Dirk Kempthorne

I also note that I think those men and women in uniform that are wearing the stars as general officers are good soldiers. The Commander in Chief submitted the budget, and they have to support that budget. But I will tell you they are…

On behalf of Senators Grassley, Boxer and Harkin, I offer an amendment which would place a limitation of $200,000 on the amount of annual individual compensation that may be reimbursable under contracts with the Department of Defense.

I would like to reference the moratorium on the listing of the endangered species. The appropriations bill before us continues the moratorium language that has been in previous bills before this Congress. I remind all of us that the…

This should not be a contest to see who is more for the environment. We should all be in favor of a cleaner, safer, healthier America for our children and their children. I have called myself a probusiness environmentalist. We have been…

It has taken a lot of effort to get the administration to admit that grazing rights on the refuges were retained by the previous landowners when the land was transferred to the Fish and Wildlife Service. As things stand right now, there…

Will the majority leader agree that in the event the Congressional Budget Office determines that there are any unfunded mandates in S. 562 that he will work with me to make technical corrections in the bill to eliminate those mandates.

The majority leader is aware that State and local governments had previously raised an issue with this Senator that certain provisions of the conference report on S. 562 may violate the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 regarding local…

The majority leader is aware that the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 does not require the Congressional Budget Office to prepare an estimate of the impact of mandates on State and local governments for conference reports and that the…

Again, in looking to the Budget Act and what may be some precedent that we could point to, if in fact CBO were to determine and so state that regardless of how much time they had they simply could not come up with an estimate, the…

I just wish to thank the Senator from Montana. I know of his experience as a local official in Montana, as a county commissioner, and I appreciate the support in not wanting to see a sunset take place in this legislation.

The burden of proof in this case would be upon the Senator raising the point of order. The originator of the amendment is not required to get the CBO estimate. I think that it would be good government for anyone bringing an amendment that…

I think on this nuclear issue in the future, nuclear waste, et cetera, there ought to be an opportunity for these Senators to begin to forge a partnership to deal with this issue.

I appreciate so much the sensitivity of the Senator from Wisconsin to the issue of the amendment which he has offered. It was a pleasure to work with the Senator on the language of that amendment. With regard to this side of the aisle, we…

Assuring public safety, curbing unfunded federal mandates, and building strong local economies are the most important priorities for America's cities and towns, according to the National League of Cities' annual opinion survey of municipal…

No, I--again, I do not know if that is encouraging some vagueness. I think the authorizing committee would say narrow that range. If CBO comes back and says this is the figure or the figures, then that is their estimate. It does not create…

Again, right now, I do not think this legislation states what a range is--it is silent on that question.

Again we are not plowing new ground here. We are following the procedures of the Budget Act. Again, I have been advised that rarely do they come up with a range. If you have a range that is a wide range, from CBO, then I think perhaps the…

In that hypothetical where you say it is between $10 million and $60 million, that you take the midrange, the reason that I would be an advocate that you take the larger range is because S. 1 is based upon the presumption we are going to…

If it is a situation where we are in essence providing more funds than are necessary to carry out the mandate, then, yes, we need to have a mechanism because that is taxpayers' precious money, and we do not want to abuse that by having it…

I would be happy to sit down and see what perhaps we could design here because if in fact what the Senator is suggesting is that rather than trying to have CBO give an estimate that is many, many years down there, that there can be updated…

No, but that is an interesting point. You make the point as to why we should not sunset S. 1, because we need to keep this process in place to deal with these issues. It is an interesting point. Again, I would be willing to sit down with…

I think Congress ought to revisit these issues a little more often than simply saying now that we impose this mandate, it is here for infinity.

I am one who would advocate that Congress should not just establish some mandate in infinity.

The legislation would identify the effective date, but it would be based, again, upon input from a whole variety of resources and sources. Again, with all due respect, I do not think you could simply take one chart, numbers, and say…

In the report of the Committee on the Budget with regard to S. 1, when you look at this, you have the CBO estimate, and that is what we are talking about here. And, Mr. President, as you can see, you have all of the information, the steps…