Public Lands Package

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, on behalf of Chairman Hatch, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of the lands package bill. I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I think it is important to recognize that while the text, in fairness to my friend from Utah, was just laid down this morning, these are bills, these are measures, these are matters that have not only been before our committee but have been before the subcommittee on which the Senator is the chairman, and he has had an opportunity to have heard many of those public lands bills.

This was a very highly negotiated process by the four corners--not only by Senator Cantwell and me on this side but by our colleagues on the House side--to see what could be put together by way of a package, in terms of the contours of that package.

Colleagues will remember that around this body, unfortunately, when it comes to public lands matters, many of these are very, very parochial in nature. Whether it is a conveyance that allows for a water utility to be able to proceed or whether it is a conveyance that will allow for a school to have a facility there, it is pretty parochial. These don't come to the floor for debate and passage.

Typically and traditionally, what happens is--and it might not be a perfect process--we bundle them up at the end of the year. What we have done is to have provided--and not only to members of the committee--the bills that we have had an opportunity to have heard. We have outlined what that universe is. In fairness to my colleague and his comment, it was not until the very end that we knew exactly what was going to fall in based on the negotiations with our House colleagues and with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

Yet what I would offer up to Members is that this has been an extraordinarily collaborative process in terms of those priorities that we see represented within this bill. Just on our side of the aisle alone, there are some 43 Members who either have bills that they have authored or are the cosponsors of with regard to matters that are important to their States and matters that are, perhaps, more globally important, like the LWCF, and I understand the Senator's position on the LWCF.

We also recognize that there are a great number of Members on the Republican side and on the Democratic side who are very supportive of some form of reauthorization of the LWCF. We have a sportsman package in here that many, many of us have been working on. In fact, this is the fourth Congress now in which we have tried to advance these priorities for many of the sports men and women in the country. So we have attempted to work through some of the issues that my colleague from Utah has raised.

We have offered to withdraw very significant legislation that our Presiding Officer himself has offered. That is not something that I really willingly wanted to do, but in an effort to try to get a broader lands package that would recognize the needs of so many, we made some significant offers.

Now, my colleague has asked for two simple words. I happen to believe, as one who comes from a State where we have said no more to the Antiquities Act without some limitations, I understand the concerns, and I understand the effort that he has made repeatedly. I also understand that the politics on this side of the aisle and in the other body are such that it was not an acceptable offer or an acceptable amendment.

So we are where we are now, and I come before you to make the offer to allow us an opportunity to vote on this lands package, to move it over to the House, and to finish this off. I understand that we do not have that consent. What we have come to this evening is a recognition that there is a desire amongst Members in this body to see this package through. The leader has committed and the minority leader has committed that when we return in January, this will be--if not the first order of business--a matter that will be before this body within the first couple of weeks. We will turn to it, and it will be a package that we will not have begun all over, but it will be something that Members can look to tonight. This will be an opportunity to study every single page that you want because we will have an opportunity to vote on that with a thumbs up or a thumbs down in early January when we return.

Again, this is something that I wish we had been able to resolve. In fairness, I wish that we would have been able to have provided for there to have been a greater opportunity for Members to have reviewed this before these final hours. In fairness, this is just Wednesday night. We will now continue until after the new year. We probably could have had another couple of days to have worked on it, but that didn't work in our favor, and I regret that.

I thank those who have worked doggedly on both sides to try to come to an agreement so that we could resolve this finally and fully. So many of these issues are so important to people back in their counties and their municipalities and their boroughs and their States.

We are going to put it on hold for yet another month, but we will be back at the first of the year, and we will continue to address these issues that are so important when it comes to our public lands, our waters, our conservation priorities, as well as the priorities of our sports men and women.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MURKOWSKI. I believe there is an objection to the request.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, I know my colleague from Montana wishes to speak, But before the Senator from Washington departs, I also want to acknowledge the good work of both of our staffs--and not just our staffs, but working with our colleagues on the House side and with so many Members.

When you are going through the volume that we are talking about--some 114 different bills on the House side and the Senate side--it is extraordinarily tedious and difficult work, and I think we owe them all a great deal of thanks. But I also want to rise and thank Senator Cantwell, because in this next Congress she will be moving to another position as ranking member and I will not be working side-by-side with her as we have.

I think it is important to note that on the difficult things that came before us, we didn't always start off in agreement, but we slogged through it and our teams stuck with it and slogged through it, and we got to where we are tonight. While it is not a good ending from my view, in that we weren't able to provide these counties, these communities, these people that have worked so hard the satisfaction they are seeking, the commitment to continue this until we are done is real, it is in place, it is intact, and it was agreed to tonight, and we are going to be moving forward in the first few weeks of January.

I want to thank Senator Cantwell for the working relationship we have had over these past couple of years moving through important matters for your State, for my State, and really for the good of the country when it comes to energy. So I just appreciate your courtesies and our opportunity to work together and that of our staffs.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source