William Tauzin: “Mr. Chairman, let me urge the Members to reject this amendment. While many parts of this actual bill are worthwhile, the…”

“Mr. Chairman, let me urge the Members to reject this amendment. While many parts of this actual bill are worthwhile, the bill is before our committee. The committee has filed a bill similar to this, I think, before the committee and, therefore, it is under consideration of the committee. And I am sure the chairman of the Committee on Resources would be more than willing to work with the gentleman in regards to working on that bill. The problem is adopting this bill in this package means that we would be making a lot of decisions that the committee would probably want to look at. For example, in this bill there are exceptions in the land sales from fair market value for perhaps socially good purposes, low-income housing, but nevertheless there are exceptions from receiving fair market value in this act. There is even an exception on page 6 that allows the Secretary to determine that he can waive the competitive bidding requirements for the sale of public lands. I am not sure that is a good idea.”