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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2016
Conservatives seek an ally in
Trump in Western land disputes
By JOHN FLESHER
and BRADY McCOMBS
Associated Press
E.J. Harris/EO Media Group
Robin Harris of Mission found this cat, Cleo, in her hay
barn in Pendleton last weekend and called the number
on her tags to find the owners. It turns out the 7-month
old kitten was wandering for the last two weeks after its
family lost the cat during a wreck in Interstate 84 near
Harris’ house.
A long way
back home
Kitten survives
wreck and two
weeks alone
By KATHY ANEY
EO Media Group
PENDLETON — A cat
named Cleo will reunite with
her family after a car wreck
and days of wandering unfa-
miliar country.
The saga started Nov. 28
when a tire blew on Amanda
Egan’s van. Egan was in the
process of moving from Utah
to Washington and drove on
Interstate 84 about a mile
east of the Wildhorse Resort
& Casino. Her husband
Shane was ahead of her in a
Ford Tempo. He had pulled
off at exit 216 to gas up and
was waiting for her. Amanda
had the couple’s three young
daughters and the family’s
pets — Cleo, a seven-month-
old kitten, and a black Chi-
huahua-pug mix named Irene.
“The van started to shake.
The tire on the driver’s side
blew apart,” Egan said. “I
tried to move to the side, but
we swerved and rolled over
and landed on the top.”
Egan believes she may
have passed out for a short
time. When she swam back to
consciousness, she heard Eli-
nor, 5, Molly, 3, and Adeline,
1, screaming in fright.
Amazingly, all were fine,
except for scratches and
bruises. A police officer at
the scene asked if anyone else
was in the car and Amanda
instantly remembered the
animals. Both had vanished.
Soon came the discovery that
the dog had run into traffic
and been killed. No one could
find Cleo.
Egan felt anguished as she
assessed the kitten’s chances
of survival. The family stayed
in Pendleton three days to
regroup. After renting a trailer
and searching unsuccessfully
again for the cat, they finally
set off with heavy hearts for
their new home in Belling-
ham, Washington.
That was that. The girls
cried for several nights, but
life went on.
“Oh, my gosh,” she
said to Harris. “You found
her?”
The girls, she said, had
been missing their ani-
mals. Molly had slept each
night since the accident
with two stuffed animals
she had gotten from the
EMTs the day of the wreck
— she’d named them both
Cleo. After the call, Egan
quickly shared the good
news with her daughters.
“They were so excited
when I told then Cleo had
shown up,” Egan said.
“Their mouths were wide
open.”
Harris, who serves as
a board member for the
Pendleton Animal Wel-
fare Shelter (PAWS), is
working out a way to get
Cleo back to her family.
Unless she can find some-
one who is heading to the
Seattle area soon, on Sat-
urday, PAWS board mem-
ber Cindy Spiess will
likely add Cleo to a group
of animals she is transport-
ing to Portland and meet
the Egans somewhere for
a transfer.
Harris will have a hard
time saying goodbye. Cleo
won her heart and was
quickly upgraded from the
barn.
“She’s living in the
house now,” Harris said.
Harris said she sees the
kitten’s survival as a mar-
vel considering the cold
and the coyotes.
“I don’t know how she
survived for two weeks
with the temperatures
we’ve had,” Harris said,
“and I saw two coyotes
just recently.”
Harris gave kudos to
the Egans for placing a tag
on Cleo with contact infor-
mation. Even better, she
said, would be a micro-
chip that contains informa-
tion that can be accessed at
most veterinarians and ani-
mal shelters.
Cleo will head home
soon as can be arranged. For
those heading to the Seattle
area and willing to transport
the kitten, Harris urged them
to email PAWS at paw-
spendleton@gmail.com.
SALT LAKE CITY —
Conservatives who have long
complained about the govern-
ment’s control of vast West-
ern lands hope they will have a
new ally in Donald Trump, who
has sent mixed signals about
how he might manage land and
whether he would relinquish
federal authority over millions
of acres.
The president-elect has
pledged to honor Theodore
Roosevelt’s tradition of con-
servation in the West, with
its expansive deserts, snow-
capped mountain ranges and
red rock canyons. But he has
also said he will “unleash”
energy production there and has
railed against “faceless, name-
less bureaucrats” in land-man-
agement agencies.
Dozens of demands for
land handovers have surfaced
in Western state legislatures in
recent years, and more are sure
to be offered in Congress during
the Trump administration.
“Those who are champion-
ing these issues certainly see
this as a rare opportunity,” said
Karla Jones, director of a task
force for the American Leg-
islative Exchange Council, a
Washington-based organization
that develops bills for conserva-
tive lawmakers.
On Tuesday, Trump offered
the post of interior secretary, the
nation’s top custodian of public
lands, to Republican Rep. Ryan
Zinke of Montana, who has not
said whether he will accept.
The retired Navy SEAL insists
that he does not favor relin-
quishing federal control of the
land, as Democrats allege.
Western states
Twelve Western states con-
tain more than half of the
nation’s 640 million acres of
federal public lands. Those
lands comprise more than 60
percent of Alaska, Idaho and
Utah.
Resentment of government
control has simmered across
the West for decades, occasion-
ally boiling over into show-
downs such as the armed take-
over of the Malheur National
Wildlife Refuge headquarters
in Oregon last winter.
Only a few extremists resort
to such tactics. Yet the frus-
tration is evident in countless
protests, resolutions and bills
demanding a greater say for
local residents or seeking the
sale of millions of acres to pri-
vate buyers.
Many conservatives accuse
federal managers of putting
more value on endangered
wildlife than on people and
jobs. Trump’s election raises
hopes for more oil and gas drill-
ing, mining, grazing and timber
harvesting.
How far the Trump admin-
istration will go is unclear. But
those who have long dreamed
of overthrowing a system they
consider tantamount to colo-
nialism say the time is now.
“The founding fathers,
when they drafted the Constitu-
tion, never intended for the fed-
eral government to own land
like this,” said Kirk Chandler,
AP Photo/Don Ryan
A large fir tree heads to the forest floor after it is cut by an unidentified logger in the
Umpqua National Forest near Oakridge. For conservatives who have long believed fed-
eral managers of America’s vast public lands put more value on endangered owls than
people and jobs, Donald Trump’s election raises hopes for significant increases in oil
and gas drilling, mining, grazing, timber harvesting and perhaps even a shift of control
to state or local governments.
AP Photo/Keith Ridler
Demonstrators gather near a national wildlife refuge to pro-
test against a group occupying the land near in Burns in
January. For conservatives who have long believed federal
managers of America’s vast public lands put more value
on endangered owls than people and jobs, Donald Trump’s
election raises hopes for significant increases in oil and
gas drilling, mining, grazing, timber harvesting and per-
haps even a shift of control to state or local governments.
a rancher and county commis-
sioner from Weiser, Idaho. “It’s
supposed to be the people’s
land.”
Gearing up
Environmentalists
and
their supporters in Congress
are gearing up for a fight, say-
ing strong federal regulation
is needed to protect water and
wildlife habitat.
“Any admin that tries to
reverse 100-year history of
#PublicLands that belong to
every American is going to
have to do it over my dead
body,” Sen. Martin Heinrich
tweeted after Trump’s election.
The Democrat from New
Mexico later told The Associ-
ated Press that cash-strapped
states would probably sell at
least some lands to help cover
fire suppression and other man-
agement costs. “No trespass-
ing” signs would pop up in
places where public access has
been taken for granted, he said,
raising the ire of outdoor sports
enthusiasts.
“I think you will see a real
populist uprising when you
start taking away access to peo-
ple’s local fishing hole,” Hein-
rich said.
Local control
control seethed as the Obama
administration created or
expanded more than two dozen
national monuments that pro-
tected hundreds of millions of
acres, imposed a moratorium
on new coal production and
canceled dozens of oil and gas
leases.
Despite their shared pref-
erence for local control, activ-
ists do not have a single plan
for accomplishing it. Much
will depend on Trump, who
told Field & Stream maga-
zine in January that he opposed
transferring federal lands to the
states.
“I don’t like the idea because
I want to keep the lands great,
and you don’t know what the
state is going to do,” Trump
said. “I mean, are they going to
sell if they get into a little bit of
trouble?”
Yet he endorsed state con-
trol in a guest column for a
Nevada newspaper, a posi-
tion the Republican plat-
form strongly backs. A transi-
tion team spokesman did not
return email messages seeking
comment.
Zinke, Trump’s choice for
interior secretary, has walked
a tightrope in Montana, where
opinions about federal domin-
ion are more divided than in
some Western states.
During his re-election cam-
paign, Democrats accused him
of signing a pledge in 2012
declaring Montana’s lands as
sovereign and not subject to
federal control. He said he did
not remember doing so and
resigned as a GOP convention
delegate over the platform’s
stance. Yet he has criticized
federal land management and
voted for demonstration proj-
ects allowing states to manage
portions of national forests.
Republican Rep. Diane
Black of Tennessee plans to
re-introduce a measure from
last year that would autho-
rize states to administer energy
leasing and permitting on fed-
eral lands. The previous version
of the bill was never called for
a vote.
Transfer of acres
Another bill that could be
offered again would allow the
transfer of 2 million acres of
national forests to the states.
Rep. Mark Amodei, a Nevada
Republican, has sought to
reduce the portion of land under
federal control in his state from
more than 80 percent to about
75 percent.
Skeptics consider federal
land transfer a fringe issue, and
industry groups tend to avoid
it. The National Mining Asso-
ciation has no formal position,
focusing instead on specific
battles such as a government
proposal to ban mineral devel-
opment on 10 million acres
to protect the imperiled sage
grouse.
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Big surprise
Then, two weeks after the
accident, the family got a sur-
prise phone call from Robin
Harris, who lives about a mile
north of the accident site.
“I have this gray cat,” Har-
ris said. “Her name is Cleo.”
Harris explained she had
seen a blur of motion in her
hay barn and spotted the kit-
ten scampering up into the
rafters. At first, she thought
the cat was wild or had been
dumped, then Harris noticed
the cat wore a polka-dotted
collar with bright pink tags.
She climbed up a stack of hay
to get a closer look at the tags
and found the name Cleo and
a phone number. The kitten
snuggled into Harris’ arms.
Egan greeted the news
with both exhilaration and
incredulity.
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