3A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2017
Governor went to Final Four on campaign’s dime
Cost of security
detail paid by
state taxpayers
By CLAIRE
WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Gov. Kate
Brown was there when the
University of Oregon men’s
basketball team lost its NCAA
Final Four match against the
University of North Carolina
by one point.
Brown left an event at the
Oregon Veterans’ Home in
Lebanon Friday afternoon in
order to catch her fl ight to the
game, which was held Satur-
day in Glendale, Arizona.
According to the Gov-
ernor’s Offi ce, the trip was
paid for by the governor’s
campaign.
A spokesman for the gov-
ernor referred questions about
the governor’s attendance to
her campaign, and questions
about the costs of having her
security detail travel with her to
the Oregon State Police, which
employs the governor’s digni-
tary protection unit.
Thomas Wheatley, Brown’s
campaign manager, said the
campaign paid for all costs —
including airfare, lodging and
tickets — for the trip, except
for the costs for the secu-
rity team, which is “standard
protocol. ”
Brown traveled with her
husband and a staff member.
The campaign paid for their
travel as well, Wheatley said in
an email.
Wheatley said Brown is a
“big fan” of the Oregon Ducks
and other Oregon college
sports teams and wanted to
“support Oregon’s team.”
The governor did not accept
any gifts as part of the trip.
“I am so proud of my
Ducks,” Brown told KOIN
news in an interview posted
to the station’s YouTube chan-
nel Saturday night. “They did
an amazing job tonight. They
are an incredible team, and I
just love watching them, and
Oregon should be proud of our
Oregon Ducks tonight.”
Oregon State Police did
not answer inquiries by dead-
line about costs associated with
sending her security detail to
the game.
Running the dignitary pro-
tection unit at its current size
— seven full-time employees
and 16 seasonal positions — is
expected to cost the state’s gen-
eral fund about $2.5 million
in the upcoming budget cycle,
according to the Legislative
Fiscal Offi ce.
This year marks the fi rst
time the University of Oregon’s
team made it to the Final Four
since 1939, when the NCAA
tournament started. That year
the team — known as the “Tall
Firs” — won the tournament.
In contrast, Oregon’s oppo-
nent, the University of North
Carolina, makes it to the fi nal
rounds of the NCAA tourna-
ment almost as a matter of rou-
tine, and has won the cham-
pionship fi ve times — most
recently in 2009.
North Carolina Gov. Roy
Cooper is a fellow Democrat,
and an apparent college basket-
ball fan. He posed for a photo
with his NCAA bracket in
March and posted it to Twitter.
However, Cooper did
not attend Saturday’s game,
according to his press offi ce.
The Capital Bureau is a col-
laboration between EO Media
Group and Pamplin Media
Group.
Battle: ‘We saw the writing on the wall. The end was near’
Continued from Page 1A
Cascade-Siskiyou National
Monument expansion
“We knew the footprint
wasn’t as large as the scien-
tists had hoped for,” said Terry
Dickey, board chairman of the
Friends of the Cascade-Sis-
kiyou National Monument,
which promotes and advo-
cates for the monument.
Original monument boundary
Newly expanded boundary
JA C K S O N
99
140
K LA M ATH
Aspen
Lake
5
Range
“The bottom line was we
saw the writing on the wall.
The end was near,” Dauen-
hauer said. “We fi gured any-
thing was better than noth-
ing, and the BLM was going
to give us nothing.”
Dauenhauer said he’s skep-
tical of the study’s objectivity
and believes the outcome was
largely predetermined.
In his view, the biologi-
cal diversity of the area was
retained through more than
100 years of grazing by cat-
tle, which have an impact on
the land similar to that of deer
and elk.
“I think the cows are part
of the biological diversity.
I don’t think they hurt it in
any respect as long as they’re
managed correctly,” Dauen-
hauer said.
When the monument was
fi rst established, Bradshaw
felt as though he’d largely
dodged a bullet — fewer than
30 acres of his BLM grazing
allotment were included.
Now, roughly half of Brad-
shaw’s 10,000-acre BLM
allotment is encompassed by
the monument.
If grazing is eventually
restricted on that allotment, he
could still graze cattle on pri-
vate land and a national forest
allotment.
However, losing the BLM
acreage would disrupt the
Cascade
‘Writing on the wall’
Medford
238
Ashland
66
10 miles
Ore.
Siski
you
M
.
tns
continual availability of for-
age through the seasons,
potentially rendering his cat-
tle operation economically
unsustainable.
“We won’t be able to use
our rotational grazing sys-
tem,” Bradshaw said. “We
would lose half our grazing
season.”
Timber impacts
For the Murphy Co., which
owns forestland and plywood
mills, the impacts of the mon-
ument’s growth are two fold.
Up to half the company’s
timber volume comes from
federal land during some sea-
sons, so the expansion equates
to a loss of raw material in the
long term, said Jake Groves,
its operations director.
“It’s wood out of the wood
basket,” Groves said. “It’s just
been a constant erosion of the
available land base, from our
perspective.”
Mills are geographically
limited in sourcing timber,
as some logs are too distant
to transport economically, he
said.
Logs from the Southern
Oregon region are peeled at
the fi rm’s facility in White
City for raw veneer, which
is used in plywood and engi-
neered wood at its other
plants.
In all, the company
employs nearly 800 people
and invests in state-of-the art
technology to process logs
effi ciently, but none of that
equipment can operate with-
out wood, Groves said. “This
stuff can’t make veneer out of
air.”
Aside from the timber sup-
ply, the monument expansion
affects Murphy’s private for-
ests in the region, he said.
Of the nearly 50,000 acres
owned by the company in
Southern Oregon, roughly
4,000 acres are surrounded by
the monument or are adjacent
to it.
Groves is concerned about
overstocked federal forests
fueling wildfi res that will
spread onto Murphy’s prop-
erty, as well as the public out-
cry in reaction to logging near
the monument.
Visitors often don’t real-
ize that private inholdings are
within its boundaries, he said.
“It changes the social
license. The fi rst time peo-
ple see logging trucks roll-
ing through the monument,
questions get asked,” Groves
said. “I don’t have unlimited
hours in the day to explain our
actions.”
Proponents of the monu-
ment say it’s economically
benefi cial, bringing in hunt-
ers, fi shermen, snow-shoers,
hikers and others.
“There’s a huge amount
of tourism-related revenue
coming into this area,” said
Dickey of the Friends of the
Cascade-Siskiyou National
Monument.
The monument is also
valuable for university sci-
entists and students who
research its bountiful ani-
mal and plant life, he said.
“It’s really great to be able to
use the monument as a back-
ground for teaching environ-
mental education.”
Lawsuits fi led
For the Murphy Co.,
though, the economic threat
is big enough to justify fi ling
a lawsuit that asks a federal
judge to declare the expansion
unlawful.
Other cases have been
fi led by the American For-
est Resources Council, which
represents timber interests,
and the Association of O&C
Counties, which represents
counties that depend on reve-
nue from federal timber sales.
The three complaints
rely on the same basic the-
ory: A majority of the new
monument acreage consists
of so-called O&C Lands,
which the federal government
has dedicated to sustained
timber production.
By effectively banning
most logging on those O&C
Lands, the monument expan-
sion was unlawful, the law-
suits claim.
Several
environmental
groups have intervened as
defendants in the lawsuit fi led
by Murphy Lumber, argu-
ing their interests “may not
be adequately represented
by the existing parties to the
litigation.”
As reasons for their inter-
vention, the environmental-
ists cite “the federal govern-
ment’s frequent reluctance to
adequately protect the O&C
lands” and the governmen-
tal transition to a “president
and federal agency leadership
who did not participate in the
review and expansion.”
Environmentalists are also
seeking intervenor status in
the case fi led by the Associa-
tion of O&C Counties.
Based on history, it’s not
likely the Trump adminis-
tration would overrule the
environmental
intervenors
to reach a settlement scaling
back the monument’s size,
said Karen Budd-Falen, the
natural resources attorney.
“They can do that, but it
doesn’t happen very much,”
she said. “It’s really rare.”
The U.S. Interior Depart-
ment, which oversees the
BLM and the national monu-
ment, is now headed by Ryan
Zinke, a former Montana con-
gressman who supports multi-
ple use of public lands, Budd-
Falen said.
However, it’s still too early
to tell how much sway the
Interior Department will have
in these cases, compared to
the infl uence of the U.S. Jus-
tice Department, she said.
“I just don’t know how the
Featuring boys and girls
high school teams
from throughout the
Columbia-Pacifi c region
Calif.
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Obama’s impact
Jake Groves, operations director for the Murphy Co., examines a forest stand near the
Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Public forestland on which the company depends
for timber were recently included in the monument’s expansion.
Ore.
Kl a m a
5
new administration will han-
dle it,” Budd-Falen said.
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
R
th
Calif.
r
CASCADE-
SISKIYOU
NAT’L MON.
ive
N
Battle looms
This time, though, the tim-
ber industry and county gov-
ernments are spearheading a
legal battle against the mon-
ument expansion, arguing the
federal government lacks the
authority to restrict logging on
much of the newly included
property.
If the litigation proves suc-
cessful in scaling back the
monument’s size, it would
also effectively thwart poten-
tial restrictions on cattle
grazing.
Although inclusion in the
monument doesn’t automat-
ically prohibit grazing — as
it does most commercial log-
ging — critics say ranchers
will inevitably face increased
scrutiny and curtailments.
“Even though the language
of the proclamation says graz-
ing can continue, they just
regulate you out of business,”
said Karen Budd-Falen, an
attorney specializing in public
land disputes.
Under the original Cas-
cade-Siskiyou National Mon-
ument proclamation issued
by President Bill Clinton, the
U.S. Bureau of Land Manage-
ment had to analyze whether
grazing interferes with “pro-
tecting the objects of biolog-
ical interest.”
If necessary, the agency
was ordered to retire
allotments.
In 2008, the study found
“negative
interactions
between livestock and indi-
vidual biological objects of
interest,” meaning that graz-
ing was “not compatible”
with their protection in some
locations.
This determination con-
vinced Mike Dauenhauer
and several other ranchers
to sell their grazing rights to
environmental groups for an
undisclosed amount.
Area in
detail
The
Cascade-Siskiyou
National Monument is one of
several designations made by
the Obama administration that
have stirred controversy, said
Ethan Lane, executive direc-
tor of the Public Lands Coun-
cil, which advocates for cattle
grazing.
“It certainly has been on
our radar,” he said.
Altogether, the Obama
administration used the Antiq-
uities Act to establish or
expand more than 30 national
monuments totaling 550 mil-
lion acres of land and water,
Lane said.
The massive scope of
Obama’s designations has
prompted calls for Trump to
shrink monument boundaries,
he said.
Theoretically, Trump could
decrease the size of these mon-
uments as swiftly as Obama
increased them, Lane said.
“There’s no red tape or analy-
sis or box-checking required.”
However, the overly lib-
eral use of the Antiquities Act
— which allows a president to
declare national monuments
on public land and restrict its
uses — has also compelled
demands to reform the statute,
he said.
“It’s been turned from a
tool for protection into a large
land-planning tool, and that’s
just not what was intended,”
said Lane.
For example, Sen. Lisa
Murkowski, R-Alaska, has
introduced a bill that would
require Congress to approve
a national monument designa-
tion, in addition to the gover-
nor and legislature of the state
it’s in.
That language, or simi-
lar provisions, could also be
rolled into a broader pack-
age of legislation, Lane said.
“There are a lot of resource
issues that need attention.”
Environmental groups that
support the Cascade-Siski-
you National Monument see
some of the hardships claimed
by the ranching and timber
industries as overstated.
The Soda Mountain Wil-
derness Council used private
funds to purchase grazing
leases in several allotments
from willing ranchers, said
Dave Willis, the organiza-
tion’s chairman.
Ranchers who refused
the buyouts have continued
grazing cattle on some allot-
ments — such as Dixie and
Buck Mountain — that failed
to meet several grazing stan-
dards set by BLM to improve
rangeland health, he said in an
email.
Forest management isn’t
entirely banned within the
monument, as the proc-
lamation
allows
timber
harvest that’s part of an
“authorized
science-based
ecological restoration proj-
ect,” Willis said, citing the
monument proclamation.
Much of the O&C Lands
within the expanded bound-
ary are classifi ed as “late-suc-
cessional” and “riparian”
reserves, or have reforestation
problems, he said. “The eco-
logical benefi ts of protecting
these relatively very few acres
exceed their commercial tim-
ber volume value.”
Science has also shown
that wildfi res are less severe
in protected forests than those
that are commercially logged,
Willis maintained. “If any-
thing, it is the fi re hazard on
private, logged-over land that
endangers protected public
forests.”
W A NTED
Alder and Maple Saw Logs & Standing Timber
N orth w es t H a rdw oods • Lon gview , W A
Contact: John Anderson • 360-269-2500
29
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