Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I am opposing this amendment, first and foremost, because it, like so many provisions already in the bill, seeks to prevent U.S. public lands from being managed for the benefit of all Americans. National forests are lands of many uses, including hunting and fishing. But how those uses are balanced should be decided by expert land managers at the Forest Service through a process that is open to the public and consistent with our national conservation laws, not by a few well-connected hunters and their allies in Congress. Furthermore, the practice that this section of the bill is trying to protect is using dogs to hunt deer. Not only is this an ethically questionable hunting tactic, it is wildly controversial in the States listed in this title as well as in my State of Virginia. Its opponents, Mr. Chairman, are not who you might think. These are not what was described yesterday as radical leftists. In fact, it is the complaints from private landowners and not overbearing bureaucrats, not environmentalists, that led the Forest Service to ban deer hounding in Louisiana's Kisatchie National Forest in 2012. Don't take my word for it. A 2014 column in Louisiana Sportsman stated: The boot that finally stamped the life out of deer hunting with dogs in Kisatchie National Forest was trespassing on private property . . .…”