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EDITORIAL: Not so Fast on Land Bill

By The News Virginian Staff

The News Virginian

October 31, 2008

At a time when they will have been driven to delirium either by Barack Obama’s looming migration from the ordinary air on which he walks to the sublime air of Pennsylvania Avenue or by the wrenching horror of his defeat, Democrats apparently will gather with the other party a fortnight from election day for a special session and routine plundering in extraordinary times.

This time, their tool of extraction will take shape in a 1,082-page omnibus land bill layered thickly with $3 billion in annual spending. Leftists will describe opposition to the legislation, a boon for environmentalists, as an assault on sensibility and humanity. And so the bill may pass with scarcely a discordant whimper, spare the inevitable voice of dissidence emanating from that space occupied by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.

We have Coburn exclusively to thank for what The Hill calls a ‘monster package’ – 160 separate bills folded, shoved and smashed into one by Democrats Jeff Bingaman, of New Mexico, and Ken Salazar, of Colorado. By refusing to vote with the remainder of the Senate to allow the individual bills to proceed, Coburn has employed a favorite tactic of his, known as a “hold,” to slow the progress of the legislation.

So what provokes the senator? Principally, a desire for lawmakers to give spending plans a closer look.

That reveals first to those of us residing in the shadows of the Blue Ridge a $3 million provision to designate 53,000 acres in the Jefferson National Forest as wilderness. This would bar logging and mining on that land and almost double designated wilderness in the forest.

The measure bears the imprimatur of Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Roanoke, among others and, naturally, is backed by environmentalists. Wilderness legislation, however, is invariably more complex than it may appear at first glance, particularly amid grabs by federal parks for private land. Some wildlife groups and forestry experts contend that unmanaged wilderness areas, where thinning through logging is prohibited, decreases wildlife diversity and increases risk of wildfires.

We will not attempt answers where we lack the expertise to provide them, but we do suggest wilderness designations warrant closer inspection than generally they are given, which is precisely what the Senate is seeking to avoid.

Less murky is the clear imprudence of another of the Senate bill’s mandates, proposed by Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., calling for $461 million in spending over 10 years and $1.1 billion over 20 to help restore San Joaquin River with the principal goal of increasing the salmon population to 500. “At $2 million a head,” Coburn writes, “each salmon would be worth far more than its weight in gold.”

Another provision would block access to millions of cubic feet of natural gas and millions of barrels of oil in Wyoming. Still another would invest $3 million in the construction of a 17-mile, single-lane road connecting an Alaskan village of just 800 people to a nearby airport. And another would send $3.5 million to St. Augustine, Fla., to spend on celebrating the town’s 450th birthday.

While considering these and tens of dozens of other spending measures in the Coburn monster, the Senate also likely will be weighing another bailout on the heels of those that have siphoned more than $1 trillion in taxpayer money while failing to halt the hemorrhaging on Wall Street. Coburn’s aim is not to kill the lands bill but to prod deeper consideration of it. He seeks to stand athwart the spending madness yelling, “Stop!”

It is doubtful he will be heard, and certain that he will not if others, namely voters, do not echo him. We cast our voice with his and urge you to join us. Amid the economic freefall, it is time for Americans to demand that reason supplant haste in the unrestrained consumption of our tax dollars.