[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 133 (Tuesday, September 29, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11100-S11103]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
INTERIOR APPROPRIATIONS BILL
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I would like to mention another anti-
environment rider in the Interior appropriations bill. I have already
discussed two of them. One is Glacier Bay and the other is Izembek.
This will be the third.
Mr. President, this amendment deletes the rider that limits the
Forest Service's ability to close roads on National Forests that
threaten public safety or the environment.
Let me explain. The Forest Service has constructed over 370,000 miles
of roads on National Forests across America--370,000 miles of roads.
These roads, the ones that Forest Service has constructed, are called
authorized roads; another name given to them is systems roads. Most of
these are single-lane roads. They are relatively low quality, often
built to harvest timber. They are just basic roads built to meet basic
needs.
Many of these roads, though, have outlived their intended purpose.
They are no longer needed. That is, they are built essentially to
harvest timber, a lot of them, or built for a specific purpose and that
purpose is no longer in use. So the roads therefore are no longer
needed.
About 40 percent of the 370,000 miles of authorized roads are
maintained to public safety and environmental standards. The remaining
60 percent are in poor condition and in many cases are a threat--a real
threat--to the public safety or a threat to water quality or often a
threat to wildlife habitat.
In addition to these authorized roads, the Forest Service estimates
that there are at least 60,000 miles of additional roads. These
unauthorized roads are sometimes referred to as ghost roads.
This is a photograph, Mr. President, of typical ghost roads. These
are created when somebody decides that he or she wants to drive a
pickup, a car, or a four-wheeler to a stream, or whatnot. After a
while, a few people drive back and forth and we end up with an
unauthorized road or a ghost road.
Another example is here. Here is a young fellow on a bicycle. It is
close, perhaps, to a stream. It is hard to tell from this photograph,
but basically after a bit more use it becomes kind of a road--a ghost
road. There are about 60,000 miles of these kinds of ghost roads that
the Forest Service thinks exist out in the National Forests--roads
caused by people, not roads that the Forest Service has planned or
built.
Again, Mr. President, just to recapitulate, there are about 370,000
miles of roads the Forest Service has planned on building. Most of
these are deteriorating. Many of these roads were intended to be used
as logging roads to harvest timber, and the timber harvest is gone;
that is, the timber has been harvested so they are no longer in use.
Then there are 60,000 miles of ghost roads not planned by the Forest
Service and which are created by people who drive around in pickups or
other off-road vehicles.
Mr. President, the Forest Service cannot safely manage all of the
authorized and the unauthorized, so-called ghost roads that cover our
National Forests. It just cannot do it. There are too many roads. Too
many miles of roads. As a result, many of these roads are safety
hazards, and some cause significant environmental problems.
Mr. President, let me show you these two photographs. These are
photographs of authorized roads, of system roads, of roads the Forest
Service planned--not the ghost roads. In this top photograph of this
road, you can tell the road is washed out. It is just washed out.
Here is another photograph of another authorized road, the kind the
Forest Service plans on. What happened here? The bridge went out. Some
poor unlucky fellow did not realize the bridge had gone out until he
caused it to go out. The bridge just collapsed. This guy's pickup went
down on the collapsed bridge on the authorized road. Obviously, the
bridge has rotted out.
In other cases, the authorized roads create environmental hazards. I
might tell you what the top road is. This is a road on the Mount Baker/
Snoqualmie National Forest that has washed out. These types of washouts
often clog streams, as you might guess. They kill fish. That is pretty
obvious. And in the middle of the night, they can be one heck of a
pothole.
When roads such as these are unsafe, or cause environmental problems,
we have two options. One is to fix the road; and the other is to
decommission the road. Just a fancy way of saying closing it.
In deciding which roads to upgrade or close, the Forest Service sets
priorities, obviously, based on public safety, based on environmental
concerns, on a forest-by-forest basis.
Let's face it, road closures can be a big issue in some parts of the
country. I know that is very much the case in my State of Montana;
people have strongly held views as to which roads should be closed and
which roads not.
These are not easy decisions for the Forest Service to make. But the
Forest Service personnel by-and-large do the very best they can. And
they do so after talking with the public. And they make their decisions
based on what they think the public wants and based upon safety and
based upon environmental needs.
Well, this is where the rider comes in. This rider prevents funds
from being used to remove any authorized road until the regional
forester certifies that all the ghost roads have been either upgraded
to U.S. Forest Service standards or closed. That is, the Forest Service
cannot look at any of the authorized roads in a region until it looks
at all the ghost roads and either closes or upgrades each of them.
What does that mean? That means the Forest Service could not close
any authorized road no matter how great a safety hazard it is until the
Forest Service can certify that every single mile of the ghost roads,
that is these kinds of roads--the little pathways--who-knows-where-
they-are in the forest, have been either upgraded to either system
standards or have been removed.
For starters, this is virtually impossible. The Forest Service does
not even know where many of these ghost roads are. More important, this
rider does not take into account whether these roads pose the greatest
immediate threat to public safety or the environment.
In sum, this simplistic one-size-fits-all approach would wreak havoc
on the ability of the Forest Service to sensibly manage roads in our
National Forests.
As I mentioned early, the Forest Service now sets priorities for
closing
[[Page S11101]]
roads on a forest-by-forest basis, based on what the public wants,
based on public safety, based on environmental protection and
restoration needs. A whole host of considerations go into it on a
forest-by-forest basis or perhaps a district-by-district basis, not a
one-size-fits-all national standard imposed on a Washington, DC, basis
that you can't do anything with your system of roads until you either
upgrade or close the ghost roads.
This rider would force the Forest Service to inventory thousands of
miles of ghost roads and spend limited taxpayers' money upgrading or
removing the roads, even if they are not causing safety or
environmental problems.
Here is an example. Assume that the Deer Lodge National Forest in my
State of Montana has an authorized road built to harvest timber, a very
common occurrence. The timber has been harvested and the road is no
longer needed, also very typical. Soon, the road is sliding down the
mountain and it is unsafe for travel because of slippage and erosion
and the road is clogging a stream, choking the fish in that stream,
which often happens, too.
If this rider passed, the forest managers could not remove that road
until it had inventoried the entire forest and found where each of the
ghost roads were located and then either closed all those ghost roads
or upgraded all to system standards. Let me repeat that. If this rider
passed, the Forest Service could not remove the road I mentioned that
is clogging up a stream until it has inventoried all ghost roads, and
either upgraded the ghost roads--that is, the paths--to road standards,
or closed them.
Plain and simple, this rider does not make sense. It does not meet
the ``common sense'' test. It prevents the Forest Service from closing
roads that now pose a very significant threat to public safety and the
environment. It would prevent the Forest Service from doing its job. I
believe the Forest Service should be able to close roads based on
public needs, not on an arbitrary distinction of whether the road is
authorized or unauthorized.
To protect public safety and the environment, I believe this rider on
the Interior appropriations bill should be deleted.
Privilege of the Floor
Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Ed Cole, a
congressional fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the
remainder of the day.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BAUCUS. One last rider I will mention. This rider is section 343
of the Interior appropriations bill which limits Federal and State
actions to manage the Columbia/Snake River system.
I note that the chairman of the subcommittee is the present occupant
of the Chair. In dealing with this subject, I have the utmost respect
for what he is doing, particularly the great job he did in the Interior
appropriations bill, which has many, many good features in it. He has
worked very, very hard. It is a very complex bill, with NEA, the Forest
Service, and Indian lands. I compliment the Chair.
With respect to this provision, we have a difference of opinion. I
state that with all due respect.
The Columbia/Snake River basin covers about 259,000 square miles,
including large parts of the State of Washington, Oregon, Idaho,
Montana, and British Columbia. It is home to several endangered fish
species, including several stocks of salmon. The number of salmon has
fallen dramatically from an estimated 10 million fish in the historical
runs to about 1 million today.
For several years, we have been trying to bring salmon back, in part
by improving the operations of the river system.
We have improved fish screens; we have improved fish ladders. We have
barged salmon around dams. We have modified water flows to help
juvenile salmon migrate downstream and adult salmon migrate upstream.
These modifications have been controversial because they sometimes
restrict other uses of the river, such as power generation, irrigation,
transportation, and recreation.
Like many others in the Northwest delegation, I have not been
particularly happy with every decision that has been made. In fact, I
supported a cap on the amount of fish-related expenses that is passed
along to BPA ratepayers. We had to have that cap or else I believe the
Federal agency would have gone too far. I also oppose some of the
drawdowns at the Libby dam and Hungry Horse dams in northwest Montana
because of the effects on recreation and the adverse effects on the
bull trout.
I have maintained, however, that we should work within the framework
of our environmental laws. There are a lot of competing considerations,
and one is the framework of our environmental laws. The rider that I am
referring to, section 343 of the Interior appropriations bill, would
change that. It would override the Endangered Species Act, it would
override the Clean Water Act, the Northwest Power Planning Act, and the
Federal Power Act.
To put the issue in perspective, let me briefly explain how the
Columbia/Snake River system is managed now. In 1995, under the
Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a
biological opinion describing the actions that the Corps of Engineers,
the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Bonneville Power Administration must
take, consistent with their other obligations, to save the wild salmon
from extinction. The biological opinion includes both short and long-
term measures.
In the short-term, it requires several changes. For example, it
requires increased flows during fish migration seasons, better use of
spills, improved methods of barging fish, limits on ocean fishing, and
the use of more effective fish screens and fish ladders.
By 1999, it requires the Corps to assess the effect of a major
drawdown of dams on the lower Snake River. This could include the
breaching or removal of up to four dams. Those four dams are Ice
Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose, and Lower Granite. They can be
seen on this map of the Columbia Reserve Basin.
What does this rider do? How would it affect current operations? It
would have two main effects. The rider provides that the National
Marine Fisheries Service, the Corps of Engineers and other agencies
must receive specific congressional authorization before breaching or
removing any federally operated or licensed dam on the Columbia/Snake
system. In addition, the rider says that Federal and State agencies
must get specific congressional authorization before taking any action
that would ``diminish below present operational plans the
Congressionally authorized uses of flood control, irrigation,
navigation and * * * energy generating capacity of any such dam.''
Let me address these effects one at a time. The first issue is
breaching or removing dams. As I said earlier, the Corps is studying
the breach or removal of four dams on the lower Snake River--Ice
Harbor, Lower Monumental, Little Goose and Lower Granite.
I understand the argument that over time, over the long term,
breaching or removing the dam is the best way to protect and recover
salmon. After all, if you return a river to its natural condition, you
don't have to manage water levels to mimic the river's natural
condition when fish migrate up or down stream.
But we are not living in the abstract. In most cases, removing a dam
is a big step with major consequences for power production, for
irrigation, for transportation, and for recreation. For example,
breaching or removing the lower Snake River dams would most likely
eliminate Lewiston, ID, as a river port. Many farmers from Idaho,
Montana and elsewhere ship grain by truck or rail to Lewiston and barge
to Portland for export to Asia.
I believe an action of this kind should definitely require
congressional approval. But that is already the case. In testimony
earlier this year, the Commander of the Corps' Northwest Division said,
It is our opinion that the Corps cannot use its existing
legal authority to remove lower Snake projects . . . New
statutory authority would be required to undertake these
actions since the proposed actions would eliminate or
significantly affect specific project purposes provided for
in the authorizing legislation.
That is the commander of the Corps' Northwest Division.
So there is not an issue here with respect to removing or breaching
dams.
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The rider is unnecessary in that respect. Congressional approval
already is required.
This takes us to the second part of the rider. It requires
congressional approval before an agency can take any action that will
``diminish below present operational plans'' the congressionally
authorized uses of any dam on the Columbia/Snake system.
As I read the amendment, there would have to be specific
congressional approval before a Federal or State agency makes any
operational or management change that would reduce power production,
irrigation, flood control or recreation. I believe that goes too far
for three main reasons.
First, it is impractical. It would tie the management of the river
system in knots. The management of the Columbia/Snake system is a very
complex undertaking. It involves at least four Federal agencies:
Bonneville Power, National Marine and Fisheries Service, Corps of
Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation. It also involves the Northwest
Power Planning Council, the States of Montana, Idaho, Washington,
Oregon, the government of Canada, many Indian tribes and scores of
public and private utilities. There are hundreds of people involved.
To coordinate operations, the Federal agencies develop at least three
operational plans each year: A flood control plan, a hydropower plan
and a water management plan. During the spring and summer, a technical
management team meets each week in Portland to review operations and
make any necessary changes.
By locking everything in and providing that Congress must approve any
action that diminishes other uses of the system below ``present
operational plans,'' we would be micromanaging one of the largest and
most complex river systems in the world.
The second problem is the congressional management may put several
endangered species at risk of extinction. If changes are necessary to
protect a newly listed species or further protect a species already
listed to prevent it from being wiped out, the change would require
congressional approval. Even minimal changes to provide specie
protection may require Congress to act.
For example, new scientific evidence indicates that spills are more
effective at protecting fish if they are conducted gradually over a 24-
hour period rather than only at night. This approach slightly reduces
power-generating capacity. So under the rider the agencies would need
to get congressional approval before they can make a change.
The rider would not only threaten Federal efforts to protect the
environment, but it would also threaten State efforts to protect the
environment. Under section 401 of the Clean Water Act, when a Federal
dam is being licensed or relicensed, States can impose conditions on
the license in order to protect water quality. Many States do. For
example, several States in the West have imposed conditions necessary
to prevent dams from generating elevated levels of dissolved oxygen
which can harm fish.
Utilities have questioned whether States have this authority, but the
Supreme Court has held that they do.
The Gorton amendment would change all that. As I read it, a State
agency could not impose any license condition that diminished power
generation, unless it received the approval of the licensee or
Congress.
That would, in effect, eliminate the section 401 authority that
States have fought so hard to maintain.
The directors of the Western Governors' Association and the Western
States Water Council share this view. In a joint letter, they say that,
although their organizations do not take a position about breaching or
making operational changes at any dam, the rider ``appears to clearly
have the potential of diminishing State prerogatives under section 401,
with regard to the rivers and streams identified in the amendment.''
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also takes this view. In a
letter, the FERC Chairman says that the rider ``would bar, absent
specific congressional approval, State and Federal agencies from
requiring or authorizing certain actions affecting the authorized uses
of any Federal or federally-licensed dams on the Columbia or Snake
rivers or their tributaries.''
I ask unanimous consent that both letters be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the letters were ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Western Governors' Association,
Western States Water Council,
September 18, 1998.
Hon. John H. Chafee,
Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Hon. Max Baucus,
Committee on Environment and Public Works.
Dear Senators: We have just learned that the Committee is
considering the question of whether a proposed amendment
would affect state Section 401 authority under the Clean
Water Act. This relates to amendment No. 3555 offered on
behalf of Senator Gorton. Given the time constraints, our
organizations are not able to collectively express themselves
with regard to this question. However, after consulting with
our lead states on this issue, we are writing to express our
view that the amendment appears to clearly have the potential
of diminishing state prerogatives under Section 401, with
regard to the rivers and streams identified in the proposed
amendment. In so doing, we do not express an opinion as to
the merits of any action to breach or remove any dam or to
alter operational plans relative to any dam. Rather, the
point of this letter is to advise the Committee of the
position of the western states with regard to Section 401
authority, and to convey our concerns that the proposed
amendment as written could diminish that authority.
The Western States Water Council has been working with the
Western Governor's Association for some time to preserve
state prerogatives relative to protecting water quality
associated with proposed federally licensed projects. A
resolution by the Western Governors' Association relative to
this matter is enclosed for your reference. Since the Supreme
Court upheld Washington's position in the so-called Tacoma
case regarding the scope of state 401 authority, the
hydropower industry has sought to persuade Congress to
reverse or limit this decision. We have strongly opposed such
efforts.
We hope that the Committee will consider these views as it
considers the potential effects of the proposed amendment. If
you have any questions regarding these matters, please let us
know.
Best regards,
D. Craig Bell,
Executive Director, WSWC.
Richard Bechtel,
Director, WGA-D.C.
____
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC, September 8, 1998.
Hon. Dale Bumpers,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Senator Bumpers: In response to your staff's request,
I am writing with respect to Section 343 of S. 2237 (the FY
1999 appropriations bill for the Department of the Interior).
That section, if enacted, could have a potentially
significant effect on the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission's regulation of non-federal hydroelectric projects
in the Columbia and Snake River Basins.
Section 343 of the bill would bar, absent specific
Congressional approval, state and federal agencies from
requiring or authorizing certain actions affecting the
authorized uses of any federal or FERC-licensed dams on the
Columbia or Snake Rivers or their tributaries. The proscribed
actions would include reducing the generating capacity of any
such dams; reducing their reservoirs below minimum operating
pools (except as necessary for flood control, navigation, and
safety); and requiring the release of stored water.
Section 343 would constrain the Commission's flexibility to
act responsibly in its continuous oversight of licensed
projects in these river basins. Moreover, as existing
licenses expire, the provision would constrain the
Commission's flexibility to balance the multiple public
interest considerations involved, as required by the Federal
Power Act, upon relicensing these projects.
Thank you for your interest in this matter. If you have
further questions concerning the implications of Section 343
for the Commission's regulatory activities, please do not
hesitate to contact me.
Sincerely,
James J. Hoecker,
Chairman.
Mr. BAUCUS. Third, the amendment will have some unintended, and
perhaps dangerous, effects.
Not all changes to the operation of the Columbia/Snake river system
are made for the purpose of protecting fish and wildlife. Often, there
are other reasons.
Recently, there were concerns about sabotage of the Grand Coulee dam.
The water levels were lowered, so that emergency repairs could be made.
This reduced power generating capacity, probably worth a few million
dollars. Under the rider, the reduction in water levels would have had
to be approved by Congress.
Another example. In some situations, it may be appropriate to provide
more
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water for irrigation, at the expense of power production. Or vice
versa.
Or to set more space aside for flood control. Each year, the planning
process starts by measuring the snowpack and predicting the runoff.
In a particularly wet year, like 1997, operational changes may be
needed to prevent downstream flooding, by setting aside more storage
space in upstream reservoirs.
In a particularly dry year, operational changes may need to be made
to allocate scare water among competing uses.
In many of these cases, under the rider, the agencies could only act
if they received specific Congressional approval.
Mr. President, we all know how hard it is to get anything passed
around here. Any change that is at all controversial can be at least
delayed, and maybe stopped completely.
Do we really want decisions like this, that may need to be made
quickly in response to constantly changing circumstances, to require
specific Congressional approval?
To sum it all up, this is no way to run one of the world's largest
and most complex river systems. That's why we have expert federal and
state agencies, like the Northwest Power Planning Council and BPA.
Congress should set clear legal standards. When necessary, we must
improve those standards. That's why I support S. 1180, a bill to
improve the Endangered Species Act.
Congress also should conduct careful oversight.
But we should not require Congressional approval of the complex
decisions that managers must make so that the river system functions
smoothly.
By requiring Congressional approval of any changes that diminish the
use of the system below ``present operational plans,'' the rider goes
too far.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
____________________