Idaho Examiner: CIEDRA WILDERNESS BILL IS FULL OF GIVEAWAYS"Common Sense News"

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CIEDRA WILDERNESS BILL IS FULL OF GIVEAWAYS

Posted on: July 27, 2007

A guest opinion by Dan Hammerbeck

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And so are gifts. That is exactly what’s happening with CIEDRA, the Boulder White Clouds Wilderness Bill.

Some supporters of CIEDRA claim that there are no giveaways in the CIEDRA package. But how can that be? The Custer County Commissioners opposed the bill until Congressman Mike Simpson showed up with new “incentives” in the form of land giveaways and cash—both short term buyoffs that won’t solve the long term problems facing rural areas such as Custer and Lemhi Counties, let alone any of the rest of Idaho’s rural communities.

Supporters say this bill is a small price to pay for getting wilderness. Since when do you have giveaway anything to get wilderness? You can mince the words anyway you want but the fact is the land is going from federal ownership to city or county ownership and the recipient is not paying, sounds like a giveaway to me.

This is a terrible precedent to set. In future every time we designate a National park or another wilderness are we going to have to give up some federal land to get the land designated? Congressman Simpson understands the importance of local support for wilderness however, isn’t it sad that in the case of CIEDRA he has to buy the support. If the land truly qualifies for wilderness then it should stand on its own and payoffs and giveaways should not be necessary to buy support.

These counties and cities need help but Custer County is not the only rural community in need of help. All the counties in Idaho that have huge expansions of public land are in trouble because of the loss of commodity production-agriculture, mining, timber, grazing and in some cases recreation. In order for these counties to get help, do they also have to agree to more wilderness?

Finally, there is no assurance that these gifts (promises) can be kept by the Congress. Once CIEDRA is authorized, the wilderness will be in place, but then each piece of this package has to have an appropriation to pay for the gift. We’ve seen many programs such as PILT (payment in lieu of taxes) not get the funding authorized by Congress. PILT is on of those programs that can really help rural counties that have huge tracts of public land in them. If PILT was fully funded, it would soften the economic blow created by these public lands, specifically wilderness designations.

Where is the controversy that CIEDRA resolves? The Boulders are well managed. Seems like Congressman Simpson introducing CIEDRA is what has caused the debate.