Northeren California Coastal wild Heritage Wildreness act
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA COASTAL WILD HERITAGE WILDERNESS ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 24, 2006)
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Mr. THOMPSON of California. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, this bill will protect some of the most beautiful wilderness area in my entire congressional district. It is the product of over 5 years of hard, grass-roots work. It represents town hall meetings, I can't tell you how many town hall meetings, field tours with all the different stakeholder groups, open debate, both in the House and the committee, and the Senate, both in the committee and on the floor, in city hall chambers and board of supervisors chambers throughout my district, stakeholder meetings with people representing timber, hunting and fishing, conservation, government, off-road vehicles, mountain bikes, businesses, farming. It is 5 years of exhaustive and inclusive work.
The result is the added protection to 275,000 acres of the most beautiful and the most important landscapes in all of California's First Congressional District. It includes the famous King Ranch, which the Bush administration in testifying in committee on this identified that particular portion as being the crown jewel of our entire national wilderness system. It is an absolutely spectacular area.
This bill is also important in regard to the federally listed salmon and trout throughout my district. It will enhance the watersheds of the habitat areas of these fish, and it will ensure a source of clean and reliable water to ensure the continued improvement to these fisheries.
Fire protection was an issue on this bill, and we went out of our way to make sure that we protected the land managers' ability to fight fire and to use pre-suppression measures to ensure that we minimized the likelihood of wildland fires.
Also road access was an issue, and my friend Mr. Walden from Oregon talked about the cherry-stemmed roads. We went out of our way to make sure not a single legal road existing today will be closed by this bill. Mountain bikes and the off-road vehicle community raised some concerns, and we dealt with those. In regard to the mountain bikers, we created an area adjacent to the King Ranch area that the local newspaper, the Eureka Times Standard, called a world-class mountain bike trail system that will give them more bicycling opportunities than they had before.
As mentioned, we put in place protections for the Cow Mountain area, where off-road vehicle users and mountain bikers ride today. We protected their rights to do so in perpetuity on this 79,000-acre portion of property that is so important to them.
This is a collaborative effort where all the stakeholders have come in, and we worked in an unprecedented manner to make sure that this bill is the right bill for this property.
It wouldn't have happened had it not been for the hard work of a lot of dedicated folks. I want to thank particularly both the chairman and the ranking member on the Resources Committee, who worked very, very hard, and their staffs that worked extremely hard in making sure that this was a good measure.
There were outside interest groups that worked. Ryan Henson from the California Wilderness Coalition stands out amongst those who worked so hard and knows this area so well.
As was mentioned, this touches land in just about every county in my district. Each county board had a spokesperson or a point person. It was Martha McClure in Del Norte County; Jim Wattenberger in Mendocino County; John Wooley in Humboldt County; Ed Roby in Lake County; and Dianne Dillon in Napa County, and they are to be commended. Senator Boxer's staff, Jeffrey Rosato, and Senator Feinstein's staff, Jon Watts, also worked extremely hard. Leading this effort was Mark Kadesh from Senator Feinstein's staff, who helped us so much.
I want to thank Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein, who were the coauthors of this measure. Their bill passed the Senate earlier this year 100-0. They understand the importance of this area, and they worked tirelessly to make sure that it was protected.
Although we all worked for 5 years to make sure that this happened, there was one person that really worked probably 6 or 7 years' worth of time during that 5-year block, and that was Jonathan Birdsong on my staff. This was just outstanding work by him. He did a great job, and I want to publicly thank him on the floor.
Madam Speaker, this is a great bill. It is carefully crafted to take all interests into consideration, and I humbly ask for your ``aye'' vote in support of this measure.
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