Alan Simpson: “if rhetoric were fast food, Members would have to walk through golden arches to enter this floor, because I have never…”

“if rhetoric were fast food, Members would have to walk through golden arches to enter this floor, because I have never heard so much rhetoric as I have just heard from the gentleman from Massachusetts who just spoke. He talks about the beauty of these things, and many are beautiful. But some of them, my colleagues ought to come to Idaho and look at the expansion of the Craters of the Moon. It is a bunch of lava rock. And we are still trying to figure out what the imminent threat was to the Craters of the Moon when they designated it as a national monument, yet they decided they had to do it. It was under no imminent threat. That is the reality. Mr. Chairman, clearly my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are passionate about national monuments. So am I; and so is anybody on this side of the aisle. We all love our public lands and want to protect them, but look at what this amendment does. What this amendment does is say that we cannot have any preleasing, any leasing, or any related activities on a national monument as it existed prior to January 20, 2001.”