Joel Hefley: “I am acutely aware of the problem which the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Riley) and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr.…”

“I am acutely aware of the problem which the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Riley) and the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hutchinson) have raised today. The Department of Defense has also made a proposal to expedite the reuse process. I am very sympathetic to the desire of the local communities to see effective economic reuse of former military installations and see it happen at the earliest possible time. As both gentlemen know, this is a complicated area of law. I regret the administration did not forward the formal proposal in this area to our committee in time for us to really take action on it. We have not had the opportunity to have adequate hearings, but we fully intend to have those hearings, to have them in a timely fashion, and to have them prior to the time that we go to conference on this. I would like for both of my colleagues, and others that are interested, to participate in these hearings with us. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, because this is an important issue and we do intend to address it. I appreciate both of my colleagues bringing it to my attention.”