Political Quotes

“I am pleased today to recommend to the Senate passage of the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act with a Kempthorne-Graham amendment. The passage of this bill represents a victory for many who are concerned with the hundreds of wildlife refuges across the United States and the multiple uses that they support. The bill, which was negotiated between Chairman Don Young of the Natural Resources Committee and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, is another example of how positive change for the benefit of our environment can be achieved when we make a sincere effort to work together to reach consensus. The original House bill, H.R. 1420, came to the Senate after an overwhelming vote in the House. The bill was referred, in the normal course, to my subcommittee in the Environment and Public Works Committee. Now, there are some who wanted me to just let the House bill go without further review in the Senate. But if I have learned anything from Senator Byrd over the years, I have learned that I would be ignoring the responsibility and indeed constitutional duty of the Senate if I simply signed off on such important legislation without considering it carefully. The time that we spent to review the House bill was well worth it. We discovered an internal ambiguity in the bill which could have been taken advantage of by those who might want to eliminate many legitimate uses of wildlife refuges.”