Earl Blumenauer: “I would like to ask, my colleague from eastern Washington said talk real slow, the allegation here is following the law.…”

“I would like to ask, my colleague from eastern Washington said talk real slow, the allegation here is following the law. What they are basing this on is a GAO report on the Tongas wilderness. This would subject a precedent that they somehow want to stretch to every land use decision. No court has ever decided this. This was a GAO opinion from 1973. No court has ever decided it, but I find it ironic that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are somehow holding up to such reverence a GAO report when they do not do this for mining practices, for timber practices, for abuse in the oil industry. These are all GAO reports that the majority has seen fit to avert their eyes; but here, they would subject every land use process to an opinion that devolves from this one item.”