[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 134 (Wednesday, September 7, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H5153-H5159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1815
FEDERAL LANDS POLICY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, our Natural Resources Committee--and great
work from the Natural Resources Committee's staff--has been trying to
get a handle on just how much land the United States--the Federal
Government--has taken over.
West of the Mississippi, it is absolutely extraordinary. Now, we have
heard in recent months and over the last few years of incidents in
which landowners, according to the media, just went off and did
something crazy, overreacted--maybe had a gun--but it bears looking
into what the Federal Government has been doing to the landowners, to
the local governments, to the State governments in the Western United
States. Our committee has been able to pull together maps that show
just how much Federal Government property we have.
On this, we have the Bureau of Indian Affairs showing in these
burgundy, or maroon, areas. These are areas in the West that the Bureau
of Indian Affairs is in charge of.
When we look at the next map here, added to that of the Bureau of
Indian Affairs, we have the Bureau of Land Management. Those are these
areas here, the pale color, the soft orange. It is 247.3 million acres.
That would be larger than Arizona, plus Iowa, plus Colorado, plus
Nevada all put together that is owned by the Bureau of Land
Management--those are all of these kind of light orange areas--all the
way up here, into Montana. It is just extraordinary, when you look at
Nevada, how much land the State of Nevada and the citizens of Nevada
control and how much the Bureau of Land Management controls. Absolutely
extraordinary. We run into the same thing here just north of California
and getting into Oregon and over into Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming. It is
just incredible.
Then the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service gets some of their land in
here. Then you also have the United States Forest Service. Those are
these green areas. They have got a lot of California, a lot of Oregon,
Washington, Idaho. You have got Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, right on
down. You have got even Arizona and New Mexico. Extraordinary. That is
this light green area. Then you have the national parks.
Oh, by the way, the Forest Service has 197.1 million acres. Twice the
size of Montana is what the U.S. Forest Service has. The U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service has 89.1 million acres. That is larger than Utah and
North Carolina put together. The national parks have 84 million acres.
That is larger than New Mexico and New Hampshire put together. Then
there are other agencies. We add on the Department of Energy, the
Department of Transportation, the TVA, the Bureau of Reclamation--
extraordinary.
When you look at how much land is white--meaning that belongs to
State, local, or private owners--and how much is owned by the Federal
Government, you begin to think, perhaps, the Soviet Union didn't
disappear and that the Soviet Union is now in the Western United States
when a government controls that much of what used to be private
property, much of it.
We look at the next map, and we are adding on another overlay. With
this one, we have the endangered species' critical habitat. That is for
704 species of plants and animals. I know, in my district, we have two
plants that grow wild, and they are all over the place. They were
notified that they are now listed as threatened, and my local
governments are already suffering because of the Federal land, the
national forests. They get no tax money. They are not getting revenue.
The Federal Government is not producing the renewable resource of
timber off of them anymore. Then they get notified that they have got a
couple of threatened plants with critical habitats there.
The local government was saying: Wait a minute. These things are
everywhere. These plants are all over the place. Look, we have got
pictures. They are all over the place. You can find them anywhere.
What does the Federal Government say?
Yes, but we have a scientific study that says they are threatened. We
don't care if you have got pictures that show they are everywhere. That
is not scientific, because we had somebody in a cubicle in a little
office, who never went to those areas, and he says they are threatened,
so we are going to say they are threatened. You people who live in that
area and who took pictures of them everywhere must not know what you
are talking about.
Wilderness areas, we have got 765 wilderness areas on Federal land.
That is 109 million acres in 44 States. Then we have the Clean Air Act
and Class I areas also added in here.
Then, on our last map here, we have added on the wetlands--110.1
million acres are subject to section 404 regulations of the Clean Water
Act--and marine protected areas. There are 13 marine sanctuary areas in
more than 170,000 square miles of waters. Then you have got the Outer
Continental Shelf at 1.712 billion acres.
We will add this additional map. We have added Wild and Scenic
Rivers. There are 12,709 miles of 208 rivers--amazing--that are managed
by BLM, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service,
and the Forest Service. Then we have 49 heritage areas in 32 States. It
is absolutely extraordinary. When you look at all of the overlays of
federally owned controlled land, there is just not much left there.
Now, I love the idea that our chairman, Rob Bishop, had for a bill.
How about if we don't allow the Federal Government to get any more
land--to take over any more land--west of the Mississippi until 10
percent of all of the land east of Mississippi is owned by the Federal
Government? That might slow things down with the people who are east of
the Mississippi starting to have to lose their private property as the
Federal Government takes up more and more.
I am pleased to be joined by the gentleman from California. He knows
California as well as anybody in the country, certainly better,
probably, than the current Governor. I yield to the gentleman from
California (Mr. McClintock).
Mr. McCLINTOCK. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
particularly want to thank Congressman Gohmert for organizing this
discussion on Federal lands policy and for his highlighting of the
Federal Footprint Map.
You can find that at naturalresources.house.gov/federalfootprint or
just Google ``Federal Footprint.'' When you do, you will have a
complete picture of how much land the Federal Government owns and how
much of your State and your community is affected. It may surprise you.
For example, the Federal Government owns just seven-tenths of 1
percent of the entire State of New York. It owns just 1.1 percent of
the State of Illinois. It owns just 1.8 percent of the State of Texas;
but then go further west, and you will see the reason for the Western
revolt. The Federal Government owns and controls 62 percent of the
State of Alaska. It owns and
[[Page H5154]]
controls two-thirds of the State of Utah and 81 percent of the State of
Nevada. In my home State of California, the Federal Government owns
nearly half; 48 percent is Federal land. In one county in my district,
Alpine County, the Federal Government owns 93 percent of the land.
If you are not from one of the Western States, you need to understand
what that means. That is all land that is completely off the local tax
rolls. That is land that carries increasingly severe restrictions on
public use and access, which means it is generating very little
economic activity to these regions; and, often, Federal ownership means
that Federal land use policies are in direct contravention to the
wishes of the local communities that are entangled with it.
Recently, the Natural Resources Committee held a field hearing in
north Las Vegas at the request of Congressman Cresent Hardy. Now, if
you have ever flown into Las Vegas, you know how vast are the empty and
unutilized lands of Nevada, stretching as far as the horizon. Yet the
local leaders there all complained of how the region's economy suffers
from a great shortage of land--land for homes and shops, for businesses
and infrastructure. What an irony and what a commentary about the harm
that is being done by the decisions of our Federal land managers.
More than a century ago, we began setting aside the most beautiful
lands in the Nation for the ``use, resort, and recreation'' of the
American people. That was the wording of the original Yosemite Land
Grant that was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1864; but somewhere along
the way, public ``use, resort, and recreation'' became ``look, but
don't touch,'' and the Federal Government became indiscriminate and
voracious in the amount of land under its direct control.
As I said, my congressional district is in the heart of the Sierra
Nevada. Common complaints from my constituents and from local
government officials range from abusive Federal regulatory enforcement
to inflated fees that have forced families to abandon cabins they have
held for generations, exorbitant new fees that are closing down long-
established community events, road closures, and the arbitrary denial
of grazing permits for family ranchers who go back generations on that
land. A small town in my district that is trying to install a $2
million spillway gate for their reservoir was just given a $6 million
estimate from the Forest Service just to relocate a hiking trail and a
handful of campsites.
Let me relate one quick story of what it means to be entangled in
this Federal morass that came to me from the sheriff of Plumas County,
which is just outside of my district.
An elderly couple goes horseback riding near their home. They come
across an old horseshoe. The wife picks it up, and an ambitious, young
Forest Service official saw her pick it up. The next thing they knew,
six armed Federal law enforcement officers descended upon their home.
They tore it apart and, ultimately, prosecuted this elderly couple for
removing the horseshoe, charging them criminally with stealing from the
Federal Government. Ultimately, the Federal judge dismissed the charges
and chastised the officials who were responsible for this travesty, but
only after this couple had gone through hell.
Ask yourself how your local economy would fare if the Federal
Government owned 93 percent of the land in your county, forbade or
greatly restricted any economic activity on it, and ignored the pleas
of your local city council or county board.
{time} 1830
In my district, the Federal Government consigned our forests to a
policy of benign neglect. We now have, roughly, four times more trees
per acre than the land can support. In this overcrowded and stressed
condition, the trees can no longer resist the drought and beetle
infestation. Today, an estimated 85 percent of the pine trees in the
Sierra National Forest--that is adjacent to Yosemite National Park--are
dead. And I am talking about Christmas-tree-in-July dead just waiting
to be consumed by catastrophic fire.
The National Park Service estimates it is facing more than $12
billion of maintenance backlog, yet we keep adding to the Federal
holdings that we can't take care of now. That is why the Federal
footprint map is so important to understand and why fundamental reform
of our land use policy is of paramount importance.
Now, the Federal Lands Subcommittee has three principal goals: to
restore public access to the public lands, to restore sound management
to the public lands, and to restore the Federal Government as a good
neighbor to those communities most impacted by the Federal lands. But
overarching all of these imperatives is the simple fact that excessive
Federal land ownership in the West has become a stultifying drag on our
economies and a direct impediment to our ability to take good care of
our public lands.
I thought Congressman Gohmert put it best in a subcommittee hearing
we held almost 2 years ago now when he compared the Federal
Government's land use policies to the old miser whose great mansion has
become the town eyesore--overgrown with weeds, paint peeling, roof
dilapidated, broken windows--while the old miser spends all of his time
and money plotting how he can buy his neighbor's land.
There needs to be a proper balance between Federal ownership, State
and local stewardship, and the productive private ownership of the
lands. One look at the Federal footprint map should warn even the most
casual observers that we have lost that balance and that we need to
restore it.
I, again, thank the gentleman from Texas for organizing this time
today and for yielding time.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr.
McClintock) so much for his in-depth observations.
I yield to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce), who knows a
great deal about this situation.
Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas. Again, I
appreciate the comments of the gentleman from California.
I am sure most of you have seen this chart, but the color red
designates the Federal ownership of land. So you can see some of the
statistics that were quoted by the gentleman from California that, in
the Eastern part of the U.S.--and it begins at New Mexico, Colorado,
Wyoming, and Montana--is where the great mass of Federal lands come
into play. You might ask why?
These are the States that came in after Teddy Roosevelt was
President. So in the early 1900s, he began the policy of holding many
of the lands that were supposed to be given back to the States. He
wanted the large national parks that we were many times enamored with,
the large national forests. But they go beyond that. And that going
beyond, that holding of land that has productive use but will not be
used productively by the government, is the great source of economic
problems in the West.
Now, in New Mexico, which is the State here, we have many national
forests in the areas covered with red. At one point, New Mexico had 123
mills that were processing timber that were cut out of our national
forests. So 20 or 30 years ago, the Fish and Wildlife Service said that
we have to protect the spotted owl and logging is the problem. They
killed 85 percent of the timber industry nationwide. They killed those
jobs nationwide.
In New Mexico, of the 123 mills that we had processing timber at one
point, we have closed 122 of them. So imagine these rural communities
up in the mountains of a sparsely populated State, they have no
economic basis now that the Forest Service has shut these mills down.
By the way, about 3 years ago, they came out with a finding that
logging was never the problem.
So economic devastation occurred in the areas where the national
forest had stopped all logging for a lie that had come from the Fish
and Wildlife Service. So people in the West are understandably
irritated, they are angry, and they are mad because their way of life
has disappeared in these logging communities. But it goes much further
beyond that.
A couple of years ago, the Forest Service took a look at the grazing
allotments in one of the forests and said: ``Oh, we have got to
eliminate you 17 ranchers.''
We asked later if they would show us the science which said they have
to get
[[Page H5155]]
the people off. They showed me a picture of an orange, 5-gallon can
turned upside-down in the forest and said: ``Look, the grass height is
not high enough.''
I began to ridicule their orange-bucket science in public. It
embarrassed them tremendously. Meanwhile, we asked the scientists at
New Mexico State University to come and study the grazing and the
height of the grass, and they said it is probably at historic heights.
So we got involved in the issue. All the ranchers were eventually
reinstated into their allotments, but these are private property
rights. The allotments are things that have been purchased and
sometimes passed along from generation to generation.
Those private property rights, constitutional rights, were removed
with no reason, with no understanding of what they are doing from a
Forest Service that was arrogant with its power.
Again, you see the effect on our economy. New Mexico is one of the
lowest economies in the U.S.'s 50 States. So to find the U.S.
Government at odds with the jobs in the State in this rural area just
does not make sense to most people. So you find this budding anger
across the entire West because the same policies affect everyone out
there.
Right now, we have a situation where one family has been fighting the
U.S. Forest Service for their water rights. The court said the water
rights belong to them. The Forest Service responded by putting a fence
around the 23 acres. And they said: ``Well, it may be his water, but it
is our 23 acres surrounding the water.''
The rancher went back to the courts. The courts said, over a period
of time, he does not have a right to walk his cows on their 23 acres,
but he does have the right to move the water from the 23 acres to his
cows. The Forest Service responded by electrifying the fence.
Now, our office has been engaged for 12 years trying to get some
reasonable understandings between the rancher and the Forest Service,
but it, again, is this arrogance that is willing to drive one of the
largest ranchers in that area out of business over something that is,
to most people, not understandable.
We continue to analyze the effect, again, of these big red areas in
our States. And at the end of the day, the most pressure is put on the
Western schools. Now, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) has done a
magnificent study showing that the schools in these States are 20
percent below in funding all of the States in the rest of the country.
So at the end of the day, the problem beyond the tax base, the
problem beyond the jobs, the problem is in our schools that are starved
for resources because we have no tax base on which to fund the schools
and which to fund the local governments. So as you look at these
footprints of the Federal Government ownership in the West, understand
the trauma that it brings to us in our schools, in our jobs, and in our
way of life.
It is time for the U.S. Government to change its policies. It is time
for the U.S. Government to begin to deal with the fact that people need
to raise families in rural States, they need the access to good
schools, and we need to be able to access the land which they are
currently curtailing at an amazing rate. So that is the perspective
from New Mexico on the ownership of Federal lands.
Again, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) for his
leadership on this issue. I thank him for the time that he has yielded
to us on this particular subject matter. I would, again, state that we
can do better and we must do better.
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr.
Pearce).
So often we hear from people here on this floor from the other side
of the aisle talking about how much they care about the children, for
the children, for the children. And I know, in my district, we have
counties that have national forests. There is no tax base, as Mr.
Pearce points out.
You can't tax it when they are not producing the renewable resource
of timber. These aren't sequoias. These are not redwoods. These are
just pine trees that grow back every 15 or 20 years or so. And the
schools are hurting, the local governments are hurting, but the
children suffer because of the Federal Government's usurping the land,
failing to utilize it, and leaving people high and dry.
We had a hearing. I learned a lot, and I was pleased that my friend,
Mr. Hardy, had requested the hearing because I learned a lot.
I yield to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Hardy).
Mr. HARDY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from the great State of
Texas for yielding me the time.
Nowhere are the challenges of the Federal land mismanagement more
evident than in Nevada, where more than 85 percent of our State is
controlled by the Federal Government. Land management is an issue that
affects all Nevadans, both urban and rural. That is why I was proud to
have the opportunity to hold a Natural Resources Committee field
hearing in my district examining the unique challenges facing southern
Nevada communities.
At the hearing, we heard from local agencies, a nonprofit
organization, a university professor, a private sector trade
association, and the Federal Government. By bringing all of these
different stakeholders to the table at once, one thing became
abundantly clear: the status quo Federal land management isn't working,
and we need to do something about it. If we fail to act, we will not
only harm the quality of life for our constituents, but we will also be
endangering the public safety.
I would like to highlight a few examples that were raised at this
field hearing and expose the stark reality.
First, we had a chief engineer for the Clark County Regional Flood
Control District testify that erroneous BLM requirements prevent the
county officials from removing excess sediment and debris from
detention basins after desert flash floods. It is amazing that you
would have to ask the Federal Government to return to clean out debris
where you have already done EISes and NEPA reports; that you can't go
remove it before the next flood comes.
Anybody that knows the desert southwest knows that we don't get much
rain, but when we get it, we get it all at once. In our area, we can
have 3\1/2\ inches of annual rainfall, but it can all come in a couple
of floods. And if we don't get those detention basins cleaned, we have
the stark reality of shirking the responsibility of local governments
and the county governments by protecting for the life, safety, and
health of the citizens that are the taxpayers.
He also stated that these aggressively lengthy and convoluted Federal
processes poses a significant public safety issue in the event of
future floods.
Next we heard from a board member of the Opportunity Village, a
community organization that serves thousands of people with
intellectual disabilities. She emphasized the need of making affordable
land available for important public purposes, including those carried
out by qualified nonprofit organizations. According to her testimony,
the fundraising dollars of charitable community organizations would be
better off spent applied directly to their mission and the people they
serve instead of going into the coffers of the Federal bureaucracy.
Unfortunately, these charities are forced to expend their limited
dollars to acquire the land from the Federal Government.
So you see that the current Federal land management is preventing
communities like ours in southern Nevada from carrying out some of
their most important responsibilities, like public safety and helping
individuals with disabilities.
Those of us on the committee, including my colleague from Texas,
firmly believe that there is a better way forward to protect our public
lands and natural heritage while allowing the communities to thrive. If
we want to grow and diversify our economy to support a growing and
diverse population in Nevada, we cannot afford to stand still. As
Nevada continues to change, so, too, must our land management.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for leading this
important conversation on the Federal footprint out West.
{time} 1845
Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Nevada. It was
quite a learning experience, and it was
[[Page H5156]]
amazing to hear testimony about the Federal Government not only not
being helpful when ditches needed to be cleaned out to prevent massive
flooding problems, but actually being a bigger problem than the floods
themselves.
At this time, I yield to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Lummis),
my dear friend, who is going to be severely missed come next year.
Mrs. LUMMIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas. Texas is
a State that has very little Federal land. And the fact that he took
the reins as subcommittee chairman for the Committee on Natural
Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and has taken such an active
interest in this issue is something for which those of us from the
public lands States in the West are very grateful. Thank you very much,
Mr. Gohmert.
Now, what does this mean on the ground? What we have told you tonight
is roughly 640 million acres of this country, or about 30 percent--1 in
3 acres in this country--are owned by the Federal Government. So we
have gotten that far.
We have also told you that there are a variety of Federal agencies
that own this land. The biggest one is the Bureau of Land Management,
BLM, which is under the umbrella of the Department of the Interior. The
BLM manages about 250 million acres, and 99.9 percent of that BLM land
is in the 11 Western States and Alaska.
So this is an agency that really doesn't deal with 38 of the States.
It only deals with 12. But those States are so dramatically affected by
this agency, if you combine those 250 million acres, roughly, that BLM
manages, that is like the States of Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and Iowa
combined. It is a huge geographic area.
It is not taxed. It is off the property tax rolls. So that is why our
schools and other public services in our 11 Western States and Alaska
are so impacted by the presence of BLM land. We are given payments in
lieu of taxes, but they are not the equivalent of getting taxes, and
they are certainly not something that we can count on every year. Some
years Congress gives PILT money and some years it does not, so it is
not a reliable source of revenue for these States. Yet they are
tremendously impacted by these lands.
The science has changed so much, but our statutory scheme in managing
these lands has not caught up to the better science that we have today.
For example, let's look at this picture. I hope you can see it from
where you are sitting. Some of the brownish areas are land that has not
been logged. The trees are clogged close together. They have small
diameters. They are competing for moisture, for root space, for the
nutrients in the soil. Because they are so crowded together, they
become less healthy. Bark beetles and other forest killers are killing
them out. So what you are seeing here in the crammed areas is unhealthy
forests that have not been logged.
Now, what you are seeing in these green, beautiful areas has been
logged. So what has happened there? There has been selective logging.
It has been done with the natural contours of the landscape. It has
been done in the high ground, so you can keep some high mountain
meadows that help keep snow and a source of grass growing below the
tree canopy for wildlife, hopefully keeping them in the high country
longer in the year. Furthermore, those trees can breathe; they are
better resistant to disease; they are healthier and better resistant to
fires.
One of the big consequences of having overcrowded, unhealthy,
unlogged forests is these massive wildfires that we have been having
these last few years. That is bad public policy that was probably
generated by people who were well intentioned, who thought that we were
overlogging, so their viewpoint was to quit logging, when, in fact,
that made matters worse. Instead of quitting logging, we should have
been more selective and more careful using silviculture techniques and
horticulture techniques that have been proven in the 21st century.
Let's look at grazing, which is a more common use of BLM land. What
we have found--and I strongly encourage you to go listen to this TED
Talk. If you have ever listened to a TED Talk, this is one of the best
ones I have ever heard by a man named Allan Savory. So get on TED
Talks, go to Allan Savory, and you will finally understand what I have
been saying here for 8 years about 21st century grazing practices.
As it happens, Allan Savory, who is probably the preeminent global
expert on grazing, has his ranch in Zimbabwe, and the areas that he was
working in Zimbabwe were horribly, horribly eroded. They attributed it
to overgrazing. They were worried that there were too many elephants,
so they did a massive killing off of thousands of elephants, only to
find out that was not the cause.
When they changed their grazing practices and put four times as many
split-hoofed animals, meaning cattle or sheep or goats, on that land
and herded them, it actually made the grass healthier. Grass grew back
in stronger stands of grass. They sequester more carbon, so it is good
for carbon capture and sequestration, and the grass stands were
healthier. Eroded draws healed up; the grasses came back.
These practices were brought to the United States. Interestingly, my
family purchased some land on the ranch next door to us that had a
Savory grazing system on it. It had 2,600 acres that were divided into
16 smaller pastures, with the water source in the middle, and we would
move our cattle among these 16 small cells; and you would put all of
them in one cell for a very short period of time, maybe 10 days, and
they would graze that grass down to the nubs.
They would eat the grass that was more palatable, but they would also
eat the noxious weeds, and then you move them. So you continue to move
them among these 16 cells on 2,600 acres. As we grazed that way, we
found out that healthy stands of grass, palatable grass, good buffalo
grass, short grass, prairie grasses were thriving. The noxious weeds
were declining. The eroded draws were healing. There was more
opportunity to sequester carbon.
When you concentrate cattle into those small areas, their manure
becomes a tremendously valuable source of fertilizer. The grass stand
is healthier. This process was proven in Africa in grazing, and it is
being done successfully all over the United States. Please go to the
Allan Savory TED Talk. You will understand what I am saying. What he
shows on that TED Talk, I have experienced on my own land.
We should be doing that on BLM land. We have BLM land that is
overgrazed, and some people come here to Congress and say, well, if you
would just take cattle and sheep off the public lands, it is just being
overgrazed, then we can have as many wild horses as we want. The
problem with that is, wild horses have a solid hoof, so when they pound
the ground with their solid hoof, they are compacting the soil. When it
rains, it runs off instead of seeping into the soil.
If you put cattle, goats, sheep, elk, deer, moose that have split
hooves on that ground, they actually knead the soil with their hoof
action, and it develops an opportunity for more of that rain to seep
into the ground. It is a better grazing ungulate. We have learned all
this recently. This is not 21st century science. This is late 20th
century and now 21st century science.
The problem is our statutes were passed in the 1970s when the thought
was we should concentrate power and authority and public input into
Washington, and we should make these grazing policies and forestry
policies out of Washington because the people in the States can't be
trusted. They will overlog, and they will overgraze to line their
pockets. You know, it is just not true anymore, but our statutes are
stuck in a 1970s command-and-control scheme.
So we need to update our statutes to reflect our greater
understanding of logging and grazing and how mankind can actually
benefit and sustain these resources and improve these resources well
into the 21st century. We owe it to our children and grandchildren.
I thank Mr. Gohmert so much.
Mr. GOHMERT. I thank my friend from Wyoming. Well-made points. When
you look at Wyoming on the map and you see just how much of it is
colored, meaning how much is controlled by the Federal Government, how
much is owned by the Federal Government--I think about the movie where
one lawyer got upset because the judge kept interrupting, and the
lawyer ultimately says: Well, Judge, if you are
[[Page H5157]]
going to try my case, just don't lose it for me.
I think about that with regard to the Federal Government taking over
all of this land. If you are going to take over our land, Federal
Government, at least just don't ruin it, which has been going on. In
fact, what we have seen with the fund that has been used by the
Department of the Interior to acquire more and more land, I think we
may be $9-, $10 billion behind in upkeep and maintenance of our
national parks. Our Federal properties as facilities are declining.
Where they are not getting proper repair, it is like, as Mr. McClintock
mentioned, all they can see is, wow, we have got money, let's get more
land and more land and more land, and they are not properly taking care
of what they have.
At this time, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa).
He knows all about the problems the Federal Government continues to
create and aggravate.
Mr. LaMALFA. Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague, Mr.
Gohmert, once again for yielding to me on so many of these important
topics that we have worked on together during my relatively short time
here.
This, of course, is very key to all of us in the West, and the
reality of which needs to be pressed upon all the people of the country
and all of our legislative colleagues across the country, especially on
the East Coast that really can't quite fathom how far-reaching this is
in Western States. So it is really a pleasure to be able to join with
my other Western colleagues and Mr. Gohmert who have spoken here
tonight.
We need to raise the awareness of yet another new map being released
by the Committee on Natural Resources. Now, the map I am illustrating
here, this actually breaks it down into a smaller size. This is the
First Congressional District of California, this being Oregon up top
and Nevada on the side, where you have that top corner there, which is
part of a State that is owned approximately 45 percent by the Federal
Government--actually, not by the Federal Government. It belongs to the
people. It is the public's land. Our neighboring State, Nevada, is
approximately 84 percent Federal land.
We know how poorly they are managed as we watch them go up in flames
each summer. The visible result is that millions of acres in the West
burn each year. The amount of timber and fuel reduction is done. You
see most of that is done on private lands where they can actually go
out and have the incentive to take care of their assets versus the
other side, with U.S. Forest Service and BLM and others that don't seem
to be able to get out of their own tracks on the issue.
For example, last year, 576,000 acres of Federal land burned in
California--this is the public's land--about 1.3 percent of all Federal
land in the State. Even worse, fires which began on national forest
lands burned hundreds of thousands of acres of private and State land
as well where, as part of the strategy, the Federal Government was even
resorting to a backfire-setting strategy on private lands, as they are
doing right now to let it burn its way out. This happened partly up in
my district in Siskiyou County right now, thousands of acres of private
land backfired.
We know that the Forest Service and National Park Service alone have
a deferred maintenance backlog, by their own estimate, of over $16
billion--$16 billion that would have to come from the national
Treasury. Yet both agencies are continually attempting to acquire even
more land.
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The result, of course, is that these agencies' funds are stretched
more and more thinly, making the backlog even worse. At the same time,
they are also complaining that, with the increased amount of fire
suppression, the costs have shifted for the Forest Service from one-
third of the budget just a few years ago to, now, two-thirds of their
entire budget for fire suppression, making it harder for the things
they should be doing, with getting out harvest permits and doing their
other green work during the nonfire season. That doesn't happen
anymore.
Another impact of Federal land acquisition is to deny the local
governments the property tax revenue they would receive and generate
and deny the rural communities the jobs and economic activity that
responsible timber, ranching, farming, and mining operations would
generate.
Thanks to Federal land acquisition and this administration's refusal
to properly manage national forests, rural communities are heavily
reliant on the secure rural schools fund, a program the Federal
Government funds to help local schools, police, and local
infrastructure, to the tune of about $285 million last year. Counties
are also heavily reliant on the PILT fund--payment in lieu of taxes--to
the tune of about $450 million last year.
In both cases, local governments have less funding than if they were
simply allowed to have the functioning economies that Federal
regulations have destroyed. Both of these funds are something we have
to fight for each budget year to make sure they stay in place, because
people seem to forget these are backfills for what has been taken away
from rural communities and rural economies.
These rural economies don't want handouts. They want to have the
opportunity to be self-sufficient, while not having to come begging for
PILT funds or the secure rural schools fund. This means jobs for these
economies, for these local areas, versus high unemployment and the
social ills that come from an economy that has now disappeared, the
social ills that affect families and affect homes, that affect local
government and what you have now with the issues of people who are now
basically in depression. More domestic violence happens because they
don't have a job anymore.
However, the Federal footprint isn't limited solely to federally
owned land. The map identifies not just land owned by the Federal
Government, but also areas with restrictions on human activities due to
Federal regulations.
As you can see, between national forests and other Federal public
lands and areas under critical habitat, wetland, or other restrictions,
economic activity is restricted in the vast majority of my district.
These colors in green and orange are pretty much dominated by Federal
land ownership or, supposedly, stewardship. The areas in white are
where the offers are still for people in private areas to carry out
economic activity.
You can see from the color of that map that there are not a whole lot
of options left. Indeed, by the time they establish wildlife corridors
and more and more of these things that are in the plans, you can see
our options are going to be just about zero.
This means that local voices, once again, are ignored. Communities
have little recourse when Federal agencies arbitrarily decide to close
roads, limit economic activities like hunting, fishing, hiking, what
have you, and expand their reach through regulations and habitat
designations.
Rural Sierra Nevada communities have long been told by
environmentalists that they must shift to a tourism economy now that
Federal and State restrictions have nearly killed the timber and mining
industries in those areas. But what happens when the same environmental
agenda, extended in the form of critical habitat and other
designations, even damages the fledgling tourist economy that they want
to promote for these communities?
The Fish and Wildlife Service recently bent to the demands of
extremist groups and listed the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog and
the Yosemite toad under the Endangered Species Act, affecting much of
this area on the east side in my district and extending down into Mr.
McClintock's district south of mine there.
During this process, my colleagues heard from many people in the
several public meetings that Mr. McClintock and I had on this very
subject a couple of years ago. We wanted the public to be able to be
part of this process to ensure that the Service heard the concerns of
our constituents directly.
The Service's initial habitat maps were riddled with obvious errors,
like the inclusion of parking lots and other areas which contained zero
amphibian habitat; and over 20,000 public comments were submitted,
which were overwhelmingly opposed to the designation of this so-called
critical habitat.
However, when the final designations were released just a few days
ago, they
[[Page H5158]]
differed little from the initial maps. Nearly 2 million acres of Sierra
Nevada, all down the east side of California--about half within my
district, the other half pretty much all within Mr. McClintock's
district--were designated as critical habitat.
Again, throughout this process, the Fish and Wildlife Service claimed
there would be no negative impacts to Sierra communities. We learned
that claim to be false almost immediately.
For years, a race called the Lost Sierra Endurance Run, a 50-
kilometer, has been held on existing trails and roads throughout the
town of Graeagle in Plumas County, California. Run by a local small
local nonprofit, the race generates thousands of dollars for trail
maintenance and has a significant economic impact on a little town know
as Graeagle, with local hotels, restaurants, and shops benefiting from
the visitors the race draws to the area, as well as people being able
to enjoy the outdoors and see what their public lands are all about.
However, last year, before the critical habitat designation was even
complete, the nonprofit was told they would need to pay to conduct a
study on the impacts of the race on the yellow-legged frog--an impact
study. Federal agencies were concerned that runners using existing
trails might negatively impact the frogs.
The study the Federal agencies demanded was costly enough to more
than wipe out any proceeds from the race, and the organizers were
forced to cancel it. Not only would runners not be visiting the area,
but now, trail conditions will deteriorate without the funding the race
generated. Yes, the funding that the race generated was there to help
keep the habit and the trails maintained.
This is the second year that the race has not occurred, and it is
likely that it, with the visitors it brought to the area, is gone
permanently. What is next? Limits on walking through the area within a
critical habitat?
Colleagues, it may sound absurd, but Federal agencies have already
expressed concern that running within this designation could harm
frogs. Imagine all the other activities--using off-road vehicles,
hunting, fishing, camping, bird watching, hiking--that agencies likely
view as dangerous to frogs.
As we watch the West burn this time of year, we observe the failure
of Federal ownership and nonmanagement of the public's lands.
Compare private timberlands versus the public. Private is fire-
resistant and healthy, by and large, where they are able to manage
their own lands. You can fly over it and see the checkerboard pattern
of public versus private. Before a fire, you see it being managed.
After a fire, you see the private lands, where they go back out there
and get the lands re-covered and replanted again. Public land sits
there with a bunch of snags, dead timber, brush growing up, and becomes
the next tinderbox in 5 or 7 years.
Indeed, the damage from these massive fires we have these days, these
catastrophic fires, isn't just to the trees. It is to the habitat, to
the wildlife--the very habitat they are fighting against us on.
When you have these devastating fires, the next winter, what do you
get? Ash and silt all washing down into the creeks, streams, rivers,
and lakes, making it bad for the fish. You don't have the habitat there
for owls or anything else that used to be there when the forest was
still standing. Somehow, there are a handful of extremists that think
this is somehow good. Oh, we need these burned lands.
California is full, at this point, with about 66 million dead trees,
by the U.S. Forest Service's own estimates. This isn't just an isolated
tree here and there. Now you can see entire groves that are just
waiting for the next lightning strike or the next spark, and it is
going to be big-time problems for those areas to try and put them out.
The Forest Service even goes so far as to resist the opportunity for
doing land swaps with land that has already been managed, thinned,
properly left by private concerns. Where they can then move on to take
some trails into public ownership, that would be beneficial for the
public as well as private entities being able to manage the formerly
public land. They resist these kind of swaps because they want to buy
more, acquire more, with money we don't have.
Each new national monument, wilderness, critical habitat designation,
or study area limits the tools to promote healthy forests. With the
desire and even mandate for new renewable electricity--especially the
mandates in California--forest biomass is one of the greatest
opportunity potentials we have. It is something we need to be doing
yesterday, in order to generate the electricity and bring the jobs that
would come from removing that extra material in a way that is good for
the ecology, for the forest, and bring those jobs right in the
district--not building solar cells in China or wind machines in Europe,
but jobs right in our own backyard; thinning these forests, using the
material and putting it into a power plant that can generate renewable
electricity to meet the mandate of 50 percent California sees and that
other States will probably start adopting. We can be putting these jobs
back home, improving forest safety and fire safety, preserving the
habitat, keeping the water quality up, and, yes, bringing the jobs home
for those paper and wood products that we still all need.
Instead, we watch them burn because they are unwilling to do what
needs to be done. They are afraid to do what needs to be done. There is
not enough money in the U.S. Treasury to go out and try to recover all
that habitat, plant those forests back, which is what the private
sector could be doing when it manages it and is allowed to make a
little bit of living at a time.
So we have got a lot of work to do in getting this message across on
the way the West is dominated by poor management at the Federal level.
I hope those people listening tonight will take this to heart and give
us the backing we need to accomplish better policy goals and make it so
that our Western lands, our Western economies, our Western habitats can
actually be preserved with wise management, not this debacle we see
happening every fire season.
So, again, to my colleague, Mr. Gohmert, I thank him so much for
having this time here tonight for us to be able to spotlight this once
again for our American people and for our colleagues. I appreciate it.
Mr. GOHMERT. I am grateful to Mr. LaMalfa, a man that has been
educated in agriculture. He knows what it is to be a farmer. He knows
what it is to be a good steward of the land.
At this point, we have someone else who knows something about use of
the land. He is a dentist but knows about use of the land.
I yield to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar).
Mr. GOSAR. I would like to thank my good friend and colleague, the
gentleman from Texas, for taking the time to lead on this important
conversation about the size of the U.S. Federal footprint.
It is a conversation that many Americans, specifically those living
east of the Mississippi River, have never had to think much about.
However, in Western States like my home State of Arizona, we face
unfair burdens on our communities due to the fact that over 90 percent
of all Federal land is located in the West. In Arizona, only 18 percent
of the land remaining in the State is privately held.
Where land is locked up by the Federal Government, the government
controls all aspects of use, development, and access. Local school
districts and businesses suffer, having no private land base to grow or
tax to support infrastructure.
Imagine the impact on corn if only 18 percent of the land in Iowa was
privately held, or cotton production in Mississippi or oranges grown in
Florida. The agriculture that defines many Eastern States would be
severely limited if they faced the same Federal footprint that Arizona
and Western farmers must confront.
Farmers and ranchers in the West face a tsunami of bureaucracy
preventing them from doing their jobs. Additionally, energy
development, including traditional and renewable energy, is almost
nonexistent on Federal lands.
I have held numerous townhall meetings and field hearings to hear
from small-business owners, sportsmen, farmers, ranchers, elected
officials, and many other stakeholders who adamantly oppose furthering
the reach and size of the Federal Government's footprint.
[[Page H5159]]
Adding insult to injury is the fact that the Federal Government
management agencies like the BLM have identified hundreds of thousands
of acres of Federal land for disposal that the agency admits it is not
effectively and efficiently utilizing.
Imagine for a moment that the BLM knows it has land that it doesn't
use and yet the Federal Government still keeps the land for itself. The
BLM is not alone though. In April of this year, it was reported that
the National Park Service has a nearly $12 million deferred maintenance
backlog. Wow.
The Forest Service Federal footprint is 192.9 million acres, and the
total Federal estate exceeds more than 635 million acres.
When businesses and the private sector don't develop their leases
quickly enough for the extremist environmental groups, they are labeled
as ``greedy.'' Yet these same groups give the Federal Government a pass
and actually encourage them to acquire more land. The Federal
Government is supposed to represent we the people, not the special
interest groups like the Sierra Club.
In order to return Federal land that is not being used back to the
State and communities who desperately need it, I am proud to have
introduced a commonsense solution that ensures public lands are
utilized more efficiently, while also yielding significant benefits for
stakeholders.
This legislation, known as the HEARD Act, establishes an orderly
process for the sale, conveyance, and exchange of Federal lands not
being utilized by public land management agencies that have been
identified for disposal.
The HEARD Act will yield significant benefits for education,
sportsmen, agriculture and natural resource users, counties and States
by establishing a revenue-sharing mechanism that ensures a fair return
for all.
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Now the Heard Act is modeled after the Southern Nevada Public Land
Management Act. This Federal law, enacted in 1998, has a proven track
record of success in Nevada. To date, more than 35,000 acres identified
by the BLM for disposal have been sold, conveyed, or exchanged in
Nevada, and sales have generated nearly $3 billion in revenue.
The revenue-sharing mechanism instituted by this law has benefited
education, enhanced recreational opportunities, public access, and
achieved better overall management of public lands. Imagine what we
could do if we returned public lands that were up for disposal back to
the public and back to the State.
It is long past time that Congress takes action to responsibly shrink
our 635-million acre Federal footprint and empower western States to
have a voice in determining our land management policies.
I thank the gentleman from Texas for giving me the time to talk about
this.
Mr. GOHMERT. I thank the gentleman from Arizona. I yield back the
balance of my time.
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