75th OREGON LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--2009 Regular Session
NOTE: Matter within { + braces and plus signs + } in an
amended section is new. Matter within { - braces and minus
signs - } is existing law to be omitted. New sections are within
{ + braces and plus signs + } .
LC 3446
House Resolution 3
Sponsored by Representatives SPRENGER, SCHAUFLER; Representatives
BENTZ, BERGER, BOONE, BRUUN, CAMERON, CLEM, ESQUIVEL, FREEMAN,
GARRARD, GILLIAM, GILMAN, HANNA, HUFFMAN, HUNT, JENSON,
KENNEMER, KRIEGER, MATTHEWS, MAURER, OLSON, RICHARDSON, ROBLAN,
G SMITH, STIEGLER, THATCHER, THOMPSON, VANORMAN, WEIDNER,
WHISNANT, WINGARD
SUMMARY
The following summary is not prepared by the sponsors of the
measure and is not a part of the body thereof subject to
consideration by the Legislative Assembly. It is an editor's
brief statement of the essential features of the measure as
introduced.
Expresses approval and support of forest resource management
plans developed under Western Oregon Plan Revisions. Urges
Governor to take steps to support, ensure and facilitate speedy
implementation of resource management plans.
HOUSE RESOLUTION
Whereas in December 2008, the Bureau of Land Management
completed an exhaustive three-year planning process that
developed new resource management plans for 2.5 million acres in
18 western Oregon counties, including Klamath County; and
Whereas the lands to be managed under the resource management
plans include 2.1 million acres designated as Oregon and
California Reinvestment Act lands, more commonly referred to as
O&C lands, that are required to be managed primarily for
sustained-yield timber harvests to produce revenue for the 18
western counties containing those lands; and
Whereas the 18 counties containing O&C lands are entitled to
use shared receipts from timber sales on O&C lands for general
fund purposes, including law enforcement, emergency services,
health and senior programs, libraries and the many other public
services needed and expected by Oregon residents; and
Whereas Bureau of Land Management timber sales under the
resource management plans will generate annual receipts to
counties containing O&C lands estimated at 85 percent of the
average O&C payments to those counties during the past 20 years;
and
Whereas the resource management plans will produce $75 million
each year for distribution to counties containing O&C lands for
funding public services and will increase the number of
timber-related jobs by 1,200; and
Whereas the resource management plans provide for a network of
late-successional management areas to maintain and develop
habitat for the conservation of the northern spotted owl and the
marbled murrelet, including more than 689,000 acres of protected
land, and will lead to an increase in owl habitat within the
first 10 years; and
Whereas the resource management plans exclude substantially all
of the existing older and more structurally complex forests
outside the late-successional management areas from harvesting
for the next 15 years and will provide additional habitat for
old-growth dependent species; and
Whereas the resource management plans provide higher levels of
protection to older trees than the existing protection of the
Northwest Forest Plan; and
Whereas there are approximately 1.1 million acres of mature and
structurally complex forests currently existing on Bureau of Land
Management lands; and
Whereas the resource management plans will result in a 50
percent increase in mature and structurally complex forests on
Bureau of Land Management lands over the next 100 years to 1.7
million acres; and
Whereas the resource management plans are consistent with the
final recovery plans and critical habitat designations for the
northern spotted owl and the marbled murrelet published by the
United States Fish and Wildlife Service; and
Whereas a large portion of future timber harvests under the
resource management plans will come from thinning, with about 35
percent of harvested acres coming from regeneration harvests
averaging 7,700 acres per year; and
Whereas the resource management plans provide for the use of
uneven-aged forest management techniques for selective harvesting
on approximately 183,000 acres of southern Oregon's drier forests
in order to reduce the frequency and severity of fire and to
improve fire resiliency; and
Whereas forests on O&C lands are among the most productive in
the world and grow more than 1.2 billion board feet of timber per
year; and
Whereas the resource management plans provide for the Bureau of
Land Management to offer for sale 588 million board feet of
timber per year, representing less than 50 percent of the timber
grown on O&C lands each year; and
Whereas the resource management plans will protect streams and
rivers with riparian management areas that will ensure that water
quality standards are met or exceeded and that the habitat needs
of listed fish species are satisfied; and
Whereas the resource management plans will withdraw the
approximately 322,000 acres in the riparian management areas from
management for timber production; and
Whereas implementation of the resource management plans will
increase total carbon storage from current levels, thereby
helping to offset greenhouse gas emissions and contributing to
the effort to slow global climate change; and
Whereas the Bureau of Land Management coordinated extensively
with the National Marine Fisheries Service, the United States
Fish and Wildlife Service, 10 state agencies, 17 county
governments and representatives of Indian tribes during
development of the resource management plans and responded to
questions from each party to ensure that the plans satisfied the
scientific and legal concerns of those parties; and
Whereas the Bureau of Land Management held more than 150 public
meetings and organized the most extensive public outreach program
ever conducted in Oregon by a federal agency in order to ensure
that the views of the public were fully expressed and considered;
and
Whereas the resource management plans comply with all
applicable state laws and federal laws, including but not limited
to the Oregon and California Reinvestment Act, the Endangered
Species Act, the Clean Water Act and the Federal Land Policy and
Management Act; and
Whereas the resource management plans should be implemented as
rapidly as possible to ensure that the benefits offered by the
plans become available to Oregon communities and to hasten the
improved management of the 2.5 million acres covered by the
plans; now, therefore,
Be It Resolved by the House of Representatives of the State of
Oregon:
That we, the members of the House of Representatives of the
Seventy-fifth Legislative Assembly, express approval and support
of the forest resource management plans developed by the Bureau
of Land Management under the Western Oregon Plan Revisions; and
be it further
Resolved, That we, the members of the House of Representatives
of the Seventy-fifth Legislative Assembly, urge the Governor to
take all steps necessary to support, ensure and facilitate the
speedy implementation of those forest resource management plans.
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