Political Quotes

“as a cosponsor, I wish to briefly express my support for this bill. I strongly supported similar legislation while a Member of the House of Representatives for many years, and I wish to thank Senator Hatfield's efforts to bring this legislation to the floor. We sharply debate many funding issues in the Senate, trying to decide the merit of one against another, and we must delete and reduce more and more items from our spending authorizations and appropriations because of our severe deficit spending problems. However, the PILT Program should not simply be placed in the arena of merit from which Congress selects the most worthy candidates. PILT is a commitment Congress made 17 years ago to partially reimburse counties for erosion of local tax base resulting from Federal actions. As such, PILT should be viewed here as 'paying the rent.' PILT is a part of the Federal Government's cost of being in the land business out in the States. It is a consideration we owe to local governments by previous agreement. I represent a State where PILT payments are not very large. North Dakota is 25th among the States in the total payments its counties receive under this program. About $550,000 is apportioned to 53 North Dakota counties, and that works out to less than $10,000 per county. However, PILT is important funding to counties that have lost tax base to Federal land ownership.”