On the recordFebruary 5, 2014
I have appreciated the tone and the tenor of today's discussion and all the words that have been said on all the bills that are before us. We have the opportunity of making the desert bloom if we do things in the appropriate way. We have done it in the past. We can do it in the future. I recognize that most of the debate has been on the one bill in this particular issue which deals with the issue of water in California. Totally ignored was the other issue that is equally significant, especially to the 10 States that have an interest in that, dealing with land policy. You see, there is a role for government if government is efficient and effective and compassionate and uses common sense. As I have worked with individuals, both on the ground from the Forest Service and the BLM, who live in the communities and know those people, they are usually fair, efficient, and effective people. They get it. But the further they ascend or are removed from the people and go up into the hierarchy of the administration, as they tend towards Washington, D.C., they tend to forget people and the importance of helping people, and they become hamstrung, as agencies, with a blind obedience to policy and to regulation so that the agencies become inefficient and ineffective. They lack compassion, and they are certainly devoid of common sense.…
