Doug Bereuter: “I have fought this process for over a year. The first letters I received from the Department of Interior were, shall I…”

“I have fought this process for over a year. The first letters I received from the Department of Interior were, shall I say, nonresponsive and also condescending. There are only three such centers in the United States. We are dealing with two of them here, the majority of the archaeological capability. It is mentioned that they frequently do things for other parts of the Federal Government. They have been involved in looking for the remains of the POWs and MIAs in Vietnam. They were involved in examining the sites of the war crimes in the Balkans. This is a particular expertise that will never, ever, be put back in place again if it is destroyed. These employees and centers should never have been categorized this way. It is a mistake. They do not want to admit it. Their consultants say it was a mistake, and they have been hushed up as a result with pressure from the National Park Service, pressure which ultimately does come, as the distinguished gentleman from Alaska suggested, from OMB. It is a bean-counter that is doing something that is senseless.”