Pl93-620 Z. Jan 1975 & Later: Aftermath-- What We All Thought We Had Seen

Ben Avery, on 26 Dec, thought he had a Christmas present, saying President Ford had signed the bill while skiing in Vail, while he, Ben, had been given the low-down by Republicans Fannin and aide. For Ben, the "major action" was eliminating the northern additions. The Secretary could then study them for park values and ask for a new bill. He thought another study, that of the plateau lands in the old Monument, could result in a better boundary, eliminating from the Park "grazing and wildlife lands that have little or no park values". The River was put into the Park from the Paria to Grand Wash Cliffs. He thought the bill gave the Park jurisdiction over Lee's Ferry. There were a couple of small additions, but a big controversy was placing 185 kac in trust for the Havasupai. He correctly summarized some of the restrictions, including having the Secretary develop a land use plan with "step-by-step pubic review and comment".

  There was no change in dam status, but "by including all of Grand Canyon within the park, the Congress gave those who are opposed to building any more dams in the Canyon a strong fighting position, assuring the entire nation will be on our side." [What a different song he sings from ten years before.] "This is as it should be because the Grand Canyon does not belong to Arizona. We merely hold it in trust for all". A great debt is owed to those who worked so hard: Fannin, Steiger, & Bible, who took a strong stand "to make this bill truly a Grand Canyon bill, and not a hikers and backpackers bill as was sought by the Sierra Club." His tribute did not, he wrote, lessen my disagreement with Steiger over the dam, and does not take from Goldwater and Udall the great credit of being the original authors. "It was Barry who helped nurture the dream of putting all of Grand Canyon in the park". NPS now faces a tremendous task in planning & managing this huge area, "much of it so remote that it is seldom visited by man." It has two years to make a new wilderness proposal. 

PL93-620 Y. Jan-Jun 1975: Surprises in the Lost-&-Found: The Wilderness; the Hunters

When Goldwater-Emerson, in a snit about their bill being criticized in early 1973, revised it for Senate consideration, they dropped the provision for establishing a Grand Canyon Wilderness. One of our major goals in improving the bill in the House was a mandate for all the areas within the new Park boundary to be studied by the Secretary of the Interior for their suitability for preservation as wilderness. He was to report his recommendations to the President within two years of the Act. (As I noted before, accompanying documents spoke of reporting the recommendation to Congress within two years, but unfortunately, that major step was never put in the bill.) The provision was so obviously logical and appropriate that there was little or no debate over what then became section 11 of the House Parks Subcommittee bill, and it remained unquestioned when accepted by the Senate-House conference in Dec 1974. 

PL93-620 X3. Dec1974- Jan 1975: The Conference, Its Labor & Results

My journal ends with the conference, though I stayed on through the 18th during the writing of the conference report and its adoption by both Senate & House.  

The Republic and the AP reports next day both headlined the Park; it was doubled, it was enlarged. The Phoenix paper, appropriately, had it as a "favorite" project of Goldwater and "steered through the Senate" by Fannin. The Park acreage was given; then the Havasupai's, mentioning the "strict controls". Fannin & Steiger were reported to have protested the restrictions, "demanded by … Foley", saying they would deny the Havasupai use of the land. Steiger tried to remove 15 kac (the reporter did not say they were for a whitefolk grazing allotment). And all it said about our tragic loss of the northern additions was that the conference managers used the original Goldwater boundaries (which was not true, for our defense of keeping in the old Monument plateau lands had altered that boundary).

The AP report was straight-foward: the Park was doubled, and its components were listed. The Havasupai reservation was "transformed". And although additions of the Shivwitz, Parashaunt, Kanab & Andrus had been dropped, the conferees stipulated they should be studied for possible future addition. Seemingly, the storm having broken, there was calm. 

PL93-620 X2. Nov-Dec 1974: To the Conference; Lobbying is Retail Sales

FIRST, SOME LONG DISTANCE GROUNDWORK

A lot of what transpired in November and up to the conference in mid-December was very much one-to-one. It consisted of many conversations, sometimes with those directly involved, more often with intermediaries, aides. What became a month-long effort was, perhaps, like a mosaic whose bits were laid not with a guiding narrative, but a variegated pattern that was concluded by the conference itself. If there is a guiding narrative theme, I am afraid it is one of narrowing possibilities. We did lay out and argue for overall compromises on the Havasupai question; but we could not get the political balance to tilt in our favor, so no one would take on the difficult task against the Arizona delegation's unity -- not to mention its (apart from Udall) personal anger and actively expressed disdain. So, by the time the conference neared, conversations were of a few tightening-up changes. On our additions, the opponents apparently felt so secure in having the allegiance of the Arizonans except Udall, that our arguments overall could gain no traction. Given our euphoria at the bill approved by the Parks Subcommittee 9 months earlier, the year had been a dispiriting one. So for triumphant narrative themes, one must go to the Havasupai and the hunters; for me, what follows is a story of day-to-day persistence under an increasingly lowering cloud. 

PL93-620 X1. Oct-Nov 1974: Working Toward the Conference

House passage of S. 1296 was variously reported in October. In the National Wildlife Federation "Report", the "House approves of Grand Canyon Proposal", saying that by a voice vote federal lands were consolidated into an enlarged Park and the Havasupai were granted 185 kac. It would now go to a Senate-House conference to reconcile the differences between the bills as passed by each chamber. Most critical had been the 180-147 vote on the Havasupai grant. Representatives Foley & Dellenback warned other lands would be opened to claims. The Arizonans spoke for the grant. The amendment to reduce the Park by 185 kac was rejected. Much debate was on development, Udall denying there could be trams or hotels on the rim. Rhodes indicated the Havasupai could benefit from tourist development, and questioners wanted to know why a give the Havasupai land if there could not be economic development for tourism. Another difference with the Senate version was "particularly opposed by sportsmen" -- "all" bighorn hunting area and "a large section" of Kaibab deer wintering range were added to the Park. When hunting was prohibited once a half century earlier, there was a massive deer dieoff. Although called the Park Enlargement Act, it was more a consolidation of various NPS and other federal lands.