[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.

[[Page S615]]

  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

[[Page S616]]

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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