Dan Popkey adds to Idaho media's star-struck relationship with public lands reliant industry by calling for Idahoans to Help keep Idaho one of the last best places to live with their support of Idaho H262 in the Sunday Statesman. The House Bill would pony up scarce state dollars to loggers, ranchers, and farmers to crutch their operations against development competition. Individual and corporate state income tax credits of 50% the assessed private land value would be added to the pile of subsidies ranchers and loggers already enjoy with reduced Ag property taxes, public land resource rates at a fraction of market value, low interest loans, etc. etc.
The bill is the result of a collaboration of industry interests and conservationists calling themselves the Working Lands Initiative. The name sounds nice (in these times that ought to justify an immediate double-take) but the results to conservation efforts are misleading.
The bill is premised on the idea that private lands in rural Idaho are under assault by large developers moving in to build second homes for the affluent. This is bad for rural Idahoan industries that wish to continue logging, ranching, and farming as it exposes them to competing market valuations. It is also suggested that the move is bad for wildlife because private "working lands" (logging, ranching, etc.) provide "open space" that wildlife enjoy. But does the bill effect more than just private land? Whose private land? And is "open space" necessarily desirable wildlife habitat?
Land at Stake
Quite often the private "working land" in rural Idaho is owned by large corporate landholders such as the logging giant Potlatch. Potlatch is featured as a supporting organization on the H262 website. Potlatch certainly has much to gain should H262 pass into law - up to half a million dollars per year. Perhaps you've noticed Potlatch's monocultural tree farms in a Western rural community near you? If not, it's a breath-taking site. Row after row, branch for branch and gene for gene - Potlatch has made good business out of planting genetically identical trees over acre after acre as was the case with their hybrid poplar plantation in Boardman OR. Insect and disease love this arrangement, but thankfully for Potlatch's stockholders, these "open space working lands" are chemically treated and fertilized prolifically. Is this the kind of wildlife habitat Idaho taxpayers should subsidize? Oregon subsidized their Boardman operation to bolster the local economy, but as soon as the economic winds shifted Potlatch sold out to a private equity firm leaving the Boardman community and the state treasury's 'investment' to the sharks. Maybe it'll work out, maybe not. Would you expect any less in Idaho - for wildlife? Well, you wouldn't have to... the easements on "open space" lands do not have to be perpetual:
(7) "Voluntary conservation donation" means the conveyance of a conserva-
42 tion easement, pursuant to chapter 21, title 55, Idaho Code, on eligible
43 lands, provided that such conservation easement satisfies the requirements of
44 section 170(h) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code, except that such conserva-
45 tion easement may be for a duration less than in perpetuity but greater than
46 fifteen (15) years.
Landowners would get 50% the value of the land now but could still subdivide in 15 years.
How does H262 ensure that agricultural waste water runoff, riparian degradation, native plant wildlife habitat, etc. etc. that are all-too-common of exploitative land use industries will be minimized on even the private lands of recipients that acquire this tax credit? It doesn't. The extent of oversight will be administered by a selected committee:
(2) There is hereby created the conservation tax credit advisory committee that will assist the commission in implementation of this chapter. The advisory committee shall consist of the following members appointed by and serving at the pleasure of the governor:
(a) Two (2) members representing the interests of livestock grazing, agriculture or private forest landowners;
(b) Two (2) members representing the interests of hunting, fishing, or fish and wildlife conservation;
(c) A representative of the department of fish and game;
(d) A representative of the office of species conservation; and
(e) A representative of the department of lands.
It is as if so long as the land is "open" and "working" it has wildlife value despite it's condition.
Public Land
Private land is not the only land at stake. Private base-properties give large-scale ranching outfits, like Simplot, access to federal and state public lands allotments - ranching is another industry in the West disproprotionately held by large corporate operations. Often, public land permit holdings are vastly larger than the base-property needed to acquire the public permit. This ensures that private lands aren't the only habitat implicated by the state measure. With base-properties further subsidized against free market value choices and fair competition, larger acreage public "working lands" become denuded wildlife habitat. These are public lands that hunters and anglers don't need private permission to access and public lands that ought be the subject of conservation efforts. Regardless, these lands are existing examples of the widespread subsidies ranchers already enjoy without H262. More subsidies to these industries continues the artificial relief from free-market competition necessary to spur meaningful voluntary permit buy-outs which promotes the restoration of wildlife values on federal public lands by incentivizing the removal of exploitative use rather than its subsidized continuation.
Dan Popkey's Statesman article attempts to marginalize public interest wildlife advocates whose insistence on the application of the rule of law trumps political riff-raff and the misleading language of "open space" and "working lands". His article demonstrates that these terms are quickly displacing the integrity of scientifically verifiable 'conservation' wildlife values in the local political discourse. This is in no small part attributable to the willingness of green groups to peel off into politically contrived feel-good "collaborations" with industry groups. Compromise, seemingly for its own sake. Groups supporting H262 include the following:
Idaho Cattle Association
Idaho Farm Bureau
Idaho Forest Owners Association
Idaho Woolgrowers Association
Intermountain Forest Association
Land Trusts in Idaho
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife
The Nature Conservancy
The Trust for Public Land
Unfortunately, as warm and fuzzy as it feels for media to have a couple conservationists come together with big and powerful industry and the politicians they sponsor, H262 is an example of a bill which does very little for a short time and no verifiable conservation criteria to assure that the conservation interest is secured. It gives the Idaho Governor (currently "Butch" Otter) complete discretion to appoint (and serve at his pleasure) a committee of industry stalwarts who will be charged with distributing state subsidies to industry to preserve what they consider to be "conservation values" on private land.
Idaho and the federal government subsidize these (ab)uses of land already. State grazing allotments go for woefully under market value ~ federal even more so. Idaho has refused to subsidize Head Start, declined subsidies for public transport that would alleviate dangerous air quality in the Treasure Valley, declined University grants, etc. etc. etc.
It's good to feel good sometimes ~ but in Republican strongholds like Idaho, one can usually measure the effectiveness of a progressive effort by the ire it garners from industry politicians and their star-struck local media.