Jon Tester for U.S. Senate

Sen. Jon Tester and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack “saw every tree in Montana” during their effort Saturday to promote a collaborative approach to forest restoration and job creation in the state.

After stops in Helena and Deer Lodge, they sat down in front of a crowd of over 100 people at Longfellow Elementary School to discuss the Farm to School program, which is designed to bring healthier foods and an understanding of local agriculture to schools across the country.

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Reference Jennifer McKee’s Feb. 21 report concerning the current public perspective on U.S. Senator Jon Tester’s proposed Forest Jobs and Recreation Act (S1470):

McKee’s report indicated that some Montanans believe we do not need the Tester bill. These folks believe that the Forest Service 2008 revision of the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan adequately deals with forest health, wildlife needs, water, soil and water quality needs, wildfire fuels reduction needs, and the economic and sociological needs of the natural-resource-dependent communities as required by the 1976 National Forest Management Act.

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Let’s put behind us the recent unseemly and inaccurate charges that Sen. Jon Tester’s bill on timber jobs and wilderness was crafted in secrecy. It’s time to focus on what the bill will accomplish rather than try to paint some vague conspiracy that belongs in a pulp fiction novel.

Sen. Tester is to be commended for taking on timber jobs and wilderness designation in one bill after these issues have been stalemated in Montana’s political wars for 25 years.

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One of the most contested parts of Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act is the plan to log 10,000 acres a year for 10 years.

When he testified on Tester’s bill on Dec. 17, Agriculture Undersecretary Harris Sherman told a congressional subcommittee “the bill would create unrealistic expectations on the part of communities and forest products stakeholders that the agency would accomplish the quantity of mechanical treatments required.”

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DEER LODGE — The Obama administration could support the mandate in Sen. Jon Tester’s forest bill to log a set number of acres every year as a pilot project, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said here Saturday.

Vilsack, in a change of position for the administration, said some changes to the measure, which mandates a set number of acres be logged every year, could be tried to see how well it works.

“We’re going to continue to work with Sen. Tester to accomplish what the bill is supposed to do,” Vilsack said before more than 70 people. “There’s a tremendous opportunity here.”

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