Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Capital press. (Salem, OR) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (April 29, 2016)
6 CapitalPress.com April 29, 2016 Editorials are written by or approved by members of the Capital Press Editorial Board. All other commentary pieces are the opinions of the authors but not necessarily this newspaper. Opinion Editorial Board Publisher Editor Managing Editor Mike O’Brien Joe Beach Carl Sampson opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion O ur V iew Congress, not president, must fix immigration laws E arlier this month the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case challenging President Obama’s executive actions regarding illegal immigration. We believe the court should find against the president. Late in 2014, the president issued executive orders temporarily lifting the threat of deportation for as many as 5 million illegal immigrants who have been in the country for five years and who have children born in the United States, and to children brought by their parents prior to Jan. 1, 2010. His orders also granted these immigrants temporary legal status and work permits. In that, the president moved significantly beyond steps taken by other presidents on the issue. Twenty-six states sued, alleging the action violated the president’s constitutional duty to faithfully execute laws passed by Congress, and had not been Rik Dalvit/For the Capital Press carried out in accordance with the Administrative Procedures Act. A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s order blocking implementation of the order. Several farm groups have sided with the administration. We understand why. Dairies, nurseries, fruit growers and vegetable producers across the West need a source of legal labor willing to do the work citizens largely reject. We are also sympathetic to the plight of the 12 million or more illegal immigrants living here in the shadows. “They’re here whether we want them or not,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted during arguments. Indeed. Driven by crushing poverty, and often encouraged by their own governments, illegal immigrants seeking opportunities impossible at home have flooded across the border. They have placed strains on public education, healthcare and law enforcement. Once here and armed with forged papers they have found ready employment on farms and construction sites, and in hotels, restaurants, processing plants and other places eager for cheap, reliable labor. While they work hard at jobs “Americans” often don’t want, by their numbers the undocumented workers have changed the dynamics of the entire U.S. workforce. Their repatriation would have a sizable impact on our economy, leaving many industries without viable replacements. While we sympathize with their situation, we can’t support this solution. We concede that the president has wide discretion in prosecuting deportation cases, even if applying such discretion so Bureau of Reclamation makes offer irrigators can’t refuse By LAWRENCE KOGAN For the Capital Press K LAMATH FALLS, Ore. — Many may recall how Don Vito Corleone helped the fading career of singer godson John- ny Fontane to secure a film role he had previously been denied — by making the film studio owner “an offer he (couldn’t) refuse.” In much the same way, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid Pacific Region is seeking to help the Klamath Irriga- tion District to undertake the significant repair of a struc- turally compromised water flume integral to the Klamath Irrigation Project, which the Bureau recently thrust upon it — by making the district an offer to provide a $10 million low-interest government loan bearing onerous non-negotia- ble terms that its board cannot refuse. Life imitates art Indeed, this would seem to be a clear case where life imitates art, as the one-sid- ed C Canal Flume financing contract is certainly not an agreement that individual district farmers and ranch- ers would be inclined to sign had they the choice. Under veiled threat from the Bureau to reallocate “limited” agency funds needed for the repairs and to suspend water delivery for the 2016 irrigation sea- son, the KID Board of Di- rectors is being compelled to execute what can best be described as a Chica- go-mob-Mexican drug car- tel-style extortion contract (i.e., a contract where “the consideration is a promise not to hurt someone who pays up.”) Any objective review of this contract reveals the oppressiveness of its terms and conditions. Most importantly, these contract terms depart sig- nificantly from the terms of the 1954 and 1983 contracts the KID executed with the BOR; as a result, they fun- damentally change the busi- ness relationship between the parties. Contract terms The C Canal Flume fi- nancing contract, for ex- ample, does not provide for the same 12-month period within which to cure a late payment or performance “default,” as do the earli- er contracts. Were a late payment or performance default to occur, the BOR contracting officer would have the absolute discretion to suspend water deliveries to the KID and to reclaim control over project works previously transferred to the district for operation and maintenance. In addition, the contract provides the KID with a brief 10-year loan repay- ment term, which the BOR contracting officer, in his discretion, may shorten if the district’s annual finan- cials show an ability to pre- pay the loan, notwithstand- ing KID protest. Despite the difficulty the district would have in satisfying even a fixed 10-year loan term, the BOR’s ability to unilat- erally adjust the contract’s repayment schedule would likely place the KID and its members in substantial fi- nancial jeopardy. If district members suf- fer several successive bad years of agricultural pro- duction or lower commodity prices, the combination of a less than 10-year repayment term and the lack of a de- fault cure provision would very likely result in KID contractual default. A default, in turn, would trigger the BOR’s suspen- sion of water deliveries to the district and the BOR’s Guest comment Lawrence Kogan take-back of KID project transferred works. A default under this new contract also would prevent KID irriga- tors from exercising their 1954 contract right to buy back their portion of the project from the BOR, leav- ing them at the mercy of the government for future water deliveries. Take it or leave it Furthermore, beyond im- posing this take-it-or-leave- it contract, the BOR has failed, since 2001, to honor repeated KID requests to provide an annual account- ing of the status of the dis- trict’s 40-year repayment and water service contracts to the U.S. government, as required by the Reclamation project Act of 1939. By failing to provide the annual Statements of proj- ect Construction Cost and Repayment required under the reclamation law, the BOR has intentionally pre- vented the KID from accu- rately assessing its project debt and from accurately budgeting for potential fu- ture buy-back of its project transferred works. To add insult to injury, BOR Mid-Pacific Region officials and managers have, for many years, free- ly interfered in and intruded upon daily KID operation and maintenance activi- ties, including the planning and design of the C Canal Flume replacement, imposing unnecessary additional finan- cial and other burdens on KID employees and contractors. Local BOR officials have convened selective private meetings with KID employ- ees and independent contrac- tors without first contacting KID management or board members, despite being in- structed to first seek man- agement authorization. Local BOR officials also have dil- igently worked to shape and manipulate public opinion in their favor to ensure the KID acts consistent with the BOR’s policy agenda. These mob-cartel-like behaviors have unsettled KID employ- ment and contractor relation- ships and harmed the new KID board’s relationship with district members. Real agenda It is not difficult to see the BOR’s true policy agenda: to convert the Klamath Ba- sin’s once highly productive farmlands into nonproductive “wildlands” in favor of en- vironmental and aboriginal tribal water rights preserva- tion. The most efficient way of achieving this goal is to suspend water deliveries to the basin’s farms and ranches through means of federal-state deception, financial extortion, Endangered Species Act and tribal water rights edicts and dam removal. It’s high time the U.S. Congress involves itself in these matters because they have implications far beyond the Klamath River Basin in Northern California and Southern Oregon. Should the Obama admin- istration successfully curtail and ultimately shut down ag- ricultural production in these valleys, they are certain to do the same elsewhere in the ru- ral West and Midwest. Lower U.S. agricultural production can lead to only one result: higher food prices or more imported foods from less regulated Third World countries. Now, is that a leg- acy that Americans wish to leave to their children and grandchildren? Lawrence Kogan serves as counsel to the Klamath Irrigation district. He is man- aging principal of the Kogan Law Group P.C. in New York. Readers’ views What’s Upstream educates public Regarding What’s Up- stream. People who no lon- ger live close to the land have difficulty learning how their food is produced. They need to know. Adver- tising is one way to share that information. The Swinomish bill- boards depict what is hap- pening across Washington state and the nation, not literally but symbolically. There are few cows wading in streams. Most milk cows live out their short lives in crowded barns and cor- rals walking in and sleep- ing on their own waste products. Managing the waste is such a big problem that Washington has a state run program for that purpose alone. And it is not work- ing. Make no mistake about it, every time we buy a quart of milk we pay for in- dustry approved billboards that show happy cows grazing on green grass. This is not reality. Crit- ics of the Swinomish out- reach do not argue with the truth in the message, only with how it was fund- ed. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CA- FOs) pollute the water- ways. There is simply too much manure. Fishing and shellfish harvest are agriculture, too. The rivers and the oceans feed the world. And they are in trouble, in part due to pollution from in- dustrial agriculture. The only river that ben- efits from suppressing this message is “De Nile.” Now a farmer in What- com or Skagit County does not store or over apply ma- nure with the intention of killing shellfish in Puget Sound or salmon in the wa- tersheds. He just wants to make a profit. How can the people who depend on the fisher- ies, and there are many, pro- tect their own livelihoods and thrive as well? One an- swer is to educate the pub- lic. Sure it hurts, but peo- ple need to know that there are consequences to our actions. Jean Mendoza White Swan, Wash. broadly stretches the common exercise of the authority. But in granting illegal immigrants temporary legal status and work permits, the president has exceeded his constitutional authority. The Constitution (Article 1, section 8) gives Congress sole power to “establish a uniform rule of naturalization.” Congress has enacted laws that outline the process for immigrants to be granted legal status in the United States, and the president cannot change that by fiat. “It’s as if the president is defining the policy and the Congress is executing it,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said. “That’s just upside down.” Exactly. Only Congress can change the law. The law should be changed to provide deserving illegal immigrants living and working in the United States who meet strict requirements a pathway to permanent residency. But, this is not the way. BLM Resource Management Plan fails Western Oregon By NICK SMITH For the Capital Press I t would be nice if groups could sit at the table with the Bureau of Land Man- agement and hammer out differences over future man- agement of Western Oregon’s O&C forests, as the Capital Press recently suggested. Unfortunately, that’s not how the agency operates these days, especially considering how the BLM developed its proposed Resource Manage- ment Plans over the past three years. With the agency pro- posing to lock up 75 percent of its forest lands from active management, it’s difficult to see how the BLM is achieving any level of balance. O&C mandate Unlike national forests, the O&C Act clearly requires the BLM to manage its Western Oregon lands for the benefit of host counties. For years the agency honored this unique mandate. Not only did this partnership support jobs and prosperity in our rural, for- ested communities, it enabled counties dominated by these federal lands to provide es- sential services to its citizens. Under this partnership, counties have also voluntari- ly contributed a portion of their timber receipts back to the lands, investing in proj- ects that help keep our forests healthy and accessible. A cinderblock Today, timber harvests on O&C lands have dropped over 80 percent, and timber receipt revenues are 35 percent of the historic average. Our forested communities suffer from high unemployment and poverty. County budgets, already cut to the bone, will now face tru- ly draconian reductions as the so-called “timber payment” program expires. Federal forest lands, espe- cially drier forests of South- west Oregon, are succumbing to catastrophic wildfire, which are also threatening adjacent private timberlands within the O&C checkerboard. Rather than providing our counties and communities a lifeline by following the law and honor- ing the principles of the exist- ing Northwest Forest Plan, the agency threw us a cinderblock. The proposed plan leaves just 19 percent of the land base for sustained yield timber pro- duction. A portion of the har- vest volume offered under the plan would come from light- touch thinning on its reserve land, which is not a sustain- Guest comment Nick Smith able source of timber over the long-term. Harvest reductions Even worse, the plan would reduce timber harvests in the southern and coastal BLM districts by 52 percent. If the plan is ever implement- ed, it will cost jobs where BLM forest ownership is highest, and further decimate the forest products infrastruc- ture where it’s most vulnera- ble. The plan will also offer no relief to threatened species like the spotted owl, whose population will continue to decline due to the barred owl and whose “critical habitat” will continue to be destroyed by stand-replacing fire. The new resource manage- ment plan falls short of the promises made to Oregonians under the Northwest Forest Plan. Regrettably, there’s no reason to believe the BLM will be any better at imple- menting this new plan. That’s because the plan doesn’t ad- dress any of the fundamental problems, including litiga- tion, appeals, and interagen- cy consultation, which have prevented the agency from implementing forest projects in the past. Counties ignored The counties, in particular, participated in good faith in the BLM’s planning process. Throughout 2015, many tried to convince the agency to of- fer planning alternatives that upheld federal law. Those ef- forts were repeatedly ignored, so it’s no surprise the coun- ties have no alternative but to challenge the BLM in court. This fiasco demonstrates, once again, why we need Congress to provide a permanent solu- tion for the management of O&C lands. Many of us recognize that we will never return to past harvest levels. But it’s possi- ble to honor the O&C Act and sustainably increase timber harvests while assuring rec- reational opportunities, clean water, wildlife habitat and oth- er values. It’s too bad the BLM never offered that chance. Nick Smith is executive director of Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities, a nonprofit, nonpartisan orga- nization that advocates active management of federal forest lands.