Sen. Jon Tester looked out the window of a downtown office building Friday and noted the red, dead trees coloring the slopes of Mount Helena.
The phenomenon isn't specific to Montana, he said. Beetle-killed trees pepper the Rocky Mountains, demonstrating just how the environment has transformed the West's forests.
"We've got a choice with trees," Tester, D-Mont., told members of the IR editorial board Friday. "We can either cut them and store that carbon in two-by-fours and plywood and such, or let them burn and allow that carbon to go up in the atmosphere.
"I know that burning is a natural phenomenon, but I think that through restorative work, we can do better."
Tester broached a variety of issues ranging from northern border security to VA health care during Friday's meeting.
But it was his Forest Jobs and Recreation Act that dominated much of the discussion. The new piece of legislation is now awaiting action in the Senate Committee on Energy.
If passed, Tester said, the bottom-up approach used to create the bill could serve as a model for the West, setting an example of how once-polarized groups can come together to compromise on something that will benefit current and future generations.
"It's about people getting together and working out a Montana solution,"
Tester said. "I think it will create and save jobs. It's going to help maintain our timber infrastructure, and maybe even improve upon it."
As written, the bill would require the U.S. Forest Service to log at least 30,000 acres on the Kootenai National Forest and 70,000 acres on the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.
The bill also designates the first new wilderness in Montana in 26 years. If passed, it would add 681,000 acres of wilderness across Montana's federally managed lands.
"It's going to set aside some ground for future generations," Tester said.
"It will protect some watersheds, some fisheries and some big-game habitat, and it will have some recreational components to it, too."
Tester admitted the bill has its detractors on both the left and the right.
Some on the left argue the bill gives away protection for public lands while promoting logging.
Some on the right say it won't create jobs and is little more than a political fix for a beleaguered industry.
"But the truth is, this was built by loggers and conservationists sitting down together and putting aside their differences," he said. "I applaud those efforts.
"We're going to try to get this through, because I think it's the right thing to do for Montana, and I think it could be a model for the West."
