Jeff Bingaman: “let me respond that there are a great many groups and individuals around the country very concerned about preserving…”

“let me respond that there are a great many groups and individuals around the country very concerned about preserving hunting and fishing rights. To my knowledge, none of them have raised concerns about whether our legislation impinges upon those or our proposed substitute impinges upon those rights, or fails to adequately protect those rights. I think those concerns have been raised about the underlying bill. Senate bill 1459, not about our substitute. So I think this is a problem which is not real, in my view. Mr. President, I will conclude my comments by just going back to the basic point that I think needs to be understood by our colleagues. In putting together our substitute, which we are getting ready to vote on, we sent a letter to my colleague, Senator Domenici, in September of last year. It was signed by myself, Senators Dorgan, Daschle, Bryan, and Reid, all five of us, who have spoken here on this issue. We sent a letter saying that, in our view, the only way we should go forward and develop legislation that would do what needs to be done here is to identify the problems that exist in the new grazing regulations and then legislate corrections to those, legislate solutions to those, correct the specific problems that have been pointed out. Do not go beyond that and create new problems. I believe that we have done that in the substitute.”