Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1011, Virginia Ridge and Valley Act of 2007
Floor Speech
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 1011, VIRGINIA RIDGE AND VALLEY ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - October 23, 2007)
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Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me time.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this structured rule and to a number of provisions included in the underlying provision in its current form. I oppose this legislation because it substitutes the deliberate and long-studied recommendation of well-trained Forest Service professionals with a purely political congressional action by designating 27,000 additional acres, which are land in the Forest Service today, as wilderness, beyond the Forest Service recommendation of 16,000 acres in southwestern Virginia's Jefferson National Forest.
This means that despite having spent millions of congressionally appropriated tax dollars and investing tens of thousands in on-the-ground Federal employee hours on studying this issue, the Democrat leadership will simply override the Forest Service's well-reasoned decision to force this additional acreage into wilderness status. This also, despite the fact that many of the areas proposed in this legislation do not meet the standards of the 1964 Wilderness Act, including roads, utility corridors, mountain biking areas, and a Federal Aviation Administration tower. These should not be considered within wilderness area, and yet, today, that's exactly what is happening.
Today's bill makes private landowners to the area vulnerable to the Jefferson National Forest Plan ultimate goal of obtaining all private lands within these expanded wilderness boundaries, including 722 total acres of outstanding privately held mineral rights.
What is even worse is that thousands of acres in this proposed wilderness area are at high risk for wildfire and require mechanical thinning for proper fire risk mitigation. Many of these areas are next to the small communities that will be placed at even greater risk of catastrophic wild fires if this land is not managed properly.
So even as the threat posed by wildfires to American communities all across this country is fresh on our minds, as we watch with great concern and sympathy the unbelievable damage these wildfires are inflicting on Southern California, nonetheless, the Democrat leadership of this House has decided that the best course of action is to extremely limit and outright prohibit commonsense reduction activities across this Jefferson National Forest in Virginia.
Besides the private land owners and homeowners adjacent to this land, other losers created by this legislation include a number of animal species covered by the Endangered Species Act, including bats and bears. Currently, several of the proposed wilderness areas added by this legislation are professionally managed to maintain threatened endangered and sensitive species habitat. By passing the legislation under this rule, Congress will be preventing the Forest Service from using the equipment that they need to comply with the Endangered Species Act.
This makes no sense, Mr. Speaker. It makes absolutely no sense why this new Democrat majority throws aside not only the expressed opportunities that the Forest Service have given us to understand proper management, but they will override professionals who have studied this and do this for a living.
Perhaps worst of all, Mr. Speaker, because this draconian ``wilderness'' designation prevents any road or trails from being improved in these areas, a number of our Nation's most vulnerable populations such as the elderly and disabled will be effectively prevented from accessing and enjoying this piece of America under this bill. It absolutely makes no sense, Mr. Speaker.
I'm sorry we're having to be on the floor today to take this position, because the Republican Party is in favor of our national parks, is in favor of people utilizing our national parks, and we view these areas as very historic areas that we want to preserve and make right and keep them.
Mr. Speaker, this is bad public policy. I oppose this structured rule and the underlying legislation.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman from California's words about the tragedies that are occurring. Not only for the past few days, but also, as always, anytime there's a wildfire, people who get in the way, the brave men and women of the National Park Service and others who go to help fight those fires, I know the Nation is at this time very focused on the lives and the property and the effort that is going on in California.
With great respect, I too, join the gentlewoman from California for expressing our sincere appreciation for the firefighters who are trying to battle and save the property and the lives in California.
Mr. Speaker, for perhaps the same reason that the gentlewoman from California has come down to join in this discussion today, perhaps with an opposite result, I, too, am down on the floor to talk about how wise management of our natural resources, of our Parks Service, is important. You don't have to go back really as far as Teddy Roosevelt to understand what Teddy Roosevelt saw, that this great Nation had the abundance of beautiful woodlands, hills, mountains, streams, the acreage included within that, the beautiful animals, the birds, the fish, the wolves that were a part of our landscape. And that's why national parks were created. National parks were created with an opportunity for the Federal Government to have a chance to allow people to come and see this great country, to see the beautiful country that we had.
As a young man growing up and scouting, I remember well the opportunity that I had to not only visit national parks, but a chance to get what is called the Forestry Merit Badge. And even back in 1965 or 1966, when I was receiving this badge, I remember, this is not the term that was used, best practices, but one has become used as a term of best practice and that is, wise management of our forests to not only sustain them, but to protect them, and to protect the animals and all that lives and counts on that forest surviving. We've learned these wise management techniques, not just in scouting to get the Forestry Merit Badge, but we have learned them through the years. We've learned that sometimes unwise management and doing things to our park system, in fact, caused more damage than it did good.
I remember back with the fires that we had in Yellowstone, how the National Park Service said just let it burn, it is a fire created by an act of God. But they really, as a result of that, learned that they had to learn a better practice to save millions of acres and millions of animals that could be destroyed.
Well, part of that best practice is what the National Park Service is attempting to do right now and has been attempting to do in this national park today. It is against their recommendation that politically we override the best practices, the best thoughts and ideas that people have who manage our park system, who do see the balance, who are there every day with the careful consideration.
By designating this area, an extensive amount of area, as wilderness, it means that arbitrarily, we're taking something that would never qualify under the intended statutes and add it in. I think this is unwise. This is how you do have problems. This is how you do have fires that burn out of control when you're not able to come in and protect the forest properly as a result of this designation. This is how you have problems when you're not able to take care of the endangered species that are in there and properly protect them, because it will have that wilderness designation.
And so with great respect for the same purpose that the gentlewoman from California came to notify us and to remember what America's paying attention to today, the wildfires in California, I would say we need that same sort of vision to avoid what could be in the time of drought or in the time of misdeed because of perhaps a lightning storm, something that's an unintended consequence, and that is to take this area and to move it into wilderness means that it will not receive or be able to receive the same kind of regular work that happens to protect these wilderness areas and national parks from destruction of a fire. I think it's a bad idea.
I think it's also a bad idea any time politicians in Washington, D.C. for political purposes decide to overrule common sense.
Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 5 minutes to the ranking member of the Rules Committee, the gentleman from San Dimas, California (Mr. Dreier).
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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, as the entire country is focused upon California fires, the disasters that are occurring and the heroic efforts of the firefighters, the people who live in California are working together, community activities, the entire country has been called into action. And I'm sure every single one of us, as not only Members of Congress but just as proud Americans, want to respond in a way that is appropriate.
The gentleman who represents a vast area that is included within those wildfires is with us now. He's the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis). I would like to yield him 10 minutes at this time.
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Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close at this time.
Mr. Speaker, I will be asking Members to oppose the previous question so that I may amend the rule to have Speaker Pelosi, in consultation with Republican Leader BOEHNER, immediately appoint conferees to H.R. 2642, the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations bill for 2008.
Yesterday a number of news publications, including Roll Call, reported that the Democrat leadership intends to hold off sending appropriations bills to President Bush so that they can use an upcoming anticipated veto of the Labor-HHS appropriations bill to serve as ``an extension of their successful public relations campaign on the State Children's Health Insurance Program.''
While the Democrat leadership plays politics on this issue, however, our Nation's veterans are paying the price. For every day that the Democrats allow the veterans funding bill to languish without conferees for their own political agenda, our Nation's veterans lose $18.5 million, which could be used for veterans health care, veterans housing, and other important support activities for veterans and their families.
I would like to repeat that. Every single day there is $18.5 million that is lost for our veterans and their families.
On October 18, the American Legion National Commander Marty J. Conaster, five national vice commanders, and all 55 Legion National Executive Committee members sent Speaker Pelosi a letter pleading with her to put partisanship aside and provide this funding now for our veterans and troops.
At this time, I will insert this letter into the Congressional Record.
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On the same day, the commander in chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, George Lisicki, also asked Speaker Pelosi and the Democrat leadership to put partisanship aside for the benefit of our Nation's veterans and troops. These pleas from the American Legion and the VFW follow on the heels of requests from Republican Members to both Speaker Pelosi and Democrat Senate Majority Leader HARRY REID on September 17 and October 4 urging them to begin conference work on the Veterans Appropriations bills. Unfortunately, it appears as though all these commonsense requests have fallen on deaf ears, and our Nation's veterans are being forced to pay the price for continued Democrat partisanship and lack of leadership on this issue.
At this time, I will insert into the Congressional Record these two letters so that everyone watching today's debate across the country can see the efforts that have been made by the Republican Party to end this impasse on an important issue of providing adequate funding for those who have sacrificed so much on behalf of our country.
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The Senate cannot allow this critically important funding to continue to fall victim to the usual partisan wrangling which occurs all too often in Washington. If tragedies such as the recent revelations at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are to be diverted in the future, we must pass veterans funding now. From FY 2001 the total VA budget rose from $48 billion to approximately $70 billion in FY 2006, a 46 percent increase. This year, the House voted to increase funding by $6 billion dollars over FY07, one of the largest in the 77 year history of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Because we have asked so much of our brave men and women in uniform during the War on Terror we must uphold our commitment to veterans upon their return home.
Earlier in the year, the new Majority agreed they would continue the trend of significant increases in veterans funding begun by the Republican Congress. We ask you to honor that agreement and see the commitment we made to our veterans is upheld.
We must never forget the sacrifice of our veterans. As members of Congress, we have a solemn obligation to fulfill our promises to them. We ask you to look past the heightened partisanship of our times and unite us on this issue by making it a first priority to bring a stand-alone veterans appropriations bill through conference so the Congress may present the President with a bill no later than October 12, 2007.
Mr. Speaker, I will ask all of my colleagues to support this motion to defeat the previous question so that we can put partisanship aside and move this important legislation forward.
Mr. Speaker, this is a very important vote for each of the Members of Congress to decide whether we are going to move forward for the best interest of our military and veterans, or whether we are going to play partisan politics.
I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment and extraneous material in the Record just prior to the vote on the previous question.
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