Diana DeGette

Ms. DeGETTE

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, I would point out to my close friend from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn) that there are no multiple use areas in the Colorado Wilderness Act. Two-thirds of the areas are already wilderness study areas and being converted, and the rest have no motorized use or mining or drilling of any kind. So the bill has no conversion of multiple use areas. Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Judy Chu).

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Napolitano).

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff).

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), chairman of the committee.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I would just point out to the gentleman that when we did the last land package none of these bills had been brought up for a hearing by the then-majority, so the gentleman would not have been too happy to have included them in that package. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse).

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Brownley).

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from the State of Washington (Mr. Kilmer).

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. Mr. Chairman, wilderness is not owned by me, it is not owned by any Member on the other side of the aisle, and it is not owned by any Members of Congress. It is owned by the people. It is owned by the people of this country and future generations of this country. That is why we are the stewards of this wilderness. These are Federal lands, and I have heard some of my colleagues on the other side in this debate say: Well, some county commissioner doesn't support it; some Member doesn't support it. It doesn't matter. These Federal lands belong to the public. In fact, last October in Colorado there was a poll done of the areas that are impacted in my portion of the wilderness bill. This poll found that 71 percent of the people in the affected areas--the citizens, the people who use this land for economic development and recreation--believe that these wilderness study areas should be made permanent and that they should be made into wilderness. That is whom I believe. I want to tell you one more story, Mr. Chairman, and that is the story about in August when I went down to Cortez, Colorado, near three of the wilderness areas in my bill. One of the county commissioners, Mr. Ertel, testified in Congress that he represents that area. Do you know something? In Cortez, Colorado, the city council and the mayor support the bill. At a townhall meeting I had, there were 75 people. Sixty-five of them raised their hands when I asked if they supported the bill. That is who supports this bill, that is who this is for, and that is whom we need to think about and listen to as we pass this legislation. The areas in this bill all have strong wilderness characteristics, and we owe it to our children, to our grandchildren, and to our great- grandchildren to take bold action right now and preserve them. I just want to take a minute and thank everybody who has been involved with this bill: obviously, the chairman of the committee, Mr. Grijalva, his staff, Chris Rackens, Brandon Bragato, Henry Wykowski, Cameron Walkup, and Lily Wang; and my staff who have worked on this bill for over 20 years now, Lisa Cohen, my Chief of Staff; Kaila Hood, Matt Allen, Tom Woodburn, and Marc Rehmann, all of whom have worked their guts out for this, as well as many other staffers past and present. Finally, I want to thank the citizens who brought this bill to me to begin with and who continue to work their hearts out every day to preserve our wild places; in particular, John Stansfield of Wild Connections who can't be with us today, and Mark Pearson of San Juan Wilderness--who the last time I saw him, he was sitting on a cliff high up in one of my wilderness areas and is now sitting in the gallery watching us pass this historic legislation. It truly is a labor of love, and I look forward to telling my grandchildren about this historic day. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, the amendment I offer today adds four additional unique wilderness areas to the State of Colorado, totaling more than 60,000 acres to our bill, the Protecting America's Wilderness Act. The addition of these areas stems from extensive conversations I had with local stakeholders, Tribes, and outdoor recreation groups. The first one is Diamond Breaks, a wilderness study area in northwest Colorado that is attached to our State's beloved Dinosaur National Monument. This area was recommended for wilderness designation by the Bureau of Land Management under George H.W. Bush. It is a favorite among the many rafters, kayakers, and canoers who visit the national monument every year, and preserving it has been a priority for many conservation groups in my State. Protecting this land will help provide economic security for an area of the State that depends heavily on our outdoor recreation economy. The amendment also further protects Papoose Canyon, another wilderness study area in southwest Colorado, near Cross Canyon, which is the area I mentioned that I visited last August. Papoose Canyon has been a wilderness study area since 1980. It lies within the Canyon of the Ancients National Monument and, with an estimated 100 ancestral Puebloan sites per square mile, has significant cultural value. By officially designating this area as federally protected wilderness, we will permanently preserve this sacred land for generations to come. Finally, Mr. Chairman, this amendment protects north and south Ponderosa Gorge, which is often referred to as the Southwest Secret of Colorado. According to the Bureau of Land Management, nearly 13,000 visitors come to this region every month during its peak season. It is a favorite among those looking to launch their nonmotorized boats on the Dolores River or backpack into the Chemehuevi Mountains. Protecting this land has also been a priority for conservationists in Colorado for decades. While each of these areas that would be protected under this amendment is unique, they are some of the most incredible wilderness that our State has to offer. Countless Coloradans, when they found that this bill was coming forward, came and asked me to include these three unique areas in the legislation. Mr. Chair, I hope my colleagues will honor their request and accept this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, I include in the Record a letter from a coalition of groups--the San Juan Citizens Alliance, the Sierra Club, the Sheep Mountain Alliance, the Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, and the Western Colorado Alliance--urging me to include these areas in the bill. February 4, 2020. Hon. Diana DeGette, Washington, DC. Dear Rep. DeGette: Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback on the Colorado Wilderness Act, HR 2546. We appreciate your relentless leadership in pursuit of protecting Colorado's BLM wild lands. It's worth recalling that your original proposal first introduced in 1999 encompassed 49 areas and almost 1.4 million acres, and was the result of field work completed by conservationists over the prior 20 years. The Colorado Wilderness Act has evolved over time, and most recently includes about 30 areas with a little over 600,000 acres. There are several areas we wanted to highlight as HR 2546 moves towards consideration by the House of Representatives. One area consistently included in every version of the bill since 1999 is Snaggletooth, an area that encompasses the spectacular ponderosa gorge of the Dolores River Canyon. Snaggletooth was removed from the bill during consideration by the House Natural Resources Committee, but we believe that with some modest boundary adjustments and clarifications about nearby rights-of-way corridors that Snaggletooth can be reincorporated into the legislation. It is without doubt one of the BLM's crown jewels in Colorado. Papoose Canyon is one of three wilderness study areas in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. It was included in the Colorado Wilderness Act through 2007, but then inexplicably omitted from subsequent bills. Papoose is adjacent to Cross Canyon, and provides added protection for some of the richest cultural resource concentrations in the Southwest. Like Cross Canyon, it is outside the McElmo Dome carbon dioxide reserves and is unlikely to provide any conflict with energy minerals. We encourage your inclusion of Papoose Canyon WSA in the Colorado Wilderness Act as the other WSAs in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument are already in the bill. While we might hope that National Monument designation provided a level of conservation certainty, in the past few years we have observed that an Administration hostile to the Antiquities Act could well pursue actions to undermine or eliminate the National Monument status of Canyons of the Ancients. Wilderness designation is a congressional action that cannot be overturned at the whim of the executive branch and is the tried and true approach to guaranteeing the wildlands resources, wildlife habitat, and undisturbed cultural resources of Papoose Canyon will be preserved into the future. In 2009, you deferred to an effort by BLM to undertake re- evaluation of wilderness candidate areas in northwest Colorado, including a number of areas surrounding Dinosaur National Monument that BLM had long recognized for their wilderness values, and removed those areas from the Colorado Wilderness Act. Unfortunately, once BLM's unsuccessful wilderness re-inventory concluded, these areas from northwest Colorado that had previously been included within every version of the Colorado Wilderness Act from 1999 through 2007 were not reincorporated into the legislation. We encourage you to revisit the status of these areas and consider adding them back into the Colorado Wilderness Act. These include one of the largest Wilderness Study Areas in Colorado, Diamond Breaks, which is bounded both by Dinosaur National Monument and Browns Park National Wildlife Refuge. Additional wilderness quality lands surround Dinosaur National Monument, and include the stunning Yampa River gorge through Cross Mountain, sandstone canyons across the southern approaches to the Monument, and extraordinary wildlife habitat on Cold Spring Mountain. Diamond Breaks straddles the Colorado-Utah border. For many years, America's Red Rock Wilderness legislation has been pending that includes the Utah portion of Diamond Breaks. Most recently, America's Red Rock Wilderness Act was reintroduced with 16 cosponsors in the Senate, S. 3056, that once again includes wilderness designation for the Utah portion of Diamond Breaks. In 2017, a companion House bill was introduced, HR 2044, cosponsored by 123 members of the House and similarly included wilderness designation for Diamond Breaks in Utah. Pairing Colorado legislation that completes designation for the Colorado portion of Diamond Breaks makes obvious sense. We are hopeful the Colorado Wilderness Act, HR 2546 will be favorably approved by the House. We look forward to working with your office and Senate colleagues to further refine the Colorado Wilderness Act and see it successfully enacted into law. Respectfully yours, Mark Pearson, Executive Director, San Juan Citizens Alliance. Jim Alexee, Colorado Chapter Director, Sierra Club. Lexi Tuddenham, Executive Director, Sheep Mountain Alliance. Steve Bonowski, Colorado-based Board member, Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship. Emily Hornback, Executive Director, Western Colorado Alliance.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, these areas have all been protected for years. Two of them have already been wilderness study areas, and as I mentioned, they are in the area of the State where there is widespread public support and where they also are great economic drivers. They are appropriately contained in this bill. As I said, when these groups found out that this bill was moving along, they urged me to include these really important historical and recreational areas in the bill. Mr. Chair, one last thing: I forgot to thank Steve Bonowski, who is with Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship. He has been a real partner with us throughout, making the conservative argument of why we need to protect wilderness. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, I am so glad the author of this amendment has asked us to listen to the people who this affects because we have. That is why we found out that 71 percent of the people in the affected areas, the citizens, support this legislation. That is why when I went to Cortez, Colorado, and had a townhall and there were 75 people there, 65 of them said they were in support of the wilderness areas. We shouldn't allow one or two local elected officials, or even Members of Congress, to have veto power over preservation of Federal lands for future generations. If this amendment were adopted and the bill enacted, local governments would be able to indefinitely delay a Federal land designation approved by the House, the Senate, and signed into law by the President. Wilderness designation, which is the highest level of protection that we bestow, is solely at the discretion of Congress and has been so since the original Wilderness Act. It is intended to provide permanent protection for exceptional landscapes, and it is a key tool for preserving undisturbed lands. So what are we going to do? Are we going to be at the whim of local elections to decide who should support it? And who decides? Why do the county commissioners get veto power? What about the mayors and city councils? While the Montezuma County commissioners may oppose the designation of the wilderness study areas, the Cortez City Council and the mayor support it. That is why we have to hear what the people have to say. No individual elected official, from a commissioner to a Member of Congress, should have the ability to unilaterally veto these things. All the areas included in all the titles of this bill are the result of multiyear collaborative efforts between bill sponsors and stakeholders on the ground. We have to remember that these lands are publicly owned. They are not privately owned. They belong to every American and future generations. Frankly, I think that, as Members of Congress, we have the responsibility to listen to our constituents and to listen to the people of the United States, and the people of the United States want to preserve the very few special remaining wild places that we have. Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, this amendment, just like the prior amendment, is another attempt to cede congressional responsibility. I can assure the gentleman that every piece of land in this bill that is designated as wilderness is, in fact, wilderness. The gentleman is right; in the statutory definition of wilderness there is no mechanized or motorized equipment. There is no mining or drilling. I will say, for firefighting, you don't just have to use shovels; you can use other things. But, be that as it may, wilderness should be reserved for those very few special areas that are untrammeled by man, just like the Wilderness Act says. I will also guarantee, Mr. Chair, that every acre that is designated wilderness has been gone over by the sponsors, by the citizens, by the activists, and it qualifies as wilderness. In the Colorado Wilderness Act, two-thirds of the areas have been managed as wilderness because they are wilderness study areas, and they have been managed as wilderness for over 30 years; so these areas are wilderness. Why, then, would I object to this amendment? Because what it does is it cedes Congress' powers to the executive branch. And, frankly, with this administration, that is the last thing I think we should do in deciding what wilderness is. If this amendment were adopted and the bill was enacted, Secretary Bernhardt would be unilaterally empowered to veto designations of wilderness enacted by Congress and signed by the President. This amendment would give unprecedented and problematic power to the Secretary to override Congress, based on no criteria, other than what they wanted to do. Now, if my colleagues had questions about if these areas are worthy of designation, they only have to look at the bill reports, where we extensively documented the outstanding values of the public lands and rivers included in this bill. Now, I would just challenge the gentleman to tell me which of the wilderness designations in this legislation do not meet wilderness criteria, because it is for Congress to make that decision, not the executive branch. And we need to retain our Article I power every day and in every way. For that reason, I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I do agree that wilderness is reserved for those very special few areas that are left that truly are wild. I challenged the gentleman to tell me which area, which acre in this bill does not meet the Wilderness Act criteria, and he did not do so. And that is because every acre of wilderness that my cosponsors and I have designated meets that criteria. It has been vetted, and it is one of those very few pristine areas that we should protect. By the way, in Colorado, even if this bill is adopted, still, only less than 10 percent of our land will be wilderness and as it should be, because wilderness should be protected as a wild area. I will say, though, that is not what this amendment does. What this amendment does is it cedes determination of what is wilderness from the Congress, which should be determining this, to the administration, another erosion of an Article I power. That is why I oppose this amendment, and I urge a ``no'' vote. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Unlike the Panetta amendment that we just debated, the Westerman amendment contains no action or management prescription to address wildfire risk on our public lands. Instead, the amendment is another attempt by my colleagues to override Congress' constitutional responsibility to make law and, instead, give political appointees overly broad and unilateral authority to essentially veto an act of Congress. This amendment contains the false narrative that wilderness is a ``no management'' designation and that any protective designation will inherently increase wildfire risk. That, in fact, is not true, and it is the opposite: Wilderness areas are some of our most resilient natural landscapes. Wilderness areas are usually far away from homes and other developed areas. They don't contain power lines or roads, which are major causes of human-caused ignitions, as we saw with the recent California fires. And if a fire does start in a wilderness area, these landscapes are best equipped to endure those periodic disturbances, which can achieve important management objectives and enhance habitat and ecosystem functions. Mr. Chair, here we have got a photo provided to me by my colleague, Mr. Carbajal, which illustrates this point. It is the Machesna Wilderness Area that is included in this bill. If you look at the area for a moment, you can see this is not an area that is appropriate for logging, but you can also see some charred wood from a recent fire. But overall, look at how this area has regrown and the beautiful flowers that bloomed after the fire. This is what a resilient landscape looks like, and it is what we are protecting in this bill. Furthermore, we have said this over and over and over, and I can't stress it enough, there is nothing that prevents suppression of an active wildfire in a wilderness area. And the Wilderness Act allows management activities if they are necessary to address fire, insects, and diseases, which is referenced in no uncertain terms by Mr. Panetta's amendment. Wildfire, like climate change, is an issue that always should be on our minds and inherent in our policies, but this red herring narrative that wilderness designation inherently increases wildfire is just simply not played out. I encourage my colleagues not to give in to these false assumptions and oppose this amendment. I urge a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, just to reiterate, the way it works right now with existing wilderness areas is that the region that is managing that wilderness area can decide, obviously, taking into account that it is a wilderness area. If it is a remote area, as we just saw in this photo, where burning would benefit the ecosystem, then they are allowed to burn, as they are in other areas of Federal land; but, if the regional director in the management plan has a wilderness that is near an urban interface and it looks like homes and lives may be put at risk, they are allowed, under the Wilderness Act, to take that action. That is what I have been trying to tell my colleagues for years now. I think that the Panetta amendment makes that clear. I think that it allows us the power that we have in designating wilderness. Again, we shouldn't offload our power to the executive branch or any other branch of government. I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, plain and simple, this amendment would remove all the potential wilderness from this bill, which totals over 130,000 acres. My colleagues are using this amendment to claim that the wilderness areas in this bill don't meet the definition or intent of the wilderness designation. Guess what? That is exactly why they are designated as ``potential wilderness.'' These are areas that are, for all intents and purposes, wilderness, but for a small nonconforming use. Since the quotation marks on the amendment description seem to show some lack of understanding about this designation, I would like to explain it for the Record. A potential wilderness designation typically means that an area has wilderness characteristics, but it recognizes that there is a nonconforming use or activity that would otherwise be prohibited by a standard wilderness designation, which is exactly what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle keep trying to argue. They keep trying to say: ``Well, you know, you can't have motorized activities. You can't have this and that in wilderness,'' and they are right. But that is why some of these areas are potential wilderness. Some examples of potential wilderness allowances that would be impacted by this amendment include allowing redwood forest restoration, allowing trail reconstruction using heavy equipment, and allowing the high-altitude helicopter operations in Colorado to continue in potential wilderness, because those uses are not appropriate in wilderness but these areas have strong wilderness characteristics, but for that one activity. Potential wilderness designations simply say this: manage the area for the wilderness quality characteristics but continue to allow the specific use or activity. Then when that nonconforming use is removed, the area will then revert to wilderness because mostly that is what it is. Potential wilderness provides exactly the type of management flexibility that my colleagues claim is needed for certain areas, but they want to strike all of these designations from the bill. Frankly, it seems a little backward to me. For some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, I know it can be hard to see these areas for anything other than their extractive potential, but I see it from the other side of the coin. These areas are strong wilderness areas; they just have a small nonconforming use that eventually will be removed, restoring these areas to wilderness. That is why these areas are called potential wilderness. Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close if the gentleman is ready. I think I have the right to close. Mr. Chair, I will reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, the 131,702 acres of potential wilderness in this bill, they are in many of the sections of this legislation, and they all have strong wilderness characteristics but for one nonconforming use, which will be eventually gone, in which case it is imperative that we manage these areas as wilderness. Mr. Chair, that is why I oppose this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.'' I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. DeGETTE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.