[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2182-E2185]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page E2182]]
                  AMERICAN HERITAGE RIVERS INITIATIVE

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. HELEN CHENOWETH

                                of idaho

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, October 15, 1998

  Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter into the 
Congressional Record a paper published by the Heritage Foundation 
earlier this year entitled Good Politics, Bad Policy: Clinton's 
American Heritage Rivers Initiative. Authored by Alex Annett, this 
paper outlines how AHRI implements a new Federal program by fiat, 
violates the Constitution, the National Environmental Policy Act and 
the Federal Land Management and Policy Act. Furthermore, it discusses 
AHRI's threat to property rights and States' rights. I encourage my 
colleagues to learn more about this illegal Federal program which is 
one more example of President Clinton's abuse of executive power.

            [From the Heritage Foundation, February 2, 1998]

     Good Politics, Bad Policy: Clinton's American Heritage Rivers 
                               Initiative

                            (By Alex Annett)

       ``The AHRI creates, by executive fiat, the most all 
     encompassing regulatory regime ever to be imposed on private 
     landowners. Most other land use programs have been designed 
     to protect Federal Land. And in the case of the Clean Water 
     Act and the Endangered Species Act, Congress passed these 
     regulations. Never has an executive dared to assert so much 
     control over private property through his own declaration.'' 
     Nancie Marzulla, president and chief counsel, Defenders of 
     Property Rights.
       During the 1997 State of the Union address, President Bill 
     Clinton announced a new federal program entitled the American 
     Heritage Rivers Initiative (AHRI), which he intended to 
     support communities in their efforts to restore and protect 
     rivers across the United States. To many, this lofty goal 
     sounds good. But, on closer inspection, the pristine image it 
     paints becomes murky, revealing a program that violates many 
     constitutional and statutory provisions, involves the federal 
     government further in local and state environmental issues, 
     is inefficient and wastes tax dollars, and threatens personal 
     property rights.
       Nevertheless, President Clinton appears ready to begin 
     implementing his initiative, although he has neither the 
     constitutional authority to do so nor the intention of asking 
     Congress for such authority. He also appears unconcerned that 
     promoting this initiative could suggest to many that, for his 
     Administration, the ``era of big government'' is not over. 
     Congress should consider taking immediate action to block 
     Clinton's river initiative before it floods America's 
     communities with layers of federal bureaucracy and further 
     muddies the balance of power in Washington, D.C.


            IMPLEMENTING A NEW FEDERAL PROGRAM BY DECREE \*\

     *Footnotes at end of article.
       President Clinton unveiled new details about how he plans 
     to implement his new American Heritage Rivers Initiative when 
     he issued Executive Order 13061 on September 11, 1997.\1\ 
     Through executive order, Clinton has established an American 
     Heritage Rivers Interagency Committee to oversee 
     implementation of the initiative. Members of the committee 
     will include the secretaries of the Departments of 
     Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Housing and Urban 
     Development, Interior, and Transportation; the attorney 
     general; the administrator of the Environmental Protection 
     Agency; the chairpersons of the Advisory Council on Historic 
     Preservation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the 
     National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment 
     for the Humanities; or designees at the assistant secretary 
     level or their equivalent.
       To nominate a river for designation as an American Heritage 
     River, a local community must submit a river nomination 
     packet to the President's Council on Environmental Quality. 
     The packet must include: a description of the river or river 
     area \2\ to be considered, its notable resource qualities,\3\ 
     a clearly defined vision for protecting the area and a 
     specific plan of action to achieve it, evidence that a range 
     of citizens and organizations in the community support the 
     nomination and plan of action, and evidence that individuals 
     in the community have had an opportunity to discuss and 
     comment on the nomination and plan of action.
       The Council on Environmental Quality will select a panel of 
     experts to review the nominations and make recommendations to 
     the President. From these recommendations, the President 
     would select ten rivers or river area to designate as 
     American Heritage Rivers. These American Heritage Rivers 
     would receive preferential treatment for federal dollars and 
     the support of other federal programs.
       On the surface, President Clinton's program looks 
     appealing. Rivers have played a vital role in the country's 
     history, culture, recreation, health, environment, and 
     economy. Finding ways to encourage states and local 
     communities across the country to become involved in 
     improving the water quality of their rivers and revitalizing 
     their waterfronts is commendable. The AHRI, however, will 
     amount to little more than a surface ripple in accomplishing 
     these goals.
       Impediments to achieving the AHRI's lofty goals have more 
     to do with the design of the program than with the intentions 
     of communities. The notable problems with President Clinton's 
     initiative are that:
       1. It violates a number of constitutional and statutory 
     provisions;
       2. It is wasteful and inefficient;
       3. It reduces the role and authority of the states;
       4. It threatens property rights; and
       5. It ``serve[s] political purposes.''
       Upon close examination, it becomes clear that the AHRI is 
     bad policy and unconstitutional and, like many of President 
     Clinton's other initiatives, will become another political 
     pork-barrel program designed to send federal dollars to 
     politically important jurisdictions across the United States.


     HOW THE AMERICAN HERITAGE RIVERS INITIATIVE VIOLATES THE U.S 
                              CONSTITUTION

       Above almost all else, Americans love the beauty and 
     resources of their country. They clearly understand that the 
     U.S. Constitution establishes a system of government to 
     protect their individual rights, and that the federal 
     government should be expressly limited in its ability to 
     usurp those rights. They may disagree, at times, about how 
     much power its given each branch of the federal government to 
     settle disputes and to limit personal freedoms, but there is 
     no dispute that the Founding Fathers intentionally and 
     explicitly designed a balance of power to prevent 
     legislative, judicial, or executive arrogance and abuse of 
     power. Americans expect their elected leaders to abide by the 
     separation of powers delineated in the Constitution, and they 
     want the federal judiciary on guard to make sure they do.
       Rather than honor these expectations, President Clinton's 
     American Heritage Rivers Initiative violates both the intent 
     and the letter of the U.S. Constitution. It gives the 
     President as well as his executive agencies authorities that 
     clearly and constitutionally belong to the legislative branch 
     of government, and it confiscates the land use and zoning 
     powers of the states.


            Altering the Constitutional Separation of Power

       ``The Constitution protects us from our own best 
     intentions: It divides power among sovereigns and among 
     branches of government precisely so that we may resist the 
     temptation to concentrate power in one location as an 
     expedient solution to the crisis of the day.'' New York vs. 
     United States, 112 S.Ct. 2408 (1992)
       Under the U.S. system of checks and balances, the 
     legislative branch has the power to create laws and 
     appropriate funding, the executive branch is authorized to 
     implement and enforce the laws, and the judiciary is given 
     power to interpret those laws in disputes.\4\ To explain to 
     hesitant colonists why this separation of powers was 
     important, James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 47 that the 
     ``accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and 
     judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, 
     and whether hereditary, self appointed or elective, may 
     justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.'' \5\
       The Supreme Court historically has recognized the 
     importance of the separation of powers among the President, 
     Congress, and the judiciary. In the case of Youngstown Sheet 
     & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, \6\ the Supreme Court was asked to 
     decide whether President Harry S Truman (during the Korean 
     War) was acting within his constitutional power when he 
     issued an executive order directing the Secretary of Commerce 
     to take possession of and operate most of the country's steel 
     mills. The government's position was that the president's 
     action was necessary to avert a national disaster than 
     inevitably would result from the stoppage of steel 
     production, and that in meeting this grave emergency, the 
     President was acting within the aggregate of his 
     constitutional powers. The Supreme Court found in Youngstown 
     that, even with the threat of a national catastrophe, the 
     President's order could not be sustained as an exercise of 
     his authority. In this case, the Supreme Court found no 
     statute that expressly authorized the President to take 
     property as President Truman's executive order intended, or 
     any act of Congress from which authority could be inferred. 
     The Supreme Court concluded that the power to adopt such 
     public policies as those proclaimed by the executive order is 
     beyond question by Congress, and that the Constitution does 
     not subject this lawmaking power of Congress to the 
     President.\7\
       Supreme Court precedent suggests that President Clinton's 
     Executive Order No. 13061 runs contrary to the separation of 
     power provisions of the Constitution. To implement the AHRI, 
     President Clinton is claiming for himself and future 
     Presidents powers that belong to Congress: specifically, 
     authority over interstate commerce, water rights, property 
     rights, and the appropriation of money. Through executive 
     order, Congress would be relegated to a role of trying to 
     stop presidential programs from being implemented, rather 
     than creating and approving them based on the will of the 
     people and funding them as authorized in the Constitution.


                   Walking Around the Property Clause

       The Property Clause in Article IV of the Constitution 
     states that ``Congress shall have power to dispose of and 
     make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the 
     territory or other property belonging to the

[[Page E2183]]

     United States.'' \8\ Executive Order No. 13061, however, 
     gives the executive branch control and authority over the 
     country's rivers and their associated resources located on 
     federal lands, a power specifically assigned to Congress. In 
     order for the executive branch to have authority to govern 
     and control these rivers and associated resources, this power 
     must be delegated to it by an act of Congress. Congress has 
     not given the executive branch such authority.


                     Trampling the Tenth Amendment

       The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution stipulates that the 
     ``powers not delegated to the United States [federal 
     government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
     States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the 
     people.'' \9\ Under the Tenth Amendment, then, state and 
     local governments retain the authority to engage in land use 
     planning and local zoning for public health, safety, and 
     welfare. President Clinton's program, however, sets a new 
     precedent by giving federal regulators a greater role in land 
     use planning, local zoning, and other aspects of a river's 
     surroundings, including ``characteristics of the natural, 
     economic, agricultural, scenic, historic, cultural, or 
     recreational resources of a river that render it distinctive 
     or unique.'' \10\ The President has no authority under the 
     Constitution to engage in land use planning and local zoning; 
     thus, Executive Order No. 13061 violates the Tenth Amendment.


                HOW THE AHRI VIOLATES NUMEROUS STATUTES

       In addition to altering the constitutional separation of 
     powers, the AHRI implementation process outlined in Executive 
     Order No. 13061 also conflicts directly with two significant 
     environmental laws: the National Environmental Policy Act 
     (NEPA) and the Federal Land Management and Policy Act 
     (FLMPA).


                 The National Environmental Policy Act

       The Clinton Administration has cited the National 
     Environmental Policy Act of 1969 as the legal basis for 
     establishing the AHRI. The NEPA is primarily a policy statute 
     mandating that federal government agencies consider the 
     environmental effects of major federal actions. The idea 
     behind the NEPA is that, by requiring federal agencies to 
     consider and gather information about the environmental 
     consequences of proposed actions, the agencies will make 
     wiser environmental decisions. \11\ President Clinton states 
     that the NEPA provides a grant of authority to establish the 
     AHRI under authority of Section 101(b) of the NEPA. This 
     section only sets out the broad goal to be achieved by the 
     NEPA, however; it provides no authority for action. The only 
     authorities mandated to the executive branch under the NEPA 
     are to prepare reports; interpret and administer federal 
     policies, regulations, and public laws in accordance with the 
     NEPA; provide information, alternatives, and recommendations; 
     and provide international and national coordination efforts. 
     \12\ President Clinton apparently has interpreted these 
     duties to mean that the NEPA  also gives the executive branch 
     broad authority to develop programs. Such authority, 
     however, was given specifically to Congress, not the 
     President, and Congress has not delegated such powers 
     explicitly to the President. Consequently, citing the NEPA 
     as the legal basis for implementation of the AHRI is 
     questionable.

               The Federal Land Management and Policy Act

       Even if it can be argued successfully that President 
     Clinton's action is consistent with the purpose of the NEPA, 
     the NEPA, as written, does not trump the requirements of 
     other statutes. And, in the case of the Federal Land 
     Management and Policy Act, the President is expressly 
     restricted in his ability to designate or manage Federal 
     lands. Congress enacted the FLMPA in 1976 in order to 
     reestablish its authority over the designation or dedication 
     of Federal lands for specified purposes, and to circumscribe 
     the authority of the President and executive branch to manage 
     Federal lands. \13\
       In the FLMPA, Congress declared that ``it is the policy of 
     the United States that Congress exercise its constitutional 
     authority to withdraw or otherwise designate or dedicate 
     Federal lands for specified purposes'' and delineate the 
     extent to which the executive branch may withdraw lands 
     without legislative action. \14\ Congress thus asserted its 
     authority to create, modify, and terminate designations for 
     national parks, national forests, wilderness, Indian 
     reservations, certain defense withdrawals, national wild and 
     scenic rivers, national trails, and other national 
     recreational areas and national seashores. \15\
       In fact, Congress has not withdrawn, designated, or 
     dedicated any Federal lands for President Clinton's American 
     Heritage Rivers Initiative, nor has it authorized the 
     development of the program by the executive branch. The 
     legislative process for obtaining a favored status 
     designation for Fderal land and resources is clearly 
     established. Consider, for example, the Wild and Scenic 
     Rivers Act adopted by Congress on October 2, 1968. \16\ The 
     act provides for the selection, by Congress, of American 
     rivers that, along with their immediate environments, possess 
     outstandingly remarkable scenic, recreational, geologic, fish 
     and wildlife, historic, cultural, or other similar values. 
     The rivers selected are protected for the benefit and 
     enjoyment of present and future generations. \17\ Since 1968, 
     Congress has designated 154 Wild and Scenic Rivers under this 
     act, amounting to 10,814 miles of river. \18\ In fact, 
     Congress acted as recently as November 12, 1996, when it 
     designated 11.5 miles of the Lamprey River in New Hampshire 
     and 6.4 miles of the Elkhorn Creek in Oregon, \19\ following 
     the designation of 51.4 miles of the Clarion River in 
     Pennsylvania on October 19, 1996, as part of the Wild and 
     Scenic Rivers program. \20\ Congress is currently considering 
     legislation to designate three more rivers. Representative 
     Norman Dicks (D-WA) introduced H.R. 1477 to designate 51 
     miles of the Columbia River in Washington State; Senator 
     Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced a companion bill (S. 200) in 
     the Senate. Representative Martin Meehan (D-MA) introduced 
     H.R. 1100 to designate the Sadbury Assibet and Concord Rivers 
     in Massachusetts for the Wild and Scenic Rivers program, and 
     Senator John Kerry (D-MA) introduced the companion bill (S. 
     469) in the Senate. Clearly, when Members of Congress believe 
     there is reason to act, they will act.
       If President Clinton wants to see his initiative 
     implemented properly then he first should proposed 
     legislation to Congress and allow Congress to approve or 
     reject the initiative based on the merits of the proposal and 
     the will of the people. Because Congress has not designated 
     or dedicated any Federal lands for the AHRI, or authorized 
     the development of the AHRI, the actions of the President in 
     creating and implementing the AHRI through Executive Order 
     No. 13061 violate the FLMPA.


                 HOW THE AHRI THREATENS PROPERTY RIGHTS

       The protection of personal property in the Constitution is 
     under increasing assault by all levels of government. The 
     right to own and use property free from unreasonable or 
     arbitrary government interference is fundamental to American 
     freedom and the U.S. Constitution. In fact, the Framers of 
     the Constitution considered the protection of property rights 
     so important that they included it in the Third, Fourth, 
     Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. Today, in an era of almost daily 
     documented cases of unreasonable and arbitrary interference 
     by government agencies, it is not surprising that the Clinton 
     Administration does not seem to recognize or agree with the 
     Founders on the importance of individual property rights.
       This lack of appreciation for personal property rights is 
     an undercurrent in President Clinton's AHRI. The right of 
     individuals who own property along designated rivers to use 
     their property free from unreasonable and arbitrary 
     government interference is threatened by the AHRI. The 
     Administration has resisted adding a mandatory opt-in 
     provision to allow the property of landowners along 
     designated American Heritage Rivers to be included in a 
     nomination only in cases in which owners have given their 
     written permission. Such a provision would have shown that 
     President Clinton indeed was concerned about the property 
     rights of those Americans whose land is located along 
     designated rivers. The lack of such a provision means 
     property owners have no guarantee that their property rights 
     are protected.
       The regulation of wetlands under the Clean Water Act 
     affects hundreds of thousands of acres of property across the 
     United States. Implementing the AHRI will add hundreds of 
     thousands of acres of dry land to the federal government's 
     control in perpetuity. Rather than increase the access of 
     people to federal resources and protect their rights, the 
     AHRI will increase the access of federal bureaucrats to 
     private property across the United States.


                 HOW THE AHRI TREADS ON STATES' RIGHTS

       The Founders believed that government closest to the people 
     works best. The Tenth Amendment addresses the empowerment of 
     state and local communities to govern. It recognizes that the 
     federal government--as an entity--should have only limited 
     powers, and that its powers should be specifically 
     enumerated. Water rights and land-use planning are not 
     stipulated powers of the federal government; historically 
     they are subject to regulation and control at the levels of 
     state and local elected government. As Chief Justice William 
     Rehnquist has argued, taking the control of water from the 
     legislatures of the various states and territories at the 
     present time would be nothing less than suicidal. If the 
     appropriation and use were not under the provisions of state 
     law, the utmost confusion would prevail. \21\
       President Clinton, through his executive order, is 
     attempting to establish and exert federal control over 
     something that clearly is under state jurisdiction. By 
     allowing the intervention of the federal government through 
     federal bureaucrats, known as ``river navigators,'' who are 
     appointed by the President, Executive Order No. 13061 will 
     interject the federal government heavily into the local 
     decision-making process.
       The Clinton administration claims that river navigators 
     will not interfere in the local planning and zoning process, 
     yet it resists incorporating a provision to prohibit them and 
     all other federal employees involved with the initiative from 
     intervening in local zoning and other decisions affecting 
     private property and water rights. Such a provision would 
     ensure that the states and local communities continue to 
     control areas that are rightfully under their jurisdiction. 
     The AHRI appears to be the program of a President who 
     believes Washington, D.C., knows best and can govern best 
     every aspect of life in every American Community.


         HOW THE AHRI IS WASTEFUL, DUPLICATIVE, AND INEFFICIENT

       The Clinton Administration claims that the AHRI will help 
     ``reinvent government.''

[[Page E2184]]

     But President Clinton's understanding of reinventing 
     government seems to mean creating additional layers of 
     bureaucracy. The American Heritage Rivers Initiative, in 
     fact, is similar to an existing program, the National Rural 
     Development Partnership (NRDP) established by President 
     George Bush in 1991 by executive order. The NRDP is a flawed 
     program: President Bush had no congressional authority over 
     water rights, property rights, or the appropriation of 
     funding when he initiated it; therefore, it also violates a 
     number of constitutional provisions.
       Like the AHRI, the NRDP planned to create a collaborative 
     relationship among federal, state, local, and tribal 
     governments, and private, nonprofit, and community-based 
     organizations within each state and some territorial areas, 
     in order to establish a comprehensive and strategic approach 
     to rural development efforts in each state. A comparison of 
     the descriptions of these programs from their respective 
     World Wide Web sites reveals further similarities.
       According to the Web site of the National Rural Development 
     Partnership,\22\ the NRDP's objectives are to: Encourage and 
     support innovative approaches to rural development and more 
     effective resolution of rural development issues; Develop 
     innovative approaches; Build partnerships among, federal, 
     state, local, and tribal governments and the private sector; 
     Encourage local empowerment; Involve the Departments of 
     Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Housing and Urban 
     Development, Interior, Justice, and Transportation, the 
     Environmental Protection Agency, and the Army Corps of 
     Engineers; and Use existing federal personnel and funds to 
     work with the states to bring public and private resources 
     together for solutions to local problems.
       According to the Web site of the American Heritage Rivers 
     Initiative,\23\ the AHRI is supposed to: Encourage community 
     revitalization by providing federal programs and services 
     more efficiently and effectively; Develop strategies that 
     lead to action; Build a partnership between federal, state, 
     tribal, and local officials, as well as private for-profit, 
     non-profit, and community-based organizations; Encourage 
     community-led efforts; Involve the secretaries of the 
     Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, defense, energy, 
     Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Transportation; 
     the attorney general; the administrator of the Environmental 
     Protection Agency; and the chairs of the national Endowment 
     for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and 
     the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation; and Use 
     existing federal staff, resources, and programs to assist 
     communities.
       Reinventing government usually does not imply duplicating a 
     federal program already operating in 38 states that has the 
     same objective: promoting community involvement and 
     development. Beside sharing the NRDP's objective, the AHRI 
     will create three new costly layers of bureaucracy. The AHRI:
       1. Creates an American Heritage Rivers Interagency 
     Committee that will be responsible for implementing the AHRI;
       2. Establishes a panel to review the river nomination 
     packets and recommend rivers to the President for 
     designation. The panel will include representatives from 
     natural, cultural, and historic resources concerns; scenic, 
     environmental, and recreation interests; tourism, 
     transportation, and economic development interests; and 
     industries such as agriculture, hydropower, manufacturing, 
     mining, and forest management.\24\
       3. Gives the Interagency Committee the authority to 
     transfer funds from other legitimate and congressionally 
     authorized federal programs to fund ten new river navigators 
     appointed by the President. The new bureaucrats would be paid 
     approximately $100,000 each year to assist officials in the 
     ten communities selected by the President to locate existing 
     federal programs and money that would be used to improve 
     their waterfronts and rivers. Funds also would be transferred 
     to compensate engineers, biologists, and foresters who would 
     provide studies and expertise in implementing the initiative. 
     The salaries of the river navigators would cost $1 million 
     per year (which would be compounded annually because ten new 
     river areas would be designated per year), and the cost of 
     the engineers, biologists, and foresters would be added to 
     the already estimated $4 million annual cost of the program. 
     It is unclear whether such authority on the part of the 
     Interagency Committee is a violation of the Spending Clause 
     in Article I of the Constitution because the Spending Clause 
     gives Congress--and only Congress--the power and authority to 
     ``draw [monies] from the Treasury.'' \25\
       President Clinton is planning to implement the AHRI at a 
     time when the country is clamoring for Congress to downsize 
     the federal government and give more control back to the 
     states. The true definition of reinventing government is to 
     make government smaller and more efficient. It is difficult 
     to comprehend how creating another federal program--and one 
     that is similar to an existing program--and adding new layers 
     of federal bureaucracy will facilitate an efficient method of 
     cleaning up America's great rivers. Secretary of the Interior 
     Bruce Babbitt, in a recent speech entitled ``United by 
     Waters--How and Why the Clean Water Act Became the Urban 
     Renewal Act That Actually Works,'' stated:
       Finally in 1972 Congress enacted a new law. . . . [t]he 
     Clean Water Act proclaimed a simple if awkwardly stated goal; 
     make the nation's rivers, lakes, and shores ``swimmable and 
     fishable.'' As American cities used the Act to clean up and 
     restore their waters, those waters, in turn have begun to 
     heal and restore our American cities.
       Even as the Clinton Administration touts the effectiveness 
     of the Clean Water Act in restoring and protecting American 
     rivers, it boldly declares that the country also needs the 
     AHRI. If Secretary Babbitt believes the goals of the Clean 
     Water Act already are being achieved, then one must ask: What 
     is the real reason behind the Clinton Administration's new 
     initiative?


            AHRI's POLITICAL AGENDA FROM A WHITE HOUSE MEMO

       One of the best ways to build or strengthen political 
     support in a community is by selecting it to receive a 
     massive infusion of federal funds. Representative Christopher 
     Cannon (R-UT) stated on July 15, 1997, at a House Resources 
     Committee hearing on the AHRI that three to five 
     congressional districts could be covered by each of the ten 
     rivers designated by President Clinton. Using these figures, 
     by the next presidential election in 2000, the President 
     would have targeted federal funds to go to between 90 and 
     150 political districts. The American Heritage Rivers 
     Initiative is classic pork-barrel politics.
       At the same House Resources Committee hearing, a memo from 
     the Council on Environmental Quality surfaced that read: 
     ``Selection committee will recommend more AHR's [American 
     Heritage Rivers] than are actually designated, giving someone 
     else (the President?) a further choice. This could ensure 
     that designated AHR's: Serve Political Purposes; are located 
     where agencies can staff them; and are diverse (river, 
     landscape, community, geography, etc.)\26\
       The Administration memo indicates that politics could well 
     play a role in the designation of 10 rivers in early 1998, as 
     well as the designation of an additional 20 rivers before the 
     2000 presidential election. The AHRI allows the White House 
     to target federal dollars to communities in a way that could 
     be politically advantageous.


                               CONCLUSION

       At a time when the country wants to downsize government and 
     revitalize the importance of the Tenth Amendment, and 
     Congress is recognizing the necessity of empowering local 
     communities and states even more, the American Heritage 
     Rivers Initiative chooses the wrong approach for preserving 
     some of America's great resources, its many rivers. Although 
     there often has been a lack of political will in Congress to 
     tackle these kinds of issues--even with flagrant violations 
     of law and terrible policy--several Members of Congress 
     recognize the problems with President Clinton's initiative 
     and have begun to focus their attention on it.
       For example, on June 10, 1997, Representative Helen 
     Chenoweth (R-ID) and 46 cosponsors introduced H.R. 1842 to 
     terminate funding by any federal agency for the AHRI. The 
     bill passed the House Resources Committee by voice vote on 
     November 5, 1997. In addition, on December 10, 1997, 
     Representatives Chenoweth, Richard Pombo (R-CA), and Bob 
     Schaffer (R-CO), and House Resources Committee chairman Don 
     Young (R-AK) filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the 
     District of Columbia to challenge the constitutional 
     authority of the President to implement this initiative.
       Because President Clinton plans to designate the first 
     rivers in early February, the time has come for every Member 
     of Congress to take a long, hard, and honest look at the AHRI 
     program. It is an indefensible waste of taxpayer dollars. 
     Through its Wild and Scenic Rivers Program and numerous other 
     water quality initiatives, Congress already has devoted 
     considerable resources to cleaning, restoring, and enhancing 
     America's rivers with great success. But even more disturbing 
     than the waste, the AHRI program seriously undermines 
     congressional authority and upsets the delicate balance of 
     power so carefully crafted in the U.S. Constitution.
       Congress must exercise its proper statutory and 
     constitutional authority to bring this program to an end 
     before it is launched.


                               FOOTNOTES

     \1\ Federal Register, Vol. 62, September 15, 1997, p. 48445.
     \2\ The nominated ``river'' may vary from a short stretch of 
     a river to its entire length. The designated area can include 
     land immediately adjacent to the river, such as the 
     waterfront and streamside areas, or span the entire 
     watershed. It may also cross jurisdictional boundaries.
     \3\ ``Resource quality'' refers to how the natural, economic, 
     agricultural, scenic, historic, cultural, or recreational 
     resources connected with the river are distinctive or unique.
     \4\ U.S. Constitution, Articles I, II, and III.
     \5\ Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The 
     Federalist Papers No. 47 (Madison).
     \6\ Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 
     (1952).
     \7\ Ibid.
     \8\ U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2.
     \9\ U.S. Constitution, Amendment 10.
     \10\ Executive Order 13061, September 11, 1997, Section 
     2(b)(1).
     \11\ 42 U.S.C. Sec. 4321.
     \12\ Ibid.
     \13\ 43 U.S.C. Sec. 1701(a).
     \14\ 43 U.S.C. Sec. 1701(a)(4).
     \15\ Legislative History, The Federal Land Policy and 
     Management Act of 1976 (Public law 94-579), Vol. 1 at 439 
     (1978).
     \16\ 16 U.S.C. Sec. Sec. 1271 et seq.
     \17\ Ibid.
     \18\ Wild and Scenic Rivers Reference Guide, Interagency Wild 
     and Scenic Rivers Coordination Council, 1997.
     \19\ Public Law 104-333.
     \20\ Public Law 104-314.

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     \21\ California v. U.S., 438 U.S. 645 (1978).
     \22\ ``National Mission and Goals Statement,'' National Rural 
     Development Partnership, at www.rurdev.usda.gov/nrdp/
goals.html.
     \23\ Council on Environmental Quality, ``American Heritage 
     Rivers Initiative,'' at www.epa.gov/rivers/fedreg2.html.
     \24\ Ibid.
     \25\ U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7.
     \26\ Council on Environmental Quality, Draft Memo, ``The 
     American Heritage Rivers Initiative,'' provided to the House 
     Resources Committee and the basis for questioning at a 
     hearing on the Initiative. See Oversight hearing on the 
     Clinton Administration's American Heritage Rivers Initiative, 
     House Report 105-36, 105th Congress, 1st Session, July 15, 
     1997, pp. 81-82.

     

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