HELENA — Since the start of his administration, Gov. Greg Gianforte has consistently pushed for more active forest management, saying it’s a way to reduce wildfire risk and support Montana’s timber industry. Now, he’s reached a new agreement with the U.S. Forest Service that he says could speed up major forest projects.
Gianforte and USFS Chief Tom Schultz met at Davis Gulch, just south of Helena, to sign a 20-year “shared stewardship agreement.”
“Truly a historic announcement,” Gianforte said.
(Watch the video for more on how the agreement could change forest management in Montana.)
For years, the USFS has used what’s known as the “Good Neighbor Authority” to allow states like Montana to take on some of the responsibilities for managing timber projects on federal land. This agreement will allow the state to expand its role even further.
“This is going to allow us to get back on the landscape, to make these forests healthy again, create jobs at our mills, and create better habitat for wildlife,” Gianforte told MTN.
Schultz told MTN, under existing Good Neighbor Authority agreements, USFS designs timber sales and then lets the state conduct the sales and oversee the projects. He said the biggest difference here would be that the state would be the ones designing the specific projects.
“It's going to allow the state of Montana to actually manage up to 200,000 acres – that's what's unique about this,” he said. “So instead of waiting for the Forest Service to give them a project, we're going to do a NEPA analysis over that whole project area, and then the state is going to manage that within their own jurisdiction.”
Gianforte said this idea really grew out of a meeting he had with Schultz in Washington, D.C., earlier this year. He said the Trump administration had shown a commitment to collaborating with states, and that he wants this to be just a first step.
“As we get our feet under us and we scale up our forest lands management capacity at DNRC, our hope is to do more of these,” he said.
While state and federal leaders may be on the same page when it comes to encouraging more timber harvesting, that alone may not change the current situation. Both Gianforte and Schultz blamed environmental lawsuits for slowing completion of USFS timber projects. Schultz said almost 500 million feet of timber are currently held up by litigation. He said the Forest Service is currently working on updating its rules for environmental review, which he believes will move projects forward faster.
Schultz said Montana is the first state the USFS has made a shared stewardship agreement with, but he expects it won’t be the last.
“I think you're going to see a lot of interest,” he said. “The term here is ‘cooperative federalism,’ where the states and the federal government cooperating together.”
Leaders say we could expect to see plans for the first project under this new agreement take shape by the end of this year.
