Sen. Tester pushing three public land bills
HELENA — Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said Friday he will look for opportunities to get the Senate to pass three public-land related bills before the election, but called the prospects doubtful this session.
He told the Helena Independent Record editorial board that his best opportunity might come if Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduces an omnibus lands bill that includes some state-specific public lands bills offered by a number of Western senators.
The three bills are:
The North Fork Watershed Protection Act, which would permanently protect the U.S. side of the North Fork Watershed from new oil and gas development and mining, while allowing continued forest management in the North Fork Flathead drainage. Tester said the bill, which was endorsed by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, would have already passed the Senate except that three Republican senators have placed a hold on the bill.
The Rocky Mountain Heritage Act, which would designate a 208,000-acre conservation management area along the Rocky Mountain Front, while adding more than 67,000 acres to the Bob Marshall and Scapegoat Wilderness areas. This bill also has won committee approval.
The Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, which Tester developed with representatives of conservation groups and timber mills, among others. It would designate 640,000 acres of new wilderness and set aside 300,000 acres of special management areas and recreational management areas, while opening up 100,000 acres for logging. This bill also cleared the Senate committee and drew some Republican support this year.
In response to a question, Tester called the proposal endorsed by the state Republican Party platform convention to turn over federal lands to state governments “a poor choice.” Counties and rural schools would lose federal money, he said, and the states would have to take on the often costly expense of fighting wildfires now done by the Forest Service.
In addition, Tester predicted the states wouldn’t be able to afford to oversee the federal land, likely leading to its sale to private land owners. As a result, sportsmen likely would lose the access to federal lands they now use for recreation.
“That land won’t be here long,” he said.
Tester is returning to Washington this weekend after the summer congressional recess.
The Senate soon will take up a campaign finance bill by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., which Tester is cosponsoring. The bill gives the federal government the authority to manage federal elections, while giving the states the authority to manage state elections.
Tester is sponsoring a proposed constitutional amendment to make clear that corporations aren’t people. He introduced the bill in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations, unions and associations to spend unlimited sums in elections so long as they don’t coordinate their spending with candidates.
A third part of what Tester calls his transparency legislation is his proposal to require Senate candidates to file their campaign finance reports electronically, as House candidates do, to make this information available to the public sooner. This language has been incorporated into one of the Senate appropriations bills and likely will be taken up after the election.
On another topic, Tester said he supports the proposal before Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from the current rate of $7.25 an hour.
Montana’s minimum wage is $7.90 an hour, with an automatic cost-of-living adjustment. Voters here in 2006 overwhelmingly approved an initiative, led by now-Gov. Steve Bullock, to raise the minimum wage and establish the annual cost-of-living adjustments.
Asked about it by a member of the editorial board, Tester said he has received comments from Montanans both for and against the proposed federal minimum wage hike.
He said the 1968 federal minimum wage was $1.60 an hour, which translates into $10.70 an hour in 2013 dollars.
As a state senator, Tester said a businessman told him that employers have to pay people a decent wage or they won’t be able to retain skilled workers.
Distributed by MCT Information Services