Rivers of Deceit

The American Heritage Rivers Initiative (AHRI), it kind of rolls off your tongue and conjures up images of the American Flag, motherhood and apple pie. The Clinton administration promises that this program will revitalize American river towns by channeling federal dollars, federal expertise, and the might of the federal government to launch a "renaissance" for these communities. The visions are fantastic…the reality is frightening. All of the promised sweetness and light comes with strings attached. Indeed, local officials who have examined the program closely have stated the strings are more like chains. Implementation of the initiative requires that a river "community" (which seems to include everyone you can imagine except the landowners) devise and be prepared to deliver a land use plan to govern all activity that may affect the river both today and in the future. This "plan" will be administered and enforced by a yet unnamed unelected commission and headed by a federal employee, known as the "river navigator." Add to this mix the local presence and activity of 13 federal agencies (including the Department of Defense) and you have all of the ingredients for disaster. Considering that ten rivers would be abducted into this program each year, and that the Mississippi River Watershed alone encompasses over 30% of the land mass of the lower 48 states, defacto Federal Land Use Planning by watershed will have been achieved.

Katie McGinty, Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), concerned about growing opposition, accepted an invitation to discuss the program at the Western States Coalition meeting on July 12, 1997, hoping to sell the program and allay any fears that county government might have. The Administration answered early questions and reticence about the scheme by stating that no new regulations were being created and no new federal money would be appropriated. The response to that statement was "then why even have it?" Local officials also vigorously questioned the notion that the program was entirely voluntary. In response, hoping to disarm opposition, McGinty stated:

"If a community, if a state, if an area of the country does not want to be part of this program that is completely and fully their perogative. There will be nobody knocking on anyone’s door and saying ‘here, sign up for this program.’ It must come from the community, from the state, from the locality to us, and again if a place is participating in the program but decides this is a raw deal one way or another and they don’t like it, there is no obligation to remain a part of the program."Realizing that this initiative was removing the power over land and water use decisions from local elected officials and turning that authority over to an unelected board of "stakeholders," hundreds of counties nationwide passed resolutions opting out of the program.

Congress realized that AHRI was not the innocous program that CEQ insisted it was and rightfully questioned why the program had not been introduced through the legislative process. Con-gressman Helen Chenoweth moved, through her in-troduction of H.R. 1842, to deny any funds for the implementation of the program. Subsequent House Resource Committee hearings compelled Ms. McGinty to testify and defend her AHRI program.

Caught completely offguard by the volume of opposition to the program, and fearful that this control initiative might be derailed, CEQ raised another hurdle to opting out. Answering Congressional concerns about the opt-out procedure McGinty raised the bar by requiring a letter of opposition from a Congressman before a river could be excluded, completely negating local government resolutions and authority. The federal government had now decided that local input and control over local affairs was to be a thing of the past.

Perhaps confident that the latest obstacle would be hard, if not impossible to meet, CEQ set a deadline for Congressional opt out letters. As the deadline came and went the debate escalated. Scores of Congressmen wrote to opt out their districts, one of the first was Henry Bonilla (R- 23 District TX) of the Rio Grande region. Mr Bonilla received confirmation that his request was logged and accepted via a letter from Ms. McGinty on 30 March 1998. The Congressman assumed that he had served his district well and went on to other business. CEQ’s attempt to impose a cutoff date was largely unsuccessful, the letters kept pouring in. Because of widespread opposition to the program in Texas, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison approached CEQ requesting that ALL of Texas be removed from consideration. Ms. McGinty’s return letter to the Senator indicated the depths to which the administration would go to salvage the program. McGinty’s response thanked the Senator for her concern and then went on to notify her that Henry Bonilla had written to CEQ announcing his support of the Rio Grande nomination!

In that same letter to Sen. Hutchison, McGinty indicated that in the next day’s Federal Register (May 8) CEQ would further outline and expand the opt-out process. This new improved process now included and required action from one or both of a district’s U.S. Senators should a "conflict" occur with the nomination. The following excerpt of the letter gives a brief explanation:

"The Administration has agreed that, under the circumstances, the nomination of certain rivers or stretches of river would be excluded from consideration for designation under this initiative, at the request of Members of Congress. However, where the view of a single Senator who opposes a nomination conflicts with the position of the other Senator from that state or a Member of Congress (for that part of a river which he or she represents) because one or the other supports the nomination, then the views of all members of the Congressional delegation will be presented to the advisory committee. The advisory committee will, in evaluating the merits of the nomination, weigh the degree to which the criteria of strength and diversity of support have been satisfied by the application."

Throughout this AHRI process it has been interesting, if not distressing, that ANYONE can nominate a river to be an American Heritage River. Getting out of the designation, notwithstanding Katie McGinty’s assertions that the program is "one hundred percent locally-driven," now requires an act of Congress -- a Congress which was excluded by our imperial Executive Branch from participating in it’s creation as is demanded by our Constitution.

It is clear that the Clinton White House has discarded any illusion of the Constitutional safeguards created by our founding fathers as they pertain to the American Heritage Rivers Initiative. It has never been more important for citizens all over this country to call your Congressman and Senators to present your opinions on this issue. AHRI is not about the beautification and rebirth of river towns, it is about inserting crushing federal control over local resources, the complete neutering of local elected control, and in the end, imposition of Federal Land Use Control by non-elected and uncontrollable federal bureaucrats.