U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

49–510 CC WASHINGTON : 1998

HEARING ON IMPACT OF FEDERAL LAND USE

POLICIES ON RURAL COMMUNITIES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FIFTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JUNE 9, 1998, WASHINGTON, DC

Serial No. 105–90

Printed for the use of the Committee on Resources

(
(II)

COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman

W.J. (BILLY) TAUZIN, Louisiana

JAMES V. HANSEN, Utah

JIM SAXTON, New Jersey

ELTON GALLEGLY, California

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOEL HEFLEY, Colorado

JOHN T. DOOLITTLE, California

WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland

KEN CALVERT, California

RICHARD W. POMBO, California

BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming

HELEN CHENOWETH, Idaho

LINDA SMITH, Washington

GEORGE P. RADANOVICH, California

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina

WILLIAM M. (MAC) THORNBERRY, Texas

JOHN SHADEGG, Arizona

JOHN E. ENSIGN, Nevada

ROBERT F. SMITH, Oregon

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

KEVIN BRADY, Texas

JOHN PETERSON, Pennsylvania

RICK HILL, Montana

BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado

JIM GIBBONS, Nevada

MICHAEL D. CRAPO, Idaho

GEORGE MILLER, California

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia

BRUCE F. VENTO, Minnesota

DALE E. KILDEE, Michigan

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American

Samoa

NEIL ABERCROMBIE, Hawaii

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas

OWEN B. PICKETT, Virginia

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey

CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California

CARLOS A. ROMERO-BARCELO ́ , Puerto

Rico

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York

ROBERT A. UNDERWOOD, Guam

SAM FARR, California

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island

ADAM SMITH, Washington

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts

CHRIS JOHN, Louisiana

DONNA CHRISTIAN-GREEN, Virgin Islands

RON KIND, Wisconsin

LLOYD DOGGETT, Texas

LLOYD A. JONES, Chief of Staff

ELIZABETH MEGGINSON, Chief Counsel

CHRISTINE KENNEDY, Chief Clerk/Administrator

JOHN LAWRENCE, Democratic Staff Director
(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held June 9, 1998 ...................................................................................... 1

Statement of Members:

Chenoweth, Hon. Helen, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Idaho .......................................................................................................... 1

Cubin, Hon. Barbara, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Wyoming, prepared statement of ................................................................. 61

Statement of Witnesses:

Arnold, Ron, Executive Vice President, Center for the Defense of Free

Enterprise, Bellevue, Washington ............................................................... 2

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 37

Conley, John, President, Concerned Alaskans for Resources and Environment, CARE ................................................................................................... 4

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 37

Favreau, Leon, President, Multiple Use Association, Shelburne, New

Hampshire ..................................................................................................... 6

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 38

Gomez, Edmund, National Commission on Small Farms, Alcalde, New

Mexico ............................................................................................................ 7

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 54

McKeen, Hugh B., New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, Glenwood,

New Mexico ................................................................................................... 9

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 55

Propes, Mike, Polk County Commissioner, Dallas, Oregon .......................... 25

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 119

Richardson, Jack, Val Verde County Administrator, Del Rio, Texas ........... 27

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 60

Wesson, Donald R., Southern Pine Regional Director, Pulp and Paperworker’s Resource Council, McGehee, Arkansas ........................................ 24

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 59

Additional material supplied:

Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, Report by, ‘‘Battered Communities’’ ............................................................................................................. 63

Recent Foundation Grants for green advocacy groups .................................. 116

The Boston Globe, ‘‘The greening of a movement’’ and ‘‘Environmental

donors set tone’’ ............................................................................................. 102
(1)

HEARING ON IMPACT OF FEDERAL LAND USE

POLICIES ON RURAL COMMUNITIES

TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 1998

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES, Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 p.m. in room 1324,

Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Helen Chenoweth presiding.

STATEMENT OF HON. HELEN CHENOWETH, A

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IDAHO

Mrs. CHENOWETH. [presiding] The Committee on Resources will

come to order. The Committee is meeting today to hear testimony

on the impact of Federal land use policies on rural communities.

Under Rule 4(g) of the Committee on Rules, any oral opening statements and hearings are limited to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member, and this will allow us to hear from our witnesses

sooner and help Members to keep to their schedules. Therefore, if

other Members have statements, they will be included in the

record.

Today’s hearing is designed to hear from working citizens from

outside the Washington, DC, beltway, and they will testify about

how Federal land use policies affect rural communities. The news

media constantly reminds us that Microsoft millionaires and the affluent young urban professionals are succeeding, and we are all

thankful that many in America are prospering, but, unfortunately,

the media tends to tune out to what is happening in rural America.

Many of my rural communities in Idaho that are dependent on

timber, mining, ranching and other resource industries are not enjoying the good economic times of their urban cousins. Mine closures, mill closures, canceled shifts and AMU reductions are becoming a regular occurrence. Indeed, there is a prosperity gap developing between rural and urban America. In my State and other

western States, Federal policies are locking up our natural resources. These policies contribute to the prosperity gap between

urban and rural communities.

But the West is not the only region affected. Federal policies now

pose a significant threat to rural communities in the eastern

States. One individual policy generally does not cripple these communities, but the cumulative impact of many such policies really

can destroy them.

I welcome all of today’s witnesses and their insights about what

is really happening in rural communities. I will learn a lot from
2

you. The geographical diversity of today’s witnesses show this is

more than a war on the West, as people from private land States

such as New Hampshire, Arkansas and Texas will discuss Federal

policies that threaten the prosperity and harmony of our rural communities.

I look forward to hearing from an old friend, Ron Arnold, about

a fascinating study done that outlines the extent of pain and suffering in resource-dependent communities. I also want to hear and

learn from the many other witnesses that we have here today.

Our last panel today includes representatives from communities

that are fighting the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. I have

aggressively worked to end this illegal and ill-fated program by

sponsoring legislation and filing a lawsuit in Federal court, and I

have only just begun my fight.

Our witnesses today all represent communities where their local

Congressman or Senator thought they had opted out of the program, yet the bureaucrats at the Council on Environmental Quality

are moving full speed ahead. These people are justifiably asking

what part of no doesn’t this Federal administration understand.

Again, I welcome all of our witnesses today and those in our audience with the Fly In for Freedom. And I look forward to the testimony from the Ranking Minority Member when he does come in.

[The information referred to follows:]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I’d like to introduce now our first panel: Mr.

Ron Arnold, executive vice president, Center for the Defense of

Free Enterprise; Mr. John Conley, president of the Concerned Alaskans for Resources and Environment; Mr. Leon Favreau, president,

Multiple Use Association; and Mr. Edmund Gomez, National Commission on Small Farms; and Mr. Hugh McKeen, New Mexico Cattle Growers Association.

As explained in our first hearing, it is the intention of the Chairman to place all witnesses under oath. This is a formality of the

Committee that is meant to assure open and honest discussion and

should not affect the testimony given by witnesses. I believe that

all of the witnesses were informed of this before appearing here

today, and they have each been provided a copy of the Committee

rules.

Now, if you would all stand and raise your hand.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Now, I will introduce our first witness, Mr.

Ron Arnold, executive vice president for the Center for the Defense

of Free Enterprise.

Let me remind the witnesses that under our Committee rules,

they must limit their oral testimony to 5 minutes, but that their

entire testimony will appear in the record. We will also allow the

entire panel to testify before I and any other Members who join me

will be questioning the witnesses.

Now the Chair recognizes Mr. Ron Arnold.

STATEMENT OF RON ARNOLD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT,

CENTER FOR THE DEFENSE OF FREE ENTERPRISE, BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON

Mr. ARNOLD. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
3

Madam Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, my name is

Ron Arnold. I am testifying as the executive vice president of the

Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, a nonprofit citizen organization based in Bellevue, Washington. The Center has approximately 10,000 members nationwide, most of them in rural natural

resource industries.

Madam Chairman, I am proud to state that the Center does not

accept government grants and has not received any government

funds since the day it was established on American Bicentennial

Day, July 4th, 1976.

Madam Chairman, I would like to thank you on behalf of our

members for holding this hearing today. It is timely indeed.

For the past year, at the urging of our increasingly concerned

Members, the Center has been conducting an in-depth study of

Federal policy and rural communities. Our 36-page study titled

Battered Communities is being released at this hearing. You will

find it attached to my hearing statement.

Battered Communities was cosponsored by three other citizen

groups, the American Land Rights Association, F.I.G.H.T. for Minnesota, and the Maine Conservation Rights Institute. Battered

Communities delves into serious matters of Federal policy as it affects rural community life. On page 5, we address the most obvious

problem, the urban-rural prosperity gap, the spread in wages and

unemployment between the richest and poorest counties within

each of the 50 States. I am not proud to announce that my State,

Washington, is the top of that list with the worst gap.

While urban America today enjoys an economic boom, rural counties are finding themselves choked to death by Federal restrictions

designed to protect the environment from the people who live and

work in the environment. The most disheartening aspect of the

conflict over the environment is that rural goods producers, ranchers, loggers, miners, are becoming a despised minority, morally excluded from respect and human decency, even in Federal documents, as we see on page 7 of the report in an Environmental Impact Statement characterizing miners as costly, destructive, stupid

social misfits.

And now we turn to the visible damage. Rural communities are

besieged with a bewildering array of Federal policies forcing them

to starve in the midst of plenty. These policies are listed in part

on page 8 of the report.

Madam Chairman, let me call your attention to the most serious

problem our study uncovered, the systematic effort of a triangle of

interests to harness Federal policy to their own agenda, against

natural resource goods producers. The Center has identified a

small corps of activist Federal employees, from the highest levels

to on-the-ground technicians, working to reshape Federal policy

from within according to agendas that paralyze goods production in

rural communities. Pages 13 through 17 discuss a few of these activist Federal employees. To see their impact, you will find on page

24 of the report a chart of systematic timber sale appeals on two

rural national forests in Washington State, the Okanogan and the

Colville, and these appeals were filed in a coordinated pattern by

a bevy of environmental groups. We found the frequent outcome

was that the Forest Service simply withdrew the timber sale with-
4

out even ruling on the appeal. The resulting mill closures are

charted on page 25.

This certainly appears to be undue influence, and it is a national

problem, yet that is not the whole story. These environmental

groups were in many cases acting at the behest of their donors on

grant-driven programs not designed by the environmental groups,

but originating within grantmaking private foundations. We discovered in documents, such as this thick directory of environmental

grantmaking associations—foundations, a cluster of multimilliondollar campaigns designed to set public policy against logging, mining, ranching and other resource producers according to the private

preferences of a few custodians of vast wealth.

Some of these foundations do not even accept applications for

grants, but design entire programs of social change themselves and

handpick the groups that will act as their agents, pushing nonprofit laws to the edge. In the hands of these privileged people,

Federal policy is being corrupted into a blunt instrument, battering

rural communities.

Madam Chairman, these are serious charges. On page 35, the

Center recommends that this Committee continue its attention to

this vital issue with a detailed investigation of the causes behind

America’s rural Battered Communities. The Committee, of course,

may take any or all of the pages of this report and make them a

part of the report.

Thank you again, Madam Chairman, for holding this hearing on

the anguish of rural America.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Mr. Arnold, for that

outstanding testimony. It was riveting.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Arnold may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Mr. John Conley.

Mr. Conley?

STATEMENT OF JOHN CONLEY, PRESIDENT, CONCERNED

ALASKANS FOR RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, CARE

Mr. CONLEY. Madam Chairman, my name is John Conley, and

I am the president of Concerned Alaskans for Resources and Environment, CARE. I have also served 6 years on the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly, and I operate three NAPA auto parts

stored located in Ketchikan, Craig, and Wrangell, Alaska.

The passage of the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990 was supposed to be the great compromise for the Tongass National Forest.

TTRA was supposed to provide increased environmental protection,

as well as a sustainable forest products industry. I have—since the

passage of TTRA, I have witnessed the closing of two pulp mills

and several sawmills in southeast Alaska. At the same time I have

witnessed the increased funding of local environmental groups by

tax-exempt national foundations.

These closings have greatly affected both my business and my

community. In Ketchikan alone we’ve lost over 544 forest product

jobs. We’ve lost 144 retail and support jobs, and $40 million of local

payroll. Today my company employs eight less people, and my

gross receipts have declined by $1.5 million. As I look to the future,

I am extremely concerned about supporting my family and the fam-
5

ilies of the 30 remaining employees in my stores. Access to natural

resources is vital to southeast Alaskans and is actually guaranteed

by the Alaska Statehood Act.

Environmental groups have stated that tourism can and will replace lost forest products jobs. Madam Chairman, this is simply not

true. Tourism is important to our local economy and throughout

the State. I have supported and will continue to support this growing industry; however, it is a seasonal—it’s a seasonal industry,

and it only provides seasonal jobs. It does not provide families with

the benefits of year-round employment. These jobs also will not replace the 25 percent return to our communities for education and

transportation based on timber receipts.

Madam Chairman, it has become obvious to many that increased

funding by national tax-free environmental foundations to the local

environmental groups leads to decreased economic activity and

local employment. The environmental industry states that they

support a value-added timber industry for southeast Alaska.

Madam Chairman, my community and I are confused, because

these same small groups continue to object to harvest quantities

adequate enough to sustain even a small value-added forest products industry.

The Forest Service has a legal mandate to manage our national

forests for multiple uses, which include timber production. The new

land management for the Tongass dramatically reduced the

amount of land available for a long-term sustainable timber industry in southeast Alaska. Even with this massive reduction of the

available sale quantity on the Tongass, the environmental industry

continues to fight timber production. This is not acceptable. At a

minimum, we need to sustain our current economy. Legal challenges orchestrated and financed by the national environmental

lobby continues to block multiple uses on the TTRA, and this is

preventing our ability to maintain a stable economy.

Madam Chairman, I believe it’s time to make these tax-exempt

foundations that fund the environmental industry accountable. As

a businessman, if I were to provide money to someone which they

in turn used to destroy another business, I would be held accountable, and it would be illegal under RICO laws. Madam Chairman

and members of the subcommittee, for the sake of my family and

the families of my community, I urge you to hold these foundations

accountable.

And I have a couple other items I’d like to have entered into the

record. I have a list of the foundation grants that have gone into

Alaska. And I have a copy of an article in the October 19th, 1997

Boston Globe—it came off of their Web page, and some interesting

quotes in there, and I won’t read them all, I will just read a couple:

‘‘If a foundation had a large interest in Alaska and a lot of money,

you definitely had a large interest in Alaska,’’ and that was stated

by a former Wilderness Society director.

Here’s a statement about the gentleman that works for the Pew

Charitable Trust: In Alaska, environmentalists credit Joshua

Reichert with devising the national strategy to help bring an end

to two subsidized contracts on the national forest.

So I would like to have these entered into the record.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Without objection, so ordered.
6

Mr. CONLEY. Thank you. And I also have a copy of a full-page

ad from the Alaska Rain Forest Coalition asking for the President

of the United States to end logging on the Tongass. And I can provide a copy of this. This is kind of a one-of-a-kind of an original.

And the Alaska Rain Forest Coalition was funded by the Pew

Charitable Trusts.

Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Conley. And if you can get a

copy of that, would you like to have it entered in the record?

Mr. CONLEY. I would, ma’am.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Without objection, so ordered.

Mr. CONLEY. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Conley.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Conley may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And the Chair now recognizes Mr. Favreau.

STATEMENT OF LEON FAVREAU, PRESIDENT, MULTIPLE USE

ASSOCIATION, SHELBURNE, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Mr. FAVREAU. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for allowing me to

express my views on the impact Federal land use policies could

have on a rural community like mine. My name is Leon Favreau,

and I am president and cofounder of the Multiple Use Association.

Our 500-member group is based in Shelburne, New Hampshire,

and has been in existence since 1987. Most of our efforts go toward

exposing the public to the truth about our Nation’s forests.

You will soon see the results of some of our work when you receive an Evergreen Magazine issue on the Northern Forest Lands.

We helped raise the funds needed for the production costs for the

issue that will show the Northern Forest Lands as they are.

I am president of Bethel Furniture Stock, Inc., a primary and

secondary wood products manufacturing firm that produces component parts for the furniture industry. The last title I will share

with you is that of chairman of the budget committee for the small

town of Shelburne, New Hampshire.

The concerns that I would like to express today have to do with

H.R. 971, the Northern Forest Stewardship Act. As you may know,

the so-called Northern Forest Lands are comprised of 26 million

acres of primarily private forest lands that span across the State

boundaries of northern Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and eastern New York. The Stewardship Act purports to prevent harm from

coming to these lands and its resident one million people.

The Multiple Use Association supported the study performed by

the Northern Forest Lands Council that tried to determine what

constituted a threat to the local forest. The report may have broken

new ground by showing so much concern for local people.

The Stewardship Act, however, is different. We believe it will

lead to greater Federal control over our local communities. The

council made it very clear they did not recommend increased control. While local communities participated in the Northern Forest

Land study, they haven’t participated in the preparation of this

legislation. Local hearings are necessary to correct that.

I know that you have heard from some in the timber industry

that support the Act. I’m here to tell you that most of us in the
7

local timber industry are against it. We understand that this is just

another step down a slippery slope that will mean it will be even

more difficult for us to do business in the Northern Forest Lands

area. Increasing the focus on government land and easement acquisition, which the Act does, will mean a reduction in the availability

of timber.

Since the Northern Forest Land Council’s report found that our

varied forests really weren’t threatened, one needs to ask why all

of this national interest in our 26 million acres? There was never

any local groundswell to put more Federal or State controls on

these private lands, nor was there any local groundswell for more

government land purchases. Instead, this drive to change local land

use comes from a vision concocted for us by our elite from the national environmental and charitable foundation communities. They

initially promoted as examples to be copied for our area, controlled

greenline areas, such as the Federal Columbia River Gorge scenic

area and the New York State Adirondack Park.

The term ‘‘greenline’’ has now been discredited in the Northern

Forest Lands area, partially because we brought out a mayor from

the Columbia River Gorge who gave a devastating description of

what it was like living and working at home in his elite-controlled

area. Greens no longer mention the term ‘‘greenline,’’ but there is

no doubt in my mind that it is still their goal for those of us who

live and work in the Northern Forest Lands area.

H.R. 971, I believe, will do nothing to help our rural communities. Almost everything in the Act is already occurring at some

level. If the Act is passed, the local citizen’s fight to maintain his

or her land use rights and way of life will be raised to a higher and

more difficult level. Senator Leahy isn’t helping his constituents

who live in Vermont’s Northern Forest Lands area when he continually tries to attach the Senate Act to other pieces of the Senate’s

legislation.

I ask you to think of people like me when you consider whether

to pass on H.R. 971. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Mr. Favreau, very interesting. We’re hearing another side of the story today.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Favreau may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Mr. Edmund Gomez

from New Mexico.

Mr. Gomez?

STATEMENT OF EDMUND GOMEZ, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON

SMALL FARMS, ALCALDE, NEW MEXICO

Mr. GOMEZ. Madam Chairman, members of the Committee, my

name is Edmund Gomez, and I live in Alcalde, New Mexico. I

speak on behalf of my neighbors, friends and family who rely heavily on public lands for economic, cultural, social and spiritual survival. As an active member of the USDA National Commission on

Small Farms, which was commissioned by Mr. Dan Glickman,

USDA Secretary of Agriculture in July 1997, I also speak on behalf

of small farmers and ranchers from rural communities across the

country who rely on public lands for economic survival.
8

Communal land use by residents of New Mexico and the Southwest has historical roots dating back to 1598. During Spanish colonial settlement, community land grants were granted by Spain and

later Mexico to groups of settlers and Native American pueblos in

New Mexico and in the Southwest. Many of these tracts of land are

currently held as public lands by the USDA Forest Service and the

Bureau of Land Management. The descendents of the Spanish and

Mexican land grants have continually utilized these lands for livestock grazing, fuel wood, hunting and timber harvesting, as well as

a source of watershed for domestic livestock and agricultural use.

New Mexico ranks 49th in per capita income. The northern counties of New Mexico are some of the poorest in respect to per capita

income in the country. Over 50 percent of the land base in New

Mexico is owned by the Federal Government. Many of the residents

of northern New Mexico, including the Native American Pueblos,

own very small parcels of land. Some sociologists attribute the correlation of poverty to the proportion of private versus public land

ownership. Many of these public lands were once owned by the ancestors of these rural communities.

Livestock production represents over 85 percent of all agricultural income in northern New Mexico. The average livestock producer in northern New Mexico owns 20 head of cattle and utilizes

public lands. Within the past 50 years, from 30 to 60 percent of the

traditional savanna grasslands in the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests have been lost to woody shrub and tree encroachment due almost entirely to fire suppression, thus causing loss of

livestock and wildlife habitat and economic stability within rural

communities.

Some groups who desire to eliminate livestock grazing from public lands claim that ranchers are becoming rich off of the public

lands. I have yet to meet a wealthy indigenous rancher from northern New Mexico, and I have lived there all of my life. Many of the

residents of northern New Mexico, including Indian Pueblos, rely

on public lands for fuel wood and timber harvesting as did their

ancestors. A large percentage of these residents utilize fuel wood

as their only source of heat and cooking fuel.

In 1994, a special interest group filed a litigation based on the

Endangered Species Act with the USDA Forest Service on behalf

of the Mexican spotted owl in the Carson National Forest. In 1996,

a Federal court restricted all harvest of timber and fuel woods in

the Carson National Forest until the forest complied with the Endangered Species Act. This action prevented local residents from

obtaining fuel wood for heating and cooking. Many families endured a very cold winter that year because of this inhumane action.

Incidentally, the Mexican spotted owl has never been historically

documented as living within the Carson National Forest.

Why do indigenous people continue to live in northern New Mexico rural communities? The indigenous people of northern New

Mexico speak seven languages, including English. They have retained their culture, tradition, social values and spirituality. They

were the first and continue to be the true environmentalists of the

land, utilizing the sustainable practices that have fed and clothed

their children for many generations, always returning more than

they take.
9

The pristine beauty of the land remains intact and attracts new

waves of settlers every year. Rural communities in northern New

Mexico work and live as a family. This social and culture custom

has given support during adverse situations and has allowed them

to raise their children with the same values that have been sacred

to the people for many generations.

Congress has passed legislation dealing with public land policy

and environmental issues that were deemed necessary and essential, but a one-size-fits-all policy does not work for all public land

situations. Congress has overlooked the endangered rural communities and their struggle for survival and a traditional way of life.

We are just as important as the other endangered species Congress

is protecting.

Rural communities were excluded when Congress developed policy that would ultimately affect their lives. Madam Chairman, and

members of the Subcommittee, please find ways of amending the

Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act so that they will

provide for the protection of the environment as they were intended, and not to be used as a loophole for special interest groups

who continue to file litigation against the USDA Forest Service in

an effort to promote their own agenda. Provide congressional provisions to establish local community-based public land management

boards which will determine the management objectives for the

local public land base and would include both environmental and

economic considerations. This process will ensure that rural communities who traditionally rely on the land for survival will be included in the policy decision process for their region.

And finally, Madam Chairman, and members of the Subcommittee, I extend an invitation for you to visit with us in northern New Mexico so that you may firsthand meet real people who

have utilized public lands for over 400 years, who depend on these

lands for survival, and the real people who have retained their culture and spirituality because of their harmony with the land. But

please, please, accept my invitation before the rural communities

of northern New Mexico become extinct.

Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Gomez, very interesting.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gomez may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And the chair recognizes Mr. Hugh McKeen

from New Mexico.

Mr. McKeen?

STATEMENT OF HUGH B. McKEEN, NEW MEXICO CATTLE

GROWERS ASSOCIATION, GLENWOOD, NEW MEXICO

Mr. MCKEEN. Madam Chairman and Committee members, it

gives me great pride to speak here today, although I have a heavy

heart because of what’s going on back home.

I want to read first of all, what it says in a forest publication

here: the Forest Service administered its nationwide program of

range resource management with the following major objectives,

and I’m going to read the one that’s pertinent to what we’re talking

about here, to promote the stability of family ranchers and farms
10

in local areas where national forest and national grasslands are located.

We’re doing the opposite here, Madam Chairman. I have three

brothers. One brother served in Vietnam. Another brother was

going to Vietnam, he was in the paratroopers, but he didn’t go. I

served my military also and my time in the Berlin crisis. We pay

our taxes, we served our country with honor and sense of duty.

Now our country is betraying us through the Federal bureaucracy,

namely the Forest Service in our area.

I want to recount to you an individual thing that happened to

me. In 1995, I filled out my 10-year renewal for my grazing permit.

They brought it to me, and I said I couldn’t live with it. They instituted standards and guidelines I couldn’t live with. They gave me

the word again that they had no studies and so I said I couldn’t

live with it. They went back, they wrote a letter to FMHA, who

holds the mortgage on my home, my farm. I didn’t have to sign this

10-year renewal until March 31st. They wrote the letter on March

12th.

FMHA wrote a letter and said, we’re going to foreclose because

you haven’t signed the grazing permit, and it’s part of the collateral. They get other agencies to help them. They get two Federal

agencies. That’s the way they work. So, on March the 31st, I had

to sign my grazing permit under the conditions they gave me. I either have a slow death or a fast death.

OK. The other thing I want to talk about is the—and the other

thing that happened was that when I called up FHA and said, hey,

you know, I’ve signed my permit, FHA says, well, the Forest Service has to tell us. I had to beg them three times to write a letter

to FHA telling them that I had signed my permit.

The other thing that happened to us just here recently, we had

a hearing in Tucson. Several environmental groups sued the Forest

Service to have cattle removed on 32 different allotments in Arizona and New Mexico. We were told by the Forest Service before

we went to the meeting that the Forest Service was representing

the cattle people. They were going to look after our water rights,

the grazing rights, and our economic rights, and all the things

they’re supposed to do, our families.

We got down to the Tucson hearing. It was a friendly suit. The

Forest Service was there with the environmental groups to totally

destroy us. We had witnesses there, we had our attorneys there,

and as the hearing progressed after the environmentalists and Forest Service has presented their cases, it went before the judge, and

the judge says, there’s not going to be an injunction, there’s not

going to be any cattle removed.

The Forest Service could see that they’re losing the case. The environmentalists put on one of the poorest cases you could imagine.

In one case they had one fellow who was a high school graduate,

said he had been out on the permits and had actual accounts. He

had been out there two days, something like 6 million acres. Another one was out there six days. This was the extent of their testimony as to actually seeing things, except for another expert.

As this thing progressed, the Forest Service could see they were

going to lose the case, so they said, Your Honor, we want to go out

and settle this thing out of court. So they went out, they excluded
11

the cattle people, came back with a stipulated agreement, and the

judge said, I’m not going to sign it.

Well, that excluded us from our testimony after we paid our people, after we didn’t even get our day in court. So we went home,

and what did the Forest Service do? They came home and began

to remove livestock. The Forest Service came home and did everything—did the things they were told not to do in this court. So we

have people right now at home having cattle removed by intimidation. They sent me a letter and said I can’t use my private land

because it has a little piece of forest land in it. It means I have

to fence that forest land before I can use my pasture again. For

somebody with a big long river, it’s disastrous, and that’s what’s

happening. So rather than proceed as other people have, they’re

just removing their cattle.

So, Madam Chairman, we’re in terrible shape. The Forest Service

is totally a dictatorial thing that’s come over us. They joined hands

with the environmental groups, and we’re down to the last straw.

We need help from somewhere. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Mr. McKeen, for your

testimony.

[The prepared statement of Mr. McKeen may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mrs. CHENOWETH. The Chair recognizes Mr. John Peterson, the

gentleman from Pennsylvania, for questions.

Mr. PETERSON. I’d like to commend the Chairman and the Committee for holding this hearing. For a little background, I come

from the East, but I come from the west of the East I call it. I represent the northern tier of Pennsylvania, where we have the finest

hardwood forests in America. And we have the Allegheny National

Forest, which is currently under siege by the environmental groups

to stop logging there. In the northern tier of Pennsylvania, we used

to dig coal, we used to drill for oil, and we used to cut timber. That

was very much a part of our quality of life, and all of those have

been under attack.

The northern tier of Pennsylvania is more predominantly owned

by the State than it is by the Federal Government. I have many

counties that are 62 percent public land, 55 percent public land, 50

percent public land. And I think that when you have at least half

of your land owned by government, you have a huge impact when

government policies are made and when government policies are

made that are given little thought that it’s going to have a big impact.

And I personally believe that rural America is really under attack. I mean, the resources that made this country strong and rich

came from rural America. And I don’t know what the long-term

plans of these groups are, but I guess it’s to be dependent on imports for all of our resources.

I guess the one that’s the most surprising to me is the timber

issue, because with good management, our great grandchildren can

be marketing timber the same as we are. It’s a renewable resource,

and it’s one that you’re leaning on, I’m leaning on.

We use it every day as we build our homes and furnish them,

forest products, as we use paper, as we use many of our commodities. They’re all derived from the forest products. I guess somehow
12

we have to look at this as a war against rural America, and the

quality of life there where critters and creatures and insects have

a higher value than our children, who would like to live there and

continue the quality of life that we’ve had in rural America.

So would any one of you would like to respond to that question

of how we collectively, I guess, educate the world of what’s really

happening? I don’t think most of America knows what’s happening

to rural America.

Mr. ARNOLD. Congressman Peterson, my name is Ron Arnold,

one of the items that I think that every State can do, such as

yours, is to do the fundamental research into who really is behind

this attack, as we have done. Our center stands ready to provide

basic information, training and research techniques, community organizing even. We will go where the problem is. And I’m sure that

everybody on this panel has information that would help you do

that kind of thing and give it to the media first in your local areas,

then the national media.

We have to make these local issues, national issues, to get any

kind of a groundswell of public fairness. It’s just plain a matter of

appealing to the sense of fairness to Americans. And I think we’re

famous for that. Once they know, I think they will make the right

decision.

Mr. PETERSON. I agree with you. I was a State legislator for 19

years, and I learned early on that if I held a news conference on

rural issues, I would get three or four press there. If I held a news

conference that was not looked at as a rural issue, I’d get 15 or 20

press there from the press corps in Harrisburg, which was the

State government.

So we used to try to figure out ways of couching that we were

having a rural issue, and I don’t understand that. I mean—but that

was the bias. You’d get three or four press to come to a news conference that dealt with rural issues, and yet most of America wants

to enjoy rural America, but for some reason they don’t want people

who live in rural America to have a quality of life that they will

even be there.

Now we also have to, I think, work from the understanding that

some of these groups, not all of them, but some of these groups,

want half of America to be as natural as it was when Columbus

came, and they want people there; they certainly don’t want vehicles there. They don’t want anything there except critters. Now

that’s a philosophy I guess I just don’t happen to agree with. But

that is the baseline of some groups, and somehow we have to think

in that perspective, too, that they want the land for the critters,

not for people.

Yes, sir?

Mr. FAVREAU. Can I make a comment? Being from the timber industry, I really appreciate your comments. You asked what you

could do in your area to try to educate the public. I’m really high

on the Evergreen Magazine and the Evergreen Foundation. Their

sole reason for being is to restore the public confidence in forestry,

and they’re very highly credible, and I think raising a little bit of

money to get an issue on your area would be a big plus.

The other thing I’d like to comment—comment I’d like to make

is about the industry. I think that, you know, I’ve got—I belong to
13

industry associations, and, you know, there are a lot of dear friends

in the industry, and I think the industry still hasn’t figured out

what’s going on and isn’t doing what it could to try to save itself.

We’re dealing with some people that are really determined.

Let me give you just one little example. At one of the Northern

Forest Lands hearings I had a discussion with one of the activists

who is trying to control everything. And I was trying to make a

point, and I said, you know, we don’t accept disease in our bodies,

we don’t accept disease in our pets, we don’t accept disease in our

gardens, but we’re going to accept disease in our forests. And that

didn’t go anywhere, because he told me that he felt disease in people was good because there are too many of us.

He did say he preferred it wasn’t in his own body. But anyway,

this tells you what the mentality is, and we’re never going to

change that. What we need to do is expose it.

Mr. PETERSON. I would be interested if any of you that have—

because the East is now just being impacted like the West was,

and—you know, in the Allegheny National Forest, because it’s a

very mature hardwood forest. We had many people that felt it

wouldn’t happen to us, and it is now happening to us.

And I want to thank all of you for coming out today and sharing

with us, because it’s a battle that we really cannot afford to lose.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Peterson.

And we will have a second round if you would like that. The

Chair recognizes the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Gibbons.

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I appreciate the

fact that you’ve taken the time to hold this hearing today. And I

want to welcome all of our panelists here before us. And I know

many of you have traveled far and gone to great lengths to appear

here today, and I want to say that we appreciate your interest, as

well as your commitment and your contribution as well to all of

this.

I guess my first question is—is to Mr. Arnold. I know you talked

a little bit and you explained a little bit about grant-driven Federal

employees. Could you elaborate a little more, maybe give us an example of what you mean by that?

Mr. ARNOLD. Yes, Congressman, I would be happy to do that. As

a matter of fact, if you take a look within the Battered Community

report, we actually have a fair profile of a number of them, page

14, 15, and 16. One of them is the Forest Service Employees for

Environmental Ethics. It’s—it advertises itself as consisting of

present, former and retired Forest Service employees, and it says

that it works to create a responsible value system for the Forest

Service based on land ethic and so on.

But if we take a look at the chart that I’ve provided of where the

money came from that got them started, it’s not clear who had the

idea to start them even, whether it was Andy Stahl, who is listed

as the executive director, or Jeff DeBonis, who is the first in that

position. We have—in the year they started and started getting

money in 1990, as you can see clearly in the chart, $100,000 from

the W. Alton Jones Foundation, $15,000 from the Rockefeller Family Fund, $20,000 from the Nathan Cummings Foundation and

$10,000 from the Beldon Fund, and there are more like that.
14

But if that isn’t grant-driven, and the purposes of these grants

is stated to foster new support sustainable among U.S. Forest Service workers, it’s difficult for me to comprehend what does ‘‘grantdriven’’ mean.

Mr. GIBBONS. It’s your impression that Federal dollars are being

used to further private interest?

Mr. ARNOLD. Well, it’s not so much Federal dollars, even though

many of these environmental groups do receive Federal grants. It’s

essentially a matter that tax-exempt money from large foundations

is being used to promote organizations that themselves promote

within the Forest Service and other organizations within other

agencies, within the government, to promote agendas that stop

goods production, so that appears to me as undue influence.

They are on the inside. We can’t reach them. They were not

elected. They are not accountable. There are no regulations that

control them. What’s wrong with this picture is the first question

that pops into my mind about that.

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you.

Mr. Conley, have you run across private foundations in Alaska

that have funded environmental groups which are contrary to the

best interests of your constituency?

Mr. CONLEY. Congressman, yes, I have. In southeast Alaska we

have a number of groups and we’ve been able to track, and I’ve included that for the record, but we’ve been able to track the foundations and the local environmental groups and the dollar amounts.

And there’s a Tongass Conservation Society. It’s a small 14-member group in Ketchikan, and the leader of that group received a

grant from SEACC, SEACC received a grant from Brainerd Foundation, and they all flow together.

But the gentleman that runs the local environmental group produced a pamphlet offering his services as a person that could help

shut down pulp mills; that he was now an expert and that he could

help other environmental groups shut down pulp mills, and that

was—it was real obvious that the reason that the tax-exempt foundation money had flowed into our area was to shut the two pulp

mills down, and they were successful.

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you.

And finally, Mr. Favreau, in the balance of the little time that

I have left, would you discuss with us how foundations and environmental groups outside of the New Hampshire area are driving

the issues within your State?

Mr. FAVREAU. Back in April 1971, there was a meeting that was

held in Lincoln, New Hampshire, that was on the issue—we were

getting a lot of interest in the Northern Forest Lands, and I spoke

about why we didn’t need outside help, and the term ‘‘greenlining’’

was being mentioned a lot at that time. There was a person sitting

in the audience who made an impression on me, and he made several comments. One of them, he called my thinking bunker mentality, and he also named all of the greenline areas. He said that

he agreed with me that none of them worked, but he just knew

that we could make it work here.

Then he said that the environmental community had $100 million to spend on the Northern Forest Lands. I think he said this
15

to impress on me it was too big an issue for a little guy like me

to fight.

I didn’t understand the real significance of this until I read Ron

Arnold’s book when I saw where, and in reading his book, that this

particular person was listed as one of the national directors of the

Environmental Grantmakers Association at the time.

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much.

You know, I think one of the most interesting things that I’ve

heard from the panel, and all five of you have had riveting testimony, came from Mr. Conley when he said, as a businessman, if

I were to provide money to someone which they in turn used to destroy another’s business, that would be an act that could follow

under the RICO statutes, you would have to be held accountable.

Mr. CONLEY. Madam Chairman, the RICO Act is currently being

used to prosecute the folks that have bombed the abortion clinics.

So I think there’s precedents to pursue that. And, unfortunately, as

a small businessman and from a small area—from a small town in

a big area in the United States, as a legal challenge we can’t afford

it. I think that the Congress has to do it. I mean, you folks have

attorneys that work by the years, and, you know, unfortunately we

have to pay our attorneys by the hour.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. The only problem is, Mr. Conley, our attorneys do not prosecute. That’s left up to the Justice Department.

And if we were to ask Janet Reno for help in our resources right

now, she would say, I am very preoccupied right now; in fact, she

is.

Mr. CONLEY. Maybe next year.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I think you’re onto something there, and it’s

something that I’ve been suggesting for a very long time. The Congress can put forth very good, sound laws, and we have, and

they’ve been signed into law, but when we have an administration

that continues to decide to disobey the law, and we do not have a

Justice Department that will pursue justice in this case, it’s up to

either the individuals who are damaged to bring a lawsuit or up

to us to expose it to the American public, which we will do.

And we will continue on this Committee to work in an exhaustive manner, which we have been, to expose what this administration is doing to our rural communities. But I thank you for putting

that in your testimony, because I think it’s the key that will unlock

a lot of the problems that we are involved with today.

A very interesting Supreme Court decision that was rendered

several years ago, but it’s never been overturned in whole or in

part, entitled Bivens v. Six Unknown Agents, of course, the Supreme Court ruled that when any agent steps—of the Federal Government steps outside the protection, the direct protection, of statutory authority, they are personally liable for the damage. That isn’t

often talked about. It’s more to the benefit of the administration to

ignore it. But it’s to our benefit, and I don’t think you and I should

ignore it.

So we will do whatever it takes to bring life back to our rural

communities and life back to our resources. And I thank you very

much for making that point.
16

I do want to ask, Mr. Gomez, are the private foundations—well,

has there been any resolution of the firewood collection issue?

Mr. GOMEZ. Madam Chairman, a few months after this story hit

the news media, the same group, the Forest Guardians, purchased

three or four truckloads of firewood for these two or three small

communities that were outraged by this action. And ironically, they

purchased the firewood from the Jicarilla Apache Reservation,

where they had found—they hadn’t seen it, but they thought that

they had heard a Mexican spotted owl.

It continues to persist. One issue is overcome, another issue

comes about. I spoke with the—with the Forest Service about a

week ago, and they have told me that 36 cases have been presented

to district III or region III of the Forest Service in the Southwest

within the last 10 years. Ten percent of the total budget for region

III is spent in litigation. It’s not grazing; now it’s water quality.

Just in last week’s Santa Fe New Mexican, these groups are

starting to ask why is the water quality diminishing? In most of

the tributaries along the New Mexico-Colorado border, there is no

money, there is just livestock grazing and wildlife habitat. The

farmers in northern New Mexico do not use fertilizers because they

cannot afford them. They’re very, very small farms. But now

they’re threatening the livelihood of the people with the Clean

Water Act. It just goes on and on and on.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. You testified that the average rancher there

owns 20 cows?

Mr. GOMEZ. Yes, ma’am.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Mr. McKeen, are the private foundations

funding—the private foundations that have been mentioned earlier,

are those foundations funding the activities that are reducing grazing in Catron County; do you know?

Mr. MCKEEN. I know there’s all kinds of foundations that’s providing funds, and I know there’s government grants that provide

funds. The Pew Charitable Trusts, I think, put in something like

$700,000 into these groups, and I’m not that familiar with that.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I see.

Mr. Arnold, have you done a study, or do you have information

available to us or to anyone with regards—as to who funds the

grantmakers?

Mr. ARNOLD. Madam Chairman, we have done an extensive

amount of work on a data base that tries to compile who are the

Environmental Grantmakers Association. It’s actually not incorporated, or at least it wasn’t to the last of our knowledge. It operates as an informal group with a rotating board of member executives out of the New York city offices of the Rockefeller Family

Fund, and that’s run by Donald K. Ross. It has a small staff, and

it simply holds meetings and promotes interchanges among people

in the grantmaking foundations.

Environmental Grantmakers has over 190 members now. We

have found that most of the trouble that we’re talking about comes

from a core cluster of these foundations. Many of them are not only

innocent of acts that we’re talking about, they don’t even know

they’re going on. They’re just members that think they’re doing

some good things for the environment, and that’s fine with us, we

don’t have any problem. But where they’re targeted ones, we have
17

tried to track those, and, indeed, we do have a data base, which

I would be happy to make available to this Committee.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, Mr. Arnold. I have gone over my

time, and I thank the Committee for their indulgence. I do have

to go manage a bill on the floor, a bill that has just come up that’s

one of my bills out of this Committee. So I’m going to do that chore,

and Mr. John Peterson from Pennsylvania will take over the Committee, and then I’ll come back as quickly as I can.

He may want to do another round of questioning, but I do want

to ask Mr. McKeen just one final question while I’m here.

Mr. McKeen, have you asked—have you done a freedom of information request on your file with—from Farmers Home, as well as

the Forest Service?

Mr. MCKEEN. No, I haven’t.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. It might be a wise thing to do to see if there

has been any communication between Farmers Home and the Forest Service.

Mr. MCKEEN. I have copies of letters where they did communicate, yes.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. You need—I would suggest that you do a

FOIA request and get your file and review it, OK?

Mr. MCKEEN. I know my experience with the Forest Service,

with your FOIA requests, sometimes they just don’t do it.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. If you have any trouble at all, you let us know

here on the Committee, and we will subpoena information for you.

Mr. MCKEEN. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. But it’s really better if the individual, or also

working with your cattle association.

Now, you were a commissioner in Catron County?

Mrs. MCKEEN. Yes, I was, for 6 years.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I think you have some attorneys down there

who are awfully good at making these requests. But I would suggest you do that right away. OK?

Mr. MCKEEN. Thank you.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I thank you all, gentlemen, very much for

your testimony. I only wish that your time and ours, too, allowed

for us to hear from you more, but you have certainly motivated me

even further. And so I’m going to leave now and turn the Committee over to Mr. Peterson.

Thank you very much.

Mr. PETERSON. [presiding] I’ll try not to get that motivated that

I have to leave—I’m just kidding. The Chairman is to be complimented on this hearing, and, Congressman Gibbons, I think you

had some more questions.

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the recognition here.

I want to go back to perhaps finish my questioning and turn it

to Mr. McKeen, as a person who comes from a State with a great

deal of grazing, that would be Nevada, as well. We’ve had a number of problems dealing with our condition of the forest or the grazing areas within our forest. They’re normally under grazing permits.
18

I would like for you to perhaps describe for us the condition of

the forest in your areas there in New Mexico, if you would for us,

Mr. McKeen.

Mr. MCKEEN. OK. I’m going to give you a story here that really

bothers me. As a kid I grew up on Mineral Creek. I was born in

Mineral Creek, and we still have some property there, and I live

within 3 miles of it. As a kid, I fished for trout in Mineral Creek.

My grandfather farmed on Mineral Creek, and other people farmed

on Mineral Creek. There was over 200 acres of farmland on this

one creek, which is a tributary to the San Francisco River, which

is a tributary to the Hilo River.

You go there today—and my grandfather raised alfalfa, by the

way, which was a year-round crop, takes water year round, takes

a lot of water, and the other farmers were there. Over 200 acres,

you go there today you can’t raise one sprig of alfalfa because our

national forest, where this water originates, that stream is totally

gone. The only water we get out of this stream is it comes down

through the then farming area, it gives you a snow runoff. We get

the floods.

But that area—and you go back, say, 30 years ago when the then

forest supervisor said he wanted to save that area as a pristine

area, not log it, not let it burn, because they wanted to build a road

up through there. They wanted it to be real scenic. Well, it’s not

too scenic to me when trees take over meadows, trees take over all

of your grasslands. Trees are 80 to a thousand trees per acre, when

they should be 80 trees per acre.

And what happens is when you get that many trees, it’s like a

study, and the only study I can find to compare it to is one in

Texas, where they were studying the ground cover. And when you

get a 60 percent ground cover—and in this study, no water goes

into the underground source. But that’s in Texas where they get

more rain that we do in New Mexico.

In New Mexico I have to guess, because I asked the Forest Service if they had any research or anybody had any research on it.

They don’t have any, or they don’t want to give it to me. I imagine

when we get a 30 or 40 percent canopy, no water goes under the

underground source. Consequently, Mineral Creek is an example of

all of the streams in the Hilo Natural Forest in the Hilo Wilderness, wherever you go.

I farm on the San Francisco River, and it’s gradually going dry

because of the type of management we have right now. And now

they’re wanting to do more preservation. They’re wanting to do

more saving of land and not log and not thin the forest, not have

fires, controlling burn. So Mineral Creek is an example of a stream

that just died.

And, of course, what happens to the people that lived on the

stream? Their economy went away, because they can’t raise the

crops they used to. Most of them are gone. Those lands are just idle

now.

And the only reason I’m farming today on my farm—I have 80

acres of farmland on the San Francisco River, and the only reason

I’m farming is I put a scenic ditch in, and I’m running out of water

every year a little more, a little more, a little more, and the only

reason I’m still farming is because the farmers upstream are
19

gradually running out of water, and they quit farming, and then

there’s a little more water coming down to me. And that’s the condition of almost all of our forests in the Southwest. Our water is

going away.

Mr. GIBBONS. So what you’re telling the Committee, if I can summarize it, is that poor management of our forest area, failure to

properly address thinning and improper forest management has

yielded an excess number of trees, which literally sap the water

that would normally be there for the few remaining trees and runoff for farmers down below based on the amount of water each tree

requires for proper growth, and this management has been—or

poor management has been the ultimate result in the economic

downturn in communities and farms in your area; is that what

you’re saying?

Mr. MCKEEN. Yes. And I’ll give you an example—this is my thing

to do. I tell you, I’ve tried and tried and tried to improve my forest

permit and do watershed work. And one of the biggest problems we

have in my counties is by Pinon juniper preservation, by golly, they

turn me down every time I want to do something. The environmentalists come out there and appeal every time we want to clear

these invasive trees. They don’t want people there, and when you

try to even improve the watershed, they don’t want watershed improvement either.

Now, I have an example. When we went up and cleared our

Pinon juniper trees on a portion of our place, which I pushed and

pushed and pushed to do, we created a spring by just pushing a

small hill, or a little mesa. We created a spring. And the Forest

Service denied it ever since. They don’t want to hear about it, but

it’s an example of what we can do.

Now in my county where I have—I went to Congress one time.

I went through my Congressman or delegation so I could push

trees to improve the land, and it’s like getting the weeds out of

your garden. People love trees, but grassland is what makes our

underground source and our wildlife and everything else. Of

course, you’ve got to have trees, too. But in this instance when you

remove Pinon juniper, you start at the headwater. We talk about

riparian nowadays, how we are going to treat riparian areas. Forget it. If you don’t want to start at that headwater where that

water starts from, those riparians are going to continue to flood.

You’ve got to start at those headwaters and stop that water and

get your grass back and running. And when you do, and when you

go and put these juniper trees back on your place, back on my

place, you will have an explosion you won’t believe. You will have

birds. You will have all kinds of animals out there that weren’t

there before.

The condition we have in our forest today is you go out through

this Pinon juniper country, it’s sterile. You’re going to see a crow

flying around there, a coyote walking through. You’re not going to

see anything, because those trees as they progress, they take over

the browse first. And this is in your Forest Service literature that

I’m getting this. There are studies, the trees take over the browse

first, and then once the browse is taken out, then the grass goes

next, and then you have no grass, and then you go nothing but

trees down there.
20

Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Chairman, if I may just ask one followup question.

Mr. McKeen, do you think, in your opinion, that there is a much

greater risk for damage to the existing forest due to the current

management practice of allowing excess number of trees, failure to

deal with the underbrush or the fuel growth underneath; from the

current conditions, is your forest and your area much more at risk

to fire, to disease, pestilence, whatever, than they have been in the

past under previous management?

Mr. MCKEEN. Oh, there’s no doubt about it. There’s no doubt

about it. I mean, we have the Forest Service—I’ve been up in the

Gila Wilderness several times, and I don’t know why it doesn’t get

fire and all of it burn. There’s tall grass, dead trees laying in every

direction. There’s standing dead trees, high percentage. There’s infestation of parasites. The country that once was opened as a kid

when I went up there, it opened big trees and grasslands, it’s solid

trees now. And it’s a dying, decaying-type situation.

Mr. GIBBONS. What do foresters say in the area about this condition? I mean, obviously it’s a recognizable, plainly obvious condition

that needs to be addressed, and yet there seems to be very little

coming out of those people we’ve charged with the proper management of our forest. Is this because of their fear of publicity gained

through efforts of these environmental groups? What have you

been told?

Mr. MCKEEN. The Forest Service to me is nothing more than a

bunch of PR people saying what they wish was out there. If you

go into their office and you see the bookshelf there, it’s got articles

by environmentalists and environmental authors. It’s got pictures

of flies, pictures of deer, pictures of elk and lions and all of these

things. There’s not one pamphlet in there that somebody can pick

up that gives the true nature of the national forest, not one.

They’ve got lots of studies that shows that it’s in bad shape, but

you won’t find one put in their display.

Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Chairman, may I just have one more broad

range of questioning?

Mr. PETERSON. Please go.

Mr. GIBBONS. I’m very disheartened by the remarks about the

condition of the New Mexico forest. I wonder if other areas, for example, Alaska or New Hampshire or other forests, are seeing the

same sort of trending conditions based on the same or similar types

of management. Anybody?

Mr. ARNOLD. In Washington State, we are seeing that in just

about every national forest, and we have a lot of them.

Mr. CONLEY. Congressman, in Alaska, we have got a lot of second growth, and the recognized forestry practice is thinning, and

the forests are not being thinned at all. I mean, they are just absolutely choking themselves to death as they grow.

Mr. FAVREAU. In Maine and New Hampshire, we are seeing a reduction in wildlife. It is the—I don’t think it has been as bad as

what it was in New Mexico, but it is getting there. It certainly is

the—the conditions are worsening.

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will release.

Mr. PETERSON. I will continue here a response on that issue.
21

In Pennsylvania, of course, we have a rather mature hardwood

forest that is very valuable. Just recently the lawsuits—we’ve had

lawsuits before, but they’ve really impacted us more recently. A few

months ago, two students from Clarion University put in a suit

against what was called a mortality II cut, which was 17 plots that

added up to about 5,050 acres. And they were successful, because

the Forest Service didn’t do an EIS, but there were 17 small plots.

It was kind of—when you looked at it and the way it was sold,

it looked like one large cut, but it was not. It was 59 percent dead

trees, salvaged, and the rest was green. But they used the assistance of two law professors from the University of Pittsburgh pro

bono, so they didn’t have any investment and were successful at

setting aside that sale—there are some other small sales that were

advertised recently, and they have also put lawsuits against—in all

of those.

But we’re just getting into the lawsuit phase where I think most

of the West has been through it for years, but it’s just now reaching

us.

The point I would like to ask you is a little bit of followup of

Jim’s. The Federal Government has 700 million acres and are buying, and then we have in Pennsylvania—we have I think it’s 4 or

5 million acres of public land owned by the State and local governments, too. It seems to me that we need to have a discussion of

whether the Federal Government under one blanket policy can

manage land in Alaska, New Mexico, New England, Pennsylvania,

and all over this country where there is no similarity to the forest.

Even the western forest is more similar, but there certainly is probably very little similarity to New Mexico than Washington or Idaho

or Alaska, and yet you’re using the same policy from the Federal

Government.

And I guess the disheartening part now is—and I’ve not been

here a long time, but, as an observer, it seems like for the first

time we have the Vice President and Katie McGinty really running—adjunct running the Forest Service. I mean, it’s their policies

that are being utilized. They’ve not been debated by anybody.

There’s been no public forums nationally certainly to make sure

those are good policies. And so we really have untested, untried

policies to manage our forests and to manage our public land without a public discussion. And it seems somehow it ought to be regional.

I guess the question I would like to ask is, what kind of support

and help can we depend on from your States and local officials? Are

your Governors with you? Are your State legislatures with you? Or

what kind of support do you get from them?

Mr. ARNOLD. Well, to start with Washington State, our Governorat-large is unaware of the problems, and we’re not sure he would

be sympathetic were he informed in Washington State. But our

county commissioners, particularly in the rural areas where we

have this urban-rural prosperity gap so badly, most certainly are

on our side. And if you take a look in the Battered Communities

Report that I’ve submitted for the record, we have a number of

statements from county commissioners.

I think they would probably pretty widely all over the United

States be with us, because we have them from Minnesota and
22

Washington State. And I don’t see any reason with a little further

work we could not get a fairly good organization of support from

them.

Mr. PETERSON. Anyone else?

Mr. CONLEY. Congressman, in Alaska, it’s unfortunate, but we

have a Governor who aligns with the White House, and so the policies are real similar. We have a Governor that—we have an area

of some State land, and it’s a dead forest. It’s been affected with

the spruce spark beetle. It’s a fire hazard. At one point, we could

have gone in and cut that wood down and had a marketable value.

It would have prevented a massive fire that happened a couple

years ago. He absolutely gets his marching orders from the same

place the White House does, and that’s the Sierra club.

Mr. FAVREAU. In New Hampshire, for the natural forest alone,

we do get support from broad-based—our senators, Congressman

and the local officials, a lot of support.

Mr. GOMEZ. In northern New Mexico, we get a lot of support

from our county commissioners and from our State legislators; but

we don’t hear anything from the Governor’s office.

Mr. MCKEEN. Yeah, I think that’s true. The local people, the

local county commissioner and these kind of people support us. And

I felt we had support from our Governor, and we have support from

our congressional delegation here in Congress here.

Mr. PETERSON. I’m going to conclude with this and dismiss this

panel. And our Chairman is with us now. I will turn it back over

to him.

I’m not going to turn it back over to him. I will at this time offer

a chance to ask the questions to our chairman from Alaska.

Chairman YOUNG. Mr. Chairman, may I suggest that you do an

excellent job; and you’re well versed in this subject. I hope you will

see the day when you sit in that chair as the chairman of the full

Committee. It will be a long while. I want you to know that.

JC, the Sitka Pulp Mill, you’re from Ketchikan, but is it my information that that mill has been closed longer and there were

those in that town at that time that were optimistic about the

economy because it lasted pretty well for numerous years. But has

that optimism been justified by the results in Sitka?

Mr. CONLEY. Congressman, not living there, I can’t really quote

the numbers and figures, but I do have many dear friends that live

there and are in business. And in my conversations with the folks

in Sitka, they feel that the economy is down 30 to 35 percent. I

know that the tonnage, the freight tonnage of goods is down 33

percent, and it’s not good.

And, you know, there was an anomaly after the APC closure.

There was not really as much severance money as we got in Ketchikan for our workers. But there was additional funds that these nolonger-employed folks had that came out of some of the profit sharing and pension deals that they had, and they did have a little

spike in the economy. There was also outside money. This influenced the real estate market there. There were a great number of

homes that were bought from people from California as kind of a

summer place to go, an investment. You know, now with the mills

gone, you know, we’ll go up there and get some cheap land, you
23

know. And, really, I don’t think it was a real estate boom. I think

it was a carpetbagging boom.

Chairman YOUNG. JC, I promise—I was pleased what you had to

say about the Governor because there’s doubt in my mind that he

does not support—in fact, he had the gall to call Jim Lyons to suggest to lower the cut that was recommended in the TLMP, which

was about 128 million board feet a year. We had been cutting

about 400 million board feet a year and to have them drop that

amount is ridiculous.

But I think that the chairman just mentioned that the support

for timber industry or timber management is still an anomaly, because no one really understands it, other than the people that are

actually dealing with it. And the chairman is absolutely right. The

policy of this administration is socialism—to run everybody out of

private business, to let the trees die and let the trees supposedly

act as nature. And when we basically need the fiber, the government will develop it.

And I really—it goes against everything I’ve ever thought of,

that, as you know, I’ve introduced a bill to give the Tongass back

to the State, which is, I think—I don’t see any justification for the

Federal Government owning land, other than the Statute of Liberty

and maybe a few parks, maybe a few refuges, but to just own land

to do nothing with I think is a disservice to the constitution and

to the people of the United States.

But it’s going to take an awful lot of effort from people like you

and from your communities to stir this up. Because, unfortunately,

as you know, most of our population now live in Philadelphia—I

just came from there yesterday—San Francisco, New York, Miami,

Chicago, and, you know, LA, and they haven’t the slightest idea

where toilet paper comes from. And that gives us our biggest problem.

So it’s going to be up to you. Because, although I just know some

of the people in Congress say they support you, when it comes right

down to the votes, sometimes they’re not there. And that’s very,

very concerning to me. So it’s going to take a great deal of team

effort.

I’ve been in this business now 26 years, and I’ve watched the administration and interest groups, I think, destroy the basis of our

society. And that’s resources management and not necessarily destruction or elimination but management. And anybody who can

tell me a dead tree is a good tree is smoking something. And I just

don’t understand it.

But, anyway, Mr. Chairman, I don’t have any other questions.

Mr. PETERSON. Earlier, there was some question about the Pew

Charitable Trusts. That’s a Pennsylvania foundation. That’s funded

by the resources and wealth of the Sun Oil Company. It’s kind of

a strange that they would attract forest products, but they have.

I would like to thank the panel, and I appreciate your traveling

here and sharing your good testimony with us.

The next panel we introduce is Mr. Donald Wesson, Southern

Pine Regional director, Pulp and Paperworker’s Resource Council;

Honorable Mike Propes, Polk County Commissioner, Dallas, Oregon; and Mr. Jack Richardson, the Val Verde County Administrator, Del Rio, Texas.
24

If you would please take your seats at the table.

STATEMENT OF DONALD R. WESSON, SOUTHERN PINE REGIONAL DIRECTOR, PULP AND PAPERWORKER’S RESOURCE

COUNCIL, McGEHEE, ARKANSAS

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Wesson, if you would like to proceed.

Mr. WESSON. Mr. Chairman, I want on thank you and the Committee for holding this very important hearing and for allowing me

to participate.

My name is Don Wesson. I am the Vice President of United Paperwork Workers International Union, Local 1533, located in

McGehee, Arkansas. I serve as the Southern Pine Regional Director of the Pulp and Paperworker’s Resource Council. I’m currently

employed in the pulp and paper industry as an industrial mechanic. I reside in Desha County, Arkansas; and I’m a constituent

of the 4th Congressional District.

A few years ago, I was like most all Americans. I went to work,

paid my share of taxes, voted in most elections and depended on

my elected officials to take care of me. I’ve always felt my freedoms

as well as my property was protected. After all, America was

founded under the Constitution.

One day, I heard some disturbing news of how a Spotted Owl put

thousands of my union brothers and sisters out of a job in the very

industry in which I am employed. I started paying more attention

to what my government was doing and realized some of those elected officials in which I placed my trust was not looking out for my

well-being or the well-being of America. It was then that I realized

that the world is run by those who show up, and I would start

showing up.

I got involved with the PPRC. The Pulp and Paperworker’s Resource Council is a grassroots coalition consisting of labor workers

who work in the pulp, paper and wood products industries of America. We have lost thousands of jobs in our industry in the past few

years due to various government regulations.

I am here today to address the American Heritage Rivers. We

feel this is just another governmental program that will end up

hurting our communities and cost us more industry jobs.

I live in Desha County, Arkansas, which borders the mighty Mississippi River, the life blood of America. The Mississippi River is

among the top 10 rivers that is already nominated as Heritage Rivers. I have had several meetings with the Office of Council on Environmental Quality concerning this nomination. I have met with Mr.

Ray Clark, associate director of the CEQ, as well as the chairman

of American Heritage Rivers on three different occasions.

Mr. Clark keeps insisting that the American Heritage Rivers is

the greatest thing since motherhood and apple pie. He expressed

that lies are being told about American Heritage Rivers. He insisted that there are no new regulations, no new money, and this

is truly a bottom up program. It is a community based—it is community based, and there will be no impact on private property. He

stated that money was already in place. The purpose of this program would be to just manage the rivers and to administer the

funds where needed.
25

This is why I have a grave concern over the executive order. If

a river community is designated for this initiative, there are potentially serious negative implications for local governments. Depending on the direction the project takes, local land use zoning boards

could be negated or completely bypassed. There is nothing in the

language that would allow a designated community or individual

landowners the ability to opt out of this program. Without the right

to opt out, a private landowner or local government should be concerned about losing any power of income or development of assets,

as well as its sovereignty.

The idea of using a river navigator to coordinate the river communities efforts in itself is somewhat a disturbing idea. When the

person selected can be a Federal or non-Federal employee selected

jointly by the river community and Federal agencies, the potential

for conflict of interest exist.

Many agencies, such as the Department of Interior, Fish and

Wildlife Service and the Army Corps of Engineers have become

more and more active in reducing or restricting the use of our natural resources. If the river navigator is chosen from an agency that

has a definite preservationist slant, the chances of the river communities choosing a plan to the detriment of private property

rights and industrial development would be greatly increased.

Whenever tourism, economic security, environmental protection

and protecting/preserving our heritage are mixed into one initiative, the American public becomes skeptical. This mixture in the

past has meant the decrease in high-paying industrial jobs. Even

when there are tourism jobs created, the employees are not paid

well and in many cases are seasonal jobs.

I urge you, Mr. Chairman, and this Committee to stop the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. If this program is as great as we

are told, then the office of the CEQ would not mind it having a congressional oversight. We do not need 16 different governmental

agencies and a river navigator to manage our rivers or to regulate

our private lands that borders these rivers.

Any proposal that is set up under the premise of streamlining

government but yet would still include at least nine different Cabinet positions as well as countless other government agencies hardly

makes this initiative more user friendly. Instead, it would just lead

to another level of bureaucracy that the American public is already

weary of.

If you have any questions concerning how too many levels of government bureaucracy affects the jobs in resource-based industries,

you could ask any one of the over 100,000 workers from the Pacific

Northwest who have already lost their job over a Spotted Owl.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wesson may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Propes?

STATEMENT OF MIKE PROPES, POLK COUNTY

COMMISSIONER, DALLAS, OREGON

Mr. PROPES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to

address your Committee.
26

I’m Mike Propes. I’m chairman of the Polk County Board of Commissioners, and I’m also vice president of the O & C Counties on

the Board of Directors of the Association of Oregon Counties, and

I’m on the Willamette Liveability Council. I’m also chair of two

water basin boards, so I have a lot of experience in water basins

and river protections in Oregon.

We share some of your concerns about the Federal policies being

developed in Washington, DC, with little input from rural communities that are most impacted. I offer the following observation,

quoting from our letter dated August 19th, 1997, to Karen Hobbs,

Council of Environmental Quality, and that letter is included in

your packet.

‘‘Looking at the American Heritage Rivers Initiative from the

bottom up, it seems quite obvious that the initiative was developed

without an awareness of the efforts already underway by regional,

State and local citizens in cooperation with Federal Government

agencies to protect our rivers. The preliminary meetings involving

approximately 690 attendees, held in large metropolitan areas,

seems to have been the basis for launching the American Heritage

Rivers Initiative. This hardly seemed representative of over 225

million people on this matter, and thus seems to have been

spawned from an inadequate understanding of the need or want of

both the citizens and the rivers.’’

This information came out of the Federal Register of how this

initiative started. So these are not our figures. These are the figures from the people that attended the meetings, right out of the

Federal Register to start this program.

This program is supposed to be voluntary, but it appears that

these designations will occur in spite of strong opposition from local

governments. This is the first promise broken with respect to the

American Heritage Rivers. Broken promises seem to be a pattern

with this administration with environmental issues.

Four counties along the Willamette River—Lane, Linn, Polk and

Yamhill—have asked to be excluded from the Heritage River Initiative. And I think this is where it’s really important to understand

what has happened locally. We have been told locally that it takes

local people opting into this program, and if an area doesn’t want

it, you’re not going to be included.

We now have 26 counties in Oregon—and this is in one of your

exhibits that is included in the packet—that has asked to opt out

of this program. Out of the 36 counties, we have 27 that have opted

out. We don’t have a single county that has asked for it.

Well, after that had happened, we were told, well, it couldn’t be

locally opted out. It took somebody from your congressional delegation to opt you out. So we went to our congressional delegation, and

one of our Congressman opted us out—and one of our senators.

And then we were told, well, no, now it takes your whole congressional delegation to opt you out.

Well, I think it probably takes Congress to opt us out. And that’s

what we’re here to ask for, is to opt us out. And we’re not sure if

this is a good program or a bad program. We have read every bit

of information we can get on it and we can’t figure it out if it’s good

or bad.
27

We do know that it’s a new Federal program. Is there new regulations? We can’t tell. Is there new moneys? Well, there appears to

be new moneys, but are there going to be strings attached to that,

that you have to use it a certain ways? We cannot tell. We do not

want to be a guinea pig for another Federal program.

I was back in Washington, DC, my last time, a little over 10

years ago, and I came back here to discuss the Spotted Owl and

the Endangered Species Act. And I had a conversation then, the

same as I had yesterday with some staff members back here, about

that I’m overreacting, that, no, it really isn’t going to be the things

that you are perceiving is going to happen with this program.

Well, 10 years ago, we were predicting that we were going to

have some severe cutbacks in our economy because of the Spotted

Owl in Oregon; and people in Washington, DC, thought we were

crazy, that can’t happen, that’s not what this program is. This is

to help protect animals, and it’s good for people and everything

else. Exactly what we feared with that program happened, regardless of what people told us here. And that’s the fear we have with

this program.

Real quickly I would like to just mention the exhibits that I have

attached. I do have the resolutions from the 27 counties that have

opted out, and I have resolutions from two of the cities that are on

the Willamette River that have asked to opt out. And I have resolutions from the Oregon State Senate, from the Oregon Cattleman’s

Association, Oregon Farm Bureau, Oregon Logging Conference, Oregon Wheat Growers and the Yamhill Republican Central Committee, a very important committee.

Also, I do have a map that is attached; and that is Exhibit D.

That shows the counties that had opted out. That’s the 24 counties.

There’s an additional three counties that have opted out that are

not on the map. And that’s Deschutes, Wheeler, and—sorry, I can’t

recall the third one now—that have opted out.

And you may look at the map at the very bottom of the page. It

looks a little different. That is the United States stretched out just

a little. We’d like to get further away from DC, not closer.

Thank you.

Mr. PETERSON. I get your message, and I agree with you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Propes may be found at end of

hearing.]

Mr. PETERSON. Mr. Jack Richardson, please proceed.

STATEMENT OF JACK RICHARDSON, VAL VERDE COUNTY

ADMINISTRATOR, DEL RIO, TEXAS

Mr. RICHARDSON. Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to testify

before the Natural Resources Committee on the American Heritage

Rivers Initiative and the pending application for the Rio Grande

River.

My name is Jack Richardson. I’m a county administrator in Val

Verde County, Texas, which is located on the Rio Grande River.

Val Verde County has got an estimated population of about 48,000.

The entire county borders on the Rio Grande River.

The county, while small in population, consists of 3,171 square

miles. Sixty-two square miles of that is usually water, but it’s not

now, because the International Boundary Water Commission pulled
28

the plug on Lake Amistad. These facts qualify Val Verde County

to have a true voice in any initiative that encompasses additional

Federal regulations upon the county.

I have lived there for more than 25 years. I know many of the

families that have lived there and worked there for generations. In

fact, my five grandchildren reside on a tributary of the Rio Grande.

It’s called San Felipe Creek.

We do not need a Federal initiative to tell us how important the

Rio Grande is and to recognize the rich culture and heritage that

exists along the border. We honor our culture and heritage every

day as we go to work, raise our families and just simply live there.

I worked for the United States Border Patrol for 32 years. I

guess I’m one of those suspect Federal employees. And I’ve been exposed to an awful lot of Rio Grande River culture, believe me. I do

not claim to be an expert on the Rio Grande, but I’ve had a lifetime

of experience working there, and the Rio Grande has played a significant role in all that work.

I would kind of like to know how many members of this Blue

Ribbon Panel have even seen the Rio Grande. They tell me maybe

one. Now, I understand the Rio Grande is on a list along with several other rivers as a potential candidate to be named as an American Heritage River. Exactly what that would mean for the communities and the people who must live and work along the river is

still not fully known, just like he said.

I know the full impact will not be known until the initiative is

being implemented; and, at that time, it’s been our experience that

it’s just too late to stop it.

The AHRI is another unfunded mandate, and we’ve had a bunch

of those. We really have one which cost us about $20 million, anyway, of which the true cost to the local communities and the impacts on income, property rights, production and competitiveness

are still unknown.

I am here today to make sure that the concerns of all of those

who live and work along the river are heard. We want to be fully

understood that nonsupport for the Rio Grande nomination flows

up and down this river. Many communities in my region do not

want the strings that come attached to Federal programs. And

there’s always the price to pay when you say ‘‘I do’’ with the Feds.

You know that, and I know that.

I have with me today resolutions and letters of nonsupport from

counties that are located along the Rio Grande within its watershed. One of those county resolutions is from my home county of

Val Verde. It kind of surprised me when they did that, because you

can’t get those five people to agree on anything, and yet this was

a unanimous resolution.

I have letters of opposition from many agriculture organizations,

property rights organizations. We have 77 resolutions and letters

of nonsupport for the designation of the Rio Grande as an American Heritage River. This represents thousands of Texas citizens

that do not want the AHRI in Texas.

Mr. Desmond Smith, president of the TransTexas Heritage Association, also will come up to testify on behalf of the membership

that represents 15 million acres of private land in Texas. They

didn’t want the AHRI to designate the Rio Grande River either.
29

The San Antonio Express News recently quoted our Governor

Bush as stating, when it comes to ONRW or the American Heritage

Rivers, whatever it is, I’m against it. Well, if you’re Governor and

he doesn’t know what it is, the likelihood of us knowing it is pretty

remote. And he said, I will not, so long as I’m Governor, concede

the sovereign rights of Texas.

Well, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Congressman

Henry Bonilla have both sent letters to the Council on Environmental Quality in opposition to the Rio Grande designation. Congressman Bonilla requested his congressional district not be included in the initiative, and seven other members of the Texas delegation also requested their districts not be included.

There are 800 miles of Rio Grande that run through the Congressman’s district. I’m talking about—if you can visualize—from

El Paso up here to Laredo down here. We’re way down here on the

food chain. For some reason, CEQ ignored Congressman Bonilla’s

opt-out letter and further misrepresented his position by stating, in

a letter to Senator Hutchison, that Congressman Bonilla supported

a designation for the Rio Grande. Congressman Bonilla had to send

another letter to the CEQ restating his position.

Regardless of our expressed opposition against the designation of

the Rio Grande as an American Heritage River, the nomination has

continued to proceed. How many more resolutions do we need to

pass? How many more letters do we have to write? How many

more times do we need to testify that we do not want the Rio

Grande designated as an American Heritage River? I think the big

question down there is when are the CEQ and the panel going to

listen to us?

From the beginning, there has been a back-door attempt to get

the Rio Grande listed as an American Heritage River, regardless

of the views of those who live and work along it. There have been

secret meetings, attempts to prevent the public have having a voice

at the so-called public hearings and an unwillingness to accept the

fact that the AHRI is not wanted for the Rio Grande.

And I would like to quote an excerpt from the letter sent to Senator Hutchison by the CEQ dated May the 7th, 1998, signed by

Kathleen McGinty. It states, ‘‘The American Heritage Rivers Initiative is 100 percent locally driven.’’ Now I ask, if the CEQ was really listening to the local communities, would the Rio Grande still be

in consideration for nomination?

Not only is AHRI in the process of being imposed on the local

communities against their wishes, but this is another layer of bureaucracy that is not necessary. Do you have any idea how many

Federal agencies already have their toes dipped in the Rio Grande

River and are controlling every action involving that river? I tried

to count them up this morning, and I quit at 33. You’ve got to remember every federation usually has two or three branches. From

those branches, you can bet the state of Texas has got a matching

entity in there. When you get into Mexico, every Federal agency in

Mexico will have a bureaucracy level almost identical to that existing in the State of Texas and the United States.

I can assure that you we have enough problems working with the

EPA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Army Corps of Engineers—they

pull some good ones—and the International Boundary and Water
30

Commission under their current authority and programs that they

have. These Federal agencies do not need to have their authority

expanded under any program, especially a program that still does

not have standards for evaluation and guidelines for establishing

the priorities.

Those of us who live along the Rio Grande understand better

than anyone the need to clean it up. We all want to live in a clean

environment, but creating another layer of government to work

through is not the way to go about it.

This is an international river, and it’s going to take international

cooperation to clean it up. What I think they lose sight of more

than anything is 60 percent of that water is Mexico. There’s three

rivers feeding into the Rio Grande. We’ve got two, anyway. You

measure the water. We’re the junior partner in this cleanup campaign. And I can just see that this big bureaucrat is going to go

over there and tell these guys that’s holding 60 percent of the

water what to do, and I can tell you what he’s going to tell him.

This is—it just takes a few minutes to visit with anyone who

works and lives along the river, and you will soon come to realize

that the Rio Grande cannot be treated like any other river. The culture and heritage that makes the river so special also creates many

unique problems. I do not see that this initiative will address our

unique situation, which will just serve to create more problems.

Bureaucrats don’t solve problems; they create them.

From the very beginning, there has been a cloud of questions

hanging over this initiative. What would a designation mean for

river communities? What benefits or drawbacks would this hold for

those who live along the river? And if it was such a good deal for

the communities, why have the supporters felt the need to meet in

secret and misrepresent the views of those who oppose the AHRI?

These questions have never been answered, and I doubt they will

be. It’s been imposed—the AHRI has been imposed from the top

down from the very beginning. And I’m here today to speak on behalf of the many counties, communities, citizens and organization

who are represented by these letters and resolutions of nonsupport.

They send a loud and clear message that we are opposed to the Rio

Grande being designated as an American Heritage River.

Thank you. I would be glad it to answer any questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Richardson may be found at end

of hearing.]

Mr. PETERSON. I would like to thank the panel. And I will offer

time for questions. Congressman Gibbons, who has to leave shortly.

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, also, for

your patience and your effort to get here today to testify before us.

I’m very curious where the information stems from that you

heard that it would take all of Congress to opt out of this system

when I—and I’m sure that the chairman sat here in this Committee and listened to Katie McGinty from the CEQ’s Office state

specifically that any Congressman in his congressional district

could by request opt his district out of the American Heritage River

Initiative. Which seems to be now that so many of us have taken

that step, that there seems to be a transition and a change in attitude that hasn’t been announced by the CEQ, but that doesn’t surprise me.
31

What I want to go to, and perhaps each one of you could talk to

me a little bit and maybe help the Committee understand better,

just what did this administration do with all of you in its efforts

to explain to you what the American Heritage River Initiative

would do for your individual areas when they were proposing it,

when they were considering it? Did they bring you in, tell you what

was going to take place, how it would be implemented, what actions would be taken, what course of—or what opportunities you

would have in terms of contributing to the overall outcome?

Maybe you could—each one just take a brief moment and explain

to me what this administration offered in terms of meetings and

explanations to each of you in your areas.

Mr. WESSON. OK. From the State of Arkansas, the only thing I

know they did was they got a hold of the Governor and—through

some of the county commissioners, and they tried to say how it was

going to be a big tourism boost. And in southeast Arkansas where

I live, nothing could be a big tourism boost. I mean that’s the flat

land, the delta. It’s nothing but farm communities.

They never put anything in any newspapers saying any public

hearings, meetings or what have you in the State of Arkansas that

I’m aware of. They just tried to make it that it’s going to be the

greatest thing that could happen to any river.

Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Propes?

Mr. PROPES. We got the information from a very strange document. It was the Congressional Record. That was the first time we

even knew there was any such a program being talked about. And,

from that, we started doing some inquiry to see what it was. Because when the Willamette River was listed as one of the 100,

there was originally a list with 100 rivers on there, and since it affects literally all of Polk County, our county, we were interested in

what was going on.

We sent letters back to Karen Hobbs asking questions about

that, and to this day we’ve not had any contact back, and that was

the August, 1997, letter. At that point in time, we were not opposed to it. We were just trying to figure out what it was. And then

we heard from our people about that you could opt out locally.

Never from the administration, we have never had any contact

from the administration, never had any answers from them. So everything we’ve got has been through newsletters or other publications, and we’ve been following what those have said.

Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Richardson?

Mr. RICHARDSON. They mailed us a letter, and of all things I

think it come to us from TNRCC, which is Texas Natural Resource

Conservation Commission. They did come down and talk to us a

couple times, as I recall, just very more like a courtesy call than

an informative call.

They had some running around, trying to avoid anybody making

any opposition to this in Marathon, Texas. And if you’ve ever been

to Marathon, Texas, it’s a lot of local humor. It’s a very small place.

It’s hard to be secretive in Marathon, Texas.

We have had some—most of that information, we were, in the

county, were able to get come from the city councilman, that would

say, hey—they would come over to us and say, what do you do with

this thing? We said, we don’t know, you know, and that’s about it.
32

Everybody got to looking at what could develop from it. And our

commissioners sat down and they says, well, wow, we don’t want

any of this, and that’s where we are today.

Mr. GIBBONS. Let me ask just a yes or no question from any of

you. Do any of you know of public hearings that were held in your

areas with regard to the proposal for the American Heritage River

Initiative that might have allowed for your input into the creation

of this initiative?

Mr. PROPES. No.

Mr. WESSON. No, sir.

Mr. RICHARDSON. Just the one at Marathon is the only one that

I’m aware of.

Mr. GIBBONS. How big is Marathon?

Mr. RICHARDSON. Oh, maybe 15, 20 houses, very small place.

And we don’t know.

And this one—there was some attempts at intimidation about

grants along in there. But my judge is 73 years old, and you

couldn’t intimidate him with a bulldozer, you know. He just—so

that was the end of that discussion, and it didn’t last long.

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you very much, gentlemen. And I will yield

back the balance of my time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PETERSON. Representative Chenoweth?

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Wesson, it’s good to see you.

Mr. WESSON. Glad to be here.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I’m glad you’re here. And Ballach Forest,

where you work, is next to the Mississippi River. If this segment

of the river is designated under the American Heritage Rivers designation, how do you believe that the local economy and communities will be affected? Have you addressed that in my absence?

Mr. WESSON. Well, that’s a good question. It really scares me because, about 4 months ago, the Ballach went into a joint venture

with Anderson, actually, and bought 365,000 acres between the

levy and river. And I have been talking to my CEO and some other

people and I said, I hope you all realize if this American Heritage

River comes by, you might have just lost everything you’ve got.

It could very much affect us. We’re all—the Mississippi River is

a working river, and in southeast Arkansas we have agriculture.

We have the paper industry. Like my mill, we get the water out

of the river. We use it in the mill. We clean it up. We put it back

in the river. Our chips come down the river to the mill, or the logs

do, to our chip mill one.

And, you know, the agriculture, the farmers use it for irrigation.

There’s several thousands of acres, if not hundreds of thousands of

acres, between the levy and the river that on the years that the

river don’t flood, they use that for farmland. And it’s a very big

asset to the economic industry.

And last week, a year ago this time, I met with Katie McGinty

and Ray Clark at the CEQ, and at that time any person could opt

out. I mean, it took a person to designate, and it took a person to

opt out. Since then, they’ve changed it to, well, then your county

has to opt out. Then they said your Congressman has to opt out.

Well, last Thursday, we was told that even if your Congressman
33

opts out, if your Governor wants it, you can still get it. So we don’t

know what the deal is.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Very interesting. I think I understand what

the deal is, and I think we will work to straighten that out. Because there was testimony before this Committee that if a Congressman wants to opt out, their areas will be opted out, and we

intend to hold CEQ to that.

I’d be interested in having anything in writing or even an affidavit from you with regards to the fact that a one-time CEQ made

a promise that an individual could opt out. Could you help the

Committee out on that, Mr. Wesson?

Mr. WESSON. Sure. I would be glad to.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I would very much appreciate that.

Mr. Richardson—and I’m getting back to you, Commissioner—

but I understand that there was a high-level meeting last spring

in Laredo. Did you address this?

Mr. RICHARDSON. We don’t—we were not really very conversant

about it, because we don’t know anything about it.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I understand in this meeting in Laredo they

discussed the possible designation of the Rio Grande as an American Heritage River Initiative. Could you discuss the highlights of

that meeting and if your county was invited?

Mr. RICHARDSON. We knew nothing of the meetings. But, generally, if we were invited to attend, I would know.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. So you were——

Mr. RICHARDSON. The mail comes to me.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. So the mail comes to you, and if you were invited, if the county was invited, you would know?

Mr. RICHARDSON. I would know. I believe I would know.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And you did not receive an invitation?

Mr. RICHARDSON. No, we don’t know anything about that.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Well, the administration believes that designation of the Rio Grande will result in more cooperation with the

Mexican government to clean up the river. As one who worked on

the Border Patrol for 32 years and has lived in the area a lifetime,

how do you feel about this?

Mr. RICHARDSON. They are very sensitive to any overt action by

the American—I think the phrase is: Poor Mexico, so far from God

and so close to the United States. They don’t want us meddling in

the thing. And you’ve got to remember, like I said, they own 60

percent of that water. We only own 40.

There’s three contributory rivers into there and two coming into

our area anyway. Sixty percent of that water is theirs. They’ve had

a session of bureaucrats telling them what to do and when to do

it.

My big fear when I was working in Mexico or conducting liaison

with my counterparts across the river was some American politician would go to Mexico and run his mouth, because it would put

us in a real strain. You can’t treat your neighbor that way.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And so three of the contributing rivers come

from Mexico that make up 60 percent of the water in the Rio

Grande and two of the tributaries come from America?

Mr. RICHARDSON. That’s correct.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And you don’t treat your neighbors that way?
34

Mr. RICHARDSON. I don’t think the nature—human nature being

what it is, that, yes, they’re very—they understand. They know

about—they have the maquilas to appease, the Americans, the

maquila industries have expanded their operation. If you crowd

those officials in Mexico, they merely state, hey, the pollution

comes from the American factory and look at you and smile.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Yes.

Mr. RICHARDSON. What are you going to answer? I don’t think

Mexico is ready for another layer of our bureaucracy. I really and

truly don’t.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. We’re not ready for it either.

Mr. RICHARDSON. I don’t think they will work with you to clean

it up. I believe that. But you’re not going to tell them or exert—

they call it Yankee supremacy, whatever. You’re just not going to

do that down there. So my—I don’t think the way to go is another

government bureaucracy.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you, sir.

Commissioner, it’s good to see you. You’re a neighbor of mine.

Mr. PROPES. Yes.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. And I share your concerns about the Blue Ribbon Panel on the American Heritage Rivers Commission. In fact,

that panel would not allow me to even address the public last

month in Washington, which is unusual.

Your testimony mentions that two of those committee members

are from Oregon.

Mr. PROPES. Yes, they are.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. How did these two members respond when

they learned that four affected counties and Senator Gordon Smith

have formally requested the Willamette not be designated?

Mr. PROPES. We have not heard any response from them at all.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. From the commissioners?

Mr. PROPES. Yes. It seems to be definitely silence when we try

to get information about what’s going on. We don’t get letters returned when we’ve asked questions. It’s almost as if we don’t exist.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. My word. Are you aware of any other Federal

program that has been this unresponsive to the wishes of Polk

County Commissioners?

Mr. PROPES. Besides Endangered Species Act? No, we haven’t.

And, actually, the other Federal programs, we’ve worked with a lot

of Federal programs, and they’ve been very responsive to us. We

may not always agree with the outcomes, but we get answers back,

and they’re responsive.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. With the amount of opposition, why do you believe that the river is still being considered for designation?

Mr. PROPES. Well, our Governor is in favor of the designation.

But we were led to believe that if local areas opt out, that you

could get out of it. And that was nothing that was told to us by

any Federal agency. It was just different things we had read on it

and information that we had received. And then, when we found

out we couldn’t opt out locally, we went to our senator and Congressman, and they opted us out. And then we have heard that

that doesn’t work either.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Well, they keep moving the goal post, and we

keep trying to plant them.
35

Mr. PROPES. Yes, that’s what it appears to be.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. I think, Commissioner, it might be awfully

good if your Governor talked to some of his friends in Lane County.

I’m very pleased that Lane County opted out.

Mr. PROPES. Yes. Lane County is a major county that would be

affected—could be affected by this. If you read all of our—that’s our

problem. We do not know what this means. All we know is that it’s

another Federal program, and it has so few specifics in it and in

the Federal Register, we just absolutely can’t tell. We’ve asked

questions. Nobody can answer our questions.

So we feel it’s better not to be in the program until we know

what it is. If it’s a good program, we will be knocking on the door

wanting in. But that’s the way Federal programs should be. They

should be designed that if there’s a need in a local area for that

Federal program, the local areas come after it. They shouldn’t be

pushed down on this.

Mrs. CHENOWETH. Thank you very much, Commissioner.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you.

I just thought I would share for the record here the words of

Katie McGinty, Madam Chairman. I would like to offer some declarative statement about this program, because it’s helpful to clarify, I think, in simple terms what this is and what it is not. What

it is it’s 100 percent voluntary. Communities don’t have to participate. And after participating at any time, a community can opt out.

It’s 100 percent locally driven. This is purely a bottom-up process,

whether to participate in the plan for participation is completely

under the control and in the hands of the local citizens.

I think they’ve broken those rules already.

In response to Mr. Cannon about could it be—these rivers be employed politically, well, I would also remind us that a community—

any community is not going to be a part of this program at all in

order for that scenario to eventuate, unless they have elected to become a part of the program. So that, for example, if you have in

mind that this is a political tool and places will be chosen around

the country for political favor, that is, I think, pretty well precluded

by the notion that it’s not top down, communities participate from

the bottom up.

And one more statement for the record here.

Ms. McGinty—well, let me say several things.

First of all, in terms of the veto, a Senator will have the right

to exercise a veto as well as a Member of Congress in whose district this river or stretch of river might run.

In addition, the Federal Register notice makes clear the authorities of the State and also the necessity of having State support. It

itemizes, for example, letters of endorsement from not just local

governments but State and tribal governments. It also makes clear,

as it says here, of course, any projects identified in the nomination

packet must undergo applicable State review process.

After our conversation it also makes clear that the American

Heritage Rivers Initiative, for example, may not conflict with matters of State and local government jurisdiction, and it goes on.
36

But it seems to me like her statement here that day—and she

sat in the same chairs with Bruce Babbitt, if my memory is correct,

at least the day I was here.

I would like to commend you for your testimony.

Ms. Chenoweth, do you have any further questions?

Mrs. CHENOWETH. No, Mr. Chairman, I have not.

Mr. PETERSON. I would like to thank you for traveling here and

participating.

I guess one final thought I might have, would a legislation that

forces them to hold a large public hearing in each region before

designating be something that would be helpful?

Mr. PROPES. It would be helpful. But I’m still not sure if everybody showed up and said we don’t want it that they still wouldn’t

list us. It seems like there needs to be something that there is actually a way not to get listed, if there is enough support for that.

Mr. PETERSON. There may be 200 votes for that. I’m not sure

there’s 218. That’s our problem. We have some here with not much

courage when it comes to going against those who have a plan for

this country that we don’t happen to agree with. But it would seem

like it would be less threatening to them that if they were at least

forced to hold a well-described, good, thoughtful public hearing in

each region, which would at least allow all of those, they should

have the right to publicly state why they have concerns.

Mr. PROPES. That would certainly be better than the process

we’ve gone through.

Mr. PETERSON. With no further advice from the real chairman,

I would consider this hearing adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
37

STATEMENT OF RON ARNOLD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, CENTER FOR THE

DEFENSE OF FREE ENTERPRISE

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, my name is Ron Arnold. I am testifying as the executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, a nonprofit citizen organization based in Bellevue, Washington. The Center

has approximately 10,000 members nationwide, most of them in rural natural resource industries.

Mr. Chairman, I am proud to state that the Center does not accept government

grants and has not received any government funds since the day it was established

on American Bicentennial day, July 4, 1976.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you on behalf of our members for holding

this hearing today. It is timely indeed. For the past year, at the urging of our increasingly concerned members, the Center has been conducting an in-depth study

of Federal policy and rural communities. Our study, titled ‘‘Battered Communities,’’

is being released at this hearing. You will find it attached to my hearing statement.

‘‘Battered Communities’’ was co-sponsored by three other citizen groups, the

American Land Rights Association, F.I.G.H.T. for Minnesota, and the Maine Conservation Rights Institute.

‘‘Battered Communities’’ delves into serious matters of Federal policy as it affects

rural community life. On page 5 we address the most obvious problem, the urbanrural prosperity gap—the spread in wages and unemployment between the richest

and poorest counties within each of the 50 states. While urban America today enjoys

an economic boom, rural counties are finding themselves choked to death by Federal

restrictions designed to protect the environment from the people who live and work

in the environment.

The most disheartening aspect of the conflict over the environment is that rural

goods producers ranchers, loggers, miners—are becoming a despised minority, morally excluded from respect and human decency, even in Federal documents such as

we see on page 7 in an Environmental Impact Statement characterizing miners as

costly, destructive, stupid social misfits.

Now we turn to the visible damage: Rural communities are besieged by a bewildering array of Federal policies forcing them to starve in the midst of plenty. These

policies are listed in part on page 8.

Mr. Chairman, let me call your attention to the most serious problem our study

uncovered: the systematic effort of a triangle of interests to harness Federal policy

to their own agenda, against natural resource goods producers.

The Center has identified a small corps of activist Federal employees—from the

highest levels to on-the-ground technicians—working to reshape Federal policy from

within according to agendas that paralyze goods production in rural communities.

Pages 13 through 17 discuss a few of these activist Federal employees. To see their

impact, you will find on page 24 a chart of systematic timber sale appeals, filed in

a coordinated pattern by a bevy of environmental groups. We found the frequent

outcome was that the Forest Service simply withdrew the timber sale without even

ruling on the appeal. The resulting mill closures are charted on page 25.

This certainly appears to be undue influence. Yet that is not the whole story.

These environmental groups were in many cases acting at the behest of their donors

on grant-driven programs not designed by the environmental groups, but originating

within grantmaking private foundations. We discovered, in documents such as this

thick directory of environmental grantmaking foundations, a cluster of multi-million

dollar campaigns designed to set public policy against logging, mining and ranching

according to the private preferences of a few custodians of vast wealth. Some of

these foundations do not even accept applications for grants, but design entire programs of social change themselves and hand-pick the groups that will act as their

agents, pushing non-profit laws to the edge. In the hands of these privileged people,

Federal policy is being corrupted into a blunt instrument battering rural communities.

Mr. Chairman, these are serious charges. On page 35, the Center recommends

that this Committee continue its adoption on this vital issue with a detailed investigation of the causes behind America’s rural Battered Communities.

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing on the anguish of rural

America.

STATEMENT OF JOHN CONLEY, PRESIDENT, CONCERNED ALASKANS FOR RESOURCES

AND ENVIRONMENT (CARE), KETCHIKAN, ALASKA

Mr. Chairman:
38

My name is John Conley, I am the president of Concerned Alaskans for Resources

and Environment (CARE). I have also served six years on the Ketchikan Gateway

Borough Assembly and manage three NAPA auto parts stores located in Ketchikan,

Craig, and Wrangell Alaska.

The passage of the Tongass Timber Reform Act of 1990 (TTRA) was to be the

great compromise for the Tongass National Forest. TTRA was supposed to provide

increased environmental protection as well as a sustainable forest products industry. I have witnessed the closing of two pulp mills in Southeast Alaska and several

sawmills. At the same time I have witnessed increased funding of local environmental groups by tax exempt national foundations.

These closings have greatly affected both my business and my community. In

Ketchikan alone, we have lost over 544 forest product jobs, 144 retail and support

jobs, and $40 million of local payroll. Today my company employs eight less people

and its gross receipts have declined by $1.5 million. As I look toward the future I

am extremely concerned about supporting my family and the families of the 30 remaining employees in my stores. Access to natural resources is vital to Southeast

Alaskans and is guaranteed by the Alaska Statehood Act.

Environmental groups have stated that tourism can and will replace lost forest

product industry jobs. Mr. Chairman, this is simply not true. Tourism is important

to our local economy and throughout the state. I have supported and will continue

to support this growing industry. However, it a seasonal industry providing only

seasonal jobs; it does not provide families with the benefits of year round employment. These jobs will also not replace the 25 percent return to our communities for

education and transportation based on timber receipts.

Mr. Chairman it has become obvious to many, that increased funding by national

tax free environmental foundations to the local environmental industry leads to decreased economic activity and local employment. The environmental industry states

they support a value added timber industry for Southeast Alaska. Mr. Chairman,

my community and I are confused because these same groups continue to object to

harvest quantities adequate enough to sustain even a small value added forest products industry.

The Forest Service has a legal mandate to manage our national forests for multiple uses which include timber production. The new land management plan for the

Tongass (TLMP) drastically reduced the amount of land available for a long term

sustainable timber industry in Southeast Alaska. Even with this massive reduction

of the available sale quantity on the Tongass the environmental industry continues

to fight timber production. This is not acceptable. At a minimum we need to sustain

our current economy. Legal challenges orchestrated and financed by the national environmental lobby continues to block multiple uses on the Tongass National Forest

which is preventing our ability to maintain a stable economy.

Mr. Chairman I believe it is time to make these tax exempt foundations that fund

the environmental industry accountable. As a businessman if I were to provide

money to someone which they in turn used to destroy another business that would

be an illegal act under the RICO laws and I would be held accountable. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, for the sake of my family and the families of

my community I urge you to hold these foundations accountable.

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee for the opportunity to

testify today.

STATEMENT OF Y. LEON FAVREAU, PRESIDENT, MULTIPLE USE ASSOCIATION

Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee on Resources for allowing me to express my views on the impact Federal land use policies could have on

a rural community like mine. We agree with your statement that too often ‘‘Federal

policies are developed from Washington, DC with little input from rural communities that are most impacted.’’

My name is Leon Favreau, president and co-founder of the Multiple Use Association (QUA). Our 500-member group is based in Shelburne, NH, and has been in existence since 1987. Most of our efforts go towards exposing the public to the truth

about our nation’s forests. This is something that is dearly needed as too much bad

information about forests is promulgated by our nation’s powerful environmental

groups and by the media. Everybody says they want a good forest environment. To

achieve this, however, we need to deal with the facts as they are and the truth as

it is. You will soon see the results of some of our work when you receive an Evergreen Magazine issue on the Northern Forest Lands. We helped raise the funds

needed for the production costs for the issue that will show the Northern Forest

Lands as they are.
39

I am also president of Bethel Furniture Stock, Inc., a primary and secondary wood

products manufacturing firm that produces component parts for the furniture industry. Our innovative wood bending process, introduced in 1986, has helped us become

what may be this country’s largest custom bender of solid wood. The last title I will

share with you is that of Chairman of the Budget Committee for the small town

of Shelburne, NH.

The concerns that I would like to express today have to do with S. 546, ‘‘The

Northern Forest Stewardship Act.’’ As you may know, the so-called Northern Forest

Lands (NFL) are comprised of 26 million acres of primarily private forest lands that

span the state boundaries of Northern Maine, New Hampshire & Vermont and

Eastern New York. The Stewardship Act purports to prevent harm from coming to

these lands and its resident one million people.

MUA supported the study performed by the Northern Forest Lands Council that

tried to determine what constituted a threat to the forest. The report may have broken new ground by showing so much concern for local people.

The Stewardship Act, however, is different. It doesn’t follow the spirit of the

Council’s work. We believe it will lead to greater Federal control over our local communities. The Council made it very clear they did not recommend increased control.

While local communities participated in the NFL study, they haven’t participated

in the preparation of this legislation. Local hearings are necessary to correct that.

I know you have heard from some in the timber industry that support the Act.

I’m here to tell you that most of us in the local timber industry are against it. We

understand that this is just another step down a slippery slope that will mean it

will be even more difficult for us to do business in the NFL area. Increasing the

focus on government land and easement acquisition, which the Act does, will mean

a reduction in the availability of timber.

A good local example of what happens when the government owns forest-land is

to look at the recent occurrences of the White Mountain National Forest (WMNF).

In less that 10 years, the harvest level has been reduced from a one half of sustained growth to a quarter. No one is confident even that low level will be maintained. For the town of Shelburne, it used to be considered an asset to have close

to half its land in the WMNF. Now it reduces our tax base and local employment.

Since the NFL Council’s report found that our varied forests really weren’t threatened, one needs to ask, why all this national interest in our 26 million acres? There

was never any local groundswell to put more Federal or State controls on these private lands. Nor was there any local groundswell for more government land purchases. Instead, this drive to change local land use comes from a vision concocted

for us by our elite from national environmental and charitable foundation communities. They initially promoted as examples to be copied for our area, controlled

‘‘greenline’’ areas such as the Federal Columbia River Gorge Scenic Area and the

New York State Adirondack Park.

The term ‘‘greenline’’ has now been discredited in the NFL area, partially because

we brought out a mayor from the Columbia River Gorge who gave a devastating description of what it was like living and working at home in his elite controlled area.

Widely distributed copies of his talk had a chilling effect. Greens no longer mention

the term greenline, but there is no doubt in my mind that is still their goal for those

of us who live and work in the NFL area.

Consider the following:

1. The Wilderness Society sponsored a closed conference for forest activists in

Bethel, Maine, November of 1990 and greenlining was on the agenda. Attached

is material from this meeting. It is telling they called greenlining a ‘‘game.’’ The

elite is playing a game with our livelihoods. At this same meeting, an Executive

Vice-President of the National Audubon said he wanted to take the northern

forest ‘‘all back,’’ and he encouraged attendees to ‘‘be unreasonable . . . you can

do it . . . today’s hearsay is tomorrow’s wisdom . . . it happens over and over

again.’’ So much for promoting the truth.

2. At a meeting held in Lincoln, NH in April of 1991, a prominent member of

both the environmental and foundation communities said he had visited all the

greenline areas (and he named them) and he agreed that none of them work,

but he said he ‘‘just knew we could make it work here.’’ He said this in response

to my criticism of the land and people control system of greenlining. He labeled

my thinking as bunker mentality. He also said that the environmental community had $100 million to spend on trying to achieve their goals for the Northern

Forest Lands. Given the number of known grants given to the environmental

associations that comprise the Northern Forest Alliance and by observing all

their efforts, we believe this is possible. This individual’s statement on funds

took on added meaning when we later learned he served at the time on the

board of the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA).
40

3. Tapes of the October 1992 EGA meeting off the coast of the State of Washington revealed its interest in the NFL area. These same tapes revealed some

interesting information about the discrepancy between what they knew about

wise use groups and the information they were promoting about them.

History has shown that when greens take a special interest in certain legislation

or regulation, it doesn’t end up used as was intended, but to further their goals. Two

examples that come to mind are the Endangered Species Act and regulations on

wetlands. Nobody intended for them to be used as they have. The green’s substantial political, financial and bureaucratic clout allows them to change intents.

S. 546, I believe, will do nothing to help our rural communities. Almost everything

in the Act is already occurring at some level. It will be another tool to help the

greens and their funding foundations further their land use control goals, which I

believe is ‘‘greenlining and much more government ownership.’’ If the Act is passed,

the local citizen’s fight to maintain his or her land use rights and way of life will

be raised to a higher and more difficult level. Senator Leahy isn’t helping his constituents who live in Vermont’s NFL area when he continually tries to attach the

Act to other pieces of Senate legislation. I ask you to think of people like me when

you consider whether to pass on a companion House bill.
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STATEMENT OF R. EDMUND GOMEZ, NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY, COOPERATIVE

EXTENSION SERVICE, RURAL AGRICULTURAL IMPROVEMENT AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS

PROJECT, ALCALDE, NEW MEXICO

Statement made and exhibits presented to the United States House of Representatives Committee on Resources on the impact of Federal land use policies

on rural communities, June 9, 1998.

The use of communal lands in northern New Mexico dates back over four hundred

years. These same lands are now considered Public lands and the descendants of

the indigenous people and the first settlers have continued to utilize them for as

many generations. The people of northern New Mexico rely on these Public lands

for economic, cultural, social and spiritual survival. Federal land use policy without

community input may adversely affect the survival of rural communities in northern

New Mexico.

My name is Edmund Gomez and I live in Alcalde, New Mexico. I speak on behalf

of my neighbors, friends, and family who rely heavily on Public lands for economic,

cultural, social and spiritual survival. As an active member of the USDA Commission on Small Farms which was commissioned by Mr. Dan Glickman, USDA Secretary of Agriculture in July of 1997, I also speak on behalf of small farmers and

ranchers from rural communities across the country who rely on Public lands for

economic survival.

The purpose of the USDA Commission on Small Farms was to recommend to the

Secretary of Agriculture a national strategy to ensure the continued viability of

small farms and ranches and for the Commission to determine a course of action

for USDA to recognize, respect and respond to their needs (Exhibit A: National

Commission on Small Farms, A TIME TO ACT, 1998).

Communal land use by residents of New Mexico and the Southwest has historical

roots dating back to 1598. During Spanish colonial settlement, community land

grants were granted by Spain and later Mexico to groups of settlers and Native

American Pueblos in New Mexico and the Southwest (Exhibit B: Torrez, THE ENDURING LEGACY OF SPANISH AND MEXICAN LAND GRANTS IN NEW MEXICO, 1998). Many of these tracts of land are currently held as Public lands by the

USDA Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Descendants of the

Spanish and Mexican land grants have continually utilized these lands for livestock

grazing, fuel wood, hunting, and timber harvesting as well as a source of watershed

for domestic, livestock and agricultural use (Exhibit C: Meyer, THE CONTEMPORARY SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TREATY OF GUADALUPE HIDALGO TO

LAND USE ISSUES IN NORTHERN NEW MEXICO, 1998).

New Mexico ranks forty ninth in per capita income. The northern counties of New

Mexico are some of the poorest in respect to per capita income in the country. Over

50 percent of the land base in New Mexico is owned by the Federal Government.

Many of the residents of northern New Mexico including the Native American Pueblos own very small parcels of land. Some sociologists attribute the correlation of poverty to the proportion of private versus Public land ownership. Many of these Public

lands were once owned by the ancestors of these rural communities.

Livestock production represents over 85 percent of all agricultural income in

northern New Mexico. The average livestock producer in northern New Mexico owns

twenty head of cattle and utilizes Public lands. Within the past fifty years, from 30

to 60 percent of the traditional savanna grasslands in the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests have been lost to woody shrub and tree encroachment due almost entirely to fire suppression, thus causing loss of livestock and wildlife habitat and economic stability within rural communities. The snow ball effect. Some groups who

desire to eliminate livestock grazing from Public lands claim that ranchers are becoming rich off of Public lands (Exhibit D: Wolff, THE CITY SLICKER’S GUIDE

TO WELFARE RANCHING IN NEW MEXICO, 1998). I have yet to meet a wealthy

indigenous rancher from northern New Mexico and I have lived there all of my life.

Many of the residents of northern New Mexico, including Indian Pueblos, rely on

Public lands for fuel wood and timber harvesting as did their ancestors. A large percentage of these residents utilize fuel wood as their only source of heat and cooking

fuel. In 1994 a special interest group filed a litigation suit based on the Endangered

Species Act with the USDA Forest Service on behalf of the Mexican Spotted Owl

on the Carson National Forest. In 1996 a Federal Court restricted all harvest of timber and fuel wood on the Carson National Forest until the Forest complied with the

Endangered Species Act. This action prevented local residents from obtaining fuel

wood for heating and cooking. Many families endured a very cold winter that year

because of this inhumane action. Incidentally, the Mexican Spotted Owl has never

been historically documented as living within the Carson National Forest.
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Why do indigenous people continue to live in northern New Mexico rural communities? The indigenous people of northern New Mexico speak seven languages, including English. They have retained their culture, tradition, social values and spirituality. They were the first and continue to be the true environmentalists of the

land, utilizing the sustainable practices that have fed and clothed their children for

many generations; always returning more than they take. The pristine beauty of the

land remains intact and attracts a new wave of settlers every year. Rural communities in northern New Mexico work and live as a family. This social and cultural

custom has given support during adverse situations and has allowed them to raise

their children with the same values that have been sacred to the people for many

generations.

Congress has passed legislation dealing with Public land policy and environmental issues that were deemed necessary and essential, but a one size fits all policy does not work for all Public land situations. Congress has overlooked the endangered rural communities and their struggle for survival and a traditional way of life.

We are just as important as the other endangered species Congress is protecting.

Rural communities were excluded when Congress developed policy that would ultimately affect their livelihood. Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, please

find ways of amending the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act so that

they will provide for the protection of the environment as they were intended and

not to be used as loopholes for special interest groups who continue to file litigation

against the USDA Forest Service in an effort to promote their own agenda. Provide

Congressional provisions to establish local community based Public land management boards which will determine the management objectives for the local Public

land base and would include both environmental and economic considerations. This

process will insure that rural communities who traditionally rely on the land for

survival will be included in the policy decision process for their region.

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I extend an invitation to visit with

us in northern New Mexico so that you may first hand meet real people who have

utilized Public lands for over four hundred years. Who depend on these lands for

survival and the real people who have retained their culture and spirituality because of their harmony with the land. Please accept my invitation before the rural

communities of northern New Mexico have become extinct;

Thank you.

STATEMENT OF HUGH B. MCKEEN

Chairman Young and members of the Committee, first let me thank you for the

opportunity to speak before you today, although this is the last place I want to be

today or any day. My name is Hugh B. McKeen and I am from Glenwood, New Mexico, where I live with my wife Margie, my mother Emma Jo, my brother Bob, his

wife Donna, and their two children.

We are a family ranching operation that has been part of Southwestern New Mexico since 1888 when my grandfather settled there. Our land holdings are made up

of state, private and Federal lands that are co-mingled to make up a ranching unit

that supports eight people as well as providing part of the economic base for Catron

County and rural New Mexico.

We earn everything we have. Margie and I raised four children off the ranching

operation. We do not have Federal or company insurance and retirement plans. We

do not get paid vacations. We pay our taxes and we’ve never been on welfare.

In addition to owning the ranch, I have served as a Commissioner for Catron

County, so I have first hand knowledge of what is happening in rural areas of my

state, as well as the rest of the West.

I was asked to come here and speak about the impacts of the Federal land use

policies on rural communities. My personal dealings with Federal land management

agencies have been with the U.S. Forest Service.

We were raised to take pride in our country and our government. Bob and I both

served in the U.S. Army. Bob was a paratrooper. Once we might have considered

ourselves a partner with the Forest Service, working to protect and preserve the

land so we could pass it on to the next generation in better shape than it was

passed to us.

That hasn’t been the case for quite a long time. Not only are we not a partner,

but we are THE enemy. We have learned to distrust and fear the government that

we were raised to believe was of the people, by the people, and for the people.

On one hand, I can agree with the radical environmentalists who are suing the

agencies left and right. The government has not done a good job of managing the

land. Our forests are in terrible shape. They are powder kegs waiting to explode
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with such force that after the fires are over; the land will be useless to anyone. The

fuel load in most Southwestern forests today compares with parking 20 or 30 fuel

tankers on the land and setting them on fire. Additionally, this growth depletes our

underground water sources, adversely affects watershed quality and quantity, and

increases parasites and diseases.

But that is not the fault of livestock grazing or logging or recreational use and

the demise of these industries will not solve the problem. It will only get worse. Unless and until the Forest Service undertakes an aggressive management program

that stops choking the forests with too many small trees that don’t allow full maturity of any trees, that prohibits the growth of natural forage to provide habitat for

wildlife and livestock, the situation is only going to get worse.

However, the radical environmentalists aren’t suing the government to protect the

land. They are suing the government to control the land and the government is

working right along side them.

I have had numerous run-ins with the Forest Service over the past several years

and I am currently involved in several lawsuits involving the Forest Service. In

1995 in renewing my term grazing permit, which is for ten years, the Forest Service

not only didn’t do the studies they said they had on our allotment, they didn’t even

know what was private property and what was government lands. AND they falsified data. AND they shredded positive information.

Even though they finally admitted that they had false information, the Forest

Service refused to correct the record because the studies had been completed and

filed.

Because I knew what these changes in our operation would do to our ability to

feed our families, I initially refused to sign the permit, although I had a time frame

in which to come to a final decision. Our operation is financed by the Farmers Home

Administration (FHA). Prior to the time was up for me to sign the permit, the Forest Service contacted FHA and told them I would not have a permit.

I immediately received foreclosure notice from FHA. I was forced to sign the permit, which I did, noting that the signature was under duress. I am now part of a

coalition of 26 permittees in New Mexico and Arizona who are suing the Forest

Service for the changes in our permits that will put us out of business. One lady

from Arizona had her permit cut by 80 percent and her season of use by one month.

What are we supposed to do with our cattle for a month? You can’t just stop feeding

them and stack them up in a warehouse until the Forest Service decides to let us

on to country that we have used for generations.

Why did the Forest Service make these radical changes? Because they were afraid

they MIGHT be sued and because they have a computer model and aerial and/or

satellite photographs that tell them there MIGHT be a problem. In Federal District

Court last month, the Interdisciplinary Team Leader who was in charge of these

cuts admitted that the team spent a day and half on the ground actually looking

at the tens of thousands of acres of land before making these decisions. He also admitted that many of the decisions made were done solely by he and his wife.

We spent a little over a day-and-half last month in Las Cruces on a motion for

preliminary injunction to stop the Forest Service from implementing their decisions

until the merits of our case have been heard. I was shocked to see 18 Federal employees on hand for the first day of this hearing. Only 15 showed up for the second

day.

My family and fellow permittees had to take time away from our operations to

defend ourselves against the government. We were not paid for the time we spent

in court, nor were our expenses paid for us to drive to or stay in Las Cruces for

the hearing. But our tax dollars paid for the time and expenses of all of these folks.

What was even more frustrating is that with all those people sitting there, the government was represented by only two attorneys who called only three witnesses.

What were those other 10 guys for and how much did they cost us?

We hear constant whining about how the agencies don’t have enough money to

do their jobs properly. And some of it may be justified. The Endangered Species Act

and the Clean Water Act are certainly proving to be unfunded mandates. These

laws provide for citizen lawsuits that allow radicals to sue the agencies at every

turn for not meeting the letter of the law.

There probably isn’t enough money in the entire Federal Government to pay for

the things the radical environmentalists want, and in that respect we can sympathize with the agencies. But the agencies working in concert with the greens to

put working American taxpayers out of business isn’t going to solve the problem.

It isn’t going to protect the land or the wildlife and it isn’t going to help the government.

Evidence of the Forest Service’s collusion with the radicals is the new proposed

amendment for the Forest Plan for the Southwestern Region. This document has the
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power not only to eliminate grazing from National Forests, but all human use. One

prize quote in the document that even the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture cannot define reads:

‘‘Allow no activities that slow or prevent progression of potential habitat (habitat

within 10 years of becoming suitable) toward suitable conditions, or that reduce the

suitability of occupied or unoccupied suitable habitat.’’

It further reads, ‘‘the term ‘species habitat’ encompasses all stream courses (bank

to bank) which are occupied, unoccupied suitable, potential, or designated or proposed critical habitat . . .’’ Another area says, ‘‘exclude off-road vehicle use from within species habitat and riparian areas.’’

Given the first quote, it sounds like ‘‘species habitat’’ could be virtually anywhere

any thing might want to go . . . including your neighborhood McDonalds.

Most of us in natural resource industries have our whole lives and that of our

families for generations invested in our operations. Our ranches aren’t just jobs.

They are our homes, they are our culture. They are our values. They are our lives.

If we are forced off our ranches, where are we to live? How are we to feed our families?

I often hear these questions compared to the buggy whip industry. Nobody saved

them. Why should any useless industry be saved? We are not producing a product

that is no longer needed. We are part of a minute percentage of Americans, less

than 2 percent, who provide food and fiber for the rest of the nation as well as a

large part of the rest of the world. We are part of the safest and most wholesome

food supply in the entire world.

Our Cedar Breaks allotment is also at issue in two suits filed by radical environmentalists against the Forest Service in New Mexico and Arizona regarding endangered species. Instead of standing their ground and fighting, the Forest Service

rolled over and negotiated a ‘‘stipulation’’ with the greens that would require fencing

some 60 of 160 allotments off riparian areas and biweekly or weekly monitoring by

the agency.

Fortunately, the livestock industry had intervened in the suit on behalf of the permittees involved because the Forest Service certainly exhibited no concern for them

or their rights. The industry refused to sign off on the stipulation so the Court refused to sign it. THEN the Forest Service and the greens simply made the document

a settlement agreement that did not require the participation of the livestock industry or the Court and went on their merry way. Never did the Forest Service consult

with the permittees or consider the private property rights they were impairing if

not outright taking.

In New Mexico water is a private property right. Many of the fences the Forest

Service has agreed to put up will prevent water right owners from using their water

and could subject them to forfeiture of the right for non-use. Additionally, there is

private property co-mingled with the Forest Service lands that will be affected by

the fencing.

Not only does the settlement agreement affect private property rights, but it

breaks numerous other Federal laws as well as the Forest Service’s own policy. The

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) calls for assessment to be done on the

environmental, economic, social and cultural impacts of major Federal actions. The

potential of erasing some 60 small business in one region certainly appears to be

a major Federal action in my book, but the Forest Service entered into the settlement agreement without complying with NEPA on the affected allotments.

The Forest Service violated the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) by failing

to allow grazing permittees to participate in actions and decisions relative to their

individual allotments. The Forest Service violated its’ own policy by providing no

formal decision documents to permittees that are appealable.

The Forest Service’s own acting Director of Range for the Southwestern Region

admitted under oath in Federal District Court in Tucson that their actions would

result in numerous appeals and lawsuits.

Making the situation even worse is the fact that even if the Forest Service weren’t

breaking all of these laws and regulations in the name of the Endangered Species

Act and every permittee was happy to comply, the Forest Service would not be able

to keep up their end of the bargain with the agreement. The elk in the area won’t

permit it. In a 20-mile radius of Reserve, New Mexico, the New Mexico Game &

Fish Department estimates there are 10,000 head of elk. That is one-seventh of the

total elk population in New Mexico. Those elk don’t know about the settlement

agreement and they are going to tear down fences. When the fences are down, the

cattle are gong to cross them, and then the permittee is in trouble. Forest Service

employees have already admitted publicly that they won’t be able to keep the fences

up.
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Additionally, where is the Forest Service going to get the personnel to monitor all

those allotments on a weekly and/or biweekly basis? What other jobs are going to

be left undone?

Prior to the signing of the settlement agreement in Tucson in April, Forest Service employees were on the ground trying to coerce permittees into agreeing to fence

their allotments off from streams without protecting their rights of appeal. Now the

Forest Service employees are on the ground telling permittees that they are changing the way they are doing business because they have a court order. In a Forest

Service press release the agency refers to the agreement as a stipulation. It is bad

enough that the Forest Service betrayed us in this manner, but then they lie about

it!

The question being discussed today is the impact of Federal land use policies on

rural communities. I am here to tell you that if the Forest Service persists in its

present manner there will be no rural communities for you to worry about.

Catron County is made up of 2,500 people in Southwestern New Mexico, down

from 2,900 just a few years ago. The traditional major industries for the County

have been logging and livestock. The timber industry was literally killed by the Forest Service because of lawsuits filed by radical environmentalists, nearly breaking

the County. Livestock is now the major component in the economy. Without livestock production, there will be no economy in Catron County.

We hear a lot about how tourism will make up the difference when we lose production industries but that simply isn’t true. When recreationists come to our area,

they come with ice chests filled with food and drink bought at big city discount

stores. What little they buy at local markets isn’t enough for them to make a living

on. They arrive with gas tanks filled with low price gas purchased at big city discounts. They are seasonal and can’t be counted on month in and month out for rural

businesses to pay the bills and keep the doors open.

Catron County is no different from every other rural county in the West. Maybe

we saw what was coming a little sooner than most and have tried to put in place

policies that would protect our economy like land use planning committees.

Another question I would like for you to consider is who is funding the litigation

that is driving Federal land use policies. The Tucson, Arizona based Southwest Center For Biological Diversity, who by the way has just petitioned the Department of

Interior to list two more species directed at removing cattle from the Gila Forest,

has filed some 75 lawsuits under the citizens lawsuit provisions I mentioned earlier.

According to a story in the Albuquerque Journal written by Mike Taugher, the

only reporter in the Southwest listed as a contact in the Forest Service’s Communication Plan, in 1995 the Southwest Center paid only $2,201 in legal expenses. The

group’s director states that they don’t pay for lawsuits.

There are two reasons that these radical environmentalists don’t pay for their

lawsuits. One is that they are funded by nonprofit foundations who are answerable

to no one for their actions. According the news article, the Pew Charitable Trust,

a Philadelphia-based foundation, pumped nearly $700,000 into radical environmental groups between 1995 and 1997. Another nearly $228,000 was provided to

these same groups via four other sources including Ted Turner, the Levinson Foundation, and the W. Alton Jones Foundation.

There are no voters in these foundations, no customers, no investors. They are tax

exempt and most of them are based in the East while they are setting policy thousands of miles away in the West where they don’t have to see or live with the consequences of their actions.

The other source of money for these radicals is you folks, the Federal Government.

Until recently the Justice Department had a policy of simply paying costs to the

suing party any time they lost or settled a suit. We have been told that in the future

the policy will be for the suing party to have to at least fight to have their costs

paid. Believe it when you see it.

I don’t want to mislead you. Natural resource industries are filing suits against

the agencies ourselves. We are left with no other choice. The agencies are not protecting our interests and are not even taking our interests into consideration. But

we have no foundations to pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into our efforts.

We are funding our litigation with bake sales, dances and ropings, and the $5 and

$10 contributions of widows who know we are right and that we must win if our

rural areas are to survive.

In closing, I would like to say that I am proud to be before you today and that

I am proud to be in our great nation’s capitol. But I am not. I am sick at heart

and soul at the shape I find our country in today. I am sick that the hard earned

dollars of New Mexico’s cattle producers had to be spent for me to be here today

to tell you how our government is literally killing us. I can only hope and pray that
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all of you will do something to stop this madness before the situation gets any

worse. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF DONALD R. WESSON, PULP & PAPERWORKERS’ RESOURCE COUNCIL, SOUTHERN PINE REGIONAL DIRECTOR

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and this Committee for holding this very important hearing, and for allowing me to participate.

My name is Don Wesson. I am the vice president of United Paperworkers’ International Union Local 1533 located in McGehee, Arkansas. I serve as the southern

pine regional director of the Pulp & Paperworkers’ Resource Council. I am currently

employed in the pulp & paper industry as an industrial mechanic. I reside in Desha

County, Arkansas and I’m a constituent of the 4th Congressional District.

A few years ago, I was like most all Americans. I went to work, paid my share

of taxes, voted in most elections, and depended on my elected officials to take care

of me. I’ve always felt my freedoms, as well as my property was protected. After

all, America was founded under the Constitution. One day I heard some disturbing

news of how a spotted owl put thousands of my union brothers and sisters out of

a job in the very industry in which I am employed. I started paying more attention

to what my government was doing, and realized some of those elected officials in

which I placed my trust, was not looking out for my well being, or the well being

of America. It was then that I realized that the world is run by those who show

up, and I would start showing up. It was at that time I got involved with the PPRC.

The Pulp & Paperworkers’ Resource Council is a grassroots group consisting of

labor workers who work in the pulp, paper and woodproducts industries of America.

We have lost thousands of jobs in our industry in the past few years due to various

government regulations. I’m here today to address ‘‘The American Heritage Rivers.’’

We feel this is just another governmental program that will end up hurting our

communities and cost us more industry jobs.

I live in Desha County Arkansas, which borders the mighty Mississippi River, the

life blood of America. The Mississippi River is among the top ten rivers that is already nominated as heritage rivers. I have had several meetings with the Office of

Council on Environmental Quality, concerning this nomination. I have met with Mr.

Ray Clark, Associate Director of the CEQ as well as the chairman of American Heritage Rivers, on three different occasions. Mr. Clark keeps insisting that the American Heritage Rivers is the greatest thing since motherhood and apple pie. He expressed that lies are being told about American Heritage Rivers. He insisted that

there are no new regulations, no new money, and this is truly a bottom up program.

It is community based, and there will be no impact on private property. He stated

that money was already in place. The purpose of this program would be to just manage the rivers, and to administer the funds where needed. This is why I have a

grave concern over this executive order.

If a ‘‘river community’’ is designated for this iniative, there are potentially serious

negative implications for local governments. Depending on the direction the project

takes, local land use zoning boards could be negated, or completely bypassed. There

is nothing in the language that would allow a designated community, or individual

land owners, the ability to opt out of this program. Without the right to opt out,

a private land owner or local government, should be concerned about losing any

power of income or development of assets, as well as its sovereignty.

The idea of using a ‘‘river navigator’’ to coordinate the river communities efforts

in itself is somewhat a disturbing idea. When the person selected can be a Federal

or non-Federal employee selected jointly by the river community and Federal agencies, the potential for conflict of interest exist. Many agencies, such as the Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Army Corps of Engineers have

become more and more active in reducing or restricting the use of our natural resources. If the ‘‘river navigator’’ is chosen from an agency that has a definite preservationist slant, the chances of the ‘‘river communities’’ choosing a plan to the detriment of private property rights and industrial development would be greatly increased.

Whenever tourism, economic security, environmental protection, and protecting/

preserving our heritage are mixed into one iniat1ve, the American public becomes

skeptical. This mixture in the past has meant the decrease in high paying industrial

jobs. Even when there are tourism jobs created, the employees are not paid well,

and in many cases are seasonal jobs.

I urge you Mr. Chairman, and this Committee, to stop the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. If this program is as great as we are told, then the office of the CEQ
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would not mind it having congressional oversight. We do not need 16 different governmental agencies and a river navigator to manage our rivers, or to regulate our

private lands that borders these rivers.

Any proposal that is set up under the premise of streamlining government, but

yet would still include at least 9 different cabinet positions, as well as countless

other government agencies, hardly make this initiative more user friendly. Instead,

it would just lead to another level of bureaucracy that the American public is already weary of.

If you have any questions concerning how too many levels of government bureaucracy affects the jobs in resource based industries, you could ask any one of the over

one hundred thousand workers from the Pacific Northwest who lost their job over

a spotted owl.

STATEMENT OF JACK RICHARDSON, VAL VERDE COUNTY COMMISSIONER

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the Natural Resources Committee

on the American Heritage Rivers Initiative and the pending application for the Rio

Grande. I am Jack Richardson, the County Administrator in Val Verde County

Texas, which is located on the Rio Grande. Val Verde County has an estimated population of 48,590, borders the Rio Grande River for the entire length of the county

and encompasses 3,171 square miles and 62 square miles of water. I believe that

these facts qualify Val Verde County to have a voice in any initiative that imposes

additional Federal regulations upon the county. I have lived there for more than 25

years. I know many families that have lived and worked there for generations. We

do not need a Federal initiative to tell us how important the Rio Grande is and to

recognize the rich culture and heritage that exists along the river. We honor our

culture and heritage every day as we go to work, raise our families and simply live

life along the river.

I worked for the U.S. Border Patrol for 32 years. While I will not claim to be an

expert on the Rio Grande, I have a lifetime of experience of working in this region

and the Rio Grande played a significant role in that work. I would like to know how

many members of the Blue Ribbon Panel have even seen the Rio Grande, perhaps

one at the most.

Now, I understand the Rio Grande is on a list along with several other rivers as

a potential candidate to be named an American Heritage River. Exactly what that

would mean for the communities and the people who must live and work along the

river is still not fully known. I know the full impact will not be known until the

initiative is being implemented. At that time, I am afraid it would be too late to

stop the initiative. The AHRI is another unfunded mandate, of which the true costs

to the local communities and the impacts on income, property rights, production and

competitiveness are still unknown. I am here today to make sure that the concerns

of all those who live and work along the river are heard.

I want it to be fully understood, that non support for the Rio Grande nomination

flows up and down the river. Many communities in my region do not want the

strings that come attached to Federal programs. I have with me today resolutions

and letters of non support from counties that are located along the Rio Grande or

within its watershed. One of those county resolutions is from my home county of

Val Verde. I have letters of opposition from many agriculture organizations and

property rights organizations. All total I have 77 resolutions and letters of non support for the designation of the Rio Grande as an American Heritage River. This represents thousands of Texas citizens that do not want the AHRI in Texas. Mr.

Desmond Smith, President of the Trans Texas Heritage Association, also traveled

to Washington, D.C. to testify on the behalf of the membership that represents 15.5

million acres of private land in Texas, against the AHRI and a designation for the

Rio Grande. The San Antonio Express News recently quoted Governor Bush as stating ‘‘So when it comes to the ONRW or the American Heritage Rivers, whatever it

is, I’m against. I will not, so long as I’m governor, concede the sovereign rights of

Texas.’’ Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Congressman Henry Bonilla (RTX-23) have both sent letters to the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in opposition to the Rio Grande designation. Congressman Bonilla requested his Congressional District not be included in the initiative and seven other members of the

Texas delegation also requested their districts not be included in the initiative.

There are 800 miles of the Rio Grande that run through the Congressman’s district.

For some reason CEQ ignored Congressman Bonilla’s opt out letter and further misrepresented his position by stating in a letter to Senator Hutchison that Congressman Bonilla supported a designation for the Rio Grande. Congressman Bonilla had

to send another letter to CEQ restating his position.
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Regardless of our expressed opposition against the designation of the Rio Grande

as an American Heritage River, the nomination has continued to proceed. How

many more resolutions do we need to pass, how many more letters do we need to

write and how many more times do we need to testify before Congress that we do

not want the Rio Grande designated as an American Heritage River? When is CEQ

and the Blue Ribbon Panel going to listen to us?

From the beginning there has been a back door attempt to get the Rio Grande

listed as an American Heritage River, regardless of the views of those who live and

work along the river. There have been secret meetings, attempts to prevent the public from having a voice at so called ‘‘public hearings’’ and an unwillingness to accept

the fact that the AHRI is not wanted for the Rio Grande.

I would like to quote an excerpt from the letter sent to Senator Hutchison by the

CEQ. It was dated May 7, 1998, and signed by Kathleen McGinty. It states ‘‘The

American Heritage Rivers initiative is one hundred percent locally-driven.’’ I ask

this Committee, if CEQ was really listening to the local communities, would the Rio

Grande still be in consideration for nomination?

Not only is the AHRI in the process of being imposed on the local communities

against their wishes, but this is another layer of bureaucracy that is not necessary.

Do you have any idea how many Federal agencies already have their toes dipped

in the Rio Grande and are controlling every action involving that river? I can assure

you that we have enough problems working with the EPA and the U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Service, the Army Corps of Engineers and the International Boundary and

Water Commission, under the current authority and programs they have. These

Federal agencies do not need to have their authority expanded under any program,

especially a program that still does not have standards for evaluation and guidelines

for establishing priorities.

Those of us who live along the Rio Grande understand better than anyone the

need to clean it up. We all want to live in a clean environment, but creating another

layer of government to work through is not the way to go about it.

This is an international river and it will take international cooperation to clean

it up. Just take a few minutes to visit with any one who works or lives along the

river and you will soon come to realize that the Rio Grande cannot be treated like

any other river. The culture and heritage that makes the river so special also creates many unique problems we must address. I do not see that this initiative will

address our unique situation, which will just serve to create more problems.

From the very beginning there has been a cloud of questions hanging over this

initiative. What would a designation mean for river communities? What benefits or

drawbacks would this hold for those who live along the river? And if it is such a

good deal for the communities, why have the supporters felt the need to meet in

secret and misrepresent the views of those who oppose the AHRI? These questions

have never been answered and I suspect that they will not be answered.

The American Heritage Rivers Initiative has been imposed from the top down

from the very beginning. Well, I am here today to speak on behalf of the many counties, communities, citizens, and organizations who are represented by these letters

and resolutions of non support. They send a loud and clear message that we are

opposed to the Rio Grande being designated as an American Heritage River. Thank

You. I would be pleased to answer any questions at this time.

STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA CUBIN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE

STATE OF WYOMING

Thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this important oversight hearing. Although

there are many issues that I could speak to today, I want to concentrate on one that

is on the minds of my constituents. That is the Clinton Administration’s proposal

to reform the 25 percent timber payments to counties.

As far as I am concerned the proposal is merely an attempt of this Administration

to conform to the extreme environmental agenda of the Sierra Club: to stop all logging in the lower 48 states!

For nearly 100 years Congress has honored its compact with people living in and

around national forests. The compact calls for the Federal Government to share 25

percent of the gross receipts it generates from timber production on forest service

lands. To counties which are heavily federalized, the compact also infers that

the Federal lands will be managed to help drive the economic engines of

rural communities.

Taking away the 25 percent fund and replacing it with this entitlement program

may benefit some counties, but only for the short term. What we must do is look

at the big picture. By adopting the entitlement program timber production would
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drop significantly, much more than we’ve seen in the past 12 years, saw mills would

close, and those in my state that have depended on the timber would be out of work.

Through this proposal the Clinton Administration is asking Congress to walk

away from that compact and to replace the existing relationship with an entitlement

program which would be subject to the whims of the congressional appropriations

committees.

Like I said before, this proposal is a precursor to ending Federal timber harvesting! Federal 25 percent and PILT payments are only a small fraction of the total

economic impact generated through the sale of Federal timber.

Even if Congress fully funds this wrongheaded proposal, many communities will

suffer irreparable damage due to the loss of the basic industries which are the core

of the local economies in these communities.

Congress must not walk away from its compact with the school children of rural

America! We must not turn our backs on rural communities that depend on timber

production to put food on their tables and clothes on their backs!

Again, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate you holding this hearing. I look forward to

hearing from the witnesses.
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