Dale Bumpers: “the Senator from Idaho raised a question about timber. I do not understand the relevance of it. We do set aside timber…”

“the Senator from Idaho raised a question about timber. I do not understand the relevance of it. We do set aside timber for small business people. Even so, timber is sold on a competitive basis. If you want to start leasing 270 million acres of public rangelands for grazing on a competitive basis, I may or may not vote for that, but we do not do that. Do you know how you get a permit? You have to own land. Hewlett-Packard may own 400 acres of land, which they have to do in order to be eligible for a permit. If they have a 400-acre ranch that they own themselves, they can run cattle on 100,000 acres of Federal land. I am telling you something else. You could not pry these permits from permittees with a wedge. They literally hand these permits down from generation to generation. Under the current regulations, the term of a permit is 12 years. The Senator from New Mexico, his bill originally considered 15 years--is it 15 or 12 now?”