WILDEST BILL ON THE HILL ADVANCES
House Holds Hearing on Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act
With lots of support, but none from local delegations, NREPA backers remain optimistic. Will it make it out of committee this time?
By Bill Schneider, 5-21-09
UPDATE, May 21, 2009:
On May 19, the official record for this hearing closed, and I called back to Washington, D.C. and talked to Nancy Locke who works for the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. I was wondering which wilderness groups sent in letters or testified for the best wilderness bill Idaho, Montana and Wyoming have seen in decades, but alas, they were all MIA. Not one single letter in the record from a wilderness group supporting this wilderness bill!
Think about this. National wilderness groups like the Sierra Club or Wilderness Society or state groups like the Idaho Conservation League or Montana Wilderness Association won’t even support legislation declaring most roadless lands in the northern Rockies as Wilderness.
You draw your own conclusions…..Bill Schneider
P.S. See links to dueling testimony at end of article
The 111th Congress will take a close look at the so-called “Wildest Bill on the Hill,” the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (NREPA), starting with a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The House Natural Resources Committee announced today that its subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands will hold the hearing on May 5, 2009. NREPA also had a hearing in the same subcommittee early in the 110th Congress, but the bill never made it to the floor for a vote.
This year’s version, H.R. 980, sponsored by Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) and 69 other Representatives of both parties, but none representing the region covered by the legislation, mainly Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, and to a lesser degree, eastern Oregon and eastern Washington.
“NREPA will designate all of the inventoried roadless areas in the Northern Rockies as wilderness; protect some of America’s most beautiful and ecologically important lands while saving taxpayers money and creating jobs,” according to a press release sent out by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, the bill’s primary backer. “This is public land belonging to all Americans. NREPA designates all of the remaining roadless lands in the Northern Rockies as wilderness, the strongest protection the federal government can confer on public lands.”
NREPA will designate as Wilderness nearly 7 million acres of Montana, 9.5 million acres of Idaho, 5 million acres of Wyoming, 750,000 acres in eastern Oregon, and 500,000 acres in eastern Washington, all on federal public land. Included in this total is over 3 million acres in Yellowstone, Glacier and Grand Teton National Parks.
NREPA also establishes a pilot “wildland recovery system,” which would restore over 6,000 miles of damaged or unused roads on roadless federal land, providing employment for over 2,000 workers “while saving tax-dollars from subsidized development.”
“NREPA, the opposite of a top-down bill, was drafted by local residents of the Northern Rockies bioregion, including wildlife biologists, economists, business owners, and individuals who recognized the need for, and the benefits of, protecting the Northern Rockies ecosystem,” singer Carole King, an Idaho resident, said in the release.
She acknowledged that some of her neighbors weren’t keen on designated Wilderness, but to this, she said, “Ironically, once wilderness is designated, many of the same people who opposed protected wilderness benefit from its existence.”
RELATED ARTICLES:
Smith Testifies For the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act
Rehberg Testifies Against the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act
[End of article]NREPA is so irresponsible and over the top that it will end up in the trash where it belongs. Sadly it is a red herring - any Wilderness bill with less acreage to follow will look 'reasonable' by comparison. If NREPA were to pass, we would see a return to the wild west of yesteryear where access would become a no holds barred free-for-all which would eventually lead to the complete gutting of the Wilderness Act. Good luck in trying to manage that!
Comment By the real mike, 4-21-09Gosh, I sure don't see that at all, Bob. I can see how NREPA could be described, with some poetic license, as "a return to the wild west of yesteryear" in terms of open unspoiled lands; but, I sure don't see how it would cause "access" as you call it to be any more of "a no holds barred free-for-all" than it already is and, as far as a "complete gutting of the Wilderness Act" is concerned, well, that just sounds like hyperbole designed to scare people into a line of thinking that they might not take otherwise. What is your basis for such talk?
Comment By Mike, 4-21-09This is a great plan, and very similar to how the national forests were created. At some point, control had to be wrestled away from the easily corrupted local "enforcement". The economics are there, the science is there, and the support of the majority of Americans is there(the actual owners of the land, not just those who live in Idaho and Montana).
Quite simply, this is what will be required to protect these lands. You don't compromise on something you can't get back once it's gone. The very idea of compromising some roadless land for other roadless land is ultimately self defeating. Keeping this land intact for generations to enjoy is considerably more important than other users when looking at the big picture.
Thank you for the response I find you very interesting. Your lips are quite luscious. You can bake pie also quite well.
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It is very hot here.
I am wondering how the shuttle bus which took you there, was it comfortable?
I thank you for letting me be a member of your service. It has turned out beyond my expectations.
I will tell all my friends too.
The NREPA, if passed, will cheapen Wilderness to the point where it is worth nothing, at least in the Northern Rockies. Poaching will become rampant, maybe even into the existing Wilderness Areas. I think Bob is right, I bet the NREPA would be the beginning of the decline of the Wilderness Act. What would come out of it would either be the first Wilderness Areas to be undesignated, or the eventual inclusion of bicycles. Mark my words, the NREPA is irresponsible, and the bill as drawn up is playing with fire. The fire of the people.
Now that I've said my thoughts, I must admit, it probably is a red herring. Not worth my time right now.
Ha. Ha, Ha, HA, HA,....let me catch my breath...oooohhhh... Ha, Ha, Ha! It hurts!...oooh Ha, Ha, Ha.
Thanks NewWest!
Oh and Treehugger, we must also thank Bob and Greg for their nonsensical, unsupported, irresponsible, but truly very amusing input. Clearly, the canned script for at least one of the opposition lines has already been written up and distributed and it's clearly amateurish and ridiculous, a variation of threatening to beat us soundly with their sweat-soaked and smelly bike shorts I guess.
Comment By bearbait, 4-22-09This is not free legislation. It will cost the taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. All the road demolition, the purchase of inholdings, the "recovery" of logged over lands, all will cost money and lots of it.
The Sunday last NY Times magazine had a story about the stealth with which the New England forests self recovered from first lumbering and then farming. When the land was abandoned and the workers of the land went to town to manufacture the goods of American in our former hubs of industry, they abandoned the land. Gee Willikers!! It all became forest. Even the former prairies, fens, meadows once fire maintained by the Indian Tribes. Now the head of the Harvard School Forest wants to log some, burn some, tend the wild and maintain a viable and working forest. Those eggheads have some crazy ideas, no?
NREPA, as I read it, hugely decreases the use of Glacier and Yellowstone by taking them out of NPS management and putting them under the 1964 Wilderness Act regulations. Sneaky, that one. So who will be the Tzar of Wilderness? Will it be a cabinet level job? Who will get the dope plantation franchise? The Tijuana Cartel or the Zetas? What is the estimated date of total incineration in the public lands AMR and WFU plan and schedule?
BearBrain,
Enough with the constant conspiracy theories, ok? NREPA would not "hugely decrease the use of Glacier and Yellowstone" as you claim.
Heck, just a few days ago, the Superintendent of Glaicer National Park was in an article titled, "New Glacier superintendent wants more wilderness" (see: http://missoulian.com/articles/2009/04/14/news/mtregional/news08.txt)
According to the article:
Glacier National Park will celebrate its centennial in 2010.
Superintendent Chas Cartwright wants designation of most of the park as wilderness to be part of that celebration.
“Wilderness designation will not change how we manage Glacier,” Cartwright emphasized. “Right now, all of those lands that are recommended as wilderness are managed as if they are wilderness.”
In other words, Cartwright added, formal designation would not change how people enjoy the park.
Cartwright wants formal protection for 975,000 of the 1.013 million acres the park covers, or roughly 90 percent, in part because it would provide a permanency that doesn't come with national park status.
Got that BearBrain? And oh, it's funny to see you complaining about all the money that will be needed to restore/recover logged over lands. After all, having you been telling us for years that logging is restoration?
"Red-herring" this bill is not. Congress is simply following in the footsteps of the "roadless rule," sans the loopholes for logging and other subsidized extractive industries that feed at the public trough. H.R. shifts subsidies away from below-cost activities that deplete forest values toward wildland recovery and restoration programs. This subsidy-shift represents a significant net reduction to taxpayers over time.
Comment By Dave Skinner, 4-22-09Well, as far as GNP is concerned, if the parkies want to shut it down, they might as well do it like they mean it...that means Sperry and other chalets are toast, and we might as well have the same budget per acre for wilderness management for GNP as for the BMWC.
As for NREPA...I suppose if you have a stack of Earth First! magazines in the john (or even better, in archival binders in climate-controlled shelving), as well as autographed copies of Confession of a Monkeywrencher or whatever it was Foreman wrote, or think Ed Abbey was a paragon of intellectual consistency, then you bet that NREPA is for you.
Never mind that Raul Grijalva is on the advisory board for the Center for Biological Diversity, itself a spinoff of second-wave EFers. But in this Congress, any kind of crazy scheme just might get the votes.
NREPA is a joke that doesn't even merit a hearing. I mean seriously this bill is going nowhere fast. AFWR and the other wildernuts flying in for the hearing should save the jet fuel and instead spend some quality time weeding their gardens.
This bill is a major waste of the taxpayers money and time....Oh wait, NREPA is being pushed by Michael Garrity and friends like Matthew Koehler?,...well that makes sense, they know all about wasting thousands upon thousands of taxpayer dollars, what difference does a few thousand more make?.
"NREPA, the opposite of a top-down bill, was drafted by local residents of the Northern Rockies bioregion, including wildlife biologists, economists, business owners, and individuals who recognized the need for, and the benefits of, protecting the Northern Rockies ecosystem,” singer Carole King, an Idaho resident, said in the release."
Now that is funny!
Thanks for including that quote Bill
Oh, Treehugger, you're just frustrated, jealous, and scuffy. Have some nice warm beer, go on to bed early, and get some sleep; you'll feel better in eight years. I know I will.
Comment By Corvus Strang, 4-22-09Ok, I just skimmed the legislation, which I'd recommend a few of you do as well; and this seems like a pretty bad idea. Perhaps, we can just develop all of our valleys into Tucson/Denver like subdivisions, and then "protect" all of our mountains so that no-one can actually re-create in them, and then the Northern Rockies will be perfect 2nd and 3rd home investments for the wealthy folks from California, Massachusetts, and New York - who coincidentally enough are the very one's co-sponsoring this bill. Interestingly, not a single representative from the affected area is involved. I guess I'll stay home tomorrow and clean my guns, again.
Comment By adam, 4-22-09Dave Skinner
Dude..One less whiskey before you post again okay?
Real Mike,
I'm just stating the political realities of this bill.......it's dead in the water. I guess it makes some people feel better to go to Washington and testify, but seriously like I said a waste of taxpayer money and our elected officials time.
Oh, TreeHugger, sugar, we know the truth. You're just flying that false treehugger flag as a cover while doing your best to sow confusion, lower expectations, squash enthusiasm, and generally depress and demoralize the liberal discourse. It isn't about this specific round in the effort; it's about endless pressure endlessly applied and, in that context, it is absolutely essential "to go to Washington and testify" as often as it takes. That's what democracy is about regardless of what the nay-sayers would like us to believe. You can fly that red cross flag and try to look like a concerned hospital ship all you want; we know there's a jolly roger ready to replace it as soon as we come within range.
Comment By bearbait, 4-23-09Pinky Koehler: Supt Chas Cartwright will be looking for another job in the not too distant future. Someone in Interior who has to squeeze money out of Congress is not going to be charmed by deleting 90% of the GNP lands to Wilderness by his suggestion. He needs to go through channels and hasn't. And by his very statement that the NPS can't protect land as well as Wilderness designation is a white flag of bureaucratic surrender. I guess the 70 weeks of unemployment is looking good to career bureaucrats.
Goldwater's musing about governments that can give you anything can also take everything, is in play on this deal. I can't imagine the people who serve on the boards and whatever that guide NPS policy and actions jumping for joy at losing dominion over 90% of their charge. Cartwright needs some drugs to salve his paranoia. If the NPS can't tend its wild without the Wilderness Act, then why in the hell is there a need for duplicated oversight of that land? Let the USFS manage the Wilderness, and rent out the lodges and cabins, like they do now, and have them hire their own Dudley Doorights to guide the guileless through the unprotected trees of the remaining 10%.
And, as a hunter, I have seen nothing precluding hunting in the 1964 Wilderness Act. So I guess that would open up the majority of NPS lands in new Wilderness? Do you REALLY think the Congress is going to buy into dual management of National Parks? Two sets of rules. Double the litigation. What about the National Parks is NOT working in your eyes, at this time? What about Glacier and Jellystone in NPS management does not serve YOUR idea of Eden on Earth? Or is this just a Greenie Feather to put in a bonnet to wear at the great EcoPowWow? It is good because we thought of it, and got 'er done!!! That is George Bush war stratergeese. You are telling the WORLD that the US National Park Service cannot protect land as well as the 1964 Wilderness Act??? That NPS is mismanaging 90% of its lands?
Matt. Take your pills and get some rest. You are hallucinating.
PINKY Koehler is it? Well, Barebutt, I thought you couldn't get any worse than that perverse posting in which you advocated a Claude Dallas Memorial Campground. I thought that one was so far beyond the pale that, if you went any further out, you'd have rounded the mental horizon and started heading back; but, I was wrong. Now, you're flashing back to Goldwater and accusing Chas Cartwright of needing "drugs to salve his paranoia" and all in one paragraph. ...and then you claim that others are hallucinating. You are just all over the psychiatric map yourself, bucko! I can't imagine any more textbook case of early onset than the one you demonstrate in these postings. Claude Dallas Memorial Campground? Claude Dallas Memorial Campground? Do you even remember or realize that you actually posted that ...IN PUBLIC?!?!?!?
Comment By bearbait, 4-23-09Satire, Pinky. Satire. Although I actually did meet him once or twice. When CoCo Wilson paid his bail, and Dallas was back at the Mann Ranch awaiting trial, he came over to the old Princeton Store and was sitting there on the stoop bullshitting with Jack Davies. Jack and my friend Mike loaned him their coyote and cat traps so he could pass the time while he awaited trial. I never felt threatened by the man. On the other hand, his rather time constrained view of the world which allowed him to shoot two wounded guys in the head to end their suffering does not pass societal muster, then, before, or now. But, that was Idaho and the game cops were Idaho guys, one with a chip and they didn't perform due diligence in their bullying effort. In life, you do have to know when not to push someone any further. Dallas got a fair trial, and a fair sentence. Did the Willie Sutton escape deal, got caught again, and that was that.
Satire...Parody...but I will apologize to any family of his victims for my poor judgement...but not to you.
You didn't have a dog in the fight. Your actions, stated opinions, political workings, life's work, have not been kind to many working people and their families, small businessmen, and rural economies. You have no guilt, no apologies, and that allows me to parody your positions, and be the cynic. I have lived the life you so demean. I had 35 years in the woods and in sawmill management jobs. I fought timber sale administrators over stupid C clause requirements, and refused to cut some trees that had wildlife values, nests, whatever. I never wanted it all. I never thought that anyone should have it all. I had road profiles changed because they were not viable for long term stability. I argued over woody debris removal with government "experts" and took numerous hikes up unlogged stream basin to show the "experts" that streams were stone and wood with some water running over and through the wood and stone. When you go to "protecting" something for perpetuity, you had better damn well know all there is to know and how it all will work out over time. And we don't know and you don't, so that is where we differ. You have the answers. All the answers. I have lived long enough to be damned well afraid of people who have all the answers. I also don't like policy that is once and for all, never to be amended. That is why I don't like the death penalty without dna support and why I don't like abortion. Is that my final answer? Yes. Us loggers have a lot in common with slumdogs. We'll bite you on the ass given half a chance. And you'll have it coming.
whawhapwhapwhap.....herer come those black helicopters again! Dang gun U.N. trying to take over the world and dropping off grizzly bears at night!
We must be like the Texas Governor and secede from the U.S.! Ted Turner is in cahoots with money man George Soros and they are funding the new world revolution by transmitting brainwash waves from the new digital tv tuners were are required to buy!
Oh wait, wasn't this about northern Rockies wilderness? Yeah I guess it was....
Massive civil disobediance will ensue if this bill is ever passed. The people who actually live in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming will rise up and the wilderness act will become a joke.
Comment By the real mike, 4-26-09Horse manure!
Comment By Johnny Thundersockeye, 4-26-09I don't even know where to begin on this one and it's not like I think any body really cares about my middle or is it muddled ground perspectives but for whatever it's worth -I suppose I could sarcastically state how good it is to see so much productive compromise and good will being exchanged among all of us good Western folks!Yeah the warm fuzzy love is just about as prevalent here within the Wilderness debate,as it is amongst the polarized spectrums of of our other favorite controversial W topic Wolves!-with the usual no compromise subjects dominating a volley of vitriole that would easily eventually end it all if their hands were on nuclear arsenal activation switches rather than the relatively benign computer keys!!Now theres a thought -no body would much give a shit about Wolves or Wilderness any more if GOD forbid the bombs started flying!
And I realize that to some thats really how important these issues are.Wilderness advocates rightly feel that protecting whats left of these RARE lands is intrinsically integral to preseving and protecting the very qualities of life that make it worth living-Clean air and water ,abundant wildlife and recreation opportunities as well as the unpriceable value of having serene spaces in which we can escape the concrete jungle of an ever encroaching,soulless Babylonian nightmare society!
Then we also have earnest ,honest and intelligent folks like Bearbait who seem to speak for the disenfranchised that have lost their whole livelihoods and lifestyles with the decline of resource extraction industries!The ironic thing is that I truly believe that loggers like Bearbait or any body else who speaks for the "redneck "rather than "enviro"side of the spectrum love and appreciate all of this natural beauty and GOD blessed natural resource bounty just as much as the"wildernuts",in their own way!It makes me cringe in sadness when I see people like Matthew Koehler and Bearbait insult one another because I personally respect them both!!Matthew has passionate,strong and near asI can tell accurate opinions and beliefs while Bearbait has strong passionate and equally valid and accurate opinions!! Maybe if they stopped making fun of people like him long enough to listen to his perpectives the smartass,ironically narrow-minded enviromentalists might learn a thing or two from some body like him who obviously has a lifetime of experience and thus a wealth of knowledge to potentially share!!
And Bearbait youve got to remember that not every pot smokin hippie is a narcissistic asshole thats stolen you and every loggers way of life!!Come on man ,I can tell your intelligent enough to not oversimplify something as complex as the decline of the Timber industry in to such a neat and tidy yet grossly inaccurate scapegoat explanation!
Overall these debates are about strong,valid,depth of soul emotions that we as American citizens hold near and dear to our hearts!To some that means being assured that the federal government is not going to permanently take away the right to enjoy ATV and snowmobile rides with their families as they have for so many years.For some it means that no ATVs or snowmobiles never hum their engines within those few precious roadless pockets that remain.Some of us wish the Forest service would allow us to bend over and earn money by picking up mushrooms off the ground without having taxpayer funded law enforcement roadblocks erected 30 miles in the backcountry to fine us for doing NOTHING!!! wrong.The Forest Srevice Law enforcement officer sure seemed to have an erection as he STOLE 1000s of dollars worth of mushrooms from me and everyone else that day!!
But I digress-the point being We all have issues with the way our Public lands are being managed.And with public lands We ALL! have valid concerns and opinions that need to be adressed.
Though NREPA certainly seems to be ecologically valid it is socially invalid because there is not enough COPROMISE-that word that unrealistic sides despise.And yeah I even respect and understand Earth First!!s no compromise stance as being necessary to counterbalance the downright nasty abuse that has taken place regarding mother earth end her resources-BUT I think Foreman will go to his grave bitter and dissapointed through espousing such a self defeating life long prophecy with so little progress in swinging the societal trends towards there philosphy-at least outside of places like Marin County,Telluride or Taos!!
I'm still believing in and want to be intrinsically involved within the framework of strategies that adress the needs and concerns of everyone from Bearbait and Skinner to Matthew and everyone in between-NREPAs got some sound principles and ideals for sure ,BUT it needs to be modified some what to adress the red side of the spectrums needs and concerns.GOD -we need many miracles in this country minor and MAJOR!!!
"She [Carole King] acknowledged that some of her neighbors weren’t keen on designated Wilderness, but to this, she said, “Ironically, once wilderness is designated, many of the same people who opposed protected wilderness benefit from its existence.”
In other words, I know what is best for my neighbors. For me but not for thee is the anthem King has been singing ever since she bought her little piece of paradise in the Sawtooth Wilderness area and gated an old forest service road that had provided sportsman's access to the Salmon River for 90 years. It happened to also be the shortest and safest route for her elderly neighbors to get to town for groceries, but what did she care if she inconvenienced them. Her privacy was more important. If King is representative of the other backers of NREPA, the legislation should be killed in committee because of its undemocratic snob appeal. There are a dozen or more practical reasons why this bill should be killed, but King's involvement with it is good enough for me.
I truley hope that a lot of these comments are from people who live in or around the areas in question. I do, practically directly in the middle of two proposed sections. I grew up enjoying the forests and rivers. Have you seen them lately, beautiful and breathtaking. Fishing is great, access is good, and we have been taking care and enjoying these areas, through tax dollars and local volunteer work. Don't tell us how to manage our lands, they are there for you to enjoy as well. Wilderness restrictions would have a devastating effect on our local economy. Local business owners sell snow machines, guided trips, fishing tackle, meat processing, groceries to campers, liscences, land to people who want to live close enough to get in their car and drive up the canyon, and any other business depending on tourism dollars. Go ahead and tell me how our economy will benifit when tourism drops off because citizens cannot get to their public land. We will all be regulated into submission.
Comment By the real mike, 4-29-09Get it through your skull and get it now! It does not damned matter where these people live, you piece of work; these lands are the public property of every American citizen. They aren't telling you how to manage your lands; they are speaking out about how they want THEIR LANDS managed! If you can't understand that, then you need to get your opinionated, but undereducated, rear back to junior high and learn what it means to be an American.
Comment By Single Track Mind, 5-01-09Real Mike, of course it matters if you live near these places. I would have wilderness to within 200 yards of my front door. I couldn't even go on a bike ride anymore. Other wilderness proposals have gone through a myriad of LOCAL public hearings and debates. Hey, I am not going to tell someone living on the beach how to manage their water quality or off-shore drilling, nor am I going to tell the people of New Orleans how to rebuild their dike systems (yes, those are public lands too). These are public lands and everyone should speak their peace, but when there are no local sponsors to legislation, then something is terribly wrong.
The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority. ~ Ralph W. Sockman, United Methodist pastor, speaker, writer (1889 – 1970)
Right On, Single Track Mind. You are absolutly correct it does matter. One of the problems with wilderness areas is that it restricts access to people with disabilities. The wildlife corridor thing is a bunch of crap. We have wolves south east of Casper 300 plus miles and a whole bunch of private property away. Maybe they had crossing gaurds on the highways to help them. I would bet that most of the sponsers to this bill have never set foot in these areas.
Comment By wyomick, 5-03-09I agree with Vonokee! This bill takes away so much of what we enjoy about living in the west. Almost every single lake where I live will be in the new wilderness area. Many of these lakes already have lodges and houses on them. If the people who proposed this bill had come to these areas they would see that they are NOT wilderness. There are even paved roads through some of these areas. There is no way that the 2300 hundred jobs that are supposed to be created will even come close to making up for the jobs that are lost because recreation in many of these areas will be taken away. Come see for yourself the areas that are in this bill.
Comment By vonokee, 5-03-09The Wilderness Society is not even lobbying for it.
Comment By merris royal, 5-04-09the bill H.R. 980 will if enacted completely surround my home and those of my neighbors with wilderness. It will then be a 4 mile walk into my home as I read the wilderness act. I have read this bill, all 149 pages of it,and it contains some very scary provisions, that is to tear up the Forest service road to my home. Wyoming residents denied access to there own homes is not going to farther the wilderness cause and not make good press for any and all backers of this bill. In a note of sarcasm I might pack it in but I'm not packing it out.
Comment By Bytheway, 5-04-09The guy who calls himself "the real Mike" said, "They aren't telling you how to manage your lands; they are speaking out about how they want THEIR LANDS managed!"
They? Who are they? Please name names, addresses, occupation, etc. because when you submit testimony at a public hearing that information is required. The difference between you and me Mike is that I would actually open up most of our public lands to the public, not just for ritzy Sierra Club members with their outrageously expensive hiking gear. I would bring back the Homestead Act and sell land to poor people for $5 an acre the same way our forefathers did, only this time around I would make sure the land is sold to the needy, not the Rockefellers and the Harrimans. Think of it as redistributing the wealth, Mike. One of the laws of science is atrophy. Use it or lose it - to insects, mistletoe, forest fires, and the like. That's not American. That is either being stupid or greedy.
i do not believe that a majority of rocky mountain residents oppose this bill. in fact, there has been a sea change with new generations in the past 10 years that congressman rehberg and his ultra right wing supporters are totally out of touch with....
baucus and tester are sensing this but they are much too timid to support it publicly. they will not denounce it, but they are being too careful. this is a great opportunity to set montana and our western neighbors apart as unique in the lower 48 instead of just another flyover region. vision and politics rarely coincide.
What's funny is, in the west, where our officials have been such great stewards of the land the past 8 years: Yeah that place. You know the same place where, wait, how many public meetings have occurred opposing Oil and Gas Development on 'Favorite hunting spots'? Yeah that's the place, the same place where small communities such as Pinedale WY have had worse Ozone pollution than downtown L.A. at certain points because of what - oh, the Oil and Gas Industry. No, that didn't and isn't happening. Forget about the impacts of ozone and contaminated water tables - that's just conspiracy against industry.
Good stewards of the land -- Whatever. I've seen in 8 years a view that could go up the valley forever to one that is in constant haze. I've attended many meetings opposing leasing of 'Public Lands' for more drilling with the same folks that think Obama is going to take their guns because of industry impacts on wild animals.
Prove that the science is wrong for needing connecting corridors. Prove that your life is going to permanently change for the worse. Prove that you won't be able to ride your bikes, etc. etc. etc. All of this is heresay.
This conversation needs to happen, and our natural resources protected, not exploited. The west obviously can't do it themselves, just look at what happened in Denver with the BLM.
Alias, I don't think you have your facts straight. NREPA won't stop the oil and gas drilling in Pinedale. Therefore it won't help our ozone or pollution. And if you know anything about the area NREPA will definately have a negative impact on the community. There is no way all these people that have moved here will stay when there is hardly any recreation left. Recreation, after oil and gas, is what helps this town thrive. NREPA is not good for Sublette County.
Comment By Todd, 5-22-09NREPA is not good for anyone except the self proclaimed enviros who are so concerned about the environment that they think nothing of flying thousands of miles back and forth and around and around to find friendly judges to give them exclusive use of land so they do not have to share with ordinary people. I'll bet the enviro groups support that Connecticut sponsor with tons of money every year as she tries to give them an untaxed title to exclusive use of the best land. They sure do not waste any of it doing anything for the land like mitigating forest fires, cleaning up after hikers, building trails, etc. They think the taxpayers owe it to them. If we were doing such a bad job taking care of our public land, it would be of no value to the enviros.
Environmental activism has to be pretty profitable for so many new ones to spring up all of the time....and tax free too.
what a bunch of wing nuts. What a shame NREPA makes sense now. Montana is only 3.7% wilderness while California is about to become 15% wilderness. I though MT was known for all its great wildlife, hunting and fishing. If we dont protect some of this land they'll be nothing left. All you wing nuts are terrified of wilderness. I live and work in rural Idaho and I go in the woods without a gun. A few roads might get closed sorry yiou cant "hunt" elk from your truck there anymore. The vast majority of national forest lands are roaded. You nutters have plenty of places to tear up, build lodges and whine and complain about acess. The vast majority of NREPa affects areas managed as wilderness already. If you try to close one, destructive road these days you got every neck in the northwest crying about acess.
Comment By bearbait, 6-27-09And the wing nuts of wilderness say things like California has all this more percentage of wilderness than Montana. So go take a hike in the biggest wilderness in California....you will need mules to pack the water. It is probably over 120 in the shade right now. Your comparison of wilderness acres is like saying they have a bigger bag than Montana. So what is in the bag? For California, it is hot air...dry sand...and they don't have to patrol it, or monitor it because there is not much legal use, and only fools and Englishmen go out in the noon day Mojave sun.
"If we don't protect some of this land we will have nothing left." A truly informed statement. The issue is not creating protected land. The issue is adding to already protected land. How much is enough? That is the question. To some, all land should be wilderness, and humans limited to some "Lord of the Flies" existence on it. Others would like to road, log, plow, dam, all of it. The issue is how much is reasonable and how much will serve the most with the most good. Optimum use. There are people like me who are damned tired of the process of protecting a significant piece of land only to have the Piss Fir Willies stand around and watch it burn because there can be no exposure to danger in fighting fire, no risk, and besides, fire is natural and therefor must be good. Fine. Torch your house, and see if it will rebuild itself in your lifetime. There are forests now protected, that cannot be replaced because the climate and human use that created them is no longer present. They are sustainable by their existence, but there is not way to provide the habitat for the vegetation there today to regenerate. Too dry, too hot, too isolated. Cloud forests on top of high elevation mesas, or old growth forests in the fog belt. The micro climate is now gone that nourished the forest long ago. Erosion of mountain tops or new wind deflection by a new volcano only a thousand years old. Things change. Certainly much has been lost to past logging, and past land clearing fire. There has to be a lid for every pot, a seat for every ass. You can't do that without some land being used. But blanket statements about "nothing left" are stupid and wrong, and don't do much good for your cause. The fact that a piece of ground is a candidate for Wilderness means that some sort of protection has been in place for a long time. And the desire to take places already "developed" to some extent, and "de-develop" the in place infrastucture and then have that whole of it called Wilderness sort of is stretch, a real stretch, of the Wilderness organic act.
There are tens of millions of acres of public and private land that have seen no land or climate changing human impacts. Some qualify as Wilderness to some eyes. But NREPA is way too far reaching, way too Machiavellian in its approach to governance, and not the kind of legislation that respects citizens who have economic and cultural interests not wanted in or on that land. So there is a punitive side of NREPA, purposefully, that is characteristic of liberal legislation in these times. I saw the mullah on the tube last night saying that people who demonstrate against the Iranian election "should be punished cruelly" for their actions. "Cruelly." That rang my water boarding bell. We are in a struggle with the followers of a religion that has their clerics calling for "cruelly punishing" people. So what is my punishment for not being in favor for NREPA? I don't like what it does to public and private lands in my state. Sorry. Wilderness in Oregon is the font of wildland fire that goes to town all too often, which brings about the Governor instituting the Conflagration Act, and we spend a lot of state money to put out a fire from Federal Wilderness lands. Wilderness looks more and more like a process of putting a moldy orange into a barrel of apples and expecting nothing to happen to the apples. Try it.
Well well an oregoonie hating on CA wilderness. Oregon a state with the most chopped up, isolated pieces of wilderness in the west. Yes Ca's alrgest wilderness is death valley which is actasully even larger than the FCRONR in Idaho my stomping grounds. Montana has has had no new wilderness in decades, Oregon just recieved both new forest service and BLM wilderness. NREPA does little different than protect all remaining roadless areas whic was supoorted by over 95% of the public. Wilderness generates about 33$ per acre to local econonmies and preservation has NEVER HURT A LOCAL ECONOMY much to the dismay of local necks. I hear a lot of folks talking about the loss of Elk on public lands due to wolves. Roads, hunting and development all have much greater impacts on elk distribution and population numbers than wolves ever will. Keep bitching about elk numbers and opposing wilderness for roadless areas. Yes therwe wont be any good hunting and fishing habitat in MT if we keep destroying our roadless areas. How much longer must we use federal tax dollars and risk peoples lives to fight fires that are threatening homes that are built in fire prone areas of the rockies. If you knew anything about public lands bearbait you would know that the vast majority is already developed...we are trying to save whats left from wing nuts like you. Bearbait what a moronic, unsportsmanlike form of hunting. Most staes except Idaho and a few others ahve banned such bs practicies. In fact it was a guided bear bait hunt that killed the lone Grizzly bear up in the clearwater national forest in Idaho. Somehow that bear struggled across I-90 and avoided countless dangers only to wind up dead at the hands of a tennesse hunter on an outfitted hunt becuase his guide was too dumb to tell the difference between a Grizzly abd a black bear or they just didnt care. You make me sick you right wing nutter you.
Comment By omegaman00783, 6-27-09NREPA was developed and supported by local westerners, its sponsorship involves a broader support for the bill of others who do not live here, but have just as much a right to weigh in on federal lands issues as anyone else. That local western politics is mired and largely dominated by industry at odds with true wilderness (as opposed to quid pro quo big "W"ilderness bills) just mean that advocates of wilderness need to broaden the interest & involvement - these lands belong to us all, to our kids - that's part of what makes them so great. Walt Gasson's childish opinion ("me", "mine", "not yours") gets at the heart of western natural resource issues - especially those on federal public lands. These guys believe they have a god-given, exclusive right to weigh in more heavily on landscapes that belong to us all than others, who they claim as less interested or more distant from the landscape itself.
Federal public land management benefits all when more people are involved in the conversation - not fewer.
Additionally, when "local" supremacists like Gasson say "local" - they never mean the locals that helped put NREPA together, they don't even really mean "local" at all. What they're saying is that the same extractive, uneconomical, and dying industries, industries that have been drawing huge federal subsidies - from all of us, federal dollars - to imbue & inflate artificial significance into the very commercial pursuits that they hide behind, ought have more say than you. They've been pretending that our federal lands belong exclusively to them for decades, and that they ought be the ones to have all the power over how our lands are managed (exploited) and what designation they get. These industries control the state & local government, and you can sure bet they're the ones that'll be hand-picking the participants of any "local" effort. Ironically, somehow when these "local" arrangements take place, strong conservationists who grew up on the landscape and know them as well as anyone else - never make the "local" cut.
Walt, you're wrong - and what you are doing is trying to diminish other peoples' voice - people who have just as much a right over federal issues. We ought be encouraging more people to weight in on our common natural heritage - a public landscape that is an American treasure, not just a Wyoming, Idaho, or Montana treasure. Kids in Vermont, Florida, California, and Stanley Idaho all look to our common public lands with awe - and it'll be a better world when they all speak to it with common interest.
Brian Ertz
Idaho Native (though I'd never wear it on the cuff so much as to claim supremacy of federal land issues)
Rather than those kids look in awe at what only a few elitists can use, it would be much better for them and everyone else to have access and use it. You may feel you are so special that you have no effect, but it is only a different effect than other uses, some of which benefit everyone in the country.
Comment By bearbait, 6-28-09Omegaman: so who do you work for? Or sell your services or goods to? Business is an easy target for people who think the government can employ them, take care of them, and suckle their whimsy. ObamaNation is "creating jobs" using whose money? Not Mr. President's. Not Mr.Senator's. They are creating jobs using money from people who sell services or goods, and are taxed on that endeavor, or taxes on the people who work for those selling services or goods. Or, due to a lack of income to tax, the Administration and Democrat majority in Congress is borrowing the money. That is how it works. You keep up your mindless propaganda about business, and the golden goose will not lay enough eggs to allow the "eagle to shit", to use an old redneck term for the welfare check, the Social Security check, or even a valued civil service job.
The basic, basic problem is that inside my state's boundary lies 65% of the land owned by the Feds, managed by the Feds according to political pressure from people who don't have a dog in the local economic fight. In the same sunday paper this morning, is a story about Harney county, Oregon, broke on its ass, a 200,000 acre ignored fire at first fire across 100,000 acres of Federal forests closed to logging because paid, pot stirring, zealots from somewhere else pummeled the USFS to stop logging and to allow fires to burn "for beneficial use." Little will salvaged and the mills are closed except for the one in another county that has a biomass energy plants operating and selling power to MegaUtilities that are mandated to sell x amount of "greeen" power. Harney county has unemployment over 20%, and lots of paid, out of state and in state, urban, tax forgiven deduction and trust, foundation money to pay environmental lawyers and "friends of...." to squelch any intent to create some jobs out of the public lands. But no help for the private lands, for local government, either, and that small segment is taxed to the max to support what local government and services society feels are needed, and regulated by urban armchair experts who have no interest in local survival. Between a rock and a hard place. So just tell me how a little bit of Harney county to be included in NREPA will create jobs. Another layer of bureaucrats locally? It will do nothing positive, and probably create more county government problems. That is how those things seem to pan out.
Back to the sunday paper. The most productive local income production is now by Mexican drug cartels filling the oversight void on federal lands, and roadless areas, including Wilderness. Outside of some packaged tortillas, the predominate litter along with plastic pesticide and fertilizer packaging and irrigation tubing, none of that money stays in the county. Or country. This week a young marijuana plantation was discovered in the Elkhorns west of Baker City that the Oregonian says had a $30+ million dollar street potential. That one was found, and there are another 50 that have yet to be found, or will not be found until bow season, and by then the harvest is over and the dope gone. So why would I want to expand by a thousand times the dope plantations or other hidden uses of wildlands that we don't police today?
NREPA is about radical leftist politics. Getting it rammed through a compliant, like-thinking Congress better happen sooner than later, because the sleeping giant still lies in the middle of the road, and change will be coming down that road sooner than I would think. I just listened to the sunday pundits, and again the lefties beat on Bush. That train left the station in February. Obama is starting to be bashed more and more, which is how we now do politics in this country, but the bashing is coming from the middle and left of middle. The thought is he has this huge electoral power granted to him, and he is blowing it. The NREPA hackers are lending fuel to that fire. Keep it up!!!! Every whine undermines the Administration's Agenda. Obama used his power, and the Pelosi Power, to ram through the Omnibus Wilderness bill, not all of the bill yet understood and in place, but the President does know he did that early on, and now has his plate full of national and international crisis situations, and new ones coming to the table almost hourly. I am certain the Congress ranks NREPA right up there with the economy, auto makers, banks, insurance companies, drug companies, universal health care, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, China, N.Korea, Somalia, gee, where do I stop? If you are out of work for another year, the inclination to vote for the party in power fades. NREPA is not universal health care. It is not jobs, the economy, people losing homes not because of liar loans, but because liar loans now have cost them their jobs, and the good mortgages they had been paying like a slot machine. The United States still has the unemployed home loss real estate bulge to digest, and a lot of it has yet to enter the maw of undigested liar loan and subprime surplus. Then there is the commercial real estate oversupply, that grows with every failed business and consolidated offices. Several thousand auto dealer properties need to be digested and turned into profit centers once again. This economy deal is far, far from over, and NREPA is only going to happen by its becoming a favored Nancy Pelosi suppository used in appropriate fashion in Congress. And we all know the end result of too many suppositories. If the fan of political unrest is on high, there will be a mess to clean up. I don't think there will be a bi-partisan committee to clean up that mess. It could be a game changer. Or at the least, Nancy had better find a world class stash of Depends...
I was the bear bait. Or so they say. It comes from my being WAY to close to a pretty docile cinnamon black bear as it fed in the fall. And "friends" cajoling me to get closer. So it is on digital photos taken in the evening light. Hence, the moniker "bear bait." I logged in SE Alaska in the 60's, and shooting a black to me is like shooting an angus steer. Ho hum. They were everywhere, and a pain in the ass. I did see one shot as it again climbed on to the float house of the mechanics, intent on again tearing into the house. I can see the halo of water that instantly left that bear along with his worldly life, all backlit by the sunday sundown about ten o'clock in the evening. The supe's kid was punching donkey, and he had shot a bear that was tearing into his trailer house, and left it in the morning. The supe was pissed, and we had sent a turn of logs to the landing, and back came this damned bear choked by a leg. The supe's kid was not real smooth on the come-back with the rigging, (worn brakes on an old 157 Washington Iron sled machine), and he would endanger geese about three times running the rigging uphill to where the rigging crew was. Well, on of those rigging shots to the moon, the bear left as the choker noose slacked, and the moon-shot dead bear ended up way out in the unlogged fell and bucked, to decompose in the summer sun. Icky! Stinky!! But the eagles, the local wolf pack and other scavengers quickly reduced Mr. Dead Bear to bones, and the wolves broke all of the flat ones to get to the marrow.
I have little interest in dead bears. Too much fun to watch, and I do spend time in Montana on a ranch up against public lands, and over time, the bears actually get to recognize the very few people that go up there, and pretty much ignore trespassers. Except for the sow grizz. She is not tolerant of campers on the USFS or the ranch. Always on the same ridge. A tent tearing, camp destroyer, and it all happens in an instant, and then she leaves with the cubs. The huge old boar has been around for more than a decade, and has never been a problem to any of the several ranches along that divide. The cowboys sort of like him. He keeps impetuous young bears out, which makes life a lot easier for the bears, livestock, and the cowboys..Now if he would just do something about the sow's attitude. She usually comes through on her way to where the archery hunters do well, and might be a problem where she goes.
Bearbait you are a bumbling, rambling fool if I ever saw one. I see you have digressed from even speaking about NREPA and are now shooting bags of wind long and hard from your old lungs. So you've been participating in tax-payer subsidized logging in AK since the 6o0s well good for you you've been raping public lands at tax payers expense for decades. Look at Oregon your states timber industry is screwed becuase of large-scale industrial logging, not small-scale locally owned operations but you morons though you could just log like a business corporation and now look at you. Same thing in NW california....yes to logging no to maxam. If you dont know maxam look it up...they suck. I wouldnt tell a wind bag like you who I work for in a million years all your gonna do is bad mouth them anyway. For your information I haveb worked for private, govt., coroporate you name it so dont give some bs about the govt wiping my ass. Also if your dumb enough to try to sneak up on a cinnamon bear becuase your friend told you to then you deserve to be bear bait. I'm only not in the woods becuase i'm ill do you always sit around all summer shooting wind on blog spaces and claim your such a rugged outdoorsman or is this something new?.......I wonder why people are out of work could it be the Bush administartions legacy? All you wanna do is whine and complain...suck it up it was your boy bush who got us into this.
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