Wayne Allard: “I rise in support of S. 2508, called the Colorado Ute Settlement Act Amendments of 2000. It has been worked on for some…”

“I rise in support of S. 2508, called the Colorado Ute Settlement Act Amendments of 2000. It has been worked on for some 18 years by my colleague, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell. I wish to take a few moments to commend everyone who has worked on behalf of this piece of legislation, and for their efforts to resolve this issue. In Colorado, earlier this year--maybe it was last year--there was a group of us who did get together, Congressman McInnis, myself, we had Senator Campbell, and Secretary of Interior Babbitt. We got together what we called the great sand dunes conference. All four of us walked up on those great majestic sand dunes. We talked about the future of the great sand dunes, and we had a discussion about the Animas project. At that point, we had our staffs standing off on the far side. All of our supporters were wondering what the four of us were talking about. We were talking about common ground and how we could come to an agreement to get the Animas-La Plata project passed.”