Military Construction, The Department of Veterans Affairs, And Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, for 50 years the Land and Water Conservation Fund has done amazing work protecting our land, waterways, forests, State parks, and critical wildlife habitats. This is particularly true in New Hampshire, where since 1965 LWCF has funded more than 650 individual projects. Just this month, New Hampshire received eight new LWCF grants, which will allow New Hampshire communities to develop outdoor recreation facilities in Dover, which is close to where I live, to renovate Osgood Pond in Milford, and to do so many other projects.

In the last couple of months, I actually had a chance to go around New Hampshire and visit so many of these projects that were done because of LWCF grants. One of the things that really struck me about them is that they are not for big projects, although some have been used toward doing that. The Silvio Conte National Wildlife Preserve that crosses Vermont and New Hampshire is one of those that have been preserved, with the help of Judd Gregg, a former Republican Senator from New Hampshire. LWCF helped to preserve that.

So many of these grants have been used for small projects and communities, such as Meredith in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire on Lake Winnipesaukee, where I visited. They have been able to expand the park along the lake so that people not only from Meredith but from across the State and other parts of the country when they are visiting can come and sit and enjoy the water. With those projects, they have been able to put in new docks so that people can get out on the lake on boats and enjoy the water. Without LWCF, those projects would not have been possible. It gets people out into the outdoors who otherwise wouldn't be able to do that.

Federal and State LWCF funds are also vital to the outdoor recreation industry in New Hampshire. That is one of our biggest industries. It accounts for $4.2 billion in consumer spending, $1.2 billion in wages and salaries, and nearly 50,000 jobs. The importance of these projects and the conservation efforts that are the result of LWCF to the tourism sector of our economy and to our outdoor industry cannot be overstated.

There has been bipartisan support for LWCF since its inception back in the 1960s. There is a bill which Senator Burr has introduced and which I am a cosponsor of that would extend LWCF for 60 days. Unfortunately, last night LWCF expired. Its authorization ended as of September 30.

The effort to reauthorize the program, to invoke Senator Burr's bipartisan legislation, was defeated. When they objected to a simple short-term extension of LWCF, our Republican friends indicated it was because they believed most LWCF funding goes to Federal land acquisition. Well, I would like the Record to reflect that is just not the case. I have seen it firsthand in New Hampshire in the projects I talked about. I would bet the Presiding Officer has seen in North Carolina the support LWCF has provided. In fact, during the last 10 years, LWCF funds have been split about 50-50 between Federal agencies and States. In New Hampshire, what these Federal grants do is to leverage State support and private support and local support.

Moreover, most Federal lands that are acquired with LWCF funds are within the existing boundaries of Federal parks, refuges, forests, and other recreation areas. Consolidating these lands helps to reduce Federal maintenance and management costs, saves taxpayer dollars, and enhances the experience visitors have to these areas. For example, in 2014, 39 of 40 LWCF national forest acquisitions expanded access to property already managed by the Federal Government that had been previously closed to the public. This is not about keeping the public off these lands, this is about helping to ensure that members of the public can get on these lands and benefit from them and enjoy them.

This Senator is very disappointed that we have seen a few people blocking the extension of this program in a way that affects every single State in this country. Our failure to act has significant consequences for each and every State.

The expiration of this program jeopardizes access to public land for hunting and fishing, which is one of the great benefits we have in New Hampshire that we use these lands for. It prohibits access to other outdoor activities that are important and unique to our American heritage. This is going to adversely impact our Nation's outdoor, recreation, conservation, and preservation economy. In New Hampshire, our whole outdoor industry is affected. That outdoor industry contributes over $1 trillion to our Nation each year, and it supports millions of American jobs.

I think it is critical that we pass a short-term extension to keep this program operating, but ultimately what we need to do is to pass a bill that permanently reauthorizes and fully funds LWCF--something a bipartisan majority of this body supports doing. I am going to continue working to pass a permanent authorization. I know that Senator Burr; my colleague from New Hampshire, Senator Ayotte; and other people who are on this bill feel the same way.

In the meantime, we should not allow LWCF to lapse any longer. So this Senator is going to renew a unanimous consent request that was made last night by my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Heinrich, to pass a 60-day extension.

I recognize that this request is going to be objected to by Senator Lankford, whom I see on the floor, but I just want to remind us all that less than 2 weeks ago, 53 Senators wrote the Senate majority leader urging action to reauthorize LWCF. To the 12 Republican Senators who signed that letter, I say this: I hope you will work with us to correct the misconceptions and the mischaracterizations that exist about this program. Let's work together so we can allow this short-term extension to pass. Let's work together to get a long-term reauthorization for the Land and Water Conservation Fund because LWCF has expanded outdoor opportunities in every single State in the country.

We should come together to support the Land and Water Conservation Fund, to protect one of America's most essential tools for conservation and economic growth.

With that, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Energy and Natural Resources Committee be discharged from and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2101; and I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

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Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I would be all for taking the backlog of funding and putting it into LWCF. I think my colleague raises some real reforms that could be made to LWCF. In fact, there is legislation in the comprehensive energy bill that Senators MURKOWSKI and CANTWELL have passed that would make some of those reforms. But if we can't get to that, if we can't extend this program in the short term, we are never going to get to that point.

The fact is that the backlog of maintenance needs should be addressed. But it does not make sense for us to suspend the program while we address those needs. LWCF was not established for maintenance purposes. It was established to protect natural areas and to provide recreation opportunities to the American public.

When I went to the city of Nashua, the second largest city in New Hampshire, and walked with the Republican mayor along the Riverwalk that they are trying to establish there, what I heard from her was what a critical difference LWCF made to the city and being able to leverage funds that the city put in and that the State could put in to help make sure that the people of Nashua, many of whom cannot get to national parks or to the White Mountains in New Hampshire but they could get to the Riverwalk through downtown Nashua.

Those are the kinds of projects that LWCF goes to help fund. Some 99 percent of what Federal agencies spend goes to acquire inholds, those pieces of land that are already within the boundaries of a national park, a national forest or a national wildlife refuge that if sold to a private developer would block public access. It would damage park resources. It would harm the visitor experience, and it would make it harder to maintain those very projects that my colleague was talking about wanting to maintain.

So I think, while it sounds simple to say there is a backlog and we should not reauthorize this program, that is only half the story. It is very disappointing that with the strong bipartisan support this legislation has, with the need to reauthorize it to continue to protect special places in the country, we are seeing opposition from a very few people in this body who are able to block our moving forward.

NOMINATION OF GAYLE SMITH

Mr. President, I would like to, if I could, move on to address a different issue, and hope we will see some cooperative agreement at some point in the future. I also want to urge the consideration of the nomination of Gayle Smith to serve as the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, also known as USAID. I am here with my colleague Senator Coons from the Foreign Relations Committee to talk about this nominee because this is a noncontroversial nominee, a seasoned public servant for a position that should be above partisanship.

So it is really disappointing that, again, there is only one person in this body who is holding this up. This comes at a particularly difficult time because we are witnessing a humanitarian crisis in Syria and across the Middle East. It is a crisis that grows worse every day. Our European allies are struggling to cope with a massive refugee and migration crisis without precedent since World War II.

The United States, with our unparalleled capacity to mobilize humanitarian support for humanitarian relief, has played a leading role, but there is more that we can do to assist both the Syrian refugees and the neighboring countries that are hosting them to help with that humanitarian crisis. But our ability to respond effectively to these challenges is hampered by the inability of the Senate to vote on Gayle Smith's nomination to lead USAID.

So, again, nearly 4 months have passed since she appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The committee approved her nomination by a voice vote in July. But since then, there has been no attempt to bring her nomination to the Senate floor, even as these humanitarian crises have deepened and deteriorated. It is not only our operations in the Middle East that are being hampered, USAID currently operates in more than 60 countries and regional missions around the world.

Following the devastating earthquake in Nepal in April, USAID disaster response teams were among the first crisis personnel to deploy there to organize the humanitarian response. USAID personnel continue to support our development efforts in Afghanistan. Those efforts are critical to the long-term success in the country. Given the extraordinary humanitarian crises confronting the United States, confronting our allies in the world, we really need a leader in place at USAID. It is unconscionable that here we are 4 months later and she is still being stalled.

Gayle Smith is a superbly qualified nominee who will almost certainly be confirmed by an overwhelming bipartisan vote. The Senate deserves the chance to vote on this critical nomination. So, again, I urge the majority leader to bring her nomination to the floor. We discussed it again today in the Foreign Relations Committee. I know my colleague from Delaware can speak also to what we heard in the Foreign Relations Committee.

So I would yield to my colleague from Delaware to discuss what we have heard in the Foreign Relations Committee about Gayle Smith and the need to put her in place as leader of USAID.

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