Colorado Wilderness Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the motion to recommit.

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Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Speaker, this motion to recommit may sound innocuous, but it truly is a wolf in sheep's clothing, and let me tell you why.

Our local agencies already have the ability to fight fires if they need to in wilderness areas. There is no provision in the Wilderness Act that says they can only use axes or nonmechanical items, none.

They keep saying this all day, and I don't know why. It is simply not true.

What this amendment would do is it would give some amorphous entity the ability to use mechanical means whenever they thought necessary, potentially usurping the right of local governments.

And also, as the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock) pointed out, the local areas, the management teams, already had the ability to fight fires how they wanted. And what is more, in the underlying bill, we say that.

But just to make clear, just about everybody in this Chamber just voted for the Panetta amendment, which underscores that we can fight fires in wilderness.

But let's talk about what this bill really is about. Let's talk about it, because it is so important for our children and our grandchildren, the future generations.

Today, we have a bipartisan ability to preserve these special wild areas. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to preserve 1.4 million acres of wilderness across the West for our generations to come.

It will stimulate the economies of our States; it will encourage recreation; it will encourage conservation; and it will take us a long way to our goal of preserving 30 percent of public lands by 2030 to start slowing down the changing of our climate.

P.S., if we slow down the climate change, we slow down the forest fires, and everybody in this Chamber knows that.

Look at the charts that we have of the areas in this bill. I want to show everybody these gorgeous areas:

This first chart, one of the 35 areas in my Colorado Wilderness Act, the Dolores Canyon River;

The second chart, the Middle Fork Eel Wild and Scenic River in Mr. Huffman's Northwest California Wilderness, Recreation, and Working Forest Act;

The third chart, Dry Lakes Ridge in Mr. Carbajal's Central Coast Heritage Protection Act.

And, by the way, Mr. Speaker, you can see here where they had a fire, and you can see here what happened when that area remediated itself from the fire: beautiful wildflowers.

The San Gabriel National Recreation Area waterways in Ms. Chu's act, you can see the beautiful areas that are protected there.

The Rim of the Valley in Mr. Schiff's Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act. These were sent to him by his constituents, who love these areas.

And the Skokomish River in Mr. Kilmer's Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

Folks, this is what we are talking about. This is the legacy we are leaving our children.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 says:

Wilderness should be preserved as an area where the Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.

That is what we are talking about today.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this motion to recommit and vote ``yes'' on this important groundbreaking bill.

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