[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 25 (Wednesday, March 9, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                           RANGELAND REFORMS

  Mr. WALLOP. Mr. President, the Senate will well remember the 
struggles that it was put through last fall in the so-called debate on 
rangeland reforms. Senators from public land States and others assisted 
each other in seeing to it that the Reid amendment to the Interior 
appropriations bill--that package of 29 pages of proposed law and other 
things--did not become law.
  Since that time, the Secretary of the Interior has made conciliatory 
remarks, saying that he understood the need for working with all 
parties involved. I have a number of quotes from the Secretary here.
  ``I really did underestimate the intensity,'' he said, and then 
chided himself for allowing special groups in Washington to tie up his 
original rangeland reform package.

       If I made a mistake it is because the Washington interest 
     groups, national environmental organizations really have a 
     stake in fueling fires * * *. When I am selling big reforms I 
     have got to be down in the dirt. I really have to be out 
     there and do the hard work of building from the ground up.

  Mr. President, it is true the Secretary went to Colorado and a number 
of other Western States and it is true somewhere or another he has 
managed to put together a proposal. It is also true he has promised 
there would be congressional hearings. But he has said he would work 
with these groups to put the proposal together and in fact he has, now, 
demonstrated that he will not.
  All of us who are interested in the proposal and even some who may 
not be, will have seen the so-called leaks that were in the papers 
about the contents of this new rangeland reform proposal. Some of us 
were willing to accept his word that they were leaks. The Senator from 
Colorado [Mr. Campbell] wrote a sternly worded letter to the Secretary 
saying he felt essentially betrayed, that he, the Secretary, had 
promised Senator Campbell that he would give him a briefing on these 
things before it was released.
  The Secretary's response to the Campbell letter was: ``I couldn't 
possibly have known about this. I have been betrayed by leaks in my 
office, et cetera, et cetera. I will make it up to you.''
  One of the weird things is that a draft proposal is known to exist 
and the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Senator Johnston from 
Louisiana, and myself, have asked the Interior Department if we can see 
it and we have been told no. We can go down and look at it. Yet, again 
they say these were leaks and they were not intentional.
  I have here a memo from Kevin Sweeney, the Director of 
Communications. The headline of the memo says, ``United States 
Department of Interior, Office of the Secretary.''
  The memo, by the way, goes to Mr. Larry Werner with Senator Reid; Mr. 
John Lawrence with Representative Miller; Mr. Rick Healy with 
Representative Vento; Sandy Harris, Ruth Fleisher with Representative 
Synar. The memo says:

       Attached is a draft press release regarding one element of 
     the proposed grazing rule: standards and guidelines. At this 
     point, we hope to issue this release at a press conference on 
     Monday, March 7.

  Listen to this paragraph.

       I realize you will meet tomorrow to discuss the proposed 
     rule. If that meeting leads to substantive changes in the 
     standards and guidelines section, the press release will of 
     course change as well.
       Please check the attached and call me with any comments, 
     criticisms or specific edits.

  Mr. President, this memo says that the Office of the Secretary is not 
telling the truth. This comes right out of his office and these people 
did not have the draft leaked to them. They were part of drafting it.
  If we cannot as representatives of the affected States--and I am 
talking about a bipartisan group, I am talking about the Senator from 
Colorado as well--be involved in this thing in an honorable and upright 
and forthright way--we do not have to win, but we really need to be 
told the truth. The Secretary is more likely to get something that will 
benefit the economies of the West, the people who are inhabitants of 
the West, the public lands of the West, and those interested in them by 
putting together an honest-to-God group of people who are willing to 
work on these problems than to narrow it back down to the same small 
group of people who created the problem that he confronted last year.
  I do not know. I do not know whether I approve or disapprove. We have 
not seen the proposal. And he says those that have seen it have had it 
leaked. But this memo says they are drafting it. This is not the broad-
based group that the Secretary claims to have his credits from.
  Let me say there was his chief of staff, was out in Wyoming, a Mr. 
Collier. This was on the 8th, Tuesday, in Cheyenne WY. I quote:

       We didn't start off on the right foot because Interior did 
     not listen closely enough to local concerns, Collier said at 
     a meeting. * * *
       Interior Assistant Secretary, Bob Armstrong told the group 
     that the new proposal ``gets closer to the ground than 
     Washington has been in the past.

  My point is this. These are issues that affect the citizens of our 
States, Republicans and Democrats alike. Whether the Secretary likes it 
or not, America still is a democracy. The representatives elected from 
those States represent those people. They are not entitled to win, but 
they are entitled to be courteously treated and to be part of the 
discussion. Their views are entitled to be heard. They ought to be 
heard. And for the Secretary to claim leaks when, in fact, they are not 
leaks but they are contrivances, connivances of people trying to put 
together a program that affects the livelihoods, not just of ranchers, 
not just of cattlemen and wool growers, not just oil producers and 
timber operators, not just miners and people who have water--but, Mr. 
President, the counties of my State depend on the ad valorem taxes 
raised off of the multiple use of those lands, the production of 
resources. Our schools depend on them. Our county fire departments 
depend on them. Our airports depend on them. The bridges, the 
hospitals, the community colleges and the university depend on them. 
And all kinds of people, Republican and Democrats, live in those 
counties and abide with each of those events.
  These people are entitled to better treatment than they have had.
  I ask unanimous consent the March 3 memo I quoted and the article 
from the Star-Tribune be printed in the Record.
  I yield the remainder of my time, and ask Senator Domenici be 
permitted to speak.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                   Department of The Interior,

                                    Washington, DC, March 3, 1994.
     Re possible announcement on standards and guidelines.

     To: Larry Werner, w/Sen. Reid; John Lawrence, w/Rep. Miller; 
         Rick Healy, w/Rep. Vento; Sandy Harris, Ruth Fleisher, w/
         Rep. Synar.
     From: Kevin Sweeney, Director of Communications.
       Attached is a draft press release regarding one specific 
     element of the proposed grazing rule: standards and 
     guidelines. At this point, we hope to issue this release at a 
     press conference this Monday, March 7.
       I realize you will meet tomorrow to discuss the proposed 
     rule. If that meeting leads to substantive changes in the 
     standards and guidelines section, the press release will of 
     course change as well.
       Please check the attached and call me with any comments, 
     criticisms or specific edits. I can be reached at 208-6416.
                                  ____


               [From the Star Tribune (WY), Mar. 8, 1994]

           Interior Staffer: New Range Plan Gives Concessions

                           (By Hugh Jackson)

       Cheyenne.--Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt hopes his 
     latest grazing reform proposal will placate the concerns of 
     the agriculture industry, Babbitt's chief of staff said 
     Monday.
       ``I hope you will note the number of places we have made 
     changes, and the direction we have made those changes in,'' 
     said Tom Collier, chief of staff at the Interior Department.
       Babbitt's earlier grazing reform proposal was aggressively 
     opposed by people who hold grazing leases on public lands, 
     and eventually torpedoed in the U.S. Senate.
       ``We didn't start off on the right foot'' because the 
     Interior did not listen closely enough to local concerns, 
     Collier said at a meeting at the Capitol building in 
     Cheyenne.
       Collier, Interior Assistant Secretary Bob Armstrong, Gov. 
     Mike Sullivan, and several representatives of the ranching 
     industry and conservation groups who met with Babbitt in 
     Cheyenne Feb. 2 convened again in the Capitol Monday to hear 
     Collier outline Babbitt's revised reform proposal.
       Babbitt's latest proposal offers a number of changes from 
     the initial plan, with the idea of offering more local 
     control to leaseholders, Collier said.
       The new plan also included a smaller hike in grazing fees 
     and proposes incentives for lessees whereby the increase can 
     be offset if range improvements are made.


                         ranchers not convinced

       Several ranchers at the meeting with Collier expressed 
     wariness at the new proposal, particularly regarding how an 
     incentive program would be monitored, and who would determine 
     incentive eligibility.
       Armstrong told the group that the new proposal ``gets 
     closer to the ground than Washington has been in the past.''
       Environmentalists have criticized the Clinton 
     administration, saying it has caved in to western commodity 
     interests. Interviewed after the meeting, Armstrong dismissed 
     the suggestions that the latest reform proposal was another 
     example of acquiescence to industry.
       ``You can say it's compromise if you want to. What it is is 
     people getting together and figuring what you ought to do. I 
     don't see that as compromise. I see that as the fact that 
     people have a burden of proof to show us where we're wrong, 
     and if they show us where we're wrong, we'll change,'' 
     Armstrong said.
       ``We have a burden of proof to show what we want to do, and 
     to see if this is right. What we're trying to do is figure 
     out whether we have met that burden of proof or not,'' he 
     added.
       Truman Julian, who leases public lands in southwestern 
     Wyoming and is vice-president of the National Public Lands 
     Council, said after Monday's meeting that the Interior 
     Department is using a different approach to range reform by 
     trying to bring in local voices.
       ``But I guess until I see the entire package, I'm not too 
     sure that anything has changed much,'' Julian said.
       Environmentalists representing the Wyoming Wildlife 
     Federation, the Wyoming Outdoor Council, and the Powder River 
     Basin Resource Council said little during the meeting.


                      local control and fee breaks

       The latest proposal gives state Bureau of Land Management 
     directors, in consultation with the local resource advisory 
     councils, the authority to set state-by-state standards and 
     guidelines governing some land management practices, such as 
     seasonal use restrictions and pesticide use.
       The proposal also includes broad, national requirements for 
     healthy ecosystems, riparian maintenance and protection and 
     compliance with both the Clean Water and Endangered Species 
     acts. It remains to be seen what those requirements will mean 
     to lease-holders, Julian said.
       The higher grazing fee will hurt the industry, Julian 
     added.
       The earlier Babbitt grazing fee structure called for a top 
     rate of $4.28 per animal unit month.
       Under the latest proposal, the fee will be phased in over a 
     three-year period, rising from the current $1.92 per AUM to 
     $2.75 in 1995, to $3.50 in 1996 and $3.96 in 1997.
       If lessees can take measures to improve the range 
     conditions, they will be eligible for a 30 percent reduction 
     in the fee, under the plan as outlined by Collier Monday.
       Although Babbitt's opponents have repeatedly said that a 
     higher grazing fee itself is merely symbolic of the larger 
     changes the Clinton administration wants to impose on lands 
     use in the West, Julian said the fee issue is extremely 
     important, especially to the sheep industry.
       ``Add two dollars on to that thing, and losing everything 
     else that we're losing, and all the other problems we've got, 
     I don't think I can take it,'' Julian said.
       Steven Horn, the dean of Agriculture at the University of 
     Wyoming, said at the meeting that the UW Agricultural 
     Economics Department recently finished a study which shows 
     that a grazing fee as high as $2.46 would be too high for 
     ranchers to make a profit from grazing livestock on public 
     lands.
       Collier questioned the study validity, however. Interior 
     Department data indicates that for 72 percent of Wyoming 
     lessees, the annual increases will amount to less than $1,000 
     per year, he said.
       Armstrong said that an economic analysis for an existing 
     ranching operation in Colorado showed that the entire costs 
     per animal unit month, including all expenses from grazing 
     fees to dog food, amounted to $16.05.
       The higher grazing fees proposed by Babbitt would raise 
     that total to $16.88, with the incentive.
       ``It would seem to me that that increase is pretty easy on 
     a person who applies for that incentive,'' Armstrong said.


                          recognizing biology

       Sullivan, meanwhile, suggested that the number of sheep 
     included in the animal unit month formula should be increased 
     from its current five to reflect the hard times faced by the 
     industry.
       Dale Strickland, president of the Wyoming Wildlife 
     Federation, noted that the animal unit month is supposed to 
     represent how much forage is consumed on the land either by a 
     cow and her calf, or the equivalent--five sheep.
       Collier agreed that biology has ``got to be the major 
     factor'' in establishing the AUM. But Collier said perhaps 
     the livestock numbers should be re-evaluated to determine if 
     five sheep is the appropriate number.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognizes the Senator from New 
Mexico [Mr. Domenici].
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to speak for no longer than 10 minutes as in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________