John Thune: “I would like to keep in discussion we have had this evening with respect to regulation. I was sitting in the Committee…”

“I would like to keep in discussion we have had this evening with respect to regulation. I was sitting in the Committee on Agriculture this morning and we had a number of folks testifying in front of our committee, and it had to do with an issue which is very important in my home State of South Dakota. We have a tremendous natural resource known as the Black Hills. And interestingly enough, we talk about the heavy hand of Government regulation, as I was listening to the testimony this morning, in 31 cases, the last 31 times, there has been a proposed timber sale in the Black Hills; 31 times that has been appealed. In every case it has ended up as being a long, protracted fight. In fact, we had what is known as a blow-down in April, a blizzard, that knocked a lot of trees down. Those trees cannot even be harvested until October because that has been appealed. And we think about the hard working men and women in America who are trying to make a living and eke out a livelihood from the natural resource industries that are very prevalent in western South Dakota and the way that the Government is constantly getting in the way.”