Hinchey-Bass Amendment Floor Debate

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

[Time: 13:45]
IN THE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE
Accordingly, the House resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union for the further consideration of the bill (H.R. 4568) making appropriations for the Department of the Interior and related agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2005, and for other purposes, with Mrs. Biggert (Chairman pro tempore) in the chair.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. When the Committee of the Whole rose on Wednesday, June 16, 2004, the amendment by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake) had been disposed of and the bill was open for amendment from page 77, line 9, through page 139, line 22.
Are there further amendments to this portion of the bill?
AMENDMENT NO. 18 OFFERED BY MR. HINCHEY
Mr. HINCHEY. Madam Chairman, I offer an amendment.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:
Amendment No. 18 offered by Mr. Hinchey:
At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following new section:
TITLE V--ADDITIONAL GENERAL PROVISIONS
SEC. 501. None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to kill, or assist other persons in killing, any bison in the Yellowstone National Park herd.
Mr. HINCHEY. Madam Chairman, first I want to thank my good friend, the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) for cosponsoring this amendment with me. This is an amendment which will protect the Yellowstone bison. The Yellowstone bison are unique, in that they are the last element that traces its genetic strain back to the American bison that roamed the great plains and prairies of America in the early years of our history and of course much before that.
In the 18th century, it is estimated that there were between 20 and 40 million American bison in the Midwest and the West of the United States between the Appalachians and the Rockies.
By the advent of the 20th century that number had dwindled to 25. The American bison was almost extinct, and it almost followed the path of the passenger pigeon, but due to the intervention of conservationists and the efforts of this House, measures were taken to preserve the American bison. As a result of that, their numbers turned around and they began to prosper once again under that protection.
The American bison has become an American icon. It was on one of our coins. It is seen across the country in a variety of ways. It represents the great freedom that was inherent in the vast plains and prairies of America.
But now the American bison, the last genetic strain that traces its history back to those that roamed this country and earlier centuries, is in great danger. It is in great danger as a result of the activities of the Park Service and the harassment of these animals out of Yellowstone National Park, west and northwest of the park and then the capture and slaughter of those animals.
The amendment that the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) and I offer today would restrict funding in this appropriations bill so no money could be used to carry out that capture and slaughtering process for 1 year so we will have an opportunity to look into this situation, examine it closely, see what is being done and understand it better.
Now there are some Members who contend that this slaughter is necessary because bison may transmit brucellosis to cattle on the fringes of Yellowstone . First of all, there are hardly any cattle on the fringes of Yellowstone . And what are there, most of those are trucked in in the summertime when the bison are back in the park. Furthermore, according to the National Academy of Sciences, there has never been one single example of the transmission of brucellosis from bison to cattle. It has never occurred.
Yes, brucellosis can be transmitted from animals in the wild, and it has been shown that brucellosis can be transmitted from elk in Yellowstone and elsewhere to cattle, but there is no program to deal with elk in any way. That causes one to wonder whether brucellosis is really a motivation here at all; I suspect it is not. There is
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something else going on here, something that we need to get to the bottom of. We need to understand why these animals are being harassed and slaughtered in the way that they are.
Now, this argument comes not just from me and other people who may not be directly involved in this in a material way, it also comes from people who live out there in Montana, people who live up on Horse Butte Peninsula, for example, who have contacted my office and told us how the Park Service and people working with them harass these animals with helicopters and snowmobiles and drive them across the park and across their property and block roads.
The people who live in those communities are tired of it. We were contacted by the Chamber of Commerce in Gardiner, Montana. They told us people come out there in the wintertime to examine the wildlife of Yellowstone in winter conditions. They do not come out there to see the Yellowstone wildlife, particularly the American bison, captured and slaughtered in the way that the Park Service is doing it.
So what we want to do here is stop this outrageous activity from continuing to occur for the extent of this bill over the next year. I hope that the majority of the Members of this House will see the clear inherent benefits and the sensibilities of this and they will join us in supporting this amendment.
Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Madam Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.
None of us are comfortable with this issue, but let me attempt to provide Members with some facts.
The record of decision was signed in December 2000 by then-Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and then-Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman and the Governor of Montana. This document was a long-term plan for bison management in the region. The main objectives were to maintain a free-ranging bison population and manage the risk of transmission of brucellosis from bison to cattle. Both the State and the Park Service have specific responsibilities under this agreement. The plan is effective, and the bison population there has continued to grow to over 4,000 from 2,000 a decade ago.
The real issue arises when bison go outside the park boundary into Montana, a brucellosis-free State. When this occurs, bison are captured, tested and some are shipped to slaughter. On occasion, bison that resist repeated hazing and capture are removed. This spring, there was a dangerous situation of this kind involving one aggressive bull bison. The animal could not be hazed back into the park from private property and had to be lethally removed under the direction of the State officials.
The Park Service had opened the Stevens Creek Capture Facility within park boundaries. This facility was required under the original Babbitt management plan. Captured animals are tested and released if negative and removed if positive. This is a very difficult situation. However, there has been no change to the original record of decision, and the State and the National Park Service are abiding by this agreement.
We have recommendations from the National Wildlife Federation to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) saying, ``We positively applaud your commitment and desire to curtail the unnecessary killing of Buffalo . We respectfully submit that your amendment would neither achieve this goal nor advance the cause of Yellowstone buffalo conservation in any meaningful way. In fact, your amendment, if enacted, would lead to slaughter of more animals.'' Let me read that again. ``It will lead to slaughter of more animals than under the current management plan.'' This is the National Wildlife Federation writing to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).
We also have a similar letter from the InterTribal Bison Cooperative.
Madam Chairman, I certainly agree with the general concept of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) but this will not do it, and I strongly oppose this amendment.
Mr. BASS. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the last word.
Madam Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey). In response to my friend, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), the basic issue here is it is not necessary to kill American bison. As the gentleman mentioned when he said his opening remarks, the Department of Interior and the National Park Service both prominently display as their logos the American Buffalo . The 42nd Congress in 1872 passed legislation creating Yellowstone National Park, and it required that the Secretary of the Interior ``shall provide against the wanton destruction of the fish and game found within said park, and against their capture or destruction for the purpose of merchandise or profit.''
In 1999, the Congress spent $13 million to set aside additional Federal lands to ensure that animals in the park could migrate during the winter and summer seasons. This is in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars which have been wisely spent to provide good stewardship of the land and protection of the wildlife for the public's benefit. Yet the National Park Service also spends millions to harass and shoot the very animals that they are supposed to be protecting. This past winter alone, they captured 482 bison and they killed 277 of them. It is absurd.
This expenditure is a waste of taxpayers' dollars when there are other reasonable methods to manage one of our Nation's premier wildlife icons.
Our amendment would place a 1-year moratorium on Park Service funding that is used for lethal management and would force the agency to redirect its resources toward common-sense wildlife management endeavors more in keeping with its proud record of stewardship. A few common-sense measures to safeguard livestock, fencing, vaccinations, working proactively would be far more productive and less destructive than the system and program we have in place today.
The buffalo and other wildlife are why we have this park in the first place. We allow cattle grazing on it because there is enough room for both resources, but then to use the false fears of cattle ranchers as an excuse to kill these buffalo is absurd. If the ranchers do not want to risk their cattle on these Federal lands, they have many different resources, but the bison do not.
Let us be clear, however. This is an amendment that is designed to halt the wasteful and unnecessary attack on the American bison. It is not about hunting and it would not affect traditional wildlife management tools such as hunting outside the national park. The basic question here is should we kill buffalo from Yellowstone National Park with one dollar while we spend other dollars on the other hand to protect them. To me it is one of these crazy concepts that needs to be stopped. It will be stopped if Members vote in favor of this amendment.
Madam Chairman, I urge the committee to support the pending amendment.

[Time: 15:00]
Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.
Madam Chairman, I want to thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) and the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass) for this very responsible, appropriate amendment. It is not just a matter of a waste of taxpayers' money. This is a shameful, disgraceful policy. Here are the facts: there has not been one confirmed incidence of brucellosis transmission in the wild from buffalo to cattle. Not a one. In fact, the risk is so low as to be immeasurable according to the National Academy of Sciences.
Buffalo with brucellosis and cattle have grazed together for over 50 years in the Jackson Hole area south of Yellowstone without any incident of disease transmission. The irony here is that we do know that elk can transmit this disease to cattle. In fact, it did happen in Wyoming. But we do not kill or harass the approximately 13,000 elk that are in Yellowstone . They are allowed unfettered access, as I think they should be; although you could develop a wildlife management plan. But there is no excuse for what we are doing to the buffalo .
Four thousand buffalo have been killed over the last 20 years. In the last year, 480 were caught and most of them were killed. It does not make sense. It is wrong. This, as we understand, is the
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only pure-bred herd that is allowed to roam where they have always traditionally roamed. Is that not of some value in our Nation? Back at the turn of the 20th century, in the very early 1900s, we sent soldiers and settlers out to create grazing lands, and they slaughtered the buffalo . Thousands you could see dead on the plains allowed to rot because they just wanted to kill them off, whereas the Native Americans had a belief that you do not kill unless you have purpose, unless you need to eat or for clothing.
For thousands of years under the stewardship of our Native Americans the buffalo herd prospered. We came out, almost exterminated the buffalo , and finally they are coming back on the land that has a natural ecosystem. We are told that in fact there is no risk to the ecosystem, that in fact the greater Yellowstone ecosystem is not threatened whatsoever with regard to the ecological carrying capacity for bison in Yellowstone . If you look at all the facts, even the fact that there is one rancher from Idaho that trucks a herd of 150 cows to fenced private pasture in Horse Butte in the summer, the buffalo are already back in the park far away from the cows. So why would you kill 4,000 buffalo to protect a few hundred cows when they are not even nearby? There is something gratuitously destructive about this policy.
Even the people that live near Yellowstone , including the Chamber of Commerce, do not want this policy. People come to see the buffalo , and here we were told just recently by somebody that was there, there are helicopters shooting at them, harassing them. That is not why you go to a national park.
This policy is absolutely wrong. We can find no justification for it. It is shameful. Our stewards that work for the Park Service do not want to be doing this kind of thing. This is unnatural to what they are all about. I do not know what is driving this policy, but it has got to change. I suggest it is because there are some people who want an opportunity to hunt the buffalo --but they are basically cows--where is the sport in that? The buffalo are part of our heritage. We had them on the back of the nickel. It means something to protect a species that is native to this land that was integral to the survival of the Native American peoples.
And so I would very strongly urge this body to pass this amendment. It is a responsible amendment. It is justified. The policy that it overturns is not justified. Madam Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment. Let us rectify this situation. Let us restore the buffalo to their natural habitat and enable Park Service rangers to conduct the kind of professional responsibilities that they want to be doing and not carrying out a policy that they know is ill-advised and destructive of a species that desrves to be protected and preserved.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.
Madam Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment for a lot of reasons. In December 2000, the National Park Service, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the State of Montana finalized a long-term management plan for the Yellowstone bison herd. This plan brought to a close more than 8 years of public rulemaking, court proceedings, and intense negotiations over how the Yellowstone bison herd should be managed.
I am not alone in opposition to this amendment. Yesterday, the National Wildlife Federation sent a letter to the author of this amendment saying, ``On behalf of the 4 million members and supporters of the National Wildlife Federation, we are writing to urge you not to offer an amendment to the fiscal year 2005 Interior appropriations bill restricting funding for the National Park Service with respect to Yellowstone bison. In fact, your amendment, if enacted, would lead to the slaughter of more animals than under the current management plan. Your proposed amendment, if similar to the amendment offered in fiscal year 2004, and it is, would effectively block the National Park Service from operating its Stevens Creek facility where more than 100 buffalo are tested for brucellosis, held inside Yellowstone , and ultimately repatriated back in the park if they test negative. It's true that buffalo testing positive for the disease at Stevens Creek are sent to slaughter; but under the terms of your amendment, these animals would be killed when they leave the park, by Montana's Department of Livestock'' which this amendment cannot stop.
The InterTribal Bison Cooperative sent a letter yesterday urging the proponents of this amendment to not offer it because it ``may hinder the progress that is being made toward the eventual relocation of Yellowstone buffalo to tribal lands in other locations.'' And the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance yesterday sent a letter urging opposition to this amendment, saying that this is an anti-management amendment that would supersede the professional judgments of trained wildlife scientists in Federal and State resource agencies.
The greater Yellowstone area is one of the last known reservoirs for brucellosis in the United States. Tests indicate that up to 50 percent of the bison in the park are potentially infected. There have also been scientifically documented cases of bison and elk transmitting brucellosis to cattle under both range and experimental conditions. The bison management plan relies on separation of bison from cattle that graze in areas surrounding the park. As bison leave the park during winter, management zones are used to monitor the movement of the bison and ensure that bison and cattle do not intermingle. The bison are phased back into the park at the beginning of the spring season. Bison outside the park's boundaries past the onset of spring are captured or removed. In addition, cattle are not allowed to graze on public land outside the park until enough time has passed after the bison leave to ensure that the brucellosis bacteria is no longer a threat.
While it is unfortunate that Park Service employees must sometimes remove bison that have left Yellowstone Park, it is important to note that these operations are targeted and only one component of a much larger effort to preserve the health and viability of the entire bison herd. If left unaddressed, the brucellosis situation in the Yellowstone area represents a threat to livestock health in the United States. In 2002, a cattle herd in Idaho was infected with brucellosis which was linked to elk from the greater Yellowstone area. In 2004, Wyoming lost its brucellosis cattle-free status due to the detection of the disease in two cattle herds that were again infected by elk from the greater Yellowstone area.
It is critical that Park Service employees be permitted to carry out their roles under the current management plan. I urge Members to join me; the chairman of the subcommittee; the National Wildlife Federation; the InterTribal Bison Cooperative, which is comprised of dozens of Indian tribes in the western part of the United States; and the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance in opposing a bad amendment. Bad for bison, bad for Yellowstone National Park, bad for the cattle industry, and bad for the Montana-Wyoming area of this country.
Mr. STENHOLM. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.
Madam Chairman, I want to associate myself with the remarks of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) and add a few other points in opposition to the gentleman from New York's amendment. I appreciate all of those who support this amendment for their desire to protect a noble species. However, it seems clear to most people, and we have heard from the National Wildlife Federation, the InterTribal Bison Cooperative and others who live in that area who understand that this is more than an effort to protect a species.
In fact, those who oppose this amendment are the ones that are out to protect the species. Brucellosis when it occurs in a cattle herd or in a dairy herd, a beef cattle or a dairy herd, oftentimes the entire herd is disposed of in order to bring about control of the disease. In a few cases, individual animals are slaughtered in order to bring under control the disease. That is what is attempting to be done now in Yellowstone Park and in other areas of this region. We have a serious disease problem that cannot be controlled by good intentions on this floor.
We have to keep in mind that the continued infected status of these
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bison is not just a threat to their continued reproduction but it also threatens our beef herd with reinfection from a disease we have spent millions of dollars trying to eradicate. As the steward of American wildlife, the Federal Government has a responsibility to manage all wildlife in a way that minimizes these sorts of negative impacts on private citizens and their property. That is what the policy that is now going on in Yellowstone is not only attempting to do but will do if we just allow it.
Again, I appreciate the author and all of those who speak in favor of this issue today, but I believe that this is another example upon close scrutiny of unintended consequences which often attend efforts in this body. Many well-intentioned efforts at Federal intervention, especially when local stakeholders have already negotiated their own agreements, end up producing worse outcomes for all involved. It seems clear that in this case that those made worse off include the North American bison herd. I encourage all Members to oppose this amendment. The best way to take care of the buffalo is to allow sound science to work with those who live in that area and who truly appreciate it; and the Indian tribes who would like to see more buffalo returning to their tribal lands certainly know more about it than any of us in this body today.
Mr. REHBERG. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.
Madam Chairman, oftentimes I think that maybe Montana creates some of its own problems for itself because we encourage people to come to Montana and make movies like ``A River Runs Through It'' or ``The Horse Whisperer'' and do stories on Jeremiah Johnson, but it gives an unnatural opinion or vision to people on the east coast that frankly shocks me.
I just do not understand how anybody that truly loves their park could support an amendment like this. I was Lieutenant Governor before I was a Congressman so I was intimately involved in the negotiations on this process. I am also a land manager. I make my living understanding the mineral cycle and the water cycle, understanding what it is like to overgraze and undergraze and overlog and underlog, that there are various cycles that exist within society. So if I could put it to the sponsors in language that they can understand, maybe I ought to talk like Ranger Rick and suggest to them that when a bull and a cow get together, they have calves. And when you have calves, eventually you overpopulate.
They have used the number 4,000 killed. That is over 20 years. Last year three were shot, because they needed to be. Nobody wants to shoot them. But some of them are uncontrollable. But the problem is 40 percent of the herd in Yellowstone Park are infected with brucellosis. Do you not care enough about your bison to want to have a healthy herd? They abort their calves. They kill their own calves because of a health issue.
The proponents are loving their park to death. Give us the opportunity to use the memorandum of understanding that is in place to manage the herd for the betterment of the park. What are the odds of getting Bruce Babbitt, Glickman, and Mark Racicot in the same room and getting them to sign an agreement?

[Time: 15:15]
It is called the consensus process. In fact, it was so good, we set up a consensus council in Montana to keep people from divvying in the corners and suing their way back out, to find middle ground. They liked it so well, Mr. Glickman and Mr. Racicot, that they have asked me to carry legislation in Congress to create a national consensus council, to bring this kind of a solution to the national level.
There are a number of things I want to talk about real quickly. One is human health. It is called undulate fever. One gets it, and it is a strain of brucellosis, from lifestock, sometimes elk, sometimes bison, sometimes cattle. One gets it, they have it forever. And it shows up in the CDC right next to anthrax in severity. It is a bacteria, not a virus. Brucellosis through humans is called undulate fever, and it is right up there with anthrax.
Herd health: 13,000 elk in Yellowstone Park and the surrounding area have brucellosis. It is another problem we are going to have to address. This is going to get even more expensive to try to solve. We cannot ignore the elk problem that have brucellosis as well.
Cattle: This is strictly a matter of prevention. Is it not interesting we have 93 million head of beef in America today and we had one case of mad cow, one mad cow situation in the State of Washington. And look at all the protocol we are putting in place today to try to keep it from entering into the human food chain and into the livestock food chain, but when we have 50 percent of the herd in Yellowstone Park, it does not seem to be a problem because it is the icon. It certainly is to us as well, but we want a healthy herd.
No degradation to the ecosystem? To my friend from Virginia, maybe his natural resource management skill is mowing his lawn, but he ought to go out and take a look at Yellowstone and see what the over 400,000 head of bison are doing to their riparian area. They are eating the grass down to nothing. They are creating a parking lot along those rivers and streams. They are overpopulated. The reason the National Academy of Science established a figure of between 2,300 and 3,000 head is that there is a finite ecosystem. They cannot overpopulate because if they overpopulate, they destroy their environment.
If we managed federal properties on the Bureau of Land Management properties with cattle the way the National Park Service is ignoring the overpopulation, you would throw us in jail because we are overpopulating and we are destroying the environment.
Mr. DICKS. Madam Chairman, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. REHBERG. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
Mr. DICKS. Madam Chairman, has the gentleman supported the reintroduction of the wolf as the predator in Montana?
Mr. REHBERG. I have not.
Mr. DICKS. Madam Chairman, would that not be a natural thing to do if they have these animals that are overpopulated?
Mr. REHBERG. Madam Chairman, the gentleman makes my point exactly because if we could tell the wolves to stay behind the fence the same way we are trying to expect the bison to respect the fences of Yellowstone Park, we would not have a problem. Reintroduce the wolves into Yellowstone Park. The problem exists when they get outside of Yellowstone Park and they start decimating domestic herds, taking away the livelihood of Montana families who are just trying to pay for their kids in schools and their college education and their shoes for their families as well.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.
Madam Chairman, I have been listening to my friend from Montana's presentation, and I noted the reference to mad cow disease. Would that we had the same zeal on the part of the Department of Agriculture to protect American consumers from mad cow disease, a sort of zero tolerance that is being advocated here dealing with the bison. It may well be the reason we have only discovered one case of mad cow disease in the United States is because the American consumer for years has been eating the evidence. We have such a limited, tiny sampling process at present, unfortunately, our not being able to find out in a wide and broad fashion whether or not we have a problem. I note no small amount of irony that we are going to prosecute the poor hapless beef producer in the Midwest who wanted to test all their beef for mad cow so that it could be exported again to Japan.
Listening to the debate here today, the Chair of the Committee on Agriculture is making a compelling case for more aggressive action for elk, but as has been pointed out from my colleague from New Hampshire, my colleague from New York, there has not yet been a documented case dealing with the bison. Never a confirmed incident of brucellosis transmission in the wild from buffalo to cattle. Yet we have got 13,000 Yellowstone elk, some of which are infected after we have documented the problems, that are allowed to wander unfettered to federal land outside the park. It seems at least from a distance that Montana has a different philosophy from Wyoming.
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I see my colleague from Wyoming perhaps approaching the well, but it seems that Wyoming does not deem buffalo to be a threat to the cattle because for more than 4 decades buffalo with brucellosis and cattle have grazed together in the Grand Teton National Park evidently without incident.
It would seem to me that what has been proposed in this amendment is a simple common sense approach to just have a 1-year moratorium. It is not seeking to establish in law at this point, a prohibition, but giving an opportunity to array the evidence, having an opportunity to look at less invasive solutions. Maybe we only have killed three by shooting them, but my understanding is that we had 277 that were sent to slaughter. It may be a distinction without a difference if one is a bison whether they are shot or sent away to be slaughtered. I would hope that there would be an opportunity for us to think about how we are upsetting these natural ecosystems. I would hope that we could look in a broader context for wildlife management. I would hope that there would be an opportunity for people to not single out bison for slaughter when it appears, from what we have heard on the floor today, that the problem instead is one of infected elk which are treated differently and will continue to be treated differently.
I would respectfully suggest that we adopt the amendment from the gentleman from New York and the gentleman from New Hampshire, give us a year's breathing room, be able to find ways to solve this problem in the future in ways that deal with a more humane treatment for our American Great Plains icon.
Mrs. CUBIN. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.
(Mrs. CUBIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)
Mrs. CUBIN. Madam Chairman, with all the misinformation that is floating around in this Chamber today, I hardly know where to start. But one place I will start is I would request that the Members on the other side who have supported and offered this amendment ask the Sierra Club or the Natural Resources Defense Council to update the notes that they give them to speak on the floor because there is so much misinformation that is out there. And I will clarify some of that.
It is amazing to me that the people who are offering and supporting this amendment I know for a fact have never attended the Greater Yellowstone Interagency Brucellosis Committee meetings that have been going on for several years. All the stakeholders are involved. The environmentalists are at the table as well as the Park Service and the other stakeholders. Were this a goodwill amendment, they would have more information than what they read in their radical environmentalist journals.
While I understand that some folks do not approve of the management techniques used by the Greater Yellowstone Interagency Brucellosis Committee, this amendment is truly misguided. By the way, to my colleague from Oregon, Wyoming does have a brucellosis problem, and Wyoming is not a brucellosis-free State anymore. That happened early this year because herds of cattle were commingling with elk. And so once again it would be really good if the gentleman could have current, accurate information before he delves into something that is so sensitive.
It has been said, and it is entirely true, that the population of bison in the park is truly degrading the environment because there are too many. As I said, my State of Wyoming lost its brucellosis-free status earlier this spring due to the commingling of brucellosis-infected wildlife in Yellowstone in the ecosystem with domestic cattle herds this year. Some estimates indicate that this has cost the agricultural community in Wyoming $22 million already, and the year is only half over. I think a vote for this amendment will be a vote against those agricultural families.
There is a delicate balancing act for all of the parties involved to address the needs of the environment, the federal and private stakeholders. Bison numbers are at capacity, and that is not an issue that is even up for debate. According to everyone, the bison has reached its total capacity in the Yellowstone ecosystem. We have to actively manage this herd so that we can preserve the ecosystem. To not do so would upset the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.
This amendment would make the decade-long efforts of public and private stakeholders in vain by limiting the use of federal funds to aid in Park Service management efforts that result in the reduction of the bison herd. By taking one of the Park Service's tools out of their tool box in bison and brucellosis management, this amendment reduces our ability to effectively control the bison herd at a time when its numbers are at maximum capacity.
I want the Members to know this amendment will not reduce the reduction of bison leaving Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. They will continue to leave. And what will happen is the surrounding States will take a more active role in reduction activities to protect their livestock industries with or without the aid of the Park Service.
So if my colleagues do not like the way the animals are killed, that is one thing. But the fact is the numbers have to be reduced. This is nothing more than feel good legislation that ignores the facts, all the stakeholders' concerns, and the real world lack of a magic solution bullet to fix this problem. There simply is not one.
This is bad policy. It is bad for the environment. It is bad for the American West.
I do think it is ironic that these easterners, with the exception of my friend from Oregon, offer amendments about a very serious issue of which they have very little knowledge. I noticed the gentleman from New York (Mr. HINCHEY) shaking his head no when the fact was brought forward that three bison were shot last year. That is the case.
I ask my friends to vote against this amendment and suggest that the people who have made the amendment offer their advice to the Buffalo Bills. Maybe then they could beat the Denver Broncos.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). The time of the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin) has expired.
(On request of Mr. Blumenauer, and by unanimous consent, Mrs. Cubin was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
Mrs. CUBIN. I yield to the gentleman from Oregon.
Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Chairman, because, as fellow westerners, I did not want there to be a misunderstanding, what I said when I was on the floor earlier was that there had been four decades of having buffalo grazing in the Grand Teton Park with cattle without incident. Does the gentlewoman have evidence that I misspoke, that there have been problems in the last four decades between the buffalo and the cattle in the Grand Teton National Park?
Mrs. CUBIN. Madam Chairman, actually I cannot answer that specifically for Grand Teton National Park, but I can say that the fact is there is evidence now that brucellosis was spread from elk to cattle. That is a fact, which my colleague said has never happened.
Mr. DICKS. Madam Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
Mrs. CUBIN. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.
Mr. DICKS. Madam Chairman, there is no evidence, is that not correct, that even the National Wildlife Federation letter says that this part of the case is overstated, the threat of the buffalo to the cattle has not been established, I mean in terms of brucellosis being picked up by the cattle? Is that not correct?
Mrs. CUBIN. That is correct.
Mr. DICKS. Also, Madam Chairman, I ask the same question to the gentleman from Montana. I ask him the same question. Many of us supported the reintroduction of the gray wolf, which was extremely controversial because it would give them the top predator in the food chain, who would then go in and take down the sick and aging elk and buffalo , and I know that is sensitive, but if my colleague says he wants to reduce the size of the herd, the natural way to do that is with predation.
Mrs. CUBIN. Madam Chairman, reclaiming my time, that is such a huge
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subject. Once again, that wolf reintroduction program has not created the behaviors in the wolves that were expected at the time they were reintroduced. So this is too big a subject for us to go into right now.
But my friend from Montana made the point perfectly well. You are making our point for us. They do not know where the boundary is, the bison do not and the wolves do not.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). The time of the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin) has expired.
(On request of Mr. Rehberg, and by unanimous consent, Mrs. Cubin was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.)
Mr. REHBERG. Madam Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?
Mrs. CUBIN. I yield to the gentleman from Montana.
Mr. REHBERG. Madam Chairman, I have all the sympathy in the world for Wyoming losing its brucellosis status, because you know as well as I do it costs millions of dollars to prove to everyone again that you are brucellosis free. So you have got a situation that I do not envy and we do not want to happen.
And that makes the point exactly. Why are we doing what we are doing with mad cow with the one case in Washington? Because of the devastating effect it could have. It is all a matter of preservation and prevention and protection of it occurring.
Now, one of the points that was made is there is no proof. Well, that is part of the difficulty. We want Yellowstone Park to be as natural as possible. You have to actually physically, visually be there to see it occur. So we do not know where it is coming from.
But we do know, through common sense, that it can be transferred from elk to cattle and bison to cattle. So rather than it even occurring, as my colleague from Wyoming clearly understands, you spend the money and you take the time and the effort to see that it does not happen.
How can anybody argue with wanting to have the most healthy herd of bison in Yellowstone Park and ultimately the most healthy herd of elk in the greater Yellowstone area, which is what we are attempting to accomplish?
Mr. KUCINICH. Madam Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.
Madam Chairman, I had the opportunity to visit Yellowstone a couple of weeks ago and to meet with groups of citizens who are actively involved in trying to protect the wild and free-roaming buffalo of Yellowstone National Park; and it is their position, and having been on the site and seen where buffalo follow migration patterns, it is their position that everything should be done to make sure that these free-roaming buffalo are protected for future generations.
One of the things that has not been brought up in the debate that I would like to add at this time is the importance of protecting these buffalo as a genetically unique herd.
I enter into the RECORD of this discussion here remarks that were made by a Texas A&M professor in the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology, who said ``The so-called random shooting at the Montana borders is actually eliminating or depleting entire maternal lineages; therefore, this action will cause an irreversible crippling of the gene pool. Continued removal of genetic lineages will change the genetic makeup of the herd; thus it will not represent the animal of 1910 or earlier. It would be a travesty to have people look back and say we were idiots for not understanding the gene pool.''
The so-called random shooting at the Montana borders is actually eliminating or depleting entire maternal lineages, therefore this action will cause irreversible crippling of the gene pool. Continued removal of genetic lineages will change the genetic makeup of the herd, thus it will not represent the animal of 1910 or earlier. It would be a travesty to have people look back and say we were ``idiots'' for not understanding the gene pool. Bison have developed a natural resistance genetically as long as they have enough to eat, limited stress and are not consumed by other disease. There is no magic bullet in wildlife disease, therefore management is important. Vaccines are one management tool and one component, but genetic structure is necessary for future management. Every animal which is removed from the breeding population can no longer contribute to the genetic variability of the herd.
So there are genetic implications to this action as well. We have to understand that what is happening here is that buffalo in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, according to the Save the Buffalo National Petition, are not protected on traditional winter habitat to the north and west of Yellowstone National Park.
The park does not provide sufficient winter range, except during mild winters, for the resident herds of buffalo ; and buffalo leave the park to forage on lower grasses critical for winter survival. That is not because the park is overgrazed, but because forage is unavailable due to winter conditions. Thus the buffalo follow their instinctual migration routes to lower elevation and unwittingly enter a conflict zone where their survival is undermined by politics.
Now, this petition, which is available on the Web, points out that one of the solutions is that the U.S. Government recognize the importance of traditional buffalo grazing and calving lands and migration quarters to the future of wild herds.
The Hinchey petition would protect the status of the free-roaming buffalo .
They also go on to say that the Forest Service should close grazing allotments to settle and reallocate them to the last wild buffalo .
This is something that we need to keep in mind, because on the 7th of June, the Montana Department of Fish and Wildlife and Parks released a draft environmental assessment to analyze the possibility of a sport hunt of buffalo that cross the borders of the Yellowstone National Park into Montana.
We have to see that what is happening here is that buffalo are being hazed with helicopters. Once they go off lands, and sometimes they are on Federal lands, they are subjected to not just hazing but eventual capture and elimination.
I think that we need to see that we have a national obligation here. It is part of our national obligation. This is not about East versus West. This is about who we are as a country.
One of the iconic songs of another generation, ``Home on the Range,'' begins, ``Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam.'' It did not go on to say, and let us capture them and kill them. It talks about an image of America, which still resides in the hearts of many Americans today.
There are many young people who are working in the area of Yellowstone National Park to save the buffalo , and we ought to be joining their efforts. We ought to be joining it, because this is part of who we are as a Nation, this is a part of America's heritage; and while we need to be concerned about the cattle ranchers, we also need to take into account that according to science there has been no demonstration after transmission of brucellosis from a buffalo herd into cattle.
So we have to go on the facts, but we should also remember who we are as a Nation. Let us protect the buffalo , and let us vote for the Hinchey amendment.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey).
The question was taken; and the Chairman pro tempore announced that the noes appeared to have it.
Mr. HINCHEY. Madam Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
The CHAIRMAN pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) will be postponed.