John Barrasso

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I appreciate your comments and hope you've taken those to heart.

I do have some concerns that the bill, as drafted, may have unintended consequences of pressing upon the rights of private property owners on State owned lands.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for convening this subcommittee hearing.

The bill would also dedicate, I think, 1.5 percent of the Land and Water Conservation Fund moneys to be used for securing public access.

I think a bipartisan agreement on the committee that what you're talking about just makes sense.

I want to thank Chairman Manchin and Senator Barrasso for giving me this opportunity...

I mean, because if so, if they have that authority and I would say why did these families have to wait for over a year to get closure when, you know, the teams were finally allowed to recover their loved ones.

I think it would be safe to say that if the agency no longer has the management challenges that were involved with it that would actually save the Forest Service time and resources if you didn't have to deal with it.

Often we don't pay much attention to the need for emergency preparedness until after there is a disaster, but the risk of one form or another of natural disaster in Indian Country is not theoretical and, as we can see, it is real, and…

It is critical that tribes have the tools they need to mitigate and respond to the damage caused by a natural disaster.

So I want to thank Senator Udall and his leadership on this bill. He's been a great partner to work with.

We could stop making--we should make it--we should stop making it harder to produce energy on Federal lands.

Last month Senator Tom Udall and I introduced S. 2440, the BLM Permit Processing Improvement Act of 2014.

So it's a budget impact in terms of roads, hospitals, schools.

Delays in the timely permitting of oil and gas wells makes States with Federal lands less attractive for development.

The legislation before you today would remove the pilot from the pilot program and make necessary changes.

Federal onshore oil production also makes up a smaller percentage of total U.S. oil production than it has in 7 years.

We need to reauthorize the program so the people of Wyoming and other States can create jobs, grow their economies.

So the question is, can you guarantee success in Paris? And if not, aren't these climate change policies all pain for America and the citizens of this Country and little gain globally?

Well, a key part of the President's climate change strategy is to have us believe that he and his environmental and diplomatic all-star team can arrive in Paris in 2015 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference and convince the world to follow…

On July 6th of this year, the New York Times wrote a piece about the outsized role that the National Resources Defense Council, the NRDC, had in developing the EPA's new regulations to curb power plant emissions.

I agree with Chief Hicks, people will try to test systems, will try to find ways around them.

Thank you. Because Mr. Chairman, I think effectiveness of a key point of this whole thing.

Gaming activities must be regulated effectively. No one, be it contractors, vendors, players or employees should illegally benefit at the expense of the tribes.