Colorado Wilderness Act of 2019
Floor Speech
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chairman, this is a commonsense amendment that will help ensure that the lands designated as wilderness in this package are not areas that are at high risk for catastrophic wildfire.
One of the clear flaws of the package before us is the apparent arbitrary process that was taken in determining the areas to designate as wilderness. At the July 10 hearing that included the bills in today's package, the BLM and Forest Service conveyed findings that a significant number of the proposed wilderness additions are not suitable to be added to the wilderness system.
It is critically important that wilderness designations are carefully applied due to their highly restrictive limitations and to make sure to take into account existing uses of the land that can be limited, including wildfire risk.
The amount of public lands at high risk for catastrophic wildfire is truly sobering. Just last year, the chief of the Forest Service warned that a billion acres of land across America are at risk of catastrophic wildfire.
This is especially true in the three States addressed in the legislation before us, all three of which rank in the top 10, nationally, for severe threat of wildfire: California, number 1; Colorado, number 3; and Washington, number 6.
Mr. Chairman, I filed a bill today to plant a trillion trees. We can use forests to help mitigate atmospheric carbon. When we lock these forests away in wilderness areas, we are taking that off the table and actually adding to climate change by putting forests at risk of catastrophic wildfires that emit carbon.
This is a commonsense amendment. We don't need to be putting these areas into wilderness areas and taking them off the table to use in fighting the mitigation of carbon. This amendment will make sure that we are not unwisely designating areas that have been identified at high risk of catastrophic wildfire.
I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to look at the science. I urge my colleagues to look at the law, look at what wilderness area means. It means untrampled by man. It means man has a hands-off approach to it.
Wilderness areas can be resilient to fire if they are designated appropriately, but when we have the experts at the BLM and the Forest Service saying these lands are not suitable for wilderness areas, when these areas are close to roads, when they are close to homes and property, we are treading on dangerous ground here. We are not applying the science. We are not applying the opinions of the experts. We are just saying we want to randomly call something wilderness area and think that, randomly, our approach is going to be suppression.
If our idea of management is suppression, we are losing ground. We should be doing things to prevent fire. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And if our plan is we are just going to roll the dice but we can put the fire out when these wilderness areas catch on fire, I think we are sending the wrong message and we are making bad policy.
So, again, I encourage my colleagues to vote for this amendment that is common sense and that will do good in the long run.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chairman, if we are allowing management in an area, then, by definition, it shouldn't be a wilderness area. If our plan is to put the fire out when it starts and it could possibly do damage to property or life, that is not a very good plan.
We shouldn't be putting areas into wilderness that is close to wildland-urban interfaces, that is close to where people live, and taking management completely off the table.
I have wilderness areas in my district and in my State, and they are managed as wilderness areas, which means they are not managed at all.
Again, this is common sense. Listen to the experts. If this area is not suitable to be in a wilderness area, we shouldn't be designating it a wilderness area.
I encourage my colleagues to vote for this amendment. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, this strikes all the potential wilderness designations proposed in this package, which is a very vague and ambiguous designation that gives broad discretion to the relevant land management agencies to designate these areas as wilderness at a later time.
As I previously mentioned during debate on the last amendment, one of the clear flaws of the package before us is the apparent arbitrary process that was taken in determining the areas to designate as wilderness. This shortcoming, unfortunately, extends to the potential wilderness designations in the bill as well.
Official testimony from the land management agencies raised concerns about many of these suspect designations not possessing appropriate wilderness characteristics.
For example, in the Washington portion of this package, many of the 5,000 acres set to become potential wilderness are largely near roads and include large amounts of previously harvested stands of timber.
These are clearly roads that the proponents of this bill want to close. However, this is the wrong way to do that. Locking up vast swaths of land is a bad way to manage Federal land.
And I reiterate, if we want to do something about atmospheric carbon and use our forest as a tool, locking them up where we can't touch them is not the way to do that. We should be investing in sustainable, proactive measures that balance both resource stewardship and local input.
This amendment will remove some of the ambiguity from this package and will allow local communities to continue to benefit from lands and roads in these areas.
Mr. Chair, it is for those reasons I again urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, there are a couple of things that I would like to point out here.
First off, I am having a hard time understanding the logic. I appreciate the gentlewoman trying to explain what these potential wilderness areas are, but in the debate on the last amendment, the gentlewoman pointed out that we shouldn't be ceding any power to the executive branch, which designating something a potential wilderness area would cede all that power to the executive branch to determine if that could be a wilderness area in the future.
There is a process to designate a wilderness area. It is called a wilderness study area. We have done that all across the country. I have seen it done in my State, and there are certain criteria that you have to meet when you are in a wilderness study area to be designated wilderness.
Congress can change the law if they want to. They can violate the Wilderness Protection Act that was put in place, but that is not a wise thing to do.
For instance, there is an area in my State that is in a wilderness study area that has beautiful trees on it, but those trees are loblolly pine trees. They are nonnative to that site. So you could put that into a wilderness area, but by definition, you can't have nonnative tree species on that site.
Those are the kinds of things that the agencies look for when they go through a wilderness study program and when they propose to designate areas as wilderness. Just haphazardly doing it, putting it in areas where it shouldn't be, and designating potential wilderness is leaving the science out it, and it is making it all about politics.
Mr. Chair, again, I encourage my colleagues to be rational and to vote for this simple amendment.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, again, I encourage the adoption of this commonsense amendment; that we let the science rule; that we keep land available, our precious land and our precious resources to use in this fight to remove atmospheric carbon, to make the world a better place, and for environmental stewardship for the future.
That is why I offered this amendment and why I encourage my colleagues to support it.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Chairman, I have had an opportunity to visit this beautiful part of the world that my colleague from Washington represents, and I know that he has the best interests of those beautiful forests and beautiful natural areas at heart, and it is because of this and because of this commonsense amendment that I can rise in support of it.
Although I do not believe it goes far enough to address some of the legitimate concerns raised by local stakeholders, it is a great step in the right direction.
Instead of simply removing proposed wild and scenic designations from State trust lands that are managed by the Washington Department of Natural Resources to generate revenue for schools, counties, and other beneficiaries, the amendment directs the Secretary of Agriculture to work with the DNR to develop these cooperative management agreements to guide the management of those rivers.
Now, overlaying DNR trust lands with wild and scenic designations subjects these trust lands to additional process, and I believe it will make it more difficult for DNR to propose timber harvest in these areas that could potentially cost school funding and other benefits.
The savings language added in this amendment can only clarify what is required under Federal law. Nothing in the savings language alleviates DNR from potential added burdens under Washington State's Environmental Protection Act, potential litigation based on the wild and scenic overlays and adjacent wilderness, or precludes potential State litigation based on the new designations.
This amendment also appears to recognize the tremendous burden this legislation will put on the Olympic National Forest.
Under the Wild and Scenic Act, the Olympic will be required to prepare comprehensive river management plans for 19 new Wild and Scenic Rivers across 464 miles of river, all of that within 3 years.
The amendment seeks to give the forest the potential for a 2-year extension, but the reality is the staff of this forest will be spending the next several years doing paperwork instead of proposing projects to restore forest, to replace culverts, or increase timber harvest, all things that have broad support. All the while, the Olympic National Forest is still living under a forest plan that hasn't been revised since 1994, when the Clinton Northwest Forest Plan was adopted.
Most of the rivers proposed for the wild and scenic designation were not found to be suitable by the Forest Service. Currently, in the State of Washington, there are 197 miles of Wild and Scenic River. This legislation would more than quintuple the miles of Wild and Scenic River in Washington.
So, Mr. Chair, while I wish this amendment went further, I congratulate my colleague and encourage him to continue working with stakeholders, and I encourage my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this amendment which does make the underlying bill better.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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