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HJM012........................................by RESOURCES AND CONSERVATION INTERIOR COLUMBIA BASIN ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT PROJECT - Requesting Congress to terminate the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project, requesting that scientific information be communicated to personnel of the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service and expressing support for natural resource planning featuring site-specific environmental management decisions made by local decision-makers, citizens and others directly affected by the management decisions. 02/12 House intro - 1st rdg - to printing 02/13 Rpt prt - to Res/Con
HJM012|||| LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF IDAHO |||| Fifty-fourth Legislature Second Regular Session - 1998IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HOUSE JOINT MEMORIAL NO. 12 BY RESOURCES AND CONSERVATION COMMITTEE 1 A JOINT MEMORIAL 2 TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES IN CONGRESS 3 ASSEMBLED, AND TO THE CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION REPRESENTING THE STATE OF 4 IDAHO IN THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES. 5 We, your Memorialists, the House of Representatives and the Senate of the 6 State of Idaho assembled in the Second Regular Session of the Fifty-fourth 7 Idaho Legislature, do hereby respectfully represent that: 8 WHEREAS, the United States Department of Agriculture, in concert with the 9 United States Department of the Interior, has been actively involved for the 10 last three and one-half years in the promulgation of a 35-40 million dollar 11 land management project involving virtually all of the Northwestern States, 12 named the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP); and 13 WHEREAS, ICBEMP has not been properly authorized by the United States Con- 14 gress nor coordinated with the state of Idaho notwithstanding the inevitable 15 involvement of intermingled state and private lands; and 16 WHEREAS, representative of a number of federal wildlife, natural resource 17 and land management agencies have been engaged in the preparation of an ICBEMP 18 Draft Environment Impact Statement (DEIS) without sufficient regard to or con- 19 sideration of state concerns and interests; and 20 WHEREAS, federal agencies involved in preparation of the ICBEMP DEIS have 21 chosen to coordinate with a nongovernment agency known as the Eastside 22 Ecosystem Coalition of Counties, which does not possess authority to negotiate 23 or participate in lieu of elected county government officials; and 24 WHEREAS, there is no definitive description of an ecosystem or ecosystem 25 management contained in the ICBEMP DEIS as drafted, and associated documents; 26 and 27 WHEREAS, implementation of ICBEMP will have major impacts on the manage- 28 ment of federal lands and therefore major impacts on the counties of this 29 state including a reduction in human economic use of public lands, delays in 30 land use decision-making and new restrictions on both commodity and 31 noncommodity public land outputs, including recreation; and 32 WHEREAS, the preferred alternative in the DEIS, while supposedly designed 33 to agressively restore ecosystems and support people, in reality focuses on 34 ecosystem protection to be achieved by minimizing human impacts to the envi- 35 ronment; and 36 WHEREAS, the DEIS's Desired Range of Future Conditions reflect the per- 37 sonal values of its authors and are not necessarily based on sound scientific 38 information; and 39 WHEREAS, ecological considerations have been given more weight than pro- 40 viding predictable levels of goods and services from federal lands while pro- 41 cedures and standards for measurement have not been developed for ecosystem 42 health and ecological integrity; and 43 WHEREAS, the ICBEMP DEIS fails to explicitly identify the economic or 2 1 social needs of people, cultures, and communities in the Columbia River Basin 2 as they pertain to federal lands and fails to define sustainable and 3 predictable levels of products and services from U.S. Forest Service and 4 Bureau of Land Management lands; and 5 WHEREAS, the DEIS contains no significant legal justification for shifting 6 to ecosystem based management while at the same time nullifying the many years 7 of cooperative effort contained in existing land management plans. 8 NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the members of the Second Regular Ses- 9 sion of the Fifty-fourth Idaho Legislature, the House of Representatives and 10 the Senate concurring therein, that we urgently request the Congress of the 11 United States to take action immediately to terminate the Interior Columbia 12 Basin Ecosystem Management Project with no Record of Decision being approved. 13 We request that all funding enabling further action toward the implementation 14 be terminated and withdrawn from all federal agencies involved. All valid sci- 15 ence based information developed by this project should be communicated to BLM 16 district managers and National Forest supervisors for consideration of public 17 input in statutorily scheduled environmental land and resource management plan 18 revisions. 19 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the members of the Second Regular Session of 20 the Fifty-fourth Idaho Legislature, the House of Representatives and the Sen- 21 ate concurring therein, strongly support natural resource planning and envi- 22 ronmental management featuring site-specific management decisions made by 23 local decision-makers, local citizenry and parties directly and personally 24 affected by environmental land and resource management decisions. 25 BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Chief Clerk of the House of Representa- 26 tives be, and she is hereby authorized and directed to forward a copy of this 27 Memorial to the Secretary of the United States Department of Interior, to the 28 Chief of the Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, to 29 the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives of 30 Congress, and the congressional delegation representing the state of Idaho in 31 the Congress of the United States.
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE RS 07997 This proposed memorial calls for the termination of the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project with no record of decision being approved. FISCAL NOTE No fiscal impact CONTACT: Representative Chuck Cuddy Representative Dave Bivens Representative Dan Mader (208)332-1000 Idaho Cattle Association (208) 343-1516 STATEMENT OF PURPOSE/ FISCAL NOTE HJM 12