[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 10 (Tuesday, February 8, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H239-H240]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 ALLOWING WHALE-HUNTING BY MAKAH INDIAN TRIBE WILL PROMOTE COMMERCIAL 
                           WHALING WORLDWIDE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage). Under a previous

[[Page H240]]

order of the House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Metcalf) is 
recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. METCALF. Madam Speaker, last year I filed an appeal, along with 
several co-plaintiffs, to overturn the decision made by U.S. District 
Court Judge Franklin Burgess to allow whaling by the Makah Indian 
tribe.
  Today a three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit United States Court 
of Appeals in Seattle heard the case, and I hope they will make the 
correct decision and stop the outdated and unnecessary practice of 
whaling by the Makahs.
  Everyone who understands this issue knows that this is the first step 
toward returning to the terrible commercial exploitation of these 
marine mammals. In the papers filed by the Makahs with NOAA, they 
refused to deny that this was a move toward renewal of commercial 
whaling.
  It is important to understand that the International Whaling 
Commission has never sanctioned the Makah whale hunt. Under the 
International Whaling Convention, of which the United States is 
signatory, it has only been legal to hunt whales for scientific or 
aboriginal subsistence purposes. The tribe clearly has no nutritional 
need to kill whales.
  In the face of strong IWC, the International Whaling Commission, 
opposition to the original Makah proposal, the U.S. delegation ignored 
years of opposition to whale-killing and cut a deal with the Russian 
government in a backdoor effort to find a way to grant the Makah the 
right to kill whales.
  The agreement is to allow the Makah tribe to kill four of the whales 
each year, that is, to allow the tribe, the Makah tribe to kill four 
whales each year from the Russian quota, under the artifice of cultural 
subsistence.
  Before this back room deal, the United States has always opposed any 
whaling not based on true subsistence need. Cultural subsistence is a 
slippery slope to disaster. It will expand whale-hunting to any nation 
with an ocean coastline and any history of whale-killing. Much to the 
delight of the whaling interests in Norway and Japan, who have 
orchestrated and financed an international cultural subsistence 
movement, America's historic role as a foe of renewed whaling around 
the world has now been drastically undercut.
  In fact, there are hundreds of ethnic groups, tribes, and bands 
around the world who have a history of hunting whales. To allow a 
cultural past as a qualification for hunting whales would drastically 
increase the number of whales killed worldwide. Almost all cultures on 
seacoasts engaged in some whale-hunting historically.
  The treaty signed by the Makah tribe in 1885 only gives them the 
right to hunt in common with the citizens of the territory, now the 
citizens of the United States. This provision was to ensure equal 
rights, not special ones. The Makah tribal government should not be 
allowed to kill whales when it is illegal for anyone else in the United 
States to do so. Besides, it is just plain dead wrong. It is shameful 
that the current administration supports a proposal that flies in the 
face of the values, interests, and desires of the majority of U.S. 
citizens.
  As I have been saying for years, allowing the Makah tribe to continue 
whaling will open the floodgates to commercial whaling worldwide. Just 
count on it. Whales do have commercial value, and there are interests 
just waiting to cash in, as they did in the glory days of worldwide 
commercial whaling, when the whales were hunted practically to 
extinction.
  Now that we have allowed whaling to begin again, what can we say to 
Japan and Norway, whose whaling we have opposed for years but who 
definitely have aboriginal rights going back many centuries?
  I support the Makah elders and others who oppose this hunt, and will 
continue to fight in the courts and in Congress to stop the spread of 
the barbaric practice of killing whales.

                          ____________________