Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) said he fought to remove Sen. Jon Tester's (D-Mont.) wilderness and logging bill from Congress' year-end spending package, a move that could reverberate next year as the two battle for Tester's Senate seat.

Rehberg yesterday said Tester's "Forest Jobs and Recreation Act," which would designate nearly a million acres of wilderness and conservation areas in the state while mandating at least 100,000 acres of timber harvests, is a bad bet for Montanans and was opposed by some of Tester's Senate colleagues.

"Senator Tester's wilderness bill simply isn't good for Montana and that's why Denny worked to keep it out of the Interior appropriations bill," Rehberg spokesman Jed Link said in an email. "New wilderness areas are guaranteed in the Tester bill but new jobs are not."

Rehberg's effort to strip Tester's proposal from the fiscal 2012 omnibus spending bill was seen as a political gamble by Tester supporters, who argued the bill is supported by a broad swath of Democrats and Republicans in the state.

Some suggested the forest bill would have died on its own as a result of the political horse trading that saw the removal of the vast majority of environmental riders from the year-end spending bill.

"I am very surprised," a Democratic campaign operative said. "This is the first time [Rehberg has] actually been on record against guaranteed jobs in Montana."

Tester's campaign blamed Rehberg for killing a bill that would create new jobs in Montana's ailing timber industry, which stands to benefit from a dependable supply of lumber. Rehberg and critics of Tester's bill have argued there are no guarantees that the timber mandates would actually be met.

"That fact that Dennis Rehberg actively worked against a popular, bipartisan, made-in-Montana jobs bill -- simply because Jon's name is on it -- shows his true colors," said Tester spokesman Aaron Murphy. "Congressman Rehberg has made clear his aspirations come before guaranteed Montana jobs."

Murphy said Rehberg does not understand the forest bill and is among a minority of Montanans who do not support it. The bill is endorsed by Republican-owned timber mills, a coalition of conservation groups and several elected officials in the state.

But Rehberg, who is running neck and neck with Tester according to recent polls, argued the forest bill lacked support from lawmakers of both parties. Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, in the past has voiced opposition to the bill's timber mandate but has not actively blocked its passage. Still, the bill has never received a committee vote. The bill is also opposed by some ranchers, miners, environmentalists and off-highway vehicle users in the state.

"Senator Tester's Wilderness bill failed to get support in Congress. Again." Rehberg said in a Twitter post last night.

Link said Rehberg proposed amending the bill to ensure timber harvests would occur in tandem with wilderness designations but was told by Tester's camp that such changes were impossible.

"Unfortunately, the bill's collaborators crafted it in secret and presented it to Montanans as a take-it-or-leave-it finished product," Link said. "That may be how folks do things in Washington, but it's not an approach that's best for Montanans."

Pat Williams, Montana's Democratic representative from 1979 to 1997, said Montanans overwhelmingly support protecting the state's last remaining roadless tracts and that Rehberg's move could draw political blowback.

"It will hurt him," said Williams, who sponsored more than a dozen wilderness bills while he was in Congress and now teaches conservation history at the University of Montana.

"Of course, that depends on how wilderness supporters use this in the campaign," he said. "This is the first and only wilderness bill the support of which cuts across political party and ideological lines."

The bill, which is co-sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), is one of dozens that are yet to pass the 112th Congress.