329 



being at the end of the batting and sticking with us. Thank you 

 ever so much for coming and now unless there are closing words 

 for the good of the order, any of my colleagues: Senator Murkowski 

 or Senator Burns? 



Senator Burns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to reiter- 

 ate, this is my first visit to Ketchikan, Alaska and you have made 

 my visit very very good here. I appreciate the folks that have come 

 to listen to this hearing and the people who have testified and Sen- 

 ator Wirth is right. You can sit down and you can either oppose or 

 you want to firm your convictions towards a certain piece of legis- 

 lation. It is wonderful, because that is the American way. That is 

 one of the traditions that keeps this country together and keeps us, 

 sort of keeps us part of the civilization in this society. 



We appreciate all of you folks who testified here today. I have 

 learned quite a lot and I look forward to tomorrow. 



Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 



Senator Wirth. Thank you, Senator Burns. 



[Pause.] 



Senator Wirth. Senator Murkowski. 



Senator Murkowski. I want to thank you and members of the 

 Staff, Professional Staff, that you have traveled so far and my good 

 friends and colleagues from Montana, who I think has really gotten 

 a different perspective of Alaska and Senator Conrad, this is also 

 his first trip up here. He is my colleague. Senator Wirth. 



I want to thank you all for your hospitality and obviously you 

 have seen from this process that there is a wide divergence of opin- 

 ion and that is the way it should be. 



Again I would suggest to you that hopefully we can reach a re- 

 solve. Obviously it will not be satisfactory to all of you but hopeful- 

 ly all of you can find something of substance in the ultimate legis- 

 lation that is worked out of this process. 



Again, thank you for not only the beautiful sunshine but for the 

 chance to meet people from Ketchikan and very happy to see the 

 high school students here, that they are able to attend a portion of 

 this and can understand at least to some extent what some of us do 

 in Washington more often than not and unfortunately the difficul- 

 ty Washington is. We do not have time to get out and hold field 

 hearings at this time. We have had hearings on Tongass in Wash- 

 ington, of course, and it is very difficult for people to come back 

 there and because of the way the Senate is structured why we 

 really do not get the opportunity to come out often enough. 



Senator Conrad and Senator Wirth, tomorrow I hope that you 

 each will have an opportunity to see some of the southeastern, a 

 little more so on the flight to Sitka and see some of the clearcuts 

 and look at some of the areas that have been logged five years ago, 

 ten years ago, twenty years ago and further and that you get to 

 compare some of the private timber sales and the logging with 

 some of the Forest Service; I think it gives you a better idea. I 

 know the best way to see southeastern Alaska is to climb into a 

 beaver which goes, a Chipper, 75 or 80 knots and be prepared for a 

 long chip. The thing is about the beaver, it is usually incompatible 

 with your kidneys because there are places to sit down almost any- 

 where and go ashore so do not take it somewhere where Congress, 

 including Senator Johnson, I think this is an off-the-record com- 



