Congresswoman McCollum on Preserving America's Wilderness

Preserving and enhancing America's wilderness areas and the National Park System are priorities for me in Congress. As a member of the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, I have a responsibility to be a thoughtful and diligent steward of these irreplaceable treasures so we can pass them to future generations intact. Both Voyageurs National Park and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness are within the boundaries of Minnesota. Today, these protected areas are treasured by the people of my state and visitors from across the United States. They help define our state's character and identity.

However, the creation, expansion, and preservation of these federal conservation areas were not uniformly or immediately popular. Years of heated debate, passionate activism, and ultimately principled compromise established these federally protected areas. For example, Voyageurs National Park was formally established in 1975 after a legislative and administrative battle that lasted 13 years. Committed public servants, like my predecessor Bruce Vento, achieved this success by balancing the many and sometimes competing interests in Northern Minnesota, including summer cabin owners, a thriving tourism industry, major mining operations, and recreational hunters, fishers, and boaters.

Decades after Voyageurs was established, I served on the park's advisory board as a member of the Minnesota State Legislature. Controversies over management and tensions among stakeholders continued for many years after Voyageurs opened. Each of the users connected to Voyageurs represented an important voice in Minnesota's society and economy. Through this experience, I recognized that the only way to secure wilderness for future generations was by crafting balanced public policy through an inclusive process of consultation and consensus.

These lessons of the past are proving useful in the current public debate over replacing an old bridge over the St. Croix River that separates Minnesota and Wisconsin—one of the nation's first rivers to receive protection under the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The challenge is how to balance the competing interests of cost, efficient transportation, and environmental stewardship. The National Park Service already rejected a proposal for a $700-million oversized bridge because of its negative impact on that stretch of the St. Croix. The Park Service has my support. I'm working towards a collaborative process that gets a bridge built and has a reduced impact on the river corridor and the Stillwater community. Compromise is necessary to replace an aging Stillwater bridge and meet the transportation needs of Wisconsin.

In Washington, there are some who believe that compromise is a sign of weakness rather than strength. But in Minnesota and every other state across America, compromise is—and has always been—the only path to progress. When it comes to solving public problems, leaders should be more focused on being effective than appearing strong. None of the rivers or wilderness areas in Minnesota that enjoy federal protection today would have achieved such designation without collaboration from all sides. It took decisionmakers to engage in genuine dialogue with key stakeholders to achieve balance that would allow progress versus a stalemate. As a member of Congress, I work to bring a balanced and collaborative approach to everything I do.

Congresswoman Betty McCollum represents Minnesota's Fourth Congressional District. She serves on the House Appropriations and Budget Committees.