[House Hearing, 106 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FUNDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL INITIATIVES AND THEIR IMPACT ON LOCAL
COMMUNITIES
=======================================================================
OVERSIGHT HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FORESTS AND FOREST HEALTH
of the
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 15, 2000, WASHINGTON, DC.
__________
Serial No. 106-87
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
house
or
Committee address: http://www.house.gov/resources
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
67-408 WASHINGTON : 2000
COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana GEORGE MILLER, California
JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
JIM SAXTON, New Jersey BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota
ELTON GALLEGLY, California DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California Samoa
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii
KEN CALVERT, California SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
RICHARD W. POMBO, California OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO, Puerto
WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North Rico
Carolina ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam
WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ADAM SMITH, Washington
KEVIN BRADY, Texas CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania DONNA MC CHRISTENSEN, Virgin
RICK HILL, Montana Islands
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado RON KIND, Wisconsin
JIM GIBBONS, Nevada JAY INSLEE, Washington
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
GREG WALDEN, Oregon TOM UDALL, New Mexico
DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania MARK UDALL, Colorado
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
MIKE SIMPSON, Idaho RUSH D. HOLT, New Jersey
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
Lloyd A. Jones, Chief of Staff
Elizabeth Megginson, Chief Counsel
Christine Kennedy, Chief Clerk/Administrator
John Lawrence, Democratic Staff Director
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Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho, Chairman
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee ADAM SMITH, Washington
JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia
JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania RON KIND, Wisconsin
RICK HILL, Montana GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado TOM UDALL, New Mexico
DON SHERWOOD, Pennsylvania MARK UDALL, Colorado
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
Doug Crandall, Staff Director
Anne Heissenbuttel, Legislative Staff
Jeff Petrich, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held February 15, 2000................................... 1
Statements of Members:
Chenoweth-Hage, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Idaho......................................... 01
Prepared State of........................................ 04
Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Washington.............................................. 06
Statements of witnesses:
Arnold, Mr. Ron, Executive Vice President, Center for the
Defense of Free Enterprise, Bellevue, Washington........... 08
Prepared State of........................................ 11
DeVargas, Mr. Antonio, Officer, Rio Arriba County Land
Planning Department, La Madera, New Mexico................. 62
Prepared State of........................................ 64
Lyall, Mr. Jeff A., Disabled Outdoorsman, Catawba, Virginia.. 58
Prepared State of........................................ 60
White Horse Capp, Ms. Diana, Chairman, Upper Columbia
Resource Council, Curlew, Washington....................... 44
Prepared State of........................................ 46
Additional Material Supplied:
Correspondence............................................... 99
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON FUNDING OF ENVIRONMENTAL INITIATIVES AND THEIR
IMPACT ON LOCAL COMMUNITIES
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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Forest and Forest Health,
Committee on Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m., in
room 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Helen
Chenoweth-Hage (Chairperson of the Subcommittee) presiding.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. The Subcommittee is meeting today to
hear testimony on the funding of environmental initiatives and
their impact on local communities.
In last week's Economist magazine, one of the lead stories
was about non-governmental organizations, or NGO's. The article
said that ``the general public tends to see them as uniformly
altruistic, idealistic, and independent. But they are often far
from being `non-governmental', as they claim. And they are not
always a good force''. The Economist goes on to say that NGO's
``deserve much sharper scrutiny''. That is what we are doing
here today: examining the funding of NGO's environmental
initiatives on the national forests and their impact on local
communities.
A full Committee hearing on the Impact on Federal Land Use
Policies on Rural Communities'' was held on June 9, 1998. At
that hearing, it was pointed out that in States with a high
percentage of Federal land, there is a significant urban-rural
prosperity gap. Urban areas are booming while rural areas are
reeling. Many witnesses attributed this to Federal land
management policies and outlined specific examples of how
current Federal land management policies have had devastating
impacts on the economies of their communities. Several
witnesses pointed out that many of the destructive Federal
policies were implemented as a result of NGO environmental
advocacy, financed by tax exempt grants from private charitable
foundations.
Environmental groups are relying more and more on wealthy
non-profit foundations to fund their operations. According to a
recent article in the Boston Globe, foundations invest at least
$400 million a year in environmental advocacy and research. The
largest environmental grant-maker, the $4.9 billion Pew
Charitable Trusts, gives more than $35 million annually to
environmental groups.
Advocacy for national forests policy initiatives appears to
be largely financed by charitable foundations through tax-free
grants. For example, the Clinton-Gore Administration's Roadless
Initiative may withdraw up to 60 million acres of National
Forest Lands for multiple use. This initiative appears to have
been organized and funded by charitable foundations, primarily
the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts.
Since September 1998, Pew has given the National Audubon
Society more than $3.5 million in tax-free grants to organize
the Heritage Forests Campaign, a coalition of about a dozen
environmental groups. The sole objective of the Campaign
appears to be the creation of widespread public support for the
Clinton-Gore Administration's initiative to restrict access on
60 million acres of national forest lands.
The Heritage Forests Campaign illustrates several potential
problems with foundation-financed environmental political
advocacy, namely, the lack of fair, broadbased representation
and the absence of accountability. Particularly disturbing is
this Administration's acquiescence to the Campaign in the
setting of policy. At a recent hearing on the Roadless
Initiative, I asked George Frampton, Director of the Council on
Environmental Quality, for the names of all those attending any
meetings he held regarding the development of this initiative.
The list he sent in response is a who's-who in the
environmental community. Even more telling is that not one
individual representing recreation, industry, academia, county
commissioners, or local schools were in attendance. Only
representatives of the national environmental groups
participated.
Now only was the public excluded during these meetings, but
so was Congress. The Administration's Roadless Initiative
appears to be an attempt to bypass the role of Congress. Under
Article IV, Section 3 of the United States Constitution,
Congress possesses the ultimate power over management and use
of lands belonging to the United States. If the Roadless
Initiative is universally popular, why can't the Heritage
Forests Campaign get it enacted by Congress through the normal
legislative process? Administrative directives such as the
Roadless Initiative bypass Congress and centralize policymaking
authority within the hands of unelected bureaucrats in the
executive branch. Foundation-funded advocacy groups make back
room deals thus denying the average citizen a voice and input
into the policy through their elected representatives in
Congress. As a result, our Government becomes more remote and
unresponsive to the needs of the average citizen.
To whom is the Heritage Forests Campaign accountable? This
Campaign is put together by foundations, not the participants.
The grantees are accountable to the foundations that fund them,
not even their own members. Foundations have no voters, no
customers, no investors. The people who run big foundations are
part of an elite and insulated group. They are typically
located hundreds or even thousands of miles from the
communities affected by policies that they advocate. They
receive little or no feedback from those affected by their
decisions, nor are they accountable to anyone for promoting
policies which adversely affect the well being of rural people
and local economies. Today's witnesses will tell us how their
communities are being crushed by an inaccessible and faceless
movement wielding great power and influence.
The Economist is right to say that NGO's deserve much
sharper scrutiny. I agree, but even more important is the issue
of the undue influence being granted these groups by the
Administration. As we progress through this and future
hearings, I believe it will become clear that this isn't an
issue concerning the environment--not at all--but rather one
concerning power and its use for political ends, with rural
communities being trampled in the process.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage follows:]
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Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. And now the Chairman recognizes Mr.
Smith, the Ranking Minority Member, for any statement he may
have.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON
Mr. Smith of Washington. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think
there are some good things that we are going to discuss today,
and some issues that are very legitimate to raise and to talk
about. There are also some things that I am troubled about
about this approach.
What is good, and what I think is very fair to raise, are
issues of policy. There are a variety of different
environmental policies, the Roadless Initiative being one of
them; what is the proper use for our public lands--I think all
of those things should be discussed as broadly as possible in
as many open hearings as is humanly possible--and I think all
of that is very good.
What I am puzzled about is why we seem to think, whether
you agree with them or not--and we live in a democracy, and
part of being in a democracy means that people you disagree
with have a right to express those opinions and have a right to
advocate for those opinions in just about any way they see fit
within the law--the Pew Trusts and a variety of others are
doing just that. You may disagree with what they are doing. You
may disagree with their policies and, if you do, I would
strongly urge you--as, in fact, you have done--to form groups
with opposite opinions, and lobby your Members of Congress, and
lobby the Administration, and go about the democratic process
the way it should be done. But for us to have a hearing and say
that a group of people who happen to advocate a particular set
of policies that some folks don't like, somehow need to be held
up to higher scrutiny than any other group that is advocating a
policy, is a little bit ridiculous to me.
When you look at environmental policy, I hear all the time
from the other side, ``Oh, corporations have undue influence''.
You know, back in the early part of the Republican Congress in
1995 and 1996, there were endless accusations that corporations
were actually drafting the amendments or drafting the
legislation that was going to affect environmental policy, and
at the time I was not as troubled by that as most people. I was
troubled by some of the policies, I will grant you, but the
fact that citizens of our country were out advocating for a
position, trying to exercise influence, is what this process is
all about. I mean, to hold these people up and say, ``No, you
are not supposed to do that'', as I said, is just ridiculous.
And it seems to me that the focus of this hearing is saying
that these trusts, charitable trusts--individuals, really--who
come together to advocate for a position don't have a right to
do so is ridiculous. They absolutely have a right to do so. And
if you disagree with them, organize on the other side, lobby
your Members of Congress, lobby the Administration, and try to
get that position changed.
Now, it was mentioned the Roadless policy is not
universally popular. Absolutely, it is not. I can tell you in
my area it is not. I have people on both sides of that issue,
many who strongly advocate for it for a variety of different
reasons, many others who think that it is an absolutely
horrible idea. And I have heard from both of them, and that is
great. I hope I continue to hear from both of them, and all
sides in between and beyond, and I hope the Administration
does, too.
Now, it is quite possible the Administration will adopt a
policy that some folks don't like. It is quite possible that
Members of Congress sitting up here will adopt policies that
these folks don't like, and they will scream bloody murder
about it, and that, too, is fine. But it is not fine to stand
up here and say ``How dare these folks advocate for a
position''. That is what we do in this country. That is what
makes this country so great. People have a right to advocate
for whatever positions they believe in. They have a right to
marshall their resources toward doing that within the bounds of
campaign finance laws, but they have the absolute right to do
that.
So, I hope that the bulk of this hearing will focus on some
of these policies. I think we are going to have some excellent
testimony from folks who are affected by these policies and who
will challenge some of them, and then we, as lawmakers, as we
are, will make a decision on what is right, what is wrong, what
we think is in the best interest of people. But these folks
have a right to say their piece, the Pew Trust and all the
people who are affiliated have a right to say their piece.
And I will make one closing comment. I think we, as
legislators, have this tendency whenever we are losing an
argument, to attack the process, and I submit to you that that
is to our own detriment. Just as in the 1995 and 1996 years
when people on the other side were attacking not just the
policies but the process, who were saying, ``Gosh, it is just
horrible that these corporations are talking about
environmental policy, that proves the whole system is
corrupt''. Flip it around, you have people saying, ``Look at
the way these environmentalists are advocating policies, that
is just horrible and an abuse of the process''.
Both sides, when you do that, you damage the whole process.
You damage your own ability to pass an issue because back in
1995 and 1996, if it was the environmentalists saying the
process was flawed, well, now, if they start to get the upper
hand and win using the same methods that their enemies used
before, they have indicted a process they are now participating
in. The process works fine on both sides.
Advocate, push, use your influence, lobby, do what your
democracy allows you to do, and I hope you will come out on
top, but let us not condemn the process just because we happen
to lose an argument. I think that is very damaging to democracy
and very damaging to the people's belief in our democracy,
which is suffering from just such a problem right now.
So, I hope the hearing will focus on issues and not
criticizing people for merely advocating things that they
believe in.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. I ask for unanimous consent for Mr.
Nethercutt and Mr. Cannon to sit in with this Committee at this
hearing. If there is no objection, so ordered.
I will now introduce our panel. I feel we have a very
outstanding panel today, and I look forward to hearing from all
four of you.
Mr. Ron Arnold is Executive Vice President of the Center
for the Defense of Free Enterprise, Bellevue, Washington, and
author of a number of very enlightening books, and one that
prompted this hearing. Welcome, Mr. Arnold.
Mr. Jeff Lyall, Disabled Outdoorsman from Catawba,
Virginia. Welcome.
And Mr. Antonio DeVargas, Officer of Rio Arriba County Land
Planning Department, La Madera, New Mexico, and it is really
good to see you again. Welcome.
And now I would like to ask Mr. Nethercutt to introduce the
next witness.
Mr. Nethercutt. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you for
allowing the members of the Subcommittee to sit for a few
minutes to take a moment to introduce Diana White Horse Capp.
I must say, as a member of the Appropriations Committee on
the Interior Subcommittee, it helps us, Chairman, to have this
oversight assessment that goes on in an Authorizing committee
and the Resources Committee to help us understand a little
better appropriate appropriations for the expenditure for
taxpayer dollars. So I am delighted to have a chance to sit in
this hearing for a time.
But it is a pleasure for me to introduce Diana White Horse
Capp this afternoon to the Subcommittee. She is a resident of
Ferry County, Weshington, in the northeastern corner of the 5th
Congressional District, which I represent. This is some of the
most beautiful country in the State of Washington, and Diana is
certainly a part of the landscape. She has been very active in
Federal land management and property rights issues. Her diverse
heritage and culture have given her great insight into these
important issues. She is an asset to our community in Eastern
Washington, and I am delighted that she could be here today,
and welcome her on behalf of this Subcommittee, and proudly
representing the east side of the State of Washington. Thank
you, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you, Mr. Nethercutt.
As explained in our first hearing, it is the intention of
the Chairman to place all outside witnesses under the oath.
This is a formality of this Committee that is meant to assure
open and honest discussion and should not affect the testimony
given by the witnesses. I believe that all of you were informed
of this and were sent a copy of the Committee rules. So, if you
will stand and raise your right arm to the square.[Witnesses
sworn.]
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. The Chair recognizes Mr. Arnold for
his testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MR. RON ARNOLD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CENTER
FOR THE DEFENSE OF FREE ENTERPRISE, BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON;
ACCOMPANIED BY MR. JEFF A. LYALL, DISABLED OUTDOORSMAN,
CATAWBA, VIRGINIA; MS. DIANA WHITE HORSE CAPP, CHAIRMAN, UPPER
COLUMBIA RESOURCE COUNCIL, CURLEW, WASHINGTON; AND MR. ANTONIO
DeVARGAS, OFFICER, RIO ARRIBA COUNTY LAND PLANNING DEPARTMENT,
LA MADERA, NEW MEXICO
TESTIMONY OF MR. RON ARNOLD
Mr. Arnold. Madam Chairman, Members of the Committee, my
name is Ron Arnold. I am the Executive Vice President of the
Center for Defense of Free Enterprise, a nonprofit organization
based in Bellevue, Washington. The Center does not accept and
has never received Government funds.
Madam Chairman, I would like to thank you for holding this
hearing today. It is timely, indeed. My Center recently
completed a book-length study on the finding of environmental
initiatives and their impacts on rural communities. The book is
titled Undue Influence: Wealthy Foundations, Grant-Driven
Environmental Groups, and Zealous Bureaucrats That Control Your
Future.
In a nutshell, the message of Undue Influence is that the
environmental movement is a three-cornered structure beginning
with tax-exempt foundations which devise multi-million-dollar
environmental programs to eliminate resource extraction
industries and private property rights. The foundations direct
their funds to the second leg of the triangle, environmental
groups with insider access to the third leg, executive branch
agencies. This powerful ``iron triangle'' unfairly influences
Federal policy to devastate local economies and private
property.
In the brief time since Undue Influence was released last
October, so many new outrages have come from the executive
branch that they demand separate attention. Therefore, my
Center has documented these new developments in a special
report titled Power To Hurt, which is being released at this
hearing. You will find it attached to my written testimony.
If you will turn to page 4 of Power To Hurt, you will see
how the first leg of the triangle works. Joshua Reichert, the
Pew Charitable Trusts' Environmental Director, once wrote,
``For considerable sums of money, public opinion can be molded,
constituents mobilized, issues researched, and public officials
buttonholed, all in a symphonic arrangement''.
Madam Chairman, there is evidence that the Pew Charitable
Trusts planned an end-run around Congress and arranged the
Clinton Administration's new policy to eliminate access to
almost 60 million acres of Federal land. They did it by an
initiative they called the Heritage Forest Campaign. Pew grants
of more than $3 million have gone to the second leg of this
triangle, the National Audubon Society. Audubon funneled the
money to 12 other environmental groups under its supervision.
You will find the list on page 5.
Audubon got a letter of support signed by 170 members of
the House of Representatives for their access closure program.
One wonders how they did that without using tax-subsidized Pew
money to lobby Congress.
But that was not enough. Audubon hired the Mellman Group,
Inc., the President's own pollster, to produce results saying
that the public favored wilderness over jobs. They had to
justify destroying thousands of rural jobs for an urban
movement's political victory.
Audubon gave those poll results to the third leg of the
triangle, the White House Chief of Staff. Shortly thereafter,
President Clinton sent his October 13, 1999 memo to the
Secretary of Agriculture calling for permanent roadless status
for those 60 million acres of Federal land.
Audubon was able to produce this controversial result
because its new Director of Public Policy is Dan Beard, who
came straight from the Clinton Administration, where he served
as head of the Bureau of Reclamation.
Pew is only one of dozens of foundations orchestrating our
lives behind the scenes. The Turner Foundation last spring
approached a cluster of environmental groups offering a $5
million grant to create a new group that would enhance their
mailing lists by adding legislative districts, voting records,
party affiliations and other political data for each name,
which would be prohibitively expensive for individual groups to
do by themselves. That new group, called the Partnership
Project, is now compounding its members' electioneering power
at the ballot box. The facts about the Partnership Project are
on page 6 of Power To Hurt.
If there is any doubt that the foundations are deliberately
planning the elimination of resource extraction, one has only
to examine an actual grant proposal to a wealthy foundation.
Madam Chairman, you will find the full text of the grant
application that created the Southwest Forest Alliance
beginning on page 15 of Power To Hurt. The disastrous results
of the Coalition are spelled out in shameful detail on page 9.
Only little operations totally dependent on government timber
were destroyed, not the big corporations that own their own
private timberlands.
Madam Chairman, in my researches I found that every segment
of America's resource extraction economy--food, clothing and
shelter--has been targeted by some coalition funded by wealthy
foundations. This is an intolerable program of rural cleansing.
Foundations are not accountable to anyone. They are totally
unregulated.
Madam Chairman, these are serious charges. The Center urges
Congress to investigate the undue influence documented in Power
To Hurt.
Thank you again, Madam Chairman, for holding this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Arnold follows:]
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Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you, Mr. Arnold.
The Chair now recognizes Mrs. White Horse Capp for her
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MS. DIANA WHITE HORSE CAPP
Ms. Capp. Madam Chairman, Committee Members, thank you for
this hearing.
I am Diana White Horse Capp, from Ferry County, Washington,
4.6 million acres in the Kettle Mountains, 7200 people. I am
Chairman of the Upper Columbia Resource Council.
Madam Chairman, history shows the elite gain power by
pitting the masses against each other. Our Constitution, based
on the Iroquois Great Law of Peace, is intended to prevent such
abuses.
Elite foundations now funnel their wealth to environmental
groups who pit the masses against each other. Rural Americans
are condemned as savages just as Natives once were. Rural
Natives and whites work in the same occupations. Our welfare is
connected. The south half of my county is Colville Reservation.
On the north half, Colvilles and other Native descendants live
in peace with whites. The community is intermarried. We cannot
afford the division these foundations instigate.
The environmental elite use Native people. They preach
about Tribal Rights and promise to restore justice. Yet they do
little for Native people but use them as poster children to buy
the clout of Treat Rights in their lawsuits. Local activists
courted favor on the Reservation and the Colville Indian
Environmental Protection Alliance emerged. This is a foundation
grant handled by Winona LaDuke, a Native recruiter from
Minnesota, daughter of the late Sun Bear, and it is targeted to
fight people like me in Ferry County. LaDuke's webpage here
says that the Colville group she funds is opposed to gold
mining on the Reservation. But this article from High Country
News says that that same group successfully lobbied the Tribal
Council to oppose Crown Jewel Mine. Madam Chairman, the Crown
Jewel Mine is not on the Reservation, it is 30 miles away,
minimum. This kind of deception puts a smear on the Tribe's
name. These activists have come in and they have stirred up
political upheaval on the Reservation. I am told that there are
Tribal members who are intimidated and they would like the FBI
to step in.
The environmental elite use the grassroots groups to
destroy our rural culture. Our county is crippled by their
attacks on timber, mining and ranching. Jobs are very scarce.
Our children feel hopeless. These elite have really raped our
children's future. These grants target Ferry County, along with
the others I have shown, with $105,000 just to silence the so-
called ``incivility'' of people like me concerned with human
rights. These grants go through Environmental Media Services,
and that outfit is headed by Arlie Schardt, Al Gore's former
Press Secretary. It looks pretty political to me.
Slick media activists hound urbanites, screaming that rural
cultures destroy the planet when, in fact, we feed and shelter
them. The 1998 National Wilderness Conference announced its
plan for Wilderness designation of the Kettle Range. Ferry
County is the Kettle Range. Their millions wage a high-dollar
war for Wilderness in Ferry County along with Kettle Range
Conservation Group. Our county is beautiful, and they covet
that beauty enough to rape our culture. We don't want to be
squeezed out. This cultural genocide must be acknowledged.
Cultural genocide is why the Kootenai Tribe has joined Idaho's
fight against Wilderness. This petition by Bret Roberts of the
Ferry County Action League has already collected 2,000 area
resident signatures against Wilderness designation.
What is worse is that Federal insiders reshape policy to
destroy rural cultures. There is a map here that shows some of
the plans coming at us that are going to squeeze us out.
Colville National Forest's Public Affairs Officer took vacation
time to campaign for more Wilderness. Pacific Biodiversity
Institute boasts that Government agencies request their
wilderness maps. And, indeed, here is the Wilderness Society
map in a local Forest Service plan, and it says ``For planning
purposes''. This is a grant to an environmental group that says
that this group's lynx study will be used by the Forest Service
for management purposes. This Nature Conservancy job ad says
that their biologists write policy on Indiantown Gap Military
Reservation. That really rubs salt in the wound for me.
Indiantown Gap was taken away from my mother's people in 1932
by Government troops. I don't want something like that
happening to my children, too.
Madam Chairman, this genocidal juggernaut must be stopped.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Capp follows:]
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Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you very much, Ms. Capp.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Jeff Lyall. Jeff.
TESTIMONY OF MR. JEFF A. LYALL
Mr. Lyall. Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the
Committee. I am honored to have the opportunity to testify
before you here today. My name is Jeff Lyall. I am 32 years of
age, and I live in the Blue Ridge Mountain region of Southwest
Virginia.
In June 1991, I received a level C5-6 spinal cord injury as
the result of an auto accident. I was an avid outdoorsman. I
liked to hike, backpack, camp, hunt, fish, et cetera, mostly on
National Forest lands in Virginia and North Carolina.
Madam Chairman, I still enjoy the outdoors, but wheelchairs
are poor off-road vehicles. So, in 1995 I modified a Jeep CJ to
become my new legs and feet, and this gave me access to the
outdoors once again. However, not long after that, I discovered
that the vast majority of off-highway vehicle roads on National
Forest lands in my area have been closed down. Now I can't
enjoy the outdoors by the only means available to me, and
neither can anyone else with a mobility impairment.
In the Blacksburg and New Castle Ranger districts where I
live in Virginia, there are some 66 gated National Forest off-
highway vehicle roads, which represent 110 miles of potential
forest access, but there is a problem. Of these 66 roads, only
nine are open during certain times and zero are open year
round.
Hikers and mountain bikers can use them anytime they like,
but because my feet and those of some of my friends consist of
four wheels and a motor, we are denied access. If that is not
discrimination on the basis of a disability by an agency of the
Federal Government, nothing is.
Carla Boucher is the attorney for United Four Wheel Drive
Association, which is an international organization that
represents four wheel drive enthusiasts. She is bringing a
lawsuit against the forest Service on road closure issues. She
has documented that less than 2 percent of all forest visitors
use Wilderness areas, but those areas take up about 18 percent
of all National Forest lands.
On the other hand, off highway users, who represent 35
percent of all forest visitors, traditionally use roads on less
than 2 percent of Forest Service lands. So, it seems that the
Forest Service caters to 2 percent of the visitors to
Wilderness areas, while closing roads that take up less than 2
percent of the total National Forest System.
In the Fall of 1998, I began talks with local National
Forest officials. I discovered that the Forest Service has
adopted a policy they refer to as ``Obliterate Roads'', meaning
they intend to gate and destroy as many off-highway vehicle
roads as possible. Since these roads are the only viable access
to these public lands by a mobility-challenged person, this is,
in effect, a Federal Policy of Discrimination against the
estimated 54 million disabled people in the United States, not
to mention the millions in the senior community who enjoy the
outdoors but are not able to travel as they once did.
Mrs. Boucher found that 76,300 miles of Forest Service
roads are now closed, which represents one in every five miles.
Just last year the Forest Service closed 683 miles out of 800
miles of off-highway vehicle roads in the Daniel Boone National
Forest, effectively eliminating motorized access to this area
as well.
Within the past year, three off-highway vehicle roads in my
own backyard, which have been open since the 1950's and 1960's,
were bulldozed and gated, cutting off my access to these areas
also. In essence, the Forest Service is saying, ``if you can't
walk, we don't want you in our forests''.
This has got to stop. And the people behind it have to be
stopped. Mrs. Boucher has found that these road closures have
been pushed by environmental groups funded by large foundations
and working with Clinton Administration insider.
Mrs. Boucher found that the National Audubon Society pushed
the President to permanently preserve 450 million acres of
roadless areas. The Pew Trusts funded the Audubon Society,
which will funnel more than $3 million to 12 environmental
organizations to pressure the Forest Service to shut down more
roads.
So, I now understand that it isn't simply a line officer
with the Forest Service who is shutting me out of our National
Forests. It isn't even simply a matter of some local or
national environmental organization trying to shut down the
forests. It is large, rich foundations such as the Pew
Charitable Trusts that are discriminating against me and the
entire disabled community by funding environmental groups to
push policies such as ``gate and obliterate''.
I cannot fight them alone. I am respectfully requesting
congressional investigation into the involvement of large
foundations in making land management policy for the Forest
Service.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lyall follows:]
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Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you very much, Mr. Lyall.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Antonio DeVargas. Ike.
TESTIMONY OF MR. ANTONIO DeVARGAS
Mr. DeVargas. Madam Chairman, members of the Committee, my
name is Antonio DeVargas. I am the President of La Compania
Ocho, a for-profit, minority-owned business in the logging and
processing of timber, located in the small mountain village of
Vallecitos, New Mexico. Unemployment in Vallecitos and the
surrounding communities is more than 20 percent.
Madam Chairman, I thank you for holding this hearing today
and am honored at the privilege of being invited to testify.
La Compania Ocho operates with the Carson National Forest.
As a direct result of frivolous litigation brought by Forest
Guardians, a Santa Fe-based, self-proclaimed guardian of the
forests, La Compania has been severely crippled in its ability
to work. Although the Federal courts have consistently ruled in
our favor, the delays created by Forest Guardians have had a
devastating impact on La Compania Ocho and on the villages
which surround Vallecitos. Forest Guardians has been able to
pursue its vindictive and punishing litigation campaign because
of the grants it and its allies have received from certain
large foundations.
This campaign against our way of life and our efforts to
create a local, sustainable economy has been based on half-
truths, distortion, and outright lies and has been propped up
by the seemingly endless supply of money for litigation.
Numerous foundations have been involved in supporting the
campaign to destroy the Hispanic village lifestyle. For
example, the Pew Charitable Trusts has funneled money to the
New Mexico Audubon Society under the auspices that the money
would be used to benefit the villages of northern New Mexico,
including those in the Vallecitos area. In fact, those moneys
were used to try and destroy our villages.
Foundation money has also been used to create coalitions,
the member groups of which are often like Potemkin villages,
organizations consisting of only or two people. The people
involved have been able to successfully create the impression
for their funding sources that they are mass organizations with
large bases of support in the coalitions. One example is a
group called Carson Watch, based in Penasco, New Mexico.
When I refer to the false information and distortion of the
truth that are disseminated by these environmentalists, I am
referring to their ``mantra'' that the forest is being clear
cut and that harvesting of timber exceeds the growth of the
forest.
As an example, I would like to present figures that are
documented on a 73,000 acre tract of land in the Carson
National Forest in the El Rito Ranger District. In 1986, our
organization requested a site specific inventory in the
Vallecitos area. This inventory revealed that this tract of
land had 380 million board feet of timber, that the forest was
growing at the rate of 12 million board feet per year, that 9
million board feet could be harvested sustainably, and the
forest plan allowed for the harvest of 7.2 million board feet
per year.
Since 1994, less than 4 million has been harvested and, due
to appeals and litigation brought by various environmental
groups funded by organizations mentioned above, that figure has
dropped to less than 1 million per year for the past 3 years.
There has been no clear cutting of timber in this area in my
memory or the memory of my parents or grandparents.
Another area in which the lies and misinformation are
utilized is when the funding proposals assert that these groups
work with local and indigenous communities. Nothing could be
further from the truth. In fact, on the few occasions that they
have engaged local villages from affected communities, what
they say that they plan to do is the exact opposite of their
intentions, and the only reason these engagements even occur is
so that they can document that they did meet with the
community.
The fact that there was no consensus and that strong
opposition to their plan was expressed is never documented in
their proposals and so they present a very rosy picture that
gives the appearance of cooperation and collaboration with
local villages but, in fact, was a manipulative ploy to
misinform the funding sources and the general public.
We, the people of New Mexico, would like to see the U.S.
Congress take swift and decisive action to put an end to this
abuse of privilege, and restore our ability to create an
economy based on access to the natural resources that are an
integral part of our custom, culture, tradition, and right to
the pursuit of happiness. Our commitment in response is to be
good and responsible stewards who will make sure that our
activities are sustainable environmentally, economically,
culturally and in concert with the tenet of protecting our
heritage for future generations.
Thank you again, Madam Chairman, for holding this hearing
and affording me the privilege and honor of presenting my
testimony on behalf of my company, my village, my county, and
the countless other rural people whose lives have been
devastated by the abuse of the Endangered Species Act and other
environmental laws that are well meaning but are being abused.
[The prepared statement of Mr. DeVargas follows:]
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Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you very much.
I am going to step out of the order of things, the manner
in which I usually conduct this hearing, simply to make a
comment. Usually, the Chair recognizes other members for
questions at this time, but I just want to say that I have been
a Committee Chair for going on my fourth year now, and of all
the oversight hearings that we had held--and we have held a lot
of them--this may be the most remarkable of all of the
hearings.
The testimony that I have heard today is very startling,
and I agree with the Ranking Member's assessment about this
country, America, being a land where people can still lobby and
have access to their elected officials, but I guess I just
depart a little bit in expressing my concern that it is known
to all of us who work in this world of politics, that money is
the ``mother's milk'' of successful politics, and therein lies
the touchstone and the reason why we are having this hearing.
When you see a charitable trust that amounts to $4.9 billion,
who can fund one program and one organization to the tune of
millions and millions of dollars. I am sure that Mr. Arnold,
Mr. Lyall, Ms. Capp and I have never had the benefit of being
so well funded.
Usually, these organizations have to scramble and pass the
hat. I see some union people in the audience today. Even they
had to take leave from their jobs to come back. People pass the
hat and send people back to Washington, but it is sad to
recognize--and this didn't happen just in this Clinton
Administration, believe me. I want you to know I would be
holding this hearing if Ronald Reagan were still President, if
George Bush were still President, because some of this started
in those Administrations. But without regard to who is sitting
in the White House, this is a malignant mess and the metastasis
is growing very quickly, and it is destroying rural America. It
is destroying lives. And I guess some day we in the Congress
have to come face-to-face with the fact that those who have a
lot of money either have a lust for power or care very little
about this being the ``land of opportunity'' for others, too,
who may not be as well off as they are. And because this
Congress funds grants that eventually make their way into the
organizations that prevent those who live in rural districts
from achieving the success that many of these who are heads of
these foundations have been able to enjoy, we have
jurisdiction, and we have a responsibility.
This still is the ``land of opportunity'' for everyone, no
matter whether you were born of privilege and parents who head
foundations or whether you were born a carpenter's son or
dairyman's daughter, like I was. So, I thank you very much for
your testimony. I think you are very courageous and brave for
bringing this issue to us.
And now the Chair recognizes Mr. Peterson for his
questions.
Mr. Peterson. I thank the Chairwoman. I come from the
eastern part of this country, but I come from what I call the
``eastern West''. My district is northern tier Pennsylvania. It
is rural. It is the most rural district east of the
Mississippi. We timber, oil was discovered, we mine for coal,
we manufacture, we process oils and chemicals, and we farm, and
my view is they are all under attack--at least they are where I
come from.
But I guess I would like to ask a quick question, and make
a few more comments. Those who you speak of, foundations and
Federal agencies who work together to common goals, I hear
often their No. 1 issue is urban sprawl. Would you agree with
that, that one of their top issues is urban sprawl? Is that
what you hear also?
Mr. Arnold. Yes.
Mr. Peterson. But I claim and tell them often they are
causing it because, as they force the people who timber, the
people who produce oil, people who mine for coal, people who
manufacture/process, and our farmers who are being devastated
today as we speak, as they leave the rural lifestyle, they go
to the urban/suburban areas to try to make a living, and they
cause the urban sprawl. And so while they destroy us, they are
also destroying their own backyards, which in my view makes
little sense.
I guess a question I would like to ask is, the use of
lawsuits is a very popular ploy, whether it is to stop
timbering or stop any kind of rural economics, and I often find
those who propose the lawsuits never seem to have a job or at
least a visible employer. In your research and work, any of
you, have you found how these people--are they indirectly
funded by somebody? It always seems like it is somebody hanging
out that gets a university professor to pro bono the lawsuit,
and the process starts with no investment and often shut down
many operations.
Mr. Arnold. Congressman Peterson, let me try and answer
that as quickly as I can. The short answer is, yes, they are
getting money from somewhere. I would have to refresh my memory
to get the numbers, but I think in your area, in the Allegheny,
you have a thing called the Allegheny Defense Fund, if I am not
mistaken.
Mr. Peterson. That is correct.
Mr. Arnold. It has no visible means of support, but it does
have a means of support. If you look carefully into the grant
giving of a well known environmental group called Heartwood in
Indiana, you will find that grants go from there, funneled
through Heartwood to that little group, to do the interesting
things they do in your area, and the money comes from a group
of foundations we call the ``Usual Suspects'' at my Center
because their names show up everywhere that the kind of thing
you are talking about happens, somebody with no visible means
of support suddenly has a ton of money to sue people for things
that you wonder why they are suing them.
Mr. Peterson. Well, they also have expertise because they
are better at PR than most of us who get elected. They get
quoted continually in the papers as if they are experts, and as
if they are local folks, yet nobody knows them, nobody sees
them, they don't belong to anybody's church, they are not a
part of any community that I am aware of, but yet they
constantly speak as experts on these issues as if they had
credentials.
I guess I would just like to quickly mention the other
issue, the ``Roadless'' issue, which is sort of the current
issue, and you so carefully explained how this was promulgated.
But I have tried to be fair about this issue. I have tried
to be thoughtful. But spending a lot of time in the woods
myself--I grew up spending a lot of time in the forest, and I
still do--and I know in the rural area I live, the people that
spend time there, when an area is roadless, very few people
enter it. Is that true? Very few people use--most people my age
don't even want to be on a roadless area very far for fear of a
health problem. I have always had good direction. My father
would go a mile from the road and he would always get lost, so
he never traveled--though he was not fearful, he didn't travel
very far from a road because he would get lost. He had no sense
of direction. I have always had a good sense of direction,
could figure out how to get home, but I know in hunting you go
a mile from the road, you are alone. There is nobody there. I
mean, if there is not a road, you have closed the forest to
human consumption, except a very few hikers--percentage of
population, it wouldn't be even a fraction of a percent that
would go in. Do you figure that is an accurate observation?
Mr. Arnold. I do, and you are out in the woods a lot more
than I am.
Mr. Lyall. Yes, sir. On this whole issue, that is my point
of view. Like a person who can walk, they have the option, they
can go wherever they want to go, just as I used to, sir. Now,
to a disabled person, a mobility challenged person, the only
access that we have to the outdoors is through free existing
roads. I mean, that is just it. And what access is there is
just a very, very small part--like where I live it, talking
about these roads here, if every one of these 66 roads opened
up to give disabled access to the forest, that would open up
approximately 120 acres. And in the two ranger districts where
I live, there are 400,000 acres. And I have been dealing with
the Forest Service trying to open up these roads to 120. I have
asked for 120 out of 400,000 acres, and I have been getting a
very hard time with that. I mean, I have not just been dealing
on a local level, but I have also been dealing on a national
level.
One gentleman I was talking with in the Forest Service up
here in DC., we were talking about this issue, and he was
telling me about, well, our policy might be different than what
it is now, but we get a lot of pressure from these groups like
Mr. Arnold has been talking about, that I don't know nothing
about. And as far as from the disabled community's point of
view--you know, I have done research--and right now there are
approximately 54 million disabled people in the United States,
but we are spread out. The disabled community is interwoven
throughout the fabric of America--big city, small town, rural,
rich, poor--and it is not an organized group, and therefore it
is not given any consideration to, which is an abomination, in
my point of view.
Mr. Peterson. Thank you. Well, I think anybody who has had
any health problems, anybody who is aging and are not quite as
strong as they might have been at one time, you are really
limiting our forests to a very few people.
I guess the frustrating thing that I find is that rural
people--and I don't know that much of America is aware of what
is happening to rural America. I intend to be outspoken about
it, but rural people have little ability to fight major
foundations and Government agencies combined.
I was at a hearing this morning where one of these
Government agencies--and I will leave it nameless--was asked by
the Chairman of a Committee, an important Committee,
Appropriations Committee, if they were willing to give that
Committee 60 days' notice on purchases of land they were going
to make--and I would have thought not approval, just notice--
and the head of that organization paused and stuttered and
stammered and tried not to answer the question. I mean, where
are we when we have Government funded agencies who think their
decisions should not be reviewed by Congress, let alone the
public? And I think that shows the elitism that we have that
the common goal they have and the good they think they know is
so great that the people be damned, and that is not what
democracy is about. That is not what this country is about. But
it is what is happening in this Administration and departments
of Government and with the help of foundations, and I applaud
all of you for being willing to investigate and document as you
have.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you, Mr. Peterson.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Smith, and I want to say that
since we have one panel today, I have been rather lenient on
the lights, and we will have a second round. Mr. Smith.
Mr. Smith of Washington. Thank you, Madam Chair. First of
all, I want to say--I don't want to ask a lot of questions
about the policy except to say that I think the statements that
are made about the policy battles going on in this country are
very well made.
There is a definite disagreement about how we should handle
our public lands, and I think it has been laid out fairly well
what the concerns are about the current policy, and that is the
impact that it has on rural America. And I will even say that I
agree with a significant chunk of that assessment. We have a
significant problem in this country where rural America is
suffering economically while the rest of the country does very
well and, as public policymakers, we need to figure out some
way to change that. There are a variety of different avenues to
get there, but we are not there now. And I think it is
perfectly appropriate to raise challenges to the policies that
would exacerbate that problem and figure out how to solve them.
What I am curious about is the approach that says people
who disagree with me on a policy do not have a right to
advocate that policy, because I hear this all the time. In my
10 years in politics, it seems like undue influence is
basically that influence that is exercised by the person who
disagrees with me, and I hear this from both sides. I mean,
everything that has been testified here, we could take all four
of you away, put four environmentalists up there, and have them
talk to us about corporate trusts and, believe me, I don't
think corporations are underrepresented in terms of how much
money they put into trusts. Many of them, timber industry,
various industries who are interested in resource extraction
fund a trust to do precisely the same thing that the
environmentalists are trying to do on the opposite side. This
is not peculiar to one group.
So I think it is a little unfair to hold a hearing that
focuses on one group as if they have invented something brand
new in public policy advocation that is horribly upsetting the
balance of the process. As far as having access, that is always
an issue. And Democrats can sit up there and squawk about all
the Republican access on a variety of different issues.
So, what I am curious about is, with all this stated, what
should be the policy? I mean, are we saying that the Pew Trusts
does not have a right to exist? Are we saying that basically
trusts such as that--and keep in mind that when you are doing
this, you are going to paint a pretty broad brush. I don't know
who funds, I don't even know if you are a nonprofit trust, or
who it is that funds that, or whether or not it is public--and
there are a lot of different trusts advocating a lot of
different positions out there.
What structurally and fundamentally is wrong with that
funding process, and if you could put aside for a moment the
environmental aspect of it, how should the law be changed, and
how should these people not have the right, in essence, to
spend their money and use their time to advocate what they want
to advocate for? And, yes, I direct this primarily to Mr.
Arnold.
Mr. Arnold. ``Undue influence'' is the name of a crime.
That is why it is the title of the book that I wrote. It is
also the name of a civil tort. Those can be handled in a court.
I am petitioning for redress of grievance not before a
court, but before Congress, which is a fundamental right that I
have.
Mr. Smith of Washington. Absolutely.
Mr. Arnold. And as a citizen and as an executive of a
nonprofit 501(c)(3) with my 990's right here for your
investigation. Our total income, none of which was from
foundations, for 1999 was $26,812. I take no compensation and
never have since I have been there in 1984.
Mr. Smith of Washington. I doubt seriously your trust is a
large part of the problem. There are others, however.
Mr. Arnold. But to answer your question about what do you
do, how do you change the law, one thing, I think, is that the
matter of fairness can be addressed by the IRS. It has done a
considerable job of making these trusts transparent because
there are recent regulations that require divulging of where
the grants went that are actually taken seriously for the first
time, and one of the reasons I was able to produce this book is
because the documents were finally available without spending
many, many thousands of dollars going through the foundation
centers' records to find where those grants were. They did not
have to give me their 990's, now they do, but they don't have
to tell me where their investment portfolio is, so that if I
want to find out the W. Alton Jones Foundation--which I do have
their 990's for 1993 but not since because they won't give them
to me--that if they have investments in Georgia Pacific to the
tune of about $1.4 million, in Louisiana Pacific to the tune of
about $1.2 million, and in Western Mining to the tune of
something like 600,000 shares--and I would have to look to see
what those numbers really were--I would like to know that. I
think that is simply a matter of public transparency, and I do
believe that the law should be changed so that it doesn't
matter who--it is me, them, anybody--where the money comes from
should be visible to the public.
Mr. Smith of Washington. I think that is a very good
answer. I guess I would just close by saying I think making it
more transparent and apparent to folks where advocates are
coming from, where they are getting their money, and where they
are sending their money, is something that I can certainly, 100
percent, support. Again, I think it is a little unfair of this
hearing to point out people who advocate for an environmental
position and say that they are somehow doing something
different than what a lot of different advocates are for a
variety of different positions. I can assure you, they are not.
They are living by the rules as they currently exist.
Corporations, people on both sides of this issue are doing
that, and I would hope in the interest of balance in terms of
how we approach this issue, that folks in the audience and on
this panel understand that if we want increased transparency so
we know where the money is coming from that influences issues,
we shouldn't single out any one group. There are quite a few
different ones who deserve in depth analysis to figure out
where that money is coming from, and I applaud, frankly,
efforts like Mr. Arnold's to expose that, at least let people
know what is going on, but I don't want to stop the process of
democracy and folks being able to advocate for positions that
they believe in, even if we may disagree with them. Thank you,
Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Mr. Cannon, you are recognized for
your questions.
Mr. Cannon. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
First of all, I would like to thank the panel for being
here today. Mr. Lyall, in my district we have the new Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument that was done just 3
years ago, and just in the last couple of months the
Administration has come out with its plan for that area and--
surprise, surprise--90 percent of the roads in that area have
been--by the way, that is a 2 million acre area--and 90 percent
of the roads have been illegally shut down, and that area now
has as its only recourse the courts to sue the Administration,
which they are doing over that issue.
Ms. Capp, in my district I have the largest number of
Native Americans. I have the Ute Tribe and the Navajo Tribe in
the southeast of the state--in the northeast is my Ute Tribe.
And, Mr. DeVargas, you mentioned the unemployment in the
Vallecitos area. The unemployment in our Native American area
is about the same, between 20 and 40 percent unemployment. And
just last year--this year, this cycle--the budgeting by the oil
and gas drilling companies in that area plummeted from about a
proposed $96 million to virtually nothing. I think two wells
will be drilled in that area where 20 or 30 had been planned
before.
So, when we talk about the pain that is being inflicted on
rural areas, it is not that we as public administrators have to
do something about that, this Administration is causing the
pain. I mean, the pain wouldn't exist unless there was an
affirmative and aggressive action to do so.
About a year ago, Patrick Kennedy, who is the Chairman of
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, now says that
we who are friends of the Democratic Party have written off
rural America. The next day, the Minority Leader, Dick
Gephardt, pointed out that he--that is, Patrick Kennedy--didn't
mean to say that.
Now, Mr. Gephardt didn't say that Patrick Kennedy didn't
mean what he said, he just pointed out that he didn't mean to
actually say it because, in fact, that is, I think, the
difference between parties at this point in time.
I might just point out one thing for the record. There is a
difference between tax-exempt foundations that pump money into
public activity and private corporations that pay taxes.
Normally, I ask questions, I don't get off on my soapbox in
these circumstances, but let just add one other fact.
We are now going through a remarkable renaissance of
individual responsibility and opportunity in America largely
caused by the Internet and the access that individuals have to
information, and I personally want to thank you, Mr. Arnold,
for the answer to your question, which Mr. Smith also agreed
with, when you talked about transparency. I have this great
faith in the American public. If they have access to
information, they will make the right decisions. I don't care
how anybody attempts to influence anybody about anything, I
care about the hiding of those attempts. And perhaps now I can
just shift into a question.
Can you give us a little background, Mr. Arnold, on the
Heritage Forest Campaign--that is, who initiated it, how was it
set up, how successful has it been, and why?
Mr. Arnold. Let me try to do that, Congressman Cannon. The
understanding that I have, according to the documents from Pew
Charitable Trusts and according to their Website, is that it is
titled a Pew Initiative, which tells me that it was the
brainchild of Joshua Reichert, a single individual who is the
Environmental Director of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
He is typically the model of the ``coalition''. His whole
way of thinking is that you can't just do things with one
organization, you must have a coalition. And in order to make a
coalition work, as the Environmental Grantmakers Cluster of
Foundations discovered to their dismay in 1992 when they tried
a different model and it didn't work, you have to have a single
money funneler, a fiscal agent that can actually get on top of
a bunch of other groups that actually get a lot of the money,
and tell them what to do. In other words, the marching orders
come from the top--in this case, Joshua Reichert--they go down
to National Audubon Society, they go from there to 12
organizations which, according to their own board minutes of
their own meeting of the National Audubon Society, they say
they are ``supervising'' 12 other environmental groups.
Now, I am not quite sure what the IRS would think about
that--one 501(c)(3) supervising other 501(c)(3)'s. Now, my
board would not allow me to be supervised by anybody, not for
very long. I would give notice that I didn't work there
anymore.
So, that is a very remarkable thing about what I found in
their minutes of their own Audubon Society Board meeting which,
incidentally, you will find verbatim exactly as I copied them
from their own meetings, on page 10 of Power To Hurt.
Let me, if I may--I don't know how much time I have here--
it says--and this is from Dan Beard, the man who was formerly
in the Clinton Administration. ``There are 60 million acres of
1,000-acre-plus plots in our National forests that are still
roadless''--and a comment on that, they are in no such way
roadless. They have things a lot of people drive vehicles on,
they just don't qualify under a very mushy definition that
suits their political purposes for what does it mean, a
``road''.
``There is no hope of congressional action to preserve them
as wilderness. Administrative protection is possible. We have
raised the issue's visibility in the White House, but it is not
enough, so we did a poll using the President's pollster. He
sent results to White House Chief of Staff--poll shows that
Americans strongly care about wilderness to the extent of
favoring it over jobs. Even Republican men in inter-mountain
states supported at the 50 percent level. The Administration
has said they will take some kind of action. We hope for an
announcement from the President of some kind of administrative
protection. We probably won't get all 60 million acres, but if
we did it would represent the biggest chunk of land protection
since the Alaska Lands Act. The Pew Trusts is pleased with the
campaign so far. Second year funding will take it to January
2001, $2.2 million for about 12 organizations under our
supervision''--what is that about? ``Outside magazine this
month has a good cover article. Our visibility and credibility
among fellow forest protection organizations has been raised.
Comment from John Flicker''--he is the head of Audubon, that
means that he made this comment himself--``This grant came to
us because of Dan Beard's reputation and good name''. Well, I
didn't say that, I got that out of their board minutes.
OK. So I think that gives you the most thorough answer.
Just read their own documents and see what they are doing. The
thing about it is, you have to know where to look. The average
person who goes into Audubon's Website couldn't find that. Why
not? Why don't we know about this stuff as it is going on? I
want to know who is trying to put all of my members out of
business before and while they are doing it, so I can do
something that will counter it. That is just not fair, and that
is something that those transparency laws certainly could do
something about, fair notice.
Mr. Cannon. Thank you, Mr. Arnold. I note, Madam Chair,
that the light is not illuminated, but I suspect my 5 minutes
have passed, and so I yield back.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you, Mr. Cannon.
Mr. Udall is recognized for questions.
Mr. Tom Udall. Madam Chair, thank you very much. I
initially would just like to submit a statement and ask
unanimous consent to submit a statement for the record.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Tom Udall. Thank you. Mr. DeVargas, welcome and welcome
to the entire panel. I would like to direct my questions
primarily to Antonio DeVargas.
La Compania Ocho is not the first company to lumber in the
sustained yield area, is that correct?
Mr. DeVargas. That is correct, Congressman Udall.
Mr. Tom Udall. Could you tell me the company that was
logging in that area prior to when you set up?
Mr. DeVargas. Prior to us setting up, it was a corporation
that was a subsidiary of Hanson Industries, Ltd., and the name
of it was Duke City Lumber Company.
Mr. Tom Udall. How would you differentiate your business,
this lumber operation, from the lumber operations of the
corporations that were your predecessors in the area?
Mr. DeVargas. They were a very large corporation. Hanson
Industries, Ltd. is based in London. They had pretty much a
colonial mentality over the people there. They were very
predatory in their practices not only in terms of their
employment practices over the people there, but also in terms
of how they did their lumbering.
There was strong opposition from the local community to
their methods and the extent of harvesting that was occurring
and, in fact, the local communities were consistently fighting
Duke City Lumber Company and the Forest Service.
Mr. Tom Udall. And could you compare your approach--I think
you have stated the earlier actions of the other corporations,
the foreign corporations--how you approach this and what the
reaction of the local community is?
Mr. DeVargas. I believe that the local community being
land-based and being rural and being from there and being
vested in the land is much more--I think we are better
stewards, and I think that we have a greater respect for the
land because we cannot see destroying the land of our
ancestors. Our village, as many of them, are 400 years old. The
Native American villages are even older than that. And there's
logging going on and timbering going on on the reservations in
New Mexico, and nobody is arguing with the levels of harvest
there, and it is because the people from there do care about
the land and the water and the air. Corporations from outside
the country or from outside the region don't have that same
responsibility to the locals.
Mr. Tom Udall. Now, Mr. DeVargas, you talk about land-based
and being there 400 years, and a lot of this is intertwined
with the land grants, is it not, the Spanish Land Grants and
the land grant issue in northern New Mexico?
Mr. DeVargas. That is correct, Congressman Udall.
Mr. Tom Udall. Can you tell this Subcommittee about the
important role the land grants have in the traditional
lifestyle of New Mexico's Hispanic villages and local
economies?
Mr. DeVargas. The land grants were the basis of community
survival. Without them, it was not possible for communities to
survive. The sovereign of Spain, when we were under the
sovereignty of Spain, that government recognized that. When we
were under the sovereignty of Mexico, that government
recognized that. Under the sovereignty of the United States,
that has not been recognized. So, we are not in any position to
develop our own economy based on a sustainability for our
villages.
Mr. Tom Udall. Looking at the history of land grants in New
Mexico, how has your business and the community's ability to
support themselves been affected by what has happened to
community land grants in New Mexico?
Mr. DeVargas. The community land grants in New Mexico have
been swallowed up by either large corporations or the Federal
Government. They no longer exist in fact. They exist in the
people's consciousness, they exist in the people's hopes and
dreams, but in fact they don't exist, and this is what has
rendered our community so helpless.
Upon losing the land grants, basically what happened is our
villages were condemned to the poverty levels that we now
experience.
Mr. Tom Udall. How were New Mexico's community land grants
impacted by the way the United States implemented the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo?
Mr. DeVargas. The Treaty has never been implemented, Mr.
Congressman. I believe that the Treaty was violated before the
ink was dry.
Mr. Tom Udall. Could you tell the Committee how that
happened and what injustices were perpetrated on the people of
northern New Mexico?
Mr. DeVargas. The acquisition of the land by the Federal
Government and private individuals were done through chicanery,
outright fraud, just by dispossessing people, even through
violence. There was a notorious organization that was based in
Santa Fe during the territorial days called the Santa Fe Ring.
It consisted of politicians, judges, and lawyers that just
basically circumvented the laws, and really rendered the Treaty
invalid. It has never been implemented. That Treaty has never
been implemented. So, for the people there it has been very
difficult. It has been very difficult to understand how a
people can be discriminated in that manner, considering that in
fact when the United States got its independence from England,
from Great Britain, it would not have been able to, without the
help of Spain. And, in fact, I have documents that show that
all of the Spanish holdings, all the people that were under
Spanish rule, were required to pay taxes to support the war
effort for the 13 Colonies of the United States. New Mexico was
very active in the Civil War and protecting the Union. Just
about every person that I know--in my family anyway, my great-
grandfather fought in the First World War, my dad in the
Second, my relatives in the Korean, myself in Vietnam, my
cousins in the Persian Gulf War and other areas. The Hispanic
contribution to the defense of this country is very, very well
documented, and it just seems very strange that we would have
to defend treaties of the U.S. Government in other countries
when our Treaty has not been recognized.
Mr. Tom Udall. Thank you, Mr. DeVargas. One of the things,
and I know you know it very well, is that Treaty said to the
people that decided to stay, the Treaty between Mexico and the
United States of America, that the people that decided to stay
in the United States--people were allowed to go back--but to
stay in that area, that the United States would take the
affirmative action of protecting their culture, protecting
their property, and protecting their rights and their language.
And, in fact, as you have very eloquently stated, that has not
happened, and it is a great injustice that I think the people
of northern New Mexico feel. I have taken a bill that was
passed through the House of Representatives the last time
around and introduced that identical bill on the anniversary of
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and that bill is here in the
Congress. I believe it is subcommittee, and I would just ask
the Chair--I look forward to maybe working with you on that
because I think these two issues are very intertwined, the
issue that the panel has been asked to speak to today, and also
this issue of the land grants is one that I think is a big
injustice that needs to be corrected by the U.S. Government.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you, Mr. Udall. That was a very
interesting line of questioning.
And so it is clear then, in your opinion, that the Treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, agreed upon, but has not been
honored by this Government?
Mr. DeVargas. That is correct, Madam Chairman, but I would
like to go a little bit further and state that in my view the
kind of injustice that was perpetuated against the people under
that treaty, the same mentality that led to that is the same
mentality that is driving the elite groups to now not only
discriminate against Hispanics, but to discriminate against
rural people in general, and I believe that many of the motives
behind this is to disenfranchise rural people and make sure
that the forests in the United States, in the western part of
the United States, become playgrounds only for the rich.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you very much.
The Chair recognizes Mr. Sherwood.
Mr. Sherwood. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mr. DeVargas, if I
could continue in that line, and we will leave the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo and go on to your settlement with the Forest
Service in the suit of 1994. And I read that you were to be
able to purchase 75 percent of the La Monga timber sale, and
yet that has not happened, and I understand that that was a
suit against race discrimination, retaliation and preferential
treatment for Duke City Lumber Company, and you got a pretty
good settlement, you thought at the time, out of that suit. But
what has happened recently that has kept you from reaping the
benefits of winning that suit in 1994?
Mr. DeVargas. Mr. Congressman, there have been several
factors in that, not the least that we had to fight the Forest
Guardians in two Federal courts in Arizona, one Federal in New
Mexico, and we had to go all the way to the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals in San Francisco. For a small corporation like ours
consisting of five people who had to mortgage their homes just
to even found the corporation, it cost us enormous sums of
money. And obtaining financing for a small corporation such as
that during a climate where everything is litigated--in fact,
La Monga sale has not all been put up at this point, we have
purchased two portions of that. We have purchased 800,000 feet
under La Monga whole timber sale, and we have purchased 450,000
in the Bonito timber sale. And we have invested in our lumber
mill, which is a small lumber mill, and we are going forward
with it. However, the pipeline--every sale is appealed, and it
is appealed indefinitely, and it is all very, very expensive to
a small corporation such as us.
Mr. Sherwood. What was their basis for stopping--for suing
in court to have you stop your purchase of this standing
timber, that they didn't want the timber cut, or what is their
brief--what are their arguments here? I realize that is a
complicated--but in short detail.
Mr. DeVargas. Basically, they say it is kind of like a
``mantra''--it is the last 5 percent of whole growth timber.
That is what they say about every timber sale. They say it is
the last 5 percent of old growth timber in that area, which is
just simply not true.
Mr. Sherwood. Describe the timber in that sale to us.
Mr. DeVargas. That sale consists of mixed conifer,
Ponderosa Pine, Douglas Fir, and white fir. It averages--the
elevation is anywhere from 7200 feet to around 9800 feet. It is
an area that has been logged before. It was logged very lightly
in the past, more lightly than other areas. The prescriptions
for logging on that sale, I feel, is a responsible
prescription. It is something that the community can live with,
doesn't feel it is an excessive harvesting. There has been no
clear cutting, none whatsoever.
Mr. Sherwood. It is a reasonably arid site, or if there is
big timber it is not too arid. What are the problems that you
have with logging, do you have erosion problems or siltation?
Mr. DeVargas. I don't think we have any of those problems,
Mr. Congressman. The arguments against logging La Monga is just
that they don't want it logged, basically. It is kind of
strange because we have a situation where they say they want us
to do forest restoration work, such as thinning--and this is
part of the deception that happens all the time--but then they
initiate a zero-cut position. And our forests are overgrown. I
mean, how do you justify zero-cut with thinning of the forest?
It doesn't make sense to us.
There is also a 150- or 250-acre environmentalist retreat
located in that area, and so if the La Monga timber sale is put
off-limits to grazing and logging, it would automatically
increase the size of that particular retreat for
environmentalists to 16,000 acres.
Mr. Sherwood. What was the story behind the acquisition and
sale of your wood processor?
Mr. DeVargas. The Forest Guardians came up with what they
considered their position to save the village of Vallecitos
economically, and basically that position--it came out in the
newspaper that that is what Mr. Hitt and the Forest Guardians
wanted to do. And what it was really was a study that we had
done ourselves. And so they were able to acquire something like
$38,000 for a wood processor so that we could process firewood.
They did that at the same time that they were filing a lawsuit
that stopped all firewood cutting. And so we received a $38,000
wood processor that we couldn't use. And we were tied up in
litigation with the Forest Guardians over the firewood and the
logging for almost 3 years. That machine was rendered totally
useless.
Mr. Sherwood. In your northern New Mexico villages, what
other means of livelihood is there? What is the other industry
besides the forest-related industries?
Mr. DeVargas. It is either local government, city or
county, schools, the Los Alamos National Labs, and Santa Fe is
about 85 miles away where there is some manufacturing, very
limited. That is about it.
Mr. Sherwood. Thank you very much. I very much enjoyed
hearing the panel.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. I want to advise the members that we
have just been called to a 15-minute vote on one of the
suspension bills, and then after that there will be a 5-minute
vote on the journal. And I also want to let you know that we
will adjourn for 30 minutes when I recess the Committee, and
then we will come back and we will have a second round of
questions.
I do want to ask Mr. Arnold before we go, you have a
section in your book on Undue Influence, a chapter entitled
``Oh, God'', and it is very interesting. I think you have
pretty well tied how the trusts are even moving into the
churches to try to influence them. I am looking at page 101
where it indicates that the Pew Charitable Trusts donated
$135,000 to Christianity Today, ``to convene a forum on
population and consumption issues among leading evangelical
theologians and analysts, and to produce a special issue of
Christianity Today on global stewardship''.
Now, Mr. Arnold, it appears that there is a strange
connection here. The Congress funds grants. These grants are
acquired by these trusts. Then the money is used to have an
influence that is a negative influence on our First Amendment,
the separation--although it isn't included, the word
``separation'' of church from state--nevertheless, the purpose
was to separate the influence of Government in the churches,
and it looks like the string is going right into the churches.
Am I reading that right?
Mr. Arnold. I believe so, Madam Chairman. I think the text
there gives you enough to go on. This was a very truncated
version of what I actually found, which was stacks and stacks
of the ``best religion money can buy'', is what it added up to.
And, of course, the foundations put piles of money in that
isn't documented in here that, at your request, I could supply
sheet after sheet.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Would you please do so?
Mr. Arnold. I will do that, Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. We will recess the Committee right now
for 30 minutes, and we will be back at that time and we will
begin with questions from the Chairman and then go to the
remaining members. Thank you.[Recess.]
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. The Committee on Forest and Forest
Health will reconvene.
I would like to begin my line of questioning with Ms. Capp.
Ms. Capp, I wonder if you could put the map up again. Mike, if
you would do that. Thank you.
[Map retained in Committee files]
I was intrigued with this map although we didn't get much
detail about the map. So, I wonder, for me and for the record,
if you could go over that in a little more detail.
Ms. Capp. For the sake of being able to hear me, I am not
going to stand over there and point at it, Ron is going to
point at it.
As I said, what this map basically illustrates is the plans
that are afoot that are really going to squeeze us out of Ferry
County. And I want to point out that this map is in process. It
doesn't even contain everything that is coming at us. In fact,
we have regulations and campaigns coming at us so fast we don't
really know what to address first.
Basically, the left-hand side of the map is Ferry County.
That white space you see there in the middle, that is not Ferry
County. It is bordered by the Kettle River there on the right
side. The yellow is proposed lynx range. The green is Forest
Service land. The little sections that you see sectioned off
there--some of them have numbers--are the Forest Service's
ecosystem management plans that are being implemented which,
when you look at what is being proposed in those plans, they
bear an incredible similarity to the Interior Columbia Basin
Ecosystem Management Project, only they seem to be implemented
now on a chunk-by-chunk basis, one watershed at a time.
You can't see very well there, but the Columbia and the
Kettle River which flows through Ferry County--despite the fact
that numerous biology experts and field biologists have told me
that the Kettle River is not, nor has it ever been, bull trout
habitat, we still have various people at the Federal and State
level who would like the Kettle River to be bull trout habitat,
so that is another thing that is threatening us. And one of the
worst things about that is that--well, just for example, Dave
Smith of the University of British Columbia is one of the
people that I interviewed when I did a report on bull trout for
the Kettle River Advisory Board, and Dave told me that in no
uncertain terms the Kettle River is not bull trout habitat. Its
natural characteristics are too low flow and warm temperature.
In fact, a hydrological report that was done some years back
for WYRA purposes states that the Kettle can exceed 16 degrees
centigrade in the summertime with absolutely no human use
whatsoever, and 15 degrees is the maximum for adult bull trout.
So, one of the reasons that is important is because we have
plans coming at us for endangered species or threatened species
that aren't really even natural to our area. At any rate, the
main point that I would like people to take from that map--now
you can't see the lower half--is Colville Indian Reservation,
and that is about--that portion of the county is about the same
size as the top. The county is about 4.6 million acres. Only 15
percent of that is private property. And this is a natural
resource producing community. Those are the jobs that we have
there.
If we are squeezed out of the National Forest, there is not
going to be any employment--maybe Job Corps will still be out
there, although I don't know who would want to work there, but
the rest of the employment in the county is Department of
Social and Health Services, the school district, the county
government--which, by the way, now is only open 4 days a week.
So, if there is no other employment in the area, the school is
going to go. In fact, one of the ways that all this has
impacted us is that up in Curlew, the Curlew School District
where I live, we have under 300 students, kindergarten through
12th grade, very small school. Last year, we had to lay off
four full-time teachers. Our first grade teacher now has 60
students. We have teachers who are now doing the best that they
can to teach subjects that never really were their forte. The
whole community is really suffering.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. That is quite amazing. You know, the
national environmental groups often say that our forests need
to be protected from development. Are forests in your area
threatened by development? And my second question is, is the
lynx listed on the endangered species list, or endangered?
Ms. Capp. Not yet, but there is a big push to get it
listed. That is one of the things that is to frustrating about
the massive amounts of money that these groups have to do their
PR and the way that they can really twist the facts to get
urbanites really to vote and petition rural people into
oblivion.
Their campaigns give the impression that our National
Forests are--when they use the word ``development'', what comes
to most people's mind is that we have factories and industry
and suburban sprawl coming right up to the edge of these so-
called ``roadless'' areas which, in fact, we don't. I mean, in
a county of only 7200 people, you can imagine there is not much
of anything in the way of building.
And the other thing is the way they carry on about
development and roads. People in the urban areas get the
impression that we have blacktop highways going through the
National Forests and, of course, the Forest Service would be
frivolous to be trying to maintain things like that but, in
fact, we don't. What we have is a bunch of little one-lane dirt
roads. So, no, there is no development threatening the National
Forests in our area.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you, Ms. Capp.
At this time I would like to yield to Mr. Peterson for his
questions. He had some questions he was concerned about.
Mr. Peterson. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Arnold, and anyone else who wants to, but I want to
make sure I understand what you are telling us. I haven't had
time to read the book, but we have a picture here of large
foundations like the Pew Foundation, who join hands and fund
large national organizations like the Audubon Society, and who
somehow collaborate with the Administration and the White House
and the Vice President and the President's Environmental
Council sort of become the War Room for these efforts. And they
have ability, the Interior Department, the Department of
Agriculture, EPA, smaller organizations like the BLM, the
Forest Service and the Park Service all to manage information
and manipulate public policy. Is that a fair assessment?
Mr. Arnold. Congressman Peterson, you have that exactly
right. I wouldn't change that in any way.
Mr. Peterson. OK. Well, I also know something that
surprised me here, I don't have a good audit of it of where all
it is, but I know we spend a lot of money here in Washington
funding organizations that have nothing to do with Government
but who are very related to associations and organizations that
represent different interest groups around the country, but
they get a lot of Federal money. At the State level, where I
came from and have more expertise, that didn't happen. We
didn't fund our opposition or those who are promoting ideas.
Are you aware of how Government tax dollars gets into this
mix, too, besides the use of public offices where public policy
is made?
Mr. Arnold. Yes, sir, I do. As a matter of fact, one of the
chapters is called Zealous Bureaucrats, and it deals
extensively with that. The gist of it is that you can trace
probably half a billion dollars in any given year, we suspect
that there is probably four times that--that is based on a
guess of a reporter from the Boston Globe, whom I respect quite
well--$4 billion dollars we can't find. We can find about half
a billion dollars, and it goes from groups like the Fish and
Wildlife Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service Foundation,
which is a quasi-Governmental group which gives grants to
private environmental groups, some of which then come back and
lobby. They are primarily for improvement of infrastructure on
National Wildlife Refuges, such detailed things as that.
On the other hand, you get grants from the EPA. Now, one of
the things I will give them credit for is there is a Website
that anyone can access, that lists their grants. The catch is
they don't list all of them and, in fact, they don't list the
most interesting ones, which you have to have special software
and a computer beyond a desktop in order to access it, but the
kind of money that we are seeing going from EPA goes directly
to very advocacy oriented groups. It also gets back to them
through the route of going to academics who see a particular
issue--let us say, an air quality issue--they will go to an
M.D. studying children's asthma syndromes, and then Carol
Browner will, as the head of the EPA, use that in testimony
saying that we have to stiffen up the air quality regulations--
which, as a matter of fact, did happen. And there are quite a
few episodes of that nature documented.
We have also heard, but cannot confirm and would urge this
Committee do some investigation on it, that actually Mrs.
Browner was, in fact, hosting on a regular basis foundation
funders in her personal office, and telling them where they
should be putting their money. Like I say, I can't verify that,
I have that from a couple of whistleblower types who are not
quite brave enough to blow the whistle, but that is something I
think that should she be required to testify for other things,
that certainly needs to be brought up.
Mr. Peterson. But are you aware of where--you did mention
several--but should we have a prohibition of tax dollars being
utilized to fund any organization on any side of any issue? I
mean, somehow there should be a firewall from Government
funding advocacy groups? Now, I guess the question I wanted to
ask and it slipped by me was, the Foundation, Fish and Wildlife
Foundation, is that all tax dollars or is that a blend?
Mr. Arnold. No, that is not. That is a combination of tax
dollars and private funders, so as I say, it is quasi-
Governmental, so that there was one person who became a board
member under very unusual circumstances, who donated a million
dollars to the Fish and Wildlife Foundation. So, yes, private
individual grants can go into it, and a number have, as a
matter of fact. So, it is a mix.
And to answer your first question, should there be a
firewall, I am certainly no legislator, but I have hired enough
lawyers to know that is a can of worms. I think that to go in
that direction probably would invite prohibitions that would
probably hurt really worthy causes. I think that protecting
National Wildlife Refuges is a good idea. Using them as a way
to put people out of existence is not a good idea. I am not
able to see how you would differentiate in a law which has to
apply to everybody that wouldn't really hurt a lot of good
things. So, that one needs a lot more thought than I have given
to it in order to be able to say, yes, you should do something
that prohibits tax-exempt organizations from using tax money to
lobby with. I don't know how you would actually do that.
It would be nice to have that all visible and transparent,
and that, I think, the simple matter of public disclosure is
probably--for one thing, it would be a very popular issue. I
can't imagine any citizen of the United States that likes
things going on behind their back that influences their lives
as much as is documented in this book.
And so public disclosure, I think, really is the way to go,
rather than strict prohibitions. Again, that is up to Congress,
which is why we are talking to you because we need your ideas
and your help as well as you getting ours. But I see the route
into clarity on this going through public disclosure. If we
knew while they were planning the Heritage Forest Campaign that
they were going to do it, that there was a fair notice
requirement when any large coalition got together--now, stop
and think of what this Pew thing was. It was 12 groups working
together. If those were for-profit groups, they would all be in
jail. That is a clear violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of
1890, to do that kind of thing if you are a for-profit. And I
am not sure that perhaps something of that nature about working
in combines, or illegal--you know, price fixing for the for-
profits--how about policy fixing? I don't know if that even
means anything under our Constitution, but there has to be some
investigation of this coalition model. Nothing happens except
in coalitions anymore, in the environmental movement, or any
kind of what they call ``progressive'', more left-leaning type
of movement, and what to do about that, I think, is let us lift
the rock and ``let the sun shine in''.
Mr. Peterson. Well, the frustration I have had is that they
seldom want a public discussion. It is a mass manipulation of
information, to then manipulate public policy, and it is a
huge--it is like McDonald's selling hamburgers. I mean, that is
what it is about.
Earlier we talked about the sprawl issue, and somebody just
handed me here--a polling company talks ``sprawl is now a
bread-and-butter community issue like crime', said Jan
Schaffer, Executive Director of the Pew Center for Civic
Journalism, which sponsored the polling. Americans are divided
about the best solution for dealing with growth, development
and traffic congestion''. Well, I think part of our argument
needs to be, and part of the discussion needs to be, that if we
stopped squashing rural America, they wouldn't be moving to the
cities to cause the sprawl.
Mr. Arnold. Well, Congressman Peterson, let me also add to
that, what in the name of Heaven are these foundations doing
giving money to the media? Why is there such a thing as the Pew
Center for Media? Are they buying newspaper reporters?
If you take a look, in fact, in this book on page 99 and
100, I documented that question. Here is a Public Media Center
got $300,000 from Pew Charitable Trusts, the Foundation for
American Communications got $75,000 from W. Alton Jones
Foundation, the Center for Investigating Reporting got $105,000
from the Schumann Foundation, on and on and on. There is so
much money being poured into the media to assure proper
environmental reporting, whatever that is, and you can imagine
what their viewpoint is.
Why are the media taking the money? I don't know that. And
I do know--I worked on a newspaper----
Mr. Peterson. I think they will take anybody's money. They
don't have to stand for election.
Mr. Arnold. That is true.
Mr. Peterson. Of course, the number of people that watch
the major media today is pretty small, in comparison, and I
think it is because of their spin, not because--if they
reported--I think the success of Fox News is very much ``We
report, you decide'' has caught on because the media doesn't
report, they tell you what portion they want you to know, and I
think we all know that.
I want to commend you for your work, all of you, for
speaking out, but I guess, in conclusion, my biggest concern as
a Member of Congress--when I was in State Government for 19
years and I had a business for 26, so I come here with some
experience--is the immenseness and the inability to put your
arms around departments. I mean, it is like--I used to kid when
I was in State Government about dealing with the Federal
Government was like dealing with a foreign country, and I have
been 4 years--and I am a bureaucracy fighter, I always was at
the State level--but here it is like you can't get at them. I
mean, they are huge. They are almost nameless, faceless
agencies that have--and we here in Washington have almost no
process in the regulatory process, and that is lawmaking
without public discussion, and it is what people fought and
died for a long time ago, but the regulatory process in
Washington is totally out of control, and Congress has almost
no ability to influence it, or at least doesn't, and I don't
think anybody can argue with that.
At the State level in Pennsylvania, we had a very effective
agency that helped committee chairs and committees deal with
regulations that were inappropriate, but you will find that
presidents quickly find out that it is easier to regulate and
write rules than it is to pass law because when you pass law
you have to win a public debate. And, unfortunately, many of
the problems we are fighting are because we have totally left
go. Since Ronald Reagan, no one has had any influence on the
regulatory progress, they have been totally free to write law
and set policy without a public discussion, and we will pay
down the road. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you, Mr. Peterson, I appreciate
your line of questioning.
Your book is very fascinating, Mr. Arnold, and I wanted
to--I have a lot of questions to ask you. I am going to ask you
some now on the record, and then I will be submitting more
questions to you in writing.
It has always been just a strong tenet of the free-market
system, freedom of enterprise, that when a company operates in
their own self-interest, it is also to the self-interest and
the betterment of those who work for them, those who can
purchase their product, and so forth.
In looking at those corporations' own self-interest, who
are behind the Pew, Mellon, Alton W. Jones Foundations, all of
those, why are they doing this? I mentioned in earlier comments
that it was a growing metastasis, it is dark and ugly. What is
their self-interest here? Have you been able to find anything?
Mr. Arnold. Well, Madam Chairman, unfortunately, the answer
is yes, I have. Probably the most obvious answer is if you have
a large corporation in something that we have all been talking
about, timber, and they are, let us say, a big landowner that
has fee land that they own, clear title, and they have very
little that comes off Federal lands in the way of timber supply
for their mills, but surrounding them are all kinds of middle-
size and smaller competitors who go into the National Forest,
take timber out, and compete effectively with that--sealed bid
and all kinds of things. Now, if you were one of those large
corporations, what would you do if you suddenly found that
somebody was shutting down all of your competition on Federal
lands? If I was a CEO, I would be like Harry Merlo, who once
told the New York Times about 10 years ago, ``Why should I pay
money for a lawsuit to fight the spotted owl issue? All the
court has done is given me a legal monopoly''.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. And Harry Merlo was the CEO----
Mr. Arnold. Harry Merlo said that out loud. He was the CEO
of Louisiana Pacific Corporation at the time, which is a very
large private landowner, and in a business sense he was
absolutely right for his stockholders. Why should he spend
money on something that is only going to put his competitors
out of business? But, you see, that is one of those double-
edged swords.
Now what do you do if the free market says ``I don't care
if you regulate the other guy out of business, and I will give
money'', as we are seeing many large corporations giving money
to the Nature Conservancy which buys private land and then
sells it to the Federal Government at a markup, to the
Wilderness Society even, to any kind of environmental group
that advocates the shutdown of all resource extraction industry
on Federal lands. What are we to make of those corporations
doing that other than there is probably some competitive
advantage in it for them. They are not stupid. I can't imagine
that is all out of altruism. I am sure they have figured it
out.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. So that is how the dots connect, and
that is why you made the comment about the Sherman Antitrust
Act, it is creating a monopoly.
Mr. Arnold. It is, Madam Chairman. I think that what is
sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Why should not
there be a nonprofit equivalent of that, only how would you do
it without harming churches, the Civic Opera, hospitals? You
see, that is where I am really hesitant to suggest such a
thing, because it would hurt good people. There may possibly be
a constitutional way to deal with those abuses, but it is the
dilemma of a large society. There is no way you can run one
without a bureaucracy, so you can't fight bureaucracy per se,
you have to fight bureaucratic abuse. And how you target a law
that precisely so that it does not hurt good people but stems
abuses is a question I think Congress needs to tackle
seriously.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. I am still trying to connect the dots
on some of the National Monuments. For the record, can you
advise this Committee as to how the foundations may or may not
have--but probably may--have benefited from the Utah National
Monument designation?
Mr. Arnold. They created it, essentially. The Southern Utah
Wilderness Society, in the person of Ken--and I don't know how
to pronounce his last name, it is in the book--took Katy
McGinty, several years before the designation of Staircase
Escalante National Monument, to the area and spent 2 weeks with
her convincing her that it ought to become wilderness, which
was not within her power as Chairman of the President's Council
on Environmental Quality to do, she couldn't deliver that, but
she said, ``Let us see what we can do about a National
Monument''.
About the same time, a memo came from the Office of the
Secretary of the Interior to the Solicitor, who is the head
lawyer of the agency, asking to analyze what you needed to do
in order to declare a National Monument without any
environmental examination, with no public debate about the
environmental consequences. This was the Clinton
Administration.
Why would the Clinton Administration, with Al Gore sitting
in the second seat, ever want to do something without going
through an environmental review? The only answer is, they
wanted to act in secrecy. And in this case, they wanted to do
what they did without anyone knowing it. As a matter of fact,
the Resources Committee subpoenaed all of the resulting e-mails
back and forth between the Interior Department and Katy
McGinty's shop, including of her 12 or so assistants, about how
are we going to fake up a letter so that the conditions that
the Solicitor was told can be met. Those conditions were these:
In order to declare a National Monument without having to go
through environmental review, it had to come from the
President's Office. Well, the idea for this one had come from
the Secretary of Interior's Office which, if it does, becomes
subject to the requirements of NEPA, the National Environmental
Policy Act of 1969.
And so Katy McGinty and all of her people spent nearly a
year passing notes back and forth, trying to fake up a letter
from the President of the United States to Secretary Babbitt
saying, ``Hey, I have this great idea, and would you do this
for me, and tell me all about this area that should be a
National Monument''. Under those circumstances, if that was
really the case, the President has the authority to, in
essence, deputize the Secretary of the Interior to become part
of the White House so it doesn't have to go through
environmental review.
So, in faking up this letter, which went through, I think,
three or four drafts from the e-mails that your Committee was
able to recover, it is very clear that they were lying through
their teeth all the time. They knew exactly what they were
going to do, and this Ken Raitt--I think is how you say his
name, he was the person from the Southern Utah Wilderness
Foundation--was back there with Sierra Club support, with all
kinds of other support, some of which I do know and some of
which I don't, from foundations and other environmental groups,
pushing publicly that ``there needs to be a great land legacy
kind of program coming from the Clinton Administration because
we are really annoyed at you because you supported the Timber
Rider, President Clinton, and so we may leave you hanging in
this next vote'', which was the election of 1996. Clinton and
Gore were both standing for re-election. The environmentalists
were disaffected, and it looked like they were simply going to
walk away and let them suffer the consequences.
So, what do you do to bring them back? Of course you
declare National Monuments, which conveniently, not too long
before the election, finally did happen, without the slightest
knowledge of anyone in the State Delegation of Congress from
Utah. They had no idea this was going to happen. They weren't
even invited to the ceremony, which wasn't even held in Utah,
it was held in Arizona at the Grand Canyon, and a whole bunch
of--hundreds of environmentalists showed up, who knew when to
be there, and where to be, but nobody else in the country did.
So they acted in secrecy. They told flat-out lies. And I
haven't seen that published anywhere except in this book and in
the Resource Committee's report. So, maybe media don't think
that is news, but when something that corrupt goes on in an
Administration, I think it is news.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. So to connect the dots from the
foundations, it comes from the foundations into the Southern
Utah Wilderness Society and from the foundations into the
Sierra Club, who were working with and had prior knowledge of--
working with Katy McGinty and had prior knowledge of the final
execution by the President of a National Monument.
Mr. Arnold. Yes, they did.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. A lot of that land is land that was
used by cattlemen, some of it was school endowment lands, but
there was a huge, rich coal deposit.
Mr. Arnold. And oil and natural gas.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Right. Can you connect the dots from
those who are behind the foundations to those who are now
managing to control that resource?
Mr. Arnold. Well, you get back to the law of supply and
demand. If you know where your deposits of those minerals and
valuable products are, and they are on private land or they are
in another country where you can reach them, and somebody in
Government wants to reduce the supply by locking up in some
kind of designation where you can't gain access to it, what do
you think is going to happen to the price of those products and
the value of the remaining land?
So, again, you don't see many corporations crying the blues
over that because now their own private holdings are worth
more.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Ron, I want to get back to you. I do
want to take care of a little bit of business here for Jeff
Lyall.
Jeff, I just read a letter that you wrote, a very beautiful
letter, and you have asked that it be submitted to the
Committee and made a part of the permanent record.
Mr. Lyall. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Without objection, that will be
ordered.
Mr. Lyall. Thank you.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Ron, we have heard how rural
communities are impacted by the large foundations. Do these
effects spread beyond the rural areas, and how does it affect
the country as a whole?
Mr. Arnold. It is a complicated question. I could give you
the typical economist answer on the one hand and on the other
hand, but I think in this issue there is no other hand. The
answer is simple and straightforward. If you remove and destroy
all resource extraction from the United States, what does that
mean for where we get our supply of everything we can't get
here? It has to be gotten elsewhere.
We get most of our bananas--I don't know of anyplace in the
United States that grows a lot of bananas--we get them from
somewhere else. We haven't fought banana wars for a while. But
there is a lot of petroleum setting in the United States you
can't get at and, as I recall, we had a little war over oil not
too long ago, Desert Storm.
If we push timber offshore, if we push mining offshore, if
we push farming offshore, if we push ranching offshore, food,
clothing and shelter--you know, even environmentalists get
grumpy when they miss dinner.
So, I think are we going to be forced into facing something
like timber wars with some other country to get their trees
because we won't cut ours? It is not inconceivable. I don't say
that that is what is going to happen, but if it happened with
oil, why couldn't it happen with all the other things they are
shutting out.
So, is it affecting the Nation as a whole? Possibly, we
don't know. I mean, my crystal is no better than yours, but as
far as immediate impacts that you can see now, if you take
people out of the country--you know that old saying, ``you can
take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country
out of the boy''--well, when you take the boys and girls out of
the country, you put them in the cities. Now, what does that do
to concentration of population?
We have seen in the State where I live, even an attempt to
address some of the urban problems by sending welfare families
into rural areas because the State Government seemed to be able
to think, well, how do you help rural areas? You send them
urban things. Well, that is not the answer at all. You stop
preventing them from doing rural things, like cutting trees and
growing cows and food and other incidental things like that.
I think that a lot of people in urban areas simply haven't
ever lived on the land. They have lost their roots not just to
nature like the environmentalists claim, but to agriculture
which grows all their food, to mining from which if it doesn't
come from the ground it comes out of the water, so you have to
have minerals to make fishhooks even when you get stuff out of
the water. So, it is a matter of, like one engineer once told
me, ``You know the problem with people in cities is they don't
understand that everything--that things are made of stuff, and
stuff comes out of the ground''.
Now, I don't know any simpler way to say it, but that
struck me because it is so on-target, and it is so much like
the problem that you see in urban areas--and this is not a
joke. There was a farm poster contest in San Francisco, and one
little boy submitted a poster that said ``We don't need farmers
where I live because there is a Safeway right across the
street''. That is the kind of mentality you are up against, and
yet when they see people coming in from the country--oh, that
is a bunch of rubes and hicks, and we don't like them, and they
make crowding and urban sprawl has become a big deal''--well,
who is doing it? It is the people who thoughtlessly support the
depopulation and the rural cleansing that environmentalists are
promoting and advocating and actually producing with the help
of the Administration. Long-winded answer to a short question,
Madam Chairman.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you, Mr. Arnold.
I wanted to ask Mr. DeVargas, what level of funding do the
environmental groups have in your area, and how does it compare
to the funding for the concerns that you represent?
Mr. DeVargas. I know that they have about a million and a
half dollars as of the last funding cycle that I had a chance
to see, and we don't get anything. So, the comparison is really
striking.
As a former serviceman, one of the concerns that I have,
that Mr. Arnold kind of alluded to, is that some of this stuff
could really lead to some kind of danger to the country's
security. If you kill the mining outfit, even just sinking a
new shaft could take 5 years. If international shipping were to
be disrupted by a serious war and we were totally dependent on
all our raw products from somewhere else in order to fight a
war, I think our national security is also at stake in a lot of
these activities, and that is how I feel about it in terms of a
threat to all of us. But in terms of the funding that we get
for our activities, it is almost nonexistent.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. I wish my colleagues could have heard
that answer. Can you tell us the story behind the acquisition
and what you did, the sale of your wood processor, and now you
have a new piece of equipment? I think you have already put
that in the record, haven't you?
Mr. DeVargas. Yes, I have.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Tell me the history of the Mexican
spotted owl in your area.
Mr. DeVargas. There is none. There hasn't been any spotted
owl. I believe in Santa Fe in the early 1800's, they were able
to find one. In Taos, New Mexico, they said that they thought
they had heard one. In the Hicorea area of northwestern New
Mexico, they found two. They killed one of them to study it.
That is the history there.
Now, I understand there are spotted owls in southern New
Mexico. I don't know what the populations are, but in the
northern part of the State where I live, there are none. There
are no spotted owls.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. What kind of impacts have the listing
of the spotted owl had on your people?
Mr. DeVargas. Well, there have been a lot of mill closures.
The cattlemen are very severely impacted. The access to the
natural resources--it is not just the listing of the spotted
owl--I mean, the assault on the community is really broad. It
is not just like the spotted owl. When the spotted owl loses
its credibility because the biology doesn't sustain it, then
they will go to the willow flycatcher, and when that doesn't
work, when science reveals that the real threat to the willow
flycatcher is not the cattle, but the cowbirds, then they go on
to something else. And, really, what I see happening over there
is just taking the people off the land. That is the real
priority.
Right now, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest
Service have enormous amounts of money to purchase land in the
riparian areas. For us, what that does in terms of the impact
on our county, it is manyfold. For one thing, it continues to
take away our tax base, the people's tax base. I mean, we have
numerous wilderness areas in New Mexico, quite a few, and they
are underutilized because, as mentioned earlier, people just--
there is not that many people who are going to walk up there.
Just in my area, there is probably over a million acres just in
our area. There is the Pecos Wilderness, there is the San Padre
Park, there is Wheeler Peak, there is Bisty Badlands,
Bandolier, and it just goes on and on.
Between the National Parks, the Monuments, pretty soon
there is not going to be any land to support a tax base, and
that affects our schools in the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes
program because our county receives--most western counties that
are surrounded by Federal land receive 25 percent of the
revenues that they get in payment in lieu of taxes. Well,
recreation doesn't bring us anything in lieu of taxes. The
revenue from hunting and fishing licenses, they don't go to the
counties, those go to the State Game Commission.
So, whenever you don't have grazing and you don't have
logging or any kind of extractive industries, you have no
payment in lieu of taxes. When 70 percent of the land is in
Federal hands and you don't get payment in lieu of taxes, your
county's budget is just really bad.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Well, Mr. DeVargas, I want to thank
you for coming all the way out here to deliver your testimony.
I want to thank all of the witnesses for their fine testimony
and coming so far. Ms. Capp, you came clear across the country.
Mr. Lyall, you came in, too, thank you very much. And, Mr.
Arnold, I want to thank you.
Before I close the hearing, I want to begin with Mr. Lyall,
and ask you to respond briefly to one final question for me.
What is the most important thought that you want left with this
Committee and on the permanent record?
Mr. Lyall. I think, ma'am, we just, like all the witnesses
here--people--how can I say this, how would I like to--people
are on the bottom of the totem pole when the environmental
organizations, the Forest Service policy, when you look at all
the policies, people are on the bottom of the totem pole. And
why I say that, I deal with a gentlemen back home, they offer
me a lot of excuses and they will tell me things like resource
preservation. And what that means is that dirt, in their eyes,
is more important than the quality of lives of millions of
people.
I am here trying to represent and trying to improve the
quality of life for millions of people who are already behind
the 8-ball to start with, and dirt is given more consideration
than that. And that is why I have a problem with that. And back
home where I am from, I know a family--who wishes to remain
anonymous--but they have a 17-year-old daughter with cerebral
palsy, and they just got down--I think it took them over 2
years--a big fight with the Forest Service and some Virginia
State Land as well. They gave these people an awful time just
so they could get access for their daughter to use a motorized
golf cart so that she could get into the outdoors around their
house. She lived in the middle of some Forest Service land and
there were some roads on it that they wanted to be able to take
their daughter on. What is the big hurt? The road is there. Let
them use it. And they gave these people, I mean, an awful time.
It is really a shame what they did to them. And that just comes
down to when resources, things like--well, they are important,
I will give them their place--but when those things take
precedent over the quality of people's lives, I don't think
there is any excuse for that.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you, Mr. Lyall.
Mr. Arnold, what final thought would you like to leave with
the Committee?
Mr. Arnold. Madam Chairman, I would like our country to
wake up and realize what is being done to them by this ``iron
triangle'' of wealthy foundations, grant-driven environmental
groups, and zealous bureaucrats. Simply understanding that will
do more to dry up that influence and to put it in a proper
perspective and to reduce it to a manageable level, I think,
than just about anything else.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you, Mr. Arnold.
Ms. Capp?
Ms. Capp. Well, there are basically two things that I would
like to say. The first is something that I would like minority
people and Native Americans in particular to understand, and
that is just as these groups use certainly animal species as
what they call ``flagship'' species, they use Native Americans
as ``flagships'' species. And this sounds outrageous, but I am
going to say it because I believe it--after seeing the billions
and billions of dollars that these people have access to, I
believe that they could have ended the problem with the Hopi
removal a long time ago, had they wanted to, but I believe that
the Hopi served as a great ``flagship'' species for them to
rally other Native Americans around, to get them to fight, in
particular, mining, which if we abandon environmentally
responsible mining here, we are going to be getting our mined
products from other countries where mining may not be done
responsibly. So that is one thing that I really want to be
looked at, how minority people are being used against one
another and against their neighbors.
The other thing is that what I see happening now is it is
currently manifesting what I clearly see as genocide against
rural people in general. That is what is manifesting now. But I
believe that down the road, if this trend continues, it is
going to result in the economic devastation of this country,
which of course will mean the devastation of our security. It
is very important to me that this huge group of environmental
grantmakers make their investment portfolios visible. It is
hard to imagine that they are not somehow profiting from this.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms.
Capp.
Mr. DeVargas.
Mr. DeVargas. I guess the most important thing that I would
like to come out of here is that it doesn't matter if you are a
rural dweller with a limited education and walk around in dirty
blue jeans because you work in the woods or with cattle, or if
you are a Native American and dress a little bit different.
What I would like to see is the end of the demonization of
people.
Whenever people are demonized, to me, that is a prelude to
a war, to being able to allow mass society to have no empathy.
So, I just think that the leastest of us should be treated the
same as the ones with the mostest of us.
Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage. Very, very well said.
In closing, I again want to thank you and express my deep
gratitude to you for the investment that you have made in at
least exposing this issue, this problem, and we have made great
strides forward just in your willingness to expose the issue.
I am still baffled, and I will continue to search for the
reason that the grantmakers who get together and make plans for
the policies of ultimately negatively impact rural communities
and human lives. I keep thinking that they do operate in their
own self-interest, we know that, whether it is for good or
whether it is for not so good, but I have to ask what is their
self-interest because the forests are being destroyed. It is
like wanting to take the car and they shut the car down and
take the keys away and run the car out of gas, they are not
going to be able to start that car again. It is like killing
the goose that laid the golden egg while the golden egg is
still being laid, and the golden egg is the American economic
engine that has thrived so well because of mutual respect for
human beings, people who could live together in peace and
respect. The dehumanization of the people is a very appropriate
term because that is exactly what is happening. What is
frightening is if people can get together and plan policies
that impact humans without a care in the world for that human
being.
So, like John Adams said, this form of government was put
together to be run by people who are lawful and moral people,
and when we lose that kind of integrity, this is what has
happened.
I still think that because people collude at the
grantmakers' meetings and various other meetings, because they
use the kind of power that they do, because they involve
Government, that there is a huge civil rights case there, or a
huge RICO case there. And even if the case were put together,
this legal system, judicial system, has got to develop the
judicial will to right this wrong. And I just pray to God that
this judicial system has the kind of will that it had when it
passed the Sherman Antitrust Act.
So, this will not be the end of my hearings on this issue.
The Committee will continue to investigate, ask for more
congressional investigations, asking for transparency reporting
in actions by these grantmakers is a proper course. I will do
my best to influence leadership along this line. I would ask
that you work in your communities, to impress your Congressmen
individually along this line. Openness in Government is so
vitally important.
So, with that, I want to remind you that the record will
remain open for ten working days, should you wish to add
anything to your testimony or add any amendments to your
written testimony, please work with my Committee staff, feel
free to do so.
I will be submitting questions in writing to you. With
that, again I want to thank you, and this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 5 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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