Jack Kingston: “This bill is our national environmental policy in many ways because it takes the management of land, the management of…”

“This bill is our national environmental policy in many ways because it takes the management of land, the management of resources, policies affecting energy and a number of other issues, and it cobbles together a bill which is truly bipartisan and one that represents many different kinds of philosophies. Many folks from the East have very strong opinions on this bill. Many from the West have other opinions and so this bill is actually delicately balanced and crafted. Many Members do not appreciate what goes into it, but I can assure my colleagues when we get so many Type A personalities in a body of 435 people, we are not always going to have agreement, but what we do end up with is a good bill, a bill that funds our national parks. Our national park maintenance program is far behind, a billion dollars. This helps catch them up. We lose lots of assets on our Park Services every year. It helps round out a lot of the boundaries in the Fish and Wildlife and the wildlife refuges that are overdue, Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, some of the policies that have to do with Western utilization of land.”