Public Lands Package

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. I have spent many hours reviewing it. This is a bill that came out of the committee on which I serve. I have been trying for many weeks, through the chairman of that committee and her staff, to get language or to at least get an outline of this. We were not able to get that until today at 10 a.m. Even after we got that, we asked for at least an outline of this bill or for a summary of the bill text from the committee staff, from the chairman's staff. They didn't respond to us. They wouldn't give it to us, just as they haven't for weeks. We got this--the closest thing to a summary--from a lobbyist. We had to wait to get it from a lobbyist.

This is of great impact to my State. This bill creates 1.3 million acres of wilderness, about half of which is in my State. This bill permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is an entity that has been used to acquire more Federal land. Now, in coming from a State where two-thirds of the land is owned by the Federal Government--where we can't do anything without leave from the Federal Government--this hurts. In coming from a State where we have had about 2 million acres of Federal land declared as monuments through Presidential proclamations, this hurts.

I have made what I consider to be a very reasonable offer, and I ask that it be accepted. It involves two words. I want the inclusion of two words in this bill--two words. Add the words ``or Utah'' to some language in the Antiquities Act.

I will accept this bill and agree to its passage if these two words are added to the Antiquities Act, the words ``or Utah.'' I ask that my colleagues accept this.

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I find it unfortunate that the addition of two words is somehow unacceptable to the Members of this body--two words. They are two words, by the way, that would put Utah in the same category as Alaska and Wyoming. What do those States have in common? They both have repeatedly been victims of the Antiquities Act.

You see, in every single State from Colorado to the west of Colorado, the Federal Government owns at least 15 percent of the land. In many of those States, it is much more than 15 percent of the land. In my State, it is two-thirds of the land--about 67 percent. What that means is that we have to get permission from the Federal Government to do just about everything.

What that also means is that our schools are underfunded--everything from fire, search, rescue, education, local governance. All of these budgets are underfunded as a result of the fact that most of the land is owned by the Federal Government. We can't tax that land. We receive pennies on the dollar for a program called payment in lieu of taxes. It is pennies on the dollar because most of our land is not ours. Most of our land cannot be developed privately. Most of our land cannot be taxed by the States and localities, which makes it harder for us to educate our children, for us to secure our streets, for us to put out fires--fires, by the way, that become far more severe because of extensive Federal landownership, which is plainly excessive, which is plainly unfair, which kills people and results in devastating losses not only to property but also to the health of the environment.

Bad Federal land management policy is at the root of this. Do you know what is interesting? People like to talk a lot about these wildfires. A lot of them occur in the West. Why? Well, there is a lot of Federal public land in the West. Yes, there are parts of the country where they have forests where these things don't happen, and when they do, they are put out much faster in things called private forests. Privately owned forests and forests owned by many States are much less prone to wildfires, and when they do occur, they put them out more quickly. Why? Because they are not hobbled under a mountain of regulations that makes it almost impossible for us to prevent them and then from putting them out quickly. This is devastating to our States. It is a burden on our States and on our State in particular.

Many of you, if you live east of the Rocky Mountains, come from lands where Federal public lands are almost unheard of, where they are rare, where you have private land left and right. A lot of those same States used to be mostly Federal. A State like Illinois used to be overwhelmingly Federal. Many, if not most, of the States have added, since the Louisiana Purchase, language in their enabling legislation, anticipating that, in time, Federal public land within a State's boundaries would be sold and that in the case of my State and that of many other States, a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of that land would be put into a trust fund for the benefit of the States' public education systems.

Those promises were honored in the Dakotas and in States like Indiana and Illinois. They were honored as we expanded westward. For some reason, when we got to the Rocky Mountains, they stopped honoring them. There are a lot of reasons for this. Some of it has to do with what we were occupied with doing as a country at the time. Some of it has to do with the fact that our land is what was regarded as rugged and perhaps undesirable for a time. But the understanding was still there, just as it was the understanding in the Dakotas and in States like Indiana and Illinois.

The effects are still there. We are still impoverished. Our ability to expand economically is impaired, and the health of our environment is significantly degraded as a result of this excessive, unnecessary Federal landownership.

Now, make no mistake--I am not talking here about national parks. People like to caricature those who complain about excessive Federal landownership and suggest--as if we are going to put oil drilling rigs underneath Delicate Arch and other national treasures. That is not what we are talking about at all. I am talking about garden variety, Federal public land--land that is excessively restricted and that is environmentally degraded as a result of poor Federal land management policies. Why? Well, because these decisions are made by Federal landing managers who live and work and make decisions many hundreds and in many cases many thousands of miles from those most affected by those decisions.

How, then, does this relate to the Antiquities Act? Well, a State like mine that has a lot of Federal public land, like Alaska and Wyoming do, is particularly, uniquely vulnerable to predatory practices under the Antiquities Act, allowing the President of the United States, under a law passed over a century ago, to utilize his discretion to set aside land as a national monument. It is already Federal; this is putting it into a new classification--a classification subject to even more restrictions, eligible for even less development, less human activity, less access for recreational or agricultural or religious or cultural purposes. When you put it in that category, it makes it even more difficult for those people surrounding it, those people living in and around the Federal public lands in question.

So Utah, like Wyoming and Alaska, has had a whole lot of Presidents declare a whole lot of Federal public land, national monument land.

Now, fortunately for the States of Alaska and Wyoming, they have had congressional delegations that in the past have said, no more, have demanded relief, and have said that they have had enough. In the case of a State like mine that has had a couple of million acres, roughly, of Federal public land declared monument by a Presidential proclamation, this is important. If it is good enough for Alaska, if it is good enough for Wyoming, why not extend the same courtesy to the State of Utah?

Why, when a bill is 680 pages long--which I received at 10 a.m. today, on what may well be the last or penultimate day of this legislative session of this Congress--why are we receiving this just now, especially in the Senate during a term of Congress when it was originally believed that we might be adjourning by December 6 or 7 or 13 or 14?

Here it is on December 19--my daughter's 18th birthday, by the way; happy birthday, Eliza--December 19, and we are just getting this bill for the first time today. What does that mean?

If we had adjourned when we were originally thinking we might adjourn, would this never have happened? It has been suggested to us by some Members and some staff that had we adjourned earlier, this would have just been released perhaps on the last day of the session.

I can't get into anyone else's head. I can't peer into anyone else's subjective intentions. But this makes me kind of nervous, the fact that, yes, I sit on the committee from whence this bill originated, and, yes, I chair the Public Lands Subcommittee, yet there are a whole lot of these that the chairman or the ranking member know darn well that I oppose, that I voted against in committee, and there are other provisions that they know I have had longstanding concerns with. I wonder if maybe, just maybe, that is part of the reason they wouldn't tell me what was in it.

I understand it is difficult negotiating a big piece of legislation. I sympathize greatly with that. I am not suggesting that short of receiving the entire 680-page document exactly as it has been submitted, I would irrevocably have bound myself to voting against it. I am not suggesting that at all. It would have been nice to have a roadmap, to have some clue as to what might have been in there. And I know from conversations I have since had with Members today that they have known for weeks, if not months, that they were putting permanent LWCF reauthorization in this bill.

I don't believe it was a coincidence that I wasn't informed of this. I don't believe it was a coincidence that even after this bill was released at 10 a.m. today, the staff of the committee refused even to give me an outline--an outline--of what was in the bill, even after they had filed it. We had to get this from a lobbyist.

This is wrong. It is wrong that the State of Utah is treated the way it is. It is wrong that you wouldn't give us that language. It is wrong that you won't treat us the same way Alaska and Wyoming are treated.

This is wrong. We can do better. I implore my colleagues to make this simple change. Two words. Two words. Add the words ``for Utah'' to this bill, and I will wholeheartedly support it. If not, I will continue to oppose it.

Thank you.

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Mr. LEE. Will the Senator yield?

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Mr. LEE. Do the people of Colorado care that you were--

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, all I am asking is for the language that I have asked for--two words, the words ``for Utah''--to be added to this legislation. I am asking to be treated on equal footing as the language proposed by the Senator from Colorado, the Senator from Alaska, the Senator from Washington, the Senator from Montana, and others--equal footing.

We have equal representation in the Senate. It is the one type of constitutional amendment that is preemptively unconstitutional. You can't modify the equal representation of the Senate. That is what makes this place unique. Each State is represented equally, and I will defend my State, the State of Utah, to my dying breath. As long as I am here breathing and holding an election certificate, I will defend it.

My distinguished friend and colleague, for whom I have great affection and respect, has just pointed out that the people of Colorado might be disappointed about this water measure that was in there or this or that other provision for Colorado. Do they have reason to be concerned? You bet. Do those people in Colorado have objection to the idea that Utah might be treated equally with Alaska or Wyoming? I think not. I think most people in America would look at a State that has had a couple of million acres of monument declared and that just wants to be treated the same way as Alaska and Wyoming and say that is not unreasonable.

This is a sovereign State, one that has been mistreated by Federal land managers. We don't want to continue doing that. This is a generous offer. It is a reasonable offer.

As to the suggestion that because it was offered that this receive a separate vote--and it is really not equivalent at all. What he is saying is, split this out; everything else sinks or swims together. All of theirs pass, and ours stands alone. If we are going to consolidate this many bills at once--and he is right: Some of these passed out unanimously, and a bunch of them didn't. I voted against a number of them. Some of them are new. Some are old but have been modified. One provision involving my own State involved 450,000 or 500,000 acres of wilderness and has, since it moved through the committee, been modified to include an additional 200,000 acres of wilderness. That is from my State, and I sit on the committee, and I chair the subcommittee that is supposed to review these things, and this is the first I have seen of them.

So, yes, I say to my distinguished friend and colleague, for whom I also have great respect and admiration and affection, yes, there are a lot of parochial matters that are addressed in these public lands bills, and appropriately so. What I am asking is for my State to be treated like your State. That is all I am asking. It is not unreasonable. It is not unfair.

So if you are going to have 640 pages' worth of legislation, including some legislation that has some significant ramifications for my State, I ask you to put those two words into the bill. That is not unreasonable.

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