In a memorandum that I sent to the cooperators who have been advancing the wilderness bill informing them of this hearing, I said: It will not be necessary for those who earlier supported the wilderness bill ta appear at these hearings, I am sure. I suggested that it would be advisable to send the committee a message of endorsement of the bill in its revised form. MANY SUPPORTERS Had the proponents of the wilderness bill been encouraged to come here in person today, there would have been a large gathering, indeed. I have with me a list of 22 national organizations and 58 State, regional, and local organizations who have expressed support of the bill, and these 80 organizations that might be represented at a hearing where their testimony would be needed would be augmented by many individuals. These organizations are as follows: TWENTY-TWO NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORTING THE WILDERNESS BILL AFL-CIO American Nature Association American Planning & Civic Association American Society of Mammalogists American White Water Affiliation Citizens Committee on Natural Resources Council of Conservationists Defenders of Furbearers Federation of Western Outdoor Clubs Garden Club of America General Federation of Women's Clubs Izaak Walton League of America National Audubon Society National Council of State Garden Clubs National Grange National Parks Association National Wildlife Federation Nature Conservancy Sierra Club Trustees for Conservation The Wilderness Society Wildlife Management Institute FIFTY-EIGHT STATE, REGIONAL, AND LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORTING THE Adirondack Mountain Club WILDERNESS BILL Albuquerque Game Protective Association American Youth Hostels Appalachian Mountain Club Beaver County Sportsmen's League Billings Rod and Gun Club Bird Club of Westfield, N. J. California Alpine Club Cascadians of Yakima Citizens Natural Resources Association of Wisconsin Conservation Council of Eastern Pennsylvania Conservation Forum of New York State Desert Protective Council Dude Ranchers Association East Orange Garden Club Federation of Garden Clubs of Virginia, Piedmont District Friends of the Forest Preserve Friends of the Three Sisters Wilderness Friends of the Wilderness Garden Club of Virginia Georgia Conservation League, Region 3 Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association Independent Timbermen's Committee MAZAMAS Montana Wilderness Association The Mountaineers The Natural History Society of Eugene New York-New Jersey Trail Conference New York State Conservation Council North Cascade Conservation Council North Rocky Mountain Sportsmen's Association Obsidian Princesses Oklahoma Garden Club Oklahoma Outdoor Council Otero County Wildlife Association. Olympic Park Associates, Inc. Philadelphia Conservationists, Inc. Peoria Rod and Gun Club. President's Quetico-Superior Committee. Quetico-Superior Council. Ravalli County Fish and Wildlife Association. Rock Tavern Rod and Gun Club. St. Petersburg Audubon Society. Seattle Audubon Society. The Trailfinders. Trowel Garden Club. Washington State Sportsmen's Council The wilderness bill has indeed been widely supported and commended, by organizations, individuals, and also in significant editorials in leading newspapers across the continent-Boston Herald, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, Washington Post, St. Louis PostDispatch, Portland (Oreg.) Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, for example. And they all seem to have joined with satisfaction in supporting the effort to accomplish wilderness preservation in a cooperative, constructive, patient effort to work out a program that will fit into all our other worthy programs. That is the kind of effort that brings us to these hearings, wherein the proponents of this broad program are seeking not to argue in controversy but to cooperate in correction and perfection of a proposal that already has the background of a 20-year advocacy and a decade of earnest discussion and planning. Such is the background of the revision of the wilderness bill which we are now considering. CHANGES INCLUDED IN REVISED BILL When the bill in this revised form was being prepared for introduction to the Senate I assisted Senator Murray at his request in the preparation of a statement on the changes that had been made in S. 1176, and I can best proceed, I believe, by relying on this exposition, which already is familiar to some of you. First of all, I should like to reiterate that this revised wilderness bill has been improved in many ways over the measure introduced in the early weeks of this 85th Congress. The improvement has been brought about as a result of the hearings held, the wide interest aroused, the many discussions of this important measure, and the willingness of its proponents to accept criticism and meet objections. Outstanding revisions may be summarized as follows: WATER-USE NEEDS RESPECTED We recognize that one of the great natural-resource problems in the West is that of meeting the needs for water. In the past some waterdevelopment projects have come into conflict with certain park and wilderness-preservation purposes. So it is only natural that a wilderness bill should be thoroughly scrutinized as to its possible effects on water-use projects. This bill has been so scrutinized, and in two notable respects it has been significantly changed to make it consistent with water-use programs. It has been made clear that nothing in the legislation may be construed to modify existing water law. A new subsection has been added to section 3 (c) as follows: (5) Nothing in this act shall constitute an express or implied claim or denial on the part of the Federal Government as to exemption from State water laws. Provision also has been made for the establishment or maintenance of reservoirs or water-conservation works within national-forest wildernesses when the President determines that they will there be in the best national interest. OTHER NATIONAL-FOREST CHANGES These provisions in connection with meeting water needs are of major importance. They are part, however, of a general revision as to wilderness-area uses in national forests, adapted from proposals made by the Forest Service. The original bill included outright prohibitions of mining and reservoir construction; it listed specific uses to be prohibited; and it left doubt as to necessary insect and disease control. The new bill is different in these respects. RIGHTS PROTECTED The list of specific uses to be prohibited has been dropped from section 3 (b), in line with a Forest Service suggestion made at the time of the hearings, and instead the bill now says: Except as specially provided in this section, and subject to existing private rights (if any), no portion of any area constituting a unit of the wilderness system shall be used for any form of commercial enterprise not contemplated in the purposes of this act. TEMPORARY ROADS AS NEEDED The outright prohibition of roads in this subsection has also been modified to permit the temporary roads that may be needed for fire protection or insect or disease control. The bill now says: Within such areas, except as otherwise provided in this section and in section 2 of this act, there shall be no permanent road; nor shall there be any use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment, or motorboats, or landing of aircraft, or any other mechanical transport or delivery of persons or supplies, nor any temporary road, nor any structure or installation, in excess of the minimum required for the administration of the area for the purposes of this act. MULTIPLE USE Furthermore, a new special provision has been added to section 3 (c), from a substitute bill and accompanying testimony presented by the Forest Service, as follows: (2) Within national forest areas included in the System the President may, within a specific area and in accordance with such regulations as he may deem desirable, authorize prospecting, mining, the establishment or maintenance of reservoirs and water-conservation works, and such measures as may be found necessary in the control of insects and diseases, including the road construction found essential to such mining and reservoir construction, upon his determination that such use in the specific area will better serve the interests of the United States than will its denial. Other significant changes regarding areas in the national forests have been made, most of them resulting from statements made by the Forest Service at the hearings. One of these makes plain that the wilderness bill is in keeping with multiple-use policy, that wilderness preservation is to be one of the multiple-use purposes of the national forests, and that the forests as a whole are to be administered with the general objectives of multiple use and sustained yield. This is made plain in a new subsection (d) of section 1, which also reasserts the established national forest purposes. This subection (d) is as follows: (d) In establishing thus a national wilderness preservation system to include units within the national forests it is further declared to be the policy of Congress to administer the national forests with the general objectives of multiple use and sustained yield, and in order to carry out this policy the Secretary of Agriculture is accordingly directed to administer the national forests on a multiple-use basis so that the resources thereof will be used and developed to produce a sustained yield of products and services, including the establishment and maintenance of wilderness areas, for the benefit of all the people of this and future generations. The purposes of this act are further declared to be within and supplemental to but not in interference with the purposes for which national forests are established as set forth in the act of June 4, 1897 (sec. 1, 30 Stat. 34, 35; 16 U. S. C. 475, 551). Of course, this provision does not permit any use of a wilderness area that would destroy it as wilderness. It does emphasize (1) that there are appropriate multiple uses of a wilderness and (2) that an area of wilderness within a national forest can be part of an overall multiple-use, sustained-yield policy for the whole forest. The wilderness area itself would, of course, include no timber cutting. PRIMITIVE AREAS As a result of another important change regarding national forest areas, the long list of names of the wilderness, wild, primitive, and roadless areas has been deleted. This has reduced the length of the bill by about six pages. Instead the bill now says that the wilderness system shall include the areas within the national forests classified on June 1, 1958, by the Department of Agriculture or the Forest Service as wilderness, wild, primitive, or roadless. A special proviso is added regarding the primitive areas, making it clear that these areas are to be studied further, especially as to their boundaries, and that no area not predominatly of wilderness value is to be included. CHANGES REGARDING THE PARK SYSTEM The bill no longer specifies the units of the national park system that will become parts of the wilderness system. Rather it provides for the inclusion of the parks and monuments that contain 5,000 or more acres without roads and such additional units as the Secretary of the Interior designates-designations which are subject to review by Congress. As a result of informal suggestions by National Park Service officials there has been added a sentence at the end of section 2 (b) insuring that the provisions of the wilderness bill will not lower National Park Service standards and reaffirming these standards as already established in basic legislation. CHANGES AFFECTING REFUGES After cooperative discussions with officials in the Fish and Wildlife Service, and particularly in the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, section 2 (c) has been rewritten. Specific refuges and ranges are no longer designated by the bill for inclusion. Rather it is provided that a 5-year survey shall be made and the appropriate refuges and ranges included by designation of the Secretary of the Interior. These designations would be subject to congressional review. THE INDIANS' WILDERNESS The original bill designated certain roadless and wild areas on Indian reservations for inclusion in the wilderness system. The bill now omits all such designations and provides that the system shall include areas designated by the Secretary of the Interior after consultation with the tribes or bands. Original safeguards of treaties and hunting and fishing rights and privileges are continued. In addition, the new bill makes clear that the designation of any wilderness areashall not change title to the land or the tribe's beneficial interest. The bill also provides that the termination of Federal trusteeship over a tribe or tribes shall remove from the wilderness system any included tribal lands so affected— of course unless Congress shall otherwise provide. This provision is not intended, as some seem to have feared, as any inducement for such termination. Rather it is an emphasis of the understanding that these lands are the Indians' land, and that their inclusion in present circumstances in the Wilderness System is not to interfere with a freedom of action in the event of termination. I might add at this point also that we concur in recommending that the words "and with the consent of" be inserted, within commas, in section 2 (d) at line 22 on page 8, after the word "with", so that it would read: The wilderness system shall include such areas of tribal land in Indian reservations as the Secretary of the Interior may designate as appropriate for inclusion after consultation with, and with the consent of, the several tribes or bands * |