[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.

                          ____________________