[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 125 (Tuesday, August 4, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6270-S6271]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 SAWTOOTH NATIONAL RECREATION AREA AND JERRY PEAK WILDERNESS ADDITIONS 
                                  ACT

  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, is H.R. 1138 at the desk?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 1138, which has been 
received from the House.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 1138) to establish certain wilderness areas in 
     central Idaho and to authorize various land conveyances 
     involving National Forest System land and Bureau of Land 
     Management land in central Idaho, and for other purposes.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be 
read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the 
table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the 
Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The bill (H.R. 1138) was ordered to a third reading, was read the 
third time, and passed.
  Mr. RISCH. Mr. President and fellow Senators, today is a historic day 
for the State of Idaho. This is the creation of a wilderness area in 
the Sawtooth area of Idaho, the Boulder-White Clouds area, and the 
Jerry Peak area. These two mountain ranges and one mountain peak area 
have been under consideration for about 10 years.
  I want to talk very briefly about what we are dealing with. These are 
some of the most magnificent pieces of land, not only in Idaho but in 
the United States. Before anyone goes abroad to see the Champs-Elysees 
or to see the magnificent works of art in Italy, you need to put on 
your list seeing the Boulder-White Clouds area. It is truly a 
magnificent area.
  What we just did was we created a wilderness of about 275,000 acres 
that creates these three wilderness areas, plus a buffer zone around 
them. It is a great day for Idaho. This is an Idaho solution to an 
issue that has been pending for some time.
  I conclude by simply stating that all credit for this goes to 
Congressman Mike Simpson. Congressman Simpson started working on this 
about 10 years ago and wanted to put together, in a collaborative 
fashion, a wilderness bill for this particular area. He did that. He 
brought it back to Washington, DC. Because of the situation in DC at 
the time, the bill was changed greatly and was no longer an Idaho 
solution to the Idaho problem.
  Congressman Simpson did not give up. He worked and he worked and he 
worked at it. It is truly his long-term commitment to this and his long 
work on this that got us to this point. What he did was take this land 
that there was virtually unanimous agreement should be in wilderness; 
that is, the heart of this area, the Boulder Range, the White Cloud 
Range, and the Jerry Peaks area.
  There was unanimous agreement that this is the kind of land that 
needs to be in wilderness. Indeed, when I was Governor, I wrote this 
rule for several million acres. This was included in it. It was 
protected as wilderness. This is not changing the character of it in 
that regard. What it does is put it in statute instead of in rule.
  The difficulty was, as always with these kinds of areas, the buffer 
area around what everybody agrees is truly unique ground that should be 
handled as wilderness. Obviously, it is an area that ingrains passion 
in people. It causes people to have strong feelings about the area. As 
a result of that, people fight to protect what they think should be 
protected, and just as much, people who use the buffer zones for 
different reasons feel just as passionately the other way.
  What Congressman Simpson was able to do was get everybody to the 
table in a very collaborative fashion, to where he got the wilderness 
preservationists, the hikers, the backpackers, the horse people, the 
motorized users, including snowmobile, ATV, and motorcycle people, to 
all agree to a management plan for everything that is included in this 
bill.
  Congressman Simpson was tenacious on this. He gets the full credit 
for this. I think Idahoans will truly appreciate this for many years. 
There is no doubt in my mind that the efforts Congressman Simpson put 
into this will be greatly appreciated for years and years to come.
  With that, I yield the remainder of my time to my colleague, my good 
friend, Senator Mike Crapo.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAPO. I thank Senator Risch.
  Mr. President, it is an honor for me to rise with my colleague Jim 
Risch to celebrate the passage of this legislation. It has been years 
and years in the making. This legislation culminates from the hard work 
by people all over Idaho. As Senator Risch has indicated, the credit 
for making this all finally come together goes to Representative Mike 
Simpson. I wholeheartedly agree with that.

[[Page S6271]]

  Passage of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and Jerry Peak 
Wilderness Additions Act, also called the SNRA+ Act, is the result of 
tremendous efforts by Representative Simpson and Senator Risch. He 
deserves tremendous credit as well. I do want to say that I honor 
Representative Simpson's dogged determination and his persistence to 
fight through many obstacles associated with this treasured region of 
our State for a very long period of time.
  Representative Simpson's efforts have given Idaho a homegrown 
solution to what was rapidly becoming a national problem. As I said, 
similarly, my colleague Senator Risch has fought through many 
challenges in his pursuit of developing a consensus on this issue that 
has been hard to achieve. Both of my colleagues, in their respective 
ways, have expressed again the power of collaboration in the attempt to 
find consensus to deliver local solutions to longstanding public land 
management challenges in Idaho.
  Local governments and local stakeholders must be empowered to shape 
and manage decisions relating to our public lands. In the process, such 
efforts must respect private property rights and the owners of private 
property as well as other impacted stakeholders. Such initiatives are 
never easy to achieve, and consensus takes dedication, patience, and 
persistence. For too long, westerners have been saddled with top-down 
land management decisions that are both harmful to the landscape and 
the people living in and subsisting off of our natural treasures. The 
SNRA+ is a win for Idaho and an example of how local governments and 
interests can achieve solutions to some of the most persistent public 
land management issues we face.
  I have to conclude by saying that while we have succeeded today in 
passing a milestone in Congress, the focus must now shift to the hard 
work of successful implementation that will require commitment from the 
various Federal agencies and all of the affected interests.
  Again, I commend Senator Risch and Representative Simpson for their 
incredibly important work that has been accomplished today.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. HELLER. Mr. President, I congratulate my colleagues from Idaho on 
this particular piece of legislation, proving it can be done right. It 
was just a few weeks ago that the President unilaterally declared a 
monument in the State of Nevada the size of Rhode Island, with two 
counties that had no input in the process. Our delegation had no input. 
The collaborative effort that we saw from Idaho and how it works and 
how the system should work needs to be recognized. What happened in 
Nevada, I feel, was a disgrace.
  It is a shame we are standing here today with a monument in the State 
of Nevada the size of Rhode Island with no input from Nevada's 
delegation or counties, just a single action made by one person.

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