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Document 14 of 151.

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May 24, 2000, Wednesday

SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING

LENGTH: 28796 words

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: PENDING LEGISLATION

CHAIRED BY: SENATOR ROBERT SMITH (R-NH)

LOCATION: 406 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

TIME: 9:30 AM. EDT DATE: WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 2000

WITNESSES:

SEN. MARY L. LANDRIEU (D-LA);

REP. W.J. TAUZIN (R-LA);

REP. DON YOUNG (R-AK);

SEN. THAD COCHRAN (R-MS);

DAVID WALLER, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FISH AND WILDLIFE AGENCIES;

RINDY O'BRIEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF POLICY, THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY;

RODGER SCHLICKEISEN, PRESIDENT, DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE;

MIKE HARDIMAN, AMERICAN LAND RIGHTS ASSOCIATION;

BODY:
SEN. ROBERT C. SMITH (R-NH): The committee will come to order. We have a lengthy hearing this morning with several members of Congress and senators who have asked to testify and I've done my best accommodate everyone. Hopefully the House members will be here or are here shortly. I under the House of Representatives has a vote at 10:00 o'clock. So with that in mind, I'm going to ask senators to withhold opening statements at least until that time until the members have had a chance to make their statements.

SEN. MAX BAUCUS (D-MT): Mr. Chairman, I would like to say a couple of words first, but very, very brief and we all have schedules to meet and attend, with your permission, just a couple of words.

SEN. SMITH: Well the only thing is, if we're going to let one senator do it, we got to let them all do it. SEN. BAUCUS: Well there only three or four here. Well how about you can hold us to one minute.

SEN. SMITH: All right go ahead.

SEN. BAUCUS: I thank you. I appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: I just want to do my afterwards.

SEN. BAUCUS: I just want to thank everyone here who has worked so hard in leadership positions to bring these bills forward. Senator Landrieu has been probably one of the hardest working to have kept this issue moving, hopefully past this Congress. Over in the House of course, it's Congressman Miller, Congressman Young very much thank them. Senator Bingaman, who has introduced a bill that I've co- sponsored. And I just want to publicly acknowledge and thank all of you who have worked so very, very hard because I think we have a good opportunity this year to enact this measure. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: Senator Chafee, you had indicated to me that you had to go at 10:00 anyway to preside, if you'd like to make some brief remarks here, I'll - -

SEN. JOHN CHAFEE (R-RI): I'll hold off and give my opening statement when I come back at 11:00, if that might work out better for everybody.

SEN. SMITH: All right. Anyone on this side?

SEN. BARBARA BOXER (D-CA): Mr. Chairman, I just would ask for 30 seconds and I will give the full statement later. I wanted everyone to know that I introduced the House-passed bill and it's sitting at the desk at the Senate and I think it's important because, if we can't see a bill come out, I think it makes it easier from a parliamentary sense to have the House bill at the desk. So the actual House bill went to the committee, but I introduced the House bill word for word, even though I'm with Senator Baucus and Bingaman on Senator Bingman's language.

I also want to say that it's terrific to see this all coming together 4,000 organizations. I introduced the original bill, which was different from the CRA (sp) with Congressman Miller and then he left me for Congressman Young and I'm a little hurt, but I think they did a good job and that's where we are at this point. So I want to thank you for holding this hearing. SEN. SMITH: Anyone else like to make a brief remark and we'll come back to senators for more elaboration on the opening remarks in a little while. This hearing this morning is to basically hear comment on three bills; the S. 25, which is bill introduced by Senator Landrieu and Mikulski and S. 2123 also Landrieu and Mikulski and S. 2181 by Senator Bingaman. Do you got one in there too, Senator Cochran?

SEN. THAD COCHRAN (R-MS): I'm co-sponsoring the Landrieu bill.

SEN. SMITH: So, at this point, let me start with you Senator Landrieu and of course your statement will be made part of the record.

SEN. MARY LANDRIEU (D-LA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me begin by thanking you and the ranking member for holding this hearing this morning and for all of the interest that all of your members have expressed on this subject. And it's going to take great work by this committee and as well as the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and by every member of the Senate to move such a significant piece of legislation through and to really work at it from many different angles.

So, I really appreciate your committee with all that you have to do giving time on this subject this morning and I'm going to be relatively brief. As you all know, I could talk hours on this subject and I have, but will brief because I've got another committee and I've got an able partner here. But let me just recognize Congressman Tauzin, that I understand is here, to thank him for his great work in shepherding this initiative through the House. As he will testify later, and I'm sure you all know, there were over 315 members of the House, both Republicans and Democrats, who have led this bill to a great victory in the House and now it is before the Senate.

And it has tremendous bipartisan support here and so we are at the, I think, while we're not there yet, we're clearly towards the end of this journey having a bill that will be a great conservation legacy for our nation. The president has indicated tremendous support for this effort from the very beginning and I have every confidence that when this bill is laid on his desk, something similar to what came out of the House, that he will sign it and it will be a great victory for Congress and for this administration.

CRA, which I want to speak about this morning, and I thank you, Chairman, for your co-sponsorship of that, rests on a couple of very simple principles. One, we believe that the CRA legislation lays down the principle that of fiscal responsibility, that there is a source of funding coming from offshore oil and gas revenues that actually would be better spent if they were directed in this way as opposed to the general fund of the federal treasury because this isn't a regular tax. This isn't a tax that's going to go on indefinitely or forever. This is a tax on a finite resource and that resource is oil and gas revenues, primarily off our coast and primarily off the coast of Louisiana and Texas and Mississippi in the Gulf Coast.

Just to share some numbers with you all that I hope will impress you and I hope that you can keep. Since 1950, the federal government has taken $120 billion from that source in taxes and basically, it's gone directly into the general fund. As Senator Feinstein said so eloquently in a press conference on the subject, she says, in fact these funds were hijacked 30 years ago because initially these funds were supposed to, at least a portion of them, come back to fully fund the land and water conservation fund both the federal side and the state side and to invest in our environment and in fact they never really have.

It's been a hit and miss situation, more misses than hits, and so CRA rests on the principle that it really is more fiscally responsible if you're going to generate a tax from a finite resource. So let's take a portion of those revenues and invest them back in the environment and that's what CRA does. It also says, the CRA sort of principles that many of us came together on, is that environmental protection is more than just rules and regulations and it's more than federal land acquisition. It really, this legacy that we're trying to create, is about good plans, good partnerships and having financial resources to make this real.

The partnerships being the federal and state level, good plans being made at the federal and state level, but all the great plans and all the great partnerships in the world aren't worth very much if there's not money to support them. And so CRA recognizes this special source of revenue. It recognizes the fact that all the good plans and partnerships in the world, of which many of you on this committee and I have also helped to create, aren't worth the paper they're written on if there's not actual money to fund them.

And so that this money should go back to fund a variety of programs that reinvest in the fiscally responsible way and provide the money, if you will, to make these plans real. So the way the CRA bill has been developed and has come now is identifying resources for coastal states, a billion dollars of the 2.8 billion for coastal impact assistance and conservation, $900 million to fully fund the land and water conservation fund, 350 million for wildlife conservation, which was a particular interest to this committee, 125 million for urban parks to fully fund historic preservation, 150 million for conservation easements and $200 million set aside for capital improvements for the land we already own.

And let me make this one point, because in the Senate, this is an issue of contention, should we just go out and buy additional land? Shouldn't we have some responsibility to care for the land we already own? And so CRA recognizes that. It both enables us to purchase land from willing sellers when Congress approves for additional land, but it also invests money in improving the lands that we already own and for the Western states, particularly, it helps recognize by fully funding, and Senator you and I have talked about this although you don't represent a Western state, it full funds PILTs, payment in lieu of taxes, which an important provision. So, the bill is balanced. It helps all areas of the nation.

It doesn't just try to help producing states or non-producing states or interior and coastal and I think that's why, Mr. Chairman, in conclusion let me say that this bill, of all the bills on the subject, have the most support and the most bipartisan support, because it really has, from its very beginning, wanted to be fair to every part of this nation, the Northeast corridor, the Great Lakes, the South, the West and is very balanced in its approach, fiscally conservative and recognizes the real opportunity.

And let me just close by saying that some members have criticized the fact that there's some producing states, Louisiana, that might get a large amount of this money. Because the source of this money is produced, almost 80 percent, basically off the coast of Louisiana, our state serves as the platform for this oil and gas industry. We're happy to do so. We think we can do so in environmentally sensitive ways. Some states have chosen other ways or not to do production at all. That's fine.

But since our state serves as that platform and Mississippi and Texas, we feel that any bill that would come out of this Congress should most certainly recognize that, that you know we produce 100 percent of the money, we're not asking for 100 percent. In fact CRA asks for less than 12 percent of these dollars to come back to the Gulf Coast states. We think that it's quite generous and quite fair so that this money can be spread around the nation in ways that will make a great legacy.

My final point is this, if we don't do this now this year, Mr. Chairman, when we are running a surplus and when we can think in the beginning of this new century, what should we do to make sure that these surpluses are not just spent frivolously or not just allocated in ways that don't make much sense to our future? Here is a perfect opportunity to take a small portion of this money, which would be less than, I think, one half of one percent of the total federal budget, redirect in ways that it was supposed to 30 years ago and let's create a great legacy for this nation for land acquisition, land improvement, land conservation working with landowners, respecting the rights of private property owners, helping our coastal and interior states and protecting wildlife. We couldn't think of a better way to start this new century and we thank this committee for the great interest they have and look forward to working with you to get a good bill out that we can all be proud of. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: Well, thank you very much, Senator Landrieu and thank you for your leadership on this issue. Senator Cochran, last night on the millionaire, I think you probably would have been able to answer the $64,000 question, which was what current author, famous, popular author, was a member of the Mississippi state legislature. (Laughter.) And one of the answers was John Grisshom (sp) and I knew it and the guy didn't know it.

SEN. COCHRAN: Oh really? (Laughter.)

SEN. SMITH: Hell he missed. I didn't get any money out of it. Senator Cochran, welcome.

SEN. COCHRAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your inviting me to testify at this hearing. The federal government has, for too long, too often, used outer continental shelf revenues for big, high profile projects and has virtually left out states like Mississippi. We have smaller projects and our needs are not nearly as great as some of the larger states, but yet they're very real and very important to the people who live in Mississippi. This legislation will shift more of the money that comes from these resources to states like Mississippi.

We have environmental organizations and state agencies that are trying hard to protect fragile wetlands and fisheries' resources and we are restoring the habitat of the osprey and eagle. Great progress is being made on these and other similar initiatives, but we need the extra money this bill will provide to enable our state to do the job right. For many years, we've sought additional funding for the stateside portion of the land and water conservation fund, which provides federal funding for state initiatives for the protection of valuable natural resources and fish and wildlife habitat.

Our bill provides full funding for the state share while still providing for federal programs, coastal conservation and impact assistance, wildlife conservation and education programs and historic preservation. I'm glad to be a co-sponsor of this legislation and I hope this committee will recommend its approval by the Senate.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Senator Cochran. Does anyone wish to ask either senator a question at this point?

SEN. INHOFE: What's the order here?

SEN. SMITH: Well, we're ready to move up to the House members.

SEN. LANDRIEU: If there are no questions, can I just turn in for the record the list of 4,576 organizations and businesses that have supported the CRA legislation and represent a grand coalition from business to environmental leaders and governors and mayors and other elected leaders from around the nation that support our efforts, Mr. Chairman. And I'm sure you'll hear from some of the representatives of these groups, but for the record, I'd like to turn it in and thank them for their great work and for coming together across party lines and across ideological lines to create a bill that we can all be proud of and one that will truly help our nation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: Without objection that will be made part of the record. I'd now call up, at least, these are the House members who had indicated they wish to testify. The Honorable Don Young of Alaska, the Honorable George Miller of California, the Honorable Helen Chenoweth-Hage of Idaho, the Honorable John Shadegg of Arizona, the Honorable Billy Tauzin of the state of Louisiana, any and all of those ladies and gentlemen who are here, if they'd move up. We'll start with you, Congressman Tauzin.

REP. W. J. (BILLY) TAUZIN (R-LA): Thank you.

SEN. SMITH: Welcome and your entire statement will be made part of the record and please feel free to summarize it in any way you wish.

REP. TAUZIN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I thought I'd do is give you a quick background to this legislation, which is already as you know, passed the House 315 to 102. So, if the House was properly represented here, I guess it would be four to one, three to one rather, in favor of the bill. But I wanted to give you the backdrop to it. It all began with a 1998 memorandum, a report from the Department of Interior Minerals Management Service Agency, which recommended, based upon a request from Congress, an appropriate sharing formula for offshore revenues.

Interior states currently share in the revenues produced on federal lands within those states. The federal law actually provides a 50 percent share to the states where interior development occurs. For example the state of New Mexico received $5.3 billion over the years in its 50 percent share. The state of Wyoming has actually received $7.4 billion over the years as its 50 percent share of federal oil and gas and mineral revenue derived from interior federal land.

No such provision was ever made for the coastal states, who have federal lands from which oil and gas and other minerals are derived and for with major impacts are felt. I want you to know, you know our state of Louisiana, a little about the impacts. Since 1940, we've lost over a million acres of state coastal lands. Much of it, as Mary pointed out to you, because of the fact that we've accommodated as a launch pad the development of oil and gas off those fragile wetlands. We also produce 29 percent of the nation's seafood harvest from the same wetlands.

It's a pretty critical thing to be losing them. We lost, and since the 1930s, an area of land equal to the size of Rhode Island and within the next 10 years, we're going to loose enough land equal to the city of San Diego and we've got no program in place to try to prevent, stop that immense national, I think, international ecological disaster that's occurring in Louisiana. Sharing the revenues from oil and gas production is one of the ways that Minerals Management suggest that we do it.

Now, Minerals Management, as Mary pointed out, didn't say look just share it with the states that produces most of it. It's shared with all the coastal states and so a portion of the moneys or in the title of this bill, shared with all the coastal states, 35 different states share, Louisiana, Texas, obviously, with the most production end up with a large number. But again, the impacts are immense where the production is occurring and we produced 80 percent of that production, which has yielded as Mary said, $120 billion for the U.S. Treasury since it all started offshore in 1948, the first oil offshore.

So the first part of the bill is a sharing formula. The second part is the land and water acquisition fund and the other great programs in the bill that are really a great environmental legacy that I think our generation leaves to the next. And frankly, I think, makes this an incredibly well balanced bill. I want to talk to you about that balance briefly. The bill was an intricately negotiated package because it involves the concept of environmental protection and land acquisition and species protection, it was necessary that we negotiate carefully to balance property rights into the package and there's still a dispute over what is and what's not in this package regarding property rights. So I thought, if you'd give me a second, I'd run through how this thing works.

This is what an agency wanting to acquire land must do in this bill. It must first seek to consolidate the checkerboard pattern of federal landholdings out West. It's its first obligation to consolidate so that there's fewer in holdings and therefore, fewer restrictions on the owners of those in holdings. It must secondly, as a second priority, consider use of equal value land exchanges so that in states with very large percentages of federal land holdings, land exchanges can be used to acquire the properties that the government prefers in its land packages.

Third, it must use permanent conservation easements as an alternative so that farmers and ranchers can grant easements instead of outright sales of their property in this program. Four, they must prepare a list each year for Congress identifying the lands that have been singled out as surplus lands that could be eligible for disposal, never been done before. Every year we would get a list of federal lands the government thinks it can dispose of as it acquires other more desirable lands for the nation's benefit.

Fifth, it must cite the statutory authority under which an acquisition is occurring and explain why the tract was proposed to be acquired and notify everybody, all the members of Congress, the senators, the local governments, the land management folks, the city, town, village, county and state officials in the area. Nothing anymore will be done by surprise. Everybody gets notice. No moneys could be used to acquire the land until all federal review requirements, for example like NEPA (sp), are complete and all environmental impact statements are done. So the government's required to do, Senator, Mr. Chairman, exactly what private landowners have to do. It's got to do all the environmental reports and NEPA studies.

Then it has to submit an abundant request to Congress, a list identifying each tract of land and the administration must say which tract of land is available from a willing seller and which they want to acquire from an unwilling seller. And it cannot acquire it from an unwilling seller unless something very specific happens here in Congress. In other words, all sales are from willing sellers unless we act in a very specific way to acquire land from someone who doesn't want to sell.

Congress has to act again. This is how that happens. The acquisition of land from an unwilling seller must, first of all, be authorized by Congress, Congress must authorize and effect each condemnation and it must authorize it in a corresponding appropriations bill and a funding bill and it must identify, in fact, each parcel of land acquired in such a fashion in the bill, not in the report language, in the bill where we can all see it. The bill specifies that, under the Fifth Amendment, compensation must be paid for any takings that occur. It specifies that nothing in this act creates any new federal authority over lands not yet acquired, whether they're inside a boundary, outside a boundary.

Even the proposed for acquisition, until they're actually acquired by the government, no property rights, no restrictions on use of the property. Mary mentioned it provides a mechanism for the funding of the bill, which is critical and the bill is designed also to address the $12 billion backlog in holders who want to sell their in holding properties to the government. And it again provides it must be done from willing sellers.

And finally, it provides $200 million annually for the maintenance of federal and Indian lands. Mr. Chairman, this is a huge package of property rights gains for folks in this country when it comes to federal acquisition. Current law doesn't have a willing seller provision. It doesn't have all this notice. It doesn't have all the provisions I mentioned to you. These are new gains for property rights for property owners in America under the Fifth Amendment as we balance off their rights for this huge program to make sure that the government has the capacity in the land and water acquisition front to continue acquiring for the benefit of future generations the properties that are critical in that acquisition program.

It's a delicately balanced package, but it's an awfully good one. And when the House votes for a bill three to one, you got to figure, Republicans, Democrats joining forces in the middle of an election year, there got to be an awful lot of good in here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you very much, Congressman Tauzin and nice to see you, Congressman Chenoweth-Hage. Welcome and look forward to your testimony.

REP. HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE (R-ID): Thank you, Senator Smith and I want to thank you very much for holding this hearing today and allowing me to testify before your committee on the Conservation and Reinvestment Act. Mr. Chairman, I'm fully aware of the support that has been amassed for CRA, but I strongly urge this committee and the Senate in its deliberative nature to pull the rings in on this very fast moving wagon and to take a very long and hard look at what we're doing to America.

This bill establishes a $40 billion mandatory fund over the next 15 years, billions of which will be given to the federal government and states or tribes or non-governmental organizations, nonprofit organizations, to purchase private property forever taking lands out of the production and off the tax rolls. Billions more will be at the control of the secretary of Interior to fund everything under the sun with little oversight by Congress, everything under the sun including the listing of non-game species.

Now, if we think we have a headache with the Endangered Species Act and the listing of endangered species, wait until the federal and state government partnership up in managing non-game species. This bill also establishes a permanent revenue source for non-governmental organizations to carry out their purposes, these same governmental organizations that have been active in political campaigns too. Mr. Chairman, I only have a few minutes to speak on this issue and so I will cut to what I believe are the real central issues that Congress must consider in this legislation.

First, while CRA is being established under the guise of environment and conservation protection, its true premise has more to do with who will own and control property and the use of property in the United States of America. When did we conclude that government can manage the land more responsibly and efficiently than the private property owner? And when did we decide that it was the duty of the government to consume and govern the use of private property? The truth is that a private property owner categorically does a better job of utilizing and conserving private property than does government.

Government, by its very nature, is inefficient and when it comes to managing the land and water and one only needs to look at the recent debacle created by the federal government, in the fires in New Mexico and the $12 billion backlog in maintenance and repairs in the national park facilities and the woeful state of our national forests, to prove this point that I'm making. We need to invest money in the backlog of maintenance and asking the government to take care of the land that it already has.

Second, Mr. Chairman, what we must look at is what kinds of precedents CRA will set in terms of additional mandatory trust funds taken from the general revenue streams. Consider what it will do to our fiscal priorities such as paying down the national debt and shoring up Social Security, building up our national defenses and providing needed tax relief. Every dollar set aside for CRA is a dollar taken away from these priorities. In fact, Mr. Chairman, when presented with the facts, other national priorities far outweigh CRA.

In a recent national poll, by a margin of 72 to 13 percent, Americans rejected spending for CRA when told that it will shift funds away from Social Security and debt reduction. Moreover, Americans on an eight to one margin said that we should address our maintenance needs first before acquiring more lands. And finally, on a list of priorities, only one percent of Americans picked land acquisition as our most important priority.

Mr. Chairman, I want to let the committee know that I have studied every single provision and every single word in this legislation and have carefully considered how it will be interpreted. There is so much to say and I hope that the members of this committee will probe into this issue with their questions, but Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of things I do want to address. One, is the PILT payments. This bill does provide a provision for PILT payments, but the revenue for the PILT payments would be from interest acquired from money that the secretary of Interior did not spend on a yearly basis. So in all reality, how many agencies of government or how many secretaries really have a lot of money left over in their accounts to acquire interest?

Secondly, in the PILT payments, there's a provision in the bill that said the first priority must go to the national wetlands conservation plan. That will be the first priority for those interest moneys that would be generated, it wouldn't be to PILT and so secondly, I'd like to address the protection of private properties that has been addressed here. Mr. Chairman, it does say that property should be acquired under the constitutional provisions, but there's a parenthetical clause that is often left out in the debate for the private property protections and that parenthetical clause in this bill states, unless under some other provision of law. So property can be acquired under another provision of law using moneys from CRA. And the willing buyer, willing seller issue really is a very tragic situation in America because when the government is the only buyer, you know, the seller is at the mercy of the federal government.

And finally, I would like to say that in Title VII of the farmland protection program, it clearly states in here that the secretary will provide matching grants to eligible entities. Now, that can be anybody by definition, anyone involved in conservation and I'm reading from the bill. It will provide to eligible entities these grants described in Section D to facilitate the purchase of either permanent conservation easements or other interests in lands when the lands are subject to a pending offer from a state or local government, primarily concerned about the conversion of cropland to less intensive uses than farming the cropland. And so, the last thing we need, Mr. Chairman, is to see our scarce farmland taken out of use. There's so much I'd like to share with you about this, but I hear the bells going off and I thank you very much.

SEN. SMITH: Let me just say there's about, I think, about six or seven minutes left on approval of the journal vote. Top of the world will be safe if you don't make it. That's just as a courtesy in case you need to, you want to go. Senator Inhofe has indicated he had a question for you, Congressman Tauzin.

SEN. INHOFE: Yeah. I only have one question, if it's all right with the committee to pose that in case they have run off and approve the journal for those on this panel, who haven't served in the House that don't know what we're talking about. My question's a very serious one and I ask it of my friend, Billy Tauzin, because he and I, when he was a Democrat and I was a House member, he was my chairman on the Merchant Marine and the Fisheries Committee and we always got along famously until now.

SEN. BOXER (?): Republican you mean? (Laughter.)

SEN. SMITH: Tony (ph) was a transvistocrat (ph) at one point. (Laughter.)

SEN. INHOFE: And I'd like to ask a question that I think is rather serious and I would like to have you give me a very serious answer as you always do, simple question. I represent Oklahoma and you represent Louisiana. Under the distribution system, Louisiana would get annually distribution of $311, 660,000. Oklahoma would get $16,699,000. My question is this, if I were representing Louisiana instead of Oklahoma, I'd enthusiastically support this bill. If you were representing Oklahoma and I were representing Louisiana, would you endorse and enthusiastically support this bill as much as you are now?

REP. TAUZIN: Yes, sir. Just as Louisiana supported the bill that allows Oklahoma a 50 percent share of all oil and gas revenues produced in federal lands in Oklahoma, which you've been enjoying since the beginning of oil and gas production. You're getting $16 million with no coastline. You don't have any offshore lands. You're getting, what we call in Cajun country, you're getting money that you didn't earn because you don't have offshore lands. And the reason you're getting it is because we've agreed with the mineral management program that it ought to be shared with states across America and not just with the coastal production states. So let me say it again, I know my good friend, Helen Chenoweth, has made the case that this is money that won't go to Social Security.

No one's arguing we ought to repeal the statute that is providing Oklahoma with 50 percent of the oil/gas royalties and payments and leases and bonuses from federal land located in Oklahoma.

You get that every year and Louisiana voted for that, supports that. We're simply saying fair is fair. We have federal lands too in Louisiana right off our coast, but we don't get a dime from it and we have all those impacts, just as you in Oklahoma have impacts from the federal lands located in your state, Senator. So fair is fair. In fact, you're being treated more than fairly because you're getting some of our offshore production, 16 million more and I looked at a map recently and I don't remember Oklahoma having a coastline on the Gulf of Mexico. So I think it's an abundant fairness that we're sharing with all of the states part of these revenues.

SEN. INHOFE: Well, I would only respond by saying less than five percent of the land in Oklahoma is in the federal category.

REP. TAUZIN: You're lucky. How'd like to be in Helen's state, where how much, Helen?

REP. CHENOWETH-HAGE: Seventy percent.

REP. TAUZIN: Seventy percent, but she collects $7.4 billion in that 50 percent share over those years, an amazing contribution from the federal treasury to their state because of the amazing land ownership in their state.

REP. CHENOWETH-HAGE: Be happy to give it back. (Laughter.)

REP. TAUZIN: She wouldn't give it back. I know you wouldn't give it back. All we're saying is fair is fair.

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT (R-UT): Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, but the federal government owns two-thirds of the state of Utah and we would be delighted to have them give up that ownership and let us develop the land. I mean, come on let's not misrepresent what federal ownership is. It is not a great burden and a great boom, I mean a great bonanza and a great boom instead of a burden.

REP. TAUZIN: Senator, I don't want to argue that. If I were representing a state where the government owned 70 percent of my state, I'd probably be sitting with Helen complaining about it. I probably would have tried to get into this bill at least a no net gain, which I think Montana got in negotiations on the House floor.

Yeah, I don't like the idea the government owns so much property in our states. I really don't. That's why we set at as a priority land swapping and consolidation of checkerboard land patterns. All I'm saying is that where the federal government does own land in the interior states and does have mineral production, the law gives you 50 percent of it. We're not sharing 50 percent of the offshore, not anywhere close to that.

SEN. BENNETT: Give me the mineral production and I'll be with you. (Laughter.)

SEN. SMITH: Senator Boxer.

SEN. BOXER: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to put into the record a poll that was done by the Luntz (sp) Research Companies. I think that he's pretty much a Republican consultant and it's very interesting. Very much a Republican consultant and it's very fascinating about people's views on this and even in the West. These are his words, the not so wild West, the myth of too much public land does not hold even in the Western states. This is your Frank Luntz, the argument that quote, "There is already too much public land ranks fourth among four in testing the most compelling negative arguments against this bill with only 12 percent finding it most persuasive. The Western mountain states residents vary only within the margin of error."

I just find it very interesting that there's so much support across the country for this bill. Now, I just want to maybe make the bill a little more exciting to my colleagues who don't like it. I think it goes too far. I mean, Billy, I think you have changed the private property rights to the point where, you know, I have some problems with it. Senator Bingaman has some problems with it, so I just want to make sure everyone understands that there are those of us on the other side. And what they did over there in the House, I think, is a tremendous job of trying to deal with those people straight down the middle and say those people who have the concerns they added a lot of provisions here, which I think Representative Tauzin is very much responsible for. So, I want to put this in record though because I think it's very (important ?).

SEN. INHOFE: But let's reserve your right to object.

SEN. BOXER: To putting this in the record?

SEN. INHOFE: Yes. I'm reserving the right. I would like to have you amend your request to have that poll followed by a poll that was taken this month by the Vox Somebody Communications (ph). Anyway, one of the questions was, in your opinion do you think that the federal government should address maintenance needs first or should it continue to purchase more land to create new parks, and 80 percent said take care of maintenance first, 12 percent, So we can have both of these polls in the record.

SEN. BOXER: Sure. Well, let the record show that I'm putting in the Luntz and you're putting in the whatever it is.

SEN. SMITH: Without objection. (Laughter.) Without of objection, without objection both polls will be placed in the record.

REP. TAUZIN: Does that mean it's a tie? Senator, if I can just elaborate just a second on what you've said. I don't know if you noticed, but the two furtherest, extreme positions on this bill, one represented by the National Defense Fund and the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, and the other represented by the most vocal of the property rights groups out West, both oppose the bill. There are an awful lot of environmental people who are supporting it. An awful lot of property rights people are supporting it. It is not going to please the very ends of the spectrum, but try to pass a bill through here that does. It's all artfully balanced and that's the best we can do and I think if you can improve on it with more property rights, sir, I'd love you to do so. If you can't, because Barbara won't let you, I understand. We had the same problem in the House.

SEN. BOXER: Oh, they've never paid attention to me before anyway. Don't worry.

SEN. SMITH: For clarification is that true? I wasn't aware that the Sierra Club and the Greenpeace and all that were in opposition to this bill. Is that correct?

REP. TAUZIN: Yes that's right.

SEN. SMITH: Okay.

SEN. BOXER: Yeah, sure.

REP. TAUZIN: That ought to give you some comfort, Senator. (Laughter.)

SEN. SMITH: You know maybe my ratings will go up. I'm told there are at least one other, maybe one or two other, congressmen coming and we are going to have to shut this down soon to go to other witnesses, but I know Senator Crapo came in late, Senator Lautenberg, did either of you have a question of either of these witnesses?

SEN. MIKE CRAPO (R-ID): Mr. Chairman, if I might, but I think Frank was here first.

SEN. FRANK LAUTENBERG (D-NJ): Mr. Chairman, I have a statement, which I'd like to enter into the record and I have no questions for the panel.

SEN. SMITH: Statement will be made part of the record. Senator Crapo.

SEN. CRAPO: Mr. Chairman, if I could enter my statement as a part of the record, I would just ask one question of Representative Chenoweth. Representative Chenoweth, one of the big issues out in Idaho is the financial impact on the counties and I wasn't here. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get here in time because we had a press conference with Taiwan.

They were just announcing a big purchase of wheat from Idaho so I apologize that I missed your testimony, but I have reviewed and of course am very familiar your positions and I wondered if you could explain to us a little bit more about the impact that we are concerned about with regard to the PILT funding and the financial impact on the counties that this bill could cause?

REP. CHENOWETH-HAGE: Well, Senator, the ostensibly deals with PILT but not really. PILT funds would be generated only from interest accumulated, or some money left over that hadn't been expended by the secretary, each year. Now, what secretary has a lot of money left in his fund to generate interest? It just doesn't happen, not in this town. And so, the PILT funds really won't be there in the manner that they've been promised.

Secondly, there is a priority in the bill that the PILT money or the interest money would go to the wetlands conservation plan first and then to PILT, but the bottom line is the money, the revenue stream would only be from interest accumulated. And so with a large amount of federal lands in Idaho and most of our Western states, the impact of the accumulation of more land under federal control and the shrinking of the tax base in our counties that are already on their knees is very, very devastating.

As you know, Senator in our state, some of our schools are only holding classes four days a week because they can't afford to stay open five days a week. That's how bad off some of our counties are and this would further harm them and harm schools and necessary services.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you very much.

REP. TAUZIN: Senator, if I can, let me give you the mechanism by which it works. The bill provides that as the moneys accumulate in the Treasury, with the secretary, all this money that will be used for the acquisitions, they're going to be invested in interest. It will earn substantial interest. The bill provides that that money is then used as a match to the appropriated funds for PILT.

We annually appropriate to PILT, but we only appropriate about 50 percent as you know. And we have not done our job, frankly, in Congress in fully funding PILT over the years. This bill would provide a 50 percent match to the appropriated funds of the Congress. So that hopefully if the Congress appropriates again at its 50 percent level or better, it will fully fund the - -

SEN. CRAPO: Billy, what would stop Congress from then simply saying, well we see what's available in the fund so we'll just reduce what we're going to appropriate?

REP. TAUZIN: Don't get the match. If Congress doesn't appropriate, there's no match.

SEN. CRAPO: But they could calculate that mathematically and say well this is the amount we would have appropriated. We've got this money over here so we'll mathematically adjust it.

REP. TAUZIN: They is us. We could do that.

SEN. CRAPO: Well that's right. That's one of my concerns is that, us/we, have been fighting the PILT battle for a long time and it's a big issue.

REP. TAUZIN: No, I understand, Senator. What I'm saying is we provided a mechanism that if Congress will continue to fund at least 50 percent of PILT, the other 50 percent is matched. It's our hope, our intent that Congress continues to do that and I will support you and we will all support you in the effort to ensure that the appropriations bill continue to appropriate at least that percentage because that gets you to approximate full funding, which is what we all want to do.

SEN. CRAPO: Well, I appreciate your support and I know that you've been strong advocate on that, but you can see the concern I have with a Congress that wants to save money, which is this Congress wants to do, they could mathematically simply adjust the appropriation to take advantage of the fund without increasing the PILT funding. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: Anyone else have a question? Senator Bennett.

SEN. BENNETT: Just a quick comment and would appreciate a response. I suppose I'm tainted by the fact that I'm an appropriator along with Senator Lautenberg and for awhile, Senator Boxer, but she found religion and moved on someplace else. (Laughter.) I'm troubled with the idea of setting up yet another trust fund with a dedicated source of revenue for that trust fund. That trend throughout the government as a whole bothers me because if we end up with a government of a series of trust funds, a dedicated revenue for dedicated purposes, we ultimately destroy the power of the Congress to allocate resources where they're most needed. This is not a pure analogy but it goes back to Senator Boxer's state. Someone, and Senator Boxer can tell us who it was, in Marrin (sp) County left an estate for the purpose of support for the arts.

Now there isn't anybody in this Congress more determined to support the arts than I am. I've taken heat back home for support for the National Endowment for the Arts. There are a lot of people think I'm supporting pornography. I disagree with them, but that's a separate issue. That particular fund has grown to the point where an argument could be made that the money could be used someplace else and the arts could still fully be supported in Marrin County.

In Marrin County, California, they have virtually anything they want because there's, what is it, Barbara, a billion dollars in that particular endowment? It's something of that kind. I mean we don't need the details, but the point is - -

SEN. BOXER: I just want one quick correction since I live there. This Buck (sp) Estate was really for a number of uses. She didn't just leave it for the arts. She included the arts so it's little better then because she did say to help the impoverished, blah, blah so there were other things.

SEN. BENNETT: But we find ourselves with a worthwhile goal that is tied to a specific funding source and the funding source may not be solid or it may be excessive and the appropriators are denied the right to make the kinds of adjustments that we make everywhere else. Now we have the airport airways trust fund, and I was partially responsible for creating that, because I was in the Nixon administration at the Department of Transportation when that came about and it was my responsibility to sell it for the Congress. We have the Highway Trust Fund. We have the Social Security Trust Fund. We have a number of trust funds. We are creating another or supplementing, tying a source of revenue to another trust fund and creating interest cubicles, if you will, throughout the government for a particular purpose, particular goal and ultimately distorting the appropriations process, distorting the authorization process.

Now, I'm taking no position in this comment about whether or not the purposes of this bill are good purposes or bad purposes. I happen to believe that the national park system, for example, is seriously underfunded. I sat on the Energy Committee with Senator Wallup (sp), who said I'm not going to approve a single acre of addition to the National Park Service no matter how meritorious until we start funding the maintenance of the national parks to the degree that they deserve to be funded. Now this from a man who was considered somewhat to the right of the Atilla the Hun by some people, but I think he was absolutely right.

Acquiring land and then we don't pay to take care of it. We don't pay to fund the Park Service as we keep adding acres and acres and acres. It's real nifty to have a national park in your state, but who is going to take care of the expenses of a national park? So it's this overall question of the legitimacy of the mechanism created in this bill that I want to address rather than should we do it or shouldn't we do it? Should we do it this way? Anybody have a comment on that?

REP. TAUZIN: Yeah, I can give you the results of that same Luntz poll that's now a part of the - -

SEN. BENNETT: May I make this comment. I don't want to legislate my poll.

REP. TAUZIN: I understand.

SEN. BENNETT: And I don't want to legislate by an Easterner even if he is solidly in my position in politics coming in the West and asking a question because I can control the results of the poll by controlling the wording of the question and I can give you examples of that. And I'm sorry I get passionate about this, but I don't want to legislate my poll.

REP. TAUZIN: I don't want you to do that either.

SEN. BENNETT: Okay.

REP. TAUZIN: But it's already a part of your record, but you ought have the figures if you want to look at it. What it says is that the extremely popular Airport Trust Fund was matched up against the extremely popular Highway Trust Fund against this proposal to trust fund monies for land and water acquisition. And land and water acquisition topped them 45 percent to 37 to seven. Now I understand your feeling about the poll. All I'm saying - -

SEN. BENNETT: You're missing the point. Do we want government by trust funds? Regardless of how popular they may be, is that a logical way to run the government?

REP. TAUZIN: Let me try to answer that. What I wanted to say was that we have done that because indeed the moneys collected for airports, we felt as a Congress should go to airports and we felt the money collected for highways should go to highways. The moneys collected from these offshore funds was dedicated, parts of it were, a long time ago, but have never been used for the purposes intended, for land and water acquisition. That's a dedication Congress made years and years ago.

And just as we collected money for highways and didn't spend it on highways and for airports and didn't spend it on airways, we corrected that and we corrected it with trust funding to make sure that future congresses didn't do what past congresses have done with this offshore money and that it just stuck it in the general fund and started it for other purposes other than the purposes it was originally intended and dedicated to by Congress, which is land and water acquisition.

SEN. BENNETT: I don't mean to be argumentative, but I am questioning the whole concept of dedicating source money that comes from one source to a source that is only vaguely related if in fact not unrelated.

REP. TAUZIN: But it is related.

SEN. BENNETT: Money from the Highway Trust Fund to go to repair highways. Money from gasoline taxes to repair highways is very, very clearly a user fee and that I have no problem with. Money from the airport airways where you take it from the people who are flying to pay for the airports that they're in and the FAA system, I have no problem with, but when you get to the point where, say, what does oil and gas revenue have to do with PILT?

REP. TAUZIN: I think it's a good question. Let me try to answer. Has lot to do with PILT.

SEN. SMITH: I want to make this the question because we can debate this somewhere else.

(Cross talk)

Because I want to get to Congressman Shadegg and we do have two more panels.

REP. TAUZIN: It has a lot to do, Senator. I invite you to come whenever you'd like. I'd love to entertain you in Louisiana and show you what it has to do with what we go through. The pipelines, the canals that service the offshore industry that produced this $120 billion for the national treasury, all those pipelines permitted salt water to intrude and as I say, we lost the size of the state of New Orleans, of Rhode Island rather, over these years and we're going to loose a lot more.

Production of minerals on federal land impacts state revenues for the counties. It impacts the loss of wetlands in our state. There's a direct relationship between the moneys derived for the people of this country in royalties and payments and leases and the impacts we feel in land and water preservation and conservation in our state and across America and a direct impact to PILT because it denies the local people the revenues they need to operate their schools. This is directly connected. And it's as connected at any highway fund or airport fund, sir.

SEN. BOXER: Mr. Chairman, could I correct the record on something. I think it's important. My good friend, Senator Bennett, has an ideological issue with trust funds, which is another debate I think. But I wanted to agree with him that we do need to take care of lands we already have and I wanted to point out that in CRA there's $200 million a year set aside for federal and Indian land restoration. There's a hundred million set aside for historic preservation. So when you see some of these beautiful sites in your state and mine that are falling apart, we'd have that. And there's 125 million for urban parks to get in there and take down the fences that are around some of these parks. So there's money in here to take care of some of the problems we're facing. I just wanted to make that point.

SEN. BENNETT: I understand that, Senator and my point is, I'm not arguing at this point about the goals of the spending side of the legislation or of the validity of gathering the money. I'm just wondering how logical a link it is and I've exceeded my time and I apologize for that.

SEN. SMITH: No apology necessary. We do have three members of Congress we had set aside the period of 9:30 to 10:30 to do this and it's now 10:30, but let me just say to the three congressmen who've just arrived that your statements are made part of the record. If you could summarize in two or three minutes, we'd appreciate and I'll just take you the order you came in. Congressman Shaddeg of Arizona welcome.

REP. JOHN B. SHADDEG (R-AZ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you for the opportunity to appear here before you today. I'll try to summarize in three minutes and I'll certainly appreciate if you'd insert my entire statement in the record. Let me begin by saying I agree with Senator Bennett that the goals of this legislation are well intended. I fully support the goals of the legislation. And I want to also begin by saying that I think the authors are very, very skilled legislators and that they put together a classic political coalition that sticks together district by district, support in the House and stitched across the nation together support across the country.

But I think Senator Bennett said it well just a moment ago, our duty is not to legislate by polls. Indeed, Edmund Burke made it very clear that our duty is to exercise our independent judgment on the merits of legislation and in that regard I urge that your committee woefully scrutinize the merits of this legislation and in particular the issue that Senator Bennett just raised, which is what is the proper structure for achieving these goals?

Let me begin with some points about the legislation itself. The supporters of the legislation will acknowledge that it sets aside $450 million a year to acquire new federal lands. That is to buy more federal land year in and year out $450 million. I suggest that one serious flaw with that point is that it does not distinguish where that land should be acquired. My state of Arizona is already 87 percent owned by one level of government or another.

The last thing we need in Arizona is to buy more federal land taking it off of the tax rolls, increasing the tax burden on those who already own private property. So I think that is a serious flaw. Indeed in Arizona there's one county that's mostly owned by the federal government and 97 percent of that county is owned by the federal government. They have to support the county government on a tax base of three percent of the land

Now, the proponents of the bill will defend this by saying, well that was the average amount, $450 million, was the average amount spent over the last five years since the Republican majority in the United States Congress so that was a correct number to pick. You can quibble with the number because there was a particular high issue, but that's not the point I want to make. This has been five extremely good economic years.

If we pick those five extremely good economic years and say, well that's been the average for five tremendously strong economic years, let's make it the average in perpetuity, for ever and ever, and let's not make it the average, let's put it on auto pilot.

Let's turn the switch so that every year, bad year, year end, year out we spend $450 million to acquire more federal land. I believe that makes no sense and I would ask the members of the panel, which among you believes that the economy is going to stay as strong forever in the future as it has been for last five years? I suggest no one believes that and yet this legislation would lock in an entitlement $450 million a year to buy new federal land even if the economy took a serious dip.

The second point I want to raise is the one that was just raised over here by one of the senators in regard to the maintenance backlog. She pointed out there is money in CRA for maintenance and that's true and that's a good point, but let's look at the real facts and figures. The reality is that for every dollar in CRA to maintain land that we already own, there's $2.50 to buy new federal land. That means that we're buying $2.50 worth of new federal land for every dollar of maintenance we do.

They will tell you, well never in the past have we locked in money for maintenance. I happen to agree with the comments that were made earlier. Our national parks, I think, are in dire shape. The Grand Canyon National Park is in my state. There are several others and it is a disaster. We have not built a new road. We have not built a parking lot at the Grand Canyon National Park since visited when I was 13 and I'm here to tell you that was a long time ago.

Now I believe the priorities in this bill with regard to maintenance are simply backward and that if you pass legislation to achieve these goals, I would strongly urge you to put a greater emphasis on maintenance. You go visit any park in America, you see a desperate and crying need for maintenance. The next to the last point I want to make is the whole structure of entitlement. We are here for a reason. We have a duty to exercise our judgment and to make discretionary decisions about where money ought to go.

This bill creates a new entitlement. In doing so, it puts money ahead of every other priority. Who in this room would say that dollars, $450 million dollars every year automatically spent on acquiring more federal land is more important than education? Who in this room would say that doing that every year even in a bad economy is more important than national defense?

Who in this room would say that doing every year even in a bad economy, forget the past five years of good economy, we should do it automatically in a terrible depression year ahead health care? I suggest no one in this room believes that the acquisition of more federal land, when the federal government already owns roughly a third of the land in the country, should be placed ahead of education, ahead of national defense, ahead of health care and ahead of care for the indigent and yet this bill does that. It creates an automatic pilot. It puts it in an entitlement status.

I think that's a serious flaw with the way, the mechanism - and again I agree with the goals of the authors. Last point I want to make is that you will hear much about the support for this legislation. You will hear the governors support it, mayors support it, city council members support, Parks Department members support, hunters support it, fishermen support and no doubt they'll say, many, many others and that's true. And it is a tribute to the skill of its' authors, that they've stitched together a bill that achieves those goals.

But I would simply ask you to look closely at why those people support it and to recognize the difference you role in the process and their role in the process. Governors support it because it gives money to states. Mayors support it because of the point that was just made about being able to buy new parkland in their cities. Park Departments want it for that reason, hunters because it does some very good things for hunting and I am avid hunter and believe in it and a fisherman. All of those constituencies support it, but they are looking just at their little piece of the pie, their little stream of income that becomes an entitlement and comes to them every year to fend.

I think every one of us here would like to have more money to spend each year just funneled to us. It's our job to look at the omnibus legislation, to look at the whole picture and decide if this is the right way to spend these moneys and I appreciate the time.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you very much, Congressman Shadegg. Congressman Don Young, an old colleague and friend, chairman of the House Resources Committee.

REP. JOHN B. SHADEGG (R-AZ): Mr. Chairman, with your prerogative, with my prerogative, I'd like to let Mr. Miller go first. I'd like to at bat clean up. (Laughter.)

SEN. SMITH: All right. Fair enough, if he doesn't use up all the time, we'll let you.

REP. GEORGE MILLER (D-CA): It's a strange relationship we have and it's trust and verify and he wants to go last. (Laughter.) Mr. Chairman and members of the committee thank you very much for providing this opportunity for us to testify. I think we have sent to the Senate a magnificent piece of legislation. When we started out on this journey, Chairman Young and Senator Mikulski and Senator Landrieu introduced a bill called the Conversation Reinvestment Act. Senator Boxer and I introduced Resources 2000 and nearly everyone said these bills were too big, too expensive and too far reaching.

When we said we would try to merge the bills, nearly everyone said it was impossible. Don Young and George Miller together (laughed ?) but we did it. When they said we'd never get it out of the Resources Committee, we did it with a three to one bipartisan vote. They said that we'd never get a national coalition of parks and wildlife trails enthusiasts, said we wouldn't get the hunters and fishers together with the traditional environmental groups, we wouldn't get the hikers and the state and local officials together, the sport teams, the manufacturers, but we did.

Over 4,000 organizations supporting this. Why? Because they understand that this is the first opportunity to develop an environmental infrastructure that so many of our communities, many suburban communities, are struggling with because of the incredible growth in those communities. They said that we'd never get it scheduled on the House floor, too much ideological opposition, too many budget questions, too many jurisdictional fights between committees. But three weeks ago, 315 members of the House, a majority of both parties, proved all of the doubters wrong.

We delivered to the American people on a promise we made to them 36 years ago and then forgot. A permanent substantial commitment to invest a portion of off-shore revenues back into our parks, our coast, our urban recreation and our wildlife. And despite the inflamed rhetoric you'll hear from a tiny minority of voices, we did it responsibly without trampling on private property rights or states rights. In fact, our legislation takes special care to protect property owners by giving them notice and assuring them that all are involved in the process and focusing on alternatives to acquisition and putting most of the money, about 80 percent of it, in the hands of state and local officials. Not in the hands of those promoting state land acquisition.

Now the responsibility is yours. You can listen to the rhetoric and the naysayers and the doubters and try to kill this legislation or you can listen to the 80 percent of this country that puts a very high value on parks, recreation and the conservation of wildlife. Or, you can do as we do in the House. You can look at the bill and what it really says, not with how it's characterized, listen to your constituents not to the hysterical voices and the misstatements and the intents and the letter of legislation and put aside the party and the ideological jurisdictional differences long enough to do something that will endure longer than any of us.

If Don Young and George Miller can figure out how to work together to pass CRA with 315 votes, I believe the United States Senate can figure it out also. When a number of us were down to the White House a few weeks ago, Senator Mikulski and Landrieu and Breaux and Bingaman and Boxer and Congressman Young and Congressman Tauzin and John Dingell and Congressman John, the president told us and everyone in that room agreed, it would be shameful if we failed to pass this bill having brought it so far.

He was right and the American people overwhelming agree with this. So let's figure out how to get it done. Our resources, whether on the coast of Louisiana or the wildlife or the parks or the soccer teams or any others who will benefit, are at risk and we don't have years to delay. We've been waiting three decades. The time is no to redeem the promise that we made to the American people.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you very much, Congressman Miller and Representative Young, welcome, chairman of the House Resources Committee.

REP. YOUNG: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the committee for having this hearing. I also would suggest what Mr. Miller said ought to be done as well as Mr. Tauzin, we ought to move this bill. I have been very reluctantly to get involved on the Senate side because I know you have your own way of doing things and I understand that. I have two senators over here and I talk to them continuously and one of them happens to be the sponsor of this legislation.

I'd like to just address the issue of financing, number one. This Congress, and I collectively say the Senate and the House, owe the American people approximately $15 billion because we have not spent the money under the original Land & Water Conservation Act itself, which been in a program very frankly that we collect that money for was not to be spent for. I suggest respectfully those that say this is going to break the bank aren't looking at the past history. I'd suggest if you really want to do this just take the $15 billion, apply it to CRA that gives us about six years under the present funding program.

And if it isn't working out, isn't correct then we can revisit it. We keep forgetting that every Congress is just here temporarily. For all the naysayers that have testified before this committee and other committees, if what they say comes true, we can always change it. In fact the people would demand it. Right now the people are demanding the passage of CRA. Now it seems strange, you may think, a person that has a 100 percent private property rights record supporting this bill because I truly believe this bill better supports, better protects the private rights of people.

The money is there. It should be spent and those that say this shouldn't be done I would suggest we didn't draw this bill up according to polls. If you look at our society today it is changing. It is changing dramatically. We have a large urbanized area. When I first came here, Mr. Chairman, we had approximately 7.5 percent of population was the rural areas. Today it's 1.5. There is a demand for spaces. There is demand for hunting and fishing and recreation areas. There's demand for historical preservation. There is demand for easements, conservation easements. There are demand for, yes, the purchase of land.

But nothing says we're going to spend $480 million a year to purchase land. This is a collective effort to try to solve, I think, a very serious problem that comes down to this nation in this year 2000 and beyond. I am a person who believes very strongly that the Congress speaks for the people. There's 4,755 organizations that support this legislation from all walks of life. These are the people. It's not by a poll. The peoples are asking us to do this. My job is to encourage you. I'm not going to tell you how to do it or where to do it or when to do it.

We all know that there will be differences and I expect to be on a conference and I expect this to be done and I hope to have your help, Mr. Chairman, because I think it's crucially important. I think the very biggest disappointment, we can have differences of opinion on the House side on ideology and philosophy of how this nation should be run, but I've never done anything by a poll or done anything by the will of the wind or by how the wind blows. I've done my whole career, all 28 years, on what I believe is correct and I have that to respect and I do believe everybody should respect my opinions. I respect theirs.

But never question the integrity of this legislation because it was well thought out, put forth. We included everyone. We had the discussion and I believe we achieved that goal. And by the way if you extracted the appropriators from the legislation, we would have probably had 140 some odd members of the Congress on our side of aisle. There was a majority. There's a minority that is opposing this. It is a minority in the full House. It's a minority of my party and I don't think it necessary to have to listen to minority. Let's listen to the people of America. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this hearing.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you very much, Congressman Young. Unless someone has a pressing question, I would prefer to let the congressmen and women leave and bring the next panel up, but Senator Graham and Senator (Lugar ?) and you did come in after they came, if you have a question, I'd be happy to field for that.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D-FL): No thanks.

SEN. JAMES INHOFE (R-OK): Mr. Chairman, before they leave, I have one observation that I have made and I've enjoyed listening to the presentations, but of the estimated yearly CRA funding distribution, it comes to a total of $2.8 billion and the four states the comprise almost half of that, three of those states, we've heard from in this testimony. And I again you weren't here when representative Tauzin was here, but I would have to ask the same question there. Would you enthusiastically support this the same if you were in a state like Oklahoma that would get $16.6 million as opposed to $380 million?

REP. YOUNG: I would absolutely.

SEN. INHOFE: Yeah.

REP. YOUNG: This is the right thing to do and that's more money than you're getting out of this bill than you're getting right now. We've always thought the Senate would take a close look at that.

SEN. INHOFE: Well, now that isn't quite true, Don, when you consider the money that otherwise would going into the general fund for other purposes.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you very much. I'm going to take a three- minute and only a three-minute recess while Jamie Clark comes up.

(RECESS)

SEN. INHOFE: Rather than to go through a rather lengthy statement, most of my points have already been made and I'd like to enter it into the record and at the same time associate myself with the testimony of Ms. Chenoweth and Representative Shadegg. I think, particularly Representative Shadegg, had some points that I think are very significant and I agree with everything that he said and I want the record to reflect that.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Senator Inhofe, your statement will be made part of the record. I also would ask unanimous consent for a statement from Senator Warner to be added to the record in support of S. 2123, and Senator Graham.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D-FL): Mr. Chairman, I would like to also ask to submit for the record a statement. At some point I'd like to talk about the issue of the appropriateness of using a trust fund model for the purposes of this legislation and it will be based on the experience of my and other states in similar long-term land acquisition programs.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Senator Graham, we'll certainly have that opportunity. Senator Lieberman.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-CT): Thanks, Mr. Chairman, I too would like to enter an opening statement into the record and just briefly to say that what was obvious we're at a moment of extraordinary, and I suppose in some sense is unexpected, opportunity and it's very important to try to work together to actually get something done here in the Senate. There's a great sense of expectation and hopefulness in states like my own, which are affected by development and want very much to acquire and preserve open spaces and wildlife areas.

And while our state last year actually adopted an open space and watershed land grant program with the role of preserving 21 percent of the state as open space, the money that would come to Connecticut, smaller though it may than what will go to the larger states, nonetheless would have a significant impact. So, I look forward to working with you and other members of the committee to see that, and the Energy Committee, to see that we get this done and do it in the right way. Thank you.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Senator Lieberman. Senator Boxer.

SEN. BOXER: Thank you. I did speak briefly. I would ask unanimous consent to place my full statement in the record. And I would like to speak for about a minute. To me, this is that moment in history that we can do something across party lines.

I was very heartened by the vote in the House to see that coming together around this notion that we need to have a legacy for our lands, and there are many bills here in the Senate side.

Senator Bingaman was unable to be here because of a markup and I just wanted to make sure that I mentioned the good things in Senator Bingaman's bill that I hope any bill will have in the end. Because to me, whatever bill it is unimportant, who so ever name is on it is unimportant. To me the important thing is, one we have substantial and permanent funding for conservation purposes that we ensure the funds are used to benefit the environment, that we give adequate guidance to the direct the funds to the most pressing needs and the bill be free of any incentives for offshore oil and gas drilling. I think that would be a mistake. This is a conservation bill not an incentives for drilling bill.

And I think that Jeff Bingaman's bill, 2181, which is supported by Senators Baucus and myself and I'm not sure Senator Lieberman, I believe, is on that bill. It has some distinguishing characteristics that are worth highlighting in a few seconds here. One, it includes an incentive program for landowners who contribute to the recovery of threatened and endangered species. Increased outreach to landowners, I think is desperately needed for the continued survival of many endangered species. And like some other bills, it provides funding to state fish and wildlife agencies for wildlife protection.

But it does require that the states do a strategic plan for using these funds. This ensures funds will be used for non-game and game species alike and the funds will be directed to the species that have the greatest conservation need. That's the Bingaman bill. It also provides greater clarity to coastal states to ensure that the funds will be used for the environment and finally it includes safeguards to ensure that the bill in no way creates incentives for that drilling that I talked about.

And I hope that we can work those elements of the Bingaman bill into the CRA bill. Last point, again I wanted to reiterate, it was my intention to hold the bill at the desk, the House bill at the desk, but it moved so quickly, I didn't have a chance to do that. So what I did was to take the House bill, word for word, and as I said before, it should be some comfort to Senators Inhofe and Crapo and others, I do have some problems with it. But I think it is a wonderful starting place for us and we've introduced that as a bill and we can put in on the Senate calendar.

So if we get trapped and stuck and if no committee can get a bill out, we can just put it right there on the floor. So that's why I did that as a little strategic move to make sure that we can get this done. So with that, Mr. Chairman, I really want to thank you because I know that you didn't have to have this hearing and you did this because a lot of us urged you to and I appreciate it very much.

SEN. SMITH: Well, thank you, Senator Boxer and of course your statement will be made part of the record. We, as you can see from the hearing, we did get all sides heard here, which is the objective and we still have the Honorable Jamie Clark as well as another panel following. Before I introduce, the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I just wanted to announce that this hearing is the first EPW hearing to be simulcast on the Worldwide Web.

SEN. BOXER: All right.

SEN. SMITH: And so it will be maintained for future viewing on the committee Web site and for those that are interested, it's senate.gov/tildayepw. So, we're in the modern world.

SEN. BOXER: Yeah we are.

SEN. SMITH: Director Clark, it's great to have you here and as you know the drill here, your statement will be made part of the record and if you could summarize it briefly, we'd appreciate it.

MS. JAMIE CLARK: Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I do appreciate the opportunity to present the administration's views on S. 25, 2123 and 2180, each of which provides permanent funding for conservation programs from outer continental shelf oil and gas receipts. The president does feel strongly that this is the year to secure permanent funding for state, tribal and community efforts to protect wildlife and local green spaces, to reinforce federal efforts to save natural and historic treasures and to expand efforts at all levels to protect ocean and coastal resource and these bills all seek to accomplish this.

The administration has several broad goals for the final version of this legislation. We believe it must ensure that new funding is devoted to purposes consistent with the conservation goals of this legislation, that new funding for wildlife protection be targeted primarily for at risk and non-game species and that an appropriate oversight role be secured for the Department of Commerce.

The bill does not establish new incentives for offshore exploration or development and that it not impose burdensome or unnecessary restrictions on federal authority to acquire and protect land. There's a tremendous degree of common ground between the administration's objectives and the bills pending before the committee and the administration is fully committed to working with you to achieve these goals.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, as you know, is involved in a number of programs that these bills address. The first is the Coastal Impact Aid Program found in different forms in both bills. There are extensive coastal responsibilities in both the Department of Interior and the Department of Commerce. Our own coastal programs and activities are detailed in my formal statement. We urge you to provide for a shared role by the two departments in this area as the most effective way to assure coordination and to avoid duplication and wait.

In contrast to the divergence in coastal programs, the bills have virtually identical provisions for matching grants to the states for wildlife conservation and we seek only a few changes. Both bills require an emphasis on non-game species and emphasis is in quotes. We feel strongly that there should be greater direction that the funds be used for at-risk non-game species. These grants, particularly the focuses we request, can be an invaluable tool to help prevent species from declining to the point where they would need listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Apart from Pittman-Robertson and Bengal Johnson Act, which are focused on game species, virtually all federal programs have been devoted towards species that are already in serious trouble. Funding of the magnitude proposed in these bills could have tremendous benefits for the nation's at-risk non-game wildlife species and we urge the committee to aggressively pursuit enactment of this wildlife grant program in hopes that we can work with you to set a proper focus.

We're also very concerned about funds for administering the program. S. 2123 provides two percent of available funds for administration of the other programs it authorizes, while prohibiting any administrative funds for the non-game wildlife grant; 2181 makes two percent of the funds available for administration. The program will surely fail without appropriate oversight in the administration and we need a permanent and adequate source of funding for administration if we are truly to make it work effectively.

We are pleased to see that 2123 provides for the interest generated on the funds set aside for non-game grants to be made available for the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. As this committee well knows, this is one of the most successful and popular conservation programs in the country and demands for grant monies with matching funds far exceeds the federal funds available to make the grants each year. So any funding that can be made available for this incredibly successful program will be effectively and efficiently used.

Both bills provide funds for cooperative endangered species recovery agreement, which is one of the most exciting concepts within the legislation and would be of tremendous value in furthering our species recovery efforts. Recovery, like all natural resources conservation, cannot success as a totally government effort. The current demand for landowner incentives grants to support species recovery initiatives far exceeds available funding. And guaranteed funding is probably the single most effective action that Congress could take to speed recovery for listed species across this country.

Lastly, we have refuge revenue sharing. S. 2123 provides funding to pay a portion of the costs to the refuge revenue sharing and payment in lieu of taxes programs, while S 2181 provides funding only for pelts.

Currently, counties are receiving less than 60 percent of their refuge revenue sharing entitlement.

We therefore welcome any additional sources of funds for this program and would hope that the committee would address this in the final version of the legislation.

Mr. Chairman, the administration does indeed look forward to working with this committee and the rest of the Senate to build on a bipartisan spirit shown by the House and to find a way to do what the public clearly wants us to do, to leave a legacy of financial resources adequate to protect our nation's national treasures. This is truly an opportunity, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, to leave an even better land for our descendants than it is for us. I would be happy to respond to any questions. Thank you.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you very much, Director Clark. Right on the point of the refuge revenue sharing, in your opinion, in S. 2123, is the revenue provided or the funding provided in that bill adequate to address the needs of all the communities across America that may have a refuge within their borders?

MS. CLARK: Well, it's clear that it provides a portion. I'm not sure that it provides for the full entitlement, but the opportunity is certainly there with a little bit of tweaking that we'd be glad to work with you on.

SEN. SMITH: But the administration is supportive of spending money on this program, is that correct?

MS. CLARK: Yes, it is.

SEN. SMITH: And as you know, last year when GAO testified before the House Resources Committee, they had some rather harsh words for the Pittman-Robertson program. They indicated in, I think, the exact term was the program was being administered in a manner that, quote, "spawned a culture of permissive spending." That's one of the reasons why S. 2123 doesn't permit administrative funds, administrative funds be used for the Pittman-Robertson program. What changes have been made in this program to rectify these problems?

MS. CLARK: We've been in the midst of making a number of changes, Mr. Chairman. Clearly, we heard loud and clear from the Congress about their concerns about administration of this program and from the GAO as well, although we still await their final report. The Fish and Wildlife Service also, along with a lot of support from our state partners, conducted a fairly extensive oversight review of the federal aid program across this country and indeed we also dealt with an internal evaluation dealing with how their dollars are accounted for, what the appropriate oversight of our own program is, how we're gonna resolve audit. We're in the midst of shoring up that program, as we speak.

And rather than go into a lengthy report, I would be glad for the record to demonstrate the distance we've come. But certainly, the reaction in this legislation should not be in any negative way aimed at compromising our ability to do our part to shore up natural resources.

SEN. SMITH: And in that, for the record, unless you want to respond to it here, I just want to make sure that you indicate how the Fish and Wildlife Service would administer this program if the funds aren't authorized to administer the additional revenue. If you could provide that for the record.

MS. CLARK: I'd be happy to.

SEN. SMITH: In view of the fact that the GAO was critical, I think it's important to clarify that.

MS. CLARK: Be happy to.

SEN. SMITH: Senator Boxer. No questions? Senator Crapo.

SEN. CRAPO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Jamie, I appreciated your comments and your testimony about the impact of PILT legislation or the lack of PILT funding and other resources for the counties. And I just wanted to pursue that with you a little bit. As you indicated, the counties are now seeing, especially in rural areas that are heavily impacted by federal ownership of land, are seeing dramatic losses of resources as we see the timber revenues shrink up and other resources shrink. And as a result of that, needed funds for our rural education programs and some of the other critical programs that the counties operate are going unmet. And it's a constant battle here in Congress to get the adequate funding for those support programs, even though it is properly the federal government's responsibility to make up for those loss of funds.

Do I take it from your testimony that the administration would support some efforts in this legislation to not only address that, but address it in a way that makes the solution permanent, like some of the solutions that are in the bill already are permanent, with regard to dedicating resources to other purposes. In other words, can we assure the counties not that there's a match if the Congress decides to do it in the right way, but assure the counties that there will be adequate PILT funding or similar types of funding for county support?

MS. CLARK: Well, Senator, every time you say PILT, I'm gonna put refuge revenue sharing on the end.

SEN. CRAPO: Fair enough.

MS. CLARK: Because I'm certainly concerned about the refuge system. But clearly, we have been exploring for a number of years ways to respond to the counties and ways to reimburse, so to speak, the counties from refuge revenue sharing and the administration is absolutely prepared to work within the confines of this legislation to provide the level of certainty that we believe is important.

SEN. CRAPO: So the administration would not oppose trying to put some kind of certainty in terms of that funding, into this legislation?

MS. CLARK: No.

SEN. CRAPO: Let me move to another area. One of the issues that has come up quite often is the issue of a maintenance or currently owned public lands and facilities. And from what I understand, the maintenance backlog is in the billions of dollars. I've seen numbers that range from 12 to $20 billion in terms of maintenance needs across the country. First of all, are those numbers in the ballpark? Do we have that large a maintenance need in the country?

MS. CLARK: There is a very substantial maintenance need within the land agencies. Within the Fish and Wildlife Service, it's about 800 million, of the backlog of maintenance needs for the National Wildlife Refuge system. So I would imagine when you add the Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service , that it's pretty substantial.

SEN. CRAPO: It's a substantial amount. In that context, I can tell you from our experience in Idaho that the maintenance needs are crying for some type of a solution. And that also has an impact on the local counties and the economies of these counties that depend on the tourism and the recreation and the other activities that are related to the use of the public land. And again, in that context, I'd like to have your opinion on whether we should not seek as we address this overall issue, to apply a larger portion of the resources we have to maintenance and to dedicate them to that objective.

MS. CLARK: Well, that's certainly an issue worthy of discussion, as we look at the balance of targeted resources within this bill and the administration would be glad to engage that. We have been in this conversation with the Appropriations committees in both the House and Senate for a number of years and they have been very thoughtful and very generous about that support, but it's certainly worth discussion.

SEN. CRAPO: All right. Thank you. I have no further questions at this time, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Senator Crapo. Senator Baucus.

SEN. BAUCUS: I thank the chairman. Ms. Clark, I'd like to discuss with you a provision in a House Bill, Section 211 which is a Montana-specific provision, introduced by Congressman Hill of Montana. And just your thoughts about it and how well it would work or not work.

Clearly, we don't want excessive federal ownership; nobody, I think, does. On the other hand, we also don't want to discourage transactions that have broad, you know, public support.

In the provision in the House bill essentially says that, with respect to Montana only and no other state, that in exchange or an acquisition must be designed to ensure that there's no increase in total acreage of federal lands in Montana that is above de minimus. And I do know that, in many cases, there are land exchanges where acreage is not a total of one for one. That is acreage, on one hand, might be large, but the value of that acreage might perhaps stay in the dollar value, say, per acre is much less than the dollar value of acreage that might be exchanged or that may be some cash involved in the land exchange.

And I mention all this because in Montana, we've had great success lately, as you know very well, having been part of it, with land exchanges. And the whole purpose of this is to consolidate private ownership and to consolidate federal ownership, to try to undo the problem that was created years ago with checker board federal ownership patterns caused by Congress and passing, you know, legislation giving incentive to railroads, for example. I think every other section went to a private -- federal land and it is just caused tremendous management problems both where the federal government, whether its the Forest Service or BLM, and for a, say, private ownership, whether it's timberlands or recreation land or what not. And so, I'm concerned about this provision and I just wondered, from your perspective, how you see that working and just basically what your view is of that provision in the bill.

MS. CLARK: Sure, Senator. Well, I share your concern. First, the notion of consolidation of federal ownership is something that the Fish and Wildlife Service and I imagine my colleagues are already focusing on. So that provision is, in reality, unnecessary. The notion of consolidating federal land ownership is important to us, not only from an efficiency and effectiveness of management standpoint, but to shore up the biological integrity of these lands that we're entrusted to protect for the future.

The de minimus requirement, I believe, is somewhat counterproductive for a lot of the reasons that you just laid out. You're right, when we're engaged in some of these really creative land exchanges, it isn't a one-for-one. Oftentimes, what you're exchanging in one area, whether we're shoring up biological value or land costs or intended use of the area, is not at a one-to-one. So this notion of de minimus, I think, could seriously not only limit options, but it could seriously affect the biological integrity of the intentions of some of these exchange opportunities, but also could compromise in a negative way the flexibility of the people of the state of Montana.

SEN. BAUCUS: You know, obviously, we don't want, as I mentioned earlier, excessive federal ownership, but it's just my experience, frankly, that at least in Montana, for example, the purchase of the Royal Titon Ranch to help wildlife.

MS. CLARK: Absolutely.

SEN. BAUCUS: And migration patterns north of Yellowstone Park, very, very important to the elk herd and other wildlife at Yellowstone Park, but also other consolidations have been fully indebted to the public. I mean, I'm told hearings and it just seems to me that we don't want an artificial constraint that's going to prevent, you know, the public from accomplishing some results that seems to the public to make sense.

MS. CLARK: Well, I certainly don't think you want to compromise public involvement and you, equally importantly, don't want to compromise flexibility or opportunities to ultimately get the best deal for all involved parties. And this amendment could compromise any kind of creativity and flexibilities that would be gained in any kind of open forum anyway.

SEN. BAUCUS: Thank you very much. I want to thank you for your good work, too. You've been a real credit to the administration and to the people in that state.

MS. CLARK: Thank you.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Senator Baucus. Senator Graham.

SEN. GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you for holding this hearing. If I could make a couple of preliminary comments. I put this legislation the context of history, history looking backwards and historic challenges looking forward. It's interesting to me that, as we start the third century of the history of the United States, that we have an opportunity analogous to that which was presented to us at the beginning of the first and the second century.

In the first century, during the administration of Thomas Jefferson in 1802, we purchased Louisiana. It doubled the size of the United States. It made the United States a continental rather than an Atlantic nation. It prevented North America from being the site of colonial wars among competing European interests. It was a bold, visionary and, at the time, a very expensive undertaking. But clearly, it was a great gift to the future of the nation.

At the beginning of the second century, Theodore Roosevelt added to the treasury of the public lands of the United States an area that was the equivalent of all of the states from Maine to Florida -- again, a great gift which has benefited our nation.

As we start the 21st century, we have a national population of approximately 270 to 275 million people. The Census Bureau projects that by the beginning of the fourth century of America's existence, we will have a population of 571 million people. So our challenge is what are we going to do equivalent to Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt to be prepared for not only that substantially larger number of Americans, but as has been indicated, a number of Americans who will be even more urban. They will also be older and they will be more diverse than the Americans today and therefore will have a wider range of interests, desires, to be able to be participate in the outdoor experience that this legislation intends to make more available. So I think we're talking about a piece of legislation that is not the normal work that we do, but is really of historic significance.

Second, there have been discussions about whether it's appropriate to use a trust fund model for this. I will say, from my own experience as a state legislature and then governor of a state which had a very expansive land acquisition program, it was our finding that unless you had a dedicated source that could be depended upon in which people had confidence, that a land program tended to become an annual fight within the political entities as to who could get on the train that was leaving town that day because there was no confidence that there was gonna be another train leaving on the following day, that one of the benefits of having an ensured source of funding is not only the adequacy of the fund, but the fact that it allows you to do intelligent planning and that the establishment of priorities.

And people who make look at that list and say, I'm on the priority list, but I'm five years downstream, will have enough confidence that the program will exist five years from now, that they will be willing to defer their aspirations until their time has come. So I think this funding mechanism is critical to accomplishing the very objective for which we are establishing this program.

Let me turn to the question that you were just discussing and that is the issue of the accumulated maintenance requirements on federal land. Does the Department of Interior and the various areas in which it is a steward of federal land, have a strategy for beginning to deal with the accumulated backlog of maintenance and how does this legislation integrate with that strategy and would you recommend any modifications in this legislation in order to more effectively impact that backlog of maintenance?

MS. CLARK: Clearly, Senator, the administration has taken very seriously the need to protect what we have. And indeed, the Department of Interior does, in fact, have a strategy to address the maintenance backlog on our land and we deal with it in five-year intervals, something that we can grab onto, with primary focus on health and safety, safe visits, safe passage. And then, following focus on the resource priorities needs in R9 (ph). So certainly, for the Fish and Wildlife Service, we have a very documented strategic plan to address the backlog of maintenance fees for the National Wildlife Refuge System.

I believe that this legislation, along with the initiatives already underway within the department, could complement each other in a very positive way. It's so important that we take care of what we have and the initiatives in these bills before the Senate the work that's already ongoing in the department could very significantly leverage and complement each other and we would look forward to that discussion.

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, my time is up, but I recognize this committee's principle jurisdiction on this matter is, in your agency, and that other areas the Department of Interior, such as the National Parks or in other committees, but I would be interested in getting some further materials on what the strategic plan is and your thoughts about how this legislation might be part of actually cheating that strategic plan and if that suggests any modifications in this legislation.

MS. CLARK: Certainly. I'd be glad to.

SEN. GRAHAM: Good. Thank you. If you could do that for your agency and if you could mention to Mr. Stanman (ph) --

MS. CLARK: I'll pass the word.

SEN. GRAHAM: -- and some of the other folks that we'd like a similar analysis for their areas of responsibility.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Senator Graham. Senator Craig, do you have any further questions? Senator Boxer, do you have any further questions or witnesses?

SEN. BOXER: I just might have one. Why is it important to provide the funding for the non-gaming wildlife?

MS. CLARK: For a number of reasons. We have a very successful program, the Pittman-Robertson program that focuses on game species and rightly so, as the income for that program was derived from excise tax, derived from hunting and hunters. And the states have been incredibly successful at maintaining and supporting populations of game species over the years.

We all know about the Endangered Species Act and what happens when, you know, it's at the end of the track and the serious investments that comes with trying to recover a species from the brink of extinction when they've already kind of gotten, you know, in the bottom of the emergency room.

What we have in between is the vast majority of species, the non- game species, for which the American public is increasingly putting focus on with bird-watching, nature photography, and on and on, as you know. And that risk species, migratory bird species are management concerns, candidate species, species that are tumbling towards the endangered species list, Declining species within the state boundaries, sensitive species that are on other federal agencies' lists. And I certainly believe that they deserve dedicated focus. I believe that the public deserves dedicated focus. And it's far more efficient and far more effective. We have so significantly much more flexibility if we can plan and address the needs of those species before they're sitting on my desk in a red folder, putting them on the endangered species list.

SEN. BOXER: So it's prevention?

MS. CLARK: Absolutely. Prevention and sustaining a really rich biological heritage for this country.

SEN. BOXER: Thank you very much.

SEN. SMITH: Senator Graham, did you have any follow-up, second round?

SEN. GRAHAM: Mr. Chairman, I think I have covered the principle issue I wanted with Ms. Clark and look forward to her follow-up materials.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you. Thank you, Director Clark. We appreciate it very much and we'll now turn to the third panel. I'll introduce them in the interest of time, as they come to the table. Mr. David Waller, the president, the International Assoc. of Fish & Wildlife Agencies, accompanied by Mr. Wayne Vetter, the executive director of New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. Ms. Rindy O'Brien, Vice Presidents of Policies, The Wilderness Society, Mr. Roger -- I'm gonna have trouble with that one. Say that for me.

MR. ROGER SCHLICKEISEN: Schlickeisen.

SEN. SMITH: Schlickeisen. Thank you. President, Defenders of Wildlife, Mr. Hardiman, American Land Rights Association, Mr. Charles Niebling, Policy Director, Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, and Dr. Rollin Sparrowe, president, Wildlife Management Institute. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to all of you. In the interest of time, if you could summarize your statements in two or three minutes, we'd appreciate it. Your statement will be made a part of the record and why don't I just start from left to right here and start with you, Dr. Sparrowe.

DR. ROLLIN SPARROWE, PRESIDENT, WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE: Mr. Chairman, we at the Wildlife Management Institute are pleased to lend our strong support for a consolidated approach to legislation reflected in the three pending Senate bills. This is an issue on which people have been working for a long, long time and I want to offer some historical perspective that you may not have. Way back in 1973, a model non-game law proposal was presented by Winchester Arms (sp) with assistance from our institute.

In 1975, our institute worked with the Council on Environmental Quality to do an assessment nationally of the needs for non-game work by the States. It was an earlier desire in this to see non-hunters and fishermen share in the cost of conservation. The legitimate needs surfaced in these early studies are some of what has driven us through legislative attempts, such as the 1980 Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, which was not funded by the Congress. So the needs are still there and a lot of people have been working on this, including in the sporting community for a long time.

Our agencies are beset with increasing responsibilities for things like environmental reviews, the fallout from public furor over what to be done with wildlife inhabitants on public lands, as well as the private lands within the states. This has become a significant burden, limiting the abilities of agencies to keep up.

As an example, just a cross my desk yesterday, the state of Montana's annual report shows licensed revenues at 64 percent and federal aid at 22 percent of their entire budget and yet they have to deal with an array of declining species and there's no buffer for the periodic ups and downs in this kind of funding that comes to the states, so the need is there and it's very critical. We feel very strongly that such new funding would strengthen the existing fish and wildlife agencies, would have the responsibilities for fish and wildlife. They have the authority. This would keep that activity in their hands where it belongs. It would add more habitat accessible to traditional uses like hunting and fishing as a dividend from broader conservation and it would widely expand the public involvement now in guiding and supporting these agencies.

I want to differ a bit from some of the testimony you've heard. The Pittman-Robertson program has no limitation and never has on focus on game species. It was a natural focus because those came species in 1937 were essentially the endangered species in North America. When we started the teaming of wildlife activity here about a decade ago, a survey of the state showed that almost 40 percent of the money going into non-gaming and endangered species programs. In the states, wildlife agencies was coming directly from licensed revenues from hunting and fishing or from the federal aid existing programs. So they have supported a good bit of the non-game work that has been done.

We feel very strongly that a management function with stable funding in the agency has to complement any national efforts for land protection and land preservation, because in order to get the benefits from this, we certainly think there has to be active management in the long term of the wildlife resources.

So our common message is the need is clear and well documented. There is a model in the existing federal aid program that is very good that we can build upon and we want to see the authority for these things kept with our states.

I have just a couple of final points. The vision of this from the beginning, back as early as 1973, was to fund work on non-game species and that remains the vision of most of the people who support this legislation.

And I think there is an equal interest on the part of the hunters and anglers of America in the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This was not something hatched by modern environmental groups, many of whom did not exist when land and water came forward. In fact, the Isaac Walton League (sp) supported this initially and it was hunters and anglers that pushed for that fund and were supporters in its earlier days and remained so. We all have a stake in many parts of this legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you very much, Dr. Sparrowe. Mr. Niebling, welcome.

MR. CHARLES NIEBLING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Founded in 1901 was the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forest is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to the wide use of our natural resources and their complete protection in places of special environmental or scenic importance. We are also private landowners. We own and manage 33,000 acres of productive woodlands which I believe makes us unique among state-based conservation organizations.

Just last week, Mr. Chairman, the New Hampshire legislature passed and funded a new program called the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program. The Forest Society led a coalition known as Citizens for New Hampshire Land and Community Heritage involving 120 farm and forest landowner, business, civic tourism, recreation, wildlife historic preservation and land conservation organizations over a two-year period to secure passage of this landmark legislation.

This same coalition has also formally and actively lobbied for the CARA bill since 1999. For the record, we support passage of the CARA bill S. 2123. There are elements of the Conservation and Stewardship Act, S. 2181, that we support and would like to see incorporated into 2123. There are elements of the recently passed H.R. 701, the House version of CARA, that merit serious consideration by this committee.

While there are many important provisions within 2123, one important accomplishment is the restoration of full and dedicated funding for LWCF. We are particularly supportive of the significant dedicated funding allocated to the stateside program of land and water.

With the recent passage of our state conservation bill, which also has a matching funding requirement, New Hampshire communities are ready, willing and able to take advantage of stateside land and water funding. This legislation would be improved, however, by modifications embodies in S. 2181. In particularly, Senator Bingaman's bill would first create an additional more flexible fund which is capable of addressing important state-led projects of local, regional or national significance which exceed the capacity of the traditionally administered stateside programs.

And second, encourage the private-public partnership embodies in the Forest Legacy Program and the Farmland Protection Program. This provides a critically important tool by allocating funds to purchase conservation easements from willing sellers, thereby keeping our most productive forests and farmlands in private ownership.

I want to briefly address each of these provisions. First, flexible funding. Title II of S. 2123, reauthorizes federal and state Fed programs of LWCF. Both are highly successful programs serving critical needs and both deserve full and permanent funding. However, LWCF currently does not provide funding for larger state or local projects of regional and national importance that exceed the capacity of the stateside programs. In addition, states with little federal land or with small populations, such as New Hampshire, do not have access to significant federal funding.

Many senators and others have expressed concerns that he distribution of funds under Title I, the Coastal Impact Assistance, is unfair and disproportionately benefits a few states. A way to rectify this is to modify the formula and utilize some of these funds in a competitively bid flexible fund to which all regions of the county with well-documented conservation needs that exceed the stateside formula, will have equal access. S. 2181 does this by adding a new Section 14 to the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, creating a fund known as the Non-Federal Lands of Regional or National Interest Fund. H.R. 701 accomplishes the same, under Section 206 of Title II.

Many states, most notably New Hampshire, are looking for ways to protect important working forests in ecologically or recreationally important lands without creating or expanding federal units supporting alternatives to new federal ownership for most local control and partnerships that respect local values and priorities. We hope the consensus Senate bill will include the flexible funding provision.

Secondly, forest legacy and the farmland protection programs, New Hampshire has a long history of using conservation easements to permanently protect land from developments, while retaining private ownership and control. Our state has utilized legacy funds to protect thousands of acres of productive managed woodlands. For example, there is much current interest in our state to buy a conservation easement on 171,000 acres of productive timberlands owned by a large corporate timberland owner. The owner is a willing party to these discussions. A legacy easement will keep these lands in private ownership, keep them contributing to the tax base and local economy and will protect both economically important uses, such as timber production, hunting and snowmobiling and ecologically important features of the land.

Under Title VII, S. 2123 authorizes a conservation easement program, yet it is unclear how this program relates to existing federal easement programs, such as legacy or the Farmland Protection program. Title VIII of S. 2181 addresses this by specifically authorizing funding for forest legacy, the Farmland Protection Program and a new program called the Ranchland Protection Fund. H.R. 701, as passed by the House on May 11th, includes language that we support, allowing qualified nonprofit organizations total easements under these programs. We hope the Senate will work to reconcile these slightly varying approaches.

Let me just speak briefly to the issue of PILTS, if I may, Mr. Chairman. If the federal government is going to continue to acquire land, it must fully fund its authorized payment in lieu of tax and refuge revenue-sharing obligations. Maintaining fiscal relationships with local governments is as important an aspect of federal land stewardship as is the responsible management of the land. As you know, Senator Smith, the federal government pays about 46 percent of the authorized copayments on lands of the White Mount National Forest. This is a source of much tension between our rural northern communities and the U.S. Forest Service.

To summarize, Mr. Chairman, we strongly urge you to use this hearing and other means to communicate with the leadership of the Senate and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to insist the differences be bridged and cast sound conservation legislation be enacted this year.

There are considerable hurdles, budgetary and otherwise, yet to overcome. Like you, however, we recognize that recently passage of H.R. 701 in the House provides us with a rare opportunity to pass significant legislation. The House vote is an indication of a broad cross section of Americans speaking loudly in support of CARA. Their message, to paraphrase the American Express commercial, is don't leave for home without it. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I'll conclude my testimony. Thank you.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Niebling. Mr. Hardiman.

MR. MICHAEL HARDIMAN, AMERICAN LAND RIGHTS ASSOCIATION: Hello. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting the American Land Rights Association to testify today. I am an inholder of private property located in California that is surrounded by the Bureau of Land Management. I purchased the parcel 11 years ago, anticipating that access to government-owned land will continue to be cut off by the Desert Protection Act and other laws. That prediction has certainly held true. I use the property for recreational purposes, such as camping and as a base camp for rock-climbing and hiking.

On a per capita basis, S. 2123 is a remarkable cash cow for two states, Louisiana and Alaska. Louisiana benefits $71 per capita, more than six times the average and Alaska rakes in $266 per capita annually or 24 times what the average state receives. These two states may have legitimate claims to the funds. However, I implore the Senate to avoid the creation of a $45 billion 15-year land acquisition trust fund as part of a political deal to satisfy those claims. It will provide the power and money for government agents to kick people like me off my land.

Over-zealous regulators, joined by environmental pressure groups, both have a front-row seat on the CARA grant money gravy train. It will make folly of the willing seller clause by harassing owners of properties targeted for acquisition and discouraging other potential buyers.

It is not possible to negotiate as a willing seller when government is the only buyer.

Every owner of a ranch, wood lot or game preserve will be at risk of being targeted by government agencies working in tandem with environmental, anti-hunting and animals rights pressure groups. Ironically, since they hold the most desirable properties, private landowners who have been the most diligent caretakers of their holdings will be on top of the land-grab list for government takeover.

The umbrella group that is coordinating the campaign in support of CARA is an outfit called Americans for Heritage and Recreation. Proudly displayed on their Web site are their guiding principles which include this statement regarding property rights protections, quote, " AHR adamantly opposes any restrictions on the Land and Water Conservation Fund, especially those that limit acquisition to federal inholdings or adjacent lands, implore arbitrary geographic restrictions on the use of funds, require new authorizations or prevent condemnation."

The differences between S25, introduced early in '99, and S.2123, introduced early this year, kowtow to AHR's demands. I will quote here a transcript of Senator Murkowski discussing land acquisition from Alaska public radio on May 9, just two weeks ago. Murkowski: "This is Senate bill 25. It has to be within units established by an act of Congress, it has to be two-thirds of the money spent east of the hundredth meridian, which is primarily east of the Mississippi, and the purchases of over $5 million require congressional approval. So we've got some safeguards in there that are responsible." Caller: "Is the senator willing to filibuster if those property protections are stripped out?" Murkowski: "Well, I'll be happy to respond to the caller based on what kind of a debate we get in and whether this bill ultimately moves or not."

Those protections are, in fact, not included in S. 2123. Furthermore, in accordance with AHR's wishes, amendments to prohibit use of CARA funds for condemnation of private property outside of the federal side of LWCF, which is only one-sixth of the total, were rejected by the bill's sponsors both in committee and on the floor on the House side. There are some hoops that the government is required to jump through on the federal side of Title II, which is Land and Water Conservation Fund. But those relative fig leaves in S. 2123 apply to only $450 million out of nearly $3 billion per year that is disbursed.

S. 2123, and its companion legislation H.R. 701 is a fraud. It is a political sellout of landowners, in exchange for huge piles of cash for Louisiana and Alaska. In per capital terms, nickels and dimes are handed out to other states to buy them off. It is a tragic and unprecedented attack on private property ownership in the United States.

And attached to my testimony are additional statements opposing CARA from several other organizations, the Gun Owners of America, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Sixty-Plus seniors association and others. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you very much, Mr. Hardiman. Mr. Schlickeisen.

MR. RODGER SCHLICKEISEN: Thank you. I guess I've been placed here to give a contrary view. I guess I can do that.

MR. HARDIMAN: On that number, it's seven to one.

MR. SCHLICKEISEN: I'm here representing Defenders of Wildlife, Mr. Chairman and I'm happy to submit our testimony for the record. It is also testimony of a number of other members of our fairly sizable environmental coalition supporting this general legislation before you.

All of these bills have in common the very laudable goal of rescuing the funding principle and promise that was enacted into law in 1964 when the Land and Water Conservation Fund was created, a kind of quid pro quo for expanded drilling in the outer continental shelf. As a number of people, including Senator Landrieu, for example, and Representative Young have commented, that principle and promise was to use the royalties generated by exploitation of non-renewable oil and gas to provide permanent protection for other natural resources.

That said, while the bills have that in common, I'd like to use my few minutes here to focus on a handful of serious flaws in the legislation and I'll focus primarily on S. 2123, the likely markup vehicle, I assume. Some flaws that we think require correction for any law assigned into being. We think that all of the components necessary for an excellent piece of legislation are present in the various pieces of bills, the various bills that are before this committee or otherwise offered. And what's necessary is to combine them in a way that maximizes the conservation benefits.

Looking first at Title I of S. 2123, I won't dwell on this, but our coalition has been very concerned about the incentives that are in S. 2123 for additional drilling, especially off the coast of Alaska. I won't dwell on it, Mr. Chairman, because Representative Young promised the president that he would take those incentives out and, indeed, he and Representative Miller did take them out when the bill came to the House floor, so those incentives are not in the legislation now, for all practical purposes.

A second problem, though, with Title I has to do with the usage of the funds and we're very concerned in this case that there's a great potential here to violate the basic conservation principle of the bill and that is that if you look closely at the legislation, while there are a number of good environmental uses that are possible, it's also possible that the seven OCS states could spend approximately $730 million on infrastructure, environmentally destructive projects, such as drilling and making additional roads and additional piers and what have you. We don't think that was the purpose of the legislation and we encourage you to look at the approach taken in S. 2181 to assure that the projects that are funded by this legislation by Title I would be of the environmentally friendly.

The provisions in Title II of S. 2123 dealing with Land and Water Conservation Fund, our chief concern here is that, for some reason that we don't understand, 2123 singles out the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the federal side of it, to be treated differently from every other program in the bill. For all other programs, annual funding is mandatory but for federal LWCF, there must be a specific appropriation. We think there's no small amount of irony in this. I mean, after all, if you think back in 1964 when it was established, as a quid pro quo, the idea was that these funds would go into this fund and be dedicated for this purpose. A number of speakers, as I mentioned earlier today, have commented on these. I think, was it Mary Landrieu that commented that the funds have been hijacked. Representative Young commented about this himself. And yet, when you look at 2123, you'll find out for some reason, federal LWCF is the only program for which funding is not mandatory in this bill. I'm pleased to say that a large number of the other pieces of legislation before the committee now and introduced on this subject and also the president's budget Lands Legacy proposal all make the funding for federal LWCF permanent and mandatory or the equivalent thereof. And so, I encourage this committee to look at that possibility as they decide their position on this bill.

Finally, I want to turn to Title III of S. 2123. This is a new program that has a great deal of potential value that I think would be of interest to this committee. It creates a new program, kind of a revenue-sharing program in a way right now that's it's written, unfortunately, but a program that provides $350 million per year to state fish and game agencies for wildlife conservation purposes.

This provision would be a lot better if it had the kind of planning requirements in it that a number of other people have called for. There's a majority of the comprehensive bills that call for planning in this case. The White House and Jamie Clark sitting here a little bit ago, said that it's important to them and we have a letter that I want to submit for the record where 19 fish and game wildlife conservation agencies have banded together to call for this planning provision to be in the language and yet inexplicably it continues to be missing from S. 2123.

I'm very pleased, Mr. Chairman, in your letter to me of May 4th, you indicated very strong support for this planning language and I appreciate it a great deal. We're experiencing a growing problem with endangered species and Jamie referred to that, at a time when the Congress can only find $180 million to fund ESA and the two agencies that oversee it. To provide a new program with $350 million per year and not require that the states at least make a contribution to helping make sure that these imperiled species and imperiled habitats don't become endangered, doesn't make any sense to us at all. Nobody enjoys the kinds of endangered species battles we've been in over the last couple of decades. But if we're going to get away from this, clearly, we need an upstream solution to the endangered species problem.

And the upstream solution has got to be one where the states, who own our wildlife, assume their proper responsibility. This is the kind of provision that can get that done.

Twenty years ago, this committee saw that and under the leadership at that point, the chief author of the bill, John Chafee, put out a piece of legislation the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1980, that became law and gave grants to the states and required them to do some planning to save non-game and at-risk species to avoid the endangered species problem.

The language, the planning language that was in that bill, Mr. Chairman, is almost exactly the planning language that is in S. 2181 and I encourage this committee to strongly support that. I don't know what that provision does for the committee absent that kind of language. Thank you.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you. Ms. O'Brien of the Wilderness Society, welcome.

MS. RINDY O'BRIEN: Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today. The Wilderness Society believes that the House passed legislation as the sound starting point for the Senate's deliberations. Alongside our colleagues in the environmental community, we would welcome the opportunity to further improve the bill as it comes through this Senate. I think Senator Boxer outlined a lot of the concerns that we have and the places where we would like to see some improvement. But we also clearly acknowledge that there has been substantial progress already made in balancing the competing interest.

Between 1987 and 1997, three out of every four dollars were spent elsewhere from the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Oftentimes, people have said the environmental community has been too polite in demanding the funds that were promised by Congress some 376 years ago be spent for the purposes.

During the same period, the Land and Water Conservation Fund spending averaged $230 million or just 25 percent of the $900 million been authorized to flow into the Fund. There were some numbers presented earlier today about some arbitrary number of 450 million being picked up for this legislation. The fact is that the $900 million was authorized 35 years ago at that level to be split between the federal side and the state side. It's not an arbitrary number that has just been calculated, looking at past numbers. If you were going to do that, you would go to 230 million.

Clearly, there is a need and there's an obligation to have acquisition under the Land and Water Conservation Fund, both on the federal and state side. There were discussions earlier today about dueling polls and, as one of the organizations that actually hired Mr. Luntz (ph) to do the poll, I wanted to speak to something in my testimony that goes beyond dueling numbers and that is what are voters doing actually when they go to the polls. These are not just research tools, but what they're actually voting on.

In 1998, of 148 state and local open space measures were on the ballot, 124 were approved. That's a resounding 84 percent approval rate on these measures. And collectively, that represents $5 billion in public revenues to preserve America's open spaces. The figures from 1999 are equally impressive and this is in an off-election year. Of 102 open space ballot initiatives, 92 were successful. That's a 90 percent success rate and those 92 measures committed another $1.8 billion to public land acquisition. So you can either accept or reject research tools, but what the voters are saying is they go to the ballot box around the country consistently, is that they believe that the government needs to be spending money to protect open space.

The Wilderness Society have three essential elements that they find crucial as you move through this legislative process. First, the legislation must permanent remove Land and Water Conservation Funds from the financial machinations that, for far too long, have limited its effectiveness. This is the year to take the Land and Water Conservation off budget once and for all.

A point that needs to be clarified from the morning debate, as well, is during the House debate of H.R. 701, it was amended to make it clear that expenditures under the legislation passed there would not occur if they diminish the funds available for Social Security and Medicare. We have no disputes that these funds need to be placed above those two acts. But, we firmly believe that efforts to protect our open spaces deserve the same protection Congress has provided for the Highway Trust and, most recently, for the Federal Aviation Trust Fund. If we can set aside money to pave it, we believe we can set aside money to save it.

Second, the Land and Water Conservation Fund needs to be fully funded. After years of diverting as much as 75 percent of the intended money of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, now is the time to make good on that promise.

And third, we believe the Land and Water Conservation Fund should move forward unencumbered by new restrictions on how it operates. I think that the committee members this morning from the House side went through all of the provisions that were in the House-passed bill to protect property rights. We believe that that has established some changes that maybe go beyond where we need to, but we clearly believe we don't need to go as far as the Hill language which restricts a no- net gain in these states and we actively oppose that. Thank you.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Ms. O'Brien. And Mr. Waller, director of the Georgia Wildlife Resources Division, representing the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Welcome.

MR. DAVID WALLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before your Committee today to share with you the collective strong support of all 50 state Fish and Wildlife Agencies for the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, or for CARA, as it's more commonly called.

Whether you hunt, fish, bird watch, hike, play soccer or just enjoy the peace and tranquillity of being outdoors appreciating the vast natural bounty of our nations, this bill will ensure that our children and future generations will enjoy this bountiful natural wealth.

We urge your favorable attention to the Conservation and Reinvestment Act, and encourage your cooperation and assistance to Chairman Murkowski to facilitate a bill being expeditiously reported to the full Senate for its consideration this year.

The Association strongly supports CARA because it is a bipartisan, consensus-built, and common-sense approach to conservation that makes good economic sense, good common sense, and good political sense.

The coalition of over 4,500 organizations, this has been brought out two or three times today, has really come together across a nation and sounded a loud voice for conservation, in general. Our goal is to bring dedicated, consistent funding to state-based fish and wildlife conservation programs; Land and Water Conservation; coastal conservation and environmental programs; state and local outdoor recreation; historic preservation; and incentives for our landowners to continue good stewardship of their land in open space uses, like farmland, ranchland and forest land.

CARA places decisions on identifying needs and spending priorities at the state and local level which we believe can best reflect the interest of our citizens, and, it does that while giving greater protection than exists in current law to private property owners with respect to federal land acquisition.

The most significant benefit of CARA to fish and wildlife conservation is that state fish and wildlife agencies will finally be in a position to take preventive measures to conserve declining fish and wildlife species before they reach a status where they must be listed as endangered or threatened.

In this way, the state fish and wildlife agencies can work cooperatively with private landowners through voluntary, non- regulatory means such as incentives, technical assistance, easements, and other such measures. Preventative conservation now is an investment that will continue to pay dividends far into the future. It simply costs much less to conserve fish and wildlife species by responding to early warning of decline, than it does to recover those species once they've been listed.

Let me share with you a few perfecting amendments that the Association recommends for Title III. The first one, we would like to see the floor for minimum states increase from one half to 1 percent. That would benefit 10 states, and yours is one of them, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: You got my attention.

MR. WALLER: It would benefit 10 states that really needs additional funding because of the size and the population and those kind of things.

We'd like to see a five-year phase-in period with 90 percent federal and 10 percent state match, because right now a 75-25, as it is in Pittman-Robertson. But many of the states would have a tough time coming up with a 25 percent match. And we would like to have five years for the states to be able to develop that kind of match.

We'd like to remove the 10 percent cap on wildlife-associated recreation spending. That really handicaps a lot of states and its need vary considerably from state to state and we feel like the states should have a role in that and let's don't put a cap on it. We'd like to reinstate the provision for up to 10 percent of the funds to be used for law enforcement. That was in the original bill. Law enforcement is a important component of wildlife conservation in the states and we'd like to have that -- to have some funding included for that.

We'd like to see the wildlife conservation planning language included, as some of the other panelists have suggested. We think that's important. We've worked with many of the conservation groups around the country and we think that's an important part of it.

We'd like to establish seeing a floor of $350 million and a ceiling ceiling of up to 10 percent for the incoming OCS receipts, whichever is greater. This bill started out at 10 percent for the wildlife funding, which would roughly be $450 million and we'd like to see a floor of 350, but allow it to go up, if the OCS revenues increase.

And in support of Director Clark, we would also like to see adequate funding to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for delivering the CARA funds to the state and we think that's important. And I'd just like to say we all want to work with you and work together on getting this landmark legislation passed. Thank you.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Waller. Mr. Vetter, the executive director of New Hampshire Fish and Game. Do you have a comment or two?

MR. WAYNE E. VETTER, PRESIDENT, NORTHEAST ASSOCIATION OF FISH AND WILDLIFE AGENCIES: Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have some written testimony but, in the interest of time, I will not read it. I just want to say thank you to you for the opportunity to be here and testify and thank you for your support.

This CARA bill is good legislation. It proved that in the House, when it passed so overwhelmingly and we, the directors of the state and fish and game agencies, through our President David Waller and through the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Services, have come up with some ideas to make a good piece of legislation better and those are offered to you in these amendments and we urge you to support those amendments and pass this bill and thank you very much again for the opportunity.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you very much, Mr. Vetter. I was interested, Mr. Waller, in your term, perfecting amendments, suggestions. The problem is there are those who suggest perfecting t in different directions. It makes our job a lot more difficult.

Let me just start off with a couple of questions and then just -- up here and finish the hearing this morning. Mr. Schlickeisen, you said in your testimony that we must do no harm in enacting CARA and I would agree with you on that, although I believe that each of the Senate bills, I think you could make the case, would achieve great good.

Now the question I have for you is do you support the passage of S. 2123 or the House bill in their current form?

MR. SCHLICKEISEN: In their current form.

SEN. SMITH: Do you support either of those bills in their current form?

MR. SCHLICKEISEN: I think of the two, I would prefer the House- passed bill, primarily because of what it does with -- issues in Title I, but I think for defenders and for, I think probably almost all of our coalition, we wouldn't like to see any of them become law without some further improvements and those improvements are the ones that I identified in my testimony.

SEN. SMITH: But the House provided for basically a snapshot in time. It limits payments to the coastal sates.

MR. SCHLICKEISEN: Right.

SEN. SMITH: Does that address your concern?

MR. SCHLICKEISEN: I think it does and we're especially encouraged by the Alaska conservation groups that have helped our coalition examine this and they see all of that goes a long way to solving the problem. I don't think they ever think that incentives are totally removed, but the fact that they haven't got a five-year lookback here, so that it would encourage the states and the cities and the towns and what have you, in Alaska to see a payoff the down the road, if they accept drilling now. I think that that went a long way to solving the problem.

SEN. SMITH: And Ms. O'Brien, in the perfecting language issue, you indicated that the funds should be authorized without any restrictions. Do you think that any of these bills, particularly the House bill, has struck an appropriate balance here?

MS. O'BRIEN: Well, as my written testimony said, we believe that the language adopted, minus one amendment on the Hill amendment, that was ultimately adopted on the floor, our improvements to ease some of the concerns of the private property side, we could stand by those changes, although we don't believe they all were necessary, but if they do go towards easing some of the concerns of the property rights, we're fine with that.

The Hill amendment, though, went a step further. As Senator Baucus went through this morning, first of all, singles out one state for treatment different than the other 50 states, which I think from a policy side is not good. But second of all, we don't believe that the Land and Water Fund should be a question of trading one acre off for another acre. That wasn't the purpose of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

We do believe in consolidation of land. We believe in exchanges and easements, but we don't believe you should have to trade one acre for another acre, just so it's a number game. You really need to look at what the resource is and why you're acquiring it or having it for easement. so that provision is very troubling to us. The rest that was in the bill, as it went to the floor is fine.

SEN. SMITH: Mr. Niebling, it's interesting that your group representing, I don't know the number, several thousand, essentially wood lot owners or owners of substantial pieces of property, and yet you are supportive of the bill, you know, because I would agree with Mr. Hardiman that the concerns that we should respect absolutely the concerns of private property owners and this is a substantial group of people who would have every reason to be concerned about any private property grab and yet, your group does support.

One of the provisions in the bill, I think it's Title VII, provides that there would be grants to landowners to protect endangered species so that, if, in fact, you were stuck with a situation where you had some limited use of your land because of an endangered species. Would you agree that this is gonna be helpful in promoting partnerships with landowners and could achieve a real benefit here?

MR. HARDIMAN: Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.

And like others who've testified this morning, we've all been troubled and frustrated by the tremendous difficulties in resolving the re-authorization of the Endangered Species Act. And I think in the last couple of years, a number of organizations, national, regional and local, have begun to recognize that a more incentive- based approach whereby Congress incents private landowners to manage their properties in such a way that they do not diminish their rights necessarily, but they meet the interests of the endangered species in question as the right direction to go in. And I know that you have been an advocate of provisions in Senator -- bill, I believe, last year which would have really focused on the role of the incentives and more non-regulatory approaches to accomplishing the goals of the act. So yes, to answer your question, we think that's a good way to go and support those provisions of the bill.

SEN. SMITH: I mean, the bottom line is that without these modifications, any particular wood lot owner or a member of your organization could be in a situation where they would be able to do anything with their land and, at the same time, may not be in a financial position to provide any help at all to enhance that species so, at some point, they could. Is that?

MR. HARDIMAN: That's correct. If I may, Mr. Chairman. For eight years, I served as executive director of the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association. And while my current organization is not comprised entirely of landowners, there are a great many landowners, you could say I cut my teeth, representing and advocating for the rights and responsibilities of private property owners and it's my firm believe that the legislation, as passed by the House, hasn't instituted a number of provisions that will go a long way, excuse me, to addressing the issues and concerns of private property owners, which I think are very different in the West than they are in our part of the country. And if I may further, Mr. Chairman, you have any absolute commitment that if this legislation is enacted, it will be carried out in a way in New Hampshire that is supportive of and based upon the best interest of private landowners. I think that's the New Hampshire tradition and I see nothing in this bill that would suggest any cause for concern from our perspective. .

SEN. SMITH: Thank you. Senator Boxer.

SEN. BOXER: Thank you. Mr. Hardiman, I'm sure you feel very much in the minority of the panel, but I think that you, you know, you gave your best presentation, but I have a couple of questions for you. On this property rights, it's my understanding, as I followed the legislation, that even some of the most ardent defenders of property rights in the House admitted that, in fact, they went out of their way to address the concerns. And if you heard Congressman Thompson's presentation, for example, there can be no condemnation of land, as I understand it, which, although it's very rarely used in every other act, we don't say you can't do it, so that was, I thought, quite something. And then they also said that nothing in the bill shall impact private property rights or water rights. So I really think I have great respect for your point of view but I, you know, I have a sense that your concerns were addressed here.

I also picked up, you said that the Gunowners of America didn't support this bill. Is that what you said?

MR. HARDIMAN: Yes, that's correct.

SEN. BOXER: Okay.

MR. HARDIMAN: That's in your, you have the testimony there, yeah.

SEN. BOXER: Yeah. Because I see that the National Rifle Association does and I thought there was some connection between the two groups.

MR. HARDIMAN: They're two separate organizations.

SEN. BOXER: OK. Well, I wanted to say on the record that the National Rifle Association, that I don't agree with that much, supports this bill. The National Shooting Sports Foundation supports this bill, the North American Hunting Club, so you know, again, I want to make the point, since guns are always an issue that gets us agitated, it seems that most of the gun groups seem to support this because in terms of recreation, it's going to do a tremendous amount. So I'm going to ask you to comment on why you think I'm misled here and then I just have one other question for all the others that would just require a show of hands. So if you could comment?

MR. HARDIMAN: Yes. Thank you, Senator, for the opportunity to respond. Condemnation is prohibited on the federal side of Land and Water Conservation Fund. That's 450 million out of nearly three billion per year. There is no prohibition on condemnation for the other 2.5 billion per year. As a matter of fact, in Title IV, the urban parks and recreation, existing prohibitions on acquiring land are removed, Section 411 of S. 2123 removes the existing prohibition in UPAR (sp), for acquiring land. And so, there is a prohibition on condemnation for one dollar out of six that comes out of this bill.

Regarding the willing seller issue, actually, this is something that's nationwide. For example, there is plenty of money available under the current appropriations process to buy out legitimately willing sellers. The first time I saw the willing seller scam was actually in the New Jersey State Legislature for which I worked in the 1980s.

There was green acres bond money, which is a very popular bond issue that's passed in New Jersey, and that money went to the Pinelands Commission which oversees much of the pine (barrens ?) in South Jersey. I worked for a state legislator who represented a lot of that area. They had money available to buy out willing sellers. The legitimate willing sellers that asked to be bought out were ignored. They took that money and went after people who were not willing sellers. Anyone who wanted to do anything with their property, they had plenty of money to harass and buy out those people. But the legitimate willing sellers were ignored, hoping that they would stop paying taxes on a property, for example, and they'd be able to pick it up for peanuts at a tax sale later one. So there's a lot of shenanigans that go on in the state and federal level regarding willing seller.

I can tell you what will happen to my property in Southern California. I'll have the, well, after this bill passes, I'll have the Federal Bureau of Land Management or some entity in DOI come to me and say, well, Mr. Hardiman, we'll offer you $1 for your property, I'll say, no, I'm not interested in selling. Then the State of California, using federal CARA funds, will come to me and say, well, Mr. Hardiman, our appraiser says your land is worth 82 cents and if you don't sell, we're gonna condemn you. I will then go back to DOI and become.

SEN. BOXER: Is this in California; land is worth 82 cents?

MR. HARDIMAN: No, no. I'm using this as an example, $1 versus 82. I'm picking out a number. I'm saying that for every one dollar in that, like, as I say, for every $1 DOI would offer me, the State of California might offer, for example 82 cents on a dollar, for example, with a threat of condemnation. I would then voluntarily become a willing seller to the federal government for $1 under threat of condemnation for, for example, 82 cents on $1 and that is what a fraud the willing seller clause is in this bill. With the precedented firehose of money from this bill, people will be forced into being willing sellers. Legally, technically, people like me will become willing sellers. Practically speaking, we will be in no way willing sellers.

SEN. BOXER: Okay. Let me just say this. First of all, there can be no condemnation under the 450 million. Number one, we agree. Number two, the other 450 million is states' rights. And the states will decide and I think most conservative members of the United States Senate think that's probably the best way, is to have the states decide it. Number three, the vast majority of the remainder of the bill, the monies cannot be used for land acquisition. So you're --

MR. HARDIMAN: No, it can be.

SEN. BOXER: -- excuse me, sir. I will put that documentation into the record. Clearly, there are titles of the bill that deal with PILT and other things that have nothing to do with land acquisition, so let's get that straight. So your point that it's only a tiny percent that's impacted, I don't believe is correct. The vast majority is states' rights and a prohibition on condemnation, plus a statement clearly in the bill that this bill can have no adverse impact on property rights or water rights.

Outside of Mr. Hardiman who I clearly get doesn't want any bill, so I know he doesn't want any bill, I'd ask the rest of you to help me out here with a show of hands. I'm gonna give you about three options. Do you prefer the House-passed CARA bill, the Murkowski- Landrieu bill, are you with me so far, or the Bingamin bill? Okay, so do you all feel comfortable in that? And if you have no preference, don't raise your hand at all, but try to tell me, because I think it's really important that I have the answer. So let's start off with the House-passed CARA bill, how many prefer that? How many prefer, one, two, three of you. How many of you prefer the Murkowski-Landrieu bill? How many of you prefer the Bingamin bill? Okay. Thank you. And I know that the records show Mr. Hardiman doesn't want any of the bill. Thank you very much.

SEN. SMITH: Did the clerk get those responses?

SEN. BOXER: More for me than anything.

SEN. SMITH: Senator Chafee.

SEN. LINCOLN CHAFEE (R-R.I.): Thank you for holding this hearing. If you're interested in a subject and I would like my opening statement to be submitted for the record. And I would just say that I think it's an historic moment in time when we can finally fully fund LWCF which we have been waiting for since 1965 and we have a great opportunity to do that. And my experience as city councilman, as mayor, in a community that did go from dairy farms to department stores that this is a very good thing to be doing.

And that the most important way to control growth is to buy land. To buy the valuable land because in America people do have the right to sell their land and under zoning they have a right to develop it. And the way to have wise growth, I think is to have a very aggressive, open space acquisition initiative in communities all across the country. Whether it's Boise, Idaho, or Salt Lake City, Utah, or where ever it might be where we are seeing extraordinary growth, Las Vegas, we need to have these federal funds available to make sure that that growth is in everybody's best interest.

And so I am in favor of full funding and I am also in favor of the flexible funding provisions. And so my question would be Mr.

Niebling, I didn't see you raise your hand on either or any of the three options et cetera.

MR. NIEBLING: Thank you, Senator Chafee. Please don't construe my reluctance to raise my hand as nonsupport. I just am not prepared to -- I guess there are provisions in all three bills that we like.

I indicated in my testimony that we support Senator Murkowski's legislation. I don't know if you were here when I spoke, but that there were elements of Senator Bingaman's bill and the House passed bill that we wanted to see incorporated into that legislation. So, maybe I should raise my hand on all three, I'm not sure. (Laughter)

SEN. CHAFEE: I came in just as you -- in the middle of your testimony.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you, Senator Chafee. Let me just ask a couple more and then we can rap up here.

Mr. Vetter, many of the programs funded through CARRA do require the state or the local government to provide a match. Some critics say that the states will be unable to provide the necessary funds to take advantage of those programs. New Hampshire does have such a fund that would enable them to provide that state or local match, as you know. Is this unique or have other, and perhaps Mr. Waller could respond to this, do other states have established funds to provide this match?

MR. VETTER: I believe, Senator, that we are unique but I will throw that to Mr. Waller and maybe he could answer the rest of the question.

SEN. SMITH: Maybe Mr. Waller could tell me how many states have that.

MR. WALLER: I think it will vary considerable from state to state. Some states won't have any funding to work with, they will have to develop a funding source. Some states, you know, already have some in place. So that's why we are suggesting going for the first five years with a nine and ten max to give some of the states an opportunity to develop a funding source for their match.

SEN. SMITH: Mr. Hardiman, I know you feel like you've been ganged up on here but I think you will understand that there were some pretty articulate private property advocates on the first panel from the House side, so we have tried to give it as much balance as possible. I, as a strong private property advocate myself, share some of your concerns. I don't seem to find in the language of the bills before me the concerns that you have. This is my difficulty.

I mean, right now I am told that there is about approximately $10 billion dollar backlog on people who want to sell their land to the federal government. So even if we -- whatever you want to take the position whether we should or shouldn't do it, the point is, the funds aren't there to do it anyway.

So I don't where we are coming up with taking land from unwilling sellers in this legislation. I'm trying hard to understand that because I don't want to do that, I will be very honest with you. I would not be supportive of the legislation if I thought land was going to be taken from unwilling sellers or condemned. So, I'm not trying to be hostile; I'm just trying to understand where you are coming from. If you could be specific in terms of where these concerns are, I would like to try to address them.

MR. HARDIMAN: Certainly, Senator, thank you. The list of $10 billion dollars worth of allegedly willing sellers, I have never seen or heard of such a list. Well, I would like to see it. I am not familiar with that list.

I am familiar with, of course, the maintenance backlog issue, which opens at $5 billion dollars and goes up from there. That was covered in the March issue of 'Government Executive Magazine' quite extensively. I will give you a specific example of willing sellers being ignored while an unwilling seller was gone after.

In the national recreation area in Los Angeles and Ventura counties in California the -- oh I forget the name of it, but that area of the mountains north of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, the National Parks Service wanted to buy a parcel of land. A private property owned, the guys' name was Donald Scott. They repeatedly asked to purchase the land; when Mr. Scott refused they trumped up a drug charge against him. They went to the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department.

SEN. SMITH: Who is they? Who did this?

MR. HARDIMAN: The Nation Park Service did this. They went to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and the Nation Park Service -- now they have no money to buyout the legitimate, willing sellers, however, this is what they did to Mr. Scott whose property they did want to buy because it was on a mountaintop.

They got together with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, raided Mr. Scott's house at 7am on a Sunday morning. Mr. Scott appeared at the top of the stairs with a revolver; they shot and killed Mr. Scott. His dying bleeding body fell down the stairs and landed at his wife's feet. The widow then filed suit against the Nation Park Service and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Seven years later, this was just a couple of months ago earlier this year, the National Park Service settled for $5 million dollar wrongful death lawsuit. And the widow absolutely promises and Mr. Scott's children promise they will never, ever, in a thousand years sell that property to any government entity.

When the Nation Park Service or other agencies want property they find the money to go after it. While at the same time ignoring legitimate, willing sellers. And that $5 million dollars, of course, is money that will not go to land acquisition since it is going to Donald Scott's widow.

SEN. SMITH: Well is there -- do you believe that in the pure sense that there is ever a case where the U.S. government should acquirement either easements, conservation easements or purchase land outright for future generations?

MR. HARDIMAN: The American Land Rights Association supports the current appropriations process where everyone has a say. Where my association supports, we have both agreed and disagreed numerous times with the authorizing and appropriating committees on the Senate side, on the House side. Sometimes we win; sometimes we lose but the regular appropriations process is democracy. Trust fund is not democracy.

SEN. BOXER: Excuse me, if you don't mind Mr. Chairman.

SEN. SMITH: Go ahead.

SEN. BOXER: This bill subjects these purchases to the regular appropriations process. As a matter of fact, some of us feel we prefer that it didn't go that far to do it but Congress can stop any of these acquisitions. And that is one of the issues -- that is why I like the Bingaman bill better because frankly I like the idea of a trust fund. Let the administration go. If Congress doesn't stop it then let the funds go, but the way the bill came out of the House, Mr. Hardiman, it is subjected to the appropriations process.

MR. HARDIMAN: There is one sixth of the bill. Only the federal side of Title Two and that was money that must be spent. It no longer competes with other priorities. Anything from eliminating the state tax to social security to, of course, all of the other, education, all of the other priorities. So once again, that is only one sixth of the bill.

SEN. BOXER: You keep going back to that but if I might just say, that's the heart and sole of the bill, the 900 million in terms of purchase and half of it, as my Chairman reminded me, the states have the right to make those decisions. So that you would have to take up with the states; how they would handle their stateside money.

But the federal money here, which again you know, I have to be honest with you, I prefer the trust fund notion but the administration, which ever republican or democrat can put the list out and go for it that's not going to happen here. It is subjected to appropriations process. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for yielding.

SEN. SMITH: Senator Chafee, do you have any further questions or comments?

SEN. CHAFEE: The only one would be, again, to Mr. Hardiman is that my experience is that the most heavily needed purchased land is when the developers are coming in. And that is when the community usually rises up and wants to buy that land before it's turned into whatever it is zoned for, commercial, industrial, residential, and that has certainly been my experience.

And as we see a changing demographics, I just think that having these funds available all across the country is just in everybody's best interest. And I suppose there are those isolated incidents of hostile actions but I think they are extremely isolated.

MR. HARDIMAN: I would respectfully have to obviously disagree. I would say hostile takeover might be more accurate. It appears to be many times in everyone's interest to buy a piece of land except for the landowner.

SEN. SMITH: Let me just thank the witnesses for being here today. I know many of your traveled long distances, we appreciate it. Doctor Sparrow, I would say you have the appropriate name for the organization your with anyway. (Laughter) You've probable heard that before though.

DR. SPARROW: I have.

SEN. SMITH: I am going to close on a statement that I didn't get the opportunity to make early on, but if witnesses need to leave, please feel free to do that as I'm speaking, it's alright.

I just want to say that there has been some discussion about the jurisdiction on the committee. There is an overlap in jurisdiction between the Energy and Natural Resource Committee, here in the Senate, which has primary jurisdiction. And several of the programs, however, as Senator Boxer and I were just discussing, were effected by this bill and are under our jurisdiction. Such as, Pittman-Robertson endangered species act, they're within our jurisdiction.

So it is our committee's responsibility to review this legislation, although, under the rules we can't mark it up but it is appropriate for us to review it. You heard considerable testimony today on three bills, S.25, S.2123, and S.2181 and they have been introduced in the senate to fund various conservation programs. We talked a little bit about the house bill and the issue has received a lot of attention.

Certainly, with the passage of the house bill under the leadership of Congressman Young, Tauzin, and Miller in a bipartisan manner. By a margin, as was stated here, three to one, and I think that is an incredible effort on their part. The bill in my state as I think you can tell from the witnesses who were here this morning and also my travels and meetings that I have held over the past six weeks in New Hampshire has broad support among the constituents of New Hampshire.

You have heard from New Hampshire's Society of Forest, you have heard from fishing wildlife representatives here and I have heard from many others that there seems to be overwhelmingly strong majority support, if you will, on the concept of the bill. There may be some refining that we have to do but there is broad support.

I am a conservative republican and I think that most people know that. I don't think there has been anybody who has been more fiscally responsible then I have and I want to make a few points here that I believe need to be made. We have heard from Washington over and over again that there isn't any money available for conservation programs. There is always money available for something else whether it's Americorp or it's taking the department of education from $3 billion to $34 billion in 15 or 20 years.

There is money for everything else and they also said well, conservation isn't up to the government or it's not up to the state, it's not up the local, it's not up to the federal, it's up to the land owners. Let them bear all of the burden. Well they are the stewards and I support that. And they are stewards of saving our land and resources. But sometimes they need help.

And I think, Mr. Niebling brought that point up very well. It's time now for the federal government to help out here. We haven't been doing our fare share. The federal deficit is now gone and the budget is balanced. However, we do have a huge national debt and that is not going to be paid off in the short term. But it will be paid off if we continue to manage wisely our budget.

But we have to think about, not the next election, not ten years from now, but generations from now. I've said over and over and over and over again, since I've assumed the Chairmanship that environmental policy is not about the next election. It's about the next generation.

An environmental policy, although, it is good politics sometimes and the democrats have done a good job of politicizing this, frankly, and we deserve a lot of the attacks that we take. But we have a unique opportunity to use outer-continental shelf revenues on the programs that they were originally intended to fund, plus several other conservation programs that have been under-funded.

Now the issue that Senator Bennett brought up, which is a good one and a fair one about all of these trust funds, off budget, off budget. Fine if we want to take all of the trust funds off budget and deal with it through the appropriations process, fine. But let's not pick some other then others.

Highways are no more important then preservation of land. Some would say they are less important but I'm not going to make that case. But I am going to say they are no more important then preservation of land. You talk about urban sprawl, why is their urban sprawl? Because we have a place to sprawl to with no regulations. That's a new term. (Laughter)

It's time to keep the promise we made years ago to the OCS revenues.

Responsibly, put some of those dollars back to what they were intended to be for. That is all we are asking to do and we don't owe it to ourselves, necessarily as much as we owe it to the future generations. We have to make decisions today, today, that are going to impact the future of this country.

And I have sat here for 20 years, almost, in this congress and I have fought hard to get that budget balanced and to get the deficit eliminated and to pay off that debt. And if my votes would have prevailed they would have been paid off 10 or 15 years ago and we would have had more money to deal with things that matter.

Infrastructure, environmental programs in this country, environmental land preservation and clean up that is what this is about. That is what this is about. That is what this debate is about. It's not about CARRA that's an acronym, I don't care about the term. That is not what this is about and we heard a lot of good people talking today from all across the political spectrum. I never thought in a million years I'd see and I don't think Barbara Boxer did either.

To see George Miller and Don Young on the same side of an issue, let alone sitting at the same table. It does indicate there is support. Now some would say that maybe it indicates that there is something wrong with it. Well, we'll look at it. (Laughter) We'll look at that very carefully.

But the bottom line is, the bottom line is Americans like to spend time out doors. Especially in this high-pressure situation we have. It's true that our parks are not maintained and we need to do something about that, there is no question about it. But we all have our preferred vacation spots whether it's Yosemite or Yellow Stone. I honeymooned in Yosemite by the way.

And almost all Americans, probably as high as 90 percent, believe we ought to be spending more money not less. Not necessarily at the federal level but more money not less on protecting our water and protecting our land, our park, our seashores, and so forth. And there is a growing consensus and I'm one of them, you can say I've had an evolution. Well, I'm the same guy I was 20 years ago but we now have an opportunity to do something about it that we didn't have the opportunity to do earlier.

We have to act now. Not tomorrow but now or we are going to lose some very special places in this country and it is time we stand up and realize it. We are going to lose the everglades. We could lose the Arctic Nation Wildlife Refugee. There are a lot of places we could lose and a lot of small wood lots, which is what CARRA is about and other small pieces of small property all across America.

I agree with those Americans in those poles and I'm not governing by poles. If it was the other way around as you've heard with me on the Elian Gonzales case where it was 70 /30 against my position, I still stuck to my position because I was right (laughter) and history will prove it.

I want to do what I can to ensure that those areas remain for our children and our grandchildren. That is what this is about. Now as we have heard each of these bills has been introduced in the Senate including the one introduced by Senator Boxer last week as a companion to the House passed bill. There is plenty of opportunity to debate these, to blend them together, if you will

But the time is right to pass this kind of legislation because we do owe it to our future generations. Numerous states have been struggling for years to preserve open space, limit urban sprawl, provide residents with a better quality of life with virtually no assistance, nothing, from the federal government.

Now it is time, in my view, for the federal government to step up to the plate and assist. Not to land grab, not to take land from unwilling sellers, not to put easements on properties that owners do not wish for them to be on. But rather do the right thing to assist the states and the landowners.

Why are we holding this hearing? I just indicated that because we do have the jurisdiction to do it and I regret to say that a couple of my colleagues were upset, saying that we were infringing upon somebody else's jurisdiction. I get a little tired of hearing that. We ought to air these issues and if we can air them here then that is good and that's positive for the issue for the proponents as well as the opponents as far as I am concerned.

Let me just conclude on the private property concerns. Several of our colleagues raised these concerns, I thought very eloquently, and I share their support for the rights of land owners and the concern that there should be limits on federal acquisitions of land and I believe some of those concerns are misplaced. I am prepared to take a hard look at where those concerns are raised.

Senator Murkowski and S.2123 and the House bill, passed a few weeks ago, addressed many of these issues I thought. Contrary to popular belief S.2123 contains no new federal land acquisition programs that I know of. In addition, S.2123 provides an unprecedented level of protection for the private landowner and we heard that from private landowners here today.

For example, funds from this bill cannot be used by the government to implement regulations on private property. All to often the federal government places so many restrictions on private property that the owner can no longer use it. And this bill prevents that unfair and probably unconstitutional practice, it's the way I read it. If I'm wrong I'd be happy to listen to the opposition on that.

Under the Murkowski bill for example, any federal acquisitions of land through the Lands and Water Conservation Fund would also be subject to significantly more restrictions then under current law. In fact, this bill helps landowners who have endangered species on their land as you brought out, Mr. Niebling, today.

So in conclusion let me just say, I'll stack my record up as a fiscal conservative against anybody. And if somebody wants to match it then lets talk about it and we will see who has been the most conservative around here. We made a promise and we ought to keep that promise whether we make it to the social security recipient or the veteran or whether we made a promise to the lease and oil gas rights on the honor continental shelf to dedicate a portion of the revenues to a portion of the environment. That's way they are paying that money.

Now if we don't like that and we want to get rid of all trust funds then lets talk about that. But lets not single out certain trust funds as opposed to others because the environment is not less important then airports, it's not less important then roads, or anything else. You might say it is as important but it's not less important. This is no different then the highway trust fund. We haven't lived up to that promise in this time of budget surpluses, it is time we do.

So fulfilling our commitment to use revenue generated from off- shore oil drilling to preserve the environment elsewhere is a balancing act and it has been out of a balance for too darn long and we have been taking without giving. And President Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt summed it up when he said, quote, "I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use natural resources of the land, but I do not recognize the right to waste them or to rob by wasteful use that generations that come after us." And that is what this debate is about. Thank you.

SEN. BOXER: Mr. Chairman, may I just complement you really modally on your statement. I am so pleased. And they may have Miller-Young over there but we have Smith-Boxer over here (laughter) so this issue is --

SEN. SMITH: Your going to harm both of our reputations here.

SEN. BOXER: -- let me tell you this issue is either going to make us loved or something but I am just so absolutely pleased to hear you make that very, really I think, heart felt statement. And I know because we have worked together on animal protection before that when you feel deeply about something you're going to be there for this fight. And I think we are going to have a bit of a battle but with your help I just think we are going to see the light of day. So I am very encouraged, I thank you for that statement.

SEN. SMITH: Thank you. Now, if you could just join me on a few other issues we'd be all right. (Laughter)

Thank you very much to the witnesses. The hearing is adjourned.

END

LOAD-DATE: May 26, 2000

Document 14 of 151.


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