David Cay Johnston: “Mr. President, I want to make a few initial observations about where we are with respect to this bill and where I hope…”

“Mr. President, I want to make a few initial observations about where we are with respect to this bill and where I hope we will end up. Almost every park and public land bill reported from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee in this Congress is included in the Murkowski substitute to be introduced this morning. Most of these bills are noncontroversial and were reported by the committee unanimously; some have passed the Senate already but are held up in the House; some have passed the House and could go to the President, but for the fact that they are included in this package; others have had no action in either body. While packaging these bills in this manner is not unprecedented, this particular package is unusual in at least two respects. First, for almost 1 rac{1}{2} ext{ years we have been unable to move any of these bills through the Senate. This gridlock which has prevented our ability to legislate in this area is unprecedented. This is not the way we should do our business. Whatever happens to this bill, I hope we will not find ourselves in this situation again. For as long as I have been in the Senate we have, until this Congress, been able to move these noncontroversial but important bills back and forth between the House and Senate in a spirit of bipartisanship and comity.”