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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (April 18, 2017)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, April 18, 2017 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Office Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager OUR VIEW Now’s the time to limit the Antiquities Act It’s probably not high on the list process. At least, they don’t in 48 of priorities, but we’d like to see states. Congress revise the Antiquities Act The creation of the Jackson Hole to give legislative oversight to the National Monument by FDR in the creation of national monuments. 1940s so rankled Wyoming pols that The Antiquities Act of 1906 has when legislation was proposed to been used by presidents starting with merge most of it with Grand Teton Teddy Roosevelt National Park the The restrictions that Congress amended to create national monuments. the Antiquities Act to can be placed on The authority comes the president ranchers and timber- prohibit with few restrictions. from establishing men throughout the monuments in that The president, “in his discretion,” can West by these declara- state without its designate almost any tions require oversight. approval. piece of federally After President owned land a national Jimmy Carter created monument for “the protection of 56 million acres of monuments in objects of historic and scientific Alaska, Congress amended the act interest.” to require it also approve Alaskan Although the act makes mention monuments of 5,000 acres or more. of protecting historic and prehistoric We would not argue that the structures, there is no statutory Antiquities Act has not preserved legitimate cultural treasures. We might definition or limit on what may be not have the Grand Canyon in its found to be of historic or scientific current state had TR not protected it by interest. Presidents have used the act making it first a national monument. to preserve wild areas. But that was a different time. The It’s easier than establishing a restrictions that can be placed on wilderness area, or a national park — ranchers and timbermen throughout both of which require congressional the West by these declarations require approval — but can impose similar oversight. restrictions on how the land can be They should have at least the same used. consideration afforded the people of Local residents and their elected Wyoming and Alaska. representatives have no say in the Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of publisher Kathryn Brown, managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, and opinion page editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. Culture Corner n his career, journalist Ted Conover has ridden the rails with hobos (“Rolling Nowhere”), crossed the U.S.-Mexico border with illegal migrants (“Coyotes”) and worked as a correctional officer at Sing Sing prison in New York (“Newjack”). For each assignment, Conover fully immersed himself in the world of his subjects. Writers looking to engage in this kind of storytelling can take a page — literally — from Conover in his latest book, “Immersion: A Writer’s Guide to Going Deep,” which offers tips and instruction from brain- storming to publishing. “Immersion has a huge potential for sowing empathy in the world,” Conover writes. “It’s a way to introduce readers to strangers and to make them care, a way to shine a light into places that need it.” The book is divided into six sections, I covering different ways a writer can gain access and what to look for once inside. It discusses the ethics and potential pitfalls of undercover reporting, and narrative techniques to consider when writing. Conover’s advice is practical, and perhaps more importantly, accessible. While an associate professor of journalism at New York University, Conover resists coming across as a teacher lecturing his students. He also draws plenty on the work of other well-known writers, including Sebastian Junger, Susan Orlean and George Plimpton. Conover does not claim to know everything. “Immersion” is not a field manual, nor is it a map, he writes. Rather, it is a headlamp to help writers light their own way. — George Plaven, reporter for the East Oregonian OTHER VIEWS Why don’t all jobs matter? resident Donald Trump is still extent to which the long decline of small promising to bring back coal jobs. newspapers has eroded the sense of But the underlying reasons for coal local identity. employment’s decline — automation, A different, less creditable reason falling electricity demand, cheap natural mining and manufacturing have become gas, technological progress in wind and political footballs, while services haven’t, involves the need for villains. solar — won’t go away. Demagogues can tell coal miners Meanwhile, last week the Treasury that liberals took away their jobs with Department officially (and correctly) Paul declined to name China as a currency Krugman environmental regulations. They can tell industrial workers that their jobs manipulator, making nonsense of Comment were taken away by nasty foreigners. everything Trump has said about And they can promise to bring the jobs reviving manufacturing. back by making America polluted again, by So will the Trump administration ever do getting tough on trade, and so on. These are anything substantive to bring back mining and false promises, but they play well with some manufacturing jobs? Probably not. audiences. But let me ask a different question: Why By contrast, it’s really hard to blame either does public discussion of job loss focus so liberals or foreigners for, say, the decline intensely on mining and manufacturing, while of Sears. (The chain’s asset-stripping, Ayn virtually ignoring the big declines in some service sectors? Rand-loving owner is another story, but one that Over the weekend The Times Magazine probably doesn’t resonate in the heartland.) published a photographic essay on the decline Finally, it’s hard to escape the sense that of traditional retailers in the face of internet manufacturing and especially mining get special competition. The pictures, contrasting “zombie consideration because, as Slate’s Jamelle Bouie malls” largely emptied of tenants with giant points out, their workers are a lot more likely warehouses holding inventory for online sellers, to be male and significantly whiter than the were striking. The economic reality is pretty workforce as a whole. striking too. Anyway, whatever the reasons political Consider what has happened to department narratives tend to privilege some jobs and some stores. Even as Trump was boasting about industries over others, it’s a tendency we should saving a few hundred jobs in manufacturing fight. Laid-off retail workers and local reporters here and there, Macy’s announced plans to are just as much victims of economic change as close 68 stores and lay off 10,000 workers. laid-off coal miners. Sears, another iconic institution, has expressed But, you ask, what can we do to stop “substantial doubt” about its ability to stay in service-sector job cuts? Not much — but that’s business. also true for mining and manufacturing, as Overall, department stores employ a third working-class Trump voters will soon learn. fewer people now than they did in 2001. That’s In an ever-changing economy, jobs are always half a million traditional jobs gone — about being lost: 75,000 Americans are fired or laid eighteen times as many jobs as were lost in coal off every working day. And sometimes whole mining over the same period. sectors go away as tastes or technology changes. And retailing isn’t the only service industry While we can’t stop job losses from that has been hit hard by changing technology. happening, however, we can limit the human Another prime example is newspaper damage when they do happen. We can publishing, where employment has declined by guarantee health care and adequate retirement 270,000, almost two-thirds of the workforce, income for all. We can provide aid to the newly since 2000. unemployed. And we can act to keep the overall So why aren’t promises to save service economy strong — which means doing things jobs as much a staple of political posturing as like investing in infrastructure and education, promises to save mining and manufacturing not cutting taxes on rich people and hoping the jobs? benefits trickle down. One answer might be that mines and I don’t want to sound unsympathetic to factories sometimes act as anchors of local miners and industrial workers. Yes, their jobs economies, so their closing can devastate a matter. But all jobs matter. And while we can’t community in a way shutting a retail outlet ensure that any particular job endures, we can won’t. And there’s something to that argument. and should ensure that a decent life endures But it’s not the whole truth. Closing a even when a job doesn’t. factory is just one way to undermine a local ■ community. Competition from superstores and Paul Krugman joined The New York Times shopping malls also devastated many small-city in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed Page and downtowns; now many small-town malls are continues as professor of Economics and Inter- failing too. And we shouldn’t minimize the national Affairs at Princeton University. P OTHER VIEWS YOUR VIEWS A GOP promise to rural families W hen Donald Trump ran economic stagnation. Nine- the tables on Hillary ty-seven percent of U.S. fuel is Clinton in middle now blended with some amount America, many coastal pundits of homegrown ethanol, holding were caught flatfooted. They down prices and protecting never saw it coming. But those against manipulation by hostile of us in the vast areas of Oregon oil exporters, like Venezuela and dominated by rural communities, Russia. ranches, farms, and forestry Biofuels also replace some Andy operations understand exactly of the most toxic additives Bentz how the GOP carved out a new in gasoline, like methyl Comment majority. tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE). President Trump spoke MTBE was a gasoline additive unapologetically to rural voters about notorious for contaminating groundwater his support for agriculture, promising to supplies until ethanol offered a cleaner, roll back needless regulatory limits on more affordable way to increase octane productivity, while strengthening Amer- for better performance. Moreover, the ica’s commitment to programs like the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports Renewable Fuel Standard, which allows that carbon emissions are slashed by U.S. farmers to compete against foreign 43 percent when biofuels displace oil producers. It’s a bipartisan program petroleum-based fuel — a number that that has worked for over 11 years to continues to rise as farmers learn to grow create a stable market for biofuels, and it more crops on less land year after year. will only grow in importance to Oregon Thanks to these innovations under as new innovations allow us to create the renewable fuel standards, biofuel more and more homegrown energy from production now supports nearly 16,000 existing biomass, including wood scraps Oregon jobs, including those at one of from lumber operations. the West Coast’s premier biorefineries The fuel standards ensures that oil in Morrow County. These facilities not companies can’t lock rural biofuel only deliver homegrown energy, they producers out of the market, giving generate a steady stream of high-protein, consumers more affordable options at low-cost feedstock for ranchers because the pump. It’s a perfect example of a only the starch portion of grain is policy that works for American energy fermented for fuel production. security, for our environment, and for No matter how you look at it, the fuel rural communities struggling with standard is a clear winner, and it remains one of the few untarnished pillars of economic growth in rural communities at a time when U.S. farm incomes are expected to fall for a fourth straight year due to a global crop surplus. These rural families are struggling, and policymakers — Republican or Democrat — who fail to recognize the importance of supporting America’s agricultural economy can expect the same response from voters that shocked pundits in 2016. It’s not about partisan politics; it’s about delivering on a promise to protect homegrown fuels and revitalize rural growth, as President Trump vowed to do. Senior leaders in Congress, like our own Congressman Greg Walden, who chairs the House committee responsible for domestic energy, should keep these families in mind as lawmakers look to craft the next farm bill and oil companies ramp up efforts to dismantle the fuel standards. Democrats learned their lesson in 2016, and they are reaching out to rural voters. The success of those efforts will depend largely on how well GOP leaders stay on track to restore growth outside of city limits. ■ Andy Bentz is part of the third generation of a southeastern Oregon ranching family. He spent time in the timber industry of western Oregon and now is the managing member of Bentz Solutions, LLC. Support your firefighters, vote yes on fire station bond Citizens of Pendleton, I am asking for your support in passing the new fire station bond. The site was chosen and confirmed through a third party study, through public input, and through input from the firefighters themselves. The Old St. Anthony’s site was chosen after that lengthy process. In response to a recent letter the PGG site would not be cheaper. The building would have to be torn down and a new station built in its place. This is because the building does not meet the standards that are set for a fire station. Other sites had many issues as well. The Old St. Antho- ny’s site also provides room for onsite training. Another concern I have heard is the cost. Please remember this building has to be built to withstand the needs of the future, not just our current needs as a city, and the current station has been in service for over 57 years. I know of a very small district on the Oregon coast that passed a $7 million bond for a new station, and Albany is building a new headquarters station for $10 million as well. This is not an uncommon price tag. As for cost to you if you own a $200k house it will cost you about the same as two cups of coffee a month ($10.33/mo). Please support your firefighters; they are asking for help in their time of need. The current station has a leaky roof, inadequate exhaust removal, not enough space for on-duty personnel, and very limited training space. These affect not only our firefighters but their ability to help you when you need it. Ineffective training, high health risks to firefighters, and limited staffing can affect you directly. One of the steps needed to address this is proper facilities. Please vote yes on the fire station bond! Adam Wilkinson Pilot Rock
