On the recordNovember 30, 2011
I have two amendments that I believe are very significant. However, I don't believe they will clear, and that is the reason I will not be bringing them up. But it is important we do address the problems. The Military Leasing Act prohibits military installations from receiving any revenues from mineral exploration of these lands. Exploration has taken place in Oklahoma and other places, where we have, with the new horizontal drilling, been able to get at some of these reserves. The problem is that this incurs an expense by the military operations. The one I am talking about right now happens to be the depot in McCallister, OK. Under the Mineral Leasing Act that governs oil and gas leasing on Federal lands, it gives the responsibility to the Bureau of Land Management. The problem is, we want to explore it and accommodate others who are going after these tremendous reserves and not just in Oklahoma but elsewhere. But there is not a mechanism by which they can be paid for expenses incurred by the local installation. We are going to be working on this and coming up with some kind of a solution. I will not be offering this as an amendment. The second one I will not be offering is one that is very significant, which is treating what we refer to as the sub-S, or subpart-S carriers, nonscheduled carriers, that are currently taking materiel and personnel into areas such as Afghanistan.…
