Debbie Dingell: “without any recriminations towards any of my colleagues, I recognize there are strong feelings on this, but today the…”

“without any recriminations towards any of my colleagues, I recognize there are strong feelings on this, but today the House has an opportunity to make significant progress in moving forward to address a number of important issues and opportunities with regard to the national parks and the public lands. This is a good bill. I want to commend my good friend, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Hansen), chairman of the subcommittee, for the outstanding job that he has done in going forward on this matter. I also want to commend my old friend, the chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Young) with whom I worked for many years as members of the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation on the old Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. There we passed enormous progress in the area of wildlife conservation and the environment. Those were good bills then, and the gentleman from Utah and the distinguished chairman of the committee have carried forward that tradition. The gentleman from Utah has been very busy the last few days trying to address the concerns, many of which are legitimate, of Members on this side, and members of the environmental community. The way legislation is achieved is not simply by saying, no, we are not going to pass this.…”