Mountains to Sound Greenway National Heritage Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, it is often the situation where heritage areas that were originally established to try to allow local people to have some mechanism in which they can get together to actually advertise their particular area are usually for tourism interests or historical preservation interests. It kind of devolved, unfortunately, through time, to an issue in which people simply found a way of using the Federal Government as the deep pocket to keep getting more money all the time back to those particular areas, even though it was supposed to be a one-time situation. Then we found that other heritage areas found a way in which special interest groups got control of these areas and were starting to dictate to local government entities.

Each of those problems that have been a significant problem in other heritage areas was eliminated by Mr. Reichert in his particular piece of legislation. That is why I said he did it the right way, with the right instincts, with the right purposes, the right illustration, especially with the emphasis on protecting private property rights and Native American rights.

So this is one of the few heritage areas that I am happy to support, because it is organized the proper way to solve problems, not just try to find a cheap and easy way to get more money back into the area. So he is commended for his integrity and the way he has orchestrated that.

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Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of this piece of legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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