Dusty Johnson: “I want to thank the gentlewoman and thank the gentleman for their words of support for this piece of legislation. I ask…”

“I want to thank the gentlewoman and thank the gentleman for their words of support for this piece of legislation. I ask all my colleagues to support my bill. It would do exactly as the previous two speakers said. It would make things a lot easier. It would advance environmental quality. What exactly are we dealing with here? We have a 266-acre parcel. It used to be the site of the Gilt Edge Mine. It is now an EPA Superfund site. Mr. Speaker, you can see a picture of the site here. This is not pristine wilderness; but, of course, we want to get it back to an environmental asset. This is now, as the gentlewoman said, a checkerboard of competing governmental ownerships and roles. You have got the Forest Service which owns much of this land; you have got the State of South Dakota which owns some of the rest of it; you have got the EPA which for 20 years has been doing remediation work on the water; and then you have got the State of South Dakota which has other environmental cleanup and management responsibilities on this site. So what this bill would do is take the portions of this site that are owned by the Forest Service, and it would allow the State of South Dakota to purchase this land. That is going to get the Forest Service out of the middle of this. They don't need to play a role here. The work of the State will be easier if they have one less Federal partner to work with and to navigate.…”