[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 16281-16282]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          PRIORITIZING ISSUES

  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. President, I will talk a little about the issue we 
are currently dealing with in this Chamber, which is the Interior 
appropriations bill. It is a bill that is very important to those of us 
from the West. Being from Wyoming, it is a particularly interesting and 
important issue.
  I listened to the assistant majority floor leader talk a little this 
morning about the importance of moving on with the issues we have 
before us. He enumerated the very many issues he considers apparently 
to be of primary importance. We are going to have to move forward, but 
we are going to have to make some priorities. We obviously do not have 
a great deal of time.
  Many of the issues the Senator from Nevada mentioned are issues that 
have been around for a long time, without much push from the leadership 
to do anything about them until now. I hope we do not find ourselves 
dealing with too many issues and dealing with them insufficiently.
  I hope we set priorities for where we are going to spend the rest of 
our time. My reaction is we need a little less talk and a lot more 
action.
  With regard to Interior, for those of us in the West, one of the 
issues--especially in the case of Wyoming--is that half of our State is 
Federal land and managed, to a large extent, by those agencies that are 
funded in the Interior bill. This is a bill of about $19.5 billion, 
which is a little more than last year but generally about the same.
  It is interesting that these agencies do create some revenues, mostly 
through royalties and minerals. About $6 billion worth of revenue comes 
from these activities.
  The Bureau of Land Management handles a great deal of the land in our 
State. It has a great deal to do with multiple use. It has a great deal 
to do with our opportunity to go ahead and use those lands for the 
various kinds of activities that are good for the local economy, good 
for the Nation, and good for energy, for example, and at the same time 
protect the environment, which is also key to what we are doing.
  I will comment further on PILT, payment in lieu of taxes. When a 
county could have as much as 80 percent of the land controlled and 
owned by the Federal Government, they have a real problem with tax 
revenues. Those lands would be earning revenue if they were in Maryland 
and owned privately. When they are owned by the Federal Government, 
there is no tax revenue. That is what the Payment in Lieu of Taxes 
Program is designed to do.
  We also have the Wild Horse and Burro Program. We all want to 
preserve wild horses. They are spread over the country--some in Nevada, 
some in Wyoming, some in other States. However, we have a problem with 
overpopulation. It is an issue that exists with most wild critters. No 
one wants to do anything in particular to hold down the numbers. In the 
past, the numbers grew until there was not enough food and they starved 
to death. We do not want to do that. There has to be a particular 
number of wild horses, or elk, whatever, that can thrive; there is only 
so much vegetation for a certain number. Beyond that we have to do 
something. It is not an easy issue but we must deal with it. That is 
important.
  The Forest Service is one of our national treasures. We need to 
preserve the Forest Service; we need to preserve the forests. We have 
done a good job. This year has been extremely difficult when it comes 
to wildfires. We have lost 6 million acres. We are faced with the 
question of how to better prepare and eliminate some of those fires. 
There are programs out there. The administration has one now that will 
be included in an amendment to this bill that allows thinning and 
allows ways to avoid fires rather than putting our energy into fighting 
fires.
  I grew up next to the national forests in Wyoming. We were halfway 
between Cody, WY, and Yellowstone Park. It is a beautiful area with a 
great many trees and occasional threats from fires. There are cabins 
and buildings. We have a plan, if we could implement it, to hopefully 
avoid some of the fires.
  The National Park System is one of the big activities in the Interior 
Department. We have 385 national parks in this country. Some are large. 
In Wyoming, we have Yellowstone, the oldest and largest park in the 
country. We have had a chronic problem of maintaining the 
infrastructure of the parks. They have millions of visitors, generally 
on a seasonal basis, during a relatively short time. The administration 
has promised to put $4.5 million into infrastructure so we can keep the 
parks available for people to enjoy and visit. That is our 
responsibility. The Interior dollars are very important.
  Other activities of concern include the Fish and Wildlife Service, 
mining, as well as some research on energy and fossil technology and 
clean coal technology. Along with that is the U.S. Bureau of Indian 
Affairs. We are providing the best service we can to Native Americans. 
We are providing an opportunity for them to continue to begin to build 
as strong an economy as possible.
  For a moment I will talk about the Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program. 
The Senate appropriates approximately $220 million for that PILT 
Program--more than it has ever received. We have not yet reached the 
appropriation to be equivalent to the authorization. Nevertheless, we 
have made some progress. This year, 67 of my colleagues joined in a 
request to increase PILT to help more than 2000 counties and local 
governments. When there is a county that has anywhere from 50 to 90 
percent Federal lands, it is up to the county to provide the services 
necessary--whether it be law enforcement, fire, whatever. Those are 
county responsibilities. Therefore, there needs to be some revenues 
from the land. That is what these payments are about. We are moving 
toward that. I thank the committee for moving as they have toward 
reaching the authorization of the funds available. Certainly that 
authorization is not totally enough to fill all the needs, but it is an 
improvement over the past.
  This also gives an opportunity for those counties to create their own 
financial structure, much of which often is tourism, which, again, is 
costly. I

[[Page 16282]]

thank the committee for what they have done with respect to payments in 
lieu of taxes to the counties. I hope we are able to include that. Our 
allocation is larger than the House and we need to bring that up so we 
have a satisfactory arrangement.
  In the West we have had 3 years of very low rainfall, actual drought. 
It is very difficult. In Washington, it is normal to have 50 inches of 
rain a year. In Wyoming, it is more likely to be an average of 16 or 17 
inches. It is a low precipitation area at best. Therefore, we irrigate. 
Irrigation water generally comes from reservoirs, from the runoff of 
snowfall that is captured in the mountains and let down during the 
summer. We have had relatively slow snowfall over the last several 
years and therefore our reservoirs are getting low and have been very 
low this year. We have had, certainly, a bona fide drought problem--not 
only in Wyoming but all through the area, including the Dakotas and 
down. There has been a great deal of discussion about it. On the 
Agriculture Committee we talked about that a great deal. The 
Agriculture Committee bill as prepared does not deal with drought. We 
think they will get support in the area of crops, but it is based 
primarily on loans after the product is sold. If you did not produce a 
product, there is nothing there. That is why we need to have disaster 
assistance. There will be less spending in the Agriculture bill because 
there will be less crops grown--with a higher price because there are 
less--but many farmers and ranchers will not produce a crop.
  We should offset some of that to the farm bill spending. Whether we 
offset it or not, the fact is there will be less money spent in that 
area than could be spent. Therefore, what we spend here could replace 
what was there. I hope that is the approach we take.
  We should have some limitation on how much we have there, but, 
indeed, it is a big issue and it will be a $5.5 billion issue to be 
able to deal with the losses that agriculture has suffered.
  I hope, too, we do not simply focus on farm crops. Again, in my 
State, the biggest agricultural area is livestock. Livestock people 
have suffered as well. What has happened is there is no grass for 
grazing where the cattle are on private lands. In some cases where 
there has been grazing allowed, in the forests or BLM, Federal lands, 
there has not been a sufficient amount of grass. Ranchers have had to 
sell cattle because they have not had the feed and will not have the 
feed this winter.
  When we do talk about agriculture, the idea often--particularly in 
some Midwestern States--is that just refers to farmers. I want to tell 
you it is farmers, but it is also those who raise livestock, cattle, 
and sheep. People who are in that business need to be recognized as 
well, in terms of what we do here to help the agricultural industry 
during the drought. We will be dealing with that. We will come back to 
it.
  I say again I hope we can set some priorities for the relatively 
limited amount of time left of this Congress. I hope that we select 
those items that are timely, that need to be done. I understand when we 
come to the end of a session everybody has ideas of things that they 
would liked to have happened that did not happen, but we are not going 
to be able to do all those things. So what we have to do collectively 
is show some leadership as to which of those issues should be dealt 
with. Then we can do that.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Lincoln). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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