Political Quotes

“I am not yielding. I am telling the gentleman now that this is a deal this Congress made in 1971 to the Chugach native people. They had to go to court. In 1982, they had a decision from the court that said, yes, they had a right to 78,000 acres of land and a right of easement and it should be granted to them by, and shall be granted by the Forest Service. And not through the delta, by the way. South of the delta to the Martin River. Nowhere near it. And that is what the court said should be done. The Forest Service, because they did not like that decision, as an agency have drug their feet again and again. And why did the corporation back away from the Memorandum of Understanding? Because the Forest Service said we do not have the money to do the studies for the right-of-way. So they did the studies. They paid for it. Forest Service did it, but the native corporation paid for it. Now they say they have got a Memorandum of Understanding and we are going to bring this to a conclusion by December 1. Let me read the gentleman the last page. It says nonenforceable. Nothing herein shall be construed as committing and obligating the United States Forest Service or the United States. So what this tells me, after we go through this whole thing, this whole understanding, that the Forest Service, because they have not done it since 1982, they are going to say, forget it, American natives. We do not care what Congress has said. We are going to do what we want to do.”