Rob Bishop: “Let me begin by talking about some things that have been overstated on parts, especially the one that is my title. My…”

“Let me begin by talking about some things that have been overstated on parts, especially the one that is my title. My title does not stop the BLM or anybody in the Interior Department from doing multiple use on land. It has nothing to do with management. It simply says they can buy no new land until they first become transparent and provide a database that anyone can easily accomplish. As with some of the other statements that have been made on the floor, some of them are somewhat exaggerated from what this bill intends to do. Mr. Chairman, let me talk about this bill as an entity. There is a common thread that runs through this bill that deals with public lands and people from Florida to Alaska and all stations in between. What we simply have found is the Federal Government has large, centralized bureaucracies that do our land management process that no longer meet the needs of people, but, rather, they hide behind rules and policies and regulations which make them safe for them. But they don't actually help people, which requires sometimes people to be flexible and think outside the proverbial box. The island in Florida that Mr. Miller was just referring to was given by Florida to the government, and the government gave it back to Florida before I was born--and that has been a while. But the concept here is that the government does not own this land.…”