Congressman Cliff Bentz on the path to federal protection for Owyhee Canyonlands

Republican Cliff Bentz represents Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District in Congress. It’s the largest district in Oregon, and represents around two-thirds of the state. It encompasses the Owyhee Canyonlands, one of the state’s most-known but — as of yet — unprotected natural places. Conservationists and others, including Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, have called on President Joe Biden to create a national monument here but so far that hasn’t happened.

Democratic Senator Ron Wyden has been working since 2019 on a bill to designate 1.1 million acres of land as wilderness. The legislation was co-sponsored by Oregon’s other Democratic U.S. Senator, Jeff Merkley. The bill passed the Senate last year but died in the House. Bentz proposed his own version last fall, but says he’ll work with the senators on a new plan that can pass both chambers. We talk with Bentz about the way forward for Owyhee protection.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We start today with the future of the Owyhee Canyonlands in Malheur County. Oregon’s senior Democratic U.S. Senator Ron Wyden has been working since 2019 on a bill to designate 1.1 million acres of land there as wilderness. His bill passed the Senate right before Christmas, but died in the House.

Meanwhile, Republican Cliff Bentz, who represents Oregon’s mammoth 2nd Congressional District, has proposed his own version. With Republicans now in control of both chambers, he could have a lot of say in terms of legislative action on Owyhee protection. He joins us now to talk about what he would like to see. Cliff Bentz, welcome to Think Out Loud.

Cliff Bentz: Hi Dave, I’m very happy that you’re having me on your show and I appreciate the opportunity.

Miller: Before we get to legislative details, I wonder if you could just describe the land that we’re talking about here for people who’ve never set foot in it.

Bentz: Well, the best word for it is a very, very huge area [with] huge, expansive sagebrush steppe and canyon running through kind of the middle of it, but with miles and miles of space on each side. The canyon land that people talk about a lot is pretty modest in comparison to the millions of acres involved in the discussion. The canyon harbors the Owyhee River that runs out of the state of Idaho into Oregon, runs about 200 miles, including its tributaries to the north, and eventually runs into the Snake River. It’s very, very remote and sparsely inhabited, but the people who are there have been there for years and are extremely protective of the land.

Miller: What does this land mean to your constituents?

Bentz: Well, the folks that have lived there for years, it’s home to them. It’s in many cases, the foundation for their cattle ranching operations. They have grazing permits that exist out across much of that land that they’ve used for years.

People should know that according to Oregon State University, their cattle use between 12% and 20% of the forage on the land annually. So it’s extremely modest use if you look at it from a scientific standpoint, but important to the communities in that area, whether it’s Jordan Valley, or Juntura, or McDermitt, or Princeton, areas to the west. Yeah, it’s their home and they’re very, very protective of it.

Miller: In November, Oregon Governor Tina Kotek wrote a second letter to President Biden, urging him to designate this land as a national monument. She did that because she said, at that point, the congressional action seemed unlikely.

Have you heard any meaningful rumblings, at this point, about whether that’s likely? We’re talking about a week-and-a-half of possible Biden action on this.

Bentz: I have heard none and I’m happy for that. I think Governor Kotek’s letter was unfounded and ill-advised. I was sad that she didn’t even have the good grace to copy me on the letter. I had to get it from somebody else. It’s very sad. She copied John Podesta, adviser to the president, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, but didn’t grace me with a copy. I felt that was odd.

I should also say that when she calls out that there is some sort of devastating consequences … She says, “The devastating consequences of the future of this iconic landscape are simply too great not to act now.” I asked her, in a responding note and through my staff, what she was talking about. The river itself is protected by the [Wild and] Scenic Rivers Act and has been for since the year 2000. It’s been protected under court order. You can’t put cattle on that river, at least 220 miles of it and its tributaries. Much of the land, about 180,000 acres in and around it, are withdrawn from any mineral activity, any filing of those claims. So I don’t know what she’s talking about, these devastating consequences.

Anyway, I’m sad that she hasn’t called me. I had people reach out and say, why don’t you call? But she has my cell phone number. I had called her to congratulate her on being made governor, I haven’t heard a peep. Anyway, the bottom line is, it’s my hope that Senator Wyden and I will be able to progress on the agreement we have reached regarding the bill. His bill is different than the one that I filed some months ago, but we have reached agreement as to the essential elements of the bill. And we’ll be working to finalize that bill in the next couple of days, actually ...

Miller: Well, let me break in because I’m very curious, and I think our listeners are, about the agreement that you’re talking about. I guess the details of which will be public soon, but hopefully we can get some glimpse of that in a second.

But just sticking with the monument question – it’s a little bit hard and maybe not super productive to talk in depth about the possibility of a national monument designation in the Owyhee, because it’s abstract. We don’t know the size of it. We don’t know the boundaries, we don’t know what kinds of carve outs or restrictions President Biden might put in. Also, at this point, maybe the whole thing seems unlikely that he’s even going to do this. But is there any version of a monument that you would support?

Bentz: Yeah, so you’ve hit it on the nose about not knowing the nature of what a presidential proclamation might be. That’s the problem with a monument. It’s one person, the president, deciding that he or she wants to have a monument, then designing the proclamation, and then it’s that proclamation that provides the foundation for the monument itself.

So, unlike that which Senator Wyden has been working on … And by the way, Senator Wyden is opposed to the monument. He has told me that clearly over and over again. He said that to the ranchers in that community. He is totally on board with working it out with all the parties involved. I have nothing but good things to say about Ron Wyden,  his efforts to involve the local communities and in avoiding a monument declaration, pronouncement from on high from somebody here in D.C. And good on the president for not falling for such a simplistic approach to such a complicated matter.

Miller: All right, so let’s turn to legislative action. The Wyden bill passed the Senate by unanimous consent, I think on December 20 or 21, right before Christmas. What didn’t you like about that bill?

Bentz: Before we go to what I didn’t like about the bill, I’ll [say] what I did like about the bill. Much of the bill I have is that which is in Senator Wyden’s bill. But you said that the bill died in the House; it didn’t make it to the House. You know why? We went home on [December] 20 or 21. So what happened at the end there is that Senator Wyden went forward with his bill, as he should have because he was trying to send the signal that we are so close to having a mutually agreed upon bill. Good on him for getting it through the unanimous consent process, but it was the last day, so there was no more time for the House to act upon it. I’m not sure it even actually made its way over here.

But the point is, he and I have reached an agreement and it’s been a long, very, very, very, difficult negotiation, in the sense that we had a lot of different people we had to bring along with us. Ron Wyden and his team were working with the environmental organizations. I was working with the community of ranchers and others, and tribes. I worked closely with the Burns Paiute Tribe in making sure that they’re happy with what is in the bill. And we’re still finalizing some of the language there to make sure that it reflects what the Burns Paiute Tribe wants.

Miller: Let me go back to my question though. What didn’t you like specifically about the bill that did pass the Senate?

Bentz: So Ron Wyden’s bill was not completely reflective of that which my constituents in the various communities wanted. And that included the Burns Paiute, cause they’re my constituents. And that included the parts of the ranching community. There’s different provisions in the bill concerning how groups, called the CEO group, might gather together and try to obtain funding for improvements to the land, and the people wanted to have the right kind of makeup of that group.

There were difficulties in the exact type of and number of acres that would be involved. There were difficulties in knowing exactly how it was going to impact the land that was not taken out of wilderness study area status. Would it indeed go back to multiple use, as was agreed upon by the group but not adequately reflected in Senator Wyden’s bill? And I can go on.

There were other differences, but the primary agreement was that there would be close to a million acres of wilderness study area land on each side of the Owyhee Canyon that would become wilderness. We agreed on that, and then we had to go through and make sure other things, the finer points were appropriately resolved ...

Miller: So let me stick with what you say is the area where there is real significant agreement. My understanding is that – and maybe this is a difference between the agreement you have with Ron Wyden and some of the concerns that environmental groups still have – one of those big areas that I’ve heard about has to do with roads.

In testimony in November, a coalition of these groups said that your proposal “undermines wilderness and the Wilderness Act by establishing unnecessary roads and promoting motor vehicle access in protected areas, resulting in the designation of something other than actual wilderness.” What’s your response?

Bentz: Right, so there are three different types of roads that are allowed out in the wilderness. One of them is what you call a cherry stem road, and that’s a road that extends from an existing road into the wilderness. It’s a complex, kind of a technical sort of a thing because a cherry stem road is technically not part of the wilderness yet. It’s in the middle of it. It remains just plain BLM land, but it’s designed for access by different groups. So we have reached agreement on what should be cherry stem roads.

It should be understood that this is close to a million acres. So what people should be asking is, how many miles of road would be included in the so-called cherry stem or permanent access? And that’s what the question should be, because if you have a million acres, people don’t understand how much that is. The biggest monument now, that’s not a national park or something of that nature, I think is in Oregon – about 130,000 [acres]. I think that’s the Cascades-Siskiyou [National] Monument. We’re talking about almost a million acres.

Miller: So, I take your point that that’s a great question to ask – how many miles of roads we’re talking about. But another, to me, very important question is, what can those roads be used for? My understanding is that currently, and in most designated wilderness areas, you can use those sort of bumpy routes, many of which can only be driven with a 4x4 or a good truck. You can use them for public safety, for firefighting, for ranching, for taking care of grazing. But do you think that anybody who wants to just recreate should be able to use those roads?

Bentz: A great question. What one has to understand is that there has to be continued access across these million acres of space for all kinds of reasons, whether it’s to put out fires, or whether it’s to get into the land to address probably the biggest danger right now to this land, and the flora and fauna upon it: weeds and invasive species. So we’re gonna have to have roads to get out there and control those invasive species. People need to take a look at how many types of weeds are busy trying to take over those lands. That is the biggest danger, and we can’t lock this area up and then just hope it somehow overcomes these invasions of these weeds.

Miller: But are you saying that the standard way that wilderness road use is defined would prevent that? Because what I’ve heard from the Oregon Natural Desert Association and others is that that’s absolutely allowed in what they would see as regular designations of wilderness. And they argue that you are opening up these roads for more uses, as opposed to invasive species control, fire protection or grazing. But they say you’re opening up for all uses. Do you disagree with that?

Bentz: I think, well, we’d better go back to the nature of this cherry stem road, because a cherry stem road is going to be there regardless of what I want. A cherry stem road is one that people agree should remain in place and in use for whoever wishes to use it. But I would go back to your point about the nature of these roads. People must think they’re like gravel roads or something. I think the way that one of Senator Wyden’s staff, Sarah Bittleman, put it: you’d be lucky if you had any teeth left if you went over 10 miles an hour on many of these roads, because they are so incredibly rough. So you have to drive, literally four or five miles an hour to get across these roads. Those are some of the what will be so-called cherry stem roads, and good luck to ya trying to get out across them.

But the point is we need those roads. And whether the ONDA, the Oregon Natural Desert Association, wants to say that all roads should be shut off and they’re wrong … But one of the reasons they’re wrong is because the Burns Paiute Tribe, for example, needs to have access for their cultural purposes. Is ONDA suggesting that the tribe should not be able to drive their elders out across these spaces? Is that what they’re saying? Because it appears to me they are.

So we had suggested, in one of my initial drafts, that there’ll be four classes of folks that were allowed in over these roads. I didn’t get anywhere with this because various folks didn’t want it. It wasn’t my folks, but we were going to limit the use of these roads to tribes for cultural purposes; the Bureau of Land Management for weed control and fire suppression; counties and the state to access their land; and then permittees for their cattle operation purposes. But unfortunately, no one agreed with that. We were stuck with a cherry stem divide.

Miller: I want to turn to another big piece of this in time we have left, which is not about the 900,000, million or so acres that would be the wilderness designation, but the rest of federally-controlled land in Malheur County. We’re talking about, what, 3.5 million acres. Your bill would also change how those acres are managed. This also gets complicated quickly, but I’m gonna do my best to give the short version as I understand it. Currently, that land is managed for multiple uses: grazing, mining, conservation, recreation, rare species and plants, geology, paleontology, cultural resources, and on and on.

If I read your bill correctly, it would change that to being managed for principal or major uses, which under a 50-year-old law is more limited. It specifically only includes grazing, fish and wildlife development and utilization – whatever that means –  mining, rights of way like for utilities, outdoor recreation and timber production. But that list does not include conservation, habitat restoration, cultural resources or other uses. Why change the way all the rest of the federal land, BLM-managed land, in Malheur County is managed?

Bentz: Yeah, so I think that has been narrowed down in our final agreed upon bill. You are right about the complexity of the type of use as to the land that’s not made into permanent wilderness. But that deal that returned to multiple use/limited use, such as you just described, was negotiated before I got involved in this between the senator’s team, environmental groups and the communities down south in the south part of Malheur County. So I would just say that people need to understand that regardless of the type of use that is allowed as to the other – not the million acres we’re going to protect, making it into the wilderness – you still have to abide by the existing environmental laws applicable to public lands.

And that’s FLPMA [Federal Land Policy and Management Act], NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act], Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Wild and Scenic River Act – which I already told you was protective of the entire 220 miles of river – the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act, the Toxic Substance Control Act … I can go on for a week. And the other thing that people need to understand is that the activities will be controlled in significant part by how the state of Oregon plays into permitting.

So I’ll just say the land is protected. To suggest that it isn’t, is incorrect. What we’re really talking about is, how do we make sure some of these protections are permanent? That’s why this million acres going into wilderness is so important. And it’s important to me, just like it is to Senator Wyden.

Miller: I got a little bit lost there at the end. But at the beginning, were you saying that you’ve actually changed the way you want this land to be managed, that in consultation with Senator Wyden, the new bill that you’ll be introducing soon would not make this change to those 3.5 million acres?

Bentz: The exact acres to which the future use is redesignated, I’d have to go back and look at our maps because there are maps attached to the bills that call that out. I think we have modified the acres to which that “returned to multiple use” applies. I say I think that, because we were going back and forth in that negotiation right up until about a week before the end of the session.

And by the way, you should understand that we had this bill ready to go. And unfortunately, the land bill that it was going to be a part of fell apart in the very last four days of the session. It’s very sad because we were so close. But we’ve agreed that we’re gonna go forward. These kinds of issues like you just brought up, they need to be clearly understood, and I need to go back and look at the acres that are involved. I think it’s less than the 3.5 million you’re talking about, but I might have to go back and look.

Miller: Just briefly, in the time we have left, I want to turn to another issue … similar to what we’ve just been talking about, passed in the Senate and did not pass in the House. This is what had been for years, the annual renewal of Secure Rural Schools [SRS] funding. It passed in the Senate in November. These are so-called timber payments in Oregon that have been around since 2000, intended to make up for declines in logging or other natural resource activity revenue from federal lands.

Last year, this SRS money brought in $47 million to about 30 Oregon counties, including big amounts in some of your districts, in some of your counties. Douglas and Klamath Counties each got more than $6 million. What happened, and is this money going to come to Oregon this year?

Bentz: Well, I certainly hope it does. I was totally supportive of that bill and had been assured that funding was going to be found. But in the waning days of the session, that did not happen. I actually met with the speaker’s team today, discussed that issue with them and was assured that they are working on it. It’s my hope that we’ll see that money soon. I say “my hope” because we are approaching spending as cautiously as we can and this is just like all other spending bills, you got to find to pay for. So that’s what the Speaker’s team was working on before the end of the session and continues to work on today.

Miller: Cliff Bentz, thanks very much.

Bentz: Appreciate it, Dave. Thank you so much.

Miller: Cliff Bentz is a Republican Representative for Oregon’s 2nd Congressional District.

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