VIEWPOINTS
Saturday, January 16, 2016
East Oregonian
Page 5A
Owning land, Henry VIII and the West
Quick takes
Highway 395 revamp
By TOM GAGNON
Need better street lights on 395, Elm,
11th, Highland and Hermiston Ave. would
help.
W
ith recent efforts
to convey federal
public lands to state
or private ownership, it is good
to review just what private and
public lands are, what rights
people have on these lands, and
to think about how your access
rights to huge areas of the West
could change.
%ut ¿rst we have to go
back a couple of years. Henry
VIII was not only the world’s
worst husband, he was also
one of the ¿rst realtors. He was
so ambitious that he makes
Donald Trump seem humble.
Henry built the Royal Navy,
he led wars against France and
the Pope, he had Catholics to
burn, and he had church lands
and buildings to con¿scate. To
do all these things he needed
money, lots and lots of money.
His way of getting it was to sell
real estate. But just what would
a buyer be getting?
He would be getting ¿ve
rights. These rights were:
The Right of Possession, The
Right of Control, The Right
of Enjoyment, The Right of
Disposition and The Right of
E[clusion.
The Right of E[clusion is
the most important right to this
discussion. This is the right
to keep other people off the
land. Today this is what gives
land owners, and sometimes
leaseholders of state-owned
lands, the right to put up fences,
lock gates, and hang “No
Trespassing” signs.
As we shall see, the
leasing of state-owned land,
in the various states and with
— Dana Storms Tassie
I am looking forward to when this is
done. It has been needing to get done for
quite awhile.
— Katie Fetterhoff
What about all the jerks that block all the
intersections?
— Richard Ryan III
Pendleton public relations
I do think a person should be hired to
present a uni¿ed and cohesive view of what
the city and the city council are trying to
share with the public.
— Marlee Goodnight Dickerson
That’s the city council’s job: To speak on
behalf of the city.
— Nick Ritzer
No, they need to responsibly budget
every dollar into ¿[ing the failing infra-
structure of this crumbling city.
— Kei Leigh
I think that is part of the city manager’s
position. So we should not need to be paying
another person to do it.
— Cody Cimmiyotti
Two-tiered minimum wage
So disappointed. It’s already been deter-
mined that $15 per hour is barely livable.
Why didn’t they start there?
— Merielle Bernier
Minimum wage was never meant to be a
living wage!
— Jill Reed
Just be happy it’s a two-tiered program.
— Nicole Jackson
different laws, can cause a lot of
contention.
Henry VIII, if through
reincarnation were recently
born in the West, would go
through half a dozen wives and
be a quali¿ed realtor. Henry
would be right at home and
understand our ranchers and
politicians and private property,
but he would ¿nd this public-
land thing awfully confusing.
As the name suggest,
public land is owned by the
public. You might say that
this one-third of America is
“collectively owned,” which
sounds a little Soviet, but read
on and you will see why it’s a
very good thing for all of us.
Very familiar to everyone
are the national parks and
national forests. There are
also state parks and forests,
so that’s already four types of
public lands. The signi¿cance
of this is that different types of
public lands are managed with
different goals in mind.
For e[ample, parks
are managed mostly for
conservation and recreation,
whereas forests are often
managed for timber, cattle
grazing, mining, and just about
any economic activity, as well
as conservation and recreation.
It comes as a surprise to a lot
of people, but the U.S. Forest
Service happens to be the
nation’s largest road-building
out¿t.
Central to many recent
conÀicts are the BLM
lands. The BLM manages
192,200,000 acres in the Lower
48, and another 72,200,000 in
Alaska, totaling 264,400,000
acres. Though many maps of
the U.S. have a color coding
that shows national parks,
national forests, wildlife
refuges, sometimes military
lands, and often Indian
reservations, too, the BLM
lands, which are sometimes the
majority of the landscape, are
often not indicated at all.
Some people, as in the case
of some ranchers and private
owners, like it this way. This
enables them to give many
people the impression that they
own all the land you can see. In
fact, however, they might have
nothing more than a grazing
permit. In this case, if it’s
federal public land, they do not
have a Right of E[clusion, but
you better not eat the grass.
If a rancher has a “grazing
allotment” on federal land, he
will hold this with a “grazing
permit.” A permit, although
often treated very much like
a type of property, is in fact
just a permission slip. This
permission slip can be taken
away, with cause, such as not
paying the ultra-low fees, if the
managing federal agency has
any backbone.
This is e[actly the case
with Nevada’s rancher Cliven
Bundy. He has used guns, a
large family, a group of anti-
federal-government fanatics
and the media to successfully,
so far at least, make complete
fools out of the landlord, which
in this case is the Bureau of
Land Management, and the
U.S. public.
If land is state-owned,
the lessee, with his grazing
permit, might have The Right
of E[clusion. Colorado and
Te[as are like this. In states
that currently do not grant
this right, this could change
with the legislative whim of
the state. In fact, given the
mood of Wyoming’s Tea Party
legislature, this is very likely
to happen soon, and it will be a
very bad thing for 99 percent of
Wyomingites.
Everywhere else, if federal
lands were ever conveyed to
the states, then yes, people who
now enjoy free and easy access
will probably lose it. With this
thought in mind, what Ammon
Bundy and buddies propose
for Oregon’s Malheur National
Wildlife Refuge, “giving” the
land back to “We the People,”
begins to sound a little ¿shy.
That is, you and I can go there
now, but will we be able to if he
wins?
A wholesale conveyance of
federal public lands would be
detrimental to everyone who
enjoys uncomplicated access to
our federal public lands. This
one-third of the territory of the
U.S. being in federal hands, i.e.,
the public lands, is far and away
more valuable than Ft. Kno[
full of gold. All this land in
question, and its resources and
what the land can be used for,
is a federal asset that enriches
all of us, in mineral wealth,
recreation and wildlife, clean air
and water, and more.
Our country’s unique
combination of public
and private lands is very
advantageous, and we should be
very wary of anyone tampering
with it, such as little Henrys.
Ŷ
Tom Gagnon is a Wyoming
licensed Realtor, and an avid
outdoorsman.
Armed protesters reach out
Only in Eastern Oregon would a sheriff
even meet with these people. Yikes!
— Michael Conrad Mettler
Two good men are in prison tonight
for unjust reasons. And any liberty loving
American should be upset by this.
— Joe Rigney
Make no mistake about it. They are
terrorists, and we should treat them as such.
— Joshua Clift
Let them migrate to Eastern Oregon
State Prison.
— Dennis Kreutz
Lehnert to run for sheriff
This guy has my vote. Known him since
high school, heck of a guy great dad, e[cel-
lent policeman in my opinion, the perfect
man for the job.
— Justin Peek
If he won’t protect the people from
tyranny of the feds, he’s not worth it. If he
won’t follow the Second Amendment he’s
not worthy. If he will, great!
— Jimmy Sullivan
One of the great lessons of the Twitter age is
that much can be summed up in just a few words.
Here are some of this week’s takes. Tweet yours
@Tim_Trainor or email editor@eastoregonian.
com, and keep them to 140 characters.
Editorials from across Oregon
Hammonds and
mandatory minimums:
Albany Democrat-Herald
I
n the cascade of ironies that
continues to tumble out of the
standoff at the Malheur National
Wildlife Refuge, here’s one that
might have been easy to overlook:
The standoff seems likely
to renew a debate over the idea
of minimum sentences, in both
federal and state cases.
In fact, during his town
meetings in
the mid-valley
on Saturday.
U.S. Sen. Jeff
Merkley of
Oregon said he
intended to take
a close look
at “mandatory
minimums that
can sometimes
produce more
injustice than
justice.”
One of the
issues in the standoff in Harney
County is the case of rancher
Dwight Hammond Jr., and one
of his sons, Steve. The two men
were indicted in 2010 on federal
arson charges, regarding a pair of
¿res that the men set that ended
up involving land managed by the
U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
When the Hammonds were
indicted, they faced sentencing
under the federal Antiterrorism
and Effective Death Penalty Act
of 1996, even though prosecutors
have said they had no intention of
treating the ranchers as terrorists.
But the arson charge, under
that particular law, mandated
¿ve-year minimum sentences.
The federal judge in the case,
Michael Hogan, said during the
Hammonds’ sentencing in 2012
that such a sentence in this case
would “shock the conscience” and
would be as unconstitutional as
cruel and unusual punishment. The
judge sentenced Dwight Hammond
to a three-month term and Steve
Hammond to one year.
The Hammonds served their
time and were released from
federal custody. And if the story
had ended there, we
wouldn’t be shaking
our heads over the
increasingly ludicrous
standoff at the refuge.
Instead, here’s what
happened: Amanda
Marshall, then the
U.S. attorney for
Oregon, recommended
that the government
challenge Hogan’s
sentence. And, when
the court of appeals
heard the case, it
agreed with the feds: The longer
sentences might in fact shock the
conscience, the appeals court held,
but the law is the law, and the law
mandates the minimum sentence.
The Hammonds returned to
federal prison last week. In the
meantime, the events at the refuge
got underway, even though, to
be clear, the Hammonds have
disavowed the occupation.
These minimum sentences
aren’t just an issue in federal court;
judges in Oregon working with
Measure 11 crimes often ¿nd their
hands are tied by laws mandating
certain sentences for certain
The Hammond
case may
cause Oregon
to look again
at mandatory
minimum
sentences.
crimes. Part of the idea is to ensure
uniformity in sentencing, but the
not-so-unspoken implication is
that minimum sentences serve as a
check on too-lenient judges.
But part of the reason why
we have judges in the ¿rst place
is so that they can review all
the facts in a case and make
decisions accordingly. By tying
their hands in making these vital
decisions about sentencing — by
reducing these decisions to the
cold black-and-white diagram of
a matri[ — we essentially say
that, well, every criminal case is
about the same as the ne[t case. In
Oregon, the minimum sentences
for Measure 11 crimes have helped
to fuel the e[plosive growth in
state prison populations, a growth
that we’re just now starting to get
under control.
Merkley’s call for a review of
these rules on the federal level is
welcome. State of¿cials might
want to consider the merits of a
similar review.
The subtext behind the
Malheur occupation:
(Medford) Mail Tribune
T
he “standoff,” such as it
is, at the Malheur National
Wildlife Refuge is drawing
national attention, so it’s worth
taking a moment to note that
the subte[t behind the headlines
reÀects a cultural clash that is
not well understood by those
who don’t live in the West, and
particularly in the wide-open,
sparsely populated rangelands of
the rural West managed by federal
agencies.
U.S. Rep Greg Walden, whose
sprawling 2nd Congressional
District includes Harney County,
gave an impassioned speech on
the House Àoor last week in which
he criticized the resentencing of
Dwight and Steve Hammond,
calling them
“longtime,
responsible
ranchers” he
has known for
20 years. In the
process, Walden
skewered the
“overzealous
bureaucrats and
agencies (that) go beyond the law
and clamp down on people.”
It was the ¿ve-year prison
sentences the Hammonds began
serving last week under anti-
terrorism statues for committing
arson on public land that prompted
out-of-state activists to stage an
armed takeover of the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge. The
armed militants, led by Ammon
Bundy, son of Nevada rancher
Cliven Bundy, demanded the
government turn over federal
land in the county for residents to
manage on their own.
Walden made a point of
saying the occupation of federal
buildings was “inappropriate,”
and the militants should go home.
He’s right about that, and Harney
County residents themselves agree:
Locals have made it clear they do
not support Bundy and his cohorts.
Walden and others are right,
however, when they say federal
managers of vast swaths of public
land in the West too often have
been arrogant toward the farmers
and ranchers who have scratched
out a living there for generations
against stiff odds. Ranching is
hard enough when you must
cope with harsh weather, scarce
water and unpredictable markets
without adding a monolithic
federal bureaucracy that does not
respond quickly
enough when
needed or imposes
new restrictions
with little notice
or willingness to
compromise.
All is not black
and white when it
comes to Western
land management. Public land
should be managed for the bene¿t
of all the public, not just ranchers,
farmers and hunters. But those
groups have legitimate concerns
and deserve to be heard.
E[amples e[ist of cooperative
efforts involving federal agencies,
industry and private landowners
to protect wetlands, battle invasive
species and conduct thinning
operations that make forests more
resistant to catastrophic wild¿re.
But those collaborations are still
more the e[ception than the rule.
There is no valid argument to
be made that federal ownership of
public land is illegal in any way,
and Bundy and his followers are
simply wrong when they claim
to be upholding the Constitution
while essentially committing
armed sedition. The misguided
militants should leave Harney
County, and they will, sooner or
later.
But when they do, the people
of Harney County will still be
there, and they have concerns that
deserve to be heard.
The misguided
militants should
leave Harney
County.