Don Nickles: “Western States have a lot of public land and not a lot of private land. This amendment says if you are going to sell…”

“Western States have a lot of public land and not a lot of private land. This amendment says if you are going to sell land to a charity that deals with conservation, you get a 25 percent lower capital gains tax than if you sell to any other charity. My amendment would say if you sell to any charity, you will get a reduced capital gains tax. I mentioned the Nature Conservancy. They are big in my State. They bought one of the biggest ranches--a buffalo ranch--in Oklahoma. It is in the tall grass prairie. I love it. I helped make that happen. The Nature Conservancy is a big group. I don't know how great their assets are, but I guess it is in the millions of dollars--lots of land and lots of millions of dollars. If you sell to that group, you get a 25 percent reduction in your capital gains tax. I don't think they need it, compared to a church in Oklahoma, maybe in a rural area, which might want to build or expand. But if you want to sell to that church, you have to pay a 25 percent higher tax than if you sell it to a conservancy group, or the Sierra Club, that wants to build a conservancy or other groups that might want to say: Hey, you get a lower deal; sell it to us. Let's encourage charitable contributions, but let's also encourage sales to charitable organizations. If we are going to do it for one charitable organization, let's do it for all charitable organizations.”