Bruce F. Vento: “Well, Mr. Chairman, the fact is that we already take in the money from the offshore oil and gas. Opening up more would…”

“Well, Mr. Chairman, the fact is that we already take in the money from the offshore oil and gas. Opening up more would not get us the money because it is being diverted to some other place. I know we talk about what was in the budget resolution. The budget resolution abolishes the Department of Energy, abolished it. That is where this money is being taken from, is from the Department of Energy. The question is we have had a lot of these paper promises in terms of delivering the money. As far as the Federal Government is concerned, we have given away 200 million acres of land in the last 30 years. We have given it away, and that is fine. That is appropriate in terms of many of the laws we have, so there is nothing wrong with that in terms of what we purchase. We are buying the sensitive riparian areas, the areas that have the endangered species, trying to round out the ownership for the parks, the BLM, so that we, in fact, can avoid the types of conflicts and reduce the administrative costs, and we need to have a funding account here with these dollars for reasonable land purchases which are approved by the chairman of the appropriations subcommittee, and I know they have done good work in the past and they will do it in the future. We can count on them to properly screen and filter these purchases. Vote for the Miller amendment.”