Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1157) to ensure public access to the summit of Rattlesnake Mountain in the Hanford Reach National Monument for educational,…
Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1157) to ensure public access to the summit of Rattlesnake Mountain in the Hanford Reach National Monument for educational, recreational, historical, scientific, cultural, and other purposes.
I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material to the bill under consideration.
I yield myself as much time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1157 directs the Department of the Interior to provide the public with motorized, nonmotorized, and pedestrian access to the summit of Rattlesnake Mountain, located in my district on the Hanford Reach National Monument. This 195,000-acre monument, designated by President Clinton in 2000, is near the Hanford Nuclear Site and is the only one in the continental United States managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
At 3,600 feet, Rattlesnake Mountain is the highest point in the region, and it provides unparalleled views for miles around the monument, the Hanford Site, the Snake River, the Columbia River, and, of course, the Yakima River.
Unfortunately, it took the Fish and Wildlife Service 8 years to write a management plan that effectively closed Rattlesnake Mountain to public access, despite the public comments favoring just the opposite.
After I first introduced this bill in 2010, the Fish and Wildlife Service offered two public tours for selected individuals and then suddenly reneged on the offer just days before the tours were to occur.
During a 2011 committee hearing on the bill, the Interior Department's testimony suggested that the Fish and Wildlife Service supports tours of Rattlesnake, but very carefully didn't go the extra step of ensuring the Service would allow public access to the summit.
Finally, last month, the Fish and Wildlife Service granted a few dozen people the opportunity to tour Rattlesnake Mountain summit over two tours. These were the first two public tours offered since the monument was designated.
Mr. Speaker, this bill is necessary to ensure reasonable and regular public access can be guaranteed by law to the citizens of that area. The legislation is sponsored by the Tri-Cities Development Council, TRIDEC; the Board of County Commissioners; Benton County Commissioners, in which Rattlesnake Mountain is located; the Tri-City Regional Chamber of Commerce; the Tri-Cities Visitor and Convention Bureau; and the Back Country Horsemen of Washington.
The American people deserve to have access to public lands, including Rattlesnake Mountain in my district. I ask that the House pass this reasonable legislation today to make that possible.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, let me explain a little bit about Rattlesnake Mountain and where it's located. I mentioned it is on the Hanford Nuclear Site. The Hanford Nuclear Site was part of the Manhattan Project, in which we built and assembled weapons that won the Second World War. And then for 40 years after the Second World War, this was in a defense production where we were producing fuel for our atomic weapons.
Now, Rattlesnake Mountain, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, is 3,600 feet. For obvious reasons, it was closed off to access because you had a secret site there producing weapons of war and you didn't want people to have access to look down at Hanford Site. That's totally understandable, and for that reason nobody really objected to having the top of Rattlesnake open. However, now that Hanford is no longer in defense production--and it hasn't been for nearly 25 years; it's now in a cleanup mode--things have really changed.
When I typically have townhall meetings or meetings with people in the Tri-Cities area, I ask how many people have been on top of Rattlesnake, and it's surprising how few have been up there. But when you're on top of Rattlesnake--it's 3,600 feet, like I mentioned--there are no trees, so you can see 360 degrees around you. On a clear day, which we generally have in central Washington, you really can see the Columbia River coming in from the north. You can see where the Snake River--and, by the way, that's where Lewis and Clark encamped before they made their trip down to the ocean--you can see where the Snake River comes into the Columbia River. And you can see where the Yakima River comes also into the Columbia River. So it is a really wonderful site, and I think it deserves to have access to the people.
More and more people have had the opportunity in the past to go up there. This simply ensures that the Department of Energy will come up with a plan in which that area will really be accessed.
So I urge adoption of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
