Political Quotes

“with respect to the statement that the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Babbitt, was described as making to the effect that if they do not sell to us at the price we want, then we will let them remain in inholding forever, the context of the statement--and the statement, as I understand it, was in questioning before the committee. Mr. Babbitt was asked whether or not the Catellus Corp., which owns about 300,000 acres within the areas designated by S. 21, would be likely to accept a land exchange with the Department of the Interior which would give Catellus some other good land which they could use. And I think what the Secretary said, and what he meant, was that they were likely to accept a fair deal because as an inholder they were not likely to be able to use that land as well as they could the land for which they would exchange for, in other words, lands outside the park. The key here is that Catellus is now an inholder within the BLM lands. If this bill passes they would be an inholder in national park land, still surrounded on all sides by Federal property. So if they wanted to build a subdivision and build a road to the subdivision, then they could be frustrated in that demand by the fact that they are a BLM inholder just as surely as if they were a national park inholder. There was no intent of the Secretary of the Interior to, in effect, be abusive in this power of acquisition.”