The greatest threat now, with reelection of Jon Tester to the Senate, is an attack on national forests and wilderness areas that he is spearheading. Because he is a Democrat, there is reflexive support behind him. Fortunately, most Democrats have headed back to football and Jersey Shores (“our work here is done”) but the professionals are still hard at it. (Had Dennis Rehberg been elected, the timber lobby bill, called the “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, would likely have come from another quarter under another name, perhaps Ron Wyden. But the burden now falls on Tester.)
These are dangerous times, and as with all political disputes it sometimes feels like end times. But it is not. It is merely time to redouble and organize. The two most effective forces in fighting for Montana’s wild lands are Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Matt Koehler’s Wild West Institute. These groups are information clearing houses, a source of professional organizing and a good gathering place for activists. I’ll be following their activities closely, and this blog is open to them for announcements and articles, such as it is.
I find myself wishing that I was still a Montana resident as I hear the words “It’s on” in the back of my mind. Democrats are trying to lure environmentalists into their camp. Here’s an appeal from Polish Wolf:
This is but one iteration of the biggest problem facing the environmental movement in the coming decades: breaking the perception (and the reality, where it exists) that environmentalism means preserving nature close to wealthy, largely white populations even at the economic, social, and health expense of poorer communities and countries.
One, he speaks presumptuously, as if he is part of “the environmental movement,” and two seeks to draw our attention away from the only place where organized opposition to Tester has meaningful consequence: his back yard. Tester has his chain saw fired up. Polish Wolf is urging American environmentalists to head off to Ghana and get busy being inconsequential. At home we are a pain in the ass for the timber lobby and their tool.
It would be helpful if we could get some reflexive support from Republicans, as the two-party framework suggests we should. But oddly that doesn’t happen in environmental matters.
Piece of Mindful 
Behind Polish Wolf’s cryptic plea for a Wall Street/
Washington consensus on environmental policy, may be a real understanding of how vulnerable Democrats like Tester are to organized grassroots resistance.
Consider the reported $500,000 ad campaign bankrolled by Missoula operatives — not coordinated mind you (wink,wink) — that attacked Rehberg to garner support for Libertarian Party candidate Cox. Rehberg foolishly cosponsored a symbolic Homeland Security land grab, with no chance of passing, that potentially restricted hunter access along the Canadian border. I don’t know a single Democrat not thrilled with the ad campaign, it’s purported impact, and oh-so clever methods.
A Montana Green Party with statewide ballot status could serve as a formidable counterweight to these perennnial political shenanigans. Petitions will be ready for circulation soon. In 2014, Baucus may face a different electoral landscape than Tester did in 2012.
“It’s on.” The next phase in Montana’s battle against the Wall Street/Washington consensus may well be up to registered voters and Green Party activists. Many volunteers will be needed.
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Firing up the green machine, Steve? Do I detect another run in the offing? Sounds like fun!
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Not to worry Mark.
When unmanaged forests burn down they automatically become sage grouse habitat domains.
Quote: “The Interior Department on Friday issued a final plan to close 1.6 million acres of federal land in the West originally slated for oil shale development.
The proposed plan would fence off a majority of the initial blueprint laid out in the final days of the George W. Bush administration…
Interior’s Bureau of Land Management cited environmental concerns for the proposed changes. Among other things, it excised lands with “wilderness characteristics” and areas that conflicted with sage grouse habitats.”
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POEVON, Pfrrrrrr ….
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“unmanaged forests”
What, didn’t you get the memo? God manages them. You conservative fundies should know that. Quitcher bitchin’ ’bout “unmanaged forests.” It’s all groovy.
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Or “poorly managed forests”.
What forests are most susceptible to beetle infestations? According to the Forest Service, the ones with large-diameter trees and dense stands.” Environmentalists have blocked logging operations that could thin these stands at every turn.
In 2003, the General Accounting Office estimated that 190 million acres of federal land were at high risk of wildfire due to “excess fuels buildup in forests.” Environmentalists claim that our federal fire suppression efforts are responsible for much of the fuel buildup — and they aren’t entirely wrong.
Thanks partly to effective suppression methods, the average number of acres burned annually dropped from 38 million acres in the 1930s to about 3 million acres in the 1980s. By the 1990s, wildfires started to increase again and in the last decade claimed an average of 6.9 million acres annually.
The answer to this problem isn’t to stop suppressing fires, as some environmentalists suggest. Even if we were willing to risk lives and property by taking the “let it burn” approach, the fuel load today is so great that this would produce catastrophic fires, fires so intense that they would cook the soil and destroy whole ecosystems.
The answer is to reduce the fuel load through thinning of trees followed by forest management using prescribed burns, logging and other measures that could restore forests to their historic states. This wouldn’t just save and create jobs, as President Obama says he wants to do. It would also save and create healthy forests. -David Ridenour
Oh, and the God thing.
“And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” King James version.
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King James was a subversive conservative, so… not my god.
As to beetle infestations, that’s just nature’s way of thinning the forests. And a whole lot cheaper than paying to thin 190 million acres.
Anyways, there’s huge history lessons behind why your logic is skewed and wrong. And no, privatization isn’t the answer either, nor would it ever come to pass. If our private lands were privatized, we’d be well on the way to neofeudalism, and that would bring: revolution, civil war, chaos…
Oh, one more thing: nature bats last. Always. No matter what King James said.
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“If our private lands were privatized”
Might want to re-think that one.
I’m curious tho. Who exactly would revolt and bring civil war? The Vegans?
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Big Jo,
Wilderness is the least-cost-per-acre to manage. Want smaller government? Wilderness is the optimum conservative-libertarian position under current USDA-USFS/USDI/BLM management schemes.
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Wilderness converting to private would cost even less.
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One, anecdotally I don’t see where private holdings fare well – valleys I see Paradise and Madison appear overgrazed. But as I said that is anecdotal. On the other hand national forest that I’ve been in, unlogged, is doing OK, though it is susceptible to drought and temperature rise associated with climate change, which is what gives us pine beetles. Thinned forests are as susceptible to fire as any, as the key is not density, but moisture levels. Dry forests burn, period. “Forest health,” like “death panels” is a catch phrase invented by a PR agency working for the timber lobby. I’m not saying there is no such thing only that the timber lobby does not care about it. They are only interested in conversion of the commodity to cash.
And, when lands turn private, they automatically become commodity stores. They are put to their highest monetary use, which is not the same as a public good. Ordinary people cannot access private forests, cannot hunt and fish, camp and hike there. Logging destroys habitat for species that need lots of range and solitude to survive, like grizzly bears and wolves. And wilderness is a valuable commodity in and of itself, a public good that cannot be priced. POEVON.
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Big Jo,
Consider the externalities, and nothing could be further from the truth. A common misconception. You are welcome.
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I own forest land and pay dearly in property taxes.
How much property taxes does Wilderness pay?
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How many citizens can enjoy your private land? We need mixture of private and public.
No disrespect … You seem to have sociopathic tendencies, anti-social, survivalist, black/white authoritarian with inability to think in abstracts. Very hard to reason with you, as nothing ever resonates. You just keep tossing out thoughtless certitudes gleaned from talk radio while counter arguments zoom past like bullets in a bond movie.
No disrespect
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Yeah Mark.
The radio told me to pay my property taxes.
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Yeah, swede, like you’re the only fooker on the planet who pays taxes. Jesus what a lame ass! You a socio much?
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Why are you such a buttinsky. I’m merely responding to Steve’s assumption, “Wilderness is the least-cost-per-acre to manage”.
Which of course is false. Private lands create more in direct/indirect property taxes.
Quit being a dick.
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PTOVON lame ass. I’d like to march n Washington to complain about all the people they are murdering with my tax dollars. But you know, we don’t always get what we want.
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That’s it.
You’re pissed off about Veterans Day.
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No. I don’t like paying taxes because you know i am really shallow.
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Big Jo,
Nice try, but taxes are a fraction of the cost of managing private and/or public land.
Feds pay counties Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT), which in many cases is a greater amount annually than similar large tracts of private classified “timber/grazing” or “timberland.” If you are arguing you pay more per acre than the feds, you advance my case. Development costs real money — in labor and infrastructure (roads, fencing, structures) — which makes management cost per acre typically higher than Wilderness.
Try to stick to COST per acre please. That is my claim. I am not interested in gross profit, net profit, jobs or any other financial metric when it comes to Wilderness. That’s not where its value lies. It is not a commodity, which frees it from most market/price influence and speculation. Wilderness is freedom. What’s not to like?
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The county grader makes it up their road to my gate about 4 times a year.
And cost per acre. I pay taxes on tractors, implements, houses, barns, sheds, corrals, pivots, cattle, horses, bees and chickens besides paying taxes on the pasture and forest.
Private land promotes taxable improvements that’s never considered when compared to the PILT.
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And another thing. Forest fires usually start on public lands.
FF cost millions to fight, are they accounted for in your costs/acre?
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Forest fires are not fought until they threaten life and property. If we are in drought, we have fires. If not, we don’t. Climate change leads to earlier runoff and longer hot/dry in late summer, meaning more fires.
We all pay taxes on all of our stuff. Quit whining. Man that gets old. POEVON.
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I wouldn’t be talking taxes if Steve hadn’t brought it up.
Can I respond to other comments?
Did I miss a rule change here at POM?
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No. You’re just being a pain in the ass, never absorbing anything, always sure that anything government does is not done well, that sort of thing. Just want to reach out and dope slap you now and then. Steve will comment too, but my blog, my two cents.
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Big Jo,
I believe it was you who brought up taxes. (See: Nov. 11, 4:35pm).
My belief that Wilderness is the least-cost-per-acre to manage is supported by USFS analysis. If you read any of the Montana (USFS) Forest Plan EIS’s, the Forest Service analysis has confirmed this fact. Don’t believe them if you choose, but it is written.
All proposed management alternatives were compared on a variety of outputs, including the agency’s preferred alternative. All alternatives projected larger budgets than the lone alternative that maximized (designated all capable wilderness acres) Wilderness acres.
In my opinion, the private v. public debate is a canard. What is the chance national forests will become private in our lifetimes? So, the most straightforward, and most probable, way to shrink government agencies, and public-forest budgets, is simply to maximize Wilderness.
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I’m in complete agreement with you that the cost of “managing” Forests has risen exponentially. Kinda of a self fulfilling prophecy.
But canard or not Weyerhaeuser manages it forest lands for billions less and provides income and tax revenue.
So if you’re going to argue (Nov 4th 11:25 am) on a least cost basis you show show all alternatives.
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And another thing. The chances of the govt. giving up control of our forest land is also a canard. Wilderness has little/no employees, small budgets, no wardens harassing private neighbors.
I’d say the chances of them giving up that power has as much of a chance of giving up our mail delivery.
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Dammit Swede! you’ve got me thinking now that I shouldn’t mess with you when you come here and make stupid comments to others.
Pffffr!
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I’ll leave you with this Mark.
Quote: “The rights of other persons do not seem to interest them. If a law were passed tomorrow taking away the property of a large group of presumably well-to-do persons — say, bondholders of the railroads — without compensation and without even colorable reason, they would not oppose it; they would be in favor of it. The liberty to have and hold property is not one they recognize. They believe only in the liberty to envy, hate and loot the man who has it.” -H.L. Mencken.
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OK then, this is about taxes again. Right? You’re whining again. Right?
Shall I call the waaaaaaambulance?
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Big JO,
I am sorry I confuse you. Weyerhauser manages its forests for commodity production with no dedicated wilderness acres. The USFS manages some land (“suitable acres”) for timber production, and another portion is classified “unsuitable,” which means either there are no trees there, or it is economically or physically not feasible to commit taxdollars to commodity production.
A portion of that “unsuitable” and “unsuitable” land managed by the USFS is “roadless.” In Montana less than 20% of the 6.4 million total roadless acres are “suitable” for timber production. If that 20% is accessed with logging roads, logged, and managed as a long-rotation crop, it will cost taxpayers: 1) more than the timber is worth, and 2) far more each year to manage when compared to leaving it roadless, or designating it Wilderness.
I hope that clears up our little misunderstanding.
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It does not matter whether you treat him with respect or derision. In six years he’s not changed an iota. But thanks for the thoughtful response.
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Chainsaw Jon Tester Piece Of Mind Thanks for what you’ve. This can be the very best submit I’ve study
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