John W. Olver: “I guess I thought that the problem was that the devil was the Federal Government here and that we wanted to make certain…”

“I guess I thought that the problem was that the devil was the Federal Government here and that we wanted to make certain that there was no way for them to issue eminent domain, and the language of this bill, in relation to this trail, is quite clear on that point. In fact, it would appear that now we're trying to solve a problem which isn't there, which just is an order of magnitude somewhere farther away in concept, that somehow the local communities or the State is going to issue eminent domain and then pass the land to the Federal Government in some sort of manner. That really surprises me as there is nothing in the intent of this anywhere along the way to do such a thing. I think we have solved the problem as much as it needs to be solved with the language which is in the bill, that there can be no Federal acquisition of land here. Nobody wants Federal acquisition of land. There might well be community acquisition of a corridor somewhere along the way over time, but there is to be no Federal ownership of any of that land. I hope the matter will be opposed and we will not adopt this amendment. This is finding a solution where there is no problem.”