[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 137 (Monday, October 5, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H9518-H9522]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ISSUES FACING THE WEST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, last week, I spoke about character and so 
on. Tonight's speech I think will be a little less exciting. I do not 
intend to address the issues that are going down at the White House. I 
do not intend to address some of the comments I heard earlier on HMOs, 
although I think certainly that would be fertile ground for debate.
  What I am going to address is the West. For some of my colleagues 
today, it may be a little boring; but for those of my colleagues who 
look at the heritage of this country and understand the geography of 
this country and the people of this country, I think they will find 
some of the comments I am about to make of some interest.
  I was inspired to do this speech in the last couple of weeks. About 2 
or 3 weeks ago, I went to the club called the Knife and Fork in Grand 
Junction, Colorado, run by a fellow named Reeford Theibold. My wife 
Lori is on that board. What they do is there is a group of people in 
Grand Junction, Colorado; and once a month or once every 6 weeks, they 
have a speaker that comes in and speaks to the audience.
  The speaker this time was a fellow named Dennis Weaver, a name that 
all of my colleagues know. Dennis Weaver, of course, is a movie star. 
We have all seen him on our TV. He has dedicated this portion of his 
life to different aspects of the environment. He lives in Ridgway, 
Colorado. I am going to tell my colleagues a little bit about the 
district that I represent, but Ridgway, Colorado is contained within 
that district.
  The other person that I talked to was a fellow by the name of Phil 
Burgess. Most of my colleagues do not know who Mr. Burgess is, but I 
can tell them that he is kind of a think-tank kind of fellow. He is out 
in the West. He also has a place out here near the Chesapeake Bay.
  I had an opportunity the other day to spend several hours with him, 
and we talked about the West and the country and how the West was 
settled and how it has evolved throughout this time and the evolvement 
that we now face in the future.
  Mr. Burgess has a think-tank operation, I think it is the largest 
think-tank probably out of Washington, D.C. It is called the center, 
appropriately named, the Center for the New West. I thought I would go 
through a few of his ideas as we evolve or go through this speech.
  The other thing that inspired me is I got up Saturday morning to run, 
got up about 6:30 or so, I guess, got ready to run at 7:00, and I 
turned on the TV, and there was James Arness. Remember James Arness, 
Gunsmoke, great guy. It is on every Saturday morning about 7 o'clock in 
the morning. Unfortunately, the show had started, and I did not get the 
name of the show, but I think it was How The West Was Won or something, 
but I turned it on Saturday morning. You watch that and you get a real 
feeling, a good feeling about what the West was like, the beautiful 
ranges and the mountains.
  So with a combination of those three things, I thought it would be 
important to come down today, talk about a few issues that face the 
West.
  We have things like transportation problems out there, obviously. I 
want to talk a little about the water issue we have out there. The West 
is very unique in its water issues. I will talk a little bit about 
multiple use of Federal lands.
  But I thought I would begin first of all by describing the Third 
Congressional District. That is the district that I am privileged to 
represent back here in the United States Congress.
  The Third Congressional District is one of the largest congressional 
districts in the United States. Most of my colleagues here today have 
been in the Third Congressional District of the State of Colorado. It 
is well known. Why? Here is the State of Colorado over here to my left. 
The Third District, roughly the eastern border goes north to south and 
like this. This is Denver, Colorado right here. So it goes about this 
size, goes all along the border with New Mexico, comes back up along 
the Utah border and the Wyoming border.
  This district contains more ski areas than any other district in the 
country. This district is the highest in altitude of any other district 
in the country. So many of my colleagues have probably skied or 
certainly have heard of areas like Aspen, Colorado, Durango, Colorado, 
Steamboat, Glenwood Springs, Breckenridge, any number of these areas.
  Many of my colleagues have hunted out in this country. We have the 
largest herds of elk in North America. Our ranges, we have 54 mountain 
peaks, 54 mountain peaks over 14,000 feet. Pikes Peak, just outside of 
the District, Pikes Peak out in this area, Pikes Peak goes just around 
this area.
  This district has lots of Federal ownership. In fact, there are 22 
million acres, 22 million acres contained just in that area that is 
owned by the Federal Government.
  The Third Congressional District geographically is larger than the 
State of Florida. It has got a lot of other unique aspects about it. We 
have lots of wealth contained within that district. For example, Beaver 
Creek, Vale, Telluride, Aspen, Steamboat, Durango, lots of wealth, a 
lot of second homes.
  But also in this district out in the southern end of the district 
where I have got the pointer down in this area, we have the poorest 
area of the State of Colorado down in San Luis and Costilla and Canal 
and some areas like that.
  We also have huge agricultural interests, some of the largest, I 
think the largest potato warehouse in the world is in this part of the 
district. Up here, we have large orchards, and of course we have lots 
of cattle ranching in this area. Up in this area, we have sheep 
ranching.
  As I mentioned earlier, recreation, hunting areas like that all are 
in that economy out there for the Third Congressional District.
  Let me talk a little about one of the things that is unique to the 
western part of the country. Here in the eastern part of the country, 
when you deal with water, primarily your problem with water is how to 
get rid of it. You have too much water. You get floods and things like 
that.
  Out in the West, it is an arid region. I saw with interest the other 
day the

[[Page H9519]]

hurricane that came in on the Louisiana and Florida coast and the 
amount of rain it dropped there. It dropped more rain in those poor 
areas, poor meaning I feel sorry for the amount of rain that they got, 
but it dropped more rain in those areas than our State in Colorado and 
a lot of the Rocky Mountains get in an entire year.
  We have very unique parts, geographical areas, in parts of this 
district. We have Wolf Creek Pass down in the southwestern part of the 
State that gets 540 or 580 inches of snow a year, and, yet, 20 miles 
away gets about 18 inches of snow. Dramatic comparisons.
  By the way, the winter snows have moved in. Our first snow of the 
year, it actually snows year-round on the mountain tops, but the first 
fall snow that came into the valleys occurred over the weekend.

  One of the crucial areas, as I mentioned to my colleagues, is water. 
There is kind of a saying out in the west. In fact, it was quoted this 
week in the Denver Post. The Denver Post is a newspaper out of Denver, 
Colorado, also the Rocky Mountain News out of there, both of them cover 
water on a regular basis. But some of the best readings I have seen out 
of newspaper coverage, frankly, the Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, 
Colorado, a reporter named Heather McGregor did some extensive coverage 
of water.
  But this last week, going back to the Denver Post article, there was 
a quote in there, and of course it is by the poet Tom Ferrell. And it 
says ``Here is a land where life is written in water. It is said that, 
out here in the West, water runs thicker than blood.''
  Why? Well, because we are an arid region. In fact, when the explorers 
first went out to the West in the early days, they discovered a desert. 
In fact, we can look at the history books back then and some of the 
quotations in the reports by the explorers and what they wrote in their 
notes and their daily notes, they talked about the plains, about the 
lack of vegetation.
  When we go into Colorado, we can see what we have been able to do 
with water, what we have been able to do with irrigation, what we have 
been able to do over the years, over the decades, over the century by 
being able to divert that water.
  Let me give my colleagues a few statistics on water. This applies 
wherever you are in the country. I think these are kind of fun things 
to look at because most people do not realize just how critical water 
is to sustain the kind of life that we have.
  A cow, for example, 12 gallons of water a day just for the milk 
producing Jersey cow. Up to 23 gallons of day for a holstein producing 
a large quantity of milk. An acre of corn gives off 4,000, 1 acre of 
corn, 4,000 gallons a day in evaporation. About 4,000 gallons of water 
are needed to grow every bushel of corn. Every bushel of corn requires 
4,000 gallons. And 11,000 gallons to grow 1 bushel of wheat, and 
135,000 gallons of water to grow 1 ton of alfalfa.
  It takes about 1,000 gallons of water to grow the wheat to make a 2-
pound loaf of bread and about 120 gallons of water to produce one egg. 
Can you imagine tomorrow morning when you have breakfast, one egg, 
throughout the whole system, to come to that one egg, it took about 120 
gallons of water.

                              {time}  2215

  About 1,400 gallons of water used to produce a meal of a quarter 
pound hamburger, an order of fries and a soft drink. So the quarter 
pounder, your fries and a soft drink, 1,400 gallons of water from the 
inception to your dinner plate of that food. Mr. Speaker, 48,000 
gallons of water are needed to produce the typical American 
Thanksgiving dinner; 48,000 gallons of water. About 1,800 gallons of 
water to produce cotton in a pair of jeans and 400 gallons of water to 
produce the cotton that we use in a shirt.
  Where do we get all of this water? Where does it come from? Water has 
a very unique characteristic. It is one of the natural resources we 
have that can be used and used and used again. It recycles and it 
recycles.
  For example, where I live in Colorado, I live at the base of the 
mountains, the water at the top of the mountains where we have the 
water from the snowfall and the spring runoff, up in this area of the 
State of Colorado, a gallon of water there really means about 6 gallons 
of water by the time it comes down here to the border, because that 
water is reused and reused and reused. It is a very valuable resource.
  Well, in Colorado, we do not have, as I mentioned earlier, mentioned 
several times, in fact, we do not have heavy rainfall. We are very 
dependent upon the snows that we get in the winter. As I mentioned, we 
just had our first snow in the valleys this weekend. As that snow 
accumulates during the winter, we have to have the capability to store 
that water once the snowmelt comes down the hillsides. That period of 
time, called the spring runoff, lasts for about 60 to 90 days. We do 
not have much rain in the summer, so we need to be able to store during 
that 60 to 90-day period of time in order for us to get through the 
rest of the year. That is why storage is so critical in the west. 
Because again, we are in the arid area.
  Now, Colorado is called the Mother of States for rivers. If we take a 
look at the Colorado River, which services about 18 States and the 
country of Mexico and we compare it to the Mississippi; I remember the 
first time I ever saw the Mississippi, I thought I was standing on the 
edge of an ocean when I was a small person. We have big, big rivers 
back here in the east. But the Colorado River, while probably in most 
parts of the Colorado River, one could not put a barge in that river, 
the kind of barge that one runs in the Mississippi River. So it is 
small by these standards, but it is huge, it is huge for the needs that 
it serves out there, I think probably 25 to 50 million people, maybe 
more, out there in the west out of the Colorado River.
  Well, there are a number of rivers, because of the height, remember 
that I said that the district was the highest district in the country, 
because of the snowmelt we have, the heavy snows and then subsequently 
the snowmelt, and the runoff from that, Colorado is the mother of a 
number major rivers, major by standards of who they serve and the areas 
where they go into where it is the only source of water. It is also, as 
we have all heard, we have heard of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. In fact, 
in this last year, the National Sierra Club named us their number one 
priority to drain Powell. It is ludicrous. That kind of statement, by 
the way, shows a lack of knowledge of geographical, scientific, and 
historical needs of the west.
  But going back to the water issue, Colorado is also the only State in 
the Union where we have no water that comes into our State for our use. 
We have no free running water that comes in through our borders that we 
can utilize within the State. In fact, the green barely comes in right 
here and goes right back out. Other than that, we have no other water 
on any of those borders. Our water flows out of the State of Colorado.
  That is why the water law in Colorado and the water law in general in 
the west is different than the water law in the east. That is why the 
Congress and the American Federal Government early on realized that 
water should not be controlled at the Federal level, that water should 
be controlled at the State level. Out in Colorado, for example, my 
colleagues will remember I mentioned that we serve several States and 
the country of Mexico, that is all agreed to, or the agreements are 
through what we call compacts.
  For example, the Colorado River compact that involves the Upper Basin 
States and the Lower Basin States, and it divides the quantity of 
water. For example, under the Colorado River Compact, Colorado puts 
about 70 percent of the water into the Colorado River, and we take out 
about 25 percent of the 70 percent, so as my colleagues can see, we put 
a lot more water into that river than we take out of it. That came 
about through the evolution of river water compacts, and that is more 
or less how we resolve our waters differences, our water needs between 
the States.
  Now, another interesting thing about water, as my colleagues know, 
water is not always necessarily where the population is. We see it in 
the west. Colorado has large quantities of water, but be have very, 
very dry States like the State of Nevada, the State of Arizona. The 
State of California is not necessarily dry, but it has huge 
populations. So there is an effort always to move water to population.
  In the early days we did that without any concern to the environment.

[[Page H9520]]

 Around the turn of the century, we just assumed; first of all, we did 
not have the scientific knowledge, our forefathers did not have the 
scientific knowledge to really know with the movement of water what 
kind of impacts it would create and what kind of mitigation was 
necessary for these impacts. We did not have that kind of knowledge. So 
water moved freely, much more freely than it does today.
  But even within our own bounds of Colorado, again using my pointer 
here, 80 percent of the water in Colorado is located in this area of 
the State. Mr. Speaker, 80 percent of the population is located in this 
part of the State. So even within the borders of the State of Colorado, 
we have very significant differences in where the water should be 
utilized. Down here in the valley we have large aquifers. Up here it is 
the spring runoff and the water storage. The purist water is up here in 
this district. We know the water is obviously the purist at the top of 
the mountain. By the time the water comes down the mountain and goes 
through the farm fields and municipal use and so forth, it picks up 
salinity and solution, and it is not as pure. That is why we are 
concerned when people say they want to divert water from this area of 
the map into the large cities. They are diverting one gallon of pure 
water in this direction, and remember that that gallon interprets it, 
by the time it gets down here to the border, it converts to 6 gallons 
of water because we use it and use it and use it. However, it is not as 
pure down here as it was up at the top of the mountain. So water over a 
period of time was a critical part of the evolution of the west.
  Another key issue in the west that is very important are the Federal 
lands. Obviously, here we have a map of the United States. The map is 
titled, Government Lands. One can see that in the eastern part of the 
country, say from the Midwest, really, here is Kansas and go up into 
the Dakotas, Texas and over here, we do not really have a lot of 
government owned land. Most of the land here in the east is privately 
owned, and as we know, private landownership is a basic and fundamental 
foundation for our country.

  Here in the west we have huge amounts of land, and take a look at 
Alaska. I think Alaska, I am not exactly sure of this number, but I 
think Alaska is 99 percent or 98 percent owned by the government. Out 
here in my district, for example, as I mentioned earlier, that is my 
district in Colorado, the district that I serve, there is 22 million 
acres of Federal land.
  Well, what happened is in the early days of the settlement of this 
country, they said, as Horace Greeley says, and I have some great 
thoughts from Horace Greeley. He said, ``Go west, young man, and grow 
up with the country.'' The best business Horace Greeley said you can go 
into, you will find on your father's farm or in his workshop. ``If you 
have no family or friends to aid you and no prospect open to you there, 
turn your face to the great west and there build up a home and a 
fortune.''
  Well, in the early days when they were trying to settle the country 
and actually occupy all of the different areas that we had, they did 
what they call homesteading or land grants. They would go out there, 
and one would go into Missouri or Kansas, terrific States, very rich in 
their soil, and with 160 acres or 320 acres or 640 acres, that is 
enough to sustain a family off a farming operation. But what 
Washington, D.C. determined and the Congress determined way back when 
was that when one got into the mountains, it was a little different.
  First of all, one had adjustments for the altitude. Then one had to 
deal with adjustments of the winter; very, very tough winters, very 
short growing seasons. Very difficult in Missouri or Kansas where I am 
sure that one can have several cows per acre. In the mountains, it is 
just the reverse. You have to have a lot of acres for one cow. And our 
forefathers were wise enough to say that we need agriculture, we need 
ranching. It is fundamentally important to put that into those 
mountains, to sustain the people that we want to go throughout this 
country, the citizens of this country.
  But it appeared impractical at the time, and I think it was probably 
a wise decision, but it appeared impractical at the time to go to a 
family and say, if you go out and homestead in the Rocky Mountains, we 
will give you 160 acres, because one cannot live off 160 acres from an 
agricultural point of view back in those times. So they could not just 
give it away through a land grant. Instead, what they decided to do was 
to adopt the concept of what is called multiple use.
  Now, multiple use does not mean a lot to us here in the east, but in 
the west it is a way of life. What does multiple use mean? Just what it 
says. On the Federal lands, these lands, as designated and as 
determined by the Congress and by the people of this country, these 
lands owned by the Federal Government, one would not go into private 
ownership, but while not in private ownership, would be intended for 
many, many uses. In fact, when I grew up, the sign on all of the 
Federal lands as one entered the Federal lands, for example, the White 
River National Forest in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, when one enters 
into that area, it says, ``welcome to the land of many uses.''
  Now, as of late, many of us feel under an assault in the mountains 
and out in the west as if people want to come out to the government 
lands and take the ``land of many uses'' sign off and put up a sign 
that says, ``no trespassing.'' But multiple use out there, and I will 
give several examples of multiple use. When we stop some people and we 
ask them what is multiple use, many uses of the Federal lands mean, and 
we will hear, frankly because of the propaganda put out by some of the 
national, more radical environmental groups, we will hear, well, it 
just means ranching and those ranchers are abusing the country, and I 
dare have anyone put one of those people in front of me, because I 
would love to have a debate with them, because the love of that country 
is by the people who have worked it with their bear hands.
  My family, for example, my inlaws have the same ranch in the family 
since 1892, 1892 for that multiple use. But ranching is not the only 
aspect. The ski areas which many of us have enjoyed throughout our 
years, the ski areas are not the only use, it is another use. Mining 
and farming, those are uses, yes, although as we will see from Mr. 
Burgess's remarks, our economy has changed, it has become much less 
dependent on mining and so on, but there are many other uses that we 
have to have off these Federal lands to sustain our lifestyle, to 
sustain life. Maybe I went too broad to say lifestyle.
  For example, all of our highways, all of our highways that cross or 
traverse the third congressional district in Colorado are on government 
lands or go across government lands at some point. All of our water is 
either stored upon, runs across, or originates on Federal lands. Our 
radio towers, our power lines. I mean we can take a look at many 
aspects of our life and it is very, very dependent on that concept of 
multiple use.
  By the way, I am speaking more specifically this evening about 
Colorado, but we can hear with some eloquence from the chairman of the 
Committee on Natural Resources, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), 
he can tell us about the multiple use and the importance of it for all 
of their interests up here in Alaska, or we can hear from the gentleman 
from Nevada, or the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) with the parks and 
so on and so forth.
  Other multiple uses that we think are just very, very important for 
these mountains are the uses that we enjoy in our national monuments 
and in our national parks. If I could think of one thing that our 
generation enjoys as a whole generation besides food and besides some 
of the other vital elements, it is the relaxation of the Federal parks 
and the monuments and the things that the west offers to all of us.
  Well, that is kind of the west as we know it. Now, in the west we 
have seen a fairly dramatic change. First of all, mining. Mining in 
this country for a multiple of reasons has gone downhill. We do not see 
near the mines that we used to see. Let me tell my colleagues, mining 
is a very easy item of the economy to attack.

                              {time}  2230

  Frankly, in the late 1800s and the 1900s, and the 19th and 20th 
century when mining was done, they did not pay a lot of attention or 
have the scientific knowledge to protect the environment, to mitigate 
the impact that

[[Page H9521]]

the mining was creating on the environment, so it got a very black eye. 
But everything in this room, this desk, the wood, that came through 
logging. The metal on these chairs came through mining of one purpose 
or another. It is very important. It is a basic industry for this 
country's economy.
  But in the West we have seen a depletion of the mining. Some of it 
has to do with the economy and some with land use regulations. But it 
has brought about, regardless of what has caused that, we have seen a 
diversification in our economy out there in the West. And that 
diversification is being driven primarily I think by recreation.
  But because we have recreation coming in, one does not have to spend 
very long in my district, the district that I represent there in 
Colorado, one does not have to spend a lot of time there to say this 
would be a great place for a family vacation. It is absolutely 
beautiful. We have four distinct seasons and I could go on and on. Some 
would think I work for the Chamber of Commerce out there promoting this 
area. But it is a unique area and it does have a lot to offer.
  But there are other things that are important to consider. One of 
them is that this area will only be an area that people want to explore 
and come out to, or an area of the kind of values that it should 
represent, if we protect the heritage that it came from. What some 
people refer to as the Old West.
  Many have been down to Durango, Colorado, and ridden on the narrow-
gauge train. The Durango-Silverton narrow-gauge steam train. I suggest 
folks try it. It brings back a lot of good feelings about the West. 
These kind of things should be allowed to be preserved into our future, 
so that we have a clear understanding of our past.
  Phil Burgess talks about the New West, and I thought I would go 
through a couple of things, four forces that he says shape America and 
create a new West. He says first of all, migration. The West is the 
Nation's most rapidly growing region. Which is also greatly increasing 
its political power in America's democracy.
  Urbanization. This is hard to believe, but contrary to popular 
belief, the West is the Nation's most urbanized region as a higher 
percentage of westerners live in urban areas. How does that happen? Out 
here we have vast amounts of land, but most of the people live in the 
cities. In Colorado, we have four or five major cities. By our 
definition in Colorado, Denver would be considered a major city. But we 
have many other cities that we call cities.
  Take a look at Alaska. Huge, millions and millions and millions, they 
probably have 600 million acres of land. 600 million acres of land 
would be my guess up here in Alaska. They have Anchorage, we could go 
through and see all the different, probably name on both hands the 
communities of 20- or 30- or 40,000 population. We could see where the 
urbanization statement comes in.
  The other area, the other force, the third thing as far as shaping 
America and creating a New West, that is called diversification. The 
economics based on commodities are increasingly diversified as 
manufacturing, business service, high-tech, and other sectors grow.
  Globalization. The West is a major beneficiary and provides the 
strongest political support to the Nation's growing trade with overseas 
markets. And that is going to be put to a test with the worldwide 
economy that we are facing today. Keep an eye on that economy. If we do 
not, we are being ignorant of what could be a real challenge to us 
within the very short future, and that is the worldwide economy; what 
is happening with trade throughout the world and with the American 
dollar, not just as it affects the American West but as it affects all 
of America.
  Finally, we have what we call corporate refugees. A word that Phil 
creates: Gentrification. Corporate refugees and urban refugees and 
others seeking a new life in the Nation's mild and wild. And he quotes 
that from Rand-McNally, who called it ``mild and wild'' areas, and are 
moving in droves to smaller cities and towns in the rural areas that 
dot the West's urban areas.
  We have seen a lot of migration in the West because we have been able 
to bring in fax lines. We have enhanced our ability to communicate. Now 
one can live in the Rocky Mountains and communicate with an office in 
New York City and be in instant contact with the stock market or other 
areas of business while enjoying the life of the West. That has brought 
a lot of that migration.
  He says in his notes, and I think Phil's points are well taken, that 
take a look at what is happening in the West. Utah, for example, the 
2002 Olympics. And if you have not made your reservations, you ought to 
make your reservations and go see that beautiful State.
  Nevada, America's fastest growing State. The fastest growing county 
in the United States is Douglas County, a portion of which is in the 
3rd Congressional District in Colorado. Colorado has become the home, 
and it was interesting to see how many people are from Colorado in the 
Forbes 400 list which I read just last week. Corporations like Qwest; 
TCI; John Malone, people like that; the Magnus family; Jones 
Intercable; Daniels Communications, Bill Daniels; these are all 
pioneers for industry. Echostar, Microsoft, there are a number of 
others that have come to Colorado. The West is changing.
  It is not all cowboys. It is not all ranches or mining anymore. But 
as this West changes, as we begin to evolve into that, we have to 
preserve what made our State great and what made Colorado great were 
our cattle and our mining and the boom and bust. The Unsinkable Molly 
Brown. Leadville, Colorado. The Ice Castle built down there. We could 
go on and on and on.
  Mr. Speaker, if we lose sight of our very basics which made the State 
of Colorado and the West what the West is and the West that we dreamed 
about, if we lose sight of that, then we will in the future dilute a 
very important part of our history for future generations. It is not 
right.
  We need to make a very focused effort as we move into the New West, 
as we move into what Mr. Burgess talks about here, we have got to make 
a very conscientious effort to educate our young people about the 
needs. Why water? Why we have to store water. If we listen to some of 
the national radical, in my opinion, environmental groups, we should 
never store water. Tear down the dams. They have only the most remote 
understanding of water in Colorado and water in the West.
  We will hear people say, well, we should lock off all of these areas 
and put them in wilderness. What does that mean? It is a very nice buzz 
word. Let us talk about wilderness. It is important enough as we evolve 
into the New West that we talk about what wilderness really means.
  On our Federal lands that is owned by all of us and, frankly, every 
one of us has a fiduciary duty to manage those Federal lands and that 
fiduciary duty especially falls on us elected to represent the people 
to manage these lands owned by the Federal Government, whether up here 
in the East or over here in the West or in Alaska.
  Congress through the years and through the century has provided a 
number of different management tools to manage lands owned by the 
government. Owned by us. Those management tools, for example, we have a 
particular tool on how we manage Yellowstone Park. We have a particular 
tool on how we manage Colorado National Monument in Grand Junction, 
Colorado. We have a particular management tool on how we manage the 
Sand Dunes down in Alamosa, Colorado. We have a particular management 
tool on how we manage the Mall outside the fine Capitol here. A 
management process for how we manage this building itself.
  It is all property, and we have a huge amount of management tools 
available to us. But because of changing times and changing uses, 
because of changing needs and geographical changes, and because of 
disasters like forest fires and floods and things like that, we have to 
have flexibility in the management tools that we use for the Federal 
lands or for the Federal property or the government property.
  We have one tool out there that has almost zero flexibility and it is 
the only tool out there that for all practical and political purposes, 
once an area receives this designation, it will never again leave that 
designation. That designation is called wilderness.
  Now, I am a proponent of the right area in the right time being put 
into wilderness areas. In fact, I am sponsoring with a Democrat, the 
gentleman

[[Page H9522]]

from Colorado (Mr. Skaggs) who ably represents the community of 
Boulder, Colorado, a wilderness bill. But the area which we are putting 
into wilderness called the Spanish Peaks is an area that fits that 
description.
  We have to be very cautious about using that designation of 
wilderness, because it locks us in forever under that particular use. 
And in essence what wilderness means is that man can only be a visitor. 
Man cannot stay in that area. Man can come in, but he must go. And it 
restricts how he can come in.
  In a lot of wilderness areas, we may not enter by motorized vehicle, 
which means that a lot of our senior citizens will never be able to 
enter those areas. It has severe restrictions on walking. When I grew 
up, we cut across the neighbor's lawn and hiked up the mountain. A lot 
of that freedom is taken away. In certain areas, we need to restrict 
that kind of freedom because the resource is so fragile. The resource 
is so precious that this is the only management tool that really makes 
sense.
  Now, we have a lot of other resources out there, Federal resources, 
Federal properties where it is also very important, very valuable 
Federal property. Very fragile in its own way, but it can be managed as 
a national monument or maybe as a national park or maybe in an area run 
by the BLM for grazing or maybe in an area for flood control or maybe 
in an area for water storage. Water storage, by the way, is not just 
for water usage. Water storage also helps us on flood control, much as 
we have here in the East.
  So, when we talk about the different multiple uses and the wilderness 
tool, it is a concept that we have to keep in mind as we talk about the 
Old West.
  As we talk about when we come into the New West, one of the things 
that Mr. Burgess talked to me about that I thought was fascinating was 
the politics that is now coming out of the West. Let me go through a 
couple of things here that he says.
  Growth, he says, will lead to expanded political influence. The West 
is become the next political power. The same way the South rose in 
political prominence from a political point of view. The President, the 
Vice President, the Majority Leader in the Senate and the Speaker of 
the House are all southern, an indication of the rise of the South 
politically in the last several years.
  The trend, however, is shifting to the West as witnessed by the 
chairman of the Republican National Committee, Jim Nicholson and the 
chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Roy Romer, both from the 
State of Colorado.
  The next census in the year 2000 should result in several House seats 
being shifted from other places in the country to the West.
  In the 1900 presidential election, the West accounted for 8 percent 
of all electoral votes. In 1900, during the presidential election, we 
had 8 percent of the electoral votes come out of the West. In 1952, 52 
years later, it about doubled to 15 percent. Fifteen percent of those 
electoral votes. In 1996, in a much shorter period of time, the West 
rose to 22 percent of all electoral votes. Take a look at the 
California primary. An example of just how important the West has 
become.
  There are other areas that we have to consider when we talk about the 
New West and moving into these areas. Again, it is a special area to 
live. And if you have not been out to the West, and I did not know how 
beautiful the East was until I had an opportunity to come out here and 
go up north and see the mighty rivers that they have up here and go to 
Gettysburg and see the rolling hillsides and down to Lynchburg, 
Virginia, or Smith Mountain Lake. There is a lot of beauty.
  But for those out here who have not been to the West, come out and 
see how special it is. Come out and begin to understand our concern for 
multiple use. You will understand why we are so guarded about our 
water. As I said, water runs thicker than blood out in the West. You 
will begin to understand why things like transportation have become a 
real challenge for us.
  One do not have to have skied very long in Colorado to know that I-70 
is a major transportation problem for us. That is east to west. North 
to south on the I-25 corridor, another big problem for us. Or Aspen, 
Colorado, from Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on Highway 82, a big 
problem. Or Grand Junction to Delta on Highway 50. Big problem. Or go 
from Ouray, Colorado, to Durango on Highway 50 where the side of the 
road continually falls off four football fields straight down because 
of the challenge of maintaining at that altitude those kinds of roads.
  These are all kinds of things that we need to educate our friends and 
family in the East about the challenges that we have in the New West. 
But the most fundamental thing we can do, the most fundamental thing 
that all of us can do is that as it has the evolution in politics, as 
it has evolution in urbanization, as it has evolution from migration, 
is not to forget the days reflected by James Arness in those movies of 
``How the West Was Won.'' Not to forget the commitments that we have 
made to the people in the West, like the Native Americans.

                              {time}  2245

  Down here, in this part of the district, I am very proud to tell my 
colleagues that we have the Mountain Utes and the Southern Utes. That 
is exactly the area where this Congress, and many Congresses before us, 
and many presidents before this President, after we took the water from 
the Native Americans, we promised to give it back to them. We promised 
to build them water storage. And we have told them, trust us, we will 
deliver.
  And we have continued, year after year after year, as the new west 
begins to come in, as some of the more radical environmental groups 
begin to have more and more influence in this area of the country, we, 
on a consistent basis, break our commitments to the Native Americans in 
building their water projects down there.
  This is hard to conceptualize. None of us in this room have to do 
this. I would venture to say not one of us, not one of my colleagues in 
the United States Congress, in fact, I doubt very many people we would 
run into still have to carry their water to their house.
  Do my colleagues know of the lands and the waters we took away from 
the Native Americans? Then we gave them the land and water back. Then 
we discovered there was gold, so we took some of the land back. Then we 
discovered how valuable the water was, so we took the water. Even 
though we did not take the water by treaty, we use the water.
  There are Native Americans down there on those reservations that 
still have to haul water to their houses because we have not carried 
through on our commitment on projects. The Animas-LaPlata specifically. 
This speech tonight is not about the Animas-LaPlata, but it is a 
reflection of some of the conflicts the new west brings when we begin 
to evolve the old west. The west that Horace Greeley spoke about: ``Go 
west, young man. Go west.''
  In conclusion this evening, I want to say to my colleagues that I 
realize this speech does not excite, like talking about some of the 
problems down the street; or we could talk about the budget or the 
appropriations process; or we could talk about the attack on Sudan. I 
would love to debate with my colleague on the HMO and some of those 
other issues that are pretty important. But when all of those issues, 
when all of those clouds clear out and the sun comes up, we can still 
see the fundamental issue of how the west, that key special part of 
this country, why it needs attention; and why speeches like this, even 
though they may be somewhat boring, it cannot get much more boring than 
to talk about water, unless of course it does not come out of the 
faucet when we need it, but why comments and attention needs to be paid 
to the west.
  The west needs special attention because it is a very unique part of 
our country. It is a part of our country that will become even more 
unique in its political power, in its urbanization, in its migration 
and, in its special way, when my colleagues and their families have an 
opportunity to go out and enjoy the west.

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