On the recordOctober 7, 2013
if the Senator will stay on the floor for a moment, one of the bills mentioned by the Senator from Illinois was the helium bill. Within that there is an important Alaska priority. I know my colleagues worked with the Senator--important to my State--on cleaning up those legacy wells that have been on Federal land for years with oil literally seeping out of those wells. And now there is money for the first time in I don't know how many years to actually clean up these wells. But from what I just heard, and correct me if I am wrong, what the Senator just indicated is that the Bureau of Land Management doesn't have the capacity to do permitting and other staffing. So there is no work to be done even though we finally passed a bipartisan bill in both Houses, signed by the President--something that has been waiting for decades to be cleaned. Am I correct on this, that BLM now can't do the work we want them to do? And Alaskans have been desperately waiting for decades.
