The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Testified on behalf of public lands management and wildfire protection
By Katherine Nettles
Gunnison County commissioner Jonathan Houck travelled to Washington, D.C. last week to join US senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper in urging the senate committee on agriculture to support federal public land management and personnel. The three testified during a subcommittee hearing to review the Fix Our Forests Act, which each indicated had some potential advantages but also shortcomings and did not go far enough to address a public lands crisis.
“In Gunnison County, our public lands are everything to us: they are the foundation of our economy, our culture, our values and our way of life,” said Houck in his testimony.
“Stop the destructive, arbitrary, and inhumane firings of our Federal land managers at the Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. We can and should, as always, work with experts, state and local governments, and others to identify areas for increased efficiency and needed increases in capacity. But we cannot ignore the reality that climate change, population and development growth in the wildland-urban interface, the increasing cost of living, the growing challenges from invasive species, and other factors are increasing the need for agency capacity to steward our public lands.”
Houck added requests for Congress to pass the Colorado Outdoor Economy and Recreation (CORE) Act, and the Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection (GORP) Act, both of which “represent many years of collaboration among diverse stakeholders to advance critical public land management in and around Gunnison County.
“Finally, please continue to fully fund the PILT [payment in lieu of taxes funds from federal to local governments to offset federal lands; these funds help carry out vital services such as firefighting, public schools and roads] and the Secure Rural Schools programs, which provide essential resources to counties like mine across the country to help sustain essential county services and their critical roles in public land stewardship” concluded Houck.
Senator Bennet and Senator Hickenlooper also testified to the importance of public lands, healthy forests and wildfire preparedness and mitigation.
“If we are committed to the health of our forests and our watersheds, the federal government must be a more reliable partner for communities and local governments,” said Bennet.
Houck spoke to the Crested Butte News this week about the challenges facing the Gunnison Basin public lands this summer without the support roles of various federal employees involved in forest management. He pledged to continue working with Senator Bennet, and said he has reached out to Congressman Jeff Hurd repeatedly, and vehemently opposes Hurd’s recently introduced bill to rescind all public lands planning of the past few years.
“These plans went through a robust, bipartisan public process …none were contested in court…I’m just befuddled by the fact that we have these robust plans and his goal is to rear those back,” Houck said.
Representatives from the two senators’ offices visited with Gunnison County commissioners virtually last week to talk about other concerns with what they referred to as “critical services” like Medicaid, restoring international trade relations and other proposed legislation they are introducing or supporting such Hickenlooper’s dedication to clean energy permitting reform.
John Whitney, senior advisor for public lands travel affairs and Western Slope regional director for Senator Bennett’s office and Lisa Pool, the southwest regional director for Hickenlooper, touched on the importance of writing to representatives, maintaining an engaged public and collaborating across the state wherever possible.
“Now is a really important time to stay very closely connected with so many changes happening nearly every day,” said Pool. “Now is the time for those key conversations and advocacy.”
Whitney also acknowledged the uncertainty surrounding the US Postal Service and local concerns for postal service as well.
“Thanks for your letter on the Crested Butte post office situation. We are working closely among all three delegation offices. We hope to have a delegation letter ready to go this week,” he said, to send to federal postmaster general Louis DeJoy. “The White House has proposed some pretty fundamental shifts for the postal service including bringing it under the direct control of the White House…it’s probably going to be a wild year for the post office as well.”
