Senator Wyden is cosponsoring legislation that would give blank checks and get-out-of-jail-free cards to all BLM grazing permittees and lessees.

 As it’s a complex piece of policy and politics, this is the second of two parts, the first of which was published last week. Part 1 analyzed the legislation in terms of the good, the bad, and the whatever. This Part 2 will analyze the ugly and the missing, and suggest an alternative.

With a few critical tweaks, Senator Wyden’s legislation could be a net gain for the conservation of nature for the benefit of this and future generations. Without those tweaks, the bill as drafted is an existential threat to the conservation of federal public lands and should not be enacted into law.

This third try may be the charm in Senator Wyden’s long effort to enact public lands legislation to conserve wildlands in the Owyhee and lower Malheur Basins in Oregon.

This is the second of a two-part Public Lands Blog post. Part 1 examined the specifics of legislation that is an existential threat to more than four million acres of federal public lands in Oregon’s Malheur County. Part 2 provides backstory and analysis pertaining to the legislation.

This is the first of a two-part Public Lands Blog post. Part 1 examines the specifics of legislation that is an existential threat to more than four million acres of federal public lands in Oregon’s Malheur County. Part 2 will provide backstory and analysis pertaining to the legislation.

In a tepid effort to express support for the conservation of the Owyhee Canyonlands, Oregon’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, introduced legislation (S.3048, 114th Congress, the Southeastern Oregon Mineral Withdrawal and Economic Preservation and Development Act) that would permanently withdraw the area from certain forms of mining and would do other things.

Here are some national monuments, quite beloved today, that had strong local opposition at the time of their proclamation: Devil’s Tower, Petrified Forest, Muir Woods, Oregon Caves, Natural Bridges, Dinosaur, White Sands, Caters of the Moon, Lava Beds, Admiralty Island, Cascade-Siskiyou, and Virgin Island Coral Reef.