Tester unveils new draft of forest jobs bill

Today Sen. Jon Tester unveiled the latest draft version of his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.

You can download a copy of Tester's latest draft here.

In a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Tester said his new discussion draft is the next step in a “long and complicated process.”

(Click the play button on the player below to hear the entire conference call. Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy introduces the conference call.)

The bill comes in response to a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee discussion draft that surfaced earlier this month. You can read the text of the committee’s draft here and here.

As originally proposed, Tester’s forest measure would add 660,000 acres of new wilderness in Montana while mandating logging on 100,000 acres on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Kootenai National Forests.

The ENRC draft, which was circulated among members of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Partnership collaborate group approximately three weeks ago, removed those mandates.

The committee draft also stripped controversial language from the original bill that allowed military helicopter landings and the use of motorized vehicles for livestock and wildlife management within wilderness boundaries.

Tester said his latest draft would result in the “same outcome” laid out in his original proposal while including some of the ideas contained in the committee’s draft.

“It, too, is a discussion draft,” Tester acknowledged Thursday in a telephone call with reporters. “It very likely will not be the final version that the committee votes on.”

Tester said his staff is in daily negotiations with the committee staff in an attempt to hammer out a bill that can reach a vote before Congress wraps up work later this year.

However, Tester warned that if the final committee bill does not contain mandated logging levels aimed at sustaining the state’s dwindling wood products industry then it will be “dead on arrival.”

“I have said from the beginning that I will only support a bill that contains the four carefully balanced provisions that have resulted from years of folks working together, those being timber, wilderness, recreation and restoration,” Tester said. “The committee’s bill stripped out the timber and restoration certainties in my bill. All four components are critically important to this bill.”

Tester acknowledged that the Forest Service was critical of the mandated logging quotas contained in the original proposal.

Harris Sherman, Under Secretary of Natural Resources and the Environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, testified at a committee hearing in December that the mandated logging levels outlined in Tester’s bill “are likely unachievable and perhaps unsustainable.”

Tester said Thursday that the agency now supports the bill.

“We were able to work with the Forest Service and get them on board,” Tester said. “They support this bill.” (Tester quote begins at 11:37 in the recording above).

However, Joe Walsh, a spokesman in the Forest Service’s Washington, D.C. office declined to comment on the agency’s position on Tester’s latest proposal.

“We have not received a copy of the senator’s latest draft, but we will review it when we get a copy,” Walsh said. “Right now this is a work in progress between the senator and the committee.”

In a follow-up e-mail, Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy said the agency is “fine with” the “sustainability of the mechanical treatment levels prescribed by the bill.”

“It’s our understanding that the Forest Service believes the work Jon is trying to achieve is ecologically sustainable (through mechanical treatment),” Murphy wrote.

Tester said members of the collaborative group that helped draft the original bill—which includes a handful of wilderness, conservation and timber groups—support his proposed changes to the measure.

“They’re enthusiastic,” Tester said. “They have the same information that you have in front of you and they’re fired up about it. They like it.”

But some environmental and conservation groups, many of whom have been critical of Tester’s bill from the start, remained miffed by his latest proposal.

“If the goal is protecting some wilderness in Montana and getting some restoration and fuel reduction work accomplished, then the Energy and Natural Resource 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,” said Matthew Koehler of the Last Best Place Wildlands Campaign.

Koehler also testified at the energy and committee’s December 17 hearing.

“As we move forward, let's hope Senator Tester and the collaborators give the committee's draft significantly more consideration than just proclaiming it dead on arrival,” Koehler added.

George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, said Tester’s latest proposal attempts to re-write longstanding forest management policy, including the Wilderness Act, by allowing previously banned activities in federally designated wilderness areas.

“I would hope that the senator would honor the Wilderness Act and not even try to put that language back in that bill,” Nickas said.

Like Koehler, Nickas said if the bill is to have a chance of passing, then the committee draft would be better starting point for negotiations.

“I think it’s too bad if Sen. Tester is drawing a line in the sand by saying, ‘mandated logging or nothing.’ I think by doing that he’s saying ‘nothing.’” Nickas said. “Mandated logging is not where a lot of folks in the conservation community, nor do I think a lot of members of Congress, are willing to go.”

For his part, Tester said he’s committed to sticking to the goals of the partnership that helped create the forest jobs bill.

“I can tell you I’ve got plenty of fight left in me and so do thousands of Montanans who support this bill, but more importantly support the ideas and principles that this bill contains,” Tester said.

Stimlus Watch, Part I

As billions of dollars in economic stimulus monies pour out of federal coffers and into Montana, expect to see a steady stream of announcements from our two congressional representatives who voted for the recovery act, Sen. Jon Tester and Sen. Max Baucus.

Like this one, from Sen. Jon Tester, entitled “Tester pushes Forest Service chief to ‘get folks working in the woods.’”

"Tester pushed [U.S. Forest Service Chief Abigail]Kimbell to make sure that the jobs-stimulus money will be used to create local jobs while managing wildfire risk.
“I want the guy with the chainsaw in northwestern Montana to go back to work doing what’s responsible to manage our forests,” said Tester, who helped write and voted for the jobs-stimulus bill earlier this year.
Kimbell assured Tester that the Forest Service’s priority for that money is to create “jobs, jobs, jobs.”

With jobless numbers on the rise and mills closing by the month, it’s no wonder that Tester wants to do everything in his power to help his constituents keep working and turn the state’s timber industry around.

According to the press release, Tester wants to reduce fire risk around the state by putting loggers to work. Nearly $50 million of the $1.1 billion in federal stimulus dollars heading Montana’s way will go national forests. Much of that money will be spent on fire.

“We need an offense and a defense when it comes to fire,” Tester said. “If we put folks to work limiting fire danger now, we won’t burn up the entire budget fighting fires later.”

What’s absent from Tester’s press release is a proposal for what to do with all the logs once they’ve been cut. Everything I’ve read about mill closures around the state indicates that the reason the state’s timber industry is struggling is because there is little demand for wood products nationally.

Take this Pablo mill closure last month for example.

"The waning demand for our wood products is directly linked to the troubled housing market," said Rick Holley, Plum Creek president and chief executive officer. "Housing starts dropped again last month and we expect economic conditions to continue to put pressure on new construction. Unfortunately, we must, once again, take steps to attempt to match supply with the eroding demand.”

Or this closure at Stoltze Lumber in Columbia Falls:

In a prepared statement, Stoltze said the "shutdown is fueled by continuing poor lumber markets across the broader United States. Lumber producers like Stoltze are finding it increasingly harder to sell their product and to realize above break-even margins in this climate."

So if there’s no demand for the wood, what are we going to do with all the logs Tester proposes we cut?

I asked his staff that question in an e-mail this week. This is the written response I received from Tester spokesman Patrick Devlin:

· The timber industry faces enormous challenges, and Senator Jon Tester is working on policies to help meet these challenges

· In these tough economic times, the short-term challenge for the timber industry is cash flow.

· Jon has worked with the Governor and the Legislature to set up a revolving loan fund to help the industry survive until the housing market recovers and the overall economy picks back up.

· The over-riding public policy challenge is responsible forest management.

· For example, beetle-killed trees have commercial value for up to three years so it makes sense for the mills to process some of them to reduce fire hazard and protect atersheds.

· In the long-term, Jon is working to encourage innovative industry practices to promote sustainable forest health.

Statement of Senator Jon Tester:

“Smart forest management will create jobs in Montana, reduce the danger of catastrophic fire and help sustain the industry long-term. It’s going to take working together to meet the challenges we face in the woods and turn them into opportunities.”

Trying to keep people working while reducing the risk of fire is an admirable goal, but Devlin doesn’t answer the long-term question of what to do with the logs once they’re cut. Will they be shipped to mills? Will they be piled as slash? With they be processed and used for biomass generation? Will they stack them in log yards until the day when the housing market turns around and demand for wood products returns?

Is Tester’s proposal a step in the direction of a long-term solution to solving the timber industry’s woes, or an unsustainable tax-payer funded band-aid? Sooner or later the stimulus dollars will run out. What will the loggers do then if the demand for wood hasn’t returned by then?

I’ll be looking for these answers in the coming weeks and months ahead.