George Miller: “Mr. Chairman, what we are being asked to do here is to reduce the law enforcement capability of the Fish and Wildlife…”

“Mr. Chairman, what we are being asked to do here is to reduce the law enforcement capability of the Fish and Wildlife Service by limiting their ability to purchase vehicles that they have deemed and the committee has already passed on as being important to their law enforcement capabilities so we can take that money away and give half of it to pay attorney's fees. This is a law enforcement agency, or an agency that has law enforcement responsibilities to deal with poachers, to deal with people who traffic in illegal game and illegal protected mammals under the Marine Mammal Act and other such acts, airborne hunting acts, where people go out and illegally slaughter animals, and this is how they enforce the law. Now what we are going to do is decide to reduce that, so we can pay a bunch of attorneys half of that money to pay the people in Alaska, with no showing that that is necessary, and no showing that this need does not exist. However, here it is at quarter to 11 at night and we are going to make this decision.”