Weaver could have been a Shakespearean actor, with passion and paranoia characterizing his performance as a United States congressperson. There are generally three kinds of politicians: (1) those who have few or no principles or issues they really care about; (2) those who do have principles and issues they really care about but moderate them to get elected or gain influence inside the legislative body by getting along in the hope of furthering their principles and issues; and (3) those who have strong principles and issues and do not moderate them either for election or influence. Weaver was the third kind.

The Three Sisters, individually known today as South Sister, Middle Sister and North Sister, and in early days as Faith, Hope and Charity. The 283,630-acre Three Sisters Wilderness is still a unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System, but is no longer a unit of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

Over the course of more than a century, Congress—or the executive branch using expressed authorities granted by Congress—has established various systems for the conservation, management, and enjoyment of federal and other lands and waters. On the whole, these systems are bold, visionary, and remarkable.

It costs more to feed a domestic house cat than to graze domestic livestock on federal public lands. This has generally been the case since the early 1900s, when the federal government first required ranchers to pay a fee for grazing their livestock on millions of acres of federal land, primarily in western states.

The present president doesn’t seem to enjoy the outdoors, unless it is on a great big beautiful golf course. Though the presidential retreat in Maryland does have a modest driving range along with one hole and several tees, don’t bet on Trump spending any time at Camp David, tucked in western Maryland’s forests.

President Trump signed an executive order on April 26, 2017, that directs Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review sixty-two of the last three presidents’ national monument proclamations, dating back to 1996. Source: Wikipedia

National heritage areas (NHAs) are a way to conserve and restore important natural, historical, and cultural resources for this and future generations while at the same time generating local economic activity through tourism. NHAs are established by Congress but administered by local entities with the assistance of the National Park Service.

Though President Trump has said he “loves” public lands and doesn’t want to sell or give them to states, counties, or private industry, he does favor increased logging, grazing, mining, drilling, and just about anything else bad for these lands.

There is no question that an Act of Congress can eliminate, shrink, or weaken a national monument proclaimed by a president pursuant to authority granted by Congress. What Congress giveth, Congress can taketh away.

National monuments are “proclamations,” not “executive orders.” The president issues executive orders under the faithful execution clause of the Constitution (in Article II, Section 3). A president may expand, revoke, or modify a previous executive order. An executive order and a presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act are absolutely not one and the same.

Limits have been considered on visitors to Oregon’s Mount Hood Wilderness and Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness, which are within easy reach of the Portland and Puget Sound metropolitan areas. In some cases, the Forest Service has contemplated visitor reductions as large as 60 and 90 percent. Such limits are already common on popular floating rivers including the Rogue and the Colorado.

Given Oregon’s historically close ties to the timber industry, it is hard to imagine that a U.S. senator from Oregon could be a co-sponsor of the original legislation that became the Wilderness Act of 1964.

The Snake River in Hells Canyon would be dammed today if not for former Senator Bob Packwood (R-OR). The French Pete watershed would not have been returned to its rightful place in the Three Sisters Wilderness if not for Packwood.

Take a gander at your favorite statewide maps, on paper or in Google Maps, and you may be left with the impression that those green polygons labeled National Forest are indeed solid expanses of national forest. In the West and Alaska, mostly yes; in the East, not so much.

The federal government says Oregon has 110, 994 miles of streams. Most do not qualify for inclusion in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System as they have been dammed, dewatered, ditched, denuded, and/or otherwise degraded, if not downright destroyed. Today, 2 percent of Oregon’s streams are in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

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.

Though we’ve burned through one-sixth of the current century, Congress has yet to enact any sweeping and bold public lands conservation legislation in the new millennium. There’s still time though, and a crying need.

There are those days where one is reminded, by a proverbial kick in the gut, that life is not fair. Such was the day of the general election of November 2016. [Image by Manny Becerra]

Historically, much of the carbon loading into the atmosphere (which subsequently loads the hydrosphere) came from the biosphere (we used to live on a forested planet). Today, most atmospheric carbon loading comes from the lithosphere—the hard outer layer of Earth—in the form of fossil fuels that are extracted and then burned.

The Bundys and their ilk disdain the federal government and deny it owns the federal public lands in the West. While they hate the federal government for its size, its actions and its policies, they nonetheless revere the United States Constitution. They believe the federal government (executive, legislative and judicial branches) has run amok from the intent of the founding fathers.