody else questioned the need for wood products. It became apparent that, although he touts the collaborative effort that crafted the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, Tester is feeling the pinch from all sides.
At one point, Tester answered a question with a statement that could have served as a subhead for the entire bill:
“That’s what happens in a collaborative process,” he said. “Not everybody gets what they want, but in this instance, I think everybody gets a lot.”
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SNIP: "As for the claim that declining market for wood products is permanent, Tester brushes it off. 'I hope we get [the bill] kicked in sooner rather than later and I hope the economy kicks in sooner rather than later,' Tester said. 'Overall, our demand for wood is not decreasing....'"
Really Senator Tester? Our demand for wood is not decreasing? Perhaps some of your staffers need to do a better job getting you credible information Senator.
According to a press release from the Western Wood Products Association (available at: http://www2.wwpa.org/ABOUTWWPA/NewsRoom/ta…), "demand for lumber in the US in 2009 will slide to the lowest level in modern history."
Also, "The poor economy and a housing market that has plummeted to historic lows are the chief reasons for the remarkable decline in lumber demand. WWPA predicts U.S. lumber demand will slide this year to just 28.9 billion board feet, down almost 30 percent from 2008 totals. Since reaching an all-time high of 64.3 billion board feet in 2005, U.S. demand for lumber has dropped by more than 55 percent - the steepest decline in the history of the industry."
So, to re-cap, according to the Western Wood Product's Association, U.S. demand for lumber has dropped more than 55% since 2005, the steepest decline in the history of the industry." But according to Senator Tester "Overall our demand for wood is not decreasing." Who are you going to believe?
Many of us rightfully question how Senator Tester is going to save timber industry jobs by simply mandating that the Forest Service provide more cheap, public timber to the industry.
Does this make any economic sense? Is this really how we should develop public policy dealing with public lands? Right now on national forest lands throughout Montana there are easily 20,000 + acres of timber sales just sitting there waiting to be logged. The timber sales either have gotten no bids from the timber industry or even if the sales are under contract to logging companies they simply aren't logging because they can't sell the lumber.
The fact remains that mills such as RY Timber (where Sen Tester announced his bill) are running at 60% because demand for lumber has plummeted and they simply don't have the big customer contracts they had before the housing bubble burst (Which many of us in the environmental movement warned about for years because the building and development rates were so unsustainable).
Heck, US taxpayers just handed $1,000,000 in "stimulus" money to a helicopter logging operation in the BItterroot Valley so they could log previously unlogged forests up the East Fork and send the trees to Smurfit Stone (which recently got $543,000,000 from US taxpayers to burn more diesel fuel as part of an "alternative" energy tax credit) for pulp logs. If this is what it means to "save the timber industry" does this make any economic or environmental sense?
All the slick talking points aside, when do we get answers to these important questions Senator Tester?
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Jon Tester made a campaign promise to protect
ALL remaining montana roadless areas. This bill release vast amoutns of roadless lands to logging etc. It;s as simple as that TESTER LIED OLD GROWTH DIED. I'm so dissapointed Rick I truly thought you of all people could see through the bs in this bill. They know NREPA just got shut down and was painted in a very bad light by the media etc. They know montana is hungry for the big W and that this is just the right time to pass soke sheisty bill like this under the lame guise of compromise. This bill protects roughly 10% of the available wilderness lands in Montana. A 90-10 "compromise" is anything but. All remaining roadless lands deserve protection. These ancient forests have survived for thousabnds of years and it's a miralce they're still here approaching the year 2010. Perhaps you could use some your own advice Mr. Bass perhaps it's been too long since you've slept on the ground in an unprotected roadless area. Perhaps it's been too long since you heard a golden eagle scream from the top of a wolf lichen draped old growth Douglas Fir. I work and spend almost all my free time in roadless and wilderness lands. These areas are the last of our wild country and they represent a very small percentage of the whole that can and should be protected. Their portection does not hurt the local economies, terminate jobs or prevent acess to our public lands in any way. These lands are worth more remaining as they are.
We can do better Montana..do you want to be the last best place or just the last best place to log old growth.
I dont want montana to beomce just like every other place.
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