Larry LaRocco
Interviewee: Larry LaRocco
Interviewer: Garry Wenske
Description: Larry LaRocco recalled his time with Senator Frank Church and the battle to establish the wilderness at the core of Idaho. Larry LaRocco was elected to two terms as U.S. Representative from Idaho’s First District, where he served on the House Banking and Interior Committees. While in Congress LaRocco passed legislation into law creating the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area. Previously he was North Idaho Field Director for Senator Church. Subsequent to Congress, he was a managing director of the American Bankers Association and established a public affairs and government relations firm, LaRocco and Associates. He is past president and board member of the US Association of Former Members of Congress. He is a graduate of the University of Portland and Boston University and studied at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. LaRocco served in the US Army from 1969 -72 in Military Intelligence attaining the rank of captain. He and his wife, Chris, live in Boise.
Date: 2020-06-12
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Garry Wenske: Congressman Larry Larocco represented Idaho's first district for two terms, from 1990 to 1994. I had the privilege of being his chief of staff. Larry and I, way back perhaps almost 50 years, when I think about it. As friends and colleagues. So I work for Senator Frank Church. I was in Washington, D.C., and Larry, represented North Idaho, based in Moscow.
So it was territory was everything north of the Salmon River. So he was, deeply involved with, the passage of the Idaho Central Wilderness Act, which became known as the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness. That legislation passed in 1980. It was, following the organic wilderness legislation that Frank Church also was the principal sponsor and manager of in the Senate.
His other, conservation measures are are extensive, including the organic, Wild and Scenic Rivers Act for the entire country and then placing a number of Idaho rivers, including, parts of the salmon and other, rivers. And listing them as, Wild and Scenic Rivers under that act. He also enacted, legislation such as the Sawtooth National Recreation Area to protect the Stanley Basin from development.
The Hells Canyon Recreation Area on and on. And I won't, list them all here. Just as a matter of, interest. Frank Church was, dying of cancer in 1984 when the Senate, in tribute to him, voted to rename the Wilderness Act for him. And, of course, now it's perhaps his, best, legacy is the Frank.
Even though many people don't realize it's named for him or that he was essentially a key person to to establish the Frank Wilderness. I remember, Senator Howard Baker, who was the, then Republican majority leader in the Senate, sitting on the, floor of the Senate. How what a sad day it was that they were voting on this.
Piece of legislation to rename the wilderness for the Frank, especially it's unfortunate name as the River of No Return. So that was a little gallows humor there that you mentioned on the Senate floor. But with that, let me just turn to Larry to give you, a brief history of all this. And, please do ask any questions, and then we'll turn to Scott, for.
Larry LaRocco: First of all, that, Idaho Humanities Council, this, assisted us in our, efforts to, preserve the, the history of this, act, and, through, thank you for the grant that you've given to the Frank Church Institute to do the oral histories with, people who were integral to, the passage of the River of No Return wilderness.
Some have died, but, we have a good written history of the, of the wilderness. But we don't have the oral history. So, you're helping with that. And thank you very much. I, was deeply honored to serve on the staff of Senator Frank Church and so many years ago. But now I sort of pinch myself that, I was able to, spent six years on on his staff with such a, a great leader, a man of high integrity and, great moral bearing, and, it was just, you know, the high point of my, my life except for getting elected to Congress, was
to have a political mentor like Frank Church. As Gary mentioned, I served in, the field for, Senator Church. I was his north Idaho field representative. And, essentially, I was the eyes and ears for Frank Church and ten northern counties, and, we just tried to, cover the territory and, see what people are thinking and help them with their problems.
Gary didn't mention that, in 79, the chamber of Commerce in Greenville, Idaho, he approached Senator Church and asked him to mediate the Gospel-Hump Wilderness controversy. The Sierra Club wanted to, create a wilderness in the Gospel-Hump area, Idaho County and, the Chamber of Commerce. The logging industry was not too happy about that.
And so, at a meeting, they approached Senator Church. It was Louise Shattuck who used to be the chief of staff for, Orval Hansen. And she was running the, North Idaho Timber Association. And she said to Church, why don't you, get in the middle of this? And, he said at the moment I will.
And then on the way, to the airport, he said, Larry, that's your job. To do that, I need you on the ground to do that. So. So I cut my teeth on wilderness legislation with the Gospel Hump wilderness. It was very contentious, but it's a wonderful piece of landscape. And I just want to mention that that, this is the type of work that Senator Church did.
He was a mediator. He was the, he understood compromise. And, he passed things in a bipartisan way. The thing that's really interesting to me with this 40th anniversary, I mean, obviously, if you start doing the math with a guy like me and a guy like Gary, you know, I'm not going to tell you how old I am.
But I was born in 1946, so, you know, we've been around a long time, and so is the Frank Church of No Return wilderness, and it's now known as the Frank. And there are people that used to Frank, revered the Frank are happy that the Frank is there, but they don't even know how it was created or who it was named after.
So it behooves all of us to really look back on the history of it and and see how these things happen. The reason I think this is so important is because these are acts of Congress that happen. I think we're all familiar with the Antiquities Act. And, thank you, Teddy Roosevelt, for establishing that. And many wonderful, pristine places in the United States have been protected by the Antiquities Act.
And, presidents use this as an executive order type of, process. But creating a wilderness takes, really hard work in the legislative process. There have been many attempts to establish wildernesses, around the country, and not all of them have been successful. But we have, you know, we're so lucky. In Idaho, 63% of the state is owned by the federal government.
I think you know that statistic. And I was lucky in my congressional district, I had five National forests. And, I mean, we're just a public land state. We're used to recreating and, and deriving economic benefit from those public lands. So right in the heart of Idaho, in the central Idaho area, where the Salmon River breaks area and the Idaho central, area and, the Salmon River breaks, as I mentioned.
And, the conservationists had been eyeing this area for many, many years, and there were, conservationists in Idaho that had walked all over the area and studied it from a, a landscape standpoint and a water quality standpoint. And, they started drawing maps and staying in touch with Frank Church. And this was, in the 70s, people like Ted Trueblood, Ernie Day and Mort Brigham. Giants in the area of conservation in, in the state of Idaho.
So they approached Church and asked him if he would work on that, and he, he said that he would and, the what I want to say about this is that, Frank Church took this job on, at the end of his fourth term and in the United States Senate. What impresses me about what he did at this time is that some, some politicians might say, you know, I'm up for reelection in 1980, and this is a pretty controversial thing.
I'll just wait until I get reelected in 1980. And then what? Then we'll take this up in 1981. But he didn't do that. He didn't do that. He forged ahead, held the hearings, and, met with all of the stakeholders of this magnificent area. And let's just review that. I mean, it's 2.3 million acres of the finest, wilderness in the lower 48 states.
It's the largest area in the lower 48 states. Alaska scenario, larger than the central Idaho wilderness. The Frank. But it's the largest in the lower 48 states. And, whereas he looked at compromise where he could the boundaries are very, very important because of the hydrologic, concerns about protecting the main salmon, and the tributaries of the salmon, and particularly the Middle Fork of the salmon.
Here's this just us justice statistic for you is that in the Frank Church, River of No Return are the highest elevation spawning grounds for steelhead in salmon in the world, in the world. And we have those spawning grounds right here in Idaho. And, you know, we can all I get pretty teary eyed about the, the, journey of the steelhead in the salmon back to the Frank, to spawn and, the need to keep those rivers pristine and the water quality high.
So that's just one attribute. The fact that people have not been in that area doesn't really bother me. I it's not a national park. It's an area, of course, under the Wilderness Act where, you can't take ATV and, you can't take, chainsaws and so forth. You got to hike it. But there are areas that have access and Church protected, these areas, where they had, landing strips.
So a lot of people fly into the backcountry of, of Frank. And they also, use, the Salmon River, with, jet boats to, to go up and, down the river and then access to, the Frank that way. So this area is a huge laboratory for science, for climate change, for habitat, for, you know, animals and fish, there over 100 different species of, of, animals in the, in the Frank.
I think there are people you're going to hear about the Taylor Ranch and other areas in time. The Chamberlain Basin and so forth that are used for, scientific research and so forth, an area that's untouched and, and, and this area is going to be really critical, I think, on climate change. So Frank Church took this on.
He didn't blink. And he he held hearings in in this state, in three different areas. There's a great, anecdote about being in salmon, Idaho and, one, person who wasn't so, enamored with the creation of any wilderness in his backyard rode into this courthouse on a on a horse. And, of course, he was carrying and, armed and, he wrote in to sort of disrupt the hearings.
And a reporter went up to the Church afterwards and said, so, what'd you think of all that? And... Riley just looked at him and said, that was really a nice horse, you know? And so, she was there every step of the way, helping Frank Church. Great. This this magnificent area. I had the privilege of being on the Senate floor with Senator Church.
The day it passed the Senate. The senator graciously, asked me to go back to Washington, DC and be with him for that memorial. Memorable day. And, it was really an a high point of my political career to be there while, that was happening. The debate, was very interesting. Senator McClure was not a big fan of wilderness.
He had strong ties to the mining industry. And, he thought that, Church had maybe made too sweetheart of a deal with the timber industry, but nevertheless, the bill passed on a strong bipartisan basis. There's something very important to think about, with legislation like this, particularly in natural resources, areas. And that is that sometimes the, the planets have to align for these things to pass.
And I think the Church had the sense that the planets were aligned for, for the creation of this and that, that his hard work could actually be fruitful and signed into law. So what I mean by the planet alignment is that the Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate, in 1980, and Jimmy Carter was president.
Jimmy Carter was on his way out. So was Frank Church. As it turned out. And, so the the senator passed it the House under, chairman ..., who was a strong conservationist. Got the bills through the house. They worked it out, a few things. And, and then it was on its way to, the president's desk, and and Jimmy Carter, signed the bill.
The reason, I mean, I, I need to explain why I think this is important. It's because Steve Sims, who defeated Frank Church in 1980, did not believe in the concept of wilderness. If he had his way, he would roll back wilderness because he thought it was, an overreach by the federal government that it was too constraining on the timber and mining industry.
And, he, he just simply did not believe in the wilderness Act. And, I have a good friend that I served with in Congress, Pat Williams, who passed, a few wilderness bills subsequent to 1980. He got them to the house, he got them to the Senate. And, there were compromises made along the way. And Ronald Reagan vetoed those bills.
And I've never seen the light of day since. So the planet alignment, for this to pass was remarkably intact. In 1980. But without the courage of Senator Church doing this, at that time, we would not have this magnificent wilderness that we celebrate. This year. Keep in mind that, he lost by 3000 votes and we can all sit around as historians or, concerned individual people who are well informed.
And so, was it the wilderness? Was it his position on the Panama Canal treaties? Was it the fact that he was in there too long? Was it a wave election? But I would offer to you that, by stepping up and creating this, wilderness, it it it it contributed in some way to his defeat.
But he, he marched on anyway to do this and a great act of political courage. He used the boundaries that the conservationist, believed in, the compromises that he made, for the, for the, aircraft and, the private, planes landing on the, airstrips, which were already, you know, in the middle of the wilderness and, and the jet boats, did not impact necessarily on the integrity of the watershed, which is most important here when you're talking about the salmon and steelhead and, and, the water quality and, the Frank as a fish factory, and that's what it is if you just sort of think of it that
way. So he he saw that vision, he saw the science, and he went with it. And then, he he got the job done by by being tenacious. We've seen other wilderness, efforts in the state of Idaho, for example, the, the why he canyon lands. That was more of a bottom up kind of a, process where every body at the local level just decided to get together and hammer out an agreement.
Senator Crapo, told to stakeholders on the local level that if they came up with a proposal, he would end introduce it into the, legislative process in the Senate. It was a different process. It doesn't mean that, it was less courageous, but, we saw over the years that, there have been different ways to, approach, wilderness legislation.
It was much the same way, with the boulder white clouds that, Congressman Simpson championed and, he worked with people at the local level. It took many years to hammer that out. And, and finally they got a deal, and, did it in a bipartisan way at the Frank Church Institute. Our theme for the next five years is how democracies survive and thrive.
And, in the 21st century, the way I like to talk about, this legislation is that it was the epitome of the democratic process. It was conceived by a member of Congress who championed it, who worked hard and, rolled up his sleeves and, dealt with the stakeholders, held hearings and got it through.
And, that's the essence of democracy. And, I think it's a good lesson for us in these times when some of the safeguards and the guardrails and the norms of democracy are being, eroded and attacked in various ways, is that we should remember that that's the way it was done. I think that, Senator McClure was, extremely, magnanimous by, naming, pushing the legislation to name it after Senator Church.
Just as a personal aside, I think Gary will back me up on this. Is that, I don't think Frank Church wanted a post office named after, I think, the greatest tribute to Senator Church on this was to name, this magnificent wilderness after him. So I am impressed. You know, we we sort of march on in time, and people have short memories about how things are done.
So the reason that we chose to celebrate, the Frank and the 40th year is that we really wanted to talk to people about how the legislative process works and, how these things don't happen without a champion and without somebody rolling up their sleeves and working hard at it. I think it's it's important for Idahoans and, American citizens to realize how these things come about.
All right, I was honored to have the, Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area be, celebrated for its 25th anniversary. And and, that was my legislation that I passed. And, I think the reason I worked so hard on that is because, my mentor, Frank Church, showed me the way and, until, the canyon lands and until, the, the boulder white clouds, that legislation passed in 1993 was the only piece of public lands legislation that that we've had in Idaho.
So the boundaries are important. If you look at the legislation, you will see, you know, and read it, you'll see, many things that are recognized in terms of, timber and the way it's going to be managed. But basically a wilderness bill is, has an accompanying, set of maps, and, those are submitted to the Forest Service and, they're, they're part of the legislative history.
And, it's a map with, a Sharpie pen, sort of identifying where those boundaries are. And, when you look at, the Middle Fork being protected, and, and the Salmon River and all of its tributaries, that is, really a crown jewel for us. And, and, in Idaho, so the courage of Frank Church, I think, is part of our message with the celebration of this, the history of how wilderness is created.
Gary mentioned that Frank Church was, instrumental in the passage of the organic act of the Wilderness Act. And, with that came an instant wilderness, which was the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness. And, what had not been done is to, include, the River of No Return wilderness, which is very close except for a very narrow corridor.
The two are almost linked up. But it still stands as the largest wilderness in the lower 48 states.
Unknown Speaker: Let me ask Trent if this all sounds familiar to you. As someone who is very familiar with legislation. Well, yes, it does. And, of course I was not, working as a staffer at the time of passage of the Central Idaho wilderness, but, the, everything that Congressman Larocco, just detailed, is, is accurate to my knowledge.
I did have one question, though, for the congressman, and that is I'm familiar with that. And by the way, you describe describe Steve Pence's attitude about the Wilderness Act in 1964. Exactly right. The other person representing Idaho at the time was, George Hanson. And I don't remember, his rhetoric, but but my guess would be he wasn't a fan of of the central Idaho wilderness bill, either.
So. So who carried the bill in the house? Was it Congressman fiber link or or who did it in the House?
Larry LaRocco: Actually, Sims was, in the House of Representatives at the time. Trent. And, so that was 1980, so it was George. Yeah. George Hanson was in the house then. And, quite frankly, the power of the chairman of the House Committee just sort of took the bill and said, there's an Idaho man who is, championing this and, we're going to roll with it.
And, in a sense, Sims got rolled on it because, at that point, he had been in the house for he was in his fifth term, because he was. No, he wasn't it wasn't his fifth term. He was elected in 74, I think. So his third or fourth term. And, he was just sort of a pain to, you know, the, the Natural Resources Committee and on anything that had to do with, preservation, conservation or protection.
And so ... just sort of ran over, and took the bill and ran it through. And, so in the same was true with George Hanson. But Sims, a position was virulently opposed to it. As a matter of fact, during the gospel hunt wilderness, there was a huge meeting at the Elks, Hall and Grange Hill about the compromise that was developed by Church and, the Sierra Club and the chamber and the the wrecking crew that came in to disturb the whole meeting was, Simpson's aide, Bob Smith, who ended up running, who had run against Church in 74.
And, so they were very disruptive about it. And, you know, it's we're we live in a world today. This is pre-social social media, but we live in a world of conspiracy theories and sort of exaggerated claims and so forth, and, and, so, the, the opposition, namely Sims and others were revving up, folks in the timber dependent communities that their jobs were at stake.
If this wilderness passed and, that didn't come to fruition and, sure, there's a lot of timber there, but it's inaccessible timber as well. Keep in mind that this was a roadless area, and, the beauty of what we had in Idaho was, that we have so many areas that were unloaded and were essentially defacto wilderness.
So, as we know, with, with logging, is that, unless you're doing some selective helicopter logging and so forth that you're building roads, which is, the Idaho basalt soils is very, damaging to, to fish and aquatic life and water quality. So, they were not fans at all. And, the mining industry was really opposed to this Church did do a compromise on a cobalt, mine, up near, salmon.
They set up a special use, for mining cobalt up there. And, Jim McClure made a big deal out of cobalt in a strategic, value to the United States. For defense purposes. It was a major part of the debate, actually, it was cobalt. And, and, interestingly, the mine has never been an economic, success.
And but but Church did agree to that. The environmentalists weren't too happy about it, actually. But, the rest of the bill was, was pretty much, intact in terms of the Protection of the watershed.
Speaker 3: I just have a quick question. Can our current president remove the designation?
Larry LaRocco: No, it is not an executive order. It's the only way that it can be removed is if, or the the current president, he could sign a bill that would be, introduced in, in the Congress passed the Congress, make it to his desk. There was an incident where, Steve Sims, when he was in the Senate, tried to roll back part of the Hills Canyon, wilderness area, tried to make a boundary change with one of those maps that I talked about.
So he made a run at it, but it was not successful. But it would have to be done, by an act of Congress. An act of Congress created it, and, an amendment to, to that act, based on, you know, maps and other things, there would have to be hearings, and so forth.
But but, we say that these areas are protected in perpetuity in a sense. But you raise a good point because, with the wrong planet alignment, things can be reversed. But, I think you're taking two of the antiquities out, set aside. So Obama did, add that, the Utah, congressional delegation, insisted that Trump, roll back and, but those were not protected by legislation.
It was, under executive order, under the Antiquities. Thank you. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker: Any other questions for Larry? Oh, yes. I see Rocky waving his hand.
Larry LaRocco: Congressman LaRocca, thank you for joining us today. I was just, curious. Do you have any, additional insights into how the boundaries were drawn? You talked about the Forest Service, having a Sharpie marker and literally kind of drawing on a map. And in.
Unknown Speaker: Those concessions.
Larry LaRocco: Did it become smaller or bigger than you originally anticipated from the outset? And then the conservationists, have given, Church an eight plus gold, five gold stars and as many accolades as you can imagine. And the way that, the boundaries were drawn that he did not, shirk away from, trying to make it smaller.
I, I must say that, he actually enlarged it, which, by taking in certain areas that were close to the Magruder corridor, in the end, that actually pushed it over 2 million acres. You can imagine sort of the machinations of politicians go through. And they say if it's under 2 million acres, people won't think it's very big.
You know, if we've over 2 million acres, it sounds like it's a, it's a it's a land grab by the federal--by the feds, you know, that kind of thing. But Frank Church did not shirk away from that. And the boundaries were drawn very scientifically and, very precisely to protect the watershed. There was no marginalization or any, attempt to, cut back or to, save, a particular, area.
You know, from logging or anything. There was a, there was an area, in Idaho County, and the Nez Perce National Forest called Meadow Creek. It became very, very controversial because the people in Elk City thought that, the, timber in Meadow Creek was critical to their livelihoods there. And a timber dependent community and, Church, did not include that in the wilderness, which did not have any effect on the overall integrity of the, of the water.
But, the conservationists coveted that area. And, there was what, what we call a release language. In, in the bill. That that released certain areas to, to go to be studied by the Forest Service for possible timber management, let's say. And, Metacritic was one of them. And it's, it's a magnificent area.
It's ever been logged up to this point 40 years later. And I actually included that area and a wilderness proposal I had, which, angered a lot of people in that region.