Political Quotes

“I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I understand the gentleman's comments. And I know the hearing yesterday addresses the issue, which is separate from this. Listen, we should have that debate; we should have that discussion. This issue is an administrative Secretarial order that, to the credit of Secretary Salazar, they withdrew. It was confirmed, by the way, to be withdrawn because of the CR we passed that takes us through September 30. The Secretary, to his credit, said, I'm going to abide by that. As a result, the order has not been withdrawn. This debate here is about next year's funding. So until we get clarification on that order or the order is withdrawn, this language is appropriate. And that's simply all we're saying. Now, we can get into a discussion of whether wild lands is, in fact, a designation or not. And as a matter of fact, wild lands has no definition whatsoever administratively. So there's a question on our side, obviously, if they can even do that because wild lands may be synonymous with wilderness, but wilderness can only be designated by the Congress. And that is the concern that we have. And that's why I think the language that was put into the appropriation bill takes care of next year. And I say, to the credit of the Secretary----”