If people felt like they had a voice, if they felt like they had an opportunity to make their input and actually be heard, and if the decision went the other way, I think most people would be willing to accept that.

No, it does not repeal any wilderness study areas.

This bill codifies the President's action of last week.

Some of the misunderstandings that people have regarding this is that the assumption is it repeals any protections, and that is just not true.

I feel like I am standing up for the little guy. I am standing up for families out in the rural communities who just want to keep their families together.

The Federal Government promised that the monument would take little away and, instead, create a boom of tourism in the community surrounding the monument.

That is just silly.

This bill gives us an opportunity to do that. It truly is a win-win situation. And I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support it.

We used to have a thriving timber industry. It has been decimated because of some of these policies.

Name me a job that you can sustain a family on working in the tourism industry from May to October.

Tourism alone is not able to sustain these communities.

Can you imagine being a locally elected official who is responsible for roads, schools, and all the services that a community needs in order just to survive, and having 93 percent of your tax base taken out from underneath you?

It made it impossible.

Could it have been done better? Absolutely. But it needed to be done in a way that did not involve secrecy.

I want to commend Mr. Stewart for the legislation that you have here. That is exactly the process we are trying to have.

There are special interest groups out there that are trying to confuse that, as if one is synonymous to the other; they are not.

This Committee has passed out a CAP Act, which tries to put an established process that would guarantee, depending on the size, there would be public involvement before the designation, and conversely, if you are going to rescind or…

If this new monument is created, Commissioner Pollock, it will be right outside the town of Escalante.