Forest bill: Unrealistic goals?

Sen. Jon Tester is admirably stressing the potential of his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act for sustaining employment in the state’s timber industry, but we’re not so certain that will be the actual outcome.

Neither is Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., and many Montanans he has heard from in recent meetings held across the state.

The “overriding concern” at the meetings, Rehberg said, is that Tester’s bill will instantly establish 25 wilderness designations on about 677,000 acres of federal lands, but there are no assurances that forest stewardship components in the bill will proceed.

So Rehberg is proposing a “phase-in” provision that would time wilderness designations with active management on other forest lands referred to in the bill. Tester has objected so far, saying that a phase-in would make the bill impossible to pass in Congress.

He may be right, but Rehberg’s position points to an important truth about the bill: It will not guarantee saving or creating jobs in the timber industry, even with its mandates for minimum timber harvests on some national forests.

There are many obstacles, in fact, to that happening. Most obvious is the concern that Rehberg raises about the potential for environmental groups to take legal action to stop logging provisions in the bill. There is a long track record of environmental litigation that has delayed or derailed many forest management projects, so the concern is valid.

But there are other problems, starting with the current economy and a crash in housing starts that has sent lumber markets into the tank. Will there be a demand for even the minimum timber harvests that are mandated in the bill?

And what does the Obama administration think about those mandates?

Harris Sermon, the undersecretary for the Department of Agriculture, told a Senate committee that the bill’s “highly specific timber supply requirements” are “not reasonable or achievable.”

He went on to say that the levels of mechanical logging that are called for in the bill are “unachievable and perhaps unsustainable.”

So there is reason to be concerned that the Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Forest Service, is not inclined to go along with the bill’s timber management provisions. That’s a big problem.

Whatever merits the bill has and however well-intended Sen. Tester is, Montanans should be leery about buying into the pitch that it will be an automatic timber job generator.