Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, H.R. 3189 turns the status quo on its head in order to provide a certain class of users a new advantage over all other users of our public lands. It strikes me as interesting that I have heard farmers and ranchers mentioned a couple of times, although this, apparently, also affects grazing lands, which I believe farmers and ranchers do use; and unfortunately, I am sure they have not looked at it well enough to understand what really could happen. The status quo is that Federal land managers have to try to balance multiple competing uses of our public/taxpayer lands--recreation, timber, grazing, conservation, energy production, and the list goes on. Under the status quo, one of the tools land managers use to achieve this balance is the ability to condition certain uses of public lands-- taxpayer lands--on an agreement to transfer or limit water rights. If you want the ability to graze or cut timber or build a dam on public lands, you have to agree to leave some water in the river for other uses, like recreation, habitat protection, et cetera. If that authority is taken away, as the bill would do, then certain kinds of users of our public lands get to take all the water they want, leaving everybody else literally hanging high and very dry. The status quo is balanced. H.R. 3189 tips the scale all the way in favor of a certain class of users and turns the status quo into chaos. I reserve the balance of my time.”