Don Young

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I want to bring forth to the body here that we want to protect the environment, and we also want to protect private property, the basis of our Constitution. The gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] had a zero, a zero rating for private property. He does not believe in private property. The gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] did a little better. He had 7 percent. He slipped up; I do not know what happened. I think the gentleman from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed], he has not spoken as yet, he also got a zero. What we are saying is private property and the environment, together we can prevail. We ignore private property, we destroy the Constitution.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, we only get figleaves from fruit trees. Now that we have got in this debate seriously, and I have listened to the people on the other side of the aisle talk about the environment, let us talk about Congressmen that want total central control. Let us talk about Congressmen that want power in mighty Washington's hands. Let us talk about Congressmen who vote for socialized Government. Let us talk about Congressmen that, in reality, do not believe that private property rights, owners have any rights at all. Let us talk about Congressmen that decide what is the environmental agenda as being touted by the 57 environmental organizations when they are rated 100 percent by the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth, et cetera. Let us talk about the Congressmen that do not care about jobs, about people that want to work. Let us talk about Congressmen that believe a kangaroo rat is more important than a man's livelihood or the homes that were burnt down because a person could not farm that land, and after they could not farm the land the rats left because there was nothing to eat. Let us talk about a Government that does not listen to the people any more and the Congressmen that support that type of Government. Congressmen have believed, in reality, that there is no freedom of individuals that is good for the masses, control from Washington, DC. And this is what this talk about the environment is all about. On my side of the aisle, I have said the environment must include man. We cannot exclude man or eventually man will destroy the environment. But on that side of the aisle, we cannot touch anything or that person is against the environment. One cannot build a house, one cannot drill for oil, one cannot take and build a dam. One, in fact, cannot catch a fish, let alone do anything else, because they are destroying the environment. It is part of the zealism of that side of the aisle by certain leaders that believe that man is the enemy and he is not to be included. And that is what the two gentlemen from California and New Jersey are talking about, centralized government power over the individual person. If I own a piece of property and it is mine, and I have an endangered species there and it is there because I have taken care of it, I can be punished because of these two gentlemen. I should be rewarded because I protect the species. But under this administration and past administrations, the agencies themselves have come in and told me: ``You are a sinner because you have the species on your property; thus, you no longer can do anything with your property. You, in fact, ought to be punished.'' That is the philosophy of these two gentlemen. Today the House is considering H.R. 1965, the Coastal Zone Protection Act of 1996. This bill was introduced by Jim Saxton, and he deserves a great deal of credit for his efforts on behalf of this program. Enacted in 1972, the CZMA encourages States to regulate land and water uses which affect their coastal zones. The program is voluntary, but States receive grant money to develop a plan which, when approved by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA], makes the States eligible for more Federal assistance to help manage their coastal program. In addition, States can review and, in some cases, veto certain Federal activities which affect their coastal zones and which are inconsistent with their approved programs. Twenty-nine States and territories have approved coastal zone programs. In fact, to use my home State as an example, the Alaska Coastal Management Program coordinates the permitting process between Alaska's 33 coastal districts and local, State and Federal agencies. This coordination assures that localities have the opportunity to have their views on Federal activities fully considered, and reduces the time and cost of permit approvals. The coastal zone program has also funded development of comprehensive wetlands management plans in Juneau and Anchorage. These plans emphasize local decisionmaking and reduce the regulatory burden for low value wetlands. The bill before us today re-auathorizes the Coastal Zone Management Act through fiscal year 1999. It provides the States with more flexibility in program management, and it sets fiscally responsible authorization levels. I urge you to support this bill.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I came to the floor because I have been listening to the tirade. Very frankly, I was questioning the validity of some of the arguments. We are talking about a very good bill here on this side of the aisle. All I hear Members say on the other side is that for some reason Republicans are going to sell the national parks. That is an outright distortion. That is an outright distortion that is being said by Secretary Babbitt. In fact, it is being said by that side of the aisle. I just wanted the people that might be watching this show to say, and show me anyplace, anytime anywhere we ever suggested such an action on this side. The bill, in fact, Mr. Babbitt says that we are trying to pass to sell the park was his bill. It was supported by the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Vento]. It was voted on by Mr. Miller. It was voted on that side of the aisle last session when they were in power. Now all of a sudden we are the bad guys. Now, shame on you. I am going to suggest respectfully what is occurring here is a gamut for this television for people that watch it to tell some things that have been distorted completely out of context and where they do not take the responsibility. I have listened to the gentleman from New Jersey be on the floor one time. One time I was sitting in the chair. I had to listen to the nonsense that he spouts, and it is nonsense about how bad we are. And I challenged him, show us where. What have we done in our committee that has been bad? Nothing. We have done everything good, 13 bills have been signed out of the committee by this President. Some of those he did not vote for, but the President did sign them. So I think it is time we bring a little light to this subject here, a little back to what we are talking about, this bill today, this small battery bill to try to dispose of something that could be damaging, a bill that came out of Mr. Oxley's committee that is noncontroversial. To have this kind of rhetoric continued on and on is totally, I think, irresponsible.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. My understanding is, it was valued close to a million dollars for her retirement and now is worth $30,000, if that, and, in fact, if it can be used at all. Again, it is my understanding, if I am not correct, you may answer this, that they had not found the golden-cheeked warbler but it was possibly the habitat for the golden- cheeked warbler; thus they declared it an endangered area for the species; is that correct?

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. No scientist, and on top of that, the Fish and Wildlife, I have to give them some credit, says there is no way that the archipelago wolf would ever be there. But Mr. Speaker, the Forest Service said we have to follow through with the studies. Consequently, the impact upon people in that community has been devastating. We have lost employment, we have put people on welfare, and still, there is no wolf and there never was a wolf and there never will be a wolf in that area, but because two people out of New Mexico filed a petition, that is why this act must be reformed.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. You cannot do it. You cannot even develop a wetland for species that would reside in a wetland. You cannot do it.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I want people to remember and visualize the lady, the widow in Texas. She purchased the land in 1973, basically as retirement, if I am not mistaken.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments. I hope the people watching and listening to this back in their offices understand that the gentleman from California and myself and the gentleman from Utah have tried to work out a solution to a very serious problem. When we passed this act, the regulatory law had come into effect. It is the regulatory law and the courts by extremist groups that have misinterpreted the law. We are trying to right this law so no longer can that occur, and keep our species and also recognize the importance of man and his right to participate on private property.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Madam Speaker, I take this time to bring to the attention of the floor, my colleagues, and those that might have the opportunity to hear what I have to say why the Endangered Species Act should be improved. That is the subject of this hour of debate. I will be joined by other Members that were directly involved in trying to improve the Endangered Species Act. Madam Speaker, I came to this House as a Representative in 1973. Later that same year, I voted, one of the few remaining individuals that voted for the Endangered Species Act of 1973. There were only two hearings on the bill. There was no objection in the committee, and it very nearly passed unanimously on the floor. Those of us who voted for it never dreamed that some day it would be used by this Federal Government, the Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, supposedly, to control vast amounts of privately owned land, that it would be used by extremists to throw thousands of families on to the welfare roll. The Government has said they want to improve the lot of the people, allowing this bill to be misused. And, Madam Speaker, that is what has happened to the Endangered Species Act. It is a tragedy. It is a law with good intentions, a good goal, but it has been taken to the extremes that the American people no longer support thus endangering the species and why we must improve the act. This law has resulted in some people losing the right to use their land, their land, not your land, not the Federal Government's, but their land, because an agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, has ordered them to use their land as a wildlife refuge. These landowners have not been compensated in any way, shape, or form, as our Bill of Rights requires. They still must pay their taxes on this federally controlled land and are singled out unfairly to bear the burden of paying for, supposedly, the public benefit. This has hurt not only the private landholder, the basis of our society, but it has also hurt the wildlife that depend on that land. Because of the way that these Washington bureaucrats, primarily in the Fish and Wildlife agencies, have treated landowners, and particularly farmers, wildlife is no longer considered an asset by the landowners. Now the presence of wildlife is feared. A lucky few of these landowners have been able to file suit or fight the bureaucrats and extremists in court, a lucky few, those that have extremely great amounts of wealth. However, there are many people who have not been so lucky and have had to suffer the loss of their property or their livelihoods in silence without the tens of thousands of dollars needed to defend their rights in court. Since I became chairman of the Committee on Resources, I have tried to ensure full and fair public debate on how to protect our endangered species and our threatened species while protecting the private property owner. Our committee held seven field hearings and five Washington, DC, hearings on this issue, the Endangered Species Act, and the revision of said act. We heard over 160 witnesses. Over 5,000 people attended and participated in these hearings. Through our hearings all over the country, we gave the American people an opportunity to help us write our recommendations for repairing the Endangered Species Act. What we learned from these hearings is that American people love wildlife and have a true appreciation for our natural resources. However, the American people also love and cherish our Constitution, our way of life, and our freedom. The American people want a law that protects both wildlife and people. They want a law that is reasonable and balanced. They want a law that uses good science to list the species. Right now, today, all it takes is someone to file a petition saying they think, in fact, it is endangered, and then the Fish and Wildlife or Forest Service, Park Service, whoever it may be, will have to make a massive study even though that species may never reside there. That is how this act has been misused. The American people are willing to make sacrifices if those sacrifices make sense and accomplish the goal of protecting truly endangered or threatened species. However, the current law on species, subspecies, and small regional subspecies, is based only on the best currently available science. That means, even though a species or subspecies may be thriving and abundant in various areas around the Nation, one small geographic population can be listed and can be used to stop the property owners from using their land in that area. This is not America. The number of frivolous lawsuits that have been filed under the ESA have exploded. These lawsuits result in friendly settlements between the Government and extremist groups. Then the Government can use the excuse of court orders to shut down entire industries, put thousands of people out of work, and deprive landowners of their rights. Lawyers are making millions of dollars, paid for by the taxpayers, by filing these suits, since the ESA requires judges to pay lawyers from the Federal Treasury. The result is entire communities are devastated while environmental groups get richer. Who is filing these suits? Only environmentalists are allowed to file these suits in most of the country. If a private citizen may be harmed economically and wants to file a suit to protect their own land or job, the courts have closed the door in their faces. The ESA has been identified recently by a government commission as the worst unfunded mandate on States and local governments. The Fish and Wildlife Service and the courts are imposing exorbitant costs on species protection and on small local towns and districts which they cannot afford. These small towns either pass on these costs to their taxpayers and property owners or reduce important public safety, health, and educational services. There are other serious problems with the way the Federal Government is using the law. Now, do I, do we, does the committee support gutting or repealing the Endangered Species Act? Absolutely not. Contrary to what you may read in the paper or is being reported by this administration, we do not believe in eliminating or gutting ESA. But the American people are not going to continue to support and pay for our efforts to protect their wildlife unless we make the ESA work for the people and the wildlife. We need to make necessary repairs in a law that has become broken. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars in this country for the protection of our great natural resources. Our good Secretary of Interior, Bruce Babbitt, has a $6 billion budget, a $6 billion budget, to protect our natural resources, but he says that is not enough. He wants more land under Government control, more money under Government control, and more power. Let us not forget that word, power. We want to keep a good Endangered Species Act that truly protects our wildlife and our people, but we want to give more to do these good things back to the people who can do it best, the American public. I trust the American people to be good stewards. They have in the past and will be in the future. When Federal action is needed to protect our wildlife that migrates across State lines, to protect our parks and refuges, to protect our waters and the air we breathe, we will continue to fund the millions to do the job, but we want to do it right. Mr. Speaker, I take this time today because we need to make the Endangered Species Act work. We can only do that if we take up this important law and repair the damage that has been done. Mr. Speaker, may I say, before I yield time to my colleagues, there is a case in California where a gentleman in fact is taking care of a small acreage of land and protects all species around it because he wanted to do so. Now he is under threat by the Fish and Wildlife Service saying because there are certain species on the small acreage of land, that he can no longer till the land around it. In fact, he is prohibited from making a living, without compensation. They would be taking his livelihood away. Why do you think those species are there? It is because he has protected them. He has provided them shelter. He has provided them with food and the love that takes to maintain the species. But along comes this Government and says, ``Now, we know what is best. You must not disturb their habitat.'' He was the one who protected the habitat. He is being told by this Government that no longer has the sensibility to get out of the rain, that they know what is best for species. And he has a very serious choice to make: Is he in fact going to continue to protect those species, as he has done in the past, or will he retain his livelihood and eliminate that species? He does not want to do that. It is time we review this act and improve this act, to make it work for the people of America, and for the species. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Utah, Mr. [Hansen].

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his support and information. He brings up a very valid point. If we had listened to the localities, the States, and the communities, we could have solved the problem on the river. I would suggest another thing, though, as long as the gentleman brought it up, because I brought it up myself about importing the Canadian wolves down to reintroduce wolves. I have also suggested we can rebuild the Columbia River fishery by the enhancement with Alaskan stock. The answer I get from NMFS and the Fish and Wildlife: ``We cannot do it because they are not indigenous to the area. They are not part of the stream.'' To them I say, ``I thought you wanted to bring the fish back. We can help you do that.'' They say, ``We cannot do it.'' But it is all right for them to bring the wolves down, against everybody's wishes and beliefs, and they are Canadians; because our fish come from Alaska, a State of the United States, they are saying, ``They are not part of the system.'' It is the mindset that we are dealing with today that is not working. Under our bill, we will bring the people in and it will be part of the State, part of the community, and we will solve the problems and bring the species back. I am very excited about that concept, and I hope those that might be listening to this program will think about what we are trying to do, not gut it, not repeal it, but to improve upon it. That is what our bill does. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Washington, ``Doc'' Hastings.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. But they can. The Government can introduce a species, they can go to Canada and get a foreign wolf and bring it down, but you yourself cannot do it on your own property.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. I yield to the gentleman from Utah.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. And the value of that land prior to the golden- cheeked warbler supposedly was, it was valued to--do you have the value of that land?

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman says 3,000 are going to be bugs. Let us stress that, bugs, things that you squish if they get on you. You mean to tell me, if they decided that the red tick, the Mississippian tick that is awfully prevalent in the woods, and some places it is not because they are eradicated; if they decided that tick was--by the way, the tick carries diseases--was an endangered species, and I happened to get one of those ticks on my body as I was walking through the woods enjoying this beautiful flora and fauna, and that tick was on my body, I could not destroy it because of endangered species?

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. They were not French speaking, saying this is perfectly all right. This is our Fish and Wildlife in a position of making absolutely outrageous decisions under this act, and that is where we have to----

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Or on vacation. How he got all the way to Florida, I do not know. Remember now the farmers wanted to keep the puma. This is a Florida puma, in their minds. But Fish and Wildlife said in their minds, and in fact made an edict; they got him in a cage now, said that he is not indigenous to the area, he is a western mountain lion, or a puma, and thus they are going to transfer him via air to New Mexico because he does not belong and because they decided he did not belong there. Now keep in mind, if I am sure how ridiculous this is under the Endangered Species Act, and in the meantime this same thing, Mr. Babbitt and the Fish and Wildlife Department saying in fact the wolves are endangered in Yellowstone Park, and in Idaho and Utah. And they go to Canada, get a foreign wolf, and tranquilize those foreign wolves, and, by the way, they killed five of them in doing so at a cost of $7 million and transferred foreign wolves down into the United States, which are not the same DNA.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Can I bring an example up that I ran into recently in the State of Florida down around Gainsville? There was a sighting of a puma, or a mountain lion or a puma, whatever you like to call it, by farmers, and they made up their mind they were going to protect this puma if, in fact, it was. The Fish and Wildlife from the Federal Government said there is no such thing in Florida and this area. Well, they found tracks, they being the farmers, saying, all right, we know it is here. They took costs of the tracks. They named him Toby, by the way. They cast the track, took it to the Fish and Game Department, our Government in action, and they had to say, lo and behold, there is a puma. So they set out, and they finally zapped him with a tranquilizing gun, and then did a DNA on the puma and decided the puma was a western puma from New Mexico. Now how he got-- unless they are doing the Amtrak or a 747 plane.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman was speaking about his bear and the cooperative effort. This is the one thing, I know, in 1973, when we voted for this act, we thought we were doing, but for some reason we have lost track of the agency, that they have decided without looking at Federal lands, which we have 835 million acres of, we find out with the species residing in those areas they do not do that unless it is multiple-use land. They will come after the individual and say, you must do this. We lose this cooperation, we lose this partnership. Mr. Speaker, I have said all along that we must be partners in this law in order to protect the species. You cannot expect the Government to protect the species by itself. The partners who should be part of it will in fact extinguish the species because they have no other choice.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin] newly acquired great Member of this side.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of my special order?

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. Mr. Speaker, this brings up another point in the gentleman's presentation. Would you say that this is Government land management, Government land control, Government telling States and individuals what they have to do because the Federal Government says that is what you have to do?

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. It is also the fact, I think, if I am correctly informed, that they have found golden-cheeked warbler in many other different areas but because of the so-called habitat is the reason they classified it, but they never looked at the other areas to find out if there was an abundance of them there or whether in fact they could be helped in another area. They have taken this widow, this 70-year-old widow, invested the money in 1973, and taken her retirement away from her. I say that for those that are interested in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This is your Government in action, with no science, only an agency's idea of how the act should be implemented. That is why I thank the gentleman for supporting my efforts to improve the act so that the American people can regain their faith in this Government and also protect the species. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. YOUNG of Alaska. They say it is a great success. In reality, there have been no species protected. They claim the eagle. The eagle was very viable in my State. The eagle's problem was DDT. It was not the Endangered Species Act. Once we stopped using DDT, we have eagles now in the majority of the United States today, and we have an abundance of them in Alaska, so it was not the act; but they keep waving it because it was the American bird. They keep saying, ``This is what we did with this act.''