Making Further Continuing Appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security for Fiscal Year 2019--Motion to Proceed

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, we are here this Monday afternoon to continue debate on S. 47, which is our Natural Resources Management Act, which we introduced just last month with Senator Cantwell. We have been working on this bill with not only Senator Cantwell and Senator Manchin but with the chairman and ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee. We did that last fall when the composition of that committee on the House side was a little bit different and now in this new year. We have been working forward with the commitment from our respective leaderships to bring this measure to the floor early in this Congress, and here we are.

I am very thankful and appreciative to Leader McConnell and Senator Schumer for keeping their word to allow us a few days of debate on this very important natural resources and lands package. We have a great partnership going on in working with my new ranking member on the committee, Senator Manchin, in working with his team in conjunction with ours, and, again, in building on the great, great work that we have had with my friend and colleague from the State of Washington, Senator Cantwell, and her team. There have been so many who have really come together in a very collaborative way and in a very dedicated way to help make this happen.

I make mention of the contributions of a few Members on our side and a few Members on the Democratic side who have really been engaged with us throughout this process--Senator Gardner, Senator Daines, Senator Wyden, Senator Heinrich--and of the dozens of Members who are on this measure as cosponsors. We truly appreciate it.

We made some good progress last week. We reached agreement to enter into debate on our bill. We considered two amendments. Both of those amendments were tabled in order to preserve what we would refer to as the spirit of the bicameral-bipartisan agreement. We anticipate one more amendment to process today before we move to a cloture vote. I am pleased that we are at this point as we near the end of the floor debate on this measure, and I would like to spend just a few moments this afternoon, if I may, speaking to the really extensive process that has gone into this bill.

It is a substantive bill. There is no doubt about it. It is substantive because of the many, many different, discrete, small provisions that have been incorporated into it. Reaching this point has been no small task. I mentioned last week the way that we handle many of these lands matters before the U.S. Senate. It is an imperfect process--that is certainly for sure--but so many of these issues are so parochial that they just do not command the floor time that is available here. Invariably, what we effort to do is to put together a package of these measures. We really haven't seen a lands package before the Congress that has been ready to move out or, actually, be signed into law--that is, I guess, the best way to say it--since 2014. So that is 5 years of really pent-up demand, if you will, to address these matters.

So over the course of several years and multiple Congresses, both the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee have held dozens of hearings and business meetings to prepare the more than 100 bills we have now incorporated into S. 47. So when you think about, again, the process that goes into it--this is endless hours, countless hours of Member time, of staff time that go into these meetings as we work on very local priorities and then drafting the legislative text and refining it to make it right and refining it yet again to make it right.

We have also worked for months on a bipartisan, bicameral basis to truly negotiate every word in this bill, literally down to one-tenth of a mile for a certain designation on a specific conveyance there, so really taking a very sharp eye and a sharp pencil to all of the provisions that are in here.

We have really worked to try to incorporate as many local, State, and Member priorities as possible. The process these matters went through in order to get where we are today--the regular order process in the House, in the Senate, and in many cases, in both--is really quite impressive. I mentioned some of the Member priorities last week. Members have come to the floor. I indicated that we have included provisions sponsored by at least 50 different Senators within this bill. That number rises to about 90 Senators when we count the cosponsorship of various Members. So, again, it was very collaborative in terms of how we reached out to everyone to ensure their priorities are heard.

We have heard a lot on the floor about the contributions contained within the sportsmen's provision--something I have worked on with Members over the course of years, with different partners on the other side, whether it was Senator Tester or Senator Heinrich. It has been three Congresses running that we have tried to advance a bipartisan sportsmen's bill. So there are so many who are looking with great interest into finally passing these sportsmen's provisions.

There is a provision in here that helps the folks in Tennessee. One of Senator Alexander's priority projects is a special resource study for the James K. Polk Presidential home in Columbia, TN. It was built in 1916. It is the only surviving private residence of our 11th President. What we do within this bill is we take that first step to make a determination, to ask the question of whether this special place should be designated as a national park unit at some point in the future. So pretty parochial, pretty small, but it is important to those in Columbia, TN.

I mentioned some of the Arizona provisions. Udall Park in Tucson, AZ, is a priority for the Arizona delegation. This is one of those issues where they have a pretty popular local community park in the city, and there are all kinds of activities one would anticipate taking place in a small park--baseball, swimming, farmers market. Up until just a couple years ago, the city of Tucson was actually unaware that the Federal Government even owned this local park. So what we do in this bill is we clean up the ownership issue, which allows the city to move forward with the day-to-day activities without facing these Federal bureaucratic hurdles that happen back here. So when they want to do something that would be good for that community, such as expanding a farmers market or improving cell service on the softball fields, they don't have to come to us to ask for permission--pretty common sense.

I mentioned some of the priorities coming out of the State of Louisiana and a measure that Senator Cassidy has been working on, the Lake Bistineau Land Title Stability Act. I shared the story of some homeowners who had been on a parcel for 13 years, built their home, wanted to sell, and then they found out they couldn't because they didn't have clear title to their land due to an issue with the BLM management survey. So we worked with BLM and the State of Louisiana-- all this bipartisan work--to clear up the title. Again, this is something that you wouldn't think you would need an act of Congress to do, but we do that.

Up in the State of Minnesota, we worked with their delegation to modify the boundaries of the Voyageurs National Park.

In Georgia, we are expanding the Ocmulgee National Monument--this is a prehistoric American Indian site--and we are doing this at the request of the local communities and the Tribes. It has strong support from the Creek Indian Tribe and the local community. It is a designation that will help preserve the historic and cultural values of the area as well provide economic benefit by giving greater opportunities for visitors.

So these are some of the various priorities we have included in this very comprehensive package. These are not things that are going to make the front page of the Washington Post or the New York Times. These are very local. But I can pretty much guarantee that they will be on the front page of the Ocmulgee--I still don't know if I am pronouncing that correctly--within the Creek Indian Tribe. They are going to make sure people know that this is something we have been working on for a long period of time and that it has finally been addressed in Congress.

Working over the years to help address these priorities is very, very important. We have received the support of not only so many colleagues in the Senate and in the House, Republicans and Democrats, but we have heard it from organizations and communities around the country. Some of these names are pretty well known to us: Ducks Unlimited, the Boone and Crockett Club, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation, the National Wildlife Federation, the U.S. Travel Association, the Nature Conservancy.

That is just a few of the many that have weighed in. I want to give a couple more examples of groups that have written in to share their support.

The Southeast Tourism Society wrote that ``S. 47 has earned the enthusiastic support of the travel and tourism industry.''

I mentioned last week that so many of the provisions contained in this bill really help these little local economies or the broader economies within the region, so you can see where the travel and tourism industry would be appreciative.

The Outdoor Recreation Roundtable--this is a consortium made up of a number of recreation associations--wrote that our bill should be passed to ``guarantee American's great outdoors receive the attention and resources they so richly deserve and to ensure the outdoor recreation economy continues to grow.''

We are also hearing from communities that have been waiting for congressional action to resolve longstanding Federal land management issues. I mentioned the one in Louisiana. I also mentioned the situation in Tucson, AZ. We did receive a letter from the mayor of Tucson in support of our package because of the provision we have included that he says ``will bring closure to a historic agreement made between the city of Tucson and Bureau of Land Management at a popular urban park in Tucson's northeast business and residential areas.'' That mayor knows this is going to allow the local community to do some of the more simple tasks, such as operating a farmers market, without going through these bureaucratic hoops and hurdles.

Another provision in the bill will convey a parcel of land on the shores of Lake Fannin to Fannin County in Texas. The county commissioner shared that with the conveyance of this land, they will be able to ``continue the process to restore, preserve, and protect the historical significance and beauty this lake has to offer for years to come.''

So, again, there is the encouragement we are getting from the communities and from the organizations. I have certainly heard from a lot of Alaskans who are very pleased about where we are with this lands package.

We heard from Sheri Buretta. Sheri is the chair of Chugach Alaska Corporation, and she wrote that ``Section 1113 of S. 47, while long overdue from our perspective, provides a welcome and extremely helpful mechanism for addressing serious inequities relative to our land settlement.''

Again, the land settlement in Alaska is decades old, and we are still attempting to address some of those inequities, and this legislation allows us to do that.

David Fee, who is the coordinating scientist at the Alaska Volcano Observatory, noted that ``current volcano monitoring capacity in the United States is deficient, and we are unable to accurately forecast and detect eruptions at an adequate level. . . . Passing and funding [this measure will provide] for a safer and more resilient United States.''

The benefits we provide for so many around the country--these are just a few of the examples of the many communities and organizations that support the passage of the bill. We have a full list of our supporters that is available on the committee's website--it runs almost 7 pages long--that I am going to be submitting for the record--not only that consolidated list but also the many, many letters of support we have received. These folks--these individuals, these groups, these communities--are writing in to make their support known because there is good policy in this package. It is policy that fosters economic development in rural America. It is policy that ensures that incredible landscapes are conserved for future generations to enjoy. It is policy that ensures access for sports men and women. It also allows for greater access for some of our off-highway vehicles. It is policy that enhances our volcano-monitoring systems. It empowers local water managers to make decisions on how to conserve water and endangered species.

I want to just kind of segue off of that because there hasn't been a lot of discussion about the water provisions within this bill. I keep referring to S. 47 as the lands package, but the truth is, it is not just about land; it is about water as well, and it includes a number of important western water provisions.

We improve water management by taking important steps to provide greater local control over water resources and promote management that balances the needs of water users with fish and wildlife protection. As an example of this, we create a new Bureau of Reclamation title transfer program. This is going to facilitate conveyance of water facilities to the local agencies that have been managing them for decades and in some cases longer than decades--almost over a century-- and that have fully repaid the government for the cost. So effectively what we are talking about here is we are simplifying the process for local utilities, States, and Tribes to pursue title transfers for reclamation projects, not by requiring an act of Congress to do it. So it is simplification. It is common sense. It is making things work. It is a straightforward change in the law that will make a huge difference for the entities in 17 of our Western States that manage water projects, canals, and other water infrastructure that irrigate more than 11 million acres of land--land that provides fresh fruits and vegetables for millions of Americans every day.

In the bill, we also authorize individual title transfers to California and Oklahoma. These provisions will greatly improve water management and incentivize capital investment in water infrastructure while conserving water resources and protecting public safety.

The reauthorization of the Upper Colorado and the San Juan River fish recovery program and phase 3 of the Yakima Basin Water Enhancement Project are both included in this bill. I think both of these are great examples of how a collaborative approach to water challenges, rather than litigation and conflict, results in solutions that benefit water users and the environment. We have certainly heard from Senator Cantwell on this as it relates to the Yakima Basin project and the very collaborative effort that was involved with that. The Colorado River project involves bringing four species of endangered fish back from the brink of extinction while water development projects move forward.

There are other important water provisions that didn't make it into the bill for various reasons. I think many of us were disappointed, it is fair to say. It is clear to me that there is a lot more that we have to do to address these major challenges with western management of water and drought resilience. We have some issues to work through on that, certainly not the least of which is the Colorado River drought contingency plan. This involves an interstate agreement to keep Lake Mead from dropping to critical levels. It has taken years of negotiation with cities, Tribes, farmers, and elected officials.

I clearly understand that this is a time-sensitive issue. I had hoped we might be able to finalize it for this package, but I am looking forward to working with both Senator McSally, who is the new chairman of the Water and Power Subcommittee of the Energy Committee, and Senator Cortez Masto, who is the ranking member, so we can get this over the finish line as quickly as we can.

We also need to complete our work to reauthorize the Bureau of Reclamation's infrastructure funding programs to better utilize Federal lands and water facilities for aquifer recharge and eliminate duplication in the permitting of reclamation pump storage projects.

We are making good strides on the water side with this measure as well. I think it is important to remind folks that it is a lands package; it addresses many of the issues related to water; it is a sportsmen's package; and it is truly a conservation package as we look to what we have included and incorporated as the permanent authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

This is a good bill we have in front of us. We have been able to make it even a little better through our substitute amendment. I do know that we have many colleagues who, if we had more time, would say that they have more amendments they would like to offer for the package. We are not going to have the time or the ability to come to an agreement to add them here, but it is not without a great deal of work that we have gotten to this place. Again, the fact that we have been working for years--literally, years--to put this together is demonstration of our good faith to try to incorporate as much as we possibly can.

I do want to repeat, and I know Senator Manchin has, as well, that this is not going to be our last chance to pass natural resources legislation in this Congress. As soon as we get done here--hopefully, no later than early tomorrow--we are going to be right back at work. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee is going back to work, holding hearings, moving lands legislation. This is our effort, what we are dealing with right now, to clear the deck, and then move on to some new issues. We will be back again to move many of the provisions that perhaps weren't quite ready for this particular package.

Later this afternoon, we are going to vote on motions to end debate on S. 47. I strongly, strongly encourage all Members to support that motion and to allow us to take final steps to move this important package with good, strong, robust bipartisan support, and send it over to the House of Representatives so that we can finally get this enacted into law.

I see my friend from Nebraska is here.

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