U.S. Sen. Max Baucus announced Friday he will sponsor a bill to expand the wilderness on the Rocky Mountain Front, saying the proposal has a good chance of being the first wilderness designation in the state since the early 1980s.

Conservationists who have been working on the Rocky Mountain Front Heritage Act for about six years tout the measure as a compromise among varied groups aimed at keeping development and road access on the Front at its current levels. Opponents have said more wilderness designations could hinder access, mineral exploration and ranching operations.

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U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s bill to increase both logging and wilderness areas in Montana was the focus of another Senate hearing Wednesday as the Democrat hopes to move forward a plan that has already become an issue in his high-profile election challenge from Republican U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in Washington again took testimony on a re-introduced version of a bill Tester first put forward nearly two years ago. Committee members expressed interest in working with Tester to advance a measure that died late last year as part of a last-minute budget bill.

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From today’s Missoulian . . .

Reacting to both criticism and constructive advice, Sen. Jon Tester revealed a thick list of changes to his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act during a visit to Missoula on Friday.

In all, Tester proposed 21 changes to S. 1470…

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Here’s the lead-in . . .

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act awaits committee action in Washington, D.C., but back home his fellow Montanans are busy pushing and pulling at the proposed wilderness set-asides and logging mandates.

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An AP article by Matthew Brown posted today offers a good overview of the situation with Rehberg and some interesting analysis. Here’s the money quote:

As Rehberg tours the state this week to gauge public support for the measure, observers say where the Republican comes down could either help seal Tester’s biggest legislative achievement since his 2006 election — or put up a major roadblock to the bill’s success.

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Trying to satisfy everyone from wilderness advocates to timber companies, Sen. Jon Tester has proposed a new model for managing national forests.

The Democrat’s controversial proposal, which he has dubbed the “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” to emphasize its economic aspects rather than its wilderness components, would guide how federal agencies manage large swaths of land in his home state of Montana.

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There’s a renewed push for wilderness in the North Fork. Headwaters Montana, a relatively new conservation group has released a plan for land conservation on both sides of the border.

Tucked in that plan is a call for 140,000 acres of designated wilderness in the Thompson-Seton and Mount Hefty areas.

But the plan doesn’t end there. It includes a wilderness designation for Glacier’s backcountry, expansion of Waterton Lakes National Park to the Canadian Flathead and wildlife management zones west of the Waterton expansion.

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For more than three decades, millions of Montana federal acres have been de facto wilderness.

Over the past few weeks, those slumbering lands have been shoved back into the spotlight. And last Wednesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared the nation’s 40 million acres of “inventoried roadless lands” were properly protected by a 2001 Clinton administration prohibition on development.

But the 10th Circuit Court in Wyoming is deliberating on a mirror-reverse case, where a lower-court judge has declared the Clinton rule is wrong. That would leave standing a subsequent Bush administration rule allowing states to make their own rules governing federal roadless land.

And in between, Sen. Jon Tester’s proposed Forest Jobs and Recreation Act might open 1 million acres of Montana roadless land to logging, according to some of its critics.

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Jon Tester’s recently introduced Forest Jobs and Recreation Act may be the most significant piece of legislation he has created in his, still relatively short, career in the U.S. Senate.

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A comfortable chair and beverage of choice recommended prior to reading.