Earl Blumenauer
Along with the great danger of the Oregon US House delegation becoming worse on public lands issues, there are also great opportunities for it to be better.
Read MoreThe history of congressional and other actions to facilitate retirement of federal grazing permits
Read MoreBlumenauer’s bill would open up Mount Hood National Forest to new logging loopholes.
Read MoreTop Line: Oregon’s senior senator is poised to leave a legacy of national recreation areas. Just how many and how good that legacy will be is up to him.
Read MoreFigure 1. Very rare in Oregon, the fisher (Martes pennanti) has been the victim of trapping and habitat loss. It needs dense, mature forests with a deciduous component. Source: Bruce Hayward (first appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness [Timber Press 2004]).
The Snake River salmon, other Columbia Basin and Puget Sound salmonids (and lampreys, and sturgeons, and orcas) are all counting on us. We must not screw this up.
Read MoreIn 2019, Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Earl Blumenauer met with various stakeholders at Timberline Lodge to discuss the future of greater Mount Hood. Senator and Representative: What’s your plan?
Read MoreCompared to its political equal Washington, arch-liberal California, arch-conservative Idaho, and politically purple Nevada, Oregon has the least designated wilderness acreage and the smallest percentage of the state’s lands protected as wilderness.
Read MoreFig. 1. Crabtree Lake in Crabtree Valley, which contains some of the oldest trees in Oregon, is in the proposed Douglas Fir National Monument, located in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. Source: David Stone, Wildlands Photography. Previously appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness (Timber Press, 2004), by the author.
Less than a week after President Trump signed the Oregon Wildlands Act into law (as one of many bills in the John D. Dingell, Jr., Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act), Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-3rd-OR) convened an Oregon Public Lands Forum on Monday, March 18, 2019.
Read MoreWhen Representative Greg Walden (R-2nd-OR) hears “the Rogue,” he happily dreams of the roar of chainsaws. But now Walden is down and Representative Peter DeFazio (D-4th-OR) is up, and the stars have aligned to save the Wild Rogue. You can help.
Read MoreElections matter, and the 2018 midterm election mattered a lot.
Read MoreRather than limiting ourselves to the micro and at the margin, the public lands conservation community must go for the macro and at the core.
Read MoreSeveral mostly good public lands conservation bills have been introduced in the 115th Congress (2017–18) but languish in committee, unable to get a vote on the floor of the House or the Senate.
Read MoreCurrently, less than 1 percent of Oregon streams, by mileage, are included in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. An estimated additional 10,000 miles (less than 3 percent of the total mileage) of Oregon streams are eligible for inclusion.
Read MoreDespite its imperfections, the Wilderness Act is a wonderful law, worth defending against all attacks and attackers.
Read MoreAbstaining from mineral development offshore is the only way to protect the marine environment and the renewable resources that depend upon it.
Read MoreMany politicians call for a return to the era of bipartisanship as a solution to any woe. This call has resonance because the bipartisan era occurred in the living memory of baby boomers. But in the long arc of history this era did not last long, and the evidence of today does not give much hope of a return to it.
Read MoreHowever, their cosponsoring a tundra wilderness bill in Alaska and a red rocks wilderness bill in Utah—at relatively large acreages of 1.6 and 9.1 million acres respectively—contrasts unfavorably with the Oregon congressional delegation’s efforts to conserve and restore Oregon’s green forests, tan deserts, and blue waters for the benefit of this and future generations.
Read MoreSenator Ron Wyden had a visionary and bold bill that would establish a National Recreation Area System. I strongly supported that legislative provision in a post to this Public Lands Blog.... I heaped praise on the Wyden-Blumenauer bill that would have established generally strong conservation and management standards for new national recreation areas.... Now I must heap scorn on the Wyden-Bishop bill. The section that would establish a National Recreation Area System has been gutted of any significant conservation value and would only change the color on the map, but not management on the ground.
Read MoreWho wouldn’t want “resilient” (“able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions”) forests? With the name Resilient Federal Forests Act of 2017 (H.R.2936, 115th Congress), what could possibly be wrong with this bill?
Everything. Judge neither a book by its cover nor a bill by its name.
Introduced by Representative Bruce Westerman (R-4th-AR), the bill is the timber industry’s wet dream legislation. In only his second term in Congress, Westerman has received more campaign contributions from Big Timber than any other industry.
The Westerman bill would legislate horrifically harmful public forest policy into law.
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![Figure 1. Very rare in Oregon, the fisher (Martes pennanti) has been the victim of trapping and habitat loss. It needs dense, mature forests with a deciduous component. Source: Bruce Hayward (first appeared in Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness [Timber Press 2004]).](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/573a143a746fb9ea3f1376e5/1623336465041-W3D0NPLFKZWHCR3VS8KI/12bFisher+copy.jpg)
