[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 92 (Wednesday, June 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H5627]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  URGING SUPPORT FOR FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS IN THE NATIONAL 
                        PARK SERVICE AND THE BLM

  (Mr. MILLER of California asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, National Park rangers and BLM 
rangers and other Federal law enforcement officers are daily subjected 
to threats of violence and danger. The men and women who protect our 
resources and our citizens deserve our respect and our support, whether 
they wear the uniform in the streets of our cities or in the desolate 
back woods of our public lands. However, we see a Bureau of Land 
Management law enforcement ranger in Montana responding to knife 
assaults, a BLM ranger in California coming upon a drug deal that is 
turning into a shootout, guns are fired at BLM vehicles in New Mexico, 
and the list of violent incidents are growing: 29 homicides, 110 cases 
of arson, 166 weapons violations, and hundreds of more serious offenses 
on BLM land every year.
  That is why Americans are shocked to hear about Members of this House 
calling for the disarming of law enforcement officials or suggesting 
that those who violate public laws have an irrational fear of their 
government.
  Now they are getting very specific. The Chairman of the House 
Committee on Resources, in a letter to the Committee on Appropriations, 
has called for zero funding of BLM resources protection of law 
enforcement and huge cuts in law enforcement in the Forest Service. The 
Members of this House should stand with law enforcement.


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