Political Quotes

“Mr. President, we are at a point we have been hoping to get to for some time, which is debate on S. 47, the Natural Resources Management Act. This is a compilation, if you will, of various lands bills, water bills, and sportsmen's bills. This is a lands package that Senator Cantwell, Senator Manchin, and I recently introduced, but it is the result of years--multiple years, actually--of regular order process in the committees of jurisdiction--most notably, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. It is the result of months of intense, bicameral back-and-forth negotiations with now-Chairman Raul Grijalva and now- Ranking Member Rob Bishop of the House Natural Resources Committee. In that back-and-forth, we said: We are going to be very specific to our jurisdiction here, and we are going to stick to a four-corners agreement that we reached late last year and had actually confirmed here on the Senate floor in late December. This package contains more than 100 public lands, natural resources, and water measures that have good, strong support in both Chambers. We are at that point where we can not only do the back-and-forth, but we can work through the back-and-forth that comes when we are able to advance a package like this to the floor. I would like to thank Majority Leader McConnell and Minority Leader Schumer for agreeing to add our lands package directly to the Senate calendar. This was an agreement that was made back in December.…”