THE CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE CRAND RONDE COMMUNITY OF ORECON August, 1993
Governor Roberts Signs
Senate Bill 61
Senate Bill 6 1 , which passed the Senate 26-4 and the House of Representatives 50
0, was signed by Governor Barbara Roberts on Wednesday, July 28 in her office at the State
Capitol Building.
Representatives from most of the tribes in Oregon were there, including members
from the Grand Ronde Tribal Council. Governor Roberts gave the signing pen to Vice Chair
Kathryn Harrison.
Senate Bill 6 1 will ensure the protection ofburial sites, remains, sacred objects, and
funerary objects on state and private lands. It will also give tribes control over the exploration
of archeological sites, by allowing them to issue permits to interested parties.
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Governor Barbara Roberts, with members of Council (right), explains
some of the main points of Senate Bill 61, saying she was "delighted"
to sign such a bill
Jim Willis Appointed To Higher Ed Board
Jim Willis, Executive Officer for the Grand Ronde Tribe, has been appointed to the
state Board of Higher Education by Governor Barbara Roberts. The appointment was then
approved by the Senate Rules Committee, and by the full Senate.
Some members of the governor's staff had contacted Willis and asked if was
interested in the position. He applied for the position and was interviewed by Carol Morse,
the governor's assistant for Executive Appointments. The appointment will begin in 1994,
and will end in 1997.
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Clinton Offers Solution to Logjam
President Clinton delivered a blow
to the Northwest timber industry July 1,
moving to protect the northern spotted owl
with dramatic reductions in logging on
national forest lands.
In a bid to soften the impact of the
plan, he also offered 1.2 billion in economic
aid and cut incentives to ship mill jobs
overseas.
The plan sets annual harvest levels
that will allow cutting of a little more than
one-fourth the amount of timber logged in
the Northwest forests through the 1980s.
Clinton, seeking middle ground
in the thorny dispute between environmental and economic concerns, acknowledged the task
was "more difficult than I had thought."
"We know that our solutions may not make everybody happy. Indeed, they may not
make anybody happy," he said.
"The plan is a departure from the failed policies of the past," he said, noting that
excessive logging levels have pushed the spotted owl to the brink of extinction. The bird was
declared a threatened species in 1990.
The Clinton plan provides:
Improved coordination between federal agencies, state officials, and the tribes in regional
resource planning.
A serious effort to not just address the legally-mandated protection of spotted owls and
murrelets, but of salmon species that are at risk of being listed as endangered.
A plan that is a blue print for sustainable development-something tribes have been
practicing for thousands of years.
A plan that recognizes the need for intensive riparian protection in the form of
stream buffers of up to more than 300 feet.
A plan that recognizes the need to involve tribal leaders in planning not just because it is
right, but because it is a legal requirement under federal trust obligations.
In addition, the President noted that he has ordered the federal agencies to
determine how to help the tribes process a backlog of some 448 million board feet in tribal
timber which has not been brought to market. Processing those sales could generate more
than $85 million for the tribes.
Clinton maintains the net effect of this package will be an increase in the jobs over
five years, but timber industry leaders predicted the logging cutbacks would cost tens of
thousands of jobs and said they may challenge the plan in court.
The proposal would drop timber , harvests of federal lands with spotted owl
populations in Oregon, Washington, and northern California to about 1.3 billion board feet
annually over the next 10 years. About 4.4 billion board feet was cut each year on those lands
in the 1980s.
Reprinted from Yakima Nation Review
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