Sen. Tammy Baldwin pushes to create forestry jobs while Sen. Ron Johnson sits on sidelines: Our View

The problem described last fall by Gannett Wisconsin Media’s “Timber Trouble” series is this: The U.S. Forest Service is falling far short of meeting the government’s own goals for logging in national forests. That makes Wisconsin’s Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest harder to use for recreation and, more important, it deprives northern Wisconsin towns of millions of dollars in job-supporting economic activity.

What’s required to fix this problem isn’t a return to the bad old days of clear-cutting. The federal government already sets targets for environmentally responsible, sustainable logging. But in Wisconsin’s 1.5 million-acre national forest land, the actual harvest falls well below those targets. Our investigation found that the forest service could have cut 1.3 billion board feet of wood in the past decade; instead, only 755 million board feet was harvested.

This is an issue that conservative state Sen. Tom Tiffany, R-Hazelhurst, has worked hard to promote. Both U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy of Wausau and fellow Republican Gov. Scott Walker have called for reforms. Increasing logging in Wisconsin’s national forest land is a business-minded reform that would help untangle the free market from burdensome government regulations.

So why is it that Wisconsin’s liberal U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, is taking action on the issue, while conservative Sen. Ron Johnson sits on the sidelines?

Baldwin, who toured land in Forest County in August, is using her post on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee to pressure federal agencies to allow Wisconsin forest management to work. The federal government has diverted more than $2.7 billion in Forest Service money during the past 10 years away from Wisconsin and into Western states.

Baldwin sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Budget Director Sylvia Burwell calling for changes to that policy. The letter was signed by Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate’s natural resources committee, as well as Republican senators from South Dakota and Mississippi.

But it did not get Johnson’s backing. He did not lend his support because the letter also praised an obscure budget provision that uses some U.S. Forest Service funding for rural schools. That policy, called Secure Rural Schools, has had its funding reduced in the 2013 budget — just not by enough, evidently, for Johnson’s liking.

It is an absurd justification for sitting out a bipartisan effort that absolutely would translate into actual, flesh-and-blood jobs for northern Wisconsin.

Instead, Johnson this month announced a lawsuit against the federal government, challenging the Obama administration’s interpretation of the Affordable Care Act to allow members of Congress and their staffs to have their employer pay toward their health insurance plans, which they are required to purchase through the law’s exchanges.

Whatever you think about Obamacare, there is no case — none— that Johnson’s lawsuit would ever translate into a job for a Wisconsinite. If Johnson’s lawsuit is victorious, the practical impact would be a pay cut for some people on Capitol Hill and that’s it.

We certainly do not argue that elected officials should never fight battles about principles, which is how Johnson describes his lawsuit. But we also expect from our leaders attention to practical matters and policies that actually affect their constituents’ lives.

In contrast to Johnson, Baldwin’s work on the forestry issue is pragmatic and non-ideological. This is no headline-grabbing initiative and it’s not likely to get her booked on cable news shows. Instead, it’s a substantive reform that would help provide a lifeline to some struggling rural Wisconsin towns.

It’s not a contrast that is favorable to Johnson. He should consider whether there’s a lesson he could learn from Wisconsin’s junior senator.