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Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Tuesday, September 19, 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 Manage forests, or watch them burn For those who have not witnessed Congress recently, have we? What they need to talk about the blast-furnace heat and the — and take action on — is the eye-stinging smoke of a wildfire absolutely irresponsible and short- along with the mass destruction sighted way public lands in the West of timber, homes, businesses and wildlife, last week was a learning are managed. experience. Let’s start with forests, shall we? Nearly every corner of the At some point the Obama administration decided nearly all West was on fire. From Arizona federal forests were off-limits to to Washington state and from logging, the best and only way California to Montana, 65 active fires were burning 2.83 million acres to manage forests. For decades, foresters have been warning that as of late last week. Those numbers letting forests go include only the fires that were 10,000 unmanaged will only The people who acres or larger. The mean bigger and average size of those know the West best badder wildfires in fires was 43,556 are those who live the future. We need federal acres. there. Federal managers who are In some areas, including Portland managers need to allowed to effectively publicly and Los Angeles, the listen when people manage owned forests. fires got too close for comfort. Drivers tell them that they Instead of taking out roads from national on Los Angeles are setting up forests, they need to expressways could leave them in place. see flames racing the region for They need to sell up the hillsides, and disastrous fires. timber in strategic Interstate 84 east of ways that will make Portland was closed fighting the next wildfire easier. as firefighters valiantly worked to In the vast open spaces of the keep the wind-driven flames at bay. West they need to allow more cattle For many Western city dwellers, grazing, which has been shown to wildfires just got personal. They be an effective way to keep down were no longer something they cheatgrass and other weeds that burn watched from afar, watching video hot and kill the ecosystem. Juniper snippets from the safety of their trees need to be taken out of all homes and apartments. The stench areas, including wilderness, where of smoke could be smelled and they are destroying the countryside the raging flames could be seen up and hindering the recovery of close. the greater sage grouse and other Firefighters were forced to important species. prioritize which blazes to fight and The people who know the West which to let go. They hoped to save best are those who live there. the lodge at Multnomah Falls in the Federal managers need to listen Columbia Gorge and the lodge at Lake McDonald in Glacier National when people tell them that they are Park. They battled to keep fires away setting up the region for disastrous fires. That has happened time and from Yosemite and Yellowstone time again, especially in Oregon and national parks. Washington state. Among politicians, the chatter And don’t listen to critics who was about how to fund firefighters — talk about fiddling while the West holler that people just want to clearcut the West. In decades past, burns. They want to make sure the federal land was actively managed money for firefighters doesn’t come out of the U.S. Forest Service budget — logged — and the forests are still a beautiful resource. Those who but from the money set aside for say they don’t want one tree cut disasters. down are simply denying the fact This chatter has been going on that forests need to be managed, or for years now, and any effective they will eventually be destroyed by member of Congress would have wildfire, bark beetles or disease. gotten it passed and signed by Managing forests and open spaces the president. But we haven’t will not put an end to wildfires, but it really seen much in the way will reduce their size and number. of effectiveness coming out of 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. OTHER VIEWS Complacency could kill health care I haven’t yet read Hillary Clinton’s effectively eliminate protection for “What Happened,” but it seems pretty people with pre-existing conditions, clear to me what did, in fact, happen and slash funding for subsidies and in 2016. Medicaid. There are a few additional These days, America starts from a twists, but they’re all bad — notably, baseline of extreme tribalism: 47 or a funding formula that would penalize 48 percent of the electorate will vote states that are actually successful in for any Republican, no matter how reducing the number of uninsured. terrible, and against any Democrat, Did this bill’s sponsors — Lindsey Paul no matter how good. This means, in Krugman Graham, Bill Cassidy, Ron Johnson turn, that small things — journalists and Dean Heller — manage to Comment acting like mean kids in high school, get through months of health care ganging up on candidates they debate without learning anything consider uncool, events that suggest fresh about the issue? Maybe. But surely the rest scandal even when there’s nothing there — of the Senate, not to mention much of the can tip the balance in favor of even the worst public, has wised up about false Republican candidate imaginable. promises. A huge majority of voters, And, crucially, last year far too many almost 2-1, consider it a good thing that people were complacent; they assumed that previous attempts at repealing and replacing Trump couldn’t possibly Obamacare failed. become president, so they Yet there is a real chance It’s precisely felt free to engage in trivial that Graham-Cassidy, which pursuits. Then they woke up because so many is similar to but even worse to find that the inconceivable previous Republican people assume that than had happened. proposals, will nonetheless Is something similar about the threat is behind become law, because not to go down with health care? people are taking it us, and have turned enough Republican attempts to seriously. destroy Obamacare have As in the presidential their attention repeatedly failed, and for very election, we start from elsewhere, that good reason. Their attacks on a baseline of extreme the Affordable Care Act were health care is once tribalism, in which 48 or 49 always based on lies, and senators will vote again in danger. Republican they have never come up with for anything, no matter how a decent alternative. awful, that bears their party’s The simple fact is that all the major seal of approval. To make a bill the law, its elements of the ACA — prohibiting sponsors only need to win one or two more discrimination by insurers based on medical votes. history, requiring that people buy insurance The main reason Republican leaders even if they’re currently healthy, premium couldn’t do that on previous health bills subsidies and Medicaid expansion that make was public outrage and activism. Letters insurance affordable even for those with and phone calls, demonstrators and crowds lower incomes — are there because they’re at town halls, made it clear that many necessary. Yet every plan Republicans have Americans were aware of the stakes, and offered would do away with or undermine that politicians who voted to take health those key elements, causing tens of millions care away from millions would be held of Americans to lose health insurance, with accountable. the heaviest burden falling on the most Now, however, the news cycle has moved vulnerable. on, taking public attention with it. Many All this should be clear to everyone by progressives have already begun taking now. So you might be tempted to assume Obamacare’s achievements for granted, and that no plan along these lines can possibly are moving on from protest against right- pass, let alone one that, if anything, looks wing schemes to dreams of single-payer. worse than what we’ve seen so far. But it’s Unfortunately, that’s exactly the kind of precisely because so many people assume environment in which swing senators, no that the threat is behind us, and have turned longer in the spotlight, might be bribed or their attention elsewhere, that health care is bullied into voting for a truly terrible bill. once again in danger. The good news is that for technical The sponsors of the Graham-Cassidy bill reasons of parliamentary procedure, Graham- now working its way toward a Senate vote Cassidy has to pass by the end of this month, claim to be offering a moderate approach that or not at all. The bad news is that such preserves the good things about Obamacare. passage is a real possibility. In other words, they are maintaining the So if you care about preserving the huge GOP norm of lying both about the content of gains the ACA has brought, make your voice Obamacare and about what would replace it. heard. Otherwise we may wake up to another In reality, Graham-Cassidy is the opposite terrible morning after. of moderate. It contains, in exaggerated ■ and almost caricature form, all the elements Paul Krugman joined The New York Times that made previous Republican proposals in 1999 as a columnist on the Op-Ed Page so cruel and destructive. It would eliminate and continues as professor of Economics and the individual mandate, undermine if not International Affairs at Princeton University. YOUR VIEWS Department of Energy hopes to confuse the public Be heard! Comment online at www.eastoregonian.com LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to managing editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com. For those of you not following the changes to the amendment rules the Oregon Depart- ment of Energy is asking for comment on until Sept. 29, here are a few highlights: • Area can be added to a site without having to complete an amendment to a site certificate. •The Department of Energy will be deciding whether to allow a change without an amendment, to process an amendment as expedited, to use a short or a long process. • Notice and involvement of agencies and special advisory committees will be up to the discretion of the Department of Energy. • The public will not be allowed to participate until after the Draft Proposed Order is issued. • In expedited cases, the public, other agencies and special advisory groups will not be allowed to participate in the process until after a temporary site certificate allowing the developer to proceed with the action has already been approved. • A contested case opportunity will only occur in one amendment process. • In one process with no contested case opportunity, the public will not be able to appeal decisions to the Oregon Supreme Court unless they comment about the specific issue they plan to appeal during the ODOE process. • The public will only be allowed to appeal decisions based upon Divisions 22, 23 and 24, which doesn’t include things like what process amendments are funneled into or whether or not an application is complete, or whether or not the decision to not allow a contested case was made correctly, or any of the rules changed in this Division. • The Energy Facility Siting Council decides who gets to have a contested case and they issue the final contested case order when the public is challenging the decisions they have made. Every effort has been made to confuse the public, exclude them from virtually all decisions, remove opportunities to access a contested case process and move all control over decisions into the hands of the Depart- ment of Energy and the Energy Facility Siting Council. Irene Gilbert, co-chair STOP B2H Coalition and legal research analyst Friends of the Grande Ronde Valley La Grande
