Nevada Native Nations Land Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. AMODEI. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman of the
committee for yielding me this time, and I also thank my colleague from
California, the ranking member, and also the subcommittee chairman, the
gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young), for processing this bill.

I also want to associate myself with the remarks of my colleague from
Idaho earlier regarding the departure of the committee chairman, Mr.
Hastings from Washington, and while he talked about who is going to
miss who more, I think it is probably accurate to say that I will miss
Mr. Hastings more than he will miss me, but I will endeavor to change
his mind over the years no matter what. This is a prime example of what
happens when we work together.

This is several tens of thousands of acres which some have been
waiting since I was in the eighth grade. The original legislation for
the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe was introduced in 1971 by
then-United States Senators Alan Bible and Howard Cannon who
represented Nevada, so those folks get the patience award.

This bill does housekeeping things that we should all be happy to
have been part of finally finishing up. With checkerboard reservations,
you have multiple issues of law enforcement--you are on the
reservation, you are off the reservation--economic development, jobs
for some of the most economically-challenged cultures in our Nation,
multiple use, cultural resource protection, all those sorts of things
which I am proud to be associated with.

I want to thank the chairman and the tribal council members who
brought this to our attention at a meeting originally with Mr. Young in
Nevada several years ago, and we are looking forward to, since the
committee and the subcommittee did great work, along with the minority,
on changing some of this since it now conforms with the Senate wishes,
to the Senate processing this expeditiously.

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