[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 16915-16921]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                DOMESTIC POLICY AND INTERNATIONAL POLICY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Osborne). 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, there are two subjects that I want to 
address this evening, and both are of critical importance to us. One 
involves domestic policy, and one of them involves international 
policy. Obviously, we can guess what the international policy would be: 
dealing with Iraq, dealing with our war on terror, dealing with the 
United Nations resolutions. But before I get into the international 
discussion that I want to have this evening with my colleagues, I want 
to discuss the domestic situation involving a subject a long ways away 
from the al Qaeda or from Afghanistan or from Iraq or from the United 
Nations resolutions. I want to talk for a few minutes about the 
national forests, especially the national forests on public lands.
  Now, public lands are lands that are owned by the government. It 
could be a local government, it could be a State government, or it 
could be Federal Government. The largest owner of land in the United 
States obviously is the United States Federal Government. They own 
millions and millions and millions of acres of land in this country.
  Now, when this country was first developed, our population was 
primarily on the east coast, and the government wanted to grow our big 
country. As our country began to make land acquisitions, for example, 
the Louisiana Purchase and things like that, they knew that in order to 
expand the country, we not only had to buy the land, but we had to 
occupy the land. We had to put people on the land.

                              {time}  1945

  We had to have the people willing to protect the land. The best way 
to do that was not to give them a deed that said, Here is some land out 
in the West. Obviously, to grow our country we needed to move it west. 
We needed to move the population west. West in the early days was West 
Virginia. People did not have to go very far west to find out that they 
were in wilderness areas.
  To do this, the Federal Government knew that they could not just give 
a piece of paper that said someone owned a piece of property out in the 
State of Kansas or Missouri or up in the Colorado mountains. They knew 
they could not do just that.
  Today, it is a little different. Today, one can actually have a piece 
of property in Colorado, and one can live in Florida, and their rights 
as a private property owner are respected. They do not have to worry 
about squatters or about people taking over their land when they were 
not there.
  But in the early days of the country, that was not true. That is not 
what the situation was. In the early days, one had to possess or be on 
the property; and frankly, they had to have a six-shooter strapped to 
their sides. That, in fact, is where the saying ``possession is nine-
tenths of the law,'' that is where that saying came from; that is, that 
to hold that land, they needed to go out there and be on it.
  The government wanted to expand. They had to figure out, how do we 
encourage people to leave the comforts of the East Coast? How do we 
encourage our population on the East Coast to move inward, to move 
west? How do we do this?
  They came up with an idea. In the Revolutionary War, our government

[[Page 16916]]

bribed the soldiers, the British soldiers. We bribed the soldiers in 
such a way that we offered them free land, free land if they would 
defect from the British troops and join the American troops in our 
efforts against the Brits.
  So they decided to follow the same type of philosophy or the same 
strategy. That strategy is to offer free land to people if they would 
go out and settle on the new land that the government had acquired. If 
they would agree to do that, the government would give them land. That 
is where we had the act like the Homestead Act take place, where the 
government would give people, if they would go out and work the land 
for a period of time, 3 to 5 years, they would give 160 acres or 320 
acres.
  People bought into that concept. It really did begin the movement of 
taking this country to the West, the opportunity of free land. Then we 
combine that with other things that we began to do in the mid-1860s, 
for example, the continental railroad, the completion of the 
continental railroad; and the ability for a merchant to be able to ship 
merchandise from one store that he or she owned to another store he or 
she owned; and time zones in the country. There were a lot of things 
that were changing with the Industrial Revolution. We saw this huge 
movement to the West. We were able to possess the lands that the United 
States as a government purchased; so we had that possession. That 
possession is nine-tenths of the law. We were able to accomplish that.
  But what happened was when these settlers hit the Rocky Mountains, 
when they hit the western part of the United States, which is different 
than the eastern part of the United States geographically and in water 
measurements, because, for example, in the East in a typical year, and 
this is not a typical year, but in a typical year when our Nation is 
not suffering from a drought, we have lots of water in the East. In 
fact, the situation in the East usually is, how do we get rid of the 
water, or shove it over on our neighbor's property?
  In the West, it is a very arid region. It is the arid region of the 
country. In fact, almost half the country has about 14 percent of the 
water. That is the West: the Rocky Mountains, the Utahs, the Nevadas, 
the Californias; and Montana, Wyoming, States like that. This is a very 
arid place.
  What happened when our country was attempting to get people to 
possess that land? They would not do it, because 160 acres was not 
enough. See, even in eastern Colorado, and, now, my district consists 
of the mountains of western Colorado, but in eastern Colorado, with 160 
acres in a typical year one could support a family in those early days. 
But once one hits the mountains of Colorado or hit western Colorado, or 
the Rocky Mountains in Montana, or the mountain ranges in New Mexico or 
places like that, 160 acres would not even feed a cow; would not even 
feed a cow. So they had to come up with something different.
  What was happening was people were moving to the West, going to the 
West; but as soon as they hit those Rocky Mountain regions, as soon as 
they hit the arid areas, they went around them. They went around to the 
fertile valleys in the State of California, or they went to other 
places; or settled out in Nebraska or Kansas or Missouri or Arkansas, 
places like that where the land was much more fertile, the water was 
much more plentiful.
  So word got back to Washington: Look, this strategy of ours, this 
strategy of giving land for people to possess so we have people on the 
land to grow our Nation, our great Nation, is working fine except when 
we hit the arid States of the West.
  Somebody said, well, what shall we do? Shall we give them a 
proportionate amount of land, like 3,000 acres, which would be the 
equivalent of, say, 160 acres as far as what one could grow on it? It 
is proportionate to what one could grow on it. The answer was, Wow, we 
have gotten a lot of political heat here in Washington, D.C. simply 
because we gave so much land to the railroads.
  As we know, there were a lot of robber barons. It sounds kind of 
familiar with some of the times we are facing right now. There was a 
lot of political heat because of the robber barons and the railroads, 
so the decision was very consciously made: Do not give them ownership 
of the land, these people, but let them use the land, to avoid the 
political heat. Let us go ahead and keep the property in the 
government's name, although originally all along it was intended to go 
to private hands; but to avoid the political heat, let us go ahead and 
keep the title to the land, and let the people use the land.
  That was the birth of a concept called multiple use, many uses. That 
is where the concept of multiple use on Federal lands was conceived. 
When I grew up, for example, and I guess this is the best way to define 
multiple use, when I grew up and people went to the Federal lands, 
which in my district, there are probably 120 communities in my 
district, and actually, geographically, my district is larger than the 
State of Florida, but in my district, the Federal lands encircle every 
community except one. So of the approximately 120 communities in my 
district, 119 of them are completely circled by this land owned by the 
government.
  Now, up until about the 1970s it was not a problem, because the land, 
under this concept of multiple use, was utilized and best described by 
a sign when one entered the forest that said, for example, ``Welcome to 
the White River National Forest, a land of many uses.'' It was a land 
of many uses.
  Well, it was not long before we had people in the East, while they 
were the beneficiaries of private land, and if we take a look at a map 
of the United States of America, we will find it very interesting. I 
know it is hard to see my pen here, but let me see if I can demonstrate 
quickly the differences between private ownership and government 
ownership as it relates to the United States and the geography of our 
country.
  Now, obviously, Mr. Speaker, I am not an artist, so I am not trying 
to be an artist. I will just do a basic form, give or take, of the 
United States. My pen, unfortunately, is not working very well. Here is 
the eastern United States. Here is New York, Florida, places like that.
  Basically, where my point is right here, right where I cross right 
here on the chart, to my left here, in the western United States, there 
are vast amounts of public land. That is where the majority, the great 
majority of the public land in the United States is located, in the 
western part of this country.
  In the eastern part of the country we have a couple of large 
holdings, not huge, but large holdings of Federal land. We have the 
Everglades down in Florida, we have the Appalachians, and we have a 
little up here in the Northeast. Other than that, if we were to apply 
the color red to this poster board I have here, and this were the 
western United States, it would be almost all red. On the eastern side 
we would see little blotches of red, but very, very little of red in 
proportion to the West.
  So the problem that happens is that we have a lot of people in the 
eastern United States that have very little experience with public 
lands. Their lands are owned by their neighbors, or they own the lands; 
they are not owned by the Federal Government. If we go to Pennsylvania 
or out to Missouri or some of these States, or even eastern Colorado, 
and when we have a planning and zoning meeting, that planning and 
zoning meeting is held at the local county courthouse or the local city 
hall. When we go to the West where the land is still owned by the 
government, those meetings are held in Washington, D.C. That is who 
does the planning and zoning out there for those Federal lands.
  So it has always been a little pet peeve with those of us in the West 
that people in the East, with all due respect, have very little 
experience with public lands. They do not have the water issues that we 
do in the West, but they like to tell us in the West what is best for 
us in the West.
  That is what happened many years ago in regard to our forests. Keep 
in mind that the majority of the forests in the eastern United States 
are privately owned. Whether we go down to the Carolinas, if we go to 
Florida,

[[Page 16917]]

places like that, Minnesota, these forests are owned privately, the big 
majority of them.
  In the West, our forests are primarily on public lands; so what we 
see, what we tend to see, is private forests usually produce better, 
and private forests generally are managed better. Why is that? Because 
in the West we have many, many different hands and fingers in the 
management of it because it is public lands.
  Now, I think with public lands we have a pretty high fiduciary duty 
to manage those public lands, and we have to take care of those lands, 
because they do belong to all of us; although I think some precedent 
should be given to people who have to survive and live on those lands, 
that are completely surrounded by those lands, that depend for their 
water from those lands, that depend on their highways being able to 
come across those lands, that depend upon the power lines and the 
cellular phone towers. I could go on and on about how dependent in the 
West we are on public lands, a dependency not recognized nor 
necessitated in the East.
  What happened? In the West we began to suffer, and actually not just 
in the West but throughout this country we have suffered massive forest 
fires. In the 1930s, society did not really accept fires as a natural 
course of a forest collapsing itself, so we decided that because the 
fires were such a threat to the human population and to wildlife 
populations and to watersheds and so on, that we would begin a very 
aggressive effort to fight the forest fires. Instead of letting them 
burn, we would fight them.
  In the early days, around the turn of the century, we would have 
between 40 and 50 million acres a year on fire, 40 to 50 million acres 
a year that were on fire. What happened as a result of very effective 
work, frankly, by the American people and the Forest Service and the 
different fire agencies, we were able to restrain or restrict those 
fires from 30 or 40 or 50 million acres a year to 2 or 3 million acres 
a year, maybe 4 million acres a year, because we became very efficient 
with public relations: Smokey, the bear: Be careful, put your campfire 
out completely, pour water on it, et cetera, et cetera.
  What happened through the evolution of time, a very short evolution 
of time, through the last 3 or 4 decades or so, man became very good at 
controlling fire. Unfortunately, we begin to see these forests, forests 
that would have, say, 20 trees per acre, all of a sudden begin to get 
30 trees per acre, which was not the natural course of that acreage; 
then, pretty soon, 30 or 40 or 50 trees per acre.
  Now, many of those acres out there that nature had always had by 
economics and balances, as nature does it, instead of having maybe 20 
or 30 or 40 trees per acre, we now have 600 or 700 or 800 trees per 
acre. It has become a tinderbox. It has become gunpowder.
  What has happened is that we had some terrible abuses by lumber 
companies in the '30s and '40s and '50s and '60s. These lumber 
companies would go in and they would use the concept of clear-cutting, 
where they cut everything in sight. They would leave a mess behind. 
They did not take into consideration the watersheds.
  Frankly, there were a lot of scientific things that they did not know 
at that time that we know today that did a lot of harm back then when 
they carried out those policies of cutting lumber in those forests.
  So thank goodness we begin to recognize some of that. We begin to get 
a tighter control, especially on public forests; because, after all, 
those do belong to the people. We begin to get a tighter grip on what 
was going on out there. We begin to apply more science to our forests. 
We had some very wholesome environmental movements to help us protect 
those forests.

                              {time}  2000

  But as is typical in our country, we wait for something to get to a 
crisis, which is exactly what happened on many of our forests, one, 
through our own forest management policies, and, two, through really 
unmonitored forest timbering, taking the lumber out of the forest, 
unmonitored. That is the extreme.
  We realize and we see the damage that has happened. And as is a 
typical government response, it overresponds. So we come over here and 
at first solid environmental organizations came forward and 
conscientious conservatives came in and said, We need to conserve. We 
need to have more conservation in this area. We need to use better 
policies, and we were in hopes that we could bring that into balance.
  But what has happened over the last 15 years in large part is as a 
result of radical environmental organizations, and not all 
environmental organizations are radical and I am not professing that up 
here. But I am telling you the Earth First, the Wilderness Society, the 
National Sierra Club, they operate on the Earth First strategy, and 
that is take the radical approach. And the approach that they have used 
in these public forests, primarily in the West, is preventing us, 
preventing us from going in and doing carefully monitored thinning and 
treating of these forests. You have got to manage these forests and we 
are not being allowed to do it. Lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit. 
Litigation for 3, 4, 5, 6 years into the future in order for you to go 
in and treat under a carefully monitored program, under the direction 
of the forest scientists, under the science of the forest, to go in and 
treat this forest.
  What happens? Well, over time these forests get more and more trees 
per acre, and pretty soon some of those trees begin the national 
evolution. They die off and they fall on the forest floor. And pretty 
soon the forest floor begins to build up what we call fuel, dead 
leaves, dead trees. They are not being cleaned out. They are not being 
cleaned naturally as they were 100 years ago by fire. Instead, they are 
being controlled by, one, by controlled fire. We are learning more 
about that as we go on. And, two, we have organizations out there that 
would like to, every time you talk about going and treating a forest, 
they like to spin it, they like to spin it into lumber. You are helping 
some big lumber company. You will clear-cut. You will cut all of the 
big trees out of there.
  It is a bunch of hype. It is a bunch of spin. And, unfortunately, 
they are so good with public relations, they spend so much money on 
advertising and commercials on TV, it is easy for them to convince the 
public that you should have hands-off on the forest or that the only 
place you should go and look at the forests is where it abuts up 
against the home.
  They completely ignore watersheds. What are watersheds? In the 
mountains, for example, the water for a community usually is many, many 
miles away from that community; and it is up on the top of the mountain 
or side of the mountain and it is called the watershed, where the 
waters accumulate from the high snows.
  My district is the highest elevation on the continent. So up at high 
altitudes of 10, 12, 13, 14,000 feet we have accumulation of water, 
watersheds, and those watersheds make their way down the mountains into 
the communities. We need to manage these forests. We need to protect 
those watersheds. And what has happened is over the years, in part, not 
totally, because the drought was a major contributing factor to the 
major forest fires we had this year; but in part we had people whose 
sole intent was to obstruct the process of the science of the forest. 
And once again today we are seeing it happen over again.
  This summer has been a devastating summer in regards to forest fires. 
Take a look at the State of Oregon. How many hundreds of thousands of 
acres in the largest fire in that State's history. Take a look at the 
State of Arizona, hundreds of thousands of acres on fire in the largest 
fire in the history of that State. Take a look at my own home State, 
the State of Colorado, the Haymen fire, hundreds of thousands of acres 
in that State, in the State of Colorado, the largest fire in its 
history.
  We have had massive fires this year. You cannot allow a forest, 
whether it is right next to what is called the urban interface, which 
means right next to the communities, whether it is right next to the 
communities or whether it is deep into the forests, you

[[Page 16918]]

cannot allow those forests to accumulate the kind of growth that they 
have accumulated. You have got to manage those forests. And just by 
common sense we cannot let fire run wild. We still have to control 
fire. Controlled fires are one of the tools that we can help to treat 
and thin forests, but it is by no means the only tool, and it is by no 
means a major tool. Because, frankly, one out of every 20 controlled 
fires we have we lose control of them. That is what happened down in 
Mexico. That is what happened in the great Yellowstone fire a few years 
ago. We lost control of a controlled burn.
  We have to go in there and manage these forests. The best people to 
manage those forests are not the public relations or political 
strategists for Earth First, the Wilderness Society and the National 
Sierra Club. Those are not the people that should be managing our 
forests. Nor should the Congressmen be managing our forests.
  The people that ought to manage our forests are the people who are 
educated about forest science from some of the best universities in the 
country. Colorado State University, for example. From the people who 
have their hands in the forest soil every day of the week. From the 
experts on forest policy, on trees, how to grow trees, what is the 
proper amount of balance in that ecosystem that we have out there. 
Those are the people whose opinions should primarily drive forest fire 
policy and forest health policy in this country.
  Now, I am chairman of the Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health 
of the Committee on Resources, and that committee has oversight 
responsibility on all the forests in the Nation. And I am telling you, 
under my direction on that committee, our committee is determined to 
try and get management of the forests back to the scientists of the 
forests. But it is no easy task. I can tell you that the Wilderness 
Society, the National Sierra Club and their cohorts, the Earth First 
and some of these other organizations, they do not want to give up that 
territory. They have enjoyed the power

of being able to control the manage-

ment of America's forests through emotional arguments, through 
political, strategized, public relations campaigns; and you can pick up 
and see advertisements about it; and what has happened, I will tell you 
that some of the people in some of these organizations are well 
intended. But what we are running into right now is obstructionism. The 
radical organizations are trying to litigate, paralysis by analysis, 
and every time that you talk about the necessity to go into a forest 
and help thin it out for the forest's health, to help prevent fires, 
and whether there is a fire or not, just for the health of the forest 
in general because the scientists say that is the thing to do, do you 
know what happens? Right away we get some of the radical organizations, 
many of which do not even live near that forest, start filing actions 
and appeals in the courtroom. Our litigation today runs 3 to 5 to 10 
years on some of these treatment projects.
  Now, I have proposed a bill and it is a bill with bipartisan support. 
It is a bill that we have bipartisan working groups on. It is the most 
promising bill we have in the U.S. House of Representatives for a 
bipartisan compromise to help us go in and treat these forests. And 
guess what happens? We have not even got off first base. We have just 
come up with the idea, hey, let us stay within the environmental laws 
but let us stop this paralysis by analysis. Let us stop these 
organizations, from Earth First, for example, or the Wilderness Society 
from being able to litigate this from here as far as time can see, from 
one court to the next court to the next court. Let us put aside the 
spin that every time we want to clean out a forest that there must be 
some under-the-table deal with some lumber company out there.
  What we are attempting to do with our bill to keep the environmental 
regulations that we have, keep public input, this is the forest of the 
public and the input of the public is absolutely crucial; but the 
public input should not go on and on and on. At some point you must 
make a decision. At some point we need to move on these forests.
  Right now we have 175 million acres of forest property; 175 million 
acres that has not been treated; 75 million acres of that property is 
ready to explode, especially when we have a summer like the summer we 
just got through with serious droughts in many of these States and we 
saw what happened. Just a simple cigarette in Durango, Colorado, a 
simple cigarette that was thrown out a window blew up a fire that 
burned tens and tens and tens of thousands of acres, destroyed homes. 
And after it destroyed the homes, it brings the mudslides that destroy 
more homes.
  Some of this can be prevented through proper management of our 
forests; and not only just the fires, our wildlife needs proper 
management in the forests. Good wildlife habitat has meadows in it. You 
have better wildlife habitat on an average piece of land, let us say an 
average acre of land, you have better wildlife habitat, better plant 
habitat, better habitat for the entire ecosystem all around if you just 
have 20 or 30 trees per acre instead of 4, 5, 600 trees per acre, where 
the sun cannot get in; where if there is a fire it goes from canopy to 
canopy; where it burns so intense that it sterilizes the soil.
  We are not just talking about forest fires. We are talking about 
wildlife. We are talking about forest fires. We are talking about the 
plants and the other things that are important for the whole system to 
balance out there. But we are having a very difficult time being able 
to let the scientists come back in and manage the forests. And in large 
part it is because of a very aggressive political campaign which 
involves buying advertising in newspaper, radio ads and so on by 
different organizations. I think Earth First is in there. The 
Wilderness Society is in there. Of course, the National Sierra Club is 
in there. Greenpeace, some of these organizations, they are doing 
everything they can to make sure that we do not bring science into the 
forests.
  That is not what has happened here on the House floor. That is not 
what is happening here with my colleagues.
  My colleagues on both sides of the aisle have finally said, Look, 
enough is enough. We have got to do something about the management of 
this forest. I have got people like the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. 
DeFazio), a very driven, very focused and very recognized 
environmentalist in the United States Congress. I have got the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller). He and I have clashed 
from the entire time I have been up here. He is very ardent on his 
issues on the environment, a very strong proponent of the environment. 
I have the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Walden), from the logging areas 
up in Oregon, who is a very strong proponent of the environment. Lumber 
is an important industry up in his district. He understands it. I have 
got myself. I have got other Members, Democrat and Republican, who have 
come together to try and structure a bill that keeps us within the 
environmental laws, that gives us the protection of environmental laws, 
that gives us public input, but allows this process to go forward. It 
stops paralysis by analysis. It does not allow these decisions to be 
made simply because you are able to stall it out through litigation, 
because some wealthy organization can file lawsuit after lawsuit after 
lawsuit after lawsuit.
  And many of the mechanical treatment projects, about half the 
mechanical treatment projects we had lately, half of them were 
appealed. Half of them get into this paralysis by analysis. Now, not 
all of them were appealed by environmental organizations, and that is 
to their credit. And not all environmental organizations are being 
obstructionists in regards to what we are trying to do. We have some 
moderate, good, level-headed people out there that want something done 
with the forests.
  So when I address the group, I am really addressing the most radical 
segment of an environmental community. And I am begging that segment, 
we have called them on the phone. We

[[Page 16919]]

have begged them to come to the table; not to come to the table to 
fight, not to come to the table carrying protest signs, not to come to 
the table threatening more litigation; to come to the table just like 
we did with the Great Sand Dunes in my bill in Colorado; like we did 
with the Spanish Peaks, my bill in Colorado; like we did with the Black 
Canyon Park, the Campbell bill in Colorado. We were able to get local 
people, local environmental communities together and we were able to 
customize. And that is what this bill does.
  This allows our local environmental communities to come together with 
our local timber industries' representatives, for example, or the 
people that recreate or the wildlife experts. The wildlife people have 
a big opinion here because, as I said earlier, a healthy forest is 
very, very important for good healthy wildlife.

                              {time}  2015

  This bill will allow decisions to be made with public input, with 
judicial input. We just do not allow it to go on forever and ever and 
ever. This bill has been endorsed by newspapers as a reasonable 
approach.
  What are we seeing? We are seeing the national organizations, 
primarily located in Washington, D.C., or primarily located outside the 
public lands, pooling large sums of money to run commercials. That is 
how threatened they are by the fact that science might come back to the 
forest, to run commercials by full-page newspaper advertising, talking 
about how bad this bill is; and they have never even seen the bill, to 
the best of my knowledge.
  My point here tonight is we have got forests that are in real 
trouble. We have got wildlife out there that is in real trouble. We 
have an environment out there that is in real trouble, and a lot of it 
is because of the fact that we are not allowing the people who know 
best, our forest scientists, our wildlife experts, our water and 
aquatic life experts, we are not allowing them to manage the forest 
based on science. Instead, we are seeing the forests managed by 
litigation that stalls and stalls and stalls and by radical 
environmental organizations that fund political campaigns as if they 
are running somebody for office, running public relation campaigns 
which, by the way, they cannot put as newspaper articles because 
newspaper articles have to be at least a little bit factually correct. 
Their newspaper advertisements do not have to be. So they run it as 
paid advertisements throughout the public lands area.
  Our young people, it is amazing, in our schools are not being given 
the education they need to understand that the science of the forest is 
a very complicated issue; and we need to let the scientists do it, not 
the elected office people, although they should set the policy, with 
input from the people that elect them, with input from the public, and 
we should not let these forests be run by Earth First.
  I do not think Earth First or Greenpeace or the Wilderness Society or 
the National Sierra Club, and the National Sierra Club up until this 
summer's firefighting and the same with the Wilderness Society were not 
proponents of going in and treating a forest and thinning out. Now all 
of the sudden they have changed their leaf, and they are in favor of 
it, but only as it faces the city, as if none of these problems with 
wildlife, too many trees per acre, too much foliage or other problems 
occur anywhere but on the front of the forest. It does not occur in the 
middle of the forest, on our watersheds and so on, according to some of 
these people.
  My committee is bound and determined to come up with a fair, 
commonsense policy. It is not our intent to shortcut anybody from 
public input. It is not the intent to do anything except allow the 
forest service experts, the wildlife experts and so on to get their 
opportunity to come in and manage the forests as they ought to be 
managed.
  These forests are absolutely critical for the health of this country; 
and they are absolutely, they are eminently important for those of us 
who live out in the forests, who are completely surrounded by the 
forests, who are completely surrounded by public lands. We want good 
public land policy; and we want the people who live in those public 
lands, regardless of what side of the issue they are on, we want people 
who live within the borders of those public lands to have input as to 
what goes on with those public lands.
  It is my intent to continue to pursue on a bipartisan basis, which I 
think is very important, and I intend to pursue in good faith 
discussions with people such as the gentleman from California (Mr. 
George Miller), the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), the gentleman 
from Oregon (Mr. Walden), and a number of others out here, the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), to pursue good sound forest 
health policies. That is our goal and it is our target.
  Let me shift gears very quickly and spend my remaining time talking 
about an issue far afield from forest health and forest management. I 
want to speak this evening about the situation with President Bush and 
Iraq.
  I have a couple of posters I would like to start the conversation out 
with. This is a quote to my left here, and I would like my colleagues 
to read along with me. This is from President Bill Clinton. This quote 
is 4 or 5 years ago. This is what Bill Clinton said about Saddam 
Hussein. What if Saddam Hussein fails to comply, they are talking about 
inspections, and the disarmament, to disarm the weapons that we know 
Saddam Hussein is building, has or soon will be in the possession of, 
so what if Saddam Hussein fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we 
take some ambiguous third route?
  Keep in mind what the former President is saying here, if we fail to 
act or if we take an ambiguous third route. What he means by 
``ambiguous third route'' is that Saddam Hussein comes out and puts 
some type of condition on inspections or tries to come up with some 
type of alternative other than inspections that would allow him to hide 
the weapons or would allow him to develop the weapons, without 
intrusion by the rest of the world or if we take some ambiguous third 
route, which gives him yet more opportunities to develop his program of 
weapons of mass destruction, and continue to press for the release of 
the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he 
made. Solemn commitments that he, Saddam Hussein, made and I am going 
to go through those commitments with my colleagues. Well, he, speaking 
about Saddam Hussein, will conclude that the international community 
has lost its will.
  He will then conclude, here in the red, he will then conclude that he 
can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating 
destruction.
  Let us take a look. As my colleagues remember, Iraq is the country 
that invaded, without cause, without cause, without retribution, 
invaded a smaller country, the country of Kuwait in the early 1990s. In 
the process of that invasion, they caused massive, massive human 
fatalities. They killed thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of 
Kuwaitis, men, women and children. They killed without discrimination.
  It was only because of the United States of America and the coalition 
that it built with its European partners, and their partners throughout 
the world which also included, frankly, some cooperation from Russia 
and cooperation from China on the U.N. Security Council and so on. The 
rest of the world decided through a coalition led by the United States 
that they would not allow this to stand, that Saddam Hussein would not 
be allowed to ravagely and savagely go into a small country, devastate 
its population, destroy its economy and occupy its lands. So we did 
Desert Storm. We led the fight.
  We bent back and we liberated Kuwait. Iraq, by the way, their famous 
Right Guard or whatever, their fighting force, their supreme fighting 
force, they ran. This huge powerful war machine of Iraq collapsed 
within days to the fire power and to the strength of the United States 
of America and to the world coalition that followed.
  Iraq made certain promises. Specifically, Iraq through Saddam 
Hussein, he made them, he made commitments to the United Nations. He 
made commitments to the rest of the world, and he

[[Page 16920]]

promised to live with those commitments as long as his country existed. 
He has broken the commitments that he made, and the commitments that he 
made he broke 16 times, at least 16 times.
  He kicked out the inspectors and then he went out and solicited by 
saying that his people were starving to death. By the way, he diverted 
money, instead of going to the people, his people, he put the money 
into his palaces. He has 14 massive palaces, like 14 Pepsi centers. 
That is how big these palaces are. They are great big stadium-types of 
homes. He put the money into that and the military, and he allowed his 
people to starve, and he tried to put a guilt feeling, a guilt complex 
on the rest of the world, saying that he picked on me and how soon some 
of the world forgot how savagely he killed those people in Kuwait, as 
savagely as Hitler killed people in his invasions.
  Do not make any mistake about it. This man is crazy. Crazy is almost 
a complimentary word. He is a sick, destructive killer. He killed in 
Kuwait. He even attempted to assassinate our President, George Bush, 
Senior, our former President, George Bush, Senior. He went and gased 
his own people and some of the Kurds. He gased entire villages, and 
there is no doubt about that. There is no question. He admitted to it. 
He took some pride in it.
  The United Nations came up with some resolutions; and they said we 
will stop the invasion of Iraq, the coalition invasion of Iraq if you 
comply. Will you comply? And Saddam Hussein says, yes, I will comply. 
He signed the documents. He swore to the documents, and over the last 9 
years, he swore to the documents. Year after year he swore to the 
documents. Year after year he swore to the documents. Year after year 
he swore to the documents. Year after year he said I do not have 
weapons of mass destruction; bring in the inspectors. Time after time 
after time after time he blocked the inspections in his country.
  We can actually realize a great victory. President Bush, despite the 
diplomatic pressure that has been put against him by some in the world, 
despite some of the pressure, and unfortunately by some of our 
Democratic leadership within this Congress, despite the pressure that 
his approach was the wrong approach, he has at least cornered Saddam 
Hussein; and thanks to President Bush, Saddam Hussein, at least at this 
point, has come back and said he will allow inspections, unconditional 
inspections in his country. That was not Saddam Hussein's position when 
President Clinton was there, and I am not trying to be partisan. I am 
just telling my colleagues this is a position of noninspection that he 
has been locked in for some time.
  President Bush has forced Saddam to play his hand, and his hand right 
now is to allow inspections; and the President and the administration 
and this Congress ought to take him up on that offer, and we ought to 
send inspectors in there by the plane-load, and we ought to inspect 
everything. We ought to look at every palace. We ought to look in every 
closet. We ought to look under every street. We ought to look at their 
nuclear facilities, their power plants; and when we find weapons, we 
should demand that they be disarmed, and if they are not disarmed, the 
coalition should go in there and disarm them. This man has a history of 
lying and deception. Let me give my colleagues an example.
  U.N. Security Resolution 678, Iraq must comply with the resolution in 
regards to the illegal invasion of Kuwait. They broke it.
  U.N. Resolution 688, Iraq must release prisoners detained during the 
civil war. They broke it. Same, 688, Iraq must return Kuwaiti property 
seized during the Gulf War. They did not do it.
  U.N. Resolution 687, April 3, 1991, Iraq must not use, develop, 
construct or acquire any weapons of mass destruction. They have. They 
have defied this, but they have acquired the weapons they are not 
supposed to acquire. Iraq must not commit or support terrorism or allow 
terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. They allow terrorist 
organizations in Iraq; and by the way, these are the kind of 
organizations that we are speaking about in Iraq.
  Take a look at this poster. If this does not give my colleagues a 
sobering moment, I do not know what will. Follow me to the left by 
looking at the poster: ``We are emerging stronger and will hit 
America's shopping malls, stadiums and kindergartens. This is our 
promise.'' The al Qaeda. This quote is from last week. This quote to my 
left, look at that, kindergartens. They fully intend to kill every man, 
woman and child in America they can get their hands on. Iraq is not 
supposed to have anything to do with these kind of organizations; but 
they do, in violation of the U.N. resolutions.
  U.N. Resolution 707, Iraq must cease attempts to conceal and move 
weapons of mass destruction and related materials. They broke it. Iraq 
must make a full and final and complete disclosure of its weapons of 
mass destruction. They broke that commitment.
  U.N. Resolution 715, October 1991, Iraq must fully cooperate with the 
United Nations and the inspectors. They broke it.
  U.N. Resolution 949, October 15, 1994, Iraq must not utilize its 
military and other forces in a hostile manner. They fire at the United 
States and British and coalition aircraft every day of the week we are 
in the air. They broke it.

                              {time}  2030

  Iraq must fully cooperate with the inspectors. They broke it.
  U.N. Resolution 1051, Iraq must fully cooperate with the U.N. and 
allow immediate, unconditional, unrestricted access. They broke it.
  U.N. Resolution 1060, they must cooperate with the weapons inspectors 
and allow requested access. They broke it.
  U.N. Resolution 1115, June 21, they must give further requirements in 
regards to inspections. They broke that one.
  U.N. Resolution 1134, they must give unrestricted access, another 
access issue. They broke that.
  U.N. Resolution 1137 condemns the continued violations of Iraq of 
previous resolutions, reaffirms their responsibility, reaffirms the 
responsibility of Iraq to carry out their commitments. They broke it.
  They broke 1194, 1204, 1205, and 1284. Resolution after resolution 
after resolution after resolution, the Iraqi leadership has lied, been 
deceitful, and broken resolutions one after another.
  In fact, I am not sure there is one United Nations resolution out 
there where Iraq has kept its word, that relates to their invasion of 
Kuwait or access to their weapons of mass destruction, or that relates 
to their helping train terrorists.
  My congratulations to President Bush. President Bush and his team, 
Mr. Powell, Mr. Rumsfeld and Ms. Rice, have forced Saddam to at least 
say he will allow inspections again. And for his own good health, I 
think it would be beneficial for him this time, instead of lying about 
it, that he follow through with exactly what he was supposed to do for 
the last 10 years, and that is to allow full, complete inspections of 
the facilities anywhere in his country those inspectors intend to 
visit.
  This President has done something that no other government in the 
world has been able to do with Iraq. In a period of 2 or 3 months, by 
directly making it clear that Iraq will not continue to flagrantly 
violate the conditions of the United Nations agreements that they 
agreed to and they knew about and we agreed to and we knew about, this 
President has drawn the line in the sand.
  Guess what got results? We only get results out of countries like 
Iraq by forcing it. We have got to use a force play. There is no 
negotiating with this guy. There is no loving and hugging and telling 
him let us have some soft talk, some warm, fuzzy discussions, and 
promise us that you are going to comply and not poison your people any 
more, not kill innocent men, women and children any more, and have some 
type of freedom in your country, have some kind of respect for rights 
of women in your country.
  The only way to get it is to force it, and this President has forced. 
This is just the opening stage, the first step in

[[Page 16921]]

bringing Iraq back in with the world community, in bringing Iraq back 
in line with what we hope would be a contribution to peace in this 
world.
  President Bush is exactly where he needs to be. He is right on track. 
He has, without the firing of a single shot, forced the world's madman 
to open his country to inspections.
  Now, if this madman fails to do that, I think President Bush will 
successfully put a coalition through United Nation resolution to fire a 
shot if necessary to force Iraq to come back in with the world 
community and to stop building weapons of mass destruction, weapons 
that would make September 11 look small in proportion to the type of 
devastation that they could do.
  President Bush, since September 11, has found a more focused purpose 
and has exercised good leadership. I have to tell Members, our 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle and the Democrat leadership 
have stalled. They have criticized the President. Look at what has 
happened in the last few days. The President is accomplishing what we 
want to accomplish. So in a bipartisan effort, we should pass a 
resolution in this House supporting the President. We should pass a 
resolution supporting the President in a way that he continues down the 
path that he is headed, and that is a path that so far just in the past 
couple of weeks, his strong movements, his very directed comments as to 
what was going to happen and his directed action, has forced Iraq to 
play their first hand. They threw down their hand, and they are 
allowing inspections.
  It may not work, but you better not mess around with this country and 
with the U.N. coalition. This country, under the direction of President 
Bush, is not going through this exercise in futility. President Bush 
does not consider this an exercise. He considers this, and this Nation 
considers this, and the United Nations Security Council should consider 
this and do consider it, a very serious matter which will be followed 
through with.
  We intend to follow through and disarm Iraq from weapons of mass 
destruction. We will accomplish that goal, and we will accomplish that 
goal under the leadership of President Bush. To this point we have done 
pretty well so far. It is just the beginning. But so far the President 
has had tremendous success.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge the Democratic leadership, I am begging the 
Democratic leadership, put aside your partisanship and your objections 
on the Sunday talk shows and help our President help our effort here. 
Just in the opening stage, we are going to be able to get inspectors 
into Iraq. If the going gets tough, stick with us. It is time.
  I have to say, Members, a lot of Democrats not in leadership are 
supporting this and are supporting the President. But the leadership 
needs to quit playing politics and come on board with us. This matter 
is much too serious for partisanship. I invite them on the team. The 
President has done a good job so far, and so has his team.

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