[Pages S4140-S4145]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

THE GREAT AMERICAN OUTDOORS

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to make remarks about three
matters of importance to the great American outdoors, all of which have
been happening this week and which are important for our country.
First, I wish to comment on a provision the Senate struck from the
Iraq supplemental appropriations bill this morning when we were
considering it. We struck it in a procedural move based upon a point of
order I raised. The provision was a billboard amnesty proposal that was
inserted into the middle of legislation that was supposed to be in
support of our troops.
I called it a billboard amnesty proposal because it suddenly would
have treated as legal billboard sites that have been illegal for 40
years and effectively would have gutted the Highway Beautification Act
of 1965, which is one of the legacies of a former First Lady, Lady Bird
Johnson.
I think this deserves a little attention and a little explanation
before we leave it because it was a full-scale assault on one of the
most important pieces of legislation that helps keep our country
beautiful at a time when we are growing and struggling to preserve open
spaces.
There are three problems with this billboard amnesty proposal, as I
saw it. First, the proposal would have done for the billboard industry
something the law doesn't allow for churches, doesn't allow for
schools, doesn't allow for businesses, doesn't allow for any other
structures that since 1965 have been on illegal or nonconforming sites.
This is what was happening. In 1965, at the urging of President
Johnson and Mrs. Johnson, the Nation decided it would restrict
billboards, both in terms of their location and their size. As we often
do with legislation, we looked ahead and said the billboards could not
be located in some places and had to be within a certain size. As the
interstate system grew across the country, much of it is relatively
free of large billboards or has a limited number of billboards.
The question then arose about what do we do about the billboards and
signs that were already up prior to 1965. The decision was made by the
Congress at that time to say we will leave those signs up, we will
grandfather them in. As long as they stay up, they are fine, but when
they fall down, they will be gone. In other words, we have been waiting
for 40 years for those sites to die a natural death. That was the
compromise in 1965. Many of these billboards are large billboards and
are in places we don't want--rural areas, scenic areas across the
country--but that was the decision we made.
The problem with this legislation, as it came into the supplemental
appropriations bill for troops, is it said suddenly all the billboards
in 13 States that are on sites where it would be illegal to put a new
billboard were suddenly legal. In other words, it was instant amnesty,
overnight amnesty for illegal billboards.
There are a lot of billboards like this. For example, in the State of
Tennessee, there are nearly 3,000 billboards on sites where they would
not be permitted under current law, but when those billboards fall
down, they can't ever put them back up. We have known that for 40
years. In North Carolina, there are probably 2,600 illegal sites, in
the sense that when the billboards wear out, fall down, act of God
knocks them out, they can't be put back up. In South Carolina, there
are 2,200; in Florida, 6,000; in Oklahoma, 1,400; and in Alabama, 912.
In a moment, I will put in the list of those in each State.
What the provision that we struck from the bill said was, because
there were some hurricanes down South, in all these places where
billboards on illegal sites were knocked down by a hurricane, they
could be put back up. That raises a lot of questions. What is the
difference between a billboard being destroyed by a hurricane and being
destroyed by lightning, or it becoming water damaged, or it falling
down because it is rotting, or some other act of God?
The whole idea in 1965 was when the billboards wore out, or an act of
God destroyed them, they were gone. They were gone. We have been
waiting for 40 years for that to happen. So in comes the billboard
lobby and, suddenly, we have first a proposal to exempt all these
billboards across the country--instant billboard amnesty for all the
billboards in every State--even though the hurricanes were in the
South.
Finally, that original proposal from the billboard industry got
narrowed down to 13 States, which included Tennessee--we don't have a
lot of hurricanes in Tennessee--and Kentucky. Hurricanes in Kentucky?
I think what is happening here is the billboard lobby is doing its
best to reclaim all those billboards that have been illegal for 40
years by saying because of this hurricane or that drought or that
lightning strike, suddenly we want them rebuilt in every State. That is
a pretty good thing for all the billboard companies, because by and
large they have bought them up from all the small farmers. They weren't
worth very much because the owners knew when they fell down, the
billboards could never be replaced. So what could be better for the big
billboard lobby than to suddenly get instant amnesty for all these
sites and instant riches overnight for those companies?
I don't blame them for trying, but I think the Senate was exactly
right to say, wait a minute, we can't do this. Not only is it an
affront to the troops to be cavalierly talking about a wet kiss to the
billboard lobby in the middle a debate when we are supposed to be
helping the troops in Iraq, I think it is an affront to Lady Bird
Johnson and all those across America who, for 40 years, have tried to
keep our country, about which we sing, beautiful. One of our greatest
values is we sing and believe in America the beautiful.
This motion was put into the legislation by the Democratic leader. I
want to make very clear I don't question his motives, and I respect
what he does. I appreciate the courteous way in which he treated the
discussion he and I had on this. I told him if there were some
injustices that have to do with States in the South that have been
somehow unevenly treated by the law or impacted by the hurricanes in a
way nobody anticipated, I would be glad to work with him and other
members of the Environment and Public Works Committee, on which I
serve, to correct those injustices. But the Senator from Florida, Mr.
Martinez, was a cosponsor of my amendment to get rid of this provision.
The Senator from Alabama, Mr. Shelby, was a cosponsor of my amendment
to stop this billboard amnesty. So who is the billboard lobby trying to
protect here, when the Senators from those States--Tennessee,

[[Page S4141]]

Alabama, and Florida--say we don't need that sort of protection? But I
am happy and willing to work on that legislation.
I also wish to make it clear to my colleagues this is not a new
subject for me. In the 1980s, when I was Governor of Tennessee, the
legislature and I--and the legislature was Democratic at the time--made
10,000 of our State roads scenic highways. We put little mockingbirds
up, and we said no new billboards and no new junkyards. Tennessee is a
beautiful State, and we wanted people to enjoy it as they drove across
the country. The only regret I have is we didn't think of cell towers
being invented. We all use them, for our cell phones and our
BlackBerries. In Tennessee, they seem to be having a contest to see who
can invent the biggest and the ugliest cell tower and stick it in the
most scenic place. But we created those scenic highways in a bipartisan
way.
In the mid-1980s, I was chairman of the President's Commission on
Americans Outdoors, with Gilbert Grosvenor, the head of National
Geographic, and Pat Noonan, president of The Conservation Fund, and one
of our major recommendations was a system of scenic byways, which the
Congress has now created across our country.
Our people want to see our beautiful country and they want reasonable
limits on what we are doing. They certainly don't want to see us, in
the middle of legislation to support our troops, to have suddenly
attached to the appropriations bill an instant billboard amnesty
proposal. I am glad that is out of the bill, and I congratulate the
Senate for doing what we did this morning. It will come up through the
regular committee, if we ever need to do that. The proposal was a big
wet kiss to the billboard lobby, and a kissing line in which I don't
care to stand, and I appreciate the Senate action.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
a letter from several organizations--Scenic America, the U.S.
Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the American
Planning Association, and other groups--expressing their deep concern
about the provision we knocked out of the supplemental appropriations
bill that would have gutted the Highway Beautification Act.
Following that, I wish to include a chart from Scenic America that
has a list of the number of nonconforming billboards in every State.
There are 63,000 of those sites where it would be illegal to put up new
billboards. The whole thrust of this billboard amnesty proposal would
have been to turn those illegal sites into legal sites overnight,
beginning with these 13 States and perhaps expanding to other States in
the future.
Also, I wish to include two newspaper articles, one from the
Washington Post and one from USA Today, which alerted the Senate this
week to this provision in the appropriations bill, which slipped in
very quietly under the heading of ``highway signs.''
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

March 27, 2007.
Hon. Lamar Alexander,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Alexander: We are writing to express our deep
concern about a provision related to the Highway
Beautification Act's rules governing the destruction of
nonconforming signs by hurricanes that was added to the
Senate's supplemental appropriation bill. We strongly believe
this legislation would do significant harm to the core
principles underlying this 42-year-old law and will impair
the ability of state and local governments to remove
nonconforming billboards from their communities. Moreover, it
will also undermine local governments' ability to regulate
nonconforming land uses in general by carving out an
exception to long-standing legal and regulatory practices not
available to any other business entity. Because this is a
substantive measure that properly belongs within the
jurisdiction of the Environment and Public Works Committee,
and because it would be extraordinarily damaging to
communities in 13 states, we urge you to seek the removal of
this provision from the final bill.
As you know, this is the third attempt within the past year
to weaken this important provision of the HBA and, once
again, the offending legislation avoided the formal scrutiny
of the authorizing committees with jurisdiction. Policy
matters of this importance deserve to be dealt with directly
through appropriate legislative channels, not through
nongermane appropriations measures.
But this legislation is wrong not just procedurally, it is
wrong on its merits. This measure permits state legislatures
in FEMA Regions IV and VI to opt-out of one of the last
remaining effective provisions of the Highway Beautification
Act, which is already heavily weighted to the advantage of
the outdoor advertising industry. One of the principal
compromises made at the time of the HBA's passage was that
nonconforming signs would be removed by attrition over time.
These signs, often many decades old, are located in places
that no longer permit them and are, by definition,
undesirable. Like all nonconforming land uses they are
subject to permanent removal when they are destroyed by acts
of God. They cannot be replaced or rebuilt for the simple
reason that it is now illegal to build a new sign at that
location.
Each state currently defines what constitutes ``destroyed''
in its agreement with the federal government implementing the
law. Usually, ``destruction'' is defined as some percentage
of the structure or the value of the sign. When a
nonconforming sign is harmed in a storm, and crosses the
threshold from merely damaged to destroyed, its permit is
revoked and it must be permanently removed, just as any
nonconforming structure would be under similar circumstances.
Case law and common practice have long held that the owner of
a nonconforming destroyed structure is not entitled to
compensation and certainly cannot rebuild it. Billboards
are--and should be--no exception. Congress should not treat
billboard companies differently from any other business that
owns nonconforming structures destroyed in hurricanes.
We are deeply concerned that the continued weakening of the
enforcement provisions of the HBA will render the
nonconforming designation meaningless, in effect converting
these signs into permanent structures. Incidentally the
legislative language permits these signs to be rebuilt with
modern materials that will make them virtually
indestructible, a notion completely at odds with the original
intention of the law. The crippling of the storm-destruction
provision effectively removes any hope that the thousands of
old, nonconforming billboards littering our highways will
ever be removed. Many of these signs are over 30 years old;
some, much older. They were purchased with full knowledge
that they were subject to destruction by natural causes and
ultimate removal, and should not be granted special
protection, particularly given their notoriously adverse
impact on the quality of community life.
The provision requires state legislative action in order to
take effect, and in virtually every instance in recent years
state legislation dealing with billboards overrides local
authority. Ultimately, local prerogatives will almost
certainly be trampled, and, in fact, will need to be in order
for the bill to have its intended effect of protecting the
interests of billboard companies. This is an instance where a
federal standard protects local governments better than a
policy crafted in state legislatures.
In addition, you should be aware that the outdoor
advertising industry has been embroiled in significant legal
and administrative disputes involving the potentially
improper rebuilding of nonconforming signs destroyed in
recent hurricane seasons. This measure is a transparent
effort to short-circuit ongoing court cases as well as
administrative disputes between FHWA and state departments of
transportation and between state DOT's and the industry.
Further, Congress should not be swayed by spurious claims of
hardships faced by sign companies or advertisers in the wake
of recent storms. Most of the destroyed signs are owned by
very large media corporations which purchased the signs from
the original owners with full knowledge of their
nonconforming status, and affected local businesses face no
shortage of alternative signs for their advertising messages.
This provision is an affront to the core principles of
well-established federal law and threatens local authority,
and represents a violation of congressional procedures and
basic democratic principles. A supplemental appropriation
bill should not be used to make substantive changes to a
policy that is completely nongermane to its purpose. Citizens
and stakeholders should not be frozen out of the legislative
process in an effort to promote the interests of a powerful
industry. We strongly urge you to protect American
communities, the prerogatives of local governments, and the
long-standing federal interest in the beautification of our
national highway system by seeking the removal of this
provision from the supplemental appropriations bill.
If you would like further information about this issue and
its implications, please don't hesitate to contact Kevin Fry,
the president of Scenic America.
Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.
Sincerely,
Scenic America, The United States Conference of Mayors,
National League of Cities, The American Planning
Association, The American Society of Landscape
Architects, The American Institute of Architects, The
Surface Transportation Policy Partnership, The National
Association of Towns and Townships.

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[From washingtonpost.com, March 27, 2007]

Billboard King Reid Looks To Leave Mark on Senate War Funding Measure

(By Elizabeth Williamson)

In a (quite) large sign that protecting U.S. troops isn't
the only thing on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's mind
these days, the Nevada Democrat inserted an item into the
Senate's Iraq war funding bill--safeguarding billboards.
Senate debate began yesterday on the bill, which provides
$122 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; sets a
goal of March 31, 2008, for withdrawing U.S. troops from
Iraq; and--if Reid has his way--allows thousands of
billboards destroyed by bad weather to be rebuilt.
For the senator, who has referred to himself as the King of
Billboards, ``it's a constituent issue, but it's a value that
he believes in,'' said Reid spokesman Jon Summers.
The battle over billboards began in 1965, when the Highway
Beautification Act set a policy that ``nonconforming''
billboards--defined by states but usually meaning those
packed closely together, or in scenic areas--would be allowed
to die of natural causes. As storms and other acts of God
destroyed them, their owners would not be permitted to
replace them. Recent hurricanes have fueled a fight between
the powerful Outdoor Advertising Association of America
(OAAA), which wants to roll back the federal law, and
opponents led by Washington-based Scenic America, which decry
billboards as ``visual pollution.''
On March 15, Reid wrote Senate Appropriations Committee
Chairman Robert Byrd (D-W.Va) asking for a provision that
``clarifies'' the rules governing rebuilding of ``outdoor
structures'' after natural disasters.
``This is a matter of personal importance to me,'' the
majority leader wrote, a comment that ``goes back to the
values,'' Summers said. Meaning that out west, ``there's a
big sense of independence, and your property is your
property,'' Summers said.
About 40 billboard companies operate in Nevada. Over the
past two years, Reid's Searchlight Leadership Fund has
received $6,000 in contributions from the OAAA's political
action committee.
The OAAA represents a booming industry that earned $7
billion nationwide in revenue last year, but it emphasizes
the role of billboards in advertising local businesses.
Association spokesman Ken Klein said Reid's amendment aims to
reverse ``a pattern of overreaching'' by the federal
government, which threatened to withhold highway funds to
Florida when companies rebuilt nonconforming billboards hit
by hurricanes in 2004. Reid's bill would have prevented such
actions.
Kevin Fry, president of Scenic America, said: ``The bill
carves out an exception to local land-use rules for a single
industry that is not available to any other . . . One might
reasonably ask why legislation affecting the South and
Southeast was introduced by a senator from Nevada.''
Reid's request went to the Appropriations subcommittee on
transportation, which pared it back to apply to 13 mostly
hurricane-prone states, instead of all 50. The law would come
up for renewal in 24 months.
Scenic America is fighting the amendment, which ``sets a
destructive precedent that will certainly be revisited
anytime natural disasters take their toll on nonconforming
billboards,'' Fry said. ``The two-year time frame is a
joke.''
The OAAA sees the measure as a ``positive step,'' Klein
said. ``Senator Reid is a longtime supporter of mobility,
tourism and property rights. We appreciate those
principles.''
____

[From USA TODAY, March 27, 2007]

Bill Would Shelter Unsightly Billboards

(By Kathy Kiely)

Washington.--A bill the Senate takes up today to provide
emergency funds for military operations and Katrina victims
also would help billboard advertisers that donated tens of
thousands of dollars to Democrats and Republicans for the
2006 election.
A provision tucked into the $122 billion measure at the
request of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., would
exempt older billboards in 13 Southern states, stretching
from Florida to New Mexico, from regulation under the 1965
Highway Beautification Act.
The provision would let billboard companies rebuild signs
damaged by hurricanes even if the new ones violate laws
regulating the size and placement of outdoor advertising.
Reid says he's trying to protect the rights of businesses
hurt by the storms: ``Why shouldn't they be able to replace
their property like anybody else?''
Kevin Fry of Scenic America, a non-profit group that
opposes Reid's move, says there's a good reason: The
billboards are eyesores that would be barred today.
Fry says Reid's efforts would be ``a grotesque weakening''
of the Highway Beautification Act, a legacy of President
Lyndon Johnson's wife, Lady Bird. It lets states regulate
billboards along federal highways.
Fry says states often prohibit signs that are too large,
too close together or located along rural and scenic routes.
About 75,000 signs built before the regulations remain, Fry
says: ``It's the worst kind of blight.''
Hurricanes destroyed some in Florida and Gulf Coast states
in 2004 and 2005. Hal Kilshaw, vice president of Lamar
Advertising of Baton Rouge, one of the advertising firms
pushing to rebuild, says, ``States should be able to
decide,'' not Washington.
For the 2006 election, the Outdoor Advertising
Association's political action committee (PAC) gave $143,000
to Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress,
according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a non-partisan group that
tracks contributions. Lamar gave $70,000 to congressional
candidates, the group says.
Reid's PAC received $16,000 from outdoor advertisers,
according to PoliticalMoneyLine. In a letter to senators last
week, Reid said the exemption ``is a matter of personal
importance to me.''

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I wish to, in the remaining time,
mention two other proposals that have to do with the great American
outdoors.
Yesterday, a group of 17 Senators and Congressmen from North Carolina
and Tennessee took a historic step by writing a letter to Secretary of
the Interior Dirk Kempthorne about the so-called ``Road to Nowhere''
through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The point of the letter was to suggest to the Secretary three things:
No. 1, Mr. Secretary, bring to a conclusion within 30 days the
environmental impact statement that has been going on for several years
about whether to build this road--the $600 million ``road to nowhere''
through the park--and recommend, Mr. Secretary, that no road should be
built. That is the first step.
The second step is one we can take ourselves in the Congress once the
Department of the Interior has said that no proposal for road
construction would be appropriate environmentally. The 17 of us believe
we should reprogram the remaining money from the environmental impact
statement, which we judge to be $5 million, $6 million or $7 million,
and give it to the citizens of Swain County, NC, who have waited since
1943 for just compensation for the promise the Government made to them
at that time to compensate them for the road that was flooded when
Fontana Dam was built.
The third thing we asked the Secretary to do was in the next
administration budget for fiscal year 2009, recommend to us what the
rest of the cash settlement should be to Swain County, and include the
next installment of that settlement in the budget, but without taking
the money from the National Park budget.
What is historic about this is it was not just the number of Senators
and Congressmen, it was the fact it was Senator Dole from North
Carolina as well as Senator Corker from Tennessee. It was Congressman
Shuler, a Democrat from North Carolina, as well as David Davis, a
Republican from Tennessee. We also have support from the Governors of
both Tennessee and North Carolina for the proposed cash settlement to
Swain County in lieu of the road.
The road is a bad idea. It has been a bad idea for a long time. The
Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the largest, most visited
national park in the United States by a factor of three, with 10
million visitors a year. It is managed as if it were a wilderness area.
This road, costing more than $600 million, would go straight through
the most pristine part of the largest wilderness area in the eastern
United States. And $600 million I believe is an understatement of what
it might cost. There would be very difficult places to go through. It
is hard to think it could be built without spending a lot more money.
I congratulate the Congressman from North Carolina, Mr. Shuler. He
grew up on one side of the Great Smoky Mountains in Swain County, and I
grew up on the other side in Blount County. Fifteen years ago, I was
president of the University of Tennessee and he was its quarterback.
Today, he is now the Democratic Congressman from Swain County and that
area, and I am the Republican Senator from east Tennessee. We agree on
what to do, and we believe it is time for the Secretary of the Interior
to accept our suggestion, say there will be no road, and let us get
busy giving the people of Swain County $6 million or $7 million this
year, and in future years compensate them properly.
Also Congressman Shuler and I and others say that in this process we
must do a better job of helping the descendants of those who once lived
in what is today the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to be able to
get across Fontana Lake to the gravesites. That may seem a small matter
to those who have not heard of this before, but that

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park was taken, by land condemnation oftentimes, from those people and
their families and their ancestors. It was then given to the Federal
Government. There is a great sense of ownership of that park by the
people of North Carolina and Tennessee, and it is only right that as a
part of this settlement we make it easier for Swain County to help
descendants of those who once lived within the park to get to their
historic gravesites.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed at this point
in my remarks a copy of the letter from the 17 Members of Congress from
North Carolina and Tennessee to the Secretary of the Interior.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:

Congress of the United States,

Washington, DC, March 28, 2007.
Hon. Dirk Kempthorne,
Secretary, Department of the Interior,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Secretary: Considering the significant
environmental and economic costs associated with building the
North Shore Road--or the so-called ``Road to Nowhere''
through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park--we ask that
you begin immediately to work with us to provide a cash
settlement to the citizens of Swain County, North Carolina,
rather than further constructing the road.
We recommend these three steps:
First, within the next 90 days, the National Park Service's
Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) should endorse a cash
settlement to Swain County instead of any further
construction on the North Shore Road.
Second, upon completion of the EIS, the Administration
should support legislation that will be introduced in
Congress to reprogram the funds remaining from those
originally appropriated for the EIS, currently about $6
million, and give those funds to Swain County as the first
installment of the settlement.
Third, in January 2008, as a part of its fiscal year 2009
budget request to Congress, the Administration should include
in its budget the next installment of the full cash
settlement to Swain County. This funding should come from
outside the National Park Service budget in the form of a
special request.
The United States made a commitment to Swain County in
1943, when it flooded a highway in connection with the
creation of the Fontana Dam, to build a new road through what
had become the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The U.S.
Supreme Court, however, held in 1946 that there is no legal
obligation to satisfy that commitment by building another
road. A cash settlement instead of a road is precisely the
kind of ``common sense adjustment'' that the Supreme Court
envisioned.
A road through the Park would damage the largest and most
pristine wilderness area in the eastern United States. Such a
road would cost at least $600 million, more than 75 times the
annual roads budget of the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park. In addition, a good highway now exists outside the Park
between Bryson City and Fontana.
This sort of settlement has been recommended by the elected
Swain County Commission and the governors of North Carolina
and Tennessee, and is supported by the undersigned members of
the North Carolina and Tennessee congressional delegations.
After over 60 years of controversy, it is time to bring
this matter to a close. The solution we are endorsing will
protect America's most visited national park, save taxpayers
hundreds of millions of dollars, and fulfill a promise to the
citizens of Swain County, North Carolina.
Sincerely,
Lamar Alexander, Elizabeth Dole, Bob Corker, U.S.
Senators; Heath Shuler, David Davis, G.K. Butterfield,
Zach Wamp, Bob Etheridge, Lincoln Davis, Walter Jones,
Bart Gordon, Mike McIntyre, Jim Cooper, Brad Miller,
John Tanner, David Price, Steve Cohen, Members of
Congress.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Finally, Mr. President, how much time do I have
remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 4 minutes.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, last night I attended the annual
meeting of the National Parks Conservation Association, and I spoke to
them, and I wish to repeat a suggestion and a proposal I made there.
I said to these leading conservationists from across the country that
22 years ago, in 1985, President Reagan asked me to head up what we
called the President's Commission on Americans Outdoors. It was to be a
successor to Laurance Rockefeller's Commission on Outdoors a generation
earlier. The Rockefeller Commission was one that was remembered for
advocating a lot of Federal action, such as the Land and Water
Conservation Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers legislation.
Our commission in the mid-1980s looked around the country and called
for a prairie fire of concern and investment community by community to
keep our outdoors great. We identified threats to the outdoors at that
time: exotic pollutants, loss of space through urban growth, and the
disappearance of wetlands. We recommended some strategies for dealing
with the future, which have become fixtures in the outdoor movement,
such as conservation easements, scenic byways and greenways, and we
recommended $1 billion a year from the sale of renewable assets, such
as oil, to succeed the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Mr. President, since I see no one here, may I ask unanimous consent
for an additional 5 minutes to complete my remarks?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, another generation has passed. There
are new challenges and new opportunities. My proposal to the
conservationists last night was it is now time for a third President's
Commission on Americans Outdoors to follow the Rockefeller Commission
in the 1960s and our commission in the 1980s. It would be an
opportunity to look ahead for another generation and tell our country
what we need to do to create places for us to enjoy the outdoors in
appropriate ways, an opportunity to create a new conservation agenda.
There is some unfinished business that is obvious. Special Federal
support for conservation easements expires this year. The conservation
royalty, which we enacted in the last Congress, giving one-eighth of
the money we acquire from drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to the Land
and Water Conservation Fund, is only a beginning to fully funding land
and water conservation. We need to codify the Environmental Protection
Agency's new clean air rules about sulfur and nitrogen, which are so
important to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, as an example.
Urban growth is still swallowing up open space.
There are new challenges and opportunities that were barely on the
agenda 25 years ago: Climate change, the 100th birthday of the National
Park System in 2016, invasive species, and new technology which offers
both promise and challenge.

For example, in terms of promise, carbon recapture from electricity
plants fueled by coal--that could help make us energy independent,
clean the air, and deal with global warming all at once; or at the John
Smith National Water Trail in Virginia, Verizon has a wireless system
so you can learn about 400 years of history as you go along the water
trail, using your cell phone.
On the other hand, technology threatens America's landscape, the
landscape of which we sing. I mentioned earlier that 25 years ago the
Tennessee Legislature and I created 10,000 miles of scenic parkways
with no new junkyards or billboards, and I didn't think of cell towers
at the time. We now have 190,000 cell tower sites nationwide, many of
them in scenic places, many of them ugly. That is unnecessary. If we
had thought about it, cell towers could be camouflaged, colocated on a
single structure, or located below the ridge tops. We should have
thought about it and made more of a policy about it.
At the same time, while it gives many in the conservation movement a
stomach ache to think about it, we are about to add to the American
landscape tens of thousands of giant wind turbines that are twice as
tall as the Neyland Football Stadium at the University of Tennessee,
with turbines that stretch from 10-yard line to 10-yard line.
Obviously, there is a place for wind power in our energy future, but
isn't it right that we should stop and say: Do we want them on our
seashores and the foothills of the Great Smokies and along the rim of
the Grand Canyon? I don't think we would. It would be a chance for us
to have a consensus about the blessings of technology and a consensus
about view sheds and landscape conservation; in short, a new strategy
and consensus for America, the beautiful.
I think this is our greatest opportunity to get around the table and
take advantage of different ideas, put them together, and go ahead. We
did that 20 years ago. We had private property advocates and open space
enthusiasts and conservationists and outdoor recreation people. We were
all around the

[[Page S4145]]

same table. We had a pretty good rapport. I think we made a difference
over the last two decades.
The other day, Tennessee's unusually Democratic newspaper, the
Tennessean, in Nashville, praised President Bush's centennial
initiative for national parks--$100 million a year, $3 billion over 10
years--to help celebrate the 100th birthday of our park system, which
some have called the best idea America ever had. The Tennessean said in
its editorial, and cautioned its readers:

Just because George Bush said it, doesn't mean it's wrong.

Sometimes I think I need to say the same thing to my Republican
friends about climate change. Just because Al Gore said it, doesn't
mean it is wrong. I think we ought to work together to celebrate the
100th anniversary of the parks, to figure out what we want to do about
climate change, scenic byways, open space, protecting private property
rights, and providing more outdoor recreation opportunities. We can do
that and now is a good time to do it. Why not have a Third President's
Commission on Americans Outdoors? I believe the next President should
appoint that commission and that we who care about those issues should
take time to help him or her be ready with an agenda.
For me, the great American outdoors is not about policy and politics.
I grew up hiking on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains, camping
there on a regular basis. I still live there. I breathe the air I try
to keep clean and hike in the park I want to maintain. I want to
protect the views of the foothills because I look at them when I am
home, where I am going tomorrow morning. I enjoy riding on the scenic
parkways and walking on the greenways, and every summer for 25 years,
our family has gone to the Boundary Waters canoe area in Minnesota
because it is quiet and clean and we like to catch and eat walleyes.
I believe there is a huge conservation majority in our country, and I
believe the next President can capture that majority and help us create
a new conservation agenda. It is time to create a Third President's
Commission on Americans Outdoors.
I yield the floor.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia is recognized.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. ISAKSON. Mr. President, I ask to address the Senate as if in
morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is in morning business.

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