Interior, Environment, Financial Services, and General Government Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I rise to reluctantly reserve the right to object. I will object to amendment No. 3424, which would permanently authorize the revenue collection and deposit functions of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

I thank my colleague from North Carolina, and I thank my colleague from Colorado. I, too, know, hear, and understand the passion that they have expressed not only at this time but that they have expressed for quite some time in their support for this important conservation program. It is something about which we, as Americans, have much to be proud.

I have expressed some of my concerns about how, historically, certain aspects of the Land and Water Conservation Fund have shifted from there being less for stateside acquisition and more for Federal acquisition. I would like to see some of that reallocated and rebalanced. In concept, what we have designed with the LWCF is something that has brought strong and good benefit to our States and, really, to conservation efforts throughout the country.

When the Senators speak about the merits of the program, I find nothing that I can disagree with in terms of the benefits that we see. Why I rise to express my objection in advancing the amendment is that the issue they have raised is to permanently seek to authorize this program. The collection and deposit provisions within LWCF are currently authorized, and, as they have pointed out, they are authorized through September 30 of this year. The measure they bring before us would be to permanently authorize those expiring provisions. It is, in its very nature, authorizing on an appropriations bill. We have an annual spending bill that basically directs that spending for 1 year. This measure would be significant in the extent of its authorization.

We have sought to advance the 12 appropriations bills through to the floor in a manner that we have not seen in years. I mentioned, when we started this debate on Monday night, that we haven't had an Interior appropriations bill on the Senate floor since 2010. That is not the Senators' fault. That is a failure of our process. One can assign a lot of blame, and one can point a lot of fingers. The fact of the matter is that we had moved from that responsibility of ``What are the annual spending priorities that the appropriating committees are tasked to do every year?'' to, effectively, bringing in a lot of the authorizing that the authorizing committees themselves needed to do, and it was not working. We stalled ourselves out. We had big omnibus bills that nobody liked. So we are trying to get back to a process that we can stand behind, that really defines what the appropriations process is designed to do.

At the direction of Chairman Shelby and Vice Chairman Leahy, we have agreed to really try to come together to work to restore what we fondly refer to as ``regular order'' and what some don't even know to be regular order because they have never really experienced it. Because we made that commitment, we were actually able to move an Interior Appropriations Subcommittee bill through the full committee by 31 to 0--unanimous. I don't know if there has ever been a unanimous vote on an Interior appropriations bill out of the subcommittee, much less being able to bring it to the floor.

So much of this objection is due to the fact that the Senator's amendment would seek to permanently authorize on an appropriation's 1- year annual spending bill. I think it is also important to point out to colleagues that while the current authorization does extend through September 30, the authority to collect and deposit revenues in the funds is what expires on September 30. The ability and the authority to appropriate money continues indefinitely.

For those who may be concerned that if we fail to authorize this before September 30 the sky is going to fall on the LWCF and that all the good that is in the works will stop, that is not accurate. Within this year's spending bill, we have authorized the LWCF to the 2018 level of $425 million. Within this amount, the stateside assistance programs are about 50 percent of the funding. There was $124 million in 2015 for NPS stateside and also additional funding for the American Battlefield Protection Program--an increase this year to the highest level ever within this account.

I want to make sure that my colleagues do know that my commitment here and the commitment of many in this body is to work with our colleagues--to work with the Senator from North Carolina, to work with the Senator from Colorado, and with the many others who care deeply and rightly about the future of the Land and Water Conservation Fund--to ensure that it is able to continue the good work that it does.

I remind my friends that it was just about a year and a half ago when we moved an energy bill out of the authorizing committee, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Included as part of that measure was a permanent authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. This is something that the Senator from Colorado had worked on with us, and Senator Cantwell, the ranking member on the committee, made sure that it was a priority. Now, that measure has not seen floor time this year. We were able to move it out in the last Congress. We were able to move that bill out by 85 to 12.

When the Senator from North Carolina says that there is good support for the LWCF within this body, we have demonstrated it. We have demonstrated it through votes on the floor, and we have demonstrated it through the support in the authorizing committee.

I do think there is a path forward, but I ask my colleagues to honor the commitment we have made to try to advance our appropriations bills in an order that respects the authority that we have as appropriators, which is to appropriate these dollars to the designated priorities and to stand down when it comes to authorizing on these appropriating bills.

The Senators have my commitment, most certainly, to continue to work on a positive path forward--a path that is not months in delay. I absolutely believe that the Senator from North Carolina is very serious in his commitment and his resolve that we will see this issue before us on every vehicle out there. It is in my best interest--I think it is in our best interests--to figure out how we are able to come to an agreement to support a program that most of us can get behind, to do so in a manner that allows us to do our legislative business, and to do so with the level of comity and civility that this process demands.

With that, again, I reluctantly and respectfully object.

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