[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H7712-H7714]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.R. 4328, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 1999
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the
Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 4328) making appropriations for the
Department of Transportation and related agencies for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 1999, and for other purposes, with a Senate
amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the
conference asked by the Senate.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Virginia?
There was no objection.
Motion To Instruct Offered By Mr. Sabo
Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. Sabo moves, that in resolving the differences between
the House and Senate, the managers on the part of the House
at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses
on the bill, H.R. 4328, be instructed to disagree to a
provision in the Senate bill that amends the Alaska National
Interest Lands Conservation Act to allow helicopters
unrestricted access to wilderness areas in Alaska.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo) and
the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf) each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo).
Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, when H.R. 4328, the fiscal year 1999 transportation
appropriations bill passed the House, it was a bill that was relatively
free of antienvironmental riders. However, the Senate has attached to
the bill several controversial riders that undermine important
environmental protections.
Mr. Speaker, this Motion to instruct addresses the most controversial
of those riders which would amend the Alaskan National Interest Lands
Conservation Act to permit helicopters to operate inland in all
national wildlife refuges, national parks and wilderness study areas in
Alaska. This motion to instruct directs the House conferees to disagree
with this provision which is not in the House bill.
Mr. Speaker, the Senate rider has no place in the transportation
appropriations bill. First, the provision is a legislative provision
that amends the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, a law
that is within the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Resources.
Second, this provision is not simply a provision to clarify as some
have claimed. It would rewrite 18 years of national environmental
policy with potentially far-reaching impacts that, according to the
National Park Service, could fundamentally change the character of
national parks in Alaska.
Currently, helicopter landings are allowed in Alaska wilderness areas
only for emergency reasons and on a case-by-case basis for nonemergency
uses in nonwilderness areas. These restrictions were carefully
constructed when ANILCA was adopted in 1980.
This amendment would lift those restrictions, allowing helicopters to
land routinely in the remote areas of the Tongass National Forest, the
glaciers of Kenai Fjords National Park, and the inlets of Glacier Bay,
primarily for the benefit of helicopter tour operators and cruise ship
passengers who want to take these sightseeing tours.
Mr. Speaker, the administration has strongly objected to this
provision. The Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture have previously
recommended that bills containing similar provisions be vetoed. Federal
land management agencies have already considered the expanded use of
helicopters on wilderness lands in Alaska and found it to be
inappropriate.
Numerous environmental groups also have objected to this provision.
They fear that the constant buzz of helicopters dropping tourists into
fragile ecosystems on the tops of mountains, near isolated lakes, and
in other pristine areas for purely recreational purposes could destroy
the very essence of these wild areas, disturb wildlife, and disrupt
habitat protection activities for threatened and endangered species.
Further, hunting and sporting organizations have objected to this
provision. They are asking us to safeguard default hunting and sporting
opportunities in Alaska by rejecting this provision.
Mr. Speaker, this anti-environmental rider is controversial and
complex and should not be included in the conference report on the
transportation appropriation bill. I urge adoption of this motion.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
General Leave
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have
5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on the motion to
instruct and that I may include tabular and extraneous material.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Virginia?
There was no objection.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in very, very strong support of the motion to
instruct the conferees offered by my good friend, the gentleman from
Minnesota (Mr. Sabo).
The Senate version of the FY 1999 Department of Transportation and
Related Agencies Appropriations bill includes a rider which would amend
current law to change ``airplanes'' to ``aircraft'' to allow
helicopters to operate and land in conservation systems units in
Alaska, including wilderness areas and wilderness study areas. To
permit helicopters in Alaskan wilderness and other conservation areas
would be a travesty and, quite frankly, just flat wrong.
If the Senate provision were adopted, there would be widespread
commercialization of the Alaska wilderness. Recreational helicopters,
operated by tour companies, would penetrate and land in parks,
wilderness and other conservation areas, significantly altering the
experience of the park and threatening the resources of these very
special places.
Opening these conservation units in Alaska to aircraft access is
opening them to virtually unlimited access. Helicopter use has few
limitations. Virtually any area can be accessed and any small clearing
is suitable for landing. Furthermore, the Senate provision opens the
door not only for helicopters but also for hover craft, ultralights and
virtually any and every technological innovation that personal aircraft
industry may produce.
Unrestricted helicopter access, operations and landings would disrupt
ongoing conservation efforts in the national parks, national wildlife
refuges, national forests and on the public lands. Scientific research
has demonstrated that helicopter noise levels can adversely impact
wildlife. The noise and wind disruption from helicopters would impact
the caribou, the moose, the waterfowl, raptors and other bird species,
brown and black bears, and certain other animals and mammals.
Unrestricted helicopter operations would destroy the very essence of
these wild areas, by allowing helicopter-borne recreation, hunting and
fishing access to areas of this country that we have determined to be
pristine, and would be absolutely wrong. Poaching and other illegal
hunting would also, I think, become commonplace.
The Senate amendment should be resoundingly rejected by the House. We
must protect our Nation's wilderness areas for generations to come. We
must not permit the commercialization of
[[Page H7713]]
national wilderness lands and allow tour operators to destroy these
untarnished areas, all for the sake of a couple of dollars.
I favor the gentleman offering the amendment and strongly urge the
Members to support it.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for his support of this
motion.
Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to my good friend,
the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Vento).
Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr.
Sabo) and I also thank the chairman for his comment in accepting this
motion by my colleague, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo).
Mr. Speaker, I rise in certainly strong support of it. I would just
point out to my colleagues that Alaska under the land use laws that
were passed in ANILCA and in other land use laws is already treated
special by permitting airplanes to land within some parks, wilderness
and refuges. We do not permit helicopters landing in wilderness or on
an open basis in refuges, or certainly in our national parks in the
lower 48, and/or any aircraft for that matter, other than that we do
have some of the Frank Church wilderness, some landing strips which
were preserved there.
Congress and the law already treats Alaska special by permitting
aircraft and other access with special transportation through these
stretches of wilderness of refuge and parks in Alaska. We already do
that. What is being proposed here is that you take off almost all
restrictions with regards to the penetration of helicopters,
ultralights in wilderness, parks refuges in Alaska, basically in such a
way as would substantially damage these areas.
We are not talking for safety and health reasons in this case. We are
talking for sport purposes, for tourist purposes and, in fact, of
course, you prevent the basic aircraft definition in law and the
business that has been built up in Alaska today relying upon the
current law.
As far as sportsmen are concerned, I do not think it takes much
imagination to recognize if you can put a helicopter into a key area
where you have some of the trophy hunting that might go on, it would
not be long before there would not be many of those species left that
are so desirable.
{time} 1245
That is why I think some of the hunting groups have spoken out
against this, recognizing that it is really destroying this last great
stretch of wilderness and these special areas which serve as home for
the spectacular species.
So, I certainly rise in strong opposition to this proviso in the
Senate-passed measure and would point out that there is no technical
mistake in the law. Some of my colleagues and I were here when this law
was enacted. Senator Glenn and others were active. Obviously, our good
friend and my mentor, Mo Udall, was here and when he wrote this there
was a pretty big debate about what constituted transportation in this
area at that time and how we are going to conduct ourselves, and
extended some privileges and some opportunities, I think practically,
to the residents of Alaska and others to facilitate the transportation
and use of such significant areas under the special land designations.
Mr. Speaker, the legislative language points out the use of some
motorized vehicles such as snowmobiles and others in the report
language explaining intent. So, it is very specific in terms of how it
deals with and defines airplanes. Thus, the effort to try and rewrite
and suggest that words mean what we say they mean by our two esteemed
Senators from Alaska that have placed this in the language here is just
dead wrong.
Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to support the Sabo motion,
as the gentleman from Virginia (Chairman Wolf) has offered to do, and
for them to stick by this recommendation in the House in conference. It
is an important change, an unnecessary change, and we should not accept
it legislatively. We should not accept it in this end-around, rider
process that is being practiced all too often, I might say, by the
Senate and by others in the appropriation process. This motion should
be supported and these proposed Senate amendments eliminated.
Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Motion to Instruct
the conferees on the bill H.R. 4328.
Section 342 of the Senate-passed version of the Transportation
Appropriations Bill contains an extremely controversial legislative
rider which would amend the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation
Act to allow commercial and private helicopter fly and land in Alaskan
wilderness areas, National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges and
National Forests.
This is an ill-advised rider. Helicopters simply do not belong in
Congressionally designated wilderness areas, except in cases of
emergency, which is already permitted by law. The concentrated noise
that helicopters produce and their ability to hover, move slowly, and
descend anywhere can drive wildlife out of habitat areas and destroy
the wilderness experience of those visiting these protected places.
Some in the Republican Majority seem to be spending half their time
trying to pass laws like the so-called American Land Sovereignty
Protection Act (which was supposed to protect us from an invasion of
imaginary black helicopters), and the other half of their time trying
to allow real commercial helicopters to buzz through pristine
wilderness areas, disrupting the wildlife, annoying campers, hunters,
and hikers.
The Alaska National Lands Conservation Act contains a carefully
crafted compromise which allows fixed-wing airplane landings in
Alaska's wilderness areas. This provision in current law was adopted
because Congress recognized that airplanes were a reasonable and
necessary way to reach some of the remote wilderness areas in Alaska,
and they cause only a fraction of the noise and disturbance produced by
helicopters. To now undo this compromise and allow helicopter landings
in wilderness undermines the original intent of the Wilderness Act of
1964 and the Alaska National Lands Conservation Act of 1980.
We have had no hearings on such a significant change in national
wilderness policy in the Resources Committee, which is the
jurisdictional authorizing Committee. We have had no process. No bills
have been introduced in the House that would authorize such a change in
the law. We have heard no testimony as to why Congress should undo the
compromise which was struck back in 1980 when we last considered this
issue. In 1996, the U.S. Forest Service considered a request to allow
helicopters to land in the Tongass National Forest, but rejected it due
to public opposition. Shouldn't we at least have a single hearing
before we tell the helicopter pilots: Gentlemen, start your engines?
Sportsmen and conservation groups are opposed to this provision. This
rider is opposed by the National Audubon Society, Sportsman's Network,
the Wilderness Society, the Alabama Rifle & Pistol Association, the
Alaska Wilderness League, the National Parks Conservation Association,
the Alaska Center for the Environment, the Alaska Conservation
Alliance, the Alaska Quiet Rights Coalition, the Alaska Rainforest
Campaign, the Alaska Wildlife Alliance, the Denali Citizen's Council,
the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, and the Trustees for Alaska.
In addition, this rider is also opposed by the Alaska Wilderness
Recreation & Tourism Association, which represents more than 300 small
Alaskan tourism businesses that depend on Alaska's wild lands and
wildlife.
The Motion to Instruct would direct the conferees to oppose this ill-
advised provision that would disrupt the wilderness character of
Alaska's national parks and wildlife refuges. I urge my colleagues to
support its adoption.
Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, the motion to instruct conferees is
unjustified and just boggles my mind. The motion in effect says the
House of Representatives does not believe that helicopter landings in
the millions of acres of wilderness areas of Alaska should be
permitted. It says that if you're elderly, infirm, or unable to walk,
you can't use the aid of a helicopter to see public wilderness areas.
These areas should be open to everyone, not just rugged backcountry
hikers.
The provision inserted by Alaska's Senators simply clarifies what we
thought helicopter operators should have the right to do: land where
they have traditionally landed before such areas were designated as
wilderness.
It must be remembered that Alaska has over 50 million acres of
wilderness. This is an area half the size of California. If the Federal
Government enacted legislation restricting aircraft flight over an area
this size in any other State, there would be an outcry.
There has been an outcry in Alaska.
The land management agencies will not recognize the historical use of
such aircraft in areas where they clearly operated prior to the passage
of ANILCA or the Wilderness Act.
[[Page H7714]]
The Wilderness Act and ANILCA provide that helicopters can land in
wilderness areas. Here is what section 4(d)(1) of the Wilderness Act
says, ``Within wilderness areas designated by this Act the use of
aircraft or motorboats, where these uses have already become
established, may be permitted to continue subject to such restrictions
as the Secretary of Agriculture deems desirable.'' I don't know about
anyone else, but ``aircraft'' means airplanes and helicopters.
This is crystal clear, but ANILCA reinforced this further when it
allowed valid existing access rights to continue. This is a fair and
balanced approach in public lands policy because it doesn't take away
rights and privileges that were enjoyed long before Congress designated
wilderness in my State.
The problem addressed by the Senate provision is that land management
agencies will not even recognize the historical use of helicopters--or
any other aircraft like hot air balloons--in areas where they clearly
operated prior to wilderness designation. For example, the U.S. Forest
Service recently concluded a major record of decision in which it
completely prohibited helicopter access to all wilderness areas in the
national forests in southeast Alaska.
By doing so, it completely ignored the historical record by which
helicopters had operated in these areas for over 40 years. Further, it
made this decision even though the preferred alternative of an EIS done
by the Forest Service specifically allowed for landings in wilderness
areas, pursuant to written law. This was a political decision made in
Washington and didn't reflect the record of the NEPA process which
carefully analyzed the potential wilderness areas.
Let me describe the silliness of the situation. In these areas it is
perfectly legal to land a plane on a river sand bar, or a grassy area,
or even on a glacier on skis, but in the same area you cannot land a
helicopter or hot air balloon.
Think about it--bureaucrats in Washington decided a fixed-wing
airplane which needs hundreds of feet to land will have a worse impact
than a helicopter or a hot air balloon, which can land on an area less
than 15 feet by 15 feet.
In fact, a helicopter has less impact than a fixed-wing aircraft on
the environment in many cases.
My colleagues considering the motion to instruct conferees need to
evaluate these facts when they vote. But I want them to think of one
more thing.
Helicopters now land in the wilderness--but only when it serves the
interest of the government or special interests. Let me give some
examples. Helicopters are regularly used to assist mountain climbers in
trouble on Denali (also called Mt. McKinley). In fact, the Park Service
has a special high-altitude helicopter on stand-by to help them.
Another example is when the Park Service quickly issued a special
permit for the Chairman of FERC to use a helicopter to land in a
wilderness area of Glacier Bay National Park to inspect the area for a
potential hydro site.
Federal agencies use helicopters in support of wilderness management.
This is reasonable, but it has no less impact than the relatively few
helicopter landings by non-federal operators.
The message here is--if you're a government official, enjoy
helicopters in the wilderness. If you're a taxpayer--forget it. In
their minds, people in wilderness areas are bad--unless you're a
government employee.
This motion is wrong, unfair, and misguided, and I strongly urge its
defeat.
Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Calvert). Without objection, the
previous question is ordered.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct
offered by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Sabo).
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. SABO. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not
present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, further proceedings on
this question are postponed.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The point of no quorum is considered
withdrawn.
____________________