Scott McInnis

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 575, I announce the following suspensions to be considered today: H.R. 4712, a bill regarding music licensing and copyright protection; and S. 1892, a bill to provide that a person closely related to a judge of a court exercising judicial power under article III of the United States Constitution (other than the Supreme Court) may not be appointed as a judge of the same court, and for other purposes.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, the chairman of the Committee on Rules has ably served our country, and I can tell him that I have always looked at him with a great deal of respect not only as chairman but like a big brother. As I hear the stories, I first of all want to affirm that Freda is a wonderful, wonderful person. I wish she could be on the House floor. I wish our rules allowed her to be here to receive some of these tributes as well. But I do want to very quickly relate a story about how dedicated, in the marine type of environment, that our chairman is. Tragically, he lost a constituent in my district, in a river. And as my colleagues know, the Rocky Mountains can be terribly unforgiving. So the chairman called me up and said, look, we have this body, a constituent, and the family is grief stricken. I want that body recovered. I said, Mr. Chairman, you do not just recover these bodies that easily. It is somewhat of a difficult task. He said, I will bring in the Navy. I said, no, do not bring in the Navy. It will take a while for this thing to come up. The next day we had Navy helicopters in my district, we had Navy frogmen in my district. And the worst editorials I have ever gotten from my newspapers were because I knew Jerry Solomon and he brought in the military into the wilderness of Colorado. At any rate, you did succeed in your mission. You are dedicated to your constituents, you are dedicated to this country, and you are also dedicated to your colleagues. You have helped us a lot. So I want to confirm all those compliments and that we are going to miss you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, last week, I spoke about character and so on. Tonight's speech I think will be a little less exciting. I do not intend to address the issues that are going down at the White House. I do not intend to address some of the comments I heard earlier on HMOs, although I think certainly that would be fertile ground for debate. What I am going to address is the West. For some of my colleagues today, it may be a little boring; but for those of my colleagues who look at the heritage of this country and understand the geography of this country and the people of this country, I think they will find some of the comments I am about to make of some interest. I was inspired to do this speech in the last couple of weeks. About 2 or 3 weeks ago, I went to the club called the Knife and Fork in Grand Junction, Colorado, run by a fellow named Reeford Theibold. My wife Lori is on that board. What they do is there is a group of people in Grand Junction, Colorado; and once a month or once every 6 weeks, they have a speaker that comes in and speaks to the audience. The speaker this time was a fellow named Dennis Weaver, a name that all of my colleagues know. Dennis Weaver, of course, is a movie star. We have all seen him on our TV. He has dedicated this portion of his life to different aspects of the environment. He lives in Ridgway, Colorado. I am going to tell my colleagues a little bit about the district that I represent, but Ridgway, Colorado is contained within that district. The other person that I talked to was a fellow by the name of Phil Burgess. Most of my colleagues do not know who Mr. Burgess is, but I can tell them that he is kind of a think-tank kind of fellow. He is out in the West. He also has a place out here near the Chesapeake Bay. I had an opportunity the other day to spend several hours with him, and we talked about the West and the country and how the West was settled and how it has evolved throughout this time and the evolvement that we now face in the future. Mr. Burgess has a think-tank operation, I think it is the largest think-tank probably out of Washington, D.C. It is called the center, appropriately named, the Center for the New West. I thought I would go through a few of his ideas as we evolve or go through this speech. The other thing that inspired me is I got up Saturday morning to run, got up about 6:30 or so, I guess, got ready to run at 7:00, and I turned on the TV, and there was James Arness. Remember James Arness, Gunsmoke, great guy. It is on every Saturday morning about 7 o'clock in the morning. Unfortunately, the show had started, and I did not get the name of the show, but I think it was How The West Was Won or something, but I turned it on Saturday morning. You watch that and you get a real feeling, a good feeling about what the West was like, the beautiful ranges and the mountains. So with a combination of those three things, I thought it would be important to come down today, talk about a few issues that face the West. We have things like transportation problems out there, obviously. I want to talk a little about the water issue we have out there. The West is very unique in its water issues. I will talk a little bit about multiple use of Federal lands. But I thought I would begin first of all by describing the Third Congressional District. That is the district that I am privileged to represent back here in the United States Congress. The Third Congressional District is one of the largest congressional districts in the United States. Most of my colleagues here today have been in the Third Congressional District of the State of Colorado. It is well known. Why? Here is the State of Colorado over here to my left. The Third District, roughly the eastern border goes north to south and like this. This is Denver, Colorado right here. So it goes about this size, goes all along the border with New Mexico, comes back up along the Utah border and the Wyoming border. This district contains more ski areas than any other district in the country. This district is the highest in altitude of any other district in the country. So many of my colleagues have probably skied or certainly have heard of areas like Aspen, Colorado, Durango, Colorado, Steamboat, Glenwood Springs, Breckenridge, any number of these areas. Many of my colleagues have hunted out in this country. We have the largest herds of elk in North America. Our ranges, we have 54 mountain peaks, 54 mountain peaks over 14,000 feet. Pikes Peak, just outside of the District, Pikes Peak out in this area, Pikes Peak goes just around this area. This district has lots of Federal ownership. In fact, there are 22 million acres, 22 million acres contained just in that area that is owned by the Federal Government. The Third Congressional District geographically is larger than the State of Florida. It has got a lot of other unique aspects about it. We have lots of wealth contained within that district. For example, Beaver Creek, Vale, Telluride, Aspen, Steamboat, Durango, lots of wealth, a lot of second homes. But also in this district out in the southern end of the district where I have got the pointer down in this area, we have the poorest area of the State of Colorado down in San Luis and Costilla and Canal and some areas like that. We also have huge agricultural interests, some of the largest, I think the largest potato warehouse in the world is in this part of the district. Up here, we have large orchards, and of course we have lots of cattle ranching in this area. Up in this area, we have sheep ranching. As I mentioned earlier, recreation, hunting areas like that all are in that economy out there for the Third Congressional District. Let me talk a little about one of the things that is unique to the western part of the country. Here in the eastern part of the country, when you deal with water, primarily your problem with water is how to get rid of it. You have too much water. You get floods and things like that. Out in the West, it is an arid region. I saw with interest the other day the hurricane that came in on the Louisiana and Florida coast and the amount of rain it dropped there. It dropped more rain in those poor areas, poor meaning I feel sorry for the amount of rain that they got, but it dropped more rain in those areas than our State in Colorado and a lot of the Rocky Mountains get in an entire year. We have very unique parts, geographical areas, in parts of this district. We have Wolf Creek Pass down in the southwestern part of the State that gets 540 or 580 inches of snow a year, and, yet, 20 miles away gets about 18 inches of snow. Dramatic comparisons. By the way, the winter snows have moved in. Our first snow of the year, it actually snows year-round on the mountain tops, but the first fall snow that came into the valleys occurred over the weekend. One of the crucial areas, as I mentioned to my colleagues, is water. There is kind of a saying out in the west. In fact, it was quoted this week in the Denver Post. The Denver Post is a newspaper out of Denver, Colorado, also the Rocky Mountain News out of there, both of them cover water on a regular basis. But some of the best readings I have seen out of newspaper coverage, frankly, the Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Colorado, a reporter named Heather McGregor did some extensive coverage of water. But this last week, going back to the Denver Post article, there was a quote in there, and of course it is by the poet Tom Ferrell. And it says ``Here is a land where life is written in water. It is said that, out here in the West, water runs thicker than blood.'' Why? Well, because we are an arid region. In fact, when the explorers first went out to the West in the early days, they discovered a desert. In fact, we can look at the history books back then and some of the quotations in the reports by the explorers and what they wrote in their notes and their daily notes, they talked about the plains, about the lack of vegetation. When we go into Colorado, we can see what we have been able to do with water, what we have been able to do with irrigation, what we have been able to do over the years, over the decades, over the century by being able to divert that water. Let me give my colleagues a few statistics on water. This applies wherever you are in the country. I think these are kind of fun things to look at because most people do not realize just how critical water is to sustain the kind of life that we have. A cow, for example, 12 gallons of water a day just for the milk producing Jersey cow. Up to 23 gallons of day for a holstein producing a large quantity of milk. An acre of corn gives off 4,000, 1 acre of corn, 4,000 gallons a day in evaporation. About 4,000 gallons of water are needed to grow every bushel of corn. Every bushel of corn requires 4,000 gallons. And 11,000 gallons to grow 1 bushel of wheat, and 135,000 gallons of water to grow 1 ton of alfalfa. It takes about 1,000 gallons of water to grow the wheat to make a 2- pound loaf of bread and about 120 gallons of water to produce one egg. Can you imagine tomorrow morning when you have breakfast, one egg, throughout the whole system, to come to that one egg, it took about 120 gallons of water. About 1,400 gallons of water used to produce a meal of a quarter pound hamburger, an order of fries and a soft drink. So the quarter pounder, your fries and a soft drink, 1,400 gallons of water from the inception to your dinner plate of that food. Mr. Speaker, 48,000 gallons of water are needed to produce the typical American Thanksgiving dinner; 48,000 gallons of water. About 1,800 gallons of water to produce cotton in a pair of jeans and 400 gallons of water to produce the cotton that we use in a shirt. Where do we get all of this water? Where does it come from? Water has a very unique characteristic. It is one of the natural resources we have that can be used and used and used again. It recycles and it recycles. For example, where I live in Colorado, I live at the base of the mountains, the water at the top of the mountains where we have the water from the snowfall and the spring runoff, up in this area of the State of Colorado, a gallon of water there really means about 6 gallons of water by the time it comes down here to the border, because that water is reused and reused and reused. It is a very valuable resource. Well, in Colorado, we do not have, as I mentioned earlier, mentioned several times, in fact, we do not have heavy rainfall. We are very dependent upon the snows that we get in the winter. As I mentioned, we just had our first snow in the valleys this weekend. As that snow accumulates during the winter, we have to have the capability to store that water once the snowmelt comes down the hillsides. That period of time, called the spring runoff, lasts for about 60 to 90 days. We do not have much rain in the summer, so we need to be able to store during that 60 to 90-day period of time in order for us to get through the rest of the year. That is why storage is so critical in the west. Because again, we are in the arid area. Now, Colorado is called the Mother of States for rivers. If we take a look at the Colorado River, which services about 18 States and the country of Mexico and we compare it to the Mississippi; I remember the first time I ever saw the Mississippi, I thought I was standing on the edge of an ocean when I was a small person. We have big, big rivers back here in the east. But the Colorado River, while probably in most parts of the Colorado River, one could not put a barge in that river, the kind of barge that one runs in the Mississippi River. So it is small by these standards, but it is huge, it is huge for the needs that it serves out there, I think probably 25 to 50 million people, maybe more, out there in the west out of the Colorado River. Well, there are a number of rivers, because of the height, remember that I said that the district was the highest district in the country, because of the snowmelt we have, the heavy snows and then subsequently the snowmelt, and the runoff from that, Colorado is the mother of a number major rivers, major by standards of who they serve and the areas where they go into where it is the only source of water. It is also, as we have all heard, we have heard of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. In fact, in this last year, the National Sierra Club named us their number one priority to drain Powell. It is ludicrous. That kind of statement, by the way, shows a lack of knowledge of geographical, scientific, and historical needs of the west. But going back to the water issue, Colorado is also the only State in the Union where we have no water that comes into our State for our use. We have no free running water that comes in through our borders that we can utilize within the State. In fact, the green barely comes in right here and goes right back out. Other than that, we have no other water on any of those borders. Our water flows out of the State of Colorado. That is why the water law in Colorado and the water law in general in the west is different than the water law in the east. That is why the Congress and the American Federal Government early on realized that water should not be controlled at the Federal level, that water should be controlled at the State level. Out in Colorado, for example, my colleagues will remember I mentioned that we serve several States and the country of Mexico, that is all agreed to, or the agreements are through what we call compacts. For example, the Colorado River compact that involves the Upper Basin States and the Lower Basin States, and it divides the quantity of water. For example, under the Colorado River Compact, Colorado puts about 70 percent of the water into the Colorado River, and we take out about 25 percent of the 70 percent, so as my colleagues can see, we put a lot more water into that river than we take out of it. That came about through the evolution of river water compacts, and that is more or less how we resolve our waters differences, our water needs between the States. Now, another interesting thing about water, as my colleagues know, water is not always necessarily where the population is. We see it in the west. Colorado has large quantities of water, but be have very, very dry States like the State of Nevada, the State of Arizona. The State of California is not necessarily dry, but it has huge populations. So there is an effort always to move water to population. In the early days we did that without any concern to the environment. Around the turn of the century, we just assumed; first of all, we did not have the scientific knowledge, our forefathers did not have the scientific knowledge to really know with the movement of water what kind of impacts it would create and what kind of mitigation was necessary for these impacts. We did not have that kind of knowledge. So water moved freely, much more freely than it does today. But even within our own bounds of Colorado, again using my pointer here, 80 percent of the water in Colorado is located in this area of the State. Mr. Speaker, 80 percent of the population is located in this part of the State. So even within the borders of the State of Colorado, we have very significant differences in where the water should be utilized. Down here in the valley we have large aquifers. Up here it is the spring runoff and the water storage. The purist water is up here in this district. We know the water is obviously the purist at the top of the mountain. By the time the water comes down the mountain and goes through the farm fields and municipal use and so forth, it picks up salinity and solution, and it is not as pure. That is why we are concerned when people say they want to divert water from this area of the map into the large cities. They are diverting one gallon of pure water in this direction, and remember that that gallon interprets it, by the time it gets down here to the border, it converts to 6 gallons of water because we use it and use it and use it. However, it is not as pure down here as it was up at the top of the mountain. So water over a period of time was a critical part of the evolution of the west. Another key issue in the west that is very important are the Federal lands. Obviously, here we have a map of the United States. The map is titled, Government Lands. One can see that in the eastern part of the country, say from the Midwest, really, here is Kansas and go up into the Dakotas, Texas and over here, we do not really have a lot of government owned land. Most of the land here in the east is privately owned, and as we know, private landownership is a basic and fundamental foundation for our country. Here in the west we have huge amounts of land, and take a look at Alaska. I think Alaska, I am not exactly sure of this number, but I think Alaska is 99 percent or 98 percent owned by the government. Out here in my district, for example, as I mentioned earlier, that is my district in Colorado, the district that I serve, there is 22 million acres of Federal land. Well, what happened is in the early days of the settlement of this country, they said, as Horace Greeley says, and I have some great thoughts from Horace Greeley. He said, ``Go west, young man, and grow up with the country.'' The best business Horace Greeley said you can go into, you will find on your father's farm or in his workshop. ``If you have no family or friends to aid you and no prospect open to you there, turn your face to the great west and there build up a home and a fortune.'' Well, in the early days when they were trying to settle the country and actually occupy all of the different areas that we had, they did what they call homesteading or land grants. They would go out there, and one would go into Missouri or Kansas, terrific States, very rich in their soil, and with 160 acres or 320 acres or 640 acres, that is enough to sustain a family off a farming operation. But what Washington, D.C. determined and the Congress determined way back when was that when one got into the mountains, it was a little different. First of all, one had adjustments for the altitude. Then one had to deal with adjustments of the winter; very, very tough winters, very short growing seasons. Very difficult in Missouri or Kansas where I am sure that one can have several cows per acre. In the mountains, it is just the reverse. You have to have a lot of acres for one cow. And our forefathers were wise enough to say that we need agriculture, we need ranching. It is fundamentally important to put that into those mountains, to sustain the people that we want to go throughout this country, the citizens of this country. But it appeared impractical at the time, and I think it was probably a wise decision, but it appeared impractical at the time to go to a family and say, if you go out and homestead in the Rocky Mountains, we will give you 160 acres, because one cannot live off 160 acres from an agricultural point of view back in those times. So they could not just give it away through a land grant. Instead, what they decided to do was to adopt the concept of what is called multiple use. Now, multiple use does not mean a lot to us here in the east, but in the west it is a way of life. What does multiple use mean? Just what it says. On the Federal lands, these lands, as designated and as determined by the Congress and by the people of this country, these lands owned by the Federal Government, one would not go into private ownership, but while not in private ownership, would be intended for many, many uses. In fact, when I grew up, the sign on all of the Federal lands as one entered the Federal lands, for example, the White River National Forest in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, when one enters into that area, it says, ``welcome to the land of many uses.'' Now, as of late, many of us feel under an assault in the mountains and out in the west as if people want to come out to the government lands and take the ``land of many uses'' sign off and put up a sign that says, ``no trespassing.'' But multiple use out there, and I will give several examples of multiple use. When we stop some people and we ask them what is multiple use, many uses of the Federal lands mean, and we will hear, frankly because of the propaganda put out by some of the national, more radical environmental groups, we will hear, well, it just means ranching and those ranchers are abusing the country, and I dare have anyone put one of those people in front of me, because I would love to have a debate with them, because the love of that country is by the people who have worked it with their bear hands. My family, for example, my inlaws have the same ranch in the family since 1892, 1892 for that multiple use. But ranching is not the only aspect. The ski areas which many of us have enjoyed throughout our years, the ski areas are not the only use, it is another use. Mining and farming, those are uses, yes, although as we will see from Mr. Burgess's remarks, our economy has changed, it has become much less dependent on mining and so on, but there are many other uses that we have to have off these Federal lands to sustain our lifestyle, to sustain life. Maybe I went too broad to say lifestyle. For example, all of our highways, all of our highways that cross or traverse the third congressional district in Colorado are on government lands or go across government lands at some point. All of our water is either stored upon, runs across, or originates on Federal lands. Our radio towers, our power lines. I mean we can take a look at many aspects of our life and it is very, very dependent on that concept of multiple use. By the way, I am speaking more specifically this evening about Colorado, but we can hear with some eloquence from the chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), he can tell us about the multiple use and the importance of it for all of their interests up here in Alaska, or we can hear from the gentleman from Nevada, or the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen) with the parks and so on and so forth. Other multiple uses that we think are just very, very important for these mountains are the uses that we enjoy in our national monuments and in our national parks. If I could think of one thing that our generation enjoys as a whole generation besides food and besides some of the other vital elements, it is the relaxation of the Federal parks and the monuments and the things that the west offers to all of us. Well, that is kind of the west as we know it. Now, in the west we have seen a fairly dramatic change. First of all, mining. Mining in this country for a multiple of reasons has gone downhill. We do not see near the mines that we used to see. Let me tell my colleagues, mining is a very easy item of the economy to attack. Frankly, in the late 1800s and the 1900s, and the 19th and 20th century when mining was done, they did not pay a lot of attention or have the scientific knowledge to protect the environment, to mitigate the impact that the mining was creating on the environment, so it got a very black eye. But everything in this room, this desk, the wood, that came through logging. The metal on these chairs came through mining of one purpose or another. It is very important. It is a basic industry for this country's economy. But in the West we have seen a depletion of the mining. Some of it has to do with the economy and some with land use regulations. But it has brought about, regardless of what has caused that, we have seen a diversification in our economy out there in the West. And that diversification is being driven primarily I think by recreation. But because we have recreation coming in, one does not have to spend very long in my district, the district that I represent there in Colorado, one does not have to spend a lot of time there to say this would be a great place for a family vacation. It is absolutely beautiful. We have four distinct seasons and I could go on and on. Some would think I work for the Chamber of Commerce out there promoting this area. But it is a unique area and it does have a lot to offer. But there are other things that are important to consider. One of them is that this area will only be an area that people want to explore and come out to, or an area of the kind of values that it should represent, if we protect the heritage that it came from. What some people refer to as the Old West. Many have been down to Durango, Colorado, and ridden on the narrow- gauge train. The Durango-Silverton narrow-gauge steam train. I suggest folks try it. It brings back a lot of good feelings about the West. These kind of things should be allowed to be preserved into our future, so that we have a clear understanding of our past. Phil Burgess talks about the New West, and I thought I would go through a couple of things, four forces that he says shape America and create a new West. He says first of all, migration. The West is the Nation's most rapidly growing region. Which is also greatly increasing its political power in America's democracy. Urbanization. This is hard to believe, but contrary to popular belief, the West is the Nation's most urbanized region as a higher percentage of westerners live in urban areas. How does that happen? Out here we have vast amounts of land, but most of the people live in the cities. In Colorado, we have four or five major cities. By our definition in Colorado, Denver would be considered a major city. But we have many other cities that we call cities. Take a look at Alaska. Huge, millions and millions and millions, they probably have 600 million acres of land. 600 million acres of land would be my guess up here in Alaska. They have Anchorage, we could go through and see all the different, probably name on both hands the communities of 20- or 30- or 40,000 population. We could see where the urbanization statement comes in. The other area, the other force, the third thing as far as shaping America and creating a New West, that is called diversification. The economics based on commodities are increasingly diversified as manufacturing, business service, high-tech, and other sectors grow. Globalization. The West is a major beneficiary and provides the strongest political support to the Nation's growing trade with overseas markets. And that is going to be put to a test with the worldwide economy that we are facing today. Keep an eye on that economy. If we do not, we are being ignorant of what could be a real challenge to us within the very short future, and that is the worldwide economy; what is happening with trade throughout the world and with the American dollar, not just as it affects the American West but as it affects all of America. Finally, we have what we call corporate refugees. A word that Phil creates: Gentrification. Corporate refugees and urban refugees and others seeking a new life in the Nation's mild and wild. And he quotes that from Rand-McNally, who called it ``mild and wild'' areas, and are moving in droves to smaller cities and towns in the rural areas that dot the West's urban areas. We have seen a lot of migration in the West because we have been able to bring in fax lines. We have enhanced our ability to communicate. Now one can live in the Rocky Mountains and communicate with an office in New York City and be in instant contact with the stock market or other areas of business while enjoying the life of the West. That has brought a lot of that migration. He says in his notes, and I think Phil's points are well taken, that take a look at what is happening in the West. Utah, for example, the 2002 Olympics. And if you have not made your reservations, you ought to make your reservations and go see that beautiful State. Nevada, America's fastest growing State. The fastest growing county in the United States is Douglas County, a portion of which is in the 3rd Congressional District in Colorado. Colorado has become the home, and it was interesting to see how many people are from Colorado in the Forbes 400 list which I read just last week. Corporations like Qwest; TCI; John Malone, people like that; the Magnus family; Jones Intercable; Daniels Communications, Bill Daniels; these are all pioneers for industry. Echostar, Microsoft, there are a number of others that have come to Colorado. The West is changing. It is not all cowboys. It is not all ranches or mining anymore. But as this West changes, as we begin to evolve into that, we have to preserve what made our State great and what made Colorado great were our cattle and our mining and the boom and bust. The Unsinkable Molly Brown. Leadville, Colorado. The Ice Castle built down there. We could go on and on and on. Mr. Speaker, if we lose sight of our very basics which made the State of Colorado and the West what the West is and the West that we dreamed about, if we lose sight of that, then we will in the future dilute a very important part of our history for future generations. It is not right. We need to make a very focused effort as we move into the New West, as we move into what Mr. Burgess talks about here, we have got to make a very conscientious effort to educate our young people about the needs. Why water? Why we have to store water. If we listen to some of the national radical, in my opinion, environmental groups, we should never store water. Tear down the dams. They have only the most remote understanding of water in Colorado and water in the West. We will hear people say, well, we should lock off all of these areas and put them in wilderness. What does that mean? It is a very nice buzz word. Let us talk about wilderness. It is important enough as we evolve into the New West that we talk about what wilderness really means. On our Federal lands that is owned by all of us and, frankly, every one of us has a fiduciary duty to manage those Federal lands and that fiduciary duty especially falls on us elected to represent the people to manage these lands owned by the Federal Government, whether up here in the East or over here in the West or in Alaska. Congress through the years and through the century has provided a number of different management tools to manage lands owned by the government. Owned by us. Those management tools, for example, we have a particular tool on how we manage Yellowstone Park. We have a particular tool on how we manage Colorado National Monument in Grand Junction, Colorado. We have a particular management tool on how we manage the Sand Dunes down in Alamosa, Colorado. We have a particular management tool on how we manage the Mall outside the fine Capitol here. A management process for how we manage this building itself. It is all property, and we have a huge amount of management tools available to us. But because of changing times and changing uses, because of changing needs and geographical changes, and because of disasters like forest fires and floods and things like that, we have to have flexibility in the management tools that we use for the Federal lands or for the Federal property or the government property. We have one tool out there that has almost zero flexibility and it is the only tool out there that for all practical and political purposes, once an area receives this designation, it will never again leave that designation. That designation is called wilderness. Now, I am a proponent of the right area in the right time being put into wilderness areas. In fact, I am sponsoring with a Democrat, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Skaggs) who ably represents the community of Boulder, Colorado, a wilderness bill. But the area which we are putting into wilderness called the Spanish Peaks is an area that fits that description. We have to be very cautious about using that designation of wilderness, because it locks us in forever under that particular use. And in essence what wilderness means is that man can only be a visitor. Man cannot stay in that area. Man can come in, but he must go. And it restricts how he can come in. In a lot of wilderness areas, we may not enter by motorized vehicle, which means that a lot of our senior citizens will never be able to enter those areas. It has severe restrictions on walking. When I grew up, we cut across the neighbor's lawn and hiked up the mountain. A lot of that freedom is taken away. In certain areas, we need to restrict that kind of freedom because the resource is so fragile. The resource is so precious that this is the only management tool that really makes sense. Now, we have a lot of other resources out there, Federal resources, Federal properties where it is also very important, very valuable Federal property. Very fragile in its own way, but it can be managed as a national monument or maybe as a national park or maybe in an area run by the BLM for grazing or maybe in an area for flood control or maybe in an area for water storage. Water storage, by the way, is not just for water usage. Water storage also helps us on flood control, much as we have here in the East. So, when we talk about the different multiple uses and the wilderness tool, it is a concept that we have to keep in mind as we talk about the Old West. As we talk about when we come into the New West, one of the things that Mr. Burgess talked to me about that I thought was fascinating was the politics that is now coming out of the West. Let me go through a couple of things here that he says. Growth, he says, will lead to expanded political influence. The West is become the next political power. The same way the South rose in political prominence from a political point of view. The President, the Vice President, the Majority Leader in the Senate and the Speaker of the House are all southern, an indication of the rise of the South politically in the last several years. The trend, however, is shifting to the West as witnessed by the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Jim Nicholson and the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Roy Romer, both from the State of Colorado. The next census in the year 2000 should result in several House seats being shifted from other places in the country to the West. In the 1900 presidential election, the West accounted for 8 percent of all electoral votes. In 1900, during the presidential election, we had 8 percent of the electoral votes come out of the West. In 1952, 52 years later, it about doubled to 15 percent. Fifteen percent of those electoral votes. In 1996, in a much shorter period of time, the West rose to 22 percent of all electoral votes. Take a look at the California primary. An example of just how important the West has become. There are other areas that we have to consider when we talk about the New West and moving into these areas. Again, it is a special area to live. And if you have not been out to the West, and I did not know how beautiful the East was until I had an opportunity to come out here and go up north and see the mighty rivers that they have up here and go to Gettysburg and see the rolling hillsides and down to Lynchburg, Virginia, or Smith Mountain Lake. There is a lot of beauty. But for those out here who have not been to the West, come out and see how special it is. Come out and begin to understand our concern for multiple use. You will understand why we are so guarded about our water. As I said, water runs thicker than blood out in the West. You will begin to understand why things like transportation have become a real challenge for us. One do not have to have skied very long in Colorado to know that I-70 is a major transportation problem for us. That is east to west. North to south on the I-25 corridor, another big problem for us. Or Aspen, Colorado, from Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on Highway 82, a big problem. Or Grand Junction to Delta on Highway 50. Big problem. Or go from Ouray, Colorado, to Durango on Highway 50 where the side of the road continually falls off four football fields straight down because of the challenge of maintaining at that altitude those kinds of roads. These are all kinds of things that we need to educate our friends and family in the East about the challenges that we have in the New West. But the most fundamental thing we can do, the most fundamental thing that all of us can do is that as it has the evolution in politics, as it has evolution in urbanization, as it has evolution from migration, is not to forget the days reflected by James Arness in those movies of ``How the West Was Won.'' Not to forget the commitments that we have made to the people in the West, like the Native Americans. Down here, in this part of the district, I am very proud to tell my colleagues that we have the Mountain Utes and the Southern Utes. That is exactly the area where this Congress, and many Congresses before us, and many presidents before this President, after we took the water from the Native Americans, we promised to give it back to them. We promised to build them water storage. And we have told them, trust us, we will deliver. And we have continued, year after year after year, as the new west begins to come in, as some of the more radical environmental groups begin to have more and more influence in this area of the country, we, on a consistent basis, break our commitments to the Native Americans in building their water projects down there. This is hard to conceptualize. None of us in this room have to do this. I would venture to say not one of us, not one of my colleagues in the United States Congress, in fact, I doubt very many people we would run into still have to carry their water to their house. Do my colleagues know of the lands and the waters we took away from the Native Americans? Then we gave them the land and water back. Then we discovered there was gold, so we took some of the land back. Then we discovered how valuable the water was, so we took the water. Even though we did not take the water by treaty, we use the water. There are Native Americans down there on those reservations that still have to haul water to their houses because we have not carried through on our commitment on projects. The Animas-LaPlata specifically. This speech tonight is not about the Animas-LaPlata, but it is a reflection of some of the conflicts the new west brings when we begin to evolve the old west. The west that Horace Greeley spoke about: ``Go west, young man. Go west.'' In conclusion this evening, I want to say to my colleagues that I realize this speech does not excite, like talking about some of the problems down the street; or we could talk about the budget or the appropriations process; or we could talk about the attack on Sudan. I would love to debate with my colleague on the HMO and some of those other issues that are pretty important. But when all of those issues, when all of those clouds clear out and the sun comes up, we can still see the fundamental issue of how the west, that key special part of this country, why it needs attention; and why speeches like this, even though they may be somewhat boring, it cannot get much more boring than to talk about water, unless of course it does not come out of the faucet when we need it, but why comments and attention needs to be paid to the west. The west needs special attention because it is a very unique part of our country. It is a part of our country that will become even more unique in its political power, in its urbanization, in its migration and, in its special way, when my colleagues and their families have an opportunity to go out and enjoy the west.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is an exceptionally bright, very capable gentleman, but I would point out that he says that he cannot think of another Federal employee who has ended their tenure like that. There are 435 sitting on this floor. In 30 days, every Member in this House has to, by affirmative vote, prove to the constituents that he or she has done the kind of job performance that would allow them to continue. We do the same thing. We go out to our judges. What we are saying here, the gentleman can pull out of the air the Christian association or some of these other examples. That is not this. We are saying here, hey, one party, by the way, with three votes could get this guy a job for the rest of his life, or some gal a job for the rest of their lives. We are saying, job performance. If they perform, they keep the job. That is what we have to say. Right now, there is no accountability, in my opinion, from the Federal Election Commission. We are asking for accountability. Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, what I would prefer instead is for the gentleman to go ahead with a speaker, and then I will comment and we can wrap it up with yielding the balance of the time to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, at this point it would be myself and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), and I intend to yield him the last 5 minutes, so it depends on the number of speakers on the other side.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I cannot help but note the gentleman's comments about failure of leadership. I would challenge the gentleman: let him try and get together a body that has 535 different Members from 535 different locations around this country with 535 different philosophies, with thousands and thousands of different projects, whether it is Social Security or highways or military or the Y2K funding, and let him try and pull them all together. It takes some challenge. I think we have leadership out there, the fact that we are here at this point. Of course it tests leadership. The key here is that we always get into this kind of crunch time on an appropriation process. It is just like a family budget. In my family, my wife exercises her leadership pretty toughly, I might add, towards the end of a month when it gets to crunch time, but that is not a failure of leadership, that is a presentation of leadership. The key here is the rule, and that is what we have to come back and focus on. The gentleman from Florida and the chairman of the Committee on Rules said, look, I thought his football example was excellent. We are going to throw I mean a bill that has a lot of good things about it, a lot of merit in it. There are Democrats and Republicans that support this bill. But if we kill this rule, which some people are set on doing this evening, we set those needs and those issues for a lot of those districts and a lot of people in this country back a few steps. It is not necessary. Let us go through this rule, let us pass the rule, and let us have fair debate following the rule, and that is what passing the rule will give us the opportunity to do. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I guess there are a couple of points that I would like to make about the previous speaker. First of all, she very eloquently and correctly supports the rule. That is what is important here. We have lots of time to debate the bill this evening or whenever that debate takes place. Mr. Speaker, there is not a partisan split on this bill, there is support. This bill covers drug use, supporting law enforcement efforts, and so on. The other point I would like to make is that I hope the Democrats that are over there that are giving a lot of weight to these editorials of recent, I also hope they have that same kind of enthusiasm on the other editorials out of these newspapers, a couple hundred of them that have come out in the last couple of weeks on another subject. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, first of all to address the previous comments made up there. I always get enjoyment out of hearing those buzzwords, ``under the cover of night.'' I would concede that the hours are moving quicker now towards darkness, it is dark outside, but I would remind the previous speaker that obviously we are televised throughout the country. There is no secrecy going on there. We have the Committee on Rules, and, obviously, all these newspapers, the three or four that the gentlewoman cited, that have been busy in their editorial pages. This is not something ``sneaking by.'' This is a good rule. I think the gentleman from Florida has a very pertinent point, Mr. Speaker, and that is there are a lot of good things that this bill will fund. This rule is important so that we can get to that; Postal, Treasury, drug interdiction and so on. Mr. Speaker, I yield three minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon), the chairman of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the other gentleman there said this does not have, I forget what kind of word he used, ``diddly-squat'' he says, about term limits, and he spent five minutes talking about how it is term limits. So I am glad that the gentleman has acceded to my point. I would say to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), this is not about term limits or about anything. It is about tenure. And I am saying, by gosh, these guys, I know they look at what we do for elections, but that does not entitle them to a lifetime of employment. When do we have job performance? How do you question what these people are doing? The gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) and I both face our job performance here in about five weeks. By the way, we have to get an affirmative vote in about six weeks for the gentleman and I to be back here in January. And what makes him any different? We are saying you have to be like other employees, just like the working Joe and working Jane out there. You have to come up with some job performance. It does require one Democrat or one Republican, depending on the makeup, to come over and say your job performance is such that you should retain your job. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I cannot let the previous comments go without some call to question about those kind of comments. First of all, let us clarify it for the American public. It is not a term limit. It is a job performance. These people will keep their job if they pass their job performance. The gentleman over here who just previously spoke is up for election every 2 years. Under his term, under his logic, because he has to face election every 2 years, he calls it a term limit. It is not a term limit. It is like what we ought to do a lot more of in this Federal Government, and that is say to our employees, your performance has to be up here. If you do not have job performance, you can lose your job. That is exactly the point we are making here. You can sure tell in my opinion it is an election season when you start throwing ``job performance'' around, calling it a ``term limit,'' and then turning it around and saying ``Gosh, you are trying to get rid of the Federal Election Commission.'' I think we all have an obligation when we stand up here. Let us be accurate with the terms we use. We are not saying term limit. We are saying job performance. Job performance. If you do not perform, you are out. I want to remind the previous speaker that the majority of constituents that he represents face job performance review. If they do not perform their job, they are out. That is what you ought to face. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I see we are off to a energetic evening here with the nice buzz words, ``term limits'' and ``Y2K.'' Of course those are words that the American public understands. But let us clarify exactly what we are talking about here. First of all, we are not imposing term limits. What we are saying is, hey, every 4 years their job performance is going to be reviewed, and if they have 4 votes in the majority that say they are doing a good job, they keep their job. If they do not, they are out of work. Now, the average person that is watching us today, the average person that we represent out there goes through a job performance review. And we are saying, with the Federal Election Commission, they are going to go through a job performance review. Just because they oversee our elections does not mean that they are immune, that they somehow get tenure over there. We are not for granting them tenure. We are saying, do their job and they keep their job. So do not say it is term limits. Now this Y2K problem, Mr. Speaker, come on. In my opinion that is a cheap shot. It is in the emergency funding bill. The Democrats over there know it is coming. They have not exactly scrambled to help us out. It is coming in the emergency funding bill. It is not being ignored, my opinion, by any side of the aisle. It is a significant problem in this country. And for one side of the aisle, the Democrats, to jump up and start parading around that the Republicans are ignoring this is unfair. It is patently unfair for they to make a statement like that. Both of us have a problem. Let us not spend our time attacking each other, saying the other party is not doing anything about it. Let us focus on it. We are putting the money in the emergency funding bill. Be fair with the people here and let them know. Sure, it is not in this rule, but it will be here in two days. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe).

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only. Mr. Speaker, the proposed rule for the conference report to accompany H.R. 4104, the Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations bill for the fiscal year 1999, waives all points of order against the conference report and against its consideration. The rule provides that the conference report will be considered as read. Mr. Speaker, the underlying legislation, which makes the appropriations for the Treasury Department, the Postal Service, the Executive Office of the President, and certain independent agencies for the fiscal year 1999, is very, very important legislation. Nearly 90 percent of the activities funded under this bill are devoted to the salaries and expenses of approximately 163,000 employees who are responsible for administering programs such as drug interdiction, Presidential protection, violent crime reduction, and Federal financial management. I would encourage my colleagues to support the rule as well as the conference report. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 563 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. McINNIS

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Hall), my colleague on the Committee on Rules, his words are well spoken. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered.

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas). (Mr. THOMAS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Horn). (Mr. HORN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Having heard the gentleman from California just speak, I should probably note the first time I met the gentleman from California (Mr. Fazio) was in the locker room of the gym when I was first elected. He came up, introduced himself, and when I told him where I was from, he said, ``Yes, we've done everything we can to beat you, but welcome.'' Ever since then I have only built my respect for you, despite the warm welcome. But, Mr. Speaker, I should add to this that it is interesting, my colleagues on this side of the aisle, the level of respect that they do have for you. I really mean it. Your commitment to that project, to the Native Americans of this country and to the word that this Government gave to the Native Americans and you stood up in that storm and you reminded all of us on both sides of this aisle exactly what that commitment was to the Native Americans. I hope that your words live on, that at some point we can complete that as we promised we would. Certainly your integrity is well-known over here and well-respected. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.