News
The Oregonian
Editorial
July 27, 2007
One more time up the mountain
So far, the long, meandering trail that a Mount Hood wilderness bill has taken through Congress has led nowhere and left blisters on lawmakers rubbed raw by the politics of forest protection.
But with a Senate committee's passage Wednesday of a bill to designate nearly 125,000 acres of new Oregon wilderness, the state's congressional delegation finally seems ready to get somewhere on Mount Hood.
It's about time. Congress came close last year to approving a Mount Hood bill that would have protected more than 77,000 acres. But that deal stalled at the 11th hour, high-centering on differences among Oregon members of the House and Senate and questions over a controversial land exchange included in the bill.
Now Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith are ready to take to the Senate floor a larger Mount Hood wilderness bill that stands a good chance of becoming law. The proposal finesses questions about the exchange of 120 acres of potential resort property near Government Camp for 770 acres on the northeast shoulder of the mountain, near Cooper Spur.
The U.S. Forest Service opposes the trade, and other critics, including the General Accountability Office, have attacked it in part because it is based on outdated appraisals of land values. The Wyden-Smith bill would require new appraisals that meet federal and industry standards.
That's fine. It's time to put an Oregon wilderness bill before both houses of Congress, and pass it. The state's congressional delegation has spent more than two years holding out the prospect of the first addition to Mount Hood wilderness in more than 25 years. All the while, Oregon's famously close and collaborative delegation has bickered over the details and elbowed one another in a rush to take credit for a Mount Hood bill.
Wyden and Smith are confident the full Senate will pass their Mount Hood bill before the August recess. And when the issue moves to the House, Oregon lawmakers, especially Rep. Peter DeFazio, are in good position to move a bill.
As a House subcommittee chairman, DeFazio will be charged with shepherding the Mount Hood bill, He's also likely to seek wilderness protection for a precious place in his southwest Oregon district, some 12,000 acres around the headwaters of the Elk River known as Copper Salmon. It, too, is certainly worthy of the nation's ultimate protection, federally designated wilderness.
DeFazio should link Mount Hood and Copper Salmon in one wilderness bill. He should have the help and full support of two other Oregon lawmakers, Earl Blumenauer and Greg Walden, who have spent years working together to promote Mount Hood protections.
This trio should join Oregon's senators, and all together now, push an Oregon wilderness bill over the top, and into law.