Richard Burr: “I thank my colleague, and I rise in support of his amendment. The Land and Water Conservation Fund--you may remember…”

“I thank my colleague, and I rise in support of his amendment. The Land and Water Conservation Fund--you may remember, last month when I tried to get a vote on its reauthorization, I had just come from a press conference marking 100 days until it expires. We have been here before. I am sort of shocked sometimes how hardheaded we are in this institution. This program has now reached a point where it is 66 days away from expiration. In the 115th Congress, we actually let it expire. The reason Congress passed legislation to reauthorize it was the pressure of the American people. Let me say at the start that I have unbelievable respect for the chairmen of the committees whose bills make up this package, and I have deep respect for the ranking members. I hold in high esteem the chairman and the ranking member of the full committee. This is no beef with them. This is a beef with what we have set up as the process for the very choreographed movement of a piece of legislation--in this particular case, the appropriations bill. Some have told me this is just not germane to this bill. The only way it wouldn't be germane, in my book, is that we are debating legislation on the use of taxpayer money to fund government, and the Land and Water Conservation Fund uses zero dollars of taxpayer money.…”