from the Moscow Pullman Daily News TOWN CRIER II: Good riddance to servant of
timber, grazing interests By Mark Solomon Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Approaching this weekend's resignation of Sen. Larry Craig, conversations on
the fate of our senator across Idaho and the nation often turned into heated
debates. Craig has been around a long time. He has power. Some have profited
from his actions as our senator, others have fought him. Quite a few of us
know him personally and, differences in policies and politics aside, were
surprised by the harsh judgment handed down by his peers in D.C. Did his fall
from grace need to be so sharp, sudden and unforgiving? I say "yes," but not
for the sensational reasons offered by his colleagues. Craig's lack of
senatorial supporters and inevitable fall is because he was less a
representative of Idaho as he was servant of the "Lords of Yesterday,"
University of Colorado law professor Charles Wilkinson's phrase for the
timber, mining and grazing interests that have controlled our western public
lands for the past 150 years. Craig was the last of their errand boys with
any power in D.C. He won't be missed. The forces that gave rise to the power
of the Lords are there to discern: relatively small populations in the West's
public land states; immense public land resource values; and the reliance of
federal land managers on Congress for agency budgets. Combined they gave the
Lords a way to systematically fleece the public domain. An Iron Triangle came
into being with the Lords, a core group of senators, and federal agencies
each delivering and receiving the goods. Craig and former senators such as
McClure (Idaho), Murkowski (Alaska), Gorton (Wash.), Packwood (Ore.) and
Burns (Mont.) got cash from the Lords to win elections and increase their
power through seniority; agencies got budgets from senior senators to build
their bureaucracies; and the Lords got our public lands' resources for a
fraction of their value. And woe to anyone who got in their way. An example
of the Triangle at work raiding Idaho's national forests - and Larry Craig in
action - is the story of John Mumma. In 1989, Forest Service Regional
Supervisor Mumma, responsible for the national forests of northern Idaho and
western Montana, ordered a reduction in the amount of timber cut to
sustainable, legal levels. Forest Supervisors Win Green on the Clearwater and
Tom Kovalicky on the Nez Perce supported Mumma. As you can imagine, the Lords
could not allow this to continue. Sen. Craig, on their behalf, sent a warning
letter to agency chief Dale Robertson, "It is my hope that you will move to
assure that (logging) targets are met and line officers are held
accountable," he wrote. Ordered by Robertson to increase the cut, Mumma
refused and was forced into retirement. Green quit rather than oversee
destruction of the Clearwater. Kovalicky left soon thereafter. The forest
liquidation sale resumed, challenged only by forest activists who
successfully took the Forest Service into court and outside the short-term
control of the Triangle. Short-term, because the Lords' senators were there
to change any law that got in the Lords' way. Craig led the campaign of
destruction, eliminating or weakening laws that protected our forests and
fish. His favorite weapons were appropriations and budget riders where he
could operate in the shadows, unseen. As a senior senator on the Interior
Appropriations Committee, Craig created loopholes or cut any federal agency's
budget that didn't produce the results the Lords wanted. Remember the 1995
Salvage Rider waiving the "restrictions" of Forest Service laws for one year?
That was Craig. How about the 2005 elimination of the Fish Passage Center, a
small federal agency that counted and reported how many salmon were making it
past the Columbia River dams? Craig. Attempts to pass Lords-friendly
amendments to the National Forest Management Act written by Mark Rey (former
timber lobbyist, Craig staffer and now Bush administration Forest Service
overseer)? Craig again. The list goes on and on. With Craig's resignation the
Lords are left without senior senatorial errand boys. Their ability to
control the West's future is seriously diminished. Newer western senators
such as Mike Crapo understand the need to balance use of public lands with
their protection, something the Lords' senators never did. I mark these days
for what they are: the true dawning of the New West. Go ahead, join the
forests and salmon and breathe a great sigh of relief that Craig is gone. I
raise my glass in celebration of the bright hope I hold for the West's future
as our senior senator slinks into the shadows. Mark Solomon observes the
Palouse from his homestead on top of Moscow Mountain. Town Crier II is a
weekly series of columns contributed by 13 local writers. The Town Crier
columns run on Wednesday.
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