I believe that we would contract with the parks as we did with this previous shutdown.

Our taxes are lower than many States, but that is also correct.

It is beyond time for us to explore ways in which State governments can take a more active and invested role in improving the management of the Federal lands within its borders.

If I may begin, before we call the first panel, in 1989, the Berlin Wall fell down, and the entire world realized that large, centralized, bureaucratic entities do not work.

I grew up an hour away from Yellowstone National Park. We love our national parks. We love going up to Glacier Park in the State of Montana.

I don't understand the hostility toward cooperation with the States.

If you love the national parks as I do and if you want to keep the national parks open as I do, and if you think it is a good idea to prepare for an uncertain future, if you want to protect small businesses and rural communities as I do…

Nobody wanted to see the shutdown. It is important that when we see DC fail in its most basic responsibilities to govern, it is imperative we have contingency plans when the government cannot do its job.

You are strongly opposed to it because it would take too much work to try and implement a solution ahead of time. That testimony is the indication of some entity that has simply spent too long in bureaucratic excess and not actually trying…

Yes, I believe we would.

During the shutdown, as has already been stated, the results were devastating for the small rural towns and cities surrounding our national parks, and we felt that very severely throughout the State.

This partial shutdown demonstrated almost too clearly what many have grown to understand, the fact that our public lands are anything but that. They are controlled by the government.

the intent of the continuing resolution passed by Congress was to fully reimburse States for State funds used to operate Federal programs.

However, the implementation of the partial shutdown when the administration forcefully prohibited access to public lands, it seemed that the administration was seeking to avoid a solution and only increase hardship.

Intellectual property is an increasingly important part of the U.S. economy.

Wildfires are a part of life in Utah and in other parts of the western United States.

As anyone who lives in a State dominated by the Federal Government knows all too well, those states are forced to play by a different set of rules.

We will count on you to help in that regard and to make sure that the investigation that we are conducting is completed, and completed properly.