[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 866-867]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                        TRIBUTE TO JOHN V. HAYS

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE

                                of idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 8, 2000

  Mrs. CHENOWETH-HAGE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay special tribute 
to Mr. John Hays, president of the Oregon Cattlemen's Association and 
owner/operator of Rouse Brothers Ranch in Unity, OR. John Hays is a 
fiercely independent man who is committed to preserving and protecting 
the rights of America's farmers and ranchers.
  Through hard work and dedication, John has had a stellar career 
championing the rights of private property owners. When John is not 
fighting to preserve the rights of land owners, he is speaking out 
against the high levels of agribusiness consolidation and the many 
related problems affecting agricultural producers, rural communities, 
and consumers.
  After thinking about various events in John's life, I am reminded of 
a passage in Theodore Roosevelt's letter to Marcus Alonzo Hanna (June 
27, 1900): ``I am as strong as a bull moose and you can use me to the 
limit.''
  Mr. Speaker, I must tell you, it has been an honor to know John and 
to be his friend. Truly, he is dedicated to preserving the unique 
integrity of our proud western heritage.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, I commend the example of John Hays to my 
colleagues, and hereby submit to the Record for their consideration a 
January 11, 2000 article appearing in The Bulletin (Bend, Oregon).

                     [The Bulletin, Jan. 11, 2000]

             Cattlemen's Leader Works To Preserve Ranching

                             (By Jim Witty)

       John Day.--It's not easy being a cattleman in Oregon at the 
     dawn of the 21st century.
       To hear John Hays tell it, the Western rancher should join 
     the northern spotted owl, the blackfooted ferret and the gray 
     wolf on the endangered list.
       Hays, a bull of a man with a gregarious streak a mile wide 
     and at least as deep, sees red when the topic turns to cows 
     and those who would interfere with their unfettered 
     husbandry.
       ``We kind of look at ourselves as an endangered species,'' 
     Hays says. ``If you look at the last five or six years, we've 
     been nearly regulated out of business.''
       Hays, the newly elected president of the Oregon Cattlemen's 
     Association, has come out with both guns blazing.
       One of his first communiques is illustrative.
       Shortly after a federal court ordered the Bureau of Land 
     Management to eliminate cattle grazing along 18 miles of the 
     Owyhee River in Southeastern Oregon, Hays shot out a press 
     release to Oregon media outlets accusing U.S. District Judge 
     James Redden of bias and calling the principal litigant--the 
     Oregon Natural Desert Association of Bend--the ``eliminate 
     the food chain group of America.''
       Hays concluded the news release by declaring: ``This type 
     of judgment is why people fled Europe during the time of 
     Hitler. It is a very sad time in my life as president of the 
     Oregon Cattlemen's Association.''
       Strong words. But Hays is no shrinking violet.
       He has vowed to fight a triple threat he believes is 
     ripping the guts from the ranching industry: the Endangered 
     Species Act, which cattlemen complain has produced a spate of 
     unwanted regulations (listings or potential listings of 
     steelhead, salmon and trout species, for instance, have 
     restricted the way ranchers can do business on their 
     property); the buyout of dozens of medium-size packing plants 
     by a couple of large corporations, IBP and Con Agra; and the 
     subsequent homogenization of the market--the loss of 
     ranchers' ability to command a premium for premium beef.
       This day, Hays is at the senior center in John Day taking a 
     break from the environmental wars, rallying the troops for an 
     assault on the marketing front.
       `We want to get back in control of our market,' says Hays, 
     57, sipping coffee in an anteroom before he's scheduled to 
     outline his plans before several dozen ranchers in the main 
     hall.
       To regain that control, the former restauranteur and sports 
     agent is promoting a premium product produced by the state's 
     ranchers, called Oregon Trail Branded Beef, that will be 
     processed in a cattlemen-owned plant. That way, says Hays, 
     ranchers can sell contaminant-free beef that they control 
     from rangeland to retailer.
       `People get E. coli and who do they point to?' says Hays. 
     `The cattlemen, right off the

[[Page 867]]

     bat. We don't have any control of the product.'
       While the ambitious co-op marketing campaign is occupying 
     most of his time these days, the battle on the ground is 
     never far from his mind.
       `Grazing is a target,' says Hays. `(Environmentalists) 
     found out with the spotted oil that they could get rid of the 
     timber industry. Grazing is the next thing they're pushing 
     for.'
       Bill Marlett of Bend-based Oregon Natural Desert 
     Association is Hays' arch nemesis. The two have never met.
       `As a human being, I give everybody a chance,' says Hays. 
     `(But) I hate to see anything progressive being torn down.'
       ONDA argues that cows have trampled riverbanks, fouled 
     streams and chewed up fragile desert topsoil on more than 13 
     million acres of public land in Oregon. And the 
     organization's goal is to remove all cattle from the state's 
     BLM- and Forest Service-administered land.
       Marlett says he doesn't quite know what to make of Hays.
       `I don't know where he's coming from to be honest,' says 
     Marlett. `To make the inference about Nazi Germany--aside 
     from being irrelevant--is crazy. Why would you say something 
     like that? If he's going to base policy on rhetoric, there's 
     probably not a lot of progress we can make communicating. . . 
     . It's kind of extreme.'
       Hays, in turn, argues that those pushing to rid the range 
     of cattle are outside the mainstream.
       `We are the table,' says Hays, referring to the cattleman's 
     place in the scheme of things. `I don't consider the people 
     who don't own property as even the tablecloth, the salt and 
     pepper shaker. . . . A lot of it is lifestyle. They could 
     care less about lifestyle.'
       But Hays is concerned that lifestyle is in trouble as are 
     communities dependent on ranching.
       He contends that ranchers are the best land stewards 
     because their livelihoods depend on it.
       `You don't make a living if you trash your ranch,' Hays 
     says. `We're some of the better environmentalists in the 
     world. . . . It's like anything else, if you don't harvest 
     the grass, it will turn to weeds.'
       But Hays says he sees the Endangered Species Act being used 
     as a tool to take cattle off the range. For instance, he 
     says, when a threatened trout is found on a rancher's grazing 
     allotment, they can't use the creek anymore unless they 
     invest in a costly fencing regiment.
       Hays subscribes to the theory that there is an overarching 
     plan guiding the environmental movement that will move more 
     and more private land into government ownership.
       `These are apostles of the one world movement to get people 
     off the land,' he says. `. . . Eventually it's a government 
     takeover.'
       Most environmentalists pooh pooh the notion, saying that 
     it's difficult enough organizing their own groups, let alone 
     a monolithic movement.
       Although he served a 5-year stint in the Marine Corps, 17 
     years in the restaurant business and a few more in 
     partnership with former NFL greats Mel Renfro and Darryl 
     Lamonica putting together contracts, his first love is 
     ranching, Hays says.
       On his home place in Unity, about 60 miles west of the 
     Idaho border, Hays runs about 3,000 head of cattle on 23,000 
     privately owned acres and 80,000 acres owned by the federal 
     government. His family has operated the Rouse ranch since the 
     1850s, he says.
       Hays argues that society has mixed up its priorities.
       `I see it in the logging industry in my hometown. `One 
     fellow there had 30 some people employed there. It kept the 
     town going. He had to let them go. Now our town's full of 
     drugs. Some have had to leave. . . . It hurts your kids, it 
     hurts your schools, your community.'
       So, says Hays, does the Endangered Species Act.
       `Why is a fish dominant over everything else?' he queries. 
     `People are taking this ESA and using it as a tool to get 
     what they want.'

     

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