A bill containing Rep Peter DeFazio’s O&C Railroad Grant Lands Trust, Conservation and Jobs Act (OCTCJA) passed the House by a wide margin of 244 to 173 last week moving it on to the Senate. HR 1526, Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Community Act under Title III – OCTCJA would transfer management or control of more than a million acres of public land, including the Coos Bay Wagon Road (CBWR) to local entities and private industry in the hopes of creating new jobs but the bill is reviled by the environmental community for its relaxed regulations on habitat preservation and potential damage to riparian zones. The Office of Management and Budget has recommended a presidential veto if the bill passes the Senate because it would harm national forests by sidestepping environmental laws which would lead to delay through litigation. Senator Ron Wyden’s office has indicated that any bill transferring ownership or management of federal lands is not likely to pass the Senate.
The Coos County board of commissioners had another option presented during a recent work session that, according to Commissioner Bob Main, could bring the county a dependable $10 million a year in revenue. Local rancher and CBWR historian Don Gurney proposed that enforcement of the Act of 1939 relating to the Coos Bay Wagon Road grant lands, which are separate from the O&C lands, will provide a steady stream of revenue that is not tied to the vagaries of the timber market. The Act says that, “the land and timber thereon shall be assessed as are other similar properties”. During his tenure as county assessor Main tried to submit a $9 million tax bill based upon a valuation of approximately $1 billion to the BLM that manages the CBWR but could not because the county had instead accepted Secure Rural Schools (SRS) payments based upon a six percent severance tax that results in much lower payments.
Gurney, who was instrumental in establishing the county forest that provides funding for county services, suggested some minor amendments to the Act of 1939 to call for a annual reassessments and that payment-in-lieu of tax for the CBWR remain separate and independent of any payments related to the O&C lands and asked the board to submit them to Wyden for consideration. Wyden is chairman of the senate committee overseeing forestry reform and HR 1526 is anticipated to motivate bipartisan support for some sort of reform that is likely to be unveiled later this year or early in 2014. During the work session the board informally tasked Commissioner Melissa Cribbins with reviewing and editing the amendments but she has since chosen to take a wait and see approach until Wyden clarifies his position on “timber issues”.
Enforcing an existing Act, with or without Gurney’s amendments, would seem to be the path of least resistance as HR 1526 is not likely to make it out of the Senate committee and it has the support of the environmental community. Francis Eatherington of Cascadia Wildlands, an organization that strongly opposes DeFazio’s OCTCJA, says conservationists advocate for and support the delinking of timber sales from government services. Still, Gurney has received little support from the commission and even Main has backed away saying the Treasury doesn’t have the funds to make payments pursuant to the Act. Gurney counters that how the federal government meets its obligations isn’t the county’s problem, and that in the last decade the CBWR has put $45 million into the Treasury. “Let them figure out how to pay,” he says. “The commission’s job is to enforce the Act.”
Main and Cribbins have both raised concerns that enforcing the Act might somehow interfere with Wyden’s overall forest reform and that this approach doesn’t “create jobs”. If they mean no timber jobs on the CBWR they may be correct but the job of the commission is to deliver the best possible services and provide for public safety and a healthy infrastructure that in turn enables the private sector to conduct commerce and sustain jobs.
Cribbins said in an email that submitting the proposed amendments might be “construed as insulting and contrary to the several conversations I have engaged in with Senator Wyden’s staff”, but she also claims to have encouraged his staff “to recognize and differentiate the unique character of the wagon road lands.” Without knowing the content of her conversations it is hard to imagine how the amendments could in any way be regarded as insulting or even contrary but Cribbins’ prior employer, the Coquille Tribe, has actively been lobbying for the chance to co-manage the CBWR with the county.
Any solution utilizing federal assets and resources will require an act of Congress and of all the options out there so far, enforcing an existing Act would seem the most likely to succeed and provide the best outcome for county services.
