On the recordJune 25, 2015
I agree with that. This amendment is about priorities. I think with the state of the economy that we are on both sides, I don't have to remind people that we have the debt ceiling coming up, and we are short of money; we have the highway trust fund that is going to come up again at the end of July, and we are short of money. I believe that the Federal Government has enough agents and more than enough debt for sure. I just encourage people to vote in favor of this amendment. We get people from our district, and they talk to us about what happened out in Nevada with the Cliven Bundy case. When you have the Bureau of Land Management with SWAT capabilities showing up like they do, we get asked: Why are agencies like this having that kind of tactical gear? Why do they have that kind of capacity? This is not to weaken them in a sense, and we do have to patrol those areas. I just think, at this point in time, that $25 million would serve our debt. I reserve the balance of my time. Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, this bill already is $246 million below the FY 2015-enacted level. This amendment only causes further damage. Let's look at what has been happening over the past decade. As the funding has decreased, we know from committee hearings that the demands on the BLM have increased. There are more oil and gas leases to manage to make sure that they are properly protected.…
