[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 16489]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



               WHALE KILLING ENDS FOR MAKAH INDIAN TRIBE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. Metcalf) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. METCALF. Mr. Speaker, the Makah Indian Tribe in Washington State 
has been granted special permission by the Clinton-Gore administration 
to kill four gray whales each year. They have already killed one whale 
and injured at least one. By the way, for every whale killed, there is 
an average of two that are injured and get away.
  But last year, I filed an appeal along with several co-plaintiffs to 
overturn the decision made by the U.S. District Court to allow whaling 
by the Makah Indian Tribe. Two months ago, a three-judge panel from the 
9th Circuit Court handed down a decision in that case. The decision 
specifically confirmed my position. We won. Whale killing was ended. 
The only way the Clinton-Gore administration would be able to gain 
approval for this whale hunt now would be to blatantly violate the 
Federal environmental protections law.
  In fact, the court specifically asked, and I quote from the decision 
language, ``Can the Federal Defendants now be trusted to take the 
clear-eyed hard look at the whaling proposal's consequences required by 
law, or will a new (Environmental Assessment) be a classic Wonderland 
case of first-the-verdict, then-the-trial?''
  Alice in Wonderland, indeed. However, in this story, the heads that 
are being chopped off belong to the majestic gray whales that ply the 
western coast of America and each year travel north to the Bering Sea 
and occasionally even to Siberia. Most Americans believe that we have 
risen above the wanton slaughter of the buffalo for their hides, or the 
whales for the value of their body parts.
  This would have been the first step toward returning to the terrible 
commercial exploitation of whales of the 19th century. In the papers 
filed with NOAA by the Makah Tribe, the tribe refused to deny that this 
was a move toward renewal of commercial whaling.

                              {time}  1745

  It is important to understand that the International Whaling 
Commission has never sanctioned the Makah whale hunt. Under the 
International Whaling Convention, of which the United States is a 
signatory, it has been legal to hunt whales for scientific or 
aboriginal subsistence purposes only. The tribe clearly has no 
nutritional need nor subsistence need to kill the whales.
  Even in the face of the strong International Whaling Commission's 
opposition to the original Makah proposal in 1997, the U.S. delegation 
unbelievably ignored years of U.S. opposition to whale killing and cut 
a sleazy deal with the Russian government in a back-door effort to find 
a way to grant the Makah's the right to kill whales.
  The agreement was to allow the Makah Tribe to kill four of the whales 
from the Russian quota each year under the artificial construction of 
cultural subsistence. Before this shameful back-door deal, the United 
States had led the opposition worldwide to any whale killing not based 
on true subsistence need. Cultural subsistence is a fraud. It is a 
slippery slope to disaster.
  Cultural subsistence would have expanded whale hunting to any nation 
with an ocean coastline and any history of whale killing. The whaling 
interests in Norway and Japan, who still occasionally pirate whales on 
the high seas, were delighted with the U.S. position. They have 
orchestrated and financed an international cultural subsistence 
movement. America's historical role as a foe of renewed whaling around 
the world would have been drastically undercut.
  The treaty signed by the Makah Tribe in 1855 only gives them the 
right to hunt whales in common with the citizens. This provision was to 
ensure equal rights, not special rights. Now, under the 9th Circuit 
Court ruling, the Makah Tribal Government will not be allowed to kill 
whales when it is illegal for anyone else in the United States to do 
so.
  It is shameful that the Clinton-Gore administration supported a 
proposal that flies in the face of the values, interests and desires of 
the majority of United States citizens. It violates the law and the 
clearly stated U.S. policy in opposition to whaling.
  I support those Makah tribal elders and others who oppose this hunt, 
and I am deeply appreciative of the court ruling and our success in 
stopping the renewal of the barbaric practice of whaling.

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