Forest Restoration Is Already In the Law
The braindead media in this state are all atwitter about Ron Wyden’s eastside forest bill, aka OEFROGPJA. But they don’t have a clue what it’s really about.
We have discussed Wyden’s sorry monkey-wrencher bill previously [here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here]. We have not been reticent or cursory. We have delved into the matter in great depth.
But the Brain Dead Media don’t do in-depth analysis. The template of Big Journalism is oversimplified bifurcation: two sides, black and white, and off-tangent sound bites from celebrities. Plus the sports scores and a crossword puzzle.
He-said-she-said, no investigation, no research, no background. A semi-talented parrot could do a better job at reporting than the Brain Dead Media, if all that’s desired is blather from spokesmodels.
Regarding the Wyden “forest restoration” bill, what the fowl folks at the Oregonian and other newspapers (and TV and radio) in this state seem to be unaware of is that forest restoration is ALREADY THE LAW.
We don’t need Wyden’s silly bill because the Forest Landscape Restoration Act (FLRA) of 2009 (Title IV of the Omnibus Public Lands Act of 2009) was voted on, passed, signed by our Kenyan president, and is now up and running.
Don’t believe me? See [here]:
Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program
Congress, under Title IV of Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009 established the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP).
The purpose of the CFLR Program is to encourage the collaborative, science-based ecosystem restoration of priority forest landscapes. …
The CFLR Program provides a means to achieve these aims and to also:
* encourage ecological, economic, and social sustainability;
* leverage local resources with national and private resources;
* facilitate the reduction of wildfire management costs, including through reestablishing natural fire regimes and reducing the risk of uncharacteristic wildfire;
* demonstrate the degree to which various ecological restoration techniques achieve ecological and watershed health objectives; and,
* encourage utilization of forest restoration by-products to offset treatment costs, to benefit local rural economies, to and improve forest health.
There is a Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Fund, a CFLR Proposal Development Process, a Selection Process utilizing a Science Advisory Panel, tracking of accomplishments, periodic reporting and multi-party monitoring requirements.
It’s all there, in place, happening now. National Forests in Oregon are right now preparing landscape-scale (50,000 acres and up) forest restoration proposals for selection, funding, and implementation.
If you download the FLRA [here] and Wyden’s proposed OEFROGPJA bill [here], line them up side by side, and compare and contrast the language, you will notice (you cannot help but notice) that Wyden cribbed his language directly from the FRLA
Wyden stole his verbiage directly from the existing law, without citing or mentioning the existing law. It’s duplicative, which in a very real legal sense confounds the law. Moreover, Wyden added contrary language to OEFROGPJA which would (if enacted) would cause Federal law to give two contradictory directions at the same time.
That’s called, in the parlance, “monkey-wrenching” or “gutting the law”. Wyden seeks to undercut, undermine, and crowbar the existing FLRA to death, before it has a chance to work. His purpose is to thwart and sabotage forest restoration, not to further it.
Sidebar to the Brain Dead Media. Try it. Download the documents and compare them. Do your homework. Read with at least a 5th-grade comprehension level. Or, if that is too much work for your parrot brains, then quote me:
Mike Dubrasich, Executive Director of the Western Institute For Study of the Environment said today, “Ron Wyden seeks to undercut, undermine, and crowbar the existing Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program to death, before it has a chance to work. His purpose is to thwart and sabotage forest restoration, not to further it. That is, Wyden seeks to monkey-wrench and gut existing forest restoration laws.
How so? What’s the proof? Compare and contrast the FRLA with OEFROGPJA. Here are just a few of the dissonances:
1. FLRA (the new law) calls for restoration treatments within landscapes that are at least 50,000 acres in size. OEFROGPJA limits treatment landscapes to less than 25,000 acres [Sec. 3 (11)].
This embarrassing shrinkage is unsupported by any argument. Megafires routinely burn 250,000 to 500,000 acres at a crack, from 5 to 10 times the minimum treatment area in the new law (FLRA). The dinky treatments envisioned in OFROGPA are a step backwards.
2. OEFROGPJA will establish an “Eastside Forest Scientific and Technical Advisory Panel” and ignores the FLRA advisory panel completely, despite the fact that FLRA is the law right now.
3. OEFROGPJA would regulate every cutting prescription by statutory limits on the size of tree removed — no trees larger than 21 inches in diameter may be cut — no-touch riparian zones, and other prescriptive limitations of restoration treatments.
The FRLA does not do that. The FRLA recognizes that every restoration project has its own unique characteristics and allows for adaptation to the restoration needs of the site.
4. OEFROGPJA is eastern Oregon only; the FRLA is national. The US Forest Service cannot function under a bevy of localized laws subject to frequent Congressional manipulation. It has a hard enough time complying with national-scope laws. The USFS has set up the CFLR Program and is implementing that. It cannot set up and implement a different program with different rules for every state, or sub-sub-district of every state. That would be a legal and red-tape snarl nightmare.
Which Wyden knows very well. That’s why he’s doing what he’s doing. He WANTS a red-tape legal snarl nightmare. It’s monkey wrenching. Just like in 2003 when he personally filibustered the Healthy Forest Restoration Act and then gutted that law.
Wyden HATES forest restoration. He wants America’s forests to burn, burn, burn. He is opposed to any kind of fire prevention or fire mitigation treatment. Look at what he has done and what he is doing. Look past the pandering and stuttering, saccarine sound bites and examine the nuts and bolts of his actual machinations.
Wyden has decided to crap all over the Forest Landscape Restoration Act of 2009, a bill he co-sponsored and voted for. Ronnie Holocaust cannot get enough of forest destruction by megafire, resource destruction, economic collapse, pain and suffering, and horrendous junk science.
OEFROGPJA is not a bill to save forests, in fact it is the opposite. It has nothing to do with science or “compromise” and everything to do with the Politics of Social and Environmental Destruction.
I realize the Brain Dead Media has political biases (toward the Extreme Left). Fine. It’s a free country. But the BDM should have enough grey matter and integrity to read the damn documents if they are going to report on the issue.
That’s what we have done. We have provided the damn documents for any and all to read. We hide nothing. We are not trying to dumb you down. We don’t treat our readers like they are children without the capacity to think for themselves. We give our opinions — we don’t hold back on that — but we also give you the information you need to form your own opinions.
The BDM doesn’t do that. They don’t even know the documents exist, much less have they read and analyzed them. The BDM doesn’t even know that there is such a thing as the Forest Landscape Restoration Act of 2009. That’s how inept and incompetent they are.
When the Editors of the Oregonian get together and write a group editorial, not a single one of those jaspers has the slightest clue what’s really going on. It is not so much that they are spinning lies as that they are profoundly ignorant of the facts.
They don’t know. They are out of it. They didn’t do the homework, they didn’t follow the issue, they don’t know who’s who or what’s what. They are like lizards on a rock, or under a rock, reacting with lizard brains to the occasional bug that crawls within tongue-shot.
Which is why their circulation has dropped by half, why their business model is failing, why they cannot pay the rent, and why they are sinking like the Titanic.
Be that as it may, the residents and voters of this state have another option. You can obtain the news here. The forestry news, at any rate, and wildlife, fire, and climate news, too. We don’t cover sports. We don’t provide a crossword puzzle. But we do give you the information and sources you need to make informed decisions about the things that actually impact your life.
Forest restoration is already in the law. Wyden’s eastside bill is a wolf in sheeps’ clothing, sabotage and monkey-wrenching. You can download the documents and see for yourself, courtesy SOS Forests.
