Political Quotes

“I thank my colleagues from Montana and Hawaii for their supportiveness. Briefly, Mr. Speaker, this is what you get when people talk about issues and not cliches. This is a long time in the making, as has been previously indicated, folks from the wilderness areas, folks from economic development areas, folks from the resource extraction areas all coming together on this. But just in case there is some concern about, oh my God, potentially we are transferring the Federal estate, let's remind people of a couple of things that are in this legislation. First of all, nothing is transferred for nothing. It talks about the appraisal process and how, if you are going to purchase the Federal estate, you are going to pay for it. Secondly, it is talking about exchanges along the Trans-Pacific legislation on the checkerboard from 1862, which talks about the Secretary of the Interior is a full partner with the county commission in identifying those lands that are appropriate for exchange. Why is this important? This is important because if they don't think it is a good idea to exchange, then the Secretary of the Interior can stop that process, so it doesn't force the Secretary of the Interior to exchange land that he or she, in the future, doesn't want to. But let's remind ourselves of one other thing.…”