[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 91 (Thursday, June 17, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H4621-H4625]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) is recognized for
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Madam Speaker, I come to the floor today during
this specific time to talk about issues that are taking place on the
borders of the United States. The issues I talk about are issues that
impact both the northern border and southern border as well. But we
have had quite a bit of hype in the media lately about things that are
taking place on the southern border, so I would like to try to focus my
attention primarily on what is happening between the border between the
United States and Mexico. I also want to try to narrow the focus of the
discussion tonight in some particular way because I'm not talking about
everybody who is coming through the border, both legally and illegally.
I'm talking about certain kinds of bad guys that are doing great harm
to this particular country.
Let me talk about the kinds of people for which we should be vastly
concerned. I am talking about drug cartels and drug runners. The sad
fact is that almost all the illegal drugs coming into this country are
coming across Federal lands that abut our southern border.
I'm talking about human traffickers. The sad reality is, those who
are hijacking and kidnapping people, those who are running prostitution
rings, those who are bringing people in here for unspeakable kinds of
activities are coming through Federal lands on our southern border. If
you go down to those lands, you will see the rape trees, established
where those who are leading innocent individuals will take people
across the border, physically abuse them, rape them, and then leave an
article of peril on a tree as a memento, a reward, a symbol of their
success in such a heinous activity. That is happening on Federal land
along our southern border.
And I also want to talk about the potential of terrorists who can
come through Federal land on our southern border almost without any
kinds of inhibitions. You see, not everyone who is coming through the
southern border with Mexico are from Mexico or even Latin American. In
recent years the Border Patrol has intercepted people from Yemen,
Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, people from most of the countries that are on
our enemy watch list, those types of individuals for whom we should be
suspect are the ones who are being captured and caught and detained.
And the question is, how many are not being captured and caught and
detained?
We have found discarded apparel, backpacks with old Chinese passports
that had been modified, that had been cut up, that had been reused. We
are not really sure exactly why they were there and for what purpose
they had, but we know that those types of individuals are coming across
our southern border.
So please let me try to emphasize: The reason there should be such
concern is because of some of the kinds of people who are illegally
entering this country, whose sole purpose--it's not to find a job or
not to join a family--but whose sole purpose is to further the illegal
drug trade, whose sole purpose is to further illegal human trafficking,
and whose sole purpose could easily be for terroristic reasons.
Now one of the ironies of our situation on the southern border is, if
you look at this picture of the southern border, the land from San
Diego over to El Paso, everything that is colored along the southern
border is different kinds of Federal land. Well over 40 percent of the
southern border is Federal lands, 4 million acres of which are in
wilderness categories.
I want to make a distinction between the southern border from El Paso
to San Diego because if you go from El Paso down to the Gulf of Mexico,
it's slightly different. First of all, you will notice from the map
there is not a lot of Federal lands there, and the Border Patrol has a
great deal more latitude and, consequently, a great deal more
effectiveness on private lands, working with private individuals and
local law enforcement, than they do in the areas where there are
Federal lands; plus there's a river that makes a difference as well.
So I want to concentrate on all of that colored area between San
Diego and El Paso where it is the Federal lands that are causing the
problem.
[[Page H4622]]
And they are causing the problem not for an unreasonable reason. I
think we can all logically understand this. The Border Patrol is being
very, very effective in urban areas. The Border Patrol is also being
increasingly effective along the Texas border where they are dealing
with local law enforcement and private property owners. And that means
that if you want to come into this country illegally to do drugs, do
human trafficking, or for terroristic purposes, you try to go through
the area that is the easiest.
The easiest access to this country has now become Federal lands along
the southern border, and that means that even though this issue has
been with us for many years and many administrations--going back to the
Reagan years when we were talking about this particular issue--and even
though the failings that I will be mentioning in this hour deal with
this administration, they also dealt during the Bush administration,
the Clinton administration, and years before that.
The only difference though is that now the situation is being
exacerbated because the success we have in urban areas and on the
private sector land means that the bad guys are being funneled more and
more into the Federal lands where it is simply easier access to get
into this country. So the problem has always been there. The problem,
though, is intensifying, and that is why we must look differently at
what we are doing.
Two agencies, actually three agencies are responsible for that
southern border. They include those who own the lands, which is the
Department of Interior and the Forest Service, and those who are
charged with patrolling and protecting those lands, which is Homeland
Security, specifically, the Border Patrol. And my contention to you
today is that those three agencies have collectively failed in their
responsibility.
A few weeks ago, a deputy sheriff from Pinal County, Arizona, comes
to one of those sections of land which is wilderness designation, which
means he no longer is able to stay within his vehicle--because, by our
laws, we cannot have a mechanized vehicle in a wilderness area--so he
has to get out of his car and walk into this wilderness area where he
promptly walks into an ambush and is shot. Two weeks later, in the same
area, the same wilderness area where the Border Patrol is not allowed
to do their routine type of patrol work, two dead bodies of Americans
are found in that exact same spot on Federal land.
You look over at the Rob Krentz family where, through a wildlife
refuge, once again, because it has an endangered species on it, Border
Patrol is prohibited from going into that area. Unfortunately, the
murderer of Rob Krentz was not prohibited from entering this country
through that wildlife refuge. He confronted a rancher whose family goes
back to 1907 in Arizona in that particular ranch. This is an elderly
gentleman who was on a motorized vehicle on his own land. He did not
have the opportunity of facing the issue of whether to fight or flee
because he didn't have the capacity to do either. He had just had
surgery on his back. He had just had a hip replacement, was scheduled
for another hip replacement. He basically was immobile.
And in years past, when a rancher confronted drug cartels, drug
runners, the human traffickers, they would usually flee. But for
whatever reason--and this is becoming more and more constant--for
whatever reason, this time the drug cartel decided to stay there, and
they killed Rob Krentz, and they killed his dog. And then he fled on a
very out-of-the-way route to going back through the exact wilderness
refuge from which he entered into this country. I'm sorry, this is an
example of where we are failing.
A Mexican rancher brutally murdered, bound and duct taped, was thrown
into the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on the U.S. side back in
November. To this day, nobody has actually issued any kind of press
release to allow anyone to know that that is happening. And the sad
part is the examples I am giving you right now are not isolated. We
have had several members of our Border Patrol who have been murdered in
this exact same area. More and more individuals, both Americans and of
Mexican extraction, are being assaulted, murdered, raped, and robbed in
this particular area, and it is all happening on Federal land.
So the question one has to simply ask is, you know, Why? Why would
this, indeed, be the situation in which we find ourselves? And one of
the problems that this Congress needs to address--because only this
Congress has the ability to address it--is some of the internal
conflicts between different Federal agencies. If you have the Interior
Department and Forest Service who own the land, they have certain laws
that we, in Congress, have wisely passed on how they must manage their
land. Homeland Security, though, is responsible for border protection.
They have other requirements and laws, and not always do those laws fit
together easily. In fact, sometimes they are in conflict.
It would be very simple to say, Well, common sense will tell you just
to sit down and work out the issue. Unfortunately, we're dealing with
the Federal Government, where common sense is not necessarily a high
priority. Indeed, some of the land managers, working under the
Department of Interior as well as the Forest Service, almost are doing
their work as if they have blinders on. Dedicated to the task at hand
and the legal requirement they have to consider the value and the
protection of the land as their highest priority, and dedicated to
fulfilling that legal requirement, they are sometimes oblivious to the
real world that is around them. They forget that there are other
missions that have to be there.
So sometimes it is more important to protect 22 pronghorn goats on
this land who are endangered than it is to consider definitely more
than 22 young men and women in America who are obviously subject to the
suffering and the pain that comes from the use of illegal drugs, which
are coming through that exact same territory. It is almost as if we
have this attitude within the Department of the Interior and the Forest
Service that because those are their lands, they will allow the Border
Patrol to go in there under certain circumstances. And yet, at the same
time, we have had the criticisms filed with us that allowing the Border
Patrol to go in there and monitor these lands and protect the border
for this country sometimes takes up to 6 months just to get the permits
to run the programs that they need.
Now, we were told the other day that, Well, this is changing. We are
working together better, that now we are coming together as Homeland
Security and Interior Department and Forest Service. We have worked
those out. No longer does it take 6 months to get the permits for the
activities to take place. We're now doing those within 30 days,
sometimes 60 days, occasionally a bit longer. Here is the question.
We're talking about securing this border. A drug cartel does not wait
90 days from the entrance into the country before they continue on.
They are not waiting for the bureaucratic wheel to spin so slowly in
this country to get together and work together to solve this particular
problem. And until we can come up with a new way of doing these issues,
it will continue.
We had a meeting with these three groups again the other day in which
they were proud that a communication tower, which was essential for the
Border Patrol to be able to do their work in guarding the access and
monitoring the access into this country, was not allowed to be put on
the site the Border Patrol wanted because that would have been on
wilderness designation. And once again, because of the laws we have
passed, you may not put any new structure on a wilderness designation.
So they were very proud. They were very proud that they had, after
several months of negotiation, came up with a deal to move the tower to
an area that was acceptable to Homeland Security and acceptable to the
Interior Department. Now that sounds great that they did the deal--with
one small caveat. The tower doesn't work in that area. There is now, by
everyone's admission, a 3-mile hole in the coverage, which means in
this effort to try to monitor what is coming in and out of American
territory, there is now a 3-mile black spot where no one will ever know
what is coming in or coming out. And I'm sorry, that's causing a
problem.
It is not unusual for the drug cartels, who are very sophisticated,
to understand this concept. Therefore, with this 3-mile hole, that
becomes the primary route of entrance. And the only reason
[[Page H4623]]
that that 3-mile hole exists is because, to obey our laws and to have,
first of all, the concept of protecting the land upper most, you didn't
put the tower where the tower would work. You put it on an alternative
site.
{time} 1445
Now once again, perhaps years ago when only a few people were coming
over occasionally, perhaps years ago when people who were there coming
over to try and get jobs to milk cows or to change sheets or to pick
tomatoes, occasionally that would not have been a problem. But as I
have said, we are no longer talking about that group, those kinds of
people coming in. We are now talking about effective, organized drug
cartels having running battles with themselves as well as Mexican
authorities on that side, and they are the ones who are now in
increasing numbers coming through those black holes on the Federal land
that we have simply created because we have not taken the blinders off
to look at the overall picture.
It is human traffickers and all the violence against women who are
coming over in increasing numbers through areas that we are not
allowing to be regularly patrolled. And the potential of a terrorist
coming into this country through these areas that no longer have any
kind of security simply because we are giving precedence to a land
concept of wilderness or endangered species, and that takes precedence
over securing our border and trying to protect the citizens of this
country.
Now, most people when you talk about this just shake their head in
amazement and say, That is silly. That violates common sense.
The only thing we have to say to those citizens who say that is, You
are right, it is silly. And it does violate common sense. And that is
why this Congress needs to do something about it because only we have
the ability of taking all three agencies and making them work to see
the large picture, the overall goal, and not simply what their narrow
focus may be in their job requirement or their job vision.
The question was made on whether the Border Patrol can do routine
patrols along our southern border. Without dropping a beat, the
representative from the National Park Service and the Department of the
Interior said, Well, of course not. Only under certain circumstances,
only when there is evidence of incursion will they be allowed to go
into these areas because that is when they need to. Once again, if we
are now inviting people to use these areas because we are stopping them
other places so now they are coming on Federal land, one of the things
that we need to do is make it much more difficult for someone to come
onto this land illegally, and that means you need to have Border Patrol
doing routine patrols.
I think in the back of everyone's mind if we start thinking about
what the Border Patrol could or should be doing as we envision it
personally, we would obviously see a bunch of people in a motorized
vehicle, armed, going up and down the border making sure that they are
checking for signs of incursion and making sure that those who want to
come into this country are having a second thought and saying maybe
there is a better route that is not across Federal lands.
So the first question one should ask is, Why not? Why aren't they
allowed to be in there? For, indeed, if the bottom line means that our
Border Patrol is not allowed to go on Federal lands to do their job, we
are creating our own problem. Initially last week, I believe, or maybe
2 weeks ago, the President announced a new initiative to send 1,200
National Guardsmen down to the border. I am encouraged by his
commitment to do something about it. However, once again one has to
ask: If the Border Patrol are not allowed to go onto Federal lands, the
National Guard will not be allowed to go onto Federal lands. I don't
care how many thousands of people you send down there, if they are not
allowed to do their job, if they don't have the access so they can do
the patrolling, it doesn't make a difference. That is silly. It is not
going to work. And that is the concept that somehow some way we ought
to recognize. We ought to figure out.
There is also one other issue that goes along with that that should
be a special concern to this Congress in the way that we operate here
because in one of the oddities that has developed over the years, we
have Congress appropriating money to agencies of government who are
then extorting that money from other agencies of government, i.e., for
the Border Patrol to do their work, one of the things and conditions
that is put upon them by the Department of the Interior is that they
have to pay mitigation fees, which means this Congress, without knowing
the details, appropriates money to Homeland Security for the Border
Patrol who will then have to pay that money to the Department of the
Interior for mitigation fees or to buy other lands to compensate.
This Congress has no control over that process. That's wrong. This
Congress has no say over that process, and that is wrong. And the idea
of transferring money from one group to another without the oversight
of Congress is wrong. It is illogical. It should not happen.
Here is the irony: as a Member of Congress, when the Homeland
Security budget is brought to this floor, I as a Member of Congress do
not have the ability to come in here and transfer some of that money
from Homeland Security over to the Interior budget. But the agencies
are doing it, and they are doing it without reporting it to Congress,
without understanding what Congress is about. Those agencies, by one
extorting money from the other, have the ability to do something that
Members of Congress cannot.
And I am sorry, Madam Speaker, this is illogical. And I am sorry that
we are going to authorize up to $50 million in this year's budget to
give to Homeland Security so they can send it over to the Interior
Department or the Forest Service, and the Interior Department or the
Forest Service will, without ever checking on why we are doing that,
what we are doing, and how this money is supposed to be spent. The
money all comes from the same pot, and it should be Congress' decision
on where that money is spent and how that money is spent. It should not
be a matter of internal negotiations between the haves and the have-
nots between different agencies, and that is a practice that has been
going on in this administration and in the prior administration and the
prior administration before that.
The difference, though, is today the dollar amount is much more
significant, and the issue is much more significant.
Some of the news agencies made a major brouhaha yesterday by
reporting a new sign that has been put up by the Department of the
Interior. I believe this is on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife
Refuge. And what the sign says to Americans coming down to this
American spot for wilderness protection for endangered species, as well
as recreation opportunities, is very clear. And amazing. It tells
Americans danger, there is a public warning, travel is not recommended
because the area of American land owned by the Federal Government in
which they would be entering is active drug and human smuggling areas.
Down here the BLM encourages visitors to use public lands north of
Interstate 8.
How many other places in the United States do you have the United
States Government putting up signs telling Americans not to enter into
American territory because it is too dangerous for Americans to go into
American territory, that drug cartels from foreign nations have taken
over control of this territory, and you enter at your own risk?
Unfortunately, this is not unusual. This sign went up this last week.
For years, both the Interior Department and Forest Service have been
recommending for people not to travel in these areas. And if you do,
you go at your own risk. Ninety-five percent of the Organ Pipe National
Monument is a wilderness area, and 90 percent of that wilderness area
is controlled by Mexican drug cartels, and no American is allowed to go
into that without some kind of armed escort.
Further north I went to the Ironwood Monument. Once again, we were
told and warned that it is a dangerous area, don't stop along the
roads; continue on driving; try not to get out of your car and continue
on foot in those particular areas.
These are areas well within the border of the United States. And,
sadly, this is not atypical. Going back to the year 2006, once again a
different administration, but in 2006, the Department
[[Page H4624]]
of the Interior issued a report about this that was never released to
the public. But in it it indicated that in the year before, 2005, there
were at least five murders, two rapes, 39 armed robberies, and they are
estimating somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 illegal incursions on
this piece of property. I want you to know, those are the only ones
that the Federal Government investigated; anything that was reported to
local law enforcement was not included in those figures.
Now, because this has now been spun out in the national media, and
because the sheriff in Pinal County simply said there are areas in his
jurisdiction that are out of control, and that area that is out of his
control where he cannot provide protection are all Federal lands that
are owned by the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service
where he nor the local law enforcement nor the Border Patrol had the
ability to do what they need to do to try and control that particular
area, Interior Department sent out a memo today, a media advisory
trying to put this into some kind of perspective.
And what they said is that don't take this out of perspective. It is
only a small area of the land that is closed to Americans. In fact,
they put out this sign which is somewhat blurred, but they simply said,
and this is the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, they are not
closing all; they are only closing this portion down here that is the
portion of America that no Americans can go into because it is too
dangerous for Americans to go down there. They also then said that the
amount of violence that takes place here annually year after year after
year is decreasing, so we should be heartened.
I think there should be another question that should be asked. As a
policy for this Congress or this administration, How much of America's
land should we accept as uninhabitable for Americans? What percentage
of American property should we just say, okay, foreign entities,
foreign substance groups, drug cartels, you can have 5 percent of our
land as yours, we just won't bother you in that? Maybe 10 percent, 2
percent? What percent is acceptable to say that America can turn over
our control of American land to cartels and groups from outside this
country and it is acceptable? How many murders are acceptable before we
are happy? Is five murders too many? If we only have three murders a
year happening on Federal land, is that enough to satisfy what we are
doing?
Look, the bottom line is quite simple: what we have been doing is
failing, and we have to do something different. We have to do something
different.
Part of it is to use common sense and say the Border Patrol should be
allowed to go where the Border Patrol needs to go.
I have here a picture of one of our Federal lands, once again in
Arizona where you see traffic barricades. These traffic barricades,
nicely put here, are cool; except the goal of these traffic barricades
is to prohibit the Border Patrol from going into Federal land that has
wilderness categories and wilderness designation. This is not to stop
the bad guys from coming in, this is to stop our guys from coming in.
At Organ Pipe National Monument, these fence barriers used to be our
border between the United States and Mexico. These used to be put in
there to stop Mexican cars from coming into the United States. Well, we
have a different wall there now that is much more effective, so we
don't need those. So instead, the public land manager in this
particular area took these barricades and put them inside his
territory, once again not to stop foreigners from coming in, but to
stop the Border Patrol from going in. Somehow we have to realize that
what we need to do is to allow the Border Patrol to have routine
access, routine patrols, and not stop them from going into these
territories.
Now, once again, we have met with them and they say we are working
these things out; everything is going to be fine. In fact, some of the
gates we are now putting up have locks on them, and we are giving the
Border Patrol keys to the locks; besides, if they really need to, they
could just push through those gates. However, local security, the local
law enforcement doesn't have a key to those locks. If a deputy sheriff
in one of those counties is chasing a bad guy into that area, they are
prohibited from that pursuit. Somehow we have to get common sense back
into the situation because what we are talking about simply does not
work.
And there is an irony in this. The sole purpose of trying to stop the
Border Patrol from securing our borders is because of the fear that
they may cause damage to the environment, that a motorized Border
Patrol truck could actually screw up the land or chase away an animal
or do something else. So, therefore, we are prohibiting them from doing
that except for some extraneous and unusual circumstances. But the
irony is the bad guys, the drug cartels, the human traffickers,
potential terrorists, they are not inhibited by any of that. So they go
into that area, and they don't care what kind of environmental damage
they do.
Madam Speaker, you have probably seen these pictures before. This is
a picture of Federal land. This is wilderness land where Americans are
not supposed to go: no motorized vehicle is supposed to go; no wheeled
vehicle is supposed to go; only on foot with backpacks or on horseback.
That is for us. Unfortunately, the drug cartels and the human
traffickers come in here and they leave all of their stuff behind. They
change clothes so they can get picked up along the highway and go
further inside the United States illegally.
{time} 1500
This is what is left behind. This is what the landscape looks like in
these areas that we are trying to save for their environmental purpose.
The irony is we are failing. We are failing because the people that
need to be kept out are not being kept out and the people who could
solve the problem are.
One of the unique finds we found is that once again the Border
Patrol--trying, I guess, to come up with some pocket change and pocket
money for their activities--are going into these areas, and this cacti
that has been cut down is an endangered species, which means it is
illegal to cut it down. They didn't care; they cut it down, anyway. It
is placed across a road, the purpose of which is to stop an American
traveler in this Federal territory because they can't go over the
cactus. Once they get to that spot, they are then robbed with armed
gunmen.
The irony once again is if the Federal Government were to go in there
and try to pick up this cactus and move it off the road, that's a
felony. That's illegal under our Wilderness Act. Sometimes, once again,
we have to come up with other areas, what to do. We have placed water
towers within Federal territory in an effort to try and make sure that
those illegal visitors coming in here who happen to run out of water
will not die. That's a humanitarian effort. However, what is so bizarre
is the Border Patrol can't go anywhere near those water towers for fear
of running off an illegal alien that may need the water. We are doing
that.
We have done this kind of stuff, once again, going back through
several administrations. But the cost is higher now, the issues are
higher now, and the danger is higher now. We can no longer afford to
continue on with that particular pattern. I would also warn you that
right now, as we speak, in the Coronado National Forest, there is
another wildfire.
Most of the wildfires that are taking place on Federal land in the
southern border area are not accidental wildfires; they are started by
the bad guys, the drug cartels and the human traffickers, for two
reasons: either they will start the wildfire as a diversion to take
Federal forces to the fire so they can go the other way, or, much more
practically, if they're in deep trouble, they'll start a fire to get
somebody to come and rescue them. Most of the fires are started that
way.
We have one now in Coronado, which is called the Horseshoe Fire.
Estimates are $10 million that it will cost the taxpayers to fight this
fire caused by illegal aliens trying to come into this country, not for
jobs or for family but to do harm; illegal trafficking, drugs and, once
again, the potential of terrorism. That's what we need to deal with.
That is the issue that is at hand.
There is one last concept with this. Arizona passed a law dealing
with illegal immigrants. It has been highly controversial. The merits
or the rationale
[[Page H4625]]
of Arizona's laws notwithstanding, I have no intentions of even talking
about whether I think it is a good or bad law. It is insignificant.
What is the reality is that the law was produced because of the anger,
the angst, and the anxiety that is caused by the funneling of thousands
and thousands of drug dealers and human traffickers into the State of
Arizona. Because we have done such a good job in the other area, we are
now funneling them through those Federal lands. The Federal
Government's action caused that law. And I would think it would be
wise, before this Federal Government decides to go to Arizona and tell
Arizona what they should or should not do internally with their laws,
for the Federal Government to realize we are causing the problem and
for the Federal Government to simply go down there on Federal lands and
say, It is a Federal responsibility. The Federal Government will stand
up. The Federal Government will ensure that we have control over this
territory. The Federal Government will stop the worst possible invasion
of this country by the people who are trying to do harm; mainly, once
again, the drug traffickers, the human traffickers, and the potential
terrorists. That should be what the 10th Amendment is about. That's the
concept of Federalism. We are causing the problem and now we are
criticizing local government who is trying to react to it; whereas,
local government wouldn't need to do that form of reaction if we simply
did our job first.
Once again, look at the map. That's the territory, everything that's
colored. That's an open invitation for people to come into this country
because it is so easy. And that's the problem. And because it has been
exacerbated, because it's happening to a greater extent, because the
damage is worse than ever before, and because the potential harm to
this country is so great, this Congress has to step up and decide that
we will get these entities together and we will establish what the
standards are. The standards should be very simple: that not 1 inch of
United States property should be given over to a cartel, and Americans
should never be told not to go into parts of this country because it's
too dangerous for America. We should come up and establish a policy
that the Border Patrol will have open and complete access and no other
agency, especially Interior or Forest Service, will tell the Border
Patrol what their job is and how they will do it; and that there will
be continuous and routine patrols of our border until such time as the
drug cartels realize that it is no longer easy to come into this
country that way. That they will find some other route is obvious, but
that this is our responsibility, our land, and that we clearly are
failing, and that the problem is getting worse every day is our fault
and our responsibility, and we must take control definitely on that.
I hope this country recognizes what we're talking about, but, more
important, I hope this Congress recognizes what we're talking about. I
will say, I think this Congress has. The language in House bill 5016
which would solve this problem was passed in this body overwhelmingly
on a bipartisan vote on a motion to recommit. The bill to which it was
voted and attached is waiting over in the Senate with very little
likelihood of being moved. Senator Coburn in the Senate attached
similar language that would help solve this problem to an
appropriations bill. It was passed by voice vote in the Senate, and
then before it came to final passage over here in conference committee,
the language was removed. Both bodies of this Congress have said what
they believe should take place, and common sense from Americans tells
us what should take place.
Now is the time for us to realize we can no longer simply ignore this
situation, and it's our fault. What we have been doing does not work.
We need a better approach. We need to make commonsense situations. We
need to have our land managers see the higher picture of what is
important for this entire country, and we need to do it now, because
the situation gets worse every day, every day we wait.
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