Rob Bishop

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Kilmer for leading off on this particular issue and all the work that he has been doing on this particular concept. It is important. I am very happy that this bill has 300 cosponsors now here in the House. That is the largest number of cosponsors who have ever supported a bill coming from the Natural Resources Committee. I think there are only 10 other bills that have more cosponsors in the House. It passed our committee on a 36-2 vote and is now awaiting the chance of being heard here on the House floor. There is a companion bill in the Senate, not quite as good as our ours, that already has one-third of the Senate as cosponsors of that. This is an idea whose time has actually come. We talk about the maintenance backlog of our national parks and all of our public lands, including fish and wildlife land, BLM land, and also our national forests. Especially as we now enter August, when there will be the largest participation of Americans going out to visit these parks and public lands, it is important that their experience be a positive one and not be stopped by broken roads, lack of sewers, lack of facilities, or lack of any kind of access that they may need. That is why it is so significant. We have almost around $17 billion of maintenance backlog only in our parks. If you add up the maintenance backlog we have on all other public lands, including our national forests, it is $30 billion that we would need to spend just to get them to standard--not to do any kind of really human moving it forward, but just to get them to where they are workable, livable, and enjoyable. That kind of backlog did not take place overnight. There are a lot of people who are simply looking at saying: Well, let's just try and use the same old stuff we have been using for a long time. We will appropriate more money. That doesn't work. We have developed a significant problem that needs a significant new solution. This solution is one that was coming out of, actually, the administration that has the support of over two- thirds of the House and that has the support of one-third of the Senate. This is one of those things which, all of a sudden, this is a cool idea to solve an existing problem that we have ignored for a number of years. The goal of this is to take excess--and that is the key word-- royalties that are coming from energy production on all Federal lands, all kinds of energy production, whether it is traditional, renewable, onshore, or offshore, any kind of royalties coming into the Federal Government from those. If there is an excess, which means we take the commitments we have already to things like GOMESA and LWCF, and after those are funded, then if there is excess, that excess now goes into a fund to start working at these kinds of problems, to solve our problems with public lands. The restoration fund only receives the amounts after all these other programs have received that. If there is no excess in the royalties--I clearly doubt that will happen, but if there is no excess in the royalties, then there is no money that goes into this program. Some people have said this is mandatory spending. No, it is not. Mandatory spending, by definition, means you have to spend the money whether it appears or not; you have to find it from somewhere else. This is one of those programs that said, if there is excess, then the first billion of this money will go to fund our national parks, our public lands. If there is no excess, then you don't have to find it anywhere else because there will be no money that goes to that. This is not mandatory in any way. Also, some people are saying, well, maybe there should be an offset for this new program. This is really not a new program. The parks and public lands exist. The responsibility to make sure that they are viable, they are paid, and they are sustainable already exists. This is an existing program. We are not taking anything from any other program for this. We are simply basing it on what is already our existing responsibility. If you were to try and go through a traditional approach of trying to appropriate more money through our budgeting process, that wouldn't have to have an offset. What we are talking about here is existing programs, existing needs, and existing responsibilities. We have spent a whole lot of time buying up land. The Federal Government owns one-third of America already. It is easy to buy up more property. It is easy to establish a park because that sounds really cool. You get your name on it, and it gives you a legacy. The hard part is maintaining that land. And for heaven's sake, if we are going to take the responsibility and build a legacy, to actually buy something and create something, we have to take the responsibility of maintaining it, and this is exactly what we are talking about. I am so proud that there are so many Republicans and so many Democrats who have realized this is our obligation, this is our responsibility, and we have to do it. This bill is extremely important because it is a proper approach to solving an existing problem. I encourage the leaders of this House to bring it to the floor soon so it can be debated and heard.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chair, look, the Minuteman III has been a great deterrent and a great source of security for this country, but it is 46 years old. It was put in the ground when I was in college, and I can't even remember what I was doing in college. It has already been extended three times. As Mr. Turner said, the testimony in our committee said that we have studied this, and the conclusion was more study and more delay was not cost-effective. Look at the reality of the situation. If we move into a new system, we have to have the infrastructure to make that move so the system can be seamless going from place to place. If we pause in that reconstruction of infrastructure, what we do is stop the construction. Then, we have to start up again, which is why the cost continues to increase. There are parts of Minuteman III that are no longer being produced in the private sector, so the engineers at the Air Force logistics centers have to rejigger from old parts a new part. In fact, the blueprints in some cases are so old, they are not readable anymore. We have to move forward. This amendment stops us from modernizing our efforts. The GBSD has to move forward. Let's face it: The only reason it is not moving forward right now is because it doesn't have a cute name like Minuteman III. But it is our future. If we want something in our future, we cannot tolerate more delays. This amendment for another study does nothing more than delay what we can actually come up with, the new generation of what we need to defend this country.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition for the process of what we are doing, not necessarily the substance of the amendment at hand. Since this bill had first been heard in our committee, there have been new voices that have been raised by the people of Windsor, California, which is the town located adjacent to the unincorporated area of the county in which this land transfer would take place. These residents have repeatedly contacted our committee asking that their voices simply be heard. Now, for whatever the reason was, we asked the committee to have one more hearing and allow these voices to actually be heard. For whatever reason, the majority on our committee decided to silence the voices and just ram this bill through the committee. The reason I and several others voted against it in committee and on the floor was simply because of the process that went through here. This, as has been mentioned, is not necessarily a new amendment. It is a bill, a bill that has passed this House and is sitting over in the Senate. It is certainly my hope that this does not portend a future in which those who make the agenda of the House consider the fact that the Democratic House will so incomparably and infrequently work with a Republican Senate that we now need to take every bill that has been passed in the House and turn it into another amendment and then attach it to the next big bill that happens to go through this process. Certainly, that is not what I think would be the best way going forward. Now, the last reason, the process for which I do object, is simply this bill does not belong on a National Defense Authorization Act. There is no defense nexus. This is transferring of lands from one area to Native Americans. Now, heaven knows, I have had all sorts of land issues and wildlife issues on the NDAA, but in each one of those there was a nexus to a training range, a military mission. There is no connection with this particular bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Chairman, however one wants to spin whatever issue is here, had the Democratic majority on the committee scheduled another hearing to allow those voices to be heard, I wouldn't have objected then, nor would I have objected right now. The sad part is this is not necessarily the best of proposals. The checkerboard pattern that is created by this amendment is something in other amendments we have tried to do, to consolidate and get rid of checkerboard patterns and not create checkerboard patterns. But here is, still, the bottom line: This establishes a precedent-- this is not a precedent. We have done it before. But it establishes the wrong approach. The National Defense Authorization Act should be about military stuff and about the defense of this Nation. This is not even a tangible concept. This is something that has nothing to do with it. We do have a partisan Rules Committee that has decided to lure some people with partisan amendments to be put in here, but it has nothing to do with the actual bill. We are going through a whole lot of amendments and taking a whole lot of time on the floor. The amendments to the NDAA should have something to do with the NDAA and not just pulling wandering bills that go all over the place and deciding to shove it on it just because there is a vehicle that happens to be going through this body. That is why I said I am not talking about the substance of the bill-- although there are some questions; I would have had my questions answered had there been another hearing for the new voices that want to be heard--but it is the process that we are going through. The process here is wrong. The process the Rules Committee did was wrong. We should not be talking about these kinds of issues and taking our time on these kinds of issues on an NDAA bill. So, as I said, my opposition is purely on process, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole), the sponsor of this bill.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire, first of all, if the gentleman from Arizona has any speakers. I do have several.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to be here. I also appreciate Mr. Cole for his work on this particular issue and the time he has put in over the last decade in trying to find a Carcieri fix. That 2009 Supreme Court made the decision, but it actually opened up more questions than it provided solutions and answers in the process. In the years since that decision, the Democrats, when they controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House, did not find a solution. Republicans, when we were in the same situation, didn't find a solution either, probably because there is even a bigger question than what was decided in this particular case. That bigger question is one that is extremely complex and grave, and it indicates the complexity of this particular issue. Lands taken into trust by Tribes definitely have a benefit and an advantage to the Tribe, but it also has an impact on the counties and local governments where this trust issue is taking place. Let's be clear that, prior to Carcieri, the fee-to-trust process was broken and fraught with conflicts. In fact, many will still argue that even today, the current Bureau of Indian Affairs process provides very limited incentives for any community or stakeholder to be partners in this process. As a result, we are often left with conflict and political turmoil and accusations and recriminations on the local level. Some areas of local government, especially the California State Association of Counties, have been repeatedly asking us to try to come up with a reform to the overall process because the process impacts taxes and zoning in communities where these trust lands are acquired. Local governments, States, and stakeholders who have some kind of role to play in this area, should they have a seat at the table? Should they be consulted? Should they have some kind of input? Yes, obviously. Should they have a veto in the process? I don't think so. Where we draw that line to ensure that there is consultation, so you ensure that people have a voice in the process, that is the underlying question. That is the complex question. During markup of this bill, Mr. Huffman from California and Mr. Gosar from Arizona entered into a colloquy. They actually had a discussion, one of the few times a committee did what a committee is supposed to do, talking about the need to come up with some kind of variance to this underlying issue that is not necessarily the crux of the 2009 decision. But how do we come up with this process? If this bill is going to go all the way to the Senate and ultimately become law, we need some help in finding a solution to the bigger issue of how much consultation should take place and who should have their voices heard in the overall process, a process that does not happen right now. There is a pathway to solve these problems. We can address Carcieri or we can move forward to prevent future litigation that has plagued the land-in-trust process. The Tribes and every stakeholder in this process deserve as much. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar).

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to engage in a colloquy with the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva). If we, indeed, are going to be serious about a legislative solution to Carcieri, then we need to work out some kind of compromise that could pass both Houses of Congress and be signed by the President. I have been encouraged by the debate not only on the floor here, but also in our committee, regarding the need to consult with affected parties before land is taken into trust. Mr. Speaker, I ask Mr. Grijalva whether he will commit to work with us on this type of legislation to solve this underlying problem as this bill moves forward?

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the gentleman's commitment and I appreciate the comments that he will be there. There is this bigger question that needs to be answered. Where we draw the line is a matter that still needs some kind of discussion, I recognize that. Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a brilliant letter from me to Chairman Grijalva on this particular issue' House of Representatives, Committee on Natural Resources, Washington, DC, May 6, 2019. Hon. Raul Grijalva, Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, Washington, DC. Dear Mr. Chairman: It is frustrating that the Democrat Leadership has scheduled H.R. 375, legislation to reverse Carcieri v. Salazar, under suspension one week after the committee markup of the bill. It disregards what I believe was a bipartisan agreement to work on an amendment to the bill to improve consultation between the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and states and counties to mitigate the impacts of taking land in trust in their jurisdictions. The Carcieri decision created vast uncertainty over the fee-to-trust process for tribes and impacted stakeholders. I voted for H.R. 375 in committee as a display of my support for resolving Carcieri. My support for the bill's advancement is contingent upon the inclusion of reasonable safeguards on BIA's powers. During markup on H.R. 375, Messrs. Huffman and Gosar discussed a mutual, bipartisan desire to respond to long- standing state and local concerns. The California State Association of Counties (CSAC), in a letter submitted for the markup record, reiterated the counties' ``longstanding, valid concerns'' they have with a fee-to-trust process conducted under a ``fundamentally flawed regulatory framework'' and they also submitted proposals to resolve these problems. I can attest that many counties in Utah share these same concerns. Mr. Huffman explained that he found himself in partial agreement with CSAC's position, and that there should be ``meaningful good faith consultation'' with local governments. While saying the Gosar amendment went too far, Mr. Huffman expressed a willingness to ``continue collaborating on this issue'' to ``come up with something that would at least codify that good faith consultation part of a better process.'' Bringing the bill to the Floor this Wednesday is not a sign that such collaboration is being taken seriously by Democrat Leadership nor is it a pragmatic approach to resolving Carcieri for the benefit of Indian Country. The fee-to-trust system is broken because of a provision of a 1934 law that has not been updated since that law's enactment. Realistically, H.R. 375 offers an opportunity through which to fix it. Moving forward without reasonable consultation safeguards on BIA's authority will undermine successful resolution of Carcieri. It was our hope that after debate on the bill during markup you'd allow Messrs. Huffman and Gosar, and other interested Members (on and off the Committee), an opportunity to explore solutions with H.R. 375's sponsor, Mr. Tom Cole. We need to work on a compromise bill that solves the underlying issues and can become law. Sincerely, Rob Bishop, Ranking Member.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, on May 10, 1869, a Salt Lake paper wrote that the people of Utah--the great pioneers of the Rocky Mountains--received with acclamation the glad news of the completion of the mighty work to which as a people they had contributed their part; and hand in hand with the great circle of States and territories, now rejoicing in union over the event, did thank God for its accomplishments. They were referencing the Golden Spike which had been driven completing the first transcontinental railroad. That date, May 10, will forever stand as a tribute to the men of vision who foresaw the potential of an empire stretching from coast to coast in the United States, bound together not only by iron rails but also by a common interest. From the time of the Civil War when this project started until three or four decades later when the railroad system was completed, America changed. In 1860, the United States was third in the world in production of wheat. When the railroad was completed, we were first. In 1860, England produced three times as much coal as the United States. When the railroad was complete, not only did we lead the world, we were producing 110 million tons of coal more than Great Britain. During the Civil War, England was producing six times as much steel as we were, but when the railroad was complete, 42 percent of all steel was being produced in the United States--much of that going to the railroad. During the Civil War, there were only 30,000 miles of railroad track in America. But when the system was complete, there was 167,000 miles crisscrossing this country. Today we still have more railroad track than any other country, 39 percent more than the number two country of Russia, and more than the rest of the top 10, which include in order China, India, Canada, Germany, Australia, Argentina, and France and Belgium combined, even more than nation number 139 on that list, the country of Lichtenstein, which has all of 5\1/2\ miles of railroad track. The railroad made our economic explosion possible. The railroad made us an industrial giant. Before the railroad came, it was difficult to move goods or even transport people. But once the spike was driven, that was the kick-start to what we were going to do. Now, 150 years later, we are celebrating the coming of the Central Pacific's Jupiter with the Union Pacific's Engine 119 meeting together in Utah's backyard. The railroads still move goods, and they also provide passenger service. I still remember as a kid my parents taking me to the Ogden train depot for a trip somewhere into Idaho, probably Boise. I was in my Sunday best. As we went up to the observation car, I could look out and see the beauty of this America passing us by. It is an American national historical park. It is a place where the American story is without equal. In LaRue County, Kentucky, there is the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historical Park. In Seneca, New York, there is the Women's Rights National Historical Park. In Ohio, you can visit the Dayton Aviation National Historical Park where you can walk into the bicycle shop where Orville and Wilbur Wright first started to conquer the skies. The Golden Spike National Historical Park is going to recognize in Promontory Summit in Utah, the place where the world changed, where not only was history made that day, but also the Herculean efforts of those who organized this, as well as the immigrant manpower of Irish coming from the east and Chinese from the west, who provided the muscle to accomplish this project. A national historical park is accomplished by an act of Congress, but the Spike 150 Commission, chaired by Doug Foxley and Spencer Stokes, has mobilized a literal army of history lovers who will host a series of events befitting this historic moment. It has already started with a horse parade in Brigham City, a hoedown in Tremonton, and a country church service on Sunday. It will also culminate this Friday when we invite all of you to come to Utah to see the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike, which encouraged the pioneering of both the spirit and economy of America. When that Golden Spike was driven, America welcomed a new frontier.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Gosar for yielding me time. I appreciate this opportunity. Mr. Speaker, look, I was listening to a lecture the other day about the old Romans, the Roman Empire. The Romans' success in creating their empire was that they were incredibly creative and adaptive. They saw situations that needed to be changed, something new, and they did it. They had perfected the phalanx approach. They learned from the Greeks how to fight. Yet when they came against the Samnites who were living in the hills, that phalanx approach was totally useless. So what the Romans did is created a way around that, another source, to have a very flexible, highly mobile type of attack force, which they called the Legions. They simply became adaptive to the new situation. This is where I wish the other side of this body would try to become less dogmatic and more adaptive, to try to find solutions. Instead of bringing another resolution to the floor that has no chance of passing in the Senate and would be vetoed by the President, we should spend our time trying to come up with creative solutions that would be a win-win-win situation. We can do it. We need to. It would be nice if the other side of the aisle could also understand what Article I actually means. In the last administration, instead of taking this accord through the normal constitutional process of having it ratified in the Senate and doing it by executive fiat, they have to realize what can be done by executive fiat instead of the constitutional way can be undone by executive fiat. Rather than now trying to go back to the old document that has questionable efficacy, let us try to move forward. This is happening all over the place. The State of California has a lot of talk about green talk, yet they have increased their dependence on foreign oil in the last year by 57 percent. That is foreign oil. We have to do things in a way different than simply talking about it. We had a bunch of hearings in our committee about climate change. We heard from the Hip Hop Caucus. We even heard from people who thought NFL concussions were a problem and needed to be solved somehow through climate change. I don't know how that fit, but it was an interesting day. Let me try to talk to you instead about something that is in the purview of our government, that can be done and that can be a creative and adaptive solution to this problem of too much carbon in the environment: simply, carbon sequestration. I would refer you to a guy, a doctor by the name of Williams, who took 1,000 acres of land in Mississippi that had been farmed for 150 years, most of that in cotton. Instead, he turned it into rangeland, grazing rangeland. He had had no herbicides, no pesticides, no seeding, no artificial fertilizer. The only management technique he used was intensive grazing followed by periods of rest so that the soil, the plant life, could recover. That is the only thing he did. They tell me that the results after 4 years was simply an increase in the number of foraged species that were there, an increase in the number of native species that were reappearing, and an increase in the general biodiversity of insects and wildlife and everything else. He told me, in technical talk that I don't understand, that for every 0.6 percent increase in soil C per acre in 1 foot of soil, whatever that means, you can take 35 metric tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere. That means nothing to me. What this guy in Mississippi was able to do is come up with a 2.3 percent increase in that soil carbon, I am assuming, which would equate to 140,000 metric tons of CO2 taken out of the atmosphere. Those numbers also mean nothing to me; I don't know what it means. What I do understand is that what he was able to do was the equivalent of taking out emissions from 7,600 automobiles every year and sequestering it into his 1,000 acres of ground. That is the equivalent of burning 13,000 tons of coal that he was able to take out of the atmosphere and sequester it into the ground. Mississippi alone has 10 million acres of land that is farmland of all types. If you were able to use all of that, Mississippi alone could take out of the atmosphere 7 percent of all the emissions that we have and sequester it into their ground in that State simply by itself, which means, if you extend that out mathematically to 150 million acres, the United States could be a net negative emitter. We could be taking more carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it into the ground than we are sending into the atmosphere. Approximately 5.1, I am told, gigatons of CO2 emissions are automatically sequestered into the oceans and our terrestrial sinks. If you understand what that means, you are a better man than I am. That is what I have been told. That means, to become net zero, we would only have to have 75 million acres of land being used for carbon sequestration, 75. In the United States, we have 527 million acres of pasture and rangeland. Twenty-seven percent of the land that we have is in pasture and rangeland. We have 410 million acres, which is 21 percent of all land, in forestry. Simply by having an aggressive way of grazing, improving grazing and improving the quality of our forests, we can suck carbon out of the atmosphere, which would be far easier and far better than anything in the questionable efficacy of the Paris accord. You could do it with no cost. You wouldn't have to cost jobs or energy increases. You can do it with virtually no cost except for the initial cost of buying the livestock to put on the land, which is why it is there. We could have the benefits of a better watershed, better wildlife, better biodiversity, and economic productivity of our rural lands. All those things are easily within our reach. We could help solve the food shortage. We could help solve drought resistance in agricultural lands. We could have watershed integrity, which would provide abundant and cleaner water for us all, as well as biodiversity for wildlife. I was recently in Arkansas, if I can go on with this. The State forestlands, they had 2 pieces that they were working on. One they just let go on so they could see what would happen, let nature run its course. The other they went through with active management by thinning the trees. What happened in the one that they just left alone? It was crowded. It was dark. There was no sunlight getting to the ground, which was barren of all kinds of foliage. On the portion that the State managed, where they allowed the sunlight to get to the ground, there was vegetation. There was forage. There was the ability to have food. Wildlife had a habitat they could use. That has also been replicated in my home State, where on private property, some of my sheep ranchers did the exact same thing. They improved the ground. Not only have they improved the ground, but they can also now suck more carbon out of the atmosphere into that ground, which you don't do if you just leave it alone. We had a hearing in our committee one time, and they simply said the idea was that plants need carbon, so you have plant life sucking the carbon out of the atmosphere. It goes down into the root system, which makes the plant healthier, the land healthier, and you are taking carbon out of the atmosphere. That is a wonderful idea. We had four witnesses. Even the Democratic witnesses were saying that grazing helps us to accomplish this. One of our good Eastern members said: Well, look, if plant life sucks the carbon out of the atmosphere, why don't we take the cows out, and then you will have more plant life. They won't eat any of it. Even the Democratic witness said, no, that is not the way it works. If you allow the plant just to grow, it grows large and sprouts out and hides the ground so that you don't have any kind of new plant life coming on. You take the cows out, and their hooves don't claw up the land as they walk around, so nothing is germinating. All you have is a bunch of dry, dead leaves that are easy bait for wildfires. What you have to do is allow them to eat and then move them off the land. Can we destroy the land with bad grazing practices? Of course. But if you do it the right way, we can easily solve the problems. We have two kinds of problems with carbon: one is emissions and the other is concentration, stuff already out there. If we just do grazing practices and carbon sequestration on the lands that the Federal Government owns now, we can easily not only solve our problem of emissions but take the concentration out and put it back into the ground, where it does good for plant life and expands and grows that. We have here the resources that we need to solve this problem. What we need to do is free up people to be able to solve this problem by themselves and not insist that the government tell us what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. It doesn't work that way. This can be a win-win situation. H.R. 9, I am sorry, does not have anybody winning. It has all of us losing. That is why it would be nice to see that there are solutions out there. All we need to do is be like the old Romans and be a little bit creative and adaptive, find something that works with material we already have. We can do that. There is a better way to go forward than H.R. 9. H.R. 9 is simply more dogma to try to rehash the past. It doesn't move us forward at all. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate Mr. Gosar for having this Special Order here so we can talk about these kinds of issues as well as the costs that would be involved.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar) is spot-on accurate. I thank him for bringing this up.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I am here to support H.R. 1222, and I am very pleased that Congressman Kind and Congressman Hunter were able to introduce this and for their part in this particular statement. As was said by the gentleman from New Jersey, this has been before this House before. We have passed it in committee before and in the House before, and it was part of the original package, the land package that went through earlier this year. Unfortunately, because of a technicality in the slowdown that we had in having to reintroduce the bill as a Senate bill, this must come through as a House bill. However, I am pleased to report that all the concerns people had have been resolved at this point. The Senate has already deemed this bill to have passed once the House acts on it. So, with our passage today, I think this bill is going fast into becoming an actual piece of legislation. I want to thank Representative Grijalva and his staff. Mr. Grijalva is not here today. The gentleman from New Jersey is in his place, and a much better dresser, I might add, and I thank him. I thank them for their efforts to continue on with this program that was part of the original package. We had hiccups that we had to solve in some particular way, so Mr. Grijalva and his staff worked very hard on this particular piece of legislation. This is something that has been long sought by the sports community. The Pittman-Robertson fund, which is a great fund that relies on excise taxes paid on purchases that are made by hunters and fishers and recreational shooters, that goes into this fund, which has been around for almost 80 years and has already contributed about $10 billion. It has been important to start hunter education programs. It has been important also for the construction and the maintenance of our public shooting ranges. The long-term viability is significant. As this Nation becomes more urbanized, the ability of people having a safe place where they can go, and they can do practice, target practice, it becomes even more significant that these ranges have to be maintained. These ranges have to be improved in some particular way. What this bill does is the perfect solution. It takes this fund of money, but then allows the States to have greater flexibility of how it is going to be administered. By allowing them to even match with just 10 percent, it gives the States the ability to move forward and to use the Pittman-Robertson fund for 5 years to fund shooting ranges and expand existing shooting ranges. It empowers States--that is what we should be doing more--but it empowers States that will actually now encourage responsible hunting, responsible recreational shooting, as well as ensuring the wildlife conservation system, which is, once again, a responsibility of States. What we are doing here is, I think, taking the right approach with a fund that already exists, giving States flexibility, and encouraging the sporting community. That is why the sportsmen of our country have long sought for this particular provision. They look at this as a major and important win. Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of this measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, even though H.R. 91 is a new bill, we have seen it before. The last time we were here, it was a Senate bill that came over and passed our committee but did not pass the floor itself. We did talk about it as part of a package we did earlier this year, that it could have gone in that. For some reason, it was not allowed to go in there. It does deal with four of the Columbia River Treaty Tribes and the conditions on their traditional fishing areas that are basically unsanitary and simply unsafe. What this bill does is authorize the Department of the Interior to upgrade these areas, to make them acceptable to safety and sanitary standards, and to do that in consultation with the Tribes. This bill is, in my estimation, a reasonable approach. I have no objection to passing this measure today. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, if I could inquire of the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Van Drew) if he has any more speakers. I don't have any other speakers.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), the sponsor of this particular piece of legislation.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this entire day we should have had Yogi Berra come in here and say it is like deja vu all over again because, once again, this particular piece of legislation we saw last year when it passed out of committee--sponsored by Mr. LaMalfa then--at the same time, passed the floor at the same time, and now we are bringing it back here to see if we can get it all the way through to the finish line. The bill is one that we have talked about for quite awhile, but it also has, I think, three significant things it accomplishes, why it has to be in bill form and can't simply be administratively negotiated in some way. The first one, obviously, is it nullifies certain restrictions that were imposed by the State of California's conservation law. Even if that restriction to the land title were not a problem, it also solves the problem that was created because the Obama administration BIA appointees, in their haste trying to approve a fee-to-trust land acquisition, cut some legal corners--they cut a lot of legal corners-- which added to a lot of appeals and litigation, all of which cost everyone a whole lot of money. The second specific thing it does is prohibit gaming in this Camp 4 area, as was said, which is a concern of the county of Santa Barbara that will obviously, when this passes, lose a great deal of jurisdiction over the land in that area. And, finally, one thing this bill does, I think, that is very important is it references the memorandum of understanding between the Tribe and the county of Santa Barbara that they negotiated. This MOU addresses the concerns that they had, puts them in perspective, and will actually solve a lot of problems and efforts that have gone on in the past. This is a good bill, used to get people working together, solving certain situations and certain problems. And, I guess, most importantly, the last bill we passed is going to cost us $11 billion; this one has no significant costs associated with it, so Mr. LaMalfa can maintain his status as a true fiscal conservative in the bills he brings here to the floor. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, the Obama administration's notoriously rocky relationship with Congress, and even his own party, meant that he had to resort to overregulations to get stuff done. His pen and a phone approach resulted in considerable executive branch overreach. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to support a nominee for Secretary of the Interior who is the exact opposite. David Bernhardt is a lawyer who understands exactly what powers and authorities his department is granted under the law and will never overstep those authorities. During the shutdown, for example, he expertly used the authorities under FLREA--whatever those initials represent--to keep many of America's parks open, even as other agencies were closed for business. It is this kind of thinking--putting Americans and those who visit public lands first during tough times--that makes David a talented public servant. He will be an incredible Secretary of the Interior, and I urge the Senate to speedily confirm him.

Mr. BISHOP of Utah

Mr. BISHOP of Utah. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, this is a totally unique bill. What we have done is allowed the seven affected States to get together and work out a solution and bring it to us and then we, in Congress, didn't screw it up too badly. So what we have done now is, if this bill can actually go into law, we have allowed for the system to build the capacity to store 60 million acre-feet of water that will help 5.5 million acres of irrigated lands, 40 million people, and can also produce over 4,000 megawatts of clean electricity. It is rare for Congress, but in this case, we respected what the States have done, and we are moving quickly to try and get this into law. I appreciate the chairman and the 30 other Members from the affected States who have joined me as part of this bill. Now I hope we can expedite this and send it over to the Senate where we will ask them to refrain from their usual practices and to quickly get this bill on the President's desk because, not only is this bill bipartisan, this bill is that important. I reserve the balance of my time.