Senator BUMPERS. Mr. Duffus, I thank you very much for your testimony. I do not know what we would do without GAO. I am a big proponent. When I was Chairman of the Legislative Appropriations Committee, I always tried to honor GAO's requests to make sure you had the manpower to do these kinds of detailed studies without which Congress is totally at the mercy of the executive branch. And that is not to say that your reports are infallible. Maybe this one is not. But it is very helpful to us who are considering bills like S. 11, which is not perfect either. It is very helpful to us to have you come in with a fairly definitive statement about what is actually going on. Instead of being livid about the GAO report, the BLM ought to take your report to heart and try to figure out what they can do to make sure they do not get other reports as critical as this one. And if I were Mr. Jamison-whom I know and like very much and I know he wants to do a good job-if I were he, I would look at this report very carefully, and I would call my field people in and I would say we are not going to have any more reports like this. We are stewards of the public domain. You have grave responsibilities and here is the deal, and here is what I am expecting out of you. And, you know, the desert tortoise may not be the most important thing in the world, but still there is obviously either a disdain or an indifference for the endangered species in the desert, according to your report. So, I am not going to belabor it except to say to you that we really appreciate. Just one question. Do you have any idea, has the Fish and Wildlife Service done a census count of the desert tortoise? Mr. DUFFUS. I would ask one of my colleagues if they are aware of that. Senator BUMPERS. Does anybody know the answer to that? Mr. LUCKROTH. BLM does inventory work in the desert, and it is on a sample basis. From that, they project the populations. That has been done just recently. Senator BUMPERS. Do you know what the projection was? Mr. LUCKROTH. I know that it showed a very serious decline in number of desert tortoises since the last inventory. Senator BUMPERS. Since 1979 a 50 percent reduction, is that what you said? Mr. DUFFUS. Yes, sir. Senator BUMPERS. That is a staggering figure, Mr. Duffus. I do not have any questions for you right now. We may submit some to you for the record, but I certainly appreciate all of you gentlemen coming. Mr. DUFFUS. We appreciate your remarks and we will be glad to respond. Senator BUMPERS. Thank you. I will not go to the five-minute rule until Mr. Ward, Director of the California Department of Conservation, testifies. Mr. Ward, we thank you very much for coming out to the East Coast to be with us. We look forward to hearing your statement. STATEMENT OF RANDALL WARD, DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA Mr. WARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Cranston as well. I want to apologize first for the Secretary of Resources who has joined this committee in the past, Mr. Gordon Van Vleck, for being unable to be here today. As you indicated, Senator, my name is Randy Ward. I am the director of the California Department of Conservation, and I will in the interest of brevity keep my remarks probably under five minutes. Thank you for the opportunity for California to address their concerns regarding Senator Cranston's S. 11, the California Desert Protection Act. Let me first indicate, we recognize that protection of the desert is both a laudable and necessary objective. However, the legislation before you is extremely complex and the State of California, while neutral on the measure, has serious concerns, and certainly they should not be viewed as flat-footed on the issue. I am sure you have already heard a litany of problems our state faces and will continue with your panels yet this afternoon with the bill in its current form, and I might add that, Senator Bumpers, we have worked very closely with your staff in developing really some complex maps that deal with the diverse heating resource issues that we find affected by the bill as well as with Senator Cranston's staff and have found them to be most professional and healthy. Not to minimize these other issues, but in the interests of time I would like to address two issues that received insufficient attention, in my view, so far, management of wildlife in the desert and compensation for state lands. In much of the desert the California Department of Fish and Game is charged with managing wildlife resources. Much of this management is done through cooperative agreements between the Department of Fish and Game and the BLM. The results of this management have been beneficial to both wildlife and to Californians. We believe the BLM is committed to wildlife protection, and the issue is more adequately addressed to budgetary resources. Through long years of hard work by Fish and Game and dedicated volunteers the desert bighorn sheep has been brought back from the edge of extinction to respectable self-sustaining numbers. Cornerstones of this effort have been aerial and motorized reintroduction of sheep, construction of sheep watering facilities called guzzlers, and the regular maintenance of these facilities. The bulk of this work has taken place in areas that would become wilderness or national park under S. 11. Also, under S. 11 most of these activities would be discretionary if not banned. I am also informed by the Department of Fish and Game that the National Park Service preempts state management of wildlife unless the act creating parks or other designations is specific as to the state's continued management authority and allowable activities such as wildlife management, fishing and hunting. The National Park Service has as a guiding philosophy that park areas should be returned to as natural a state as possible. The guzzlers that support the bighorn sheep populations are not natural, nor are there spring and stream modifications that support quail, chukar and many other wildlife species. In fact, the draft management plan for the Death Valley National Monument, prepared by the NPS, calls for the removal of such "alteration of natural flows." The same plan admits that under NPS administration, the bighorn sheep population in Death Valley has suffered a steady decline. Bighorn sheep are not the only wildlife success story in the desert. Again, thanks largely to the Department of Fish and Game and volunteer groups of Californians and installed water improvements, the East Mojave area has become perhaps the premier quail hunting area in the California desert. Also, chukar, introduced by Fish and Game, has become a popular desert species with California hunters. We estimate that over 424,000 hunter days are spent in the California desert. If much of the desert's prime hunting area becomes national park and thus closed to hunting, how will this opportunity be replaced? Will the species, not just game, but a host of desert species depending on man-altered water sources, be supported by the National Park Service and will water sources on wilderness lands be maintained? If S. 11 passes, will the desert bighorn, which has been restored through the efforts of our citizens and the Department of Fish and Game go the way of the Death Valley herd? The State of California does not see currently any guarantees in the bill that it will be allowed to continue to manage these wildlife resources. The state needs motorized access to 300 of these guzzlers that I just spoke about. There are recent examples in bordering states where the continued need for mechanized access has been denied on newly created wilderness areas and, therefore, created substantial wildlife management problems and, as a result, the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, which is basically the collections of agencies within the western states, consistent with our Department of Fish and Game, have taken opposition on the bill lacking specific language and clarification with regard to wildlife management. The second issue that I consider significant and want to bring before the committee today is the state land held in trust for our state through-for the Teachers' Retirement System that would be affected by Senate bill 11. It would allow the-typically the state would be able to exchange these parcels for BLM land of comparable value. However, the BLM in this case has indicated that there are not comparable lands from which to exchange for. Of the state parcels affected by the bill, we have identified 216 parcels with recognized mineral values. These minerals include gold, silver, limestone, tungsten and manganese. 160 of these par cels that I mentioned that are state parcels contain minerals defined by the Department of Defense as strategic. The potential state revenue laws directly impacts the State Teachers' Retirement System which receives the revenue benefit from these lands. That retirement system currently has an unfunded future liability of approximately $10 billion and also today you have, I believe, written testimony from a representative of the Retired Teachers' Association, who is here as well if you have any questions of him. In closing, I would emphasize our current support for the BLM desert plan which involved a substantial public participation process, but in so doing indicate we are willing to work with this committee in the context of your deliberations on this measure. The wildlife biologists, our hunters, recreationists and a myriad of other groups that we hear from are certainly concerned about S. 11, which necessitates our continued participation. I ask that you carefully consider some of the thoughts and recommendations that I have presented. Thank you very much for your indulgence. [The prepared statement of Mr. Ward follows:] |