Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2005

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2005 -- (House of Representatives - June 17, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 674 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, H.R. 4568.

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Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to speak, and I wanted to address a few of the points that have been made, including the last point that was just made, that if you cannot get in, you cannot enjoy the resources, and I think this is really quite true. But this goes to the air quality issue.

When we talk about the degrading of the air quality at Yellowstone, we are talking about an access issue. When there are health advisories, when the Park Service says that if you have a respiratory condition, you cannot enjoy the park today, this is an access issue. This is not discretionary. We are saying that this park is simply unavailable for those who cannot breath polluted air.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to cite statistics, that Yellowstone has never violated Clean Air Act standards, but these standards are meant for the entire country. Yellowstone is intended to be a Class 1 airshed, the cleanest, most pristine air in the country. Visitors from across the country do not come to Yellowstone to breath the same air they get at home. I can certainly attest to that, being from Los Angeles. If we want dirty air, we stay home. We have plenty of it in L.A., we do not need to go to Yellowstone to find smog. Instead, we go to a place like Yellowstone because we enjoy the pristine air, the pristine environment, and for those who have respiratory conditions, it is not a question of merely enjoyment, it is a question of access to these precious sites.

It should also be noted that emissions from snowmobiles actually threaten the health of some of the visitors, as well as the park employees. We have seen before the pictures of rangers forced to wear gas masks because of the smoke at entrance gates. These are not the images that we associate with Yellowstone or want to associate with Yellowstone.
Doctors and scientists have also warned that people with upper respiratory conditions like asthma, that park pollution in the winter may be a serious threat to their health.

A second issue I wanted to address in addition to the air quality is that of the economy. We have also heard from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle concerned with the economic impact of this amendment. But in fact, many business owners say that protecting Yellowstone's health is the cornerstone of a sound economic strategy for the region. The Rush amendment, the Rush-Holt amendment would protect Yellowstone's health and help diversify the area's winter economy.

Even the Bush administration's own 2-year study concluded that the phasing out of snowmobiles in Yellowstone in favor of snowcoaches would have a short-term impact of less than 1 percent on the economy of the 5 counties surrounding Yellowstone. And certainly, the economic impact of the continuing uncertainty over litigation and reregulation that has occurred over the last several years has a far more significant impact than the certainty that would be provided by this amendment, by the clarity it would provide in the quality of the air, and in the business environment, the continuing attraction of Yellowstone for people around the country and around the world. I have seen very few people cogently argue that degrading the quality of some of our most pristine areas will attract more visitors to the region. It simply will not.

Mr. OTTER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, it is reassuring to hear the gentleman who just spoke from California now willing to use the Bush administration figures on the economy when for weeks, maybe months, I have sat on this very floor on all issues relative to the economy and unemployment and how bad things were, how wrong the Bush administration has been.
But now, all of a sudden, we have a report that the gentleman from California is willing to adhere to, and it will only affect the economy of Yellowstone by 1 percent.

I would ask the gentleman from California that if we should come up with a national policy which would only affect the economy of California by 1 percent, would the gentleman from California then be most willing to accept that without any argument?

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OTTER. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. As I was mentioning, even the present administration's estimate, which I think generally errs far on the side of saying that any environmental protection would be injurious to business, even this administration's expectation is that it would have less than 1 percent impact. So I am saying that even for this very strongly, unfortunately, anti-environmental administration, even they do not see an impact.