On the recordFebruary 18, 2011
I rise in opposition to the amendment. There are over 20 million acres of Federal land in Colorado. I want to be clear with, of course, great respect to my colleague from Ohio. This is not in any way, shape or form a giveaway to our counties. This is land we cannot tax, we cannot develop, we cannot benefit from. In fact, PILT payments are insufficient. They're too low to compensate for the burden of having all this land that's not part of our local tax base. It is a burden. In fact many of our counties have to actually spend money maintaining this land because some of the Federal infrastructure isn't sufficient as well. There is nobody who's making out like a bandit from this and it's all we can do to justify the fact that the Federal Government owns a lot of land.
