[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11061-11067]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



               WE ARE ALL FOR A PATIENTS' BILL OF RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Johnson of Illinois). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2001, the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. McInnis) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of 
the majority leader.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the comments of the 
previous speakers. This evening, I want to really focus the majority of 
my comments on differences between the East and the West in the United 
States, differences between the East and the West in the State of 
Colorado and really talk a little about natural resources and water and 
so on, but I cannot help but have listened to the comments, the 
preceding comments.
  I would point out that I think, for example, the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Strickland) who cites an example of a constituent of his who needs 
a bone marrow transplant, I think those stories are very appropriate. I 
think it helps us focus in on the debate. What I question and what I 
intend to challenge, and my colleagues understand this, what I intend 
to challenge are some of the stories that I am beginning to hear.
  This evening I heard from one of the preceding speakers that a young 
man apparently fell on a nail, was taken to an emergency room. The 
emergency room refused to treat him even though he apparently was, 
quote, in dire straits, because he did not have the right insurance and 
that as a result of that young man being refused in an emergency room 
because he did not have the right insurance, he was transported to 
another hospital and as a result of the transportation resulted in the 
amputation of his leg.
  If this is true, it is a pretty remarkable story, very sad story. 
What I think tends to happen, what I think tends to happen when we get 
in a very emotional debate, is that some of these stories get 
exaggerated. Now I have often heard people say, well, someone is 
refused because they did not have insurance, they were dying, they were 
hauled to the emergency room from a car accident and the emergency room 
doctor said, sorry, you do not have insurance and we are not going to 
treat you. That is not true.
  If it is, let me know about the particular case, Mr. Speaker. My 
colleague, who by the way is from Texas, I hope he provides me with the 
details and the names of those people because I would like to 
investigate the case. If we have emergency rooms in this country who 
truly reject someone who necessarily needs emergency treatment, number 
one, it is against a Federal law if they accept any Federal funds at 
all, and there are very few hospitals in the country that do not accept 
Federal funds, so if they are doing that they are violating the Federal 
law.
  Number two, my bet is that once we hear the other side of the story, 
that many of the stories we are about to hear as this Patients' Bill of 
Rights begins to pick up momentum, let me put it this way: I think we, 
on this floor, have an obligation to be accurate in our statements, 
especially when we are dealing with human life and especially when we 
are dealing with human suffering and especially when we are attacking, 
for example, some hospital who theoretically rejected a young man who 
was in, quote, dire straits and as a result the young man got his leg 
amputated. That is pretty serious allegations.
  Maybe it is true. As I said, I kind of question it, but I would like 
to look into it.
  Furthermore, I know that Patients' Bill of Rights sounds good. I 
would just urge my colleagues, remember that saying, the devil is in 
the fine print. You stand up, you go out on any street in America and 
say, hey, do you agree with a Patients' Bill of Rights? And they are 
going to say well, sure what is wrong with that. Sounds good.
  It does sound good, but before you sign, Mr. Speaker, the American 
people to this contract you better take a look at what the fine details 
say. I can say to my colleagues, it is a bunch of hogwash for them to 
believe for one moment that this Patients' Bill of Rights is not going 
to result in lots of lawsuits. America is a country of litigation.
  America is a country of intense legal wrangling. Give the trial 
lawyers an opportunity to prosecute cases, they are going to go after 
it like a kid goes after cookies. Let us be up front. Now I am not 
saying that there are not cases where there should not be lawsuits but 
let us be up front when we talk about this. Do not pretend more 
lawsuits are not going to result. Of course more lawsuits are going to 
result. Let us debate whether they are justified or not justified. At 
least let us be open on the front end and say this Patients' Bill of 
Rights will result in trial lawyers filing lots of lawsuits in this 
country.
  If these lawsuits are not justified, it is the consumer who will pay 
for them. Let us take a look, as we have, and I want patients to have 
rights, all of us do, but do not pull the wool over their eyes by 
saying here is a bill of rights that in the end costs them more money 
and as a result more money to get insurance and as a result less people 
get insurance because insurances become more costly because my 
colleagues, on this House floor, decided they are going to ride in on 
their white horse and save the American patient from, as described 
earlier, gross abuse. There are unique cases of abuse and those should 
be addressed, but be very careful about what you are going to sign on 
to. Do not let the emotional thrill or the emotional warmness or the 
cuddliness of the word of a bill entice you into believing that this is 
the answer for our medical crisis in this country.
  There are a lot of good doctors in this country. We happen to have a 
pretty darn good medical delivery system in this country. Sure, we need 
improvement. Sure, we would like to figure out how to get more people 
insurance. Sure, we would like to figure out the prescription costs in 
this country. But do not take that little bit of bad and throw out all 
the good. Do not, in an attempt to fix the bad, end up making its 
spread worse and actually doing damage to the good things that our 
medical health delivery system in this country does for us.


                      When the West Meets the East

  Mr. McINNIS. Let me move on from there. I had an interesting talk in 
Massachusetts not too long ago. Of course, as my colleagues know, my 
district is the Rocky Mountains of the State of Colorado. It is the 
highest district in the Nation elevation-wise. It is a district with 
great beauty, huge mountains. We have 54 mountains over 14,000 feet, by 
far more than any other district in the country. It is a district that 
many, many people visit, Aspen, Telluride, Beaver Creek, Steamboat 
Springs, Durango, Glenwood Springs down in the San Luis Valley, Rocky 
Mountain National Park, Great Sand Dunes, Colorado National Monument, 
the Black Canyon National Park. Most of my colleagues have all been 
probably at one point or another been into my district for a vacation.
  Going back to my point, I was in Massachusetts. I was talking to a 
wonderful couple named Tony and Cathy Frasso and their son David. We 
were talking about public land. We were talking about some of the 
differences between the State of Massachusetts and the lands in 
Massachusetts versus the lands in the West. There is a dramatic 
difference between the lands and the way the lands are governed, for 
example, between the way decisions are made on lands in the East and 
lands in the West. That is really where I want to start my comments and 
focus my comments on natural resources this evening.
  Let us take a look at just what I mean by that. Obviously, we have 
here

[[Page 11062]]

a map of the United States. We will see in this map that the color over 
here represents government lands. So on this map, what this map 
depicts, is wherever color is seen on the map that says that that is 
owned by the government, that land is owned by the government. If we 
will notice, my district, by the way, is right here in the State of 
Colorado, right along this border. That district geographically, that 
land mass right there, is larger than the entire State of Florida. We 
will notice how interesting it is that in our country primarily in the 
East, in other words from my eastern border on the third district in 
Colorado to the Atlantic Ocean, and from Canada to Mexico, there is 
very little government land in these areas. Look at some of these 
States. They have little dots of public lands. Some of these States 
hardly have any government lands at all and yet when we take a look at 
this eastern border and come West to the Pacific Ocean or again go from 
Canada down to Mexico, we see massive amounts of government land.

                              {time}  2045

  Well, there are a couple of questions about that. Number one, from a 
historical point of view, why the difference? Why does the government 
own big chunks of land in the West and, relatively speaking, very 
little land in the East? What kind of impact does it have on decision 
making? And what is it like to live when you are completely surrounded?
  You see in these colored areas, there are communities, millions of 
people live out on these lands, or they are surrounded by these 
government lands. The public ``public lands'' is not an often spoken 
word out in some of these States. In my district, it is spoken about 
all the time.
  Let us talk and give an answer to the first question I asked, what is 
the historical basis for this massive amount of government land in the 
West, and yet very little government land in the East? It is really 
pretty simple, and it goes back to the frontier days of our country.
  When our country was being settled, we were making acquisitions of 
land. It was our dream in this country to expand our boundaries, to go 
out and go west. Remember, going west was just a little ways west of 
Washington, D.C. back then. But the dream was to go out into the new 
frontier and claim new land for this new country that we had, to make 
our country great, by growing it in size.
  But in order to do that back in those days, you did not just get a 
deed. For example, when we purchased Louisiana, made the Louisiana 
Purchase, simply having a deed to the property did not mean a whole 
lot. In fact, in those days, possession, as the old saying goes, 
possession is nine-tenths of the law. You really needed to be on the 
property, in possession of the property, with a six-shooter on your 
side. That is a lot, the law of how the land in the West was settled.
  So, what happened, the government had to figure out, they had to 
occupy this land. Your elected leaders in Washington, D.C. had to 
figure out how do we get people to go west? How do we get people to 
possess this land? How do we get people to till the land and to put the 
land to good use so that we continue to build this fine country of 
ours?
  The answer came up that most people will leave the comfort of their 
home, or at least a good number of people will leave the comfort of 
their home, if you promise them what every American dreams of, owning 
their own piece of land, having a piece of property that is in their 
name.
  So the government decided the way to bring the people off the East 
Coast here and bring them west was to promise them land. They called 
that the Homestead Act, I think about 1862. And the government said to 
the American people, go out into this frontier, find a piece of 
property, put your stakes in the ground, and, if you farm it for a 
period of time, generally 3 to 5 years, we will let you take title to 
maybe 160 acres or 320 acres.
  You see, back then, in Kansas, for example, or up there in Nebraska, 
or over in Iowa or Mississippi or Missouri or some of those areas, 160 
acres was adequate. A family could live off 160 acres of farmland.
  But the problem was when they hit the West, when these settlers came 
out, they started getting into the West, where 160 acres does not even 
feed a cow.
  The people came back to Washington, D.C. and said we have a problem. 
Our idea of encouraging people to move west and settling the frontier 
through our Homestead Act is working in this part of the Nation. But 
when we come to the West, where the land is much more arid, for 
example, much more rugged terrain, where those mountain peaks in the 
Third District of Colorado go beyond 14,000 feet, at that point people 
are not stopping. They are not tilling the land. In fact, 160 acres 
will not even feed a cow in this new land we are in.
  So they gave some thought to it in Washington, and somebody came up 
with the idea, well, what we should do, if we give 160 acres, say, in 
Kansas or Nebraska, maybe what we ought to do is give like 3,000 acres 
out in the Rocky Mountains, so that they can have a comparable amount 
of acreage that will feed a like number of cows or a like number of 
livestock.
  But the problem was, they said look, realistically and politically we 
are not going to be able to give away large amounts of land in the 
West. Somebody else then said I have got the answer. What we should do 
in the West, just for formality, let us go ahead, the government, and 
keep title to the land. Let us go ahead and own the land in the West, 
and we will let the people use it. A land of many uses. It is called 
multiple use. That is where the concept of ``multiple use'' came from, 
a land of many uses.
  This land, the reason it is in government hands, is not, contrary to 
what some of your radical environmental groups like Earth First may 
want you to believe, that this land was acquired for all future 
generations, and we should have hands off, and that for some reason, if 
you are out here in the East and happen to get there first, you are 
entitled to utilize and live off the land, but when you come to the 
West, you are not entitled to those kind of privileges.
  The government did not intend this as one huge national wilderness 
area, for example. The only reason the government retained the 
ownership of this property was because, realistically and politically, 
they could not give that much land away to one person. But if you look 
back historically you will see very clearly that the government 
intended for the people to still continue to come to this area and they 
would be able to use the land in many different ways.
  Today we have lots of different uses for this land. Obviously, we use 
our land just the same as you do in Kansas or Nebraska or Florida or 
Missouri or Vermont. We use our land very similar to that. But we also 
have lots of different uses. We have National Parks, just like others. 
We have open space, environments and critical forests.
  Our water is very important, and our water in the West, remember, 
water in the West, which I am going to get into in some detail, the 
West is an arid area. In the West, we sue. We fight. Water is like 
blood in the West. In the East, in a lot of places, you have to fight 
to get rid of the water. Shove it over on your neighbor's land. In the 
West, you try and grab it on your land. So there are some differences 
there.
  This points out for you what we face in the western United States, 
and that is that oftentimes in our land use policies, on our really 
everyday life out in the West, whether it is our highways that come 
over Federal lands, whether it is our power lines, whether it is our 
water, whether it is our tourism industry, our ski areas, our river 
rafting, mountain bikes, hiking, our kayaking, all of this, we all of a 
sudden have a landlord who is in a little tiny town here on the 
Potomac, Washington, D.C.
  Very few of these States in the East, when they decide what they want 
to have for hiking, or where the mountain bikes are going to go, or, 
obviously most States do not have ski areas, but what other kind of 
recreational things they are going to do, they do not have

[[Page 11063]]

to go to Washington, D.C. for permission. A lot of what we do in the 
West, we have to come east to the population area of Washington, D.C. 
to get permission to do it.
  So my purpose tonight in kind of explaining the difference between 
the western United States and the eastern United States is to tell you 
that when you hear those of us in the West talk about public lands and 
talk about the impact of, say, wilderness areas, or logging, you listen 
to us, that you will give us a little time to tell our side of the 
story.
  Over the years, we have gotten pretty good managers of this land, 
both from an environmental point of view, both from what we have 
learned from a technical point of view, both of what we have learned on 
how to manage our resources. And I think it is safe to say that there 
are a lot more people in the West that know about the land in the West 
than there probably are in the East, but sometimes in the West it is 
felt that they are being dictated to by people who have never 
experienced the West, or by people that do not feel the pain because 
they do not live on public lands.
  In my district, for example, I think with the exception of one or two 
communities, every community in my district is completely surrounded by 
government lands. We have to get government permission for highways, we 
have to get government permission for recreational uses, we have to get 
government permission for open space, for endangered species, for water 
usage, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So there is a difference.
  Let us move on and kind of focus in from a national picture. 
Actually, before we move to the State of Colorado, this is probably a 
good chart to take a look at, a comparison of some western and eastern 
States by the percentage of land, public land usage.
  In 11 western States, and we picked 11 eastern States to compare 
side-by-side, so that those of you in the States of New York, for 
example, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Vermont, et 
cetera, we are kind of doing a side-by-side comparison in the West. So 
you have an idea of how public lands impact us much greater, to a much, 
much greater degree in the West than it does you in the East.
  Again, the primary reason that we are impacted in the West and you 
escape the impact in the East is that historical knowledge that the 
only way they could encourage people to go in and use large amounts of 
land in the West was for the government to retain ownership.
  Let us take a look. The State of Nevada, 82.9 percent, almost 83 
percent of the State of Nevada is public lands, 83 percent. 
Connecticut, less than one-tenth of 1 percent, one-tenth of 1 percent 
is public lands. Rhode Island, about three-tenths of 1 percent. New 
York, seven-tenths of 1 percent.
  So colleagues from Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Maine, 
Massachusetts, 1.3 percent. And this is where my friends, the Frassoes, 
Tony and Kathy and Dave, live, and I told them, 1.3 percent of your 
lands are public lands.
  Take a look at what Colorado has. Thirty-six percent of Colorado is 
public lands. By the way, most of that 36 percent is in my 
Congressional District, the Third District of Colorado.
  Look at the State of Utah. Sixty-four percent of the State of Utah 
belongs to the government. Those are public lands. Idaho, 61 percent. 
Oregon, the government owns over half that State. Wyoming, the 
government owns almost half that State. Arizona, almost half of the 
State of Arizona. Just under half of the State of California. Again, I 
just mentioned Colorado.
  Let us go back over here. In the State of Ohio, a very large State, 
less than 1.3 percent of your State is owned by the government. So, for 
my colleagues here from the State of Ohio, you need to listen when 
somebody like our colleagues from the State of Nevada, who have 83 
percent of their State owned by the government, come to speak to you 
about public lands. Listen to them. I know most of my colleagues do. 
But we need to have a better understanding of the difficulties that we 
face in the West, because they are unique to the West. Our everyday 
lives, the things that impact us because of government lands are unique 
to the West versus the East, I think this chart pretty well indicates 
some of that.
  Now, let us go ahead and take a brief look at who some of the major 
government agencies that have these holdings are, major U.S. 
landholdings. The Federal Government owns more than 31 percent of all 
the lands in the United States. So if you take all the lands of this 
country, the government owns just under one-third of them.
  State-owned, for all purposes, 197 million acres. Federally-owned, 
704 million acres in this country are owned by the Federal Government. 
The BLM owns about 260 million acres, the Forest Service owns 231 
million acres, and other Federal agencies own about 130 million acres. 
The Park Service has 75 million acres. The Native American tribes have 
about 45 million acres.
  That is a lot of land. Most of us, when we talk about buying a new 
home, we think you are doing pretty well if you have a home that sits 
on a one-acre piece. Imagine, 704 million acres owned by the 
government, and the majority of that acreage, by far, the strong 
majority of that acreage, is in the West, where we live.
  Now let us focus down on the State of Colorado. A very similar 
analogy applies to the State of Colorado between eastern Colorado and 
western Colorado. Now, they are very similar in that eastern Colorado 
is rural and western Colorado is rural. But if you go down the line, 
which basically is the Third Congressional District, you will see out 
here, go back here, in the colored areas, brown, green, blue and so on, 
those are government lands.
  Take a look at western Colorado, right here, versus eastern Colorado. 
Eastern Colorado, there are very few public lands. In fact, the public 
lands really literally in some of these counties are the courthouse.

                              {time}  2100

  Down here you have some grasslands. You got national grassland up 
here, in an area over there; but primarily, most of the western slope 
of Colorado, most of it is owned by the government. That means that the 
people that live out in this area have to adapt to living and 
cooperating and working alongside the owners of the property, which is 
the government. And that has some huge impacts.
  You can see why people in the West get a little defensive when 
somebody from the East starts dictating to them how the land in the 
West should be handled, especially when the people from the East speak 
of little experience, especially when the person from the East has 
never lived this.
  For example, I always used to get aggravated when Clinton and Gore, 
when they spoke to us, they spoke to us about the West; and they would 
go out and make these grand announcements or by executive orders take 
large blocks of land and, in essence, put them off limits.
  Why was I was upset? Not necessarily because of the fact that some of 
these moves were not good moves. In fact, some areas did deserve that, 
the executive order, not many, but some of them did. What bothered me 
the most is that the President and the Vice President outside of a 
vacation day or outside of a campaign had never spent a night in the 
West.
  They did not know what our life was like. They did not know what the 
experience was like having to get government permission, for example, 
for the water you own, to use that water that you own. It goes on and 
on and on.
  So I think at this point what I want to do is break down and go from 
our comments about the public lands and what impact the public lands 
have on the West to talk about a specific asset that we have got in the 
West, and it is very unique to the West, as far as the law is 
concerned, as far as the amount of it and the recycling of it and that 
is the subject of water.
  Water is very unique. Water is one of the few resources we have in 
this country that is renewable. Remember that you often hear people 
talk, look, let us have conservation on water. Remember

[[Page 11064]]

water is the one resource, it is the one resource out there that one 
person's waste of water could very easily be another person's water.
  Let me give you an example. Years ago they came out with the idea, 
well, let us go and let us line all the farmers; ditches with concrete. 
And that way we will save water from being seeped into the ground. What 
some did not realize is that the water that leaked out of the one ditch 
may very well have been the water that popped up as a spring in a piece 
of property miles away.
  Water, we do not understand today but we have a pretty good idea; but 
20 years or 30 years from now, we will be able to actually track-
specific water and see all the millions of veins that it goes in 
underneath our earth's surface, and how it benefits one party and yet 
hurts another party, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
  But in the meantime, let us talk a little more about it. It is the 
only natural resource with automatic renewal. After falling from clouds 
as rain and snow, it may run into streams, lakes, or soaking into the 
ground. Eventually, it will evaporate and continues the cycle forever.
  Now, here is some interesting statistics. If you take a look at all 
of the water in the world, all the water on the earth, 97 percent of 
that water, 97 percent of that water is salt water, and 75 percent of 
the remainder, so if you take the 3 percent of the earth's water that 
is not salt water, 75 percent of that 3 percent is actually water that 
is contained in the polar ice regions as ice caps.
  As we put here, only .05 percent, only .05 percent is fresh water in 
streams and lakes. So when you take a look at the earth's surface under 
today's technology, the majority of water is salt water; or it is tied 
up in the polar ice caps. So that makes water a pretty precious 
resource.
  Here is another interesting number. Seventy-three percent of the 
stream flow, so almost three-fourths of the stream flow in this 
country, is claimed by States that are east of a line drawn north to 
south along the Kansas-Missouri border. In other words, in the eastern 
United States, remember where I explained the differences here, in the 
eastern United States, 73 percent of the water in the streams in this 
entire country, three-fourths of the water is over in this area of the 
country, over in the eastern part of the country.
  This is an arid part of the Nation, these government lands, the 
western States. Twelve percent is claimed by the Pacific Northwest. 
This leaves 14 percent of the total stream flow to be shared by 14 
States which are over half the land area.
  What I am saying here is that 14 percent, 14 percent of the stream 
flow of water resources in this entire Nation, 14 percent of it has to 
be shared by over half of the Nation in the western States. So 
geographically over half the physical size, over half the size of the 
country only gets 14 percent of the stream flow.
  So that shows you why water has become such a precious resource in 
the West. One of the interesting things about water, and I know to some 
of you, the subject of discussing water gets pretty boring. In fact, I 
am going to have a sip of it right now, because we all expect water to 
be there when we turn on the tap.
  It is kind of a boring subject until water no longer comes out of the 
faucet, then it becomes somewhat more of an issue. And as we begin to 
make huge advancements in water quality, as we begin to make huge 
advancements in aquatic life in our water, in better ways to utilize 
our water, in more efficient ways to utilize water, water becomes more 
of an important subject.
  But I have some very interesting facts which I thought I would 
present this evening to my colleagues so that you have kind of an idea 
of how much water is required in our everyday lives, not water just for 
drinking, but water for our clothes, water for our food, water for our 
vegetation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
  I think one of the best charts I have seen is this one on water 
usage. This is the per-person drinking and cooking every day. Every 
person in America uses about 2 gallons of water to drink and to cook 
with. Flushing the toilet takes 5 gallons to 7 gallons.
  Now interestingly enough, the Europeans, and I am not a big fan 
necessarily of some of the Europeans' technology, but some of the 
technology, especially when it comes to toilets they now have a dual 
flush toilet, a flush when you go one way, a flush when you go another 
way. That is a pretty smart idea. It helps conserve water. They use 
excess water to complete the job, so to speak.
  The washing machine uses 20 gallons when you turn on your washing 
machine. A dishwasher to wash your dishes takes 25 gallons; taking a 
shower, 9 gallons.
  Now, take a look at this. I find this part of the chart fascinating, 
take a look at how much water it takes, for example, for one loaf of 
bread, for one loaf of bread that you buy off the grocery store shelf, 
it take 150 gallons of water to bring that seed up, to process the 
wheat, to bring the flour, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It takes 
150 gallons of water to produce one loaf of bread.
  Take a look at one egg. This is unbelievable, one egg, to have one 
egg produced, you go through about 120 gallons of water. Thank goodness 
water is recyclable. Thank goodness it is a commodity that is 
rechargeable.
  One quart of milk, to get 1 quart of milk, you need 223 gallons; or 
to get 1 gallon of milk, you need 1,000 gallons of water, a thousand 
gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of milk.
  These are numbers that most people never heard of before. A pound of 
tomatoes, it is 125 gallons of water. A pound of oranges is 47 gallons. 
A pound of potatoes takes 23 gallons of water.
  Now, what happens? This gives you a pretty good idea in the use of 
our country where the primary use of water is, water that is consumed 
for human consumption. What happens to 50 glasses of water?
  If we have 50 glasses of water in our country that we were going to 
use for human consumption purposes, this is not water left in the 
stream or et cetera, this is water for human consumption, 44 of those 
50 glasses of water are necessary for agriculture.
  That points out to you just how important water is for our 
agricultural base in this country, three glasses of it is used by 
industry, two glasses are used by the cities and a half a glass is used 
out in the country for the people that live out in the country.
  Pretty interesting statistics. Well, let me move from the charts that 
we have here and talk just a little bit more about the State of 
Colorado and the rivers that we have in Colorado.
  First of all, I thought it would be appropriate in our capitol in 
Denver, Colorado. By the way, it is a beautiful building if you have an 
opportunity. If you are in Denver, stop by the State capitol. I have 
many good friends that work out of the State capitol. I served there 
myself.
  One of the best sayings you will find in the capitol is by Thomas 
Hornsby Ferril: ``Here is a land where life is written in water. The 
West is where water was and is father and son of old mother and 
daughter following rivers up immensities of range and desert thirsting 
the sundown ever crossing a hill to climb still drier naming tonight a 
city by some river a different name from last night's camping fire. 
Look to the green within the mountain cup. Look to the prairie parched 
for water lack. Look to the sun that pulls the oceans up. Look to the 
cloud that gives the oceans back. Look to your heart and may your 
wisdom grow to the power of lightning and peace of snow.''
  I think that poetic piece says it pretty well. In the West, water is 
like blood. In the West, our entire life is dependent on this resource. 
We need to understand it. We need to take care of our water resources. 
We need to keep people from preventing us from using water in a 
balanced fashion.
  We need to be smart enough to keep our water clean and to figure out 
how to put our water to the best possible use. We need to be fair in 
our usage of water.
  Take a look. In Colorado history, the first dam. Now, you hear lots 
of criticisms about dams, especially by organizations that generally 
are way off

[[Page 11065]]

the spectrum, as far as balance is concerned. In the West, we are very 
dependent upon dams. In the West, we do not have lots of rainfall.
  In fact, I think in Colorado I can tell you exactly in Colorado. In 
Colorado I think we average about 16 inches of precipitation a year, 16 
inches a year. Take a look at what happened in Houston last week.
  Now, I know that was a freak storm; but what did they have, 40 inches 
in a storm, 3 days or 4 days? We do not have 16 inches in an entire 
year.
  The critical thing about water in the West, because we do not have a 
continual flow, because we do not have lots of rain in the West, we 
have to store the water that we have, primarily in the Rocky Mountains. 
We are dependent on our snowfall, the heavy snowfall that we get in the 
winter time; and then it is that spring runoff that comes off the 
mountains. A lot of times the runoff may come too early or the runoff 
may come in too great a surge, so we have to have the capability to 
store that water, to help us with flood control, to help us so that we 
have those resources in the months that we do not have any snow, in the 
months that we do not have spring runoff, in the months that we do not 
have much rainfall.
  So storage of water is critical for life in the West. Now, that is 
not to say that we should store it at any cost. It is to say that we 
can store water in a smart and balanced fashion. It is interesting to 
hear that, that, for example, the National Sierra Club, their number 
one goal, or at least their number one goal last year was to take down 
the massive water projects in the West, Lake Powell, which is also one 
of our largest hydroproducers. Give me a break.
  The West could not survive without reservoirs like that. In the West, 
we need to store that water. Understand, in the East, in many cases, 
you need to get rid of it. In the West, we need to store it. And our 
first dam actually in Colorado, our first storage was by the Mesa Verde 
Indians, and it was that ancient irrigation system.
  They actually discovered that around 1,000 A.D. that the Indian 
groups there stored water, the Native Americans at Mesa Verde, they 
figured out that they had arid months. In fact, it is often thought 
that the extinction of that tribe down in that part of the State was a 
result of a drought, was a result of the fact that they could not store 
enough water to get themselves all the way through.
  So there is a lot of history to the Rocky Mountains, and there is a 
lot of history to our water use in the Rocky Mountains. We have what 
they call Colorado the Mother of Rivers, that is what they call the 
State, because we have four major river basins in the State of 
Colorado. The first river basin is called the South Platte; the second, 
the Arkansas; the third, the Rio Grande; and the fourth, the Colorado 
River.
  I am going to really focus on the Colorado River basin this evening 
with the time that I have left. Remember, rivers east of the 
Continental Divide, most of the Continental Divide is in my 
congressional district. We have all heard, colleagues, of the 
Continental Divide.
  Rivers east of the Divide flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Rivers west 
of the Divide, like the Colorado River, drain into the Gulf of 
California and the Pacific Ocean. The Colorado River is a pretty unique 
river. First of all, the Colorado River is 1,440 miles long. It 
provides water for 25 million people. The Colorado River provides water 
for 25 million people, and that river which drains and provides 
millions of acres of agricultural water, it also provides clean 
hydropower. And in Colorado, we put in about 75 percent of the water 
resources for the Colorado River, although actually only about 25 
percent of it is allowed to stay.

                              {time}  2115

  So the reason that water is so critical for us, aside from the fact 
that we have to store it, aside from the fact that we do not have much 
precipitation in our State, is that our water from our agriculture, our 
water for our recreation, we do everything, from our wild and scenic 
streams for tourism to our kayaking to our rafting to our snow making, 
we are very, very dependent on a very limited supply of water in the 
West. And so I thought that it would be good this evening to talk about 
water in the West.
  I started this evening's comments by talking about the vast amounts 
of government land that sits in the West, and then transitioned into 
water in the West, which is one of the key ingredients. I intend in 
future comments to talk in a little more detail about the public lands, 
about the need for wilderness areas, about the need for grazing areas 
and the need for public interest areas, about the need for national 
parks and State parks, and about the need for open space. So my 
discussions this evening about water are just one segment in an 
educational series of how life in the West really is different than the 
East.
  Now, my comments are not meant to put a divide between the East and 
the West. It simply is to explain the divide that already exists as a 
result primarily because of geographical differences, and that is where 
we have that. So this is my purpose. Water is our subject this evening.
  I want to give a couple of other comments about water that I think 
are pretty interesting. First of all, as many of my colleagues may 
know, we have wonderful trout streams in Colorado. In fact, in the 
State of Colorado we have over 9,000 miles of streams; 9,000 miles 
coming off those great big mountains, those high mountains of the 
Colorado Rockies. We also have about 2,000 lakes and reservoirs. We are 
not like Minnesota or Michigan with those massive lakes, but 
considering the height, the elevation of the Rocky Mountains, Colorado 
is a really fairly unique State.
  We have a lot of fun things in Colorado. For example, we have 13 
different streams, called Clear Creek. But the key is that while there 
are differences in the United States between the east and the west, 
those differences also exist in the State of Colorado between eastern 
Colorado, primarily the cities, and western Colorado. My congressional 
district, for example, the third district of the State of Colorado, 
that district has 80 percent of the water resources in Colorado, yet 80 
percent of the population resides outside that district. So within our 
own boundaries even in the State of Colorado there is a constant 
balancing requirement that is necessary. How much water should be 
diverted from the western slope to the eastern slope? What amount of 
water do we need to keep in the streams to preserve our aquatic life or 
the quality of the water? These are issues we deal with every day in 
the West.
  My purpose in being here this evening, especially to my colleagues 
east of Colorado, to the Atlantic Ocean, is to request of them that 
when they hear about or have an opportunity to vote on water issues 
facing the West, ask some of us in the West about it, because the 
implications in the West on water in many, many cases are dramatically 
different than the implications on a water vote when we are discussing 
water in the East.
  Now, tomorrow evening, or later this week, I hope to talk a little 
about energy. Because energy, of course, involves all of us. It is very 
important. I also want to talk about public lands in some more detail, 
the different uses of public lands, the different ways the government 
manages public lands.
  We have lots of different management tools with public lands. When 
our government said, as I mentioned earlier in my comments, that in the 
East we would let the people own the land, but in the West the 
government would keep the title for the land simply to avoid the 
political embarrassment of giving away too much land, when the 
government did that, they decided that they were going to retain and 
manage this land. And over the time, through technological management, 
through better land management, through more knowledge, we have 
developed a vast array of tools, and we can use any one of these tools 
or a combination of these tools to help us manage these public lands.
  Many of my colleagues are aware of some of these tools, the names of 
these

[[Page 11066]]

tools, such as national parks, for example, national monuments, special 
interest areas, conservation areas, et cetera, et cetera. Well, what we 
need to do to properly manage these massive Federal lands is not to 
make a rule that one shoe fits all, because one shoe does not fit all 
in the West. What we need to do is custom manage these public lands, 
but we cannot custom manage public lands unless we talk to the people 
who live there. We cannot custom manage public lands unless we talk to 
the people who are directly impacted by it.
  Now, it is true, and I hear this argument constantly from my 
colleagues here on the floor that land belongs to all the people in the 
West, so those of us in decision-making authority here in the East have 
every right to make decisions on how people in the West live and how 
they use that land. That is not how we get a balanced approach for the 
management of public lands in the West. The way to do it is to go to 
the local communities.
  For example, today in front of the subcommittee that I chair, the 
Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health of the Committee on 
Resources, we had a Native American who spoke about the years of 
history of his family and the traditions regarding the uses of the 
forest and the uses of government lands. We had an expert on forest 
that talked about the health of different public lands. Both of these 
people stressed in their comments the importance of having local input, 
the importance of bringing in the people who are impacted by these 
public lands.
  So tomorrow night I will go into a lot more detail. I will talk about 
probably the most extreme use, the strongest tool we have, called 
wilderness designation. And by the way, I have probably put more land 
in wilderness than anybody currently seated in the House of 
Representatives. And then I will go clear to the other extreme, where 
the land is not properly managed, where the land is kind of a free-for-
all, which is as much a disservice as an extreme on the other end.
  There are lots of different tools and lots of ways that we can 
preserve these lands for future generations while at the same time 
having the right to live on them and enjoy them in this generation. 
This generation is not under an obligation to save everything for the 
future. There are a lot of things that we can use. And if we use them 
smartly, we not only mitigate our impact to the environment, in many 
cases we can enhance the environment. And that is where our obligation 
is, to help enhance our environment. I will talk a little more about 
that tomorrow evening.
  For my final few minutes, even though I will address it later in the 
week, I want to talk a little about energy. We have talked this evening 
about a number of different things. First of all, we started with a few 
comments on the Patients' Bill of Rights, and I want to restress to my 
colleagues that it is important that patients have rights in this 
country. It is important that we do not have gross mismanagement of our 
medical services in this country. It is important that we have a 
balance out there.
  And when we hear in the press and we see documents that say the 
Patients' Bill of Rights, we should take a look at the details. It may 
work out to be just what we are looking for. It may be an answer for 
some of the problems. But we need to read the details before signing on 
to the document. We need to read the details before casting our votes, 
because we have an obligation in these Chambers to be aware of the 
impact that these bills will have and to take a look at what might be 
the unintended consequences of actions that we might take.
  So we have spent a few minutes talking about the Patient's Bill of 
Rights, and then, of course, I moved on and talked about public lands 
and water resources. Now, colleagues, I know that that is kind of a 
boring subject. I know this evening's walk through the differences 
between the East and the West in the United States, where in the West 
we have massive amounts of Federal Government land ownership and in the 
East we have very little government land ownership, and the differences 
that can even be pared down to the State, where we talk about 
differences in water and differences in government-owned lands and 
public lands, but while it is boring, it is very important. Life in the 
West is also important for those in the East, because we are totally 
dependent upon an understanding so that we can help preserve and 
utilize in a proper fashion these resources.
  Finally, now, I want to visit for a couple of minutes in my remaining 
time about energy and the need for energy. First of all, I am a strong 
believer in conservation. I think there are a lot of things that the 
American public can do to help conserve. I was at a town meeting 
yesterday in Frisco, Colorado, when somebody brought up the fact that 
they were in Europe recently, and mentioned that when they went into a 
room, in order to keep the lights on, they, naturally could turn them 
on, but in order for them to stay on, they had to take a card and put 
the card in a slot. Now, I had been in Europe, too, and I remembered 
that as he said that. When leaving the house, once you pulled the card 
out to leave the house, the lights shut off. It is a tremendous energy 
saver and it is of no pain.
  We do not have to have our lives inconvenienced at all. One switch 
shuts them all off. Now, of course, I imagine that if you need a 
security light and so on, that can be worked out. But there are little 
ideas like this, like changing our oil every 6,000 miles on our cars 
instead of every 3,000. There are lots of simple conservation ideas 
that we, the American people, can employ today. For example, as we 
prepare to retire this evening, make sure we do not have on the 
bathroom light, the closet light, and the bedroom light. When we are in 
the kitchen getting ready to have a drink of water before going to bed, 
shut off lights. We can turn down our heaters, if we do not need them. 
We can keep the air conditioner turned up if we do not need it that 
cold in rooms.
  One of the things that helps us do this, that helps us conserve, is 
the marketplace. Now, I have heard a lot of talk about, well, we need 
to artificially support these prices. But the thing that has driven 
more conservation in the last couple of months has not been some action 
by the government, it has been high prices in the marketplace. If we 
were to freeze the price of energy, which some of my colleagues 
recommend we do, i.e. price caps, that does several things. One, it 
encourages people to use more of the product because they know that the 
price will not go up on them. Two, it discourages innovation. What 
drives innovation is that when prices go up and demand stays the same 
or goes up, people look for more efficient ways to do things. So energy 
and conservation are very important.
  I agree very strongly with people like the Vice President, who I 
think, although it may not be politically correct in some audiences in 
our country, makes it very clear that conservation alone will not 
answer our shortage of energy in this country; that conservation alone 
will not lessen the dependency we have on foreign oil; that 
conservation alone, while it is a very, very important factor, it is 
not the sole answer. We have got to figure out ways to use and to 
gather more resources for energy for future generations. Energy is a 
big issue for us.
  I actually think that the energy shortage that we are in really is 
kind of a wake-up call for us. It is not a crisis for the entire 
country where the economy has collapsed, but it is a wake-up call. It 
is the alarm going off saying time to wake up, time to take a look at 
what kind of dependency we have on foreign oil, what kind of 
conservation we are employing or deploying in our country. So I think 
from that aspect it has done us some good.
  Let me kind of conclude these remarks, because I intend to go into 
more detail about energy, by asking my colleagues not to let people 
convince them that the needs of this country can be met simply by 
conservation. On the other hand, do not let anybody convince you that 
conservation does not have an important role to play. We can conserve. 
And a lot of people throughout the world, but more particularly in this 
country, can conserve

[[Page 11067]]

without pain. In fact, a lot of the ways we conserve actually save us 
money, like shutting the lights off when we are not using them.

                              {time}  2130

  Change your oil less frequently, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You 
actually save money as a result of that, colleagues. So conservation 
and exploration are necessary elements for this country to meet the 
demands that the people of this country have come to expect. And I 
think we have an obligation to do that. A lot depends on energy. Our 
lives are dependent on energy, whether it is energy from hydropower, to 
drive our vehicles, to air conditioning, refrigeration, et cetera, et 
cetera.
  Energy is an important policy. What this wake-up call has also done, 
we have had more energy debates and comments on this House floor in the 
last 6 weeks than we have had in the last 6 years. The Clinton 
administration had absolutely no energy policy. What President Bush has 
done, what the Bush administration has done, is said we have to have an 
energy policy. Let us put everything on the table. When you put some 
things on the table, people squeal like a stuck pig. We do not have to 
accept it, but we ought to debate it and think it out and determine 
what ought to stay on the table and come off the table. That is how you 
develop policy. It is debate on this House floor that helps form 
policy.
  Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Bush administration that this country 
needs an energy policy. We, the American people, colleagues, the people 
that we represent, deserve to have an energy policy. That means a 
policy that has thoroughly investigated the resources, including 
conservation, the resources out there for us.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time that I have been able to share 
with my colleagues this evening. I look forward to sharing further and 
having further discussion about public lands and talking more about 
energy.

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