Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to cosponsor S. 455, and I commend the senior Senator from Oregon for offering the Payments in Lieu of Taxes Act. Let us be realistic, Mr. President. This is simply an issue of fairness. The States east of the Mississippi, States like New Jersey, West Virginia, object to this because they get a very, very small amount of PILT payment. Fine. Fine. As has been said by some of my colleagues, then just give the Western States back their land. Give it back to us. We will not ask for any PILT payments. We look at the needs of the east coast relative to rapid transit, mass transit, Amtrak, legitimate issues for the populated Eastern States that do not have the impact of tremendous Federal acreage. You know, this body just voted for more Federal land in the West, more land, more wilderness, and that vote cost the taxpayers in this country $1 billion because we are going to have to pay those inholders. That is what it cost. Did we appropriate the money? No. We committed an obligation for a billion dollars--we passed it a few moments ago--a billion dollars for wilderness. Why do we object to $100 billion a year for schools, sewers, and drinking water for small areas of the West? Mr. President, I am from Alaska, and 70 percent of the land in our State is owned by the Federal Government. We have 248 million acres of Federal land.”