[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 13 (Monday, January 23, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1344-S1345]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            CRISIS IN IDAHO

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, last Friday at about this hour I stood on 
the floor of this Senate to describe a crisis that my State of Idaho 
and its citizens were at the brink of, a crisis that had resulted from 
a Federal judge's order to immediately halt all economic activity on 
nearly 14 million acres of my State.
  At the time I spoke, Idaho families and communities stood on the 
brink of financial ruin, through, frankly, no fault of their own, but 
because the Federal Government had failed to perform its 
responsibilities in a framework that was required by the law. Since I 
spoke on Friday many of my colleagues have asked me about the situation 
in my State.
  I rise this afternoon to give Members a status report to the Senate 
and, frankly, to the Nation. I say to the Nation, because we will not 
find this story reported on the front page of any newspaper outside the 
State of Idaho, probably because nobody would believe the magnitude of 
the potential catastrophe that was at hand in my State.
  This action was taken in the name of saving an important Idaho 
resource--the salmon, three species of salmon--on the Snake and 
Columbia River systems of the Pacific Northwest, an anadromous fish 
that spawns in the headwaters of my State of Idaho and listed as 
threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
  But surely it was not necessary to shut down virtually all activities 
on six national forests with only 1 day's warning to save these species 
of fish. This action occurred because a Federal agency, National Marine 
Fisheries, had not finished its review of another Federal agency's 
work. The so-called consultation process was being mired down inside 
the bureaucracy, whether it was because of staff time or inadequate 
funding or simply they just had not gotten to it. The bottom line was 
that it had not been done and a Federal judge reacted.
  I received from local officials worried about a situation of nearly 
2,000 people being put out of work, a population frightened that on 
Monday morning, this day, they would not have the jobs to go to that 
they had demanded immediate action. That injunction was to go through 
on Friday.
  Now our problem was to be, what would happen? So on Friday I got in 
touch with National Marine Fisheries, Rollie Schmitten at his agency 
and he assured me the work would be completed on January 31--that is a 
week from now--that it would satisfy National Marine Fisheries 
concerned about Forest Service activities and that it might well 
address the consultation process in its conclusion.
  What is important to remember is that the court injunction issued 
over a week ago was not issued because salmon were being endangered by 
folks at that moment in time. They were not being placed in jeopardy at 
that moment in time. But a judge reacted with an injunction that could 
have stopped jobs in the area and would have threatened thousands of 
families at this moment in time. In other words, the bureaucratic 
gridlock could have put my State of Idaho out of business and put 
thousands of people's jobs on the line.
  This brings to the forefront, I think, the most recent example of the 
balancing act we must pursue when saving a species of plant or animal. 
Unfortunately, I believe it is the Endangered Species Act that is out 
of balance, not the people of my State of Idaho, and not their actions, 
inside the law, inside the Federal rules and regulations of the Forest 
Service of course now being examined by the National Marine Fisheries.
  In the coming days and weeks I will be working with Members of the 
Senate, and the Idaho delegation will be working to try to resolve this 
issue. Here is what the problem is in the short-term: National Marine 
Fisheries must expedite that consultation, accepting the decision of 
the Forest Service on some of these areas. I have asked the Clinton 
administration to enact emergency regulations to resolve the problems 
between the two departments, the National Marine Fisheries and the 
Forest Service. Rollie Schmitten is going to live up to his 
[[Page S1345]] deadline of January 31. I trust they will get that done.
  Now, of course, in the long term, the legislation of reauthorization 
of the Endangered Species Act is what is critical and what has to be 
done.
  Well, did anybody lose their job today? The answer is no. In the last 
hour, the Justice Department asked for us a stay through the Forest 
Service, and it was granted by the judge. We have 1 week's breathing 
room.
  But the reason I bring this, of course, is just to give you an idea 
of the kind of crisis, the frustration, the anger, the depression that 
the citizens of my State went through. Men and women calling my office 
crying, frightened that their very jobs would be destroyed and taken 
away from them because of a bureaucratic boondoggle? Absolutely. It is 
going on in my State of Idaho right now, it has gone on in other 
States, and it will continue to go on as long as this Congress closes 
its eyes, turns its back, and walks away from the responsibility of 
reauthorizing the acts of Congress, the laws of the land, and in that 
process, reexamining whether they work or do not work, whether they 
comply or are out of compliance with the intent of Congress and 
whether, in fact, they truly address the needs of the American people 
and the wants, and that is to save plants and animals who are 
endangered. But we in the Senate know today that that is not the way 
the act is working.
  While for the short term, the Idaho congressional delegation has 
solved an immediate crisis in Idaho, the clock ticks. What happens on 
Friday or Saturday of this week if these deadlines are not met, if 
there is no reality to the human compassion that ought to be expressed 
by these agencies in carrying out the mandate of their laws or their 
regulations within the law?
  I will continue to report to the Senate as the Idaho congressional 
delegation and I continue to act to try to resolve this immediate 
crisis. Mr. President, we have a responsibility in the U.S. Senate now 
to address the Endangered Species Act so that we can say once and for 
all, ``Yes, we're concerned about the protection of or the development 
of a mitigating plan to save a given species of plant or animal that 
may be endangered. But while we are doing it, let us not endanger the 
lives or well-being of thousands of citizens across this country who, 
through no fault of their own, have fallen on the tracks of a Federal 
law that is out of control and the train that rides on those tracks now 
bears down upon them with the risk of destroying them.''
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  Mr. BINGAMAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.

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