Colorado Wilderness Act of 2021
Floor Speech
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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, Pursuant to House Resolution 147, I offer amendments en bloc.
I rise in strong support of en bloc No. 1. These 18 amendments demonstrate the strong and bipartisan support for protecting our wilderness and our public lands.
The amendments in this package include bipartisan legislation from Representatives McKinley and Tonko to unify the way National Heritage Areas are established and managed around the country.
Other amendments would seek to improve the diversity and representation on our public lands, including the Great Dismal Swamp NHA, by Representative McEachin; ensuring all Americans have access to healthy outdoor recreation, especially in urban and low-income cities, such as the Outdoors for All Act by Representative Barragan; and promote outdoor recreation and wellness among servicemembers and veterans, which is pursued by the Brown amendment.
We clarify also our intention regarding wilderness and wildfire with the inclusion of the Panetta amendment, and we even add some small number of wilderness, wild and scenic rivers, and mineral withdrawals with the inclusion of amendments from Representatives Spanberger, Pingree, and DeFazio, respectively.
The inclusion of these amendments would not only improve the bill but improve protections for our public lands and environmental justice communities far beyond the places already covered in Colorado, California, Washington, and Arizona.
Simply put, this amendment reinforces that our public lands are for the benefit and enjoyment of all Americans. I urge support for this en bloc No.
Mr. Speaker, I want to take a moment to say that I have great respect for my colleague, the ranking member, and I know that he is well intentioned with respect to addressing wildfire issues. I would note, for my colleague, that we just recently created a Bipartisan Wildfire Caucus with Representative Curtis to address some of the issues that he describes.
But, look, with respect to the bill that is before the House today, there is simply no question. This bill does not create any further risks from wildfire, far from it. As I said yesterday, the law as it stands today, section 4(d) provides for the flexibility, ultimately, for measures to be taken as may be necessary for the control of insects, disease, and fire, subject to such conditions as the Secretary of the Interior may deem desirable.
So, there is flexibility within existing law to address any potential issues that might arise. For that reason, I would hope that my colleague's concerns would be alleviated and that he would support this bill.
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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining, if I might inquire?
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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, I will just simply say that these amendments are common sense. They have been vetted by the various stakeholders and constituents in the communities that support the respective amendments that have been proposed as part of this package, and my hope is that my colleagues could support them. Several of them are bipartisan, as we have mentioned, and they go to the heart of this bill, which is ultimately protecting the most scenic places in our country.
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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.
Mr. Speaker, I want to say, first, I appreciate the gentleman's remarks on this amendment. My friend from Utah, I know from our work together last Congress and this Congress and from our bipartisan work on the Congressional Wildfire Caucus that the gentleman is sincere in his intent that he, too, wants to help address the climate crisis and the threat that it poses to our communities, and I thank him for that.
However, to that end, I would encourage the gentleman and his colleagues to continue to work with us across the aisle on opportunities to create clean, green, well-paying jobs for all Americans. Ultimately, I will be opposing the gentleman's amendment because I don't believe it is in the best interest of this particular legislation.
As we have heard over the course of the debate this morning and yesterday, of course, on the bill, the various areas that are protected in this bill were included at the request of local communities who want to see these lands protected for future generations.
One example, perhaps the most salient in my view, is the Thompson Divide region in my bill, the CORE Act, which has faced years of pressure to develop certain mineral interests that local stakeholders, including the ranching community, oppose.
The largest individual withdrawal area in this bill actually surrounds the Grand Canyon, a region with few identified critical mineral resources, but one that I believe we can all agree is of enormous importance to the American public. That importance, that value of the Grand Canyon, as well as every area included in this bill, is ultimately why we are here today.
It is why my colleagues have gone through years of painstaking work developing a consensus with those local communities to identify those lands of such exceptional value that they believe and the communities believe should be protected for future generations.
The bottom line is this: We believe that some places should be set aside permanently from extraction because some landscapes, like the Grand Canyon, are simply too special to be mined, drilled, or excavated.
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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my colleague might engage in just a brief colloquy so I understand the scope of the amendment. What is the most common way to assess geothermal or other mineral resources? I yield to the gentleman from Utah.
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Mr. NEGUSE. The gentleman is correct, I do have an answer. The most common way is to drill. That is the most common way to assess geothermal and mineral resources.
With much respect to the gentleman, because, again, I know his intent is sincere, but this amendment is not simply a study amendment. This study amendment, ultimately, if it were to succeed, would have the Interior Department drilling countless wells throughout these wilderness areas to ultimately ascertain the information that the distinguished gentleman seeks, and I just don't think that is a prudent way forward.
I would say to the distinguished ranking member, with respect to the areas around the Grand Canyon, that the southwest United States, as I know some of my colleagues are certainly familiar, is littered with remnants of abandoned uranium mines and mill sites that poison the water and the air to this day, and those mines have hit Tribal nations the hardest.
So you can understand why the distinguished chairman of our committee, Chairman Grijalva, would feel so compelled by local communities in the State that he represents to move forward with the Grand Canyon protections that are a part of this important wilderness package.
Mr. Speaker, while I very much respect my colleague and look forward to working with him on future proposals, we respectfully oppose this amendment and would ask for a ``no'' vote.
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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 147, I rise to offer amendments en bloc.
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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to en bloc No. 2.
The amendments in this bloc run the gauntlet of ideological opposition to wilderness, public lands protections, and our efforts that respond to the climate crisis. The amendments are not a good-faith effort to attempt to improve the bill or work with the Democratic sponsors of the committee. They simply seek to outright reverse or fundamentally weaken the various designations proposed in this bill.
In many cases, if these amendments were adopted and signed into law, the result would leave these areas with fewer protections than they currently have under the status quo.
Now, I heard a lot of wide-ranging arguments against this bill from the distinguished ranking member, but let me just begin by responding to two points specifically:
First, with respect to this notion of having local community support, I would simply say--and I welcome my colleague to come visit my district in the State of Colorado. I represent a district that is the size of New Jersey--far bigger than Delaware--10 counties, stretches all the way to the Wyoming border, Grand County, half of Eagle County, Summit County. I look forward to taking the ranking member to my district in Colorado and showing him these incredible places that we seek to protect, because I believe if he has a chance to visit them, I may be able to convince him of the same.
I also just say, secondly, with respect to the process complaints, as I said yesterday, every title of this bill was heard, was marked up, passed out of committee, and passed this Chamber, on this floor in the 116th Congress--not once, twice.
So I understand the gentleman's desire to have more amendments. I think it is a bit odd to be arguing that he is unable to amend the bill when he is literally debating the amendments that he is offering as they exist today, that we are proceeding to debate in this fashion.
In any event, I will simply say that these amendments, as I said earlier, are not a good-faith attempt to improve this bill, and for that reason we would oppose them.
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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, I would just note for the record with reference to ``Eastern colleagues,'' I represent the State of Colorado, my colleague, Representative DeGette, represents the State of Colorado, the vast majority of the sponsors of this bill represents Western States. My district is not all that far from the gentlewoman's district in New Mexico.
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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, I would just say to my colleague: One, I want to welcome him to the United States Congress, and I thank him for his thoughtful recitation with respect to the amendment he offered.
But I just want to assure him, for example, with respect to the CORE Act, my provision of this bill, it has the support of every county in which a part of the bill is designated. That is to say, in the areas where there are protections being made in the bill, the counties in those areas support this bill. And that is why this bill has attracted such bipartisan support back home in Colorado and why it has passed the House twice.
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Mr. NEGUSE. Mr. Speaker, I want to note one thing for the record because there is a reference from my colleague to amendments that she proceeded to make on this bill.
There has been a lot of talk about local control and the support of communities back home. We received communications from various town commissioners regarding the amendments that my colleague proposed, and I will just give you a couple of examples of their responses.
To simply classify this as a land grab is deeply disrespectful to those who have worked long and hard to gather the facts, negotiate, and compromise. The issues are too important to let parties divide us.
That was a county commissioner from San Miguel.
A commissioner from Routt County:
The amendments were issued in a way that ignores our system of local control. They reject the liberty and freedom of local jurisdictions to express what is right and just within those jurisdictions.
The communities impacted by the provisions in this bill support the protections that we are seeking to enact into law. That is why we are here. So with respect, I would again say we oppose the amendments that have been submitted in en bloc No. 2.
Mr. Speaker, again, I have great respect for my colleague, the ranking member, but what he purports this bill will do is just simply not the case. I would think that trying to prevent uranium mining in the Grand Canyon would not be controversial. I would hope that my colleagues could come to a consensus on that.
As lawmakers, we all know that strong policy requires compromise. It requires years of input and vigorous debate. I am happy to participate in this debate, and I appreciate the gentleman's participation.
When we think of some of the most iconic, protected places in the United States--Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon--it is difficult to imagine a time when they were not protected, but even those most treasured places in America underwent criticism from Members of Congress. The arguments, actually, that we heard today are nearly identical to those that we were hearing on the floor 100 years ago.
In 1882, Benjamin Harrison, who was then a Senator from Indiana, introduced a bill to designate land lying on the Colorado River in the territory of Arizona as a public park. The bill was forwarded to Interior Secretary Henry Teller, who was a Coloradan, and he opposed conservation of the site. He told the Senate that the bill was unnecessary and that the area ``does not require the creation of a public park to preserve it.''
Congress was unwilling to proceed in the face of opposition from the executive branch due to the interests of mining, westward territorial mining, and land use. Harrison pushed on. He reintroduced the bill in 1883, again in 1886.
And in 1903, the great conservationist Teddy Roosevelt visited the area he had advocated to protect. He declared that it is ``beyond comparison, beyond description,'' and ``unparalleled.'' ``Let this great wonder of nature remain as it is now. Do nothing to mar its grandeur. . . . You cannot improve upon it. But what you can do is keep it for your children, your children's children, and all who come after you.''
On February 26--on this very day--in 1919, President Wilson signed into law the Grand Canyon National Park Act, 101 years ago today.
Mr. Speaker, let's make that choice again. We passed this bill with bipartisan support. I ask my colleagues to do it again, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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