[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 26 (Thursday, March 9, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H909-H916]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ISSUES AFFECTING THE WEST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for half the time until midnight as the designee of the 
majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time that I have been 
given this evening. The gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) who is a 
longtime friend of mine and I intend to spend the next little while 
with Members talking about issues that are important to the West. As 
many Members know, my district is the Third Congressional District of 
the State of Colorado. That district geographically is larger than the 
State of Florida. I adjoin the fine State of Utah.
  As Members know, many of the issues that we share in Utah are very 
similar to the issues in the State of Colorado. In fact, as we look at 
the map that I have here to my left, many issues of the West, whether 
we are talking about Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, New 
Mexico, we have many similar issues in the West.
  Tonight, to begin our remarks, I thought I would talk a little about 
what the concept of multiple use really means. What is multiple use? 
Why is it critical to the West? What is the history of multiple use? We 
really need to turn our clocks back in time and look at the beginning 
of this country, when most of the populations, again referring to the 
map to my left, were on the East Coast.
  Back then, possession really was nine-tenths of the law. In other 
words, you really had to go out and occupy the land. You could not just 
have a deed. We kind of take that for granted today. If we have a deed 
for property, we go down and register it at the county courthouse and 
we do not have to worry about going out and standing on the land in 
order to continue possession or sometimes even able to initiate 
possession.
  In the frontier days, you had to do that. What our forefathers, the 
problem they ran into is people really did not want to leave the East. 
Our new country had just made some purchases. We got land like through 
the Louisiana Purchase, and we needed to get people out there. Just the 
fact that we bought the land from other countries as a young country 
did not mean we really were going to be able to hold on to the land. 
What we had to do is move people onto the land. We had to give people 
incentive to move from the East to go to the West.
  And so to give that kind of incentive to our citizens of this young 
country,

[[Page H910]]

our government decided to offer incentives to them. The incentive that 
they thought would be the most attractive is to say to the young 
frontiers people, if you go west and we all remember the saying, ``Go 
west, young man, go west,'' if you go west, you can secure a piece of 
property; and if you work that land for a long enough period of time, 
you get to own the land. It is yours.

                              {time}  2230

  All you have to do is possess it. Just go to it, work it and possess 
it for a period of time and we will give you 160 acres or we will give 
you 320 acres, and it is through what we all know as the Homestead Act.
  Well, that worked fine for many of the States out here where you had 
rich soils, you did not have the severe kind of weather, where on 160 
acres a family, a frontier family, could raise some cows, they could 
farm that land and feed a family. What happened over a period of time 
is that as the people begin to get into the deep West, like the Rocky 
Mountains of Colorado or into the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming or down 
into New Mexico, the leaders in Washington, D.C. discovered these 
people were not really staying there; that you could not even feed a 
cow off of 160 acres in many of these areas in the deep West.
  So the people were not staying there, and they were concerned about 
what do we do on possession. We have to give people incentive to stay 
in these areas.
  First of all, let me say what they decided not to do. They said we 
cannot possibly give them an equivalent amount of acreage, in other 
words the same amount of acreage in the mountains that would give you 
the same kind of living that you would have in, for example, the State 
of Nebraska or Ohio. Out there you can do it on 160 acres, and the 
equivalent in these mountains would be about 3,000 acres. They said 
politically we cannot give away 3,000 acres to these frontiers people, 
and somebody came up with an idea. We do not have to give away the 
land. In fact, unlike the East, unlike the East, where we give the land 
away and where we have a large amount of private ownership, let us as 
the Federal Government go ahead and keep ownership of the land in the 
West. The government will continue to own the land but we will allow 
the people to use the land. We will have multiple use.
  We will allow the people to farm on the land. We will allow the 
people to raise cattle on the land. We will allow the people to extract 
natural resources on the land. This was many, many years ago.
  Throughout time, the uses of multiple use have evolved dramatically. 
In fact, in my district, almost every road in my district goes across 
government lands. Every drop of water in my district, if it is not out 
of a well, either comes across, is stored upon or originates on Federal 
lands; all of our power lines, all of our radio towers, all of our 
cellular telephone towers. We are totally dependent on the West on this 
concept of multiple use.
  What does this map to my left show? I think it is very important. 
This map that I have tonight, for all here in the chambers, is to 
demonstrate very clearly where the Federal Government owns land. It is 
very important to take a look, as we go from the north, the Canadian 
border, follow my pen, we go down through here, we go right through 
Colorado, we go right through New Mexico, we come right down here to 
Texas, go around and we hit Mexico down there.
  Look at the amount of Federal land on this side. Very little. In 
fact, we have some in the Appalachians here; we have some down in the 
Everglades. We have some areas up here. New York has some but a lot of 
that is owned by the counties, not by the Federal Government.
  Compare this, which could be identified with pencil points on this 
map, with what has happened in the West. This is the amount of 
government ownership of land in the West.
  Let me give an example of what happens as a consequence of that. 
First, let me give a statistic. Outside of Alaska, which is 99 percent 
owned by the government, that is Alaska right there, now that is half 
the size of its actual proportion for this map, that is 99 percent but 
if you exclude Alaska, 88 percent of the Federal land in the lower 48 
States, 88 percent of the land owned by the Federal Government lies in 
these 11 western States.
  What does that mean for practical, every day living, for the ordinary 
people out there? Well, in the East, when you have planning and zoning, 
which is very important, your local communities, your city councils or 
your local governmental entities, they decide planning and zoning.
  If someone wants to build a bike path, if someone wants to have a 
water project, if they want to do some kind of construction, if they 
want to do a road, the people in the East, their local municipalities 
have control of planning and zoning.
  You would be deeply offended, you would have strong objections if the 
Federal Government came into your community in Connecticut or came into 
your community in Tennessee or Ohio and said, hey, we want to take over 
planning and zoning of your local community, you would say, bug out. 
Well, planning and zoning is a local matter, it is a local issue. If it 
is not the city council that does your planning and zoning, it may 
be your local county or it is a combination of the two, but it is not 
the Federal Government. The Federal Government does not do the planning 
and zoning out here in the East.

  Guess what happens in the West. In the West, just by the fact, just 
under de facto that the West has such massive amounts of Federal land, 
they in effect do our planning and zoning.
  We have so much Federal land in my district alone, 22 million acres; 
22 million acres of Federal land in my district alone. When you want to 
build a road, when you want to deal with water, you have to deal with 
the Federal planning and zoning commission, which is the government in 
Washington, D.C.
  One of our problems at the very beginning, at the very beginning, is 
that in the East it rains a little differently than it rains in the 
West. In fact, in the fine State of Colorado, we are the only State in 
the Union where all of our water runs out of the State. We have no 
water that comes into Colorado for our use. It all runs out of the 
State, the only State in the Union.
  We are very dependent on our water resources that are on those 
Federal lands. We are entirely dependent on the concept of multiple 
use.
  Well, the problem with having planning and zoning at a Federal level 
is that in Washington, D.C. they seem to think one shoe fits all, one 
size fits all. So they start applying policies that may work okay for 
the Appalachians or may work okay for the State parks or Federal parks 
in New York State, they start putting those applications on the massive 
Federal land holdings in the West. There is not a lot of recognition to 
my colleagues here in the East, with due respect, there is not a lot of 
recognition on their part of our difficulties that we have in the West.
  So when we have people out of the administration or the bureaucracy 
in Washington, D.C. starting to make decisions based on their life 
experience in the East, when they start making decisions that have 
impact on the West they need to realize what kind of impact it has and 
what kind of unintended consequences there are.
  For example, in the East your problem back here is getting rid of 
water. In the West, in the West, our problem is storing water, is 
keeping the water. In this region right here of which Colorado has the 
highest elevation, my district, in fact, the Third District of Colorado 
has the highest elevation of any district in the nation. We do not have 
much rain. We get some rain but we are an arid state. The West is an 
arid area, a lot different than the East.
  We depend very heavily on our snowfall and then we have to depend on 
a period of time we get about 60 to 110 days of runoff, the spring 
runoff. It is going to start here in about another month, maybe another 
6 weeks, we have the spring runoff for about 60 to 110 days. After that 
110th day, if we do not have the capability to store the water we have 
real problems. During that 60 days to 110 days, if we do not have the 
capability to control flooding we have real problems.
  Take a look at what some people in the East have done. The 
bureaucracy, for example, of the national Sierra Club, now the national 
Sierra Club has done some reasonable things but one of the things, 
their number one goal, as

[[Page H911]]

dictated by the bureaucracy, their bureaucracy in the East because they 
have very little understanding of our water issues in the West, their 
number one goal is to go out here and to drain Lake Powell.
  That lake, which is a huge storage facility for water in the West, 
for power, for flood control, and frankly for a lot of recreation, a 
lot of family activities on that lake, in fact on that lake, to give 
you an idea of the size, there is more shoreline on Lake Powell than 
there is on the entire Pacific West Coast.  What is the response for 
the planning and zoning commission of one of the more active 
environmental groups in the East? Their number one goal, take down the 
dam and drain Lake Powell.

  Well, this extends into these issues of people in the East dictating 
the planning and zoning by the fact that the government has these large 
land holdings in the West. These policies have ramifications. They have 
ramifications on our national parks. They have ramifications on our 
national monuments. They have ramifications on our business community, 
meaning the small ranchers and the small businesses. They have 
ramifications not only on our water storage but our water 
accessibility, the ability to transport water.
  Every highway we have, it has consequences there. It has consequences 
on the environment. There are a lot of things that I urge my colleagues 
here today, if they live east of this red border that I have just shown 
here, I am urging to take some time and study why the issues in the 
West are different. In the West, when the frontier people went out 
there, remember what happened. The government made a deal with them: We 
are going to keep ownership of the land. In the East we gave the fellow 
citizens the land. We arranged for private property, which every family 
in America dreams of owning their own piece of property and in the East 
we followed that. We followed that dictation, but in the West we gave 
you a little guarantee. We will let you use the land but because we 
cannot give away that massive amount of land we are going to keep 
ownership. That is what they said in Washington, D.C.
  So as we progress through a number of different issues dealing with 
the West, I urge my colleagues, please sit down, take a look at the 
history; understand that in the West it does not rain like it does in 
the East. Understand that in the West that concept of multiple use is a 
way of life. In the West, life is written in water, not in blood. These 
are very important.
  Now as we continue through our special orders this evening, I would 
like to turn the podium over to my colleague, the gentleman from Utah 
(Mr. Hansen), who will take us to the next step. This gave us a little 
basic history. We now have an idea of where the Federal land ownership 
is in this country. We have an idea of the concept of multiple use and 
what it means. We have an idea that in the West water is something we 
have to store to use.
  In the East, of course, we have always known this but it is something 
for a large part that has to be gotten rid of. I think it is a good way 
to kind of transition into the next area of what we want to talk about 
tonight in the West, and for that I would turn it over to my colleague, 
the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen).
  We both have generations of family in our respective States. We have 
deep, deep roots. Beyond that, both the gentleman from Utah (Mr. 
Hansen) and myself are very, very dedicated and very loyal to our 
States. We care about the citizens we represent and we care about the 
heritage of the West. The West to us is paramount. Oh, we are 
Americans, do not get that wrong, but it is paramount that we be able 
to represent the West out here in the East.
  Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McINNIS. I yield to the gentleman from Utah.
  Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend, the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. McInnis), for the excellent explanation he has given 
regarding the difference between the East and the West.
  It is very common, as chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks 
and Public Lands, to get all kinds of letters from folks in the East 
talking about how some day I want to go out and see that, and I own it 
as much as you do. I find that very interesting because some of them 
will never come. Basically, if you want to go back 200 years where did 
they get their ground? At one time, all of that map was owned by the 
Federal Government but they got it given to them and now they want to 
control what we do in the West.
  We have no problem with that if they are reasonable but we also feel 
that the people who occupy the ground, who play on the ground, who make 
a living on the ground, who are raised on that ground, ought to have 
some say in it and I do not see why people think it is so totally 
irresponsible when somebody from the West, who has lived there all 
their life, gets just a tiny bit upset when someone who has never been 
there wants to tell them how they can drive their car, how he they can 
plow their fields, where they can put their cows, where they can have 
recreation. I think that is really kind of reasonable.
  Mr. Speaker, when I read the Constitution, the words that jump out at 
me are the first words and they say, ``we, the people.'' I have been in 
this business quite awhile. I have been an elected official for the 
last 40 years. I started out as a city councilman in a little town in 
Utah called Farmington. I still remember about that little town that if 
I ever wanted to do something as a city councilman or mayor pro temp as 
I served for a year and a half, I would have to advertise it. Even 
something as small as putting a bid out to put a piece of water in for 
the culinary water system or something for the sewer, we had to 
advertise it.
  Later on in the State legislature, when I was speaker of the House, 
we found the same thing. We had what we call sunshine laws and most of 
our people have those laws; most of our legislative bodies have those. 
So we had to do it so the people were there, the people could see it. 
We did not do things behind closed doors.

                              {time}  2245

  Why do we sit there and have C-SPAN on? So that the people can see 
their government in action. Most of our committees, when there are very 
important people testifying, C-SPAN comes in and films it and we open 
the doors and the public come in. The exception would be the Select 
Committee on Intelligence where I sat for a number of years, or the 
Committee on Armed Services which I am a member of, and occasionally 
things of high security, of course we do not want to have the public 
look at them. But the vast, vast majority of things, the public should 
look at.
  Therefore, if it is truly we, the people, and we are not going to do 
things in a closet; I often wonder about this current administration 
that back in September of 1996, the President stood on the south rim of 
the Grand Canyon where the Colorado River goes through and proclaimed 
on his proclamation 1.7 million acres in southern Utah as a national 
monument. Now, of course he has a right to do that under that bill, but 
people have to realize that in 1906, Teddy Roosevelt, the great 
conservationist, found himself in the position of saying, how do we 
ever protect these Indian ruins and all of these beautiful dwellings 
that we are finding? People were going in and desecrating those. So 
they passed this law, and if one wants to look it up, it is only about 
a paragraph long and it talks about what one can do to protect them.
  It says that the President can go in and he can sign a proclamation 
and his proclamation has to say, what is the historic nature of this 
issue? An historic national park, a good example would be where the two 
trains met in Promontory, Utah, and we joined the Nation from 
California to the East with the railroad, a great understanding of what 
a national historic area would be. If we look at archeological areas, 
it also says they can do that. And then in this law it says they will 
proclaim that as the smallest acreage available to protect that site.
  We found in this particular instance that we did not know anything 
about it. If I may define the word ``we,'' it would be the members of 
the Utah delegation, the Utah legislature, the Utah governor. So we 
were hearing about it and hearing rumor; we did not know where this 
rumor was coming from. So we would call down to places like the White 
House and they would say we are hearing the same rumor. We do not know 
anything about it.

[[Page H912]]

  In fact, my administrative assistant called up Kathleen McGinty. She 
was head counsel of environmental quality in the White House working 
for the Clinton-Gore administration. We said we keep hearing this rumor 
and she said we hear the same, and the next day they are out 
proclaiming this.
  To find out what really happened, we went to the trouble of 
subpoenaing all of the papers from the White House and the Department 
of the Interior. We made a compilation of those and I have it in my 
hand, and we wrote a book called Behind Closed Doors. Remember, Mr. 
Speaker, this is a government of we, the people. The people are the 
ones who are supposed to have an understanding of this. In this we 
found some very interesting things.
  When we expressed our concern to the Clinton administration, of 
course they denied this. As late as September 11, the Secretary of 
Interior Bruce Babbitt wrote to Utah Senator Bennett and pretty much 
told him that. Then, in a letter written to Professor Wilkenson asking 
him to draw up the proclamation, the solicitor of the Department of the 
Interior, John Leshy wrote, I cannot emphasize confidentiality too 
much. If word leaks out, it probably will not happen.
  Then, on August 5, 1996, Katie McGinty wrote a memo to Marcia Hale 
telling her to call some key Democrats to get their reaction. However, 
conspicuously absent on their list was a Democrat from Utah. In the 
memo Mrs. McGinty emphasized that this should be kept secret, saying 
any public release of this information would probably foreclose the 
President's option to proceed.
  Now, we may ask ourselves, why did they want to keep it a secret? Why 
did they not let the world see it, let people have the scrutiny of a 
microscope looking at this. Well, let us face it. It was a political 
election stunt and the type of thing that had to be perfectly planned 
and perfectly timed to be done just before the presidential election.
  Now we may ask ourselves, why did we do this? In another memo we 
found from Kathleen McGinty she said quote, ``I do not think there is a 
danger of the abuse of the withdrawal of the Antiquities authority, 
especially, especially because these lands are not really in 
endangered.'' There we have it, in their own words. The administration 
did not think there was any real danger. Okay. Let us ask ourselves, 
what does this proclamation do? Does it stop coal mining? No. Does it 
stop mineral development? No. Does it stop petroleum? No, CONOCO is 
still drilling. Does it stop people from visiting the grounds? No. Does 
it stop roads from being built? No. In fact, more roads are being built 
because more people want to see it. I was down there a number of times, 
standing there and people from New Jersey drove up and they said I see 
a car, two cars here, one was State and one was Federal, where is the 
Grand Staircase Escalante? And at this point we said, you are standing 
in it. They said, well, what is there to see? We said, look around. If 
you like sagebrush you will love this area, because that is basically 
all there was.

  Why did the administration not come to us in Congress? And let me 
make this point. Congress, according to the United States Constitution, 
is the only entity that has control of the public grounds, period. 
Anyway, they did not come to us because it was an election stunt and we 
could all see this.
  So I kind of say well, why did he pick a national monument? Why did 
he not just sit there in his armchair and say to the people, I am going 
to withdraw this pursuant to 43 U.S.C. 170-1204? Because it would not 
sell that way. It has to be on the south rim of the Grand Canyon with 
that beautiful panorama behind you, with the wind blowing through the 
hair of the President and all of these people standing there cheering. 
Then they finally found out, well, what did we really get out of it. I 
noticed even the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and the Salt Lake 
Tribune said that they are really just election-year environmentalists, 
and that is what we find.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, we found ourselves in a situation well, what 
happens now? Again we see this abuse coming about. This antiquities 
law. Not a lot of people say these things should be protected. I hope 
the American public realizes that when that passed, that is all there 
was, was the 1906 antiquities law. There was not the 1915 park bill 
that created Yellowstone, and now we are up to 379 units of the park 
system. There was not the NEPA Act of 1969 that gave us environmental 
protection. There was not the FLPMA Act of 1976. There was not the 1964 
Wilderness bill. There was not the 1973 Endangered Species Act, there 
was not the Trails Act, there was not the Scenic Rivers Act. There was 
none of that stuff. So that is all we had.
  Now, at this point we have all kinds of laws. So why with all of that 
protection did we see in January of this year again the President of 
the United States goes to the south rim of the Grand Canyon and 
proclaims another national monument on what we call the Arizona strip. 
While he is standing there he also declares one in Phoenix, he also 
declares one on the California coast, and now rumor, and before I used 
to say, oh, that is just rumor, do not pay any attention to it. Now 
rumor has it that my friend standing in the well might get one, the 
gentleman from Montana (Mr. Hill) may get one; rumor has it that people 
down in the district of the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Bono) may 
get one, and for what reason? Could somebody give us a reason why this 
is going on?
  What do the American people get out of this? It is an election-year 
stunt; and actually, as many courts have said, someone should push this 
up across the street to those nine folks that wear black robes and see 
if the 1906 antiquity law is even constitutional. Because if you have 
to go up against the idea, it says in the Constitution of the United 
States of America that the only people who have use of the public 
ground is this body and the body over on the other side, and they are 
the ones to take care of it.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope people realize, and little by little I am so 
impressed with the public, because it is starting to dawn on them just 
what the gentleman from Colorado is talking about: Who uses that 
ground? Now, the dentist from New York who writes me on a regular 
basis, the attorney from Florida who writes me on a regular basis and 
says, Mr. Chairman, we have as much use on that ground as you do, and 
they keep talking about the people who graze. On March 1, right across 
the street in the Supreme Court there is a battle raging now: Is that a 
right that they have, and the court will decide that. That was filed in 
1995, and unfortunately it was just heard on the 1st of March.
  Other people are filing suits. Grazing was one, timber was one, and 
mining was one. The big three. Put the big three aside. They do not 
mean much anymore. The public of the United States wants access to that 
ground on that west side of that map. That is what they want, and they 
want it for a lot of reasons.
  The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) talked about Lake Powell, 
one of the most beautiful areas on earth. Go down there. Mr. Speaker, 
400,000 people launched boats on Lake Powell last summer. 400,000. It 
has far surpassed many of the other areas because it is such a gorgeous 
area, let alone the power that it provides, let alone the water that it 
provides, and let alone the whole southwest part of America is there 
because of the Colorado River drainage. Those people want access.

  Talk to the guy who has a four wheel drive outfit, talk to the guy 
who rides one of these little four wheel ATV things, talk to the people 
in Utah, and now we are on the map because of something we call trail 
bikes. Talk to the person who has a wave runner and where he wants to 
go. The backpacker. Talk to the guy that likes to shoot a deer or an 
elk or a moose in that area. They want access to that ground. They do 
not want it tied up like the Sierra Club wants it tied up. They want 
access. Should it be done in an environmentally-sensitive way? Of 
course it should be.
  On the other side of the coin, it really bothers some of our folks, 
and they are justified in this when they get hammered and taken out of 
the use of this ground which is theirs to use. To that dentist from New 
York, that lawyer from Florida, come on back and use the ground. We 
would love to have you there, but spend a few bucks while you are 
there, because we have another problem. It is called payment in lieu of 
taxes. The gentleman from Colorado

[[Page H913]]

(Mr. McInnis) pointed out all of that ground that is owned by the 
Federal Government and all of our buddies from the East that are saying 
that is just as much our ground as it is your ground. Well, then pay 
your share. It is called payment in lieu of taxes. They want to play on 
it, they want to tell us how to use it, they want to take us off the 
ground, but when it comes to paying their share, they do not do it. 
That bothers an awful lot of us.
  The little county of Garfield, 93 percent owned by the Federal 
Government. It has the beautiful Bryce Canyon in it. These people come 
in and what do they do? They go up and play in that area and they start 
a fire. Who fights the fire? Garfield County. And they have a minuscule 
budget. They go up there and they break a leg because they are not 
accustomed to that area, who goes out and picks them up in an 
ambulance? Garfield County. They go out and throw their trash all over 
the place, and who pays for it? Garfield County pays for it. But when 
we say pay your share, if you want to tell us how to do it, pay your 
share; and they are not doing it.
  Mr. Speaker, if I may say so, this House is responsible, that House 
is responsible, but no one seems to care. I still remember a man in 
leadership when I first got here and he said oh, it is just those 
western guys, who care. Take the money away from them anyway. All of us 
rednecks out there, I guess. Frankly, we resent it. If you are going to 
tell us how to run it, do it. I see bill after bill coming out of our 
colleagues from New York and all of these other areas, but they have 
never even been out there, but they want to tell us how to do it. My 
next comment to them, if you are going to tell us how, you pay. If you 
are going to come out and play, you pay. I think these people should 
take a stronger attitude.
  When I was Speaker of the Utah House, we passed something called the 
Sagebrush Rebellion Resolution. I remember coming back here as a 
freshman and going down to the White House, and there was a man by the 
name of Ronald Reagan. He made this statement to the Secretary of 
Interior, John Blot, the Secretary of the Interior, Jim Watt. He said, 
we are now good neighbors, and that is what we wanted to be. Now, we 
are again finding ourselves with an administration that is running 
rampant and roughshod over every one of us; and we feel that we should 
again have good neighbors with the Forest Service and with the BLM and 
with the Park Service.
  With that said, Mr. Speaker, I yield back to the gentleman from 
Colorado.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time from the gentleman 
from the State of Utah.
  Now let us go to the next step of our conversation tonight on our 
night-side chat with my colleagues about the issues of the West. 
Remember at the beginning of the comments, I say to my colleagues, that 
we talked about the fact of the massive differences between the western 
United States and the eastern United States. My colleagues will 
remember that I qualified my remarks. We are the United States of 
America. We are one country, a country I am very proud of, the 
superpower of the world. We have a lot to be proud of as Americans.
  In fact, today, I say to the gentleman from Utah, I had a number of 
young people who come back on their visits to the Nation's capital. I 
am so proud of that generation. It was interesting when I talked to 
these youngsters. We had Jessica, we had Amber, we had Ben, and we had 
Mary. Those particular students, one was from Aspen, one was from Steam 
Boat Springs, Colorado, one was from La Junta, Colorado, and I believe 
the other one was from Alamosa, Colorado.
  But the issues they talked about are issues of the West. We have 
grown up in the West, and we like our lifestyle in the west. And just 
as we are proud to be Americans with this country and the attributes of 
this country, we have a lot of things in the West that we are proud of, 
and we have a lot of things in the West that we share with everyone. We 
have a lot of monuments.
  The gentleman talked about Bryce Canyon. I was in the gentleman's 
fine State last week. My parents have a winter home out there in Saint 
George, Utah.

                              {time}  2300

  It is a beautiful State. The gentleman has done a darned good job in 
Utah, the rest stops, the way they protected and preserved that land. 
The gentleman's State has done a good job.
  I am proud to say that the State of Colorado, my former colleagues in 
the State House, my colleagues who serve as County Commissioners, our 
Governor of the State of Colorado, Governor Bill Owens, these people 
have done a good job in Colorado of preserving our lands.
  We care about those lands. Those are our lands. That is where our 
heritage is. That is where our roots are. If Members have ever skied in 
Colorado, they have skied in the Third Congressional District. My 
congressional district has all of the ski areas in the State of 
Colorado.
  The next time Members go and ski in Colorado, and for many, they have 
skied in Colorado, the next time Members go, take a look to see if they 
see a sign of all of the terrible abuse that some of the more radical 
environmental organizations in this country like Earth First or Ancient 
Forests or some of these people, take a look and see if Members think 
those ski areas are that bad.
  While they are looking at those ski areas, take a look at how many 
children are on those ski areas, how many families, what kind of family 
entertainment. They are not out running the streets, out causing 
trouble, but they as a family unit are enjoying, under the concept of 
multiple use, these lands.
  We do not just have to go in the wintertime to see how important 
these lands are for family, for multiple use, for our economy out 
there. Go in the summertime. Go on the Mesa Verde, down in the Four 
Corners where we share our borders. Go up here to Dinosaur, the 
national monument there. Go to the Black Canyon National Monument, 
which is now a national park, thanks to my colleague, Senator Campbell, 
and the bill that I sponsored here in the House.
  Go down to the National Sand Dunes, which we hope to make a national 
park. Go to the Rocky Mountain National Park. Go to the Air Force 
Academy, the district of the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley), over 
in Colorado Springs.
  There are a lot of things in Colorado and Utah and in the West. We 
could go to Wyoming to Jackson Hole. Go to the museum up in Cody, 
Wyoming, probably the most fantastic museum representing the West in 
the entire West. Members can go to any area. There are lots of areas of 
the West that we have preserved. There are lots that we have protected.
  But remember what Teddy Roosevelt's concept was. Teddy Roosevelt 
never wanted to lock people off the land, but Teddy Roosevelt, on the 
other hand, did not want people to abuse the land. It is the same 
concept the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) and I agree with. We have 
a right to use that land, but nobody has a right to abuse that land. No 
one has a right to abuse that land, contrary to some of the more 
radical organizations that we see especially here in the east.
  These environmental groups, I have yet to meet one person, and I do 
not think there is a person in this Chamber, that will tell me they are 
out to destroy land. I do not have anybody that is against wilderness, 
wilderness as a concept, not under the definition of wilderness that we 
have seen labeled or put around our collar.
  People love the outdoors. I do not know anybody, actually, who is 
against the small ranches and small businesses throughout all of these 
areas. There are a lot of good people out there in those mountains. 
There are a lot of good people in the West.
  But for my colleagues here in the East, get a good understanding of 
what is fundamental to their lifestyle, what is fundamental to their 
survival before we pass regulations here in Washington, D.C., before 
they impose back here in the East.
  Look at the point, clear out here. And as we come out, it is like 
this, and it starts right there. At this distance, before Members do 
that, come out here and look at the issues. Come out here and see why 
water is so important to us. Next to our people in Colorado, and I am 
sure it is the same for my colleagues in the State of Utah, I cannot 
think of anything more important than the water.

[[Page H914]]

  There are a lot of people that want this water out of Colorado 
because, as I said earlier, Colorado is the only State where all of our 
water goes out. We have to have multiple use on Federal land to 
preserve some of that water for the people of the State of Colorado, to 
preserve some of that water for people throughout the West. The 
Colorado River basin, as the gentleman from Utah mentioned, is 
absolutely critical for life in the West.
  Our whole purpose, Mr. Speaker, in talking this evening, it is not to 
lecture my colleagues, it is to tell them that things in the West are 
different geologically, the water situation is different, the lay of 
the land is different, and the ownership of the land is different.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues here in the East do not know what it is 
like to have massive ownership by the government. Most of the Members 
sitting in this Chamber, most of the Members from the East, outside of 
highways that are obviously owned by the government, maybe the local 
Post Office, they have never experienced massive ownership by the 
government of the lands that will completely surround one. They have 
never had to rely on access agreements with the government to drive 
into their town, to turn on their radio, to get electrical power into 
their community, to protect areas of the environment that they think 
are important.
  Yet here in the West, we are, unfortunately, very subject to the 
whims of the people in this little city called Washington, D.C. in the 
East.
  What the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) and I are asking tonight is 
that as we consider individually each of these issues in the West, look 
at it on a customized basis. We need to customize it. We need to figure 
out what the ramifications are.
  I will give an idea. It is very easy for people in the East to 
condemn grazing on land in the West. We have a particular area that is 
absolutely beautiful, and in fact, it is one of the areas under the 
monument. We have the Colorado National Monument, and we are trying to 
put it into a preservation area and work with the Secretary. We are 
trying our darnedest.
  But up there we have several ranches, four or five big ranches up on 
the Colorado Monument; it is beautiful, Grand Junction, Colorado. But 
these ranches, these are true working ranches like the King Ranch, like 
my friend Doug King and his ranch up there; the Gores, the Gore ranch, 
they are dependent on the grazing permits. The grazing permits are on 
Federal lands.
  Do Members know what happens if we follow the wishes of some of the 
more radical groups back here in Washington, D.C. and we eliminate 
those grazing rights? Do Members know what happens to those ranches? 
They cannot operate as a ranch anymore. So what is the logical thing 
for them to do? The logical thing for them to do is take these 
beautiful, wide open spaces and to break them into 35-acre ranchettes.
  What does that result in? That results in bumper to bumper traffic up 
to the top of the Colorado National Monument. Instead of being able to 
look, and in my district, throughout my district we can look for a 
long, long ways and never see another person. But we have been 
discovering, we have a lot of growth. I do not think that is 
necessarily good. In some regards, slow, steady growth is good, but the 
kind of growth we have had, we have had a sudden surge. We have a lot 
of people who would like to get their hands on the ranches and divide 
them. We have a lot of people who would like to make a profit off of 
them.
  Some of the Members here who are supporting doing away with grazing 
in the West on Federal lands, they should take a look at the unintended 
consequence. The unintended consequence is we are going to take that 
land and divide it into ranchettes. Is that really what the Members 
want to do? Is that what they think is going to help protect those open 
spaces?
  By the way, let us go back to ranching. Ranching families like David 
and Sue Ann Smith from Meeker, Colorado, they have been on that ranch 
since the 1870s or the 1880s. They love that land. They do not make 
much money on that ranch, but they have raised generation after 
generation after generation.
  Before we take action back here that wipes out those generations of 
hard work, of having their hands in the soil, before we do that, 
consider what the consequences are. Understand again, and I continually 
come back to water, because water is absolutely critical, the fact that 
we have to store water.

  We have lots of organizations here that say we should not have any 
more water storage projects in the country. They do not understand the 
West. If they do understand the West, they are trying to mislead us 
here in the East that in the West we do not need water storage 
projects.
  Again, as I said earlier, take a look at our ski areas. Some groups 
have said, burn them down. Take a look at what happened in Vail, 
Colorado, last year, arson. Some people actually stand proud and say, 
Veil, Colorado, that ski area, they had it coming. They should have 
burnt them down. Come on, Mr. Speaker, that is not how we operate in 
this country.
  Take a look, I think we have done a very professional job. I want to 
note that Colorado was the first State with minimum stream flow. In our 
State, those of us who have lived there very long and many people who 
have just moved there, they appreciate the fact that open space, parks, 
and protection of our environment are as critical to us as the water.
  But along and in the same bracket and in the same category, the 
concept of multiple use and the concept of having local input, and the 
concept of taking into consideration local needs is important, too.
  Go back to my original comments. Remember back here, take a look at 
some of these States. Do Members think the Federal government has 
anything to do with land control in some of these States like that? 
Take a look at the State of Kansas, the State of Nebraska. Members can 
see on the map here, do they think the government has much to do with 
those States? No. So it is very easy for people back in some of these 
States that do not have a lot of Federal Government land to dictate out 
here to the States that do have Federal Government land what they ought 
to be doing, because it does not bother them.
  If the people from a State like Ohio or a State like Kansas or some 
other State dictate what is going on, it does not impact them. From New 
York State, it does not impact them if they go out to the West and 
eliminate grazing, or tell us we cannot have multiple use, because they 
do not feel the impact.

                              {time}  2310

  We feel the impact. We live the impact. We have to survive the 
impact. Just think how much control is exercised in this area by a city 
far, far away on the eastern coast.
  As the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) knows, we in the West are 
very, very proud of what we have. It is American soil. We are citizens 
of the United States. But we also, all of us, have been raised with 
consideration of our fellow citizens.
  I urge my colleagues in here, those of you who live east of the 
Colorado border, for example, who really have not given much thought to 
the consequences of your actions here on Federal lands, slow it down a 
little, and give it some consideration.
  Mr. Speaker, in consideration of the time and the fact that I have 
taken the majority of it, I yield to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. 
Hansen), and I appreciate very much his participation this evening.
  But I think it is important, Mr. Speaker, that we continue to have 
these kinds of nightside chats. I guess it is one of our 
responsibilities to try and come to our colleagues here and talk to 
them about these issues and try and bring the awareness level up so 
that multiple use is not looked upon as the devil of the west, it is 
looked upon as the survival of the west.
  Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, I would hope that more Americans would 
realize this concept of multiple use. It has worked very well for us 
for a long time and out in the West. What does one do in multiple use 
when one only has one use like so many of our eastern States that do 
not even have to consider the issue.
  The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) brought up the idea of 
grazing. Grazing is basically a tool. Should it be used judiciously? 
Absolutely. We

[[Page H915]]

should not denude the ground. We should be very careful with the 
ground.
  But yet, on the other hand, those of us who have been in that 
business and understand it, as some of my relatives have been, and I 
have worked on ranches myself, one finds oneself in a situation where 
grazing on the public ground keeps down those grasses.
  In Canada, as I understand, at one time, they did away with it; now 
they are asking people from Montana, North Dakota, and Idaho to bring 
those cows and sheep over there to keep those grasses down so they do 
not have the fires.
  Also, grazing is used in areas to open up trails. Grazing is used for 
various things. It should not be a thing where we hurt the ground, but 
that is part of multiple use.
  What about timber? When I was chairman of the Subcommittee on Forests 
and Forest Health, we went all through the West and had all kinds of 
hearings. I flew over it. I walked it. I was in jeeps on it. I went 
with Weyerhauser. I went with other people. The best forest, the most 
wholesome, vibrant forest there is in America is private forest. But 
they are managed. They cut trees.
  Contrary to what a lot of our friends back East do not understand, 
timber is a renewable resource. That is why it is under the Committee 
on Agriculture, because it is like a crop. We can take it out. We do 
not have anything against our eastern friends. This is one big Nation. 
We are all good Americans. We hope and we work to do things right, and 
we invite our eastern friends to come out whenever they would like to, 
and we appreciate it. We want them to take care of the ground as we 
have for hundreds of years.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the very one thing that the Constitution tells 
us that we are supposed to do is defend this Nation. I guess I am one 
of the old guys on the Committee on Armed Services, and it really kind 
of bothers me as we see a deterioration of this.
  I want to tie this into the ground thing. Because just recently, 
about a month ago, some of our environmental friends filed a lawsuit 
right here in Washington, D.C. That lawsuit is that all military 
aircraft have to be 2,000 feet above public grounds; i.e., forest, BLM, 
parks, things such as that.
  Well, I am not the kind of pilot that the Speaker is or others, but I 
have spent quite a few hours in the cockpit of an airplane. Let me just 
tell my colleagues this, I think, after 20 years on the Committee on 
Armed Services, I have some understanding of how we train people. I 
tell my colleagues, these guys who fly those F-16s, those F-15s, and 
others, they have got to learn how to fly those things in the worst 
conditions, because they may be called to go back to Saudi Arabia and 
fly over to Iran. They may be called to Germany. They may be called to 
be on the Pacific Rim.
  We want these young men and women to be the very, very best. How we 
do that? It is one word. It is training. We give them good equipment 
and we train, train, train, train. A lot of them, I hope that is all 
they have to do in their military career.
  Now, tell me how we are going to do surface-to-air work? How we are 
going to do those things? As these young, great, macho pilots say, we 
have got to drag our wheels through the grass. Do we have a lot of 
these areas in the West and the East? We have them all over. They are 
called training ranges.
  What a terrible thing it would be if the courts uphold this, and we 
stop the training of our helicopter pilots, our fighter pilots. Right 
in my home State of Utah, we have the Utah Test and Training Range, an 
area that is not multiple use, but does have some wilderness study 
areas in it. They have pilots from Hill Air Force Base, Mountain Home 
Air Force Base, Nellis Air Force Base, Navy Base in Nevada.
  They train in that area hundreds and hundreds of sorties. They come 
over those mountains, and they are right down on the deck, and they are 
going about 600 nauts. They are moving along. They are darn good. They 
know how to fly.
  Yet, if we have to get to the point that our environmental 
communities in the East are saying to us, no, we will not let you 
graze, we will not let you cut timber, we will not let you mine, and we 
will not let you train your pilots. We will not let you use the cruise 
missiles. We will not let you put Abrams tanks on it like we used in 
the Persian Gulf, and you saw that Abrams M1-A1 tank wipe out those 
military tanks that Saddam Hussein had purchased from the Soviet Union. 
It was literally a turkey shoot. Why is it? Because they trained on 
those grounds out there.
  That to me is one of the most important things that the American 
public can do. If anything, we have to come back to the idea of 
multiple use. We have to come back to the idea of moderation. We have 
to realize that other people's point of view means something.
  Can my colleagues blame the folks who live in those 11 western States 
when they get just a tad irritated, say doggone it, Mr. Congressman, I 
have lived here all of my life. I am a fifth generation rancher. Now I 
am told by this BLM guy or this Forest Service guy who was trained in 
New York, and for some reason, New Yorkers are always looked at as the 
enemy, and I say that tongue in cheek, that they always look back at 
that area and say, why can he come out and tell me what to do on my 
ground?
  So I go back to what I said earlier. I think Ronald Reagan said it 
right to the Secretary of Agriculture, John Bach and the Secretary of 
Interior, Mr. Watt when he said we are going to be good neighbors. We 
are going to come let us reason together. We are going to sit down and 
do that.
  I am sure people will find that the hand of fellowship and 
cooperation will be extended to anybody who wants to sit down and work 
things out. But the thing that bothers us is sometimes the high-handed 
attitude that we get when somebody comes in the dark of the night, 
ignores the wishes of the people on the ground, and puts in a big 
monument, or comes up with regulations that are way beyond the purview 
and the latitude and the scope of authority that is given to this 
Congress. That is where the resentment comes up.
  So I agree with the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis). It is an 
education thing. These chats should be brought out. We welcome what we 
hear. Every time we do one of these, we get a number of letters, some 
of them a little tough. But we appreciate people writing in.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I ask to incorporate into the Record the 
written documents that I have here.
  If the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) does not have any further 
comments at this point in time, Mr. Speaker, I would conclude by saying 
this, we are good neighbors. In the West, we feel very strongly about 
the good neighbor attitude. But give us an opportunity to be good 
neighbors. Give us an opportunity to work with you and let you be aware 
of how important multiple use is, of what the differences between water 
in the East and water in the West is.

                              {time}  2319

  We are here not in a confrontational mood. We are here in an attempt 
to build a coalition to let us continue to have the kind of life-styles 
that others enjoy, and that is a life-style that has come through 
hundreds of years of living here in the east, and in the west in the 
time we have out there. We want to be a good neighbor. We want the 
right to continue to use the land. We do not want anybody to abuse the 
land.
  Mr. Speaker, I conclude tonight's night-side chat by expressing my 
appreciation to the gentleman from the State of Utah (Mr. Hansen) for 
his participation, and submitting for the Record, as I mentioned 
earlier, the research data done by the Center for the New West:

                   Growth, Open Space and Wilderness


  Colorado Opinion Research Shows Support for Wilderness Declines as 
                 Public Learns More about Restrictions

                 (By Philip M. Burgess and Kara Steele)

       Summary. An opinion survey of Colorado voters, conducted by 
     Strategies West for Center for the New West, shows that 
     public support for designation of additional wilderness areas 
     is not unconditional and very much depends on the specific 
     circumstances. Wilderness proposals that are the product of 
     broad public input and that seek to balance preservation with 
     multiple use of natural resources would seem to enjoy the 
     strongest support. It is clear that using polling data that 
     shows general support for wilderness areas to ``demonstrate'' 
     support for any specific proposal is highly misleading and 
     must not go unchallenged.
       Background. The federal government owns 47% of the land in 
     the 11 ``public lands

[[Page H916]]

     states''--all located in the Western U.S.* In four states, 
     the federal government owns more than half the land--Idaho, 
     Nevada, Oregon and Utah. In Colorado, more than one-third of 
     the land is owned by the Federal government.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     * The 11 public lands states, located in the lower 48, are 
     Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New 
     Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Most of these federal land holdings in the West are managed 
     by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. 
     Forest Service, making the BLM and the Forest service the de 
     factor planning and zoning board for much of the rural West. 
     Result: Issues that anywhere else in the nation would be 
     state of local issues--like locating a road or bike path or 
     building a water system or camping facilities--are federal 
     issues in the West. Examples: BLM or Forest Service managers 
     decide how many cows will graze, where they will graze and at 
     what time of year--or where a pipeline or road must go.
       Over the past decade Center-sponsored studies and forums, 
     Congressional hearings and media reports have documented 
     increasing dissatisfaction with ``one-size fits-all'' federal 
     policies that guide the management of federal lands and the 
     highly-intrusive administrative practices of federal land 
     managers. A major concern is that land use decisions by 
     federal authorities can have a strong bearing on jobs and 
     economic opportunity in the small towns and rural areas 
     adjacent to federal lands. Increasingly, Westerners and, to 
     be fair, some federal land managers, have called for major 
     reforms in federal land management policies--and especially 
     for policies and practices that would allow greater 
     decentralization of decision-making within the federal system 
     and more local participation and administrative flexibility 
     in this system of federal control.
       The bottom line: Both Westerners and many outside the West 
     are dissatisfied with the way the federal government managers 
     its land holdings in the West--including national parks, 
     wilderness and other federal lands--and the concern is 
     highest among those most affected. These include tourists and 
     other visitors to the West, farmers, ranchers and small 
     business people who live and work in the rural West, and 
     economic development professionals who struggle to make 
     things work in the transition to America's New Economy.
       In addition, there is growing concern in Congress about how 
     President Clinton uses executive power--and especially the 
     willingness of this executive branch to usurp and 
     Constitution authority of Congress (violating the separation 
     of powers among co-equal branches of government) and the 
     states (violating the principles of federalism). The concern 
     came to a head in October when Western members of Congress 
     initiated a resolution to block the Clinton administration 
     from designating 570,000 acres near the Grand Canyon as a 
     national monument and to restrict the administration's 
     ability to lock up other land holdings without subjecting its 
     proposals to legislative review.
       These are initial moves of an increasingly assertive 
     Western Congressional delegation determined to restrict the 
     power of the president to withdraw millions of acres of 
     public land from multiple use without public participation or 
     comment by bikers, climbers, builders of camp sites and 
     explorers for oil and gas and other natural resources, These 
     are among the most effected individuals and groups whose 
     access to the land is often restricted or prohibited.
       These concerns, and the timing of these moves by Western 
     members of Congress, reflect a backlash from President 
     Clinton's 1996 election year designation of 1.7 million acres 
     in Utah as the Escalante/Grand Staircase National Monument, a 
     stealth decision without Congressional review and without 
     broad consultation with state and local elected leaders or 
     the public.
       By contrast, when the process of restricting public use of 
     the land includes broad intergovernmental consultation and 
     public participation, good things happen. Example: October's 
     designation of the Black Canyon National Park in Western 
     Colorado. This designation of America's newest national park 
     was supported by Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, Rep. Scott 
     McInnis and other members of Colorado's Congressional 
     delegation and by most state and local elected leaders and 
     the public in Colorado.

                          ____________________