On the recordJuly 22, 2013
I thank Mr. Huffman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the committee and Chairman Doc Hastings on bringing this bill to the floor. I was instrumental in creating the Coastal National Monument along the California coastline. It had to be done by executive order because we couldn't get the bills out of committee. I just really appreciate the fact that the committee is concentrating on this, because a lot of these things that people kind of argue against they don't realize what the positive unintended consequences are. What this bill does is it really talks about management of land. As the chairman pointed out, the substance of the bill allows the private enterprise, the agriculture to continue, and to have it in a way that is going to be cost-effective management. This is a win-win for the private sector and for the public sector. In many cases, the Bureau of Land Management is a very effective land manager. It essentially, in the West, has a lot of the land that actually was never picked up by Forest Service. When you think of Forest Service, you think of timbering or mining and those kinds of things, or land that qualified for the National Park System as kind of the leftover lands of the westward expansion. They have a lot of land management responsibility and know-how. The California coastline is the number one attraction and the number one engine. It is the whole engine of California. Most of the cities and stuff are all along the coast.…
