Date: 1999-05-20
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Chairman. I move to strike the last word. Mr. Chairman. I rise in opposition to this legislation and in support of the Vento and the Udall amendments that have been offered and against the Sweeney amendment that has been offered in the committee today. First and foremost. let me say that I think this is a very unfortunate piece of legislation. It plays into some conspiracy theories that somehow. when we receive the honor of the designation of World Heritage area or the Biosphere Reserve Program or were part of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. that somehow this is land use planning by the United Nations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Chairman. there is nothing in these designations that changes any Federal. State. local laws or regulations pertaining to these lands or changes the manner in which private property owners can use their lands. but what it does do is it provides an honor for some of the great natural assets of the United States and some of the great historical assets of the United States that leads to increased tourism. improved economics. and recognition of what this Nation has done in setting aside some of the great national parks and public spaces in the entire world. and I think we ought to welcome that kind of designation. I also want to say that it is very clear when we consider the Vento amendment that much more harm has been done to public lands and done to private lands because of the acquisition of these lands by foreign entities that then come in here and take the resources from those lands. whether it is mining or whether it is timber or grazing or other proposals like this. where then we end up spending hundreds of millions if not billions of taxpayers dollars cleaning up after these entities. making up for erosion. making up for the destruction and the deterioration of those natural assets. That is why I think that the Vento amendment is very. very important for its adoption today because we should not just have a willynilly process where people come in. buy these assets. exploit the resource and then leave it to the American citizens to pick up the cost of their bad policies. their bad management and mistakes in the use of those lands and those resources. So I would hope that Members would vote against this bill on passage. and I would hope that they would support the Udall and the Vento amendments. and I want to thank the gentleman from Minnesota very much for his managing this bill on the floor today. and his involvement in this issue over the last several years in trying to put this argument into perspective and show how foolish it is and how much it is based upon fallacy and misrepresentation of facts. Also. I think he said something in the Committee on Rules the other day that is very important. that success with this legislation is really about the first step in removing the designations from our great wilderness areas. from our parks areas. from our national monuments. because the same people who support this legislation in fact oppose the designation and the protection and the acquisition of these great lands for the use of the people of the United States. for all of the people of the United States. As much as those people support it. we have a small group of people in the Congress and in this country who insist that somehow these lands really do not belong in the public domain in spite of the fact that millions of Americans will pick up their families. their children. and they will travel across this country to visit the Statue of Liberty. to visit Liberty Hall. to visit the Grand Tetons. the Grand Canyon. Bryce. Yosemite and so many other great monuments and great natural assets in the national park systems of this country. There is still a few in this Congress who want to believe that we should roll back designations. This legislation is the first step in that process. and this Congress ought to reject that effort.