Farmers in the Klamath Basin may see a huge increase in federal dollars coming their way, to help them cope with this summer’s drought.
An emergency spending bill before the Senate will add another $10 million in drought aid. That’s on top of the $8.75 million the feds have already spent.
An interesting snippet from a speech by Eastern Oregon Representative Greg Walden. It came during the debate on the bill to add 22-miles of the Molalla River to the Wild and Scenics Rivers system. By the way, Walden voted in favor of the bill.
But in this clip Walden seems to be questioning the idea of creating more Wilderness Areas. “I’m upset,” he says, “by the notion we can protect lands by never doing anything again on them.”
After that he segues into a call for more forest thinning and better management of federal forests.
Have you noticed all the news attention Representative Greg Walden is getting for his recent “debate” with Vice President Al Gore?
The two squared off over forest biomass, and whether or not it should be considered a form of renewable energy. The exchange came during a week long string of hearings on national greenhouse gas legislation.
Gore was skeptical. He appeared concerned that thinning federal forests for biomass fuel might encourage too much logging.
But Walden was clearly frustrated that biomass was not in the bill as a renewable energy source. He wants more thinning partly because he thinks it will help reduce wildfires. He also sees more jobs in the forests if thinning is ramped up, and at new power plants that could be built using biomass as fuel.
Walden isn’t alone in his point of view. Senator Ron Wyden and Rep. Peter DeFazio also support including forest biomass on the renewable energy list.
Walden’s office posted the exchange on its YouTube page.
The exchange was well covered in the Bend Bulletin, and Walden carried on with his argument a few days later in White City as seen in this Medford Mail Tribune story.
