In Utah there are five national parks, seven national monuments, two national recreation areas, six national forests. In fact, 70 percent of my State is controlled by the Federal Government.

You still have the $2 million there. You have an additional roughly $2 million that is floating around in your budget.

It is not an issue of want. We do not have the authority to return money that has been obligated from a donation.

When the Federal Government shut down in October of this last year, it seemed as if the administration used all of the lessons, frankly, from years of Chicago land style politics to do what they could to make this shutdown as painful for…

the impacts were very real, were very severe, to the tune, again, of millions of dollars impacting very small communities

This is not a situation that we welcome in the West. You know, to be very honest, we wish we controlled more of our land, such as they do in the East, but that is not the case.

We are tradition bound and we hide behind that, and we refuse to think outside the box.

Establishing protection for these activities ought to be one of the goals that we look at.

So allowing paddling certainly would not underlie the values for which this river was established or is used?

Without objection, so ordered.

What does the Federal Government have to lose by allowing States a greater place in the management of the lands between their borders?

Shame on America. Let us wake up to really what has happened to us.

Which simply indicates that if the Federal Government has a backlog that in Alaska itself is $121 million, States certainly could do no worse than what the Federal Government is doing in ownership and management of these particular pieces…

I do appreciate what Mr. Grijalva has just said, and I would like simply to point out that while the shutdown was going on, the House did vote to open up all of these.

If you are not willing to do it even though you have done it in the past by finding some condition of technicality, then obviously Congress needs to step up and do it for you since the Department is not willing to do it on their own…

Well, I must admit we were really surprised and shocked at the testimony that was submitted by the parks because the reaction has been so incredibly positive.

So would it not be wise to do it now in legislation? Why is the Department so adamantly opposed to solving the problem ahead of time?

I wonder if they are prepared to do those kinds of agreements.