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CapitalPress.com
July 21, 2017
Editorials are written by or
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Capital Press Editorial Board.
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
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Opinion
Editorial Board
Editor & Publisher
Managing Editor
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion
O UR V IEW
Wetland banks make good business sense, sometimes
W
etland is near the top
of the list of four-letter
words for many farmers
and ranchers. Its mere mention can
strike terror in the heart of some
farmers who fi nd themselves at
the wrong end of a federal or state
regulation. Lawsuits over what is,
and isn’t, a wetland have found their
way to the highest court in the land.
In general, the less farmers
hear the word wetland, the
happier they are.
In recent years an innovative
concept has been developed
that allows some farmers to put
their wetlands to work. Wetlands
mitigation banks are simple
in concept. Farmers or other
landowners can set aside a “bank”
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Chronically fl ooded land along the Coweeman River near Kelso, Wash., is being
converted into wetlands that will yield “credits” for developers to buy to offset
wetlands lost to development.
of wetlands. When a developer,
county road department or
someone else needs to build on a
wetland somewhere else in that
same watershed, he can purchase
a wetland credit from the bank.
Credits, which are about an acre,
can cost anywhere from $150,000
to nearly $1 million, depending on
the watershed.
The bank owner then
guarantees the wetlands will be
protected.
The setup, which is used in
many states, is an example of
how a marketplace — in this case
buying and selling credits — can
preserve wetlands.
There are pluses and minuses
to wetland banks. The idea
that agricultural land would
be converted from production
to a non-productive wetlands
is disturbing. That’s why it’s
important that only appropriate
lands be used. In the case of a new
Organization responds
to vexing cattle market
O UR V IEW
Zinke asks key
questions about
Cascade-Siskiyou
monument
By JERRY EFFERTZ
For the Capital Press
I
I
Cascade
nterior Secretary Ryan Zinke played his
cards fairly close to the vest last weekend
when he visited the Cascade-Siskiyou
National Monument in Southern Oregon and
Northern California.
The original 53,000-acre monument was
created in 2000, but last year President Obama
added roughly 47,000 acres.
It’s one of 27 national monuments created in the
last two decades that are under review by the Trump
administration.
Zinke’s recommendation to the president
for potential changes to the Cascade-Siskiyou
monument’s boundaries is due Aug. 23. We’re
unlikely to fi nd out what that recommendation will be
until Zinke reports to the boss. He didn’t say while in Oregon.
But he did drop some hints.
Most intriguing of all: Zinke says he can’t fi nd anyone at the
Department of Interior willing to admit to having set the boundaries
of last year’s expansion, or who can explain how the decision was
reached.
That’s interesting. If the administrative state within the Interior
Department accepts that the biodiversity of the region is so unique that
it deserves special protections — and Zinke is willing to accept that — it
should be easy for them to explain their justifi cation. Why these 47,000 acres in
particular?
It’s an important question to ranchers who now fi nd their private land
encircled by the national monument, and who worry about their grazing allotments
on what was national forestland.
Critics of the monument say they’ve seen the economic damage caused by the
original designation, leading them to expect similar restrictions on grazing and logging
Associated Press
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke
within the expanded boundary — despite assurances to the contrary.
Zinke said any changes to the national monument
would be based on science — which areas contain
Cascade-Siskiyou National
watersheds, plants, animals, soils and geological
Area in
Monument expansion
detail
features that should be protected. He is also
Original
monument
boundary
examining how the boundaries affect traditional
Newly expanded boundary
economic uses, such as grazing and timber, as well
as recreational uses, including hiking, snowmobiling
K L A M AT H 140
Medford
JA C K S O N
238
and horseback riding. That makes sense.
Aspen
99
Lake
Those who opposed the expansion can take some
5
comfort in the fact that Zinke is a proponent of
Ashland
multiple-use of federal lands. That’s what supporters
N
of the expansion are afraid of.
66
10 miles
CASCADE-
They should not worry. The 47,000 acres added
SISKIYOU
NAT’L MON.
to the Cascade-Siskiyou were public lands before
Ore.
R
Ore.
Calif.
the expansion, and will remain public lands should
.
s
Calif.
Mtn
the boundaries be altered. They will enjoy the
Kl a m a
you
5
Siski
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
protections that have preserved them for more than a
century.
th
i ve
r
Range
Readers’ views
Congress should
support renewable
energy goals
As an elected offi cial, I
understand the challenges
(and the pressures) of com-
plex policymaking, where
we must represent diverse
interests and balance all
perspectives. But that’s
exactly why Oregonians
have asked us to do this
job. Sometimes, we must
examine the larger picture
to make the right decision,
whether it’s here at home or
in Washington, D.C.
One such topic is the
Renewable Fuels Standard
(RFS), a bipartisan policy
that promotes competition
at the gas pump from home-
grown biofuels, including
those produced right here
in the Beaver State. It has
and will continue to deliver
significant benefits to our
economy and environment
bank in southwest Washington, the
Columbia River had fl ooded the
land three times and it was a battle
just to keep it usable as pasture.
That prevented the owners from
converting the land to other
productive agricultural uses.
Other wetland banks have
been created by breaching dikes
that protect farmland. Such
conversions are unattractive to
us, since productive farmland is
already disappearing fast enough
without turning it into wetlands.
Under the right circumstances
— as is the case with land that is
chronically fl ooded — setting up
a wetland bank makes sense. But
otherwise, a wetland bank likely
won’t benefi t agriculture.
in Oregon and across the
United States.
While there’s no shortage
of opinions about the RFS,
there’s no debate that clean
fuels are helping to deliver
savings at the pump for con-
sumers. And because they
compete against foreign oil,
biofuels increase American
energy security.
I encourage Congress-
man Greg Walden and his
colleagues to recognize
that any legislative or reg-
ulatory changes to the RFS
would be disruptive to a
program that is currently
working. When so many
other policies are in flux,
consumers and American
businesses need to have a
stable energy sector. Please
reject pressures to under-
mine the RFS and protect
current renewable energy
goals.
Craig Pope
Polk County Commissioner
Monmouth Ore.
t hasn’t been smooth sail-
ing for the beef cattle in-
dustry over the past year.
For its part, the cattle market
has certainly been aggra-
vating. As a beef producer I
know the limitations of what
any of us at the ranch level
can do individually to fully
control profi tability and as-
sure that the bottom line has
more black ink on it than red.
Our industry organiza-
tions must not only be aware
of those limitations, but be
on the lookout for ways that
damaging outside infl uences
can be mitigated. Recently
the Federation of State Beef
Councils did just that, dip-
ping into its reserve funds to
support national and interna-
tional promotion programs
that would help increase de-
mand for beef.
The federation allocated
more than $1.2 million from
its reserve funds over the last
nine months for this effort.
These dollars come from state
beef council boards who vol-
untarily remit part of their half
of the $1-per-head beef check-
off to be used at the national
and international levels. State
board members recognize that
beef production states without
large population centers bene-
fi t from spending their check-
off dollars where most beef
consumers live.
The promotions were con-
ducted during a time of high
protein production that put sig-
nifi cant pressures on the cattle
market. One of the efforts was
a campaign conducted by the
National Cattlemen’s Beef
Association, a contractor to
the Beef Checkoff Program, to
drive nationwide sales of fresh
beef at retail.
That promotion is based
on a program called Ibotta, a
mobile shopping app with a
subscriber rate of 22 million
consumers, mostly millenni-
als. The partnership gave con-
sumers the chance to engage
with educational information
about beef and then unlock a
small cash-back rebate for any
ground beef product at any
store, nationwide. The Beef
Checkoff Program paid for the
rebates of verifi ed sales.
Results from the effort
signifi cantly surpassed stan-
dard Ibotta campaigns. The
redemption rate for ground
beef was nearly 40 percent;
the average Ibotta redemp-
tion rate is 23 percent. More
than 1.45 million consumers
unlocked the beef rebate and
Guest
comment
Jerry Effertz
saw beef content, such as vid-
eos, recipes and messages, and
more than 576,000 redeemed
the rebates. In just four weeks
more than 631,000 pounds of
ground beef were sold.
Many state beef councils
contributed additional fund-
ing to promote the campaign
to consumers in their markets.
They helped drive traffi c to
the app and create broader vis-
ibility for beef. The total value
of the Ibotta campaign is es-
timated to be more than $4.4
million.
But that’s only half of
it. International promotion
funded through the feder-
ation allocation and con-
ducted by the U.S. Meat
Export Federation, another
checkoff contractor, helped
move more than a million
incremental pounds of beef
in Japan and Korea. Among
the efforts was a push to
have chilled U.S. beef re-
place Australian beef at all
Costco outlets in Korea —
which came to full fruition
in May 2017. This was ac-
complished through USMEF
trainings, sampling demon-
strations, regular visits and
meetings to build relation-
ships, and more. It means an
incremental increase of over
33 million pounds, which
will increase the total U.S.
market share in Korea by
about 3-4 percent.
These results are grati-
fying, but obviously only a
small portion of what the state
and national checkoff-funded
partnership does daily to help
increase consumer acceptance
of and demand for beef in the
United States and abroad. I’m
proud of the work my fellow
beef producer volunteer lead-
ers have done to oversee these
kinds of efforts, and the staffs
that carry out the programs.
And I’m especially proud of
all cattle producers who make
this work possible through
their $1-per-head checkoff
investments.
Jerry Effertz is a
third-generation cattle
producer who with his
wife, Norma, operates
Black Butte Acres Limousin
Ranch, raising seedstock
cattle and backgrounding
feeder calves near Velva,
N.D. He is chairman of the
Federation of State Beef
Councils.
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