[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 98 (Tuesday, July 13, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1527-E1528]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             WILLARD MUNGER, MINNESOTA'S ENVIRONMENTAL ICON

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. BRUCE F. VENTO

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 13, 1999

  Mr. VENTO. Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, July 11, Minnesota lost our most 
senior, longest serving, best loved friend, mentor and state 
representative, Willard Munger at the age of 88.
  After forty-eight years of public service and a lifetime of fighting 
for people and the environment, DFLer Willard Munger stands as a

[[Page E1528]]

testament to public service. Unbending in principle but pragmatic and 
patient to achieve results, Munger's list of achievements are too 
numerous to mention. While 88 years of age he was still contemporary in 
his thinking and open to new ideas and solutions. Many of his policies 
were ahead of their time, such as packaging laws, water and air 
pollution.
  I was proud to serve in the Minnesota Legislature on Chairman 
Munger's revered Environment and Natural Resources Committee. I was an 
eager student and to this day, twenty-nine years later, both the 
lessons I have learned and the Munger spirit and excitement guide me in 
my Congressional work. Indeed I, like to many others, stand on the 
shoulders and work of one very special Minnesotan environmentalist, 
Willard Munger.
  We can all see further because of his work and the benchmarks Munger 
has set in Minnesota. We should try to employ his vision and lessons as 
we work for future generations in the preservation, conservation and 
restoration of the natural world.
  The following are two editorials from the July 13th St. Paul and 
Minneapolis papers which give testimony to the work and life of Willard 
Munger, who is being laid to rest today.

            [From the St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 13, 1999]

                         More Than a Politician

       Willard Munger campaigned for Floyd B. Olson, first ran for 
     office under the banner of the old Farmer-Labor Party and won 
     his first election when Dwight Eisenhower was president. At 
     age 88, Munger was the oldest legislator in Minnesota history 
     and its longest serving House member--with 48 years of 
     service.
       But Munger, who died early Sunday in Duluth, will be 
     remembered for more than his phenomenal political longevity.
       Long known as ``Mr. Environment,'' Munger left his mark as 
     the father of the state Environmental Trust Fund and an 
     architect of virtually every major piece of environmental 
     legislation enacted in the last three decades.
       While he was not the Legislature's most gifted orator, the 
     motel owner from west Duluth had a way of getting people's 
     attention and getting things done. Munger's environmental 
     activism began in earnest in 1971, when he passed a bill to 
     create the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District and begin 
     the cleanup of the heavily polluted St. Louis River.
       Two years later, after the DFL captured control of both 
     houses of the Legislature, Munger took over as chairman of 
     the House Environment Committee and helped enact dozens of 
     major environmental laws. They included legislation to 
     protect wild and scenic rivers, promote recycling and reduce 
     solid waste, clean up polluted lands, safeguard groundwater 
     supplies and preserve wetlands.
       But Munger's greatest achievement was the passage of a 
     state constitutional amendment in 1988 that created the 
     Environmental Trust Fund, and earmarked 40 percent of state 
     lottery proceeds for this purpose. Since its creation, the 
     fund has generated more than $100 million for parks and 
     trails, fish and wildlife habitat, and environmental 
     education.
       Willard Munger truly left this state and Earth a better 
     place than he found it.
                                  ____


               [Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 13, 1999]

                            (Willard Munger)

                  Minnesota's environmental visionary

       There is talk about the best way to memorialize Willard 
     Munger and his four decades in the Minnesota House, perhaps 
     by renaming the Environmental Trust Fund for him. Not a bad 
     move, but possibly a superfluous one.
       ``This state abounds with monuments to Munger's tireless 
     advocacy of the natural world, from clean rivers to bicycle 
     trails to metropolitan wetlands to northwoods wilderness 
     preserves. Many a Minnesotan needs no plaque to know that 
     ``Mr. Environment,'' who died on Sunday at age 88, is the man 
     to thank for these.
       Munger was already in his second decade of legislative 
     service when the modern environmental movement began in the 
     early 1970s. His political experience, informed by the 
     passions he acquired from a naturalist grandfather and 
     populist father, positioned him as both visionary and 
     strategist of the new ideals.
       One of his proudest victories was among the first: the $115 
     million cleanup that transformed the St. Louis River from an 
     industrial drainage into one of the state's loveliest 
     streams. Munger built his last home along the river and 
     hosted an annual canoe trip and barbecue for friends and 
     colleagues; the tenth of these would have been held last 
     month but his illness forced postponement.
       Munger loved politics of the old-fashioned sort, stubbornly 
     advancing his cause with a combination of persuasion, 
     patience and shrewd deal-making. He was not notably 
     charismatic; journalists ranked him among the legislature's 
     worst-dressed members and marveled at his mumbling, fumbling 
     style of address on the House floor. But he excelled at one-
     to-one negotiation and played a masterful role in conference 
     committees, where his passion could win the day for his 
     position.
       He was deeply respected by colleagues, if not particularly 
     beloved. Northern legislators were regularly aggrieved by his 
     advocacy for public lands and lakeshores, for wetland 
     protection, for halting Reserve Mining Co.'s discharge of 
     tailings into Lake Superior. But they could count on him to 
     support spending that would bring employment and tourism to 
     their districts. Some, perhaps, began to see the correctness 
     of his views that more jobs are created than destroyed 
     through environmental progress.
       In recent years, as the tide turned on environmental 
     concerns, Munger fought to save his earlier achievements from 
     dismantling. But his file drawers were said to contain plenty 
     of new initiatives, too, awaiting the right moment for 
     introduction. Now they form another Munger legacy, awaiting a 
     new champion to take up the task.

     

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