[Senate Report 114-131]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
Calendar No. 211
114th Congress } { Report
SENATE
1st Session } { 114-131
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JAY S. HAMMOND WILDERNESS ACT
_______
September 9, 2015.--Ordered to be printed
_______
Ms. Murkowski, from the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
submitted the following
R E P O R T
[To accompany S. 873]
The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, to which was
referred the bill (S. 873) to designate the wilderness within
the Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in the State of
Alaska as the Jay S. Hammond Wilderness Area, having considered
the same, reports favorably thereon with an amendment and
recommends that the bill, as amended, do pass.
The amendment is as follows:
In paragraph 25 of Section 2, strike ``and Dana,'' and
insert ``Dana, and Wendy''.
PURPOSE
The purpose of S. 873 is to designate the existing
wilderness area in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve in
Southwest Alaska as the Jay S. Hammond Wilderness Area in honor
of the former Governor of Alaska Jay S. Hammond.
BACKGROUND AND NEED
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, established by
Congress in 1980 in the Alaska National Interest Lands
Conservation Act (ANILCA, Public Law 96-487, Sec. 201(7)(a); 16
U.S.C. 410hh(7)(a)), preserves and protects some 3,653,000
acres of Southwest Alaska on the western shore of Cook Inlet as
a national park and preserve. Although occupied by Alaska
Natives for centuries, the area was first explored by Russian
explorers after 1741. Russian fur hunters plundered villages in
the area in 1792. Natives retaliated and destroyed a Russian
trading post on Iliamna Lake in 1800. Relations over the next
20 years stabilized, and Russian Orthodox missionaries began to
visit and convert Alaska Natives in the area by the 1830s.
After the United States purchased Alaska from Russia in
1867, Charles Leslie McKay became the first Euro-American to
explore the area in 1881, collecting artifacts for the
Smithsonian Institution. In 1891, a party led by explorer
Alfred B. Schanz again traveled through the area. Included in
the Schanz party was John W. Clark, a representative of the
Alaska Commercial Company. The Schanz party renamed the lake
from its native Dena'ina name, Qiz'jeh Vena--``the lake where
many people gather''--to Lake Clark to honor John Clark.
The first permanent non-Native resident, Brown Carlson, a
trapper, moved to the area in 1903. With the advent of the
float airplane in 1930, more non-Native residents moved in and
settled around the Port Alsworth area. One early settler was
Jay Sterner Hammond. Hammond was a former petroleum engineer
born in New York, a U.S. Marines Corps fighter pilot serving in
China and the South Pacific in World War II, and a settler to
Alaska who arrived when it was a territory in 1947. After the
war, Hammond studied biological sciences and graduated from the
University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1949. In 1950, the part-time
pilot, trapper, and guide became a biologist/field agent for
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and was stationed in
Southwest Alaska. He paddled the entire shoreline of the 45-
mile-long Lake Clark and selected a homestead where he built a
cabin. This homestead served as his primary residence for
nearly 55 years until his death in 2005.
Hammond, besides being a biologist and later a game guide,
also entered politics when Alaska became a State in 1959. He
served three terms in the State House, two terms in the State
Senate, and was later elected Mayor of the Bristol Bay Borough
in 1972, after serving as its manager. He was then elected
Governor of the State of Alaska in 1974 and was reelected in
1978.
During his two terms, he opposed oil leasing in the
Kachemak Bay area of Cook Inlet, opposed construction of a
proposed Ramparts hydroelectric dam across the Yukon River,
supported the congressional creation of a 200-mile fisheries
conservation zone, proposed a state limited-entry fisheries
regime, proposed and oversaw the creation of the nation's
largest state park, the 1.6-million-acre Wood Tikchik State
Park to the southwest of Lake Clark, and was Governor when
Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation
Act in 1980. That Act added 104 million acres of land as
national parks, preserves, refuges, monuments, wild and scenic
rivers, and wilderness in Alaska, including creating Lake Clark
National Park and Preserve of which 2.6 million acres were
designated as wilderness. Hammond's homestead is located inside
the boundary of Lake Clark National Park and Preserve. The bill
would name the 2.6 million-acre wilderness area in the Park to
honor Hammond.
Although within a national park it is rare to permanently
commemorate geographic features in memory of a person,
Hammond's contributions and connection to the Lake Clark
National Park and Preserve are exceptionally noteworthy and
provide a compelling justification for this recognition.
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY
Senator Murkowski introduced S. 873 on March 26, 2015. The
bill was co-sponsored by Senator Sullivan of Alaska. The
Subcommittee on National Parks held a hearing on S. 873 on June
10, 2015.
The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources met in open
business session on July 30, 2015, and ordered S. 873 favorably
reported, as amended.
COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, in
open business session on July 30, 2015, by a majority voice
vote of a quorum present, recommends that the Senate pass S.
873, if amended as described herein.
SECTION-BY-SECTION ANALYSIS
Section 1 contains the short title, the ``Jay S. Hammond
Wilderness Act.''
Section 2 contains the findings.
Section 3 designates the approximately 2,600,000 acres of
existing wilderness in Lake Clark National Park and Preserve as
the Jay S. Hammond Wilderness Area and deems any reference to
the wilderness area in any law, map, regulation, document,
paper, or other record to be a reference to the Jay S. Hammond
Wilderness Area. On a going-forward basis, the National Park
Service will amend maps, regulations, documents, papers or any
other record to reflect its designation as the Jay S. Hammond
Wilderness Area.
COST AND BUDGETARY CONSIDERATIONS
The following estimate of costs of this measure has been
provided by the Congressional Budget Office:
S. 873--Jay S. Hammond Wilderness Act
S. 873 would designate the 2.6 million acres of wilderness
in the Lake Clark National Park and Preserve as the Jay S.
Hammond Wilderness in honor of Alaska's fourth governor. The
wilderness represents about 65 percent of Lake Clark's 4
million acres.
Based on information from the National Park Service on the
cost of changing the name of a wilderness area, CBO estimates
that S. 873 would have no significant effect on discretionary
spending because revising federal maps and signs to reflect the
new name would be done in conjunction with scheduled reprinting
and other routine maintenance.
Enacting S. 873 would not affect direct spending or
revenues; therefore, pay-as-you-go procedures do not apply.
S. 873 contains no intergovernmental or private-sector
mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act and
would not affect the budgets of state, local, or tribal
governments.
The CBO staff contact for this estimate is Marin Burnett.
The estimate was approved by H. Samuel Papenfuss, Deputy
Assistant Director for Budget Analysis.
REGULATORY IMPACT EVALUATION
In compliance with paragraph 11(b) of rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee makes the following
evaluation of the regulatory impact which would be incurred in
carrying out S. 873.
The bill is not a regulatory measure in the sense of
imposing Government-established standards or significant
economic responsibilities on private individuals and
businesses.
No personal information would be collected in administering
the provision. Therefore, there would be no impact on personal
privacy.
Little, if any, additional paperwork would result from the
enactment of S. 873, as ordered reported.
CONGRESSIONALLY DIRECTED SPENDING
S. 873, as ordered reported, does not contain any
congressionally directed spending items, limited tax benefits,
or limited tariff benefits as defined in rule XLIV of the
Standing Rules of the Senate.
EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATIONS
The testimony provided by the Department of Interior at the
June 10, 2015, National Parks Subcommittee hearing on S. 873
follows:
Statement of Victor Knox, Associate Director, Park Planning, Facilities
and Lands, National Park Service, Department of the Interior
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to present the
Department of the Interior's views on S. 873, a bill to
designate the wilderness within the Lake Clark National Park
and Preserve in the State of Alaska as the Jay S. Hammond
Wilderness Area.
The Department supports S. 873, which would designate the
approximately 2.6 million acres of National Wilderness
Preservation System land located within the Lake Clark National
Park and Preserve as the ``Jay S. Hammond Wilderness Area.''
This designation is a fitting and appropriate way to recognize
Hammond's significant contributions to the Alaska National
Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), the National Park
System, and Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, which was an
important part of an extraordinary legacy of public service.
In 1946, following his military service as a fighter pilot
during World War II, Jay Hammond came to Alaska and became a
bush pilot, guide and trapper. In 1949, Hammond graduated from
the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and went to work for the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. As a U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service employee, Hammond conducted wildlife surveys of the
Lake Clark area and located a homestead along Lake Clark. He
lived with his wife Bella in their lakeside homestead from
about 1982 until his death on August 2, 2005. Bella still
resides in the homestead and enjoys the splendid views of the
wilderness area.
In 1959, Hammond was elected to the state legislature and
served several terms before being elected as a state senator in
1967. From 1972 to 1974, Hammond was the mayor of the Bristol
Bay Borough. In 1974, he was elected Governor of Alaska, and
served the state in that role until 1982. During his tenure, he
oversaw the building and the opening of the Alaska Pipeline and
preserved a large portion of the oil lease revenues in the form
of a Permanent Fund which has been in existence for three
decades. As a governor who sought to balance the development of
Alaska's energy resources with the conservation of the state's
vast untouched natural resources, he worked with the Federal
government to achieve enactment of the legislation that became
ANILCA.
ANILCA protected 104 million acres of land. It added more
than 40 million acres in 10 new units of the National Park
System, including the 3.86 million-acre Lake Clark National
Park and Preserve. The law also designated the 2.6 million
acres of wilderness within Lake Clark National Park and
Preserve. Governor Hammond later said that what President
Carter had done with the signing of ANILCA was ``locking Alaska
open'' for future generations of Americans to enjoy and
preserve for all time.
The National Park Service Management Policies 2006 states
that ``to be permanently commemorated in a national park is a
high honor, affording a degree of recognition that implies
national importance.'' The policies support the commemorative
naming of national park resources only in cases where there is
a compelling justification for the recognition. In general, a
compelling justification involves an association between the
park and the person that is of exceptional importance, as well
as a lapse of at least five years since the person's death. The
designation of wilderness within Lake Clark National Park and
Preserve in honor of Jay S. Hammond meets these criteria.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony, and I would be
happy to answer any questions you or other members may have.
CHANGES IN EXISTING LAW
In compliance with paragraph 12 of rule XXVI of the
Standing Rules of the Senate, the Committee notes that no
changes in existing law are made by the bill as ordered
reported.
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