[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 140 (Wednesday, October 2, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Page S12216]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       OMNIBUS PARKS LEGISLATION

  Mr. WARNER. May I say that I very much appreciate the leadership by 
the Senator from Oklahoma and Senator Lott with respect to the parks 
bill. It is a matter of tremendous interest to my State. I am heartened 
by the news that this in all likelihood will become law.
  It is interesting to think, when is the last time the Senate passed 
such a major piece of legislation relating to the parks? It is 
heartening to this Senator.
  I thank our distinguished acting leader, and I thank the Chair.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Virginia. And I 
appreciate the emphasis. He is one of many Senators that has been 
urging us to complete action on the parks bill. I know that there are 
several items that are important to the State of Virginia.
  We have had contacts from our colleagues in Colorado, including 
Senator Campbell, who has a broken arm, but, yet, he feels that this is 
very, very important to his State; Senators from California; and 
others.
  I believe that there are 41 States that have projects in this bill. 
We are very close. I know Senator Murkowski has been working with the 
administration. They don't have everything resolved. I will admit that 
up front. But hopefully we will be successful in wrapping that bill up 
tomorrow. Hopefully the House will concur, and we can be successful in 
passing a very important parks bill.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am sure the distinguished leader would 
acknowledge the work that Chairman Murkowski has performed in 
reconciling the interests of this bill.
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President, the Senator from Virginia is exactly 
correct. I worked for hours today alone with the Senator from Alaska. 
But, as the Senator from Virginia knows, the Senator from Alaska has 
been working on this bill for years--for years. And there are countless 
hours that have gone into putting this package together. It is not 
something that has been hurried up and put together in the last days. 
This is a culmination. It has a lot of bills together.
  Some may ask, ``Why is that?'' Senators objected to having any bill 
go through. So all of the bills ended up combined. That is unfortunate. 
We should not legislate that way. But the objection, frankly, was on 
the Democrat side of the aisle. It should not have happened. Hopefully 
in the future we will be able to pass land bills individually as they 
are reported out of the authorizing committees. It didn't happen in 
this case. We will have to work hard to see that it does not happen in 
the future.
  But most all of these projects that are in this bill have been hashed 
out for months, most of which have unanimous support in the Senate. And 
my guess is that when we get to a vote on the bill--we may well vote on 
it tomorrow. We may pass it by voice vote. If we have a recorded vote, 
I would venture to say that we would have 90-some percent of the 
Senators voting in favor of that package.
  So, hopefully we will get it through both Houses and have it for the 
President's signature.

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