Wyden’s Unilateral Public Lands Livestock Grazing Giveaway

Top Line: Senator Wyden is cosponsoring legislation that would give blank checks and get-out-of-jail-free cards to all BLM grazing permittees and lessees.

Figure 1. A bovine on public lands crapping in the same stream from which it drinks. In the absence of domestic livestock, this stream would be colder and deeper, well shaded by willows if not also cottonwoods, and likely full of trout. Source: George Wuerthner.

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) is the sole cosponsor of a bill by Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) that would give Bureau of Land Management (BLM) grazing permittees and lessees even more free rein than they have now to (ab)use the public lands. The Barrasso-Wyden bill, the Operational Flexibility Grazing Management Program Act (S.4454, 118th Congress), would effectively remove any administrative control the BLM has over the grazing of livestock on 155 million acres of federal public lands.

As a senator from Wyoming, Barrasso has long carried any and all water requested of him by public lands grazing permittees and lessees. The Barrasso-Wyden bill is the latest in a long line.

Wyden’s Proposed Owyhee Canyonlands Bill: Quid Pro Quo

This is not Wyden’s first legislative attempt on behalf of grazing “flexibility.”

For the past several years, Senator Wyden and his staff have labored long and hard to bring forth legislation to address public land management issues in Malheur County, Oregon. The latest incarnation of his Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act, would primarily do two things on BLM holdings in Malheur County:

• Establish ~1.1 million acres of new wilderness areas.

• Authorize “flexible” livestock grazing on BLM lands in Malheur County.

The bill would do other things, but most of the verbiage pertains to wilderness and livestock grazing.

Wyden’s bill proposing a wilderness–livestock grazing grand bargain in the Owyhee Canyonlands (S.1890; 118th Congress), was introduced in the Senate in June 2023, reported out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in December 2023. A vote of the full Senate has not been scheduled. Most, but not all, of the conservation community supports S.1890 and they feel it is—despite a grazing “flexibility” provision—a significant net gain for public lands conservation.

Figure 2. Land near Kemmerer, Wyoming. On one side of the fence, the land is ungrazed. Guess which side. Source: George Wuerthner.

Here are two political givens:

• Conservationists love wilderness and hate livestock grazing.

• Public lands ranchers love livestock grazing and hate wilderness.

However, there is a place where these two sets overlap (picture a Venn diagram), and Wyden has found it in his Owyhee bill. Public lands ranchers really want “flexibility” language and are willing to give 1.1 million acres of wilderness to get it. Conservationists really want 1.1 million acres of wilderness and are willing to give a carefully worded and constrained version of grazing “flexibility.”

In the crafting and politics of legislation, such is known as a quid pro quo. One faction gets something they want more by accepting something they want less. Happens all the time. 

The proposed wilderness boundaries and grazing language were long debated and fought over, but Wyden’s latest bill seems to thread a political needle.

In cosponsoring S.4454, Wyden has tossed aside the delicate compromise offered in his Owyhee legislation and embraced a unilateral and far more damaging giveaway to the public lands livestock industry.

Figure 3. Livestock in the Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona. Source: George Wuerthner.

The Entrails of the Barrasso-Wyden Bill: Quid Pro Nihilo

“Flexible” grazing is not bovines practicing their yoga cow pose.

It would be bad enough if Wyden had taken his Owyhee “flexibility” language national and offered it without any corresponding conservation (a.k.a. “wilderness”) offset. However, the Barrasso-Wyden (national) “flexibility” language is arguably ten times worse in effect than the Wyden (Owyhee) “flexibility” language.

The Wyden (Owyhee) version of “flexible” grazing contains sideboards and leaves public lands managers with their ability to manage grazing on public lands. The Barrasso-Wyden (national) version of “flexible” grazing means that public lands ranchers get to do even more of what they want on public lands, with the public lands managers no longer having a say, with no analysis and stewardship requirements.

The Barrasso-Wyden (national) “flexibility” language is a total giveaway of blank checks and get-out-of-jail-free cards to grazing permittees and lessees on public lands administered by the BLM.

Figure 4. Livestock near the Paria River in the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument in Utah. I honestly don’t know what they are eating. Source: George Wuerthner.

The public policy director for the Western Watersheds Project (WWP), Josh Osher (my go-to guy for all matters of public lands grazing policy), submitted testimony (on behalf also of Kettle Range Conservation, Oregon Natural Desert Association, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, and Wilderness Watch) in opposition to the Barrasso-Wyden bill (WWP et al.). The bottom line:

S. 4454 is an attempted end around to virtually eliminate NEPA requirements and public involvement in grazing management on public lands. This bill puts all of the power in the permittee’s hands and removes nearly all discretion from the Secretary to manage grazed lands for multiple use. Passage of S. 4454 would lead to continued failure of BLM managed lands to meet even the most basic standards for land health and eliminate the few remaining tools at the BLM’s discretion to address problematic livestock grazing. [emphasis added]

How does the Barrasso-Wyden (national) “flexibility” language compare to the Wyden (Owyhee) “flexibility” language? The WWP letter notes:

Furthermore, this legislation is a significant departure from the current pilot program initiated by the BLM and the operational flexibility language in S. 1890, the Malheur Community Empowerment for the Owyhee Act. S. 4454 dramatically expands the purposes for modifying the terms and conditions of grazing permit from responses to environmental factors and ecological conditions to now include producer preferences and responsiveness to market conditions. [emphasis added]

The Barrasso-Wyden “flexibility” language would make a complete sham of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by requiring the BLM to always choose the “flexible” grazing alternative. The WWP letter notes:

The bill language states that the “Secretary shall develop and authorize at least 1 alternative” for operational flexibility. It is unclear if “authorize” means that alternative must be chosen or simply analyzed with the discretion remaining with the Secretary to determine which alternative to implement. If the former, this a complete usurpation of the Secretary’s authority to manage public lands according to multiple use principles. [emphasis in original]

The WWP letter further notes:

The final section that prohibits termination of a grazing permit due to the use of operational flexibility functions to fully insulate the permittee from any consequences of bad management choices for which the Secretary had no discretion to modify or deny. [emphasis added]

In reading legislation, I always try to follow two principles:

• Read the language as if you are paranoid. Read the language in a way that the forces of darkness could/would interpret it if they were in charge. Just because one is paranoid, it doesn’t mean that one is not being followed.

• Clearly discern what is being done for you and what is being done to you in the legislative language. The Barrasso-Wyden bill is all the latter and none of the former.

Rather than an acceptable quid pro quo, the Barrasso-Wyden “flexibility” language is a quid pro nihilo (something for nothing). Something for public lands ranchers, nothing for conservationists.

Figure 5. Livestock in the Eagletail Mountains in Arizona. Source: George Wuerthner.

A Benign Bovine: No Such Animal

Let’s take a moment to remind ourselves why livestock production—especially on public lands—is problematic.

Domestic livestock have done, and are doing, more damage to Earth than the chainsaw and bulldozer combined.

Livestock production—primarily cows—accounts for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (a few sources say less, most sources say more), most in the form of methane emitted by belching bovines. A molecule of methane has a global warming potential at least 28 times greater than that of a molecule of carbon dioxide. Animal agriculture also produces 65 percent of the world’s emissions of nitrous oxide (yes, laughing gas, but no laughing matter here), which has a global warming potential 296 times greater than that of carbon dioxide. In addition, 70 percent of the world’s agricultural lands are dedicated to livestock—lands that were formerly forests, grasslands, and/or wetlands.

Locally—and most especially on public lands—livestock cause chronic and grievous environmental harm. Most streams flowing through public lands have been cow-bombed to such an extent that water quality is horrendous and water quantity is diminished.

Figure 6. Fresh cow shit on rocks in a stream on public lands. If it were deposited on land, many would call it a cow pie. I do not. Unlike pie, cow shit is neither sweet nor savory. Source: George Wuerthner.

The public land forage now consumed by one cow and one calf could be allocated instead to sustain either one bison, seven to eight deer, more than two elk, nearly eleven pronghorn, nearly seven bighorn sheep, or more than one moose—not to mention that it could serve as hiding cover for sage-grouse and a buffet for butterflies and other pollinators.

Fewer domestic livestock on public lands would mean fewer wolves killed to protect livestock.

As a fraction of the nation’s beef supply, the contribution of public lands is very minor, and the market wouldn’t miss anything if livestock grazing ended on public lands.

Figure 7. Livestock near Beatty Butte in Oregon. The average full-grown cow (left) weighs ~1,400 pounds. On BLM land, the calves dine for free. Source: George Wuerthner.

A Fair Quid for the Quo

In Wyden’s Owyhee bill, the price local public lands ranchers would to pay for their “flexible” grazing language is 1.1 million acres of wilderness. In the Barrasso-Wyden flexible grazing bill, the price public lands ranchers have to pay is nada, zero, zip, zilch.

Were the Wyden site-specific (Owyhee) quid pro quo expanded nationally in the same proportion, public lands ranchers would have to accept 34,937,664 acres (but who’s counting?) of new wilderness areas. However, the Barrasso-Wyden (national) “flexibility” language is at least ten times worse than the Wyden (Owyhee) “flexibility” language, so make that 349,376,649 acres of new congressional conservation designations.

Alternatively, the quid for the quo (or the quo for the quid, depending upon your point of view) could be a new title for S.4454 that provides for a nationwide voluntary grazing permit relinquishment program. (See my three Public Lands Blog posts on the subject under “For More Information” below.) There is such legislation pending in the House of Representatives, the Voluntary Grazing Permit Retirement Act (H.R.6314, 118th Congress). Wyden has successfully legislated voluntary grazing permit retirement language in legislation establishing the Soda Mountain Wilderness and expanding the Oregon Caves National Monument.

If I were one of those twenty-two elite federal grazing permittees in Malheur County, I’d be urging my buds to walk away from Wyden’s wilderness–flexible grazing bill and run toward his national flexible grazing bill. Why pay when one doesn’t have to? Especially since it would be ten times better at zero cost.

The Wyden (Owyhee) “flexible” grazing language is acceptable to much of the conservation community in the context of a quid pro quo for wilderness designation. The Barrasso-Wyden “flexible” grazing language is not accompanied by even 1 acre of congressional conservation designations such as wilderness, national monuments, national parks, national wildlife refuges, or national conservation areas. Wyden should walk away from this quid pro nihilo.

Figure 8. Livestock in the Agua Fria (“Cold Water”) National Monument in Arizona. To an untrained eye, the foreground might look “natural.” Actually, it is quite cow-bombed. Source: George Wuerthner.

For More Information

Kerr, Andy. December 2, 2016. A Federal Public Lands Grazing “Right”: No Such Animal. Public Lands Blog.

———. May 26, 2017. The High Cost of Cheap Grazing. Public Lands Blog.

———. August 13, 2021. Where’s the Beef? Public Lands Blog.

———. October 3, 2022. Senator Wyden’s Owyhee Wilderness, and More, Legislation. Public Lands Blog.

———. September 4, 2023. Retiring Grazing Permits, Part 1: Context and Case for the Voluntary Retirement Option. Public Lands Blog.

———. September 12, 2023. Retiring Grazing Permits, Part 2: History of the Voluntary Retirement Option. Public Lands Blog.

———. September 12, 2023. Retiring Grazing Permits, Part 3: Future of the Voluntary Retirement Option. Public Lands Blog.

Western Watersheds Project et al. June 26, 2024. Letter to Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests and Mining in re S.3322 and S.4454 (118th Congress).

Bottom Line: Senator Wyden should remove his name as a cosponsor of S.4454.

Figure 9. Dead livestock in the Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona. Source: George Wuerthner.

Mark Odom Hatfield, Part 1: Oregon Forest Destroyer

This is the first of two Public Lands Blog posts on the most consequential Oregonian yet to serve in the United States Senate. In Part 1, we look at his role in enabling the destruction of Oregon forests. In Part 2, we will examine his complicated legacy.

 Top Line: While Oregon’s Mark Hatfield was a great US senator, it was not because of his record on the conservation of nature.

Figure 1. Senator Mark Odom Hatfield (R-OR) in 1981. Source: US Senate.

Recently, the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) had one of their launch parties in Pendleton for a new traveling exhibit: “The Call of Public Service: The Life and Legacy of Mark O. Hatfield.” On the wall, in big 3D letters, was a list of things OHS says Hatfield most cared about:

1. Wilderness Protection

2. World Peace

3. Infrastructure

4. Health Care

5. Equal Rights

6. Education

Figure 2. One of several kiosks in the Oregon Historical Society’s traveling exhibit on Senator Mark O. Hatfield. Source: Oregon Historical Society.

When I read this, I was stunned. More than once I had characterized Mark Hatfield as a pacifist timber beast when explaining his ability to survive and prosper politically in Oregon. (Although a Republican, he was downright liberal on issues such as world peace, health care, equal rights, and education, which resulted in a lot of Democrats repeatedly voting for him.)

Peace, Yes. Wilderness Protection, Not So Much.

Looking at that list on the wall told me that a historian, perhaps more than one, believes that the thing Mark Hatfield cared most about was wilderness protection. Or perhaps it’s merely a listing of six causes, with no ranking of importance—but if that were the case, alphabetical order would be the usual way to signal such, or even random ordering. However, this list would be in reverse alphabetical order if wilderness protection and world peace were reversed. No, wilderness protection was clearly meant to be first and most important.

I’m pretty sure Hatfield cared more about world peace than wilderness protection. He talked about and did more about peace. He deeply opposed the Vietnam War at a time when most Oregonians supported it. He proposed a cabinet-level Department of Peace to offset the Department of Defense (which combined the Department of War and the Department of the Navy). For the relative and absolute dearth of presence of the military-industrial complex in Oregon today, we can thank Hatfield. I recall getting a mass mailing from Hatfield way before Gulf War I where he warned of “our sons fighting and dying in the sands of Arabia” for oil.

The OHS exhibit features Hatfield’s efforts to establish wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, and the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. It’s true that for most of the area protected today in Oregon as wilderness, Hatfield was instrumental. For most of the streams protected today in Oregon as wild and scenic rivers, Hatfield was instrumental. The Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area would not be, if not for Hatfield.

What OHS says is true—as far as it goes.

However, millions of acres of Oregon’s wild forests could have been protected as wilderness but were not, thanks to Hatfield. (You can read my very opinionated but nonetheless factual history of Oregon’s wilderness wars, in which Hatfield played an outsized role for so long, in a chapter of my book Oregon Wild: Endangered Forest Wilderness.)

However, several dammed streams in Oregon—the Upper Rogue, dammed by Lost Creek Dam; the Applegate River, dammed by the Applegate Dam; the Elk Creek tributary to the Upper Rogue, dammed at one time by the Elk Creek Dam; the Willow Creek tributary to the Columbia River; and more—were damned by Hatfield. (The Elk Creek Dam no longer damns Elk Creek, which is now a component of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.)

Figure 3. The first kayaker to pass through the breached Elk Creek Dam in 2009. Hatfield used raw political power to force the Army Corps of Engineers to build a dam that even the agency didn’t want to build. Source: WaterWatch (Bill Cross).

However, there is no Cascade Volcanic National Park in the Oregon Cascades, because of Mark Hatfield.

However, no single person did more to enable the liquidation of most of Oregon’s old-growth forests than Senator Mark O. Hatfield. At the logging’s peak, more than three square miles of old-growth forest on Oregon federal public lands were being clear-cut each week. From his perch on, and often as chair of, the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Hatfield made sure the money was there for the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to lay out the clear-cuts and build the roads in old-growth forests. Multiple times, including during his last years in office, Hatfield attached riders (a rider is a provision of law attached to must-pass legislation that would not receive a majority vote on its own) that barred the courthouse door to citizens seeking to enforce federal laws to protect ancient forests.

The Definitive Book on Hatfield (So Far)

Figure 4. The definitive book on Hatfield by Richard W. Etulain, a noted western historian who is a self-admitted Hatfield fanboy. Source: University of Oklahoma Press.

As a matter of professional interest (know one’s opponent), I have read all the books written by Hatfield, and when Mark O. Hatfield: Oregon Statesman by noted western author Richard W. Etulain came out last year I was interested to read one about Hatfield. I found it very informative. The meat of Etulain’s book ends in 1967 as Hatfield moves from the job of governor of Oregon to that of US senator from Oregon, as its coverage of Hatfield’s Senate career is superficial. As the author has noted, the Hatfield papers at Willamette University are sealed until July 2022 (Hatfield’s one hundredth birthday), so Etulain concentrated on the gubernatorial years, where the record is more complete. Etulain has said that writing about Hatfield’s Senate years would take at least five years of research and writing, something he says, at eighty-three, he cannot commit to.

Hatfield is the first governor I can remember. When my interactions with the man started in 1979 as I was advocating for wilderness, he had been a senator for more than a decade. As I read the book, I kept feeling that when writing about issues facing Hatfield as governor (1959 to 1967), Etulain was taking digs at the likes of me for existing at all during Hatfield as senator (1967 to 1997). Tellingly, when writing about Hatfield’s gubernatorial years, Etulain keeps referring to “environmentalists,” a term that didn’t come into general use until around the first Earth Day in 1970. Here are a few excerpts that indicate the author’s disdain for anything close to an “environmentalist.”

[Hatfield] viewed Dallas as a wholesome and holistic community, its life orchestrated primarily by the timber industry with tight links to lumbering and the daily routines of the saw mill. . . . This optimistic view of the timber industry and lumbering generally casts light on Hatfield’s later political support for the industry, which his environmentally motivated critics thought far too strong . . .

Logging and lumbering firms wanted to cut more trees to capitalize on Oregon’s timber riches. Hatfield began to work on that production-conservation issue as a middle-of-the-roader, a position that upset born-again environmentalists, especially Democratic environmentalists, in Hatfield’s later senator years . . . 

President Theodore Roosevelt, thoroughly influenced by his forester friend Gifford Pinchot, stood for “wise use” of natural resources. Assertive conservationist John Muir spoke passionately for “wilderness” advocates: the setting aside of forests, lands, deserts, and natural wonders as wilderness areas to be appreciated but not “used.” Hatfield was drawn to the wise-use philosophy, a position later enthusiastic environmentalists greatly disliked. [emphasis added]

Etulain has said that he found Hatfield to be “the ideal politician,” and he couldn’t find any major faults with the senator. I look forward to a more encompassing and less hagiographic biography that also covers the man’s time in the Senate.

The US Postal Service has a policy: no stamps honoring a person until they have been dead at least a quarter century. Hatfield has another fourteen years to go. Let historians take the time to fully examine his life.

The First Time I Met Hatfield

In 1979, James Monteith (then executive director of the Oregon Wilderness Coalition or OWC, later the Oregon Natural Resources Council and now Oregon Wild) and I got a meeting with Hatfield in Washington, DC. At the time I was OWC’s western field representative, and my trip to DC was the first time I had been east of the Mississippi River. A Hatfield aide took us from his office in one of the Senate office buildings to the Capitol. We were ushered into Hatfield’s hideaway in the Capitol building, a small and very ornately decorated private den with only a room number on the door. It was meant to impress, and it did. 

Hatfield was very charismatic and immediately put us at ease. He was so charismatic that after that first meeting, I liked him even when I knew he was screwing me (actually nature). He was extremely smart and listened when we talked. Actually, he was reading Monteith and me like we were books.

We first chatted about politics, and he said he wanted to get a wilderness bill done before the 1980 election. Ronald Reagan hadn’t yet obtained the Republican nomination and was still a long shot. Hatfield said, “Can you imagine if Reagan becomes president?” and every one of the four of us in the room laughed and rolled our eyes. Less than two years later on January 20, Hatfield was in a morning coat welcoming Reagan to the Capitol building in his role as chair of the congressional inaugural committee.

Of course, we got to talking about wilderness, of which Hatfield was not a great fan. Only two years earlier, Hatfield had very reluctantly changed his position to favor returning the French Pete Valley to the Three Sisters Wilderness. French Pete was the first wilderness battle in Oregon that involved significant amounts of virgin older forest.

Monteith was a wildlife biologist at heart and brought up how many medium and large mammals—especially predators—need wilderness to prosper, if not just exist. Hatfield wasn’t buying it. “When I was growing up in Dallas,” Hatfield said, “we had lots of cougars, but we didn’t have any wilderness.” Dallas is a small community in the mid-Willamette Valley that abuts the Oregon Coast Range. In the 1930s, the Oregon Coast Range still had very large amounts of roadless virgin older forest. By 1979, it did not.

Monteith and I realized that to Hatfield, “wilderness” was merely a land designation in law, while we both felt that “wilderness” was also a character of land in fact. All that those Coast Range cougars knew was that their home was wild.

I was mortified when Monteith tried to make our point by noting that “only God and Congress can make Wilderness.” (I capitalize the W here because James always insisted on it when referring to that designation.) Hatfield was quite the intense Christian, while Monteith and I were quite the contrary. However, I was relieved when Hatfield immediately retorted, “And we don’t let Him in on it until we are damn well ready.” The tiny office filled with laughter all around.

Speaking of mammalian predators, Monteith soon brought up a rare forest-dwelling member of the weasel family, the fisher (Pekania pennanti). To our surprise, Hatfield asked his aide, who had been sitting quietly, if she knew what a fisher was. She said no, so Hatfield proceeded to hold forth on the wilderness-loving species. “Did you know that fishers can kill a porcupine without getting quilled?” he asked the young (enough to be his daughter) aide. She did not. “I’ll show you,” said Hatfield. “Get down on the floor on your hands and knees.” While wide-eyed in shock (as were Monteith and I), she complied even though wearing a dress and some very unsensible shoes. Next, Hatfield got on his hands and knees and mimicked (at a relatively respectful distance, I feel bound to note) how a fisher attacks a porcupine in its quill-free face, flips it on its back, and goes for the kill at its quill-free neck. For a moment, I thought Hatfield was going to insist the nubile aide roll over on her back, but Hatfield returned to his chair and continued talking, and soon so did the aide to her chair.

Hatfield had made clear to us that he was well informed and also very powerful. The meeting ended cordially. (Later, that very aide served in high administrative positions that required Senate confirmation.)

Another Fateful Encounter with Hatfield

One sunrise in June 1984, I ran into Hatfield in the United terminal at Chicago O’Hare. We’d both taken the red-eye from PDX on our way to DCA. Hatfield came up to me and said, “Andy, what brings you to DC?” (Of course, I was secretly thrilled that the senator remembered me and called me by my first name.) The (still-to-this-day) record-sized Oregon Wilderness Act had just become law, and I was feeling quite good about that. (Hatfield was not.)

“Well, Senator, I’m going back to lobby for your timber bailout bill,” I said. Northwest Big Timber had way overbid on many old-growth timber sales and needed congressional relief to avoid massive contract defaults. Enviros favored the legislation because it would cancel many damaging sales and we would have another chance to thwart them as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management tried to resell them.

“You mean my Federal Timber Purchaser Contract Payment Modification Act?” said Hatfield, rather icily I thought.

“Sure. A lot of those sales are old growth and in roadless areas, so we’d like another shot at saving them in the next wilderness bill,” says I.

After less than the customary few milliseconds of pause, Hatfield, with chilling deliberateness, says, “Andy. I will never ever do another wilderness bill.”

The conversation ended not because the plane was boarding but because there was nothing else to say.

As I pondered the exchange at 33,000 feet over Ohio, I realized that the godfather of Oregon politics had destroyed our hope of ever saving any more wilderness as Wilderness. Hatfield had enacted wilderness bills into law in 1968, 1972, 1978, and 1984. The first of them had carved the Mount Jefferson Wilderness out of a Forest Service Primitive Area pursuant to the Wilderness Act of 1964. The matter had been thrust upon Hatfield early in his first term. The latter three had been passed during—not uncoincidentally—years in which Hatfield stood for re-election. All are wilderness areas today, but it was enough for the senator to declare “never again.”

·      His 1972 legislation added the lower Minam River Canyon to the Eagle Cap Wilderness (~72,000 acres).

·      The 1978 Endangered American Wilderness Act designated or expanded four Oregon wilderness areas (~275,000 acres). All somewhat had timber as an issue, but especially returning French Pete to the Three Sisters Wilderness. Finally, Hatfield had come around. (It was, after all, an election year.)

·      The 1984 Oregon Wilderness Act (~851,000 acres) was primarily about saving as wilderness roadless areas that included large amounts of virgin older forest: Boulder Creek, Cummins Creek, Rock Creek, Drift Creek, Middle Santiam, North Fork John Day, Eagle Cap Additions, Bull-of-the-Woods, Salmon-Huckleberry, Badger Creek, Grassy Knob, Rogue-Umpqua Divide, Table Rock, Mill Creek, North Fork Umatilla, Monument Rock, Strawberry Mountain Additions.

It was logical that we could expect another wilderness bill in 1990. Plotting the acreage of those previously every-six-years Oregon wilderness bills suggested an exponential curve on which we could expect the next wilderness bill to protect ~2 million acres. But alas, there was no Oregon wilderness bill in 1990, as the year before the northern spotted owl had hit the fan.

I consulted with fellow wilderness warrior James Monteith, and we decided to pivot from occasionally saving old growth via wilderness designations brokered at the state delegation level to saving all old growth any which way we could. We would go around Oregon’s political godfather. We had no other choice. The Pacific Northwest forest wars ensued.

(continued next week)