bakerhab2003
07-24-2009, 09:27 AM
Land Letter: 7/23/09
WILDERNESS: Democratic bills look to protect 750K acres in Mont., Colo.
Daniel Cusick, E&E reporter
Congressional Democrats continue to push for new federal wilderness designations in the West, with two proposals rolled out last week that would extend the highest level of federal protection to more than 750,000 acres in Montana and Colorado.
The larger of the two bills, offered by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), would set aside almost 670,000 acres of Montana national forest as wilderness but also includes provisions requiring that 100,000 acres of public forest in the state undergo logging over the next decade.
Tester's bill, which won support both from timber industry representatives as well as from traditional wilderness proponents, is being touted in Congress as a jobs bill for the resource-rich Big Sky state, where the sagging national economy has taken a toll on the state's timber harvesters and sawmills.
"Our forests, and the communities and folks who rely on them, face a crisis right now," Tester said Friday at a news conference in the community of Townsend, Mont., 30 miles southeast of Helena. "Our local sawmills are on the brink, families are out of work, while our forests turn red from an unprecedented outbreak of pine beetles, waiting for the next big wildfire. It's a crisis that demands action now."
Meanwhile in Colorado, Rep. John Salazar introduced a more modest bill aimed at protecting 63,475 acres in four national forests: Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, Gunnison and San Juan. The Democrat's bill would also apply wilderness designation or special protective status to lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management in the San Juan Resource Area.
Salazar's draft legislation -- which enjoys support from county commissions in the three districts that would be affected -- will be open to public comment for 30 days, according to the congressman's office.
To win support from key constituent groups, including ranchers, Salazar's bill dictates that the federal government cannot rescind existing water and grazing rights. The proposal also specifies that a major trail running event, the Hardrock 100 Endurance Run, can continue to cross any areas designated as wilderness or as a special management area.
'Made in Montana' bill
But it is Tester's bill that continues to draw attention both in Montana and Washington, D.C., where it could become a competing proposal to the much larger "Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act," which seeks to extend wilderness protection to 24 million acres in five states, including more than 6 million acres in Montana's national forests (Land Letter, June 11).
The Northern Rockies bill has been championed by environmental groups as the most sweeping wilderness designation proposal in a generation, but the measure has little support from Western lawmakers, who say it will stymie not only traditional economic activities such as logging but new projects associated with the Obama administration's push for expanded renewable energy resources.
The dearth of Western support for the Northern Rockies bill is evidenced by the fact that no member of Congress from Montana, Idaho or Wyoming sponsored or even publicly endorsed the measure.
By contrast, Tester's "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act" -- which limits new wilderness designations to three national forests and strips protections from 240,000 acres that have been managed as "wilderness study areas" since (2 Forest Service areas and 10 BLM areas) -- is winning early support from key lawmakers, including Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). In a statement, Baucus praised Tester's commitment "to keep the timber industry strong, while protecting our outdoor heritage."
Tester, too, has carefully orchestrated the bill's release to play up its grassroots development and support, as opposed to the Northern Rockies bill whose chief sponsor is Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). At Friday's press conference, Tester called his bill as "a made-in-Montana solution that took years of working together and hearing input to create a common sense forest plan."
And like Salazar's Colorado wilderness proposal, Tester's bill does not seek to alter existing grazing rights, which are sacrosanct among Montana ranchers.
While not yet formally introduced in the Senate, Tester's bill is being subjected to early public scrutiny through his Senate office's Web site. The site solicits direct public comment on the measure and asks Montanans to sign on as "citizen co-sponsors" to, as Tester says, "do your part to put your shoulder to the wheel in the push to get this done."
In an opinion article published in the online magazine New West, former Rep. Pat Williams (D-Mont.), an author of the last substantive Montana wilderness bill in 1988 that was vetoed by President Reagan, called Tester's bill "the most openly public and locally oriented of any bill of its type in Montana history."
Forest protection or industry turnover?
Environmental groups, including the Wilderness Society, Trout Unlimited and Montana Wilderness Association, also threw their support behind Tester's bill, even though its provisions stop short of the vision many advocacy groups seek for the Northern Rockies region.
"At this point, it looks like a more feasible way to move forward," Jared White, a spokesman for Wilderness Society's Northern Rockies office in Bozeman, Mont., said of the Tester bill.
"We think NREPA presents a great vision for the landscape, and we want to work toward realizing that vision," added White. "However, at certain times it's more politically acceptable to implement that vision piecemeal, working alongside many different types of people."
Daphne Herling, president of the Helena-based Montana Wilderness Association, said her organization was "proud to be part of the broad coalition of people who came together to find made-in-Montana solutions to restore our forest, help our communities and protect some of our most magnificent landscapes for Montana families to forever enjoy."
But others remained sharply critical, including the Helena-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies, which accused Tester in a statement of "turning over management of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and the Three Rivers Ranger District in the Kootenai National Forest to the timber industry."
Michael Garrity, the group's executive director, said the Tester bill violates a tradition of deference given by Congress to the Forest Service and other agencies over how forest areas should be managed.
"Congress, even under Republican control, rejected efforts to mandate logging levels because Congress understood that changing conditions on the ground make it very unwise to mandate from Washington, D.C., how much logging should take place on a national forests in Montana," Garrity said.
He further charged the bill "ignores current ecological and economic realities" by cutting additional trees from fragile habitat areas to be sold in a down construction market. "Mandating a logging level is foolish in an economic downturn," Garrity said. "Where are they going to sell this timber? They aren't building enough houses to use this wood."
WILDERNESS: Democratic bills look to protect 750K acres in Mont., Colo.
Daniel Cusick, E&E reporter
Congressional Democrats continue to push for new federal wilderness designations in the West, with two proposals rolled out last week that would extend the highest level of federal protection to more than 750,000 acres in Montana and Colorado.
The larger of the two bills, offered by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), would set aside almost 670,000 acres of Montana national forest as wilderness but also includes provisions requiring that 100,000 acres of public forest in the state undergo logging over the next decade.
Tester's bill, which won support both from timber industry representatives as well as from traditional wilderness proponents, is being touted in Congress as a jobs bill for the resource-rich Big Sky state, where the sagging national economy has taken a toll on the state's timber harvesters and sawmills.
"Our forests, and the communities and folks who rely on them, face a crisis right now," Tester said Friday at a news conference in the community of Townsend, Mont., 30 miles southeast of Helena. "Our local sawmills are on the brink, families are out of work, while our forests turn red from an unprecedented outbreak of pine beetles, waiting for the next big wildfire. It's a crisis that demands action now."
Meanwhile in Colorado, Rep. John Salazar introduced a more modest bill aimed at protecting 63,475 acres in four national forests: Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre, Gunnison and San Juan. The Democrat's bill would also apply wilderness designation or special protective status to lands overseen by the Bureau of Land Management in the San Juan Resource Area.
Salazar's draft legislation -- which enjoys support from county commissions in the three districts that would be affected -- will be open to public comment for 30 days, according to the congressman's office.
To win support from key constituent groups, including ranchers, Salazar's bill dictates that the federal government cannot rescind existing water and grazing rights. The proposal also specifies that a major trail running event, the Hardrock 100 Endurance Run, can continue to cross any areas designated as wilderness or as a special management area.
'Made in Montana' bill
But it is Tester's bill that continues to draw attention both in Montana and Washington, D.C., where it could become a competing proposal to the much larger "Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act," which seeks to extend wilderness protection to 24 million acres in five states, including more than 6 million acres in Montana's national forests (Land Letter, June 11).
The Northern Rockies bill has been championed by environmental groups as the most sweeping wilderness designation proposal in a generation, but the measure has little support from Western lawmakers, who say it will stymie not only traditional economic activities such as logging but new projects associated with the Obama administration's push for expanded renewable energy resources.
The dearth of Western support for the Northern Rockies bill is evidenced by the fact that no member of Congress from Montana, Idaho or Wyoming sponsored or even publicly endorsed the measure.
By contrast, Tester's "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act" -- which limits new wilderness designations to three national forests and strips protections from 240,000 acres that have been managed as "wilderness study areas" since (2 Forest Service areas and 10 BLM areas) -- is winning early support from key lawmakers, including Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.). In a statement, Baucus praised Tester's commitment "to keep the timber industry strong, while protecting our outdoor heritage."
Tester, too, has carefully orchestrated the bill's release to play up its grassroots development and support, as opposed to the Northern Rockies bill whose chief sponsor is Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). At Friday's press conference, Tester called his bill as "a made-in-Montana solution that took years of working together and hearing input to create a common sense forest plan."
And like Salazar's Colorado wilderness proposal, Tester's bill does not seek to alter existing grazing rights, which are sacrosanct among Montana ranchers.
While not yet formally introduced in the Senate, Tester's bill is being subjected to early public scrutiny through his Senate office's Web site. The site solicits direct public comment on the measure and asks Montanans to sign on as "citizen co-sponsors" to, as Tester says, "do your part to put your shoulder to the wheel in the push to get this done."
In an opinion article published in the online magazine New West, former Rep. Pat Williams (D-Mont.), an author of the last substantive Montana wilderness bill in 1988 that was vetoed by President Reagan, called Tester's bill "the most openly public and locally oriented of any bill of its type in Montana history."
Forest protection or industry turnover?
Environmental groups, including the Wilderness Society, Trout Unlimited and Montana Wilderness Association, also threw their support behind Tester's bill, even though its provisions stop short of the vision many advocacy groups seek for the Northern Rockies region.
"At this point, it looks like a more feasible way to move forward," Jared White, a spokesman for Wilderness Society's Northern Rockies office in Bozeman, Mont., said of the Tester bill.
"We think NREPA presents a great vision for the landscape, and we want to work toward realizing that vision," added White. "However, at certain times it's more politically acceptable to implement that vision piecemeal, working alongside many different types of people."
Daphne Herling, president of the Helena-based Montana Wilderness Association, said her organization was "proud to be part of the broad coalition of people who came together to find made-in-Montana solutions to restore our forest, help our communities and protect some of our most magnificent landscapes for Montana families to forever enjoy."
But others remained sharply critical, including the Helena-based Alliance for the Wild Rockies, which accused Tester in a statement of "turning over management of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and the Three Rivers Ranger District in the Kootenai National Forest to the timber industry."
Michael Garrity, the group's executive director, said the Tester bill violates a tradition of deference given by Congress to the Forest Service and other agencies over how forest areas should be managed.
"Congress, even under Republican control, rejected efforts to mandate logging levels because Congress understood that changing conditions on the ground make it very unwise to mandate from Washington, D.C., how much logging should take place on a national forests in Montana," Garrity said.
He further charged the bill "ignores current ecological and economic realities" by cutting additional trees from fragile habitat areas to be sold in a down construction market. "Mandating a logging level is foolish in an economic downturn," Garrity said. "Where are they going to sell this timber? They aren't building enough houses to use this wood."