David Thomas: “in general terms, it seems to me that what we have been doing in Congress for a year, year-and-a-half and continue to do…”

“in general terms, it seems to me that what we have been doing in Congress for a year, year-and-a-half and continue to do is to try to find a way to cut through some of the kinds of regulations, maintain the effort without all of the difficulties, and one of the places--and I have worked very closely with it--is NEPA. I think we have to remember that NEPA was designed and developed as a process for major Federal action, major Federal action. That is precisely what we have done in the Domenici bill, is to hold that to major Federal action. Now, the problem that has happened in the past, particularly with the Forest Service--we did it this year; we had to go through with some legislation--was that it was uncertain, it was uncertain, so the lawyers over at Justice and over at the Department of Agriculture said to the Department, said to the Forest Service, ``Look, you have to do it. It doesn't say to in the law, but it is uncertain, and the Secretary may decide or may not decide.'' And that is how we ended up with all the NEPA things on grazing allotments. We have been through that the whole year long. This substitute continues with that kind of uncertainty, and it says you do not have to do it if the Secretary does this, if the Secretary does that. We will end up right back as the subject of lawsuits.”