[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 200 (Wednesday, December 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7899-S7905]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          PUBLIC LANDS PACKAGE

  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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rounds). Is there objection?
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, in reserving the right to object, we have a 
bill here that we received at 10 o'clock this morning, and it is 680-
pages long. I have spent many hours reviewing it. This is a bill that 
came out of the committee on which I serve. I have been

[[Page S7900]]

trying for many weeks, through the chairman of that committee and her 
staff, to get language or to at least get an outline of this. We were 
not able to get that until today at 10 a.m. Even after we got that, we 
asked for at least an outline of this bill or for a summary of the bill 
text from the committee staff, from the chairman's staff. They didn't 
respond to us. They wouldn't give it to us, just as they haven't for 
weeks. We got this--the closest thing to a summary--from a lobbyist. We 
had to wait to get it from a lobbyist.
  This is of great impact to my State. This bill creates 1.3 million 
acres of wilderness, about half of which is in my State. This bill 
permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is 
an entity that has been used to acquire more Federal land. Now, in 
coming from a State where two-thirds of the land is owned by the 
Federal Government--where we can't do anything without leave from the 
Federal Government--this hurts. In coming from a State where we have 
had about 2 million acres of Federal land declared as monuments through 
Presidential proclamations, this hurts.
  I have made what I consider to be a very reasonable offer, and I ask 
that it be accepted. It involves two words. I want the inclusion of two 
words in this bill--two words. Add the words ``or Utah'' to some 
language in the Antiquities Act.
  I have an amendment that I will counteroffer. I will accept this bill 
and agree to its passage if these two words are added to the 
Antiquities Act, the words ``or Utah.'' I ask that my colleagues accept 
this.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Will the Senator so modify the request?
  The Senator from Alaska.
  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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator modify her request?
  Ms. MURKOWSKI. I believe there is an objection to the request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection to the original request 
from the Senator from Alaska?
  Mr. LEE. Yes, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah's objection is heard.
  The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I find it unfortunate that the addition of 
two words is somehow unacceptable to the Members of this body--two 
words. They are two words, by the way, that would put Utah in the same 
category as Alaska and Wyoming. What do those States have in common? 
They both have repeatedly been victims of the Antiquities Act.
  You see, in every single State from Colorado to the west of Colorado, 
the Federal Government owns at least 15 percent of the land. In many of 
those States, it is much more than 15 percent of the land. In my State, 
it is two-thirds of the land--about 67 percent. What that means is that 
we have to get permission from the Federal Government to do just about 
everything.
  What that also means is that our schools are underfunded--everything 
from fire, search, rescue, education, local governance. All of these 
budgets are underfunded as a result of the fact that most of the land 
is owned by the Federal Government. We can't tax that land. We receive 
pennies on the dollar for a program called payment in lieu of taxes. It 
is pennies on the dollar because most of our land is not ours. Most of 
our land cannot be developed privately. Most of our land cannot be 
taxed by the States and localities,

[[Page S7901]]

which makes it harder for us to educate our children, for us to secure 
our streets, for us to put out fires--fires, by the way, that become 
far more severe because of extensive Federal landownership, which is 
plainly excessive, which is plainly unfair, which kills people and 
results in devastating losses not only to property but also to the 
health of the environment.
  Bad Federal land management policy is at the root of this. Do you 
know what is interesting? People like to talk a lot about these 
wildfires. A lot of them occur in the West. Why? Well, there is a lot 
of Federal public land in the West. Yes, there are parts of the country 
where they have forests where these things don't happen, and when they 
do, they are put out much faster in things called private forests. 
Privately owned forests and forests owned by many States are much less 
prone to wildfires, and when they do occur, they put them out more 
quickly. Why? Because they are not hobbled under a mountain of 
regulations that makes it almost impossible for us to prevent them and 
then from putting them out quickly. This is devastating to our States. 
It is a burden on our States and on our State in particular.
  Many of you, if you live east of the Rocky Mountains, come from lands 
where Federal public lands are almost unheard of, where they are rare, 
where you have private land left and right. A lot of those same States 
used to be mostly Federal. A State like Illinois used to be 
overwhelmingly Federal. Many, if not most, of the States have added, 
since the Louisiana Purchase, language in their enabling legislation, 
anticipating that, in time, Federal public land within a State's 
boundaries would be sold and that in the case of my State and that of 
many other States, a percentage of the proceeds from the sale of that 
land would be put into a trust fund for the benefit of the States' 
public education systems.
  Those promises were honored in the Dakotas and in States like Indiana 
and Illinois. They were honored as we expanded westward. For some 
reason, when we got to the Rocky Mountains, they stopped honoring them. 
There are a lot of reasons for this. Some of it has to do with what we 
were occupied with doing as a country at the time. Some of it has to do 
with the fact that our land is what was regarded as rugged and perhaps 
undesirable for a time. But the understanding was still there, just as 
it was the understanding in the Dakotas and in States like Indiana and 
Illinois.

  The effects are still there. We are still impoverished. Our ability 
to expand economically is impaired, and the health of our environment 
is significantly degraded as a result of this excessive, unnecessary 
Federal landownership.
  Now, make no mistake--I am not talking here about national parks. 
People like to caricature those who complain about excessive Federal 
landownership and suggest--as if we are going to put oil drilling rigs 
underneath Delicate Arch and other national treasures. That is not what 
we are talking about at all. I am talking about garden variety, Federal 
public land--land that is excessively restricted and that is 
environmentally degraded as a result of poor Federal land management 
policies. Why? Well, because these decisions are made by Federal 
landing managers who live and work and make decisions many hundreds and 
in many cases many thousands of miles from those most affected by those 
decisions.
  How, then, does this relate to the Antiquities Act? Well, a State 
like mine that has a lot of Federal public land, like Alaska and 
Wyoming do, is particularly, uniquely vulnerable to predatory practices 
under the Antiquities Act, allowing the President of the United States, 
under a law passed over a century ago, to utilize his discretion to set 
aside land as a national monument. It is already Federal; this is 
putting it into a new classification--a classification subject to even 
more restrictions, eligible for even less development, less human 
activity, less access for recreational or agricultural or religious or 
cultural purposes. When you put it in that category, it makes it even 
more difficult for those people surrounding it, those people living in 
and around the Federal public lands in question.
  So Utah, like Wyoming and Alaska, has had a whole lot of Presidents 
declare a whole lot of Federal public land, national monument land.
  Now, fortunately for the States of Alaska and Wyoming, they have had 
congressional delegations that in the past have said, no more, have 
demanded relief, and have said that they have had enough. In the case 
of a State like mine that has had a couple of million acres, roughly, 
of Federal public land declared monument by a Presidential 
proclamation, this is important. If it is good enough for Alaska, if it 
is good enough for Wyoming, why not extend the same courtesy to the 
State of Utah?
  Why, when a bill is 680 pages long--which I received at 10 a.m. 
today, on what may well be the last or penultimate day of this 
legislative session of this Congress--why are we receiving this just 
now, especially in the Senate during a term of Congress when it was 
originally believed that we might be adjourning by December 6 or 7 or 
13 or 14?
  Here it is on December 19--my daughter's 18th birthday, by the way; 
happy birthday, Eliza--December 19, and we are just getting this bill 
for the first time today. What does that mean?
  If we had adjourned when we were originally thinking we might 
adjourn, would this never have happened? It has been suggested to us by 
some Members and some staff that had we adjourned earlier, this would 
have just been released perhaps on the last day of the session.
  I can't get into anyone else's head. I can't peer into anyone else's 
subjective intentions. But this makes me kind of nervous, the fact 
that, yes, I sit on the committee from whence this bill originated, 
and, yes, I chair the Public Lands Subcommittee, yet there are a whole 
lot of these that the chairman or the ranking member know darn well 
that I oppose, that I voted against in committee, and there are other 
provisions that they know I have had longstanding concerns with. I 
wonder if maybe, just maybe, that is part of the reason they wouldn't 
tell me what was in it.
  I understand it is difficult negotiating a big piece of legislation. 
I sympathize greatly with that. I am not suggesting that short of 
receiving the entire 680-page document exactly as it has been 
submitted, I would irrevocably have bound myself to voting against it. 
I am not suggesting that at all. It would have been nice to have a 
roadmap, to have some clue as to what might have been in there. And I 
know from conversations I have since had with Members today that they 
have known for weeks, if not months, that they were putting permanent 
LWCF reauthorization in this bill.
  I don't believe it was a coincidence that I wasn't informed of this. 
I don't believe it was a coincidence that even after this bill was 
released at 10 a.m. today, the staff of the committee refused even to 
give me an outline--an outline--of what was in the bill, even after 
they had filed it. We had to get this from a lobbyist.
  This is wrong. It is wrong that the State of Utah is treated the way 
it is. It is wrong that you wouldn't give us that language. It is wrong 
that you won't treat us the same way Alaska and Wyoming are treated.
  This is wrong. We can do better. I implore my colleagues to make this 
simple change. Two words. Two words. Add the words ``for Utah'' to this 
bill, and I will wholeheartedly support it. If not, I will continue to 
oppose it.
  Thank you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, as my colleague from Utah knows, we 
offered the chance to vote on those two words tonight. The two words 
that he is asking for tonight we offered a chance to vote on.
  Mr. LEE. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. GARDNER. Let me talk about this because I am pretty doggone upset 
because the people of Colorado tonight--who are worried about whether 
they can protect themselves from fire--lost the Wildfire Technology Act 
in this bill. That was in this bill--a bill that our committee heard, 
that our committee voted on, that it voted on with bipartisan support, 
probably unanimously. That was in this bill to protect our communities 
from wildfire and to protect our firefighters from injury--in this 
bill.
  The other thing in this bill is Minturn, CO, which has a water system

[[Page S7902]]

over a wilderness area and which for years has been trying to fix it. 
They can't because it is in a wilderness area. So we have to have an 
act of Congress to allow the city to fix their water system. Rejected 
tonight because we weren't allowed to vote on it tonight.
  Mr. LEE. Do the people of Colorado care that you were--
  Mr. GARDNER. And you bet the permanent Land and Water Conservation 
Fund is in here tonight because, guess what, it has the majority 
support of this body. If we had a vote on it tonight, it would have 
passed. Republicans and Democrats would have voted yes. It would have 
passed.
  Not only that, we have boundary adjustments in here because people 
died, and they wanted to give it to the national monument. That is not 
controversial. Somebody wanted to do the right thing, and doggone it, 
we can't even vote on it here.
  I give compliments to the chairman of the Energy and Natural 
Resources Committee who struck a deal. Yes, it was yesterday. We got 
the bill as fast as we could. And so many of these doggone pieces of 
legislation we have already heard. We had committee hearings on them, 
and we voted them out unanimously. Bipartisan support. We offered deal 
after deal after deal to try to get a deal arranged and made so that we 
could have a vote tonight.
  Go tell the people of Minturn, CO, that they don't have a water 
system that they can fix because Congress has decided we are not going 
to allow that to come to a vote. Sportsmen back home--tell them we are 
not going to have a sportsmen's package because we decided not to bring 
a bipartisan bill to the floor for a vote.
  When we come back to this body next year, we have an agreement--I 
believe that is correct; and I will defer to the chairman of the Energy 
and Natural Resources Committee--that this will be one of the first 
actions this Chamber addresses. When that happens, there will be a 
chance to file cloture, there will be a chance for open debate, and we 
will have that vote. We will have it next year. There will be different 
leadership in the Senate, so different negotiations will have to take 
place, but I have no doubt that we will get this done.
  It is frustrating to me that some of these bills have languished for 
year after year after year after year that received unanimous support 
out of committee.
  I remember coming to this floor a year ago offering a unanimous 
consent agreement. It was objected to because somebody didn't get what 
they wanted, somebody else didn't get what they wanted, and somebody 
else didn't get what they wanted, so everything was objected to. It 
created a whole domino effect, so they said just wait for the lands 
package.
  So here we are waiting for the lands package. We had a chance to do 
it. And we tried and tried and tried to make offer after offer to get 
something agreed to.
  I have great respect for my colleague from Utah. We are a public 
lands State too. Yes, our agencies need to make better decisions about 
how they conserve that public land. The people of Colorado have great 
support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Great support. They 
would like to see it made permanent. I would like to see it made 
permanent. My guess is, next year, it will be made permanent.
  Why can't we have a vote tonight? Why can't we have people who don't 
like it vote no and people who do like it vote yes? There is plenty of 
opportunity to do that tonight.
  The people of Colorado expect this place to get its work done. The 
bills we have had have been through, negotiated in the House and 
Senate, many out of the committee with bipartisan support, if not 
unanimous. I guess the folks in Minturn will just have to wait one more 
Congress to get their water system fixed because this body couldn't 
agree to allow a vote. We wonder why people are sick of this place. It 
is because of that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, all I am asking is for the language that I 
have asked for--two words, the words ``for Utah''--to be added to this 
legislation. I am asking to be treated on equal footing as the language 
proposed by the Senator from Colorado, the Senator from Alaska, the 
Senator from Washington, the Senator from Montana, and others--equal 
footing.
  We have equal representation in the Senate. It is the one type of 
constitutional amendment that is preemptively unconstitutional. You 
can't modify the equal representation of the Senate. That is what makes 
this place unique. Each State is represented equally, and I will defend 
my State, the State of Utah, to my dying breath. As long as I am here 
breathing and holding an election certificate, I will defend it.
  My distinguished friend and colleague, for whom I have great 
affection and respect, has just pointed out that the people of Colorado 
might be disappointed about this water measure that was in there or 
this or that other provision for Colorado. Do they have reason to be 
concerned? You bet. Do those people in Colorado have objection to the 
idea that Utah might be treated equally with Alaska or Wyoming? I think 
not. I think most people in America would look at a State that has had 
a couple of million acres of monument declared and that just wants to 
be treated the same way as Alaska and Wyoming and say that is not 
unreasonable.
  This is a sovereign State, one that has been mistreated by Federal 
land managers. We don't want to continue doing that. This is a generous 
offer. It is a reasonable offer.
  As to the suggestion that because it was offered that this receive a 
separate vote--and it is really not equivalent at all. What he is 
saying is, split this out; everything else sinks or swims together. All 
of theirs pass, and ours stands alone. If we are going to consolidate 
this many bills at once--and he is right: Some of these passed out 
unanimously, and a bunch of them didn't. I voted against a number of 
them. Some of them are new. Some are old but have been modified. One 
provision involving my own State involved 450,000 or 500,000 acres of 
wilderness and has, since it moved through the committee, been modified 
to include an additional 200,000 acres of wilderness. That is from my 
State, and I sit on the committee, and I chair the subcommittee that is 
supposed to review these things, and this is the first I have seen of 
them.
  So, yes, I say to my distinguished friend and colleague, for whom I 
also have great respect and admiration and affection, yes, there are a 
lot of parochial matters that are addressed in these public lands 
bills, and appropriately so. What I am asking is for my State to be 
treated like your State. That is all I am asking. It is not 
unreasonable. It is not unfair.
  So if you are going to have 640 pages' worth of legislation, 
including some legislation that has some significant ramifications for 
my State, I ask you to put those two words into the bill. That is not 
unreasonable.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come first and foremost tonight to 
thank the staff who worked so hard on this package--and I mean not just 
over the last few weeks but for literally years--to try to get to an 
agreement on something we could vote on.
  It is not a surprise to the Senate that it is December and people are 
voting on a lands package. My colleague from Colorado outlined it very 
well. When you have these bills that deal with water, that deal with 
public lands, that deal with giving Federal land back to communities so 
they can improve their communities, and yet designating some special 
places so they can be preserved for the public, yes, not all of your 
colleagues care about the details of that, and you are never going to 
get the leader, who is in control of the Senate, to give you floor time 
on that bill.
  So every December, we are here with a lands package to be considered, 
and it is a package that has a lot of input from a lot of people, 
negotiated, in this case, with the House and the Senate, with Democrats 
and Republicans--a four-corner negotiation.
  The missed opportunity tonight, as my colleague from Colorado said, 
is that we don't get to vote on it. My colleague from Utah is not being 
correct in that he was offered a chance to have that vote. He was 
offered a chance to have this bill brought up and to have his ideas 
voted on. He knew he was going to lose, and he knows he is going to 
lose in January, but he wants to insist tonight on prevailing. I am not

[[Page S7903]]

sure why, because, as my colleague from Colorado said, why continue to 
hold up these small communities from getting the resources they need?
  Trust me, communities like Yakima, WA, want answers to the challenges 
of changing conditions that impact water and the fact that fish and 
farmers and Tribes and environmentalists all have to get together to 
solve those problems. So they worked for years on coming up with a 
solution collectively at the local community and then put that before 
the U.S. Senate for a hearing and for consideration, and that proposal 
passed the U.S. Senate, I think, in an 85-to-12 vote 2 years ago, as 
did permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, 
2 years ago, which passed the U.S. Senate.
  So if my colleague from Utah is imagining that somehow the Land and 
Water Conservation Fund being made permanent is not going to pass the 
U.S. Senate, he is just dreaming of something that is really going to 
take place and become reality in the very near future. But what you 
have done tonight is made it a lot harder for us to make sure that we 
are moving ahead.
  This legislation that he refused to allow us to vote on tonight also 
includes important--I would say one thing. The one thing that maybe you 
could say hasn't had constant, constant attention over 2 years but 
certainly has grown in importance is new technology to help our 
firefighters fight fires, locate where the fire is happening, and GPS 
systems to help make people more safe. That was in this package and 
probably, yes, has gotten enhanced a great deal over the last 6 months 
as we have seen the tragic, devastating impacts of fires throughout the 
West. So, yes, that was in here and it was part of consideration, and, 
yes, there was legislative action. Ninety percent of this package 
either saw legislation passed by the House of Representatives or passed 
by the Senate--legislation that basically passed out of either a Senate 
committee or a House committee.
  So it is not like these ideas came out of nowhere. They are, as my 
colleague from Colorado said best, parochial issues that we find very 
hard to get the rest of our colleagues to ever want to pay attention to 
the details.
  So this has been the tried and true fashion by which the Senate has 
passed land packages, as long as I have been here, for 18 years. That 
is what you do in December. You pass a lands package. I wish it were 
different.
  My colleague from Colorado made a good suggestion about 7 or 8 months 
ago: Why don't we do some right now? Thanks to his initiative, we 
actually bundled together 15 or 20. But he was right. Guess what. 
Everybody said: Where is mine? Where is my package? Where is this? I am 
not going to let you do this, and we were in the same boat. So the best 
answer to all of that is that in December we will do a lands package.
  The notion that people didn't know this was coming is a little bit 
facetious. Everybody has known that this is the time, and these are the 
packages and these are the proposals.
  To my colleague from Utah, I get it. He is not necessarily in 
agreement with some of his own delegation who pushed things for Utah 
that are in this package. I get it. He has a different philosophy about 
what should happen. I guarantee you that Utah is going to have a lot 
more debates about what it wants to see for its future, and I think 
that is ultimately healthy. I can just answer for my State, which has 
three National Parks and generates millions of dollars from them. I can 
just answer for my State, which thinks that the outdoor economy is the 
No. 1 reason we attract and keep high-skilled and unbelievable 
manufacturing jobs in the Pacific Northwest. Why? Because businesses 
want to locate there because their workers want to have access to that. 
My State knows that the outdoor economy--because it has companies like 
REI--is over $800 billion of annual economy. So, yes, when you invest 
in public lands, you get more access for hunters and fishers and people 
who want to go and enjoy and recreate, and for our veterans. So guess 
what. It is a great economic development tool.
  The notion that a State that has public lands doesn't have economic 
opportunity is not telling the whole story. We all get it. We all 
represent counties that have nothing but an outdoor economy or public 
land, and then they want to know how to build a school or a fire 
station or keep the lights on for basic services. We get that 
complexity too.
  But our colleagues did consider these ideas, and our colleagues did 
consider the notion that there are diverse opinions. It is just that, 
at the end of the day, you have to have a vote. You have to be able to 
come here to the Senate on this subject--that is, lands packages--and 
have a process.
  Listen, if my colleagues who care so much about this want to create a 
new norm in the Senate that the first week of December will be the 
deadline for all lands packages, and then by the end of that session we 
will have lands packages always considered in the Senate, I am all for 
it. I am all for that right now, because I see devastation happening on 
water writ large. I see unbelievable problems happening throughout the 
West just on water.
  Now, you can say we are going to do nothing and we are just going to 
let the courts and the lawsuits and everything play out. But guess 
what. That is where we were on fire, until what happened? Until the 
Senators from Montana and the Senators from Idaho and the Senators from 
Oregon and the Senators from Washington all got together on a fire bill 
and we said: This is what we think would be great for the West to do to 
move forward. That is what we were trying to do tonight on water, on 
other fire measures, and on public lands, and helping veterans and 
Native Americans in Alaska who never got a fair deal on access to their 
own land.
  So I get that these solutions may take a few pages to print out and 
for people to read, but they are important public policies that need to 
have this body's attention, and you are doing nothing but shortchanging 
the public debate if you will not even allow the bill to come to the 
floor for that debate.
  We are always, always going to get sidelined as individual bills, not 
being important enough to take up the time of the Senate. It is only 
collectively, in a bundle like we saw tonight, that they can be 
considered. But I guarantee you--I guarantee you--that they are not 
going to grow into a package that becomes less important with time. 
They are just not. They are just not. They are going to continue to be 
amplified as important public policies, where a local government--a 
county or a city--and the Forest Service and BLM and a school district 
and a community are going to have to work together. They are going to 
have to work together. They are going to have to work together on 
water, on fire, on public access, on conveyance, on how we are going to 
preserve open space, on how we are going to recreate. It is going to be 
demanded.
  I know my colleague from Utah doesn't agree with all these 
philosophies, but I guarantee you that there are lots of people in Utah 
who would have loved to have a vote tonight to see how those issues 
would have played out.
  I just want to thank staff. They have worked night and day, 
literally--literally for months, if not years--on these policies. They 
have worked so hard to try to find the common good and a place to move 
forward, and I so appreciate that our leaders are now committing to us 
to help move this forward in January. We are definitely going to take 
them up on it. Even though it will be a new Congress and a new House of 
Representatives, we are going to take it up, and I am sure that our 
colleagues, Congressman Grijalva and Congressman Bishop, will be there 
to work with us.
  There will never be an easy day to vote on public lands--never. It is 
just never going to happen. So we had better own up to the 
responsibility and get the commitment to these cities and communities 
that need us to help them hold Federal Agencies accountable, to make 
the investments our constituents want to see, and to solve these 
problems so our communities can continue to grow and thrive.
  I believe these people are bubbling up some of the best ideas on how 
to move forward. That is what they did in various parts of the West. 
Whether that was in Montana with what to do at Yellowstone, or whether 
that was in Alaska with what to do with the Native issue, or Yakima on 
what to do with water, they are bubbling up the ideas. At least what we 
can do is give them

[[Page S7904]]

the courtesy of having a vote so that they can be considered.
  I thank the President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska.
  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.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I just want to thank the Senator from 
Alaska for her great work and working in such a collaborative way. I am 
certainly not leaving the Energy Committee and certainly not going to 
back away from any of these big issues, but certainly, as she said, I 
will not be working as closely as the ranking member with her as chair. 
But I am certainly and definitely going to continue to work in a 
collaborative way.
  So I thank her for her kind comments and look forward to what we can 
do in the new year.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Montana.
  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I want to share some comments on what we 
saw happen here tonight as it relates to the public lands package. We 
saw a glimpse here tonight of, on the one hand, how this institution 
can really come together--years of bipartisan work, years of 
collaboration on the ground back in our respective States--and come 
together to put together a lands package and ask for a simple up-or-
down vote tonight in the Senate.
  I am very confident that had we had the opportunity to have voted 
here tonight, you would have seen this lands package pass the Senate by 
at least a 2-to-1 margin. It would have gone to the House, and it would 
have passed. It would have gone to President Trump's desk, and I am 
confident he would have signed it.
  We have been fighting for permanent reauthorization of the Land and 
Water Conservation Fund because of what happened right here tonight--
the uncertainty of this institution, where 98 Senators can say ``Let's 
move ahead for a vote''; 2 Senators say no, and we weren't able to have 
a vote tonight.
  It is OK to oppose legislation. That is the American process--for 
each of us to come down here and express our respective opinions. Some 
will say yes; some will say no. What we were asking for here tonight is 
to have that debate on the floor. Let's have that vote on the floor, 
and let the Senators respectively speak on behalf of the people who 
sent them here in the first place to represent their interests.
  The Land and Water Conservation Fund--the reason we need to 
permanently reauthorize it is that tonight you could see that we didn't 
get it done. In fact, it expired on September 30, and here we are, 
halfway through December, and we still do not have the reauthorization 
of LWCF. That is why we need to make it permanent; you can't depend on 
this institution.
  So often, for the transaction required back in our home States, where 
we use LWCF funds to access our public lands with a checkerboard-nature 
ownership structure of many, many places out West, it takes years to 
put together these deals--private landowners, the State, the Federal 
Government coming together. When the Federal Government--the U.S. 
Congress--can't get its job done, it creates uncertainty. Consequently, 
who loses when there is uncertainty? The American people lose.
  That is why we need to permanently reauthorize it. It actually 
creates more certainty in taking care of a lot of these complex land 
issues out West, and it saves taxpayers' dollars.
  By the way, as Senator Burr has said over and over again, LWCF 
doesn't cost the taxpayer anything. It doesn't cost the taxpayer 
anything.
  That was in this bill tonight to permanently reauthorize it. It 
didn't get done.
  As you read through the titles of these various bills, you hear the 
stories. There may be what looks like one little line item here in 
section 1009, S. 1219. There is some little obscure title that a guy 
from Montana has no idea what is going on in Louisiana or Tennessee or 
Alaska or Colorado, but I know back in those respective communities, 
there is a lot of hard work bringing people together, collaboratives to 
come together to put together a bill that we then bring to Congress. We 
move it through committees. We have hours of hearings. Literally, there 
are probably 100 years of effort at least that have gone into this 
legislation tonight that we were not able to have an up-or-down vote 
on.
  Wildfire Technology Modernization, the Yellowstone Gateway Protection 
Act--those are important to me in Montana. I will tell you what. The 
people who are closest to the lands ought to have the loudest voice, 
and I can tell you, the people in Paradise Valley, south of Livingston, 
MT, don't want to see a large money operation near Chico, MT. It is 
time to withdraw the rights there and allow that backdoor to 
Yellowstone National Park to be protected in perpetuity. That was part 
of this land package tonight.
  If you take a look at the Sportsmen's Access to Federal Lands, one of 
the issues that sets our Nation apart is our public lands. I tell you 
what, if you go to Europe, you don't see public lands. If you go 
virtually anywhere else in the world, you don't see public lands. It is 
a unique American experience that a mom and dad in Montana, a grandma 
and grandpa, an aunt and uncle can still go down to Walmart and buy an 
elk tag and jump in the pickup, and within 20 to 30 minutes be in elk 
country on public lands. That was part of the Sportsmen's Access 
package.
  We had the Open Book on Equal Access to Justice Act. In fact, it is 
something that Senator Barrasso put in place here to ensure we have 
transparency in the way these funds are spent.
  There is the Migratory Bird Framework and Hunting Opportunities for 
Veterans Act in here.
  My point is there are over 100 bills in here with a lot of careful 
thought, a lot of consideration moving through committees. All we 
wanted to do tonight is have an up-or-down vote. We didn't get it.
  I am grateful that we had a good bipartisan spirit here tonight, that 
we were working with leadership in both parties here in the Senate, 
both parties in the House, including the future leadership in the 
House. We are going to bring this bill back to the floor of the U.S. 
Senate in January. We are going to move this through. We are going to 
move it to the House. We are going to fight to get this thing on the 
President's desk and signed as one of the early acts of Congress in 
2019.
  It didn't end well tonight with this package, but we are going to 
start strong in January. We are not giving up the fight.
  I want to thank the staff and the committee leadership on both sides 
for helping us get to this point tonight.
  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We will be back in January, 
fighting.
  I yield the floor
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gardner). The Senator from Kansas.

[[Page S7905]]

  



                           Government Funding

  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, a little earlier in the evening, we cast a 
vote, one that was done without a rollcall, and I want my constituents 
to know how I voted because, while I will put a statement in the 
Record, it will not appear as yeas and nays.
  Earlier this evening we passed a continuing resolution, and I voted 
no. I want my constituents to know how I voted, and I want them to know 
why.
  I indicated to my colleagues within the last 10 days that I intend to 
vote no on a CR because it is not the way we should be conducting 
business in the U.S. Senate or in the U.S. House of Representatives.
  Continuing resolutions mean that we are just postponing the issues we 
face today, and they don't get any easier the longer we wait to resolve 
them.
  They also mean that for the appropriations process, of which I am a 
part and have spent a significant amount of time this year, while we 
were successful in many, many ways, we have left seven bills without 
resolution. Because we couldn't resolve them, we are going to fund 
those Departments and Agencies at the same level of spending next year 
as this year.
  What that means is after the number of hearings we had--the witnesses 
who were brought in and testified, the oversight we have done onsite at 
Departments and Agencies and facilities across the country--we are left 
without that input being included in decisions. It means we are not 
prioritizing what spending is important.
  There may be a few things around here that could utilize additional 
resources. Maybe the resources level that we fund things at today is 
what it should be. Maybe there are things we shouldn't fund at all, and 
there are certainly some things which we could fund at lower levels. 
But no, we are not going to say that this is more important than this; 
we are going to say all things are equal. The way we have funded 
appropriations last year for these Agencies and Departments is exactly 
the right amount it should be into the future.
  Unfortunately, we have done CRs long enough that we are not just 
talking about, is it right? What was right for last year is the same 
amount that it should be for the next several months. It goes back 
years. So what we are saying is that the decisions we made years ago 
are the same priorities we would have today. That is not true.
  Perhaps more compelling to me is that every time we pass a CR, we 
lose the opportunity to utilize the power of the purse string to rein 
in the behavior and actions of those who work in those Bureaus, 
Departments, and Agencies. If Congress is always going to give a 
Federal Agency the same amount of money in the future as it gave in the 
past, there is no reason for those Agencies to pay attention to the 
U.S. Congress, to the House and the Senate, to article I of the U.S. 
Constitution, which gives the authority for appropriating money to fund 
the Federal Government to this Congress. We abdicate our 
responsibilities, and we reduce the opportunity on behalf of our 
constituents--for me, on behalf of Kansans--to make certain that the 
things they think are important are the things we fund, the things that 
are constitutional are the things we fund, and we lose the opportunity 
to tell an Agency by using the power of the purse string that when you 
pursue this regulation, when you pursue this policy, when you make the 
decision you make--Congress isn't going to have the leverage on you to 
convince you to change your behavior. We lose the relationship that 
exists under the Constitution for us to have power over those 
Departments and Agencies in the executive branch.
  Common sense tells us that if we determine how much money an Agency 
or Department receives, they are going to be much more interested in 
what we have to say, and if they don't listen to us, we have the 
ability to remove the money, to eliminate the funding.
  So tonight, in my view--and I believe this strongly--we missed an 
opportunity. We have been in this process for a long time now. We set 
out with the goal of passing all 12 appropriations bills individually. 
The Appropriations Committee has done that. But they were not all 
brought to the Senate floor. In fact, for the bills we are talking 
about tonight, a continuing resolution was passed for them several 
months ago, taking us to December 8.
  At this point in time on December 8, we continued them until this 
Friday, and now, tonight, we have continued the continuing resolution 
with the same funding in the future as last--now for the third time in 
2 months--to February 8. We are not doing what we are supposed to do, 
and in this process, in my view, the opportunity existed.
  We were very close to reaching an agreement. President Trump has 
strong feelings about border security. President Trump was willing to 
work with Congress to find a solution. Somewhere along the line--and 
there are lots of folks who want to say where the blame lies--maybe it 
was with Speaker-elect Pelosi; maybe she just is unwilling to allow 
anything but a continuing resolution to pass. But the amount of dollars 
we were apart is so minimal, and the policy issues had been resolved. 
Yet, for some reason, we walked away. If she is the Speaker-elect of 
the House, I urge her to deal with this issue of appropriations. It is 
the power of Congress. Republicans and Democrats ought to work together 
to fill our constitutional responsibilities.
  Where are the days in which the Congress--Republicans and Democrats, 
House and Senate--exhibited their prerogatives, not because we want 
power but because the Constitution gives us the authority--the 
responsibility, in fact--to make decisions about spending?
  There is no glory in making a decision on spending when we say that 
today's dollars are fine next week; they are fine the next week; they 
are fine the next month. We were so close to coming together this year, 
and it is disappointing that the end result is now a continuing 
resolution until February 8.
  I want my constituents to know that we have done this too many times. 
Yes, there may be a time in which we want to have just a few days to 
resolve the final differences. A few days is not February 8; a few days 
is not now, for the third time. What we needed to decide months ago, we 
pursued weeks later. What we should have decided weeks later, we failed 
to address a week ago. Tonight, we failed once again to address the 
issues of the proper amount of funding. Twelve appropriation bills 
should march their way across the U.S. Senate floor, should march their 
way across the House of Representatives floor, and should be sent to a 
President for his or her signature or his or her veto.
  The process that was exhibited this evening failed to allow me to 
have my vote recorded as it normally is, and it is important for me, 
for Kansans, and for Americans to know that I oppose the way we are 
doing business tonight. It needs to change. We have said it before, and 
if we always say that we can wait another 2 weeks, we can wait another 
3 weeks, we will never get back to doing the work we are hired to do by 
the American people.
  I have voted no. It is the right vote.
  Ms. CANTWELL. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DAINES. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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