Jim Inhofe: “Let me reclaim the floor, if I may, and respond to the Senator from Iowa. For the first 30 years of this program, it was…”

“Let me reclaim the floor, if I may, and respond to the Senator from Iowa. For the first 30 years of this program, it was fully funded. I do not believe the Senator was in the Chamber when I first started talking about it. This is a reimbursement back to the States of money they have been deprived of as a result of Federal activity. That is a distinction between this and other programs. For the Senator's State of Iowa, for example, you are getting 20 percent of what you would get if it were fully funded. It is an equity issue. Certainly, I have the understanding from the chairman--and I talked to the Senator from Nevada--and I recognize that when this gets into conference, there is going to be a problem weaving and sorting. But I cannot imagine any other program that would have a higher priority than this, to ultimately say it is our intent to get this fully funded back to where it was prior to the 1980s. For that reason, I believe it has merit above some of the other programs that are coming. This is a reimbursement we agreed to back in the 1950s.”