[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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