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 first part of a two-part examination of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. In Part 1, we examine the history of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968, the size of the system and how it works, and the outsized role Oregon has played in the development of the system.

This is the second installment of a three-part series on the National Wilderness Preservation System. Part 2 chronicles past great progress and the current great stagnation.

This is the first installment of a three-part series on the National Wilderness Preservation System. Part 1 examines the beginnings of the system by enactment into law of the Wilderness Act of 1964. Part 2 will chronicle past great progress and the current great stagnation. Part 3 will demand a rededication to wilderness for the benefit of this and future generations.

Why is it that public lands conservation (and other environmental) issues always poll well, but our movement is regularly getting its ass kicked in Congress (and now by the administration as well)? It’s because we’re not political enough.

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.

This is the second of a two-part examination of proposed oil exploitation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

This is the first of a two-part examination of proposed oil exploitation in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Just as it is in the public interest to have systems of corridors for the movement of vehicles, oil, gas, electrons, and water, it is in the public interest to have a system of corridors for wildlife. Wildlife corridors are for mammals large and small that must walk to where they need to go.

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.

Over 70 species of animals and 340 species of plants make their home on the Table Rocks, part BLM ACEC and a preserve of The Nature Conservancy in Jackson County Oregon. Perhaps if the ACEC had been established earlier, the goddamned airstrip, now abandoned, would have never been built.

Pinnacles is the nation’s fifty-ninth full-fledged national park. Twenty-five of our fifty-nine national parks, totaling 39.6 million acres, were first seeded by the establishment of a presidentially proclaimed national monument. Fourteen of these monumental twenty-five were established from more than one national monument proclamation, in that national monuments were expanded by later presidents.

As of today, the BLM recognizes a total of 4.2 million acres as California Desert National Conservation Lands, 2.89 million acres of which were designated in a recent update to BLM’s comprehensive management plans.

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.

Part 2: Simply an Excuse and a Mandate to Clear-Cut

In 1986, Congress enacted the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act to, among other things, “establish a national scenic area to protect and provide for the enhancement of the scenic, cultural, recreational, and natural resources of the Columbia River Gorge.” In 2017, Representative Greg Walden (R-2nd-OR) proposes to throw it out the window.

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.)

The congressional conservation pipeline is clogged. This is not because it is too full of fine legislation that would elevate the conservation status of certain public lands by designating wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, and other special protection areas, but because of the general dysfunction of Congress.

The Chetco protection provision has yet to pass but has been reintroduced in various forms in every Congress since then. The freestanding bill or its legislative language has been included in sixteen pieces of congressional legislation since that time. Yet Congress still has not gotten its act together to save the Chetco from suction-dredge gold mining.

In addition to the usual (and vital) proposed additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System and the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, Huffman’s draft legislation proposes several innovative and novel congressional designations that call for ecological restoration, nature conservation, and/or increased recreation.

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.