[MCN] Project Beerwater - Connecting Missoulians to Healthy Forests through Beer

[Matthew Koehler]

I like good beer, clean water and 'healthy forests' as much as the next
person, but....

For whatever it's worth:

The National Wild Turkey Foundation has a horrendous track record when it
comes to public lands, roadless areas, endangered species, Wilderness areas
and our nation's bedrock environmental laws. The National Wild Turkey
Foundation fully supports industrial logging and clearcutting on American's
National Forests and they support dramatically increasing public lands
logging by limited science, public participation and protections for
threatened and endangered species.

The National Wild Turkey Foundation is also one of the main supporters of
the GOP's so-called "Resilient Federal Forests Act," which is sponsored by
Arkansas Republican Rep Bruce Westerman, who has gotten more campaign money
from the timber industry than any other member of Congress. The "Resilient
Federal Forests Act" is also co-sponsored and promoted by Montana Rep Greg
Gianforte and Senator Steve Daines.

As you can see below the National Wild Turkey Foundation is supporting this
GOP bill that would gut the National Environmental Policy Act, the
Endangered Species Act, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, gut judicial
review, gut the National Forest Management Act, among other rollbacks to
bedrock environmental and public lands laws.

Earlier this year the National Wild Turkey Foundation presented Rep Bruce
Westerman with their "Government Partnership Award" and celebrated
Westerman's "Resilient Federal Forests Act," which their described as a
"bill providing protection to federal forests and grasslands."

According to longtime public lands policy experts (SOURCE:
http://bit.ly/2qa4Iio)

"The Westerman bill [AKA "Resilient Federal Forests Act," supported fully
by the Wild Turkey Foundation] would legislate horrifically harmful public
forest policy into law.  Among its many sins, the Westerman bill would:

 · gut the National Environmental Policy Act by giving the Forest Service
and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) essentially a blank check to just
start logging in many places for no reason other than getting out the cut;

· gut the Endangered Species Act by letting the Forest Service and the
BLM—not the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries
Service—judge whether federal logging will harm threatened and endangered
species;

· gut the Equal Access to Justice Act so citizens and conservation
organizations won’t get their costs reimbursed by the federal government
for holding the federal government accountable in federal court to follow
its own laws (the timber industry could generally still recover fees and
costs);

· gut the Roadless Area Conservation Rule to allow wholesale logging in
national forest roadless areas; · gut the Administrative Procedure Act by
allowing the federal forest agencies to avoid judicial review for up to 230
lawsuits each year;

· gut judicial review by making Lady Justice put not just her thumb but her
butt on the side of the scale favoring Big Timber;

· make it nearly impossible for federal forest agencies to decommission
environmentally harmful and fiscally challenging roads;

· gut the National Historic Preservation Act by short-circuiting procedures
designed to protect historical resources;

· gut the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act by
converting it to a Secure Timber Industry and Community Oppression Act;

· gut the Fair Labor Standards Act to allow children to work in the logging
industry;

· gut the National Forest Management Act and the Federal Land Policy and
Management Act by allowing national forest and public lands to be
transferred to tribal control; and

· essentially require salvage logging after any disturbance regardless of
any ecosystem benefits.

Here's what The Wilderness Society says about the bill fully supported by
the National Wild Turkey Foundation:

https://www.wilderness.org/articles/media-resources/memo-house-farm-bill-forestry-title-potentially-disastrous-national-forests

Here's the Audubon Society's opposition to the bill:
https://www.audubon.org/news/a-questionable-piece-legislation-could-drastically-change-our-national-forests

The Sierra Club opposes the bill:
https://content.sierraclub.org/press-releases/2017/06/house-committee-passes-damaging-lands-fire-bills

The National Parks Conservation Association opposes the bill:
https://www.npca.org/articles/1674-position-on-h-r-2936-resilient-federal-forests-act-of-2017

Here's even more background information and opposition:

https://www.outsideonline.com/2267996/resilient-federal-forests

https://psmag.com/environment/flush-with-timber-money-congressman-works-to-loosen-forest-protections
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