Gianforte touts forest bill during Stoltze visit

Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte toured the F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber mill last week, touting the Resilient Federal Forests Act. The Act looks to streamline forest management and logging operations on projects on National Forest and Bureau of Management lands across the U.S.

The bill provides categorical exclusions to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, which requires that certain environmental analyses, such as impacts to endangered species, watersheds and other environmental factors be examined for impacts before a project goes forward.

Under the bill, projects could be excluded if they address insect infestation, reduce hazardous fuel loads, protect municipal watersheds, maintain or modify critical habitat, increase water yield or produce timber. In general, projects cannot be more than 10,000 acres, but if they go through a collaborative public process, they could be as large as 30,000 acres.

The bill would also look to streamline salvage sales after a fire, requiring that projects be readied within 60 days of a “catastrophic” event.

In addition, the bill also looks to curb consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the Endangered Species Act, if the “Secretary concerned determines that the such forest management activity is not likely to adversely affect a listed species or designated critical habitat.”

On the litigation end, the bill would not allow a plaintiff to recoup court costs from litigation.

In addition, groups wouldn’t be able to sue to stop salvage sales.

“No restraining order, preliminary injunction, or injunction pending appeal shall be issued by any court of the United States with respect to any decision to prepare or conduct a salvage operation or reforestation activity in response to a large-scale catastrophic event,” the bill reads.

Gianforte said the bill was necessary stop “frivolous” lawsuits.

“Current law empowers environmental extremists to block common sense forest management projects,” the freshman Republican said.

The law, in a different form that was touted by then Congressman Ryan Zinke, passed the House a couple of years ago, but never made it through the Senate. In fact, western lawmakers for several years have tried to make it easier to harvest timber from federal forests, but without much success.

The law would also allow for the Secretary of Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture to ask for separate funding for catastrophic wildfires, so they don’t drain the agency’s normal operating budget.

In a bad fire year, more than half of the Forest Service’s budget goes to firefighting, for example.

Chuck Roady, general manager of Stoltze, said one of the main roadblocks in their business is a reliable log supply. They currently run two, 10 hour shifts per four-day work week, he said, but the market is good and they could produce more if the logs were available.

Paul McKenzie, lands and resource manager at Stoltze, said currently federal lands are being managed under the specter of litigation.

“They (federal land managers) are managing on how to not get sued, rather than what’s the best thing for the forest,” he said.

Stoltze gets its timber from a variety of sources. It owns about 40,000 acres and in the past few years has put about half in conservation easements. It also relies on state, federal and private lands.

The family-owned mill is known for its innovation — it installed a bio-mass plant that cleanly burns waste bark while returning about 3 megawatts of renewable energy back to the power grid a few years ago. It’s currently investing about $2 million into a “sticker stacker” that makes it quicker, safer and more efficient to put small pieces of wood between stacks of lumber when they go into the kiln to be dried.

Right now it requires a lot of manual and sometimes dangerous labor. A new machine will automate the process.