The House Natural Resources Committee will hold hearings next week on legislation that would take the privatization-through-leasing concept to a national level, and allow it on Forest Service and BLM lands everywhere.
National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee to
Hold Legislative Hearing on Draft Secure Rural Schools ProposalWASHINGTON, D.C. – On Thursday, September 22nd the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands will hold a legislative hearing on the National Forest County Revenue, Schools and Jobs Act of 2011, draft legislation to address the expiration of the Secure Rural Schools program.
WHAT:
Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands
Legislative Hearing on:H.R. ____, National Forest County Revenue, Schools and Jobs Act of 2011, To increase employment and educational opportunities in, and improve the economic stability of, counties containing Federal forest lands, while also reducing the cost of managing such lands, by providing such counties a dependable source of revenue from such lands
H.R. 2852, (Bishop), Action Plan for Public Lands and Education Act of 2011, To authorize Western States to make selections of public land within their borders in lieu of receiving 5 percent of the proceeds of the sale of public land lying within said States provided by their respective enabling ActsWitnesses to be announced.
WHEN:
Thursday, September 22, 2011
10:00 A.M.WHERE:
1324 Hearing Room in the Longworth House Office Building
Visit the Committee Hearings webpage for testimony and additional information, once it is made available. The hearing is open to the public and a live audio stream will be broadcast at http://naturalresources.house.gov/live.
Getting DeFazio to take a firm decision on something is not hard. I’ve understood him to represent both sides of an issue in the same sentence.
Like when he represented to me a few years ago that he was not against LNG for “us”, just against the possible route the pipeline might take. It might harm “some” land owners interest. Who could he have been referring to?
In my opinion any politician not against JCEP is already working for the oil/gas industry, and to sell out the public interest on all publicly owned resources comes as no surprise. You want jobs America, then you gotta cough up your resources for massive exploitation by getting rid of the EPA for starters, then let the carving begin.
DeFazio had better take a firm position because no one really believes chopping down half of the O&C timber will save the counties. It will just make a few in the timber industry rich and all they have to do is cant or chip those federal logs to ship ’em to China.
We sure are living in interesting times.
40 years ago, Congress passed legislation that requires, and these are direct quotes from existing regulations, that “the NEPA process for proposals for legislation significantly affecting the quality of the human environment shall be integrated with the legislative process of the Congress. A legislative environmental impact statement shall be considered part of the formal transmittal of a legislative proposal to Congress. (A legislative environmental impact statement is meant to be) an accurate statement which can serve as the basis for public and Congressional debate. The statement must be available in time for Congressional hearings and deliberations ” (40 CFR 1506.8).
Let me know if anyone has seen a legislative environmental impact statement regarding the many proposals floating about pertaining to changes in the management of the CBWR and the O&C lands currently managed by the BLM.
Instead of seeing that we citizens receive the information that existing laws and regulations say we are entitled to, it appears our elected representatives (i.e. Congressman DeFazio) are too busy blazing trails to get around the regulations Congress put in place 40 years ago.
They write ’em like they are trying to convince people to take up smoking
They do write this bills like an advertising campaign to sell shaving cream
House Bill 2700, the so-called “LNG fast track” bill, signed by Kitzhaber in June had the word “Jobs” in the title to make it palatable to voters back in each home district.
Now they have to put the word “schools” in front of “jobs”, to sell this “one” to the public.