Bill Lee: “in reserving the right to object, we have a bill here that we received at 10 o'clock this morning, and it is 680- pages…”

“in reserving the right to object, we have a bill here that we received at 10 o'clock this morning, and it is 680- pages long. I have spent many hours reviewing it. This is a bill that came out of the committee on which I serve. I have been trying for many weeks, through the chairman of that committee and her staff, to get language or to at least get an outline of this. We were not able to get that until today at 10 a.m. Even after we got that, we asked for at least an outline of this bill or for a summary of the bill text from the committee staff, from the chairman's staff. They didn't respond to us. They wouldn't give it to us, just as they haven't for weeks. We got this--the closest thing to a summary--from a lobbyist. We had to wait to get it from a lobbyist. This is of great impact to my State. This bill creates 1.3 million acres of wilderness, about half of which is in my State. This bill permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is an entity that has been used to acquire more Federal land. Now, in coming from a State where two-thirds of the land is owned by the Federal Government--where we can't do anything without leave from the Federal Government--this hurts. In coming from a State where we have had about 2 million acres of Federal land declared as monuments through Presidential proclamations, this hurts. I have made what I consider to be a very reasonable offer, and I ask that it be accepted. It involves two words.…”