Date: 2000-10-04
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Madam Chairman. I want to say that no one can argue with the desire of this delegation to save Steens Mountain and the surrounding area and the importance of this environmental asset. I will. however. unfortunately. have to disagree with him about how this was gone about by the process that was used here. and I think that it is unfortunate that a number of provisions of this bill deviate from public land management and conservation designations. including those dealing with wilderness. In addition. there are significant problems with the land exchanges proposed in this bill. including valuations and payments that have no basis in law or policy. As the General Accounting Office noted in a report done in June of this year given to our committee. many land exchanges have failed to protect the public interest or provide that the lands exchanged were of equal value. That is the law of the land. Unfortunately. the exchangesin this bill. I believe. continue that pattern. and I find that pattern troubling because I think it raises serious questions about the public interest. about the public treasury. and about the public good. No appraisals were done in this instance. Instead. BLM at the direction of the bills sponsors prepared a realty report. Since the lands the ranchers offered were worth significantly less than the Federal lands they wanted. the BLM was asked by the bills sponsors to use valuation assumptions that are not found in Federal law or policy. Further. the payments to the ranchers that this bill provides are an unjustified benefit. in my opinion. The provisions of this bill on wilderness are also troubling. First. thousands of acres of wilderness study areas are transferred to private ownership. The wilderness boundaries that were drawn in many instances follow section lines. This is both a serious management and ecological problem because those lines represent arbitrary markers and bisect resources that are hard to administer. Further. much of the wilderness is bisected by roads. While portions of the wilderness will be offlimits to cows. the Secretary is required to make other wilderness areas available to provide forage replacement. Grazing is given a high priority in this bill. and the promotion of grazing is made one of the objectives of the area. The bill contains numerous other exemptions for grazing. While there is a general prohibition on new roads in the area. that does not apply to roads needed for livestock. Likewise. while there is a general prohibition on the construction of -Federal lands. that does not apply to facilities needed for livestock. The Secretary is also required to construct fencing and water developments for livestock in the area. I regret that the bill that is being brought to the floor today has deleted the wilderness water right language that was in the bill approved by the Committee on Resources. This is not an improvement. and in the end it will only make it harder to protect those wilderness values. Madam Chairman. I recognize that Secretary Babbitt and the Oregon delegation have signed off on this legislation. and I recognize again that Steens Mountain is clearly an asset that is worth the kind of protection that they seek. But I think that we have to raise these questions. Otherwise. we are going to continue to see a drift in the land exchange policy of this government that continues to ignore valuations. that continues to ignore or not require appraisals and continues to ignore the public interest. It is clearly in the public interest to protect Steens Mountain. The question is whether or not it is in the public interest to protect it in this manner. Is it in the public interest after we make an exchange of unequal parcels recognizing that there is a difference in the forage value of these lands as properly we should. we have exchanged? We have exchanged in Roaring Springs. we took 10.000 acres. almost 11.000 acres. and we gave back 76.000 acres. recognizing that there are distinctions. We then told the Secretary of the Interior that they shall provide the fencing and the improvements and the water on those lands. And then on top of that where these already started out unequal. we have now added on cash payments that range from almost $3 million to $148.000 against the policy and the recommendations of the Department of the Interior. I realize the desire and the sense of urgency about this and the asset that is being protected. but I think that we had better take a long and hard look at the exchange policy as the GAO recommended because it has cost the taxpayers of this country millions of dollars. At some point the integrity has. got to be put back into that process. I think in fact there should be a moratorium on exchanges until such time as both the BLM and the Forest Service can tell this Congress that there is integrity in that process. that the public interest is in fact being served and the treasury of the United States is being protected. Those are my concerns. It is not with the merits of protecting Steens Mountain. The gentleman from Oregon has worked very hard on this and has brought about an agreement. Much of that agreement is in fact necessary and quite proper. but I think there are questions around valuations that are serious here. But the delegation has come together on this. They believe this is the proper manner to proceed. But I think clearly in light of the GAO report and the warnings that we have been given that we ought to give due consideration to this.