[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 47 (Wednesday, March 12, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1697-S1698]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Government Funding

  Mr. KENNEDY. Madam President, I want to talk about two subjects 
today. First, I want to talk about assets. We have been talking a lot 
about spending and the Federal budget and tax dollars. But there is 
another side to the ledger that sooner or later, in my judgment, we 
need to talk about.
  Here is what I am getting at: Twenty-five percent of the land in the 
United States of America is owned by the Federal Government--25 
percent. In some States, it is a lot more than 25 percent. That is just 
an average. It is 620 million acres.
  Now, if you inherited 620 million acres, what would you do? Well, the 
first thing you would do is you would be careful to conserve it out of 
respect for the land. You would want to make sure that the land wasn't 
contaminated; that it is properly fenced. You would want to preserve 
it.
  Second thing you would do is say: Well, how can I monetize this 
property? I have 620 million acres here. I am land poor. What can I do 
to have the land generate some income?
  Under our Federal Government, the Bureau of Land Management is 
responsible for managing the 620 million acres. And the charge to our 
Bureau is to do a couple of things: No. 1, conserve the land; No. 2, 
make sure--because it belongs to the American people--make sure that 
people have an opportunity to recreate on the land; and, No. 3, see if 
you can manage the land in a way to generate cash.
  Why is that important? Why is that especially important right now? 
Our debt is $36.5 trillion. What does that mean? I mean, we throw 
around this figure of a trillion. We can hardly get our mind around 
it--at least, I can hardly get mine around it. Our debt is so high, and 
we are paying so much interest that the debt grows by $1 trillion every 
100 days. So this $36.5 trillion figure, 100 days from now--a little 
over 3 months--it is going to be $37.5 trillion. That is how fast the 
debt is growing.

[[Page S1698]]

  This number is so high and we are paying so much in interest that the 
debt accrues at $10 billion a day--not million--$10 billion a day; $417 
million it goes up an hour; $6.9 million--let's call it $7 million a 
minute. How long have I been talking, 3 minutes? The debt just 
increased $21 million. And we have got to pay that money back. This is 
not funny money.
  We are talking about how to start paying it back by reducing our 
spending. But there is another way; it is to generate income through 
our 620 million acres of land.
  Take our national parks, for example. The first thing we want to do 
to our national parks is preserve them. I mean, they are beautiful. 
That is why they are national parks. We want to preserve them and 
respect them and protect them environmentally and otherwise. We also 
want to allow people to enjoy them.
  We do that by telling folks: Come on in. You have to pay an entrance 
fee--but it is reasonable--if you want to come in and camp or just walk 
around and enjoy the scenery, go on a hike. That generates some money. 
You don't want the entrance fee to be too high, but you want it to be 
reasonable.
  Some of our national parks actually allow mining, oil and gas 
production, and timber production, so that increases income as well.
  I have seen an estimate from the private sector--there are several of 
these--that our public land, our 620 million acres, if we managed that 
land properly, could generate $90 million in revenue. So $90 million 
could be generated by our public land. How? Through a mineral 
harvesting, natural gas production, oil drilling, grazing for 
agriculture, hunting licenses, fishing licenses, and camping permits.
  Do you know what? Our Federal lands actually generate money. We know 
the potential: $90 billion a year. That would help us pay down this 
debt.
  In 2023, our Federal lands actually lost money. They lost $13 
billion. We went from a potential of $90 billion--according to land-use 
experts, that is what they ought to be generating--to a loss of $13 
billion. It is embarrassing.
  I don't want to blame all of it on the past administration. It wasn't 
all President Biden's fault, but some of it was. Under President 
Biden--not him, but his people; he appointed them--they banned offshore 
drilling for most of America's coastlines. They prohibited mining on 
over a million acres of lands. They canceled leases for oil and natural 
gas production. They paused all new permits for LNG, which Europe is 
hungry for. They restricted hunting. They restricted fishing. They 
restricted hiking. And they buried our Federal lands in redtape. That 
is why we lost $13 billion instead of gaining $90 billion a year.
  It doesn't have to be this way. All you have to do is look at the 
States. The States have State land. They don't have 620 million acres 
like the Federal Government does, but they have got a lot of land. The 
States have worked very hard to increase the revenue on their State 
lands while preserving them.
  Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico--all we have to do is copy them. 
Their activities, their preservation of their property, but their 
monetizing of their State lands has produced, over the past few years, 
an average return of $14.51 for every $1 those States have invested. So 
the States spend $1 on their State land, they get back 15 bucks--pretty 
good return. They haven't sacrificed air quality. They protected their 
lakes and rivers, and they have preserved their State land.
  The Federal Government, for every $1 we spend on our public land, we 
get back 73 cents. So we put out a buck, and we get back 73 cents. You 
don't have to be Euclid to see that we are going backward here. We need 
to do better.
  I know that the focus right now is on spending--it should be--and it 
is on designing a Tax Code that looks like somebody designed it on 
purpose--and it should be. All those things are important. But at some 
point, we need to recognize the enormous amount of assets that the 
American people own through their Federal Government and the fact that 
we are actually losing money by the way we are managing them instead of 
generating money.
  Once again, you don't have to be an astrophysicist to figure this 
out. All we have to do is call Arizona, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, and 
probably West Virginia and just say: Would you all come up to 
Washington? We will buy you a soda and give you a nice hat if you will 
come on up here and tell us how you are doing it. And just copy what 
they are doing.