Don Young: “I come from a State which has more of its land locked up in wilderness than any other State, 58 million acres. This is…”

“I come from a State which has more of its land locked up in wilderness than any other State, 58 million acres. This is larger than the entire State of New York and accounts for 56 percent of all the wilderness in the United States, so I think I know wilderness. I know that a lot of wilderness in Alaska is designated for reasons that have little to do with the stated goals of the Wilderness Act. The designations have blocked vital uses of these lands and blocked access to State and private resources that we Alaskans were promised when we entered statehood. There have been and still are major consequences for what Congress did in 1980. In the East, where most of you come from, that is not always the case. All I can say is that if this is what Mr. Boucher and his constituents want in Virginia, then good luck. I can guess that one day, I think that one day they will regret this action. Given Virginia's population growth, the severe risk of forest fires, such as they are in California today, caused by sustained drought, I believe all but two counties have been declared disaster areas by the Governor last week, problems with gypsy moths and other agricultural threats to this area and the dampening effect that wilderness restrictions can have on the development of adjacent areas, you may wonder why you have brought this upon yourself.”