[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 76 (Tuesday, June 11, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5369-S5370]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. HOLLINGS (for himself, Mr. Gregg, Mr. Kerry, Ms. Snowe, 
        Mr. Inouye, Mr. Reed, Mr. Breaux, Mr. Cleland, Mr. DeWine, Mr. 
        Sarbanes, Mr. Biden, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Mikulski, Mr. Cochran, 
        Mr. Torricelli, Mrs. Murray, Ms. Landrieu, Mr. Corzine, and Mr. 
        Lieberman):
  S. 2608. A bill to amend the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 to 
authorize the acquisition of coastal areas in order better to ensure 
their protection from conversion or development; to the Committee on 
Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today with my colleague Senator 
Gregg to introduce the Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Act of 
2002. I would like to thank our cosponsors, Senators Kerry, Snowe, 
Inouye, J. Reed, Breaux, Cleland, DeWine, Sarbanes, Biden, Kennedy, 
Mikulski, Cochran, Torricelli, Murray, and Landrieu for their support 
of this bill, which marks another important chapter of our thirty year 
effort to put coastal and ocean issues at the forefront of 
environmental policy.
  When I was Governor of South Carolina over 30 years ago, I 
experienced first hand the need for Federal direction and assistance to 
the States to enable them to effectively and sustainably manage coastal 
development. My experiences during a series of coastal hearings and 
continued research in the Senate led me to write the Coastal Zone 
Management Act of 1972, which provided clear policy objectives for 
states to establish coordinated coastal zone management programs to 
help balance coastal development with protection. Since the CZMA became 
law, 34 of the 35 coastal states have established approved programs to 
help preserve and utilize their precious resources, and the program has 
proven to be a successful partnership between the Federal government 
and our states.
  But we appear to need more tools to help States continue the job we 
started in 1972. In the year 2002, as our population grows, more and 
more people are moving to the coast to enjoy its beauty and 
recreational opportunities. In fact, by 2010, an estimated 60 percent 
of Americans will live along our coasts, which represent less than 17 
percent of our land area. More than 3,000 people move to coastal areas 
everyday, and fourteen of the Nation's 20 largest cities are on the 
coast, and are five times more densely populated than the interior of 
the country. As these good folks move to take advantage of coastal 
living, we have to be careful that we don't destroy the natural 
resources and quality of life that draw them to our shores. Big changes 
are coming to all of our coastal counties, and we must make some 
careful and smart decisions if we want to keep the very resources we 
depend on.
  In particular, estuaries and wetlands have many unique attributes 
that make them important to both our natural resources and our economy. 
Estuaries, and the watersheds that flow into them, support fisheries 
and wildlife and contribute immensely to the coastal area economies. 
Wetlands are critical to many life cycles of organisms and help improve 
surface water quality by filtering our wastes. But these ecologically 
and economically important watersheds are also under the most threat 
from land development and conversion away from their natural state. The 
Forest Service's recently released Southern Forest Resource Assessment 
shows that coastal urbanization trends are particularly strong in the 
southeastern areas. In my state alone, the natural forests of the 
coastal plain are projected to decrease by 1.9 million acres in the 
next 40 years--a 35 percent loss of South Carolina's forests. These 
findings and future trends tell me that for the good of our coastal 
communities we need some fast, targeted action to protect ecologically 
important coastal areas most threatened with development or conversion.
  Now more than ever, the pressures of urbanization and pollution along 
our Nation's coasts threaten to impair watersheds, impact wildlife 
habitat and cause irreparable damage to the fragile coastal ecology. 
This year the Environmental Protection Agency rated the overall 
condition of our coastal waters as fair to poor, with 44 percent of 
estuarine areas impaired for human or aquatic life use. While some 
areas of the country are seeing some improvement as a result of control 
on industry, the experts predict that the more pristine areas like the 
Southeast, which as some of the best water quality in the Nation, will 
experience degradation of water quality due primarily to runoff of 
pollutants from rapid development in our coastal watersheds. This is 
very bad news for the shrimpers, oystermen, and recreational users who 
depend on these waters for their livelihood and quality of life.

  We see strong signals of what continuing down this path will bring 
us: sustained beach closings due to excess sewage drainage; shellfish 
bed closings and fish consumption advisories resulting from toxic 
runoff or bacteria; fish kills due to lack of oxygen from nutrient 
runoff; marine mammal diseases; and human health impacts. The National 
Research Council reports that over the next 20 years over 70 percent of 
our estuaries will experience more of

[[Page S5370]]

these low oxygen, or ``eutrophic'' conditions, such as the Gulf ``Death 
Zone.'' If this trend continues, our coastal economies will suffer and 
perhaps never recover. I know in my state the economy would falter 
greatly from the lack of fishing, shrimping and tourism opportunities, 
and this is true up and down the Atlantic coast, which contains 37 
percent of the Nation's estuarine areas.
  The good news is that there are ways we can make a difference, and we 
have some goods models we can turn to. I am proud to say my home state 
of South Carolina is a leader in this area. The past decade I have led 
an extensive cooperative conservation effort, bringing together the 
State of South Carolina, private landowners, groups like the Nature 
Conservancy, Ducks Unlimited and Federal partners like NOAA and the 
Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the ACE Basin. It is now the 
largest pristine estuarine reserve on the East Coast, a 350,000-acre 
area at the convergence of the Edisto, Ashepoo and Combahee Rivers, 
which comprises many ecologically important habitats that are home to 
many fish and bird species, including a number of endangered species. 
An outcome of these efforts is that the ACE Basin, already home to a 
National Wildlife Refuge, was declared a National Estuarine Research 
Reserve in 1992, and has been growing in size ever since. In building 
the ACE Basin, the partners worked creatively and in a coordinated 
manner, and we successfully obtained land acquisition funds through a 
variety of federal sources, including the Forest Legacy Program.
  What became clear, however, is that there is no federal program 
explicitly setting aside funding for conservation of coastal lands, 
where the needs are clearly the greatest. That is exactly what the 
Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Act of 2002 will do. The bill, 
which is strongly supported by The Trust for Public Land, Coastal 
States Organization, The Nature Conservancy and Land Trust Alliance, 
amends the CZMA to authorize a competitively matching grant program in 
NOAA to enable states to permanently protect important coastal areas. 
Under this NOAA program, coastal states can compete for matching funds 
of up to 75 percent to acquire land or easements for the protection of 
endangered coastal areas that have considerable conservation, 
recreation, ecological, historical or aesthetic values threatened by 
development or conversion. The bill also provides funding for a 
regional watershed demonstration project that can be used as a model 
for future watershed-scale programs. The program is authorized at $60 
million for fiscal year 2003 and beyond, with an additional $5 million 
for the regional watershed demonstration project.
  By establishing a plan for the preservation of our coastal areas, the 
Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Act will build on the foundation 
laid down by the CZMA, all in stride with the changing times, growing 
number of people, and limited resources available today. When it comes 
to the environment, rules and regulations sometimes can't do it all. 
Sometimes cooperative actions work better and we can turn to models 
that encourage joint conservation projects among folks who all want the 
same thing, sustainable coasts.
  Partnership programs among federal government, state agencies, local 
governments, private landowners and non-profits, like the ACE Basin 
Project, work and we need to encourage these partnerships in all our 
coastal areas if we are to prevent degradation of our coastal 
resources. The good news is that we can make a difference today by 
providing the funding for land conservation partnerships provided for 
by Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Act. I am proud to be a 
sponsor of this bill, which will not only improve the quality of the 
coastal areas and marine life it supports, but also sustain surrounding 
communities and their way of life.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I rise today along with Senator Hollings to 
introduce S. 2608, the Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Act. We 
are introducing this much needed coastal protection act along with 
Senators Cochran, DeWine, Snowe, Biden, Carper, Cleland, Inouye, 
Breaux, Landrieu, Sarbanes, Mikulski, Kennedy, Kerry, Torricelli, and 
Murray. In addition, this legislation is supported by the Coastal 
States Organization, the National Estuarine Research Reserve 
Association, the Trust for Public Lands, The National Conservancy, and 
the Land Trust Alliance.
  The Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Act promotes coordinated 
land acquisition and protection efforts in coastal and estuarine areas 
by fostering partnerships between non-governmental organizations and 
federal, state, and local governments. With Americans rapidly moving to 
the coast, pressures to develop critical coastal ecosystems are 
increasing. There are fewer and fewer undeveloped and pristine areas 
left in the nation's coastal and estuarine watersheds. These areas 
provide important nursery habitat for two-thirds of the nation's 
commercial fish and shellfish, provide nesting and foraging habitat for 
coastal birds, harbor significant natural plant communities, and serve 
to facilitate coastal flood control and pollutant filtration.
  The Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection Act pairs willing sellers 
through community-based initiatives with sources of federal funds to 
enhance environmental protection. Lands can be acquired in full or 
through easements, and none of the lands purchased through this program 
would be held by the federal government. S. 2608 puts land conservation 
initiatives in the hands of state and local communities. This new 
program, authorized through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 
Administration at $60,000,000 per year, would provide federal matching 
funds to states with approved coastal management programs or to 
National Estuarine Research Reserves through a competitive grant 
process. Federal matching funds may not exceed 75% of the cost of a 
project under this program, and non-federal sources may count in-kind 
support toward their portion of the cost share.
  This coastal land protection program provides much needed support for 
local coastal conservation initiatives throughout the country. In my 
role as the Ranking Member of the Commerce, Justice, State 
Appropriations Subcommittee, I have been able to secure significant 
funds for the Great Bay estuary in New Hampshire. This estuary is the 
jewel of the seacoast region, and is home to a wide variety of plants 
and animal species that are particularly threatened by encroaching 
development and environmental pollutants. By working with local 
communities to purchase lands or easements on these valuable parcels of 
land, New Hampshire has been able to successfully conserve the natural 
and scenic heritage of this vital estuary.
  Programs like the Coastal and Estuarine Land Protection program will 
now enable other states to participate in these community-based 
conservation efforts in coastal areas. This program was modeled after 
the U.S. Department of Agriculture's successful Forest Legacy Program, 
which has conserved millions of acres of productive and ecologically 
significant forest land around the country.
  I welcome the opportunity to offer this important legislation, with 
my close friend, Senator Hollings. I am thankful for his strong 
leadership on this issue, and look forwarding to working with him to 
make the vision for this legislation a reality, and to successfully 
conserve our ecologically, historically, recreational, and 
aesthetically important coastal lands.
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