Norm Dicks

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman making this speech, and we all regret the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) is unable to be here today. I know both of you have been very active on the Everglades issue, and we want to see that all parts of the community, the minority and disadvantaged community, are not left out, and we will continue to work with you and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) to make sure this is accomplished.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to associate myself with the gentleman's comments. I completely agree with him on this particular issue. I understand there has been a lot of progress made with four-stroke snowmobiles over two-stroke, but still you wind up with the noise factor. I look at my friend from Minnesota, and I would say we have got the Forest Service lands that surround the national parks, where people can do that kind of recreation. We have the Olympic National Park in the State of Washington; we have Mount Baker Forest. There are areas where you can do these things; and, yes, maybe they will raise these issues. But the top officials in about the last four administrations who run the Park Service believed that in Yellowstone this should be reconsidered. All the science is on the side of this. In my view, it is just like the jet skis. In certain areas, Lake Crescent within the Olympic National Park in the State of Washington, banned the jet skis because they were noisy. We had one county that did this because the people did not like the noise. It is something about being out there in a national park where you want to enjoy the wilderness, the moment. This noise level still, in my judgment, is unacceptably high.

Mr. DICKS. Also, Madam Chairman, I ask the same question to the gentleman from Montana. I ask him the same question. Many of us supported the reintroduction of the gray wolf, which was extremely controversial because it would give them the top predator in the food chain, who would then go in and take down the sick and aging elk and buffalo, and I know that is sensitive, but if my colleague says he wants to reduce the size of the herd, the natural way to do that is with predation.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word, and I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Chairman Taylor).

Mr. DICKS. Madam Chairman, there is no evidence, is that not correct, that even the National Wildlife Federation letter says that this part of the case is overstated, the threat of the buffalo to the cattle has not been established, I mean in terms of brucellosis being picked up by the cattle? Is that not correct?

Mr. DICKS. Madam Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Madam Chairman, would that not be a natural thing to do if they have these animals that are overpopulated?

Mr. DICKS. Madam Chairman, has the gentleman supported the reintroduction of the wolf as the predator in Montana?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, one of the objectives of this bill is in the area of historic preservation through the Park Service and through the Department of Interior. This has been something that I have worked on in my own district. I completely concur that we must protect our past, and especially when we have these very sensitive sites that are important to the people of that area and the country. I commend the gentlewoman for taking leadership on this issue, and pledge that we will continue to work with the gentlewoman on this matter.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. DICKS. I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, this is an amendment I have offered with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson), and I think the chairman is prepared to accept it.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I am delighted to yield to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the sponsor of the amendment, to respond to the chairman.

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Here is the problem. We do not have the money in the budget to do the thinning that our foresters say we should do to deal with this problem, and it has not been there for a number of years.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. I have to rise in very strong opposition to this. The Smithsonian Institute is one of the most popular agencies of government in the United States. Here we are, coming up on the summer season and at a time when people are going to come in and visit the Smithsonian, and I just wonder, this is cutting construction but construction goes across the board and affects every one of these. Do we really want to cut out money for the Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture; the Archives of American Art; the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Freer Gallery of Art; the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage; the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; the National Air and Space Museum; the National Museum of African American History and Culture; the National Museum of African Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the National Museum of American History; the National Museum of the American Indian; the National Museum of Natural History; the National Portrait Gallery; the National Zoological Park; the Astrophysical Observatory; the Center for Materials Research and Education? I mean, the Smithsonian is important. This is a bad amendment. Let us defeat it and let us send the young man home this evening with his tail between his legs.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I want to commend the gentleman for his statement here tonight. I was thinking of the same thing. There is a gap of several billion dollars in education. The same thing is true here. There is a significant gap in the amount of money necessary to go in and go do the thinning and the pruning, to do the adaptive management to reduce the fire risk. It is because the administration has given all the money away in incredibly large tax cuts, and now they cannot fund these bills. We are not funding the parks, and we are not funding this area either. It has nothing to do with fire fighting. It has everything to do with the fact that the deficit is big and they do not want to spend the money. They have all kinds of accounts in this bill that are underfunded because of that fact, and it is because we have a lousy allocation. We are $200 million below the President's budget request, which was totally inadequate in the first place. So I commend the gentleman. I also believe one thing, and we learned this the hard way in the Pacific Northwest. ``Scientifically credible, legally defensible.'' When you start walking away from the scientists, when the scientists start saying this does not hunt and you cannot change these rules and do it this way, you had better wake up, because you are going to go into court, they are going to testify and have that biologist up there, and he is going to say you have not done these regulations properly. This will not protect the species and the wildlife in the area. And we did not meet the scientific standard. It was not met out in the Northwest until the President's plan came into place. It was not perfect, but at least then we started protecting the species and we started taking care of some of the remaining old growth. In my judgment, the reason I support the Udall amendment is because I do not trust this administration and the way they have approached these regulations.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS. Reserving the right to object, would the chairman and the ranking member have the right to strike the requisite number of words once?

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, the point is the tribe should go to their Congressman or their Senators and say, there is a problem here. Would you work with us, with the BLM and the Forest Service to resolve it, rather than putting a prohibition in an appropriations bill that says no money shall be spent. I think that is just overkill in this situation.

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DICKS

Mr. DICKS. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.