“While it appears that the EPA was finally forced to make the right decision, what’s got Montana sportsmen and women concerned is that it took them this long.  Frankly, this idea should have been laughed out of the room, and we should never have wasted scare tax dollars exploring the possibility of onerous new EPA regulations on fishing tackle.  No wonder folks are worried that soon there will not be any part of our lives that the EPA doesn’t want to regulate, control or change.  We won today, but we’re going to keep fighting until the EPA also decides against regulating ammunition.”

Rehberg has also cosponsored the Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act, which requires a vote on every new major rule issued by an Administration agency to ensure Congress resumes the legislative accountability granted by the Constitution and the responsibility for Congressional decisions intended by our founders.

NCBA Past President Bill Donald, a rancher in Montana, says cattlemen oppose the requirement to maintain viable populations of species of conservation concern. He said there is no scientific consensus on what level of any given population is viable or how it is to be managed.

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Representative Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) issued the following statement after Senator Jon Tester’s (D-MT) introduction of S.2042, legislation to track and report on tax-payer subsidies for lawsuits against the government:

“The fact that Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA) payments has operated under a cloak of secrecy for the last 17 years is widely accepted to be a problem.  Users of
EAJA, including veterans, seniors and environmental organizations, collectively
agree this program should be subject to tracking and reporting requirements.  So
I find it odd that Sen. Tester would introduce a bill to track only half of EAJA
payments.

“In 2010 I introduced H.R. 4717, the Open EAJA Act of 2010, legislation that would
comprehensively track and report on EAJA payments made government wide.
Although Sen. Tester was invited to become a cosponsor in the Senate, he
refused.

“Between the initial introduction of the 2010 bill, and the recent introduction of my bill to improve and modernize the program, H.R. 1996, the Government Litigation Savings Act, a compelling body of evidence has been compiled on EAJA payments.  We now know that EAJA was written for veterans, retirees and small business and that EAJA payments are flowing to those groups as intended.  We also know that EAJA payments are flowing to large, well-funded environmental groups, which was not the intent of EAJA.

“Environmental groups have environmental laws that give them the right to sue, settle, and receive tax-payer subsidies to their heart’s content.  Conversely, EAJA provides for the nation’s veterans and seniors and small business owners.  We do not need the incomplete data that would be provided by Senator Tester’s bill to know that today, environmental groups unfairly use both avenues to pad the coffers of
their litigation shops.  What we do need is legislation to return EAJA to its
intended purpose – reimbursement for lawsuits not already provided for by other
laws.  We also need to understand specific details regarding EAJA payments so we
know if it is working for the people it was intended to serve.

“I had assumed the Senator, as I am, was interested in understanding exactly how EAJA works for seniors and veterans.  Unfortunately, Senator Tester’s bill does not require tracking or reporting for the section of EAJA chiefly responsible for the
payment of legal representation for our nation’s veterans and seniors.  Even if
he ignores the fact that EAJA is for seniors and veterans, and environmental
laws are for environmentalists, I’m still confounded as to why Sen. Tester
wouldn’t want to track the entirety of EAJA payments.

“I call on Sen. Tester to abandon his legislation, and support comprehensive tracking of EAJA payments and clarify the line between EAJA and environmental laws.”

Background:
The Equal Access to Justice Act
(EAJA) was passed by Congress in 1980, establishing two methods by which
individuals or groups could recover the costs of suing the federal
government.

• The first method is through agency proceedings, codified under Title 5, Section 504 of U.S. Code.  It provides payments for adjudicatory proceedings within the agency themselves, as opposed to courts proceedings.
• The EAJA required the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) to track these payments and report on them to Congress.
• In 1994, Congress defunded ACUS without transferring the responsibility of tracking EAJA payments to another agency.
• The second method to recover EAJA fees is through court proceedings, codified in Title 28, Section 2412(d) of U.S. Code.
• The EAJA directed the Department of Justice to track these payments and report them to Congress.
• In 1994, The Paperwork Reduction Act eliminated the DoJ’s tracking and reporting responsibility for EAJA payments.
• In March of 2010, U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis (WY-R) and then-Representative Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (SD-D) introduced H.R. 4717(Open EAJA Act of 2010).  This legislation, along with its mirror legislation in the Senate (S. 3122), would have reinstated tracking and reporting of both Title 5 and Title 28 of EAJA. It also required that the online reporting provide more detailed information on who receives EAJA payments, and to what amount, but left the remaining EAJA law intact.  Sen. Tester refused to support that legislation.
• Following a year of study on court documents and IRS filings, Rep. Lummis and U.S. Senator John Barrasso (WY-R) introduced the Government Litigation Savings Act (GLSA).  The GLSA (H.R. 1996, S. 1061) requires comprehensive tracking and reporting of both Title 5 and Title 28 of EAJA, and consolidates the tracking and reporting within the newly reconstituted ACUS.
• GLSA requires ACUS to track the payments, and provide an annual online database that allows the public to search EAJA payments.  The GLSA requires the report to indicate which groups received EAJA payments, for what amount and for what purpose.
• On January 30, 2012, Sen. Tester introduced a bill requiring only partial tracking of EAJA payments (S. 2042).
• S. 2042 requires the DoJ to track and report only Title 28 (court awarded EAJA payments).  S. 2042 does not require tracking Title 5 payments, those most likely to go to veterans and seniors.
• S. 2042 does not require the DoJ provide in its report anything other than a total of EAJA payments over which the DoJ has jurisdiction, rendering the data meaningless.

The “no-action” alternative would eliminate all snowmobile and snowcoach travel in the park after the end of the current winter season. A second alternative looks at continuing winter operations at the present temporary limits, plus analysis of limited access for
snowmobile users without guides. Under a third alternative, park roads from West Yellowstone and Mammoth Hot Springs to Old Faithful would be plowed to allow
commercially operated, wheeled vehicles into the park. Also under consideration is a proposal to phase out snowmobiles and allow motorized entry by snowcoaches alone. This alternative includes analysis of closing the park’s East Entrance over Sylvan Pass to motorized oversnow use.

Two other draft alternatives would take a new and different approach to winter use: Regulating park entry according to the sound levels created by snowcoaches or guided snowmobile groups, rather than by specific numbers of snowcoaches or snowmobiles. One of these alternatives also assesses the effects of two-week “shoulder seasons,”
where entrance to the park during the first two and last two weeks of the season would be by wheeled vehicles or rubber-tracked snowcoaches. Click here to read the rest of the article.

The Park service will be holding open houses during the scoping period to answer questions about winter use issues, draft alternatives, and the process of preparing the Supplemental EIS. The meetings schedule is listed below.

Monday, Feb. 13th in Cody WY: Holiday Inn, 1702 Sheridan Ave
Tuesday, Feb. 14th in Jackson WY: The Virginian Lodge, 750 W. Broadway
Wednesday, Feb. 15th in West Yellowstone MT: Holiday Inn, 315 Yellowstone Ave.
Thursday, Feb. 16th in Bozeman MT: Holiday Inn Baxter Lane

All four open houses will run from 6:30 P.M. to 8:30 P.M.

Visit here to comment and learn more or comment by writing to: Winter Use Supplemental EIS, P.O. Box 168, Yellowstone National Park WY 82190.

Well, here’s some criticism: To begin, the name is all wrong. FJRA is first, foremost and only a wilderness bill, which would immediately lock away a million acres (660,000 acres of big-W wilderness and another 300,000 or so of “recreation areas”) from all uses except primitive recreation.

In return for this million-acre lockup, FJRA’s propagandists promise a tidal wave of “Jobs and Recreation” to follow — someday, maybe, perhaps — an empty promise.

Ranchers know from bitter experience that grazing rights always go backwards after wilderness designations. Mining, in some of the most mineral rich areas of Montana? Never — forever.

Nor does wilderness do “Jobs” through “Recreation.” Never has, never will. Only 2 percent of public land recreation visitor days are “primitive recreation” based — and fully half are hunters. FJRA would write off the other 98 percent, who use wheels and motors for modern recreation, as potential customers and visitors — a terrible business model.

What about the forestry “Jobs” that FJRA allegedly “creates?” Using accepted Montana average harvest and employment formulas, FJRA would produce 55 million board feet per year for 10 years total, at best (if nobody sues). Sun Mountain alone has 50 million feet capacity, with R-Y able to run 165 million feet per year. That doesn’t count the other “partners,” Roseburg and Pyramid. Clearly, FJRA provides nowhere near what these mills could use to “maintain,” much less “create,” jobs.

All Montanans know the Forest Service’s historic multiple-use mission has been completely wrecked by environmentalist litigation, enabled by lousy federal law. Multiple-use will stay wrecked until Congress has the guts for substantial reform. But Tester’s only attempt at slowing the legal monkeywrenching is a passing mention of the 2003 Healthy Forests Act’s judicial review language. Have you seen any significant part of Montana’s forest mess improved by that law since it passed? Nope.

Finally, what about the fundamental health of these public lands, which all Americans own and dearly want well-managed and productive? FJRA would allow projects on 1.9 million acres of “suitable” forest on the Beaverhead/Deerlodge. Trouble is, if FJRA isn’t sued to a halt (a huge if), we’ll still be stuck with 1.83 million acres of red and mostly-dead on the B/D 15 years from now — over 96 percent, still a disaster.

In the Swan, the bill creates 88,000 acres of new wilderness in trade for roughly two sections worth of “recreation” area — none of which has been funded or mapped, much less built. This is compromise?

With no guarantees for anyone else, FJRA guarantees a million acres of up-front wilderness. The only guaranteed “winners” are Greens. Given past behavior, Greens will almost certainly abandon their timber “partners” to legalistic oblivion as they move on to their next closed-doors “collaboration” — such as the Rocky Mountain Front.

After almost 50 years, honest Montanans deserve, and demand, legislation that will honestly and fairly settle the wilderness issue. How could the “logjam” be broken, honestly and fairly?

First, outstanding, legitimate wilderness, period: Study areas repeatedly found suitable by multiple agency reviews deserve designation, but the rest, found lacking time and again, should be permanently released back to multiple use.

Second, permanent protection of multiple-use equal to wilderness: Decades of obstructionist litigation (enabled by negligent law) have wrecked huge chunks of both our forests and our economy. Congress simply must end our courtroom torture. How? Loser-pays/bonding requirements; language establishing a process as “legally sufficient;” and language holding wilderness designation back for the duration of the “pilot program.”

Third, jobs and recreation first, then wilderness: To prevent any political and/or legalistic bad faith on the part of extremists AND calculating “mainstream” environmental groups, designation of wilderness should be conditional — on the creation of real jobs, real recreation, with real results benefiting both Montana’s landscape and economy over the long haul.

Until Sen. Tester (or anyone else) writes legislation with teeth, ensuring the promised “jobs” and “recreation” are just as permanent as the wilderness — no thanks.

Fred Hodgeboom of Bigfork is a retired Forest Service forester and immediate past president of Montanans for Multiple Use. This op-ed was co-signed by State Sens. Greg Hinkle of Thompson Falls and Verdell Jackson of Kalispell, who serve on the Montana Senate’s Natural Resources Committee; and Daniel Zolnikov, a Billings outdoor enthusiast and executive director of Families for Outdoor Recreation.

“Government bungling by the Obama Administration is costing jobs and creating lasting economic damage to the people living around Gallatin National Forest,” said Rehberg.  “These public lands are meant for public enjoyment, and as another winter passes without an adequate use plan, the public is being closed out of their land.”

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a ruling that the Forest Service’s Gallatin National Forest Travel Plan did not comply with the Montana Wilderness Study Act of 1977, justifying its decision in part by stating that there was no historical use data
available. Rehberg pointed out in his letter that ample historical evidence exists and needs to be included in the review of the current plan.

Opponents to the plan are trying to further restrict public access, causing greater economic damage to the surrounding communities.

Rehberg’s full letter is below:

Dear Mr. Tidwell:

I’m writing on behalf of my constituents who have raised concerns regarding the Gallatin Forest Travel Plan.  As you know, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a ruling that the Forest Service’s Gallatin National Forest Travel Plan did not
comply with the Montana Wilderness Study Act of 1977.  It was the court’s opinion that the plan “improperly ignores the impact of increased volume of motorized and mechanized use on current users’ ability to seek quiet and solitude in the study area.”  When defending its decision not to include historical use data, the Forest Service claimed that it was a non-factor because there wasn’t any historical use data available.

It’s my understanding that during the comment period for the travel plan a substantial amount of historic use evidence including signed letters, pictures, a log sheet created by a FS employee, and an advertisement from the Forest Service to encourage people
to come to the WSA to snowmobile.  Unfortunately, none of this important evidence was used by your agency during the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

Since the travel plan has been held up by the courts, the Gallatin Forest has had to revert back to a backup winter use plan that is extremely restrictive to snowmobile use.  Meanwhile, the local economies around the forest are suffering due to the restrictions. Snowmobiles in the Gallatin National Forest alone bring in over 20 million dollars of economic activity every winter, and this positive impact is critical to the health of the entire community.

I urge you to draft another Travel Plan that includes all historical use data that is submitted during the comment period. We need a solution that works for the folks who live and work in and around the Gallatin National Forest.  Thank you for your consideration of this request, and please don’t hesitate to contact my office if I can be of further assistance.

The obscure but well-heeled Wildlife Conservation Society (2010 assets $764 million) unveiled the idea last week in “Spectacular Migrations in the Western U.S.,” a 45-page report on the purportedly urgent need for a widespread network of wildlife
migration corridors to avert countless extinctions.

The WCS is a consortium of zoos (“urban wildlife parks”) and global conservation programs that uses science, according to its mission statement, to “change attitudes
towards nature.” Its Spectacular Migrations report looks suspiciously like the
expansion agenda of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the NPS’s boss.

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Download the registration and waiver form along with detailed information here. 2012 WYCR Registration & Waiver Form

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