Here’s the Missoulian’s write-up on Sen. Jon Tester’s plans to take another swing at getting his “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” passed this year . . .
Sen. Jon Tester plans to reintroduce his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act this year with no changes, but hopes to bring more Montanans to its support.
“The work doesn’t get done on the far left and it doesn’t get done on the far right,” Tester said during a meeting with the Missoulian editorial board on Monday. “It gets done in the middle…
Sen. Jon Tester plans to take another swing at his “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” starting early this year.
The Missoulian has the story . . .
Supporters of Sen. Jon Tester’s logging/wilderness bill hope an earlier start this year will break a quarter-century stall in Montana lands policy.
“I think at the end of this Congress, we all realized that even for a bill that’s broadly supported in the state, how hard it is to get a bill through the congressional calendar,” said Tom France of the National Wildlife Federation, which supported Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. “There’s a sense of disappointment that we ran out of time.”
Well, it looks like that’s pretty much it for Jon Tester’s “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” this year.
The Associated Press has the story . . .
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s bill to increase both logging and wilderness areas appears to be dead this Congress after the Senate abandoned a huge catchall spending measure that included it.
Tester’s bill was added to the legislation Tuesday, but Democrats controlling the Senate abandoned the spending measure late Thursday after an outcry from conservatives who complained it was stuffed with more than $8 billion in pet projects known as earmarks.
As mentioned yesterday, Sen. Jon Tester’s “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” has been rolled into the massive, end-of-year, Senate omnibus appropriations bill. There have been some, fairly minor, revisions to the act– nothing substantive. Neither the act’s supporters or opponents seem willing to predict its chances for passage.
Sen. Jon Tester’s “Forest Jobs and Recreation Act” has been stubbed onto one of those end-of-year Senate appropriations bills. The biggest change from the original proposal appears to be the longer and more obscure title. It is now the “Forest Jobs and Restoration Pilot Initiative.” Today’s Missoulian has the story . . .
A revised version of Sen. Jon Tester’s Montana logging and wilderness initiative has been included in a last-minute omnibus appropriations bill before the U.S. Senate.
Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy said on Tuesday the renamed “Forest Jobs and Restoration Pilot Initiative” is essentially the original version of a bill Tester submitted last year as the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act.
From today’s Missoulian, here’s a good overview of the current status of Sen. Jon Tester’s proposed Forest Jobs and Recreation Act. Short version: Still stuck in committee because of debate over the logging mandate . . .
The first questioner at Sen. Jon Tester’s Monday public forum in Missoula wanted to know how the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act was coming along.
From today’s Flathead Beacon . . .
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester released some changes Thursday to his logging and wilderness bill, beating back a Washington, D.C.-based rewrite of the carefully crafted Montana compromise.
From last Wednesday’s Flathead Beacon . . .
U.S. Sen. Jon Tester has dismissed a proposed rewrite of his forest bill as “dead on arrival,” and promised to publicly post his counteroffer that is expected next week.
Tester’s bill would create new wilderness in parts of Montana, while increasing logging requirements and establishing permanent recreation areas.
A Senate committee recently came up with its own version that does away with the logging and other mandates that are central to a deal crafted by a group of Montana loggers, environmentalists and others.
“People assume it’s mine, and its not because it does not have those components in there,” Tester said of the new draft. “It’s dead on arrival, as far as I am concerned.”
If you’ve been following the progress of Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, this is fairly interesting.
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…
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.