Tester's bill fails reality check

Senator Jon Tester's "new style jobs and wilderness Bill," introduced July 17, models the current mode of Congress' handling of legislation:

- Prepare the actual bill provisions in secret with only representatives of selected political supporters at the table.

- Roll the bill out with great political campaign style fanfare and carefully staged media events.

- Do not publicly discuss the actual mandates in the bill, only spout selected talking points provided by staff that are often outright falsehoods or at best half-truths.

- Push the bill through as quickly as possible using political tactics to squash debate so that other members of Congress and the public have little opportunity to learn details of the Bill and opponents have little opportunity to tell their side of the story.

Passing legislation using the current administration's tactics is un-American. Like most political hype reported in the media, what most people hear is mostly smoke and mirrors. From the rhetoric to date, it is likely that Tester, even if he has read his own bill, doesn't really understand the actual consequences of mandates in the bill.

The claim that the proposals are a product of open public "collaboration" and "consensus" is just not true. There was no consensus on the Three Rivers designations on the Kootenai National Forest. Tester's Bill violates the most important principle requested by stakeholders in the Lincoln County Coalition (which morphed into the "Three Rivers Challenge"). The principle is a requirement for multiple use access and timber management with jobs in-place that are just as permanent as the wilderness designations at the time of any new wilderness designations. Contrary to this request for equality, Section 7 of Tester's bill even requires termination of the timber harvest targets after 15 years, or earlier if the bill's timber harvest targets are actually achieved. Apparently few or none of the Lincoln County Coalition stakeholders were involved in writing Tester's bill, except the wilderness activists who plan to negotiate another "deal" for more wilderness in the same area after 15 years.

Like the current Three Rivers Challenge, most "collaboration groups" consisted of selected people, and many public land "stakeholders" such as county, state, and tribal governments. Multiple use, mining, motorized recreation and the general public were often excluded from participation.

Tester's bill violates the National Forest Management Act and many other federal statutes that require coordination with state, local, and tribal governments. Many of the "collaboration committee" meetings were not advertised or open to the public. Most of the "stakeholders" that did participate in the collaboration meetings were certainly not consulted on drafting the provisions in Tester's bill.

The bill is not a "jobs" bill by any stretch of the imagination. Every designation in the bill permanently prohibits any significant future economic use of the land as mandated in the following provisions:

- The actual "Wilderness" designations permanently prohibit any mechanical equipment for access or development of any kind and doom the area to the "boom and bust" natural cycles of fuel buildup, insect attack and decay, and eventual catastrophic fire to release all the excess carbon buildup, destroy watershed function, wildlife and wildlife habitat, and pollute air and water with smoke and soil loss, as well as threaten private property, public health and safety.

- The permanent "Recreation Area" designations have very restrictive mandates that in effect are "quasi-wilderness." No new roads, no timber harvests, no mineral entry or leasing, no new developments of any kind, nothing for jobs only a black hole of management and protection costs to taxpayers. Motorized recreation such a snowmobiling or motorbikes are prohibited on most of the areas. Some motorized access may be provided on "designated areas or routes" as a result of maps to be prepared. Some areas are directed to have a "study" to see if and where motorized access will be permitted. It is clear the bill will only further reduce already inadequate diverse recreation opportunities for the general public.

In the general forest area outside the area designations, there is no guaranteed timber harvest, only target acres specified that are subject to National Environmental Policy Act compliance (p.26), appeals, and litigation just as all timber sales prepared under existing forest plans. The reality is that the Bill provides no improvement over the existing situation regarding timber harvest to support industry and jobs.

Outside the wilderness and recreation designations, the bill actually imposes additional onerous constraints over and above the existing forest plans.

For example, timber sales must use the "Stewardship Contracting Authority" that returns all timber receipts to the Forest Service to do their pet projects (like obliterating more public roads), the local governments get nothing for support of roads and schools. Most access to National Forest lands use county roads, and Government employees educate their children in local schools. In reality the bill's "stewardship" provisions are "unfunded mandates" that force local governments to pick up the costs like road maintenance, law enforcement, search and rescue, and firefighting resulting from the unmanaged federal land in the counties subject to the bill provisions.

- Construction of permanent roads for sustained timber production and protection are prohibited (p.20). Any road built to accommodate a timber sale or restoration project must be "reclaimed" at expense to the environment and taxpayers. Removing timber for commercial purposes from public land with no plan or provisions for future timber management, only barriers, amounts to unsustainable "timber mining."

There can be no sustainable forestry without access to annually or periodically remove excess biomass and insect and disease infested trees, and no access to quickly suppress fires. In short, the existing problems of unhealthy forests and high fuel hazard will remain or increase on all the forest except the relatively few acres that may actually get treated. These mandates are totally unnecessary and costly, and the long term effect is to doom the areas to more catastrophic fires.

- In addition specified maximum road density mandates will mean existing roads built with public timber money for multiple uses will have to be obliterated or "decommissioned" to meet the mandate. The temporary jobs tearing out public roads that could support forest protection and sustained future timber harvest indefinitely is touted as "good paying jobs" when the long term effect means loss of productivity and jobs.

- Other unnecessary and vague prescriptive language in the bill are invitations for litigation and abuse. On p.21, "…ensure that timber harvest activities are limited to stewardship areas." This invites "stewardship areas" to be gerrymandered to exclude areas that existing forest plans designate suitable.

There is a long-standing congressional protocol that Congress does not impose wilderness designations on states. Congress traditionally has approved wilderness designations that are agreed upon by that state's entire elected delegation. Freshman Senator Tester apparently doesn't agree or care to achieve consensus of Montana's elected delegation. Tester's bill should be defeated on that basis alone.

Due to the facts presented above, Senator Tester's "Jobs and Wilderness Bill" is bad for Montana's economy, environment, and citizens' quality of life.

Fred D. Hodgeboom is the president of Montanans For Multiple Use and a Bigfork resident.