× Thanks for reading! Log in to continue. Enjoy more articles by logging in or creating a free account. No credit card required. Log in Sign up {{featured_button_text}}

In her recent (Sept. 5) Missoulian opinion piece, Montana Conservation Voters’ chair, Juanita Vero, levels some serious accusations against the Green Party. What got my attention most was her unsupportable insinuation that Green Party candidates would be “bad for Montana’s environment, and bad for our democratic process.”

I’ve been an environmental activist since the day I arrived in Montana from Colorado in the fall of 1974. I decided to run for the U.S. Senate on the Green Party ticket this year primarily because not one member of the Montana congressional delegation is doing nearly enough to protect our water, our fish and wildlife habitat, or our forests and wilderness.

Ugly clearcuts continue to scar our beautiful mountainsides. Yes, despite what you may have heard, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are still clearcutting public land. Bulldozers are busy punching new roads into what remains of our unroaded backcountry. Have you ever once heard U.S. Sen. Jon Tester or House candidate Kathleen Williams decry these obscene, immoral insults to nature’s web of life? Not a lot of daylight separates Democrats from Republicans on forest-protection issues.