[House Hearing, 105 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HEARING ON IMPACT OF FEDERAL LAND USE POLICIES ON RURAL COMMUNITIES
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 9, 1998, WASHINGTON, DC
__________
Serial No. 105-90
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
49-510 CC WASHINGTON : 1998
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For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana GEORGE MILLER, California
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
ELTON GALLEGLY, California BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland Samoa
KEN CALVERT, California NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
RICHARD W. POMBO, California SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
LINDA SMITH, Washington CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Rico
Carolina MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona SAM FARR, California
JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon ADAM SMITH, Washington
CHRIS CANNON, Utah WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
KEVIN BRADY, Texas CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin
RICK HILL, Montana Islands
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado RON KIND, Wisconsin
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas
MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho
Lloyd A. Jones, Chief of Staff
Elizabeth Megginson, Chief Counsel
Christine Kennedy, Chief Clerk/Administrator
John Lawrence, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held June 9, 1998........................................ 1
Statement of Members:
Chenoweth, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Idaho............................................. 1
Cubin, Hon. Barbara, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Wyoming, prepared statement of.................... 61
Statement of Witnesses:
Arnold, Ron, Executive Vice President, Center for the Defense
of Free Enterprise, Bellevue, Washington................... 2
Prepared statement of.................................... 37
Conley, John, President, Concerned Alaskans for Resources and
Environment, CARE.......................................... 4
Prepared statement of.................................... 37
Favreau, Leon, President, Multiple Use Association,
Shelburne, New Hampshire................................... 6
Prepared statement of.................................... 38
Gomez, Edmund, National Commission on Small Farms, Alcalde,
New Mexico................................................. 7
Prepared statement of.................................... 54
McKeen, Hugh B., New Mexico Cattle Growers Association,
Glenwood, New Mexico....................................... 9
Prepared statement of.................................... 55
Propes, Mike, Polk County Commissioner, Dallas, Oregon....... 25
Prepared statement of.................................... 119
Richardson, Jack, Val Verde County Administrator, Del Rio,
Texas...................................................... 27
Prepared statement of.................................... 60
Wesson, Donald R., Southern Pine Regional Director, Pulp and
Paperworker's Resource Council, McGehee, Arkansas.......... 24
Prepared statement of.................................... 59
Additional material supplied:
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, Report by,
``Battered Communities''................................... 63
Recent Foundation Grants for green advocacy groups........... 116
The Boston Globe, ``The greening of a movement'' and
``Environmental donors set tone''.......................... 102
HEARING ON IMPACT OF FEDERAL LAND USE POLICIES ON RURAL COMMUNITIES
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TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 1998
House of Representatives,
Committee on Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. in room
1324, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Helen Chenoweth
presiding.
STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Mrs. Chenoweth. [presiding] The Committee on Resources will
come to order. The Committee is meeting today to hear testimony
on the impact of Federal land use policies on rural
communities. Under Rule 4(g) of the Committee on Rules, any
oral opening statements and hearings are limited to the
Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, and this will allow us to
hear from our witnesses sooner and help Members to keep to
their schedules. Therefore, if other Members have statements,
they will be included in the record.
Today's hearing is designed to hear from working citizens
from outside the Washington, DC, beltway, and they will testify
about how Federal land use policies affect rural communities.
The news media constantly reminds us that Microsoft
millionaires and the affluent young urban professionals are
succeeding, and we are all thankful that many in America are
prospering, but, unfortunately, the media tends to tune out to
what is happening in rural America.
Many of my rural communities in Idaho that are dependent on
timber, mining, ranching and other resource industries are not
enjoying the good economic times of their urban cousins. Mine
closures, mill closures, canceled shifts and AMU reductions are
becoming a regular occurrence. Indeed, there is a prosperity
gap developing between rural and urban America. In my State and
other western States, Federal policies are locking up our
natural resources. These policies contribute to the prosperity
gap between urban and rural communities.
But the West is not the only region affected. Federal
policies now pose a significant threat to rural communities in
the eastern States. One individual policy generally does not
cripple these communities, but the cumulative impact of many
such policies really can destroy them.
I welcome all of today's witnesses and their insights about
what is really happening in rural communities. I will learn a
lot from you. The geographical diversity of today's witnesses
show this is more than a war on the West, as people from
private land States such as New Hampshire, Arkansas and Texas
will discuss Federal policies that threaten the prosperity and
harmony of our rural communities.
I look forward to hearing from an old friend, Ron Arnold,
about a fascinating study done that outlines the extent of pain
and suffering in resource-dependent communities. I also want to
hear and learn from the many other witnesses that we have here
today.
Our last panel today includes representatives from
communities that are fighting the American Heritage Rivers
Initiative. I have aggressively worked to end this illegal and
ill-fated program by sponsoring legislation and filing a
lawsuit in Federal court, and I have only just begun my fight.
Our witnesses today all represent communities where their
local Congressman or Senator thought they had opted out of the
program, yet the bureaucrats at the Council on Environmental
Quality are moving full speed ahead. These people are
justifiably asking what part of no doesn't this Federal
administration understand.
Again, I welcome all of our witnesses today and those in
our audience with the Fly In for Freedom. And I look forward to
the testimony from the Ranking Minority Member when he does
come in.
[The information referred to follows:]
Mrs. Chenoweth. I'd like to introduce now our first panel:
Mr. Ron Arnold, executive vice president, Center for the
Defense of Free Enterprise; Mr. John Conley, president of the
Concerned Alaskans for Resources and Environment; Mr. Leon
Favreau, president, Multiple Use Association; and Mr. Edmund
Gomez, National Commission on Small Farms; and Mr. Hugh McKeen,
New Mexico Cattle Growers Association.
As explained in our first hearing, it is the intention of
the Chairman to place all witnesses under oath. This is a
formality of the Committee that is meant to assure open and
honest discussion and should not affect the testimony given by
witnesses. I believe that all of the witnesses were informed of
this before appearing here today, and they have each been
provided a copy of the Committee rules.
Now, if you would all stand and raise your hand.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. Now, I will introduce our first witness,
Mr. Ron Arnold, executive vice president for the Center for the
Defense of Free Enterprise.
Let me remind the witnesses that under our Committee rules,
they must limit their oral testimony to 5 minutes, but that
their entire testimony will appear in the record. We will also
allow the entire panel to testify before I and any other
Members who join me will be questioning the witnesses.
Now the Chair recognizes Mr. Ron Arnold.
STATEMENT OF RON ARNOLD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR
THE DEFENSE OF FREE ENTERPRISE, BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON
Mr. Arnold. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Madam Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, my name is Ron
Arnold. I am testifying as the executive vice president of the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, a nonprofit citizen
organization based in Bellevue, Washington. The Center has
approximately 10,000 members nationwide, most of them in rural
natural resource industries.
Madam Chairman, I am proud to state that the Center does
not accept government grants and has not received any
government funds since the day it was established on American
Bicentennial Day, July 4th, 1976.
Madam Chairman, I would like to thank you on behalf of our
members for holding this hearing today. It is timely indeed.
For the past year, at the urging of our increasingly
concerned Members, the Center has been conducting an in-depth
study of Federal policy and rural communities. Our 36-page
study titled Battered Communities is being released at this
hearing. You will find it attached to my hearing statement.
Battered Communities was cosponsored by three other citizen
groups, the American Land Rights Association, F.I.G.H.T. for
Minnesota, and the Maine Conservation Rights Institute.
Battered Communities delves into serious matters of Federal
policy as it affects rural community life. On page 5, we
address the most obvious problem, the urban-rural prosperity
gap, the spread in wages and unemployment between the richest
and poorest counties within each of the 50 States. I am not
proud to announce that my State, Washington, is the top of that
list with the worst gap.
While urban America today enjoys an economic boom, rural
counties are finding themselves choked to death by Federal
restrictions designed to protect the environment from the
people who live and work in the environment. The most
disheartening aspect of the conflict over the environment is
that rural goods producers, ranchers, loggers, miners, are
becoming a despised minority, morally excluded from respect and
human decency, even in Federal documents, as we see on page 7
of the report in an Environmental Impact Statement
characterizing miners as costly, destructive, stupid social
misfits.
And now we turn to the visible damage. Rural communities
are besieged with a bewildering array of Federal policies
forcing them to starve in the midst of plenty. These policies
are listed in part on page 8 of the report.
Madam Chairman, let me call your attention to the most
serious problem our study uncovered, the systematic effort of a
triangle of interests to harness Federal policy to their own
agenda, against natural resource goods producers. The Center
has identified a small corps of activist Federal employees,
from the highest levels to on-the-ground technicians, working
to reshape Federal policy from within according to agendas that
paralyze goods production in rural communities. Pages 13
through 17 discuss a few of these activist Federal employees.
To see their impact, you will find on page 24 of the report a
chart of systematic timber sale appeals on two rural national
forests in Washington State, the Okanogan and the Colville, and
these appeals were filed in a coordinated pattern by a bevy of
environmental groups. We found the frequent outcome was that
the Forest Service simply withdrew the timber sale with-
out even ruling on the appeal. The resulting mill closures are
charted on page 25.
This certainly appears to be undue influence, and it is a
national problem, yet that is not the whole story. These
environmental groups were in many cases acting at the behest of
their donors on grant-driven programs not designed by the
environmental groups, but originating within grantmaking
private foundations. We discovered in documents, such as this
thick directory of environmental grantmaking associations--
foundations, a cluster of multimillion-dollar campaigns
designed to set public policy against logging, mining, ranching
and other resource producers according to the private
preferences of a few custodians of vast wealth.
Some of these foundations do not even accept applications
for grants, but design entire programs of social change
themselves and handpick the groups that will act as their
agents, pushing nonprofit laws to the edge. In the hands of
these privileged people, Federal policy is being corrupted into
a blunt instrument, battering rural communities.
Madam Chairman, these are serious charges. On page 35, the
Center recommends that this Committee continue its attention to
this vital issue with a detailed investigation of the causes
behind America's rural Battered Communities. The Committee, of
course, may take any or all of the pages of this report and
make them a part of the report.
Thank you again, Madam Chairman, for holding this hearing
on the anguish of rural America.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you very much, Mr. Arnold, for that
outstanding testimony. It was riveting.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Arnold may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. The Chair recognizes Mr. John Conley.
Mr. Conley?
STATEMENT OF JOHN CONLEY, PRESIDENT, CONCERNED ALASKANS FOR
RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, CARE
Mr. Conley. Madam Chairman, my name is John Conley, and I
am the president of Concerned Alaskans for Resources and
Environment, CARE. I have also served 6 years on the Ketchikan
Gateway Borough Assembly, and I operate three NAPA auto parts
stored located in Ketchikan, Craig, and Wrangell, Alaska.
The passage of the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990 was
supposed to be the great compromise for the Tongass National
Forest. TTRA was supposed to provide increased environmental
protection, as well as a sustainable forest products industry.
I have--since the passage of TTRA, I have witnessed the closing
of two pulp mills and several sawmills in southeast Alaska. At
the same time I have witnessed the increased funding of local
environmental groups by tax-exempt national foundations.
These closings have greatly affected both my business and
my community. In Ketchikan alone we've lost over 544 forest
product jobs. We've lost 144 retail and support jobs, and $40
million of local payroll. Today my company employs eight less
people, and my gross receipts have declined by $1.5 million. As
I look to the future, I am extremely concerned about supporting
my family and the fam-
ilies of the 30 remaining employees in my stores. Access to
natural resources is vital to southeast Alaskans and is
actually guaranteed by the Alaska Statehood Act.
Environmental groups have stated that tourism can and will
replace lost forest products jobs. Madam Chairman, this is
simply not true. Tourism is important to our local economy and
throughout the State. I have supported and will continue to
support this growing industry; however, it is a seasonal--it's
a seasonal industry, and it only provides seasonal jobs. It
does not provide families with the benefits of year-round
employment. These jobs also will not replace the 25 percent
return to our communities for education and transportation
based on timber receipts.
Madam Chairman, it has become obvious to many that
increased funding by national tax-free environmental
foundations to the local environmental groups leads to
decreased economic activity and local employment. The
environmental industry states that they support a value-added
timber industry for southeast Alaska. Madam Chairman, my
community and I are confused, because these same small groups
continue to object to harvest quantities adequate enough to
sustain even a small value-added forest products industry.
The Forest Service has a legal mandate to manage our
national forests for multiple uses, which include timber
production. The new land management for the Tongass
dramatically reduced the amount of land available for a long-
term sustainable timber industry in southeast Alaska. Even with
this massive reduction of the available sale quantity on the
Tongass, the environmental industry continues to fight timber
production. This is not acceptable. At a minimum, we need to
sustain our current economy. Legal challenges orchestrated and
financed by the national environmental lobby continues to block
multiple uses on the TTRA, and this is preventing our ability
to maintain a stable economy.
Madam Chairman, I believe it's time to make these tax-
exempt foundations that fund the environmental industry
accountable. As a businessman, if I were to provide money to
someone which they in turn used to destroy another business, I
would be held accountable, and it would be illegal under RICO
laws. Madam Chairman and members of the subcommittee, for the
sake of my family and the families of my community, I urge you
to hold these foundations accountable.
And I have a couple other items I'd like to have entered
into the record. I have a list of the foundation grants that
have gone into Alaska. And I have a copy of an article in the
October 19th, 1997 Boston Globe--it came off of their Web page,
and some interesting quotes in there, and I won't read them
all, I will just read a couple: ``If a foundation had a large
interest in Alaska and a lot of money, you definitely had a
large interest in Alaska,'' and that was stated by a former
Wilderness Society director.
Here's a statement about the gentleman that works for the
Pew Charitable Trust: In Alaska, environmentalists credit
Joshua Reichert with devising the national strategy to help
bring an end to two subsidized contracts on the national
forest.
So I would like to have these entered into the record.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Conley. Thank you. And I also have a copy of a full-
page ad from the Alaska Rain Forest Coalition asking for the
President of the United States to end logging on the Tongass.
And I can provide a copy of this. This is kind of a one-of-a-
kind of an original. And the Alaska Rain Forest Coalition was
funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Thank you.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Conley. And if you can get a
copy of that, would you like to have it entered in the record?
Mr. Conley. I would, ma'am.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Conley. Thank you.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Conley.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Conley may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. And the Chair now recognizes Mr. Favreau.
STATEMENT OF LEON FAVREAU, PRESIDENT, MULTIPLE USE ASSOCIATION,
SHELBURNE, NEW HAMPSHIRE
Mr. Favreau. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for allowing me to
express my views on the impact Federal land use policies could
have on a rural community like mine. My name is Leon Favreau,
and I am president and cofounder of the Multiple Use
Association. Our 500-member group is based in Shelburne, New
Hampshire, and has been in existence since 1987. Most of our
efforts go toward exposing the public to the truth about our
Nation's forests.
You will soon see the results of some of our work when you
receive an Evergreen Magazine issue on the Northern Forest
Lands. We helped raise the funds needed for the production
costs for the issue that will show the Northern Forest Lands as
they are.
I am president of Bethel Furniture Stock, Inc., a primary
and secondary wood products manufacturing firm that produces
component parts for the furniture industry. The last title I
will share with you is that of chairman of the budget committee
for the small town of Shelburne, New Hampshire.
The concerns that I would like to express today have to do
with H.R. 971, the Northern Forest Stewardship Act. As you may
know, the so-called Northern Forest Lands are comprised of 26
million acres of primarily private forest lands that span
across the State boundaries of northern Maine, New Hampshire,
Vermont and eastern New York. The Stewardship Act purports to
prevent harm from coming to these lands and its resident one
million people.
The Multiple Use Association supported the study performed
by the Northern Forest Lands Council that tried to determine
what constituted a threat to the local forest. The report may
have broken new ground by showing so much concern for local
people.
The Stewardship Act, however, is different. We believe it
will lead to greater Federal control over our local
communities. The council made it very clear they did not
recommend increased control. While local communities
participated in the Northern Forest Land study, they haven't
participated in the preparation of this legislation. Local
hearings are necessary to correct that.
I know that you have heard from some in the timber industry
that support the Act. I'm here to tell you that most of us in
the local timber industry are against it. We understand that
this is just another step down a slippery slope that will mean
it will be even more difficult for us to do business in the
Northern Forest Lands area. Increasing the focus on government
land and easement acquisition, which the Act does, will mean a
reduction in the availability of timber.
Since the Northern Forest Land Council's report found that
our varied forests really weren't threatened, one needs to ask
why all of this national interest in our 26 million acres?
There was never any local groundswell to put more Federal or
State controls on these private lands, nor was there any local
groundswell for more government land purchases. Instead, this
drive to change local land use comes from a vision concocted
for us by our elite from the national environmental and
charitable foundation communities. They initially promoted as
examples to be copied for our area, controlled greenline areas,
such as the Federal Columbia River Gorge scenic area and the
New York State Adirondack Park.
The term ``greenline'' has now been discredited in the
Northern Forest Lands area, partially because we brought out a
mayor from the Columbia River Gorge who gave a devastating
description of what it was like living and working at home in
his elite-controlled area. Greens no longer mention the term
``greenline,'' but there is no doubt in my mind that it is
still their goal for those of us who live and work in the
Northern Forest Lands area.
H.R. 971, I believe, will do nothing to help our rural
communities. Almost everything in the Act is already occurring
at some level. If the Act is passed, the local citizen's fight
to maintain his or her land use rights and way of life will be
raised to a higher and more difficult level. Senator Leahy
isn't helping his constituents who live in Vermont's Northern
Forest Lands area when he continually tries to attach the
Senate Act to other pieces of the Senate's legislation.
I ask you to think of people like me when you consider
whether to pass on H.R. 971. Thank you.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you very much, Mr. Favreau, very
interesting. We're hearing another side of the story today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Favreau may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. The Chair recognizes Mr. Edmund Gomez from
New Mexico.
Mr. Gomez?
STATEMENT OF EDMUND GOMEZ, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON SMALL FARMS,
ALCALDE, NEW MEXICO
Mr. Gomez. Madam Chairman, members of the Committee, my
name is Edmund Gomez, and I live in Alcalde, New Mexico. I
speak on behalf of my neighbors, friends and family who rely
heavily on public lands for economic, cultural, social and
spiritual survival. As an active member of the USDA National
Commission on Small Farms, which was commissioned by Mr. Dan
Glickman, USDA Secretary of Agriculture in July 1997, I also
speak on behalf of small farmers and ranchers from rural
communities across the country who rely on public lands for
economic survival.
Communal land use by residents of New Mexico and the
Southwest has historical roots dating back to 1598. During
Spanish colonial settlement, community land grants were granted
by Spain and later Mexico to groups of settlers and Native
American pueblos in New Mexico and in the Southwest. Many of
these tracts of land are currently held as public lands by the
USDA Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The
descendents of the Spanish and Mexican land grants have
continually utilized these lands for livestock grazing, fuel
wood, hunting and timber harvesting, as well as a source of
watershed for domestic livestock and agricultural use.
New Mexico ranks 49th in per capita income. The northern
counties of New Mexico are some of the poorest in respect to
per capita income in the country. Over 50 percent of the land
base in New Mexico is owned by the Federal Government. Many of
the residents of northern New Mexico, including the Native
American Pueblos, own very small parcels of land. Some
sociologists attribute the correlation of poverty to the
proportion of private versus public land ownership. Many of
these public lands were once owned by the ancestors of these
rural communities.
Livestock production represents over 85 percent of all
agricultural income in northern New Mexico. The average
livestock producer in northern New Mexico owns 20 head of
cattle and utilizes public lands. Within the past 50 years,
from 30 to 60 percent of the traditional savanna grasslands in
the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests have been lost to
woody shrub and tree encroachment due almost entirely to fire
suppression, thus causing loss of livestock and wildlife
habitat and economic stability within rural communities.
Some groups who desire to eliminate livestock grazing from
public lands claim that ranchers are becoming rich off of the
public lands. I have yet to meet a wealthy indigenous rancher
from northern New Mexico, and I have lived there all of my
life. Many of the residents of northern New Mexico, including
Indian Pueblos, rely on public lands for fuel wood and timber
harvesting as did their ancestors. A large percentage of these
residents utilize fuel wood as their only source of heat and
cooking fuel.
In 1994, a special interest group filed a litigation based
on the Endangered Species Act with the USDA Forest Service on
behalf of the Mexican spotted owl in the Carson National
Forest. In 1996, a Federal court restricted all harvest of
timber and fuel woods in the Carson National Forest until the
forest complied with the Endangered Species Act. This action
prevented local residents from obtaining fuel wood for heating
and cooking. Many families endured a very cold winter that year
because of this inhumane action. Incidentally, the Mexican
spotted owl has never been historically documented as living
within the Carson National Forest.
Why do indigenous people continue to live in northern New
Mexico rural communities? The indigenous people of northern New
Mexico speak seven languages, including English. They have
retained their culture, tradition, social values and
spirituality. They were the first and continue to be the true
environmentalists of the land, utilizing the sustainable
practices that have fed and clothed their children for many
generations, always returning more than they take.
The pristine beauty of the land remains intact and attracts
new waves of settlers every year. Rural communities in northern
New Mexico work and live as a family. This social and culture
custom has given support during adverse situations and has
allowed them to raise their children with the same values that
have been sacred to the people for many generations.
Congress has passed legislation dealing with public land
policy and environmental issues that were deemed necessary and
essential, but a one-size-fits-all policy does not work for all
public land situations. Congress has overlooked the endangered
rural communities and their struggle for survival and a
traditional way of life. We are just as important as the other
endangered species Congress is protecting.
Rural communities were excluded when Congress developed
policy that would ultimately affect their lives. Madam
Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee, please find ways of
amending the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act so
that they will provide for the protection of the environment as
they were intended, and not to be used as a loophole for
special interest groups who continue to file litigation against
the USDA Forest Service in an effort to promote their own
agenda. Provide congressional provisions to establish local
community-based public land management boards which will
determine the management objectives for the local public land
base and would include both environmental and economic
considerations. This process will ensure that rural communities
who traditionally rely on the land for survival will be
included in the policy decision process for their region.
And finally, Madam Chairman, and members of the
Subcommittee, I extend an invitation for you to visit with us
in northern New Mexico so that you may firsthand meet real
people who have utilized public lands for over 400 years, who
depend on these lands for survival, and the real people who
have retained their culture and spirituality because of their
harmony with the land. But please, please, accept my invitation
before the rural communities of northern New Mexico become
extinct.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Gomez, very interesting.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gomez may be found at end of
hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. And the chair recognizes Mr. Hugh McKeen
from New Mexico.
Mr. McKeen?
STATEMENT OF HUGH B. McKEEN, NEW MEXICO CATTLE GROWERS
ASSOCIATION, GLENWOOD, NEW MEXICO
Mr. McKeen. Madam Chairman and Committee members, it gives
me great pride to speak here today, although I have a heavy
heart because of what's going on back home.
I want to read first of all, what it says in a forest
publication here: the Forest Service administered its
nationwide program of range resource management with the
following major objectives, and I'm going to read the one
that's pertinent to what we're talking about here, to promote
the stability of family ranchers and farms in local areas where
national forest and national grasslands are located.
We're doing the opposite here, Madam Chairman. I have three
brothers. One brother served in Vietnam. Another brother was
going to Vietnam, he was in the paratroopers, but he didn't go.
I served my military also and my time in the Berlin crisis. We
pay our taxes, we served our country with honor and sense of
duty. Now our country is betraying us through the Federal
bureaucracy, namely the Forest Service in our area.
I want to recount to you an individual thing that happened
to me. In 1995, I filled out my 10-year renewal for my grazing
permit. They brought it to me, and I said I couldn't live with
it. They instituted standards and guidelines I couldn't live
with. They gave me the word again that they had no studies and
so I said I couldn't live with it. They went back, they wrote a
letter to FMHA, who holds the mortgage on my home, my farm. I
didn't have to sign this 10-year renewal until March 31st. They
wrote the letter on March 12th.
FMHA wrote a letter and said, we're going to foreclose
because you haven't signed the grazing permit, and it's part of
the collateral. They get other agencies to help them. They get
two Federal agencies. That's the way they work. So, on March
the 31st, I had to sign my grazing permit under the conditions
they gave me. I either have a slow death or a fast death.
OK. The other thing I want to talk about is the--and the
other thing that happened was that when I called up FHA and
said, hey, you know, I've signed my permit, FHA says, well, the
Forest Service has to tell us. I had to beg them three times to
write a letter to FHA telling them that I had signed my permit.
The other thing that happened to us just here recently, we
had a hearing in Tucson. Several environmental groups sued the
Forest Service to have cattle removed on 32 different
allotments in Arizona and New Mexico. We were told by the
Forest Service before we went to the meeting that the Forest
Service was representing the cattle people. They were going to
look after our water rights, the grazing rights, and our
economic rights, and all the things they're supposed to do, our
families.
We got down to the Tucson hearing. It was a friendly suit.
The Forest Service was there with the environmental groups to
totally destroy us. We had witnesses there, we had our
attorneys there, and as the hearing progressed after the
environmentalists and Forest Service has presented their cases,
it went before the judge, and the judge says, there's not going
to be an injunction, there's not going to be any cattle
removed.
The Forest Service could see that they're losing the case.
The environmentalists put on one of the poorest cases you could
imagine. In one case they had one fellow who was a high school
graduate, said he had been out on the permits and had actual
accounts. He had been out there two days, something like 6
million acres. Another one was out there six days. This was the
extent of their testimony as to actually seeing things, except
for another expert.
As this thing progressed, the Forest Service could see they
were going to lose the case, so they said, Your Honor, we want
to go out and settle this thing out of court. So they went out,
they excluded the cattle people, came back with a stipulated
agreement, and the judge said, I'm not going to sign it.
Well, that excluded us from our testimony after we paid our
people, after we didn't even get our day in court. So we went
home, and what did the Forest Service do? They came home and
began to remove livestock. The Forest Service came home and did
everything--did the things they were told not to do in this
court. So we have people right now at home having cattle
removed by intimidation. They sent me a letter and said I can't
use my private land because it has a little piece of forest
land in it. It means I have to fence that forest land before I
can use my pasture again. For somebody with a big long river,
it's disastrous, and that's what's happening. So rather than
proceed as other people have, they're just removing their
cattle.
So, Madam Chairman, we're in terrible shape. The Forest
Service is totally a dictatorial thing that's come over us.
They joined hands with the environmental groups, and we're down
to the last straw. We need help from somewhere. Thank you.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you very much, Mr. McKeen, for your
testimony.
[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeen may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mrs. Chenoweth. The Chair recognizes Mr. John Peterson, the
gentleman from Pennsylvania, for questions.
Mr. Peterson. I'd like to commend the Chairman and the
Committee for holding this hearing. For a little background, I
come from the East, but I come from the west of the East I call
it. I represent the northern tier of Pennsylvania, where we
have the finest hardwood forests in America. And we have the
Allegheny National Forest, which is currently under siege by
the environmental groups to stop logging there. In the northern
tier of Pennsylvania, we used to dig coal, we used to drill for
oil, and we used to cut timber. That was very much a part of
our quality of life, and all of those have been under attack.
The northern tier of Pennsylvania is more predominantly
owned by the State than it is by the Federal Government. I have
many counties that are 62 percent public land, 55 percent
public land, 50 percent public land. And I think that when you
have at least half of your land owned by government, you have a
huge impact when government policies are made and when
government policies are made that are given little thought that
it's going to have a big impact.
And I personally believe that rural America is really under
attack. I mean, the resources that made this country strong and
rich came from rural America. And I don't know what the long-
term plans of these groups are, but I guess it's to be
dependent on imports for all of our resources.
I guess the one that's the most surprising to me is the
timber issue, because with good management, our great
grandchildren can be marketing timber the same as we are. It's
a renewable resource, and it's one that you're leaning on, I'm
leaning on.
We use it every day as we build our homes and furnish them,
forest products, as we use paper, as we use many of our
commodities. They're all derived from the forest products. I
guess somehow we have to look at this as a war against rural
America, and the quality of life there where critters and
creatures and insects have a higher value than our children,
who would like to live there and continue the quality of life
that we've had in rural America.
So would any one of you would like to respond to that
question of how we collectively, I guess, educate the world of
what's really happening? I don't think most of America knows
what's happening to rural America.
Mr. Arnold. Congressman Peterson, my name is Ron Arnold,
one of the items that I think that every State can do, such as
yours, is to do the fundamental research into who really is
behind this attack, as we have done. Our center stands ready to
provide basic information, training and research techniques,
community organizing even. We will go where the problem is. And
I'm sure that everybody on this panel has information that
would help you do that kind of thing and give it to the media
first in your local areas, then the national media.
We have to make these local issues, national issues, to get
any kind of a groundswell of public fairness. It's just plain a
matter of appealing to the sense of fairness to Americans. And
I think we're famous for that. Once they know, I think they
will make the right decision.
Mr. Peterson. I agree with you. I was a State legislator
for 19 years, and I learned early on that if I held a news
conference on rural issues, I would get three or four press
there. If I held a news conference that was not looked at as a
rural issue, I'd get 15 or 20 press there from the press corps
in Harrisburg, which was the State government.
So we used to try to figure out ways of couching that we
were having a rural issue, and I don't understand that. I
mean--but that was the bias. You'd get three or four press to
come to a news conference that dealt with rural issues, and yet
most of America wants to enjoy rural America, but for some
reason they don't want people who live in rural America to have
a quality of life that they will even be there.
Now we also have to, I think, work from the understanding
that some of these groups, not all of them, but some of these
groups, want half of America to be as natural as it was when
Columbus came, and they want people there; they certainly don't
want vehicles there. They don't want anything there except
critters. Now that's a philosophy I guess I just don't happen
to agree with. But that is the baseline of some groups, and
somehow we have to think in that perspective, too, that they
want the land for the critters, not for people.
Yes, sir?
Mr. Favreau. Can I make a comment? Being from the timber
industry, I really appreciate your comments. You asked what you
could do in your area to try to educate the public. I'm really
high on the Evergreen Magazine and the Evergreen Foundation.
Their sole reason for being is to restore the public confidence
in forestry, and they're very highly credible, and I think
raising a little bit of money to get an issue on your area
would be a big plus.
The other thing I'd like to comment--comment I'd like to
make is about the industry. I think that, you know, I've got--I
belong to industry associations, and, you know, there are a lot
of dear friends in the industry, and I think the industry still
hasn't figured out what's going on and isn't doing what it
could to try to save itself. We're dealing with some people
that are really determined.
Let me give you just one little example. At one of the
Northern Forest Lands hearings I had a discussion with one of
the activists who is trying to control everything. And I was
trying to make a point, and I said, you know, we don't accept
disease in our bodies, we don't accept disease in our pets, we
don't accept disease in our gardens, but we're going to accept
disease in our forests. And that didn't go anywhere, because he
told me that he felt disease in people was good because there
are too many of us.
He did say he preferred it wasn't in his own body. But
anyway, this tells you what the mentality is, and we're never
going to change that. What we need to do is expose it.
Mr. Peterson. I would be interested if any of you that
have--because the East is now just being impacted like the West
was, and--you know, in the Allegheny National Forest, because
it's a very mature hardwood forest. We had many people that
felt it wouldn't happen to us, and it is now happening to us.
And I want to thank all of you for coming out today and
sharing with us, because it's a battle that we really cannot
afford to lose.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Peterson.
And we will have a second round if you would like that. The
Chair recognizes the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Gibbons.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate the
fact that you've taken the time to hold this hearing today. And
I want to welcome all of our panelists here before us. And I
know many of you have traveled far and gone to great lengths to
appear here today, and I want to say that we appreciate your
interest, as well as your commitment and your contribution as
well to all of this.
I guess my first question is--is to Mr. Arnold. I know you
talked a little bit and you explained a little bit about grant-
driven Federal employees. Could you elaborate a little more,
maybe give us an example of what you mean by that?
Mr. Arnold. Yes, Congressman, I would be happy to do that.
As a matter of fact, if you take a look within the Battered
Community report, we actually have a fair profile of a number
of them, page 14, 15, and 16. One of them is the Forest Service
Employees for Environmental Ethics. It's--it advertises itself
as consisting of present, former and retired Forest Service
employees, and it says that it works to create a responsible
value system for the Forest Service based on land ethic and so
on.
But if we take a look at the chart that I've provided of
where the money came from that got them started, it's not clear
who had the idea to start them even, whether it was Andy Stahl,
who is listed as the executive director, or Jeff DeBonis, who
is the first in that position. We have--in the year they
started and started getting money in 1990, as you can see
clearly in the chart, $100,000 from the W. Alton Jones
Foundation, $15,000 from the Rockefeller Family Fund, $20,000
from the Nathan Cummings Foundation and $10,000 from the Beldon
Fund, and there are more like that.
But if that isn't grant-driven, and the purposes of these
grants is stated to foster new support sustainable among U.S.
Forest Service workers, it's difficult for me to comprehend
what does ``grant-driven'' mean.
Mr. Gibbons. It's your impression that Federal dollars are
being used to further private interest?
Mr. Arnold. Well, it's not so much Federal dollars, even
though many of these environmental groups do receive Federal
grants. It's essentially a matter that tax-exempt money from
large foundations is being used to promote organizations that
themselves promote within the Forest Service and other
organizations within other agencies, within the government, to
promote agendas that stop goods production, so that appears to
me as undue influence.
They are on the inside. We can't reach them. They were not
elected. They are not accountable. There are no regulations
that control them. What's wrong with this picture is the first
question that pops into my mind about that.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you.
Mr. Conley, have you run across private foundations in
Alaska that have funded environmental groups which are contrary
to the best interests of your constituency?
Mr. Conley. Congressman, yes, I have. In southeast Alaska
we have a number of groups and we've been able to track, and
I've included that for the record, but we've been able to track
the foundations and the local environmental groups and the
dollar amounts. And there's a Tongass Conservation Society.
It's a small 14-member group in Ketchikan, and the leader of
that group received a grant from SEACC, SEACC received a grant
from Brainerd Foundation, and they all flow together.
But the gentleman that runs the local environmental group
produced a pamphlet offering his services as a person that
could help shut down pulp mills; that he was now an expert and
that he could help other environmental groups shut down pulp
mills, and that was--it was real obvious that the reason that
the tax-exempt foundation money had flowed into our area was to
shut the two pulp mills down, and they were successful.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you.
And finally, Mr. Favreau, in the balance of the little time
that I have left, would you discuss with us how foundations and
environmental groups outside of the New Hampshire area are
driving the issues within your State?
Mr. Favreau. Back in April 1971, there was a meeting that
was held in Lincoln, New Hampshire, that was on the issue--we
were getting a lot of interest in the Northern Forest Lands,
and I spoke about why we didn't need outside help, and the term
``greenlining'' was being mentioned a lot at that time. There
was a person sitting in the audience who made an impression on
me, and he made several comments. One of them, he called my
thinking bunker mentality, and he also named all of the
greenline areas. He said that he agreed with me that none of
them worked, but he just knew that we could make it work here.
Then he said that the environmental community had $100
million to spend on the Northern Forest Lands. I think he said
this to impress on me it was too big an issue for a little guy
like me to fight.
I didn't understand the real significance of this until I
read Ron Arnold's book when I saw where, and in reading his
book, that this particular person was listed as one of the
national directors of the Environmental Grantmakers Association
at the time.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you very much.
You know, I think one of the most interesting things that
I've heard from the panel, and all five of you have had
riveting testimony, came from Mr. Conley when he said, as a
businessman, if I were to provide money to someone which they
in turn used to destroy another's business, that would be an
act that could follow under the RICO statutes, you would have
to be held accountable.
Mr. Conley. Madam Chairman, the RICO Act is currently being
used to prosecute the folks that have bombed the abortion
clinics. So I think there's precedents to pursue that. And,
unfortunately, as a small businessman and from a small area--
from a small town in a big area in the United States, as a
legal challenge we can't afford it. I think that the Congress
has to do it. I mean, you folks have attorneys that work by the
years, and, you know, unfortunately we have to pay our
attorneys by the hour.
Mrs. Chenoweth. The only problem is, Mr. Conley, our
attorneys do not prosecute. That's left up to the Justice
Department. And if we were to ask Janet Reno for help in our
resources right now, she would say, I am very preoccupied right
now; in fact, she is.
Mr. Conley. Maybe next year.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I think you're onto something there, and
it's something that I've been suggesting for a very long time.
The Congress can put forth very good, sound laws, and we have,
and they've been signed into law, but when we have an
administration that continues to decide to disobey the law, and
we do not have a Justice Department that will pursue justice in
this case, it's up to either the individuals who are damaged to
bring a lawsuit or up to us to expose it to the American
public, which we will do.
And we will continue on this Committee to work in an
exhaustive manner, which we have been, to expose what this
administration is doing to our rural communities. But I thank
you for putting that in your testimony, because I think it's
the key that will unlock a lot of the problems that we are
involved with today.
A very interesting Supreme Court decision that was rendered
several years ago, but it's never been overturned in whole or
in part, entitled Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents, of course, the
Supreme Court ruled that when any agent steps--of the Federal
Government steps outside the protection, the direct protection,
of statutory authority, they are personally liable for the
damage. That isn't often talked about. It's more to the benefit
of the administration to ignore it. But it's to our benefit,
and I don't think you and I should ignore it.
So we will do whatever it takes to bring life back to our
rural communities and life back to our resources. And I thank
you very much for making that point.
I do want to ask, Mr. Gomez, are the private foundations--
well, has there been any resolution of the firewood collection
issue?
Mr. Gomez. Madam Chairman, a few months after this story
hit the news media, the same group, the Forest Guardians,
purchased three or four truckloads of firewood for these two or
three small communities that were outraged by this action. And
ironically, they purchased the firewood from the Jicarilla
Apache Reservation, where they had found--they hadn't seen it,
but they thought that they had heard a Mexican spotted owl.
It continues to persist. One issue is overcome, another
issue comes about. I spoke with the--with the Forest Service
about a week ago, and they have told me that 36 cases have been
presented to district III or region III of the Forest Service
in the Southwest within the last 10 years. Ten percent of the
total budget for region III is spent in litigation. It's not
grazing; now it's water quality.
Just in last week's Santa Fe New Mexican, these groups are
starting to ask why is the water quality diminishing? In most
of the tributaries along the New Mexico-Colorado border, there
is no money, there is just livestock grazing and wildlife
habitat. The farmers in northern New Mexico do not use
fertilizers because they cannot afford them. They're very, very
small farms. But now they're threatening the livelihood of the
people with the Clean Water Act. It just goes on and on and on.
Mrs. Chenoweth. You testified that the average rancher
there owns 20 cows?
Mr. Gomez. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Mr. McKeen, are the private foundations
funding--the private foundations that have been mentioned
earlier, are those foundations funding the activities that are
reducing grazing in Catron County; do you know?
Mr. McKeen. I know there's all kinds of foundations that's
providing funds, and I know there's government grants that
provide funds. The Pew Charitable Trusts, I think, put in
something like $700,000 into these groups, and I'm not that
familiar with that.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I see.
Mr. Arnold, have you done a study, or do you have
information available to us or to anyone with regards--as to
who funds the grantmakers?
Mr. Arnold. Madam Chairman, we have done an extensive
amount of work on a data base that tries to compile who are the
Environmental Grantmakers Association. It's actually not
incorporated, or at least it wasn't to the last of our
knowledge. It operates as an informal group with a rotating
board of member executives out of the New York city offices of
the Rockefeller Family Fund, and that's run by Donald K. Ross.
It has a small staff, and it simply holds meetings and promotes
interchanges among people in the grantmaking foundations.
Environmental Grantmakers has over 190 members now. We have
found that most of the trouble that we're talking about comes
from a core cluster of these foundations. Many of them are not
only innocent of acts that we're talking about, they don't even
know they're going on. They're just members that think they're
doing some good things for the environment, and that's fine
with us, we don't have any problem. But where they're targeted
ones, we have tried to track those, and, indeed, we do have a
data base, which I would be happy to make available to this
Committee.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, Mr. Arnold. I have gone over my
time, and I thank the Committee for their indulgence. I do have
to go manage a bill on the floor, a bill that has just come up
that's one of my bills out of this Committee. So I'm going to
do that chore, and Mr. John Peterson from Pennsylvania will
take over the Committee, and then I'll come back as quickly as
I can.
He may want to do another round of questioning, but I do
want to ask Mr. McKeen just one final question while I'm here.
Mr. McKeen, have you asked--have you done a freedom of
information request on your file with--from Farmers Home, as
well as the Forest Service?
Mr. McKeen. No, I haven't.
Mrs. Chenoweth. It might be a wise thing to do to see if
there has been any communication between Farmers Home and the
Forest Service.
Mr. McKeen. I have copies of letters where they did
communicate, yes.
Mrs. Chenoweth. You need--I would suggest that you do a
FOIA request and get your file and review it, OK?
Mr. McKeen. I know my experience with the Forest Service,
with your FOIA requests, sometimes they just don't do it.
Mrs. Chenoweth. If you have any trouble at all, you let us
know here on the Committee, and we will subpoena information
for you.
Mr. McKeen. Thank you.
Mrs. Chenoweth. But it's really better if the individual,
or also working with your cattle association.
Now, you were a commissioner in Catron County?
Mrs. McKeen. Yes, I was, for 6 years.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I think you have some attorneys down there
who are awfully good at making these requests. But I would
suggest you do that right away. OK?
Mr. McKeen. Thank you.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I thank you all, gentlemen, very much for
your testimony. I only wish that your time and ours, too,
allowed for us to hear from you more, but you have certainly
motivated me even further. And so I'm going to leave now and
turn the Committee over to Mr. Peterson.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Peterson. [presiding] I'll try not to get that
motivated that I have to leave--I'm just kidding. The Chairman
is to be complimented on this hearing, and, Congressman
Gibbons, I think you had some more questions.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the
recognition here.
I want to go back to perhaps finish my questioning and turn
it to Mr. McKeen, as a person who comes from a State with a
great deal of grazing, that would be Nevada, as well. We've had
a number of problems dealing with our condition of the forest
or the grazing areas within our forest. They're normally under
grazing permits.
I would like for you to perhaps describe for us the
condition of the forest in your areas there in New Mexico, if
you would for us, Mr. McKeen.
Mr. McKeen. OK. I'm going to give you a story here that
really bothers me. As a kid I grew up on Mineral Creek. I was
born in Mineral Creek, and we still have some property there,
and I live within 3 miles of it. As a kid, I fished for trout
in Mineral Creek. My grandfather farmed on Mineral Creek, and
other people farmed on Mineral Creek. There was over 200 acres
of farmland on this one creek, which is a tributary to the San
Francisco River, which is a tributary to the Hilo River.
You go there today--and my grandfather raised alfalfa, by
the way, which was a year-round crop, takes water year round,
takes a lot of water, and the other farmers were there. Over
200 acres, you go there today you can't raise one sprig of
alfalfa because our national forest, where this water
originates, that stream is totally gone. The only water we get
out of this stream is it comes down through the then farming
area, it gives you a snow runoff. We get the floods.
But that area--and you go back, say, 30 years ago when the
then forest supervisor said he wanted to save that area as a
pristine area, not log it, not let it burn, because they wanted
to build a road up through there. They wanted it to be real
scenic. Well, it's not too scenic to me when trees take over
meadows, trees take over all of your grasslands. Trees are 80
to a thousand trees per acre, when they should be 80 trees per
acre.
And what happens is when you get that many trees, it's like
a study, and the only study I can find to compare it to is one
in Texas, where they were studying the ground cover. And when
you get a 60 percent ground cover--and in this study, no water
goes into the underground source. But that's in Texas where
they get more rain that we do in New Mexico.
In New Mexico I have to guess, because I asked the Forest
Service if they had any research or anybody had any research on
it. They don't have any, or they don't want to give it to me. I
imagine when we get a 30 or 40 percent canopy, no water goes
under the underground source. Consequently, Mineral Creek is an
example of all of the streams in the Hilo Natural Forest in the
Hilo Wilderness, wherever you go.
I farm on the San Francisco River, and it's gradually going
dry because of the type of management we have right now. And
now they're wanting to do more preservation. They're wanting to
do more saving of land and not log and not thin the forest, not
have fires, controlling burn. So Mineral Creek is an example of
a stream that just died.
And, of course, what happens to the people that lived on
the stream? Their economy went away, because they can't raise
the crops they used to. Most of them are gone. Those lands are
just idle now.
And the only reason I'm farming today on my farm--I have 80
acres of farmland on the San Francisco River, and the only
reason I'm farming is I put a scenic ditch in, and I'm running
out of water every year a little more, a little more, a little
more, and the only reason I'm still farming is because the
farmers upstream are gradually running out of water, and they
quit farming, and then there's a little more water coming down
to me. And that's the condition of almost all of our forests in
the Southwest. Our water is going away.
Mr. Gibbons. So what you're telling the Committee, if I can
summarize it, is that poor management of our forest area,
failure to properly address thinning and improper forest
management has yielded an excess number of trees, which
literally sap the water that would normally be there for the
few remaining trees and runoff for farmers down below based on
the amount of water each tree requires for proper growth, and
this management has been--or poor management has been the
ultimate result in the economic downturn in communities and
farms in your area; is that what you're saying?
Mr. McKeen. Yes. And I'll give you an example--this is my
thing to do. I tell you, I've tried and tried and tried to
improve my forest permit and do watershed work. And one of the
biggest problems we have in my counties is by Pinon juniper
preservation, by golly, they turn me down every time I want to
do something. The environmentalists come out there and appeal
every time we want to clear these invasive trees. They don't
want people there, and when you try to even improve the
watershed, they don't want watershed improvement either.
Now, I have an example. When we went up and cleared our
Pinon juniper trees on a portion of our place, which I pushed
and pushed and pushed to do, we created a spring by just
pushing a small hill, or a little mesa. We created a spring.
And the Forest Service denied it ever since. They don't want to
hear about it, but it's an example of what we can do.
Now in my county where I have--I went to Congress one time.
I went through my Congressman or delegation so I could push
trees to improve the land, and it's like getting the weeds out
of your garden. People love trees, but grassland is what makes
our underground source and our wildlife and everything else. Of
course, you've got to have trees, too. But in this instance
when you remove Pinon juniper, you start at the headwater. We
talk about riparian nowadays, how we are going to treat
riparian areas. Forget it. If you don't want to start at that
headwater where that water starts from, those riparians are
going to continue to flood. You've got to start at those
headwaters and stop that water and get your grass back and
running. And when you do, and when you go and put these juniper
trees back on your place, back on my place, you will have an
explosion you won't believe. You will have birds. You will have
all kinds of animals out there that weren't there before.
The condition we have in our forest today is you go out
through this Pinon juniper country, it's sterile. You're going
to see a crow flying around there, a coyote walking through.
You're not going to see anything, because those trees as they
progress, they take over the browse first. And this is in your
Forest Service literature that I'm getting this. There are
studies, the trees take over the browse first, and then once
the browse is taken out, then the grass goes next, and then you
have no grass, and then you go nothing but trees down there.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Chairman, if I may just ask one followup
question.
Mr. McKeen, do you think, in your opinion, that there is a
much greater risk for damage to the existing forest due to the
current management practice of allowing excess number of trees,
failure to deal with the underbrush or the fuel growth
underneath; from the current conditions, is your forest and
your area much more at risk to fire, to disease, pestilence,
whatever, than they have been in the past under previous
management?
Mr. McKeen. Oh, there's no doubt about it. There's no doubt
about it. I mean, we have the Forest Service--I've been up in
the Gila Wilderness several times, and I don't know why it
doesn't get fire and all of it burn. There's tall grass, dead
trees laying in every direction. There's standing dead trees,
high percentage. There's infestation of parasites. The country
that once was opened as a kid when I went up there, it opened
big trees and grasslands, it's solid trees now. And it's a
dying, decaying-type situation.
Mr. Gibbons. What do foresters say in the area about this
condition? I mean, obviously it's a recognizable, plainly
obvious condition that needs to be addressed, and yet there
seems to be very little coming out of those people we've
charged with the proper management of our forest. Is this
because of their fear of publicity gained through efforts of
these environmental groups? What have you been told?
Mr. McKeen. The Forest Service to me is nothing more than a
bunch of PR people saying what they wish was out there. If you
go into their office and you see the bookshelf there, it's got
articles by environmentalists and environmental authors. It's
got pictures of flies, pictures of deer, pictures of elk and
lions and all of these things. There's not one pamphlet in
there that somebody can pick up that gives the true nature of
the national forest, not one. They've got lots of studies that
shows that it's in bad shape, but you won't find one put in
their display.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Chairman, may I just have one more broad
range of questioning?
Mr. Peterson. Please go.
Mr. Gibbons. I'm very disheartened by the remarks about the
condition of the New Mexico forest. I wonder if other areas,
for example, Alaska or New Hampshire or other forests, are
seeing the same sort of trending conditions based on the same
or similar types of management. Anybody?
Mr. Arnold. In Washington State, we are seeing that in just
about every national forest, and we have a lot of them.
Mr. Conley. Congressman, in Alaska, we have got a lot of
second growth, and the recognized forestry practice is
thinning, and the forests are not being thinned at all. I mean,
they are just absolutely choking themselves to death as they
grow.
Mr. Favreau. In Maine and New Hampshire, we are seeing a
reduction in wildlife. It is the--I don't think it has been as
bad as what it was in New Mexico, but it is getting there. It
certainly is the--the conditions are worsening.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will release.
Mr. Peterson. I will continue here a response on that
issue.
In Pennsylvania, of course, we have a rather mature
hardwood forest that is very valuable. Just recently the
lawsuits--we've had lawsuits before, but they've really
impacted us more recently. A few months ago, two students from
Clarion University put in a suit against what was called a
mortality II cut, which was 17 plots that added up to about
5,050 acres. And they were successful, because the Forest
Service didn't do an EIS, but there were 17 small plots.
It was kind of--when you looked at it and the way it was
sold, it looked like one large cut, but it was not. It was 59
percent dead trees, salvaged, and the rest was green. But they
used the assistance of two law professors from the University
of Pittsburgh pro bono, so they didn't have any investment and
were successful at setting aside that sale--there are some
other small sales that were advertised recently, and they have
also put lawsuits against--in all of those.
But we're just getting into the lawsuit phase where I think
most of the West has been through it for years, but it's just
now reaching us.
The point I would like to ask you is a little bit of
followup of Jim's. The Federal Government has 700 million acres
and are buying, and then we have in Pennsylvania--we have I
think it's 4 or 5 million acres of public land owned by the
State and local governments, too. It seems to me that we need
to have a discussion of whether the Federal Government under
one blanket policy can manage land in Alaska, New Mexico, New
England, Pennsylvania, and all over this country where there is
no similarity to the forest. Even the western forest is more
similar, but there certainly is probably very little similarity
to New Mexico than Washington or Idaho or Alaska, and yet
you're using the same policy from the Federal Government.
And I guess the disheartening part now is--and I've not
been here a long time, but, as an observer, it seems like for
the first time we have the Vice President and Katie McGinty
really running--adjunct running the Forest Service. I mean,
it's their policies that are being utilized. They've not been
debated by anybody. There's been no public forums nationally
certainly to make sure those are good policies. And so we
really have untested, untried policies to manage our forests
and to manage our public land without a public discussion. And
it seems somehow it ought to be regional.
I guess the question I would like to ask is, what kind of
support and help can we depend on from your States and local
officials? Are your Governors with you? Are your State
legislatures with you? Or what kind of support do you get from
them?
Mr. Arnold. Well, to start with Washington State, our
Governor-at-large is unaware of the problems, and we're not
sure he would be sympathetic were he informed in Washington
State. But our county commissioners, particularly in the rural
areas where we have this urban-rural prosperity gap so badly,
most certainly are on our side. And if you take a look in the
Battered Communities Report that I've submitted for the record,
we have a number of statements from county commissioners.
I think they would probably pretty widely all over the
United States be with us, because we have them from Minnesota
and Washington State. And I don't see any reason with a little
further work we could not get a fairly good organization of
support from them.
Mr. Peterson. Anyone else?
Mr. Conley. Congressman, in Alaska, it's unfortunate, but
we have a Governor who aligns with the White House, and so the
policies are real similar. We have a Governor that--we have an
area of some State land, and it's a dead forest. It's been
affected with the spruce spark beetle. It's a fire hazard. At
one point, we could have gone in and cut that wood down and had
a marketable value. It would have prevented a massive fire that
happened a couple years ago. He absolutely gets his marching
orders from the same place the White House does, and that's the
Sierra club.
Mr. Favreau. In New Hampshire, for the natural forest
alone, we do get support from broad-based--our senators,
Congressman and the local officials, a lot of support.
Mr. Gomez. In northern New Mexico, we get a lot of support
from our county commissioners and from our State legislators;
but we don't hear anything from the Governor's office.
Mr. McKeen. Yeah, I think that's true. The local people,
the local county commissioner and these kind of people support
us. And I felt we had support from our Governor, and we have
support from our congressional delegation here in Congress
here.
Mr. Peterson. I'm going to conclude with this and dismiss
this panel. And our Chairman is with us now. I will turn it
back over to him.
I'm not going to turn it back over to him. I will at this
time offer a chance to ask the questions to our chairman from
Alaska.
Chairman Young. Mr. Chairman, may I suggest that you do an
excellent job; and you're well versed in this subject. I hope
you will see the day when you sit in that chair as the chairman
of the full Committee. It will be a long while. I want you to
know that.
JC, the Sitka Pulp Mill, you're from Ketchikan, but is it
my information that that mill has been closed longer and there
were those in that town at that time that were optimistic about
the economy because it lasted pretty well for numerous years.
But has that optimism been justified by the results in Sitka?
Mr. Conley. Congressman, not living there, I can't really
quote the numbers and figures, but I do have many dear friends
that live there and are in business. And in my conversations
with the folks in Sitka, they feel that the economy is down 30
to 35 percent. I know that the tonnage, the freight tonnage of
goods is down 33 percent, and it's not good.
And, you know, there was an anomaly after the APC closure.
There was not really as much severance money as we got in
Ketchikan for our workers. But there was additional funds that
these no-longer-employed folks had that came out of some of the
profit sharing and pension deals that they had, and they did
have a little spike in the economy. There was also outside
money. This influenced the real estate market there. There were
a great number of homes that were bought from people from
California as kind of a summer place to go, an investment. You
know, now with the mills gone, you know, we'll go up there and
get some cheap land, you know. And, really, I don't think it
was a real estate boom. I think it was a carpetbagging boom.
Chairman Young. JC, I promise--I was pleased what you had
to say about the Governor because there's doubt in my mind that
he does not support--in fact, he had the gall to call Jim Lyons
to suggest to lower the cut that was recommended in the TLMP,
which was about 128 million board feet a year. We had been
cutting about 400 million board feet a year and to have them
drop that amount is ridiculous.
But I think that the chairman just mentioned that the
support for timber industry or timber management is still an
anomaly, because no one really understands it, other than the
people that are actually dealing with it. And the chairman is
absolutely right. The policy of this administration is
socialism--to run everybody out of private business, to let the
trees die and let the trees supposedly act as nature. And when
we basically need the fiber, the government will develop it.
And I really--it goes against everything I've ever thought
of, that, as you know, I've introduced a bill to give the
Tongass back to the State, which is, I think--I don't see any
justification for the Federal Government owning land, other
than the Statute of Liberty and maybe a few parks, maybe a few
refuges, but to just own land to do nothing with I think is a
disservice to the constitution and to the people of the United
States.
But it's going to take an awful lot of effort from people
like you and from your communities to stir this up. Because,
unfortunately, as you know, most of our population now live in
Philadelphia--I just came from there yesterday--San Francisco,
New York, Miami, Chicago, and, you know, LA, and they haven't
the slightest idea where toilet paper comes from. And that
gives us our biggest problem.
So it's going to be up to you. Because, although I just
know some of the people in Congress say they support you, when
it comes right down to the votes, sometimes they're not there.
And that's very, very concerning to me. So it's going to take a
great deal of team effort.
I've been in this business now 26 years, and I've watched
the administration and interest groups, I think, destroy the
basis of our society. And that's resources management and not
necessarily destruction or elimination but management. And
anybody who can tell me a dead tree is a good tree is smoking
something. And I just don't understand it.
But, anyway, Mr. Chairman, I don't have any other
questions.
Mr. Peterson. Earlier, there was some question about the
Pew Charitable Trusts. That's a Pennsylvania foundation. That's
funded by the resources and wealth of the Sun Oil Company. It's
kind of a strange that they would attract forest products, but
they have.
I would like to thank the panel, and I appreciate your
traveling here and sharing your good testimony with us.
The next panel we introduce is Mr. Donald Wesson, Southern
Pine Regional director, Pulp and Paperworker's Resource
Council; Honorable Mike Propes, Polk County Commissioner,
Dallas, Oregon; and Mr. Jack Richardson, the Val Verde County
Administrator, Del Rio, Texas.
If you would please take your seats at the table.
STATEMENT OF DONALD R. WESSON, SOUTHERN PINE REGIONAL DIRECTOR,
PULP AND PAPERWORKER'S RESOURCE COUNCIL, McGEHEE, ARKANSAS
Mr. Peterson. Mr. Wesson, if you would like to proceed.
Mr. Wesson. Mr. Chairman, I want on thank you and the
Committee for holding this very important hearing and for
allowing me to participate.
My name is Don Wesson. I am the Vice President of United
Paperwork Workers International Union, Local 1533, located in
McGehee, Arkansas. I serve as the Southern Pine Regional
Director of the Pulp and Paperworker's Resource Council. I'm
currently employed in the pulp and paper industry as an
industrial mechanic. I reside in Desha County, Arkansas; and
I'm a constituent of the 4th Congressional District.
A few years ago, I was like most all Americans. I went to
work, paid my share of taxes, voted in most elections and
depended on my elected officials to take care of me. I've
always felt my freedoms as well as my property was protected.
After all, America was founded under the Constitution.
One day, I heard some disturbing news of how a Spotted Owl
put thousands of my union brothers and sisters out of a job in
the very industry in which I am employed. I started paying more
attention to what my government was doing and realized some of
those elected officials in which I placed my trust was not
looking out for my well-being or the well-being of America. It
was then that I realized that the world is run by those who
show up, and I would start showing up.
I got involved with the PPRC. The Pulp and Paperworker's
Resource Council is a grassroots coalition consisting of labor
workers who work in the pulp, paper and wood products
industries of America. We have lost thousands of jobs in our
industry in the past few years due to various government
regulations.
I am here today to address the American Heritage Rivers. We
feel this is just another governmental program that will end up
hurting our communities and cost us more industry jobs.
I live in Desha County, Arkansas, which borders the mighty
Mississippi River, the life blood of America. The Mississippi
River is among the top 10 rivers that is already nominated as
Heritage Rivers. I have had several meetings with the Office of
Council on Environmental Quality concerning this nomination. I
have met with Mr. Ray Clark, associate director of the CEQ, as
well as the chairman of American Heritage Rivers on three
different occasions.
Mr. Clark keeps insisting that the American Heritage Rivers
is the greatest thing since motherhood and apple pie. He
expressed that lies are being told about American Heritage
Rivers. He insisted that there are no new regulations, no new
money, and this is truly a bottom up program. It is a community
based--it is community based, and there will be no impact on
private property. He stated that money was already in place.
The purpose of this program would be to just manage the rivers
and to administer the funds where needed.
This is why I have a grave concern over the executive
order. If a river community is designated for this initiative,
there are potentially serious negative implications for local
governments. Depending on the direction the project takes,
local land use zoning boards could be negated or completely
bypassed. There is nothing in the language that would allow a
designated community or individual landowners the ability to
opt out of this program. Without the right to opt out, a
private landowner or local government should be concerned about
losing any power of income or development of assets, as well as
its sovereignty.
The idea of using a river navigator to coordinate the river
communities efforts in itself is somewhat a disturbing idea.
When the person selected can be a Federal or non-Federal
employee selected jointly by the river community and Federal
agencies, the potential for conflict of interest exist.
Many agencies, such as the Department of Interior, Fish and
Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers have become
more and more active in reducing or restricting the use of our
natural resources. If the river navigator is chosen from an
agency that has a definite preservationist slant, the chances
of the river communities choosing a plan to the detriment of
private property rights and industrial development would be
greatly increased.
Whenever tourism, economic security, environmental
protection and protecting/preserving our heritage are mixed
into one initiative, the American public becomes skeptical.
This mixture in the past has meant the decrease in high-paying
industrial jobs. Even when there are tourism jobs created, the
employees are not paid well and in many cases are seasonal
jobs.
I urge you, Mr. Chairman, and this Committee to stop the
American Heritage Rivers Initiative. If this program is as
great as we are told, then the office of the CEQ would not mind
it having a congressional oversight. We do not need 16
different governmental agencies and a river navigator to manage
our rivers or to regulate our private lands that borders these
rivers.
Any proposal that is set up under the premise of
streamlining government but yet would still include at least
nine different Cabinet positions as well as countless other
government agencies hardly makes this initiative more user
friendly. Instead, it would just lead to another level of
bureaucracy that the American public is already weary of.
If you have any questions concerning how too many levels of
government bureaucracy affects the jobs in resource-based
industries, you could ask any one of the over 100,000 workers
from the Pacific Northwest who have already lost their job over
a Spotted Owl.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wesson may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Peterson. Mr. Propes?
STATEMENT OF MIKE PROPES, POLK COUNTY COMMISSIONER, DALLAS,
OREGON
Mr. Propes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity
to address your Committee.
I'm Mike Propes. I'm chairman of the Polk County Board of
Commissioners, and I'm also vice president of the O & C
Counties on the Board of Directors of the Association of Oregon
Counties, and I'm on the Willamette Liveability Council. I'm
also chair of two water basin boards, so I have a lot of
experience in water basins and river protections in Oregon.
We share some of your concerns about the Federal policies
being developed in Washington, DC, with little input from rural
communities that are most impacted. I offer the following
observation, quoting from our letter dated August 19th, 1997,
to Karen Hobbs, Council of Environmental Quality, and that
letter is included in your packet.
``Looking at the American Heritage Rivers Initiative from
the bottom up, it seems quite obvious that the initiative was
developed without an awareness of the efforts already underway
by regional, State and local citizens in cooperation with
Federal Government agencies to protect our rivers. The
preliminary meetings involving approximately 690 attendees,
held in large metropolitan areas, seems to have been the basis
for launching the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. This
hardly seemed representative of over 225 million people on this
matter, and thus seems to have been spawned from an inadequate
understanding of the need or want of both the citizens and the
rivers.''
This information came out of the Federal Register of how
this initiative started. So these are not our figures. These
are the figures from the people that attended the meetings,
right out of the Federal Register to start this program.
This program is supposed to be voluntary, but it appears
that these designations will occur in spite of strong
opposition from local governments. This is the first promise
broken with respect to the American Heritage Rivers. Broken
promises seem to be a pattern with this administration with
environmental issues.
Four counties along the Willamette River--Lane, Linn, Polk
and Yamhill--have asked to be excluded from the Heritage River
Initiative. And I think this is where it's really important to
understand what has happened locally. We have been told locally
that it takes local people opting into this program, and if an
area doesn't want it, you're not going to be included.
We now have 26 counties in Oregon--and this is in one of
your exhibits that is included in the packet--that has asked to
opt out of this program. Out of the 36 counties, we have 27
that have opted out. We don't have a single county that has
asked for it.
Well, after that had happened, we were told, well, it
couldn't be locally opted out. It took somebody from your
congressional delegation to opt you out. So we went to our
congressional delegation, and one of our Congressman opted us
out--and one of our senators. And then we were told, well, no,
now it takes your whole congressional delegation to opt you
out.
Well, I think it probably takes Congress to opt us out. And
that's what we're here to ask for, is to opt us out. And we're
not sure if this is a good program or a bad program. We have
read every bit of information we can get on it and we can't
figure it out if it's good or bad.
We do know that it's a new Federal program. Is there new
regulations? We can't tell. Is there new moneys? Well, there
appears to be new moneys, but are there going to be strings
attached to that, that you have to use it a certain ways? We
cannot tell. We do not want to be a guinea pig for another
Federal program.
I was back in Washington, DC, my last time, a little over
10 years ago, and I came back here to discuss the Spotted Owl
and the Endangered Species Act. And I had a conversation then,
the same as I had yesterday with some staff members back here,
about that I'm overreacting, that, no, it really isn't going to
be the things that you are perceiving is going to happen with
this program.
Well, 10 years ago, we were predicting that we were going
to have some severe cutbacks in our economy because of the
Spotted Owl in Oregon; and people in Washington, DC, thought we
were crazy, that can't happen, that's not what this program is.
This is to help protect animals, and it's good for people and
everything else. Exactly what we feared with that program
happened, regardless of what people told us here. And that's
the fear we have with this program.
Real quickly I would like to just mention the exhibits that
I have attached. I do have the resolutions from the 27 counties
that have opted out, and I have resolutions from two of the
cities that are on the Willamette River that have asked to opt
out. And I have resolutions from the Oregon State Senate, from
the Oregon Cattleman's Association, Oregon Farm Bureau, Oregon
Logging Conference, Oregon Wheat Growers and the Yamhill
Republican Central Committee, a very important committee.
Also, I do have a map that is attached; and that is Exhibit
D. That shows the counties that had opted out. That's the 24
counties. There's an additional three counties that have opted
out that are not on the map. And that's Deschutes, Wheeler,
and--sorry, I can't recall the third one now--that have opted
out.
And you may look at the map at the very bottom of the page.
It looks a little different. That is the United States
stretched out just a little. We'd like to get further away from
DC, not closer.
Thank you.
Mr. Peterson. I get your message, and I agree with you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Propes may be found at end
of hearing.]
Mr. Peterson. Mr. Jack Richardson, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF JACK RICHARDSON, VAL VERDE COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR,
DEL RIO, TEXAS
Mr. Richardson. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to
testify before the Natural Resources Committee on the American
Heritage Rivers Initiative and the pending application for the
Rio Grande River.
My name is Jack Richardson. I'm a county administrator in
Val Verde County, Texas, which is located on the Rio Grande
River. Val Verde County has got an estimated population of
about 48,000. The entire county borders on the Rio Grande
River.
The county, while small in population, consists of 3,171
square miles. Sixty-two square miles of that is usually water,
but it's not now, because the International Boundary Water
Commission pulled the plug on Lake Amistad. These facts qualify
Val Verde County to have a true voice in any initiative that
encompasses additional Federal regulations upon the county.
I have lived there for more than 25 years. I know many of
the families that have lived there and worked there for
generations. In fact, my five grandchildren reside on a
tributary of the Rio Grande. It's called San Felipe Creek.
We do not need a Federal initiative to tell us how
important the Rio Grande is and to recognize the rich culture
and heritage that exists along the border. We honor our culture
and heritage every day as we go to work, raise our families and
just simply live there.
I worked for the United States Border Patrol for 32 years.
I guess I'm one of those suspect Federal employees. And I've
been exposed to an awful lot of Rio Grande River culture,
believe me. I do not claim to be an expert on the Rio Grande,
but I've had a lifetime of experience working there, and the
Rio Grande has played a significant role in all that work.
I would kind of like to know how many members of this Blue
Ribbon Panel have even seen the Rio Grande. They tell me maybe
one. Now, I understand the Rio Grande is on a list along with
several other rivers as a potential candidate to be named as an
American Heritage River. Exactly what that would mean for the
communities and the people who must live and work along the
river is still not fully known, just like he said.
I know the full impact will not be known until the
initiative is being implemented; and, at that time, it's been
our experience that it's just too late to stop it.
The AHRI is another unfunded mandate, and we've had a bunch
of those. We really have one which cost us about $20 million,
anyway, of which the true cost to the local communities and the
impacts on income, property rights, production and
competitiveness are still unknown.
I am here today to make sure that the concerns of all of
those who live and work along the river are heard. We want to
be fully understood that nonsupport for the Rio Grande
nomination flows up and down this river. Many communities in my
region do not want the strings that come attached to Federal
programs. And there's always the price to pay when you say ``I
do'' with the Feds. You know that, and I know that.
I have with me today resolutions and letters of nonsupport
from counties that are located along the Rio Grande within its
watershed. One of those county resolutions is from my home
county of Val Verde. It kind of surprised me when they did
that, because you can't get those five people to agree on
anything, and yet this was a unanimous resolution.
I have letters of opposition from many agriculture
organizations, property rights organizations. We have 77
resolutions and letters of nonsupport for the designation of
the Rio Grande as an American Heritage River. This represents
thousands of Texas citizens that do not want the AHRI in Texas.
Mr. Desmond Smith, president of the TransTexas Heritage
Association, also will come up to testify on behalf of the
membership that represents 15 million acres of private land in
Texas. They didn't want the AHRI to designate the Rio Grande
River either.
The San Antonio Express News recently quoted our Governor
Bush as stating, when it comes to ONRW or the American Heritage
Rivers, whatever it is, I'm against it. Well, if you're
Governor and he doesn't know what it is, the likelihood of us
knowing it is pretty remote. And he said, I will not, so long
as I'm Governor, concede the sovereign rights of Texas.
Well, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Congressman
Henry Bonilla have both sent letters to the Council on
Environmental Quality in opposition to the Rio Grande
designation. Congressman Bonilla requested his congressional
district not be included in the initiative, and seven other
members of the Texas delegation also requested their districts
not be included.
There are 800 miles of Rio Grande that run through the
Congressman's district. I'm talking about--if you can
visualize--from El Paso up here to Laredo down here. We're way
down here on the food chain. For some reason, CEQ ignored
Congressman Bonilla's opt-out letter and further misrepresented
his position by stating, in a letter to Senator Hutchison, that
Congressman Bonilla supported a designation for the Rio Grande.
Congressman Bonilla had to send another letter to the CEQ
restating his position.
Regardless of our expressed opposition against the
designation of the Rio Grande as an American Heritage River,
the nomination has continued to proceed. How many more
resolutions do we need to pass? How many more letters do we
have to write? How many more times do we need to testify that
we do not want the Rio Grande designated as an American
Heritage River? I think the big question down there is when are
the CEQ and the panel going to listen to us?
From the beginning, there has been a back-door attempt to
get the Rio Grande listed as an American Heritage River,
regardless of the views of those who live and work along it.
There have been secret meetings, attempts to prevent the public
have having a voice at the so-called public hearings and an
unwillingness to accept the fact that the AHRI is not wanted
for the Rio Grande.
And I would like to quote an excerpt from the letter sent
to Senator Hutchison by the CEQ dated May the 7th, 1998, signed
by Kathleen McGinty. It states, ``The American Heritage Rivers
Initiative is 100 percent locally driven.'' Now I ask, if the
CEQ was really listening to the local communities, would the
Rio Grande still be in consideration for nomination?
Not only is AHRI in the process of being imposed on the
local communities against their wishes, but this is another
layer of bureaucracy that is not necessary. Do you have any
idea how many Federal agencies already have their toes dipped
in the Rio Grande River and are controlling every action
involving that river? I tried to count them up this morning,
and I quit at 33. You've got to remember every federation
usually has two or three branches. From those branches, you can
bet the state of Texas has got a matching entity in there. When
you get into Mexico, every Federal agency in Mexico will have a
bureaucracy level almost identical to that existing in the
State of Texas and the United States.
I can assure that you we have enough problems working with
the EPA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Army Corps of Engineers--
they pull some good ones--and the International Boundary and
Water Commission under their current authority and programs
that they have. These Federal agencies do not need to have
their authority expanded under any program, especially a
program that still does not have standards for evaluation and
guidelines for establishing the priorities.
Those of us who live along the Rio Grande understand better
than anyone the need to clean it up. We all want to live in a
clean environment, but creating another layer of government to
work through is not the way to go about it.
This is an international river, and it's going to take
international cooperation to clean it up. What I think they
lose sight of more than anything is 60 percent of that water is
Mexico. There's three rivers feeding into the Rio Grande. We've
got two, anyway. You measure the water. We're the junior
partner in this cleanup campaign. And I can just see that this
big bureaucrat is going to go over there and tell these guys
that's holding 60 percent of the water what to do, and I can
tell you what he's going to tell him.
This is--it just takes a few minutes to visit with anyone
who works and lives along the river, and you will soon come to
realize that the Rio Grande cannot be treated like any other
river. The culture and heritage that makes the river so special
also creates many unique problems. I do not see that this
initiative will address our unique situation, which will just
serve to create more problems. Bureaucrats don't solve
problems; they create them.
From the very beginning, there has been a cloud of
questions hanging over this initiative. What would a
designation mean for river communities? What benefits or
drawbacks would this hold for those who live along the river?
And if it was such a good deal for the communities, why have
the supporters felt the need to meet in secret and misrepresent
the views of those who oppose the AHRI?
These questions have never been answered, and I doubt they
will be. It's been imposed--the AHRI has been imposed from the
top down from the very beginning. And I'm here today to speak
on behalf of the many counties, communities, citizens and
organization who are represented by these letters and
resolutions of nonsupport. They send a loud and clear message
that we are opposed to the Rio Grande being designated as an
American Heritage River.
Thank you. I would be glad it to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Richardson may be found at
end of hearing.]
Mr. Peterson. I would like to thank the panel. And I will
offer time for questions. Congressman Gibbons, who has to leave
shortly.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, also,
for your patience and your effort to get here today to testify
before us.
I'm very curious where the information stems from that you
heard that it would take all of Congress to opt out of this
system when I--and I'm sure that the chairman sat here in this
Committee and listened to Katie McGinty from the CEQ's Office
state specifically that any Congressman in his congressional
district could by request opt his district out of the American
Heritage River Initiative. Which seems to be now that so many
of us have taken that step, that there seems to be a transition
and a change in attitude that hasn't been announced by the CEQ,
but that doesn't surprise me.
What I want to go to, and perhaps each one of you could
talk to me a little bit and maybe help the Committee understand
better, just what did this administration do with all of you in
its efforts to explain to you what the American Heritage River
Initiative would do for your individual areas when they were
proposing it, when they were considering it? Did they bring you
in, tell you what was going to take place, how it would be
implemented, what actions would be taken, what course of--or
what opportunities you would have in terms of contributing to
the overall outcome?
Maybe you could--each one just take a brief moment and
explain to me what this administration offered in terms of
meetings and explanations to each of you in your areas.
Mr. Wesson. OK. From the State of Arkansas, the only thing
I know they did was they got a hold of the Governor and--
through some of the county commissioners, and they tried to say
how it was going to be a big tourism boost. And in southeast
Arkansas where I live, nothing could be a big tourism boost. I
mean that's the flat land, the delta. It's nothing but farm
communities.
They never put anything in any newspapers saying any public
hearings, meetings or what have you in the State of Arkansas
that I'm aware of. They just tried to make it that it's going
to be the greatest thing that could happen to any river.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Propes?
Mr. Propes. We got the information from a very strange
document. It was the Congressional Record. That was the first
time we even knew there was any such a program being talked
about. And, from that, we started doing some inquiry to see
what it was. Because when the Willamette River was listed as
one of the 100, there was originally a list with 100 rivers on
there, and since it affects literally all of Polk County, our
county, we were interested in what was going on.
We sent letters back to Karen Hobbs asking questions about
that, and to this day we've not had any contact back, and that
was the August, 1997, letter. At that point in time, we were
not opposed to it. We were just trying to figure out what it
was. And then we heard from our people about that you could opt
out locally.
Never from the administration, we have never had any
contact from the administration, never had any answers from
them. So everything we've got has been through newsletters or
other publications, and we've been following what those have
said.
Mr. Gibbons. Mr. Richardson?
Mr. Richardson. They mailed us a letter, and of all things
I think it come to us from TNRCC, which is Texas Natural
Resource Conservation Commission. They did come down and talk
to us a couple times, as I recall, just very more like a
courtesy call than an informative call.
They had some running around, trying to avoid anybody
making any opposition to this in Marathon, Texas. And if you've
ever been to Marathon, Texas, it's a lot of local humor. It's a
very small place. It's hard to be secretive in Marathon, Texas.
We have had some--most of that information, we were, in the
county, were able to get come from the city councilman, that
would say, hey--they would come over to us and say, what do you
do with this thing? We said, we don't know, you know, and
that's about it.
Everybody got to looking at what could develop from it. And
our commissioners sat down and they says, well, wow, we don't
want any of this, and that's where we are today.
Mr. Gibbons. Let me ask just a yes or no question from any
of you. Do any of you know of public hearings that were held in
your areas with regard to the proposal for the American
Heritage River Initiative that might have allowed for your
input into the creation of this initiative?
Mr. Propes. No.
Mr. Wesson. No, sir.
Mr. Richardson. Just the one at Marathon is the only one
that I'm aware of.
Mr. Gibbons. How big is Marathon?
Mr. Richardson. Oh, maybe 15, 20 houses, very small place.
And we don't know.
And this one--there was some attempts at intimidation about
grants along in there. But my judge is 73 years old, and you
couldn't intimidate him with a bulldozer, you know. He just--so
that was the end of that discussion, and it didn't last long.
Mr. Gibbons. Thank you very much, gentlemen. And I will
yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Peterson. Representative Chenoweth?
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Wesson, it's good to see you.
Mr. Wesson. Glad to be here.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I'm glad you're here. And Ballach Forest,
where you work, is next to the Mississippi River. If this
segment of the river is designated under the American Heritage
Rivers designation, how do you believe that the local economy
and communities will be affected? Have you addressed that in my
absence?
Mr. Wesson. Well, that's a good question. It really scares
me because, about 4 months ago, the Ballach went into a joint
venture with Anderson, actually, and bought 365,000 acres
between the levy and river. And I have been talking to my CEO
and some other people and I said, I hope you all realize if
this American Heritage River comes by, you might have just lost
everything you've got.
It could very much affect us. We're all--the Mississippi
River is a working river, and in southeast Arkansas we have
agriculture. We have the paper industry. Like my mill, we get
the water out of the river. We use it in the mill. We clean it
up. We put it back in the river. Our chips come down the river
to the mill, or the logs do, to our chip mill one.
And, you know, the agriculture, the farmers use it for
irrigation. There's several thousands of acres, if not hundreds
of thousands of acres, between the levy and the river that on
the years that the river don't flood, they use that for
farmland. And it's a very big asset to the economic industry.
And last week, a year ago this time, I met with Katie
McGinty and Ray Clark at the CEQ, and at that time any person
could opt out. I mean, it took a person to designate, and it
took a person to opt out. Since then, they've changed it to,
well, then your county has to opt out. Then they said your
Congressman has to opt out. Well, last Thursday, we was told
that even if your Congressman opts out, if your Governor wants
it, you can still get it. So we don't know what the deal is.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Very interesting. I think I understand what
the deal is, and I think we will work to straighten that out.
Because there was testimony before this Committee that if a
Congressman wants to opt out, their areas will be opted out,
and we intend to hold CEQ to that.
I'd be interested in having anything in writing or even an
affidavit from you with regards to the fact that a one-time CEQ
made a promise that an individual could opt out. Could you help
the Committee out on that, Mr. Wesson?
Mr. Wesson. Sure. I would be glad to.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I would very much appreciate that.
Mr. Richardson--and I'm getting back to you, Commissioner--
but I understand that there was a high-level meeting last
spring in Laredo. Did you address this?
Mr. Richardson. We don't--we were not really very
conversant about it, because we don't know anything about it.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I understand in this meeting in Laredo they
discussed the possible designation of the Rio Grande as an
American Heritage River Initiative. Could you discuss the
highlights of that meeting and if your county was invited?
Mr. Richardson. We knew nothing of the meetings. But,
generally, if we were invited to attend, I would know.
Mrs. Chenoweth. So you were----
Mr. Richardson. The mail comes to me.
Mrs. Chenoweth. So the mail comes to you, and if you were
invited, if the county was invited, you would know?
Mr. Richardson. I would know. I believe I would know.
Mrs. Chenoweth. And you did not receive an invitation?
Mr. Richardson. No, we don't know anything about that.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Well, the administration believes that
designation of the Rio Grande will result in more cooperation
with the Mexican government to clean up the river. As one who
worked on the Border Patrol for 32 years and has lived in the
area a lifetime, how do you feel about this?
Mr. Richardson. They are very sensitive to any overt action
by the American--I think the phrase is: Poor Mexico, so far
from God and so close to the United States. They don't want us
meddling in the thing. And you've got to remember, like I said,
they own 60 percent of that water. We only own 40.
There's three contributory rivers into there and two coming
into our area anyway. Sixty percent of that water is theirs.
They've had a session of bureaucrats telling them what to do
and when to do it.
My big fear when I was working in Mexico or conducting
liaison with my counterparts across the river was some American
politician would go to Mexico and run his mouth, because it
would put us in a real strain. You can't treat your neighbor
that way.
Mrs. Chenoweth. And so three of the contributing rivers
come from Mexico that make up 60 percent of the water in the
Rio Grande and two of the tributaries come from America?
Mr. Richardson. That's correct.
Mrs. Chenoweth. And you don't treat your neighbors that
way?
Mr. Richardson. I don't think the nature--human nature
being what it is, that, yes, they're very--they understand.
They know about--they have the maquilas to appease, the
Americans, the maquila industries have expanded their
operation. If you crowd those officials in Mexico, they merely
state, hey, the pollution comes from the American factory and
look at you and smile.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Yes.
Mr. Richardson. What are you going to answer? I don't think
Mexico is ready for another layer of our bureaucracy. I really
and truly don't.
Mrs. Chenoweth. We're not ready for it either.
Mr. Richardson. I don't think they will work with you to
clean it up. I believe that. But you're not going to tell them
or exert--they call it Yankee supremacy, whatever. You're just
not going to do that down there. So my--I don't think the way
to go is another government bureaucracy.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you, sir.
Commissioner, it's good to see you. You're a neighbor of
mine.
Mr. Propes. Yes.
Mrs. Chenoweth. And I share your concerns about the Blue
Ribbon Panel on the American Heritage Rivers Commission. In
fact, that panel would not allow me to even address the public
last month in Washington, which is unusual.
Your testimony mentions that two of those committee members
are from Oregon.
Mr. Propes. Yes, they are.
Mrs. Chenoweth. How did these two members respond when they
learned that four affected counties and Senator Gordon Smith
have formally requested the Willamette not be designated?
Mr. Propes. We have not heard any response from them at
all.
Mrs. Chenoweth. From the commissioners?
Mr. Propes. Yes. It seems to be definitely silence when we
try to get information about what's going on. We don't get
letters returned when we've asked questions. It's almost as if
we don't exist.
Mrs. Chenoweth. My word. Are you aware of any other Federal
program that has been this unresponsive to the wishes of Polk
County Commissioners?
Mr. Propes. Besides Endangered Species Act? No, we haven't.
And, actually, the other Federal programs, we've worked with a
lot of Federal programs, and they've been very responsive to
us. We may not always agree with the outcomes, but we get
answers back, and they're responsive.
Mrs. Chenoweth. With the amount of opposition, why do you
believe that the river is still being considered for
designation?
Mr. Propes. Well, our Governor is in favor of the
designation. But we were led to believe that if local areas opt
out, that you could get out of it. And that was nothing that
was told to us by any Federal agency. It was just different
things we had read on it and information that we had received.
And then, when we found out we couldn't opt out locally, we
went to our senator and Congressman, and they opted us out. And
then we have heard that that doesn't work either.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Well, they keep moving the goal post, and
we keep trying to plant them.
Mr. Propes. Yes, that's what it appears to be.
Mrs. Chenoweth. I think, Commissioner, it might be awfully
good if your Governor talked to some of his friends in Lane
County. I'm very pleased that Lane County opted out.
Mr. Propes. Yes. Lane County is a major county that would
be affected--could be affected by this. If you read all of
our--that's our problem. We do not know what this means. All we
know is that it's another Federal program, and it has so few
specifics in it and in the Federal Register, we just absolutely
can't tell. We've asked questions. Nobody can answer our
questions.
So we feel it's better not to be in the program until we
know what it is. If it's a good program, we will be knocking on
the door wanting in. But that's the way Federal programs should
be. They should be designed that if there's a need in a local
area for that Federal program, the local areas come after it.
They shouldn't be pushed down on this.
Mrs. Chenoweth. Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Peterson. Thank you.
I just thought I would share for the record here the words
of Katie McGinty, Madam Chairman. I would like to offer some
declarative statement about this program, because it's helpful
to clarify, I think, in simple terms what this is and what it
is not. What it is it's 100 percent voluntary. Communities
don't have to participate. And after participating at any time,
a community can opt out. It's 100 percent locally driven. This
is purely a bottom-up process, whether to participate in the
plan for participation is completely under the control and in
the hands of the local citizens.
I think they've broken those rules already.
In response to Mr. Cannon about could it be--these rivers
be employed politically, well, I would also remind us that a
community--any community is not going to be a part of this
program at all in order for that scenario to eventuate, unless
they have elected to become a part of the program. So that, for
example, if you have in mind that this is a political tool and
places will be chosen around the country for political favor,
that is, I think, pretty well precluded by the notion that it's
not top down, communities participate from the bottom up.
And one more statement for the record here.
Ms. McGinty--well, let me say several things.
First of all, in terms of the veto, a Senator will have the
right to exercise a veto as well as a Member of Congress in
whose district this river or stretch of river might run.
In addition, the Federal Register notice makes clear the
authorities of the State and also the necessity of having State
support. It itemizes, for example, letters of endorsement from
not just local governments but State and tribal governments. It
also makes clear, as it says here, of course, any projects
identified in the nomination packet must undergo applicable
State review process.
After our conversation it also makes clear that the
American Heritage Rivers Initiative, for example, may not
conflict with matters of State and local government
jurisdiction, and it goes on.
But it seems to me like her statement here that day--and
she sat in the same chairs with Bruce Babbitt, if my memory is
correct, at least the day I was here.
I would like to commend you for your testimony.
Ms. Chenoweth, do you have any further questions?
Mrs. Chenoweth. No, Mr. Chairman, I have not.
Mr. Peterson. I would like to thank you for traveling here
and participating.
I guess one final thought I might have, would a legislation
that forces them to hold a large public hearing in each region
before designating be something that would be helpful?
Mr. Propes. It would be helpful. But I'm still not sure if
everybody showed up and said we don't want it that they still
wouldn't list us. It seems like there needs to be something
that there is actually a way not to get listed, if there is
enough support for that.
Mr. Peterson. There may be 200 votes for that. I'm not sure
there's 218. That's our problem. We have some here with not
much courage when it comes to going against those who have a
plan for this country that we don't happen to agree with. But
it would seem like it would be less threatening to them that if
they were at least forced to hold a well-described, good,
thoughtful public hearing in each region, which would at least
allow all of those, they should have the right to publicly
state why they have concerns.
Mr. Propes. That would certainly be better than the process
we've gone through.
Mr. Peterson. With no further advice from the real
chairman, I would consider this hearing adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
Statement of Ron Arnold, Executive Vice President, Center for the
Defense of Free Enterprise
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, my name is Ron
Arnold. I am testifying as the executive vice president of the
Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, a nonprofit citizen
organization based in Bellevue, Washington. The Center has
approximately 10,000 members nationwide, most of them in rural
natural resource industries.
Mr. Chairman, I am proud to state that the Center does not
accept government grants and has not received any government
funds since the day it was established on American Bicentennial
day, July 4, 1976.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you on behalf of our
members for holding this hearing today. It is timely indeed.
For the past year, at the urging of our increasingly concerned
members, the Center has been conducting an in-depth study of
Federal policy and rural communities. Our study, titled
``Battered Communities,'' is being released at this hearing.
You will find it attached to my hearing statement.
``Battered Communities'' was co-sponsored by three other
citizen groups, the American Land Rights Association,
F.I.G.H.T. for Minnesota, and the Maine Conservation Rights
Institute.
``Battered Communities'' delves into serious matters of
Federal policy as it affects rural community life. On page 5 we
address the most obvious problem, the urban-rural prosperity
gap--the spread in wages and unemployment between the richest
and poorest counties within each of the 50 states. While urban
America today enjoys an economic boom, rural counties are
finding themselves choked to death by Federal restrictions
designed to protect the environment from the people who live
and work in the environment.
The most disheartening aspect of the conflict over the
environment is that rural goods producers ranchers, loggers,
miners--are becoming a despised minority, morally excluded from
respect and human decency, even in Federal documents such as we
see on page 7 in an Environmental Impact Statement
characterizing miners as costly, destructive, stupid social
misfits.
Now we turn to the visible damage: Rural communities are
besieged by a bewildering array of Federal policies forcing
them to starve in the midst of plenty. These policies are
listed in part on page 8.
Mr. Chairman, let me call your attention to the most
serious problem our study uncovered: the systematic effort of a
triangle of interests to harness Federal policy to their own
agenda, against natural resource goods producers.
The Center has identified a small corps of activist Federal
employees--from the highest levels to on-the-ground
technicians--working to reshape Federal policy from within
according to agendas that paralyze goods production in rural
communities. Pages 13 through 17 discuss a few of these
activist Federal employees. To see their impact, you will find
on page 24 a chart of systematic timber sale appeals, filed in
a coordinated pattern by a bevy of environmental groups. We
found the frequent outcome was that the Forest Service simply
withdrew the timber sale without even ruling on the appeal. The
resulting mill closures are charted on page 25.
This certainly appears to be undue influence. Yet that is
not the whole story. These environmental groups were in many
cases acting at the behest of their donors on grant-driven
programs not designed by the environmental groups, but
originating within grantmaking private foundations. We
discovered, in documents such as this thick directory of
environmental grantmaking foundations, a cluster of multi-
million dollar campaigns designed to set public policy against
logging, mining and ranching according to the private
preferences of a few custodians of vast wealth. Some of these
foundations do not even accept applications for grants, but
design entire programs of social change themselves and hand-
pick the groups that will act as their agents, pushing non-
profit laws to the edge. In the hands of these privileged
people, Federal policy is being corrupted into a blunt
instrument battering rural communities.
Mr. Chairman, these are serious charges. On page 35, the
Center recommends that this Committee continue its adoption on
this vital issue with a detailed investigation of the causes
behind America's rural Battered Communities.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing on
the anguish of rural America.
------
Statement of John Conley, President, Concerned Alaskans for Resources
and Environment (CARE), Ketchikan, Alaska
Mr. Chairman:
My name is John Conley, I am the president of Concerned
Alaskans for Resources and Environment (CARE). I have also
served six years on the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly and
manage three NAPA auto parts stores located in Ketchikan,
Craig, and Wrangell Alaska.
The passage of the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990 (TTRA)
was to be the great compromise for the Tongass National Forest.
TTRA was supposed to provide increased environmental protection
as well as a sustainable forest products industry. I have
witnessed the closing of two pulp mills in Southeast Alaska and
several sawmills. At the same time I have witnessed increased
funding of local environmental groups by tax exempt national
foundations.
These closings have greatly affected both my business and
my community. In Ketchikan alone, we have lost over 544 forest
product jobs, 144 retail and support jobs, and $40 million of
local payroll. Today my company employs eight less people and
its gross receipts have declined by $1.5 million. As I look
toward the future I am extremely concerned about supporting my
family and the families of the 30 remaining employees in my
stores. Access to natural resources is vital to Southeast
Alaskans and is guaranteed by the Alaska Statehood Act.
Environmental groups have stated that tourism can and will
replace lost forest product industry jobs. Mr. Chairman, this
is simply not true. Tourism is important to our local economy
and throughout the state. I have supported and will continue to
support this growing industry. However, it a seasonal industry
providing only seasonal jobs; it does not provide families with
the benefits of year round employment. These jobs will also not
replace the 25 percent return to our communities for education
and transportation based on timber receipts.
Mr. Chairman it has become obvious to many, that increased
funding by national tax free environmental foundations to the
local environmental industry leads to decreased economic
activity and local employment. The environmental industry
states they support a value added timber industry for Southeast
Alaska. Mr. Chairman, my community and I are confused because
these same groups continue to object to harvest quantities
adequate enough to sustain even a small value added forest
products industry.
The Forest Service has a legal mandate to manage our
national forests for multiple uses which include timber
production. The new land management plan for the Tongass (TLMP)
drastically reduced the amount of land available for a long
term sustainable timber industry in Southeast Alaska. Even with
this massive reduction of the available sale quantity on the
Tongass the environmental industry continues to fight timber
production. This is not acceptable. At a minimum we need to
sustain our current economy. Legal challenges orchestrated and
financed by the national environmental lobby continues to block
multiple uses on the Tongass National Forest which is
preventing our ability to maintain a stable economy.
Mr. Chairman I believe it is time to make these tax exempt
foundations that fund the environmental industry accountable.
As a businessman if I were to provide money to someone which
they in turn used to destroy another business that would be an
illegal act under the RICO laws and I would be held
accountable. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, for the
sake of my family and the families of my community I urge you
to hold these foundations accountable.
Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee for the
opportunity to testify today.
------
Statement of Y. Leon Favreau, President, Multiple Use Association
Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee on
Resources for allowing me to express my views on the impact
Federal land use policies could have on a rural community like
mine. We agree with your statement that too often ``Federal
policies are developed from Washington, DC with little input
from rural communities that are most impacted.''
My name is Leon Favreau, president and co-founder of the
Multiple Use Association (QUA). Our 500-member group is based
in Shelburne, NH, and has been in existence since 1987. Most of
our efforts go towards exposing the public to the truth about
our nation's forests. This is something that is dearly needed
as too much bad information about forests is promulgated by our
nation's powerful environmental groups and by the media.
Everybody says they want a good forest environment. To achieve
this, however, we need to deal with the facts as they are and
the truth as it is. You will soon see the results of some of
our work when you receive an Evergreen Magazine issue on the
Northern Forest Lands. We helped raise the funds needed for the
production costs for the issue that will show the Northern
Forest Lands as they are.
I am also president of Bethel Furniture Stock, Inc., a
primary and secondary wood products manufacturing firm that
produces component parts for the furniture industry. Our
innovative wood bending process, introduced in 1986, has helped
us become what may be this country's largest custom bender of
solid wood. The last title I will share with you is that of
Chairman of the Budget Committee for the small town of
Shelburne, NH.
The concerns that I would like to express today have to do
with S. 546, ``The Northern Forest Stewardship Act.'' As you
may know, the so-called Northern Forest Lands (NFL) are
comprised of 26 million acres of primarily private forest lands
that span the state boundaries of Northern Maine, New Hampshire
& Vermont and Eastern New York. The Stewardship Act purports to
prevent harm from coming to these lands and its resident one
million people.
MUA supported the study performed by the Northern Forest
Lands Council that tried to determine what constituted a threat
to the forest. The report may have broken new ground by showing
so much concern for local people.
The Stewardship Act, however, is different. It doesn't
follow the spirit of the Council's work. We believe it will
lead to greater Federal control over our local communities. The
Council made it very clear they did not recommend increased
control. While local communities participated in the NFL study,
they haven't participated in the preparation of this
legislation. Local hearings are necessary to correct that.
I know you have heard from some in the timber industry that
support the Act. I'm here to tell you that most of us in the
local timber industry are against it. We understand that this
is just another step down a slippery slope that will mean it
will be even more difficult for us to do business in the NFL
area. Increasing the focus on government land and easement
acquisition, which the Act does, will mean a reduction in the
availability of timber.
A good local example of what happens when the government
owns forest-land is to look at the recent occurrences of the
White Mountain National Forest (WMNF). In less that 10 years,
the harvest level has been reduced from a one half of sustained
growth to a quarter. No one is confident even that low level
will be maintained. For the town of Shelburne, it used to be
considered an asset to have close to half its land in the WMNF.
Now it reduces our tax base and local employment.
Since the NFL Council's report found that our varied
forests really weren't threatened, one needs to ask, why all
this national interest in our 26 million acres? There was never
any local groundswell to put more Federal or State controls on
these private lands. Nor was there any local groundswell for
more government land purchases. Instead, this drive to change
local land use comes from a vision concocted for us by our
elite from national environmental and charitable foundation
communities. They initially promoted as examples to be copied
for our area, controlled ``greenline'' areas such as the
Federal Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area and the New York State
Adirondack Park.
The term ``greenline'' has now been discredited in the NFL
area, partially because we brought out a mayor from the
Columbia River Gorge who gave a devastating description of what
it was like living and working at home in his elite controlled
area. Widely distributed copies of his talk had a chilling
effect. Greens no longer mention the term greenline, but there
is no doubt in my mind that is still their goal for those of us
who live and work in the NFL area.
Consider the following:
1. The Wilderness Society sponsored a closed conference for
forest activists in Bethel, Maine, November of 1990 and
greenlining was on the agenda. Attached is material from this
meeting. It is telling they called greenlining a ``game.'' The
elite is playing a game with our livelihoods. At this same
meeting, an Executive Vice-President of the National Audubon
said he wanted to take the northern forest ``all back,'' and he
encouraged attendees to ``be unreasonable . . . you can do it .
. . today's hearsay is tomorrow's wisdom . . . it happens over
and over again.'' So much for promoting the truth.
2. At a meeting held in Lincoln, NH in April of 1991, a
prominent member of both the environmental and foundation
communities said he had visited all the greenline areas (and he
named them) and he agreed that none of them work, but he said
he ``just knew we could make it work here.'' He said this in
response to my criticism of the land and people control system
of greenlining. He labeled my thinking as bunker mentality. He
also said that the environmental community had $100 million to
spend on trying to achieve their goals for the Northern Forest
Lands. Given the number of known grants given to the
environmental associations that comprise the Northern Forest
Alliance and by observing all their efforts, we believe this is
possible. This individual's statement on funds took on added
meaning when we later learned he served at the time on the
board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA).
3. Tapes of the October 1992 EGA meeting off the coast of the
State of Washington revealed its interest in the NFL area.
These same tapes revealed some interesting information about
the discrepancy between what they knew about wise use groups
and the information they were promoting about them.
History has shown that when greens take a special interest in
certain legislation or regulation, it doesn't end up used as was
intended, but to further their goals. Two examples that come to mind
are the Endangered Species Act and regulations on wetlands. Nobody
intended for them to be used as they have. The green's substantial
political, financial and bureaucratic clout allows them to change
intents.
S. 546, I believe, will do nothing to help our rural communities.
Almost everything in the Act is already occurring at some level. It
will be another tool to help the greens and their funding foundations
further their land use control goals, which I believe is ``greenlining
and much more government ownership.'' If the Act is passed, the local
citizen's fight to maintain his or her land use rights and way of life
will be raised to a higher and more difficult level. Senator Leahy
isn't helping his constituents who live in Vermont's NFL area when he
continually tries to attach the Act to other pieces of Senate
legislation. I ask you to think of people like me when you consider
whether to pass on a companion House bill.
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Statement of R. Edmund Gomez, New Mexico State University, Cooperative
Extension Service, Rural Agricultural Improvement and Public Affairs
Project, Alcalde, New Mexico
Statement made and exhibits presented to the United States
House of Representatives Committee on Resources on the impact
of Federal land use policies on rural communities, June 9,
1998.
The use of communal lands in northern New Mexico dates back over
four hundred years. These same lands are now considered Public lands
and the descendants of the indigenous people and the first settlers
have continued to utilize them for as many generations. The people of
northern New Mexico rely on these Public lands for economic, cultural,
social and spiritual survival. Federal land use policy without
community input may adversely affect the survival of rural communities
in northern New Mexico.
My name is Edmund Gomez and I live in Alcalde, New Mexico. I speak
on behalf of my neighbors, friends, and family who rely heavily on
Public lands for economic, cultural, social and spiritual survival. As
an active member of the USDA Commission on Small Farms which was
commissioned by Mr. Dan Glickman, USDA Secretary of Agriculture in July
of 1997, I also speak on behalf of small farmers and ranchers from
rural communities across the country who rely on Public lands for
economic survival.
The purpose of the USDA Commission on Small Farms was to recommend
to the Secretary of Agriculture a national strategy to ensure the
continued viability of small farms and ranches and for the Commission
to determine a course of action for USDA to recognize, respect and
respond to their needs (Exhibit A: National Commission on Small Farms,
A TIME TO ACT, 1998).
Communal land use by residents of New Mexico and the Southwest has
historical roots dating back to 1598. During Spanish colonial
settlement, community land grants were granted by Spain and later
Mexico to groups of settlers and Native American Pueblos in New Mexico
and the Southwest (Exhibit B: Torrez, THE ENDURING LEGACY OF SPANISH
AND MEXICAN LAND GRANTS IN NEW MEXICO, 1998). Many of these tracts of
land are currently held as Public lands by the USDA Forest Service and
the Bureau of Land Management. Descendants of the Spanish and Mexican
land grants have continually utilized these lands for livestock
grazing, fuel wood, hunting, and timber harvesting as well as a source
of watershed for domestic, livestock and agricultural use (Exhibit C:
Meyer, THE CONTEMPORARY SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO
TO LAND USE ISSUES IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO, 1998).
New Mexico ranks forty ninth in per capita income. The northern
counties of New Mexico are some of the poorest in respect to per capita
income in the country. Over 50 percent of the land base in New Mexico
is owned by the Federal Government. Many of the residents of northern
New Mexico including the Native American Pueblos own very small parcels
of land. Some sociologists attribute the correlation of poverty to the
proportion of private versus Public land ownership. Many of these
Public lands were once owned by the ancestors of these rural
communities.
Livestock production represents over 85 percent of all agricultural
income in northern New Mexico. The average livestock producer in
northern New Mexico owns twenty head of cattle and utilizes Public
lands. Within the past fifty years, from 30 to 60 percent of the
traditional savanna grasslands in the Carson and Santa Fe National
Forests have been lost to woody shrub and tree encroachment due almost
entirely to fire suppression, thus causing loss of livestock and
wildlife habitat and economic stability within rural communities. The
snow ball effect. Some groups who desire to eliminate livestock grazing
from Public lands claim that ranchers are becoming rich off of Public
lands (Exhibit D: Wolff, THE CITY SLICKER'S GUIDE TO WELFARE RANCHING
IN NEW MEXICO, 1998). I have yet to meet a wealthy indigenous rancher
from northern New Mexico and I have lived there all of my life.
Many of the residents of northern New Mexico, including Indian
Pueblos, rely on Public lands for fuel wood and timber harvesting as
did their ancestors. A large percentage of these residents utilize fuel
wood as their only source of heat and cooking fuel. In 1994 a special
interest group filed a litigation suit based on the Endangered Species
Act with the USDA Forest Service on behalf of the Mexican Spotted Owl
on the Carson National Forest. In 1996 a Federal Court restricted all
harvest of timber and fuel wood on the Carson National Forest until the
Forest complied with the Endangered Species Act. This action prevented
local residents from obtaining fuel wood for heating and cooking. Many
families endured a very cold winter that year because of this inhumane
action. Incidentally, the Mexican Spotted Owl has never been
historically documented as living within the Carson National Forest.
Why do indigenous people continue to live in northern New Mexico
rural communities? The indigenous people of northern New Mexico speak
seven languages, including English. They have retained their culture,
tradition, social values and spirituality. They were the first and
continue to be the true environmentalists of the land, utilizing the
sustainable practices that have fed and clothed their children for many
generations; always returning more than they take. The pristine beauty
of the land remains intact and attracts a new wave of settlers every
year. Rural communities in northern New Mexico work and live as a
family. This social and cultural custom has given support during
adverse situations and has allowed them to raise their children with
the same values that have been sacred to the people for many
generations.
Congress has passed legislation dealing with Public land policy and
environmental issues that were deemed necessary and essential, but a
one size fits all policy does not work for all Public land situations.
Congress has overlooked the endangered rural communities and their
struggle for survival and a traditional way of life. We are just as
important as the other endangered species Congress is protecting. Rural
communities were excluded when Congress developed policy that would
ultimately affect their livelihood. Mr. Chairman and members of the
Committee, please find ways of amending the Clean Water Act and the
Endangered Species Act so that they will provide for the protection of
the environment as they were intended and not to be used as loopholes
for special interest groups who continue to file litigation against the
USDA Forest Service in an effort to promote their own agenda. Provide
Congressional provisions to establish local community based Public land
management boards which will determine the management objectives for
the local Public land base and would include both environmental and
economic considerations. This process will insure that rural
communities who traditionally rely on the land for survival will be
included in the policy decision process for their region.
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I extend an invitation
to visit with us in northern New Mexico so that you may first hand meet
real people who have utilized Public lands for over four hundred years.
Who depend on these lands for survival and the real people who have
retained their culture and spirituality because of their harmony with
the land. Please accept my invitation before the rural communities of
northern New Mexico have become extinct;
Thank you.
______
Statement of Hugh B. McKeen
Chairman Young and members of the Committee, first let me
thank you for the opportunity to speak before you today,
although this is the last place I want to be today or any day.
My name is Hugh B. McKeen and I am from Glenwood, New Mexico,
where I live with my wife Margie, my mother Emma Jo, my brother
Bob, his wife Donna, and their two children.
We are a family ranching operation that has been part of
Southwestern New Mexico since 1888 when my grandfather settled
there. Our land holdings are made up of state, private and
Federal lands that are co-mingled to make up a ranching unit
that supports eight people as well as providing part of the
economic base for Catron County and rural New Mexico.
We earn everything we have. Margie and I raised four
children off the ranching operation. We do not have Federal or
company insurance and retirement plans. We do not get paid
vacations. We pay our taxes and we've never been on welfare.
In addition to owning the ranch, I have served as a
Commissioner for Catron County, so I have first hand knowledge
of what is happening in rural areas of my state, as well as the
rest of the West.
I was asked to come here and speak about the impacts of the
Federal land use policies on rural communities. My personal
dealings with Federal land management agencies have been with
the U.S. Forest Service.
We were raised to take pride in our country and our
government. Bob and I both served in the U.S. Army. Bob was a
paratrooper. Once we might have considered ourselves a partner
with the Forest Service, working to protect and preserve the
land so we could pass it on to the next generation in better
shape than it was passed to us.
That hasn't been the case for quite a long time. Not only
are we not a partner, but we are THE enemy. We have learned to
distrust and fear the government that we were raised to believe
was of the people, by the people, and for the people.
On one hand, I can agree with the radical environmentalists
who are suing the agencies left and right. The government has
not done a good job of managing the land. Our forests are in
terrible shape. They are powder kegs waiting to explode with
such force that after the fires are over; the land will be
useless to anyone. The fuel load in most Southwestern forests
today compares with parking 20 or 30 fuel tankers on the land
and setting them on fire. Additionally, this growth depletes
our underground water sources, adversely affects watershed
quality and quantity, and increases parasites and diseases.
But that is not the fault of livestock grazing or logging
or recreational use and the demise of these industries will not
solve the problem. It will only get worse. Unless and until the
Forest Service undertakes an aggressive management program that
stops choking the forests with too many small trees that don't
allow full maturity of any trees, that prohibits the growth of
natural forage to provide habitat for wildlife and livestock,
the situation is only going to get worse.
However, the radical environmentalists aren't suing the
government to protect the land. They are suing the government
to control the land and the government is working right along
side them.
I have had numerous run-ins with the Forest Service over
the past several years and I am currently involved in several
lawsuits involving the Forest Service. In 1995 in renewing my
term grazing permit, which is for ten years, the Forest Service
not only didn't do the studies they said they had on our
allotment, they didn't even know what was private property and
what was government lands. AND they falsified data. AND they
shredded positive information.
Even though they finally admitted that they had false
information, the Forest Service refused to correct the record
because the studies had been completed and filed.
Because I knew what these changes in our operation would do
to our ability to feed our families, I initially refused to
sign the permit, although I had a time frame in which to come
to a final decision. Our operation is financed by the Farmers
Home Administration (FHA). Prior to the time was up for me to
sign the permit, the Forest Service contacted FHA and told them
I would not have a permit.
I immediately received foreclosure notice from FHA. I was
forced to sign the permit, which I did, noting that the
signature was under duress. I am now part of a coalition of 26
permittees in New Mexico and Arizona who are suing the Forest
Service for the changes in our permits that will put us out of
business. One lady from Arizona had her permit cut by 80
percent and her season of use by one month. What are we
supposed to do with our cattle for a month? You can't just stop
feeding them and stack them up in a warehouse until the Forest
Service decides to let us on to country that we have used for
generations.
Why did the Forest Service make these radical changes?
Because they were afraid they MIGHT be sued and because they
have a computer model and aerial and/or satellite photographs
that tell them there MIGHT be a problem. In Federal District
Court last month, the Interdisciplinary Team Leader who was in
charge of these cuts admitted that the team spent a day and
half on the ground actually looking at the tens of thousands of
acres of land before making these decisions. He also admitted
that many of the decisions made were done solely by he and his
wife.
We spent a little over a day-and-half last month in Las
Cruces on a motion for preliminary injunction to stop the
Forest Service from implementing their decisions until the
merits of our case have been heard. I was shocked to see 18
Federal employees on hand for the first day of this hearing.
Only 15 showed up for the second day.
My family and fellow permittees had to take time away from
our operations to defend ourselves against the government. We
were not paid for the time we spent in court, nor were our
expenses paid for us to drive to or stay in Las Cruces for the
hearing. But our tax dollars paid for the time and expenses of
all of these folks. What was even more frustrating is that with
all those people sitting there, the government was represented
by only two attorneys who called only three witnesses. What
were those other 10 guys for and how much did they cost us?
We hear constant whining about how the agencies don't have
enough money to do their jobs properly. And some of it may be
justified. The Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act
are certainly proving to be unfunded mandates. These laws
provide for citizen lawsuits that allow radicals to sue the
agencies at every turn for not meeting the letter of the law.
There probably isn't enough money in the entire Federal
Government to pay for the things the radical environmentalists
want, and in that respect we can sympathize with the agencies.
But the agencies working in concert with the greens to put
working American taxpayers out of business isn't going to solve
the problem. It isn't going to protect the land or the wildlife
and it isn't going to help the government.
Evidence of the Forest Service's collusion with the
radicals is the new proposed amendment for the Forest Plan for
the Southwestern Region. This document has the power not only
to eliminate grazing from National Forests, but all human use.
One prize quote in the document that even the U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture cannot define reads:
``Allow no activities that slow or prevent progression of
potential habitat (habitat within 10 years of becoming
suitable) toward suitable conditions, or that reduce the
suitability of occupied or unoccupied suitable habitat.''
It further reads, ``the term `species habitat' encompasses
all stream courses (bank to bank) which are occupied,
unoccupied suitable, potential, or designated or proposed
critical habitat . . .'' Another area says, ``exclude off-road
vehicle use from within species habitat and riparian areas.''
Given the first quote, it sounds like ``species habitat''
could be virtually anywhere any thing might want to go . . .
including your neighborhood McDonalds.
Most of us in natural resource industries have our whole
lives and that of our families for generations invested in our
operations. Our ranches aren't just jobs. They are our homes,
they are our culture. They are our values. They are our lives.
If we are forced off our ranches, where are we to live? How are
we to feed our families?
I often hear these questions compared to the buggy whip
industry. Nobody saved them. Why should any useless industry be
saved? We are not producing a product that is no longer needed.
We are part of a minute percentage of Americans, less than 2
percent, who provide food and fiber for the rest of the nation
as well as a large part of the rest of the world. We are part
of the safest and most wholesome food supply in the entire
world.
Our Cedar Breaks allotment is also at issue in two suits
filed by radical environmentalists against the Forest Service
in New Mexico and Arizona regarding endangered species. Instead
of standing their ground and fighting, the Forest Service
rolled over and negotiated a ``stipulation'' with the greens
that would require fencing some 60 of 160 allotments off
riparian areas and biweekly or weekly monitoring by the agency.
Fortunately, the livestock industry had intervened in the
suit on behalf of the permittees involved because the Forest
Service certainly exhibited no concern for them or their
rights. The industry refused to sign off on the stipulation so
the Court refused to sign it. THEN the Forest Service and the
greens simply made the document a settlement agreement that did
not require the participation of the livestock industry or the
Court and went on their merry way. Never did the Forest Service
consult with the permittees or consider the private property
rights they were impairing if not outright taking.
In New Mexico water is a private property right. Many of
the fences the Forest Service has agreed to put up will prevent
water right owners from using their water and could subject
them to forfeiture of the right for non-use. Additionally,
there is private property co-mingled with the Forest Service
lands that will be affected by the fencing.
Not only does the settlement agreement affect private
property rights, but it breaks numerous other Federal laws as
well as the Forest Service's own policy. The National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) calls for assessment to be done
on the environmental, economic, social and cultural impacts of
major Federal actions. The potential of erasing some 60 small
business in one region certainly appears to be a major Federal
action in my book, but the Forest Service entered into the
settlement agreement without complying with NEPA on the
affected allotments.
The Forest Service violated the Administrative Procedures
Act (APA) by failing to allow grazing permittees to participate
in actions and decisions relative to their individual
allotments. The Forest Service violated its' own policy by
providing no formal decision documents to permittees that are
appealable.
The Forest Service's own acting Director of Range for the
Southwestern Region admitted under oath in Federal District
Court in Tucson that their actions would result in numerous
appeals and lawsuits.
Making the situation even worse is the fact that even if
the Forest Service weren't breaking all of these laws and
regulations in the name of the Endangered Species Act and every
permittee was happy to comply, the Forest Service would not be
able to keep up their end of the bargain with the agreement.
The elk in the area won't permit it. In a 20-mile radius of
Reserve, New Mexico, the New Mexico Game & Fish Department
estimates there are 10,000 head of elk. That is one-seventh of
the total elk population in New Mexico. Those elk don't know
about the settlement agreement and they are going to tear down
fences. When the fences are down, the cattle are gong to cross
them, and then the permittee is in trouble. Forest Service
employees have already admitted publicly that they won't be
able to keep the fences up.
Additionally, where is the Forest Service going to get the
personnel to monitor all those allotments on a weekly and/or
biweekly basis? What other jobs are going to be left undone?
Prior to the signing of the settlement agreement in Tucson
in April, Forest Service employees were on the ground trying to
coerce permittees into agreeing to fence their allotments off
from streams without protecting their rights of appeal. Now the
Forest Service employees are on the ground telling permittees
that they are changing the way they are doing business because
they have a court order. In a Forest Service press release the
agency refers to the agreement as a stipulation. It is bad
enough that the Forest Service betrayed us in this manner, but
then they lie about it!
The question being discussed today is the impact of Federal
land use policies on rural communities. I am here to tell you
that if the Forest Service persists in its present manner there
will be no rural communities for you to worry about.
Catron County is made up of 2,500 people in Southwestern
New Mexico, down from 2,900 just a few years ago. The
traditional major industries for the County have been logging
and livestock. The timber industry was literally killed by the
Forest Service because of lawsuits filed by radical
environmentalists, nearly breaking the County. Livestock is now
the major component in the economy. Without livestock
production, there will be no economy in Catron County.
We hear a lot about how tourism will make up the difference
when we lose production industries but that simply isn't true.
When recreationists come to our area, they come with ice chests
filled with food and drink bought at big city discount stores.
What little they buy at local markets isn't enough for them to
make a living on. They arrive with gas tanks filled with low
price gas purchased at big city discounts. They are seasonal
and can't be counted on month in and month out for rural
businesses to pay the bills and keep the doors open.
Catron County is no different from every other rural county
in the West. Maybe we saw what was coming a little sooner than
most and have tried to put in place policies that would protect
our economy like land use planning committees.
Another question I would like for you to consider is who is
funding the litigation that is driving Federal land use
policies. The Tucson, Arizona based Southwest Center For
Biological Diversity, who by the way has just petitioned the
Department of Interior to list two more species directed at
removing cattle from the Gila Forest, has filed some 75
lawsuits under the citizens lawsuit provisions I mentioned
earlier.
According to a story in the Albuquerque Journal written by
Mike Taugher, the only reporter in the Southwest listed as a
contact in the Forest Service's Communication Plan, in 1995 the
Southwest Center paid only $2,201 in legal expenses. The
group's director states that they don't pay for lawsuits.
There are two reasons that these radical environmentalists
don't pay for their lawsuits. One is that they are funded by
nonprofit foundations who are answerable to no one for their
actions. According the news article, the Pew Charitable Trust,
a Philadelphia-based foundation, pumped nearly $700,000 into
radical environmental groups between 1995 and 1997. Another
nearly $228,000 was provided to these same groups via four
other sources including Ted Turner, the Levinson Foundation,
and the W. Alton Jones Foundation.
There are no voters in these foundations, no customers, no
investors. They are tax exempt and most of them are based in
the East while they are setting policy thousands of miles away
in the West where they don't have to see or live with the
consequences of their actions.
The other source of money for these radicals is you folks,
the Federal Government. Until recently the Justice Department
had a policy of simply paying costs to the suing party any time
they lost or settled a suit. We have been told that in the
future the policy will be for the suing party to have to at
least fight to have their costs paid. Believe it when you see
it.
I don't want to mislead you. Natural resource industries
are filing suits against the agencies ourselves. We are left
with no other choice. The agencies are not protecting our
interests and are not even taking our interests into
consideration. But we have no foundations to pump hundreds of
thousands of dollars into our efforts. We are funding our
litigation with bake sales, dances and ropings, and the $5 and
$10 contributions of widows who know we are right and that we
must win if our rural areas are to survive.
In closing, I would like to say that I am proud to be
before you today and that I am proud to be in our great
nation's capitol. But I am not. I am sick at heart and soul at
the shape I find our country in today. I am sick that the hard
earned dollars of New Mexico's cattle producers had to be spent
for me to be here today to tell you how our government is
literally killing us. I can only hope and pray that all of you
will do something to stop this madness before the situation
gets any worse.
Thank you.
------
Statement of Donald R. Wesson, Pulp & Paperworkers' Resource Council,
Southern Pine Regional Director
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and this Committee for
holding this very important hearing, and for allowing me to
participate.
My name is Don Wesson. I am the vice president of United
Paperworkers' International Union Local 1533 located in
McGehee, Arkansas. I serve as the southern pine regional
director of the Pulp & Paperworkers' Resource Council. I am
currently employed in the pulp & paper industry as an
industrial mechanic. I reside in Desha County, Arkansas and I'm
a constituent of the 4th Congressional District.
A few years ago, I was like most all Americans. I went to
work, paid my share of taxes, voted in most elections, and
depended on my elected officials to take care of me. I've
always felt my freedoms, as well as my property was protected.
After all, America was founded under the Constitution. One day
I heard some disturbing news of how a spotted owl put thousands
of my union brothers and sisters out of a job in the very
industry in which I am employed. I started paying more
attention to what my government was doing, and realized some of
those elected officials in which I placed my trust, was not
looking out for my well being, or the well being of America. It
was then that I realized that the world is run by those who
show up, and I would start showing up. It was at that time I
got involved with the PPRC.
The Pulp & Paperworkers' Resource Council is a grassroots
group consisting of labor workers who work in the pulp, paper
and woodproducts industries of America. We have lost thousands
of jobs in our industry in the past few years due to various
government regulations. I'm here today to address ``The
American Heritage Rivers.'' We feel this is just another
governmental program that will end up hurting our communities
and cost us more industry jobs.
I live in Desha County Arkansas, which borders the mighty
Mississippi River, the life blood of America. The Mississippi
River is among the top ten rivers that is already nominated as
heritage rivers. I have had several meetings with the Office of
Council on Environmental Quality, concerning this nomination. I
have met with Mr. Ray Clark, Associate Director of the CEQ as
well as the chairman of American Heritage Rivers, on three
different occasions. Mr. Clark keeps insisting that the
American Heritage Rivers is the greatest thing since motherhood
and apple pie. He expressed that lies are being told about
American Heritage Rivers. He insisted that there are no new
regulations, no new money, and this is truly a bottom up
program. It is community based, and there will be no impact on
private property. He stated that money was already in place.
The purpose of this program would be to just manage the rivers,
and to administer the funds where needed. This is why I have a
grave concern over this executive order.
If a ``river community'' is designated for this iniative,
there are potentially serious negative implications for local
governments. Depending on the direction the project takes,
local land use zoning boards could be negated, or completely
bypassed. There is nothing in the language that would allow a
designated community, or individual land owners, the ability to
opt out of this program. Without the right to opt out, a
private land owner or local government, should be concerned
about losing any power of income or development of assets, as
well as its sovereignty.
The idea of using a ``river navigator'' to coordinate the
river communities efforts in itself is somewhat a disturbing
idea. When the person selected can be a Federal or non-Federal
employee selected jointly by the river community and Federal
agencies, the potential for conflict of interest exist. Many
agencies, such as the Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife
Service, and the Army Corps of Engineers have become more and
more active in reducing or restricting the use of our natural
resources. If the ``river navigator'' is chosen from an agency
that has a definite preservationist slant, the chances of the
``river communities'' choosing a plan to the detriment of
private property rights and industrial development would be
greatly increased.
Whenever tourism, economic security, environmental
protection, and protecting/preserving our heritage are mixed
into one iniat1ve, the American public becomes skeptical. This
mixture in the past has meant the decrease in high paying
industrial jobs. Even when there are tourism jobs created, the
employees are not paid well, and in many cases are seasonal
jobs.
I urge you Mr. Chairman, and this Committee, to stop the
American Heritage Rivers Initiative. If this program is as
great as we are told, then the office of the CEQ would not mind
it having congressional oversight. We do not need 16 different
governmental agencies and a river navigator to manage our
rivers, or to regulate our private lands that borders these
rivers.
Any proposal that is set up under the premise of
streamlining government, but yet would still include at least 9
different cabinet positions, as well as countless other
government agencies, hardly make this initiative more user
friendly. Instead, it would just lead to another level of
bureaucracy that the American public is already weary of.
If you have any questions concerning how too many levels of
government bureaucracy affects the jobs in resource based
industries, you could ask any one of the over one hundred
thousand workers from the Pacific Northwest who lost their job
over a spotted owl.
------
Statement of Jack Richardson, Val Verde County Commissioner
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the Natural
Resources Committee on the American Heritage Rivers Initiative
and the pending application for the Rio Grande. I am Jack
Richardson, the County Administrator in Val Verde County Texas,
which is located on the Rio Grande. Val Verde County has an
estimated population of 48,590, borders the Rio Grande River
for the entire length of the county and encompasses 3,171
square miles and 62 square miles of water. I believe that these
facts qualify Val Verde County to have a voice in any
initiative that imposes additional Federal regulations upon the
county. I have lived there for more than 25 years. I know many
families that have lived and worked there for generations. We
do not need a Federal initiative to tell us how important the
Rio Grande is and to recognize the rich culture and heritage
that exists along the river. We honor our culture and heritage
every day as we go to work, raise our families and simply live
life along the river.
I worked for the U.S. Border Patrol for 32 years. While I
will not claim to be an expert on the Rio Grande, I have a
lifetime of experience of working in this region and the Rio
Grande played a significant role in that work. I would like to
know how many members of the Blue Ribbon Panel have even seen
the Rio Grande, perhaps one at the most.
Now, I understand the Rio Grande is on a list along with
several other rivers as a potential candidate to be named an
American Heritage River. Exactly what that would mean for the
communities and the people who must live and work along the
river is still not fully known. I know the full impact will not
be known until the initiative is being implemented. At that
time, I am afraid it would be too late to stop the initiative.
The AHRI is another unfunded mandate, of which the true costs
to the local communities and the impacts on income, property
rights, production and competitiveness are still unknown. I am
here today to make sure that the concerns of all those who live
and work along the river are heard.
I want it to be fully understood, that non support for the
Rio Grande nomination flows up and down the river. Many
communities in my region do not want the strings that come
attached to Federal programs. I have with me today resolutions
and letters of non support from counties that are located along
the Rio Grande or within its watershed. One of those county
resolutions is from my home county of Val Verde. I have letters
of opposition from many agriculture organizations and property
rights organizations. All total I have 77 resolutions and
letters of non support for the designation of the Rio Grande as
an American Heritage River. This represents thousands of Texas
citizens that do not want the AHRI in Texas. Mr. Desmond Smith,
President of the Trans Texas Heritage Association, also
traveled to Washington, D.C. to testify on the behalf of the
membership that represents 15.5 million acres of private land
in Texas, against the AHRI and a designation for the Rio
Grande. The San Antonio Express News recently quoted Governor
Bush as stating ``So when it comes to the ONRW or the American
Heritage Rivers, whatever it is, I'm against. I will not, so
long as I'm governor, concede the sovereign rights of Texas.''
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Congressman Henry
Bonilla (R-TX-23) have both sent letters to the Council on
Environmental Quality (CEQ) in opposition to the Rio Grande
designation. Congressman Bonilla requested his Congressional
District not be included in the initiative and seven other
members of the Texas delegation also requested their districts
not be included in the initiative. There are 800 miles of the
Rio Grande that run through the Congressman's district. For
some reason CEQ ignored Congressman Bonilla's opt out letter
and further misrepresented his position by stating in a letter
to Senator Hutchison that Congressman Bonilla supported a
designation for the Rio Grande. Congressman Bonilla had to send
another letter to CEQ restating his position.
Regardless of our expressed opposition against the
designation of the Rio Grande as an American Heritage River,
the nomination has continued to proceed. How many more
resolutions do we need to pass, how many more letters do we
need to write and how many more times do we need to testify
before Congress that we do not want the Rio Grande designated
as an American Heritage River? When is CEQ and the Blue Ribbon
Panel going to listen to us?
From the beginning there has been a back door attempt to
get the Rio Grande listed as an American Heritage River,
regardless of the views of those who live and work along the
river. There have been secret meetings, attempts to prevent the
public from having a voice at so called ``public hearings'' and
an unwillingness to accept the fact that the AHRI is not wanted
for the Rio Grande.
I would like to quote an excerpt from the letter sent to
Senator Hutchison by the CEQ. It was dated May 7, 1998, and
signed by Kathleen McGinty. It states ``The American Heritage
Rivers initiative is one hundred percent locally-driven.'' I
ask this Committee, if CEQ was really listening to the local
communities, would the Rio Grande still be in consideration for
nomination?
Not only is the AHRI in the process of being imposed on the
local communities against their wishes, but this is another
layer of bureaucracy that is not necessary. Do you have any
idea how many Federal agencies already have their toes dipped
in the Rio Grande and are controlling every action involving
that river? I can assure you that we have enough problems
working with the EPA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
the Army Corps of Engineers and the International Boundary and
Water Commission, under the current authority and programs they
have. These Federal agencies do not need to have their
authority expanded under any program, especially a program that
still does not have standards for evaluation and guidelines for
establishing priorities.
Those of us who live along the Rio Grande understand better
than anyone the need to clean it up. We all want to live in a
clean environment, but creating another layer of government to
work through is not the way to go about it.
This is an international river and it will take
international cooperation to clean it up. Just take a few
minutes to visit with any one who works or lives along the
river and you will soon come to realize that the Rio Grande
cannot be treated like any other river. The culture and
heritage that makes the river so special also creates many
unique problems we must address. I do not see that this
initiative will address our unique situation, which will just
serve to create more problems.
From the very beginning there has been a cloud of questions
hanging over this initiative. What would a designation mean for
river communities? What benefits or drawbacks would this hold
for those who live along the river? And if it is such a good
deal for the communities, why have the supporters felt the need
to meet in secret and misrepresent the views of those who
oppose the AHRI? These questions have never been answered and I
suspect that they will not be answered.
The American Heritage Rivers Initiative has been imposed
from the top down from the very beginning. Well, I am here
today to speak on behalf of the many counties, communities,
citizens, and organizations who are represented by these
letters and resolutions of non support. They send a loud and
clear message that we are opposed to the Rio Grande being
designated as an American Heritage River. Thank You. I would be
pleased to answer any questions at this time.
------
Statement of Hon. Barbara Cubin, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Wyoming
Thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this important oversight
hearing. Although there are many issues that I could speak to
today, I want to concentrate on one that is on the minds of my
constituents. That is the Clinton Administration's proposal to
reform the 25 percent timber payments to counties.
As far as I am concerned the proposal is merely an attempt
of this Administration to conform to the extreme environmental
agenda of the Sierra Club: to stop all logging in the lower 48
states!
For nearly 100 years Congress has honored its compact with
people living in and around national forests. The compact calls
for the Federal Government to share 25 percent of the gross
receipts it generates from timber production on forest service
lands. To counties which are heavily federalized, the compact
also infers that the Federal lands will be managed to help
drive the economic engines of rural communities.
Taking away the 25 percent fund and replacing it with this
entitlement program may benefit some counties, but only for the
short term. What we must do is look at the big picture. By
adopting the entitlement program timber production would drop
significantly, much more than we've seen in the past 12 years,
saw mills would close, and those in my state that have depended
on the timber would be out of work.
Through this proposal the Clinton Administration is asking
Congress to walk away from that compact and to replace the
existing relationship with an entitlement program which would
be subject to the whims of the congressional appropriations
committees.
Like I said before, this proposal is a precursor to ending
Federal timber harvesting! Federal 25 percent and PILT payments
are only a small fraction of the total economic impact
generated through the sale of Federal timber.
Even if Congress fully funds this wrongheaded proposal,
many communities will suffer irreparable damage due to the loss
of the basic industries which are the core of the local
economies in these communities.
Congress must not walk away from its compact with the
school children of rural America! We must not turn our backs on
rural communities that depend on timber production to put food
on their tables and clothes on their backs!
Again, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you holding this hearing.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses.
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