Montana’s timber industry is operating at 65 percent of capacity and well under the production level that existed 30 years ago, Rep. Steve Daines says, and the main reason is, “Logs. You can’t get logs.”

During an Aug. 29 meeting with the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce, Daines reacted to recent news that F.H. Stoltze Land & Lumber Co. planned to curtail production at its mill in Columbia Falls.

Stoltze officials said a recent federal court ruling in a case brought by environmental groups had eliminated several timber sales on state forest land and caused a log shortage. As a result, the company was forced to cut mill hours from 80 to 60 and lay off nine or 10 employees.

The Republican congressman cited the case as one more example of a legal system being abused by “fringe environmental groups” and why reforms are needed to the Equal Access to Justice Act.

The federal law allows environmental groups and other litigants to recover costs from taxpayers when they prevail in legal actions against the government.

Daines, who is running for the U.S. Senate, said the law has been exploited and abused, causing considerable economic harm in Montana — 30 sawmills operated in Montana 30 years ago but only 11 are left.

The main reason for the decline has been litigation, he said. But there have been impacts to the forest, too.

“From an environmental standpoint, our forests are healthier” when they are actively managed, he said.

Daines said he believes state government could better manage forest lands in Montana than the federal government. Going further, he said states could do better handling other parts of government. He blamed a “fourth branch of government” for the problem — bureaucracies that are not adequately restrained in their regulatory powers.

“I probably hear more about these regulations that are overreaching more than anything else,” he said. “The concentration of power has grown too great in Washington, D.C.”