Political Quotes

“I join Senator Stevens today in introducing legislation, aptly numbered S. 49 for Alaska, the 49th State, to free our State to properly and sensitively develop land that is currently off-limits because a muscle-bound bureaucracy has refined the dispensing of redtape to an art form. Anyone who looks at the facts, and who is not already biased against any and all development in Alaska, cannot help but be persuaded that the very tough rules that apply to the development of wetlands in the lower 48 where 53 percent of the original wetlands have already been filed, drained or otherwise removed from wetland status do not make sense for Alaska where less than one tenth of 1 percent of original wetlands have been developed. Good public policy rewards behavior and penalizes bad behavior. Alaska has diligently protected its wetlands. One hundred fifty four million acres of wetlands, over 60 million acres are already out of reach of any sort of development, having been placed in Federal conservation units. By contrast in the lower 48 only 31 million acres are publicly owned. Alaska has developed at most only about 200,000 acres of wetlands less than one tenth of 1 percent, compared to 117,000,000 acres developed in the lower 48--53 percent. In other words, Alaska's wetlands are already better protected than any other State. We will never, never become another New Jersey.”