RoguePundit

Not a Breadbasket

South Korea is the world's fourth largest corn importer, and it wants to change that...somewhat.  The following got a fair amount of press when it was first announced, but now it's fallen apart.   

South Korea’s project to transform Madagascar into its breadbasket, branded by some as neo-colonial, came to an abrupt end on Wednesday when the Indian Ocean island’s new president said he would shelve the plan.

Daewoo Logistic’s deal to lease a huge tract of farmland, half the size of Belgium, to grow food crops to send back to Seoul was a source of popular resentment that contributed to the fall of Marc Ravalomanana, the former president.

Andry Rajoelina, who was declared president by the military and constitutional court after months of demonstrations and who will be formally sworn in on Saturday, said that Daewoo’s plan was “cancelled”.

“We are not against the idea of working with investors, but if we want to sell or rent out land, we have to change the constitution, you have to consult the people,” Mr Rajoelina said in Antananarivo, the country’s capital. “So at this hour the deal is cancelled.”

...

Daewoo’s plan became the most high-profile of several similar smaller foreign agricultural investments in Africa. The race to outsource production is a sign of how countries, particularly in the Middle East but also in Asia, are seeking food security after last year’s food crisis, which saw record prices for staples such as wheat and rice, and the imposition of export restrictions.

The initial plan involved 3.2 million acres, which is about 2.2 percent of the nation's land.

Mr. Rajoelina, a former disc jockey who was sacked as the mayor of the capital last month, was the opposition leader.  Speaking of changing the constitution...  

"I accept humbly and with love--I assume as a duty--all responsibility, management and leadership of our beloved country, Madagascar," he said.

He also announced that the constitution would be changed - the current constitution sets a minimum age of 40 for presidential candidates, while Mr Rajoelina is 34.

...

The African Union had urged the army not to hand power to Mr Rajoelina, saying this would amount to a coup.

Seventy percent of the people in Madagascar live on less than a dollar a day.  

Possibly Going Paperless

Evidently, the following looked like a good investment at the time. 

Hearst owned The San Francisco Examiner for more than a century, but the rival Chronicle became the city’s dominant paper. In 2000, Hearst bought The Chronicle for $660 million, and sold The Examiner. But it kept many Examiner workers, significantly increasing the size and cost of The Chronicle’s staff.

The Examiner has since been reduced to a free newspaper, leaving the Chronicle the only major newspaper in town.   

From a Tuesday press release...

Hearst Corporation announced today that its San Francisco Chronicle newspaper is undertaking critical cost-saving measures including a significant reduction in the number of its unionized and nonunion employees. If these savings cannot be accomplished within weeks, Hearst said, the Company will be forced to sell or close the newspaper.

Hearst said that the Chronicle lost more than $50 million last year and that this year’s losses to date are worse. The Chronicle has had major losses each year since 2001.

... Survival is the outcome we all want to achieve. But without the specific changes we are seeking across the entire Chronicle organization, we will have no choice but to quickly seek a buyer for the Chronicle or, should a buyer not be found, to shut the newspaper down.”

The newspaper has about 1,500 employees and a circulation of 339,000.  I haven't found the 2008 statistics, but from 2003-2007, the Chronicle lost 147,000 subscribers.  A subscription for home delivery in the city limits now costs $62 for eight weeks, which is a touch over $400 a year.      

Switching to a link from the Chronicle itself...

The company did not specify the size of the staff reductions or the nature of the other cost-saving measures it has in mind. The company said it immediately will seek discussions with Northern California Media Workers Guild Local 39521 and International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 853, which represent the majority of workers at The Chronicle.

...

Doug Cuthbertson, executive officer of the local newspaper guild, said, "We're extremely concerned for our members and we have a meeting planned for 10 a.m. Wednesday with management to hear what plans they have and offer any plans we may have to address what's obviously a serious problem."

Rome Aloise, secretary-treasurer at the Teamsters, added, "It remains to be seen what they think is needed. I'm a bit skeptical that any further cuts on the wage side and the staffing side will make up the difference that's needed when revenues are nonexistent. The problems are on the revenue side. The solution is not necessarily on the worker side. I'm hopeful they have some ideas, but I'm not optimistic."

The only Hearst Corporation newspaper here in the Northwest is the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which is also on deathwatch.  From its January 9 press release...

Hearst Corporation announced that it is offering for sale the SeattlePost-Intelligencer (P-I) and its interest in the Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) under which the P-I and The Seattle Times are published.

Hearst said that should a sale of the P-I not occur within 60 days, it will pursue other options for the property. These options include a move to a digital-only operation with a greatly reduced staff or a complete shutdown of all operations. In no case will Hearst continue to publish the P-I in printed form following the conclusion of this process.

The PI lost $14 million last year. 

Smarter Than Our Governor

Despite considerable rumbling by the public, Governor Kulongoski has continued to give ODOT the latitude to work on a mileage tax.  

- Despite what he says about climate change, the Governor can certainly look like a hypocrite on the subject.  He supports removing dams that produce renewable energy, because evidently salmon are a greater concern than climate change.  And rather than keeping a consumption tax on carbon usage, Kulongoski is considering switching to a mileage tax that reduces the incentive to drive a fuel efficient vehicle.  Yeesh.

- Implementing a mileage tax will add to the cost of new vehicles and force service station owners to invest in the necessary equipment...and recoup that cost at customers' expense.  That needlessly increases the cost of living.  

- Many folks have privacy concerns about the devices that must be installed in vehicles to make a mileage tax possible.  No amount of government denials will completely allay those concerns. 

- And when it comes to the feared decline in fuel tax revenues as cars become more efficient, here's a cynical thought on how that will impact highway maintenance.  Haven't a number of states just learned that if they put off infrastructure efforts, just wait for the next recession and whine that the feds need to come to the rescue with stimulus money?  

President Obama has a much more sensible view on the mileage tax.

As quickly as talk of taxing mileage instead of gasoline surfaced in the Obama Cabinet on Friday, the White House sank it.

Concerned that traditional gas taxes cannot keep pace with the cost of building and repairing highways, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he was considering taxing motorists according to miles driven.

But President Obama has no interest in such a tax, the White House swiftly said.

"I can weigh in on it, and say that it is not and will not be the policy of the Obama administration," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

If for no other reason than Oregon's budgetary situation, Governor Kulongoski needs stop wasting our money on the mileage tax initiative.  

Stimulating the Census

The unipartisan stimulus bill is about to become law.

Speaking in his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said, "I will sign this legislation into law shortly, and we'll begin making the immediate investments necessary to put people back to work doing the work America needs done."

Notice that he didn't say putting Americans back to work. 

Senate and House conferees removed a controversial provision from the economic stimulus package that would have required companies to verify the immigration status of their workers.

...

But in a separate move, conferees kept in the final bill a Senate provision that would restrict the ability of companies receiving federal bailout funds from hiring highly skilled foreign workers, according to congressional aides and industry officials.

Conferees did not retain language in the House-passed version of the stimulus bill that would have required companies to use the so-called E-Verify system, an online tool that employers can use to check Homeland Security and Social Security databases to verify an employee is legally authorized to work in the country. The Senate's version of the stimulus bill did not include such a provision.

Considering the number of the stimulus jobs that will be in construction, this helps contractors who boost their profits by breaking the law and hiring illegal immigrants.  Many of these workers will send a percentage of their paychecks home as remittances, which certainly reduces the impact of the economic stimulus here in the U.S.  Also thrilled were lobbyists representing farm workers, the produce industry, the American Nursery and Landscaping Association, etc.  These interests stood to lose tax benefits in the bill unless they used E-Verify.

And then there's the fact that illegal aliens are counted during each census.  Their numbers make a difference when reapportioning the House of Representatives early in each decade.  It's mostly Democratic strongholds that look to be losing seats.

Various projections show Texas gaining four House seats, Arizona two, and a single-seat gain for Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and perhaps North Carolina and Oregon. It has been more than 40 years since a Northeastern or Midwestern state gained a seat after a census, and yet again losses will mostly come from these regions. Ohio is projected to lose two seats, and New Jersey, Iowa, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and possibly Missouri will lose one. The only states to lose seats in the West or South will be Louisiana and possibly California.

This brings us to the botched appointment of Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) to be Commerce Secretary.  Dishonestly, this Washington Post editorial avoids the elephant in the room.  

The nub of the matter is the Democrats' belief that the "actual enumeration" called for in the Constitution inevitably undercounts minorities and the poor, who tend to be harder to find and count--and who also tend to vote Democratic.  Republicans, charging chicanery, reject Democratic calls for the use of modern statistical estimation methods to correct for the undercount. Over the years, one of the Republican skeptics has been none other than Judd Gregg, who formerly chaired a Senate subcommittee in charge of census funding.

When black and Latino officeholders caught wind of his appointment, they complained bitterly to the White House, which attempted to finesse the problem by suggesting that Mr. Obama's staff would help Mr. Gregg keep an eye on the Census Bureau. That triggered an uproar among Republicans that the White House planned to politicize the count--followed by Mr. Gregg's withdrawal.

The argument over census methodology is both arcane and, on the merits, a closer question than the zero-sum protestations of either party. For what it's worth, the Supreme Court ruled in 1999 that federal law bars statistical sampling for apportioning congressional seats but not for setting legislative districts or allocating federal money.

Mr. Obama's staff...in other words, the new Karl Rove--Rahm Emanuel. 

Most of the undercounting is in illegal aliens.  Little wonder there's some interest in scaling back immigration enforcement as the census approaches (previous blog here).  So, why in the heck did the Democratic House originally pass a stimulus bill that required companies to use E-verify?  Was it a compromise that ultimately gained no Republican votes, recognition of how the average American feels about the issue, or a product of not having time to fully read the bill? 

Less Change

Here's another area where the Democratic Party is now trying to lower our expectations. 

After years of food poisoning episodes, tainted imports and unrealized promises of reform, the incoming Obama administration has been saying the embattled Food and Drug Administration would finally get what it needed to make the nation's food supply safer.

But now, some of the leading champions of rebuilding the FDA and the food safety system acknowledge that big reforms are likely still years away.

"This is an issue that will have to wait its turn," said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Richard J. Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois and longtime proponent of tougher food laws and a friend of President-elect Obama.

Once again, bigger problems with higher profiles might shoulder aside food safety in the competition for resources. With the federal deficit already in record territory, the new administration committed to nearly $1 trillion in new economic stimuli - on top of billions for financial and other bailouts - and expensive domestic initiatives promised for such problems as healthcare and global warming, more money for food safety may be hard to come by.

And instead of assuming more direct control of the inspection system, the government seems likely to remain heavily dependent on growers, food processors and others in the industry to police themselves and the food supply.

Instead, with most states in severe financial trouble, Durbin wants to strengthen the state and local oversight of food safety. Obama will probably continue to back Durbin's efforts.  But if it doesn't increase the federal deficit, how are most states going to afford this?

A year ago, the FDA announced its own plan for reform, promising a major expansion of overseas inspections, better systems to identify where risks are highest and more cooperation with state and local authorities as well as industry.

The agency opened an office in China this year and plans to open ones in India and Latin America in 2009. But the promised changes have not come soon enough for critics, including many on Capitol Hill. "There is little question that the FDA is dysfunctional," said Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, who has pushed for a more sweeping overhaul of the agency. "The current structure is incapable of addressing food safety problems."

How many more years is this all going to be Bush's fault?

Impotent Peace Activists

The American Friends Service Committee...

...is a practical expression of the faith of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Committed to the principles of nonviolence and justice, it seeks in its work and witness to draw on the transforming power of love, human and divine.

 And this is the best that they can come up with?

Testifying before the Portland City Council this morning, members of several area peace groups called for passage of a resolution that would declare the city a sanctuary for AWOL service members.

The idea would be for the council to tell police not to honor federal arrest warrants if the subject of a traffic stop or other infraction happened to be wanted by the military for desertion. Such a stance, the activists argue, is in line with the council's previously stated opposition to the Iraq War.

"The message from the Obama campaign was not to just sit and wait for change to come," said Kelly Campbell, peace director for the American Friends Service Committee in Portland. "We should consider what vision we bring and what changes we can make to our country."

The activists have framed the issue as one of supporting veterans of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who, since signing up for military service, object to the fighting as a matter of conscience.

Deserters aren't necessarily conscientious objectors...some are homesick, or running from crimes, or having trouble coping, on and on.  Plus, a military member isn't officially a conscientious objector until he or she has proven to the military that there's been a geniune change of heart since volunteering to serve.  Rather than helping the deserters deal with their situations, these so-called peace activists would rather help keep the deserters hidden.  That doesn't contribute to making the world a more peaceful place...that doesn't help anything at all.

So far, the group has had little luck getting any of the council members to champion the cause, so they wanted to make a public show of it. They said they got a warm reception from Mayor Tom Potter, the only member of the council to meet with them, and have had conversations with staff members of the others.

Three activists from different groups testified briefly. The council did not discuss the issue, as is customary when citizens sign up to speak under the public communications part of the weekly meeting.

Still, they agreed that council members are tepid, if not outright opposed to the idea. Commissioner Randy Leonard has said he thinks its inappropriate while deferring to the Obama administration to deal with the war in Iraq.

I'd never make a good politician, because I don't suffer fools gladly.

Deportations and the Upcoming Census

While there are certainly a few high-profile arrests and deportations, the totals show that we don't hear about most of the folks who are sent back to their former homes.

Immigration officials say more than 10,000 illegal aliens were deported in the last year from Washington, Oregon and Alaska - breaking a record for the region.

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 10,602 aliens were deported to their home countries between October 2007 and September 2008 - a jump of more than 35 percent compared with the same period a year earlier.

The spike in deportations reflects the continuing nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration by ICE and other federal agencies. Nationwide, the number of deportations in the period increased from 290,000 to more than 345,000, about a 17 percent increase.

A third of the total were criminal convicts. 

As one would expect, the big numbers are from the states bordering Mexico.  For instance...

Federal immigration enforcement officials have deported more than 100,000 illegal immigrants from Texas in the past 12 months.

...

ICE agents deported more than 53,000 illegal immigrants from South and Central Texas in the past 12 months. They returned more than 16,300 illegal immigrants to their home countries from North Texas and Oklahoma. During the same time period, agents removed  17,300 illegal immigrants from West Texas and more than 15,770 from Southeast Texas.

And...

The 72,955 immigrants deported from Arizona marked a 64 percent increase from the 44,376 deported the previous year, according to statistics from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A few days ago, ICE said that it "won't entertain any request to scale back our efforts" during the upcoming census.  That's caused some whining.

Here's what continued enforcement during the Census period would mean to California: far less federal money that it is entitled to for everything from schools to prisons to roads and sewers and parks and medical care for the indigent.

And many more categories. Plus as many as two fewer seats in Congress than it should have.

Here's why: Money for almost all federally-funded projects is doled out on the basis of population. So are congressional seats. Population formulas lately are even used to divvy up Homeland Security funds. So the fewer people get counted by the Census in a given state, the less money that state gets from the government for the next 10 years. Less clout, too. Never mind how many people actually depend on that state's services, from parks to schools to emergency rooms.

If ICE continues full-fledged enforcement during the Census, it's virtually guaranteed that California will be undercounted by at least 1 million persons and as many as 3 million.

In other words, he's complaining about not benefiting from lax immigration enforcement.  Blech.

And the author went further, offering that some believe illegal aliens use less in services than they pay in taxes, thus again penalizing California when they're undercounted.  To be polite, those studies include some rather dubious and aggressive assumptions. 

Oregon looks like it may be in line for a sixth Congressional seat after the upcoming census (previous blog here).  I'm sure this gives our leadership with yet another reason to slow-roll immigration enforcement.

Yet Some More Post-Election Thoughts

It just the first five days of November, we've had more rain than in the last six months combined.  I suppose the weather reflects the way many folks feel right now in this very red county.

Boy was I glad to know who won the presidency before bedtime on Tuesday.  As usual, Southern Oregon voted Republican, though in most counties by less than normal...heck, Obama almost took Jackson County.  Smith did better here, but not well enough to overcome losing by 130,000 in Multnomah County.  A whopping 28 percent of Merkley's votes came from Multco.

Meanwhile here in our only Republican congressional district, Walden dominated even more than usual.  He got almost 70 percent of the vote against Noah Lemas, an unenergetic sacrificial lamb.  Actually, Lemas got about 4,000 more votes that Voisin did in '06, but Walden improved by over 50,000.  And as lopsided as that was, only one of Oregon's five congressional races was closer.   

I often wish we had more competitive campaigns for statewide and national office...until we have one.  The Smith/Merkley battle was an ugly and nauseating proxy war between a pair of desperate parties and a myriad of special interests who were pushing a couple of rather empty suits.  If we'd also been a swing-state for president, yikes--would there have been any non-political ads left on TV?  I wonder how many of those ads the folks in Siskiyou County CA--who get their local television from Medford--had to endure? 

The senate battle was lose-lose for rural Oregon...we either kept the ineffective seat-warmer or gained another urban elitist who's rural roots are nothing more than a political prop.  Thankfully, the Democrats didn't gain enough U.S. Senate seats to override filibusters with a party-line vote...it's dangerous to give either party that much power.  That's why I'm concerned about the strong potential for overreach by the new Democratic supermajority in the Oregon House.    

With the Democrats now having complete dominance in Salem, they'll have no one else to blame for their failures, right?  Sure...it's W's fault for ruining the economy and thus causing a drop in revenues.  The neanderthal populace is at fault for greedily protecting the kicker.  The anti-tax activists will be at fault for enabling the voters to have a say on additional taxes.  The evil tobacco lobby...

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Surprisingly, Republicans did actually come close in a couple of other statewide races. 

One wonders what a stronger Republican could have done in the State Treasurer contest.  As I've noted before, the party that supposedly champions equality and women's rights was so anxious to win that it circled the wagons around Ben "The Groper" Westlund.  Sadly, not enough voters punished that repulsive hypocrisy--Westlund got 51 percent of the vote.  But, I guess I shouldn't be surprised after the way so many on the left (and some on the right) treated Hillary and especially Palin.  It's gotten so that partisanship is an excuse to make intolerance politically correct.

And since we don't have the option of a non-partisan Secretary of State either, we ended up with Kate Brown, who believes that bipartisanship is reaching across the aisle in search of Republicans who'll vote like Democrats.  Her victory was seemingly a foregone conclusion after the primary, but she also only got 51 percent of the vote against a newcomer, the former Eugene news anchor Rick Dancer.  Democrats can't feel too good about that.  If DeFazio gets ambitious and opens up Congressional District 4...

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Regarding initiatives, first a couple from California. 

- The new redistricting system created by Proposition 11 (previous blog here) has a small lead.  It's impressive that despite major opposition by the Democratic Party, there's enough dissatisfaction with the status quo that this might pass.  Maybe if Sacramento could figure out how to make a decent budget... 

- Meanwhile, I'd gotten a glimmer a few weeks ago that Proposition 8--the gay marriage ban--would pass.  The issue of separation of church and state was resonating...heck, I know pro-gay-marriage atheists who voted for Prop 8 because of that.  While legalizing same-sex marriage eliminates one intolerance, it institutionalizes another--against many religions.  I've long said that governments should only be in the business of civil unions...leave marriage to the churches.

Here in Oregon, the only shocker in the initiatives--other than the margin of defeat for Measure 65, was that 64 nearly passed.  But since I got windy on that topic, I made a separate post out of it yesterday. 

Dairy Competition

The term "perfect storm" has become a go-to expression for folks trying absolve themselves or others of the blame for something.  In this article, it's sagging profits.

California’s comparative handful of organic dairies says they’re being hammered by a perfect storm of higher operating costs, increased competition and a limit to the prices the market will support.

While farming has always had years of prosperity balanced against years when it was hard to make ends meet, the state’s 60-70 organic dairy operations say this year the squeeze on their bottom lines is tougher than ever.

...

Mr. Coelho, whose (450-cow) herd is large by organic dairy standards but less than half the size of California’s average conventional dairy, says his costs of feed to supplement pasturing have increased by 200 percent this year over last in the case of grain and by 100 percent in the case of alfalfa hay.

And earlier this year he was paying nearly $5 per gallon for diesel fuel for tractors that use 10-15 gallons per hour, he says.

Pressure comes from another direction as well, he says--“factory” farms, be they conventional dairies or organic.

All dairy farmers have had to deal with increased feed and fuel prices, which by the way are both on the decline.  It's not like factory farms are a new threat to smaller operations.  And we know that some consumers are proving price-sensitive when it comes to paying more for organic products (previous blog here).  Thus, smaller organic dairies need to either cut costs, persuade consumers to pay more their products, and/or adversely impact their competitors.  

Mr. Coelho says there are gray areas in standards set for organic milk. “Those have been taken advantage of by the big factory farms,” he says. “They can produce more milk at a cheaper rate because their animals are confined.”

“The way we’ve been dealing with the problem is just by educating our consumers, letting our consumers know where their product is coming from, who are they supporting, and, do you want to support the corporate factory farm or do you want to support the family farmer,” Mr. Coelho says.

...

The (Cornucopia) Institute says it has filed formal legal complaints, seeking USDA enforcement, against two more operators of industrial dairies that the farm policy research group claims are "masquerading as organic."

One get the impression that Coelho supports Proposition 2, which would "prohibit the confinement of certain farm animals in a manner that does not allow them to turn around freely, lie down, stand up, and fully extend their limbs."  This would reduce one of the competitive advantages that factory dairy farms have. 

If approved, Proposition 2 will result in a bunch of meat and dairy production leaving California.  Animal rights activists will eventually target the beneficiaries with similar laws.

Ethics at the Interior Department

The Minerals Management Service has sure been keeping the Interior Department's inspector general busy.  Recently it's been the sex & drugs scandal at the Denver office.  A couple of years ago, it was the oil lease royalties snafu at the New Orleans office which has cost our government billions.  Here's some of what Earl Devaney, DOI's inspector general for last nine years, had to say about the problem back in 2006.

Concerning the oil royalty investigation, Devaney told the committee, "Although we found massive finger pointing and blame enough to go around, we do not have a smoking gun" pinpointing blame.

Devaney said that despite a lengthy investigation, he can conclude only that this was "a very costly mistake" and there is no indication anyone at the Minerals Management Service colluded with the oil industry or benefited financially.

...

He contended midlevel department officials covered up the mistake for five years. Devaney also lashed out at what he said was the department's failure to deal with ethical missteps and conflicts of interest.

"Short of a crime, anything goes at the highest level of the Department of Interior," he said. "Ethics failures on the part of senior department officials — taking the form of appearances of impropriety, favoritism and bias — have been routinely dismissed with a promise of not to do it again."

While the lease problem itself occurred during the Clinton administration, the ethical failures under the Bush administration seem to have gotten worse.  The scandal at the Denver office understandably got most of the press this past week, but we also got word of another ethics investigation at DOI, this time within the BLM.  

The Interior Department's inspector general has started a probe into inappropriate ties between environmental lobbyists and the National Landscape Conservation System, according to Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah. 

Bishop--ranking member of the national parks, forests and public lands subcommittee - called for quick action and demanded that federal employees under scrutiny be removed, at least temporarily. 

"The department must insist that any employee [under investigation for possible] violations of the anti-lobbying law step aside until the inspector general or the Justice Department has reviewed his or her conduct," Bishop said. "We will not tolerate misconduct by public officials." 

Interior officials have told Bishop's staff that they have documents that indicate "extensive coordination" between top conservation-system employees and lobbyists for environmental groups. It is against the law for federal funds to be used to lobby Congress.

The National Landscape Conservation System was created within the BLM earlier this decade to "conserve, protect, and restore nationally significant landscapes that have outstanding cultural, ecological, and scientific values for the benefit of current and future generations."  There is a bill (H.R. 2016) that was passed by the House earlier this year that would make this change statutory.

Proponents are trying to sell the legislation as conserving 26 million acres of BLM land.  However, the land in question is already protected in the form of national monuments, national conservation areas, wilderness areas, wilderness study areas, national historic trails, national scenic trails, national wild and scenic rivers, and a few other designations (like the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area).  Activists claim that these areas are supposedly under the threat of being "dissolved and dismantled at any point in time."  Yeah, same as with national forests and parks.  

So, what would this law do besides permanently rearranging the BLM's org chart?  With the House bill, nothing.  But notice what's missing from the Senate's version of the bill (S. 1139)...the following two paragraphs.

Nothing in this Act shall be construed to enhance, diminish, or modify any law or proclamation (or regulations related to such law or proclamation) under which the components of the system identified in section 3(b) were established, or are managed, including, but not limited to, the Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act (43 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.), the Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1131 et seq.), the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (16 U.S.C. 1271 et seq.), the National Trails System Act (16 U.S.C. 1241 et seq.), and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.). In addition, nothing in this Act creates a Federal cause of action based on inclusion within the National Landscape Conservation System. Moreover, nothing in this Act is intended to additionally restrict or hinder energy development within the system. Nothing in this Act shall be construed as affecting the authority, jurisdiction, or responsibility of the several States to manage, control, or regulate fish and resident wildlife under State law or regulations, including the regulation of hunting, fishing, trapping, and recreational shooting on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Nothing in this Act shall be construed as limiting access for hunting, fishing, trapping, or recreational shooting. Specifically, inclusion in the National Landscape Conservation System shall not affect current grazing rights or operations.

...

Nothing in this Act shall impede any efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to secure the borders of the United States.

Ahhh, from multi-use to minimal use.  I'm sure some of the NLCS employees would like that.  But if they want to help make that happen, or simply want to grow their organization's budget and manpower, they can either work within the system or go work for someone like The Conservation System Alliance, National Conservation System Foundation, American Hiking Society, and the like.  Don't work for them and expect the taxpayers to pay your salary.

Of course, judging from the slaps on the wrist that the Minerals Management Services folks are getting for their misdeeds...