Political Quotes

“last week we had some great conversations on the floor of the Senate about the Great American Outdoors Act and the combination of two important pieces of legislation--the Land and Water Conservation Fund, first authorized 55 years ago, and the Restore Our Parks Act--both of which would be combined in the Great American Outdoors Act and the most significant piece of conservation legislation Congress has passed in nearly 50 years or more. The Land and Water Conservation Fund, of course, is funded by taking offshore oil and gas revenues, and that is how the Restore Our Parks Act would be funded as well. Both of them would take dollars generated from offshore oil and gas production. There are a few other ways that it is funded, like boat fuel excise tax revenues and others, but primarily that is the source of funding, and, after a series of formula distributions out of the Treasury, the Land and Water Conservation Fund is appropriated about $1 billion, and eventually the Restore Our Parks Act, under this legislation, would be appropriated dollars as well. Ninety-nine percent of the dollars used by the Land and Water Conservation Fund is used to purchase inholdings to complete national parks and to work on wildlife refuges and other types of important public land designations across the country. We all know that our national parks are suffering from the amount of visitors that they receive.…”