On the recordJune 13, 2013
I appreciate the invitation from Mr. Pearce. This problem illustrates a couple of overwhelming problems we have. One is that agencies don't talk one with another. When the FAA closed towers down, they put three military bases in a difficult situation because they didn't talk. When NASA changed its policy on manned space flight, it increased the cost of our missile defense system because the agencies flat out didn't talk. Here is another situation of agencies that simply are not working together, which illustrates a second reason why, in this bill, when we try to talk about land, we're not talking about withdrawing land so that two different agencies have the same land. We're trying to do transfers of land so one agency can make the decision--in this case, it should be the military. Now, as subcommittee chairman for the Public Lands Subcommittee in the Resources, I want to say I support this amendment, and I would ask that people would pass this amendment. There may be some areas of trying to change some of the language to limit the scope of what we are doing here, which could easily be done in conference if this amendment is placed on the table in the first place. We already have language in there that deals with White Sands, but this amendment would have to be in addition to that. So I would urge my colleagues to actually vote in favor of this.…
