Byron Dorgan: “I have spent a substantial amount of time on this issue this year. I cannot tell you the number of meetings I have had…”

“I have spent a substantial amount of time on this issue this year. I cannot tell you the number of meetings I have had in North Dakota with ranchers, environmentalists, hunters, and others, talking about the various proposals that exist in the grazing legislation that has been offered by Senator Domenici, the substitute that was previously offered by Senator Bingaman and myself in the Energy Committee, and other iterations of each. This is another one of those cases where in debate on the floor of the Senate, it seems to me, there is a little bit of truth on both sides. Each side takes their side of this issue and tends to take it out here and make a caricature out of it. The fact is that we have a circumstance with respect to publicly owned lands in many of our States that are used for a lot of purposes, where ranchers in my State--not big ranchers, but family ranchers--are trying to make a living grazing their cattle on public lands, as has been provided for many years with respect to the multiple use of these lands.”