Flathead Valley Continental Divides: Kalispell, Montana News

Last week, Dan Testa posted the “Stain” ad that is running against Congressman Denny Rehberg and several of his Republican colleagues, criticizing the lawmakers for voting against the American Clean Energy and Security Act. Yesterday, Rehberg sent out an opinion piece to the state’s media, charging that the “ad distorts the truth.” Here it is:

You’ve probably seen the slick, negative ads on TV, claiming that I voted against the “American Clean Energy and Security Act” because of contributions from “big oil and energy interests.” These accusations are dishonest and false. They are designed to confuse you and disparage me. The legislation these ads endorse is bad for America and even worse for Montana. 



The ad doesn’t tell you that I joined 212 Members of Congress, including 44 Democrats, in voting against this legislation. The ad doesn’t tell you that not a single Representative, Republican or Democrat, from Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota or South Dakota voted for this bill. And the ad doesn’t tell you that Senator Max Baucus voted against similar legislation in the Senate when it came before his committee. 


Montana Sen. Jon Tester has made Outdoor Life’s list of “25 men and women who have changed the face of hunting and fishing.”

The magazine chose Tester, in large part, for crafting the yet-to-be-passed “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.” From Outdoor Life:

Every Montana politician for a generation has tried to untangle the land-use stalemate before being cowed by one interest group or another. Now, thanks to a U.S. senator with a flat-top haircut and a butcher’s build, hunters will be able to access these lands, watersheds will be preserved and unemployed loggers and mill workers will go back to work. Jon Tester crafted his landmark “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” to preserve the majority of land as wilderness, but require sustainable timber harvest on much of the rest.

There’s something for everyone, but not enough for a single group to claim victory. The collaborative agreement is being eyed by conservationists across the nation as a model for resolving similarly intractable issues.

Much has been written about how scripted and intentionally uncontroversial President Barack Obama's visit to China has been, with a stilted talk to hand-picked students in Shanghai and a denial by Chinese leaders of an overture by the U.S. for a kind of "G2" partnership between the two global powers. The obvious reason is the massive U.S. trade deficit, but an excellent analysis by The Washington Post sums up nicely how hamstrung Obama finds himself in negotiations due to the trade imbalance and America's fragile economy. Unsettling stuff.

From the Post:

In 1998, when President Bill Clinton stood before television cameras in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, the United States owed more money to Spain than to China and did more than twice as much trade with Mexico. At a freewheeling news conference, Clinton criticized China's military crackdown a decade earlier in Tiananmen Square and traded spirited jibes with President Jiang Zemin.

On Tuesday, Obama stood in the same building alongside another Chinese leader. This time, with the United States in hock to China for more than $1 trillion dollars and flooded with Chinese-made goods, it was a Chinese-style news conference. Each leader read a prepared statement and eyed the other in silence. There were no questions.

The Associated Press reported earlier this week that the Bureau of Prisons was considering Hardin’s empty jail as a potential site to house Guantanamo inmates. But apparently it was wrong. From TPM:

"We do not have any information that a facility in Montana is being considered for a BOP facility," spokesman Edmund Ross told us. "We're looking at the Thomson facility in Illinois."

The report did prompt Republican Congressman Denny Rehberg to reiterate that he opposed bringing the inmates to Montana. “We must ensure that our safety takes precedence over political expedience,” he said. As it turns out, he has nothing to worry about. The debate has now shifted to the small town of Thomson, Ill., where it is as divisive as it was in Hardin. From NYT:

By 2001, the prison — beige, pristine, surrounded by electrified fence and able to hold at least 1,600 prisoners — was built, at a cost to the state of $128 million. But then it sat. No prisoners came. Year after year, local leaders here said, the state said it could not pay to operate it. In 2006, about 200 minimum-security inmates were finally moved here, but that created only about 70 jobs.

Over the years, new hopes have been raised, then dashed. Not long ago, local leaders said, an older state prison was rumored to be closing, and there was talk that its inmates would come here. Some residents even trained to be guards. But the move never happened.

Sounds familiar.

POLITICO has an interesting piece this morning analyzing the obstacles any climate change bill faces in gaining approval from coal state lawmakers, particularly Democrats. And while Montana certainly isn't a coal state on the scale of say, West Virginia or Kentucky, Sen. Max Baucus is still likely to take a critical approach to the bill when it enters the Finance Committee. Meanwhile, the state Land Board appears to be looking carefully at developing state-owned coal tracts in southeast Montana, putting off any decisions for another month.

From the POLITICO story:

The coal industry also has a major issue with the proposed 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

Baucus and other coal-state senators would like to see a 14 percent to 17 percent emissions target to give the industry more time to develop new technologies like carbon capture and sequestration — a still-experimental technology that would catch greenhouse gas emissions before they enter the air and bury them in holes in the ground or under the ocean.

But while the coal industry and its backers keep chipping away at the Boxer bill, a weaker emissions target could be a deal breaker for liberal Democrats.

“I’ll do everything I can to oppose that,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said of the lowered targets.

Some reaction to Applied Materials' offer to buy Semitool for $364 million. Semitool is one of the largest employers in the area and the acquisition could have a huge impact on the Flathead Valley:

Semiconductor International:

Semitool will become part of Applied's Silicon Systems Group (SSG). Applied Materials and Semitool "have a strong track record of collaborating to develop equipment solutions for leading chipmakers," said Randhir Thakur, general manager of Applied's SSG.

Ray Thompson, chairman of Semitool, said, "As part of Applied Materials, we can accelerate the global adoption of the technologies Semitool has developed and provide our employees with a strong future and our stockholders with exceptional value."

Wall Street Journal:

Semitool offers Applied the opportunity to better address two areas of the chip manufacturing market, advanced-packaging and copper-conversion, said Splinter.

Chip packaging is the process of attaching semiconductors into electronics. Applied said a growing number of its customers are expanding into this area.

"We look to Semitool's customer base in the packaging market as a way to accelerate our presence," said Randhir Thakur, head of Applied's silicon systems group.

24/7 Wall St.:

As far as how this relates to Applied Materials, analysts according to Thomson Reuters are looking for revenues of $7.18 billion for its fiscal year-end October-2010. In short, this is a bolt-on or tool chest acquisition.

John King interviewed Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer on CNN’s “State of the Union” over the weekend. King asked Schweitzer, who is chair of the Democratic Governors Association, what happened in the recent governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey, both of which were won by Republicans.

SCHWEITZER: Well I think that history played out again, uh, both New Jersey and Virginia have been electing people from the opposite party of the president. Governor's races aren't like congressional races. When you elect your congressional member you're thinking about what laws they might pass, and are they part of the administration's plan for healthcare or the war or taxation or whatever it might be. But when you elect a governor it's singular. You're looking for your chief executive. So they're not really tied to a national party in the way that a member of congress would be.

KING: You don't see any national message in the voting, particularly maybe the defection of independents from the democrats to the republicans. If not a message, do you see a cause of concern for your party?

SCHWEITZER: No, I don't think, I don't think that you can say that this is a dot on any kind of a continuum. These are two races, they ran on their own dynamics. Those are individuals who are running for governor, and it just so happened that the two candidates who are democrats lost and the two candidates who are republicans won. I don't think it that means a dang thing for next year.

KING: This is something you said before the election, you did have Virginia right, you said "that's a flip of the coin, I don't know which way that one ends", but you did tell Politico "I bet whatever money in my pocket he's going to win", referring to Corzine.

SCHWEITZER: Dang good thing I only had two dollars in my pocket that day.

First, there were the Swan Valley and Condon secessionists, a group exploring a ballot initiative that would allow them to secede from Missoula to Lake County. Now Petty Creek residents are also looking to leave Missoula County to join Mineral County.

“They feel like the unwanted stepchild out there,” Rep. Gordon Hendrick, R-Superior, told the Clark Fork Chronicle.

Both groups are located on the far edges of the county and say they pay high taxes with little return.

jhwygirl at 4&20 blackbirds suggests that both sides might be better off if they part ways.