[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 103 (Monday, July 14, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H6687-H6692]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           ISSUES OF THE WEST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, this evening the bulk of my comments I 
intend to make about issues of the West, issues involving the concept 
of multiple use, issues delving really around public lands. But 
preceding those comments I cannot help but give some type of rebuttal 
to the preceding speakers who in my opinion spoke solely for the 
purpose of self-serving interests.
  Having spent this last weekend looking at the TV periodically and 
seeing some of the reports that I saw on TV, it is very clear to me 
that we have a

[[Page H6688]]

Presidential election coming up in the not-too-distant future. What I 
saw time and time again, especially by the candidates who intend to 
oppose George W. Bush for the Presidency of this Nation, what I saw 
them time and time again on reflecting upon was how they could get 
their purported goals of being elected President ahead of what are in 
the best interests of this Nation.
  I could not believe my ears this weekend when time and time again we 
saw those candidates who are seeking the Presidential office next year 
bashing the President of this country on a basis of which they do not 
know.
  I thought it was very interesting that my colleague, the gentlewoman 
from Ohio, stood up here and quoted from a so-called intelligence 
source, from some officer in the military of which she had got a 
letter. Over and over again in her comments, she lectured, saying that, 
you know, these things ought to be checked at least three times. I wish 
I would have had time during her time or I wish she would have yielded 
during her time so that I could have found out whether or not she had 
in fact verified her source the very three times upon which she 
condemned the administration theoretically for not doing.

                              {time}  2100

  And to have listened to the previous speaker, the gentlewoman from 
the State of Texas, who stands up here and blatantly says that the 
administration across the administration has made misrepresentations. 
It takes away from this House; it takes away from this country. Even 
the accused deserve more than what the previous speaker has just given 
to the administration. The previous speaker does not cite any proof. 
The previous speaker puts a few nice words in order up here and makes 
these allegations that there is blatant misrepresentation across the 
administration. Tell me that statement is anything except intended for 
self-serving interest. It is one of the most partisan remarks that I 
have heard since I have been up here in the House.
  What they are trying to do is capitalize, capitalize upon 16 words; 
and by the way, I was involved very intensely in the debate on whether 
or not we should take action against Iraq, and I do not remember and of 
course I did not hear all the record, but I heard a lot of the record. 
I did not remember any of these previous speakers or, in fact, any of 
the speakers that have condemned the revelations that came out this 
weekend that perhaps the intelligence was not as good as it should have 
been or there were 16 words in the State of the Union address, when we 
debated the resolutions on Iraq, I never heard one of the speakers, not 
one of them, use as their source the State of the Union speech.
  I did not hear one of those speakers refer to the sale from Africa as 
some type of uranium material. Not once did they cite that as one of 
their reasons or questions that we should take action against Iraq.
  What am I suggesting? I am suggesting they are making an awful lot 
out of this for one reason, not for the sake of the country, not for 
the sake of openness, not for the sake of the future and vision in this 
country and where to take this country. They are making these 
allegations for one reason and one reason only, and that is to somehow 
forward their own, forward their own self-interest, which in this 
particular case is a partisan attack against the President of the 
United States. They see this as an opening.
  I read either on the ``Roll Call'' or ``The Hill'' or some other 
political newspaper today that these words in the State of the Union 
address may give an opening to the Democrats. Boy, if there is any kind 
of light at all coming through that door, we can see speakers just like 
the speakers we heard this evening taking advantage at this time on the 
floor for their own self-interest to issue a very stinging, self-
serving partisan attack against the President. They have not walked one 
inch in the shoes of our President. They have never walked that mile, 
and yet they are so quick to jump up and condemn the leadership of this 
country.
  I believe what this country did was right, and let me tell the 
Members it was not just a partisan decision to go to war. This was a 
decision on a resolution that was acted on in a bipartisan fashion. It 
received bipartisan support. And let me tell the Members it was not 
just this President. Let me show a poster I brought over. This is 
President Bill Clinton's comments. Look over here to my left. President 
Bill Clinton on Saddam's threat. February 18, 1998, 5 years ago: ``What 
if Saddam Hussein fails to comply and we fail to act or if we take some 
ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop 
his programs of weapons of mass destruction and continue to ignore the 
solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude that the 
international community has lost its will. He will conclude that he can 
go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating 
destruction.'' President Bill Clinton saw that danger. President George 
Bush, the first President Bush, saw that danger, and this President saw 
this danger.
  Do the Members know what is being masked here or what is being 
diverted, the diversion? What it takes away from is what an evil, 
horrible, horrible man Saddam Hussein was. And anybody that would stand 
up to the American people today and even dare to say that the people in 
Iraq are in worse condition today than they were before we took Saddam 
Hussein out, in other words, they are saying they were better under the 
control of Saddam Hussein, has no realization of how horrible this 
individual was.
  In the eyes of many people, he rose to the same level or downgraded 
to the same level, however one would like to put it, to Adolph Hitler, 
the same kind of sick, perverted mind, the same treacherous murders. 
Although Hitler did not gas like Saddam Hussein did, we know that he 
used these weapons of mass destruction of his own people. We know from 
his own admissions, and I have got a chart that shows that, from his 
own admissions Saddam Hussein made to the United Nations of the lists 
of weapons of mass destruction. We know that in recorded history that 
he has killed more Muslims than any other person in recorded history. 
Muslims. This man was a horrible man. There is not a person in this 
world, not a person in the world that can stand up and show that this 
man respected any type of human right, any type of human right. This 
man was a murderer.
  And despite what these two previous speakers say, despite what the 
Democratic leadership is attempting to do to push forward their 
Democratic candidates for President, no matter how much they attack 
President George W. Bush, the reality of it is that one of the worst 
murderers in the history of the world is no longer in authority in 
Iraq. One of the worst murderers in the history of the world had the 
greatest country in the world step up to him, and they said do you want 
to pick on somebody? Pick on somebody your own size. And the United 
States of America took him out of power.
  Thank goodness that this country has able-bodied leaders, and I mean 
in the mind. Thank goodness this country has the people with the 
courage to team up with our allies like Tony Blair, who I am privileged 
to say people talk about a guy who deserves a Profile in Courage, and 
contrary to the comments by the gentleman from the State of Washington 
that perhaps he does not deserve this congressional honor that we are 
going to give him this week, the fact is that he stood, our President 
stood.

  There were a lot of countries in this world that would have stood 
against Saddam Hussein, but they did not have the wherewithal to take 
him out. The United States did. The British did. There were other 
countries in this world who knew of the atrocities, just like some of 
my colleagues who spoke this evening, they knew of the atrocities that 
were going on in Iraq; and they did have the wherewithal to join our 
team, and they purposely hid in the foxhole. They would not come out of 
the foxhole. And our President and Tony Blair and the people of 
Britain, the people of Poland, the people of the United States, the 
people of Australia and some other countries, they did come out of the 
foxhole; and they used the power for a good purpose, for a good means. 
They took out an evil man.
  And my colleagues on the Democratic side who are making these 
comments for a very clear partisan purpose, and that is they want to 
win the

[[Page H6689]]

Presidential elections next year, that is the only reason we had these 
speakers here this evening. Mark my word. These speakers would not be 
making these comments this evening, in my opinion, if there were not a 
Presidential election coming up. Those comments are tailor made, tailor 
made for television audiences around this country to somehow impact the 
upcoming Presidential elections. That is why those comments are made.
  The fact of it is when we put all that cloud aside, when we put all 
of that distortion aside, when we get the static off the radio, the 
fact is a very evil man was removed from power, and for that the 
President of this country, the people of this country, the people of 
Britain, and the people of that willing team ought to be commended. We 
had the guts to take on an evil man. We had the wherewithal to take 
that evil man out. And now to see within our own camp, within our own 
camp on this House floor, some of my colleagues for strictly partisan 
purposes not stand at this microphone and talk about the evilness of 
Saddam Hussein, but stand at this microphone and talk about what they 
would describe as terrible things of our own administration, of our own 
leadership. What are they going to do, beat themselves up here in front 
of the American people to show the rest of the world that somehow the 
United States should hang its head low?
  This is a proud country. I am proud to be a Congressman in it, and I 
will tell the Members this: I am very proud this country stood nose to 
nose with an evil man and took that evil man out of power. And to all 
our men and women that are out there in that fighting force, they have 
every reason to be proud. The decision that was made to send them to 
battle was the right decision, and the mission that they carried out 
was carried out in the correct fashion.
  I think it is sadly disappointing to have some of my colleagues, who 
I like personally, they are nice people, but to stand up here for 
strictly partisan purposes and take shot after shot because we have 
Presidential elections coming up, taking shot after shot about our 
President and totally ignoring the evilness of Saddam Hussein, that in 
itself fits the definition of shamefulness in the Webster Dictionary.
  I want to move from this because this was not my original intent. I 
did not intend to discuss this tonight, but I cannot sit in these House 
Chambers and listen to speaker after speaker on the Democratic side go 
up unrebutted. Nobody else, they would not make those kinds of comments 
in a debate where the other side had a chance to respond to it. They 
made those comments because they did not think anybody would be 
responding to them this evening. So I did divert from my comments for a 
few minutes, and I intend to go back to my comments and my original 
subject here this evening, but I want these people, the Democrats, to 
know, and not all of them but the liberals over there, some of these 
people, their comments will be rebutted. I cannot sit back here and 
listen to some of that go on.
  So my purpose this evening was, as I said earlier, really to talk 
about kind of the East and the West, primarily the western United 
States. I come from the State of Colorado. This evening I want to talk 
a little bit about the West and the public lands of this country and 
talk a little bit about what public lands are, talk about the issues 
that revolve around public lands, the forest fires which we have going 
right now. We speak of young men and women that are fighting in our 
military forces throughout the world, our young men and women in the 
military that are stationed in this country to defend this country that 
are doing their missions as we speak.
  We also have many men and women that are also fighting fires as we 
now speak, fighting fires. We have many law enforcement personnel, many 
first-aid people, many firefighters across the country engaged in a 
life-threatening mission. And a lot of this today as we speak are some 
of the big fires that are starting now in the West. We have got a very 
dry season out there. Right now in Grand Junction, Colorado, which is 
the home I am from, it is 105 degrees. It sets a record. It has been 
setting a record day after day for about a week. So I want to talk a 
little bit about the fire issues, about the forest issues, about the 
BLM issues.
  So let us begin by talking just for a moment about public lands. What 
are public lands? It is as the word describes: public lands are lands 
owned by the public. The United States, throughout the world, basically 
we have two types of ownership. This is very fundamental, but basic. We 
have lands that are owned privately, i.e. probably most of those whom I 
am speaking to this evening on the House floor, they own the land on 
which their home sits. That is private property. That is private lands, 
private lands. Public lands are lands that are owned by the people, 
owned by the government; and in the United States we have tens of 
millions, actually hundreds of millions of acres of land that are owned 
by the public. And land owned in private hands is treated differently 
than land owned by the public for a number of different reasons, many 
of those which are necessary, many of those which we would expect, many 
of those which make common sense.
  But there is a little history to what happened with public lands in 
the country. And the first thing we have to do when we have a 
discussion of public lands is realize that the bulk of public lands is 
located in the western United States, and there is a reason for that; 
but let me first of all refer folks over here to my left. This is a map 
of government lands in the United States. All the color on that map of 
the United States reflects what I have just described as public lands. 
These are public lands. And take a look at what we have here. In the 
East, generally speaking, in fact, really from east of the mountains so 
even in part of Colorado, eastern Colorado, we go from, say, east to, 
say, Denver, Colorado, out here to New York City or Washington, D.C., 
relatively speaking, you do not have many public lands.

                              {time}  2115

  In the East, most of your landownership is in private hands. It is 
not in public hands. Now there are some big exceptions. You have, for 
example, you have the Everglades Park. Up here, you have the Shenandoah 
Valley and some of the national parks up there. Up in the Northeast we 
have a national park and preserves up there.
  But take a look at some of these areas. Take a look at the State of 
Kansas. In a lot of these areas, the only public land is land owned by 
the local city hall or the fire department or the local courthouse.
  Well, then compare that, compare the eastern United States with the 
western United States. Take a look at the percentage of public lands. I 
have counties in my district; now, my district is a big district. To 
give my colleagues an idea, my district alone is about the size of the 
State of Florida. And if you take a look, I have counties in my 
district that have 98 percent of their land is in public hands, and it 
has a big impact. Well, how did that happen? How did so much of the 
public land end up in one part of the Nation and not dispersed somewhat 
evenly throughout the rest of the Nation?
  Well, clearly there is a story to be told. As we look at the History 
Channel, for example, you know there is a story to be told, and that is 
what I want to tell tonight.
  In the early days, most of our population obviously was in this area 
of the country, right along the eastern coast; and what happened is, in 
those days, we wanted to grow our Nation. That is what the entire world 
wanted to do. We wanted to grow this new country of ours, these great 
number of these States, united, called the United States, under one 
symbol, under a flag. We were so proud, we wanted to grow that country. 
In order to grow that country, what we needed to do is somehow get 
people to go out and help us settle the land. The government went out 
and bought the land.
  But unlike today, today, if, for example, I own a piece of property 
in Hawaii, I do not have to go to Hawaii. I do not have to go to Hawaii 
for several years as long as I pay my taxes and I have a deed that says 
I own that property, that property is protected under my rights. It is 
my land. It is private property.
  But in the early days of this country, private property or the land 
that you claimed was yours was not yours unless you were really on it. 
A deed did not

[[Page H6690]]

mean a whole lot. In fact, many of my colleagues have heard the saying, 
possession is nine-tenths of the law. That is where this came from. In 
order for you to claim the land, you needed to be on the land, you 
needed to be tilling the land and, frankly, in a lot of cases, you 
needed to have a six-shooter strapped to your side.
  So we knew that in order for the United States to really keep control 
of this land, to help grow our great country, we needed to persuade 
people to leave the East Coast and go to the West. Go west, young man, 
go west.
  Now, this is pretty tough to do. Now, today, when you say to 
somebody, hey, let us go west of the Colorado mountains, let us go to 
Aspen or Durango or Steamboat or Glenwood Springs, it is a pretty easy 
decision to make. You go out there and have a great time. Some of the 
most beautiful spots in the world are in the Rocky Mountains of 
Colorado.
  But back in the early days of this country, the only thing that you 
were promised by going west was, one, a free piece of property. But 
what they did not tell you so much or emphasize so much was that the 
odds were, most of the women would die in childbirth, most of the men 
would probably die in accidents in their 20s. You had to worry about 
snakebites. You had to worry about attacks from different groups, 
whether it was native Americans or whether it was pirates of our own. 
They did not have a real justice system out there in the prairies and 
out there in the West. So it was very dangerous. It did not offer a lot 
of promise for a long future. They did not have time-shares out in 
Colorado and out there in those mountains in the early days. It was a 
tough existence.
  So what did the government do to get people to go there? They gave 
what is really a fundamental dream for every American, and that is the 
possibility to own your own piece of property. Mr. Speaker, one of the 
great things of this country, unlike a lot of countries in this world, 
one of the great things of this country is that you can own your own 
piece of land. It is yours. And we all dream about it.
  I can remember when I was small dreaming of having my own house on my 
own piece of property up in the mountains. I was born and raised in the 
mountains. I mean, I dreamed of it. I think of the George Strait song 
where he talks about the difference between living and living well. He 
talks about his little home, his little beach house on the beach and 
watching a thousand sunsets. I mean, we dream of owning property.
  That is what the government did. They capitalized on this dream and 
said, let us offer it to the people. If they go out, our citizens go 
out and they start a little farm out here in Kansas, let us say out in 
there somewhere, let us say near Hayes, Kansas, or somewhere, if they 
go out and till the land, we will give them 160 acres or 320 acres and 
they can support a family.

  Now, that was called homesteading, and we had actually used land for 
this purpose before. Interesting.
  What we had done during the Revolutionary War is the government had 
actually offered, to the extent that we had that government at that 
point, like a Department of Interior, so to speak, our government 
offered to British soldiers free land. You can own your own property, 
free of the queen, if you defect from the British forces and join our 
forces. So this was not the first time the government tried this 
scheme.
  So the government did this. They decided, let us go ahead and offer 
free land and persuade people to go out and occupy the lands, for 
example, that we got under the Louisiana Purchase. It accomplishes two 
things. One, it expands our borders; two, it puts people on the land so 
we can conquer it; and, three, it meets the dreams of a united 
continental United States.
  Mr. Speaker, it worked. We had people, we have seen the movies where 
they would have a big string or big rope attached and all of these 
people on horses and wagons, it was like the Gold Rush days. They got 
to have land.
  What happened is that it was a tremendous success, a tremendous 
success. The people were coming this way, they were coming in here, 
they were settling all over, up here, up in the north, over here in 
Kansas in the mid country. They were down there in the south. They were 
going into Texas. People were looking to settle. They were expanding 
into this country.
  But all of a sudden we found out there was a problem out there. And 
that was soon these settlers found out that when they hit the Rocky 
Mountains of Colorado or they hit the mountains of Wyoming or they hit 
the Rockies up there in Montana or they got into the deserts in 
Arizona, that 160 acres could not support a family. Out in the area 
where I live near Grand Junction, Colorado, there are places out there 
you cannot feed one sheep on 20 acres.
  So word got back to the Nation's capital: Hey, our Homestead Act is 
working pretty well until you hit the mountains of Colorado or the 
mountains of Montana or Wyoming. When they get out into that rugged 
country, it is arid, and they discovered that there is a huge 
difference between the amount of water in the East and water in the 
West. Let me show my colleagues.
  For example, while we are talking about the West here, take a look at 
what these settlers ran into. Seventy-three percent of the water in 
this Nation, 73 percent of the precipitation falls right there in the 
East. That is where they lived. So homesteading up here, a growing 
pasture where you have that kind of water is a whole lot different than 
growing pasture out in the Rockies or out in the West.
  Take a look here. Over half of the Nation is in this red, and over 
half of the Nation gets only 14 percent of the water. So as these 
settlers came to the West, not only did they run into the rugged 
mountains, but they ran into the fact that it is an arid part of this 
country.
  You cannot raise things on 160 acres that you can, for example, out 
here in Virginia or over in Florida. I have never seen such magnificent 
farms as I have seen in Virginia or down in Florida where I have seen 
those big farms. We have arid conditions in the West. So water played a 
part, played a role in the difficulty that we faced.
  So they went back to Washington and they said, there is no water out 
there. That is tough country out there. The mountains, these mountains 
are beautiful, but it is tough living. The people are not settling 
where we need them to settle. And somebody, and I am making up this 
number, I am sure historically we could probably find it, but somebody 
said, well, the way to do it, if a family in Colorado where it is arid 
out there in the West or Nevada or somewhere cannot make it on 160 
acres, maybe we ought to give them, and I make this number up, maybe we 
ought to give them 2,000 acres. Let us give them an amount of land that 
would be proportionate to the amount of land that they would need to 
grow on 160 acres.
  The problem was this: The government was under a lot of political 
heat because they have given away land to what was then called the 
railroad barons, the Intercontinental Railroad, and there is a book by 
Stephen Ambrose, which is a fabulous book about the difference in our 
country that this railroad made, the construction of that railroad. 
That workforce, we had a workforce ready to go, ready to take orders 
right after the Civil War, a workforce that understood tough conditions 
because of the Civil War, and that they could build this railroad with 
only one power device, by the way, a little tractor out there, it was 
all built by hand, that they could build that railroad. But, 
unfortunately, there was some fraud involved in the construction of 
that railroad, and they were called the railroad barons.

  Now, a lot of these people, this railroad would not have been built 
but for those folks. But amongst their crowd, there were some bad 
apples. So the political circles in Washington, D.C., were under a lot 
of political heat: Do not give away any more land. Look what you did. 
You gave this land for this great railroad and look what these railroad 
barons did with it. So the government at that time and, in my opinion, 
the only reason that the government decided to keep this vast amount of 
land was not because they had visions that the Arizona desert or the 
Utah desert out here would someday be a national park. That was not the 
vision, like some groups would like us to believe today. In fact, they 
did have that vision on specific areas: Theodore Roosevelt, the 
President, for example,

[[Page H6691]]

on Yellowstone National Park. But there were specific areas that they 
did have that vision of great national parks and preservation for all 
future generations.
  But that is not the explanation of why all of this land ended up in 
public hands or stayed in public hands. The reason is that Washington 
could not take the political heat at that point in time to give away 
the land that was necessary to support the families in proportion to 
the same amount of land they had given in the East. So they came up 
with a solution, and this is a very important part of my comments. They 
came up with a solution.
  Well, instead of giving the people the land to homestead on, why do 
we not go ahead and keep the title in the government's name, but we 
will allow the people the use of it. And thereupon was born the concept 
of multiple use on public lands. Let the people use the lands, even 
though the title of the land is in the name of the government and 
Washington, D.C. That thereupon explains why so much of this land in 
the West was put into public hands.
  Now today one of the challenges that we face living on these public 
lands, and let me give you an idea of what living on public lands 
means. In my district, almost every area in my district is completely, 
and I mean completely, surrounded by land owned by the government. 
Every community in my district is totally dependent upon those public 
lands. We get our power across those public lands. We get our water, 
all of our water, or most of our water originates, comes across, or is 
stored upon Federal lands. Our recreation is on Federal lands. Our 
cellular telephone towers are on public lands. Our radio towers, our TV 
towers, our access, our highways, you name it, we are dependent on 
public lands.
  Many of my colleagues in the East are not. They do not have that 
problem. In fact, in the East when you want to build a ditch or a major 
construction project, you go to the planning and zoning authority. In 
the West, our planning and zoning authority is often in Washington, 
D.C., because the owner of the land is the United States Government.
  And there are a lot of people in the East, unfortunately, not large 
in population, because we are one country and we have a lot of people 
who understand the situation that we are in, but we have certain 
radical environmental organizations that their number one goal is to 
eliminate the multiple use concept, eliminate that saying that I grew 
up under: You are now entering White River National Park, for example, 
White River National Forest in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, a land of 
many uses. They want to eliminate the human existence off of these 
lands. They want to get rid of that concept. There are people who do 
not want us to have ski areas out here. They do not want us hunting on 
public lands. They do not want us getting our water off public lands.

                              {time}  2130

  They are fighting. They do not want power lines on public lands. They 
do not want us to have parks and recreational areas in certain parts of 
those public lands. What they want to do is take control of that so we 
have a constant battle, a battle that is not undiscovered in the East, 
but certainly is not a primary concern in the East because you do not 
have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis and we do.
  Now, let me talk about one of the big problems we have out there. As 
I showed you earlier, I showed you a diagram where over half of this 
Nation gets 14 percent of the water, where that is where the 
precipitation and that is in the West.
  In the West we have got to have water storage. Water storage is 
absolutely critical. Now, I know that groups like the National Sierra 
Club, for example, have never in the history of their organization to 
the best of my knowledge ever supported a water storage project. In 
fact, the National Sierra Club's number one goal is to take down the 
major recreational power supplier, flood control and water storage unit 
in the West called Lake Powell down here in Utah. That is their number 
one goal. Water storage is critical for us.
  The first dam we know to be built in the West was the Anasazi Indians 
down to the Four Corners. The Four Corners is called that, it is right 
over here, it is the only place in the Nation where four States come 
together at once. You can stand in my district right on that corner and 
be in four States at once. And it is down in there where the Anasazi 
Indians lived. And what drove the Anasazi Indian out of their 
settlements that they had had for hundreds and hundreds of years? It 
was the lack of water. And we found evidence down there, I did not, but 
the archeologists found evidence down there of dams, the first known 
storage of water.
  If you live in the West you are dependent upon water storage. In the 
last 3 or 4 years, last year we had a severe drought. This year we have 
severe heat. In the last couple of years preceding those years, we had 
much less than usual precipitation. The only way we were able to 
survive is because we had water storage.
  In Colorado, for example, in western Colorado we have all the water 
we could possibly want in a usual year for about a 60- to 90-day period 
of time, and that period of time is called the ``spring runoff.'' But 
after that 60 or the 70 days after the spring runoff, which is the high 
snow coming and melting off the high mountains, once that runoff runs 
out of the State, if we do not store it, we do not have it. And the 
rest of the year, the rest of those days of the year if we do not have 
stored water, we are in real trouble.
  I never knew what a real rain storm was until I came here in the 
East. Even the drops of rain, even your drops here are significantly 
larger than the drops of rain that we get in the West. We do not have 
rain storms like you do back here. It is very tough in the West. We 
have got to store water. And that is why you will find it is very 
interesting to see, for example, on some of these environmental score 
cards, it is very hard to find a so-called environmental organization, 
primarily the ones on the left, it is hard to find any of them that 
says anything positive about water storage. But it is very interesting 
when you look at their so-called environmental score cards, you will 
see the legislators, the Congressmen in the East at the top with the 
A's and you will see those in the West that have to support the water 
storage, that understand and have to deal with public lands, they are 
at the bottom of the list. They usually get the F's on it. And I can 
tell you I am down there too because of my support for water storage.
  So my comments this evening, which I will wrap up here because I want 
to do this in a series, I want to leave you with a couple of fact or 
things that I think are important to carry into any next comments which 
I would like to make a few nights from now.
  Number one, in the United States the largest conglomerate of public 
lands, keep in mind it is not spread evenly throughout the country, the 
largest block of public lands is in the West; and it is reflected by 
the map to my left. All of those colors on that map indicate public 
lands.
  Number two, something very important to remember and I will show this 
poster again, in the East, what I would call the East, the blue spot, 
the blue part of this map, that is where 73 percent of the 
precipitation and the water is found in this country. In the West, 
specifically the red part, that is over half the Nation in total 
acreage or size, receives 14 percent of the precipitation. So water 
storage here is obviously much more important for you to have water on 
somewhat of a continual basis through the year than water storage might 
be in the East.
  Now, water storage is important in the East because you obviously 
have production of power; you have flood control, which is very 
important for you out here. In fact, in the East your problem a lot of 
times is getting rid of the water. Our problem in the West is being 
able to keep the water, to be able to store the water.

  So I wanted you to go away from my comments this evening keeping in 
mind that in this area, generally, where most of the public lands are 
is also where the least amount of water is. So water is very precious. 
They say in Colorado, they say in the West, I keep saying Colorado 
because that is my home, but they say in the West that water runs 
thicker than blood. That is how vital it is out there.
  So we have a number of discussions here on this House floor about 
public lands. We have a number of discussions about issues dealing with 
public lands. I cannot tell you how many times I

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have heard some of my colleagues who, giving them the benefit of the 
doubt, I think are ignorant somewhat of the facts, who attack the fact 
that we have ski areas out in the West or that we have, God forbid, we 
cut some timber off some of this land out there or we have recreation 
or we have mountain bikes that we allow on government lands or we go 
horseback riding or we allow animals grazing. Before any of you sign on 
some of these ``dear colleague'' letters that condemn use on public 
lands, come to some of us who live in it, come to some of us who 
experience it every day of our lives, whose families have for 
generations and generations lived on these public lands or lived on 
little private holdings that are completely surrounded by these public 
lands and ask us about those issues.
  So, again, this evening, one, I would like you to go away with 
remembering where the bulk of public lands are in this country. They 
are in the West. Proportionately speaking, there are only a fraction of 
the public lands held in the East. And by the way, an interesting 
history story to help you remember that, in the State of Texas, Texas 
as you know was its own country at one time and before Texas agreed to 
join this great Nation, the United States, one of their conditions was 
that the government could never own land within the boundaries of the 
State of Texas without permission of the people of the State of Texas. 
The only State to my understanding of the Union that is like that. 
Alaska should have done that; 98 percent of Alaska is owned by the 
government.
  So keep that in mind. That is where the bulk of it is. And the second 
thing, to be repetitive, but it is so important, is the largest 
percentage of moisture, 73 percent, almost three-quarters of the 
precipitation and water in this country, is in the East on the private 
lands. It is on these lands out here where I live, this is where we get 
in this area, except for the northwest right up here, this big bulk of 
public lands here gets 14 percent of the water.
  So I urge my colleagues this evening, do not sign on to these ``dear 
colleague'' letters that say take down Lake Powell. Lake Powell is a 
vital resource to the survival of the people of the West. Do not sign 
on to these letters that say we should get rid of the concept of the 
multiple use. Do not sign on to these letters that say get rid of all 
the roads on public lands. Do not sign on to these letters that say, 
for example, take all of this, put people off and put a wilderness 
designation. And wilderness is a positive term, but what it means in 
legal terms when you title it wilderness has huge, huge ramifications 
on the people that are around it.
  So in summary I say this: public lands are an important part of this 
country. They are property of the country. The people of this country 
do own that, but you have to give consideration to the people who live 
on those lands and the vitality of those people to be able to survive.
  With that, I will wrap up my comments. I look forward to continuing 
this. We will go into much more detail in a couple nights on water and 
the consumption of water and the recycling of water.

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