A4 BAKER CITY HERALD • TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 2022
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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news@bakercityherald.com
Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Private progress
made on climate
N
ot to be critical of government, but if you
want something done, you’re usually best
off looking to private enterprise.
It’s not that government can’t do it, it’s just that
government too often gets in the way of itself —
and everyone else.
Take, for example, efforts to slow climate
change. At the state and federal levels, a hodge-
podge of climate programs has emerged over
the years. Most are aimed at jacking up oil and
gas prices.
By doing that, they are supercharging infla-
tion, which is now 7.9%, the highest it’s been
since 1982.
The federal government has been particu-
larly inept in its climate efforts. It has subsidized
“green” companies such as Tesla, which in turn
has built factories overseas, including China, the
biggest climate polluter on the planet. That coun-
try produces 30% of the world’s carbon dioxide
and continues to add to its fleet of 1,110 coal-fired
power generation plants to run all of those Chi-
nese-built Teslas.
By comparison, India operates the second-larg-
est number of coal-fired plants, 285.
In the meantime, the federal government also
has discouraged domestic oil and natural gas pro-
duction while going to countries such as Venezu-
ela, Iran and Saudi Arabia looking for more oil.
In Oregon, the unelected bureaucrats in the De-
partment of Environment Quality are doing an
end-run around the Legislature with their “Cli-
mate Protection Program.”
In Washington, the Department of Ecology is
aiming at forcing refineries to reduce their green-
house gases by 28% in four years.
That means consumers and businesses — you
— will ultimately be saddled with higher gasoline
and diesel prices.
The carbon footprints of Oregon and Washing-
ton are minuscule compared to those of China,
India and Russia, or even California. What we in
the Northwest do to slow climate change matters,
but not very much. Washington produces about
0.19% of global carbon emissions, while Oregon
produces about 0.17%. That’s according to each
state and the Our World in Data website.
With that in mind, we were greatly interested
in a new private enterprise effort that appears
to have all of the trappings of success. Organic
Valley, a cooperative of organic dairy farmers,
last month announced its Carbon Insetting Pro-
gram as a means of achieving carbon neutrality
by 2050.
This program is the essence of simplicity. In-
stead of setting up some confusing govern-
ment-style effort that requires a battalion of new
employees, Organic Valley will pay co-op mem-
bers for reducing their carbon footprint. More ef-
ficient lighting and coolers, installing solar panels,
planting trees and better manure management are
among the activities that will reduce or offset car-
bon dioxide and methane production.
The efforts will be certified by a third party, Sus-
tainCERT, to determine the impacts.
In return, the farmers will receive the market
rate, about $15, for every metric ton of carbon that
is either sequestered or otherwise prevented from
entering the atmosphere.
Others in agriculture are developing efforts that
will similarly reduce their impact on the climate.
They all have several characteristics in common.
They are simple, meaningful and effective.
Those are three characteristics generally missing
from government climate efforts.
A suggestion: Maybe the government should
stick to encouraging private enterprise to re-
duce its carbon footprint instead of pushing
programs that will cost consumers, businesses,
farmers and ranchers.
Our confidence is in private enterprise. If gov-
ernment wants to help, that’s fine. It just shouldn’t
get in the way.
YOUR VIEWS
It’s time to clean up some junky
yards in Baker City
with commercial forestry practices — and
with the government regulations that hin-
der both efficient harvesting and overall
forest health.
I believe it’s time to clean up a few
Sam is an elected commissioner of heav-
homes around here. It has been a few
ily forested Grant County and a member
years, a lot of talk. Our town is look-
of the Blues Intergovernmental Council. In
ing like a junkyard. When I drive up
these positions, Sam has analyzed count-
and down Campbell on the west side of
less natural resource research documents
the tracks, there are two or three places
that look awful. On the other side of the and historical records.
And from all this, Sam has derived one
tracks they are throwing stuff away. Is
there anyone doing something or saying overarching conclusion: To help end the
catastrophic fires that destroy Eastern Or-
anything about it? No!
Well, I think they should get on it. I also egon’s forests and resource-based liveli-
hear the police say they can’t do anything. hoods, governments need to ease their re-
strictions on logging, thinning and grazing
Well, something needs to be done, and
now. What is the matter with people? Do — proven ways to clear the dead and dis-
eased trees and undergrowth that feed and
they really want to live like this?
sustain those fires. As a U.S. Senator, Sam
So please clean up your yards.
Sharon Styer will sponsor legislation to do just that.
Where stands Senator Ron Wyden
Baker City
— the liberal Democrat Sam seeks to re-
Why I’m supporting Sam Palmer
place? He has introduced the “River De-
mocracy Act,” which would hamper log-
for U.S. Senate
ging and thinning on an additional 4,700
Few industries are as vital to the eco-
square miles of Oregon public lands —
nomic health of Baker County as the
where they then would be, warns Con-
wood-products industry.
gressman Cliff Bentz, “just waiting to be
And nothing is more vital to that indus- burned and ruined.”
try, in turn, than healthy, resilient forests.
The choice is clear. Join me in support-
Catastrophic fires caused by poor man- ing Sam Palmer for Oregon’s 2022 Repub-
agement, however, destroy both. And no
lican U.S. Senate nomination.
one understands all this better than Grant
Shane Alderson
County Commissioner Sam Palmer, who
Baker City
— with my enthusiastic support — is seek-
ing Oregon’s 2022 Republican U.S. Senate Rural Fire District needs to live
nomination.
within its means
As a young man, Sam served 10 years
on the U.S. Forest Service’s John Day he-
Baker Rural Fire District claims that
litack firefighting team. On assignment
district is growing. I doubt that Baker
in 1990, Sam risked his life to rescue a ci- County is getting any larger, but I will say
vilian bus driver from a raging firestorm, that from BCRFD own statement that the
for which he was awarded the U.S. De-
majority of growth in Baker County is in
partment of Agriculture’s highest com-
the west part of Baker Valley. So what does
mendation.
BRFD do, they increase their response
As co-owner of a small logging com-
time, increase the miles they travel, in-
pany, Sam has become intimately familiar crease their operating cost by moving an
agency that serves solely the county out
of the county and purchases a building in
town. They also claim without this levy
homeowners insurance may go up due to
reduced services, well guess what, one of
the first questions insurance companies
ask homeowners is how many miles to the
nearest fire station, and when they learn
the county fire department moved to town
your rates may increase anyway. BCRFD
also stated that they looked into building
a facility in the county at an estimated cost
of over 3 million dollars. Well they didn’t
look very hard, just last summer was a
13-acre property in the west part of Baker
Valley with two large metal buildings,
one 80’x100’ and one 65’x80’ along with a
newly remodeled residence that they could
have leased out for additional income all
for 1.3 million dollars.
Now about this $1 per thousand value
5-year levy request. BCRFD states in
their own website that they are an agency
with no paid employees. They use their
equipment and services a minimal num-
ber of days per year. Currently they re-
ceive through a permanent levy $.67 per
thousand value, which in the 5 years will
net them over $663,000. This amount is
greater than the payback rate of a $4 mil-
lion school bond. Now they want $1 per
thousand value on top of that, which will
net them over an additional $761,000 and
if this passes between the two of them this
amount would be over three times greater
than the payback rate of a $4 million dollar
school bond. But BCRFD says this is only
a 5-year levy, I guess the district growth
will cease in 5 years, or maybe they will
have their fancy new building in town and
all of its luxury furnishings paid off with
this levy money. I think they need to live
within their means, or better yet sharpen
their pencil and apply for some of the bil-
lions of dollars of grant monies available.
Bruce Morrison
Baker City
OTHER VIEWS
Biden’s refreshing silence on Hunter
Editorial from St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
It’s still unclear whether the smoke
around Hunter Biden’s foreign financial
connections actually indicates a fire. That’s
what federal investigators are (and should
be) exploring. But here’s what’s already
clear about the investigation into President
Joe Biden’s son: The president hasn’t re-
sponded by firing people, publicly lashing
out at investigators or otherwise obstruct-
ing justice. Instead, he has responsibly
stayed out of it. What a refreshing change
from his predecessor’s campaign of ob-
struction and vengeance in response to le-
gitimate questions about his own foreign
entanglements.
What began as a federal inquiry into
Hunter Biden’s unpaid taxes during the
Obama administration — while Biden’s
father was vice president — has since
expanded to probe his profitable roles
in troubled energy deals in Ukraine
and China.
The probe was expanded during
Donald Trump’s presidency, under a
Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, even
as Joe Biden’s political threat to Trump
rose. Still, the same U.S. attorney has
been allowed to pursue the case with the
change of administrations. Contrast that
to Trump’s firing of FBI Director James
Comey, his pardoning of cronies, his pub-
lic trashing of investigators and other bra-
zen steps designed to thwart the inquiry
by the special counsel into Trump’s trou-
bling Russia connections.
To hear some tell it, the Hunter Biden
saga is a smoking gun that implicates
President Biden in influence-peddling
and other nefarious doings. In fact, there’s
been no evidence of that reported. The
younger Biden certainly tends to look
shady with his documented past drug
problems and his obvious attempts to
leverage his family name to build what
has been, to date, an unsuccessful busi-
ness career. But if Joe Biden’s detractors
have proof of illegality or even impropri-
ety on the president’s part, they have yet
to show it.
What they do have is a sinister-sound-
ing phrase — Hunter’s laptop! — that they
wield as if it’s proof of something other
than sound and fury designed to obfus-
cate a sober examination of the facts.
It does appear some documents that
are part of the investigation were found
on a laptop that the younger Biden left at
a Delaware computer repair shop. But the
existence of the laptop itself isn’t especially
relevant beyond its usefulness as a prop —
which is how the Trump campaign used it
when it sprung into the public discourse
shortly before the 2020 election. And why
not? They knew firsthand how well the
equally irrelevant but sinister-sounding
prop-phrase “Hillary’s emails!” worked
for them four years earlier.
If Hunter Biden is found to have bro-
ken the law, he should be convicted and
punished. If there’s any evidence that
President Biden did anything improper, it
should be revealed.
Meanwhile, it’s refreshing to have a
president who responds to a federal in-
quiry into his own circle by staying out of
the way and above the fray, instead of act-
ing like a cornered mob boss.
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