Anti-Progressive "Environmentalists"

Harney and Grant counties have the highest unemployment rates in the state, at 19.7 and 19.3 respectively. While the economic situation in these areas is desperate, the people are resilient and determined and, like me, they cannot understand why we cannot make better use of our vast timber resources on federal lands to create lasting family wage jobs, reduce the threat of fire by cleaning out the forests, and generate renewable energy with the debris.

Hundreds of millions of dollars of private investment is ready to come into these two counties in the form of biomass facilities and wind energy, and yet the federal government stands in the way. The uncertainty of supply of fiber from the forests and trying to site a power line on public land are standing between these people’s economic recovery and depression-era unemployment. This has to change.

Their plight attracted national news attention with a feature story from Fox News. Click here to watch the piece. Attempts by Fox to interview local Forest Service officials were nixed by Obama Administration officials, which is both disturbing and unfortunate.

The power line to connect the green energy from wind would take up about 180 acres of the more than six million acres of BLM land in Harney County . And yet, environmental groups have made it clear they plan an all out-assault to stop the wind energy from getting to the grid.

On the forest side, the Malheur National Forest has about a 28-year backlog of treatment at its current dismal rate. And that’s if you took a snapshot in time. It doesn’t include the enormous growth and mortality of trees and vegetation on the forest.