Political Quotes

“The amendment I am offering does one simple thing and one thing only. It ensures that this land trade is fair and protects the American taxpayers. For every land exchange undertaken by the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Park Service, or Fish and Wildlife Service, land managers must ensure taxpayer assets are protected by requiring land appraisals based on accepted Federal standards. This House has considered six different land exchange bills in this Congress. Each and every one of them required standard appraisals for those lands, and they all passed. But today we have a bill that defers to legislation passed by the State of Minnesota to control the examination and the value determination of Federal lands. This is not how we treat Federal assets. Whether a land exchange is undertaken through an administrative process or through legislation, we require a standard appraisal and equalization payments if the value of the lands considered for exchange are not equal. Surely we can provide better protections to the taxpayers of this country. The last estimate, and I will stress estimate of the value of the land in question, was nearly $100 million. Do we really want to abandon our responsibilities as stewards to Federal taxpayers and waive fair appraisal standards?…”