Wild & Scenic Places In the News

Congressman Kurt Schrader showed he knows how to get the job done in Washington DC by moving legislation at warp speed through the US House of Representatives.

Yesterday, the House passed legislation to protect the Molalla River as a Wild and Scenic River by a vote of 292-133. Schrader was able to rally 40 Republicans to make it a bipartisan victory, including all five members of Oregon's delegation (yes, that includes Rep. Greg Walden who should get a bit of credit here).

The amazing piece of this story is that a collection of obstructionist Republicans led by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) decided they wanted to make a national stand by objecting to this legislation. It took three hours of heated debate before the final vote.

The most curious part of this is that this collection of out-of-state Republicans, who have never been to the Molalla River, chose this issue to take a pro-logging stand on. There is virtually universal support for this bill from the city of Molalla to Clackamas County to the congressional delegation and just about everyone in-between. It's no surprise: the river provides clean drinking water to Canby and Molalla, and it's an undiscovered gorgeous river with some important salmon runs. By protecting the undiscovered river, locals hope that this will also help put their community on the tourist map and thus generate more local jobs.

Thank you to Congressman Schrader and the rest of the Oregon delegation for bringing this victory home today. Nice work.

Erik Fernandez is the wilderness coordinator for Oregon Wild.