Congress Bypasses
Will of Vermont

I am amazed and disenchanted by the actions of our Congressional delegation against the will of the Vermont legislature.

We are talking about the National Forest Act passed by the 1925 legislature. This allowed the federal government through their Department of Agriculture to purchase land within a certain boundary and abide by the laws governing landowners in this state, with a section dealing with special property taxes, etc.

People are confusing the National Forest System administered by the US Department of Agriculture with the National Park System administered by the Department of the Interior. The National Parks are wholly controlled by the feds and the state has given up all legal rights to that property.

With National Forest property, the feds are a landowner, under the laws of Vermont. Certain rights to usage of the land and any changes are worked out through negotiation. That is why hearings are scheduled regarding usage and appear as other legal notices in newspapers. The original purchasing acts of the legislature would imply that major changes should be the result of legislature action.

The federal government was never granted land in the east because it didn’t exist prior to the Revolution. Most of these lands were granted to individuals, or groups of individuals that settled there by rulers of other countries that claimed the lands. The lands west of the Mississippi bartered for or won in battle were regarded as federal lands and so called claims were/are purchased or granted to individuals by the fed (including groups).

Prior to 1969 the governor of Vermont was legally able to allow the federal government to take lands without the consent of the legislature. The actions by the administration regarding the Gaysville Dam resulted in my election to the legislature for the purpose of "getting a law passed" to correct that type of sole action of a governor. I was successful and offered an amendment to the "Powers of the Governor" by adding the words "with the consent of the Legislature." This means that a bill must be introduced to allow such actions.

The legislature acted on the wilderness proposal, and the governor must execute that law. For the Vermont Congressional Delegation to flaunt a law that is the will of the elected officials of the people of the State of Vermont is a disgrace. I can excuse Sen. Jim Jeffords for health reasons beyond his control. I worked closely with Jim while we passed his bills on pollution and consulting with him, Sen. George Aiken, and Sen. Bob Stafford regarding Gaysville dam and other issues. He was a great congressman for Vermont.

Senator Pat Leahy was probably one of the better state’s attorneys of Vermont and a great statesman in the U.S. Senate until recently, as it appears by his actions he has contracted what Sen. Aiken called "Potomac Fever." Pat knows what I am alluding to.

Bernie is known in legislative circles as a "rabble rouser" whose words fall on deaf ears as he condemns Congress for everything in his newsletters. Bernie, why don’t you become a statesman and consensus-builder like our great line of past Congressmen to help Vermont instead of a perpetual fault-finder?

All past presidents looked to Vermont for help at some point. Probably the greatest in modern time was the appointment by Democratic President Harry Truman of Republican Sen. Warren R. Austin as our first ambassador to the United Nations; Harry knew how to work both sides of the aisle. Amen.

Joe Steventon

Rochester

Vt. State Rep., 1969-1981

Although the Vermont House of Representatives last year passed a resolution against adding more wilderness, the Senate did not, so the Vermont legislature did not in fact "act" on the wilderness issue. —Ed.

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