Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

THE STATE OF IDAHO Symms. Senator Mr. Chairman, I'll be very brief. I don't have any questions to ask the panel right now. I appreciate all the wit nesses that have testified and those who will. And I apologize to you, Mr. Chairman, that I was not able to be here when you start ed this morning; however, I had a commitment at the other end of the State and couldn't get here any sooner. But I think that you certainly deserve our commendations for having these hearings and allowing all Idahoans an opportunity to speak to this issue. And I'll just also say that I hope that these hearings — I agree with the last speaker, I hope that these hearings will mark the last in many chapters of this wilderness question in the State of Idaho. We have studied it and studied and studied it, and I think it's worthwhile for us to note that we have 3.8 million of legislative and protected wilderness. That's almost 10 percent of all the lands in Idaho if you add in those RARE II lands that are now managed as wilderness. One-sixth of the Government land and full 25 per cent of the Forest Service land is already in the wilderness state presently, so we clearly have more than any State in the Union. And I would hope that when this set of hearings is over, that you 664 as chairman will have a fairly good feeling of how much additional acreage should be designated to wilderness in Idaho, if any, and were the RARE II studies sufficient to meet the policy require Policy Act, and should ments of the National Environmental Idaho's RARE II bill include language that will release the land for multiple use that has been studied but rejected for the wilderness designation. When we were with you in Boise the other day, I could see that you have a very broad range of opinion on those questions, but I think those are things that we have to address in the Congress. I would hope that all the constituents in the State would recognize the problem that Chairman McClure has in trying to get a happy meeting place between these diverse points of view. I'm trying to go into these things with a broad, wide open opinion of what we should do, but I can't help but mention, I think, that when I hear witnesses testify about the potential for oil and gas in this part of the world, that it would be much better in the long run for us to improve our technology and to improve our ability to have side-byside relationship between all interests of energy production and mineral production and the great outdoors than it would be to be sending our sons off to the Persian Gulf or some other place, the Caribbean Basin, to fight over very critical minerals or oil and gas. So I hope that some resolution of this can be made, and I think we should pay heed to the fact that Idaho already is a State that has made a large contribution to the Nation's wilderness reserve and that we don't have to take a back seat to anyone in terms of how much we have. I think there's about 4 acres of wilderness for each person living in the State right now, which is a considerable amount of land when you view it in terms of other parts of the world. So I look forward to the remaining part of this hearing and then the other two hearings you'll be having throughout the State, and I again say, I appreciate you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing Idahoans the opportunity to have their input to this important deci sion that we have to make. And I thank you.