[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 8, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E303-E304]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


           FEDS SHOULD LET STATES HANDLE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

                                 ______


                             HON. JIM KOLBE

                               of arizona

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 8, 1995
  Mr. KOLBE. Mr. Speaker, more and more people across this Nation are 
voicing their vehement opposition to the Federal Government's continued 
intrusion upon their individual rights. Leading this authoritarian 
onslaught upon the public are the cumbersome and often frivolous 
regulatory actions that have become part of our environmental policy. 
These regulations have become so pernicious that they actually prevent 
any sensible or rational 
[[Page E304]] interpretation/implemetation of our environmental laws. 
This does not, however, have to be the case.
  The following article by a Tucson, AZ resident, Mr. Hugh Holub, 
illustrates the absurdity of some of these regulations. But Mr. Holub 
also touches upon a key element to any prudent environmental strategy: 
That we must have confidence in and trust the local people to protect 
the environment in which they live.
  The article appeared in the Tucson Citizen on January 30, 1995.
           FEDS Should Let States Handle Environmental Issues

                            (By Hugh Holub)

       The rapidly spreading revolt against federal environmental 
     regulation being led by state governors such as Fife 
     Symington is not an attempt to degrade our environment.
       State and local governments are seeking the opportunity to 
     prioritize risks so limited financial resources can be 
     applied to obtain the maximum public benefit, and to fashion 
     their own ways to accomplish environmental goals without 
     being told how to do it by Washington.
       The greatest threat to our environment today is not the 
     Republican Congress, or state governors fed up with unfunded 
     federal mandates. The greatest threat is the federal 
     regulatory system itself, which has lost sight of the 
     relationship between cause and effect, which bases regulatory 
     mandates on junk science, which ignores the human and 
     economic consequences of regulatory mandates, and which 
     increasingly demands specific actions that strain the 
     credibility and pocketbooks of the public.
       The Endangered Species Act is probably the most 
     controversial expression of federal power yet devised in 
     Washington. Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
     proposed the listing of the pygmy owl as an endangered 
     species, and proposed various urban rivers in Phoenix and 
     Tucson as ``habitat recovery areas.''
       Included as a ``habitat recovery'' area in Tucson is the 
     Santa Cruz River flood plain from the I-19 bridge to the Avra 
     Valley Road bridge. What this means is that federal mandates 
     will follow, if the pygmy owl is listed, to prevent 
     groundwater pumping in Phoenix and Tucson and the restoration 
     of riparian forests along the Salt and Santa Cruz Rivers.
       Since the time of the Hohokam Indians, there probably 
     hasn't been a riparian area along the Salt and Santa Cruz 
     rivers through Phoenix and Tucson
      because the rivers were diverted for agricultural uses and 
     the flood plains were irrigated. However, since these 
     rivers theoretically could become habitats for the owls, 
     the federal government claims the authority to make us re-
     create habitat for the owls, notwithstanding the absurdity 
     of the goal, and the cost.
       It is also very arguable that there is no credible 
     scientific evidence that pygmy owls normally lived in these 
     areas, at least according to the Arizona Game and Fish 
     Department.
       Since the listing argument is based on the need for forests 
     to provide nesting sites for the owls, it is conveniently 
     ignored that there are more trees on the valley floors of the 
     Salt River valley and the Santa Cruz River valley today than 
     since the end of the last ice age. However, these trees are 
     on residential lots, in city parks, and around commercial and 
     industrial properties and thus aren't ``natural.''
       The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has, by their 
     interpretation of the Endangered Species Act, the power to 
     play God, and restore habitats for what they believe to be 
     endangered. There is obviously a not so hidden agenda with 
     the pygmy owl listing, as the target really is to usurp state 
     water law.
       One of the elements of the habitat recovery program is the 
     limitation of groundwater pumping in the valleys of the Salt 
     and Santa Cruz rivers. All of this conveniently ignores--at 
     least in the Tucson area--recent changes to Pima County's 
     flood control laws to protect riparian areas, and serious 
     proposals to restore river flows with CAP water for recharge 
     projects.
       According to one of the advocates of the listing of the 
     pygmy owl, protecting this owl under the Endangered Species 
     Act is the last, best chance to save the owl. Like the state 
     and local governments can't qqqdo more and better to restore 
     riparian areas without having the Endangered Species Act used 
     as a club to beat Arizona's management of water into 
     submission.
       The message to be gleaned from the growing conflict over 
     federal environmental regulation is that while the 
     overwhelming majority of Americans support protection of the 
     environment, we do not want to sacrifice our homes and our 
     jobs to federal environmental mandates.
       We want a balance--a win-win solution. We want 
     environmental protection and economic prosperity. We haven't 
     been able to get that from the federal level of government.
       Besides being governor of the state of Arizona, Fife 
     Symington is also a serious trout fisherman. He shares a 
     brotherhood and sisterhood of people who really go out into 
     the environment, and who appreciate the spiritual value wild 
     places give us.
       Symington is every bit as much an environmentalist as any 
     federal official. The salient difference, which is the 
     bedrock of the revolution that is growing in America today, 
     is that Fife and a lot of people such as him--Republican and 
     Democrat--have confidence in local people being able to 
     protect the environments they live in and depend on without 
     someone in Washington telling them how to do it.
     

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