Three times, Representative Ann Kirkpatrick and I have sent the Park Service a bipartisan letter asking the agency to withdraw a fundamentally flawed historical place nomination for Oak Flat.

In December 2014 you stated in a poorly worded press release, 'The Oak Flat area has significant religious, cultural, historical, and archeological value.' If you never visited there, how can you make such a claim?

One of President Obama's signature pledges on the campaign trail was to run 'the most transparent administration in U.S. history.'

Five days of public comment for people around there is an adequate statement, right?

I find it interesting that yesterday at 4:00 p.m. your agency sent me 143 pages of crap.

When are we going to start taking the loads out of the forest so that we do not have these exorbitant catastrophic fires?

And that is why this House passed comprehensive West-wide drought relief legislation last year.

Today's hearing is about bringing sanity back to our Federal policies that have put thousands out of work and fostering accountability to the Endangered Species Act and the bureaucracy charged with implementing it.

May we make progress here today, so that Congress can finally provide some form of relief for drought conditions.

We need 30,000-50,000 acre-feet a year, just because of people moving to Southern California, because it is 75 degrees out there today.

These Federal plans have created a situation where communities who thought they were going to get more water in an El Nino year are now faced with potentially less water than last season's dry year.

May the extreme environmental groups and others that are holding back common-sense solutions... finally put the interests of small businesses, farmers, and American families ahead of the interests of a 3-inch fish.