Daines tackles forest management in Senate hearing

Submitted by

Sen. Daines’ office

During a U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Steve Daines today spoke with Montanan Chuck Roady about the importance of collaborative forest management projects.

Chuck Roady is Vice President & General Manager of F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Company from Columbia Falls, Montana.  Stoltze has been helping manage forests and sustain the community in Northwest Montana for almost 105 years.

“Chuck Roady thanks for coming to this committee. I’m always happy to introduce a fellow Montanan. Thank God for some common sense back in Washington D.C. – we need you here,” Daines stated.

Daines went on to begin questioning Roady: “Chuck, in the context of supporting the collaborative process and empowering the agency to implement these restoration projects, do you believe it is important that we protect collaborative projects from litigation and excessive regulation and find ways to empower their involvement?”

Roady responded on the need to protect projects from litigation: “Absolutely. Nothing is more frustrating than sitting in a grange hall, or a school gym, or any place that we’ve met … And then you get blown out of the water after you finally agree on something and of the people that did not come to the table and did not participate. So I don’t want to exclude anybody out of this public comment, but we’ve been down that road and it’s doesn’t work.”

Daines then asked Roady on the importance of forest legacy programs:  “You’ve been involved with other diverse partnerships to secure working landscapes and forest lands in Northwest Montana through conservation programs administered by the Department of Ag. Briefly mention for me, if you would, your experience with the Forest Legacy Program, and how has that impacted Stoltze?”

Roady responded, “Forest Legacy Program is a win-win. It’s a program that my individual company has participated in and it keeps private forests in private … But it also creates public access, so those people in the public now can fish and hunt in perpetuity on our land and that was through the Forest Legacy Program and I can’t stress enough if we had more programs like that it would be a big help.”