Daily Courier - Walden: Timber package stalled in Senate

News Article

By Shaun Hall

Rep. Greg Walden began and ended an hourlong town hall meeting Saturday in Grants Pass talking about timber.

In between, the veteran Congressman from Hood River chided the current adminstration for its handling of affairs both foreign and domestic, but he mainly focused on a stalled bill that would lead to increased timber harvests in the West and "get us back to work in the woods."

About 30 people attended the meeting at the Anne Basker Auditorium. Walden, who is running for reelection to the vast 2nd congressional district, which he has held since 1999, was due to fly back to Washington, D.C., on Sunday.

Josephine County Sheriff Gil Gilbertson, County Legal Counsel-elect Wally Hicks and county commissioners Simon Hare and Keith Heck were among the attendees Saturday. Gilbertson said cutbacks in federal O&C timber payments have hurt law enforcement.

"Public safety in this county is in the tank," Gilbertson said, asking Walden if there was light at the end of the tunnel.

"It's a challenge," Walden replied. "It (payments) has continued to ramp down."

To continue those payments requires money be taken from some federal pot of money, Walden continued.

"It's become harder and harder to find those pots," he said. "We need to find a consistent funding stream."

That funding stream, he suggested, is available in the form of a well-publicized forestry bill he and fellow Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Eugene, have helped sponsor. The measure would increase timber harvests while setting aside some federal forest lands as off-limits to logging.

Passage of the bill would mean "thousands of jobs" and more than $100 million a year "to fund basic services," said Walden, the only Republican currently representing Oregon in Congress.

However, after passing in the House, the forestry bill is going nowhere in the U.S. Senate, where a competing bill is being championed by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden.

"There it has sat," Walden said of his bill, "despite every effort."

Walden suggested that citizens should "put pressure on the Senate" to move the forestry bill. He said his bill, and not Wyden's, is the better measure. Wyden's proposal would cut less timber.

If the Senate would pass a forestry measure, then a conference committee could perhaps work out differences with the House bill.

"Right now," Walden said, "you're dancing with yourself."

Source