[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 134 (Wednesday, September 30, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11135-S11139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     INTERIOR APPROPRIATIONS RIDERS

  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an issue that 
was brought up on this floor yesterday by my friend, the senior Senator 
from Montana, Senator Baucus, who proceeded to give us certain views on 
a number of amendments to the Interior appropriations bill that he 
proposed be stripped from that particular package.
  Mr. President, I think it is appropriate that this body have an 
opportunity to view the arguments on the other side of the issues, and 
I think it is fair to perhaps provide a little history on what these 
amendments are and the rationale associated with the arguments for or 
against their merits.
  There were originally nine proposed amendments in the Baucus package. 
Two of them have been removed. So we are addressing amendments to strip 
the Glacier Bay language, King Cove language, and the Tongass language, 
road decommissioning, section 321 of the forest planning, the issue of 
the reintroduction of grizzlies in Idaho and Montana, and the Columbia 
and Snake River Dams, and the likely removal. I am going to enunciate a 
little further on these as I go along, but I wanted to give you a view 
of the issues in their

[[Page S11136]]

entirety so that we can, first of all, recognize that these have 
certain environmental overtones.
  I think it is appropriate that we recognize the extent to which the 
environmental community has gone to encourage these be stricken. 
Approximately 2 weeks ago, there was a press conference downtown in one 
of the restaurants where the media was invited. There was a 
presentation condemning these issues, and obviously an effort to try to 
generate a one-sided view from the media.
  As chairman of the Energy Committee, and representing the State of 
Alaska, to which three of these particular amendments to strike are 
associated, and not having an opportunity to have an invitation 
extended to me, we felt it necessary to balance the process at that 
point. So we proceeded with a small press conference in the Energy 
Library. We invited basically the same media. We had a good attendance. 
I also invited my friend from Montana to attend in the hopes that we 
could respond to some questions from the media on these individual 
points. Unfortunately, he was unable to be there. As a consequence, we 
have each had an opportunity to express our views to the media.
  I think it is also appropriate to recognize that there used to be, 
more or less, a gentleman's agreement in this body relative to resource 
issues and issues that affected a particular State. When Senators from 
the State made specific recommendations with regard to what was in the 
best interests of their State, it usually stood. But that has changed 
over the years. I recognize that. Now we have the input of the special 
interest groups relative to issues. That is kind of where we are today.
  What I have done here is attempted to set the stage a little bit. I 
think it is fair to recognize that there are other influences. I noted 
today a statement of our Vice President in the White House Briefing 
Room from yesterday. It is relatively brief, but it does criticize the 
Republican Congress, the Republican leadership, and I think the third 
paragraph bears some attention. It suggests that there is a sneak 
attack being perpetrated by the Republicans and by their special 
interests riders in the budget bills where they hope no one will find 
them. He further indicates that the proposals are to carve roads 
through the wilderness, force overcutting in the national forests, sell 
the taxpayers short, and keep us from addressing global warming, and 
that these issues cannot stand the light of day.
  I think it is appropriate to recognize that there are other 
influences. I was checking with my staff before I was recognized this 
morning. Mr. President, I am advised that the Congressional Budget 
Office has scored all of these particular riders as revenue neutral.
  Since we are in the interest of full disclosure, I think it also is 
important to recognize another fact; that is, the accusation of putting 
anti-environmental riders on the Interior appropriations bill for 
fiscal year 1999. It seems to be a pretty one-sided argument, because I 
am sure the Senator from Montana would not object to the process of 
riders, recognizing that there are 150--150--riders on the Interior 
bill.
  From the standpoint of the special interest groups, maybe the Vice 
President, and others, we could remove all such riders, including the 
moratorium of offshore oil drilling off the coast of California, and 
items on mining. I think it is fair to point out that the National 
Forest System--at least the first 21 million acres of the Forest 
System--was created by riders and amendments to the 1897 appropriations 
bill.
  So, indeed, we have a history of riders. I think if you look at the 
issues from the standpoint of the environmental groups, they would say, 
well, the riders that I have mentioned are good riders. So I think it 
is fair that we recognize we have a time-honored tradition of riders. 
And if riders are under attack, so be it. But it is clearly not a 
reality because many of these riders could be perceived as 
antienvironment suggests that somehow there is a sleight of hand here.
  I think it is appropriate to note that my friend from Montana did not 
care to go into that, to recognize that all the riders in question here 
have had hearings. Hearings have been held, which suggests that this 
was not done in the dark of night, somehow by subterfuge.
  So again I would like to examine this a little bit more so that we 
can get, I think, a better understanding of just what is going on here, 
and the question of merit: Do these particular seven issues have merit? 
I am not going to go into detail on all of them because a few of them 
are not necessarily related to my State, but I think it fair to 
highlight certainly a few. I am going to start with the issue of 
Glacier Bay.
  The issue of Glacier Bay started a long, long time ago. Back in 1885, 
long before Glacier Bay was declared a national monument, commercial 
fishing was recognized as a way of life by the residents around the 
area.
  I should point out, Glacier Bay is in southeastern Alaska. It is west 
of Juneau. Juneau is over here. I was a little chagrined yesterday in 
the debate when my friend from Montana could not find Juneau, which is 
our State capital. I made a point to make sure I knew where Helena is 
before this morning, before I started the debate.
  But in any event, it is in the area across icy straits. It is an 
extraordinary area of great beauty. As you move out of Glacier Bay and 
go out west, you run into the Gulf of Alaska or the Pacific Ocean. On a 
map of Alaska, it would be the northernmost point of southeastern 
Alaska. But the significance of it is that it is a national monument. 
As such, it is under special consideration relative to the regulations 
of the Park Service, which manages Glacier Bay.
  Over the years, local residents in the area--and I am suggesting to 
you there are very few local residents. There is no population in 
Glacier Bay. There is a lodge there but no year-round population, with 
the exception of those who are associated with the lodge and a few 
people in Gustavus, which is out on the edge of Glacier Bay. The 
general feeling in Alaska was that there would be a compatibility 
between the Park Service, the management of Glacier Bay, and the 
traditional uses, and there was no prohibition, no anticipated 
prohibition, on commercial fishing in the marine waters of Glacier Bay.
  I have a small picture here, Mr. President, that shows one of the 
fishing vessels in Glacier Bay. It gives you an idea that these are 
small one- and usually two-person operations. This is a small boat, 
with probably a skipper, a deckhand, maybe the skipper's wife, and this 
is the kind of fishing that is done there. It is relatively 
insignificant in the overall magnitude of fishing in southeastern 
Alaska. The fishery consists of a few vessels fishing salmon, halibut, 
crab, a few bottom fish; and these fisheries pose no threat--there is 
no danger to these resources. All are carefully managed for a 
sustainable harvest by the State of Alaska and most are under a limited 
entry, which means that you can't expand the fishery, or particularly a 
fishery associated with that type of vessel.
  Arguments that this fishing is somehow incompatible with the use of 
kayaking or some other activity by the concession operators who favor a 
prohibition is a little hard to justify in real terms. Commercial 
fishing is important to the smaller communities of Gustavus and Hoonah. 
Fishing provides a few jobs and local employment. All the communities 
urge continuation of commercial and sports fishing in Glacier Bay.
  We have had our local environmental groups working with us, and we 
have reached a consensus that management of commercial fishing under 
the State regulation is entirely appropriate and entirely adequate and 
the fisheries can be managed on a sustained basis. The interest of the 
Department of Interior's insistence on an administrative rulemaking 
instead of legislation has really been a roadblock, and it has had a 
detrimental effect, if you will, on working together within the local 
groups. There is a lot of criticism and fear in the communities that 
both commercial fishing and subsistence fishing will be terminated as a 
consequence of the pressure by the environmental community.
  When we look at the communities we are talking about--I mentioned 
Gustavus; it has about 346 residents, 55 of whom are engaged in 
fishing; Elfin Cove, 54 people--that is total residents--47 engaged in 
fishing; Hoonah,

[[Page S11137]]

which is a Tlingit Indian village, has 900 people, about 228 in 
fishing; Pelican has 187 residents, 86 in fisheries.
  That might not sound like much, but in reality, if you are one of 
those people and you are dependent on fishing--that is the livelihood 
you know--it is recognizable that these communities cannot survive 
without fishing. And what this appropriation language does as to 
Glacier Bay is to allow discussions to proceed at the local level and 
reserve the right of the Congress to make a decision on fisheries in 
Glacier Bay.
  Now, what the Park Service is attempting to do is to phase it out 
over a 7-year period. Well, to phase it out is to ultimately do away 
with it, and the rationale behind that is that the Park Service wants 
to regulate the area. These are inland waters in the State of Alaska, 
and to suggest the Park Service should initiate another level of 
regulation I think is without any justification.
  We talk about how a fishing boat or a small amount of activity in 
Glacier Bay would somehow detract from a visitor's experience. Let's 
talk a little bit about the visitor's experience, because between 
Memorial Day and Labor Day cruise ships go into Glacier Bay--as I 
indicated, a very large body of water. The cruise ships pick up at 
Inlet Bay a Park Service lecturer and proceed up the bay and may go 
into Tarring or may go up Muir Inlet, depending on whatever the 
particular direction is that day.
  But it is important to note that these are commercial passenger 
ships. There is a commercial activity associated with this. These are 
paying passengers. These ships carry 2,500, 3,000, 3,200 passengers. It 
is a commercial activity that is going on in a national park. It is 
taking place, if you will, in this general area of the so-called 
wilderness.
  Now, the wilderness, of course, is on the land, and we have yet to 
have a determination of just what ``wilderness waters'' means. I am not 
going to go into that in this debate today. But the point I want to 
make is, the small amount of commercial fishing that takes place there 
and the residents in the surrounding area who depend on access into 
Glacier Bay is what we are talking about.
  Now, the Senator from Montana would suggest that somehow this 
commercial activity is foreign or inappropriate to take place in a 
national monument. We have nowhere in the United States any body of 
water as unique as Glacier Bay. It is open to the ocean. Commercial 
vessels can come in. It is State of Alaska waters. But within the area, 
of course, is the national park of Glacier Bay.
  The point I want to make is that the Park Service is attempting to 
eliminate the small amount of commercial fishing and, equally 
important, the small amount of subsistence fishing that takes place in 
the park by the Native residents of Hoonah and some of the other 
communities nearby. There is no justification for this in the sense of 
any detrimental effects on the fisheries resources which are basically 
overseen by the State of Alaska.
  I might point out that in this area there are no major anadromous 
streams, that being streams that will support salmon fry. The salmon 
don't go into these areas because this is all glacial types of water.
  As a consequence, they simply cannot survive in the runoff from the 
glaciers. As a consequence, this is not considered an area that 
supports significant salmon runs. There is some halibut in here, some 
salmon, some crab. Again, it is a relatively small area, but the point 
is, what we are seeing here is more big government, more takeover from 
the local people who have had access to commercial fishing, who have 
had access to sport fishing, as well as access to subsistence.
  In summary, the objection that I have is here is Big Brother 
encroaching more and more upon authority that has been vested within 
the State of Alaska to manage the fisheries in this area. It just 
simply makes no sense, and there is no justification for it.
  I want to turn now to another issue that is on the list of my friend 
from Montana, and that is the issue of King Cove, Cold Bay. Many 
people, of course, are not aware of just where this area is.
  Roughly, it is about halfway out in the Aleutian Islands, about 700 
miles west of Anchorage. We have a small village of about 700 residents 
in King Cove. The area is on the Pacific Ocean, and it is surrounded by 
mountains. It lends itself to a situation where if you want to get out 
of King Cove, you have to fly over to Cold Bay or go by boat. It 
doesn't look like much on the map, but the problems we have are 
extraordinary weather conditions associated in the King Cove/Cold Bay 
area.
  There is a small gravel strip at King Cove. Sometimes we have a 
windsock blowing one way at one end of the runway and a windsock at the 
other end blowing the opposite way because of the various types of 
winds that come over the mountains. The people of the area have 
suggested it would be appropriate to have a road come over to Cold Bay.
  There is going to be an extended debate on this issue tomorrow, so I 
am not going to go into great detail other than to say that we have had 
11 lives lost in the last 10 years in plane crashes half of which 
involved medivacs. This chart shows pictures of some of the individuals 
who have passed away in aircraft accidents trying to get over to Cold 
Bay to get a medivac to Anchorage, AK.
  What these people are asking for is simply access out by road. What 
would this consist of, Mr. President? It would consist of extending the 
road in an area that is currently a wilderness. The proposed 
legislation which we are going to be offering tomorrow suggests that we 
would take the area in the wilderness and do a land exchange. We would 
take the area out of the wilderness, approximately 85 acres, and put it 
into a refuge. That will add about 580 acres additional into the 
wilderness. It would be a net gain into the wilderness of some 580 
acres. This road would be about 7 miles long and would allow the 
residents of King Cove to have access for medical evacuations and 
transportation when the weather is so severe that the airplanes cannot 
fly.
  Let me show you a picture of the current method by which the medivacs 
take place, and you can get some idea of the extremes we are up 
against. Here is what a small boat trying to get across water in that 
area in the wintertime looks like. You don't get very far doing that. 
We have other pictures that will make you seasick. This is one of the 
vessels going across. That is a schooner going across in the 
wintertime.
  You cannot appreciate the terror associated with making one of those 
trips. Not only do most people get deathly seasick, but there is a fear 
the storm is going to progress and damage the vessel or sink the 
vessel. I have been on some of those trips, and I could not begin to 
describe the terror of the situation where you are trying to get people 
out so that they can get medical care in an emergency and are subjected 
to this type of exposure when 7 miles of road circumventing a 
wilderness area would be adequate.
  This airport at Cold Bay was built during the Second World War. It 
has crosswind runways and is operational virtually year-round. What we 
have is a small village, less than 700 people, simply trying to have 
the same right of access for medical evacuation that you and I take for 
granted, and it is being denied them by objections from some in the 
environmental community that say that this is striking in the heart of 
the wilderness.
  It is not in the wilderness, Mr. President. We are taking this area 
out of the wilderness, putting it in the refuge and proposing a right 
of way that could be used for a road going through and actually adding 
580 acres to the wilderness. That, to me, seems like a fair and 
justifiable proposal.
  I will also add that we do not require any funding for this. This is 
simply a land exchange. The road would be under the control and 
jurisdiction of the refuge manager and, basically, under the control of 
the Secretary of the Interior.
  The weather in the King Cove area is something that is pretty hard to 
imagine. It is the third windiest city in the United States. It is the 
cloudiest city in the United States. It has the third highest number of 
days of rain, and one can argue it has the worst weather in the Nation. 
To take a boat or small plane out of King Cove when winds are 60 to 70 
miles an hour, with a 10-to-20 foot sea is a tough situation.
  We have had babies born in fishing boat galleys on a table, and we 
have

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had people who have had to be taken up off the boats in slings. This 
land exchange will allow a one-lane gravel road to be built. It will be 
at the option of the State. The State is evaluating the merits of this. 
We are simply proposing that the State has the ability to consider this 
option through the land exchange. We see no justification for those who 
object to what is really a win, win, win for the environment.
  I also think it fair to point out that we have seen and have a long 
history in this body of changes in boundaries. To suggest somehow this 
is a precedent is, again, unrealistic and is unfounded by fact. We have 
had boundary adjustments on many existing wilderness areas. In the 
State of Montana alone, we had 67 acres of land that was deleted from 
Absaroka Bear Tooth Wilderness; 28 acres have been deleted from the 
U.L. Bend Wilderness. The boundary changes were made to exclude private 
lands, portions of existing roads, parking areas and public facilities 
that were inadvertently included when the wilderness area was 
established in 1978.
  The U.L. Bend deletion was made to reinstate access through a 
wildlife refuge wilderness area. What for? For access to a popular 
fishing spot at nearby Fort Peck Reservoir. This history says to me 
that Montanans didn't object to a boundary change in the wilderness 
when it met their needs. So I fail to understand why my friend, the 
Senator from Montana, believes that moving a wilderness boundary to 
access a fishing hole is OK, but moving 85 acres to save the lives of 
my constituents is not.
  That is, basically, what we are looking at, Mr. President, an issue 
of equity. I think I have made the point that, indeed, we are not 
setting a precedent. We can look back also to the Lee Metcalf 
Wilderness Management Act of 1983 where there was a land exchange.
  Hopefully, I have countered with factual information some of the 
points that were made and the allegations from my good friend who has 
not been to either Glacier Bay, nor has he been to King Cove and does 
not speak from personal knowledge.
  The last point I want to make is on the issue of Tongass National 
Forest. I have a couple charts to show the President and my colleagues 
at this time--let me have the small chart first, if I may--because it 
addresses the Tongass which is the largest of all our national forests.
  Very briefly, what we have here in the red are the areas that are 
withdrawn in wilderness areas in the Tongass National Forest. You know, 
that is probably 58 percent or thereabouts. The green areas are the 
areas for multiple-use lands which provide timber harvest. And the gold 
areas are Native withdrawals, basically private land.
  If you look at this, you can immediately tell that most of the 
Tongass is already reserved in perpetuity in wilderness areas. I think 
that makes the point that 84 percent of the Tongass is currently 
reserved for nontimber harvesting purposes.
  Ninety-three percent of all the old-growth forest remain standing in 
the Tongass today. And it is pretty hard to communicate to my friends 
who have never been there, but forests live and die. And a large 
percentage of the Tongass National Forest is either dead or dying. 
About one-third, 30 percent, of the standing trees are dead or dying. 
The reality of how you utilize those trees is a matter that has been 
under discussion for some time.
  Basically, the value of that particular timber is in wood fiber, and 
most of that either goes into chips or is used to go into pulp mills. 
But because of environmental pressures, we closed our own two year-
round manufacturing plants in the State, and they are down permanently. 
And those were pulp mills. So now we face a difficult situation of 
trying to determine what we are going to do with that old growth.
  There is a possibility of that dead and dying timber to be put in 
veneer. But nevertheless, the point I want to make here today is to 
counter the argument that somehow we are proposing to increase the 
harvest 50 percent over last year.
  In order to respond to that criticism, I think you have to look at 
the harvest in the Tongass since--well, modern times began in about 
1947, after the war. The allowable cut was somewhere about 1.375 
billion board feet. That was the allowable cut in 1947. These are set 
by the Forest Service. Then under statehood we came in and the 
allowable cut was 1.3 billion. Then when we had the Alaska Native 
Settlement Claims Act and we dropped down to 950 million. Now, this 
basically in this timeframe supported two pulp mills and a half dozen 
sawmills.
  Then when we came in with the ANILCA legislation and the volumes 
dropped, and the allowable cut went down to 450 million. We were able 
to maintain an industry at that level, but it was marginal. Then we 
came down to the Tongass Timber Reform Act in 1991, and it dropped down 
to about 310 million. And then we came under what is known as the 
Tongass Land Management Plan or TLUMP, which was to settle at 267 
million board feet. And the Forest Service has not been able to put 
that up.
  Currently, they have this year about 30 million that they have been 
able to put up and anticipate somewhere in the area of another 100 
million. So to suggest that--in this proposal, what we have done is we 
have simply said that if the Forest Service does not put up what they 
said they were going to put up under the TLUMP, which took 10 years and 
$13 million to develop, why then that differential that previously went 
to the boroughs and school districts comes out of the Forest Service 
budget.
  But this is an effort to try to get the Forest Service to commit on 
what they said they would provide. And to suggest, as my friend from 
Montana has, that suddenly we are trying to double the harvest is not 
only misleading, it is an absolute falsehood, because clearly the 
Forest Service says under this study that took them 10 years to 
complete and $13 million, that they would provide an allowable cut of 
267 million. We are saying, ``OK, do it. And if you don't do it, there 
ought to be some penalty,'' because we have lost the revenue to 
continue to offset from the standpoint of our boroughs and our schools 
associated with that harvest under the formula that provides some of 
the funds from the timber harvesting back to the communities. We are 
not doubling, Mr. President, by any means, the amount of timber----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Roberts). The amount of time allotted to 
the Senator from Alaska has expired.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for 
another 5 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. MURKOWSKI. I thank the Chair.
  So, Mr. President, where we are today is we are fighting a battle to 
maintain an industry on a substantially reduced basis. As I have 
indicated, that industry has declined dramatically over the last 10 
years. And the Forest Service clearly has not been acting in good faith 
to get out the timber that they promised. And the fact that the Forest 
Service has seen fit to initiate over a 10-year period this 
extraordinary evaluation of what the TLUMP would provide and the 
assurance of whatever figure they set they would be committed to is 
what this issue is all about.
  So, again, in conclusion, on the Tongass issue, it is not a question 
by any means, Mr. President, of doubling the cut. And that is what some 
of our friends on the other side would like to make this issue seem 
like. If we were going to double the cut, we would go back to 450 
million board feet. That is not what we are talking about today.
  Finally, a couple of other issues that I think need some 
clarification very briefly, and that is the requirement of 
decommissioning our unauthorized roads. It is not an issue that is 
unique to my State by any means, but under this provision the Forest 
Service is prohibited from using funds for decommissioning National 
Forest System roads until the regional forester certifies that 
unauthorized or so-called ghost roads have either been decommissioned 
or reconstructed to standard.
  Funding is appropriated for decommissioned roads including roads 
which are not part of the transportation Forest Service, and it is not 
prevented from addressing or pursuing stabilization of these roads. So 
what we have here is a recognition that the administration says that 
they have a backlog over the last 5 to 10 years of over $10 million.

[[Page S11139]]

  They have said in reported stories they have discovered 60,000 miles 
of ghost road that they did not even know they had. What we propose is 
that they go ahead and address the ghost roads and get rid of them 
before they start proceeding on decommissioning their so-called map 
roads. If you have a situation where you have so-called unauthorized 
roads, then you should take care of those first before you start 
decommissioning map roads.
  The other issue revolving around the Forest Service, and not 
necessarily addressing the needs of my State, is the prohibition of 
forest plans until the administration publishes new regulations.
  Late in 1995, the Secretary of Agriculture promised a revised forest 
plan. He promised cost-effective changes. Well, these plans are not 
completed today. And as a consequence, we see no justification for 
proceeding in publishing new regulations until you get your current 
Forest Service revision plan done.
  The last issue I want to talk about, and again it is not unique to my 
State, but it is to some of the areas involved, and that is the 
reintroduction of the grizzly bear into Idaho and Montana. I think that 
is a matter that should be addressed by the individuals from these 
States. But I know the ranchers and others have certain views about 
reintroduction of the grizzlies.
  And one thing about the bears, the moose, and the elk, and so forth, 
there are no boundaries or State lines that prohibit their crossing. 
They move in ranges depending on a lot of factors, including 
regulations on hunting. So to suggest that somehow reintroduction of 
the grizzly bears in the Sellway-Bitterroot areas of Idaho and Montana 
should be proceeded by the Department of Interior over the objection of 
the residents is something that is best left up to those in Idaho and 
Montana. What we are proposing to do is to refrain from reintroducing 
those bears at this time pending an evaluation and input from the local 
people.

  In the Columbia/Snake River Dams--remove language that requires 
congressional approval for changes in the dam system to the Columbia 
and Snake River and tributaries. We are saying the disposition of dams 
should come before the Congress. The Secretary of the Department of the 
Interior should not have the authority to arbitrarily proceed. After 
all, these dams were built with public funds. The merits and 
contributions of these dams have provided an extraordinary level of 
standard of living for many in these areas, and have created 
agricultural areas of prosperity. As a consequence of the water and 
power, we have the aluminum industry.
  To suggest that somehow Congress should not be a part of any decision 
to eliminate these dams is unrealistic. What we would propose here is 
that there would be a requirement that any change in the dam system 
must be approved by the Congress of the United States.
  I appreciate the additional time allotted to me. I see several 
colleagues on the floor are looking for recognition. I do want to 
advise my colleagues, I think late tomorrow morning, that we will be 
proceeding with the disposition of the King Cove Road. We have 6 hours 
proposed for debate on the issue. It is my understanding that we 
anticipate about 3 hours, 1\1/2\ hours equally divided.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 30 
minutes under the control of the distinguished Senator from Arizona, 
Mr. McCain.
  Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is recognized.

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