Oregon county rejects bid for more local control of federal land

Elected officials in an Oregon county rejected a proposed plan from a group of residents that sought greater local control over the management of federal lands. The development came as local officials in the West are wrestling with ways to have greater say in how the vast swaths of federal land are managed.  The issue came to a head in adjacent Harney County, where an armed group from out of state seized the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and held it for 41 days.The plan, drafted by a political action committee, would have ostensibly required the county court to be involved in “coordination” with federal agencies in managing hundreds of thousands of acres of forests and watersheds, prohibited retirement of grazing allotments and called for “the forest industry and the forest products commerce within the county” to be strengthened. Opponents of the plan said it had no legal basis.