[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5669-5671]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 GOOD SAMARITAN SEARCH AND RECOVERY ACT

  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass 
the bill (H.R. 373) to direct the Secretary of the Interior and 
Secretary of Agriculture to expedite access to certain Federal land 
under the administrative jurisdiction of each Secretary for good 
Samaritan search-and-recovery missions, and for other purposes, as 
amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the bill.
  The text of the bill is as follows:

                                H.R. 373

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Good Samaritan Search and 
     Recovery Act''.

     SEC. 2. EXPEDITED ACCESS TO CERTAIN FEDERAL LAND.

       (a) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Eligible.--The term ``eligible'', with respect to an 
     organization or individual, means that the organization or 
     individual, respectively, is--
       (A) acting in a not-for-profit capacity; and
       (B) composed entirely of members who, at the time of the 
     good Samaritan search-and-recovery mission, have attained the 
     age of majority under the law of the State where the mission 
     takes place.
       (2) Good samaritan search-and-recovery mission.--The term 
     ``good Samaritan search-and-recovery mission'' means a search 
     conducted by an eligible organization or individual for 1 or 
     more missing individuals believed to be deceased at the time 
     that the search is initiated.

[[Page 5670]]

       (3) Secretary.--The term ``Secretary'' means the Secretary 
     of the Interior or the Secretary of Agriculture, as 
     applicable.
       (b) Process.--
       (1) In general.--Each Secretary shall develop and implement 
     a process to expedite access to Federal land under the 
     administrative jurisdiction of the Secretary for eligible 
     organizations and individuals to request access to Federal 
     land to conduct good Samaritan search-and-recovery missions.
       (2) Inclusions.--The process developed and implemented 
     under this subsection shall include provisions to clarify 
     that--
       (A) an eligible organization or individual granted access 
     under this section--
       (i) shall be acting for private purposes; and
       (ii) shall not be considered to be a Federal volunteer;
       (B) an eligible organization or individual conducting a 
     good Samaritan search-and-recovery mission under this section 
     shall not be considered to be a volunteer under section 
     102301(c) of title 54, United States Code;
       (C) chapter 171 of title 28, United States Code (commonly 
     known as the ``Federal Tort Claims Act''), shall not apply to 
     an eligible organization or individual carrying out a 
     privately requested good Samaritan search-and-recovery 
     mission under this section; and
       (D) chapter 81 of title 5, United States Code (commonly 
     known as the ``Federal Employees Compensation Act''), shall 
     not apply to an eligible organization or individual 
     conducting a good Samaritan search-and-recovery mission under 
     this section, and the conduct of the good Samaritan search-
     and-recovery mission shall not constitute civilian 
     employment.
       (c) Release of Federal Government From Liability.--The 
     Secretary shall not require an eligible organization or 
     individual to have liability insurance as a condition of 
     accessing Federal land under this section, if the eligible 
     organization or individual--
       (1) acknowledges and consents, in writing, to the 
     provisions described in subparagraphs (A) through (D) of 
     subsection (b)(2); and
       (2) signs a waiver releasing the Federal Government from 
     all liability relating to the access granted under this 
     section and agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the United 
     States from any claims or lawsuits arising from any conduct 
     by the eligible organization or individual on Federal land.
       (d) Approval and Denial of Requests.--
       (1) In general.--The Secretary shall notify an eligible 
     organization or individual of the approval or denial of a 
     request by the eligible organization or individual to carry 
     out a good Samaritan search-and-recovery mission under this 
     section by not later than 48 hours after the request is made.
       (2) Denials.--If the Secretary denies a request from an 
     eligible organization or individual to carry out a good 
     Samaritan search-and-recovery mission under this section, the 
     Secretary shall notify the eligible organization or 
     individual of--
       (A) the reason for the denial of the request; and
       (B) any actions that the eligible organization or 
     individual can take to meet the requirements for the request 
     to be approved.
       (e) Partnerships.--Each Secretary shall develop search-and-
     recovery-focused partnerships with search-and-recovery 
     organizations--
       (1) to coordinate good Samaritan search-and-recovery 
     missions on Federal land under the administrative 
     jurisdiction of the Secretary; and
       (2) to expedite and accelerate good Samaritan search-and-
     recovery mission efforts for missing individuals on Federal 
     land under the administrative jurisdiction of the Secretary.
       (f) Report.--Not later than 180 days after the date of 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretaries shall submit to 
     Congress a joint report describing--
       (1) plans to develop partnerships described in subsection 
     (e)(1); and
       (2) efforts carried out to expedite and accelerate good 
     Samaritan search-and-recovery mission efforts for missing 
     individuals on Federal land under the administrative 
     jurisdiction of each Secretary pursuant to subsection (e)(2).

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Utah (Mr. Bishop) and the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah.


                             General Leave

  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Utah?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman 
from Nevada (Mr. Heck), whose bill we are discussing, to introduce the 
bill.
  Mr. HECK of Nevada. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the chairman and the 
ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee for working 
with me in a bipartisan manner to bring H.R. 373, the Good Samaritan 
Search and Recovery Act, to the floor.
  H.R. 373 tears down bureaucratic roadblocks that are preventing 
families from achieving closure when their loved ones go missing on 
Federal land. This issue was first brought to my attention by the 
separate but similarly tragic cases of Las Vegas taxi driver Keith 
Goldberg and Air Force Staff Sergeant Antonio Tucker.
  Mr. Goldberg and Staff Sergeant Tucker were presumed dead, and their 
remains were believed to be missing somewhere within the Lake Mead 
National Recreation Area. In both cases, local, experienced search and 
recovery groups volunteered their time and resources to help locate the 
remains of these missing individuals.
  Unfortunately, due to unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles from the 
Federal Government, the group volunteering to help locate and recover 
Mr. Goldberg's remains was denied access to Park Service land to 
conduct its search for 15 months. The group volunteering to help locate 
the remains of Staff Sergeant Tucker was denied access for 10 months, 
needlessly delaying the closure these families sought.
  This is unacceptable and must change. My bill does just that. Once 
these bureaucratic hurdles were finally cleared and these Good 
Samaritan search and recovery groups were allowed access to Park 
Service land, Mr. Goldberg's remains were recovered in less than 2 
hours and the remains of Staff Sergeant Tucker's were recovered in less 
than 2 days.
  As a former member of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's 
search and rescue team, I introduced this bill because unnecessary red 
tape simply must not continue to get in the way of providing closure 
for families faced with similar tragic circumstances.
  A similar bill, H.R. 2166, passed the House in the 113th Congress 
with a unanimous vote of 394-0, showing real bipartisan support. 
Unfortunately, the Senate failed to take action on the measure.
  We must pass this bill so that future families won't have to suffer 
the mental anguish that the families of Keith Goldberg and Antonio 
Tucker did. Again, I thank the chairman and the ranking member of the 
House Natural Resources Committee for diligently working with me on 
H.R. 373.
  I urge its adoption.
  Ms. TSONGAS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, in January 2012, when Keith Goldberg went missing, 
finding him was all his family wanted. Investigators presumed that he 
had been murdered and that his remains were somewhere in the Lake Mead 
National Recreation Area, a unit administered by the National Park 
Service.
  After several months passed, local law enforcement was unable to 
recover Mr. Goldberg's remains, and they gave up the search. His 
family, wanting what any family would want, reached out to a private, 
nonprofit search and rescue outfit for assistance.
  Unfortunately, it took 15 months for the professional search and 
rescue company to acquire the permits and insurance required to conduct 
this search. Within 2 hours of receiving the necessary credentials, Mr. 
Goldberg's body was recovered.
  H.R. 373 will help speed up the process for granting private search 
and rescue companies access to Federal lands. The bill strikes a fair 
balance between guaranteeing safety, ensuring sufficient liability 
insurance for the American taxpayer, and improving the process. Under 
H.R. 373, private search and rescue operations, when appropriate, can 
have timely access to public lands.
  The Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on this bill in the 
113th Congress, and the National Park Service recommended some 
technical changes to the legislation.
  I would like to thank the majority for working with us to incorporate 
those suggestions into the legislation that we are considering today. I 
also want to thank Mr. Heck for his leadership on this legislation.

[[Page 5671]]

  Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 373 and urge its adoption.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we have this assumption here that a suspension is simply 
an easy bill, one where everyone agrees to it, and it simply will 
happen. Last session, we were wise enough to pass this bill in 
committee and on the floor, and the House should be commended for the 
action that it took last year. The Senate did not and should not.
  Mr. Speaker, this year, it is with us again, but sometimes, these 
suspension bills are far more significant than one would think. This is 
one of those bills that is extremely significant even though we simply 
label it as a suspension because it illustrates a problem, a larger 
problem that we have here in the Nation, one in the way we define 
public lands versus Federal lands.
  Public lands are those lands which actually should be dedicated to 
the local people who live there, where their decisions should be 
tolerated, and their ideas should be respected. The land should be 
there to help people.
  Federal lands, unfortunately, are lands where simply the government--
the Federal Government--controls them, and the Federal Government has 
grown so big they can't actually see the value of those particular 
lands.
  The government has become too big to be concerned, too big to be 
creative, and instead simply tries to cross bureaucratic T's and 
sometimes, to cover themselves for future action, too big simply to 
care about people. These two situations, which the good Representative 
from Nevada has shown, illustrate exactly how that happened.
  The first family, trying to find the remains of their lost relative, 
was required--was required, along with the group that was trying to 
help them in recovering the body--was required to pay a high indemnity 
because the agency feared that there might be some potential harm done 
to the land, which would trump the ability of helping people do 
something for someone and to be creative in the process.

                              {time}  1645

  It took the family and this entity 15 months to raise the money to 
pay it off. Ultimately, they decided to waive it. And as has been 
stated, within hours, when they were actually allowed to do things, 
they found the body--15 months, 15 months of waiting, when it should 
have only taken a matter of hours to bring cloture to a family. And 
why? Because our agencies have become too big, too dogmatic, too 
bureaucratic to actually do things that help people. Instead, you have 
to follow the rule.
  For the Air Force sergeant, it was the same situation. He was, 
unfortunately, drowned. A company that is an expert in this kind of 
recovery system volunteered to go in there and find the body, and, once 
again, month after month, the agency rejected to try and help people 
who are there on public lands. Instead, they treated them as Federal 
lands and insisted that the bureaucratic rules were supreme because 
there might be some damage that could potentially happen, and, 
therefore, that is the most important goal to make sure does not take 
place.
  That entity went to court and the court finally said that this is a 
ridiculous approach; let them go in there. Within months of their 
ability to go in there, once again, they found the body.
  The bill that Mr. Heck is presenting to you is nothing more than 
common sense. This is the way all agencies should behave, and it is sad 
that we actually have to pass legislation to get our land agency to do 
what they should be doing in the first place.
  Sometimes we are criticized here in Congress for having a lack of 
common sense, but it is sad that it is up to Congress to try to insist 
that our land agencies actually use common sense. The most important 
issue should be the issue with how we can actually help people; that is 
our first responsibility. In these two situations, it was an utter 
failure to actually realize that people are the most important element 
and, if we do have Federal lands, they better be used to help people or 
we shouldn't have them in the first place.
  That is why this bill is not just a simple suspension bill. This is a 
significant piece of legislation that should set the standard for how 
agencies deal with people in the future.
  I commend the good gentleman from Nevada for bringing this back up 
and giving it to us again, and I promise that we will continue to pass 
this bill until it becomes reality, until it becomes a standard by 
which people are treated by the Federal land agencies we have here in 
this Nation. I urge its adoption, and I urge its passage.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) that the House suspend the rules and 
pass the bill, H.R. 373, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds 
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
  Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this motion will be postponed.

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