[MCN] Detailed analysis and recommendations RE: Sen Tester's Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship Act

[Matthew Koehler]

Here's a link to a detailed analysis of Senator Tester's Blackfoot
Clearwater Stewardship Act: http://forestpolicypub.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/02/Analysis-Tester-Bill.pdf

The analysis was commissioned by the Flathead-Lolo-Bitterroot Citizen Task
Force, which includes the Montana Sierra Club, Wilderness Watch, Friends of
the Rattlesnake, Western Watersheds Project, Swan View Coalition, WildWest
Institute, Friends of the Bitterroot, Wildlands Defense and the Rattlesnake
Watershed Group.

Below is the executive summary of the detailed analysis.


I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) introduced the Blackfoot Clearwater Stewardship
Act (BCSA) in the U.S. Senate. As of this report the bill had not yet
received a number. The bill establishes two motorized recreation areas,
three additions to existing Wilderness areas and contains special
management language for forest and fuels management applicable to the
entire Seeley Lake Ranger District, Lolo National Forest, Montana.

It limits and expedites environmental analysis under the National
Environmental Policy Act. It also shifts emphasis towards motorized
recreation uses. It authorizes these shifts absent any environmental
review.

The BCSA mandates a ten-year schedule of restoration projects that include
commercial forest products. *It allows private groups to construct and
maintain trails for motorized and mechanized use within sensitive wildlife
and roadless areas, without environmental analysis of the potential impacts
on threatened and endangered species, habitat for important herds of elk
and impacts on other recreational users. *

The language of the bill is crafted to qualify the private Southwest Crown
of the Continent Collaborative and the ten-year schedule of projects for
federal funding from Congress and the Forest Service under the
Collaborative Federal Land Restoration Program.

*The BCSA gives inordinate management authority and influence to the
private collaborative that put the bill together and may be a step towards
de facto leasing of National Forest System lands for management by private
interests*, while limiting opportunities for involvement by the general
American public owners of these national public lands.

*The political management of National Forests by Congressional fiat,
District by District, Forest by Forest, threatens the integrity and
consistency of National Forest System management in a “balkanization”
process*. Agency management, based on the best available science as
required by the National Forest Planning Rule, is undermined. Protection of
the Public Trust may be compromised.
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