Alamogordo Daily News
By Michael Johnson, Managing Editor
Posted: 03/10/2010  

HIGH ROLLS Republican U.S. House of Representative hopeful Steve Pearce laid it all out on the line Sunday when trying to explain the scope of rising national unemployment to a small gathering of about 20 people in High Rolls.

"We cannot continue to kill jobs," Pearce told the group inside the Lions Club. "You all have seen it here. What did you use to do here in this community? What was your economic base?

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"You should know this. How many logging jobs do you have today? Zilch," Pearce said. "We used to have 20,000 jobs in logging and timber in New Mexico. Do you know how many we have today? None."

Pearce, who served as U.S. Congressman between 2003-09 in the 2nd Congressional District, is seeking election this year to that same seat now held by U.S. Rep. Harry Teague. Pearce gave up the seat in a bid to become a U.S. senator, but lost in the 2008 election to current U.S. Sen. Tom Udall.

Pearce discussed many issues of national importance, but tried to explain them in such a way so that people in High Rolls, Cloudcroft and other Sacramento Mountain communities could relate.

"The spotted owl killed logging and timber all across the West," he said. "The deal was to give the spotted owl a better habitat. I'm sorry, but it doesn't have a better habitat. We're burning the forest down because the trees are growing too close together and are starved for resources."

Pearce said disease and fire are constant threats that will wipe out the forest and he placed the blame on the U.S. Forest Service for allowing "environmental extremists" to have their way.

"That's the reason we passed the Healthy Forest Initiative in 2005. We told the Forest Service to start cutting trees and they ignored it," Pearce said. "They're not going to follow the law because the (environmental) extremists are saying 'We don't want to do that.' Your jobs have gone away because of that."

Pearce said citizens of the mountain communities have been told by Washington that they "should be happy with tourism jobs."

"I'm sorry, but tourism doesn't pay a tenth of what (logging) paid, and so you've given it up," he said.
Pearce added that because environmentalists and the Forest Service want to protect forest land, it has led to a depletion of possible water sources.

"We proved back when I was in the state Legislature that trees suck up much water," he said. "The water is supposed to percolate in and recharge the aquifers. Some of the best water experts in the country say there is about a 200-year supply of water if you just cut 50 percent of the trees or cut them back to the normal stands."

A member of the audience told Pearce that if the Forest Service would apply a 12,000 acre treatment around Cloudcroft, it would yield about 700 million gallons of new water in one year enough for a 10-year supply in Cloudcroft.

"So the reason you don't have water is because some extremist somewhere on the coast is telling you how to live," Pearce said. "This goes all the way back to the Constitution argument. They should not be able to take our rights away from us without due process and yet they are. They're taking water rights away from us, they're taking our jobs from us, they're taking our customs and culture away from us.

"At some point, we have to fight."

That's the reason why, Pearce said, he opted to run for his former seat in Washington.

"I'm worried about the country," he said. "I'm finding that people are just frustrated, angry and scared.

Those are three powerful emotions by themselves, but when you add them together, you start to realize what's going on in the nation."

Pearce said rising unemployment weighs heavily on his mind, as well as these people who don't currently have a job.

"What are we going to do about jobs? That's the key thing people want to know about," he said. "We didn't get many jobs from the stimulus bill because it was never intended to create jobs. It was intended to take $1 trillion and distribute it across the country to participants that might create jobs for a moment, but then it disappears."

Pearce said the U.S. economy should be based on manufacturing jobs, much like the evaporated logging and timber industry in the Sacramento Mountains.

"We don't have a manufacturing economy anymore. We're 70 percent retail. That's the weakness of our economy," he said. "You can't create jobs only at McDonald's selling hamburgers back and forth. Manufacturing is where you create wealth and a standard of living. If we don't do it, we don't have an economic future. It's that simple."

Pearce said the 2nd Congressional District "is the most Democrat-leaning in the nation" and that he wouldn't have it any other way.

"I don't want that to change," he said. "When I have to answer to Democrats in greater numbers than Republicans, it calms me down. I have to be able to speak to them because I need their votes."
Pearce said his business and economic background is what makes him qualified to represent New Mexico's 2nd Congressional District.

"In business, you realize that you work for the people you employ. You can't order people to go do this or that without believing in what you're doing," he said. "People at the top of any organization know you have to convince everyone up and down the spectrum. I took that background to Washington and it served me quite well."

Contact Michael Johnson at mjohnson@alamogordonews.com.