Political Quotes

“I would suggest that those who cannot support this legislation for whatever reason, even though we have, in my opinion, bent over backward to accommodate the interests of our western colleagues on the other side of the aisle, are making their decisions, unfortunately, not on the merits of the bill but rather on the basis of a desire to make nonuse of the public lands the dominant use. Think about that, Mr. President. We are at a crossroads not only with this grazing bill but also with the administration's public lands and natural resource policy. We can either choose between Secretary Babbitt's rangeland reform, the 1994 regulations, which will hasten the end of livestock grazing on public land, or we can choose an approach that makes significant improvements in the way livestock grazing is managed while allowing ranchers to continue to graze cattle and sheep on public land. The same choice is true for other public land use issues. We can either ship our jobs, ship our capital, our mineral receipts, and our tax revenues overseas, or we can keep them here and allow responsible use of our public lands for resource development activities and other multiple-use purposes and to benefit, obviously, Americans who are looking for and need those jobs. The choice is clear on this one. I am going to side with the ranchers over the elitists. I urge my colleagues to do the same. Mr. President, that concludes my statement.”