Alan Simpson: “One last comment, Madam Speaker. The argument I found so strange by the Sierra Club is that they say that this does not…”

“One last comment, Madam Speaker. The argument I found so strange by the Sierra Club is that they say that this does not have Federal water right protection in it. And you are right. It does not have Federal water right protection in it. It does not need Federal water right protection in it because the wilderness area is all headwaters. Whatever falls on the ground from the sky, whatever comes out of the springs there, are protected by the wilderness designation. It does not need Federal water right designation because there is no water right to protect. So I have never understood their argument. But the reality is that we protect water in this bill better than any wilderness bill that has ever passed because the Wilderness Act itself allows for the President on his declaration to go into a wilderness area and build a dam or other things for irrigation purposes if he declares that that is necessary. That is one of the actual compromises that were made when the Wilderness Act was enacted. We take away the President's right to do that. He could not go in and designate certain areas to be used for irrigation and build dams and take water or anything else. The water that falls on the land will be preserved for the Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness.…”