Maurice Hinchey: “I can say that we were very good friends, even though our tenure here in the House of Representatives did not coincide.…”

“I can say that we were very good friends, even though our tenure here in the House of Representatives did not coincide. He was leaving for the second time, actually, as I was coming in in 1993; but we were associated by virtue of the fact that we were interested in similar issues. Two of those issues most principally were the protection and preservation of open space in the State of Utah and peace in the Middle East. It was because of the initiative of Wayne Owens that I became the sponsor of a very significant piece of legislation here in the House of Representatives which would set aside a vast amount of publicly owned land in the State of Utah to be incorporated within that property owned by the Federal Government which is declared wilderness; in other words, affording it the highest level of protection for today and for future generations. Future generations is what Wayne Owens often had in mind, whether he was working on environmental issues or working with young people in his own State of Utah or elsewhere. He was also, as we all know, dedicated to the idea of bringing about peace in the Middle East between Israelis and Palestinians and others in that part of the world.”