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Here's a common joke among connoisseurs of rural
politics: How do you spot a level-headed county
commissioner?
The tobacco juice drools from both
sides of his mouth.
Gov. Roy Romer and Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt must been slapping their knees with that one last week on their way to Gunnison. There they examined a new approach to public-land management -- county commissioners would appoint broader-based local grazing councils.
With a changing economy in the rural West, ranchers are no longer the only residents with a financial interest in public grazing lands. The Gunnison plan recognizes this with a council comprising two ranchers, a recreation and wildlife advocate, an environmentalist and a plain old citizen.
I'm sure your commissioners are enlightened,
Babbitt said, but I know counties in the West where
they're not.
He presumes that you can't rely on local government to act in an enlightened way, but if you climb the ladder, you'll find wise and benevolent leadership.
Right. Was it unenlightened county commissioners who just proposed a missile test range over park land in Utah? Did backward county commissioners poison sheep with nerve-gas tests in Utah? Were moronic county commissioners trying to arrange low-level jet dogfights over the Wet Mountain and San Luis valleys? Can any county afford to subsidize timber sales?
No matter how unenlightened -- and Babbitt is right that
there are flaming dimwits in some courthouses -- no county
could be as destructive as our enlightened federal
government, acting in the national interest.
What's the national interest? In Jimmy Carter's day, it
was a fast-track energy-plant siting proposal that would
have replaced the northern plains with a coal-gassifaction
industry. With Ronald Reagan, who said trees caused most
air pollution, the national interest meant removing those
pollution sources as quickly as possible. This continued
under George Bush, the environmental president.
Today the national interest appears to be making public lands acceptable to Pamela and Courtney, sensitive souls who are distressed by the spectacle of uncouth cows and cowboys, and who might make some big money in scenic real-estate development if those disgusting sights were removed.
National interest
really means the goals of
whatever interest group happens to occupy the federal
government at the moment.
It does not mean prudent
management for the long-term interests of the
community.
Granted, local control doesn't necessarily mean that,
either. But it's easier to push a county that way, as
Gunnison County Commissioner Rikki Santorelli noted.
We're closest to the people and they know where to find
us.
Further, if Catron County, N.M., adopts short-sighted range management policies, the effects are pretty much confined to Pie Town and Quemado, providing that Gunnison County, Colo., also enjoys the right to adopt its own standards. But if the federal government fouls up a one-size-fits-all policy, then the devastation extends across whole time zones.
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