Political Quotes

“I rise also in strong support of H.R. 925, the North American Wetlands Conservation Extension Act. And I would also like to thank Mr. Thompson for his extraordinary leadership on this legislation and for his service on the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission. As he spoke about, he has a passion to make sure that we are preserving that habitat we all value and the wildlife that lives there--not just the migratory birds, but all of the other life that it supports. It is critically important that we continue this program. It is one of the truly successful stories in conservation in our Nation, and, again, I want to thank Mr. Thompson for his leadership. This bill works to reduce wetlands disappearance and to conserve migratory bird habitat. The good part about it is that we, in setting aside this land now, predominantly use conservation easements as a mechanism to do that. I understand the chairman's concern about more acres of land in the Federal inventory and the dollars that it takes to maintain that land. We absolutely have to address that. But the good news here is that many of these acres are in conservation easements, which means they stay in private ownership. They just have an easement from the Federal Government to maintain that critical habitat. That really is the best of both worlds as well as leveraging private dollars with this. What a great example of how to leverage public dollars with private dollars.…”