PL93-620 O. Sep-Nov 1973: Prospecting In The House

Picking up the House story, we go back to the week of 10-13 September, when Senate action was coming to a climax:

An afternoon visit with Representative Udall allowed me to tell the story of the week, and I emphasized the distance between an aide and a Senator and the latter's reversal. I showed them the Senate agenda item, and then asked him, "Would you see your way to crafting a good bill with 2-300,000 acres additional?" Udall replied that the problem would be subcommittee chairman Taylor who would not want any controversy. If there were only one amendment with no policy change, probably o.k. If, that is, its on the quiet. I asked about spending some time on this, with hearings in early 1974. Udall  said o.k. Later, his aide, Bracy, wanted me to believe he knew what would happen in the Senate; it would never have gone against conservationists. 

For Peters, minority staffer on the House Parks subcommittee, who was an optimist, I worked up an outline of what a good bill would have. First, fix some problems, like changing the start from Navajo Bridge to Lees Ferry, repealing the reclamation provision, adding park values to the study of Havasupai needs. Second, there should be a study of the entire new park for Wilderness. Third, we wanted additions: 23 kac along the river, 120 kac of side canyons, and 80 kac of rim country. Knowing that there was no way of getting an NPS recommendation for these, I suggested that NPS be quizzed about them during the hearing. Fourth, other protections were needed: no aircraft below the rim; jurisdiction over the entire river to NPS; protection of road corridors to Park; counter pressure by Tusayan developers to get Park water. Finally, there should be encouragement of tribal parks. 

PL93-620 N. Jun-Sep 1973: Havasupai Action During Senate Consideration.

This series of posts on S.1296 described what the Havasupai had to say at the Senate hearing. My 16 Jul 2011 post on the Havasupai repatriation, based on my notes made on materials in the Truxton Canyon Agency files, sketches out from that perspective the situation of the Havasupai and their allies during Senate consideration. I have inserted a copy of that post in the table of contents under the tab PARK.

  Even sketchier is Hirst's account (pp 264-70,), though it does offer officials' excuses for why the Havasupai expansion got dropped from the bill. Given what happened when their cause finally acquired a competent and connected lobbyist in March 1974, however, Havasupai lack of action in May-Sep 1973 provides a nice lesson in legislative sausage-making: you have got to keep furnishing meat and grinding that handle around if you want to get attention from Congress.

 Sketchiest of all are the pro-Havasupai secondary accounts such as those listed below; they largely ignore Senate action. 

 In any case, the Great Havasupai vs. Sierra Club head-butt took place in 1974, and I will recount it in order as the major event it became.

Sources:

I have gone through the Spamer bibliography, hoping to find some account of the Havasupai effort that I had missed. Hirst ( Hirst, Stephen,  Life in a Narrow Place, 1976) remains basic. We will know there is a more definitive account when one appears that includes an interview with Joe Sparks.

Others:

In these accounts, it is not just the errors, omissions, mis-characterizations, and overall tendentiousness that grates on me, but the reminder of just how hard history is. I have written about mis-steps I have made both in memory and in sources, and even tried to correct some. Imagining what would be required to analyze accounts such as those cited here is daunting to the point where I can only urge anyone interested to read as much as you can stand, and  judge it all for yourselves. Or maybe, just pick the sausage flavor you like and stick with it.

Keller, R. H. & M. F. Turek, American Indians & National Parks, 1998

Morehouse, B. J., A Place Called Grand Canyon: Contested Geographies, 1996

Miller, Kristen

2010

17.1218

The story of the Havasupai: A look at their claim to the Grand Canyon National Park. Wittenberg History Journal (Wittenberg University, Springfield, Ohio), 39(Spring):55-70.

PL93-620 M. Sep 1973: A Lobbyist's Work Is … Polishing In The Senate

Back in Tucson, McComb was busy, and two newspaper stories, telling the usual Goldwater v. Sierra Club story in a decently fair fashion, were prepared by the afternoon and university papers, and published on the 20th. Also, John heard from a NWF contact that AzWF's Clemons was "livid" at losing the deletions. That did not appear in the Arizona Republic low-error article reporting Committee approval, maybe because it came from Washington, not Ben Avery. It did say that as reported, even with "a profusion of changes", Goldwater said the bill accomplished his main objective of uniting the entire stretch of the Canyon. Hunter lividity came clear in the following week (I was back in Tucson), with a Committee staffer telling me Emerson had been talking up the beauties of the "original" bill. He now wanted a one-year study of the deletions, but would do it on the floor, not through the Committee. This was also reported in the NWF "Conservation Report", as "speculation".

PL93-620 L. Sep 1973: 3. BOOM! And When The Dust Clears...

The Monday, 10 September, meeting was convened by Jerry Verkler, Senate Interior Committee Chief of Staff, asking if we, meeting at the staff level, could reach consensus on the Grand Canyon bill, now that strip mining legislation was reported. A commitment had been made at the time of the CAP passage (1967-8) to reconsider GCNP boundaries. Hearings have been held, and Committee Print 1 reported by the Parks subcommittee.

Present to consider this question were three from Interior (Curry, Wheeler, Allen), five from NPS (Chapman, Stitt, Whitlock + 2), the Committee (Verkler + Hartung, and Harrison Loesch, minority counsel), Wildlife Federation (Clapper), Emerson, and George Alderson & me. My contemporaneous notes take up 2-½ pages in my journal. What follows are as close to quotes, fleshed out with grammar, as I could  record.

Emerson (E): We are trying to do today what Goldwater has tried to do over four years of meetings in his offices.

Clapper: Where are Monument deletions?

E: Isnt it true that NPS agrees to deletions with tight archeological safeguards?

Chapman: Our position initially was deletions as a basis of exchange, but no more. With (archeological) evidence now, we do not take the position for deletion.

Allen: And that position (against deletion) has not been changed.

E: I will settle that right now. (My notes say he "dashes away".)

Harrison Loesch(H): Goldwater has a very strong impression that the Secretary had agreed to change the position.   (I commented in the margin that we had "got to the nut awful fast".)

Curry: The letter from Reed to Church is the official position. (The letter was dated the 12th; see below.)

Ingram: We will fight against deletions at every step.

Clapper: The needs of wildlife management in principle require harvesting (= deer hunt).

Stitt (S): Slide Mtn cannot hold many(?).

George Alderson (G): Over-grazing or browsing?

S: Nothing recent.

G: Cattlemen want to get back in; would not that stimulate others to ask?

E returns.

Verkler (V): Lets review grazing.  

E  and S go back and forth.

V: Secretary could continue (grazing permits), yes.

E: Lets get it into open, and explore question.  Arizona & National Wildlife Federation are primary here; these are not Park quality lands. There are trophy bucks; antelope could come back; they are open grasslands. Need intensive wildlife management.

 (In journal, I comment: "taking lumps from Arizona delegation".)

E: You will get a new position, I guarantee.

H: The Department will accede to the deletions. Senators Fannin & Goldwater feel they have an understanding with Secretary Morton, even though there is nothing in writing.

V: The Committee will want to know what the Departmental position is.

E: You will know!!

Clapper: Im reflecting ideas of executive of N.W.F.

S: (In answer to question) water tanks will not be maintained.

V: So deer would migrate to where water is.

NPS man: Another point of difference is the lower river.

E: Goldwater will have to look at whole policy; there is now a national TV campaign on the Havasupai.

V: Will this bill be so controversial that it will have to be put on the back burner?

H: Not of utmost importance, but minority will go along. 

V: So much pressure to get a bill out.

E: Will go along with the Havasupai if certain things preserved, such as 270 miles of river.

H: Caveat: there is not total agreement on Indian lands.

V: So a letter from Jackson to Morton could ask what is the position?

G: Is deletion critical?

E: Yes. Critical to Arizona. 

H: Critical to Fannin (for intensive wildlife management & antelope restoration).

E: It is grassland.

S: No, it is pinyon-juniper.

E: Grazers are of great importance.

V: If deletions are kept, would Goldwater oppose the bill?

E: Yes.

H: Fannin would, too.

H (whispering to NPS's Curry): You know we had agreement with Sec. Morton.

V: If Senator had agreement with Morton, why did not people know?  I didnt know about this before. I sure do now. Jackson is calling me. I'll tell you today.

End of meeting.

PL93-620 K. Jun-Sep 1973: 2. Summer Maneuvers (map added 12/12/12)

At first, the summer looked crowded. The hearing complete, the Senate subcommittee on Parks under Senator Bible would work over the bill. Very quickly, we heard changes were being made by Goldwater's and Senate committee staff. There was talk of sub-committee "mark-up" of the bill with these changes in mid-July, followed by consideration in the full Interior Committee. A vote by the full Senate would complete action there.  As well, the initial indications were that the House Parks subcommittee might try to hold its hearings around July 20th. Thus, McComb and I knew we would have to get ourselves to Washington in its most uncomfortable season, the muggy summer. And, since we wanted to push for changes that Senator Goldwater opposed, we would be introducing ourselves to new casts of characters, hoping we could convince a number of them not only to be interested, and not just to support a settled bill, but to help us make changes the bill's sponsor was against. My file contains pages of hand-written comments, notes, suggestions on whom to contact and how. Most, Im afraid, are undated and some, obscure. It is still entertaining, though, to read through and try to re-create that hectic quality of walking & bustling about the halls of the Senate's (as later the House's) office buildings, chewing over our issues and prospects, purposefully with the many, always busy, aides, and, with more freedom, among ourselves.

PL93-620 J. Jun-Sep 1973: Another, embittering, try

The inadequacies of the Goldwater + Emerson approach to legislating had been brought into embarrassing view in the June 20th Senate hearing. Even after years of consultations and meetings, the testimony made obvious that major issues had not been resolved; the bill being considered seemed just the latest in the series of trial balloons since 1966. Unfortunately, the Senator seems to have been under the impression that he deserved agreement on his  "compromise". However, of the two interests that should have been energetically supporting their approach, we Grand Canyon advocates hated the deletions and wanted a more complete Park, while the Havasupai, as the only strong supporters, failed to gather the kind of allies needed to counter their array of opponents. 

Here is a recap of how the parts of the bill fared in the hearings:

Recognition of complete Canyon and unified interpretation: no controversy.

Boundaries: Canyon advocates were anti-deletion and wanted more; hunters, loggers, and other interests the reverse.

Acquisition: criticized for lack of eminent domain.

Indian protection & support: Navajo were indifferent & did not appear; Hualapai were opposed. 

Havasupai: supported an enlarged reservation, but did not like not being deprived of the Globe Ranch allotment.

Zone of influence: universally attacked.

Grazing for 10 years: no comment.

Aircraft regulation: weak, evoking little notice.

Reclamation provision: opposed by supposed beneficiary Hualapai tribe.

Wilderness: rejected as inadequate.

Reflections of a monument: My interview with Bruce Babbitt

Reader beware. I recorded my September 27, 2012, interview with former (1993-2001) Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, and then transcribed it. This post is that material, gathered into topics. My goal was to produce his words, smoothed, ordered, and connected for reading purposes, but trying to keep his voice. I did not use quotation marks or paraphrasing. 

My main focus was his personal role in, and reflections on, the establishment of the Grand Canyon - Parashant National Monument (the fourth for the Canyon). What I like about this material is that it became a mini-essay on governance in a society in which openness and participation are central values. When "I" is used, that is Babbitt in smoothed quote. Material in parentheses is explanation or bridging for smoothness. In an exchange, B is for B.Babbitt, J for me.

Here is a map of the Monument as it now exists -- . 

The southern purple part within the red line is in Lake Mead National Recreation Area; the purple south of that is Grand Canyon National Park. The bulk of the Monument is administered by the Bureau of Land Management, and contains three wilderness areas. The light blue, mostly square, patches are state lands, while the gray is private. Extending the black line of the south-going road inside the Monument more or less west would outline the drainage area into the Canyon itself as the eastern "half" (see the second map below). West and north of that line, the drainage is over the Grand Wash Cliffs into Lake Mead.