View full sizeCurry County is one of the rural areas that is desperate for Congress to approve a permanent replacement for county payments. Three Oregon lawmakers on Wednesday asked for hearings on possible plans. The letter to Wyden, a Democrat who chairs theSenate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and his Republican counterpart in the House, Rep. Doc Hastings of Washington, comes a week after a task force appointed by Gov. John Kitzhaber failed to reach consensus for how best to handle 2.6 million acres of federal forestland in Western Oregon known as the O&C lands.
That failure has shifted focus to Washington as the three lawmakers, Kitzhaber and county officials worry that time may already be running short.
And with Congress consumed by other issues, DeFazio said in an interview it's important begin educating lawmakers now. If he and others can build support, a rescue "could pass Congress in less than 24 hours," DeFazio said. "But when Congress isn't in the mood it can take more than the rest of my life to pass something."
Congress needs to start moving, DeFazio says. It added: "The time is ripe for a substantive hearing and open discussion about solutions."
DeFazio said in an interview that oversight hearings would educate lawmakers and hopefully build momentum for the congressional action that's required for any plan to come into reality. Kitzhaber, who was in town after attending the State of the Union, told DeFazio he would testify if asked.
"We are making the request," DeFazio said, adding, "we have a sense of urgency."
The task, however, has become more complicated because the task force could not unify around a single idea.
The letter concedes that point but insists there is still broad agreement on many aspects of the plan.
"While the panel did not come to a consensus, the governor recently released a substantive 94-page report that outlines possible management solutions and outcomes," the letter says.
"We believe both our bipartisan proposal and the governor’s O&C Lands Report are largely consistent with the 'Principles for an O&C Solution' your office released in December," the letter to Wyden says. "We also remain optimistic that a long-term management solution exists and that together we can craft responsible, bipartisan legislation that provides certainty to all constituencies."
The panel deadlocked on some key points, including the amount of logging and the degree of streamside protection.
Kitzhaber added a sweetener, pledging $10 million a year for 10 years toward voluntary private land conservation if a deal is reached.
County and timber representatives on the panel favored plans that would increase logging to more than 500 million board feet a year. They would generate more than $100 million dollars in annual county revenues, up from $13 million now.
“It’s time for action,” DeFazio, Walden, and Schrader said in a joint statement. “We think hearings on realistic, long-term solutions for the statutorily-unique O&C Lands that would create jobs and provide certainty to counties in both the House and Senate would be productive next steps.”
Despite the important to his home state, Wyden offered a measured response, suggesting that the most difficult issues need to be sorted out at the state level before Congress can take action.
View full sizeWyden says a deal on O&C lands "is a priority" but an agreement must balance economic and environmental interests. Pressure is already increasing on the counties even though funding through the county payments program was extended for this year. But the financial lifeline to many of Oregon's rural counties is in jeopardy because it's part of automatic spending cuts known as "the sequester." Those across the board cuts, totaling $85 billion, will occur March 1 unless Congress intervenes.
"To make matters worse, we recently learned that a portion of the final payments is being withheld from the O&C counties in anticipation of the budget sequestration threatening additional cuts to vital services like law enforcement and health care," the letter warns.
"Some counties in western Oregon are on the brink of bankruptcy and are considering insolvency, or turning over their responsibilities to the state. … Uncertainty of federal funding is devastating to counties and must be replaced with jobs and economic growth. We know you are intimately familiar with these problems," the lawmakers write.
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