[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 105 (Monday, June 26, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S9098]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. SIMPSON:
  S. 966. A bill for the relief of Nathan C. Vance, and for other 
purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.


                     NATE VANCE PRIVATE RELIEF ACT

  Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I rise today to offer a bill for private 
relief of a citizen who has fallen victim both to the 1988 Yellowstone 
fires and to an insensitive Government bureaucracy.
  The tragic Yellowstone ``Mink'' Forest Fire of 1988 devastated Nathan 
Vance's outfitting business when it burned through his Teton wilderness 
camp. The fire destroyed essential outfitting equipment, forcing Nathan 
Vance to cancel 12 prepaid trips and to forfeit valuable revenue from 
those trips. Mr. Vance incurred both equipment replacement costs and 
lost revenue, a deadly combination to a small, seasonal business with a 
small profit margin even in the best of times. This legislation would 
compensate him for the equipment losses he suffered--as the Congress 
had intended when it passed the original legislation following those 
tragic fires.
  That law, Public Law 101-302, authorized the Forest Service to settle 
certain personal damage claims from the 1988 Yellowstone fires. Mr. 
Vance mailed his claim on August 19, 1990 to meet the August 23 
deadline. Through no fault of his own, it took 5 business days for Nate 
Vance's letter to travel from Wyoming to Utah--longer than it takes a 
letter to reach Washington, DC from San Francisco, CA.
  The Forest Service officially received the Vance claim less than 24 
hours after the deadline. The Forest Service initially seemed 
unconcerned by the deadline and continued the claim process by asking 
Mr. Vance to provide a detailed accounting of his lost equipment and 
revenue.
  More than 3 months after the Forest Service received his accounting 
and appeared ready to pay the claim, Mr. Vance was informed by a Forest 
Service employee that his claim was invalid because of the missed 
deadline. Mr. Vance has since attempted to appeal to the Forest 
Service, but has been met with repeated refusals.
  Public Law 101-302 states the ``Forest Service is directed to 
negotiate, compromise, and reach a determination on the original 
claims.'' It is clear that the Forest Service failed to negotiate, to 
compromise, or reach a determination even when directly ordered by law 
to do so--all based on unusually slow mail service. The tragic 
combination of a devastating forest fire and Government insensitivity 
has turned Mr. Vance's life upside down. He is still struggling to pay 
the additional mortgages on his home and on the business assets he was 
forced to assume in order to continue his business.
  Nate Vance's story is an unnecessary and an unintended inequity. 
Insensitive Government actions contributed to his hardship through an 
unreasonable and unresponsive process. We should not allow Government 
to forget that we are here to ``serve'' the people, not to impose 
unfair burdens upon them.
  This legislation will allow us to ease part of the unfair burden 
imposed on Nate Vance by requiring the Secretary to pay Mr. Vance 
$4,850 which is authorized under section 1304--the judgments, awards, 
and compromised settlements section--of title 31 of the United States 
Code. This amount represents his equipment loss and is the amount that 
would have been approved if the postal service had taken 4 rather than 
5 days to deliver his claim from Wyoming to its adjacent neighbor, 
Utah.
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