[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 11 (Monday, January 29, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S614-S616]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NOMINATION OF GALE NORTON
Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, we were talking about confirmation of
appointments. Among the next ones that will take place tomorrow will be
the Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton. I want to spend a little
time talking about the Secretary, but perhaps more as a preliminary
matter, I want to talk about the importance of Federal lands and the
impact they have on the West in particular. Of course, they are
national lands.
First of all, I am very hopeful and confident that Gale Norton will
be confirmed. I think she has done an excellent job in responding to
the legitimate questions she has been asked. That is the role of the
Senate: to inquire, ask questions of these aspiring nominees. She has
done, I believe, an excellent job of responding.
She is a superb candidate for this job. She has experience. She has
experience as attorney general of the State of Colorado, during which
time, of course, she had to deal with a good many land, water, and air
quality issues and I think dealt with them professionally.
She is knowledgeable, certainly, about the West. The West is unique--
I will talk about that in a moment--where, in many cases, more than
half of a State belongs to the Federal Government. It is very important
to all of us.
Gale Norton has a background in land use and park use, not only from
her experience in Colorado but also her experience in the Interior
Department as an associate solicitor for the Fish and Wildlife Service,
as well as the Park Service. I have had some occasions to talk with her
as chairman of the parks subcommittee.
I certainly have an interest in this job in that this Secretary has
jurisdiction over the National Park System. She is certainly a
conservative conservationist. We have sometimes gotten into the
position where those things seem to be an oxymoron; they seem to be
conflicting. Indeed, it seems to me they are not.
She is a conservative and I am a conservative, but we are
conservationists in that we want to protect the resources so they will
be there in the future for our kids and future youngsters. These two
things are not incompatible. Under most definitions, they would be
quite compatible. I would substitute conservationist--at least to some
we have to be an environmentalist. That perhaps is another step.
In any event, I do believe Gale Norton will be confirmed as
Secretary, and I certainly support her nomination. I do want to talk
about public lands, since we have some time today.
In my State of Wyoming, nearly 50 percent of the land belongs to the
Federal Government in various categories. Some was set aside for
national parks. We have two of the most famous national parks,
Yellowstone and Grand Tetons. We also have Devils Tower and other
facilities as well. Some of the land was set aside for U.S. forests.
Much of the land, on the other hand, is BLM land, which really was
remaining land after the Homestead Act was finished and lands were
taken for private ownership. These were the lands that remained and
stayed in Federal ownership.
This map shows the holdings throughout the country. They represent
millions of acres--a great deal of public land. In Alaska, 68 percent
of the land belongs to the Federal Government. In Nevada--Senator Reid
was just here--they believe theirs is closer to 87 percent federally
owned lands. It goes all the way to New Mexico, the Presiding Officer's
State, with about 26 percent.
They are very important. Not only are they important because they are
public lands and they are great treasures that we want to preserve, but
of course they have a great deal to do with the way we live. They have
a great deal to do with our economy. They have a great deal to do with
our culture.
Those who live there often talk about public lands, and I understand
people in Maryland or people in Connecticut often are not quite as
familiar with the fact that we have millions of acres that are either
mountains or high plains.
When we talk about those things, there is not much recognition of
what the problems are. I suppose we are guilty of the same thing with
regard to coastal lines. We do not have coastal lines in Wyoming. We
need to talk about some of these things so we will better understand
them.
I am very interested, of course, in the parks. I grew up right
outside Yellowstone Park in Cody, WY. The park is one of the real
treasures of this country. It seems to me the purpose of the park is to
protect those treasures. The second purpose is to allow the owners, the
American people, to enjoy them, and, from time to time, how we do that
becomes somewhat controversial.
These places are unique, and some are managed for a single purpose:
wilderness areas. I support wilderness areas. They are set aside and
restricted as to how they can be used.
I hope we do not change the old sign of the Forest Service which said
``Land of many uses,'' to what some would like to change it to: ``Land
of no uses.'' I do not believe that is where we ought to be headed, and
I do not believe that is where our Secretary of the Interior will be
heading.
There are many uses for which the land should be made available, not
all economic. There is hiking and camping. You would be surprised by
the number of letters I receive, when we talk about the roadless areas,
from veterans organizations. Some of our disabled veterans are not
going to have access to these lands if we do not provide it. Not only
are there resources there such as grazing and timbering, but also
recreational access, of course, is most important.
We also need to understand that these resources do need to be
managed. We had this year probably the most devastating series of
forest fires on public lands in the West. Managing those forests more
in terms of access if there is a fire, in terms of thinning to prevent
fires, is a very important issue.
We have a unique relationship with the Federal Government because of
this involvement. Generally, it is a pretty good relationship.
Interestingly enough, often the relationship with regard to the forest
and BLM lands is pretty good on the local level with the staffs that
are doing the actual work, but when you get to the policy level, the
regional level, the national level, that coordination and cooperation
seems to become more and more difficult.
We need to find some ways to make the Government a better neighbor to
the people of the West so that we can work together. There has been a
promise on the part of this administration, and particularly on the
part of Gale Norton, to work more closely to involve local people and
local governments in management of these lands.
One of the things that has happened, and needs to happen more, and at
least be done more effectively and efficiently, is what is called a
cooperating agency agreement where, when you have an EIS or study on a
particular change of a regulation, why, the surrounding States, the
surrounding counties, officials can be brought in as cooperating
members and cooperating agencies to help make these decisions. It is
true they are Federal lands and the final decision rests with those
agencies, but the people who live there ought to have some input, and
we hope that can be the case.
Throughout this past administration, it was more difficult. I
understand the Secretary of the Interior and the last President were
seeking to make some history for themselves, some legend in terms of
setting aside public lands. Much of that was done without any
commitment or involvement of local people at all.
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On the contrary, Escalante Staircase, in Utah, was announced in
Arizona when the Governor and the delegation had not been consulted
about setting aside millions of acres in the State of Utah. That is not
the kind of thing that makes for a good arrangement for managing these
resources well or providing an opportunity for local people to
participate that each of us thinks they ought to have.
Also, of course, there are a number of agencies that are involved. It
isn't just the Department of the Interior. Certainly, in terms of
access, we have the EPA, which has a great deal to do with some of the
things that are involved with the endangered species and that sort of
business. We have the whole access question, which has to do with
Transportation, and other agencies. So we hope there will be an effort
to bring together agencies that have sometimes conflicting
jurisdictions in the Interior Department.
Certainly, I hope, for the most part, these lands, other than those
that are set aside for special purposes, can be used for multiple use.
And ``multiple use,'' I am afraid, is sometimes interpreted as being
very detrimental to the environment. It does not necessarily need to be
that way. There can be these uses, if they are managed well--renewable
resources, such as grazing, for example. Grazing can be, if it is
managed properly. It is certainly not detrimental to these lands. It
harvests a crop that is there and will be there again next year.
So multiple use is very important to our States and to the economy
there. This, of course, is not to say in the least that we in the West
are not as interested in preserving the resources as anyone else in the
country. One of the real problems, however, is the decisions with
respect to that have generally been made from the top down, where the
whole system really was designed in the NEPA arrangements that are in
place, and so on, to start at the bottom and move up. And we have had,
in our case in Wyoming recently, several instances of changes that were
to be made, the most recent one being the use of snow machines in
Yellowstone Park, where we had a 2-year winter-use study. They went all
through this thing. They came up toward the end with some preferred
decisions, and the Assistant Secretary--the very person we are talking
about here--came there and said: Wait a minute. We are going to change
that. And that was after all the people had participation in it.
In Jack Morrow Hills, which is in the Red Desert in Wyoming, the very
same thing happened recently with the Secretary. You go through this
process and you talk about partnerships and participation, and then
somebody from the administration, at the top level, comes out and says:
All right, we are going to change all that.
That is not really what is intended for participatory government.
Hopefully, we can do some things that will help to change that.
I emphasize, however, again, that when we talk about preserving
resources, I think you will find the people who live there are as
adamant and emotional about preserving the resources--more so--than
most people because that is where they live. That is where they are.
Those are the things that are very important.
So we need to have a little better understanding of the plan and
process. Frankly, more recently, it has been my experience, that when
people from Washington went out to talk about a proposed roadless plan
they were not certain what the plan was when they got to the meeting.
And there would not be a lot of support for it among the people who
were actually managing the process.
We have a process for a forest plan that comes up for renewal about
every 10 years. That is where the decisions ought to be made for the
Medicine Bow Forest, not here in Washington. So I hope that is what we
can do; that there can be public involvement.
So, Mr. President, I am very excited about the opportunity to support
Gale Norton. Certainly, the appointments of the other officials in the
Department will be equally as important--when you appoint the Director
of the Park Service, when you appoint the Director of the Fish and
Wildlife Service, or in the Department of Agriculture, where you have a
Secretary who is over the Forest Service and the Forest Service
management, as well as, of course, the Chief of the Forest Service, who
does not happen to be one who is confirmed by the Senate.
But those are very important items. I hope we can help build some
understanding that people who are interested in having multiple use of
the lands are not interested in destroying those lands. We sometimes
get that view promoted by some of the environmental groups in New York
City and other places, that if you are going to use it, it destroys it.
That does not need to be the case. Indeed, it should not be the case.
In fact, of course, in the parks we work very hard to provide
facilities so that people can come and enjoy them. They have to be
managed. I mentioned the sled issue. The parks said: We are going to do
away with them because they are too noisy and have too much exhaust.
They do. The difference is, there has been no management effort made
over the last 20 years to separate the snow machines from the cross-
country skiers. There has been no effort made to have standards so that
the manufacturers of the sleds would reduce the noise and the exhaust.
They were willing and able to do that, if they had some standards that
would ensure that the investment they made could then be legitimate.
So I think these are the things we are looking for, to have a little
different way of managing these kinds of resources. I am excited about
the prospects that Secretary Norton will bring to this agency.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Mr. KYL addressed the Chair.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I join my colleague, Senator Thomas, in
supporting the nomination of Gale Norton as Secretary of the Interior.
She will, indeed, provide the kind of consultation that has been
lacking in this past administration on important issues such as the
designation of lands for conservation areas, or monuments, and some of
the other issues on which there has been little consultation with the
stakeholders, the people who are really most affected by the decisions
of the Department of the Interior. Because so much of that Department's
role recently has been the recommendation to the President of
unilateral executive decisions on his part, that kind of consultation
is going to be critical. Gale Norton is the kind of person who
throughout her public career has brought people together and has
reached solutions to problems that were primarily acceptable to all
sides.
I have known Gale Norton for over 20 years. First of all, she is one
of the smartest people I know. She actually scored 100 percent on her
law school admissions test, the so-called LSAT. She graduated magna cum
laude from the University of Denver. She attended the University of
Denver Law School, where she was a member of the school's honor
society.
She has held a variety of positions in her career, including chairing
the Republican National Lawyers Association. She served under the
previous President Bush on the Western Water Policy Commission. She
served as chair of the Environmental Committee for the National
Association of Attorneys General when she was attorney general of the
State of Colorado.
As a matter of fact, when she was at the Department of the Interior,
in her earlier career, serving as Associate Solicitor for Conservation
and Wildlife, she was the primary legal adviser for the National Park
Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service. She also played a key role
in something--the Presiding Officer has, I think, perhaps been to my
office. There is a very large painting in my office of the Vermilion
Cliffs in northern Arizona, which is the area where the California
condors were brought--this endangered species--to try to rejuvenate the
species. This is an area where they thought the condor could survive.
They are having a fairly tough time of it, but we hope they will
survive. In any event, she was instrumental in protecting the condor.
She was instrumental in negotiating an agreement to deal with the
noise from overflights over the Grand Canyon. There are a whole variety
of things that Gale Norton did while at the Department of the Interior,
and then as the attorney general of Colorado. For example, she was
successful in persuading the Federal Government to accelerate the
cleanup of a hazardous waste area near Rocky Flats in
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Colorado, which is the former nuclear weapons production site there,
and at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a chemical weapons manufacturing
site. There are a whole variety of things that one could mention in her
record. I think most of them have been pretty well discussed in
connection with her confirmation hearings.
But the point is to illustrate, first of all, the fact that she is an
extraordinarily capable person, a lawyer with great experience in this
Department of the Interior, as well as an attorney general, and other
positions, all of which qualify her now to become the Secretary of the
Interior.
She has experience in a wide variety of areas with which she will
have to deal, including environmental protection--as I mentioned,
hazardous waste cleanup, and other things.
As the Presiding Officer is well aware, one of the things the
Department of the Interior, of course, has to deal with is giving great
care and commitment to be the primary trustee for our Native Americans.
Because the United States has that trust responsibility and it
reposes primarily in the Secretary of Interior, it is a critical
position.
I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record a letter from Kelsey
Begaye, President of the Navajo Nation, in support of Gale Norton for
the position of Secretary of Interior.
There being no objection, the letter was ordered to be printed in the
Record, as follows:
The Navajo Nation,
Window Rock, AZ, January 16, 2001.
Hon. John Kyl,
Hart Senate Office Building,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Kyl: On behalf of the Navajo Nation, I convey
our support for Ms. Gale Norton, nominee for Secretary of the
Department of the Interior. The Navajo Nation, in its
government-to-government relationships, works with the
Department of the Interior on myriad issues affecting the
Nation. Although there are times when we disagree with one
another we continue to work together for the benefit of the
Navajo People. We wish to continue the working relationship
with the new administration and we look forward to working
with Ms. Norton.
The Navajo Nation's past experience with Gale Norton
involved issues with the Southern Ute Tribe during her term
as Attorney General for the State of Colorado. During that
time Ms. Norton approached the tribes and asked how she could
help. She provided testimony to the House (Natural Resources)
Committee on the Animas-LaPlata project which benefitted the
tribes. Her willingness to support the tribes demonstrates
her knowledge of Indian nations and their position within the
federal system.
The Navajo Nation does have its concerns with regard to
Indian country policies and initiatives. We advise the new
administration to follow the basic goals and principles of
affirmation of the commitment to tribal sovereignty and self-
determination, protecting and sustaining treaty rights and
the federal trust responsibilities, and supporting
initiatives which promote sustainable economic development in
Indian country.
The Navajo Nation supports the nomination of Gale Norton
for Secretary of the Interior and we trust she will continue
to work with Indian country as she has done in the past. We
look forward to working with her in advancing Indian country
policies and Indian initiative for the Bush/Cheney
Administration.
Sincerely,
Kelsey A. Begaye,
President.
Mr. KYL. In this letter he notes that Gale Norton has in the past
exhibited an understanding of the needs of Native Americans. She worked
on one of the settlements when she was attorney general of Colorado
that involved water and other issues relating to the Colorado Ute
tribe.
On other areas as well, President Begaye notes that she has an
understanding of Indian issues which will make her a fine trustee. In
all of these regards, it is clear that Gale Norton is well positioned
to be a fine Secretary of Interior.
I conclude with what I began--namely, she is the kind of person who
is able to bring people together to work on solutions to problems that
have been somewhat contentious. Because we are dealing with so many
different needs and different groups of people with our western lands
and resources, it is important to bring these groups together. She will
do that and will make a strong Secretary of Interior.
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