Today’s Missoulian has a pretty good status report — with video, no less — on Senator Jon Tester’s proposed Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
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.
Your friendly webweenie got a little time to do some web site renovation today. Mostly, it was a matter of taking a pile of old, loosely integrated material and moving it into the main web site where it will be easier to find and a whole lot easier to maintain.
Take a look up top at the navigation bar. You’ll see several new links. These are . . .
Enjoy!
Watching Senator Jon Tester’s “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” make its way through the system is a real lesson in practical politics. It made it past the initial, more or less pro forma hearings in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Now, Congressman Denny Rehberg is getting into the act with a series of “listening sessions” around Montana.
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.
The Missoulian has a good year-end review of Montana’s first wolf hunt.
Here are a few tidbits culled from the article…
The wolf hunt accounted for just over a third of the wolves killed during the past year. Poaching, “control actions” and other events accounted for the rest.
Eleven wolves were taken in Flathead County, the highest single-county total. This includes the two killed legally in the “North Fork Sub-unit.” Overall, three-quarters of the harvest came from seven counties.
Montana FWP must have kept fairly detailed statistics. For instance, the article states that, although most of the wolves killed were healthy, two had a slight case of mange, one had fleas, another had porcupine quills in its shoulder and two reportedly had hernias. (Huh? Hernias?)
The Daily Inter Lake has traditionally made a real effort to stay on top of fire season news. Today, they posted a retrospective of the biggest fire seasons of the last decade, all of which, especially the 2001 and 2003 blow-ups, had a big impact on the North Fork.
Here are the links . . .
Here’s an item your friendly web-weenie meant to post earlier. Alas, the press of business sometimes interferes with such things…
The resource development threats to the Canadian Flathead, and the Trans-boundary Flathead in general, have become a bit of a cause célèbre. Enough so, that they were a significant point of concern at the 9th World Wilderness Congress (“Wild9”) held in Merida, Mexico last month. The World Wilderness Congress is not some annual meet-and-greet; it’s a major international event. The one in Merida was only the ninth such meeting since 1977.
Two items from Wild9 are of particular interest to efforts to protect the Transboundary Flathead.
The first is a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on “Cooperation for Wilderness Conservation between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.” According to an announcement sent out by Dave Hadden of Headwaters Montana, “The MOU establishes a voluntary framework for cooperation and coordination of parks and wilderness areas important for conserving wildlife of all three nations. Further, the MOU establishes a fresh, new benchmark for transboundary cooperation and provides an excellent opportunity for Canada and the U.S. to apply the principals of the MOU to finding a solution the Transboundary Flathead.” National Geographic has a good write-up on the provisions of the MOU.
Wild9 delegates also passed a resolution targeted specifically at the Canadian Flathead. Again, letting Dave do most of the work: “Wild 9 delegates unanimously passed ‘Resolution 5‘ calling for ‘the Governments of Canada and British Columbia to take action for the protection of the Flathead River Valley and wildlife connectivity in Canada’s Southern Rocky Mountains’.”
Congressman Denny Rehberg is still testing the waters when it comes to taking a position on Senator Jon Tester’s “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.” Rehberg has lined up five “listening sessions” on the proposal at various sites around Montana.
It’s official. As of yesterday, most roads in Glacier Park are closed to motorized travel until the snow comes off in the spring. For North Forkers, this means that Camas Road is closed, so no cutting through the park for the next few months.
For more details, including information on road closures, winter entrance fees and procedures, and winter camping and backcountry access, see the press release.
Check the latest road conditions by visiting the park’s Road Status Page.
An AP article posted in today’s Missoulian summarizes some of the concerns with Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act expressed by Agriculture Undersecretary Harris Sherman during today’s hearings on the bill. (Sherman is the Forest Service’s boss.) This is one of those read-between-the-lines articles, not to be taken entirely at face value. Nevertheless, it has some useful information.
Here’s the lead-in . . .
The Obama administration said Thursday it has several concerns about Sen. Jon Tester’s plan to create more wilderness and mandate more logging in Montana’s national forests.
From today’s Flathead Beacon . . .
The governor says he is backing U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s plan to both create more wilderness and mandate more logging.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, submitted the testimony in advance of Thursday’s hearing on the bill in the U.S. Senate. He says it will create good jobs with more logging.