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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