O&C forest bill drafted by DeFazio, Walden and Schrader clears House, despite veto threat

Jim Myers, The Oregonian
September 20, 2013

WASHINGTON – The U.S. House defied a veto threat Friday and approved a bill that supporters say would provide a long-term rescue to Oregon counties that are facing financial disaster.

Passed by a vote of 244 to 173, the legislation now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to be dead on arrival.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, who is chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, already has announced plans to draft his own legislation that differs from the House approach.

The bill would more than double timber harvests nationally. In Oregon, it calls for placing about 1.6 million acres in a state-managed trust focused on timber production.

The measure also would temporarily extend a program providing federal timber payments to counties to help pay for local services

Three House members from Oregon – Republican Greg Walden, Democrats Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader – drafted the Oregon provisions that they say would create logging jobs, provide stable funding for failing counties, protect old growth and wildlife and save the federal government millions of dollars.

"While these federal forests surrounding our rural communities are burning, rural families are sentenced to live in poverty as the mills close, the jobs disappear, all because we can't access our abundant and renewable natural resources on federal land," Walden said.

"It's clear the status quo is not working for families in our rural communities. This broken system has to change."

DeFazio conceded that the legislation is not what he would have written had Democrats controlled the House but said it represents "the only shot we had to move something that protects both our conservation values and vital public services."

He said he expects Wyden to alter the legislation enough to win final approval by both Congress and President Obama.

As passed by the House, the provisions would generate as much as $90 million annually for struggling rural counties and provide an estimated $166 million for basic services such as education and law enforcement, DeFazio said.

Schrader also saw passage of the bill as crucial.

"Rural counties across America, especially in Oregon, are dying," he said. "This bill brings those forested communities back to life by putting folks back to work in the woods while protecting Oregon's natural treasures."

In its veto threat issued earlier this week, the Obama administration objected to language transferring most of the lands covered by the Oregon and California Railroad and other property to a state trust.

It also stated the proposed legislation attempts to create exemptions to other land management laws.

"This would undermine appropriate management and stewardship of these lands, which belong to all Americans, would compromise habitat for threatened and endangered species, and would create legal uncertainty over management of these lands as well as increase litigation risk," the administration stated.

Critics welcomed the veto threat. They say the House bill depends too much on logging to bail western areas out of their economic slump and would end up harming the environment.

Wyden is expected to unveil his approach this fall.

"Sen. Wyden agrees that it's time to get the harvest up, to create more jobs in the woods and make forests healthier. He's working on a plan to do that in Oregon's O&C counties," said press spokesman Keith Chu.

"However it's clear that bills that undermine bedrock environmental laws or turn large swaths of federal land over to private ownership cannot pass the Senate or be signed into law by the president."

-- Jim Myers