[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 27127-27135]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                           THE WESTERN STATES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Simpson). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, today the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen), 
my good friend, former Speaker of the House of the State of Utah, and I 
will spend the next hour talking with you about issues that we think 
are vitally important to the United States, but we think in a large 
part are being ignored by many parts of the United States. What we are 
going to talk to you about this evening is the West, the western 
States, the Rocky Mountains, Federal land, land-use policies, 
wilderness areas, water, land of many uses, Teddy Roosevelt. There are 
a number of different subjects, Mr. Speaker, that I would wish that you 
would think about as we talk because it is very important to the people 
of the West in this country. Frankly, it is very important to the 
people of the entire United States.

                              {time}  1900

  Let me begin with a little history about the Western United States. 
As you know from the history of our country, when the pioneers and the 
settlements in this country took place, most of it was on the eastern 
coast. Of course, I am stepping aside from the Native Americans. The 
Native Americans were throughout the country. This is the history as 
the United States as a country began to become formed.
  On the eastern coast of the United States, the philosophy was to 
acquire more land. Our forefathers had a vision of a great country, and 
I think today that they would stand here, frankly, and take a look at 
this country and say you have created a good country. You have a 
country that is strong in its people. You have a country that is strong 
in its land. You have a country that has a vision. You have a country 
that has character.
  But that is what they wanted to build, and, in doing that, they 
wanted to enlarge the country. They did not want just 13 states, they 
did not want 14 states, they wanted to enlarge the country. So they 
began to acquire land, through for example the Louisiana Purchase and 
some of the others, through treaties and so on.
  Then they began to urge people to become pioneers. You remember the 
old saying, ``Go west, young man; go west.'' Well, as people and the 
pioneers began to go out west, they found wonderful, wonderful lands, 
the Kansas farmlands, the Missouri lands, the Missouri River and the 
Mississippi River. They got out there and they found on a

[[Page 27128]]

very small portion of land you could have a very healthy agricultural 
response. In other words, it did not take a lot of land to support 
families, and we had a lot of families going out for the purpose of 
agriculture.
  Now, when we read the history books, we see a lot about mineral 
exploitation, about the gold, going to the mountains for the gold and 
going for silver, but the long lasting impact for the West was from the 
pioneers in agriculture.
  Well, the difficulty that the administrations back in the East found 
out was that in the West there were not a lot of people going to the 
mountains, to the Colorado Rockies, to the Utah mountains, to the 
Montana and Wyoming mountains. So what they did is they sat down and 
said we need to figure out how do we get new settlers to go into these 
mountains? How do we get new settlers to go out into the West?
  Well, what happened is the government decided to figure this out and 
go out there, and they sent some explorers out there, and you know the 
early days of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and somewhere along the 
line somebody discovered, you know something, when you get to the 
mountains, or you get to the lands of Utah and the lands of Colorado 
and Wyoming, of course, those were not states at the time, but when you 
get out to those lands, it is very difficult to produce an agricultural 
product on a small piece of property. In fact, what you need are 
thousands of acres.
  Well, the policy of the government was to give incentive and to get 
people invigorated about going to the West. You let them homestead. 
They could go out and stake their ground. What do I mean by staking 
their ground? In the old days they could go out and literally place 
stakes in the ground up to certain amounts, say 160 acres or 320 acres, 
and they could homestead that ground. If they plotted that ground, 
plowed that ground and took care of that ground for a certain period of 
time, they got the land. The land was theirs to keep.
  Well, when they got to the mountains and they got the reports about 
the difficulty of having agriculture in the mountains and in the West, 
they came back to the government and they said, Mr. President, Mr. 
Administration, Mr. Congress, you cannot do it on 160 acres in the 
mountains. You cannot do it on 320 acres. We do not know how we are 
going to encourage people to go into those mountains unless you, the 
administration and Congress, want to give them thousands of acres.
  Well, they thought about that, and, of course, the response was 
politically we cannot just give away thousands of acres of land to 
individuals. With the system we would have to set up, we would very 
quickly encompass large portions of land with few owners. What else can 
we do?
  Therein came the concept of what we call multiple use. What they 
decided to do, colleagues, is instead of giving the land away through 
homestead and so on, what they figured out was, well, what we will do 
on the government lands is we will allow people to have many uses. We 
will retain ownership, speaking of the government. We will retain 
ownership of the lands, but we will allow our pioneers and our citizens 
to go out into these lands and use the lands. That is the concept of 
multiple use.
  Well, you can see then as a result in the Western United States the 
government primarily owns the land. They are the big landowners in the 
Western United States, as a result of this multiple use policy.
  In the East, that is not the picture at all. In fact, in the East the 
majority of the land is under private ownership. In the Western United 
States we face unique problems, unique as compared to the land in the 
Eastern United States, and it is important for our colleagues, for my 
colleagues and Mr. Hansen's and my colleagues from the East, to 
understand the differences in land ownership and why we are so reliant 
in the West on government lands.
  To my left here is a map of the United States. The map, as you can 
see, follow my red bead on the map, government lands. All of the colors 
that you see on the map are owned by the Federal government. You have 
got some big spots up here, you see down here in the Shenandoah Valley, 
in the Everglades down there in Florida. But take a look at all of this 
open land. That is private ownership. That is owned by the citizens of 
this country individually.
  As you can see, as you come down through Montana and Wyoming and 
Colorado and New Mexico, look at those blocks of land. That land is all 
Federal or government lands, state land in some cases, but primarily 
Federal land.
  Take a look at the state of Alaska, which I have the bead on down 
there in the left-hand corner of my demonstration here. Look at Alaska. 
I am not sure of the exact percentage, but I think it is 98 or 99 
percent of the state of Alaska is owned by the government.
  Well, that works okay under the concept of multiple use. But what we 
see happening is a lot of special interest groups in the East have 
decided it is time to take this land in the West that is owned by the 
government and, for their own reasons, to push their own advocacy of 
their special interest groups, they have decided in essence it is time 
to kick people off of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of acres.
  When I grew up in Colorado, and I am from Colorado, my district is in 
Colorado, the 3rd Congressional District of Colorado, when I grew up, 
we grew up under a sign, a theory called ``land of many uses.'' So, in 
other words, when you would go into the Forest Service, you would come 
up to a sign and it would say, watch, it would say ``Welcome to''--I 
did not put the ``Welcome to'' on the top, ``Welcome to the Rocky 
Mountain National Park.'' Then underneath hangs a separate sign that 
says ``A land of many uses.''
  Well, what is happening today, in my opinion, and this opinion is 
shared by many people in the West, is an all-out assault to take away 
this, and replace that, ``A land of many uses,'' with a sign that 
simply says ``No trespassing.''
  Now, there are a lot of issues that I want to talk to you about in a 
little more detail, but I think at the beginning of my comments and my 
colleague's comments it is important for all of us in here to realize 
that in the West, the majority of land is owned by the government. We 
have a different style of life in the West.
  Now, we are all Americans. We all believe in the flag and motherhood 
and apple pie. That is not the issue here. I am talking about the 
geographic difficulties that we deal with in the West, and there are a 
lot of distinguishing issues.
  For example, water. In the East, again, back to my first chart, 
follow my red dot, in the East back here your problem back here with 
water is getting rid of it. Our problem here in the West where I show 
you this, our problem is being able to store the water, to be able to 
preserve the water.
  In Colorado, for example, which is my state, and, by the way, my 
district is where this red bead is, it is the 3rd Congressional 
District of Colorado, geographically it is larger than the state of 
Florida, and in that district in our particular state 80 percent of the 
water is in the mountains, and 80 percent of the population is out 
here.
  Well, it is the same difficulty that we have over here. In Colorado, 
for example, we are the only state in the union where all of our free-
flowing water goes out of the state. We do not have water that comes 
into our State.
  We have the headwaters for four major rivers, the Platte, the 
Arkansas, the Rio Grande and the Colorado. My good colleague over here 
in Utah, take a look at the Federal lands. Water preservation. We need 
the Federal lands to help us store our water. We need the Federal lands 
to help us protect our environment. We need the Federal lands to enjoy 
recreation, like mountain biking, and I love mountain biking. I have 
enjoyed it for years.
  I have been on the Colorado River ever since I was a high school 
student, river rafting. Many of you colleagues who come and visit in 
the West, many have vacation homes in the West. You love river rafting. 
You like the hiking. Many of my colleagues like the hunting. It is 
hunting season. All of these

[[Page 27129]]

are a necessary part of the concept of multiple use. And if we allow 
the concept of multiple use to begin to crumble, I will tell you what 
will happen. You will lose the river rafting, you will lose the ski 
resorts, and in my district those ski resorts provide 35,000 jobs off 
the White River National Forest, just off that forest alone.
  By the way, one-third of our forest out there is wilderness area, 
one-third of it. We protect that for the environment. We want that 
protected for the environment. I voted on that bill. But two-thirds of 
it is predominantly recreation, all of these different things.
  If we begin to let this concept of multiple use collapse, you will 
see over a period of time the elimination of mining. Now, that, of 
course, to a lot of people sounds good. But take a look at how many 
products in our society depend on mining. That is the first thing that 
will go. In my district it is pretty well gone. We have some mines up 
near Meeker, Colorado, near Paonia, Colorado. For the most part, 
mineral exploration is gone out of there.
  The next thing they go after is grazing for our cattle ranchers and 
farmers. In the East you have farming, it is important for you. We do 
too in the West, but we have to do it on government lands, and we take 
care of those government lands. Frankly, we in the West are pretty 
proud of the job we have done. You see over here a lot of times about 
pictures of abuse. Those are being put forward by special interest 
groups that want to destroy this concept of multiple use.
  But after ranching and farming, they are going to go after the ski 
areas. No more expansion of ski areas. Restrict the ski areas. Downsize 
the ski areas. Then what is next? Then you have got your mountain 
biking and you have got your river rafting. Then you have got your 
ability to store or transfer across Federal lands the water that we 
need. It goes on and on and on.
  So I am thrilled tonight to have the opportunity to work with my 
colleague the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen). I am going to turn the 
podium over to Mr. Hansen so we can carry out for you this evening a 
little further explanation of why we need your help, not your 
resistance, we need your help, your help in going out there to preserve 
this concept of multiple use, so that we in the West can protect our 
water, so that we in the West can enjoy our recreation, so that we in 
the West can have the kind of environment that you all dream of, that 
you come out and vacation in.
  That is our goal tonight, is to communicate with you the differences, 
geographically, the differences with our water, the differences in the 
descriptions of wilderness and so on, so you are not snookered, quite 
frankly, by some of the national special interest groups that want to 
convince you that the West is being trashed by the people of the West, 
and that the only thing that is going to save the West is for the 
special interest groups of the East to go in and tell the people of the 
West what is best for them.
  So, with that, let me thank my colleague Mr. Hansen for joining me 
today. I appreciate very much this, and I would yield to the gentleman 
from the State of Utah.
  Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just thank the gentleman from Colorado. I think 
he has done a magnificent job in explaining how the lands of America 
were settled and who has control of them. If you are a history buff, 
and I hope you are, you will find out a lot of people when they first 
came to this country, it was on the eastern seaboard, and they 
controlled that ground. A lot of it at that time probably belonged to 
just anybody who wanted to go out and stake a claim for it. There were 
no restrictions on it.
  Then as we went through the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, things 
such as that, that ground was pretty well filled out. I enjoy this 
eastern part of the country. I have been here for 10 terms. I love 
going out to the different areas and looking at it. But I do not see 
much ground that is public ground. Maybe a park here and a park there, 
but the vast, vast majority is owned by individuals.

                              {time}  1915

  Different than the West, as the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) 
pointed out, most of it you can use it for something, you can plow it, 
you can grow things on it, you can put cattle on it, you can own that 
ground.
  Now, when our early pioneers went out to the West, they have got 
these huge Rocky Mountains. They have got all these various areas that 
extend from Canada to Mexico. So you are really not going to use a lot 
of that ground.
  So after a while, about 100, almost 200 years ago, 100 something 
years ago, they started the Forest Service. The Forest Service was put 
there to take care of our beautiful green forests. They were told to 
manage the forests.
  As we go back to talking about how the Forest Service started, their 
instructions was to manage the force for its many, many uses. A lot of 
it was timber in those days. Most of the folks, they lived in the 
valleys, and they farmed, they ranched in other areas.
  That resolves this piece between what was private, what was forced, 
and what is that in between. So later on, the government decided what 
do we call that ground in between? The Bureau of Land Management 
handles that area. That is the area between Forest Service and the 
private people who own their ground.
  Now, the gentleman from Colorado talked about multiple use. 
Basically, what is multiple use? It is the sign that he put up there, 
land of many uses. All of us who were raised in the West, we have seen 
that all over the West. He talked about some of the uses, the idea that 
you can go in there and you can do a certain amount of cutting.
  Now, why is it that the Forest Service is under agriculture and BLM, 
Park Service, Reclamation, Fish and Wildlife is under Interior. It was 
put that way, if we go back and look at the history of how Congress 
does things, because it is a resource like corn or wheat. It grows and 
is taken out.
  I get letters all the time, Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the 
Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands that say, ``Let us 
leave that forest just as we found it. I flew over it in a 757, I 
looked down there, and there is this beautiful green carpet, and I want 
it left just that way.'' Well, then, take a picture of it with your 
camera, because it is not going to stay that way because things change 
on a regular basis.
  We had the whole part of the Uinta Mountains, the big east-west part, 
and the only east-west mountain range in America, and a whole group of 
environmentalists call up and say do not touch it. Leave it alone.
  So we had a hearing on it a few years back. We brought in all these 
people from land grant colleges and asked them to respond to it. These 
people said, ``We do not want you in there clearing out the pine 
beetle, because that is nature's way.''
  Well, this man got up, and he said, ``Well, I will just tell you what 
will happen.'' He said, ``If we go in and we do not kill out that pine 
beetle, it will not be too long. Instead of that beautiful green carpet 
that you want us to keep that way, it will be a whole bunch of dead 
sticks, because they will kill that entire forest. But we could go in, 
we could spray for them, we could cut out that area of high 
infestation, and the healthy trees would make it.'' They said, ``No, 
leave it alone.''
  The next gentleman got up from Utah State University. He testified 
and said, ``Let me explain to you what will happen.'' He said, ``I do 
not have a dog in this fight.'' He said, ``Let me tell you what is 
going to happen. What will happen is the whole entire north slope of 
Uinta Mountains will be dead and anywhere else in the West if we do not 
take care of that.'' He said, ``Then I will tell you what will happen. 
You have got a 100 percent chance that you will have a fire.'' In other 
words, it is guaranteed.
  I may just deviate a minute and say that, because we have not managed 
the forest for a long time, we have the highest fuel load we have in my 
lifetime all through the West; and people wonder why we have forest 
fires all over the place.

[[Page 27130]]

  Anyway, after the fire, the next man said, ``And I will tell you what 
will happen after the fire. I will give you 100 percent guarantee that 
you have one of these flash floods that occurs in August, September, 
these big summer cumulus nimbus referred to as thuderheads, and they 
will pour water over that, and you will have a flood. And that topsoil 
that has taken 100 years to build up will go down to the valleys, and 
you will have a desolate area for all that time, because we are not 
managing the forest for multiple use.''
  Now, I thought about that for a long time. Then I found out down in 
the Dixie Forest that is down around the southern part of Utah, a 
beautiful area. I talked to some of the people there who had 
photographs when the early pioneers went in there, the first ones they 
called tin or some type of photograph. There was not a tree on those 
grounds because there was not anything there. It was just rolling 
sagebrush. They went in there and started planting trees. Out of that, 
they came up with the beautiful Dixie Forest, reputed to be one of the 
prettiest forests around.
  About 1993, Hugh Thompson, the forest supervisor down there, he said, 
``We have got an infestation of pine beetles up there by Brian Head.'' 
That is a big ski resort. So he went in there and said, ``I could cut 
out 17,000 acres, harvest those trees; that timber could be used for 
lumber.'' But, no, one of the large environmental groups filed an 
injunction against him.
  So at that time, I do not know if my colleagues can see this, Mr. 
Speaker, but here is this beautiful green forest. That is what we had 
at that time. A year later, it looked like this, because he could not 
beat down that injunction in time. But those little pine beetles, they 
just kept munching around. Now see how this turns kind of red. Well, 
then, a year after that, what do we have? We have an entire dead 
forest, and that is what it looks like.
  Now I am getting letters all over the place saying why did we not 
take care of the forest. I would like to put up a sign that says this 
dead forest brought to you by the courtesy of some of the high 
environmental groups.
  So the other day, we had a hearing. One of the large environmental 
groups was there. I asked this lady, I said, ``Why is it that you will 
not let us manage the forest?'' She said, ``Well, let nature do her 
thing. Let nature do it.''
  Well, I do not know about my colleagues, and I do not mean to spout 
scripture here, but as I read the Old Testament, it said, when the Lord 
created the Earth, on one thing he said, I will give you the ground to 
till and take care of this ground, and you are supposed to take care of 
it.
  I often believe that America has done it right. We have managed and 
taken care of the ground that is owned by each of us. It is owned by 
us.
  But we can go back to this thing and say, oh, no, let, mama nature 
take care of it. How does she do it in fire, wind, earthquake, flood, 
and what have we got? So why do we go in there and we build culverts? 
Why do we go in there and we take care of it?
  So I have to go back to this idea of why is it we call Forest Service 
under agriculture, because it is a renewable resource. Have we in the 
past cut too much of places? Absolutely we have. Have we overgrazed the 
forest sometimes? No question about it. But that does not mean we 
cannot learn from our mistakes. That does not mean we cannot take care 
of the forests and use it for the benefit and joy of all America. That 
is one of the things that kind of bothers me.
  The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) talked about how we got 
into some of the history, and the history was interesting as he gave 
it. At one time back in the turn of the century, we had a President by 
the name of Theodore Roosevelt, a great conservationist and a great 
guy. He could see that some things were being mutilated that we should 
preserve, so he asked Congress to pass an act in 1906 called the 
Antiquity law, the first law I think that was ever there, Mr. Speaker, 
to take care of people like historic and archeological and scientific 
sites.
  Out of the Antiquity law came a lot of monuments; and out of some of 
those monuments came some of our better parks, Zion, Bryce, Grand 
Canyon, a few others.
  But now that law is pretty well gone. In fact, I really question in 
my own heart of hearts if it is constitutional, because the 
Constitution basically gives the right of public ground to Congress, 
not to the President. But I do not think it has ever been challenged in 
court.
  Well, since that time, we have had the 1915 Organic Act, called the 
Park bill where all of our beautiful parks, which we now have 377 
parks, come under. Our monuments basically are handled under that which 
we have 73 at this time.
  In 1964 came the Wilderness Act. In 1969 came the NEPA Act. In 1976 
came the Federal Land Policy Management Act. The list goes on and on, 
the Wild Rivers Act, the Horse and Burro Act, the Mormon Trail Act. 
Boy, you name it, there is a dozen of them on there. So we have got 
plenty of legislation that takes care of our area.
  Now we find ourselves in an idea of the interpretation of these that 
the gentleman from Colorado was referring to by some of our friends on 
the extreme environmental side.
  It is interesting, I have been in this place now 10 terms, and I have 
talked to a lot of groups from all kinds. I like to go to a group and 
ask the question, ``Can you give me the definition of wilderness under 
the 1964 Wilderness Act?'' It is rare that anybody can ever do it.
  They all talk about, well, hey, I love that area, and I want to take 
care of it, and I want to leave it just as it is, and do not touch it 
and all that kind of stuff. But it is untrammeled by man as if man was 
never there, no sign of man.
  Now, go over and listen to what Hubert Humphrey said, who carried 
most of it in the Senate side. He said, ``The most you will ever see, 
and I am stretching it to this, will be 30 million acres.'' We have 
gone through 100 million acres and climbing. We had 100 million acres 
right in Alaska. We have got ground like you cannot believe.
  Do my colleagues know what, Mr. Speaker, the vast, vast, vast 
majority of Americans do not know what that means. Let us throw out the 
term. Let us call up somebody tonight and say, ``Mr. Posnowski, do you 
want more or less wilderness in America?'' What will he say? He will 
say, I want more, because wilderness is a romantic word. Look what it 
conjures up in one's mind, these beautiful green forests, the smell of 
how it is in the forest, and the Aspen trees, and the clear water, and 
the fresh air.
  Yet, on the other hand, if we said, ``Mr. Posnowski, do you want more 
or less restricted area?'' What would he say? He would say, ``Heaven's 
no. I want the right to use this.''
  In 1980, I started working on a bill with Jake Garn, who was then a 
Senator, and excuse me for referring to the other body, Mr. Speaker. 
But in that particular area, we came up with one for Utah Forest 
Service Wilderness. We put almost all of the Uinta Mountains in it. We 
put almost a million acres in it.
  We had a dedication ceremony up at those beautiful Uinta Mountains, 
with the Forest Service, with the governor of the State, with the 
environmental groups and others. Then we came back, and nobody liked 
the bill, so it must have been a good bill. The environmentalists said 
we did not go far away. The developers said we went way too far. 
Anyway, take it as one may.
  Our phone started ringing off the hook. The main thing we heard from 
people went this way, they said, ``Boy, I am sure glad you and Jake did 
that, because now we can take our four-wheelers, and get up in that 
wilderness area and enjoy ourselves.''
  Let me say this, Mr. Speaker, what a lot of people do not know is the 
definition of the 1964 Wilderness Act, ``untrammeled by man as if man 
was never there. No sign of man.'' Now look at the dictum that fell out 
of this thing, no sign of man. That means no structures. That means no 
fences. That means no pop cans, nothing. One as in the first guy God 
put on earth, and there it is, there is no sign that man

[[Page 27131]]

had ever been there. So our people have a misinterpretation.
  So our good friends from the East, they get these solicitations in 
the mail, and they say things like this, they say ``You will help 
protect that land out in Colorado or Utah or Idaho or wherever it may 
be. You send us $10, $20, $30, and boy, we are going to help it out 
that these crazy nuts do not go in there and desecrate this ground.'' 
So they send them the money, yet, they really do not understand what 
they are doing in that instance because, in effect, we are hurting the 
ground by not managing it and using it for multiple use.
  So, if I may point out, we see a lot of people, and if I may be a tad 
critical of this administration, they have in my mind desecrated the 
1906 Antiquity law, and they did it on September 16, 1996 in southern 
Utah, and they put 1.7 million acres into a national monument called 
the Grand Staircase Escalante. But they failed to follow the law. The 
President did not even say in his petition what it was for.
  Then on top of that, he put 1.7 million acres in, and the law says 
one will State what it is. Is it a historic or archeological site. The 
next sentence says, ``and he shall use the smallest of amount of 
acreage to protect that site.''
  He did not say what it was, and he gives us 1.7 million acres. This 
is an end run. This is a sneaky way to take away from Congress their 
right to take care of the ground as the Constitution gives it to them.
  Now, I hope people who are listening at this time, Mr. Speaker, 
realize what is a monument. It has got to be an archeological or it has 
got to be a historic site.
  Where the two trains came together when, that obviously is a historic 
site. Go down to Glen Canyon recreation area and look at that beautiful 
arch we call Rainbow Bridge. Obviously that is an archeological site.
  So I start looking around at all of these proposals on monuments, and 
I do not see anything that fits it other than here is a sneaky way to 
grab up as much ground as we can.
  Now, a couple weeks ago, what did we get? We got something that said 
the President by executive order is saying we are going to put 40 
million acres of ground, Forest Service ground, mind you, into a 
roadless area.
  So they sent me up this thing, and I got a call from them. It says, 
here is all the usage one can do. They ask a question, and they give an 
answer. However, they do not define it. The last one I found very 
interesting. ``What does this rule do to access? Aren't you shutting 
out the American people of their own forest?'' They say no.
  The next one, ``How many roads will be closed as a result of this 
proposal?'' They say none, none whatsoever.
  So I asked one of the Secretaries down there, ``What is a road? Would 
you folks mind defining a road?'' Because they have closed roads all 
over. I will stipulate that two tracks put down by a deer hunter is not 
a road. On the other side of the coin, it cannot be an interstate, so 
to speak.
  So my colleagues are going to see out of this, if I may respectfully 
say so, places where the American public has been going up into the 
mountains of Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, holding reunions, fishing, 
hunting, camping, bird watching, enjoying themselves, just getting out, 
just getting away from everybody, and standing there and looking over 
this vast panorama and loving every minute of it. Those folks are going 
to be without.
  What are they going to find, and they have found it under this 
administration for the last, since 1992, there will be a great big sign 
there that says ``this road closed.''

                              {time}  1930

  I have fished and hunted and camped all over the West. And I was 
talking to the Forest Service today, because there is a road out in 
Wyoming that I have been on since I was 10 years old. The other day I 
was up there with my boys, doing some trout fishing on that stream, and 
I came to that road and it said, ``Road closed by order of the Forest 
Service.'' Why? So I called the forester up there and asked him about 
it, and I am still waiting for a good response as to why he is closing 
a road that has been used by sheepmen, by timber people, by elk 
hunters, and by fishermen. A beautiful road, maintained very well, 
closed. For no reason at all except some folks want us off that ground.
  Now, I want to go back to my friend here from Colorado, but I would 
like to say this. There sure seems to be a lot of folks, besides this 
administration, that wants to, in effect, close up that ground, make it 
a single purpose, and not many people to go there. This Uinta Mountains 
I was talking about, I do not think there is a kid from the whole 
Wasatch Front of Utah, when he was a Boy Scout, that did not go up to 
the Uinta Mountains. We all did that with our scout master. And now 
they are saying, oh no, we do not want you to do that. We do not want 
any horses up there. Boy, that is a big country. We do not want any 
horses, and we want groups of less than three. How do scout masters 
take a scout group in that is composed of less than three?
  They also do not want fishing up there. Some of the best fishing in 
America. Trout fishing, fly fishing. Why can people not take their sons 
and their neighbors and their uncles and aunts and go up there? They 
also do not want any hunting. So, in other words, close it up. So there 
are a lot of ways people are closing up the grounds that they should 
not.
  I say to my good friends from the East, which we have the greatest 
respect for, you folks sit back here thinking of all those wonderful 
things out west, and the chance of going there maybe once in your 
lifetime, but we have to live there. We have to raise our families 
there. We expect that our people can use this ground. And multiple use 
has worked successfully for well over 100 years, and it can just bring 
tears to your eyes thinking about changing an entire way of living that 
is happening now because some people are not thinking.
  They start putting money into these extreme groups who want to get 
rid of all the things that the gentleman from Colorado is speaking 
about. Take the motors off the rivers. Well, let us see someone run the 
Grand Canyon without a 35 horsepower motor on the back. You will spend 
2 weeks on it rather than 5 days. I remember a time when people came 
and said, well, the roar of that motor will ruin our trip. Oh, give me 
a break. You would have to have ears like a Doberman Pincer to even 
hear that thing. You are going through those great big rapids. You can 
hardly hear that little putt-putt on the back. But it holds you 
straight and gets you through all right.
  They want people not to land airplanes. As a pilot myself, I have put 
down an airplane on back strips all of my life, and some in the 
Speaker's area up there in the River of No Return, which is kind of 
scary stuff. But, still, on the other hand, why take those out that we 
cannot land in some of those areas and enjoy it? Why can we not take 
some of these little ATVs in some areas? Why is it everything has to be 
one way and there is no compromise?
  It is very interesting that there is one organization called the 
Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, and I wish some of them were from 
Utah. Most of them are from New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota. Hardly 
anybody from Utah, but they want to tell us how we can run our ground.
  Excuse me, Mr. Speaker, for letting my paranoia spill out a little 
bit, but I am afraid I do get a little tired of that. With that, I 
thank the gentleman for yielding to me, and would like the opportunity 
to speak again.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Utah 
joining me.
  One of the great people of our country that the gentleman talked 
about was President Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt. I will write it 
again on my little chart over here what his philosophy was in regards 
to the Federal lands. Now, remember, Theodore Roosevelt hunted in 
Glenwood Springs, Colorado. If you have been to Glenwood Springs, 
Colorado, it is a wonderful community, it is my home, it is where my 
parents still live, and we have family there. We have a hotel called 
the

[[Page 27132]]

Hotel Colorado. It used to be called the Western White House because 
that is where Theodore Roosevelt used to hunt.
  Theodore Roosevelt came out and he used the Federal lands, but he had 
a philosophy about the lands, and his philosophy really is best 
summarized with a very few short words. What President Roosevelt said, 
and if my colleagues will look at my chart, in regards to these Federal 
lands, first look at the left, again look at the quantity of Federal 
lands in the western United States. And what President Roosevelt said 
was, going to my white chart here, ``Use it, enjoy it, but don't abuse 
it and don't destroy it.''
  Why do my colleagues think that those lands look as good as they do? 
Because, in my opinion, those of us who live out there, and a lot of us 
live out there, my family has been there for generations, and my wife's 
family has been there for generations, and we hope our families can 
stay there for generations more, but one of the reasons we are there is 
because it is so beautiful. But we have a right to make a living out 
there, and we think that we have been able to maintain a balance that 
is preserved, a lot of the beauty that you see.
  For a lot of people, especially here in the East, who have never had 
the good fortune to travel to the West into the mountains, into the 
Rocky Mountain range, hear horror stories from some of the more radical 
environmental groups and their image of what is going on out there is a 
ski area every 2 miles, cabins being built every 50 feet, coal mines, 
forests being clear-cut, highways everywhere. People would be amazed if 
they came to the third district of Colorado, my district, that they 
could fly, not drive but fly, for hours without seeing another human.
  People going into those mountains know that we know how to take care 
of those mountains. You can go into those mountains and walk 50 miles 
in those mountains and not see one piece of trash. You cannot walk a 
block from this capital here and not pick up a bagful of trash. We know 
how to take care of those lands. It is a very precious resource for all 
of us, for all of the people of the United States. But we have to 
approach our guardianship of these lands in a very balanced fashion.
  I have a couple of examples that I would like to go over with my 
colleagues. One is the right way to approach this balance and the other 
is the wrong way to approach this balance.
  Let me start with the right way, the positive way, to approach it. We 
just did it. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, my respected colleague 
from the State of Colorado, the United States Senator, and I attended 
an event last weekend, the dedication of the Black Canyon National 
Park. National park. It was a national monument.
  Senator Campbell's bill out of the Senate, my bill out of the House, 
we made it a national monument. It was a great day. In fact, when I 
went jogging that morning, at 4 in the morning in the Colorado 
mountains, we had a full moon. And as I ran, looking at that moon, a 
person cannot help but feel proud, number one, to be an American, but 
also how lucky we are to live out there. And we feel a deep commitment 
to preserve the area that we are in, but also to allow humans to enjoy 
it.
  At that dedication ceremony, by the way, I made the comment that the 
beauty of the preservation of the Black Canyon National Park was that 
we were able to work in a very cooperative fashion with the local 
people, with the State people and the Federal people. And what we 
preserved is not just the national park itself, but we preserved the 
right for people to go up to the national park and enjoy it. That is 
very important. Very important.
  Now, how did the Black Canyon National Park, from a monument, come 
about? It was not driven by Washington, D.C. In fact, it was not driven 
by an elected or a political official at all. It was driven by the 
local community. At the local level, people got together, in Montrose, 
in Gunnison, Colorado, in Delta, Colorado, in Ouray, and they got 
support from the media, like the Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, 
Colorado, the Montrose Daily Press, my good friend George R. Bannock, 
other people like that in the press, helped support this concept of let 
us work our conflict out at the local level. So we did not jam it down 
from Washington, D.C. this thing came from the ground up.
  And what is the Black Canyon National Park; what is the beauty of 
this park? It preserves multiple use. It has many uses of the park. 
Now, I am sure that there are many national environmental groups, 
probably Earth First, for example, that would have one use for that 
park and that would be an anti-human use. Get the people off it. Get 
the recreation off it. If you are not an able-bodied hiker, which, in 
general, is younger than I am, you are not going to come up here. That 
is the radical viewpoint over here.
  The radical viewpoint on this side of the spectrum there are the 
people that say, well, we ought to be able to go up there and timber 
wherever we want to timber, hunt wherever we want to hunt, mountain 
bike wherever we want to mountain bike, graze wherever. No. No. The 
local people sat down and said somewhere in between a position like the 
National Earth First and just complete freedom to do whatever you want, 
which of course leads to abuse and destruction in those forests, 
somewhere in between we have a way to resolve this conflict. And what 
they did was they resolved it. They resolved it. They preserved 
multiple use. They preserved certain areas in that park as wilderness.
  In the new national park designations we have wilderness designation. 
They preserved the right for people to go down the river in a raft. 
They preserved the right for some grazing on the national park. They 
preserved the right for a paved road. We have a paved road right up to 
the visitor's center where an individual can stand on the edge of 
cliffs that drop 2,000 feet. Two thousand feet. And when the sun is at 
the right angle, and you have a pair of binoculars, the water is so 
clean you can see fish. If you have the binoculars, you can see the 
fish in the stream.
  We preserved the right for people to go up and enjoy that and we did 
it at the local level. And the local people then brought it to the 
State people, who then brought it to the United States Congress. And 
thanks to people like the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen), and the 
gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), and my good colleagues Mr. Allard 
and Mr. Campbell on the other side in the Senate we were able to move 
that from a national monument to a national park.
  That is the right way to do things. We did not have people in the 
East bashing it on us in the West. We had people in the East 
cooperating with us. The people in the East said to the people in the 
West, you have lived on that land, you care about that land, you know 
about that land, so maybe we ought to listen to you about that land. 
Instead of coming up with Washington knows better. That is the right 
way to do things. Come up with that balance. Preserve those water 
rights.
  And by the way, in the Black Canyon, that project would have been 
dead in the water, no pun intended, dead in the water if they would 
have gone after those Colorado water rights. Our water rights in the 
West, it has been written in our State capital in Denver, life in the 
West is water. That is what it is about. Water is life in the West.
  But the local groups got together and they said, here is how we can 
preserve those water rights. Now, let me tell my colleagues there is a 
huge threat to the West on water rights. For example, as my dear 
colleague knows, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen), down at Lake 
Powell, and many of my colleagues, I am sure, have enjoyed Lake Powell, 
It is one of the most wonderful lakes in the world. It is wonderful for 
recreation; wonderful for families. If you want to see a good family 
activity, or taking kids off the street or taking the kids from 
somewhere and bringing them down to this lake, they get on these house 
boats and it provides recreation and family time.
  It also provides a huge amount of power. It helps us prevent the 
flooding, and provides us huge quantities of water storage. But the 
National Sierra Club, their number one goal is take out

[[Page 27133]]

the dam, destroy the dam and get rid of Lake Powell. That organization 
is out of Washington, D.C. That is what they want to do.
  We did not buy that with the national park in Black Canyon. We did 
not buy the philosophy of Earth First. In other words, getting rid of 
multiple use. We bought the philosophy in Washington, D.C. of the 
people in Gunnison, in Montrose, in Ouray, and Delta, out there in 
Colorado, the people who had their hands in the soil every day. My 
father-in-law, David Smith is a rancher, and his family has been on the 
same ranch since 1882, 1883, somewhere in there, and he told me one 
time that an environmentalist is somebody who has had their hands in 
the dirt, who understands the earth.
  Well, that is the right way to do things, to let the people at the 
local level help us all come together in a common fashion to help 
preserve multiple use, where we have protection for the environment 
through wilderness or special areas; where we have national parks and 
national monuments; but where we preserve the right to go biking on a 
mountain bike, where we preserve the right to canoe on the river or 
ride a river raft, which is a thrill. Anybody that has been on it with 
their family, their kids will remember it. They probably have pictures 
of them hanging on a raft in their bedrooms. Where we preserve the 
right to ski. If you do not ski in the mountains, it is pretty tough to 
ski anywhere else. We have not figured out how to make that sport work 
without the mountains.
  We need to preserve those rights, and the rights of ranchers, like my 
father-in-law, and my father who is in the business of supporting the 
ranchers, the right for them to be able to operate their farms and 
ranches in those mountains.

                              {time}  1945

  Now let me talk about the wrong way, and then I want to turn it over 
to my colleague. The wrong way. I want my colleague, when he takes back 
the podium here in a couple of minutes, I hope he talks to you about 
the wrong way and what happened in Utah with the Staircase over there 
in Utah. But let me talk about what is about to happen in the State of 
Colorado.
  Anasazi Ruins. The Anasazi is down in the Four Corners. The Four 
Corners is the only place in the United States where four States come 
together. I will point it out with my light here on my map. The Four 
Corners is right here. You have four States that come together in one 
spot. Really kind of exciting. They have got a little spot, by the way 
human access, you can walk up to it and you can literally be standing 
in four States at once.
  Every young person that has done that has remembered it. Well, there 
is a lot of land around this. We preserve, of course, the monument. We 
have a national park down there in the Four Corners. But over in this 
area right here, the Secretary of the Interior, who spends most of his 
time in Washington, D.C., who consults very little, in my opinion, with 
those of us in the West, made recent trips down there. And he said, I 
want to take this land and put it under some kind of executive order, I 
want to put this land aside and put it as a monument. This is hundreds 
of thousands of acres.
  So now you have a perception what we are talking about. Think of the 
acreage that you own with your home. Colleagues, your house is probably 
on a half an acre. If you are very lucky, it is on an acre. But more 
likely, you are on a quarter of an acre or less.
  Well, the Secretary of Interior has talked about coming down into 
this Four Corners area and taking hundreds of thousands of acres for a 
monument. Do you know what kind of response he got at the local level? 
Wait a minute, Mr. Secretary. Listen to us. What about the water 
rights, Mr. Secretary? What about the access? What about the needs? We 
do have to have power lines that come through there. What about our 
ability to go up and hunt or camp or fish? What about our ability for 
our cattle to graze? What about the local opinion on how best to 
protect our environment, how to keep our waters clean as our water is 
today? What about that, Mr. Secretary?
  Do you know what the answer is from Washington? They show up and they 
pretend like they are listening. But as far as they are concerned, the 
decision has been made.
  Now, that is a pretty strong statement. Where does the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. McInnis) come to the conclusion that Bruce Babbitt in 
Washington, D.C., who has come down to the Four Corners maybe twice or 
three times, probably no more than that, in his lifetime, who wants to 
take several hundred thousand acres of land and put it in a monument, 
how does he know that Bruce Babbitt is going to go about doing this 
regardless of what the local opinion is?
  I will tell you what happened to me and the gentleman from Utah (Mr. 
Hansen) last week. I had a constituent of mine come in, and she had 
been down to a big luncheon for the Heritage, protection of Heritage 
buildings and historical areas. It was here in Washington about a week 
ago. Bruce Babbitt was the guest speaker. This is exactly what Bruce 
Babbitt said. And I will summarize. This is exactly what went on. He 
said, and this is as reported to me, he said, down in the Four Corners 
of Colorado there is some beautiful land that we ought to put in a 
monument.
  Now, the local people do not buy into this. And the State delegation 
of elected officials, they do not agree with me. And the Congressional 
delegation does not agree with me that we should do this. But I, Bruce 
Babbitt, I am going to do it. I am going to do it irrespective of what 
the local people say.
  The Federal Government, the people in the East, Washington, D.C., 
comes into our State and says, regardless of local input, I am going to 
do it.
  Do you know what that lady said to me? It is interesting. She said to 
me, I was sitting in there wondering, wow, is this the country of which 
Constitution I studied in high school? Is this what the Constitution 
says? Are you guys really representatives of the people or are you 
little dictators out there that are just going to decide we will take 
this land, we will take that land. You know, it does not affect us.
  If they go down there, frankly, Mr. Speaker, most of our colleagues 
in this room will not even blink an eye. If they take 200,000 acres in 
the Four Corners of Colorado, they will not even blink an eye. They 
probably will not know what happened.
  But what about those families? Oh, there are not a lot of them. In 
the East you have these big cities. And we have some in the West, but 
not like you do in the population in the East. It does not affect a lot 
of people. But do you know what? Those people deserve to have the 
opportunity to live and dream and enjoy the heritage they have in those 
mountains and in those special places in the West as much as you do 
here in the East.
  And even if it is just a thousand families, even if it is 100 
families, even if it is just 50 families, do the people in the East 
have a right to come out and dictate the policies of the West without 
at least local input?
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the gentleman from Utah (Mr. 
Hansen) coming down here. I hope that we are able to continue to kind 
of have a series of discussions into the future.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from 
Utah (Mr. Hansen).
  Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Let me point out, if I may, my colleague mentioned a lot between the 
East and the West. Still, if I may say so, it is really kind of a 
disaster and a sad time that the East does not have more public ground. 
You know, they really should have.
  We tried to get a bill through a couple years ago that was called the 
Eastern Wilderness Bill. Basically what it would do, it would say to 
the big States in the East, why do you not find some ground out there? 
You maybe have to buy it. You maybe have to condemn it, or whatever, 
but find some ground. Because people here, they do not have that. They 
do not even know what it is like.
  As my colleague pointed out earlier, everything is private ground. 
And so,

[[Page 27134]]

in a way, they kind of tell the rest of us how to manage our ground 
even though some have never even been to our areas. They, of course, 
have that representation here, and many of them do it because they 
become part of some of these groups that I would characterize as rather 
radical.
  Where do these groups come from? As a college student many years ago 
at the University of Utah, I was struggling along selling suits for a 
guy down at ZCMI, a big store, and trying to make ends meet and married 
with two little kids and my wife was teaching school; and I used to 
send $5 or so to the Sierra Club because I believed in what they were 
doing. They were doing things like trying to keep things clean and 
fresh and that type of thing. And I think the genesis was pure.
  I have seen a lot of these change now. I have seen now they have 
become big industries. I think it is typical of my many years on the 
Committee on the Interior, 20 years now, or will be at the end of this 
term, where we see these people, regardless of what we come up with, 
they keep moving the goal post on us.
  We talk about this thing of wilderness and some people say, take the 
State of Utah, for example, we want three million acres. We will not 
settle for any less than that. Then that three million acres then went 
to 5.7 million acres. And now it is up to 9.1. And at the hearing we 
had last week, some people want 14 million acres.
  To come right down to it, if I may be brutally candid here, these 
people in these industries have started an industry. So they get that. 
Do they extinguish? Do they go away? Heavens no. They stay here 
forever. And why is that? They started out with nothing. They just had 
some people who believed in their heart of hearts they were doing 
right. And now, as time went on, they have lawyers, they have 
accountants, they have millions of dollars. They take out full-page ads 
in New York papers and the Washington Post, it costs them $50,000 a 
whack, to try to influence people on this floor to influence people out 
West.
  What is it to a lot of our colleagues, anyway? It is a throw-away 
vote. What do they care? It does not mean anything out there in Idaho 
or Colorado or Utah or Arizona. Big deal. So they put a lot of money in 
these people on their campaigns and then they call them up.
  I remember years ago, my 14 years on the Committee on Ethics, I had 
some good friend from the other side of the aisle call me up and say, 
Jim, why is this organization giving me five grand? I said, well, think 
about it. And about 2 or 3 weeks later they said, it kind of dawned on 
me a little bit because you got a bill about your State in Utah and 
they want my vote. So these people know how to play the game but they 
do not go away. It is kind of like the downwinders in Utah.
  When I was first here in 1980, we got in the situation of how to 
deploy the MX missile. President Carter came up with an idea of putting 
it in Utah and Nevada and running in between them. Well, it did not 
work. It was not a good idea.
  I carried the amendment to kill it, in fact, back in those days. The 
downwinders were totally dedicated to taking the MX out of Utah. The MX 
is a good missile, but that was not the way to deploy it.
  At the end of that, did they go away? Did they extinguish? No. They 
ran up and said, well, there is an electronic battlefield going up 
here. Let us see if we can kill that now.
  Well, after that finally died because Dick Chaney said he could not 
afford it, did they go away? No. It kept getting bigger. And then they 
got an area we are trying to get rid of 43 percent of the obsolete 
chemical weapons. And now we look at the Sierra Club. Did they go away? 
Did SUA go away? Did Earth First go away? Did the Audubon Society? Did 
the Wilderness Society? No.
  Well, I am not saying they are not meritorious in some areas. They 
probably are. But in many areas they have established an industry and 
they would not settle these things if we wanted to.
  I guess nobody in this House is more sensitive to it than me. Because 
I have been on the Committee of Public Lands, Forests, and Parks for my 
entire time and I have worked with these folks and they do not want to 
settle because the industry would end.
  Frankly, it disturbs me because we do not have that honest, pure 
intent of let us get the job done that we should have done.
  The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) talked about the Sierra 
Club going to crack the dam, which is Lake Powell. I do not know if a 
lot of people here listening understand about Lake Powell, but most of 
them should. It is one of the biggest reservoirs in the United States. 
It is 186 miles long. It has more shoreline than the entire West Coast. 
And people love the area.
  The gentleman adequately pointed out the idea that the whole 
southwest part of America lives because of water. If we did not have 
the Fontinell and Flaming Gorge, and Lake Mead, and Glen Canyon and 
Parker and Davis, close up L.A., close up Phoenix and we are done. And 
hundreds of kilowatt hours, or thousands, millions of kilowatt hours go 
out of those dams. In fact, on Lake Powell it would take seven coal-
fire dams to replace what we would lose from hydropower. And everybody 
knows that hydropower is the best we have got.
  Some of these people do not seem to care. Let a river run through it. 
Go back to these movie actors that have all these romantic ideas and no 
knowledge and they do things by a burning in the bosom rather than by 
science.
  It comes down to the idea we need those dams. The gentleman 
adequately pointed out, one of the greatest vacations anybody could 
have is to go down to one of these dams. Get a houseboat. Take your ski 
boat along. The kids will never forget it. When you come down to the 
choice should you remodel the bathroom or should you take a trip to 
Lake Powell, take Lake Powell. The kids will remember that much more 
than they will ever remember remodeling the bathroom.
  Well, the one thing, if I may end on this, Mr. Speaker, is I see all 
these things, those money-raising schemes going out. Protect this land 
before it is developed. One of the stupidest ones I have ever seen in 
my life was put out by a movie actor in Provo, Utah, which had all of 
those beautiful red monoliths of southern Utah and it had superimposed 
on it condominiums.
  Has not anyone heard of the FLPMA Act? Does not anyone understand 
that BLM, Forest Service, Park Service has management plans? Do they 
think they let people go out and do that?
  What developer would be dumb enough to go out in the middle of some 
God forsaken, in the minds of some folks, beautiful to a lot of us, and 
say let us put a condominium on the top of it? That is ridiculous. Have 
they ever heard of planning commissions? Have they ever heard of rules 
and laws made by States and counties and cities? Apparently they have 
not.
  What do they sell to some of our good folks back East? They send them 
back there and they get that and they get this beautiful calendar. In 
fact, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance put out one of the 
prettiest calendars I have ever seen in my life, and it was all about 
this Utah BLM bill is how they said it, how they had to protect this 
ground.
  Well, of the 12 months out the year, there was only one, only one, 
that was Utah BLM ground. As I recall, one was Forest Service and the 
rest were parks, only one in the area. But, boy, that is nice if you 
are a dentist out there in New York, as one of my pen-pals is, who 
criticizes me about once a month. He has that hanging in there and as 
he leans over there grinding teeth all day, or whatever you do, Mr. 
Speaker, I know you would know more about that than I would, he can 
envision the day he can go out and visit that beautiful country and 
just enjoy it with his family.
  We have a coal fire plant out there. And this one fellow said to me 
one time, when I come to Utah, I do not want to see that smoke stack. 
Well, that smoke stack is in a pretty remote area called Linden, Utah, 
right out on the west desert. I doubt if he would see it. We have put 
millions of dollars in putting scrubbers on it so it will not put any 
pollutants in the air. In fact, it is so clean that we have that local

[[Page 27135]]

Grand Staircase, but I will not go into that. They had to throw sulphur 
into it even to check the thing out, which is amazing. But he did not 
want to see that thing. But out of that, millions and millions of 
people have power. And that is kind of necessary too.
  So, as the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) points out, there is 
a moderation in there. It is not this side or that side. Somewhere we 
can say there is moderation in all things. I do not know who came up 
with the term, it ought to be scriptural because that is what makes 
sense; and thinking people, people who can sit down and be reasonable 
and think things out, can find that middle ground. We do not always 
have to take these polarized, extreme positions.
  I say to our many, many, many friends from the East who spend 
millions of dollars on these organizations, think about it a little 
bit. The rest of us have some rights, too. We just want to get along 
with our Eastern friends.

                          ____________________