A group of delegates traveled to Washington, D.C., recently and met with their legislators to discuss climate change and proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Retired fire chief John Woodland, of St. Regis, went as one of the Montana delegates.

The group was made up of individuals from six states including Montana, Colorado, Missouri, Maine and Pennsylvania. The original focus of the Sept. 13 meeting was on the impending vote for the proposed cuts that was later postponed until December.

The Trump administration has proposed a 31 percent cut to the EPA’s budget to $5.7 billion from $8.1 billion and to eliminate a quarter of the agency jobs.

Several offices are under the agency’s umbrella including the Office of Land and Emergency Management (which oversees Superfund sites) and the EPA also oversees general environmental protection laws such as Air Pollution Act; Water Pollution Act; Endangered Species Act; Toxic Substances Control Act and National Environmental Policy Act.

The trip was organized by some environmental groups including the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters.

Woodland is a member of the Montana Chapter of the environmental group 350.org. He also has a strong background in firefighting and is concerned about climate change and the impact it is having on wildfires.

“We had an extreme fire season this year and in our particular area we had the hottest July on record. Missoula had the longest period on record without any measureable rainfall. We need to get serious about addressing climate change and getting off of fossil fuel,” Woodland stated.

The other delegates who went from Montana included Travis Craft, a fly fishing guide from Missoula; Mike Jarnevic, who is retired from the military and was involved with the Milltown Dam Superfund cleanup; Alisha Jongeward, a Livingston High School physics teacher; Gary Hawk, a retired Missoula minister; and Dave Merrill, with the Sierra Club.

They met with Montana’s U.S. senators, Dmocrat Jon Tester and Republican Steve Daines, as well as with a staffer for U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte, another Republican. Topics discussed included the impact the wildfires have had on tourism, teaching climate change in the schools, and ethical issues surrounding climate change.

“Climate change is manmade and the science is very clear and we are seeing the impact of that science,” Woodland said. “What can we do about it?”

His main focus on the visit was to discuss wildfires and the impact they had on Montana tourism, smoke health concerns and the possible impact on future business development.

“How many new startups and tech companies look at moving to Montana because they like the lifestyle here? But after a summer like this one, they saw that the lifestyle wasn’t that pleasant (with the smoke) and left as a result.”

Both Tester and Daines support full funding for the EPA, but they don’t share the same view on climate change.

“I’ve talked to Tester several times over the years. He’s a farmer and they (farmers) pretty much accept the idea that climate change is happening, there’s no denying it,” he said.

“This is a critically important topic because it impacts everybody, not only in Montana, but on this Earth,” Tester said during an August meeting in Bozeman on climate change.

Tester was also on the other side of the fence from Daines regarding the confirmation of Scott Pruitt as the head of the EPA in February of this year. Tester did not support the appointment and said in an earlier interview that Pruitt sided with big polluters over local businesses and local families. He also told the group that he’s concerned about how effective the EPA was going to be since the leadership “seems to deny a lot of the science that’s out there at this point.”

Daines, on the other hand, supported Pruitt and wants to see less regulation on oil and coal industries which he said are burdened with “excessive EPA regulation.”

Both Daines and Tester want to see funding continue for Montana Superfund sites including the Berkeley Pit in Butte.

However, Daines didn’t address the climate change issue very much during the delegates’ meeting. Instead he focused most of the wildfire blame on poor forest management, something Woodland disagrees with.

“You can’t blame the fire situation just on timber management,” Woodland said. He points out that the fire seasons are getting longer and that has nothing to do with timber management.

“Canada doesn’t have the same timber management as we have and they are having extreme fires, as well,” he said. He also pointed out that Eastern Montana does not have the forests seen in the western part of the state and they had extreme fires this summer.

Another problem with Mineral County is that it has a lot of low value lodgepole timber, which can be difficult to access — a problem not resolved by logging but by Forest Services crews doing forest management and thinning those areas.

Currently, the Forest Service does not have the staffing needed to do this type of ground work or to do the work needed before the timber sales happens. Firefighting is also more expensive now, with more homes in the urban-wildland interface and increases in the cost of fuel and equipment. “Their budget has not be raised appropriately,” Woodland said.

“The Forest Service and environmental groups get blamed for challenging timber sales and I don’t think they deserve the blame that they’re getting,” he said. “We aren’t giving the agencies who are responsible for doing the forest management the resources and tools needed to do it.”

Regarding the timber industry in Montana, Woodland points out that Montana is a “dry forest” and there isn’t much water and dry soil conditions. Essentially it takes 100 years to grow marketable timber in this area versus places like Washington and Oregon where the wet conditions can grow timber in about 30 years.

Plus with climate change, the area is shifting from a “dry forest” to essentially a “high desert” brush and shrub area, he said, referencing a 2017 Montana Climate Assessment report. The report stated that “the speed and magnitude of climate change may mean an increased forest mortality … leading to a net loss of forested area in Montana.”

What Woodland advocates is the need to decrease the use of fossil fuels and to use more alternative energies like wind and solar.

Overall, he felt the trip was worthwhile, “I don’t think this trip by itself will result in fundamental changes in thinking, but incrementally people that understand the science and are concerned about it will start to connect the dots and start to do something about it.”