Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017
Floor Speech
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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer a commonsense, bipartisan amendment. The Gosar-Sinema-Cook-Kirkpatrick-Amodei-Buck- Cramer-Duncan-Franks-Jones-McClintock-Schweikert-Zinke-Salmon-Heck amendment will assist with keeping Lake Havasu open for all users.
On May 20, 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued new motorized boating restrictions that arbitrarily expanded a no-wake zone on Lake Havasu, a renowned fishing and boating destination on the Colorado River popular with visitors from Arizona, California, Nevada, and around the world. These arbitrary wake restrictions effectively prohibited tubing, waterskiing, and wakeboarding in an area utilized by recreational enthusiasts for decades. This action was taken behind closed doors with no advance notice and without opportunity for public comment.
These new mandates were announced and implemented just 2 days before Memorial Day weekend, an economically vital weekend, as tourists spend more than $200 million annually in the area and support 4,000 full-time jobs. Further, 75 percent of tourists are interested in waterskiing and recreational boating activities while visiting Havasu.
The Service has attempted to justify the May 2015 ``temporary restrictions'' by stating that they are necessary to address safety concerns. The Arizona Game and Fish Department recently submitted formal comments refuting this claim, stating there were only four incidents in the last 3 years in the area--three groundings and one swamping.
The Department went on to state: ``The temporary restriction imposed in May 2015 . . . includes a safe, traditional, very popular waterskiing and wakeboarding flat-area . . . [The Service] does not adequately justify this additional restriction and that the impacts to the recreational area would be significant . . . The reported events do not support the existence of a safety concern.''
On April 12, 2016, the Service announced a draft recreational boating compatibility determination and the agency's intent to pursue even more boating restrictions on Lake Havasu. Due to significant opposition, which included more 1,000 concerned citizens showing up at a public meeting, the Service suspended the agency's pursuit of the April 12 proposed restrictions.
While this action was welcomed, the Service still has not reopened the area closed on May 20, 2015, that started this very controversy. These temporary restrictions have now been in effect more than a year.
In addition to being arbitrary, unwise, and unsafe, the action by the Fish and Wildlife Service was also unlawful. The agency violated the law by not going through the regular NEPA process and soliciting public comment from stakeholders.
Such irresponsible action by Federal bureaucrats should alarm not only the visitors to Lake Havasu, but Americans who value the rule of law and a government accountable to the people it serves.
This bipartisan amendment is endorsed by more than 20 local and national organizations, including Americans for Limited Government, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, Concerned Citizens for America Arizona Chapter, the Lake Havasu Area Chamber of Commerce, the Yuma County Chamber of Commerce, New Mexico Federal Lands Council, and many, many more.
My amendment is about government accountability. It simply prohibits a press release from closing an area on Lake Havasu that has been utilized by recreational enthusiasts for decades. The Service should solicit public comments and go through the normal scoping process before making major changes that impact users on Lake Havasu.
I ask my colleagues to support this amendment. I thank the chairman and the ranking member for their time and for their goodwill on this bill.
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Mr. GOSAR. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
The issue is very interesting, because we actually issued a FOIA request for emails. This was done egregiously by two people complaining.
If you look at the map, what ends up happening by closing this area where families and young kids learn how to water-ski, it forces them into the main channel of the Lake Havasu area, where boats go 50 to 70 to 75 miles an hour. People are going to get hurt.
So my point is if the Fish and Wildlife Service doesn't want us to continue to do this, then do their job right. Follow the law. That is the key here.
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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chair, I appreciate the dialogue back and forth. Once again, let's follow the rule of law. If the agency doesn't want to have incidents like this and have their hands slapped publicly, then do their job and do it right and do it well. This is about safety, but it is in the reverse fashion.
With that, I appreciate the work of the gentlewoman and the chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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