Rob Bishop: “If I may respond for just a moment. I do appreciate what the gentleman is saying, but I would take issue at the premise…”

“If I may respond for just a moment. I do appreciate what the gentleman is saying, but I would take issue at the premise upon which it is made. If indeed there needs to be a change of venue from any kind of Federal property--they need to go to high ground--those properties need to be identified, and it needs to go through regular order. Emergency funds should not be used to circumvent the process we already have in place, including the preservation of environmental standards, simply to do that. Here is the bottom line: if you don't accept this amendment, because the National Park Service has already told us what they will do with this money, if they are allowed because of some pressure from wherever source to purchase excess land with this money, which of these projects are we going to take off? Do you want to go to Liberty Island and take off the storm drain cleanage or the removing of the debris, the mold remediation, the hazardous debris removal, the removal of storm debris, the replacing of water fountains on Ellis Island, the repairing of the Battery Park screening site tent? The money is already identified here. This is where it should go. This is the emergency. For heavens sake, make it very clear that the money that's going to be given for an emergency is used to repair what was caused in the emergency, and do not have any loose ends that will circumvent regular order.…”