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“PROTECTING ROADLESS AREAS IMPORTANT TO COUNTRY” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Agriculture was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1830 on May 2, 2001.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PROTECTING ROADLESS AREAS IMPORTANT TO COUNTRY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I come to the well today to alert the House to a decision that the administration will make this Friday, May 4, extremely important to the future of our forests in this Nation, because this Friday, this administration will either come to the aid, to the preservation of our roadless areas and our Forest Service land, or it will take a dive and refuse, in fact, to defend the law of the United States that is designed to protect these roadless areas in a lawsuit in Idaho. I am here to urge this administration to follow the law, to follow the will of the American people to protect these last remaining roadless areas in our forest lands.
Let me tell you why I feel strongly about that. A couple months ago the President came to this Chamber and gave a speech that was well received. One of the things he said, he quoted Yogi Berra, which I liked, he quoted Yogi Berra in the famous quote, ``When you come to a fork in the road, take it.'' But unfortunately, recently this President has taken the fork and he stuck it in every environmental policy that has come before him on his plate.
May 4, this Friday, is an opportunity for this President to change that pattern of failure for our environment by, in fact, defending the roadless area policy that needs defending in a lawsuit in Idaho.
Let me tell you why, clearly, the administration ought to take these steps. Number one, the American people want it. In one of the most exhaustive processes in adopting the roadless area policy, we have come to a very clear consensus that in fact the American people want this roadless policy. They want their wilderness areas protected. They want their old growth protected from the incursions of roads for clear-
cutting, for oil drilling, for mining.
How do I know that? I know that because the Forest Service conducted over 600 meetings over the last couple of years in every corner of this country. In my State of Washington they had scores of meetings, in towns like Morton and Okanagan, not just Seattle, but little areas, 600 meetings, where over 1.6 million Americans told their Federal Government what they thought about the roadless policy.
The results were amazing. In Washington State there were tens of thousands of people who contacted their government. You know what they told their Federal Government? Ninety-six percent of the people who responded in the State of Washington told their Federal Government to protect these roadless areas. As a consequence, the last administration issued a rule that did exactly that, that followed 96 percent of the people in the State of Washington, who responded to this issue, to protect these roadless areas.
So it seems to me, when 96 percent of the people tell their Federal Government what they want, the Federal Government ought to respond, ought to listen to those wishes. But, unfortunately, following a long series of listening to the special interests, we are very concerned that the Bush administration will in fact take a dive in this lawsuit of folks who are seeking to overturn this rule.
The reason I say that is a recent Washington Post article that revealed that the administration had asked the Attorney General for ways to get out from underneath this rule, to in fact take a dive. We had testimony in my Committee on Resources a couple of weeks ago where a Department of Agriculture official revealed, in fact, they had been asked about how to do exactly that in this rule. That would be wrong. What would be right would be to listen to the will of the American people and let this roadless policy stand.
I will tell you why Americans feel so strongly about it. It is my second point here today. This roadless area policy is required to respond to certain American values of taking care of your natural world, to preserve it for your heritage and your kids and grandkids and great-grandkids.
In fact, what we found the testimony in these 600 meetings revealed is, people do not want to see their salmon habitats destroyed by clear-
cutting, because what we found in the State of Washington is, when you do this clear-cutting in these roadless areas, you get erosion off the hills and that silts up the salmon streams and that destroys the salmon and that creates an endangered species, and that ends salmon fishing in the Northwest, a heritage that we have enjoyed throughout the generations.
This roadless area is designed to prevent the end of salmon in the Pacific Northwest and other places. We need this administration to listen to the people who said we want to preserve our salmon.
So, Mr. Speaker, in conclusion, I just want to say it is not the time to start drilling in our National Forests. We ought to stick with this roadless policy. It certainly would be wrong to drill in our National Forests at the same time we do not increase the average mileage for our vehicles.
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