Udall, Morris King (1922–98)

Born in st. johns, arizona, on June 15, 1922, Morris K. Udall would go on to be one of the foremost political leaders in environmental protection over a long and illustrious career. At an early age, he showed great leadership potential; he was not only the student body president of his high school, but also the school's valedictorian and basketball team co-captain. Udall graduated high school in 1940 and attended the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, where he studied law. He left college two years later to serve in World War II from 1942 to 1945 in the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he was honorably discharged as a captain. After graduating college in 1949, he played professional basketball for the Denver Nuggets and also achieved the highest score on the state bar exam. He practiced private law with his brother Stewart and eventually worked as the county attorney in Pima County, Arizona, from 1953 to 1954.

Udall was elected as a Democrat to the 87th Congress and was subsequently reelected to the 15 succeeding Congresses until he retired in 1991. In 1976 he vied for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, only to lose to Jimmy Carter. From 1977 to 1991, he served as the Chairman of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs (95th through 102nd Congresses), where he worked on many issues related to the environment and public land policy. The Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs is now referred to as the Committee on Resources, and works on a diversity of environmental issues that include but are not limited to energy, forests, public lands, fish and wildlife, Native Americans, and water and power. Significant legislation passed with the help of Morris Udall includes:

The Strip Mining Reclamation Act: requires coal companies to reclaim their strip-mined land;

Archaeological Research Protection Act: secures protection of archeological resources on public lands;

Southern Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act: outlines Indian water rights claims; Arizona Wilderness Act of 1984: designates 1.5 million acres of wilderness lands in Arizona;

Arizona Desert Wilderness Act of 1990: designates 2.4 million acres of wilderness land in Arizona;

Tongass Timber Reform Act: revokes the artificially high timber targets and protects over one million acres of watersheds.

Both Morris and Stewart Udall had a great appreciation for the natural environment that shone through in their political careers. Morris Udall, John Seiberling (D-Ohio), and 75 cosponsors successfully introduced the Alaska Lands Act of 1980 into Congress. The bill was heavily fought by mining, timber, and oil interests as it ultimately designated 55 million acres of new protected wilderness, expanded the national park system in Alaska by about 43 million acres (22.3 million hectares), creating 10 new national parks, and greatly expanded and created National Wildlife Refuge lands, Wild and Scenic River designations, and National Forest System lands.

Morris Udall spent much of his career promoting the environmentally detrimental $4.4 billion Central Arizona Project (CAP), the most expensive water project in U.S. history. Originally supporting the damming of two areas of the Colorado River for the project, Udall eventually sided with environmentalists after a massive public outcry; the dams were not built.

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