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STATEMENT OF HON. TIMOTHY E. WIRTH, U.S. SENATOR FROM 



COLORADO 



Senator Wirth. Very briefly, what I am attempting to do, Mr. 

 Chairman, along with 20 or 25 other members of the United States 

 Senate who have sponsored this legislation is simply to treat the 

 Tongass National Forest like we would treat any other national 

 forest. 



The purpose is to eliminate the $40 million permanent appro- 

 priation, which I welcome Senator Murkowski's agreeing to elimi- 

 nate; to eliminate the mandatory timber goal of 4.5 billion board 

 feet over a decade; to eliminate the two 50-year contracts; and 

 simply to treat this forest as we do any other forest. 



Now the argument can be made that we are breaching contracts, 

 and we have to look at that. As I read the record and listened to an 

 enormous amount of testimony last year and the year before, I 

 think the argument can be made that there are adequate grounds 

 for the breach of contract by the two companies involved, and 

 there are public interest reasons as well for getting rid of these two 

 contracts. 



Another issue that is raised is that this was a compromise that 

 was reached and a deal was reached. It seems to me that the Con- 

 gress cannot commit future Congresses, one, but more importantly 

 we make mistakes. We have got to recognize those mistakes and go 

 back and correct them. 



This is not an inviolate piece of legislation, ANILCA, and it cer- 

 tainly was not when Senator Murkowski and others introduced S. 

 49 which was going to change areas designated as parks into pre- 

 serves which would allow hunting. That was a change in ANILCA. 

 That was part of the deal. 



The Congress passed an amendment to ANILCA last year that 

 gave the State of Alaska thousands of acres of additional lands 

 claims. That was a change in ANILCA which had been part of the 

 deal. 



The bill to open the Arctic Refuge, which we are going to be de- 

 bating for a long time this year and next is a change in ANILCA, 

 that was part of the deal. Congress passed a law last year, as I re- 

 member it, to allow a road into the Red Dog Mine. That was a 

 change in ANILCA, which had been part of the deal. 



So let us not get ourselves hung up by the fact that this is an 

 inviolate deal. I just cited four that I can think of right away 

 where changes in ANILCA were offered. 



Finally, Mr. Chairman, much has been made of the rain forest 

 issue, and should be made of the rain forest and global warming 

 issue. Whether or not the cutting of the Tongass and the burning 

 of that timber results in global warming can be debated one way or 

 another, it depends on what you do with the wood. 



If that wood is turned into pulp, then in fact the product of that 

 wood becomes in large part carbon dioxide and that goes up into 

 the atmosphere. If the timber results in the building of houses, 

 that maintains its carbon content and does not go up. So about half 

 of it goes, apparently, into a pulp and half of it into timber. 



I think a more compelling argument, Mr. Chairman, is the posi- 

 tion that we take in the United States. How can we say to the Bra- 



