Bruce F. Vento: “Mr. Chairman, this is a compromise of sorts. I object to it, because I do not think it is a compromise that embraces the…”

“Mr. Chairman, this is a compromise of sorts. I object to it, because I do not think it is a compromise that embraces the major flaws in the bill. It does eliminate the restructuring of the RAC's, and that is good, but the fact is that some of the underlying problems still persist. For instance, we had talked about the fact that this bill tended to build a confusion about a property right with regard to an amendment. On page 27, the definition is less than clear than existing BLM definitions. This takes us back. The word associated with this type of compromise, it is going to be decided by a court. You are not clarifying something here; you are, in fact, moving it to the issue where someone will try to establish a property right based on this new language. They eliminate some definitions that are confusing. They still have confusion with regard to monitoring, as I said, Mr. Chairman, earlier. The 48-hour provision remains in this bill. This would have prohibited agencies from conditioning grazing permits or leases, or a permittee permitting access against private property, it eliminated that agency, but with monitoring there are still problems. It is only a marginal improvement in terms of what is going on. It is changing. They say they are for sound science, except they are writing into law the fact that you have to take into consideration some of the history, some of the other factors.”