U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Oregon, held a town hall meeting in Burns on Wednesday, Aug. 10, as part of his trip through the Second Congressional District covering more than 1,000 miles.

Walden began by talking about the proposed national monument designation for the Owyhee Canyonlands in Malheur County. He noted that the proposal is advocated by Keen Shoes and the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA). Walden said Malheur County held a vote earlier in the year, and with a 56 percent voter turnout, more than 90 percent of the residents voted against the monument designation.

“The community has clearly spoken,” Walden said. “There are seven layers of management out there already. You don’t need an eighth.”

Walden added that Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell is on record saying that nobody in her agency is doing any work on the monument designation.

“They are aware of it, because of the public nature of it, but they’re not doing any work, and further, she pledged she would tell me if they began doing any work on it,” Walden said. “But as we know, under the Antiquities Act of 1906, the president has sole ability with the stroke of a pen to declare whatever he wants without any notice.”

He said former president Bill Clinton did it on the Grand Staircase-Escalante, and he has every reason to believe ONDA and Keen Shoes will continue their campaign to get this done.

“I have met with the folks from Keen Shoes, I’ve called them on the carpet. I think it’s all a corporate marketing strategy. They may also believe in it, that’s fine, but poking a finger in the eye of people of Malheur County is not a good way to do business,” Walden said.

Walden said he had a provision in the Interior appropriations bill that recently passed in the House that prohibits any funds being spent to declare monuments in Malheur County, as well as Jackson and Josephine counties.

“The House has now spoken, the people have spoken, but we have to keep the pressure on,” Walden said.

Also in the Interior appropriations bill, the House passed language limiting the administration from listing the sage grouse as endangered; fully funded the Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program, which includes about $1 million to Harney County; cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s funding levels by $164 million, reduced their regulatory programs by 21 percent, and took them back to the 1989 staffing level.

“Unfortunately, I still don’t think they understand that they are overreaching and over-regulating, and lacking common sense, and we’re going to keep after them,” Walden said.

Moving on to fire fighting costs, Walden said the costs have been fully funded at a 10-year average and added $30 million to do more work in the forest to reduce the risk of fire.

Walden said the House also adopted an amendment that would delist wolves in the lower 48 states.

“I think we’re better capable of managing the wildlife population through a state plan as opposed to the federal,” Walden said.

The bill now goes on to the Senate, where Walden expects them to push back on every one of the proposals.

Walden stated new forestry legislation would allow people to get in quicker after fires to do cleanup and restoration, and it’s all fully funded. They are also working to streamline the process. The House also repealed the 21-inch diameter limitation on eastside forests.

Walden said he also drafted legislation that has been introduced to deal with the use of wildfire on the range and in the forests as a traditional agricultural and forest practice.

Mental health issues

Walden then opened the meeting to questions from the audience, and  an attendee asked what has been done on mental health that would affect this area?

Walden said the federal mental health programs began back in the Kennedy administration, and there are now 112 programs in the federal government, spending $130 billion a year, yet people wait for access to care.

“You’re 15 times more likely to commit a violent act if you’re seriously mentally ill and don’t get treatment,” Walden said. “So if you want to get to the violence in our communities, a lot of it’s tied back to people with mental health conditions, and they’re not getting treatment.”

Walden said there are grants that go out to communities to help with mental health services, and they are working to open the door on teleconferencing for mental health services.

The government is also trying to measure how well the current programs are working and boost resources.

Primaries

Asked about the primaries for the November election, Walden said the Republican party is going to “ebb and flow, and people are going to make their decisions.”

He said, “They certainly did in this primary process. My own preference was I wanted one of the governors because I want somebody that had a record of actually managing government agencies and working with the legislature because, frankly, what I’ve witnessed in the last eight years is a president who has done neither, and has horrible relationships with Congress on both sides of the aisle.”

Wild horses

Next came a question about wild horses and the way they are being managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Walden said the states that actually have wild horses don’t have the votes to make the changes, and the National Humane Society and other groups “run the table.”

“We spend $1,000 a year per horse that nobody wants, there are 40,000 of them in captivity, and we feed them until they die. And by the way, I’ve talked to the BLM about this, if I were a rancher and I had double the number of cows on my allotment, what would you do? They’re like, ‘You can’t do that.’

“And I said, ‘You’re like double the amount of horses or more out of your management plan.’

‘Well, we don’t have the resources.’

“Come on, and the damage they do to the range, and so we’re continuing to work on this issue of how do you reduce the population, the best way to do that. How do you manage the herds to a better size?”

Walden said some progress has been made, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

There was also some concern about the BLM’s Resource Management Plan Amendment regarding sage grouse, and Walden stated they’re working on that.

Later in the meeting, it was brought up that there are a lot of talented BLM folks in the county, and it’s important for folks to understand that the enemies of sage grouse are the enemies of ranchers as well, and they are wildfires, invasive annual grasses, and expanding conifers.

It has been shown in Harney County that collaboration does provide a win-win situation for those involved, and it could work in the sage grouse issues.

Artifacts

One audience member stated the Burns Paiute Tribe is worried about the condition of artifacts being stored at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and the Tribe would like to meet with Walden about the artifacts.

The other issue brought up was the lack of interest paid to the Burns Paiute Tribe from 1906 until 1972, when the Tribe finally received a payment for the land. It was explained that other tribes in the U.S. have received interest payments, and if the local tribe received the interest payments, it could be an economic boom.

Walden agreed to meet with tribal representatives to talk about the issues.

Federal government

Asked about the lack of trust in the federal government, Walden said he would like to see more control at the local level, and encouraged audience members to look at “A Better Way,” drafted by a legislative conference, at better.gop

Walden said two-thirds of the federal budget is out of Congress’ control because it’s mandatory payments such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, payment on the national debt, some veterans payments, etc. and by law, it has to be spent.

Near the end of the meeting, Walden stated, “As a country we face such big problems, but also big opportunities. I’m bullish on America. We have the resources, let’s figure out how to use them.”