Nick Smith

Writing recently on X, Frontier Institute President and CEO Kendall Cotton observed that Montana’s Horse Gulch Fire is burning in a portion of Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest that was slated for landscape-scale thinning and controlled burns, that is, before anti-forestry litigation dramatically scaled back the planned effort, known as the “Middleman Project.” …the Middleman Project planned active forest management on 53,131 acres to mitigate wildfire risks …Two years after the project was approved, two anti-forestry groups sued to stop the project, claiming it violated federal law… The litigants focused on the adequacy and detail of the 584-page Environmental Assessment. According to the Frontier Institute’s research, in April 2024 the Forest Service agreed to a settlement to reduce the scale of the Middleman Project, forgoing almost all of the planned timber harvest and temporary road construction. They even agreed to pay $39,000 of taxpayer dollars to the anti-forestry groups to cover attorney fees!