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there was no need for additional protection on Steens Mountain, and yet, you and the President are threatening to create this national monument. Why do you waste the time of the citizens to go through a process to determine if additional protections are needed and then ignore what they came up with? To Bruce Babbitt’s credit, he agreed when I told him: I think you would be surprised about what the local ranchers and citizens of Harney County would be willing to do if you give them a chance. To his credit, he said: All right, I will give them that chance. And he did. We went to work on legislation. It took a full year. I worked with the Hammonds. I worked with Stacy Davies, I worked with all kinds of folks, put a staffer on it full-time, multiple staffs, and we worked with the environmental community and others. And we created the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Act, model legislation, never been done before, because I said: We don’t have to live by past laws, we write laws. So we wrote a new law to create a cooperative spirit of management in Harney County. The Hammonds were part of that discussion. We saved a running camp, Harlan Priority Runs. We protected inholder. We tried to do all the right things and create the kind of partnership and cooperation that the Federal Government and the citizens should have. Fast forward on that particular law. Not long after that became law, and it was heralded as this monumental law of great significance and new era in cooperation and spirit of cooperation, some of those involved on the other side and some of the agencies decided to reinterpret it. The first thing they tried to do is shut down this kids’ running camp because they said: Well, too many, maybe more than 20, run down this canyon and back up, as they had for many, many years. They wanted to shut it down. So we had to fight them back and said: No, the law says historical standards. Then the bureaucrats, because we said: You should have your historical access to your private property, if you are up on Steens Mountain, you should maintain that access like you have always had it. Do you know what the bureaucrats said? They began to solicit from the inholders in this area: How many times did you go up there last year? You see, they wanted to put a noose around the neck of those who were inside. That was a total violation of what we intended, and we had to back them off. See, the bureaucracy wants to interpret the laws we write in ways they want, and in this case they were wrong, not once, but twice. Then, a couple of years ago, I learned that, despite the fact we created the first cow-free wilderness in the United States under this law, and said clearly in this law that it would be the responsibility of the government to put up

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fencing to keep the cows out, as part of the agreement, the Bureau of Land Management said: No, we are not going to follow that law. And they told the ranchers they had to build the fence. I networked with my Democrat colleague from Oregon, Mr. DEFAZIO, who was part of writing this law. I said: Peter, you remember that, right? He said: Yeah, I didn’t like it, but that was the case. BLM still wouldn’t listen. So we continued to push it and they argued back. Well, it turns out there had been a second rancher who brought this to my attention who they were telling had to do the same thing, build a fence, when the government was supposed to under the law I wrote. The arrogance of the agency was such that they said: We don’t agree with you. Now, there aren’t many times, Mr. Speaker, in this job when you can say I know what the intent of the law was, but in this case I could because I wrote the law, I knew the intent. Oh, that wasn’t good enough. No, no, no. No, no, no. The arrogance of these agency people was such that we had to go to the archives and drag out the boxes from 2000, 1999–2000, when we wrote this law, from the hearings that had all the records for the hearings and the floor discussions to talk about the intent. And our retired Member, George Miller, actually we used some of his information where he said the government would provide the fencing. They were still reluctant to follow it. So I put language in the appropriations bill that restated the Federal law. Do you understand how frustrated I am at this? Can you imagine how the people on the ground feel? Can you imagine? If you are not there, you can’t. If you are not there, you can’t. You ridicule them. The Portland Oregonian is running a thing, what do you send? Meals for militia. Let’s have fun with this. This is not a laughing matter from any consequence. Nobody is going to win out of this thing. This is a government that has gone too far for too long. Now, I am not condoning this takeover in any way. I want to make that clear. I don’t think it is appropriate. There is a right to protest. I think they have gone too far. But I understand and hear their anger. Right now, this administration, secretly, but not so much, is threatening, in the next county over, that looks a lot like this one, Malheur County, to force a monument of 2.5 million acres, we believe. I think this is outrageous. It flies in the face of the people and the way of life and the public access. There is a company, Keen Shoes, that already has a big marketing campaign. This is about selling shoes, for God’s sake. I call on the President, if he wants to help reduce the tension that is out there, to walk away from this. And if he doesn’t want to walk away and say, no, we are not going to do that, to help us bring down this level of frustration

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and anger, then at least be honest, or his Secretary of the Interior needs to be honest with us and tell us they are going to do it. Either they are or they aren’t. But all they are is being coy. That feeds into this. It feeds into the anger that I feel. It feeds into the anger out there. So the President should say: I am not going to do a national monument. I am not going to add more fuel on this fire in the West. We have fought other issues. More than half of my district is under Federal management, or lack thereof. They have come out with these proposals to close roads into the forests. They have ignored public input. They often claim to have all these open meetings and listen to the public, and then, in the case of Wallowa-Whitman, the forest supervisor who was eventually relieved because of this, I believe, completely ignored all the meetings, all the input, all the work of the counties and the local people, and said: Forget it, I am going my own direction. There were 900 people that turned out at the National Guard Armory where they had a public hearing, standing room only and beyond, furious. You see, how do you have faith in a government that doesn’t ever listen to you? How do you have faith in a government that, when elected Representatives write a law, those charged with the responsibility of implementing it choose to go the other direction and not do so? That is what is breaking faith between the American people and their government, and that is what has to change. The other thing that has to change, the law under which the Hammonds were sentenced. Now, they probably did some things that weren’t legal. I have given you the size of the acreages that burned naturally. I haven’t gotten into the discussion about how these fires are often fought and how the Federal Government frequently will go on private land and set a fire without permission to backburn. That happens all the time. In fact, in the Barry Point Fire down in Lake County, they set fire on private timber land as a backburn while the owners of the property were putting out spot fires down in the canyon. I drove down there afterwards. They are darn lucky to have come out alive. There was nobody sentenced under the terrorism act there. Oh, heck no. It is the government. They weren’t sentenced. Nobody was charged. Oh, it just happened. Now, fires are tough to fight. I have great respect for firefighters. There are always two sides on how these fires get fought. But I can tell you, a few years back in Harney County, because I went and held a meeting out there right as the fire was being put out, that the fire crews came in, went on private ground, lit a backfire on private ground, behind a fence line, that then burned out the farmer’s fence, the rancher’s fence, and burned all the way over and down into

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