Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011--Continuing

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. I yield myself 1 1/2 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, on Tuesday, the appropriations committee leadership supported my amendment No. 297 to cancel $2 million that would be used to consider destroying four perfectly good hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River that are generating 155 megawatts of the cleanest, cheapest, and most reliable electricity on the planet--enough to power over 150,000 homes.

Amendment No. 296 is the companion measure. It forbids the Bureau to redirect its remaining funds for this purpose.

Let me emphasize: Congress never authorized this study. Congress never authorized the Klamath settlement. The Bureau of Reclamation is moving forward with it anyway. At a time when skyrocketing electricity prices threaten our economy and when acute capacity shortages threaten the reliability of our grid, destroying 155 megawatts of clean, cheap, and reliable hydroelectricity is simply insane.

We're told this is to save the salmon, but the proposal also includes destroying the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery, which is producing 5 million salmon smolt each year, 17,000 of which return to the Klamath as fully grown adults in order to spawn.

The Bureau is conducting this study without congressional authorization, and the language in this amendment is essential in order to implement the reduction that the House approved on Tuesday.

I thank the appropriations leadership for their support on Tuesday and ask that the House adopt the implementing language.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, in closing, the gentleman from Arizona is disingenuous when he says that we didn't know this was about the Klamath when we adopted the funding reduction on Tuesday. That was the entire context of the debate. I mentioned it over and over again. It's not true that this is somehow a surprise if the gentleman was listening.

As to the claim that this is an agreement that has been agreed to by all of the political insiders in the area, let me assure the gentleman from California that it is opposed by the overwhelming majority of voters as tested in several local elections, including the formal opposition to the dam removal by the Siskiyou border supervisors elected by the people of the region.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Chairman, I don't need anywhere close to 5 minutes. I simply want to emphasize that the gentleman is correct, that the local people should decide that issue, and they have.

In one local election after another, when this has been the deciding question, the voters themselves have said it is insanity, at a time when we can't guarantee enough electricity to keep their air conditioners running or the refrigerators running, to tear down the generating capacity equivalent to enough for 150,000 residents and 155 megawatts of electricity.

The Siskiyou Board of Supervisors, elected by the people of the region, has taken a very strong stand in opposition to the removal of the dams.

And to the gentleman from California, I too am concerned about the salmon. That's why the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery, which is producing 5 million salmon smolt a year, 17,000 of which return as fully grown salmon to spawn, is so critical. And why they would want to tear that out, along with the dams, is absolutely beyond me and beyond the people of the region who have voted repeatedly on this issue.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman.

And I would simply say in response that the gentleman in opposition forgets two important points. Number one, the additional costs are being forced on those private dam operators by the government. It is about time that we recognize that it is the government imposing these regulations that's driving up these costs.

And I would remind him he also forgets the enormous replacement costs. The power coming off those dams is the cheapest and cleanest on the planet. To replace that power is going to cost many, many times the costs currently borne by the ratepayers for the cheap hydroelectricity those dams produce.

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Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman.

The gentleman from California is absolutely right. These Travel Management Rules are highly exclusionary. They severely limit the public's access to the public's own land with devastating consequences for the local economies of every mountain town that's affected.

As Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly writes, ``the roads within the National Forests are used by thousands of residents and visitors for transportation and recreation. These activities generate revenue for our rural communities which are critical for their survival.''

This is not a small matter. The Forest Service now controls 193 million acres within our Nation, a land area the size of Texas. In recent years, the Forest Service has utterly reversed the vision of its founder, Gifford Pinchot, ``to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run.'' Instead, we confront an increasingly elitist and exclusionary attitude that is vividly illustrated by the draconian restrictions in the forest travel management plan. It bears far more resemblance to the public's exclusion from the royal forests under King John than to an agency that is supposed to encourage, welcome, facilitate, and maximize the people's use of our national forests.

These amendments restore the inclusionary vision of Gifford Pinchot by restoring the public's access to the public's land.

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