STATEMENT OF JAMES A. McCLURE SENATE ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS "The RARE II Review Act of 1981" Thank you Mr. Chairman. The participation of everyone here today is essential and I welcome you all. The complexity of the RARE II Review Act of 1981 warrants the testimony of each of you and I look forward to listening to all of your comments As is inevitable with any complex legislation, and suggestions. several technical questions have surfaced since the bill's introduction. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to specify for the record my intentions for what this legislation should accomplish. In the interest of time I will be brief. The importance of wilderness has long been recognized by Congress and equally recognized as important, has been the productivity of our natural resources. The RARE II process was developed to identify National Forest System lands suitable for wilderness designation and present these recommendations to Congress so that these lands could be considered for inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System. I endorse this concept but I also endorse the concept of multiple use management for the lands not suitable for wilderness designation or requiring further study. The RARE II Review Act of 1981 would permit this multiple use management on the nonwilderness recommendations that the Congress received from President Carter in 1979. In addition to nonwilderness recommendations, President -2 Carter's recommendations to Congress included wilderness and further planning recommendations for both RARE II lands and primitive areas. For these wilderness and further planning recommendations, this bill would set up reasonable time frames for Congress to statutorily act upon before these lands would also be managed under the multiple use concept. It is not the intent of this bill to overturn any provisions of state wilderness bills previously passed by Congress. However, it would apply its provision of release to the areas designated as nonwilderness by these state wilderness bills passed. Lastly, the RARE II Review Act of 1981 in no way precludes any future Congress from enacting Wilderness proposals. What we are attempting to accomplish with this legislation is to free the bound hands of the Forest Service so that they can go ahead with normal land mangement policies. Congress has very rightly considered and created wilderness areas, and Congress has considered and rejected other lands for wilderness. It is time the resources of these non-wilderness lands are put back to wise use for the benefit of the people of this nation. STATEMENT BY SENATOR ALAN CRANSTON BEFORE THE SENATE ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC LANDS AND RESERVED WATER REGARDING S. 842, THE RARE II REVIEW ACT OF 1981 -- April 23, 1981 Mr. Chairman, I appreciate having this opportunity to comment on S. 842, the RARE II Review Act of 1981. As you are aware, this legislation releases immediately to multiple use all lands recommended in RARE II as non-wilderness (36 million acres nationwide). The bill also sets deadlines for Congressional action on the RARE II wilderness recommendations (15 million acres nationwide) and Forest Service planning on RARE II further planning areas (11 million acres nationwide). Finally the bill declares the environmental impact statement on RARE II adequate for the purpose of protecting the RARE II process from court challenges and lifting the injunction on the California lawsuit involving 47 areas recommended as non-wilderness in RARE II. Mr. Chairman, there is a real need for Congress to address the RARE II situation in California. As a result of the successful court challenge brought by the State of California, the Forest Service must prepare site specific environmental impact statements on the 47 areas named in the lawsuit before proceeding with any activity which would impair the wilderness values of these lands. The injunction affects 1 million acres of national forest land containing 143.5 million board feet of timber, numerous proposals for recreation development (ski facilities at Mt. Shasta, Mr. Baldy and Mammoth Mountain), development of known deposits of important strategic minerals, and installation of hydroelectric power facilities and power transmission lines. 89-822 0-82--2 2 I share the concern which has been expressed about the impact of the RARE II recommendations and the California lawsuit on jobs, timber supply, lumber for housing and needed, appropriate development. The Forest Service needs to know the land base it has on which to plan timber sales and permit other activities in the future. But this bill S. 842 is not the solution to the RARE II situation in California or anywhere else in the nation. By ignoring wilderness values, the bill is so one-sided that its approval by this Committee could lead to protracted debate and forestall any kind of resolution of the RARE II situation in this Congress. As I've previously mentioned, this bill does not designate a single acre in California or elsewhere as wilderness. It sets unrealistic deadlines for Congressional and Administrative action on the RARE II wilderness and further planning area recommendations respectively so that there is no assurance that there will ever be any further additions to the national wilderness preservation system. This legislation also would not permit any court in the future to review the adequacy of the RARE II environmental impact statement and is intended to void the injunction stemming from the California lawsuit. But, Mr. Chairman, the State of California and many Californians have indicated that they would like to see more wilderness areas designated in the state than proposed in the RARE II process. I personally do not believe that all the areas covered by the California lawsuit should be set aside as wilderness. But I strongly feel that Congress should take a very careful look at the wilderness values of these areas and make informed decisions as to their future management and use. Mr. Chairman, S. 842 does not merely release the RARE II non-wilderness areas to multiple use for the first generation of forest planning -which I understand will go through the 1990's for most forests in California but releases the areas forever. This bill in effect is amending the National Forest Management Act and other multiple use forestry laws. Mr. Chairman, our parks, seashores and wilderness areas are overcrowded, especially in California. Within some of these areas the John Muir wilderness and Yosemite National Park for example use is now being restricted because of the immense pressures of Overuse. We need more areas set aside for recreation, including wilderness recreation, in California. This Administration has halted, at least temporarily, the acquisition of new park land. If this and I certainly hope moratorium on park acquisition continues that it will not it will be even more important that a portion of our forest lands which are already federally owned be made available for public recreation use. Mr. Chairman, I am convinced that the only way in which we can accurately evaluate the resources of our national forests and RARE II is through a state-by-state or region-by-region process. In the 96th Congress, we enacted legislation dealing with over one third of the |