A tweaked version of Senator John Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act made it through the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this morning . . .

A new version of Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act passed a divided Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Thursday morning, clearing a path for the full Senate to consider it.

The latest draft of the four-year-old bill keeps a mandate to harvest or thin 100,000 acres of timber in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Kootenai national forests over 15 years. But it switches about 23,000 acres of proposed wilderness into less-restrictive recreation areas.

That brings the tally to about 637,000 acres of new wilderness and 360,000 acres of recreation areas allowing some motorized or commercial use in Montana.

Other changes include a requirement for the U.S. Forest Service to file a compliance report if it fails to meet the bill’s performance requirements, and a guarantee the Montana pilot program won’t draw funds from other state programs or Forest Service regions.

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Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act gets its first real hearing when it comes in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this week . . .

Sen. Jon Tester’s bill authorizing more logging and more wilderness in Montana goes before a Senate committee review on Thursday, four years after it was introduced.

“This is the first time the bill has been voted on anywhere in Congress,” said Paul Spitler, wilderness campaign director for the Wilderness Society in Bozeman. “It’s a pretty important day for this legislation for it to see a vote.”

The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act gets a markup hearing in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee – a crucial step in moving legislation toward a vote of the whole chamber.

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U.S. Senator Jon Tester has gotten his “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” included in a current Interior Department appropriations bill. Again. The Missoulian has a write-up . . .

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester announced the inclusion of his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act in a Senate appropriations bill at a rally Friday on the University of Montana campus.

“If you join me, we’ll be able to get it across the finish line,” Tester told some 100 supporters from UM and the woods and sawmills of western Montana.

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It’s official, Sen. Jon Tester’s “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” is dead for this year . . .

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act was not included in a House version of the 2012 omnibus bill to fund the federal government that was released Thursday morning, setting off a round of finger-pointing between his office and that of Rep. Denny Rehberg.

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This is a pretty good report on yesterdays’ hearings before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee regarding Sen. Jon Tester’s proposed Forest Jobs and Recreation Act . . .

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., got some unexpected support from potential critics of his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act and doubts from assumed allies during a congressional hearing on Wednesday.

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