Did the OIA tell congress that it's member/speaker did not represent them? Or is this just another case of asking for forgiveness instead of permission?
It is just a stroke job. The official statements are all BS and we know it
Another quote from above thread
He has used the OIA as an associate in 2006.
From November 16, 2006
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:...&ct=clnk&gl=us
This is the html version of the file
http://energy.senate.gov/public/_files/Metcalf.doc.
Google automatically generates html versions of documents as we crawl the web.
Peter Metcalf
President
Black Diamond Equipment, Ltd., Salt Lake City, Utah
Board Member
Outdoor Industry Association
Testimony for the
Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests
Energy and Natural Resources Committee
The United State Senate
Hearing on S. 3636, the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act of 2006
November 16, 2006
Introduction
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this subcommittee about the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act, S. 3636. My name is Peter Metcalf. I am a Utah resident and the president and founder of Black Diamond Equipment, a Utah-based outdoor equipment company with annual sales of approximately $60 million per year with over 300 Salt Lake City based employees, another 30 in Europe and 50 more employees in Asia.
I am also appearing before the committee today in my capacity as a member of the board of directors and vice-chair of the Outdoor Industry Association (OIA.) OIA is a national trade association whose mission is to ensure the growth and success of the outdoor industry. The outdoor industry is made up of over 4000 businesses with 500,000 employees in all 50 states, generating $33 billion in sales every year. Last year, 159 million Americans participated in outdoor recreation, with the greatest numbers in the gateway sports of hiking, biking, camping and paddle sports. OIA's member companies include Yakima, Mountain Hardwear, The North Face, Cascade Designs, Vibram USA, Johnson Outdoors, REI, Eastern Mountain Sports, JanSport, Smartwool, Timberland, Columbia Sportswear, Black Diamond Equipment, GoLite, Vasque/Redwing and more. Attached is a letter concerning the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act to the Committee from thirty-one retailers in the outdoor industry.
I appreciate that the sponsors of the legislation have attempted to craft legislation to address the needs of communities and public lands in southwestern Utah. This legislation has sparked a helpful discussion about the future of Washington County and our public lands. I am encouraged to know that a local planning effort, known as Vision Dixie, is underway. The local planning process is dearly needed and I hope this continues, however, the Washington County Growth and Conservation Act is premature before completion of the local planning.
The OIA opposes this legislation because we are concerned that the bill falls short of truly protecting our public lands and balancing the needs of the region. Our recommendation is that the bill be withdrawn and reworked to allow for more public review and improvements. It is our hope that such a process may ultimately lead to a bill that could be more fully supported by Utah citizens and all citizens who care about our public lands.
Wilderness and the Outdoor Recreation Industry
Many Americans may not know of Washington County by name, but many Americans do know of this region’s spectacular landscape protected within Zion National Park. Zion National Park is but one piece of the county’s spectacular wild landscape. Many lands outside the park deserve protection as well. At the same time, the landscape is clearly under pressure from the region’s intense population growth. The OIA has taken a position in opposition to this legislation because we are concerned about the specific impacts this bill would have on public lands and recreation opportunities in Washington County. We also have concerns about this legislation as a matter of public policy.
First, we are concerned that the legislation fails to protect many wild public lands in Washington County that truly deserve protection. The legislation designates roughly 220,000 acres of wilderness across Washington County. Much of the proposed wilderness (120,000 acres) is located within Zion National Park. Unfortunately, only a fraction of the wild Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land outside the park would be protected under this legislation. Many stunning canyons and desert expanses near Zion National Park or in the Mojave Desert have been excluded by this bill. Similarly, the bill would add less than 3,000 acres of Forest Service wilderness despite the fact that the county is home to over 380,000 acres of Forest Service land. Just 50,000 acres of
Forest Service wilderness is currently protected in the region. The legislation would actually strip Wilderness Study Area protection from over 15 square miles of now protected lands. On a whole this legislation would leave out many treasured local canyons, forests, and mountain landscapes.
The OIA supports the protection of wilderness and strongly urges sponsors of this legislation to protect all of the region’s deserving wild lands. These areas are, in part, what makes Washington County unique and a desired place to live, work and recreate.
Selling Public Land
We are also deeply concerned that this legislation would allow the sale of significant amounts of public land and direct those sale proceeds toward funding local and federal government projects. Under Title I of this legislation, as much as 24,300 acres of public land in a single county could be sold off for development. As I understand from the Bureau of Land Management, the agency has already disposed of roughly 18,000 acres of BLM land in the past ten years. Still this legislation calls for more disposal of public lands in Washington County. We are concerned that this legislation promotes the sale of public land in a region already struggling to preserve open space and faced with diminishing opportunities for close-to-home outdoor recreation opportunities.
The legislation earmarks two percent of land sales proceeds to the County for administrative services, eight percent to the Water Conservancy District, five percent to the state for education, and the remaining eighty-five percent to various federal projects in Washington County. On a national perspective, we are deeply concerned that this legislation sets a dangerous precedent of selling federal lands owned by all Americans to fund local and federal government projects. We are sympathetic to local governments which face funding shortfalls, however, we urge the committee not to create the expectation that our public lands should be sold to meet short-term funding deficits.
Conservation Gains at Risk
The legislation contains numerous provisions that promote development of public lands without an appropriate balance for conservation of at-risk wild lands. The bill establishes hundreds of miles of corridors for utility lines, highways, and pipelines. Public lands would also be dedicated to water development and dam sites. The legislation also authorizes the BLM to create a county-wide off-road vehicle trail, yet the bill fails to consider other types of recreational use of the landscape or the need to develop a long term travel management plan on public lands in the county.
The outdoor industry depends upon the long-term protection of our public lands and has worked to help achieve protection of lands that outdoor users can enjoy. As the outdoor industry has grown over the years, this industry has increasingly worked to reinvest in our public lands and enhance the public’s enjoyment of open spaces. We are concerned that this legislation would turn back the progress protecting our public lands that many outdoor retailers have sought to achieve over the years. Further, if this approach is repeated across the nation, many lands across the American West or beyond could be at risk of being sold.
Local Communities and the Outdoor Industry
The failure to protect wild lands in Washington County could have direct economic and cultural consequences to the communities in the region. Active outdoor recreation is increasingly a strong and vital part of our nation’s economy, especially in rural areas.
This year, Outdoor Industry Foundation, with the support of many other trade groups including the travel industry, completed the industry’s first study quantifying the contribution of active outdoor recreation to the US economy. We looked at eight activity categories: bicycling, camping, fishing, hunting, paddling, snow sports (including downhill skiing, snowboarding, cross-country/ nordic, snowshoeing), hiking and backpacking (including mountaineering/canyoneering), and wildlife viewing. With the support of Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, we released the findings this summer and the numbers are impressive.
Active Outdoor Recreation contributes:
$730 billion to the US economy
Generates $289 billion annually in retail sales and services across the U.S.
Touches over 8 percent of American’s personal consumption expenditures— more than 1 in every 12 dollars circulating in the economy
Generates $88 billion in annual state and national tax revenue
Supports nearly 6.5 million jobs across the U.S.
The bottom line is that recreation and public lands play a special and critical role in our economy.
Active recreation and public lands offer other benefits as well: The study also shows that outdoor recreation is a primary vehicle of transferring wealth from our wealthier urban/suburban parts of the states to rural areas. It’s a way of taking the dollars and casting those dollars to the areas where they are needed most.
In addition, we know that outdoor recreation improves the health of Americans. Studies cite 25% higher health care costs for those people who are physically inactive. An OIF research project titled Exploring the Active Lifestyle examined “how, when and why active Americans become active” and it showed that 8 out of 10 active Americans feel that they are happier, have better family relationships and less stress in their lives when they are active. And 80 million Americans currently use outdoor activities as their main form of exercise.
Protecting the public lands that support outdoor recreation is critical to establishing and sustaining balanced local economic ecosystems across the nation, especially in the West. We urge the committee and sponsors of this bill to look at ways that communities can maximize the benefits from our public lands, rather than simply selling them off for private development.
Local and State-wide Concerns
Finally, I want to take a brief moment to explain how this bill is being received in Utah. It is nearly impossible to miss the widespread concern about this legislation throughout Utah. Many Utahns, including myself, care deeply about this region, but feel that this legislation falls short. A June 21st statewide poll showed that eighty-nine percent of Utahns think public hearings should be held in different locations around Utah before the legislation is voted on in Washington, DC. This legislation has not gone through the needed public review. Even in Washington County, the local sentiment is split. Three city councils have passed resolutions opposing the bill, four have passed resolutions in support, one city council has opposed a resolution for the bill, and four have taken no action. Over forty letter-to-the-editors against the bill have been published in Washington County newspapers. The Salt Lake Tribune has run three editorials and many LTE’s opposing the legislation.
Conclusion
In closing we suggest that the sponsors of this legislation withdraw this legislation so that there can be more public review and opportunities for improvements. Many Utahns have concerns with the legislation and want a better public process. We believe that our public lands ought to be protected for the enjoyment of current and future generations. Instead of proposing to sell off our public lands for private development, at a time that many communities in the west are taxing themselves to use public money to buy private land to prevent its development, we urge the subcommittee to find a more sustainable approach to public land management and addressing the funding needs of the local and federal government. As Stewart Brand has written: “Natural systems are priceless in value and nearly impossible to replace, but they are cheap to maintain. All you have to do is defend them.”
As you can see he has been speaking " on the behlaf of the OIA" for a few years now. Everyone is playing on the fence and it is really making me angry.
