Rob Bishop: “I appreciate the time being yielded. Mr. Speaker, one of the processes of this particular bill is one that I hope we do…”

“I appreciate the time being yielded. Mr. Speaker, one of the processes of this particular bill is one that I hope we do not replicate very often because indeed there are nine separate bills tied together into one package. Each bill has a separate amount of merits to those particular bills. Some of them, like the bill by Mr. Skelton, the chairman from Missouri, is a very well-written bill. I particularly would like to thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Boozman) for writing a bill that I think went above and beyond the call of duty in trying to ensure that the rights of citizens who would be in this study area are protected, as well as ensuring that the maximum amount of participation can be given to those people who are living in that particular area. There are also some elements in the bill as it came out of committee that I found personally egregious. Those have been removed from the bill that is here. I would like to thank the chairman of the committee and the subcommittees respectively as well as Democratic staff for making changes in this particular bill in a way that I find very appealing. I appreciate them for entering into discussions in an effort to find some kind of bipartisan cooperation with this, and I also am very appreciative of the professional manner in which the Democrat staff worked with our staff in coming up with a bill that I think is very positive coming out of here.”