[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 9 (Thursday, February 7, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H219-H220]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         KLAMATH BASIN TRAGEDY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, each of us remembers last summer's dramatic 
national headlines about the several Federal biologists who turned off 
100 percent of the water to hundreds of family farmers in the Klamath 
Basin of northern California and southern Oregon and shut down an 
entire community.
  This week the National Academy of Sciences, perhaps the most highly 
respected scientific body in this country, has concluded, quote, 
``There was no scientific or technical information to justify that 
decision.'' Let me repeat that statement, Mr. Speaker. There was no 
scientific or technical information to justify the decision that 
stripped 1,500 family farmers of their livelihoods, drove a community 
of 70,000 to the brink of economic collapse, and caused irreparable 
social harm and changed the lives of thousands of people forever.
  All of this was done, Mr. Speaker, because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 
Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service biologists merely 
theorized that withholding water deliveries would benefit the fish. 
There were no certain facts to back up those theories. There was no 
hard evidence, no historical proof, only guesswork. In fact, the 
historical proof told them the opposite, but they consciously chose to 
ignore it. And the steps they said had to be taken, the Academy's 
report tells us, are probably harmful.
  How could the Academy have reached such a vastly different 
conclusion? Because, Mr. Speaker, the Klamath Basin tragedy is nothing 
short of scientific sabotage. The radical environmentalists have 
hijacked the Endangered Species Act, a well-meaning species protection 
measure, and are using it as a political tool, a bludgeon against rural 
Americans to advance a radical political agenda.

[[Page H220]]

  Mr. Speaker, I am an environmentalist. The ranchers in my district of 
northern California are environmentalists. Klamath Basin farmers are 
environmentalists. In fact, one could not find a group of people who 
have worked harder to preserve the environment for fish, for birds, and 
for wildlife refuges in their area. No one knows the land better. No 
one cares for it more than those who depend upon it for their survival.
  Americans should be outraged. We do not have to sacrifice the well-
being of our citizens to protect species in this country. It does not 
have to be an either-or proposition. You see, through fish screens, 
improvements to water quality, and other common-sense steps, we could 
have found a solution that would have enabled Klamath Basin fish and 
farmers to get well together without callously taking 100 percent of 
their water away from these communities.
  The dirty truth is the radical environmentalists do not want balance, 
and species protection is not necessarily their goal. They want to 
bankrupt farmers and other rural Americans because they want the water 
and they want the land, and they are misusing the Endangered Species 
Act to that eminently destructive end.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand here today to plead with my colleagues that they 
take a hard look at how the Endangered Species Act is being used as a 
political tool, and to recognize that it is no longer working as a 
species protective tool. Many of us have long observed this happening.
  This week's National Academy of Sciences study lends incredible proof 
for the Nation to see. Our farmers must be made whole for the economic 
losses that they have sustained. The administration must act 
immediately to ensure full water deliveries. We must also demand 
updates in the law that will guarantee that future species decisions 
will be solidly grounded in fact, just by sound science, tested and 
supported by available evidence. Only then will we be able to truly 
protect the environment and ensure that American citizens are protected 
from the calculated misuse of the law.

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