Follow Wyden into the woods

Follow Wyden into the woods Editorial

By The Oregonian Editorial Board 
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on December 05, 2013 at 5:21 PM, updated December 06, 2013 at 9:22 AM

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You can see why the Oregon timber counties would be disappointed in Sen. Ron Wyden's new plan for cutting some more timber on the federal government's checkerboard Oregon & California Railroad land holdings. Wyden's plan won't produce as much timber, or as much county revenue, as the language that passed the House, and county officials say they're less confident that it could avoid getting bogged down in litigation.

Sen. Ron Wyden explains his Oregon timber proposal.Stephanie Yao Long

Douglas County Commissioner Doug Robertson, president of the Association of O&C Counties, declared "I have to admit disappointment," saying the Wyden proposal comes up short for the association's three bedrock principles: sharply reduced litigation, increased timber cut and increased financial support for local counties. By Wyden's estimation, his bill would approximately double the timber cut in the lands, to 300 million to 350 million board feet, and raise support to county governments.

For Southwest Oregon counties near the edge of disintegration, with public safety resources far below any definition of safety, Wyden's plan must indeed seem inadequate. The O&C language that passed the House allowed for a cut that might reach 500 million board feet, which could provide considerably larger revenue stream to the counties.

The problem is that with opposition by both the Senate and the White House, there is no chance of the House language becoming law. The best, most promising approach is to pass something through the Senate and get it to a conference committee with the House, creating the prospect of something that might actually become law and provide some assistance to the counties.

Even that possibility is far from certain, considering the barren recent record of congressional conference committees. It would be a long shot to expect the current arrangement in Washington to produce anything substantive. But considering the desperate condition of the counties, where in places ordinary law enforcement has vanished as a daily fact of life, the effort is vital.

Both bills increase the logging cut while putting a considerable amount of the 3 million O&C acres beyond logging forever. They both try to limit unending litigation, although the Association of O&C Counties expresses doubt about Wyden's version. With these similarities of direction and goals, it seems that something workable might be made from the two of them.

What's unlikely to survive are two particular aspects of the House bill that are essentially deal-killers to the Senate and President Obama. After dividing up the O&C lands into two different trusts, the House bill places extensive federal lands under state management, an arrangement certain to draw resistance. It also lacks the protections against clear-cutting in the Wyden bill, which offers an approach of "ecological forestry" that may indeed be more expensive and inconvenient, but is also more publicly acceptable.

There are limitations to what any Congress might produce on this issue. The cut is never going back to the billion-board-foot boom times of the late '70s. Even if it somehow did, with all the mechanization of the past decades, that would not recreate the historic levels of jobs. For the counties, whatever comes out of this process – if anything comes out of this process – won't be a full solution, but only part of a pathway to one.

The O&C counties aren't the only groups critical of Wyden's proposal. Some Oregon

environmental groups, such as Oregon Wild, have their own objections to its litigation rules, and some would simply oppose any increased cut on federal lands.

To refuse to advance with the process now would be a long-odds bet on dealing with a more friendly president and Senate in 2017. 

Considering the current emergency conditions of many of the counties, it would be a long time to wait, for an outcome that may not arise – and years of full Republican control of Washington in the last decade didn't exactly resolve the problem, either.

Despite the counties' deepest hopes, 1978 is not coming again. What the counties, and all of Oregon, needs is to begin finding a path to 2020, and the years beyond.

Ron Wyden faces great opportunity or peril In navigating federal forest policy

Will Oregon’s Senior Senator Grab the gold ring?

As Chairman of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Sen. Ron Wyden is perfectly positioned to resolve the federal forest health/timber supply/county payments conundrum and claim a grand prize.

By rescuing the nearly insolvent O & C counties, restoring forest health in Eastern Oregon while providing much needed timber supply to create family-wage jobs in rural Oregon and also increase business for banks, technology developers, and lots of other suppliers in Metropolitan Portland.

Such achievements will cement Sen. Wyden’s legacy alongside other Oregon political greats such as Mark O. Hatfield and Tom McCall. Reps. Greg Walden, Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader, along with Governor John Kitzhaber’s O & C task force spent months developing a compromise plan for the 2.3 million acres of forestland in 18 Western Oregon Counties.

Sen. Wyden has labored for three years crafting a collaborative plan for improving forest health on the National Forests of Eastern Oregon while reinvigorating the timber dependent communities a long way from the I-5 corridor. His new leadership position in the Senate provides the platform to craft and pass generational federal forest legislation.

Ron Wyden once again faces perils of trying to navigate federal forest policy

Oregon O&C forest proposal receives House hearing and a promise: negotiations will continue

Wyden proposes giving some O&C timberlands to tribes

House Takes Up Proposals to Raise Revenue Through Logging

Timber split

The great divide

U.S. Supreme Court may punt on Oregon logging road pollution case

U.S. Supreme Court may punt on Oregon logging road pollution case

By Scott Learn, The Oregonian 
on December 03, 2012 at 5:43 PM, updated December 03, 2012 at 9:31 PM

Ross William Hamilton, The Oregonian

The U.S. Supreme Court may decide to punt on an Oregon logging road pollution case that has already bounced through the federal courts since 2006, justices indicated today, a move that could spawn years of additional litigation. 
The justices' comments came after the Environmental Protection Agency issued a new rule Friday clarifying that polluted run-off from logging roads shouldn't be treated like "point source" run-off from factories and feedlots under the Clean Water Act. 

EPA's new rule was intended to be timber-industry friendly, directly contradicting a 2010 decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the Supreme Court had decided to review. 

Instead, the change could end up prompting the court to decline to judge the case, leaving the 9th Circuit's decision in place for now or prompting a second round of lawsuits over the new rule. 

EPA's 11th-hour rule change "surprised" the justices, Chief Justice John Roberts said. Instead of discussing the substance of the case during oral arguments today, the justices focused on whether or not they should even consider it. 

Timber industry officials nationwide are hoping for a clear win in the Supreme Court. The underlying lawsuit says EPA is incorrectly interpreting the text of the Clean Water Act, as passed by Congress, so an EPA rule change may not resolve the legal issue. 

The 9th Circuit concluded that the text of the Clean Water Act indicates that loggers in western states, even on private lands, need stormwater permits for active logging roads that drain to streams through pipes, ditches and culverts. 

Timber groups say permits would stall logging, create regulatory chaos and foment a spate of lawsuits from environmental groups. State laws, including Oregon's Forest Practices Act, already require best management practices for logging roads, they note. 

The Portland-based Northwest Environmental Defense Center, which brought the original lawsuit in 2006, says permits would prompt better tracking of pollution and more road improvements. Sediment runoff from logging roads can harm salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act and other fish. 

Attorney Timothy Bishop, speaking for the timber industry and the state of Oregon, spent most of his time Monday arguing that the court should still review the case. 

"What we would like to do is to get sorted out once and for all here an argument that otherwise would drag through the courts for the next five or six years," he said, according to the court's transcript. 

Jeffrey Fisher, representing NEDC, said the justices should dismiss the case, deferring it to lower courts to study the issues raised by the new rule. 

The Supreme Court may signal soon how it intends to proceed. If it decides to consider the case, a decision might come by next spring. 

Meantime, Congress could prevent future lawsuits by amending the Clean Water Act to make it clear that logging roads don't require permits. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, has been among those favoring that approach. 

-- Scott Learn; Twitter: @slearn1 

Two bills would expand Rogue wilderness

Wyden, Merkley wrote Senate bill; Walden's House bill has timber industry backing

March 23, 2012

By Paul Fattig

Mail Tribune

Testifying before a Senate subcommittee in Washington, D.C. on a bill that would increase protection of the lower Rogue River, Grants Pass native Dave Strahan said the watershed enriches lives and livelihoods.

"The Rogue and its watersheds provided my family and me countless hours of outdoor recreation and enjoyment — family camping, fishing, hunting and boating was what we did when I was growing up," he testified Thursday morning before the subcommittee on public lands and forest chaired by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

"When I die, I hope to leave a Rogue River that my kids, my grandkids and their peers can continue to build memories around for generations to come," said Strahan, a 1972 graduate of Grants Pass High School who now sells recreational equipment.

Strahan was testifying in support of the Rogue Wilderness Area Expansion Act of 2011, submitted late last year by Wyden and fellow U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore. The bill would expand the existing wilderness area by some 60,000 acres, place 93 miles of the river's tributaries under wild and scenic protection and withdraw some 50 miles of tributaries from mining activity.

But on the same day that Strahan testified, the American Forest Resource Council, a timber industry coalition based in Portland, announced its opposition to the Senate bill. In 2010, the coalition had dropped its opposition to additional wilderness designation in the area following negotiations between it and environmental groups.

On Thursday, however, council President Tom Partin said the group supports a bill in the House which also would set aside the additional wilderness and provide "real certainty for local governments and industries" dependent on timber dollars. That bill has been introduced by Oregon representatives Greg Walden, a Republican, and Democrats Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader.

"We cannot support additional restrictions on federal forests in Western Oregon unless they are part of a broader resolution to the real threats facing our rural communities," Partin said in a prepared statement.

"The time for partial solutions that meet the needs of single-interest groups is past," he added. "We need a comprehensive solution that considers both the economic and environmental contributions we deserve from our federal forests."

Both bills would officially create a wilderness out of the nearly 60,000-acre Zane Grey tract, a largely roadless area immediately upstream from the 35,800-acre Wild Rogue Wilderness in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. The Zane Grey area, named for the famous writer who fished the Lower Rogue from World War I into the early 1930s, is on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's Medford District.

The Rogue River was one of the first rivers in the nation protected by the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. A decade later, Congress created the Wild Rogue Wilderness.

During Thursday's hearing, Mike Pool, the BLM's deputy director, said the agency supports the bill introduced by Wyden and Merkley.

The area where protections would be expanded is the natural habitat for bald eagles, elk, bear, sturgeon, salmon and steelhead, Wyden told the committee.

"The Rogue River is part of Southern Oregon's recreational tradition attracting thousands of hikers, rafters and outdoor enthusiasts each year and pumping millions into the local economy," he said. "Preserving this land will protect the ecosystem for generations and ensure that the recreational economy in this area is allowed to thrive as well."

Strahan, who is a regional salesman for outdoor recreational equipment, agreed. He was representing 110 Oregon businesses as well as the Northwest Sports Fishing Association of some 300 outdoor businesses in the region.

A 2009 economic study estimated that economic benefits generated from fishing, hiking and white-water rafting on the Rogue exceeded more than $18.1 million each year, he said.

"The Rogue has long been an international draw for tourists and has also provided sanctuary for notable celebrities over the years," he said, noting that list includes former heavyweight champion George Foreman and writer Grey.

" 'The happiest lot of any angler would be to live somewhere along the banks of the Rogue River, the most beautiful stream in Oregon,' " Strahan said, quoting Grey.

Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or email him at pfattig@mailtribune.com.

Governor Kitzhaber Speaks on Timber

Governor John Kitzhaber attended a meeting of The Oregon Committee, a coalition of Oregon businesses originally formed as a political committee, and now the Committee is focused on policy matters that impact businesses.  The Governor joined the meeting and spoke about the Budget he released yesterday, February 1.

Kitzhaber said he was going to “add-back” $6 million to restore the fire protection budget for a 50-50% split between forest landowners and the General Fund and to fund enforcement of the Forest Practices Act.  The Governor also said he was interested in a “discussion” of Natural Resource Agency consolidation and plans to restore the Natural Resource Policy Advisor Office in the Governor’s Office.  He is still two weeks away from announcing his selection for someone to head up his Natural Resource Office.

Jim Geisinger, Associated Oregon Loggers Executive Vice President, commented on the Governor’s transition team’s biomass recommendations.  Geisinger noted that the federal government owns nearly 60% of the forests in Oregon; and it is essential for the federal agencies to produce timber for sawmills, plywood mills and loggers in order to maintain the necessary infrastructure in Oregon’s rural communities if the biomass industry is to evolve as an economic force.  

Utilization of biomass is dependent on a viable logging and milling industry, Geisinger said.  Biomass for renewable energy can only be economically viable if it is tied to vibrant traditional industry infrastructure of sawmills and plywood plants.

The Governor responded by mentioning his “not very successful” Eastside forest planning effort.  Kitzhaber was encouraged by Sen. Ron Wyden’s effort to craft federal legislation to address the significant forest health issue in Eastern Oregon and he mentioned the collaborative efforts ongoing in southwest Oregon as a possible success story.

Governor Kitzhaber noted that times must have changed since John Shelk and Andy Kerr were now collaborating.  He said, “there must have been progress” or maybe it was a miracle…or as Geisinger noted “an act of desperation.”

Treat the Forests---Save our Communities

Treat the Forests---Save our Communities by Tom Partin, American Forest Resource Council

There is a new momentum building across the West that is taking many forms, but has a common theme: ---“Treat the Forests and Save our Communities.”  The impetus is coming from rural Americans who have been played like pawns in a chess game over how the federal forests surrounding their communities are being managed.  The uprising gets stronger with every acre of federal forest that goes up in flames destroying homes and watersheds, or is killed by insects and disease. It is also strengthened by the closure of each sawmill, by every rural community that faces 20 percent unemployment, and by every local government unable to meet the needs of its citizenry.  The beat is signaling that the West has had enough of watching both our forests and rural communities die a slow and unnecessary death.  It is also an indication that rural America has had enough of special interest groups that use the court system and taxpayer dollars gleaned through the Equal Access to Justice Provision to stifle needed projects while forests and communities suffer!  

A new social license is rapidly evolving as the need to reestablish management and create jobs in our federal forests is becoming clear.  In Oregon we have seen this demand for change being carried by Senator Ron Wyden’s efforts to increase forest management east of the Cascades, by Peter DeFazio who brought Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to Oregon to seek a solution for the BLM lands in southwest Oregon, and by Congressman Greg Walden who has introduced legislation to expand the authorities of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act to treat more forested acres.

In Montana Senator Jon Tester introduced the Montana Forest Jobs and Restoration Initiative; Senators Risch of Idaho and Udall of Colorado introduced the National Forest Insect and Disease Emergency Act for use in any area where insect epidemics pose a threat to forest health and human safety. Other national forests such as the Colville in Washington and the Nez Perce in Idaho sent delegations back to Washington DC asking for expanded authorization to get more acres of forest health treatments on the landscape. In California the collaborative Quincy Library Group has worked to restore management of some forests in the Sierra Nevada.  The voices are many and strong.  At a recent meeting with Interior Secretary Salazar in Washington, DC, we heard Oregon’s Congressional delegation declare that if an administrative solution to the federal management gridlock is not found, a legislative solution will be forthcoming. 

Each of these efforts, while specific to individual regions or forests have surfaced out of desperation of the people who live in rural America and want to forge new workable solutions for our federal forests.  While each bill or request may vary, they have the same theme: ---“Treat the Forests and Save our Communities.”

Congress must now listen to the drumbeat from rural America and take action to get needed forest heath treatments implemented; put our residents in rural America back to work; and reject the actions of those who hold jobs and communities hostage by using lawsuits to stop sound forest management projects.   

The rural West has experienced 20 years of ineffectual federal forest management and has paid the price by living in increasing poverty and watching their forests decline and die.  The tide has turned and a new momentum has developed for action.  It’s about time! 

On forest issues, Oregon must break free

 By The Oregonian Editorial Board 


To get their economy flowing again, Oregonians must carve a fresh path around the barriers that have blocked productive management of public lands 

One sunny day last August, the Rogue River lost patience with the pace of progress in removing Gold Ray Dam. The river suddenly surged through a sand bar, stranded frightened workers atop the remnants of the old dam and blasted a new channel, opening 157 miles of river for migrating fish. 

That marked one of the great moments in the Oregon outdoors last year. An antiquated barrier collapsed, a bitter, decades-long debate ended and, the Rogue, one of the state's great natural resources, ran wild all the way to the sea. 

Gold Ray's removal was a significant event not only because a dam fell, but because it showed that Oregonians can come together and break through difficult, contentious debates over natural resources. 

It's that spirit, that collaboration, that Oregonians must summon this year to finally push through the barriers that have blocked progress on the management of public forests and rivers. 

Like the Rogue, Oregonians should follow promising paths wherever they lead. Here's one: Conservationists and timber industry executives have signed on to an eastside forest compromise brokered by U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden. The deal protects old-growth trees while freeing up tens of thousands of acres of sick, overstocked, fire-prone forests for logging. The plan would save forests, jobs and the last few mills east of the Cascades in Oregon. By year's end, it ought to be law. 

Here's another path: Rep. Peter DeFazio recently met with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to urge a plan from widely respected foresters Jerry Franklin and Norm Johnson to increase logging and improve forest health on Bureau of Land Management forests in southwestern Oregon. By year's end, these large test projects ought to be under way, too. 

There's more common ground out there, if Oregonians, elected officials and interest groups are willing to stray from their hard lines. For instance, conservation groups seek to expand the protected wilderness around the Rogue River. The timber industry doesn't object. 

Clearly, these areas will never be logged. Again, let's get it done. By year's end, Congress should approve the new Rogue wilderness. 

There's broad agreement, too, in the Klamath Basin, where Oregonians have fought for decades over water. The Klamath Basin Resource Agreement worked out last year would sweep most of these differences away, guaranteeing reliable irrigation water and removing four fish-killing dams. It's a bold new path to more predictable conditions for more Klamath farmers, healthier fish runs and more stable fishing seasons for coastal fishermen. By year's end, this vital compromise must still be on track. 

Wherever you live, you need to care about how and when these issues on Oregon's vast public forest and rivers are resolved. Every one affects the delicate balance between economy and environment. Every one affects the future of the state. 

Oregon is not going to flourish with rural unemployment pushing 20 percent and counties struggling to maintain the most basic services, including public safety. It can't get stronger with families moving away from rural communities and their schools. 

It can't build a strong economy or a healthy environment around public forests that get ever more crowded and vulnerable to disease and wildfire. It can't strengthen its coastal economy if commercial salmon fishing is shut down every other year. 

These issues are barriers standing between Oregon and better days. They're blocking our progress. It's time to take those new paths, and break free.