RISK FACTORS:
Oregon and California Railroad Grant Lands Trust, Conservation, and Jobs (O&C)
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Problem:
Global warming is the biggest threat to life on our planet that humans have ever witnessed. We need to preserve our old trees and forests as one crucial way to sequester CO2, as well as to safeguard species, preserve clean water and air, and contribute to the ecosystems upon which human survival depends. Timber companies want to get possession of our O&C forests so they can harvest the trees for profit that enriches corporate shareholders while externalizing the costs and problems of carbon in the atmosphere. When the human species is serious about the our survival, we will sequester carbon in trees and elsewhere rather than permit multinational corporations to make a quick buck and provide some short term employment for a few individuals.
Evidence:
HR 1526 would put approximately one half of the O&C forests into a "private trust", thereby avoiding federal environmental laws and basically allow the timber industry to harvest at will. Refer to www.eco-advocates.org.
A summary of HR 1526 from Oregon Wild's website:
What is the “O&C Trust, Conservation, and Jobs Act” proposed by Reps. DeFazio, Schrader, and Walden?
These Oregon Congressmen are advancing a proposal they are billing as creating jobs, sustainably funding counties, and protecting old-growth forests. The bill passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee on July 31, 2013 as part of Republican bill H.R. 1526.
The “O&C Trust Act” would:
Find other alternatives for revenue for the counties that have been dependent on federal subsidies from the forests such as increased timber taxes to be paid by the timber industry; increase property taxes for those who have been paying less than their fair share for the past 50 years.
Action:
Global warming is the biggest threat to life on our planet that humans have ever witnessed. We need to preserve our old trees and forests as one crucial way to sequester CO2, as well as to safeguard species, preserve clean water and air, and contribute to the ecosystems upon which human survival depends. Timber companies want to get possession of our O&C forests so they can harvest the trees for profit that enriches corporate shareholders while externalizing the costs and problems of carbon in the atmosphere. When the human species is serious about the our survival, we will sequester carbon in trees and elsewhere rather than permit multinational corporations to make a quick buck and provide some short term employment for a few individuals.
Evidence:
HR 1526 would put approximately one half of the O&C forests into a "private trust", thereby avoiding federal environmental laws and basically allow the timber industry to harvest at will. Refer to www.eco-advocates.org.
A summary of HR 1526 from Oregon Wild's website:
What is the “O&C Trust, Conservation, and Jobs Act” proposed by Reps. DeFazio, Schrader, and Walden?
These Oregon Congressmen are advancing a proposal they are billing as creating jobs, sustainably funding counties, and protecting old-growth forests. The bill passed out of the House Natural Resources Committee on July 31, 2013 as part of Republican bill H.R. 1526.
The “O&C Trust Act” would:
- Place 1.6 million acres of public forest lands managed by the BLM and Forest Service – including thousands of acres of older forests up to 125 years old – in a “fiduciary trust” that would be managed to maximize logging revenues for the benefit of counties.
- Manage these Trust Lands as non-federal private industrial timber lands under the Oregon Forest Practices Act. This means significantly reduced stream protections, increased use of chemicals, and clear-cutting vast areas of forests in perpetuity.
- Transfer remaining older forests to the U.S. Forest Service to manage and give them some protection.
- Why are conservation groups opposed to it?
- The proposal dismantles the scientifically-based Northwest Forest Plan that instituted a system of reserves for maintaining and re-growing old-growth habitat that fish and wildlife depend on.
- More intensive logging in municipal drinking watersheds means more runoff, landslides and dirty water.
- The “sweeteners” being offered with the proposal (some old-growth protection, some new Wilderness and Wild & Scenic River protections) do not outweigh negative impacts.
- The proposal is a big setback for restoration of forests, watersheds, and fish and wildlife habitat that has been taking place and the partnerships that have been built to support this work over the past 15 years.
- The forests at stake in this proposal are important to the protection of watersheds and the conservation of fish and wildlife. They currently store carbon to mitigate the effects of climate change, offer the public places to recreate, and provide important habitat for threatened wildlife and salmon. Under the “trust” proposal, over a million acres of forests would be subject to intensive logging instead.
- The Oregon Forest Practices Act, rules for logging on private lands and that may be used for the “trust” lands, allows for much more intensive logging than on public lands – including clear-cuts, extensive pesticide spraying, and fewer stream protections.
- The proposal effectively removes protections currently afforded to these federal lands under the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Federal Lands Policy and Management Act, National Environmental Policy Act and other federal laws that require public participation, scientific consultation, and safeguarding threatened fish and wildlife.
- Public forest lands should not bear the full brunt of funding counties. Alternatives that include reforms in property and industrial timber taxes, and consolidation of the BLM with the Forest Service should be explored.
- The “O&C Trust Act” is embedded in H.R. 1526, advanced by Republican leadership, which mandates huge logging increases on National Forests and restricts public participation – among other problematic provisions.
Find other alternatives for revenue for the counties that have been dependent on federal subsidies from the forests such as increased timber taxes to be paid by the timber industry; increase property taxes for those who have been paying less than their fair share for the past 50 years.
Action:
- Call or write to Senator Wyden to protect our forests by keeping them under federal protections, to oppose HR 1526.
- Call or write to Gov. Kitzhaber and your state reps and senators to push for stronger state environmental laws for the forests in Oregon, and to call for increasing the timber tax rates.
- Get involved with groups that are trying to protect Oregon's forests, such as Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands, or League of Wilderness Defenders.
- Call or write the White House to protect the forests and keep them under federal protection.