[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15228-15234]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                    COLORADO AND ITS NATIONAL PARKS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. 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, tonight I want to talk about a number of 
subjects but before I do, first of all, I want to address the preceding 
speaker, the gentleman from Guam (Mr. Underwood). I thought his 
comments were excellent.
  I would like to note that my father, who now lives in Glenwood 
Springs, Colorado, fought off Guam when he was 18 or 19 years old, and 
we are proud of him for that. Three times a week, I guess, they would 
fly off to bomb Japan. He is one who I wish I would have known the 
gentleman was making his comments this evening. I would have had my 
father tune in. He would have enjoyed the gentleman's comments.
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McINNIS. I yield to the gentleman from Guam.
  Mr. UNDERWOOD. Yes, I have met the gentleman's father, and it is with 
a great source of pride that I continue to meet many people that were 
touched by the battle for Guam, and on behalf of the people of Guam I 
want to acknowledge the gentleman's father's efforts and thank him very 
much for participating in the history of Guam.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, the comments of the gentleman from Guam 
(Mr. Underwood) were excellent. I appreciate that.
  I also this evening wish to pass on my condolences to the people of 
the State of Georgia and to the people throughout this country who knew 
Senator Coverdell who passed away earlier today. It is a sad moment 
back at the U.S. Capitol when there is a person who is really a 
gentleman and a scholar and a dignitary within his own ranks pass away. 
I know that the Senator has gone on to a finer life, as we all dream 
of, but his acknowledgments and his achievements while he was a United 
States Senator, while I had the opportunity to work with him as a House 
Member, are tremendous. He will not be forgotten. He will be long 
remembered in these chambers, and in his own chambers over on the 
Senate side.
  So for the Members and citizens of the State of Georgia and for all 
citizens of the United States, Georgia, your loss was our loss and we 
pass on our deepest sympathies.
  Mr. Speaker, this evening I want to talk again a little bit about 
Colorado. I want to talk about how a community has come together. A 
community of ranchers, a community of environmental people, a community 
of business leaders, a community of regular citizens, a community of 
water experts have come together as a team and tomorrow we are about to 
pass out of the Committee on Resources one of the most significant 
bills to come out for the State of Colorado in many years called the 
Colorado Canyons Bill.
  In order to set you up this evening so that you can properly follow 
me through this bill, which I think by the way is very interesting, I 
do not think you will be bored at all this evening, I first of all 
would like to just give a little preamble, as you might say, or some 
basic facts for you to consider.
  First of all, the bill covers an area in the Third Congressional 
District of the State of Colorado. That is the district that I 
represent here in the House of Representatives. The Third Congressional 
District of Colorado is well-known throughout the United States. It 
contains all or most all of the ski resorts in Colorado and has many 
communities known throughout the United States, communities like Aspen, 
Colorado, some of the world class skiing; communities like Telluride, 
Colorado, with some of the most beautiful mountain terrain you can 
find; Beaver Creek, Colorado; Vale, Colorado; Steamboat Springs, 
Colorado; Glenwood Springs, Colorado; Durango, Colorado; Grand 
Junction, Colorado, numerous ski areas and many of the constituents of 
my colleagues have probably rafted on the Colorado River, the Rhine 
Fork River, up in the Green River or on the White River or on the Blue 
River or in the Arkansas River. All of these rivers have something to 
do or originate, many of them originate, and certainly they all flow 
through, the Third Congressional District of Colorado.
  There is something else very unique about the State of Colorado and 
the Third Congressional District in that the eastern border, and I will 
show this on a map later on if we have an opportunity to get into 
multiple use, but on a map that I will show you later on from the 
eastern border, which simplified as a description, is basically a 
highway called the I-25 interstate from Wyoming to New Mexico. The 
Third District, by the way, is larger geographically than the State of 
Florida, but on that eastern border, clear to the Atlantic Ocean, there 
is very little Federal land ownership, but from the eastern border of 
this Third Congressional District to the Pacific Ocean there are huge 
amounts of Federal land ownership.
  As a result, when we deal with land issues in the West, we deal with 
much, much more with what is called public lands. In the East, you do 
not deal with the public lands near, not even close to the extent that 
we do in the West. It is simply because you do not have a lot of them 
in the East. So the circumstances

[[Page 15229]]

in the East when it comes to public lands are different.
  In my opinion, a lot of understanding of the people in the East, and 
this is not, by the way, a criticism of the people of the East, it is 
simply kind of an educational basis to let you know that we have to 
spend a lot of time in the West trying to educate our colleagues in the 
East. There is something that you have to know about public lands, and 
public lands, if it has one positive, really positive thing about it, 
is any time action is taken it really requires much more of a team 
effort than if you are dealing just with private properties.
  Now in the Third Congressional District, it is unique in the State of 
Colorado as well because of its water resources. In the Third 
Congressional District of Colorado, we have 80 percent of the State's 
water resources. Outside the borders of the Third Congressional 
District in the State of Colorado, we have 80 percent of the 
population. So you can see that water is a constant, a constant asset 
that needs to be managed, a constant item of debate. Not only that, the 
Third Congressional District supplies water not only for the rest of 
the State of Colorado, but it also is a supplier of water for many, 
many States in the union and it also includes the country of Mexico.
  Now, water is important. Out in the West, it has been often said that 
the people in the East sometimes think it rains in the West like it 
does in the East. It does not. In the West, we are a very arid State. 
In the West, we really have, for the most part, as much water as we can 
possibly use for about 60 to 90 days. That is called the spring run-
off, but after that run-off, in the West, if we do not have the 
capability to store the water we do not get the water. So water storage 
is a critical element of survival in the West, and water storage with 
Federal facilities or water storage on public lands is necessary, not 
because we randomly decided that we wanted to put it on government 
lands but because we have no choice.
  Most of the lands out there are owned by the Federal Government or 
the State government or the local government. For example, in the East, 
if you want to go and have a pipeline built or a highway built or you 
want to put a fence up, you go to your local city council for your 
planning and zoning or you go to your county or you go to your state. 
Most of the time, though, it is a local authority that you go to.
  In the West, in many, many cases, when we have to do something like 
that, we end up going to the Bureau of Land Management, to the U.S. 
Forest Service, to Washington, D.C. It is here many, many miles away 
that planning is done for the lands of which we live on out in the 
West. So it does require a team effort, and the Colorado Canyons Bill 
is a result of a concentrated good faith effort by many, many different 
people.
  So tonight my first subject is to kind of walk us all through the 
Colorado Canyons legislation, legislation which, as I mentioned 
previously, will be up in committee tomorrow; I am confident will pass 
with strong bipartisan, strong bipartisan support, and I would hope 
would be able to pass these chambers next week on suspension so that we 
can take it to the Senate where Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell has 
agreed to carry the bill throughout the Senate, and I think we will 
meet with the same type of success. So let us talk and begin our 
adventure with Colorado Canyons.
  Grand Junction, Colorado, located in the western part of the State of 
Colorado, a community of about 90,000, has a magnificent national 
monument adjacent to it. If you are a resident of Grand Junction, 
Colorado, you can actually access the national monument from anywhere 
in Grand Junction at the most in 15 minutes. For many people, you can 
access the national monument in less than 5 minutes.
  The painting that I have displayed to my left is a water color 
painting that hangs in my office that demonstrates just exactly what 
the Colorado National Monument looks like. It is magnificent, and if 
you have an opportunity to go to Colorado it is worth the trip to go to 
Grand Junction just to see the Colorado National Monument.
  Let me say, by the way, as kind of a little plug for the State of 
Colorado and the Third Congressional District, we have many national 
parks; the Colorado Rocky Mountain National Park. We have national 
monuments, the Great Sand Dunes National Monumental; the Mesa Verde 
National Park down in the southwestern corner; the Black Canyon 
National Park, a new national park over near Gunnison, Colorado.
  If you really want to see some beauty, go to Colorado, but on your 
way go see the Colorado National Monument. This is a good 
demonstration. The rock structures that you see in the national 
monument, I would guess that rock structure there is probably 300, 400 
feet high, and the echoes that you can hear through the canyons and up 
on top appears an area that we call the Glade Park area. It is 
beautiful. Believe it or not, it looks like kind of a desert setting 
down here amongst these rocks, but as you get up on top on the mesa it 
is very, very heavily wooded with aspen trees and lots of water. It is 
beautiful up on top of the Glade Park.
  The Grand Mesa, by the way, is another area just opposite of it that 
you would also want to visit if you go to Grand Junction.
  Well, our key is that this national monument we in our local 
community take great pride in that national monument. We also have 
excellent community relationships with the Park Service who runs the 
national monument. We also have excellent community relationships with 
the Bureau of Land Management which manages the Federal land outside 
the boundaries of the park, and in some areas the U.S. Forest Service, 
of which we also have excellent community relationships with, in the 
West when the government, when the Federal Government, is on these 
public lands they find that most cooperation is reached, the highest 
level of cooperation is reached, when you take the time to sit down 
with the local people and listen to them and talk with them and live in 
their communities and live the kind of life they live.
  As you know throughout the history of this Nation, ever since the 
Homestead Act and the days of the early pioneers in those mountains, we 
have found that there is a high level of cooperation that can be 
reached. Generally when that cooperation begins to fall apart is when 
an outsider comes in and thinks they know best. Now in some cases some 
outsiders can come in and they have a positive contribution to make to 
our effort, and they want to participate and they are entitled to 
participate, but it is when we get somebody in there who thinks they 
know better, who does not understand the nature of living on public 
lands, who does not understand the impact of what public lands does to 
a community, both the positive impacts and the negative impacts. Well, 
the Colorado Canyons bill really began as a result of some people who 
wanted to take the Colorado National Monument, and I will put a poster 
up with that. This will give us a little better idea of the geography 
that we are talking about. Right here this would be Grand Junction, 
Colorado. Over in this area right here is the Colorado National 
Monument. Well, what had happened is that for some reason, and I am not 
sure why, but a group of people or one individual or a few individuals 
decided that what should happen is that the Secretary of Interior 
should expand the boundaries of the Colorado National Monument to take 
in, we are not sure exactly what the exact borders were but pretty much 
this entire area and expand the national monument.
  Now some of the justification for this theory of expansion was the 
fact that it would be better under Park management. This is all Federal 
land right in here. The white, by the way, is privately-held land. That 
to expand the monument into this area was necessary because the Bureau 
of Land Management perhaps was not capable of managing the land the way 
that it should be managed.
  Frankly, that was a bunch of hogwash. Some people say, well, the BLM 
and the Park Service they do not get

[[Page 15230]]

along out there. We ought to put it all under Park Service oversight. 
That, too, was a bunch of hogwash. In fact, the border between the 
Colorado National Monument and the area in the yellow, in other words 
this area in purple and the area in the yellow here, that is perhaps 
the friendliest border between the Park Service and the Bureau of Land 
Management that exists in the country. We have great people out there 
with BLM and with Park Service and they have good cooperation.

                              {time}  2130

  It is not necessary to expand that monument in my opinion. But not 
long ago, several months ago, the Secretary of the Interior, Bruce 
Babbitt, came to Grand Junction and announced that he would like to see 
the Colorado National Monument expanded. I felt that the Secretary 
listened to what people in the community had to say, he had an open 
forum, he was very receptive, to the best of my knowledge. Let me say 
that many of my colleagues know that my relationship with the Secretary 
of the Interior is, at times, rocky, but nonetheless I respect the fact 
that he came in person to Grand Junction, I respect the fact that he 
had a forum where people in the community could ask him, why do you 
want to expand this monument? What is broken out there that needs to be 
fixed? I appreciate the fact that the Secretary, in meetings with 
myself, in meetings with local people, community leaders, people that 
were just interested in the community, expressed a period of time that 
he would allow to go by before he actually implemented an expansion of 
that monument.
  In other words, what the Secretary said was, if you as a community 
can put together a better proposal than expansion of the monument, I 
will give you an opportunity to do that. You sell me on the proposal. 
You convince me that this proposal is better than what I am doing, and 
I do not have pride of authorship, the Secretary says. He says, I am 
willing to look at what you have to offer. That was a challenge that we 
accepted wholeheartedly. But we had a number of different issues to 
deal with, and let us go through a few of those issues.
  First of all, let me explain the geography. We already know from my 
earlier comments that the City of Grand Junction is here. We know that 
we have the Colorado National Monument up in this area. Let us start 
down here in these white areas. This is the Mesa of which I spoke. By 
the way, we have wonderful herds of elk up there, lots and lots and 
thousands of acres of Aspen trees. I mean it is a very lush type of 
setting. Very green, heavy snow in the winter, a wonderful place. But 
these white spots, this is the private property.
  Mr. Speaker, what is critical up here is that the majority of this 
property is owned currently by a handful of ranchers. These ranchers 
are not the kind of ranchers who we would call gentleman or gentlewoman 
ranchers who really are not ranchers, they just own the property and 
fly in on a private jet every once in a while to see the property; 
these are people who have worked those ranches, in some cases like the 
Gore family or the King family, who have been up there for generations. 
But the viability of their ranches as a result of the fluctuating 
cattle market is in question.
  The only way that these ranches can continue to operate as ranches, 
thus reserving the open space that all of us enjoy, that we want to 
preserve up on that Mesa; we do not want that to go into a housing 
subdivision or into a commercial retail shopping center. But in order 
to preserve it, these ranches have to continue to be viable as ranching 
operations. If they cannot continue their viability as ranching 
operations, the only logical option remaining is for them to subdivide 
the ranch into 35-acre ranchettes.
  By the way, it would be nice to own some land up in this area. It 
would be beautiful. A lot of people, they would not have any trouble, 
those ranchers would not have any trouble; in fact, they would probably 
have to put an auction up or have people draw out names of a hat to see 
who got to buy one of the 35-acre parcels up there on top of the Mesa.
  So when we entered the Colorado Canyon proposal, when we began to put 
this together, one of our primary goals was to protect the ranching 
community. Some of the people who are activists in the environmental 
community agreed with this. They understood our goal here is one, to 
preserve the character of the ranch; and two, to avoid putting in 
subdivisions and, instead, holding open space.
  But as we began to study the problem with the Warren Gore family, and 
Warren himself was very dedicated to this, he spent a lot of time with 
us, and I thank Warren when I see him back in Grand Junction on a 
regular basis. But I say to my colleagues, what we found when we began 
to study what was going on up here and how we keep these ranches 
viable, we discovered that a couple of the ranches have grazing permits 
in this wilderness study area, what we call the Black Ridge Canyon 
Wilderness Study Area.
  Now, what is a wilderness study area? A wilderness study area is an 
area that for all practical purposes is treated as if it is a 
wilderness, and a wilderness is the most restrictive designation that a 
government can give a piece of property.
  Mr. Speaker, just for a moment, let us talk about designations that 
the government can give to property. The government is a landowner. 
Imagine the government as the largest ranch owner in the United States 
and they have a fiduciary duty to manage that land, just like my 
colleagues would manage their own land as a rancher or as a homeowner, 
or if one owned any kind of property, they manage it. The government, 
obviously, wants to have a number of different options, a number of 
different management tools under which to manage this land, and they 
have many, many, many, many, many tools. They have national parks, 
national monument areas, special areas, wilderness and national 
conservation areas. There is area after area that allows flexibility, 
various elements of flexibility, allows various elements or input from 
the local community, allows various types of activities.
  For example, Lake Powell is managed much differently than a lake on 
top of the Flattop wilderness area. All of this range of management 
tools spans a spectrum. At this end of the spectrum, which thank 
goodness we do not have much of anymore, is just kind of a free-for-
all, let anybody can go in and homestead or do anything they want on 
Federal land. Those days are long gone. But at this end of the 
spectrum, the one tool that is the most restrictive tool that should be 
used only with extreme caution is called the Wilderness.
  Wilderness designation, after it is put in place, no longer allows 
local input, takes no State input, takes no congressional input, with 
the one exception that Congress can overturn the wilderness area, which 
politically, obviously, would never happen, so it is the one tool out 
there that locks itself out of flexibility. It is locked forever 
politically and, in reality, it is locked in forever. Now, that is okay 
under appropriate circumstances.
  But while we study whether or not, because it is such a dramatic step 
to put land into this Wilderness designation, we study the area first, 
to make sure that we are making the right decision, because every one 
of my colleagues on this floor understands that once we put it into 
Wilderness, we will never take it out of Wilderness. So before we do 
it, we need to be sure we know what we are doing. It is kind of a 
fundamental, basic requirement.
  So what we do is we put it into what we call a study area. Let us 
study it. Let us look at all of the environmental factors, the 
ecosystems, what are the roads, et cetera, et cetera, before we put it 
into Wilderness. That is exactly what this area is right here, it is a 
Wilderness Study Area. In that Wilderness Study Area, now going back to 
my point about keeping these ranches viable so that we can keep this 
wide space as open space, which is what we desire to do in our 
community, in order to continue to allow these ranches to be

[[Page 15231]]

viable, our group came to the conclusion that we have to protect these 
grazing permits.
  Now, many of us have heard through propaganda, frankly, that grazing 
is bad, and every cattle rancher out there is bad. That is about the 
most irresponsible statement I have ever heard. There are a lot of 
responsible ranching families and they have been there for a heck of a 
long time out there in Colorado, in Wyoming, in Utah and in the west, 
and there is a lot here in the east, farming and ranching families. I 
will tell my colleagues, 99 out of 100 times we will find that they are 
quality people. Frankly, they live the kind of life many of us dream of 
living. They are good, solid people and they have every right to exist.
  These grazing permits, these are permits that have been handled very 
responsibly. These are grazing permits of which the Bureau of Land 
Management, which oversees the management of these permits, has no 
complaint. The relationship between the Bureau of Land Management and 
the Warren Gore family, or the Doug King family, or some of these other 
families, is an excellent relationship. In other words, we do not have 
anything broken up there.
  So the first thing that our community decided was, as a community, we 
can support the continuation of grazing in this Wilderness Study Area. 
So as a community, we want that as an element of the Colorado Canyon 
bill.
  Now, the next issue that we looked at, and again, taking a look here, 
what we have, this mark right here is the I-70 Interstate. This is the 
Utah-Colorado border. This is going to be very important, because as we 
can see, our Wilderness Study Area down here comes into Utah. So the 
other thing that the group wanted to decide was look, we need to 
correspond with our good neighbors to the west, the State of Utah. By 
the way, Utah is a great State, the second-best State I guess in the 
union, but I will say all kidding aside, we have an excellent 
delegation representing the State of Utah.
  So our community felt that we should communicate and work with the 
delegation out of Utah to see what we could do with this Wilderness 
Study Area. I will tell my colleagues, the cooperation from the Utah 
delegation has been excellent. And they have said, hey, we have an 
idea. We think we can incorporate this area into the Colorado Canyon 
bill, and they have done exactly that, with an alternative.
  So, once again, our community is able to seek and accept cooperation. 
This time, we cross State boundaries. Here, we cross the traditional 
boundary of private and public lands. Here we cross the boundary of 
State borders. Now, we go up here. This highway right here is 
Interstate 70. It is the highway which goes across the State of 
Colorado, now, remember, right here, against the Utah border.
  On this side of I-70 we have an area called Rabbit Valley. Once 
again, we need to focus on what is happening in Rabbit Valley. Rabbit 
Valley is not in the Wilderness Study Area, but Rabbit Valley has 
quickly become a very, very popular attraction for mountain bikers, for 
horseback riders, for people who want to go down to the river and fish, 
for people who want to hike, for people who want to observe wildlife, 
for people who just want to go out and have a picnic with their 
families. It has become a recreational area of many uses. I can tell my 
colleagues that most of the people out there, by far, have used the 
area responsibly. We have not had great abuses out here in the Rabbit 
Valley. However, we have had increased activity, and the activity is 
reaching the capacity, it has reached the point where we need some 
management. We need to coordinate the activity so that we do not 
overuse the land, so that we do not overcapacitate the land.
  Now, some people would say to us, the best way to do it is kick the 
users off the land. No more horseback rides, forget the mountain bike 
riding, which is probably the most popular use out here in Rabbit 
Valley; tell the hikers they cannot hike anymore; tell the families 
that want to have picnics not to come and have picnics anymore. These 
are public lands and we want them off the public lands. That is not a 
viable answer.
  The people in our community which, by the way, again included the 
environmental community, the business community, the chamber community, 
our county commissioners of Mesa County who have done an excellent job, 
our city council of the City of Grand Junction, our 2 elected State 
representatives, our State Senator, all of these people in the 
community have come together to make this thing work, and we have 
decided as a group, hey, let us protect these uses. How do we begin to 
manage the land? How do we make sure we have not overcapacitated?
  So we decided, let us put in what is called a National Conservation 
Area, which allows us to protect the land, but at the same time 
preserves the multiple use concept, the right for multiple uses, many 
uses on the land. By the way, in Colorado and in the west, whenever one 
enters a forest or Federal lands in the west, when I grew up, for 
example, you are now entering the White River National Forest, a land 
of many uses. So by community cooperation, by the designation of a 
National Conservation Area in our Colorado Canyon bill, we were able to 
preserve or put this as a National Conservation Area, so it would 
include all of this area, not just north of I-70, but south of it as 
well, to the river.
  The river. Let us talk about Colorado water. The district, the third 
congressional district, as I mentioned, 80 percent of the State's water 
comes out of there. This is an area, this district, that part of the 
Colorado, that district is an area of immense water resources.
  Mr. Speaker, water is very sensitive. It has been said that the 
lifeblood in Colorado is not blood, it is water, and there have been 
many battles fought over water in Colorado and in the west.

                              {time}  2145

  And here water is a critical element because this is the last few 
miles of the Colorado River, called the Mighty River, before it crosses 
the State boundary. It is a critical water resource for the people of 
the State of Colorado.
  Colorado, by the way, just for my colleagues' interest, is the only 
State in the Continental United States where all of our water flows 
out. We have no free-flowing water that comes into Colorado for our 
use. So water is a high sensitivity of which we must observe. So, of 
course, with the committee, we decide what should we do about the 
water.
  Now, water is a critical resource, and as far as I was concerned, 
when we put this Colorado Canyons bill together, the water was simply 
nonnegotiable. It is my duty, as a representative of the State of 
Colorado, to stand, as long as I stand, on behalf of water in Colorado. 
Water is a critical element, as I said earlier. It all goes out. We 
have no water that comes in. And, frankly, a lot of the States where my 
colleagues reside would like to get their hands on that Colorado water. 
It is a wonderful resource. So we have an obligation to protect that 
water.
  But here we have the Colorado River going right to the center, so to 
speak, right through the center of the area that we want to encompass 
in the Colorado Canyons bill. What do we do about it? We brought the 
community together. We brought in experts. We called people like my 
good friend, and one of the leading experts of water in Colorado, Chris 
Treese of the Colorado Water Conservancy District; we called Greg 
Walcher, the former head of Club 20, who now heads the Department of 
Natural Resources for the State of Colorado; we called Tim Pollard of 
the Colorado Department of Natural Resources; and we asked the governor 
of the State of Colorado, Governor Bill Owens, who has long been a 
strong supporter of water in Colorado and a strong supporter of the 
western slope, to come in and as a team give us water expertise.
  Because, frankly, what we had was, we had some people in the 
environmental community who wanted to include the Colorado River in 
either the wilderness area or in the national conservation area. And, 
on the other hand, we had myself, and I said, no, the water is simply 
nonnegotiable. We will not

[[Page 15232]]

allow this Colorado River to go into a wilderness area and be 
overlapped by a wilderness area or be overlapped by a national 
conservation area for one simple reason: We do not understand what the 
unintended consequences of putting this river, especially the last 15 
miles before it crosses the State border, we do not understand what the 
future consequences of that will be. And when we deal with water in 
Colorado, we do not put some kind of imposition on water or some kind 
of legislation dealing with water unless we have a pretty darn clear 
understanding of what the consequences of that designation will be, 
because water is too valuable.
  So we brought in the experts. I sat down with the Secretary of 
Interior, and he was very good. We had good sessions. We had good 
negotiations with the Department of the Interior. And the result was 
just like the result that we had with the grazing permits up here on 
top and the ranchers; just like the result we had with the users of the 
Rabbit Valley. We were able to reach a consensus and we kept the 
Colorado River out.
  Now, the Department of the Interior did not have any intention of 
trying to secure through some covert action water rights. I took them 
on their word. But what they did not want is they did not want 
development along the river shores. They did not want a coal mine down 
here, for example. They did not want somebody setting up some kind of 
an excavation gravel pit here on the river for some reason. And we 
agreed with them on that. It is not my intent to have any kind of use 
like that on those river banks.
  For those of my colleagues who will ever get the opportunity, and it 
is really not just an opportunity, it is a privilege, to go down that 
river on a raft, they will see why it is certainly not an appropriate 
spot for any kind of development like that.
  So we were able to come together. We met my fundamental requirement, 
and that is that the Colorado River was nonnegotiable; that the 
Colorado water belonged to the people of the State of Colorado, and 
that the Colorado water should be preserved in the future for the 
people of the State of Colorado. We met that requirement and at the 
same time we met the Interior Department and Bruce Babbitt's 
requirement or desire that we not have mining exploration or any type 
of development along that line on the river banks. So we were able to 
come to a resolution on the river.
  What was happening was the package was coming together, and this was 
in a very short period of time. We also had a number of other people; 
Stan Broome, with Club 20, who came in and helped us put it together at 
the end. We had, of course, the city councils. As I mentioned, the city 
councils of Grand Junction and Fruita came in. Fruita has their 
reservoir over here. Fruita has a pipeline that brings out water up 
here off the Glade Park area down to their community. Fruita would be 
about right over here in this area. And they came together and 
cooperated with us. Palisade; Clifton. We had a very unified effort out 
there in Colorado. We had the Auberts, the Albert ranch out here, they 
came in and helped us with some of the other issues.
  This negotiation went back and forth with the Department of the 
Interior. And I can tell my colleagues that we also had lots of 
cooperation from not only just the Utah delegation but also the 
Colorado delegation. And when this bill went for its first hearing in 
front of the Natural Resources Committee, we had the chairman, the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen), who bent over backwards to help us 
out. And the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon), whose district borders, 
who said why not go ahead and amend it so we can put together something 
on the Utah side. They care about that area on the Utah side. That 
delegation wanted the kind of protection that we could do.
  So what do we do now with this wilderness study area? That is the 
final segment. How do we put this bill together by addressing the 
wilderness study area? Once again, we bring our community together. 
Once again we brought people like Jeff Widen out of Durango, Colorado, 
who I think is one of the most balanced, level-headed environmental 
activists in the State, and we sat down and said how can we do this. 
What conclusion did we come to? We came to a conclusion that said let 
us put it into wilderness. We have studied this area; we know this area 
has many of the characteristics of wilderness, so let us go ahead and 
put it into wilderness.
  And not only that, the State of Utah, the delegation from Utah, who 
on many occasions unfairly, just like us in Colorado, are unfairly 
attacked by some people who claim to own the entire environmental 
agenda, these people are the ones who stepped forward and said let us 
go ahead, this probably would make sense, let us convert this 
wilderness study area right here in Utah and let us keep it molded 
together and let us convert this to a wilderness area.
  We have a package. We have got a package. We have got a package that 
makes sense, and that package will be heard tomorrow, and that package 
will pass the U.S. House of Representatives and it will pass with 
bipartisan support. It will pass with strong support from the Colorado 
delegation. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Hefley) is a sponsor on 
the bill. The gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Udall), Democrat on the 
other side, has worked with us. He and his staff have worked with my 
staff. And by the way, my staff has done yeomen's work on this bill. 
They have worked together to make this thing come together. Other 
colleagues in the delegation, the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. 
DeGette), the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo), the gentleman 
from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer), have all come together to put this 
together, to mold it and to have a bill that is going to work. And it 
will pass the Senate as well.
  I want my colleagues to know that this is how in the west, when we 
have public lands, this is how we ought to work as a team. This is how 
a community ought to be able to offer some input.
  We have had a couple of colleagues on the House floor here, for 
example, who have gone out and asked for a wilderness corridor all the 
way from Canada to Mexico. And with due respect to my colleagues, I am 
not sure they have ever been up there. I am not sure they understand 
the consequences.
  We have another group of people out in Colorado who went out, the 
National Wildlife Federation, they had secret meetings and they went 
out and decided, well let us take the northwestern part of the third 
Congressional District of Colorado, and let us go ahead and go to the 
Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Babbitt, and let us have him expand the 
monument up there. Who cares about community input; we do not need 
community input. And they did not seek any community input.
  And, guess what. The proposal they have come up with is faulty. Why? 
Because they did not do what our community in western Colorado did. 
They did not build their bill based on a community coalition, on 
community effort, on community input. We brought in the wildlife 
experts. And, by the way, the division of wildlife helped us a great 
deal out here in this area right here, the light purple area there. We 
brought in our county commissioners. We brought in our elected 
officials. We brought in our leading citizens in our community. We 
brought in regular citizens who did not hold offices. We brought in our 
ranchers. We brought in our rafters, and our mountain bikers, our 
horseback riders, and we brought in our hikers and families. And it 
works.
  So my message tonight really is twofold: Number one, let the local 
communities out in the west work on solving these problems. Listen to 
the input of the people who live the life of the west. Listen to them 
when making decisions back here in Washington, D.C. regarding public 
lands. They have something to say. Listen to them. Let people in the 
west be a major part of the decision of how we manage lands in the 
west.
  And, number two, for those groups that decide that they know better, 
for those people who think they should avoid community involvement, for

[[Page 15233]]

those people who want to make an end run around and put designations on 
the people of the west without input, without guidance from people in 
the west, they are making a big mistake and they are making a mistake 
that, even dealing in good faith, has consequences which they cannot 
imagine. We cannot allow that to happen.
  This is the way, in my opinion, to proceed in the west. Just like the 
Colorado Canyons bill, this is how we succeed. This is how we build a 
bipartisan effort. And this will succeed.
  Now, on the subject of the Colorado Canyons bill, for those of my 
colleagues that are interested, we are going to have it in committee 
tomorrow. I have talked with our majority leader, who also has been 
very cooperative, obviously the leader of the House has, about putting 
it on suspension. We should have it next week on the House floor. So 
for those of my colleagues who are interested, they are welcome to 
attend the committee meeting.
  In my final few minutes, leaving the Colorado Canyons bill and 
leaving the area and the subject of the designations in the 
northwestern part of the State, let me talk and kind of go into a 
little more detail about some points I referenced earlier, and that is 
the difference between the western United States and the eastern United 
States. And the best way to do that is to show my colleagues that there 
is a dramatic difference, as demonstrated by this map.
  Take a close look at this map of the United States. We can see that 
there is a distinct difference out here. This is all colored in the 
west. And right here, as I point out, this is the State of Colorado, at 
the end of the pointer. This is the line, roughly the line of the third 
Congressional District. That is the district I represent, which, as I 
mentioned earlier, geographically is larger than the entire State of 
Florida.

                              {time}  2200

  And you will note from our eastern boundary clear to the Atlantic 
Ocean, all of this land out here, very little Federal ownership. You 
can see it is represented here. We have a little heavier in the 
Appalachians. We have the Everglades down here, some up here in the 
northeast. But, basically, some of these States are very, very sparse 
as far as any government lands.
  But now look at the border and come West and you will see the huge 
amounts of government land. Most of the public lands in this country 
are not diversified around the country. In fact, they are a 
conglomerate in the Western States. And so, when people in the East 
talk about public lands, we in the West urge them to take a very 
careful look at what the life is like.
  Many of our communities, if you have ever been to Aspen, if you have 
ever been to Vale, if you have ever been to Grand Junction, if you have 
been to Salt Lake, if you have ever been to Wyoming, you are surrounded 
by public land.
  Now, how did that happen? What is the history of public lands? It is 
really quite simple. In the early days of the country when we were 
trying to settle, remember, our country basically existed over here on 
the eastern coast in those colonial days and early days of the 1800s up 
to about 1840, that is primarily right in there. And then our country 
began to make land acquisitions. But back then, in the early days, 
having a deed to a piece of property did not matter much.
  What really mattered was possession of the property. That is where, 
for example, the saying ``possession is nine-tenths of the law'' that 
is where that saying came from. We needed to possess this property and 
somehow our leaders in Washington, D.C., needed to encourage the people 
who lived in relative comfort here on the eastern coast, they needed to 
encourage these citizens to help us settle the West to help us get 
possession of these States.
  And what is the best way to encourage people to move out of the 
comfort of their homes into the West, where, by the way, your average 
life span was probably 30 years or so, to give them land. The American 
dream is to own your own piece of property. Every American dreams of 
owning a home.
  Americans back then, 98 percent of our population was in the farming 
or agricultural community. They dreamed of having a ranch or a farm of 
their own. And so the Government said, hey, the way to get people to 
move from the eastern coast into these new lands that we have so we 
possess them so another country does not take them from us is to give 
them land, called the Homestead Act, called homestaking.
  What was that all about? They go out and they work the land and they 
get 160 acres. But guess what happened? Once they hit this area right 
here where you see the big blocks, they discovered out here in Kansas 
or even in eastern Colorado or Ohio or Mississippi or Missouri or 
Louisiana, some of these other States, 160 acres can support a family. 
But when they hit the Rocky Mountains, they found out 160 acres does 
not even feed a cow.
  So they went back to their think tank in Washington, D.C., and said, 
hey, our attempt to settle the West works very or pretty well until we 
get out here. What to we do?
  Somebody came uprise the idea, well, instead of giving them a 
homestead of 160 acres or 320, let us give them the equivalent of, say, 
3,000 acres. The people thought about it and they said, that is too 
much politically. We cannot give 3,000 acres to every citizen that goes 
out in the Rocky Mountains.
  So then came up the idea, hey, as a formality, why do we not, the 
Government in Washington, D.C., instead of having to give away so much 
land to support just one family, why do we not as a formality just 
continue to hold the title to the land and allow the people to use the 
land.
  That is where the birth of what is called multiple use came. Multiple 
use means it is a land of many uses. And our lands out here have many 
uses. We have uses on environment, we have uses of ranching, farming. 
All of our highways come under federal lands. Our waters is stored 
upon, it comes across or originates on federal lands.
  As I said, our cellular telephones, the towers, most of those are 
located on public lands. When we go through the mountains and you see 
those lights up on the top of the mountain, the radio tower, that is 
how we get our communication. All of our trucks, our traffic, our 
cattle, We use the public lands. We have a responsibility to use them 
in a responsible fashion. It is a duty of ours. And I think overall we 
have exercised it pretty well.
  Now, there is a heavy propaganda effect by people who feel no pain, 
they feel no pain if they do not live in the public lands to kick us 
off the public lands or to restrict the multiple use or to convince the 
people out here who are not acquainted with the federal lands that 
those of us who live in the federal lands are abusing the federal 
lands, that we are clear-cutting all the forests, that we are putting 
up coal mines, that our ski areas are abusive, that our mountain bikers 
have ridden too many trails, that our horses are creating too much 
disturbance to the wildlife, that our rafters have taken over the 
rivers and demolished the ecosystem of the rivers. It is not true.
  Clearly, we have advanced use. Clearly there are more people who are 
enjoying the outdoors of the Rocky Mountains than ever before in our 
history. Obviously, we have to manage it and we have to manage it with 
the preservation of land in mind. But we also have to manage it without 
a built-in anti-human bias.
  The concept of multiple use is absolutely essential for the survival 
of the people in the Rocky Mountains in the West. If you take away that 
concept of multiple use in the West, you will devastate, and that is 
not an overestimation, I am not exaggerating here, you take away the 
concept of multiple use, you do what some of these more radical 
environmental organizations want to do, for example, the National 
Sierra Club wants to drain Lake Powell, which has more shoreline than 
the entire Pacific West Coast, now they have announced they want to 
drain Flaming Gorge, you allow some of these organizations, which, 
ironically, are all located up here in the East, you allow them to 
pursue their aggressive agenda of eliminating and pushing people off 
these public lands and look at what

[[Page 15234]]

you are doing to about half of the country.
  It is easy if you do not live in these public lands, if you live out 
here somewhere, it is easy for you to say because you feel no pain, it 
is easy, my colleagues, for you to agree with policies that, for 
example, have broad sweeps of taking people off the lands and 
designating areas that are not allowed or have a built-in anti-human 
bias to it.
  What I urge my colleagues tonight and the reason I bring up multiple 
use is the same reason I bring up water. In the West it is essential 
for our survival. In the East you have got to figure out how to get rid 
of your water. In the West we have got to figure out how to preserve 
it, how to conserve it, how to store it. Water storage is critical.
  Out in the West, if we are not allowed to use the public lands and 
use them with the responsibility of being diligent in our use, of 
making sure that we observe the rules of preservation but being able, 
nonetheless, to still use them is absolutely essentially for our 
preservation here in the West.
  And so, my colleagues, before you cast a vote dealing with issues in 
the West, try and get a feeling of our pain, try and understand what 
the consequences, or even more dangerously, what the unintended 
consequences of your action will be for the people of the West.
  Remember, the United States does not start here on the eastern border 
of the Third Congressional District and run to the Atlantic Ocean. The 
United States is one country and we have an obligation in the West to 
understand the problems and the issues of people in the East. And the 
people in the East we feel have an obligation to understand the issues 
in the West, which include the water issues, which include the concept 
of multiple use, which include the concept of involving a community 
from the very basic level up before you draft legislation expanding a 
monument like we have done on the Colorado canyons.
  As a team, we can move this country continually in a positive 
direction. And as a team, the East and the West can mold together. But 
it will only mold together, my colleagues, if those of you in the East 
have a good understanding of our lives and what are necessary to 
preserve our lives in the West.

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