Wednesday, July 18, 2001

Mr. President, this is part of a continuing effort to prevent the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from advancing what we believe is a very ill-conceived directive to increase springtime releases of water from Missouri River upstream dams in an experiment to see if a controlled flood may improve the breeding habit of the pallid sturgeon.

House language was added to prevent implementation of the ``controlled flood'' during consideration in the House Committee on Appropriations. The majority leader has entered an amendment, which we appreciate, in this bill which says no decision on final disposition of the Missouri River manual should be made this year. I thank him for that. That is one step in the right direction.

This, however, goes beyond and makes clear there is a broader policy involved. Rather than let the Fish and Wildlife Service dictate national priorities to the Congress, the administration, the States, and the people, I believe the elected officials in Congress need to weigh in to protect human safety, property, and jobs. In sum, we ought to be able to do several things at once. The authorizing legislation for the dams and other structures on the Missouri River says that they should be to prevent floods, to enhance transportation, provide hydropower, and to facilitate recreation. Subsequent to those enacting statutes, the Endangered Species Act was adopted with the hope that we would stop the disappearance of endangered species and help recover them. My purpose here today, along with my bipartisan colleagues, is to assure that the multiple uses of the Missouri River may be pursued.

As so many of my colleagues, I was a great fan of the work by Stephen Ambrose, ``Undaunted Courage.'' I had a great-great-grandfather who was one of the laborers who pulled the boats up the Missouri River. I find it fascinating. It was truly a remarkable chapter in our Nation's history.

That chapter has come and gone and people have moved in and live and farm by the river. They are dependent upon the river for water supply, water disposal, hydropower, transportation, and, yes, in the upstream States, for recreation. While we have had continuing discussions throughout my career serving the State of Missouri over the proper uses of the river water between upstream and downstream States, I continue to assure my colleagues in the upstream States that if there are things we can do to help improve the recreational aspects of the impoundments on the river above the dams, I would be more than happy to do so.

This amendment--very short, very simple--says, simply put, that the Secretary, meaning the Secretary of the Army, who is the ultimate responsible official, may consider and propose alternatives for achieving species recovery other than the alternatives specifically prescribed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the biological opinion of the Service.

In other words, they have already proposed one thing, controlled spring floods. The Secretary may also propose other alternatives. This doesn't say that he has to; it says that he can do it. He may do it. It mandates that the Secretary shall consider the views of other Federal agencies, non-Federal agencies, and individuals to ensure that other congressionally authorized purposes are maintained.

This amendment simply says, we enacted a number of different objectives for the Missouri River.

Mr. Secretary, when you select an option, you have to take into consideration all of these specific congressionally authorized objectives. I believe--and it makes a great deal of sense--that the Federal Government should prevent floods, not cause them. It should be providing more safe and efficient transportation options, not monopolies for railroads. It should not be curtailing energy production from an environmentally clean source of energy, water power, during peak summer periods of demand during an energy crisis.

People in our State of Missouri cannot believe that we need to have this debate. They cannot believe that the Endangered Species Act does not have enough flexibility in it to permit human safety and economic security to be considered. They cannot believe that their needs are necessarily subordinate to what the Fish and Wildlife Service said is the only way the pallid sturgeon can be saved.

Unfortunately, what the Fish and Wildlife Service says goes. And then to add insult to injury, after imposing their plan on the Corps of Engineers, the Corps of Engineers has to put the States and the citizens through the hoax--I say hoax advisedly--of a public comment period that is irrelevant to the Fish and Wildlife Service that has, in the past, demonstrated it will use its dictatorial power under the Endangered Species Act not just to put people out of business and increase damage to private property but to threaten human safety of urban and rural communities where there will be greater risk of flood and flood damage.

This amendment on behalf of my colleagues gives the Corps of Engineers the opportunity to propose alternative species recovery measures that help fish and don't hurt people. It requires the continuation of public input and directs that the Corps preserve the other authorized purposes for the Missouri River.

The current Fish and Wildlife Service proposal, which they offered as a dictate to the Corps of Engineers last July, saying you have 7 days to implement this plan that will flood Missouri and downstream States in the spring, is not some new proposal that just needs a little public sunlight to be fashioned into something that is sensible. It represents the ``my way or the highway'' approach to regulatory enforcement and the reincarnation of what has previously been rejected by the people and the States involved. A spring rise and low flow period was proposed by Fish and Wildlife through the Corps of Engineers in 1994. It was subjected to 6 months of public comment, and it was ridiculed at public forums from Omaha to Kansas City to St. Louis to Memphis to Quincy to New Orleans to Onawa, IA, and elsewhere. This is what the people of the heartland of America said about the spring rise. I have a bad hand, and I can only lift a third of the transcripts at a time, but these are the comments that the Corps of Engineers received in 1994. Guess what. They didn't think much of the plan then for spring rise.

President Clinton's Secretary of Agriculture and his Secretary of Transportation criticized the plan in writing. The plan was then shelved by the Clinton administration because of public opinion. They had their public comment. People did weigh in, and they said this is a disaster. The Clinton administration withdrew it.

However, that plan was subsequently resurrected by the Fish and Wildlife Service, using the force of the so-called consultation process sufficient to impose its will on the people in the States. In other words, the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to convince the public and the States of the wisdom of their plan, as represented by these comments, so they decided to force their plan by putting a gun to the head of the Corps.

If the Fish and Wildlife Service cared about the views of the States and the public opinion of those who live in and around the basin and depend upon the Missouri River, we would not be here today. There is very little hope that they would care about next year's comments than they care about the comments people took pains to make in 1994 because they simply don't have to. The Fish and Wildlife Service gets to do what it wants because while they are required to allow public comment, they are not required to listen. And I guarantee you, when it comes to this plan, they have not listened.

This process, as previously orchestrated, is more rigged than a WWF championship match. But for my citizens, the price of admission is the cost of losing a planning season, a levee, an export opportunity, a flood, and maybe even the loss of a life.

Some may tell you that the Government can control this proposed flood. I know they wish that were the case. But wishes are not going to provide accurate weather forecasts in the temperamental heartland spring. Unless someone in the Corps can forecast weather accurately 5 to 10 days to 2 weeks in advance, there will be accidents, people will be hurt, and it will be because the U.S. Government decided to risk their safety for an experiment. When the Government releases pulses of water from the dams, that water can't be brought back; it is not retrievable. It takes 5 days to get to Kansas City, 10 days to get to St. Louis, and further down the river, even longer. On average, the river never floods. In the real world, though, it isn't the averages that hurt us but the extremes. I understand that a lot of people have drowned in lakes that average only 3 feet deep. With downstream tributary flow, we already have a natural ``spring rise'' every time it rains, and when that happens, a ``pulse'' released days before is a tragic gift courtesy of the Federal Government.

Just 6 weeks ago, following a series of low pressure systems in the basin, in less than 5 days gauging stations in Missouri went from below normal stage to flood stage. Right in the heart of our State, in Herman, MO, the streamflow increased from 85,000 cubic feet per second to 250,000 cubic feet per second in 5 days. That is almost a threefold increase in the amount of water coming down that river.

Now, neither the people of Herman nor the Corps of Engineers expected this dramatic tripling of the flows, but it shows the danger of intentionally increasing those flows during the spring season, and it shows what people in our State already know: We already have a spring rise. It is natural and it is dangerous. If the pallid sturgeon really liked spring rises, they would be coming out our ears. After the floods, we should have had little pallid sturgeons all over the place.

The second part of the Fish and Wildlife plan is an artificially low summer flow, which inverts the historical natural hydrograph. For those who may be a little concerned about the terms, that means the river ``ain't'' flowing like it used to flow before dams. The natural hydrograph is to have more water in the summer during the snowmelts in the upper basin. This natural pattern would be turned on its head if you had the releases in the spring and then low flows during the summer. It starves the hydropower generators of capacity during peak periods of energy demand, driving up the rates for customers, driving up the rates for Native American tribes and other citizens in rural areas.

According to data from the Western Area Power Administration, ``Risk analysis including river thermal powerplants: Both capacity and energy losses increase exponentially as the summer flow decreases in July.''

That means that when you cut the waterflow during the summer in peak cooling seasons, you get much greater than a straight line loss in capacity and energy production. The line doesn't go down like this; it goes up like that. That is what happens to power production when you reduce summer flows. The plan does call for continued production of energy, just not when people need it. The middle part of the summer is when air-conditioning rates are the highest and when there is the greatest drain on electricity. Unless we no longer care about clean energy options, then we should not be taking deliberate steps to increase the cost of power.

Additionally, let me point out for our southern neighbors that low summer flows provide inadequate water to continue water commerce on the Missouri River and during very low water periods on the Mississippi River. During the drought years, up to 65 percent of the flow in the Mississippi River below St. Louis comes from the Missouri River.

Water commerce is important for another reason. One medium-sized 15-barge tow can carry the same amount of grain--usually going to the export markets--as 870 trucks. This one medium-sized tow is much better for safety, clean air, fuel efficiency, highway congestion, and the competitiveness of our shippers in the international marketplace than putting 870 trucks on the highway through congested metropolitan areas. Water commerce for our farmers, shippers, and exporters is a necessary insurance policy against high rates that occur when the absence of competition leaves shippers to the mercy of transportation monopolies. A key assumption of some is that freight carriers don't raise rates when they face no competition. That is a nice wish, but it is not a realistic assumption. Other forms of transportation do raise rates when competition is not present. According to the Tennessee Valley Authority, which did a study, higher shipping costs would add up to as much as $200 million annually to farmers and other shippers in Missouri, South Dakota, and all the States in between, not including the Lower Mississippi River States. A shipper from the Omaha, NE, region told my office that he secures railroad rates of less than $25 per ton when they go up to Sioux City, where the river provides competition, but when he ships up to Sioux Falls, where the river doesn't go, where river transportation is not available, then rates double.

I am pleased and proud to say there are many ongoing programs and practices to improve Missouri River habitat. I have listened to the discussions that relate to this matter over the years, and there is some presumption that only the Federal Government should do something about it. That is false. There is that overtone, since Missouri strongly opposes the Federal Fish and Wildlife plan--on a bipartisan basis, I might add--we aren't as dedicated to fish and wildlife as some of our friends in the Dakotas, or Montana maybe.

Well, Mr. President, no State in the basin dedicates as much money as Missouri does to fish and wildlife conservation measures. Most States just take payments from the Pittman-Robertson and the Wallop-Breaux and licensing revenue. Some States have appropriations from their general fund.

The citizens of Missouri have imposed upon themselves by referendum a State sales tax for conservation. That has enabled Missouri to spend as much as California on fish and wildlife. This year that total will be $140 million. Our State conservation tax has enabled Missouri to spend twice as much as Florida, 11 times more than Massachusetts, 11 times more than Vermont, 9 times more than Nevada, and 3 times more than Illinois.

According to the latest data from the Wildlife Conservation Fund of America, Missouri spends roughly 50 percent more on fish and wildlife than the Dakotas and Montana combined. Missouri spends 5 times more than South Dakota on fish and wildlife, and 10 times more than North Dakota. Almost all States raise money from hunting and fishing licenses and all States get Federal money. If you go beyond those sources, the difference between what Missouri citizens have set aside for fish and wildlife compared to our upstream neighbors, the numbers are staggering. In the latest years, the figures available to me, Missouri dedicated 60 times more from State taxes in the general fund than South Dakota, for example.

I will not say anything beyond this except that Missouri citizens are doing their part, and certainly we encourage other States to follow the constructive example that Missouri has set. What have we done? What have we done for wildlife habitat? What have we done to conserve species, to preserve and help restore endangered species? Our Department of Conservation has acquired 72 properties in the Missouri River flood plain totaling almost 45,000 acres. Senator Harkin of Iowa and I and others have requested funding for a number of ongoing habitat projects, and while two are funded in this bill, one was not funded. We have authorized and we have begun funding for a 60,000-acre flood plain refuge between St. Louis and Kansas City. We authorize an addition of 100,000 acres of land acquisition in the lower basin to restore habitat, with almost 13,700 acres already acquired.

I have been pleased to work with American Rivers and Missouri farm groups to authorize habitat restoration on the river, to create sandbars, islands, and side channels. These are the natural structures that support and facilitate species such as the pallid sturgeon.

I regret to say this administration, as the last administration, requested no funds to start the project, and the subcommittee this year did no new starts, so a consensus approach is lying in state. We have financed over 21,740 acres of wetland easements from the Wetlands Reserve Program in Missouri. Missouri is very active with the Conservation Reserve Program, and farmers are signing up for filter strips along waterways to reduce runoff.

We are working in Missouri on an agroforestry flood plain initiative and have demonstrated tree systems that take out nearly three-quarters of the phosphorous and nitrogen so it does not reach the waterways while providing excellent bird habitat.

According to our Department of Natural Resources, river engineering efforts on the Mississippi River have paid big dividends for endangered species. For example, at river mile 84 on the Upper Mississippi River, the Corps has created hard points in the river to separate a sandbar from the bank to create a nesting island for the federally endangered least tern. In addition, larval sturgeon have been collected in the resultant side channel.

Four islands around mile 100 on the Upper Mississippi were created by modifying existing navigational structures without interfering with water transport. Islands have flourished even through the flood of 1993.

At river mile 40 on the Upper Mississippi, the Corps has established critical off-channel connectivity essential as overwintering and rearing habitat for many Mississippi River fishes.

We know there are better approaches that do not hurt people, and that is where the focus has been in Missouri, and that is where the focus should be in Washington. The sooner we table the plan that is risky, untested, and dangerous, the sooner we can get to the plans that are tested and broadly supported.

Our bipartisan amendment is supported by members across the country: the National Waterways Alliance, National Corn Growers Association, American Soybean Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, Agricultural Retailers Association, National Grain and Feed Association, and others. The Fish and Wildlife Service plan has been opposed strongly by the Southern Governors Association which issued another resolution opposing it early this year. The Fish and Wildlife plan is opposed strongly by our current Governor, Governor Holden, and his Department of Natural Resources which is just as knowledgeable and just as committed to the protection of the river they live on as the Federal field representatives who live in other regions and States.

I say to all the Senators on the Mississippi River that objections were raised to the Fish and Wildlife Service plan in a recent letter to the President signed by nine Mississippi River Governors. These Governors include Governor Patton from Kentucky, Governor Sundquist from Tennessee, Governor Foster from Louisiana, Governor Musgrove from Mississippi, Governor Ryan from Illinois, Governor Huckabee from Arkansas, Governor McCallum from Wisconsin, and Governor Holden from Missouri.

This plan is opposed on a bipartisan basis by elected officials, by our late Governor Carnahan, by mayors, farmers, and the people all along the Missouri River.

Our amendment seeks to add some balance in the decisionmaking process and attempts to permit the administration to do what is right to find ways to address species recovery that do not harm people, that do not harm property, that do not interfere with the other legitimate multiple uses of the Missouri River.

I strongly urge my colleagues to adopt this bipartisan amendment. I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.