[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3779-3780]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               THE LAND ACQUISITION TO CUT NATIONAL DEBT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Holding). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Hardy) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HARDY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on a bill that I have 
just introduced, my first as a Member of this body.
  The Land Acquisition to cut the National Debt, or LAND Act, is a 
commonsense piece of legislation that would prohibit the Secretary of 
the Interior from using Federal dollars to purchase land, resulting in 
a net increase in acreage under the jurisdiction of the National Park 
Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, and the Bureau of Land Management, 
unless the Federal budget is balanced for the year in which the land 
would be purchased. The same would go for the Secretary of Agriculture. 
Unless the Federal budget for the given year is balanced, no net 
increase in the land acreage may be included in the National Forest 
system.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, some in this body may wonder why I have chosen to 
take up this charge in the 114th Congress. For my friends on both sides 
of the aisle, many of whom may not be too familiar with life out West, 
let me give you some background.
  Just before I arrived in Washington, the national debt was over $18 
trillion. As a former small business owner, the Federal Government's 
spendthrift habits and utter disregard for the American taxpayer's 
hard-earned dollars continues to frustrate me today. Like countless 
Nevadans, it pains me to watch as we saddle our grandchildren with such 
an unsustainable debt burden, borrowing against the very future we are 
responsible for providing them.

[[Page 3780]]

  Now, Mr. Speaker, my father always said: Don't come to me with a 
problem unless you have a solution to fix it. I don't pretend to have 
all the answers on the biggest issues facing this government and this 
country, but I do bring the private sector, Western sensibility to 
tackling the problem before we get too far out of hand. That is why I 
am introducing the LAND Act.
  Simply put, the bill tells the Federal Government that responsibly 
and efficiently managing the 640 million acres of land it already 
controls must be a higher priority than acquiring even more private, 
State, and tribal lands. Think about that number for a moment, Mr. 
Speaker: 640 million acres. That is roughly one-third of the United 
States. And on those acres that the Federal bureaucracy has kept within 
its iron grip, there is currently existing an estimated deferred 
maintenance backlog of $23 billion--that is with a B.
  So what does that tell the American people, Mr. Speaker? It tells 
them that the Federal Government has bitten off more than it can chew, 
and it cannot be trusted to serve as a responsible steward of even more 
of our lands and resources.
  Mr. Speaker, I am a Nevadan. The Federal Government controls more 
than 81 percent of my State, and I think I speak for most of my 
constituents when I say enough is enough. It boggles the mind to think 
that each of the 640 million acres the Federal Government controls is 
too valuable to be parted with in order to improve overall management, 
let alone the fact that the Feds want to acquire even more land on top 
of an already embarrassing maintenance backlog.
  The Departments of the Interior and Agriculture like to tout how 
important land acquisition is for conserving species, providing spaces 
for recreation, and preserving culturally significant sites. My bill 
would allow them to continue to acquire land as a tool for these 
purposes, but it would require them to focus their efforts on lands 
that truly need oversight by turning over unnecessary land to those who 
are best able to manage it--the States.
  Mr. Speaker, let's be clear. The Department would have the 
opportunity to net more acreage under the aforementioned agencies' 
jurisdictions under my bill. That is, so long as the Federal budget is 
balanced for the given year. I do not believe this is too much to ask. 
Where I come from, in the private sector, if you don't have a 
successful business plan and you don't budget well, you go out of 
business.
  We all know that the BLM, Fish and Wildlife, and the Park Service 
aren't going out of business anytime soon, much to my chagrin, but at 
least we can force them to behave more like one on the land they 
currently control by ensuring that our tax dollars no longer go towards 
more land for these agencies.
  At a time when our debt continues to soar, we can ill afford 
irresponsible budgets like the Interior's $13 billion request. We need 
to get our fiscal house in order, and we can help that process along by 
passing my bill. Let's allow State, local, and tribal governments to 
invest in developing their lands, creating jobs, and growing the 
economy instead of letting them fall in disrepair on the Federal 
Government's watch. Let's pass the LAND Act.

                          ____________________