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Transcript - January 5, 2007
BRANCACCIO: Welcome to a new season of NOW.
They gathered under that dome late this week for their swearing-in...members of the 110th congress. Right now there's a lot of positioning about what the Democrats who run things plan to do in the first week or two. But finding solutions to the country's problems will require bi-partisan alliances, particularly in the Senate, where the Democrats' margin is so thin.
In the state of Idaho, there's a fascinating test of bi-partisan thinking about the environment that's worth watching. It involves "your" land, public land, in one of the most beautiful places on earth. Correspondent Jon Christensen and producer Gail Ablow have our report.
STAUTS: I like the isolation. I love the recreational opportunities. And the scenery is—you couldn't pay a million dollars to see this any other place I think.
CHRISTENSEN: Hanna Stauts lives on the edge of more than 500 square miles of rugged mountains, pine forests and headwater streams in Central Idaho. It's remote, roadless and wild—and there's a wild fight underway for the future of this place.
The Sawtooth Mountains to the southwest, the Boulder and White Cloud mountains to the southeast ...they're breathtakingly beautiful.. and they're yours, public, Federal lands. In the middle here, Stanley Idaho, a typical small western resort town. More than a million visitors come here every year but only about 100 people live in Stanley year round.
Right now, it can't get much bigger because it's surrounded by federal lands. And the question is, who should decide the fate of these lands, and this town?
At issue is whether to permanently classify the Boulder-White Clouds as Wilderness—that's the highest level of Federal protection possible for public land; higher than wildlife refuges; higher than national forests; higher, even than national parks.
These mountains are now in legal limbo—under study as wilderness—but under threat from the growing popularity of motorized recreation.
So there's a plan afoot to protect the Boulder White Clouds ...and in these days of partisan politics it's an unusual and uneasy compromise: it protects 318,000 acres of wilderness... it allows some motorized trails ... and for towns like Stanley, there'd be a transfer of public land for private development.
STAUTS: If we as a city, as we should be, are looking into the future say 20, 50 years. We're going to have needs outside of what's available within our city limits right now.
CHRISTENSEN: Hannah Stauts is also the Mayor of Stanley. After three summers here working on a forest firefighting crew, she fell in love with the place. The town, in turn, elected her to office in 2005—at age 22.
STAUTS: They thought that the town needed some youth and some energy. And they convinced me into running. So, here (laughs) I am.
CHRISTENSEN: Visitors can play here year round. But putting down roots in Stanley is much harder.
STAUTS: The city doesn't have the ability to grow outward. All we have is what we have now.
CHRISTENSEN: The mayor of Stanley, herself, couldn't live in town if she weren't waitressing at a local café.
STAUTS: For me, myself, I work at a restaurant right now because they provide me a place to live. : And I have to have a place within the city limits to live in order to be Mayor.
CHRISTENSEN: To move public land into private hands and allow Stanley to grow will take an act of Congress.
STAUTS: This is the Benner Street Parcel. It's written into the CIEDRA bill as parcel A...
CHRISTENSEN: This eight-acre plot on the edge of Stanley is part of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. It's forbidden to build here.
In exchange for supporting the bill, the town would be able to buy this land from the government.
STAUTS: It's only four residential units would be able to be built here.
CHRISTENSEN: This isn't the only public land that the town would get -next to Stanley, there are 68 acres on which the mayor wants to build affordable housing.
Another 86 acres would go to the County to sell as lots for up to 10 private homes.
STAUTS: Our city would need funding to help us appropriately plan on how to use those properties...
CHRISTENSEN: The proposed compromise bill -has bitterly divided Hannah Stauts' constituents, as well as local and national recreational and environmental groups.
KING: If this bill passes ...
CHRISTENSEN: Singer-songwriter Carole King has lived in Idaho for almost 30 years. She owns a 128- acre ranch on the flank of the proposed wilderness.
She wants to permanently protect the wilderness—but without making any public land trade offs.
KING: This is like our Westminster Abbey, our Notre Dame cathedral. It's a holy place. And we need to respect it and take care of it, and be stewards of it.
CHRISTENSEN: I sat down with Carole King and wildlife biologist Kaz Thea—who works with her on these issues—at a neighbor's ranch. They are dead set against transferring any public land to Stanley.
KING: It takes acreage right in the middle of town and gives it to private interest for development. That is not acceptable.
It's not real wilderness.
CHRISTENSEN: The bill also makes concessions to off-road vehicle riders.
The proposed wilderness area—seen here in green—currently has two MAIN motorized corridors that run through it. The bill shuts down one corridor... but leaves THESE OTHERS open... effectively splitting up the 318,000 acres of wilderness.
King and Thea want all the motorized trails shut down.
KING: There's land functioning as it did thousand of years ago. That is a rare and precious jewel. It's Idaho's hope diamond. And, if you cut it up into little tiny pieces, just like the hope diamonds, the little pieces aren't worth anything. It's the aggregate that we want to protect.
CHRISTENSEN: In addition to the motorized trails that loop through the wilderness area, the compromise bill sets up this special Boulder White Clouds management area—more than 500,000 acres encircling the wilderness—where existing motorized trails would remain open.
KING: And with this bill look at this map and you see, all these surrounding things are motorized trails. No matter where you are, you're gonna hear wing, wing, wing.
JONES: In my personal opinion, Idaho has enough wilderness areas.
CHRISTENSEN: ATV rider Bill Jones is president of the Idaho All Terrain Vehicle Association.
JONES: Idaho ATV Association Jones : When you make a wilderness area, that turns that area into a land of no use. The people then can't drive a vehicle into it to go enjoy it. They go to a, quote, trail had and then they hike.
CHRISTENSEN: The sound of this conflict—over motorized vehicles in wild places—has echoed through the wilderness debate from its beginning between the First and Second World Wars.
In the 1920s and 30s, thousands of miles of new roads were being built into the most beautiful and untouched places in the country—to encourage tourism in the newly created National Parks—and soon concerns began to grow that all those tourists might love these lands to death.
But it wasn't until 1964 that the Wilderness Act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson—eight years after it was first introduced. The law itself, is a compromise—it allows grazing to continue, and mining claims and the use of motorboats and airplanes are grandfathered in to many wilderness areas...
JONES: Want to go for a ride?
CHRISTENSEN: In the past 40 years, a new beast has appeared on the landscape—off road vehicles capable of reaching the most remote places.
These vehicles didn't exist when the original law was written. Today legislators trying to protect wilderness can't ignore them.
JONES: We started out five years ago with 18,000 ATVs in Idaho; now there's118,000 registered ATVs.
CHRISTENSEN: Jones's estimate doesn't even include the motorcycles, and snow mobiles whose owners also want to ride deep into the back country.
JONES: These people have gotta have a place to go play, Unless we provide a trail for 'em to ride, they're gonna go create their own trails. I'd rather have education than enforcement.
CHRISTENSEN: Although the bill tries to balance the interests of both wilderness supporters and opponents ... these riders aren't buying it. They don't want any trails into the Boulder White Clouds shut down.
JONES: We happen to like it outdoors. The greenies, as we call 'em hate to see us have fun.
CHRISTENSEN: Competing interests like these have kept this land in limbo for 30 years -with none of the land permanently protected as wilderness.
JOHNSON:, the Director of the Idaho Conservation League, is one environmentalist who wants to break the logjam.
A former lobbyist for the Sierra Club, he once fought to put the spotted owl on the endangered species list and to reduce logging in the Pacific Northwest.
Today, Johnson says legislative protection is urgently needed here, because of Idaho's phenomenal growth rate.
JOHNSON: Idaho Conservation League Johnson: We're the third fastest growing state in the country. Boise is the third fastest growing urban area in the country.
CHRISTENSEN: 800 homes, have been built on this former sheep ranch outside Boise... in the foothills nearby... 18,000 homes have been proposed.
Almost two-hours away ... Stanley seems isolated from any building boom ... until you see Sun Valley 60 miles down the road on the southern edge of the Boulder Mountains.
Johnson worries about the increasing recreational pressures being put on these lands.
Johnson worries about the increasing recreational pressures being put on these lands.
We don't hear it now, but there's -right over the hill, there could be sound of ATV's and dirt bikes. In the winter, snowmobiles coming over. The quiet that we hear today might not be here tomorrow.
CHRISTENSEN: After decades of failed wilderness proposals, Johnson is convinced that compromise is the only way to protect the wilds of Idaho—the reddest state in America.
JOHNSON: We are the most Republican state in the country. We have the highest percentage of Republican legislators in our state legislature. Our governor's Republican. Our entire congressional delegation is Republican.
CHRISTENSEN: Rather than taking on the Republicans ... Rick Johnson teamed up with one. Congressman Mike Simpson of Idaho's second district.
SIMPSON: Some people thought I'd lost my mind when I said, "We'll try to solve this problem." But, you know, that's the reason you're here. You're elected to try to solve problems.
CHRISTENSEN: Wilderness is not a cause that Republican politicians typically champion, especially in the rural west. But getting a wilderness designation approved by Congress, in practice—depends on local support.
SIMPSON: One of the first things I said is, "Can we develop an Idaho solution to this?" Because if we don't one's gonna be imposed on us at some point in time.
CHRISTENSEN: The Idaho solution is to try to provide something for everyone. And to cross party lines very carefully.
CHRISTENSEN: Is still there a problem with the word "wilderness" for a voters in Idaho? It's not even in the title of the bill.
SIMPSON: You'll notice we changed the name from—the Boulder White Clouds Wilderness to—Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act because we are dealing with those issues too. There is a problem with the title wilderness. Everybody thinks it's just a wilderness bill if you put wilderness in there. But it is much more than that.
CHRISTENSEN: Johnson even stopped calling himself an environmentalist.
JOHNSON: We like to refer to ourselves as conservationists. Environmentalists can be viewed as sort of the problem so to speak with rural economy. Some of the pressures that they're feeling because of logging or mining or agriculture, endangered species, those sorts of things.
It's a political give and take.
CHRISTENSEN: That's why Johnson now supports leaving a motorized trail open in the Boulder White Clouds.
CHRISTENSEN: So this motorized trail runs right between the two wilderness areas.
JOHNSON: Correct. And it's a trail that is open today, if that one trail makes it a substandard wilderness than what is it today? When there are more trails than that that are open than that we're going to be closing some of these trails.
CHRISTENSEN: The compromises woven into the bill may be galling to some people, but they are essential to others who live near the proposed wilderness.
HANSEN: People come here and look at it and it's just so great and beautiful. But that's not reality when you live here. It's hard winters. And not that many people that are here year round, and not that many people paying taxes that can keep the infrastructure going.
CHRISTENSEN: Rancher Cliff Hansen grazes his cattle every summer on the western edge of the Boulder White Clouds. When he heard there was a plan afoot to make it wilderness—he was against it.
HANSEN: We have over three million acres of land in Custer county and about 150,000 acres is private land. So between the state land and federal land we're five percent private owned.
CHRISTENSEN: Hansen's also a Custer County commissioner and he's seen tourism and recreation replace ranching as the new economy here. He was won over when the congressman promised a transfer of almost 4,000 acres for economic development.
It was all part of the intricate trade-offs in the bill, negotiated over six long years.
But the hard work was just beginning. Now it had to get through the badly divided, highly partisan Congress.
HANSEN: That's the difficult part about politics is there's no pure bills out there. If you're waitin' for the ideal piece of legislation, it's not gonna happen.
CHRISTENSEN: When Simpson's bill came up for a vote in the House of Representatives last summer, letters of opposition were piling up on congressional desks, from environmental groups and motorized recreation enthusiasts.
SIMPSON: Well you know, it helps for some people when you show others who are opposed to a bill -because some people care who opposes them more than who supports them. So for some people having the Sierra Club opposed to it is a good thing. And with other people having recreation people opposed to it is a good thing.
SLATER: It's a well-balanced bill. If everyone opposes it, it must be right is what we think.
CHRISTENSEN: Not everyone hates it. Along with the Idaho Conservation League and the Sawtooth Society, The Wilderness Society—which was responsible for the original Wilderness Act—advised Simpson on the bill and supports it...but that doesn't guarantee success.
Despite this controversy, the legislation was fast-tracked onto the floor ... where it squeaked by with a voice vote.
The bill was not out of the woods yet. It still had to get through the Senate.
Last summer, the Congressman took his staff backpacking in the White Cloud Mountains—far from the trappings of Washington D.C., he reflected on the challenges of finding common ground.
SIMPSON: When I first came into the legislature I was probably one of those firebrand conservative Republicans, you know—anti-government and all that kind of stuff. Government does some good things.
This isn't a perfect bill but it's a perfect compromise.
CHRISTENSEN: But the clock ran out on the Congressional year before Simpson's bill could get to a vote in the Senate.
Now he's starting the process all over again -he reintroduced the bill in the House this week.
SIMPSON: It will be coming back every year until it passes at least as long as I'm in Congress. So I'm committed to doing this.
CHRISTENSEN: The trade-offs in this and other wilderness bills prompted 80 grassroots environmental groups to publish an open letter last fall chastising the conservationists who support what they call "quid pro quo" wilderness.
And with the Democrats now in control of the Congress they're calling for Rick Johnson and supporters to renounce the deal. But as Johnson points out ...while the new Congress may be blue, Idaho remains solidly red.
JOHNSON: I would prefer that everything we see would be protected for future generations without motors without those compromises that are built into this. You can say no, you can say we're gonna wait for the politics to get better some other time. But I've been working on this for a couple of decades. The politics aren't getting better.
KING: In this country about 97 percent of the public land is not wilderness. I think we need to protect as much of the rest of it as possible.
CHRISTENSEN: But for at least one small town mayor (and waitress) the compromise itself is a worthwhile step.
STAUTS: It's created huge divides amongst parties that were once on the same side. But it has also brought parties together that you would have never imagined sitting in the same room and trying to work something out. I think it's amazing.
BRANCACCIO: Now to the hard work that begins Tuesday morning in the U.S. congress. Their list of proposed legislation puts new controls on lobbyists right at the very top. But how far is any congress and any party willing to go to drive corruption out of politics?
For perspective, we turn to Congressman Christopher Shays of Connecticut. He yelled long and hard for ethics reform when his Republican party was in control. His party, by and large, didn't listen.
BRANCACCIO: Congressman Shays, thanks for doing this. Do you think this Congress is gonna be serious about ethics reform and getting the sleaze out of politics on this Capitol Hill?
SHAYS: The answer's yes. I mean you—you saw major reforms when Republicans took over after the '94 election and commitments made, and I think Democrats have made commitments that they're gonna keep.
And we couldn't get our leadership to recognize that ethics mattered to the American people. They thought you know the war in Iraq mattered and energy issues and taxes mattered. But you know, the public was just fed up. They were fed up with Tom DeLay going on these expensive trips. They were fed up with Abramoff. They were fed up with the Ethics Committee not taking action for over a year. They were angry at—at Democrats as well as Republicans.
But Republicans were in charge of the Congress.
BRANCACCIO: So Solution #1, the Democrats are pushing to stop people, lawmakers, from being able to take fancy trips on private planes, meals, gifts from lobbyists.
SHAYS: Well, they're going to ban corporate travel that members, leaders in particular, have been taking.
I mean, you have large corporations and some smaller corporations that basically gave their planes to the leaders of both sides of the aisle. And then they made sure that their lobbyist was on the plane. Maybe there was never any dialogue about an issue, but there was certainly a friendship that developed.
BRANCACCIO: There is a tendency for ethics reform to be for the party out of power. And there are some people that are concerned that this could happen this time around as well.
SHAYS: Well, that's why you need to make sure it happens in the first few days and the first few weeks. The longer it takes, the less inclined you're gonna see for the party in power to wanna bring forward reforms.
BRANCACCIO: You said in the past though that for ethics reform to be truly effective, there has to be some sort of independent oversight of this, some sort of non-partisan office to keep an eye on this.
SHAYS: You need, I think, an Office of Public Integrity. You need individuals who aren't members of Congress doing the investigative work and directing the investigative work, so that then you have findings that members of Congress and the Ethics Committee would have to deal with. For instance, if you don't investigate, then you haven't found any wrong-doing. It's easy for members of Congress to say, "We didn't see any wrong-doing." Well, they didn't investigate it.
BRANCACCIO: You pushed this before. And what happened?
SHAYS: Well, it failed. We didn't have even an opportunity to debate it.
If we voted on it today, it would pass. The question is will we have a vote two months from now. That's the big question. And I'm gonna defer judgment, because they say they're gonna do it. And let's trust them, and then let's hold them accountable.
BRANCACCIO: Nancy Pelosi has said, "I am hopeful that it's possible that we can have an outside entity that will restore" essentially public confidence in the institution.
SHAYS: Is that her quote?
BRANCACCIO: That's -
SHAYS:—"hopeful" and "possible?"
BRANCACCIO: "Hopeful and possible." That's a little different from what she says about the minimum wage which is "We need it hiked now." That's a clear statement.
SHAYS: Yeah I think Nancy Pelosi needs to say very strongly, "I care deeply about ethics." We need to get this job done. I'd feel a lot better if she said that. Even if she deferred the decision, I'd feel a lot better.
BRANCACCIO: I don't know if you saw the Wall Street Journal late this week. President Bush himself signed a—an opinion piece that was on the—in the Op-Ed section calling for bi-partisanship. Is that what people are gonna be saying here on Capitol Hill come Super Bowl Sunday? Is that a sentiment that can last?
SHAYS: Well, I hope so. And it's certainly the American way. I mean, when people deride compromise, just somehow you've given up your convictions. Then they must not like the Constitution of the United States and not—They must not believe in that document. That document is one set of compromise after another.
We need to step up and be Americans first, Republicans and Democrats second.
BRANCACCIO: You have history on your side. You're mentioning the Constitution. Do you have human nature on your side when it comes to playing nice here in Congress?
SHAYS: Um...Good question. I—I think that you have a greatness in the American people, and they're asking us to magnify that greatness. And we owe it to the American people to—to live by higher standards and to conduct ourselves better and to do the people's business and to have disagreement and—and—and to recognize that happens, but first put the American people ahead of anything else.
BRANCACCIO: Well, Congressman Chris Shays, Republican of Connecticut, thank you very much.
SHAYS: Thank you very much.
BRANCACCIO: And that's it for NOW, from Washington, I'm David Brancaccio. We'll see you again next week.
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