A New American Hero ?

Move over Bill Gates

By Bill Reed (with credit to Alexander Cockburn, Dave Saville and William Booth of the Washington Post)

Charles Hurwitz is a businessman from Texas. Some would say he was a businessman in the finest American tradition. When he went deeply into debt to take over the Headwaters redwood groves in Northern California in a hostile takeover from Pacific Lumber, it stood to reason that he would be in a liquidating mood. Meaning, of course, clear cutting very valuable old growth redwood trees. As a shrewd businessman he probably knew in advance that he would be taken to task for any such destruction by thousands of irate citizens. But under the laws of the land he was holding many of the cards. But not all of them. He could have been brought to heel, relatively speaking, under the Endangered Species Act if the government had so chosen. The current deal cooked up by Senator Dianne Feinstein and others, and rubber stamped by Bruce Babbitt and Gray Davis, the new California governor, gives Mr. Smart Businessman, Hurwitz, all the breaks.

So 10,000 acres has passed from private to public ownership, that is the good news. Now lets look at the rest of the deal. Only about 4000 acres are old growth, the rest is a patchwork of clearcuts and second-growth stands. For this land the state of California and the Federal government pledged to pay $480,000,000. By my calculation that amounts to $48,000 per acre! And the lions share of this property has been logged off or clear cut. It is a very sweet and generous gift to Hurwitz from the taxpayers of California and the U.S. at large. If this whole area were clearcut (which Hurwitz had planned to do) and every tree were to be converted to lumber, the monetary value would be only about one-fourth of the amount pledged to Hurwitz. Now this fellow knows what he’s doing if you measure his business acumen by the amount of capital he produces.

The ultimate trump cards were held by Babbitt and company in the form of the Endangered Species Act. These lands are home to the northern spotted owl and the marbled murrelet, both endangered species. But Hurwitz is a man who can run a tough bluff. In addition to this great deal, he got free reign to log 136 million board feet on 210,000 acres of other Pacific Lumber land. With a "habitat conservation plan" he can now log and circumvent the Endangered Species Act. Besides, now he can hold his head up with environmentalists as having done the right thing! He wins both ways!

So how did the corporate media report his? From the Washington Post of March 3, this story appeared by William Booth, Washington Post Staff Writer

After years of negotiation and rancor, the largest stand of ancient redwoods still in private hands was sold today to the government so that the towering forest, and the endangered species it harbors, can be preserved for generations to come.

The federal government and the state of the California agreed to pay Pacific Lumber Co. $480 million for 10,000 acres of redwood forest along the Northern California coast, including the rarest of the rare: thousands of acres of a primordial habitat known as the Headwaters Forest.

The Headwaters is a grove of moss-draped trees that are as old as the millennium and as tall as 20-story buildings. It is a place of hushed and soul-stirring beauty, often compared to a cathedral, given the quality of its golden light and the play of green shadows.

Sounds positively ethereal, doesn’t it?

A guy like Hurwitz should be sent over to negotiate deals with Saddam and Milosevic. Problem is, he’s likely not to consider anything that would pay him less than 50,000 an hour which the Civil Service Commission would frown on.

As for Bruce Babbitt, our guy for brokering what he refers to as "win-win" deals, corporate economic goals invariably prevail. According to Alexander Cockburn, "under [Babbitt’s] stewardship, the Endangered Species Act has become a virtual dead letter, and the headwaters collapse demonstrates this sad fact yet again."

So we have a new American hero. Bet John Crites has put Hurwitz’s picture up!