Originally posted at New West, where I write every Tuesday on politics in the mountain west.
David Frey’s thoughtful article on Larry Craig’s environmental legacy leaves much to ponder. Particularly this snippet:
His recent fall from power brings an end of an era. Craig was so beholden to industry that if he resigns, few others could follow in his footsteps, environmentalists say. Even if Gov. Butch Otter, a fellow Republican, appoints a staunch conservative to take his place, they say, it would be hard to match Craig’s anti-conservation legacy. And even if Craig doesn’t resign, his tumble from influential positions on key committees like appropriations and energy and natural resources would leave him far weaker than the Western power broker he once was.
This is an end of an era, but forces beyond those that led Larry Craig to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in a men’s room are at work behind the changing dynamics of resource politics in the West.
Take, for example, the disaster when Gordon Smith and Dick Cheney teamed up to choose farmers over fish (and fishermen) in the Klamath Basin. The decision didn’t only decimate salmon runs in the river, but the coastal fishing industry in southern Oregon and northern California.
These kinds of economic decisions have been easy for policy-makers in the mold of Craig and Smith, who cut their teeth in the era of the conservatives’ trumped up “War on the West.” Environmental protection regulations, wildlands and wildlife preservation, they told farmers, ranchers, loggers, and residents in the West, were all meant to end their way of life, to take away their livelihood. Instead of leadership toward shaping thoughtful policies that would mitigate harm to either industry or environment, we got all out war. And for too long the environment lost.
But there’s a new reality shaping the public lands debate in the West, one that will eventually even out the playing field: it’s the economy, stupid.
The Sierra Club’s public lands report for 2007, The New Economy of the West: From Clearcutting to Camping [pdf] tells the story:
According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, between 1990 and 2003 income in counties relying on wood products, mining, and oil and gas development grew by just two percent. By contrast, wages in the West as a whole grew by 12 percent during that same time. The fastest growth occurred where the predominant occupation is business or consumer services. Economists have found that the West’s natural environment attracts workers, firms and investments, thereby increasing prosperity
Data gathered over the past 30 years shows that the closer a county is to federally protected lands, the faster that county’s economy has grown. The reason for this shift is that people are increasingly moving to rural western towns for their unique landscapes and quality of life. Many of these new arrivals are retirees with investment income. They buy or build new homes, eat out in restaurants, and spend time hiking, camping and fishing on the public lands in their new communities....
- Outdoor recreation generates $61 billion annually for the Rocky Mountain West.
- Hunting and fishing contributes over $3 billion to the economy of the Rocky Mountain West.
- 85 percent of total hunters in the West use public lands for hunting and fishing.
In those communities experiencing the healthiest economic growth, not coincidentally those communities closest to public lands, the report finds increased employment, higher earnings and income, lower poverty, and improvements in local educational attainment and health. Property values also increase the closer they are to protected public lands, according the a U.S. Department of Commerce study included in the report.
The new reality is that protected and well managed public lands are worth more to western communities than the oil, gas, or timber than you can pull out of them. The long term public policy view on the value of public lands and the resources they hold is going to have to change for the long term preservation of western communities.
One of Craig’s final acts in the Senate was to derail his old friend and colleague, Senator Craig Thomas’s (R-WY), dying wish: Wild and Scenic River designation for the Upper Snake. The coalition working with Sen. Thomas to protect the river’s headwaters is further proof of what the Sierra Club report is arguing:
Initiated in Fall 2003, the Campaign for the Snake Headwaters – better known by its acronym “C-Fish” – is a local grassroots effort to permanently protect the most pristine rivers and streams in northwest Wyoming’s Snake River drainage by including them in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The campaign is comprised of anglers, hunters, outfitters, guides, landowners, business owners, and conservationists who share a common goal of leaving a legacy of healthy rivers and unsurpassed recreational opportunities for future generations to enjoy.
Our policy-makers need to get the message that it’s not fish vs. people, or owls vs. people in the West anymore. With Larry Craig out of the way, maybe that can happen. Maybe even Republican wilderness bills, like Thomas’s Upper Snake bill, or Craig’s Idaho colleagues’ Rep. Mike Simpson’s Boulder-White Cloud bill or Sen. Mike Crapo’s Owyhee bill, will see the light of day. Maybe even the disaster relief for fishing communities (co-sponsored ever so cynically by Gordon Smith) will pass and provide a learning opportunity. With Larry Craig out of the way, the chances of all this happening got just a little bit better.