Local Issues

I realize that PG&E is caught in a Hobson’s choice, but I do not support its decision for preventative power cut-offs due to high winds. They are balancing the possibility of a wildfire ignition due to wind damage against the certainty of deliberately causing millions of dollars of damage to their customers and creating major public safety hazards...

This is a massive document encompassing 147 individual bills, including mine on establishing a permanent fund for medical clinics in our National Parks. It reduces total federal land ownership at a time we can’t take care of the land we currently hold, shares considerably more LWCF money with states which have proven better land stewards, and relaxes public use restrictions on 168,000 acres of federal land. I am greatly concerned about adding 1.3 million acres of federal land to wilderness designation which greatly restricts public access, but more than half of this amount is in exchange for opening up other federal lands to greater recreation and economic development and has the support of the local governments most directly affected. I am also concerned over permanent reauthorization of the LWCF without reforming it to assure that maintenance needs are met before we acquire new lands. However, it does provide for 40 percent revenue sharing with state governments.

When we talk of PILT funding, we should never lose sight of the fact that it is a very, very poor substitute for revenues generated locally by healthy economic activity and federal revenue sharing. Our ultimate objective should be not to institutionalize PILT, but to restore active management of our federal lands and a healthy balance between federal land ownership and productive private ownership of the lands within each county in the nation.