47 



Statement of Representative Robin Taylor 



for the 



Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee 



Subcommittee on Public Lands, National Parks and Forests 



AprU24,1989 in Ketchikan, Alaska 



I am Robin L. Taylor, Representative of State House District 1 A, and a twenty-eight 

 year resident of your Tongass National Forest. As Minority Leader in the Alaska House of 

 Representatives, and as a fellow politician, I am aware of the politioil realities that face me 

 and my District today. I know that the rhetoric of emotional demagogues and the mantra 

 chanted by their mesmerized followers has t)een accepted as gospel by certain of your 

 colleagues who have introduced this legislation to excite this lynch mob mentality. In such a 

 situation, facts become meaningless and creative fiction backed up by an environmental poll 

 will carry more political weight than till of these good people obsequiously begging the Senate 

 to leave them and their economy alone. 



If I cut down one tree on your federal barony I can be thrown into a federal jail. It's 

 true. Just like the Americain colonist two hundred years ago, we Alaskan peeisants know our 

 place. We know who owns the king's land which surrounds us. Two hundred years ago. 

 King George ruled the American colonies and those pioneers and peasants tjegged emd 

 pleaded, they cajoled and attempted to curry favor — and from my reading of history they 

 were about as successful as we Alaskans have been with Congress for the last twenty years. 



We have to beg Congress to even come and look at its forest. Naively we l)elieve that 

 you caimot deny that which you have seen with your own eyes. Two years ago several of 

 your colleagues toured the Tongass with me. I was shocked by their comments in the press. 

 Obviously, showing the Tongass to environmental politicians is like explaining cind 

 showing Jcme Fonda a nuclear reactor. We sincerely appreciate that you have come here 

 today to honestly listen, look, and leam. To each of you we are grateful, for we know that 

 you will not deny the overwhelming evidence of good stewardship that is obvious on the 

 Tongass. 



The Wrangell sawmill is the largest in Alaska and it would be one of the first victims 

 of Senator Wirth's bill. The last time that mill dosed we witnessed the effects of fifty-two 

 percent tinemployment for over a ye«ir. I watched friends lose their homes and move away. 

 No eagle had to move his nest. His home was protected by the same arbitrary federeil laws 

 that will put my friends out of work and destroy their lives. 



Just like our colonial forefathers, we peasant inhabitants of your Alaskan preserve beg 

 you to let us survive. If you flew over one hundred miles north or south of this auditoriimi 

 you would still l)e in my district and still in the Tongass. Are my friends and neighbors 

 asking too much when we beg you to allow us to use one-tenth of one percent of this land 

 each year to ecim a living on? We know you won't let us build a home there, and we know 

 that we will never be able to Ijuy even one acre of it, but could we just be allowed to work 

 there? After one hundred years, over ninety percent would still be virgin wilderness. Is 

 that too much to ask? 



Until we see your votes on this bill we will not know if you came as friends or as 

 inquisitors searching for "truth" on a fraudulent Indictment. Sadly today some well- 

 meaning folks will suggest a generous compromise naively hoping that by giving the 

 sponsor a major portion of what they think is desired that maybe the Congress will accept the 

 compromise and leave us alone forever. We veterans of the 'Tongass know all too well that 

 the insatiable appetite of the environmental extremist will not he satisfied as long as people 

 inhabit the Tongass. 



You statesmen of the Senate can stop this human tragedy by outright rejection of the 

 Wirth bill, S.346. Political compromise means economic disaster for the people of the 

 Tongass. My legislative colleagues and I represent 12,000 registered voters who live and 

 work in the Tongass. It is on their behalf that we ask your consideration today. 



