[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 19, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S443-S444]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. STEVENS:
  S. 49. A bill to amend the wetlands program under the Federal Water 
Pollution Control Act to provide credit for the low wetlands loss rate 
in Alaska and recognize the significant extent of wetlands conservation 
in Alaska property owners, and to ease the burden on overly regulated 
Alaskan cities, boroughs, owners, and to ease the burden on overly 
regulated Alaskan cities, boroughs, municipalities, and villages; to 
the Committee on Environment and Public Works.
  Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, according to the United States Fish and 
Wildlife Service more than 221,000,000 acres of wetlands existed at the 
time of Colonial America in the area that is now the contiguous United 
States. Since then 117,000,000 of those areas, roughly 53 percent, have 
been filled, drained, or otherwise removed from wetland status.
  In the 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Act, more commonly known 
as the Clean Water Act, Congress broadly expanded Federal jurisdiction 
over wetlands by modifying the definition of ``navigable waters'' as 
used in the 1899 Rivers and Harbors Act. The 1899 Act established the 
basis for regulating disposition of dredge spoils in navigable waters. 
The 1972 Act expanded that basis to encompass all ``water of the United 
States''.
  In 1975, a United States district court ordered the Army Corps of 
Engineers to publish revised regulations concerning their program to 
implement section 404 of the Clean Water Act. Since then, the Courts 
have further expanded upon the Corps's authority to include isolated 
wetlands and have issued decisions that effectively constrain agency 
decision makers to act only to promote conservation, often at the 
expense of sound economic development. This expansion of Congressional 
intent has also formed the basis for burdensome intrusions on the 
property rights of many Alaskans, Alaskan Native Corporations, and the 
State of Alaska.
  The erosion of agency discretion clearly undermines the Corps of 
Engineers' ability to implement sound public policy in my State. Over 
the 100 years since the Rivers and Harbors Act, their ``Section 404'' 
regulatory program has become unnecessarily inflexible and unresponsive 
to common sense. In recognizing the value of preserving and restoring 
wetlands where appropriate, Congress intended to leave appropriate 
discretion to agency managers to balance competing public values. That 
intent has lost flexibility with age. Today the lack of regulatory 
flexibility threatens to destroy the economic health of many Alaskans. 
We are being over-regulated to the point of economic strangulation.
  According to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, 
approximately 170,200,000 acres of wetlands existed in Alaska in the 
1780's and approximately 170,000,000 acres of wetlands exist now. That 
represents a loss of less than one-tenth of 1 percent through the 
combined effects of either human or natural processes.
  Alaska contains more wetlands than all of the other States combined. 
Fully 75 percent of the non-mountainous areas of Alaska are wetlands. 
Yet we are regulating these vast wetlands in Alaska to the same strict 
levels as all the other states, without regard to either special 
economic hardships or the unnecessary federal expense this causes.
  Ninety-eight percent of all Alaskan communities, including 200 of the 
226 remote villages in Alaska, which incidently are dispersed over 1/
5th of the land mass of the United States, are located in or adjacent 
to wetlands. To promote the economic self sufficiency of these remote 
communities, about 43,000,000 acres of land were granted to Alaska 
Natives through regional and village corporations.
  These Native allotments were intended to be available for use. 
However between 45 percent and 100 percent of each Native corporation's 
land is categorized as wetlands. Therefore development of these Native 
lands and basic community infrastructure is delayed or even prevented 
by an ever tightening regulatory regime designed to protect an 
excessively abundant resource in Alaska because it is scarce elsewhere 
in the Union.
  Naturally Alaska villages, municipalities, boroughs, city 
governments, and Native organizations are increasingly frustrated with 
the constraints of the wetlands regulatory program because it 
interferes with the location of community centers, airports, sanitation 
systems, roads, schools, industrial areas, and other critical community 
infrastructure.
  The same is true of State-owned lands. 104,000,000 acres of land were 
granted to the State of Alaska at statehood for purposes of economic 
development. Nowhere is flexibility more appropriate than on these 
lands. What minimal identifiable environmental benefits expected from 
the ever tightened regulation of wetlands are certainly not justified 
in Alaska.
  The Federal Government already has vast wetlands holdings in Alaska 
under the protection of a variety of Federal land management programs. 
In Alaska we have 62 percent of all federally designated wilderness 
lands, 70 percent of all Federal park lands, and 90 percent of all 
Federal refuge lands, thus providing protection against use or 
degradation for approximately 60,000,000 acres of wetlands. National 
policies intended to achieve `no net loss' of wetlands reflect a 
response to the 53 percent loss

[[Page S444]]

of the wetlands base in the 48 contiguous States, but do not take into 
account the large percentage of conserved wetlands in Alaska.
  Only 12 percent of Alaska's wetlands are privately owned, compared to 
74 percent of the wetlands in the 48 contiguous States. Wetlands 
regulation designed to protect a large majority of a dwindling resource 
are clearly too strict where they would only apply to a small 
percentage of a vase resource. Unfortunately, Federal agencies no 
longer enjoy the discretion to modify their program to address these 
special circumstances. As a result, individual landowners in Alaska 
have lost up to 97 percent of their property value and Alaskan 
communities have lost a significant portion of their tax base due to 
wetlands regulations.
  Expansion of the wetlands regulatory program in this manager is 
beyond what the Congress intended when it passed the Clean Water Act. 
In Alaska, it has placed unnecessary economic and administrative 
burdens on private property owners, small businesses, city governments, 
State government, farmers, ranchers, and others, while providing 
negligible environmental benefits.
  It is time to stop using the wrong regulatory tools. For a State, 
such as Alaska, with substantial conserved wetlands, my bill provides 
much needed relief from the excessive burdens of the current cumbersome 
federal wetlands regulatory program. It relaxes the most stringent 
aspects of wetlands regulation, without dismantling agency discretion 
to regulate where necessary. This bill restores common sense and cost 
effectiveness without loss of high value wetlands.
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