[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 94 (Monday, June 9, 2008)]
[House]
[Pages H5050-H5053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    SABINOSO WILDERNESS ACT OF 2008

  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill 
(H.R. 2632) to establish the Sabinoso Wilderness Area in San Miguel 
County, NM, and for other purposes, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                               H.R. 2632

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Sabinoso Wilderness Act of 
     2008''.

     SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.

       In this Act:
       (1) State.--The term ``State'' means the State of New 
     Mexico.
       (2) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary 
     of the Interior.

     SEC. 3. DESIGNATION OF THE SABINOSO WILDERNESS.

       (a) In General.--In furtherance of the purposes of the 
     Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1131 et seq.), there is hereby 
     designated as wilderness, and, therefore, as a component of 
     the National Wilderness Preservation System, the 
     approximately 15,995 acres of land under the jurisdiction of 
     the Taos Field Office Bureau of Land Management, New Mexico, 
     as generally depicted on the map titled ``Sabinoso 
     Wilderness'' and dated May 7, 2008, and which shall be known 
     as the ``Sabinoso Wilderness''.
       (b) Map and Legal Description.--The map and a legal 
     description of the wilderness area designated by this Act 
     shall--
       (1) be filed by the Secretary with the Committee on Natural 
     Resources of the House of Representatives and the Committee 
     on Energy and Natural Resources of the Senate as soon as 
     practicable after the date of the enactment of this Act;
       (2) have the same force and effect as if included in this 
     Act, except that the Secretary may correct clerical and 
     typographical errors in the legal description and map; and
       (3) be on file and available for public inspection in the 
     appropriate offices of the Bureau of Land Management.
       (c) Management of Wilderness.--Subject to valid existing 
     rights, the wilderness areas designated by this Act shall be 
     administered in accordance with the Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 
     1131 et seq.) and this Act, except that with respect to the 
     wilderness areas designated by this Act, any reference to the 
     effective date of the Wilderness Act shall be deemed to be a 
     reference to the date of enactment of this Act and any 
     reference in the Wilderness Act to the Secretary of 
     Agriculture shall be considered to be a reference to the 
     Secretary of the Interior.
       (d) Incorporation of Acquired Land.--Any land or interest 
     in land located inside the boundaries of the wilderness area 
     designated by this Act that is acquired by the United States 
     after the date of enactment of this Act shall become part of 
     the wilderness area designated by this Act and shall be 
     managed in accordance with this Act and other applicable law.
       (e) Grazing.--Grazing of livestock in the wilderness area 
     designated by this Act, where established before the date of 
     enactment of this Act, shall be administered in accordance 
     with the provisions of section 4(d)(4) of the Wilderness Act 
     (16 U.S.C. 1133(d)(4)) and the guidelines set forth in 
     Appendix A of the Report of the Committee on Interior and 
     Insular Affairs to accompany H.R. 2570 of the 101st Congress 
     (H. Rept. 101-405).
       (f) Fish and Wildlife.--As provided in section 4(d)(7) of 
     the Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1133(d)(7)), nothing in this 
     section shall be construed as affecting the jurisdiction or 
     responsibilities of the State with respect to fish and 
     wildlife in the State, including the regulation of hunting, 
     fishing, and trapping, in the wilderness area designated by 
     this Act.
       (g) Withdrawal.--Subject to valid existing rights, the 
     wilderness area designated by this Act, is withdrawn from--
       (1) all forms of entry, appropriation, and disposal under 
     the public land laws;
       (2) location, entry, and patent under the mining laws; and
       (3) operation of the mineral leasing, mineral materials, 
     and geothermal leasing laws.
       (h) Access.--
       (1) Consistent with section 5(a) of the Wilderness Act (16 
     U.S.C. 1131 et seq.), the Secretary shall continue to allow 
     private landowners adequate access to inholdings in the 
     Sabinoso Wilderness.
       (2) For access purposes, private lands within T. 16 N., R. 
     23 E. Sections 17, 20 and the north half of Section 21, 
     N.M.M. shall be managed as if an inholding in the Sabinoso 
     Wilderness.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Costa) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Nunes) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).


                             General Leave

  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
include any extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. COSTA. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  H.R. 2632 would designate land managed by the Bureau of Land 
Management in San Miguel County in northwestern New Mexico as 
wilderness. The land has been managed as wilderness study area for more 
than 20 years. The area involved includes a mix of Ponderosa Pine and 
riparian vegetation and provides habitat for an array of species 
including the Red-tailed Hawk, bobcat and fox. The area features 
opportunities for hunting, hiking and horseback riding, among other 
activities. The area also includes a 1,000 foot deep canyon, Largo, 
which connects the Canadian River outside of the area.
  I would like to commend my colleague, Representative Tom Udall, for 
his fine work on this legislation. He has worked tirelessly to gain 
broad support for the measure before us today.

[[Page H5051]]

  I would ask my colleagues to support the passage of H.R. 2622, as 
amended.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I think it is appropriate that the Congress continues to do their 
work, Mr. Speaker. But one of the problems that the Republicans have on 
this side of the aisle is that consumers are now paying upwards of $5 
per gallon for gas in California and we want to make sure that the 
Republicans take our time to come to the House floor to make sure that 
we convey to the American people that the Republicans do have a plan, 
and part of that plan deals with drilling on Federal lands.
  Although a lot of these bills that are coming to the floor deal with 
wilderness that may or may not have oil and gas exploration 
possibilities, like, for example, the bill that was just passed before 
the Congress that was in my district, there is no oil and gas in that 
area, this wilderness area I am not sure about. So I do have some 
concerns about this legislation, because I don't know this part of New 
Mexico, if there is oil and gas available.
  I am concerned, because as we put this into a wilderness area, this 
is another area of America that will then be off-limits for drilling 
for oil or gas, and, like I said, at a time when Americans are paying 
$5 per gallon in some parts of the country, this is a big problem for 
the Republicans.
  With that, I will reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COSTA. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield such time 
as he may consume to my good friend from Georgia (Mr. Westmoreland).
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. I thank my friend from California for yielding.
  As he mentioned, it is interesting that we are setting aside land for 
wilderness area to be managed by the Federal Government. It came out of 
the Committee on Natural Resources, but we are not using all our 
natural resources right now. We are not using some of the oil reserves 
that we have in ANWR. We are not using the oil that is on the Outer 
Continental Shelf. We are not using the shale coal that we have that we 
can convert to oil. We are not using the clean-burning coal to the best 
of our ability. We are not drilling for natural gas.
  So we have natural resources in all parts of our country that we are 
not taking advantage of, and the reason that we are not taking 
advantage of it is because the new majority in the 110th Congress is 
being controlled or partly controlled by the radical environmentalists 
that don't want us to drive a Suburban or an extended cab pickup. They 
don't really care if gas goes to $10 a gallon.
  So I would like for this House to concentrate on the majority of 
Americans who are tired of paying $4 a gallon for gas. They understood 
that when the new majority was elected, and you go back to April of 
2006 and then minority leader, now Speaker  Nancy Pelosi, made the 
statement, that the Democrats had a commonsense plan for bringing down 
the skyrocketing price of gas.
  Now, I think at the time, Mr. Speaker, gas was about $2.20 a gallon. 
I never thought we would lament or say, man, can you remember back when 
gas was $2 a gallon? But that is what it was when the Democrat majority 
said they had this new commonsense approach for bringing down the 
skyrocketing gas price.
  Since that time, gas has almost doubled. It has almost doubled. So 
where is that commonsense plan? Where is it that we are using some of 
our natural resources to increase the supply of production that we have 
in this country, rather than being so dependent on foreign oil?
  Now, the problem is that the majority passed in January of 2007 an 
energy bill, and that energy bill, which many on our side of the aisle 
called the ``no-energy bill,'' went into effect. So we thought that 
that was the secret plan. Mr. Speaker, we thought that was this 
commonsense approach.
  Once we looked at the bill, we saw that gasoline was mentioned about 
five or six times, that crude oil was mentioned about maybe 12 times, 
and that nothing was mentioned about domestic drilling, nothing was 
mentioned about increasing the production or using our natural 
resources to make us less dependent on foreign oil. But what we saw 
were words like ``swimming pool'' was used 47 times, ``lamp'' or 
``light bulb'' was used 350 times, ``renewable energy'' was used a 
number of times, ``greenhouse gases'' was used a number of times, but 
nothing was really in that ``no-energy bill'' that helps us today.
  I think we see evidence of that today with gas being over $4 a 
gallon. There was nothing in there to help us bring down the price of 
gas, number one, and that was where the commonsense approach was to be, 
was to bring down the skyrocketing price of gasoline. Not only did we 
not bring it down, it has doubled.
  So where is this commonsense approach? I think the American people 
are ready to see it. I know my constituents are. When I go home, just 
like we have been home during the Memorial Day break, I had people ask 
me, what are we doing about increasing our domestic production? What 
are we doing about having the ability to become less dependent on 
foreign oil?
  I have to explain to them the ``no-energy bill'' that was passed by 
this Congress and the things that it mentioned and the things that were 
there, and really and truly, Mr. Speaker, they think I am lying to them 
or kidding them, that that is the commonsense plan that the majority 
had, because it wasn't a plan at all. It was some type of smoke and 
mirrors that was sold to the American people. Now that gas is more than 
twice what it was, what are we to tell them? Because I have not seen 
anything come out of the Democratic side.
  Now we have come up with an energy proposal that makes sense. It 
allows us to use some of our natural resources. What the other part 
that my constituents don't believe is that we as a government will not 
allow drilling off the coast of Florida, and yet China is fixing to 
start drilling 45 miles off our coast.

                              {time}  1430

  They can use the slant drilling technology and probably get deeper 
into our oil reserves. Now, what are we to tell people? What am I to 
tell my constituents that this Congress is doing about that? They are 
doing nothing about it, not one single thing.
  We are naming post offices, we are coming up with wilderness areas 
and many more days of honoring somebody or recognizing a week or 
recognizing a month, but we are not doing anything on this House floor, 
nor have we done anything on this House floor, to really bring down the 
price of gas, crude oil or come up with a commonsense plan for that 
American worker out there that's going to the pump, costing him $100 to 
fill up with gas.
  Now, I don't know the answer to it, but I would suspect that if we 
pass some type of legislation that said we were going to start 
drilling, whether it be in ANWR, Outer Continental Shelf, wherever it 
is, that the oil speculators, that the bottom would fall out of that 
because people would say, you know what? They are finally doing 
something to become less dependent on somebody else's oil production.
  So we don't have to hold them hostage anymore, and those prices would 
come down, just at the fact that we passed the legislation--not that we 
put the first drill bit in the ground--but just that these oil 
speculators and the American people saw that their elected officials 
were wanting to do something to take a positive step that we can meet 
our own energy needs.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to ask, what's wrong with that? I don't think 
there is anything wrong with that. I think that the people that elect 
us deserve to know what our plan is. The Republican side has come out 
with a plan. They say, look, we are going to take advantage of our 
natural resources. We are going to take advantage of the things that we 
were God given in this land. We are going to take advantage of our oil 
reserves, of our natural gas, of our abundance of coal.
  We are going to take advantage of those things, and we are going to 
use the technology that we have been so good about coming up with. We 
are going to take and convert this shale to oil, which Hitler did in 
the late 1920s--in the late 1920s--and we don't think that we can do 
that today?

[[Page H5052]]

  There is a problem, and we need the courage, the political courage 
and the political guts to stand up and say we are going to--or at least 
I hope the majority party will go--we are going to go against those 
people that we owe so much to for being in the majority, and say we are 
going to do what's good for the American people. We are going to use 
our own natural resources. We are going to do what the people that 
elected us expect us to do, and that's what's the best for them, not 
the best for special interest groups.
  I just hope that during this next conversation that we have on these 
upcoming bills that we will be on this floor discussing this issue, 
because we have not really had a debate on it. I wish that the majority 
party would bring a bill to this floor and have an open rule so we 
could vote on some of these things that are so important.
  The truth of it is that our constituency doesn't really know how we 
believe on some of these issues, because the majority has never given 
us the ability to vote on it. Let's vote on drilling on ANWR, just a 
straight up or down vote, not anything else tied to it. Let's drill on 
our natural gas. Let's vote on our natural gas drilling, not anything 
else tied, just an up or down. Let's drill on the converting of coal-
to-liquid oil. Let's vote on that, just an up or down, rather than tie 
so many things that's so confusing to the American people.
  That's what I hope we will do.
  Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming the balance of my time, how much 
time do I have remaining and the opposition?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from California (Mr. Costa) 
has 19 minutes. The gentleman from California (Mr. Nunes) has 10 
minutes.
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, as Sergeant Friday once said, for those of us 
who remember back to our youth and the old television series, he used 
to say, ``Just the facts, Ma'am.''
  While we are debating the importance of a 20-year study that puts 
about an additional set-aside of land in New Mexico for a wilderness 
study, it seems that we have gotten off track here. But let me for the 
record, as Sergeant Friday once said, just state the facts.
  Between 1999 and 2007, the number of drilling permits issued 
beginning with the Clinton administration, during the Bush 
administration to present day issued an increase in development of 
public lands on application of permits to drill increasing 361 percent. 
Let me repeat that. In the last 8-plus years we have increased the 
applications for permits to drill in public lands, both onshore and 
offshore, 361 percent.
  The Bureau of Land Management has now issued over 28,776 permits to 
drill on public land. Yet at that time, today, only 18,954 wells have 
been actually drilled. In other words, 10,000 wells have been 
stockpiled in terms of the permits that have not been drilled.
  In addition to that, when we talk about making additional available 
land, whether it's on the Florida coast or the California coast, we 
know there is opposition to that among both parties, but the fact of 
the matter is, again--as Sergeant Friday used to say, ``Just the facts, 
Ma'am''--the area that's available for energy companies to develop is 
47.5 million acres onshore on Federal lands that are currently being 
leased by oil and gas companies.
  Today, only about 13 million of those acres are actually in 
production. Again, there are over 47.5 million acres that are currently 
available for use to be drilled for oil and gas. Only about 13 million 
acres are actually being utilized.
  Clearly, there are a multitude of solutions that deal with this 
painful, painful energy dilemma that we find ourselves in today, not 
just in the United States but in other parts of the world. There are 
short-term solutions and there are long-term solutions.
  Frankly, in my opinion, the sooner we get past this blame game--
because if my memory serves me correctly, the loyal opposition was in 
control for 12 years to develop this comprehensive energy policy. We 
have been in the majority for less than a year and a half. Yet all of 
the blame somehow is seemingly being placed on us. The issue on ANWR 
that was talked about earlier passed this House in previous Republican-
controlled houses, only to never see the light of day over in the 
Senate.
  So, we can play the blame game, but what Americans want when I go to 
my constituencies, my district, is us to fashion bipartisan solutions 
that are commonsense that involve both the short-term dilemma that we 
are in and long-term solutions. Frankly, when we come together, in my 
view, to put together that sort of a bipartisan comprehensive effort is 
when I think we are going to be addressing the long-term needs for our 
country.
  Now, the bill before us obviously has nothing to do with the 
discussion we have just had. For 20 years, 20 years, Congressman Tom 
Udall and his colleagues in New Mexico have worked diligently to 
determine whether or not these lands could be put aside. That's what 
H.R. 2632 does, as amended.
  I urge my colleagues to support this measure before us.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, I think the issue here is really not about 
what is available for exploration and the amount of wells that have 
been able to be drilled on what's been allowed for exploration. The key 
here, as most people know, is that there is literally hundreds of 
billions of barrels of oil that is totally off-limits for us to 
research.
  I know that my friend from California is part of the solution, 
because he is one of the few Members of the Democrat Caucus that 
actually believes in drilling for oil. I know that he agrees with 
drilling in Alaska, and he agrees with drilling in the gulf and other 
places where we have tremendous resources of oil.
  So really the key here, like Mr. Westmoreland said earlier, is we 
need to have open time here on the floor with bills that come to the 
floor with open rules so that we can allow the majority to govern, 
meaning the majority of Members, not just one party.
  The longer that the Democrats continue to take bills up to the Rules 
Committee and send them down here to the floor to where we have no 
chance to offer amendments, we never have an opportunity to increase 
exploration. I believe that the American people, now that gas is soon 
to be $5 a gallon, that the American people have had enough of us 
buying all of our oil from the Middle East and South America and 
Africa. They have had enough. They are fed up with it.
  One-third of our trade balance is basically because of the money that 
we send out of this country for importing oil. What I am hoping to get 
back to is some reasonable common sense here in the Congress to where 
Republicans and Democrats can work together and build a majority that 
will allow drilling in our own country, because I believe that's what 
the American people are asking for.
  Until the Speaker of the House and the rest of the leadership decide 
that they want to let the majority rule, a majority of Members of 
Congress and not just one party, we are going to continue to pay high 
prices at the pump.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield to my good friend from Georgia 
(Mr. Westmoreland) for as much time as he may consume.
  Mr. WESTMORELAND. Thank you for yielding.
  To my other friend from California over there, I know that the 
gentleman is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral 
Resources, and I think that subcommittee has jurisdiction over the 
drilling in ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf. Right now only 3 
percent of the Outer Continental Shelf is leased for oil and natural 
gas, and only 6 percent of the Bureau of Land Management public lands 
are leased.
  So I think that it would be a good opportunity for the gentleman, for 
just my suggestion, that we look at that. I know that it has been 
looked at many times before.
  The gentleman mentioned about the Republicans being in control for 12 
years, I was only here for 2 of those years, so I was quite 
disappointed too that we never passed a comprehensive energy plan. You 
know, I am very concerned about that, and I hate that.
  What I am proud of is that right now that we have come up with an 
energy plan that would help with our dependence on foreign oil, and 
maybe it took 12 years for us to wake up. I certainly hope that the 
majority party that's in

[[Page H5053]]

control now, that it doesn't take them 12 years to wake up to 
understand that we need an energy policy.
  Now, if it's going to take them 12 years to wake up, we will be 
paying $12 a gallon like they are paying in the Netherlands or $9 a 
gallon like they are paying in Germany. I know that would make some of 
their base awfully happy if we were paying those gas prices, but your 
average American family, the man and the woman out there trying to make 
a living and trying to provide for their family, does not like paying 
$4 a gallon for gasoline when we are not doing anything, anything to 
reduce our dependence on that foreign oil.
  I agree with Mr. Nunes from California in the fact that we need to 
bring some bills to the floor. We are doing 20 suspension bills on this 
floor today. The U.S. Congress is addressing 20 bills on this floor 
today, that most of them will be passed by a voice vote, and most 
Americans won't even know what we did.
  Some of these pieces of legislation should be going through a regular 
rule, a regular order of process, where we can come in and make some 
amendments on some of these. There may be in these wilderness areas, 
there may be some spots where we have the potential for natural gas or 
oil, where we have potential for solar, where we have potential for 
wind power. Those are being restricted on just about every one of these 
pieces of legislation that we are doing today.
  So let's have an open, honest--that's another promise that the 
majority made to the American people, that this was going to be the 
most open, honest Congress in history. I hate to say this, and I was 
only here for 2 years when we were in control, but that's not true. 
That's another falsehood and whether they did it purposefully or not, 
that this is not the most open, honest Congress that this country has 
ever seen, and it does not or has not or not yet come up with a 
commonsense approach to bring down the skyrocketing cost of gasoline 
when it was $2.20 a gallon, and now it's over $4 a gallon.
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to encourage my 
colleagues to support passage of this legislation to designate as 
wilderness the lands in and near the Sabinoso Wilderness Study Area 
(WSA), located in my district. The Sabinoso WSA is one of New Mexico's 
special places and deserves to be protected and accessible to all.
  The Sabinoso WSA comprises approximately 20,000 acres and is situated 
in San Miguel County, 40 miles east of Las Vegas, New Mexico, and 25 
miles northwest of Conchas Dam State Park. During a trip I took to the 
area, I was immediately struck by the ecological, scenic and 
recreational value of the land. Sabinoso's soil includes a thick 
section of colorful sedimentary rocks, typical of desert rock 
formations throughout the West. The area's scenic and densely vegetated 
landscape is also home to a rich diversity of wildlife, such as red-
tailed hawks, western scrub-jays, broad-tailed hummingbirds, mule deer, 
bobcats, and gray foxes. All of these natural resources will provide 
outstanding opportunities to hunt, hike, horseback ride, take 
photographs, and simply experience the unspoiled lands of our 
ancestors.
  During the 2007 session of the New Mexico State Legislature, House 
Memorial 53, which calls on the New Mexico Congressional delegation to 
support the establishment of the Sabinoso Wilderness Area, was 
introduced by State Representative Thomas Garcia and passed unanimously 
by a vote of 66-0.
  Unfortunately, this beautiful piece of land is currently inaccessible 
to the general public. Designating the area will help provide access to 
the land for everyone. Opening Sabinoso will also create important new 
economic development opportunities for the surrounding communities.
  The bill that comes to the floor today is a result of compromise and 
open dialogue. It is a bill that addresses the concerns of, and is 
supported by, all parties involved. It is an example of the positive 
results that come from Federal agencies, local landowners, and 
wilderness groups working together towards a common goal. I would like 
to thank Chairman Grijalva and his staff for their tireless efforts to 
find compromise between these different groups, and to ensure that the 
rights of local private landowners would not be compromised.
  I again encourage my colleagues to support this bill to establish a 
wilderness area that will help to preserve the natural beauty and 
cultural heritage of New Mexico.
  Mr. NUNES. Mr. Speaker, I have no more speakers on this bill, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleagues to support the 
passage of H.R. 2632, as amended, and yield back the balance of my 
time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Costa) that the House suspend the rules 
and pass the bill, H.R. 2632, as amended.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the 
rules were suspended and the bill, as amended, was passed.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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