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There were no fireworks Thursday as U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., spoke in support of the controversial Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
The open house, which lasted about two hours, drew roughly 75 people to Butte's Holiday Inn.
Tester opened with a 30-minute presentation on the meat of the legislation, which he introduced last summer, followed by remarks from Sun Mountain Lumber owner Sherm Anderson of Deer Lodge.
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.
Now in its third year, the OL 25 program honors 25 men and women who have changed the face of hunting and fishing.
Senator Jon Tester
Politician with a Hunter's Heart
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.
Montana has waited for nearly 30 years for new wilderness with nothing yet to show for it. When the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act passed in March, not a single acre of the 2 million acres newly designated as wilderness was located in Montana.
Meanwhile, Montanans have watched as our timber industry has dwindled to a bare skeleton of what it used to be, and in recent years, the nationwide decline in housing construction that hastened the shuttering of several western Montana mills.
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester says fellow Montana Sen. Max Baucus has co-signed a proposal to both add more wilderness and require more logging on federal land.
Tester made the announcement Monday during a public meeting in Missoula meant to answer questions about the "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act."
Baucus' support was the first thing Tester mentioned when he started discussing the draft bill. In the past, single-state wilderness bills have had the support of the state's congressional delegation, but Baucus had been silent on the proposal since it was introduced in July.
Sen. Jon Tester started his day in Missoula with good news from fellow Sen. Max Baucus: The senior member of Montana's congressional delegation had co-signed the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
He followed that with a packed open house, at the Doubletree Hotel, on the draft legislation. Rather than have the audience address the room at large, Tester's staff set up tables and people delivered their comments one-on-one. About 150 people attended.
The other day, as I watched the leaves whip through the forest near my home, I thought of an old friend. He and I used to visit the Bob Marshall Wilderness every hunting season. We would leave camp in the morning before first light. Once we got him close to an elk he would place it squarely in the rifle sights four or five times. Then he would lower the gun, clap his hands, and head back to camp happy as could be.
In reference to their guest opinion printed on the editorial page of the Thursday, Oct. 15, Montana Standard, I believe Beaverhead County commissioners Mike McGinley, Tom Rice, and Garth Haugland were right to be concerned how the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act might affect their constituents. The Butte-Silver Bow Council of Commissioners is also mindful of our
constituents and their concerns. While those concerns are not the same, they are similar.
TROY - Facing skepticism from both ends of the environmental spectrum, Sen. Jon Tester has taken his job - and his wilderness pitch - on the road, meeting with all comers at a series of open house-style gatherings.
The next, scheduled for Saturday in Troy, promises to generate considerable conversation regarding the future of forests near Yaak, which is central to Tester's large forest bill.
