Political Quotes

“Madam President, today--in fact, in a few minutes from now--the Senate will act in an effort to protect farmers, ranchers, and producers from the unnecessary consequences of listing the lesser prairie-chicken. Even as I say the words, it brings back so many instances in which we have had this conversation on the Senate floor, going back to my earliest days in the Senate. This issue has been with us now for a long number of years. Range-wide studies over the last decade have shown that conservation efforts are helping bird populations in the five habitat States, including Kansas. So the lesser prairie-chicken is a native bird to five States in our part of the country, and its populations are important to us in Kansas and to those other States and to the country. What strikes me is that this administration claims that American agriculture is at the heart of needing to list the lesser prairie- chicken as either an endangered species or as a threatened species because agriculture is causing harm to the populations. A quote from the rule states: Grazing by domestic livestock is not inherently detrimental to lesser prairie-chicken management and, in many cases, is needed to maintain appropriate vegetative structure. That is a pretty good paragraph to indicate the value of production agriculture when it comes to the well-being of the lesser prairie- chicken.…”