King Cove Road Land Exchange Act

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 218.

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record my statement on the ABCs of Izembek.

Alaska's ardently asking for action and assistance to acquire acute acres to always allow actual access across areas and assuredly avert atrocious aviation accidents after appalling administrative blockades on building basic boulevards between beautiful bays before blizzards.

The bill doesn't bombard birds like Black Brants because Congress can carefully craft conveyances to create consistent courses for certain care in this Cove community. Construction cop outs and crumbling commitments cause a cacophony of complex concerns and constitute considerable consternation when crossing channels in choppy conditions. Don's diligently doting on his district, dutifully demanding demonstrable developments daily so the Department doesn't dawdle on their domain. Despite dangerous dashes and emergency evacuations, expanding elevated environmental evaluations exploded expenses. Exact exchanges exempt events to enhance embarking on equally enjoyable exits in eleven expanses. Frankly, fifty-five frigid flights fleeing fast from freezing fields in furious flurries found frighteningly few fancy facilities for fearful families.

Geese gradually got generally greedy, grimly generating genuine grief on giant goals of going great grounds on gravel and grabbing glory from good glacial gateways.

Historically, hovercraft hijinks harmfully hampered hurrying to hospitals and hobbled healing, harpooning hope and hardening hardships near the harsh harbors. The House must hastily have a helpful hand in halting havoc and hindering hefty hazards for Izembek inhabitants instead of idling indefinitely. Interior's indecision impeded infrastructure and informally interrupted implementing instant improvements, isolating irate individuals in increasingly impassible journeys. Jewell jumped into jeopardy when justifying juxtapositions and jarring, jolty jaunts from King Cove that keep killing kind kin without kindling key kernels of keen knowledge.

King Cove lacks life-saving lanes linking lonesome localities on land while lofty liberals lamely lament losing limited landscapes and maroon many who might make mends with medical ministration. Masterful mandatory medivacs must make miraculous moves after miniscule mainland migrations. Narrow native neighborhoods need necessary navigable networks now that nasty neglect notched nineteen needless obituaries. Other offered options outlined aren't okay or optimal for opening outbound opportunities over a one-lane, non-paved preferred path across a pulchritudinous peninsula. Patients patiently practice peacefully praying to postpone pain and postmortems while partisan panels prioritize protecting a percent of the preserve over the perishing population.

Perhaps people quietly question this quixotic quandary, quickly quarreling over quality, quaint routes. Resilient rural Refuge residents require really rapid resolutions to reliably ride on requisite roads routinely in rough situations. Seventy segments of street are still stationed in the sanctuary, so small sections won't subvert the surroundings. The State swap saves the site's sheltered status while swelling up safety and security for this scorned society. 1,000 tormented townsmen tempt their tombs in terrifying travels. They take threatening treks that traverse the tough tundra between the two towns in treacherous temperatures. United, we urgently untie this unbelievably unjust ultimatum for a unique unwinding of unfortunately unreliable voyages.

Valid in vibrant victory we venture to vote to viciously vanish vanity and vacate this wrongdoing. When we want wins, wavering willfully won't work. We weigh wishes of wilderness with wild winter weather while ways wane for wandering within windstorms. Xylophone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're yawning and yearning for me to yield and stop yapping like a yelling yahoo while you're still young. So I'll zig-zag and zoom past zany zealots in Zen like Ryan Zinke.

Mr. Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), the author of the bill, the only Representative Alaska has here on this floor, and someone who understands this issue because he has been dealing with it for a number of years.

(Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), who is hurriedly making his way to the front podium.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar), a subcommittee chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), the chairman of the Federal Lands Subcommittee.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, may I inquire of the ranking member if he has any germane speakers left on this issue.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

This is an issue that people have, for three decades, been trying calmly discuss and find an alternative. Unfortunately, the people of Alaska, who have been engaged in this effort for the last three-plus decades, have been rebuffed at every turn in which the only answer they got was the Federal Government here in Washington giving them an alternative, and forcing upon them an alternative that flat out didn't work, and it hasn't worked in the last 7 years.

One of the things we should realize is that this idea of building this road is not new. The House has voted to build this road. The Senate has voted to build this road. Unfortunately, they didn't vote it on the same bill, except, in 2009, when there was a piece of legislation that went through both the House and the Senate, which was very clear at the time that it was the intent of both the House and the Senate to build the road, but it did require the Interior Department to do the NEPA process. They took 4 years.

Now think of that. It was in 2009 when the bill was passed and the intent of Congress was very clear. Four years later, the Interior Department finally got around to doing the study, a study which, I might add, had five options that were added to it, one of which was to do nothing, and the Interior Department chose, after 4 years of study as their preferred option, to do nothing.

Therefore, all of the efforts and anguish of these people in Alaska went to naught because a bureaucracy here decided, despite what the House had said and despite what the Senate had said, that they knew best, despite what the people of Alaska needed, they knew best and their option simply was to do nothing.

This bill, let me remind you, all of the masses of people who are here, is not about a road. It is about a land transfer for a road. The State of Alaska is putting up 43,096 acres for new wilderness in exchange for 200-plus acres--240, I think, acres to be a road, a road that already exists. There is a 30-mile road that exists. The only problem is, only 19 of the 30 miles are constructed. They exist. They are there now.

What Alaska is asking is: Simply give us the last 11, so the road that does exist can be used. It can be used for them, for their medical needs, for their recreation, if they want to. I mean, it has been brought up that, heaven forbid, this might be used for economic advantage. I don't know why this community of around 1,000 people, about 80 percent are Native Alaskans, would ever have the audacity to think that they ought to have a job, or the audacity to think that maybe they should try and use something that is there to further their economic ability to actually earn a living.

How uppity can you get, when we realize that those of us sitting here 6,000 miles away really have the superior wisdom to tell those people living in King Cove how they actually should live their life, and we did it. We did it in the 1990s. We said: No, you can't have a road because we have a philosophical opposition to it. Instead, we will spend a heck of a lot of money to come up with a hovercraft that doesn't work, and is too expensive, and is useless, and it no longer exists.

And now you are saying, ``No, no, no, you can't have access to the mainland. You can't have access to an all-weather airport. You can't have access for medical care; you can't have access for jobs. You can't have access for anything. Instead, let's work together to come up with another really stupid idea that won't work as well,'' when the solution is simply to build a road, 11 miles to connect an existing road so people who live in King Cove can do it.

You have already heard the data that has been presented. In the last 30 years, 19 people have died. Nineteen people have died, and it can be traced specifically to the fact that they didn't have access to healthcare.

In the last 3 years, they have had over 50 cases when medevac had to be used, very expensively, by the Coast Guard to try and help people out there. You wouldn't have to do that if you simply had the silly road; the 70-year-old woman who had to wait 7 hours, suffering a heart attack before she could get medical care; the woman in labor who had to go 6 hours before she could get someplace to have medical care; the man who had the saw accident, who had to wait 12 hours before he was able to get any kind of medical care, simply because there is not an 11-mile single-lane gravel road to connect to the rest of the 30-mile road that already exists.

And we sit here and try and tell these people in Alaska what is best for them, what is good for them? And that is emotional? And that is irrational?

No. What is irrational is that we are going through this again, the same thing we did last decade, the same thing that happened in the 1990s. And it is going to continue until we finally say: People should have a right to decide for themselves what is best for them.

The people who live in this community want a road. It is not going to hurt anything. It is 200 acres, and this is a land exchange. Actually, I have to admit, I don't like that. Alaska is giving up 40,000 acres-- 40,000 acres--so they can do 200 acres of a road. I think that is an exorbitant fee that is being extracted from the State of Alaska just so they can give these people, the overwhelming majority of whom are Native Alaskans, the opportunity of having access to their community so they can get medical care or whatever else they need so they can have it.

And we are sitting here because we don't want to do a precedent. This is the right thing to do. We should do this. We should have been done it back in the Clinton administration when it first came up. We should have gone through with it in 2009 when they finally passed it in both the House and the Senate, and then had to wait 4 years for the Interior Department to study the issue, and their conclusion was: let's not do anything. That doesn't exist.

It is time for us to do something to help people, to put people above ideology, to pass the bill.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I can say I don't support this because even though I had three bills in that package, I voted against it. It was a bad package going through.

But the problem is that this amendment does nothing more than reinsert the language that caused the problem in the first place. This language is the reason that we don't have the solution right now. Remember, the solution was no action, not to do anything whatsoever.

I understand sometimes we have distance issues that come here. The gentlewoman from Massachusetts has not an inch of BLM land in her entire State. Only 3 percent of the land is controlled by the Federal Government, which is much different than having 90 percent controlled by the Federal Government as in Alaska. I would contend that if there was any other area in the Nation--especially the eastern part of the Nation that had a situation like this--they would not tolerate this existing.

They also had the ability of actually solving the problem on the local level, which is what they are asking in this bill to simply do. Eighty percent of these people are Native Alaskans. They don't have the lung power to come up here and express for themselves. They don't have the resources to hire special interest groups to come express for themselves. They are depending on us to do it for them.

Mr. Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Chairman, this is an issue that should have been settled a long time ago.

In 2009, this Congress passed a land exchange piece of legislation, very similar to this, and we made one mistake. We did put into it the ability to have the Fish and Wildlife Service make recommendations. Even then, the recommendations were on a positive side.

The last administration decided, under the Secretary of the Interior, not to build an 11-mile road to save my constituents, the Aleut people from King Cove, in favor of a goose, and the people who live in King Cove weren't really considered.

Now, this is a road that is 11 miles long that goes not through the Izembek Refuge, but through some of the areas, mostly just along the edge. And the argument you will hear is that they will disturb the geese. You will hear it disturbs the eelgrass that the geese and the loons live on. The road will bother them.

It is ironic; the refuge itself, which this refuge is not a new area, it has been inhabited by man, frankly, in the last generation, and they built about 70 miles of road to supply a military base called Cold Bay, which is the airport we are trying to seek this road to connect it with King Cove.

They actually take tourists that arrive in Cold Bay and take the bus and go out the same road, not the one we want to build, but a road right next to the so-called lagoon and the eelgrass for the tourists. And for some reason, tourists don't bother geese. That is what I can't quite understand. But it is all right for them to do that, but not allow the people of King Cove to save their lives.

Since the refusal to build this road, 19 people, my constituents, Aleut people from King Cove, have died because they could not be evacuated to the airport so you could fly them out.

Now, some people will say, well, they have got an airport. Yes, 1,600 feet, winds are blowing 90 miles an hour, you try to get off. Or put yourselves on a boat and go across in 30-foot waves.

And you will hear, well, we built them and they got a hovercraft. They never wanted it. They knew it wouldn't work. The Clinton administration said,

oh, this is our solution and it is better than a road that would disturb the geese, so they accepted the use of it, and it did fail.

The hovercraft does not work, yet we will have an amendment later on, the area that did not ask for it is going to be requested to pay the money back. I didn't hear anybody, by the way, say, because a levee failed and we put money into it, they had to pay the money back.

So let's really consider what we are talking about here. We are talking about 11 miles, single lane, gravel-covered road to provide access to Cold Bay for people in the community who do not have access to a hospital, which is 600 miles away in Anchorage.

We had one lady evacuated at a cost of $250,000 by the Coast Guard. The helicopter crashed, and she lost her life.

We had two other elders that went across with a crab boat. They had to put the people into a crab pot because there was no way to get to this airport.

So, Mr. Chairman, I am suggesting to my fellow colleagues, let's do what is right. This does no harm to the refuge. It, in fact, saves lives, gives them an opportunity to take and experience the medical care that all the rest of us have. Let's do the right thing today.

Let's not be caught into special interests that say it is going to hurt the refuge. I know many even got phone calls: Oh, this is going to be terrible.

The truth of the matter is it is not terrible. It is the right thing to do. So I am asking my colleagues, let's vote ``yes'' on this bill. Let's vote ``no'' on the amendments. Let's do what is right today in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This amendment is mischievous and trying to defeat what we are trying to do today. The amendment is wholly unnecessary to mitigate impacts of migratory birds in Izembek Refuge. Again, the single-lane noncommercial 11 miles has no affect upon the wildlife, the waterfowl, of any kind.

It would allow, again, the Secretary, or one of the other Secretaries of a lesser part, like Fish and Wildlife Service, to delay the project. It is an effort, again, to delay the project.

We didn't expect--by the way, when we say there are 70,000 or more public comments, there was less than 100 from Alaska. These are outside comments. This whole idea of public comments sometimes doesn't make sense when they are nowhere near the Izembek Refuge or this road.

Sometimes I think we get caught in this idea that, oh, we have got all of these public comments against something or for something, let's look at where they are from.

This amendment, again, as I say, is mischievous. It is trying to kill the project. It should not be done. It is being pushed by the environmental community, again, to kill this project.

As I mentioned in my opening statement, you probably got some phone calls. Frankly, they don't know what they are talking about. So I urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment, which is an attempt, again, to stop this road. Let's build this road for the people of King Cove.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent to reclaim my time. I made a mistake and I said ``yield,'' when I should have said ``reserve.''

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to speak on this again.

I stress the fact that the Federal Government is going to receive 43,000 acres for additional wilderness in exchange for 42 acres. I mean, I don't know how many deals you can ever work that you get that kind of deal. This is a great thing for the refuge. It is the right thing for the refuge.

Again, as we go about this bipartisan legislation, we expected in 2009 to have this road built. That is why we are back here. It is not the first time. For 40 years this community has been trying to get this road built.

We thought that we had it in 2009, but because of the administrations that were unfavorable to it, and the slowness of the report of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and then having Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell say, ``No, there are other alternatives,'' when they did not work.

So I am suggesting, respectfully, that, again, this amendment is trying to kill the bill. It is not trying to provide a solution to anything.

Respectfully, I would say this again: vote against this amendment. Let's defeat this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, may I just inquire how much time is remaining?

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) who is the chairman.

Mr. Chairman, how much time is remaining?

Again, may I suggest we talk about this legislation. We thought 9 years ago or 8 years ago that we would have this road built. There is no Federal money involved in it. It is a road that needs to be done, and if we reinstate this language, what will happen is there will be a time where the road again will be studied and won't be built. For forty years, they have waited and lost lives, and we are talking about letting the Federal Government get involved again.

Mr. Chairman, I am saying this is the time to build the road.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

I have an amendment at the desk, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, in order to fully ensure that this emergency route will not be slowed down by unnecessary regulatory delays, my amendment makes minor changes to section 7 to conform to the text of H.R. 218 with the Senate text of S. 101.

Section 7 of the underlying bill waives the NEPA process because the NEPA process had already been completed in 2014 under Secretary Jewell. An environmental impact statement has already been published. Secretary Jewell ignored the public health and safety aspects that killed people because we don't have a road.

There is no reason to make the people of King Cove go through the time-consuming and expensive process again when it was done so recently. The people of King Cove have fought for this road for 40 years. People have literally died, again, because of the lack of this road to Cold Bay which has a 6,000-foot airstrip.

Mr. Chairman, again, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Again, Mr. Chairman, let's not wait again for 40 years or 9 years or 10 years. This has already been done by the study. The impact statement has already been done. The NEPA process has already been done. It has been done recently, and this is not a cheap effort for a small community. So I am suggesting, respectfully, this amendment be adopted so we can build a road.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would penalize the State of Alaska for a Clinton administration decision by making them pay back grant money for the costly and often unreliable emergency hovercraft system.

Residents of King Cove never wanted this system and only agreed to the compromise when it became clear the Clinton administration would oppose any effort to authorize the construction of this lifesaving road.

After years of working in good faith to make the solution work, King Cove had to abandon the system due to exorbitant cost and, frankly, mechanical failures on the craft. It was very expensive to run.

Very frankly, the amendment attempts reparation but it targets the wrong group. The amendment puts a price tag on the safety of King Cove residents who have sought more reliable access to medical care for decades.

Congress does not require Louisiana to pay the Federal Government for the failed levees in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina before building new ones and should not be charging the residents of King Cove for constructing this road.

By the way, furthermore, the amendment seeks repayment from the State of Alaska that did not receive money; however, the grant money is for temporary emergency relief efforts which were largely awarded to the local governments.

Mr. Chairman, again, I think this amendment is a punitive amendment. I urge my colleagues to vote against the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) who is the chairman of the committee.

Mr. Bishop of Utah. Mr. Chairman, as we close on this particular amendment, let me say I would never consider this amendment uppity. I would consider it cute and a gotcha amendment because the reality is, unlike what has been alluded to, the community did not want this hovercraft.

They wanted what was promised them in the bill, which was an 11-mile road to connect to the rest of the road. It was forced upon them by the Clinton administration that said: This is it; take it or leave it.

They tried to make it work. The bottom line is the system didn't work. But the Clinton administration here, 6,000 miles away, forced on to local residents who knew they would have a problem something that did not work, and they quit doing it simply because they could not afford to maintain that hovercraft.

The hovercraft is for sale; but no one needs a hovercraft. That is why this community now is stuck with the decision that we made 6,000 miles away because we know what is right for King Cove, Alaska, instead of allowing them to have some kind of control over their own lives.

What Mr. Young said is accurate. When the levees broke along the Mississippi and the Missouri, we didn't go

to those States to insist on it. When there are wildfires that take place in the West, including the gentleman from Arizona's home State, we don't go back to Arizona and force them to pay for all of it. This is simply an amendment that is cute, and it is a gotcha amendment. But it is also wrong.

It was also pointed out the grants went to the community. The community is not being required under this amendment to pay it back, it is the State, which simply means the amendment is also poorly written if it ever was indeed supposed to be a sincere amendment.

This is one of those things that we don't need to go through. The options are very clear. We have gone through the process. Vote against this particular amendment.

Vote ``yes'' on the bill and ``no'' on the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Today we are being asked to mandate a land exchange that will put a road through a designated wilderness area inside the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. If that sounds familiar, that is because we have been down this road before.

After years of prodding from the Alaska delegation, the Public Land Management Act of 2009 authorized this exchange and the eventual construction of the road. However, that 2009 authorization was contingent upon a determination by the Secretary of the Interior that the road was in the public interest.

The Fish and Wildlife Service then spent nearly 5 years preparing a full environmental impact statement in order to analyze the environmental impacts of the proposed road, and to determine if viable alternatives existed. During the lengthy and public process, the agency held 130 public meetings, reviewed thousands of public comments, 97 percent of which were opposed to the road.

Ultimately, the Interior Department determined that building a road through the one-of-a-kind wilderness area is not justified because it will destroy an irreplaceable ecosystem, and there are other ways to improve transportation in the area.

This is not just a simple trail through the woods. It is a road through a narrow chain of islands and lagoons. Its construction requires the development of bridges, installation of culverts and pipes, and the dredge and fill of nearly 4 acres of wetlands.

The Izembek National Wildlife Refuge supports numerous species of migratory waterfowl that we have international treaty obligations to protect, including nearly the entire global population of the Pacific black brant, and one of the only populations of nonmigratory tundra swans, in addition to providing prime habitat for bears, caribou, and other wildlife.

Now, before the point can be made, let me just say, I want to be clear, I have never been to the refuge. Opposition to this road is not based on personal opinion or spite, or ignorance, or because we love birds more than people.

Opposition to this road is based on extensive public comments and a long, careful, scientific review of its merits conducted by conservation professionals. The table of contents for the environmental review--not the review itself, but just the table of contents--is 28 pages long. The EIS comes with 10 appendices.

The Department of the Interior did its homework. They weighed the costs and the benefits and made an informed decision. Now we are being asked just to ignore that scientific analysis and ram this road right through the refuge, despite knowing the damage it will do.

The consequences of a decision like that are known. They are not unintended. The road through an Alaskan wilderness is not justified. This particular road is not justified, and it is not necessary.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

We have heard the argument, and we will repeatedly hear the argument that the road connecting King Cove to Cold Bay is needed for health and safety purposes. While it is true that the road will be used for medical emergencies, there is a lot of evidence pointing to another objective.

If you look at the decades-long effort to build this road, it becomes clear that there has always been a commercial purpose in mind. King Cove is home to one of the largest fish processing facilities, operated by Peter Pan Seafoods, a subsidiary of a Japanese company that is one of the largest seafood companies in the world.

Fishing is the backbone of the King Cove economy, and it has always been one of the reasons for the road. Let's look at the facts.

In 1994, the city of King Cove passed a resolution to emphasize the positive socioeconomic impacts of a 20-mile road linking King Cove to the Cold Bay Airport. The resolution did not mention any need to use the road for health or safety or for emergency situations of residents.

In 2005, the Aleutians East Borough participated in public scoping meetings and presented their vision for a hub airport for Cold Bay. This plan included cold storage capability for fish from King Cove and other communities awaiting air freight.

In 2010, as part of a Fish and Wildlife EIS for the land exchange we are debating today, an Aleutians East Borough assemblyman stated that Peter Pan Seafoods would use the road to transport fresh product.

And finally, on May 25 of this year, Alaska Governor Bill Walker sent a request to the Trump administration. He asked for: ``Access for isolated King Cove residents to the airport in Cold Bay in all weather conditions, enabling access to health services and the movement of goods and people between King Cove and Cold Bay.''

When you add all this up, the evidence is pretty convincing. Sure, the road will be used for emergency evacuations, but it will also be used to transport fresh product to Cold Bay to be sold throughout Asia and the rest of the world.

Despite language in the bill seeking to prohibit commercial use of the road, once it is built, this prohibition will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to enforce. This is an incredibly remote area, and the Fish and Wildlife Service does not have the resources or staff capacity to police the use of the road.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, we are not saying that the residents of King Cove do not deserve reliable transportation options, and neither did the EIS. The EIS included an analysis of nonroad transportation options that would piggyback off the $37.5 million Congress has already invested in King Cove's infrastructure.

The Interior Department also asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to analyze the nonroad transportation options to connect King Cove with Cold Bay. The Army Corps published a report in 2015 that identified three viable alternatives. These included a new airport that is capable of supporting aircraft that can fly directly to Anchorage, a heliport for emergency evacuations, and an ice-capable marine vessel that is able to make the trip to Cold Bay in weather conditions that the taxpayer-funded hovercraft could not.

Options exist, and that is why I urge a ``no'' vote on this bill.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Deutch).

Other than myself, no.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me deal with one claim.

The claim that people will die if we don't pass H.R. 218 is wrong. The claim is wrong because there is no evidence to back it up, and it is wrong because using this kind of over-the-top rhetoric is irresponsible.

We do not oppose this bill because we think animal life is more value than human life, and throwing accusations like that around on the House floor should be beneath all of us.

We do not have to rely on one Member's claim that the sky is falling. These concerns have been assessed for years through public process, and the conclusion was that there were viable alternatives that will address any legitimate public safety concerns.

People's lives do not hang in the balance. We can protect public health and the refuge if we abandon this bill and work together on a better solution.

This is, indeed, a remote area. That is why many of the residents choose to live there in the first place. They are fully accustomed to the challenges that come with living in the last frontier. To address these challenges, the Federal Government has appropriated tens of millions of dollars to this community for better medical and transportation facilities.

We have remote communities in Arizona, especially Tribal communities, that would surely appreciate $37.5 million to address their health and safety concerns as well.

The local government used some of that money to buy a hovercraft that could make the airport run much faster than this road will ever allow. The local community, not the Federal Government, elected to stop using the hovercraft. Surely, if people's lives were at stake, the local government would not have made that kind of a decision.

We have legitimate policy differences on this bill. The EIS has convinced many on our side that this is not a worthwhile proposal. Let's debate these findings calmly and rationally that would serve the public in this debate and look for a solution that both protects people's health and the refuge.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment. While it was described as a technical amendment to conform the bill to the Senate version, it does much more than make a simple technical correction.

Mr. Young's amendment expands the NEPA waiver in the underlying bill to exempt all permits associated with the construction of the proposed road from environmental review and public input. It is bad enough that the bill waives NEPA for the land exchange, but under this amendment, any and all improvements would be exempt from review. This could include a Clean Water Act permit necessary to move forward with the construction.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment makes the bill worse. I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment made in order under the rule at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, acknowledging that I am running the risk of being uppity on this particular amendment, but thankfully never smug, I rise in support of my amendment to H.R. 218, the King Cove Road Land Exchange Act.

My amendment simply requires the State of Alaska to repay $20 million appropriated in 1999 to support the town of King Cove before the bill can take effect. The American taxpayer has already provided the town of King Cove with a total of $37.5 million to improve transportation access and medical facilities in the area. That included $20 million to build a road, construct a dock, and purchase marine equipment.

Part of this money was used to purchase a $9 million hovercraft. This Federal funding was provided as an alternative to building a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The hovercraft worked as it was designed. It carried up to 49 passengers at a time, an ambulance, and even cargo, making the trip between King Cove and Cold Bay in 20 minutes--a trip that would take 2 hours on the proposed road when it is not shut down by extreme weather conditions.

After operating for 3 years and performing at least 30 medical evacuations, the local government stopped using the hovercraft. The Aleutians East Borough is now trying to sell the hovercraft on the open market for $5 million.

As we speak, House Republicans are seeking massive and dangerous cuts to spending on things like education, assistance to working families, and even Medicaid and Medicare. Before we mandate construction of a road through congressionally designated wilderness, it is only fair that American taxpayers are reimbursed for Federal funding that was intended to avoid the construction required by this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me remind, the point of the amendment is that the money, the $37.5 million, and also the decision by the local residents to purchase the hovercraft, that was not mandated by the Federal Government. It was their decision, again with Federal money, $9 million, and so that was all in lieu of construction of the road.

This legislation mandates a construction of that road, and I think it is only fair to the taxpayers that if the purpose was in lieu of to deal with the medical evacuation situations that we have heard about here again today, then the American taxpayers should be reimbursed for that. This was not an error caused by, as the levees in New Orleans, faulty design and construction that bore responsibility to the Federal Government. These were local decisions made on the use of that money. Now that the use of that money is moot, then the taxpayers deserve to be reimbursed.

Mr. Chairman, I urge support of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My amendment is very straightforward. It restores a bipartisan provision to the bill, one that was actually approved by Congress and signed into law by President Obama.

In 2009, Congress approved the King Cove Land Exchange under the condition that it be found to be in the national interest by the Secretary of the Interior. After a transparent 4-year review that included over 70,000 public comments and 130 public meetings, Secretary Jewell ultimately concluded that it was not in the national interest, and the land exchange was not approved.

Nevertheless, the legislation that was approved and signed into law in 2009 with Democratic and Republican support included language that, should the road be approved, it would have required the State of Alaska, Federal agencies, and local residents to develop a mitigation plan for the road so that impacts to migratory birds, wildlife, and wetlands are minimized.

The land exchange language that was passed by Congress in 2009 is similar to the legislation that we are considering today, with a few notable exceptions, including the removal of the section requiring this environmental mitigation plan.

It is common practice for any new road construction project to include an environmental mitigation plan, especially a road through such a sensitive area.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of my commonsense amendment to reinsert this bipartisan language, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I think it is important to keep in mind that the lands that this road seeks to cross are Federally protected public lands. They are managed and protected on behalf of all Americans to specifically protect wildlife habitat. And, as such, when changes like this are being debated, all Americans have the right to register their opinion.

They are also designated wilderness, the highest level of protection that the American people bestow upon a piece of public land, and we in Congress are stewards of that mandate.

The road proposed by this legislation could do irreparable harm to the fragile environment of this wildlife refuge

if mitigation steps are not taken. As the Department of the Interior stated in 2013, this area is ``a globally significant landscape that supports an abundance and diversity of wildlife unique to the refuge that years of analysis shows us would be irretrievably damaged by construction and operation of the proposed road.''

The Department also found that construction of the road would lead to ``significant degradation of irreparable ecological resources that would not be offset by the protection of other lands to be received under an exchange.''

My amendment simply reinserts bipartisan language that was approved by Congress and signed into law by 2009 that will help mitigate some, but not all, of the negative environmental impacts in the event that the road is constructed.

Mr. Chair, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I have no other speakers, and I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to first remind my distinguished colleague from Alaska, who I know cares very deeply about his constituents, that in 2009, he did vote for the omnibus land package that included the language that I would like to see become part of the legislation before us today.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment is simple. It restores bipartisan language that was passed by Congress and that Congressman Young supported and signed into law on similar legislation authorizing this land exchange back in 2009.

The road through Izembek National Wildlife Refuge is expected to have a significant detrimental impact on lands that are protected for the benefit of all Americans. This amendment will help mitigate some, but not all, of these impacts in the event that the road is constructed.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

Mr. Chairman, we have just heard a very familiar theme from the Democratic side of the aisle. It is a theme they have sounded for the past decade and goes a long way to explain why America's prosperity has been stagnating. It has literally been on hold during these past 8 years.

God forbid there should be more jobs to support struggling families in this little community. God forbid our roads should ever be used to get products to people who desperately need them.

Now, it is hard for me to understand how a one-lane gravel road is going to accommodate all of that commerce. What it is going to accommodate are people who desperately need access to the neighboring city of Cold Bay.

Mr. Chair, I rise in strong support of this bill, Mr. Young's H.R. 218, on behalf of the people of King Cove, Alaska.

I want you to imagine being a resident of that tiny little community. Its only outside access is by a gravel airstrip and a little tiny harbor. It is just 20 miles from the city of Cold Bay. Cold Bay has got a regional airport, they have got medical facilities, but there is no road connecting that little town with the life-sustaining civilization just 20 miles away.

We all know of the exceptionally harsh weather conditions in that area; they routinely prevent air and sea travel out of King Cove. If you are in trouble in that weather, there is help just down the road, but there is no road.

Why is there no road? Well, we have just heard a sampling of why. It is not because of natural barriers. It is not for lack of need or financing. It is because a national wildlife refuge in a section of the Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge is in between these communities and the Federal Government and leftwing environmental activists just won't hear of it.

For over 20 years, the people of King Cove have begged for this lifesaving road for their safety--not a major interstate, not a parkway, just a one-lane road. It requires only 206 acres out of the 59 million acres of designated Federal wilderness in Alaska.

Just in the last 4 years, this has been pointed out, 55 emergency medical evacuations have been made, a number of which required Coast Guard involvement or extended patient waiting times or both.

Mr. Westerman has told us just last year of the King Cove woman in her seventies suffering from heart issues medevaced from King Cove to Cold Bay by Coast Guard vessel after high winds prevented an air ambulance from landing at King Cove. In the end, it took the woman over 7 hours to reach a hospital in Anchorage.

A road between King Cove and Cold Bay would go a long way to preventing similar situations from recurring, and it would provide a potentially lifesaving evacuation route for King Cove citizens in the event of an emergency. And if it helps provide additional jobs for that little community, well, I say so much the better.

Congressman Young has tried for more than a decade to get this done, but it has been stymied by leftwing environmental activists and by ideological zealots in the bureaucracy. During

our hearing on the bill, opposition came not from any of the communities involved, but from environmental activists hundreds of miles away from King Cove, although they seemed to have mouthpieces here in this House.

In exchange for use of the 206 acres of Federal land for this road, the State of Alaska is willing to transfer 40,000 acres of State land to the Federal Government. This bill facilitates that transfer and, after two decades, finally gives permission for this little road to be built. It is long overdue.

I salute Congressman Young for his persistent pursuit of justice for the long-suffering people of King Cove.

Mr. Chair, I ask for speedy adoption of this bill by this House.