Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack made waves Tuesday when he said Boise was getting the same urban forestry money that the Senate wants to stop Washington D.C. from using.

But lost in the flap is just how well Idaho and its battered rural communities are faring with Forest Service stimulus dollars. The Forest Service targeted states and counties with high unemployment and that’s why Idaho so far has more than $98 million in projects already allocated. The Forest Service’s portion of the bill is expected to create or retain more than 1,200 jobs in the state.

In Boise County the stimulus package provided nearly $2.7 million for hazardous fuel reduction in three wildland urban interface areas within the Boise National Forest Idaho City Ranger District. These are the kind of projects Republicans in Idaho who opposed the stimulus package sought to get Congress to include anyway.

Those projects are like the $500,000 going to Treasure Valley Forest Products of Mountain Home, which used the money to purchase new equipment and double its production of wood pellets, a clean burning fuel that people use to heat their homes.

Ever since concerns over endangered species and water quality created a lack of trust in the Forest Service’s timber program in the late 1980s and early 1990s the agency has been struggling to find a new consensus that can use national forests to solve national problems while protecting the values that Americans cherish about their forests. Supporters of the timber program never minded the fact that it was a government subsidy for the timber industry.

Vilsack is the latest national leader to take on the problem. He said projects like the ones in the Boise National Forest and the use of woody biomass from forests to create energy lessen the risk of catastrophic wildland fire, improve wildlife habitat and improve stream health and drainage to allow more water for local watersheds.

“Our nation's forestlands, both public and private, are environmental and economic assets that are in critical need of restoration and conservation," said Vilsack. "By being better stewards of these national treasures, we can make our forests more resilient to climate change, protect water resources, and improve forest health while creating jobs and opportunities in communities across the country.”

The Mountain Home project will create 15 jobs at the plant in Mountain Home and 35 jobs in the forest, the Forest Service reported.

Overall the stimulus included $49 million for wood-to-energy grants and $8 million for biomass projects Idaho got nearly $10 million dollars in biomass energy projects.

The stimulus, he said, “creates a new framework for the rural economy.”

Much of the spending will overlap into 2010 but Tom Tidwell, chief of the Forest Service said Tuesday that isn’t bad for families struggling in places like Orofino and Idaho City.

“It will be an easier winter for contractors and their families knowing they have work next spring,” Tidwell said.

Overall Vilsack and the Obama administration are pushing an ideological message that challenges the Republican message since Ronald Reagan that “government is the problem.” He met with the top fire managers at the National Interagency Fire Center to hear how they efficiently work together and react quickly to move resources around the country to fight fires, help people in floods, hurricanes and even terrorist attacks.

I have heard cabinet members from both Republican and Democratic administrations praise the fire center for how well it work and how cost effective its operations are. But Vilsack said it like most government programs, the fire center is limited in its ability to get the message out.

“The problem with good government is nobody hears about it,” Vilsack said. “People think there is no such thing as good government.”