SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE LIVING WILDERNESS

In the autumn-winter 1961-62 issue of the Living Wilderness-an issue devoted entirely to the Wilderness Act-the entire text of this act (S. 174 of the 87th Cong.) appeared, together with the remarks of Senator Anderson to the Senate explaining the measure and its needs, most of Senator Anderson's committee report to the Senate, and a factual assembly of tabulated statistics, maps, asd photographs, and also the minority views.

The Wilderness Society has made a copy of this issue of the Living Wilderness available to each member of this committee. It includes in what I trust is a more effective and, I know, more pleasant form, facts and interpretations that I might otherwise consider it important to present here today. I am pleased to submit this magazine to the committee for its consideration.

SOUND AND WORTHY MEASURE

This Anderson Wilderness Act of the 87th Congress will long be remembered in the history of conservation. There were, of course, and are, ways in which it could, and can, be improved upon as an instrument for meeting its objectives. As a declaration of these objectives and also a practical guide to their realization it will, however, I am sure, prove to be an epochal piece of legislation.

When the small minority who opposed this legislation in the House of Representatives last year found it possible because of their command of the committee handling it to set it aside for a substitute measure, the proponents of wilderness preservation were proud to devote their efforts toward seeing the Senate Anderson Act adopted by the House.

So essentially sound and worthy is the measure.

URGENCY EMPHASIZED

I come here today, however, not to extoll and justify a measure that most of you already have approved but to emphasize the urgency in its being moved forward for enactment.

From the viewpoint of wilderness preservation there are improvements that can be made-deletions and additions as well as revisions in some places.

Wilderness preservationists support this measure not becaue they think it is perfect, but because they are willing and eager to be reasonable and to join in a consensus that can be effective.

Some of the provisions in it are tolerated and accepted only as the conditions on which there can be agreement with regard to others.

There are omissions that are accepted only because the necessary additions to correct them could not be acceptable to some of those who can be included in the consensus represented by the Senate's action 2 years ago.

I shall be glad to file a statement for the record as an appendix to my remarks today setting forth such possible changes-deletions and additions-and the reasons for them.

My purpose now, however, is to urge that the measure as it already has proved overwhelmingly acceptable to this committee and the whole Senate be moved forward without delay.

ADMIRATION AND SOME SATISFACTION

There have been comments which I have heard or seen that have criticized this Anderson Wilderness Act as a measure so weakened or watered down as to be far from satisfactory as a wilderness preservation measure. Such comments have not been mine, nor have I shared in such criticism. With all its possibilities for improvement this measure is one that I have been privileged to contribute to its development and its acceptance by the Senate and the public.

FEATURES SUMMARIZED

It clearly establishes a national policy for wilderness preservation.

It defines wilderness with clarity and integrity.

It recognizes in an articulate congressional declaration the necessity for, and the conditions of, a designation of areas on which success of a national policy for wilderness preservation is dependent.

It establishes a program by means of which a wilderness preservation policy can be realized.

It adapts this program to existing land-use programs by applying it to areas that can continue to serve their present purposes while still being preserved as wilderness.

It recognizes the needs, economic and commercial, for commodity and other uses that may be in conflict with wilderness preservation and provides for reasonable and special consideration of these needs.

It provides, without significant conflict, sacrifice, or expenditure, for the preservation and transmittal to future generations of an inexpressibly valuable inheritance, projecting into an eternity of the future something of the primeval eternity of the past.

NOTABLE DECLARATION

It is a notable declaration made in behalf of the Nation in section 2 (a); namely, that

"SEC. 2. (a) The Congress recognizes that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, is destined to occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions except those that are designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition. It is accordingly declared to be the policy of the Congress of the United States to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. For this purpose there is hereby established a National Wilderness Preservation System to be composed of federally owned areas in the United States and its possessions to be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and so as to provide for the protection of these areas, the preservation of their wilderness character, and for the gathering and dissemination of information regarding their use and enjoyment as wilderness."

AREAS ALREADY OWNED BY THE NATION

It is a remarkable good fortune that this purpose can be realized within areas already owned by the Nation and serving purposes consistent with this desired wilderness preservation. It is this good fortune that makes possible the declaration in the first sentence of section 6; namely, that—

"SEC. 6. (a) Nothing in this act shall be interpreted as interfering with the purposes stated in the establishment of, or pertaining to, any park, monument, or other unit of the national park system, or any national forest, wildlife refuge, game range, or other area involved, except that any agency administering any area within the wilderness system shall be responsible for preserving the wilderness character of the area and shall so administer such area for such other purposes as also to preserve its wilderness character."

Thus this measure establishes a significant and noble national policy and provides for its realization in a practical way without interfering with already existing programs.

GREAT OPPORTUNITY

Through this measure we have the great opportunity of establishing a policy and program that can be expected to endure, cherished and appreciated by those who will come after us and who will surely recognize that only because of the time and trouble that we are taking, in working out such a policy and program, will the wilderness have persisted to their day.

With the enactment of this measure we shall cease to be in any sense a rearguard delaying inevitable destruction of all wilderness but shall rather become a new vanguard with reasonable hopes that some areas of wilderness will be preserved in perpetuity.

Mr. Chairman, I congratulate you and all the other members of this committee for what you are doing, and I thank you for the privilege of having a share in the occasion.

I urge that this measure before you be promptly reported favorably by this committee and that it be passed by the Senate without delay.

Senator ANDERSON. I know you have been a long time in this field Mr. Zahniser, since you have been before this committee many times. I think I have asked you all the questions that I can possibly ask at

this time.

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Senator Allott?

Senator ALLOTT. Mr. Chairman, I think the same situation applies to me also. I am just surprised that I haven't been able to convince Mr. Zahniser, for whom I have a great personal respect, of the efficacy of following my lead on my amendment. I think the truth of the matter is that this would not impair the wilderness system at all and I really feel that the statement given by Mr. Cline a few moments ago, and I have known Mr. Cline and these other gentlemen for a long time, I know they are not economic robbers or anything of this sort. They are not seeking to break up the recreation areas of the country. They are dedicated in the belief, as I am, Mr. Zahniser, that it is the responsibility of Congress to assume again the responsibility for deciding what additional acres shall go in the wilderness system. I think you appreciate it. I think-you have heard me say over and over again that as to the wilderness system itself, I have no objection to it.

Mr. ZAHNISER. Senator Allott, I thank you for the kindness of your remarks. The discussions that I have had with you and my reading and listening to what you have said and written have deepened my conviction that it is important that Congress act positively with regard to establish a wilderness preservation policy.

One of the earliest difficulties that we who advocated this measure had was in convincing some others that it was important that Congress should act positively with regard to this. It is my understanding now that by this measure Congress will be acting positively. It is not surrendering authority to the executive agencies. It is giving them directions, giving them instructions.

Congress itself is saying in S. 4 that these few areas comprising, oh, at the most perhaps 2 percent of our land, are to be considered as presumptively wilderness. You are saying, as I understand it, that the executive agencies are then to look at even some of these areas and come back with reports with regard to their suitability. With regard to anything else as a possible addition to the wilderness system, the act says there must be an additional separate act of Congress. So, all that is involved here is an effort to get the Congress to act positively with regard to these lands, comparatively limited in acreage to become definitely wilderness and to be administered in that program.

Your proposed amendment, Senator Allott, which I have read, would seem to me to have this difficulty, that the possibility for the frustration of the will of Congress with regard to particular areas would continue. The provision of requiring positive action by Congress would not be inconsistent with our advocacy if the areas that are delineated in this act, the wilderness, wild, primitive, canoe areas of the national forests, the wilderness back country of the national parks, similar areas within the wildlife ranges, which are considered by Congress as worthy of protection as wilderness, as this act would declare, are continued in that state until Congress should act positively. Under such conditions, the effect could be both as you desire it and as we aim for it. But if an action with regard to the continued preservation of a particular area requires the passing of a concurrent resolution and a relatively small number of Members of the House or of the Senate could frustrate that, we would then see, not positive action by Congress, but the negation of action by Congress, negation

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by a few people. The result from some language that has been proposed would be that areas could go out of existence as wilderness by default, and we could not support that.

Senator ALLOTT. I don't think under the present bills, if the present bill were amended with my amendment, Mr. Zahniser, I don't see how they would go out of their protection by default either with or without my amendment. The only thing is, and I think you really stated this yourself, that Congress would have the right to review affirmatively. You mentioned the fact that a few people might have the right to block. I pointed out that a few people can block in Congress effectively a resolution disapproving of the action of the President. So that in this respect you are on the horns either way except that the Congress under my amendment does take up and return to itself the responsibility for deciding the primitive, the wildlife and refuge and these other areas.

Mr. ZAHNISER. Senator Anderson's act, as I interpret it

Senator ALLOTT. May I interrupt you just a second, Mr. Zahniser? I think we should make no mistake about this, and on page 4 of the bill, beginning at the bottom of page 3, I believe-yes-we want to remember that under this bill and my amendment would not touch this, the wilderness system does include, it says it says "shall include all areas within the national forests, classified on the effective date of this act by the Secretary of Agriculture, Chief of the Forest Service, as wilderness, wild, primitive or canoe.'

So that these do go into the wilderness system immediately upon the passage of this act.

Senator ANDERSON. The next line says "provided."

Senator ALLOTT. "Provided," and then you have the review for the primitive areas and for the other areas. Then you have a subsequent review for the Interior.

Mr. ZAHNISER. Thank you. When you interrupted me I was about to point out the very thing you have indicated more effectively than I could have myself; namely, that Senator Anderson's act is itself a proposed positive action by Congress. It is proposed action with regard to the primitive areas that follows years of study of these including the publication of hearings that have outlined the characteristics of these primitive areas, have listed them, have given their acreage. It is a proposed positive action with regard to the primitive areas, an exercise of the congressional prerogative.

Now, the Congress, on the recommendation in the first place, I believe, of the Forest Service, does realize that with regard to some of these primitive areas, there are problems that should be worked out. They are an administrative kind of thing. The Congress in this act would instruct the Forest Service to work out those problems and then report back with a recommendation about how each area would be permanently included.

If the Congress finds that that has been done to its satisfaction, with regard to these areas that Congress has already, as you pointed out, designated for inclusion in the system, that is the end of it. They go in according to those recommendations.

If Congress, however, says no, you haven't done that thoroughly, you haven't done it right, the Congress reserves the right to reject it. Now, your amendment as I have read it, and unfortunately I do not have it in hand, says that the recommendation will become effective

with regard to the continuation of an area only if there is passed within 2 years a concurrent resolution so declaring.

Now, this act also provides that if the primitive area has not been established as wilderness within 14 years, it passes out of existence as even a primitive area. If you or any of your successors or colleagues, though few in number, could frustrate the action of a subcommittee or a committee for 2 years, you could end the possibility of the preservation of that very important area.

Senator ALLOTT. Well, let me say in that respect, I am not wedded to the 2 years. This isn't what bothers me. On the other hand, Mr. Zahniser, it is just as true, and I don't think it can be successfully advocated, that it is just as possible for even fewer to frustrate the desire of people to overturn or modify the decision of the President under the method which is put down in the bill. There can be no successful contention that this is not true. It is true.

Mr. ZAHNISER. Well, I am compelled to contend in that way, Senator Allott. Before doing that, however, I should just like to continue my further thought, but very briefly, and that is that there have indeed been incidents of the kind that I am only imagining for the future, that have been very closely observed by me, wherein a small number of people have frustrated the operations of our legislative processes and have continued over a period of years to frustrate something that had been demonstrated to have pretty broad public support. So it is not theoretical in my thinking that such a concurrent resolution could be frustrated for a 2-year period. Hence, my concern in this instance being with two things, orderly processes of government and preservation of wilderness areas, I must think that the amendment you propose would be subject to misuse.

Senator ALLOTT. Mr. Zahniser, won't you agree that you were doing exactly the same thing in the proposition you are supporting in the bill? You are providing specifically

Mr. ZAHNISER. No.

Senator ALLOTT. That unless within a certain time Congress, either House, passes a resolution overturning the President's action, and it is within a specific time, you are just doing exactly the same thing in reverse except that under your system, Mr. Zahniser, there is absolutely no way of exposing this thing to public hearing.

Mr. ZAHNISER. There are two respects in which I would like to comment on that.

Senator ALLOTT. I mean as far as Congress is concerned there is no way.

Mr. ZAHNISER. In the first place, the future action to which you refer would be with regard to areas that the Congress has already determined should be included in the wilderness system, so determined by the measure now before us.

Senator ALLOTT. Go ahead.

Mr. ZAHNISER. I was saying that in the first place the action would be with regard to areas that Congress has already determined should be included in the wilderness system and should thus be regarded presumptively as predominantly valuable for wilderness preservation. In the operation of the mechanism as provided by this act, this matter could come to a public hearing very promptly. I remember the colloquy 2 years ago when Senator Anderson and you, Senator Allott, investigated that perplexity. The Parliamentarian came here