The folks at the Oregon Department of Forestry have retracted their new multi-million-dollar map identifying 80,000 privately owned parcels of land that are at high risk of burning up during a wildfire. The map was dropped in the laps of landowners with little or no consultation about what i…
Three new, large-scale chicken farms have been proposed in Oregon’s Mid-Willamette Valley, and face opposition from neighbors and environmental groups.
The cost of gas and groceries has gone through the roof, and it’s hardworking Americans who are — quite literally — paying the price. Fortunately, I have legislation that would tamp down the r…
Based on video from a recent task force meeting, Oregon farmers have reason to question the objectivity of state regulators as they contemplate upgrading farmworker housing rules.
Oregon desperately needs a coordinated, effective, results-oriented and clear water policy that the Legislature has approved and the governor supports.
The Washington Department of Natural Resources (DNR) manages over 2 million acres of state trust lands to produce sustainable timber supplies and generate long-term revenues for defined public…
Most experts would agree that the worst marketing plan ever is this: “Our product is pretty much the same as everyone else’s.”
A group of independent truckers instituted an extended blockade of the Port of Oakland to protest a California law that endangers their livelihood.
If there’s one overarching reminder from today’s record-high fertilizer prices, it’s that global crises and markets have an outsized impact on essential inputs of U.S. farms.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has 5,425 employees, many with advanced degrees in specialized areas such as water law, endangered species, hydrology — all matters related to water.
Mark Twain is credited with telling readers to buy land because, he warned, they aren’t making more of it. Unfortunately, farmland sold too often is put to other uses and is lost forever.
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
For 13 years Idaho Power Co. has been trying to railroad the 310-mile-long B2H, Boardman to Hemingway power lines through Eastern Oregon.
As a city dweller, I support limits on urban expansion. More compact cities fight climate change by reducing fossil fuel based transportation.
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
The Blues Intergovernmental Council (BIC) supports the USDA Forest Service’s plans to reinitiate Forest Plan Revision for the Malheur, Umatilla, and Wallowa-Whitman National Forests. The work …
When the governed fail to meet deadlines set by federal statutes and regulations, agencies typically can impose fines amounting to $37,500 a day to force miscreants to comply.
George Harrison, a member of the Beatles, a popular music group some years ago, once wrote a song that will resonate with many farmers around the world even today.
Recently on a trip to central New York state, I stopped at a large supermarket to observe their milk prices. One more time, I was astonished to see that the store-brand milk was selling for $3…
Sysco, a Texas-based company that distributes food to restaurants, hotels and other facilities, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging violations of antitrust laws by Cargill, JBS, Tyson and Nat…
A proposal to protect a valuable strategic asset from some foreign-based actors deserves the full support of Congress and the Biden administration.
California’s Prop 12 is so bad, even the Biden administration thinks the Supreme Court should strike it down.
As the next fire season approaches, questions and concerns continue to pour in from the public demanding ways to avoid a repeat of the stifling smoke and destruction of our federal forestlands…
Six anti-forestry groups are suing to block a new policy that would make it a little easier for the U.S. Forest Service to reduce wildfire risks and restore forest health on national forest la…
Thanks to researchers, ranchers and land managers at the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management are finding new ways to put livestock to work reducing the fuels that feed voracious …
Building capacity is one thing, making it viable is another — particularly in states with overly burdensome tax and regulatory regimes. In that regard, California provides a prime example.
We live in a time when we are regularly being told that we are not to believe what we see, but instead to believe what we are told about what we see. Up is down, down is up.
When Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and U.S. Sen. Patty Murray commissioned a “study” of tearing down the four dams on the lower Snake River, we saw it as little more than another political sales pitch.
According to the latest count, Washington state is home to at least 206 wild wolves running in 33 packs. Wolves are so well established that some tribal governments have opened year-round hunt…
I am proud and happy to serve as an ambassador for the World to Rebuild Rural Ukraine project (www.WRRU.org).
“Isolated interruptions in electric service can have catastrophic health and economic consequences. A robust and reliable electric power system is therefore not only a basic human necessity bu…
From the days of Moses, the image of a plague of locusts has been well established in the human psyche.
Utilities, irrigation districts and state governments in parts of the West have for years been supplementing their water supplies. They’ve done it by seeding the clouds. Where the conditions a…
Seven years ago, when the ocean temperatures in the Pacific were in a periodic cooler cycle, NOAA Fisheries reported the most productive decade of fish runs since recordkeeping began at Bonnev…
In Japan is a man named Toko. He likes to pretend he is a dog. To do that he spent $15,700 on a dog suit fashioned after a collie. When he is in the suit, he looks a lot like a collie. He also…
Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency held its first stakeholder roundtable on its new Waters of the U.S. rule, and I sure hope it wasn’t a sample of what’s to come. The group lacked d…
China has been buying up American farmland, and, for some reason, people aren’t worried about it.
Across the nation, farm organizations, conservation groups and others are working overtime to preserve agricultural land. It is a necessity if we as a nation are to maintain our food independe…
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has signed legislation that makes the Private Forest Accord — a deal reached between the timber industry and environmental groups — the law in the Beaver State.
It’s been a rough couple of years for ag shippers. Truck and driver shortages, port delays in the U.S. and Asia and spotty service from railroads. The list goes on.
When Alexis Taylor was appointed director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture in 2016, we suspected that the next Democrat in the White House would ask the former head of USDA’s Farm and F…
Farmers have always played an essential role to the economic vitality of America. They are a critical part of a supply chain that keeps food on the table in homes, schools, hospitals, military…
The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) has had an open comment period since March 29 pertaining to new definitions of the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) in Oregon Administrative Rules section 629.
Over 2 million farms dot our nation’s landscape, across all 50 states and in territories like Puerto Rico. You can find farmers and ranchers raising nearly every type of crop and livestock to …
Recent coverage on the wolf/cattle situation in Wallowa County, Ore., omitted significant facts.
When environmental priorities collide, advocates for wildlife and “green” energy often find themselves on opposing sides. But a proposed solar project in north-central Washington has various f…
When Cynthia Rosenzweig first started studying climate change in the 1980s, few people outside the academic and research communities had ever heard of it. While the global climate has always c…
If nothing else, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee is a master of hyperbole. He once said: “I’ve dedicated my life in public service to defeating climate change.”
The Oregon Court of Appeals has effectively overturned a jury verdict that had awarded a dozen counties and dozens of taxing bodies within them $1 billion.
Enactment of new federal legislation often expands, rather than narrows, the federal government’s responsibilities.
The 1960s marked the dawn of environmentalism in the U.S. Prodded by the publication of such books as Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” and the 1969 oil well blowout that sent a slick of black t…
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has signed legislation that will grant farmworkers overtime pay after 40 hours of work beginning in 2027.
It is completely mind-boggling that amidst an energy and supply chain crisis, President Biden would remove a source of power and transportation for an entire region. Yet, just recently, the Wh…
When COVID-19 arrived in the U.S. from China a little more than two years ago, it set off a tsunami of uncertainty among the 328 million Americans, none of whom had ever been through anything …
An obscure division within the Office of the President now wants to weigh in on the fate of four dams on the lower Snake River.
