[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 136 (Friday, September 27, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11529-S11531]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE BOUNDARY WATERS CANOE AREA WILDERNESS

  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of the 
people

[[Page S11530]]

of northern Minnesota about an issue that symbolizes for us the 
difference between what the role of government should be and what it 
has become. I am speaking, of course, about the current struggle to 
restore the rights of the citizens to have reasonable access to the 
cherished Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness [BWCAW].
  My colleague from northern Minnesota, Congressman Jim Oberstar, and I 
have unfortunately spent our days fighting a campaign of distortions 
and misinformation by a national coalition of special interest groups 
that want this national treasure for themselves: their private research 
territory not to be touched by what they view as the unclean, ignorant 
citizens of northern Minnesota. I believe a brief history of this 
controversy is needed if we hope to carry on an honest and reasonable 
debate on how best to resolve it.
  In 1978, 1 million acres in northern Minnesota were designated by 
Congress as our Nation's only lakeland-based Federal wilderness area. 
By establishing the BWCAW, Congress rightfully acknowledged the need to 
protect the tremendous ecological and recreational resources within the 
area, with the understanding that it was to be a multiple-use 
wilderness area, as first envisioned by Senator Hubert Humphrey in 
1964.
  When Senator Humphrey included the Boundary Waters as part of the 
National Wilderness System, he made a promise to the people of 
Minnesota, saying ``The wilderness bill will not ban motorboats.'' It 
is safe to say that without that commitment to the people of northern 
Minnesota, this region would not be a wilderness area today.
  In 1978, additional legislation was passed making further 
enhancements to the protection of the Boundary Waters, such as a 
justified ban on commercial activities like logging and mining. The 
1978 law also limited recreational uses. For instance, motorboat users 
could only use 18 of the 1,078 lakes within the region.
  Under the 1978 law, however, motorboat users were given the right to 
access some of these motorized lakes through three portage trails. 
Trucks and other mechanized means could be used to transport boats, 
canoes and people across the three portages from one lake to another. 
While many northern Minnesotans believed the 1978 law unduly restricted 
their boating privileges, they were comforted that these three 
mechanized portages would continue to allow reasonable access for 
everyone--from the young and the old to the strong and the weak--into 
many of these motorized lakes.
  The intent of Congress was altered in 1993 when environmental 
extremists succeeded in a lawsuit to close these portages to mechanized 
transport. As a result of this court order, visitors can only transport 
their boats now by carrying them on their backs or with pieces of 
equipment which are pulled like a wagon. That is great fun for the 
young and strong, but wrenching work for those who are elderly, 
disabled, or traveling with children.
  To illustrate the importance of allowing mechanized transport of 
boats over these portages, I wanted to show these pictures taken at 
Trout portage, one of the portages in question.
  As you can see, the physical requirements of dragging boats across 
these portages have placed an obvious roadblock to the open access 
guaranteed to the public by law.
  What is worse is that this court order came as the result of 
legalistic trickery by the radical environmentalists who filed the 
lawsuit--a deception they readily admit to and describe in great detail 
in a book they wrote entitled ``Troubled Waters.''
  According to their book, the compromise worked out between the 
attorneys representing the radical environmentalists and the people of 
northern Minnesota, which was adopted in the 1978 law, allowed portages 
to use mechanized transport if the U.S. Forest Service determined that 
a feasible nonmotorized alternative could not be established.
  In 1989, the Forest Service, after careful study, did in fact make 
that determination, thereby keeping the portages accessible to all.
  But unbeknownst to the people of northern Minnesota, and apparently 
the U.S. Congress, the term ``feasible'' did not have the same meaning 
in environmental law as it does in everyday English.
  According to ``Troubled Waters,'' a ``feasible'' alternative could, 
under law, permit something that was possible only from an engineering 
standpoint, regardless of whether it would take longer, be less 
convenient, or even be, and I quote the preservationists' own words, 
``downright tortuous.''
  The extreme environmentalists go on in their book to describe how 
their attorney did not even bother to tell the attorney representing 
the interests of northern Minnesota about their sleight-of-hand 
gamesmanship.
  In other words, they purposely salted the deal with words they knew 
they would later challenge in court.
  It was under this narrow interpretation of the word ``feasible'' that 
a federal appeals panel ordered the portages closed, after reversing a 
lower court decision which determined that a group of healthy, able-
bodied people could not always transport these boats using muscle power 
and portage wheels. And so for four years, these portages have been 
effectively restricted from use by the elderly and disabled.
  By the way, the word ``feasible'' means that the Ely football team or 
dog sleds can maybe help do this, but in other words it restricts an 
average person's ability to be able to get access to the park.
  Since the court decision, the number of motorboats transported across 
these portages has significantly decreased.
  Even more telling are the letters I have received from Minnesotans 
who have been shut out of the land they once called home.
  John Novak, a veteran from Ely, MN, wrote me about his frustration 
with the closing of the portages, saying:

       I was good enough to go into the armed services for our 
     country for 3 years back in the forties. Now that I am 
     disabled, I am not good enough to get in the Boundary Waters 
     Canoe Area Wilderness.

  I received another letter from a young man from Virginia, MN, named 
Joe Madden who wrote ``I went to visit the Boundary Waters with my 
grandfather. We wanted to go fishing in Trout Lake, but we could not 
get there because we could not get my grandpa's boat over the 
     portage. Can you please open it up so Grandpa and I could 
     go fishing?

  These are just two of the many letters and requests sent to me by 
average, hard-working Minnesotans who have seen the promises made to 
them long ago by the Federal Government broken and forgotten over the 
years--people who rightfully believed that the Government was meant to 
work for them, but found out just the opposite.
  It is these people--the men, women, and children of northern 
Minnesota--whose crusade Jim Oberstar and I have carried to the Halls 
of Congress in trying to reopen the three portages in the Boundary 
Waters.
  In the 104th Congress alone, there have been a number of developments 
bringing us to the point at which we find ourselves today.
  Eight Minnesota State legislators--all Democrats--asked me to request 
a field hearing on this issue.
  The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee then held a field 
hearing in International Falls, MN, on issues surrounding the Boundary 
Waters and Minnesota's Voyageurs National Park.
  A second field hearing was held in St. Paul at the request of my 
colleagues from Minnesota, Senator Wellstone and Congressman Bruce 
Vento.
  This year, Congress has held three committee hearings in Washington 
on bills introduced by Congressman Oberstar and me to reopen the 
portages, and provide the public greater input into how the Boundary 
Waters and Voyageurs National Park are managed in the future.
  At each of these hearings, a major display of opposition was 
organized by the extreme environmental special interests groups and 
their allies in Congress against our bills.
  As a result, Senators with little knowledge or legitimate interests 
in the Boundary Waters were scripted to pronounce the bills dead on 
arrival and to make unbiased charges that we introduced our legislation 
for political reasons--criticisms which ignored the clear bipartisan 
nature of our work.
  This organized campaign of disinformation and propaganda placed a 
significant obstacle against our hopes to move these bills through the 
committee process, leaving us and the taxpayers of Minnesota, who we 
represent,

[[Page S11531]]

with few legislative options to resolve the problems facing the people 
of northern Minnesota.
  While many contentious issues surround the management of these two 
national treasures, no issue more perfectly symbolizes the failure of 
the Federal Government to live up to its proper role of serving the 
people than that of the three portages.
  The same radical environmental individuals engaged in Senator 
Wellstone's mediation effort have claimed that any portage changes are 
``non-negotiable.'' And yes, the same environmental lawyer who came up 
with the word ``feasible'' is part of this mediation 
effort. Congressman Oberstar and I persuaded the managers of the 
conference committee considering the omnibus parks bill to include a 
compromise provision which would reopen the Trout, Prairie, and Four-
Mile portages to the elderly, disabled, and everyone who did not have a 
washboard stomach.

  We hoped that at long last, the people of northern Minnesota would 
finally have their voices heard in Congress.
  But once again, those same special interest groups--who had fooled 
the people of northern Minnesota in 1978, closed the portages in 1993, 
and used their influence to block our bills from the committee process 
this year--struck again, soliciting letters of opposition from Senators 
outside of Minnesota and even a veto threat from the White House.
  The compromise was pulled out of the conference report late Tuesday 
night--and the people of northern Minnesota were shut out once again.
  I am disappointed by this turn of events--not so much for myself and 
Congressman Oberstar, though we have put much time and effort to get 
the portages reopened--but rather for John Novak, Joe Madden, and the 
thousands of northern Minnesotans who were counting on this Congress to 
begin righting the wrongs of the last two decades.
  You see, we in Minnesota still honestly believe in the words of 
President Lincoln that this is a ``government of the people, by the 
people, and for the people.''
  These words and the principles of democracy they embody have been 
passed down from generation to generation--the uniquely American idea 
that Government should work in the interests of the people, not against 
them.
  But somewhere down the line, that idea was forgotten by those Federal 
officials and bureaucrats who have been serving the radical 
environmental cabal, rather than for those hard-working taxpayers in 
northern Minnesota who ask for so little.
  It is not surprising that the people of northern Minnesota are 
questioning just whom the Federal Government really serves.
  It was President Clinton--yes, the same President Clinton whose White 
House threatened to veto the portages compromise--who said ``There is 
nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with 
America.'' In taking up the cause of the people of northern Minnesota, 
I embrace those words and only slightly modify them to say ``There is 
nothing wrong with the federal government that cannot be fixed by what 
is right with the American people.'' And it is what is right about our 
fellow Americans that keeps me hopeful that we will indeed resolve this 
issue in a way that best suits those Minnesotans who I am proud to 
represent in the Senate.

  We may not have the money that the radical environmentalists do, or 
have at our disposal the highly-paid lobbyists and lawyers who are 
working against us--but we do have something more important than all of 
that. We have the truth on our side. And we are working for the same 
thing every American wants from our government: accountability to the 
people.
  Accountability means balancing the protection of our pristine 
wilderness with the rights of the people to enjoy our natural 
resources. It means restoring the promises made in the past and 
establishing a partnership with the people to ensure those promises 
will be honored in the future. And it means keeping the Federal 
Government in check to guarantee that it works for the best interests 
of the people.
  We who love the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness are working 
toward--and will continue to work toward--those goals. I am pleased to 
have a commitment from the distinguished chairman of the Senate Energy 
and Natural Resources Committee for an early markup of this common-
sense reform effort in the next Congress. We will not stop our efforts 
until the principles of democracy are embodied in the future management 
of this beautiful national treasure. The people of northern Minnesota 
will have their voices heard in Congress, past injustices will be 
remedied, and the promises made so long ago by Senator Humphrey will be 
kept.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask to speak in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized for 5 minutes 
according to the previous order.

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