Dollars, not words

We’ve read a lot of words recently from Washington, D.C., about how vital it is to restore the public forests, and the economy, of Northeastern Oregon.

What we haven’t seen are dollars.

Which makes all the talk, as the saying goes, pretty cheap.

Yet the Baker City/County economic development team’s request for $4.1 million to turn waste wood from public forests into valuable, earth-friendly products remains in limbo.

The silence from Washington is especially frustrating because Baker County ought to have some clout in the Capitol.

Both of Oregon’s senators, Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, are Democrats, whose party has almost complete control.

And both senators, along with our congressman, Republican Greg Walden, agree that harvesting biomass can benefit local forests as well as the economy.

Last week Merkley, who was elected last November, introduced the Merkley-Wyden Sustainable Revenue for Oregon Counties Act of 2009.

The legislation would, among other things, create a task force that could consider topics including increasing logging in overcrowded forests and harvesting biomass.

We support Merkley’s bill, and we congratulate the senator for looking out for rural Oregon, as he promised to do during his campaign.

But now we’d like to see action on the $4.1 million. That money would help jumpstart a plan to use biomass to generate electricity and to make stove pellets and firewood.

There are jobs to be created here. And right now, with unemployment in double digits, Baker County needs those more than it needs task forces.