Maurice Hinchey: “this amendment says they cannot spend Federal funds for nine monuments, and those monuments are located in California…”

“this amendment says they cannot spend Federal funds for nine monuments, and those monuments are located in California, in Arizona, in Colorado, Oregon, Washington; but they can spend money on the monument in Utah. The budget that we have here today would spend, in fact, $5.3 million on a visitor center for a national monument in the State of Utah. I believe that is located in the district of the sponsor of this amendment, which would prevent spending on these nine monuments in these other States. This is an interesting feature of this particular amendment. Now, I have always thought that cynicism is a personality trait to be avoided, but one does not have to be terribly cynical to make the observation that something very odd and unusual is going on here. It is okay to spend money on the monument in my district, but it is not okay to spend money on the monuments in people's other districts in other States. That strikes me as being very strange.”