It’s a positive step for Rep. Denny Rehberg to get out in Montana to hear public comment on Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, and we urge the Congressman to pay more attention to his constituents than the fringe groups claiming they had no voice in the development of the fundamentally sound, compromise bill.
Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” may not have the word “wilderness” in its title, but it’s proving to be just as much of a lightning rod as any that have included that word in the past.
Tester’s bill is the result of an unprecedented compromise crafted by a coalition of industry and environmental interests. It would set aside some 677,000 acres of land as wilderness – mostly in Southwest Montana – while mandating logging on some 7,000 acres of Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest land per year for the next 10 years.
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., is remarkably unfazed that a high-ranking federal official expressed serious concerns about his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
At the bill's first committee hearing in Washington Dec. 17, Agriculture Department Undersecretary Harris Sherman balked at a main provision of the bill that mandates logging or thinning on 7,000 acres of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest every year for the next 10 years.
Montana has long been famous for its blue-ribbon trout streams, premier hunting and access opportunities for the public. For most Montana families, hunting and fishing on public lands and waterways is an important part of their outdoor heritage.
Our way of life here is unique, and people from around the world come to experience what we enjoy in our backyards.
Etymology: the history of a linguistic form shown by tracing its development since its earliest recorded occurrence in the language where it is found, by tracing its transmission from one language to another.
As a Montanan, I feel lucky to live in a state where everyone is a neighbor and no one is too busy to lend a hand. As a Montanan deeply committed to conservation, I am also lucky to live in a state that not only has spectacular wildlands, but also has a legacy of protecting those wild places.
Sadly, for the past two decades, both our tradition of cooperation and our legacy of wildland protection have been at a stalemate due to conflicts over forest management.
In 1969 I was working for the Forest Service and was sent to Dillon to be the budget officer on the Beaverhead National Forest. My wife fell in love with the town immediately and the fishing was and is the best. There was even a sawmill with jobs! What could go wrong?
Suddenly the peace and quiet was broken. The forest became embroiled almost immediately in a Forest Resource Planning effort that turned into a rock fight between wilderness advocates and those who believed in timber management, including logging. Forty years ago and I can still remember meetings that went nowhere.
Montana's remaining timber mills are struggling to survive right now, while the mountain pine beetle thrives. The dilemma demands action — to preserve what's left of the state's logging infrastructure, to harvest infested trees while they still have value, to reduce wildfire risk for communities near forest lands.
As a Montanan and as a Granite County commissioner, I'm grateful for Sen. Jon Tester's willingness to carry the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act in Congress.
The courageous new bill represents hope and new opportunity for our state, because it aims to break the decades-long logjam on forest policy. It will cut down the risk of wildfire. It will create and save jobs.
As I walked past the "entering wilderness" sign with my hunting partner, Zach, I couldn't help but smile. We were going to spend the next few days hunting elk without the sound of old trucks rattling down the road or ATVs zipping up the trail around us. With only our bivvy sacks, sleeping bags and bare essentials, we headed up the mountain knowing that a few miles of designated hiking and elk trails will lead us into the middle of some of the best elk country in the West.