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About Capital press. (Salem, OR) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 2019)
6 CapitalPress.com Friday, November 1, 2019 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 Editor & Publisher Managing Editor Joe Beach Carl Sampson opinions@capitalpress.com | CapitalPress.com/opinion Our View Bipartisan hope emerging on climate change J NPS An elk with a radio collar. I Don’t destroy wildlife collar data n 2017, U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill or- dered the Idaho Department of Fish and Wild- life to destroy data collected from wolf and elk collars that he determined were attached unlawfully to animals inside a national wilderness area. We think destroying data that does no harm to the animals is an overreach that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should overturn. In 2017, Winmill ruled that a U.S. Forest Ser- vice permit allowing Idaho officials to use helicop- ters to collar elk inside the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness had been authorized contrary to federal environmental and wilderness laws. But that was more than a year after the animals had been collared. Three environmental groups — Wilderness Watch, Friends of the Clearwater and Western Watersheds Project — sought an injunction against the project, but it was completed before any court hearings could be held. Initially, IDFG wanted to tranquilize and collar wolves and elk in the course of more than 1,000 heli- copter landings over 10 years to confirm their suspi- cions that elk populations in the wilderness area were plummeting due to predation by wolves. However, the agency kept scaling back the project until it required only 120 helicopter landings to col- lar 60 elk — and no wolves — over two days in Jan- uary 2016. Though the permit issued by the Forest Service only allowed elk to be collared, an IDFG crew leader “wrongly assumed” that “opportunistic collaring of wolves” would be in line with the agency’s “common practice” during past helicopter flights. The judge ruled that the Forest Service circum- vented a National Environmental Policy Act require- ment to analyze long-term effects of the helicopter expeditions. The federal government allowed IDFG “to get away with slicing its long-term helicopter col- laring project into a one-year sliver of a project to mitigate the cumulative impacts,” he said. The Forest Service couldn’t make an informed decision about the “necessity” of collaring because IDFG had divided its project “into a smaller proposal that hid the true nature of the impacts,” which also violated the Wilderness Act, Winmill said. Since the helicopter flights have stopped and the animals are already collared, Winmill ruled that the only remedy to address the harm is the destruction of the data that has been collected. In seeking to overturn Winmill’s injunction, agency officials last week argued that Idaho has a sovereign interest in managing its wildlife and once the helicopter flights had ended, the National Envi- ronmental Policy Act doesn’t control the state’s abil- ity to collect and possess the collar data, according to the state agency. State officials acted in good faith, and were operat- ing under what was at the time a lawful permit issued by the controlling authority. At issue in the original complaint was the Forest Service’s alleged violations, not the state’s actions. Wildlife advocates claim the data put three wolf packs at risk. That assumes a predetermined outcome from the use of that data when it is a tool that can be used for effective management. READERS’ VIEW A wolf in sheep’s clothing? Land O’ Lakes CEO Beth Ford has recently acknowl- edged in a “60 Minutes” interview that many of her co-op member owners are at risk of losing their farms. Ford admits: “I think there used to be 92,000 dairy producers in the country and now the last — the number I saw was in the 50,000 level, so 40% reduction.” Ford blames recent weather and tariffs for the damage to her co-op members. Ford, like all co-op man- agement, should look in the mirror and to the manage- ment of her own co-op as the reason for the loss in her dairy farmer members. Land O’ Lakes is a dairy farmer member-owned co-op with a reported 1,851 member dairy farmers as of 2018. Dairy Farmers Of Amer- ica (DFA) is the largest dairy farmer member owned co-op in the U.S. which grew milk production by 2.5 billion pounds while losing 532 member dairy farms, all in 2018. (Hoard’s Dairyman, Oct. 10 issue) All in the dairy indus- try, including co-op manage- ment, make more money the more milk that is made — except the dairy farmer milk maker, who loses money the more milk that is made in excess of profitable demand for the milk. Existing co-op man- agement have dairy farmer members competing with each other to make the max- imum quantity of the low- est cost milk possible, yield- ing a member milk price less than most members’ cost to make the milk. Existing U.S. dairy farm- ers need to change their existing co-op manage- ment personnel and/or poli- cies and adopt the National Dairy Producers Organiza- tion’s co-op management policies, which precludes the use of non-member milk and imported dairy ingredi- ents and requires all co-op members to share in a pro- rata, across-the-board, pro- portional milk reduction as required to continu- ously balance their co-op’s milk intake with profitable demand for member milk yielding a profitable milk price from the marketplace for most co-op dairy farmer members and thereby pre- serve as many co-op mem- bers and U.S. family dairy farmers as possible. If dairy farmers prop- erly manage the milk they make and their co-ops, and comply with basic, univer- sal supply/demand market- place economics, most U.S. existing family dairy farms can receive a profitable milk price from the marketplace and survive. To learn more, contact Mike Eby, NDPO chairman, at (717) 799-0057, mikee@ ndpo.us, or like us on Face- book-National Dairy Pro- ducers Organization, or www.nationaldairyproducer- sorganization.com Bob Krucker Dairy Farmer Jerome, Idaho Saving the sage-grouse By the Oregon Depart- ment of Fish and Wildlife’s most recent estimate, Ore- gon’s sage-grouse popu- lation has dropped 37% since 2003. As a sagebrush steppe indicator species, the grouse’s sharp decline means that all of the fish and wildlife in our sagebrush steppe are also at risk. When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined, in 2010, that sage grouse warranted Endangered Spe- cies Act protection, ONDA joined dozens of organiza- tions and people working to avoid a listing. After years of meetings West-wide, the Bureau of Land Man- agement’s 2015 plan out- lined a strategy for improv- ing essential sage-grouse habitat, including provi- sions for 13 Research Natu- ral Areas in eastern Oregon for sage-grouse conservation and management research. This year, a Trump adminis- tration amendment blocked the agency from conducting that research — undermin- ing their ability to gain a sci- ence-based understanding of how land management affects sagebrush habitat and deploy effective adaptive management techniques. As Capital Press recently reported, Oregon Natural Desert Association and fel- low conservation groups filed a legal challenge against that change to Ore- gon’s 2015 sage-grouse plan. ONDA hopes this action will allow the BLM to implement robust, sci- ence-based management — as envisioned by the stake- holders who collaboratively developed the 2015 sage- grouse plan. While it was imperfect, all parties involved sup- ported the 2015 plan. Unfor- tunately, this administra- tion never gave that plan a chance to work and Ore- gon’s sage-grouse num- bers are falling. By ask- ing the courts to restore this key piece of a collabora- tively-built plan, we’re hop- ing to give sagebrush steppe wildlife a chance to survive. Jeremy Austin Oregon Natural Desert Association Bend, Ore. ohn Newton, chief economist of the American Farm Bureau recently wrote: “Agriculture will con- tinue to play an import- ant role in helping the world adapt to and miti- gate climate change, but U.S. farmers and ranch- ers can’t do it alone: partners are needed to help balance economic sustainability with envi- ronmental sustainabil- ity.” (“Farmers miti- gating climate change; partners needed,” Capital Press, Sept. 4). We couldn’t agree more. As impeachment pro- ceedings ratchet up the partisan tension in Washington, there’s still hope that progress can be made on the press- ing problems of the day. It appears Republicans and Democrats are com- ing together on one issue that seemed intracta- ble not long ago: climate change. In the Senate, Repub- lican Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana is teaming up with Maryland Demo- crat Chris Coons to form a bipartisan climate solu- tions group. The Senate group complements the bipar- tisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the House that was established in 2016. It became a judg- ment-free zone where members of both parties could come together for serious discussions about solving climate change. Today, there are myriad bipartisan climate bills in the House, thanks in no small part to the col- laborative atmosphere the caucus created. A bipartisan approach to solving climate change is essential, because passing legisla- tion requires buy-in from both sides of the aisle. Regardless of which party controls the Senate and White House, politi- cal winds shift, and pol- icies with broad sup- port will withstand those shifts. Republicans and Democrats are seeking common ground on cli- mate change because public opinion has reached a tipping point that cannot be ignored. A CBS News poll last month found two-thirds of Americans view cli- mate change as a crisis or serious problem, and a majority want immedi- ate action. Overwhelming majorities of younger GOP voters regard cli- mate change as a seri- ous threat, too: 77% of them said so in a survey by Ipsos and Newsy this fall. It’s not just polling motivating Congress — it’s citizens. Volun- teers with Citizens’ Cli- mate Lobby are carrying a clear message to their representatives: “Make climate a bridge issue, not a wedge issue.” CCL volunteers have held 1,131 meetings with congressional offices so far this year to bring the parties together on cli- mate change. Now that we have Republicans and Dem- ocrats talking to each other about climate solu- tions, what major cli- mate legislation will they support together? A price on carbon offers promising com- mon ground. Thousands of U.S. economists sup- port carbon pricing as an GUEST VIEW Mark Reynolds Alex Amonette effective tool to reduce emissions quickly. Newsweek recently sur- veyed 300 multinational corporations and found that 95% favor man- datory carbon pricing. And according to Luntz Global, carbon pricing that includes a revenue return to Americans, has 4-to-1 support among all voters. This year, four carbon pricing bills have been introduced with biparti- san sponsorship. Of the four, the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act (H.R. 763) has attracted the most support, with 66 House members now signed on, includ- ing Republican Francis Rooney of Florida. This legislation would initiate a fee of $15 per metric ton of carbon, rising by $10 per ton each year. All revenue would be paid out equally to every household. In 10 years, a family of four would receive an annual “carbon dividend” of about $3,500. Resources for the Future estimates this policy would reduce carbon emissions 47% by 2030. The bill tar- gets 90% reductions by 2050. John also said: “Inno- vation is key to advance the preservation of our natural resources.” And, that is one of the main purposes of this bill — energy innovation. Although this bill is focused on fossil-fuel emissions — it does not cover things like meth- ane from livestock and manure and nitrous oxide from farming operations — by reducing green- house gas emissions, it does help farmers and ranchers to preserve our natural resources. The bill states that “non-fos- sil fuel emissions that occur on a farm” are not subject to the carbon fee. Agricultural fuel-gen- erated emissions account for less than 1% of our total emissions (see https://climate.nasa.gov/ causes/). In California, Oregon and Washington alone, 16 local governments and 55 businesses have already endorsed the bill, along with hundreds of faith leaders, churches and nonprofits. That sup- port, here and through- out the country, sends a signal to Republican lawmakers that backing H.R. 763 can be a politi- cally astute move. Despite the current hyper-partisan atmo- sphere, elected officials are realizing that climate change is one area where differences must be set aside for the good of our nation and the world. Not only are they realiz- ing it, but they’re start- ing to act on it. Mark Reynolds is executive director of Cit- izens’ Climate Lobby. Alex Amonette raises vegetables and hay in Big Timber, Mont., and volunteers with Citizens’ Climate Lobby.