This is the first installment of a two-part exploration of certain, probable and/or needed changes to the Oregon delegation to the US House of Representatives in the 2024 elections.

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.

Blumenauer’s bill would open up Mount Hood National Forest to new logging loopholes.

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.

Most fish and wildlife funding in the United States goes to game species. However, a third of our wildlife species are imperiled and/or vulnerable, and mostly not because of hunting and fishing

“Despite spending over $17 billion on fish recovery efforts, Idaho salmon and steelhead numbers are not improving and will continue to get worse,” says Representative Mike Simpson (R-2-ID). “Will we spend $20 billion more in the next thirty years only to have them go extinct anyway? The worse they get, the more we will spend.”

There stood Mount Hood in all the glory of the alpenglow, looming immensely high, beaming with intelligence. It seemed neither near nor far. The whole mountain appeared as one glorious manifestation of divine power, enthusiastic and benevolent, glowing like a countenance with ineffable repose and beauty, before which we could only gaze in lowly admiration. —John Muir (1888)

Trigger warning: Dyed-in-the-wool Democrats, liberals, leftists, and/or the excessively woke may find this post hazardous to their hopes, dreams, stereotypes, and/or prejudices and may wish to seek refuge in a safe space.

Government protection should be thrown around every wild grove and forest on the mountains, as it is around every private orchard, and trees in public parks. To say nothing of their value as fountains of timber, they are worth infinitely more than all the gardens and parks of towns.  —John Muir

Late in December 2018, during the lame-duck session of the 115th Congress, a deal was almost struck to move an omnibus public lands package of legislation. The package compiled specific bills that were legislatively ready to advance. Some of the bills in the package were quite good, others quite bad.

We live in a polarized nation divided between rural and urban with the suburbs and exurbs swinging toward the Democrats, allowing that party to retake the House.

Climate change is an existential threat to the human species. The rapid decarbonization of the economy of the United States and of the world is our only chance of maintaining the climate that we generally know and love.

For the most part, these bills are popular and uncontroversial, and when they do get to the floor they will pass. When that happens and the congressional pipeline finally does unclog, conservationists need to make sure that pipeline is full.

This is the second part of a two-part examination of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. In Part 2, we examine the possibilities of protecting additional wild and scenic rivers with a focus on Oregon, and closing a notorious mining loophole in the original act.

This is the third installment of a three-part series on the National Wilderness Preservation System. Part 3 demands a rededication to wilderness for the benefit of this and future generations.

There might be far more or far less oil and gas offshore Oregon and Washington than the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has estimated (see last weeks Public Lands Blog post). In any case, we really cannot afford to find out, as the only prudent course is to Keep It in the Ground and out of the atmosphere. This means all fossil fuels, offshore and onshore.

Many 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.

It’s time for the members of the Oregon congressional delegation to step up their public lands conservation game. It always takes years, if not years and years, to enact public lands conservation legislation into law. While mere introduction of legislation does not mean enactment into law, no legislation becomes law without first being introduced.

Of the 15 listed Public Lands Enemies, the top three hail from Utah and the state’s congressional delegation occupies fully one-third of the ignoble list. The only member of the state’s delegation not to be on the top 15 public lands enemies is Rep. Mia Love (D-4th-UT.)

Logging in Lane County, Oregon on both public and private lands.

The Westerman bill would legislate horrifically harmful public forest policy into law. Among its many sins, the Westerman bill would

Big Timber in Oregon is so 20th Century. It used to be that timber jobs were above the state’s median wage; now they are below it. Today, only 1.3 percent of Oregon’s jobs arise from falling trees. That number will continue to decline in relative terms as Oregon’s economy continues to grow, and it will continue to decline in absolute terms as the timber industry continues to automate.