51 



Mr. Bennett. That happened on the Ouachita in Arkansas, and 

 I am really not familiar with the particulars of that. It was just an 

 individual, and I don't know that he had an affiliation with any 

 particular group. He filed under his name. The same individual 

 also filed an additional number of appeals on the neighboring for- 

 ests in Arkansas at the same time. So he was a pretty busy fellow 

 that year. 



Mr. Hansen. The point I am getting at is as we go through this, 

 and you have heard the discussion we had with the members and 

 the Forest Service, one of the things that I particularly feel strong 

 about is that the person has some standing; you know, that he has 

 some right to get into this thing. 



We are finding now that a three-by-five card and a 32-cent stamp 

 can just foul up a lot of good things, whether it be Section 404 of 

 the Wetlands or an appeal process. And that really is of great con- 

 cern to us. 



So I am always curious when I hear this because I go out into 

 the country and talk to people in Forest Service and the States and 

 counties, and I always find some guy that just got a bone in his 

 throat or mad or doesn't like it, and he has got a fax machine and 

 a mailing list, and hang onto your hat. He can grind this govern- 

 ment down. He can stop industry right in its tracks, and this is the 

 kind of thing that bothers me. Mr. Bennett, what is happening 

 with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act? 



Mr. Bennett. Well, that is an interesting new interpretation of 

 a law that is actually about 80 years old, and we have seen it used 

 recently on three different legal actions — one in Indiana, one in 

 Georgia, and one I believe in Arkansas. 



And what that is, it was a law that was passed around the turn 

 of the century when bird feathers were a very popular fashion ac- 

 cessory. And there was some concern that the birds were going to 

 be overhunted or depleted beyond their ability to come back just to 

 accommodate hats or boas or whatever. 



So this particular law was put into place to try to protect these 

 migratory birds. What we found happened on the Hoosier National 

 Forest was that an activist interpreted that particular law to pro- 

 tect any bird anywhere from anything. The judge in that particular 

 court dismissed that particular piece of litigation. Shortly there- 

 after, that same Act was used to file litigation in Georgia with the 

 judge down there who did actually issue a restraining order and 

 stopped all timber harvesting on the Chattahoochee. 



In light of that, the Indiana judge revisited the issue and again 

 came up even more strongly in his conviction that you have to — 

 if you are going to look at what might actually lead to the death 

 of a bird, then you have to consider a much broader range of possi- 

 bilities than just the fact that it might have a nest in a tree that 

 was cut down. 



And he suggested that glass buildings — birds fly into those and 

 are killed or injured. Birds fly into airplanes. Birds fly into anten- 

 nas. Birds fly into cars. There is just almost any long list of things 

 that might happen, and that, in his opinion, when Congress ini- 

 tially passed that law, they thought that good sense or common 

 sense should prevail, and that we would understand that things 

 like that would — accidents would happen. 



