Congressman DeFazio begins his editorial with the seemingly rhetorical question: "What if someone told you there was a bipartisan agreement in Congress to protect the iconic Rogue River, end the forest wars by saving the remaining old growth in western Oregon, help failing rural counties provide basic government services, create thousands of family-wage jobs, and save the federal government millions of dollars every year?"
He then says this proposal will do just those things. No it won't. Let's be realistic. Oregon Wild -- apparently privy to this plan before release to the rest of us -- will make sure it won't. They'll be helped by the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, and the lawyers at Western Environmental Law Center to make sure this can't and won't work. It's what they do, and have been doing successfully for decades. Even if the bill IS signed into law, which probably won't happen.
"Save our old-growth," which have been decimated by unprecedented catastrophic-scale wildfires since implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan? Passive management is a proven failure for "protecting" anything, yet this bill says "let's keep giving it a try, anyway, because that's what Oregon Wild and their cohorts want." One more give-away of the nation's resources to deadbeats, who would rather watch our forests die and rot in place than actually get a job making things better.
"Protect the Rogue River," by declaring humans pathogens that can only despoil its beauty and riches and therefore should be banned from its shores (unless wealthy enough and healthy enough to pay a whitewater rafting guide to babysit tourists through its canyons)? I don't think making a local fishing and boating and picnicking locations off-limits to continued uses is "protecting" anything. I think it is a statement of how some people view the rest of us -- their job, of course, being to "protect" nature against us darn humans (other than themselves, of course, who are somehow needed to enforce these protections).
No way this bill will end any such "forest war" -- the conflict was never really about "saving" old-growth anyway. The issue is about economic control of our rural communities and our natural resources. "Old-growth" and spotted hoot owls and "wild and scenic" rivers are just tools in achieving those results. Why compromise (or "collaborate") while dealing with constant success? The "war" has been over for many years -- beginning when our rural counties began accepting welfare payments instead of being allowed to pay their own way. Now it is time to reclaim our heritage and our communities.
Our forests are dead and dying. Our grasslands are choked with weeds. Our rural communities have been made dependent on government welfare, deeply affecting families and communities that have prided themselves for generations on self-sufficiency and their ability to pay their own way -- and still pay taxes and help the less fortunate. Now they've become the "burden" they used to help carry. This bill won't change that, either.
Centralized government management of resources did not work in Russia, did not work in Greece, and is not working here. The US government has demonstrated that it is incapable of managing key natural resources throughout the west (how many farms, ranches, fishing boats, gas wells and coal mines are government owned?), and that there is no logical reason to continue trying to do so.
The best long-term solution -- to my way of thinking -- is to transfer ownership of forests and grasslands (but not parks, highways, or military installations) to the reservations and counties in which they are located. Jobs will jump through the roof and tax monies will go toward Salem and DC, instead of welfare payments being needed to pay for food, rent, utilities, and basic services such as police, libraries, and schools.
That won't happen anytime soon, of course, but maybe the Congressmen CAN make it illegal for the environmental industry to continue suing the government at taxpayers expense. That would help.
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