If the goal is protecting some Wilderness in Montana and getting some restoration and fuel reduction work accomplished,  the ENR Committee’s draft, while not perfect, is a step in the right direction and superior to both Senator Tester’s original bill and his new proposal. 

Fact is, the ENR Committee’s draft would protect over 660,000 acres in Montana as Wilderness. However, the Committee’s draft doesn’t undermine Wilderness by allowing military helicopters to land in Wilderness or ranchers to ride their ATV’s in Wilderness, as Senator Tester’s draft allows.  By any objective measure, when it comes to Wilderness, the ENR Committee draft is better.

While the ENR Committee’s draft dropped the controversial mandated logging provisions – which the Forest Service called unachievable, unsustainable and not reasonable – Senator Tester’s new draft, unfortunately, re-inserts the logging mandates. Based on the ENR Committee’s draft, it seems pretty clear that the Committee and Chairman Bingaman will not allow this bill out of Committee if it includes logging mandates.  So it seems as if right now Wilderness designation for 660,000 acres of Montana’s wildlands is being held captive by the timber industry and Senator Tester’s insistence on the U.S. Congress mandating logging, which would be an unprecedented and unwise step.

Now it appears at the bottom of this AP as if Senator Tester and his staff are stretching the truth claiming that the Forest Service now supports Congress mandating logging? Where in the heck is documentation to back up that supposed statement and change of direction from the agency?

One would certainly assume that since the ENR Committee’s draft dropped the logging mandates that the Obama Administration and USFS are in agreement with the Committee that mandated logging shouldn’t be part of the bill.

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Harris Sherman, Under Secretary of Natural Resources and Environment, in official testimony before the US Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee:

“The levels of mechanical treatment that are called for in S1470 are likely unachievable and perhaps unsustainable…If the Committee decides to go forward with a bill, we would urge you to first, alter or remove the highly specific timber supply requirements, which in our view are not reasonable or achievable.”

The Wilderness Society, an official supporter of the FJRA, had this to say specifically regarding the logging mandates in their official testimony submitted to the US Senate’s Energy and Natural Resources Committee:

“We oppose Congressionally mandated treatment levels in the bill because they, a) neglect the root causes of the problems this bill is intended to address, b) set an adverse national precedent, c) create unreasonably high expectations, d) fail to provide the agency the resources it needs to do its job, and e) most important, we do not believe this approach will work on the ground.”

Matthew, keep up the good fight against the backroom deal making that Tester swore he would never do.