Forest jobs bill's future uncertain

Just two days after it was added to the

$1.1 trillion Senate Omnibus Spending Bill, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s

Forest Jobs and Restoration Initiative took a big hit Thursday when

Democrats abandoned the measure.

Thus, the forest jobs bill appears dead

– at least for now.

“Partisan politics shot down this

measure last night, but it won’t keep Jon from creating Montana

jobs – through middle-class tax relief, strengthening family

agriculture and small businesses, and working together with

Montanans on bipartisan plans like his forest jobs bill,” spokesman

Aaron Murphy said through a press release on Friday.

Senate leadership decided to kill the

massive spending bill following opposition from conservatives who

said it contained more than $8 million in earmarks, also known as

the pet projects of various politicians.

The bill would create logging mandates

over a 15-year period to the tune of 70,000 acres on the

Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and 30,000 acres on Kootenai

National Forest’s Three Rivers Ranger District. It also included

designations for 370,000 acres of recreation areas and 666,260

acres of wilderness areas.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

killed the bill after several Republicans who had previously

supported it pulled back.

One of the bill’s most vocal opponents

– U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg – held a tele-town hall meeting this past

Wednesday after it was announced that Tester’s bill had been

included in the spending measure. According to Rehberg’s office,

thousands of Montanans took part in the live conference call event.

The congressman answered 23 questions over a one-hour period.

“The Montanans I heard from are just as

opposed to the legislation itself as they are to the underhanded

tactics being used to force it through Congress,” Rehberg said.

“The pro-con breakdown of this call mirrors the 22 public meetings

I held earlier this year. It’s clear that when you actually listen

to what Montanans think about this bill, you get a much different

result then when you only listen to the pre-packaged talking points

manufactured by collaborators.”

In response, Tester’s office released

statements from supporters of the bill, including one from Kurt

Rayson, president of Rayson Logging in Libby.

“I’m not interested in political stunts

and the same old heated rhetoric,” Rayson said. “I am interested in

keeping my job as a logger. So, is Jon Tester. Creating jobs is the

idea behind his bill, and I thank Jon for it.”

“I’m a lifelong Republican. Congressman

Rehberg says he listens, but he wasn’t listening when we asked him

to support Montana’s wood products industry,” said Mark Hathaway, a

millworker at Sun Mountain Lumber in Deer Lodge. “If he’s still

calling this a ‘wilderness’ bill, he clearly hasn’t read it and

doesn’t understand that it will create much-needed jobs for

Montana’s loggers and millworkers.”

Following the omnibus bill’s demise,

Rehberg sent out another press release.

“This was a bad bill that represented

everything that’s wrong with how Washington works,” Rehberg said.

“In the end, it failed because of folks like the thousands of

Montanans who joined my telephone town hall and the millions of

Montanans and Americans who called and e-mailed Congress expressing

their opposition to this irresponsible bill. I join the majority of

Montanans in celebrating its demise.”

Murphy indicated late last week that

the future of the bill remained unclear.