Monday, December 20, 2010
Tester speaks to forest bill failure
Posted by Alex Sakariassen on Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 5:30 PM
Despite his failed attempt to pass a renamed version of his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act through Congress as part of a $1.2 trillion omnibus appropriations bill, Sen. Jon Tester apparently has no intention of giving up on his controversial piece of wilderness legislation. Senate Democrats shelved their 1,924 page spending bill last week when it became clear that Republicans weren't going to play ball. But Tester preferred to remain optimistic with his congressional colleagues this Saturday, promising that "we will continue to work to get this bill passed."
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Over the past two year many Montanans – as well as Americans – have expressed serious, substantive concerns with Senator Tester's Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. Concerns have ranged from the mandated minimum logging levels, motors and other incompatible uses in designated Wilderness, negative impacts to Forest Service budgets in our region and turning some wildlands and Wilderness Study Areas into permanent motorized recreation areas. These serious concerns are a major reason why the Tester's bill never made it out of the Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee, never made it to the floor of the US Senate and never was introduced in the US House.
One concerning aspect of the FJRA, which one would only know about if one actually read the bill and understood it's policy implications, is that Senator Tester was attempting to permanently designate certain Inventoried Roadless Areas into permanent motorized recreation areas Take, for example, the 229,710 acre West Pioneers Inventoried Roadless Areas (IRA), which includes the 151,00 acre Metcalf Wilderness Study Area (WSA). What Sen Tester’s bill would do is turn 129,252 acres of this IRA into a permanent, motorized Recreation Management Areas (RMA). Seriously, do we really want politicians ignoring the USFS’s travel plans to just legislate where they want motorized recreation permanently permitted? Of course, our recommendation would be to designate the entire 151,000 acre Metcalf WSA as Wilderness and eliminate the permanently motorized RMA, returning the management of that area to USFS travel planning, where it belongs.
Or take, for example, what Tester’s bill would do to the West Big Hole IRA, a 213,987 acre area along the crest of the continental divide that provides linkages and connectivity between the Greater Yellowstone area and forests to the west and north. The Tester bill would turn just 44,084 acres of this IRA into two small, far-apart Wilderness Areas while turning much of the IRA into a single, large, permanent, motorized National Recreation Area (NRA) totaling 94,237 acres. The large NRA would be twice as large as the two proposed Wilderness areas together and access to these two proposed Wilderness areas would be forced to use the motorized NRA trails.
These are just two examples contained in the bill. I can provide more examples if anyone likes.
Instead of honestly listening to these concerns and making the needed changes to his bill, in recent weeks Senator Tester worked behind the scenes to attach his bill as a rider to a completely unrelated $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that ran 2000 pages long. It’s unfortunate that Senator Tester chose such a course, but I'm certainly glad that the entire omnibus spending bill was pulled from the Senate floor late last week, as Tester's logging bill wasn't the only pork-filled rider/earmark glued onto that bill at the 11th hour by senators of both political parties.
While Senator Tester likes to say this is a jobs bill for the timber industry, new home construction in America is down 70% and overall US wood consumption is down 50%. Just where are all these forests Senator Tester wants cut down going to end up? The fact is that the Forest Service ended 2009 with more timber volume already under contract to loggers and mills in our region than any point in the last decade. The Forest Service in Montana also has more logging, thinning, fuel reduction and restoration projects in the pipeline than at any point in recent memory. Still mills either closed or have dramatically reduced their work force. Why? Because the global economic crisis continues to drag on with little real relief in sight. Besides, should we – or can we – really go back to the over-consumption and over-development of recent decades? Congress stepping in to mandate more public lands logging in this context is irrational. Furthermore, Senator Tester giving the newly elected GOP majority in the US House cover to introduce their own bills mandating more logging, oil and gas development, mining and grazing on federal public lands in their own states is irresponsible and threatens America's public lands legacy.
Hopefully, if Senator Tester decides to introduce his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act in the next session of Congress, he'll established a true open, inclusive and transparent process and do a better job of listening to these substantive concerns and make the required changes to his bill.
P.S. In this speech, Senator Tester continues to state that his FJRA is "popular with over 70% of Montanans." Here are some facts behind that statement: "Fact Checking FJRA Poll Numbers" at http://leftinthewest.com/diary/4521/fact-c…
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Tester's FJRA is a well orchestarted, well funded assault on amererica's last roadless lands.
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