June 4, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 104 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
All in Senate sectionPrev31 of 65Next
GREAT AMERICAN OUTDOORS ACT; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 104
(Senate - June 04, 2020)
Text available as:
Formatting necessary for an accurate reading of this text may be shown by tags (e.g., <DELETED> or <BOLD>) or may be missing from this TXT display. For complete and accurate display of this text, see the PDF.
[Pages S2723-S2724] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] GREAT AMERICAN OUTDOORS ACT Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, if I may switch gears to another subject, briefly--on Monday, the Senate will be casting the most important vote on conservation legislation, outdoors legislation, that we have had in 50 years. That is quite a statement to make because we do lots of legislation in the U.S. Senate. I am not exaggerating when I say that. This is a piece of legislation that will do more for our public Federal lands--our national parks, our fish and wildlife lands, our Bureau of Reclamation Lands, the lands that hunters and fishermen use--than any piece of legislation we have passed in at least 60 years. In addition, it will create permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which [[Page S2724]] has been a goal of Congress since it was passed first in 1964 and reaffirmed by Reagan's Commission on American Outdoors, which I chaired in 1985 and 1986. Finally, we are getting around to doing both of those things. This piece of legislation that I am describing has the strong support of President Trump. In fact, it couldn't happen without President Trump because the Office of Management and Budget has to approve the method of funding we are using. They have approved it, and it is in the President's budget. It has the support of 59 cosponsors in this body-- Democrats and Republicans--who are working together on it in a remarkable way. People say that we are divided. Well, we are in lots of ways, but in other ways we are not. Ask Senators Burr, Cantwell, Daines, Gardner, Heinrich, King, Manchin, Portman, and Warner. They are all in the middle of this. They will all take credit for it, and I will give them credit for it. But everyone recognizes it takes all of us. Why are we all in the middle of it? We have more than 800 sportsmen and outdoors groups who have endorsed this bill--more than 800. You tell me the last time you saw President Trump, 800 outdoors environmental groups, and 59 U.S. Senators on both sides of the aisle in favor of a piece of legislation that has a policy of what I believe is the most important piece of outdoors legislation in a half century. Here is what we are talking about. We are talking about leaky roofs. We are talking about access roads with potholes. We are talking about trails that are worn out so you slip and fall down when you go to hike. We are talking about sewage systems that are broken, shutting down whole campgrounds like the Chilhowee Mountain Campground, which was shut for 2 years. Five hundred families usually use it every summer and can't go because the sewage system is shut down. We are talking about dilapidated visitors centers, from Washington, DC, to Pearl Harbor. We are talking about the Mall in Washington, DC. We are talking about our national treasures. We are talking about where we like to go. One of the organizations supporting this--or a group of them-- represents 55 million fishermen and hunters. They would like to have roads in order to get to the fishing holes. They would like not to break the axles on their tires along the way. Families would like to be able to go to Pearl Harbor and see a good visitors' center, and they would like to be able to camp in the Smoky Mountains and find that it is not shut down because the bathrooms don't work. That is what we are talking about here. This isn't exotic stuff, but it is what creates an environment for us to use this great American outdoors that we all love. Now, briefly, exactly how does it do that? Well, one part simply says that we are going to take the 419 national park properties--the national forests, the National Wildlife Refuges, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Education--that is the Indian schools--and we are going to take the deferred maintenance, which is all of those things I talked about that are broken, and over the next 5 years, we are going to pay for half of it. We have about $12 billion in deferred maintenance, and over the next 5 years, we will reduce it to half of that. In the Great Smoky Mountains, for example, which is next to where I live, we have $235 million worth of deferred maintenance, and the park has a $20 million-a-year budget. Now, how long do you think it is going to take, with a $20 million annual budget, to deal with $230 million worth of deferred maintenance? It is never going to happen. It is never going to happen without this piece of legislation or something like it. That is the first part. President Trump, to his credit, said to go ahead and put in the bill the national forests, the National Wildlife Refuges, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Bureau of Indian Education. We have a lot of Indian schools in this country that are broken down and need to be fixed. He said to put that in there. There are also a lot of Tribal nations and a lot of hunters and fishermen who appreciate that support, which is why we have 800 different outdoor groups that are supporting it. Then there is a second part of the bill--the smaller part--which is the Land and Water Conservation Fund. It is a very simple idea that was recommended by President Johnson's Rockefeller division in 1964. It said this: Let's set aside a certain amount of money every year--$900 million. Half will go to the States, and half will go to the Federal Government and buy land that ought to be protected. It might be a city park or it might be an inholding in a national park. It could be either of those things. This has been going on all that time. Yet what the agreement was in 1964 was that we would get the money from offshore drilling in order to pay for it. We would create an environmental burden--that is, allow offshore drilling--and we would use it for an environmental benefit, which is the Land and Water Conservation Fund. That made a lot of sense. So, every year, Congress has appropriated a certain amount of money for that, but the idea was that the amount would be certain. It would be $900 million every year, and that has never happened. In 1985 and 1986, President Reagan appointed a commission to look at the American outdoors. I was the chairman of it. The principal recommendation was to make the Land and Water Conservation Fund permanent and have permanent funding. So, for 60 years, Presidents and Congresses have been trying to do this, but it hasn't gotten done. Monday is the day to get it done. My hope is that all Members of the U.S. Senate will be back here for votes on Monday. Some of us have been a little delinquent in our attendance on the Monday votes, but we need 60 votes on Monday to advance the bill. Then we will need 60 votes a couple of more times to pass the bill. Then it can go to the House of Representatives where an identical bill has been introduced. To me, it would seem that a bill like this, at a time like this, would be something we would all welcome and want to support. There is nothing any of us wants to do more than to get outside of our homes and get in the fresh air, and these lands are where we go. Some of them are city parks, and some of them are big parks, like Yellowstone and Yosemite and the Great Smokies. Yet they are our treasures, and they are run down. They are run down. The bathrooms leak. The sewage systems have closed camp grounds. In some cases, the visitors' centers are embarrassing. The roads have potholes, and the access roads aren't built for the fishermen. This is a chance for us to take care of that. I look forward to the vote on cloture on Monday. I hope we get a big vote and send a strong signal to the American people that we in Congress have heard them and that, even in a time of crisis like this, we can work together and do important work. There is one more aspect to it. This is an infrastructure bill, and infrastructure means lots of jobs. There are various numbers that have been thrown around--40,000, 100,000--but anytime you spend $14 billion over 5 years on projects that are ready to go in locations all over the country, especially in rural areas, it is going to help a country that has such a high unemployment rate. This is the most important conservation and outdoors legislation in 50 years. In addition to that, it is an infrastructure bill. That sounds like a pretty good vote for Monday. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record after my speech my opening statement from the hearing this morning on Going Back to College Safely as well as the letter from the American Council on Education. Mr. President, I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. Mr. McCONNELL. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. ____________________
All in Senate sectionPrev31 of 65Next