[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20747-20751]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



             THE SENATE WILDERNESS AND PUBLIC LANDS CAUCUS

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise to commemorate the 35th 
anniversary of the Wilderness Act of 1964, which was signed into law on 
September 3, 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and to announce the 
formation of a Senate Wilderness and Public Lands Caucus. The 
Wilderness Act became law seven years after the first wilderness bill 
was introduced by Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota. The final 
bill, sponsored by Senator Clinton Anderson of New Mexico, passed the 
Senate by a vote of 73-12 on April 9, 1963, and passed the House of 
Representatives by a vote of 373-1 on July 30, 1964. The Wilderness Act 
of 1964 established a National Wilderness Preservation System ``to 
secure for the American people of present and future generations the 
benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness.''
  The law reserves to Congress the authority to designate wilderness 
areas, and directs the federal land management agencies to review the 
lands under their responsibility for their wilderness potential.
  The original Wilderness Act established 9.1 million acres of Forest 
Service land in 54 wilderness areas. Now, after passage of 102 pieces 
of legislation

[[Page 20748]]

the wilderness system is comprised of over 104 million acres in 625 
wilderness areas, across 44 States, and administered by four federal 
agencies: the Forest Service in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and 
the Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the 
National Park Service in the Department of the Interior.
  As we in this body know well, the passage and enactment of 
legislation of this type is a remarkable accomplishment. It requires 
steady, bipartisan commitment, institutional support, and direct 
leadership. The United States Senate was instrumental in shaping this 
very important law, and this anniversary gives us the opportunity to 
recognize this role. I am honored today to be joined on the floor by 
one of the three Senators remaining in this body who have the 
distinguished honor of having voted for this legislation, the Senior 
Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd). I look forward to his remarks at 
the conclusion of my own. The Senior Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. 
Kennedy) and the Senior Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), who also 
voted for this legislation, have asked that their remarks regarding 
this anniversary be included in the Record. Their remarks will also 
appear in the Record together with my remarks on the Wilderness Act 
anniversary.
  In addition, I understand that the Ranking Member of the Energy 
Committee (Mr. Bingaman) has a statement on the anniversary.
  Under the Wilderness Act, wilderness is defined as ``an area of 
undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character and influence 
which generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces 
of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable.'' 
The concept of the creation of a national wilderness system marked an 
innovation in the American conservation movement--wilderness would be a 
place where our ``management strategy'' would be to leave lands 
essentially undeveloped.
  Congress lavished more time and effort on the wilderness bill than 
almost any other measure in conservation history. The original bill 
established 9.1 million acres of federally protected wilderness in 
national forests. From June 1957 until May 1964 there were nine 
separate hearings on the proposal, collecting over six thousand pages 
of testimony. The bill itself was modified and rewritten sixty-six 
different times. Twenty different Senators made statements on the 
legislation. Much of the delay in reaching a final version stemmed from 
the conflicts between the scope of the bill's restrictions on mining, 
grazing, oil and other extractive activities on designated wilderness 
areas and the need for the law to be flexible in the light of pre-
existing activities. The bill's supporters argued that the measure gave 
legal sanction to the areas already being managed by the Forest Service 
as primitive areas. More importantly, they successfully argued that 
Congressional action was necessary because the wilderness that exists 
is its own finite resource.
  More than a century of development had brought greatly changed 
conditions to both public and private lands throughout the country. 
``If the year were 1857 instead of 1957,'' one supporter of the bill 
wrote in the Living Wilderness, the Wilderness Society's newsletter, 
``I'd say definitely no [to a wilderness bill]. But given the almost 
total dominance of developed civilization, I am compelled to work for 
saving the remnants of undeveloped land.'' I think those remarks apply 
just as well to the state of our federal lands today, more than thirty-
five years later.
  My interest in this law stems from the fact that Wisconsin has 
produced great wilderness thinkers and leaders in the wilderness 
movement such as Aldo Leopold, Sigurd Olsen, John Muir and former 
Senator Gaylord Nelson. Senator Nelson was a co-sponsor of the 
Wilderness Act of 1964, along with former Wisconsin Senator William 
Proxmire. I am proud to now hold the Senate seat that Senator Nelson 
held with distinction from 1963 to 1981. As a Senator from Wisconsin, I 
have a special depth of feeling about this issue.
  The testimony at Congressional hearings and the treatment of the bill 
in the press of the day reveals Wisconsin's crucial role in the long 
and continuing American debate about our wild places, and the 
development of the Wilderness Act. The names and ideas of John Muir, 
Sigurd Olson, and Aldo Leopold, especially Leopold, appear time and 
time again in the legislative history.
  Senator Clinton Anderson of New Mexico, chairman of what was then 
called the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, stated that his 
support of the wilderness system was the direct result of discussions 
he had held almost forty years before with Leopold, who was then in the 
Southwest with the Forest Service. It was Leopold who advocated, while 
with the Forest Service, the creation of a primitive area in the Gila 
National Forest in New Mexico in 1923. The Gila Primitive Area formally 
became part of the wilderness system when the Wilderness Act became 
law. In a statement in favor of the Wilderness Act in the New York 
Times, then Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall discussed ecology 
and what he called ``a land ethic'' and referred to Leopold as the 
instigator of the modern wilderness movement. At a Senate hearing in 
1961, David Brower of the Sierra Club went so far as to allege that 
``no man who reads Leopold with an open mind will ever again, with a 
clear conscience, be able to step up and testify against the wilderness 
bill.''
  For others, the ideas of Olson and Muir provided a justification for 
the wilderness system, particularly that the country's strength depends 
upon blending contact with the primitive into a civilized existence 
because the frontier played such a central role in the our history.
  Passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964 has not terminated the American 
debate over the meaning, value and need to protect wild country. As I 
mentioned, the wilderness system has dramatically expanded under both 
Republican and Democratic leadership. The number of wildernesses 
established and acres designated by each Congress has varied greatly 
from year to year. There have been only nine individual years since 
passage of the Wilderness Act when no wildernesses were designated, and 
1965 to 1967 was the only period of three consecutive years in which no 
wilderness legislation was passed by Congress. In 1984, during the 
Reagan Administration, 175 wildernesses were established, more than 
double any other year's addition. Despite the record number of new 
wildernesses in 1984, the largest number of wilderness acres was 
designated in 1980 with passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands 
Conservation Act, which added over 56 million acres to the National 
Wilderness Preservation System. Combined with other wilderness laws 
passed that year, nearly 61 million acres of wilderness were designated 
in 1980, more than 6 times the number of acres passed in any other 
year.
  Significant additions to the system continued up until 1994, when 
Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act. Despite this 
accomplishment, Congress has gotten out of the habit of passing 
wilderness bills which protect our remaining wilderness-quality federal 
lands. In the 105th Congress, the Senate's actions were much more 
modest--we added about 160 acres to the Eagles Nest Wilderness in 
Colorado.
  However, Congress has much bolder bills before it, with bipartisan 
support, such as the bills to designate 9.1 million acres in Utah and 
the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness. 
In addition, President Clinton proposed a new omnibus National Parks 
wilderness bill in his State of the Union. We need to address these 
measures, and to revitalize the tradition of statewide and state 
delegation led wilderness bills.
  In order to get the Senate in a position to act on wilderness issues, 
I hope to raise awareness of the importance of wilderness in the 
Senate. I have been working to organize a Wilderness and Public Lands 
Caucus that will help the Senate to renew its bipartisan commitment to 
the active protection of wilderness and public lands. Today I am 
delighted to announce that Senator McCain, Senator Durbin, Senator 
Feinstein, Senator Murray, and Senator Bayh will be joining me in this 
effort. I encourage any member of the

[[Page 20749]]

Senate interested in learning about and working on these issues to join 
our caucus, and I am grateful to these members who are willing to lend 
their time and leadership.
  I feel it is time to promote and re-develop expertise on these issues 
in the Senate. In the early days of the Wilderness Act many Senators 
had expertise on these issues, and ad hoc coalitions formed to pass 
large bills with provisions for a number of states. However, now that 
the Senate has lost its zeal for the continuing work of identifying and 
designating wilderness areas this expertise has dwindled. Without a new 
dedication to re-building this expertise, wilderness and public lands 
issues will remain increasingly divisive, despite a resurgent public 
interest in our wilderness and an increased public desire for Congress 
to extend additional protection to federal lands of wilderness quality.
  I intend for the caucus to meet as necessary during each Senate 
session in pursuit of several objectives:
  To assist members in defending existing wilderness areas, and other 
federal land resources already protected in the public trust, from 
activities that have the potential to significantly affect the 
qualities for which they were designated.
  To support and provide advice to members seeking opportunities to 
designate new wilderness areas.
  To provide members with a bipartisan forum in which to discuss 
wilderness and other public land protection and management issues and 
learn from others' expertise.
  To educate members about the Wilderness Act and other federal land 
management statutes, and to improve understanding of the appropriate 
uses of various federal land management designations and the federal 
financial and management requirements needed to implement them.
  Mr. President, many would agree that more must be done to protect our 
wild places. One of the things that needs to be done, particularly on 
the cusp of the Millennium, is to examine and improve the ability of 
this body to understand and grapple with these issues in the public 
interest. This is a great institution, with a strong conservation 
history, which has produced the Wilderness Act, one of the gems of 
conservation law. I am actively committing to working on wilderness 
issues because I believe it to be in the Wisconsin tradition, and, as a 
Senator, I am trying to use the tools I have been given by the people 
of Wisconsin to build the leadership needed to defend these places.
  In conclusion, I would like to remind colleagues of the words of Aldo 
Leopold in his 1949 book, A Sand County Almanac. He said, ``The 
outstanding scientific discovery of the Twentieth Century is not the 
television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. 
Only those who know the most about it can appreciate how little is 
known about it.'' We still have much to learn, but this anniversary of 
the Wilderness Act reminds us how far we have come and how powerful a 
collegial commitment to public lands can be in the Senate.
  I am very pleased and honored to be able to yield the remainder of my 
time to one of the three Senators who is here to vote for this 
legislation, the senior Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Wisconsin, Senator Feingold, 
for bringing us together today to celebrate the passage of the 
Wilderness Act of 1964. Too often, the pressing events of the day 
prevent us from remembering so many important pieces of legislation. I 
am happy that we are able to take a moment to recognize a historic 
piece of legislation.
  Let me begin with a look backward over the well-traveled road of 
history. It is only fitting that we turn our faces backward so that we 
might be better informed and prepared to deal with future events. On a 
whole range of important issues, the Senate has always been blessed 
with Senators who were able to rise above political parties, and 
consider first and foremost the national interest. There are many 
worthy examples throughout the Senate's history.
  My friend and former colleague, Senator Mike Mansfield, and other 
distinguished Members of the Senate understood this point well. 
Political polarization, a simple zero-sum strategy by one party to 
achieve a short-lived victory which demonizing the other party, is not 
now, and has never been, a good thing for the Senate. I know that 
Americans have always loved a good debate. I believe that this is one 
of the lessons that we can take from the passage of the Wilderness Act 
of 1964. Members on both sides of the issue focused on the more 
substantive and stimulating policy challenges rather than allowing pure 
politics and imagery to enter into the fray.
  The debate on the Wilderness Act of 1964 serves as a great example of 
the Senate's charge in taking a leadership role and working over the 
long term to pass historic pieces of legislation. I believe the bill's 
chief sponsor, Senator Clinton Anderson from New Mexico, understood 
this point well when he said, upon consideration of the conference 
report, on August 20, 1964:

       What we have done we have done not only to meet the urgency 
     of the moment, but for the future. In no area has this 
     Congress more decisively served the future well-being of the 
     Nation that in passing legislation to conserve natural 
     resources and to provide the means by which our people could 
     enjoy them. One of the brightest stars in the constellation 
     of conservation measures is the wilderness bill * * *. The 
     path of the wilderness legislation through Congress has 
     sometimes been as rugged as the forests and mountains 
     embraced by the wilderness system.

  The Senate understood there was a need to protect America's unique 
places, and Members worked to craft a proposal over a number of years 
that could achieve that end. Senator George McGovern, another key 
supporter of the Wilderness Act, observed:

       I think each of us has been enriched at one time or another 
     through our experiences with natural undisturbed areas of the 
     country * * * its comparatively uncluttered open spaces, its 
     lakes and woods, have special appreciation for the purpose of 
     the wilderness preservation system. As the population of our 
     country grows and as our city areas become more contested, it 
     is all the more imperative that we look to the preservation 
     of great primitive outdoor areas where people can go for 
     recreational and inspirational experience.

  The U.S. population has since grown by more than 70 percent since the 
Wilderness Act of 1964 was enacted. In addition to land preservation, 
the act has encouraged the discovery of America's history, promoted 
recreation, provided for its diverse wildlife and ecosystems, and 
satisfied people's urge for solace and a return to wild places. The 
definition of wilderness according to the act is ``an area where the 
earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man 
himself is a visitor who does not remain.'' Initially endowed with 9.1 
million acres of public lands, the wilderness system today encompasses 
more than 104 million acres in forty-four States.
  My home state of West Virginia remains wild and wonderful because of 
Congress' actions. Covered from end to end by the ancient Appalachian 
Mountains, West Virginia remains, to me, one of the most beautiful one 
of the most unique of all places and I have seen lot of places 
throughout the world in my time. It is the most southern of the 
northern States and the most northern of the Southern states; the most 
eastern of the Western States and the most western of the eastern 
States; where the east says good morning to the west, and where Yankee 
Doodle and Dixie kiss each other good night. The luscious mountains 
gently roll across that land, providing an elegant sense of mystery to 
the landscape. The wilderness of my State has given West Virginians a 
freedom to explore. This freedom has been secured and protected so that 
future generations--like my baby granddaughter, her children, and her 
children's children--will be able to say Montani Semper Liberi, 
Mountaineers are always free!
  Four wilderness areas have been designated in West Virginia since the 
1964 act. Each area captures and preserves uniquely a beautiful aspect 
of a State that has, I believe, more than its fair

[[Page 20750]]

share of native loveliness. God must have been in a spendthrift mood 
when he made West Virginia!
  In the Otter Creek Wilderness Area, consisting of 20,000 acres so 
designated in 1975, you can follow the same twisting trails that early 
settlers to the area wove through the dense forest. Amid the stands of 
towering White Oaks, dark hickory, and ghostly poplar trees, you may 
discover stunted groves of apple trees, remnants of an early settler's 
orchard. Maybe Johnny Appleseed came that way.
  Also designated in 1975, the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area preserves 
10,000 acres of Canada that somehow migrated south and chose to settle 
in West Virginia. Heath thickets, bogs, and low-growing evergreens 
combine to establish a wide open feeling akin to more northerly climes 
such as those of Minnesota. Offering scenic vistas, Dolly Sods is a 
famed spot in which to enjoy hiking, camping, fishing, and nature 
watching.
  The Cranberry Wilderness Area proves the regenerative power of 
nature. Its 35,864 acres were logged in the early part of this century, 
with the valuable timber shipped by steam locomotives to a mill in 
Richwood. It also suffered severe wildfires which raged over much of 
the area. In order to restore it to its natural condition, the Forest 
Service purchased the land in 1934--the year I graduated from high 
school. Now grown into a mature forest, the Cranberry Wilderness Area 
received its official designation in 1983.
  Consisting of more than 12,000 acres, Laurel Fork Wilderness Area was 
once a profitable source of lumber at the beginning of the century. 
Laurel Fork has since been preserved and is a source of the Cheat 
River. Designated in 1983, Laurel Fork Wilderness has a wide blend of 
wildlife and foliage special to Appalachia. Among the Birch, Beech, and 
Maple trees which grow in the area, live the native species of West 
Virginia such as white-tail deer, wild turkey, bobcat, and even black 
bear.
  I might note that perhaps one of the most majestic of wildlife 
species protected by these wilderness areas throughout the U.S. is the 
bald eagle. Symbolizing America's freedom and strength, the bald eagle, 
in fact, has been recently removed from the endangered species list, 
and will continue to soar for future generations of Americans.
  The Wilderness Act of 1964 enabled West Virginians to preserve the 
natural beauty of their State for themselves and for the nation * * * 
now and forever. I believe that Senator Anderson summarized it best 
when he said:

       Deep down inside of most Americans is a love of the out-of-
     doors. * * * It is an effort to protect and preserve, 
     unspoiled, just a little bit of the vast wilderness which 
     stretched ocean to ocean on this continent less than 300 
     years ago, so that this love of the great, unspoiled, out-of-
     doors which is a part of us can be gratified.

  I would like to take a moment to recognize a number of former 
colleagues who took a leadership role in passing the Wilderness Act of 
1964. Many of them were fairly close friends of mine. There was Senator 
Anderson, whose name I have spoken earlier, Thomas Kuchel, Hubert 
Humphrey, Henry Jackson, Frank Church, Frank Lausche, Paul Douglas, 
Harrison Williams, Jennings Randolph--my former colleague from West 
Virginia--Joseph Clark, William Proxmire, Maurine Neuberger, Lee 
Metcalf, George McGovern, David Nelson--they took a leadership role in 
guiding this piece of legislation through the Senate. The Senate has 
considered many thousands of pieces of legislation on a myriad of 
topics over the last several years. I am proud to stand here today and 
say that this piece of legislation, the Wilderness Act of 1964, stands 
as a great example of what this body can accomplish when it sets its 
collective mind to it. These were the sponsors of the Wilderness Act in 
the 88th Congress.
  In closing, I want to welcome my colleagues back from the prairies 
and the plains, the mountains and the hollows and the hills, the broad 
valleys. We have much work to do in these coming weeks and we can learn 
much from the Wilderness Act of 1964 and the dedication and commitment 
of those Senators who worked to fulfill their vision by enacting that 
great piece of legislation, their vision of a future continent which 
would be preserved for the men and women who would come after them.
  Far too often these days, we get caught up in the partisan wranglings 
of tax cuts, educational needs, national security demands, Social 
Security changes, health care reform, and much, much more--all of which 
subjects are extremely important. The public has become concerned about 
what it is that we actually do in this Chamber. In reflecting upon the 
Wilderness Act of 1964, I find a great example of what this body can 
achieve when it puts its whole mind and its whole spirit into it. Again 
I thank my colleague for his kindness in inviting me to participate 
here this afternoon in recalling our footsteps down the long hall of 
memories.
  In closing, I am reminded of the words of one of America's foremost 
conservationists and outdoorsman, John Muir--

       Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting 
     at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything 
     seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us 
     God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way 
     who gains the blessing of one mountain day: whatever his 
     fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich 
     forever. . . . I only went out for a walk, and finally 
     concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, 
     was going in. One touch of nature . . . makes all the world 
     kin.

  I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, it is an honor to join my colleagues in 
commemorating this impressive anniversary of the Wilderness Act of 
1964. Thirty-five years ago, Congress passed this benchmark 
legislation, which has opened the door for extensive new protections of 
wilderness areas throughout the nation.
  In 1924, the U.S. Forest Service named the Gila National Forest in 
New Mexico as the first wilderness area. As years passed, it became 
increasingly clear that a more comprehensive strategy of protection for 
these priceless areas was needed. Between 1957 and 1964, nine 
congressional hearings were held, resulting in sixty-six rewrites of 
the original bill. This enormous amount of attention can be credited to 
the strong grassroots support for preserving these magnificent 
resources. As a result, Congress passed the Wilderness Act. It was 
signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on September 3, 1964, and 
established over nine million acres of wilderness areas throughout the 
country.
  The act defined wilderness as ``an area where the earth and its 
community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a 
visitor who does not remain.'' Although sharply restricting human 
activities in these areas, the Act also paid tribute to a piece of our 
national identity. To Americans, the wilderness is a place to 
rediscover what it means to be American. As Supreme Court Justice 
William O. Douglas once noted, ``Roadless areas are one pledge of 
freedom.'' From the time of the first settlers, the nation's wilderness 
areas have been symbols of freedom and human ingenuity that 
characterize the American dream.
  In his classic work, Wilderness and the American Mind, Roderick Nash 
observed the close relationship between our citizens and such areas, 
stating ``Take away wilderness and you take away the opportunity to be 
American.'' The Wilderness Act has protected these priceless 
undeveloped areas, and it has preserved these magnificent resources for 
our time and for all time.
  Since this law was enacted, Congress has created over six hundred 
wilderness areas, totaling more than one hundred million acres in 
states across our nation. These are areas that cannot be developed or 
destroyed, but will retain the original splendor of their natural 
beauty.
  It was a special privilege for me to support the Wilderness Act in 
1964, as one of the most far-reaching actions by Congress to preserve 
our environmental heritage. All of us take pride in the many beautiful 
areas designated under the Act.
  Finally, I commend all those who have done so much to uphold the 
great

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tradition of the Wilderness Act, by working in the agencies that are 
committed to protecting the nation's wilderness. As the act itself so 
eloquently states, they continue to ``secure for the American people of 
present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of 
wilderness.''
  Mr. INOUYE. Mr President, it is a pleasure to have this opportunity 
to speak on the 35th anniversary of the Wilderness Act of 1964 and on 
the establishment of the National Wilderness Preservation System.
  When the Wilderness Act was being debated on the Senate floor in 
1963, I was a freshman Senator. Following Hawaii's admission to the 
union in 1959, I served one partial and one full term in the House of 
Representatives and then was elected to the Senate in 1962. So, in 
early April of 1963, I was a 39-year-old freshman Senator in the first 
year of my first term in the Senate.
  The Wilderness Act, however, was not new to the Senate when it came 
to the floor in April 1963. The first wilderness proposal was 
introduced late in the 84th Congress in 1956. Following extensive 
hearings, testimony, debate and revisions, a wilderness bill was passed 
by a wide margin in the Senate on September 6, 1961. However, it was 
not until my freshman year in the Senate that we passed a wilderness 
bill that ultimately went on to become law the next year in 1964.
  Just prior to the vote in the Senate on April 9, 1963, one of the 
floor managers of the bill, the Honorable Frank Church of Idaho, said, 
``the Senate is about to vote on the question of the passage of a bill 
which, if enacted into law, will be regarded as one of the great 
landmarks in the history of conservation.'' You can imagine the effect 
of such far reaching and nationally significant discourse on a young 
man from a new state in the middle of the Pacific.
  I have been around for a while. Yesterday was my 75th birthday. But I 
am not so jaded as to have lost sight of the important principles upon 
which the Wilderness Act was founded.
  The bill was ultimately signed into law on September 3, 1964. To me, 
it seems like just yesterday, but a lot has happened since then. The 
Wilderness system was originally endowed with 9.1 million acres of 
national forest lands. In 35 years, that has grown to more than 104 
million acres managed by four federal land management agencies.
  Hawaii, obviously a very small State, has just 142,370 acres of 
federally designated wilderness area. This is about 1/10 of 1% of the 
total designated wilderness area in the country. However, let me tell 
you about Hawaii's wilderness and other natural areas.
  Hawaii is the only State with bona fide tropical rain forest. 
Although over half of Hawaii's original native rain forest has been 
lost or replaced by introduced species, planted landscapes, or 
development, a great deal remains. Perhaps 3/4 of a million acres of 
rain forest is left in Hawaii.
  Rain forest is just the start, however. There are actually about 150 
distinct ecosystem types in Hawaii. These ecosystems are so distinctive 
that the Hawaiian Islands constitute a unique global bio-region. These 
ecosystems range from 14,000-foot snowy alpine deserts, to subterranean 
lava tube systems with eyeless creatures, to windswept coastal dunes.
  All told, perhaps half of the 150 ecosystem types in Hawaii are 
considered in trouble, imperilled by human-related changes in the 
landscape. Most of the loss has occurred along the coasts and in the 
lowlands, where the majority of human habitation exists today.
  Hawaii is also considered to be the extinction capital of the United 
States. About 90% of Hawaii's native plants and animals occur nowhere 
else in the world, and nearly 1000 different kinds of Hawaiian plants 
and animals are threatened by extinction. Approximately 75% of the 
recorded extinctions in the United States are from Hawaii. Also, about 
40% of the birds and 30% of the plants presently on the U.S. endangered 
species list are native to Hawaii.
  One of Hawaii's federal wilderness areas is the 19,270-acre Haleakala 
Wilderness Area on the Island of Maui, which was designated in 1976. 
This area is part of the 28,655-acre Haleakala National Park. During 
the August recess, I participated in the dedication of 1,500 acres of 
pristine tropical habitat, which was added to Haleakala National Park 
thanks to the support of my Congressional colleagues who approved funds 
last year for its acquisition. So, Haleakala continues to grow.
  The major feature of this park is the dormant, though not extinct, 
Mount Haleakala and its volcanic crater within. Stretching from an 
elevation of 10,000 feet to the sea, the park also includes unrivaled 
native forest and stream habitat, and abundant Native Hawaiian 
historical and cultural features.
  The other Federal wilderness area is the 123,100-acre Hawaii 
Volcanoes Wilderness Area, which is part of the larger 230,000-acre 
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii. This park, 
established in 1916, displays the results of 70 million years of 
volcanism and rises from sea level to the summit of the earth's most 
massive volcano, Mauna Loa at 13,677 feet.
  Within the park is the world's most active volcano, Kilauea, which 
offers scientists insights into the birth of our planet and visitors 
views of dramatic volcanic landscapes. Molten lava from the Puu Oo 
vent, on the flank of Kilauea volcano, flows seven miles through a lava 
tube to the coast where it enters the ocean, causing the sea to 
actually boil. Volume of flow averages about 400,000 cubic meters per 
day continuously adding new land to the island. 1999 is 16th year of 
this ongoing eruption of Kilauea.
  More than just these designated federal wilderness areas, Hawaii has 
a total of 270,000 acres in the national park system; 35,000 acres in 
federal fish and wildlife refuges; and 109,000 acres in state natural 
area reserves. Added to this are other areas managed privately for 
conservation purposes, including approximately 25,000 acres managed by 
The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii.
  Wilderness is defined in the law as areas ``where the earth and its 
community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a 
visitor who does not remain.'' With all of the unique and imperilled 
species and habitat in Hawaii, I certainly understand the value of 
protecting our wild and natural areas, whatever the definition might 
be.
  The message that I would like to leave with my colleagues as we think 
about the 35th anniversary of the Wilderness Act is that we all wish to 
be environmentalists. We often differ on the details of 
environmentalism; sometimes greatly. Some of the most impassioned 
discussions in this body have to do with environmental issues. Some of 
us do not receive the highest score from the League of Conservation 
Voters. However, I do not think any of my colleagues would say that 
environmental conservation is a frivolous pursuit. It is merely a 
question of degree.
  So where does that leave us? I know we will continue to debate so-
called anti-environmental riders, the future of the Endangered Species 
Act, and maybe even reforms to the 35-year-old Wilderness Act. But let 
us not close our minds to our perceived adversaries, nor lose sight of 
what I believe we all agree upon.
  Our natural environment is a finite resource that needs to be 
protected and nurtured for generations to come. There are no simple 
solutions, but with this common goal in mind, we will make progress.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent I be permitted to 
speak up to 15 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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