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Threat to a fund that works advance for next year would have filled in gaps along the Pacific Crest Trail and secured conservation easements for 165 acres of historic farmland at the Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve on Whidbey Island, and as well as conservation easements that would protect working forests near Mount St. Helens. In the past, this hasn’t been a controversial program, and the fund has won reauthorization every time it came before Congress. The same is likely true today. Groups like the Washington Wildlife and Recreation Coalition believe Cantwell and Murkowski’s bill has more than enough votes in the Senate to pass. And the fund has bipartisan support, including that of Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Washington, in the House. But Bishop has vowed not to allow the Senate bill to move out of his committee — he won’t even allow hearings on the legislation — and instead
has offered his own bill for discussion that would fundamentally change the intent of the Land and Water Conservation Fund and put an end to much of its work in securing public lands for recreation and conservation and aiding efforts to preserve working forests and farms. Bishops’s bill would only reauthorize the fund for seven years, and, as the Senate bill had similarly provided, would require 45 percent of the money go toward state and local projects rather than property acquisitions of federal land. But Bishop would further restrict funding for federal acquisitions, such as that for national parks and national recreation areas, to just 3.5 percent of the fund, making it impossible that enough funding would be available for almost any project. Additionally, Bishop’s bill would laughably restrict property acquisitions west
of the 100th meridian, which roughly splits the country in half, to just 15 percent of what funding it would allow. Instead, Bishop’s bill seeks to divert money to promote offshore oil and gas exploration and streamline permits for oil companies. Would Bishop suggest, rather than taking the family to a national park, vacationing at an offshore oil rig? If he and others are concerned that more of the fund’s money go toward park and recreation projects at the state and local level, Cantwell and Murkowski’s bill provides a fair and equal distribution between federal and state land projects. Leaders in the Senate and House should allow votes on that legislation. Bishop’s bill, rather than offering suggestions for reforms worth consideration, comes off as more obstructionism meant only to play to conservatives in Utah.
juggernaut’s efforts make the works of Lovecraft and King at their best seem anemic in comparison.
■■TPP
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ■■ENERGY
State must set goal for solar Froma Harrop’s recent column, “Energy independence is why we can say no to Keystone” showed that energy independence has allowed us to reject the dirtiest of fossil fuels. However, domestic fracking, and the burning of natural gas is not a way for the U.S. to lead on climate action. We need renewables, and we need solar power. The sun is an endless resource with no carbon emissions, while natural gas is a finite source with less carbon emissions. However, we won’t get to a future powered by the sun without setting big goals and backing it up with good policies. When considering our energy future, I urge to our Washington state legislators to support setting a goal of 10 percent solar by 2025 to get us closer to putting solar on every viable rooftop in our communities. If more of us are able to capture the power of the sun, the more we’ll be able to lead the global effort to protect our environment and our climate for future generations. Cecile Gernez Seattle
■■CLIMATE CHANGE
Exxon denies own evidence
Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft working together in earnest could never scribe a horror story that even approaches the recent Exxon revelations about the corporate giants deliberate and successful attempts for decades to shield the public and the world about the dire findings from their own internal scientific teams on impending climate change due to the use of their product. The Exxon scientists reported as early as 1977 that their industry was causing — without question — an increase in the planet’s temperatures. Exxon had confirmed and undeniable scientific evidence that global warming was the end result of uncontrolled carbon emissions. So what did this corporate Goliath do? Did Exxon take the moral and reasoned position and advise the planet’s citizenry of the impending impact of global warming and what needed to be done to avert catastrophe of unimaginable proportions? No, Exxon buried its research — muzzled its scientists — and began an epic propaganda campaign
Have your say Feel strongly about something? Share it with the community by writing a letter to the editor. You’ll need to include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) We reserve the right to edit letters, but if you keep yours to 250 words or less, we won’t ask you to shorten it. If your letter is published, please wait 30 days before submitting another. Send it to: Email: letters@heraldnet.com Mail: Letters section The Daily Herald P.O. Box 930 Everett, WA 98206 Have a question about letters? Call Carol MacPherson at 425-339-3472 or send an e-mail to letters@heraldnet. com. that global warming was nothing but a misguided theory conjured up by liberal tree huggers with an affinity for pseudo science. And towards this effort, Exxon has spent millions of dollars manufacturing consent by propagating this lie that may well challenge the survival of human civilization. The full impact of these revelations are impossible to quantify. The scope of this evil is impossible to undo or remedy. Unimaginable damage has already been done. Exxon has with full intent and premeditation compromised all future generations and our living planets ecosystem. Which is why this corporate
Jim Sawyer Edmonds
Lobbyists wrote global trade deal
Ben Carson’s and Donald Trump’s numbers display the dumbing down of the American voter.
When they tell you that nobody knew what was in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it’s only true for Congress and us. There were over 400 lobbyist from major corporations who knew what was in it, because they helped write it — over 6,000 pages. Congress was not allowed to see it until this year. They could only view it, with no pens, paper or recorders allowed. They were not allowed to discuss any details among themselves. Last month Congress was asked to vote for “fast track” (TPA) on this trade deal, meaning when the TPP came up for a vote, there would be no amendment allowed and only two minutes for each congressman to debate it. They would have to vote yes or no. Congress did vote yes for “fast track” and the president signed it. This trade deal will supersede your sovereign laws, for example: A company suing a state for labeling genetic foods, claiming the sovereign law takes away their future profits for selling their product. They will claim a trade barrier (investor-state dispute settlement) in a court that is set up in a foreign land with judges selected by the industries and governments of the TPP. The state will lose and have to pay. It could cost millions of our tax dollars. Does this sound anything like democracy? A good discussion about this comes from Global Trade Watch & Democracy Now Nov. 6 video (9 ½ minutes in.) There is also a transcript at www.democracy now.org/2015/11/6/ full_text_of_tpp_trade_deal
Todd Fredrickson Monroe
Patrick Rainsberger Snohomish
■■UNITED STATES
Migrant ruling wrong, heartless So the New Orleans-based federal appeals court (supported by 26 other states) has overturned Obama’s humane effort to legalize 11 million non-documented migrants. The Department of Homeland Security has a little list and 5 million souls are currently on it. Is this simply another political ploy to discredit the president, or do the “powers” really intend to round up these people and throw them over the Mexican border or put them on a raft and push them out to sea? Some of these people are, without doubt, on a free ride, but the vast majority are trying to make a living. What kind of a society have we become that regards a person’s worth by the paper he carries rather than by his value as a human being? God help America. Roger Sayer Mukilteo
■■GOP CANDIDATES
It adds up to dumbing down
Josh O’Connor, Publisher Jon Bauer, Editorial Page Editor Neal Pattison, Executive Editor Carol MacPherson, Editorial Writer
FRIDAY, 11.13.2015
IN OUR VIEW | Land and Water Conservation Fund
Credit U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, with resuming the discussion on renewal of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which expired at the end of September when Congress failed to reauthorize the program first proposed by Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson some 50 years ago. That’s about all you can give Bishop credit for. Prior to the program’s expiration, U.S. Sens. Maria Cantwell, D-Washington, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, successfully moved a comprehensive bipartisan bill through the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that would have permanently reauthorized the fund. The Land and Water Conservation fund, among its provisions, uses royalties from offshore oil and gas drilling operations to fund acquisition and development of parks and other public lands. Projects that had been identified in
Editorial Board
Culling now starts as debate turns serious
T
he Republican debate on CNBC was riveting, the way a train wreck is riveting — you can’t take your eyes off it. The Fox Business Network debate was merely satisfying. A serious political discussion requires a bit more work, but it repays the effort. The CNBC affair was a contrived food fight during which substance occasionally broke out (such as the brief exchange between Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee on entitlement reform). FBN, on the CHARLES other hand, KRAUTHAMMER conducted a meaty debate during which a tomato or two was occasionally tossed. John Kasich came itching for a fight. Donald Trump pitched back with his usual high-mindedness, responding at one point to Kasich with “I’ve built an unbelievable company worth billions and billions of dollars. I don’t have to hear from this man.” Despite such exceptions, the FBN debate marks the point at which the GOP campaign begins leaving the entertainment phase and entering the serious season. The moderators’ modesty and straightforwardness created an atmosphere of transparency that allowed the candidates to reveal themselves, advertently or not. Kasich did. Unfortunately, it was an irritable self-righteous Kasich who showed up, doing himself no good. At the other end of the podium, Rand Paul had his best night. He certainly deserves credit for courage. His noninterventionist foreign policy is far outside the GOP mainstream, which is why Marco Rubio won the room in their exchange on defense spending and intervention. But Paul defended his minority view stoutly, regardless. Give him points for principle. In a year when showmanship is king, however, principle won’t help him much to get out of single digits. You could almost see Paul on the far right of the stage and Kasich on the far left dropping through a trapdoor, leaving six finalists. Or perhaps not six. Jeb Bush, too, had his best night. He was competent and solid but, unfortunately, still inarticulate. You almost feel sorry for the travail he is about to endure on his increasingly longshot campaign. Carly Fiorina, strong on stage but weak on campaign infrastructure, showed herself tough as nails — the perfect VP. She can say things about Hillary Clinton that no man can. And she knows it. Tuesday’s best performers, unsurprisingly, were Rubio and Ted Cruz, the 44-year-old, silver-tongued, Cuban-American, first-term senators. Imagine them as a ticket. In 1992, Bill Clinton’s choice of Al Gore was as strategically brilliant as it was counterintuitive. Instead of balancing that ticket, Clinton doubled down with his own mirror image. Which leaves the two outsider front-runners. Ben Carson had an awful night — the Chinese intervening in Syria? But it was bookended and thereby saved by two good moments: his first answer, the pre-emptive “Thank you for not asking me what I said in the 10th grade,” and his closing statement about the suffering in the country being overcome by America’s inner strength. Trump did not have a particularly good night, either. He was again at sea on foreign policy. And when asked about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation trade deal he opposes root and branch, Trump did his riff on the Chinese economic menace — to which Rand Paul calmly pointed out that China is not party to the TPP. Indeed, the main strategic purpose of the TPP is precisely to contain China by binding its Pacific neighbors to the United States, thus blunting Beijing’s reach for regional hegemony. Never mind. As long as the anti-politics mood prevails, neither Trump nor Carson is even dented by such policy misadventures. Tuesday night did not radically alter the trajectory of the Republican race. But it will hasten the winnowing of the field. If you narrow the viewfinder, the debate stage shrinks from eight to six to a possible final four: Cruz, Rubio, Carson, Trump. (Chris Christie, who shone in the undercard debate, has the best outside shot at crashing this group.) On Tuesday, all the contenders were required to show their hand. We saw character and we saw policy. Substance is never sizzling, but the FBN debate was both revealing and sobering: Which one of these can you actually see inhabiting the Oval Office? Charles Krauthammer’s email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.