Wayne Gilchrest

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment to the amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Yes.

Mr. GILCHREST. That is a very good recommendation, and it is whether or not to eat the chicken eggs, or to hatch the chicken eggs, I guess. The question is collecting biological data, the health of the country, using well-trained volunteers. I urge my colleagues to support the Gilchrest amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I would really like once again to reiterate some points. First of all, this is a Republican amendment, I would just like to make that point. I am a Republican. We are all working together here. First of all, Mr. Chairman, no one wants to violate anybody's property rights at all. We do not want to do that. It is in the bill to protect property rights. This agenda to have volunteers is not to make something out of nothing. We are not going to run around there and try to find some hidden way to keep people from using their property. This is about biological data. What is the potential use of collecting biological data? There are a lot of viruses out there that are becoming resistant to antibiotics now. There is endless potential for a variety of chemical agents, yet uncovered, to be able to avoid calamities and disasters with new diseases or present diseases. This is about collecting biological data which will cure or help with heart problems, with cancer problems, with hypertension, with new viruses, with pain killers, with natural insecticides, with this plague that we call AIDS. This is biological data. We do not have enough money to pay for all of this information. We need well-trained, well- verified, good volunteers. I urge my colleagues to vote for the substitute amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, we want to ensure that no one is going to go on private land. We realize, and I have lived in the West, the difficulty sometimes of knowing what is private land and what is public land. That is why we wanted these volunteers to be very well trained and supervised, so they do not violate anybody's private property.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I want to make a comment about volunteers that would come under the jurisdiction of USGS as far as collecting data on species. In Maine and Maryland, recently volunteers are the ones who collected the data that was used by the National Biological Survey that would now be incorporated into the USGS to delist bald eagles. It was the important use of those volunteers that went out into the field, very well-trained, the information was verified, and in the State of Maine now and the State of Maryland, the bald eagle is now delisted from endangered to threatened. That was the value of volunteers. It could not have been done without those valuable, trained volunteers.

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

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield.

Mr. GILCHREST. There have been some significant changes that I think have gone in the right direction. The Breeding Bird Survey I think takes up about half of the volunteers in this country. To allow a willing property owner to have species studied on his property, that is another move in the right direction, I think, for fiscal reasons.

Mr. GILCHREST. The Federal officials will verify the research and have the funding for that particular program which ultimately is the Secretary of the Interior.

Mr. GILCHREST. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make one other comment about volunteers and use the State of Alaska for an example. For 10 years over 20 Yupik Eskimo student volunteers have donated over hundreds of hours assisting the Alaska Science Center band cackling Canada geese in western Alaska. They calculated the annual and seasonal mortality of the population by resighting the neck-collared geese in Oregon and California, their wintering habitat. Without this data collection there would be basically no hunting season. This type of data collection by volunteers who are trained, whose information is verified, will save the U.S. government millions of dollars and, I am sure, do what both sides of this issue wanted to do. That is try and get information.

Mr. GILCHREST. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. GILCHREST. I thank the gentleman. I would like to make just a couple more points, if I may. Last year we all learned many Members had concerns about the National Biological Survey. There was a perception that it was a band of environmental activists who would seek to find endangered species on private property, and I would be willing to say, in some instances, that probably happened. It was feared that volunteers had more agenda than training and that their data would be inaccurate. I believe, at best, these concerns very often are overstated. Let me talk about what this amendment does not do. It does not allow anyone to collect any resource data on private property. The explicit language of the bill prohibits research on private property. It does not allow untrained environmental activists to sign up to count species. All volunteers must have adequate training. For those who are concerned that volunteers will manufacture data, the amendment requires supervision of the volunteers and a verification of this data. This amendment is not about property rights. Again let me emphasize that the language of the bill prohibits data collection on private property. Researchers could only collect data on public property. This amendment is not about the Endangered Species Act. The purpose of this research is to take inventory of natural resources. If this study were to overlap the Endangered Species Act, it would most likely be because new counts of certain species would result in their being upgraded or delisted, which would help all of us. This is not an effort to find out which species are endangered; it is an effort to find out what species we have. Day after day on the House floor we hear people talking about good science. The distinguished chairman of the Committee on Science just yesterday, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker], made an excellent speech about the value of research, and volunteers are critical for this effort. We simply do not have enough money to pay all the people necessary to collect this data. If this amendment is not adopted, then a retired professional with a degree in ornithology, or something of this nature, would not be allowed to help collect scientific data even though he was perfectly trained to do so. Mr. Chairman, who benefits from this substitute amendment? How can someone argue that we are better off not knowing what plants or animals are out there? Does anyone believe, does anyone believe, that ignorance is our friend and knowledge is our enemy? I do not think so. People want to give us verified information for free. I cannot understand why we would not want that, and we are prohibiting the Federal Government from accepting it. In fact, we will only accept it if we are allowed to pay for it. I do not think that is being very wise. Mr. Chairman, let me close by emphasizing that this amendment is not about property rights. We already have that. This amendment is not about endangered species; that fight is yet to come. It is simply about allowing the Government to accept free research, and I would ask my colleagues to accept this substitute amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois. [[Page H 6955]]

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I would like to say something quickly about volunteers. My own son right now is an unpaid volunteer to record information for the Museum of Natural History. I was a volunteer for the Forest Service in a wilderness cabin, designated wilderness area, because the Forest Service could not afford to put somebody in that particular cabin. We are working with the USGS; that is a little bit different, but the concept is the same. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is fairly straightforward. It would allow the U.S. Geological Survey to use volunteers for research, provided those volunteers are appropriately trained and supervised and that their data is verified. It reflects almost exactly the language adopted in the subcommittee.

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment as a substitute for the amendment.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Chairman, I think everyone in this room knows what HIV is, and that [[Page H 6981]] it leads to AIDS. HIV is human immunodeficiency virus. It has just been discovered by a gentleman from Maryland that cats, cats in the wild, have FIV, that is feline immunodeficiency virus. They got it about 200 million years ago and through the course of time they have developed a resistance to FIV. Cats some time ago gave it to monkeys, SIV, simian immunodeficiency virus, and they gave it to humans. If we lose the wild cats in the wild, we will not have any sense of understanding about how they were able to balance HIV with not getting AIDS. It is important, I think, for us to have some sense of preservation for these wild animals. I urge a ``no'' vote on this particular amendment. If we want to understand the nature of nature and preserve the quality of life for people, let's contribute just a few dollars which will add up to big bucks later.

Mr. GILCHREST

Mr. GILCHREST. Reclaiming my time, let me make a distinction. Do you want to know the distinction between the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho and the Appalachian region, the Blue Ridge Mountains and this region, the difference is the Bitterroot Mountains, and I will make a distinction with Idaho, it is a national forest, a designated area where there are very few people. There are mostly elk, bear, and so on. In the Appalachian region, in an area that has been so eloquently described by a number of Members here, is a different area because of its geography, but it is also different because you have people there. Are you going to ask people in the area where the 25 percent of the highway has not been completed so we cannot bring jobs there, they are all going to have to move, or are we going to leverage a few dollars to create jobs for these folks?

Mr. GILCHREST. I worked within a designated wilderness area in the Bitterroot Mountains of northern Idaho.

Mr. GILCHREST. Reclaiming my time----

Mr. GILCHREST. I would like to make a comment, not only is it pockets of poverty in a particular region but a program like the Appalachian Regional Commission is way ahead of its time. We know it has been in effect for a few decades now. This is the kind of program that we want to use Federal dollars because it is Federal-State combination dollars. It leverages money. For every dollar we put down there, the Federal Government is going to get back $5 in taxes. But it is a model program. We talk about block-granting programs, how can the Federal Government help these local communities in a much more efficient manner. The Appalachian Regional Commission is that model program.