Emergency Unemployment Compensation Extension Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Madam President, I stand before this body today to talk about the omnibus spending package the Senate will be considering over the next few days. I have some concerns related to this omnibus spending package that relate to a program called PILT. It is an acronym with which most Americans and probably even most Members of Congress are not familiar. It stands for payment in lieu of taxes.

The program was developed to help those States, including my home State of Utah, in which the vast majority of the land is owned by the Federal Government. Beside me is a map of the United States. In red we can see all of the land that is owned by the Federal Government. As we can see by looking at the map, most of the land west of the Rocky Mountains--more than 50 percent, in fact--is owned by the Federal Government. Very little of the land east of the Rocky Mountains is, by contrast, owned by the Federal Government.

Being from a public land State presents some interesting, very significant, very substantial challenges. Among those challenges is the fact that the Federal Government has deemed this land, has legislated this land as being beyond the ability, beyond the authority of States and their political subdivisions--including counties and local taxing jurisdictions--beyond the ability of the States and their subdivisions to tax. So we can't collect property tax revenue from any of that land. As a result, a lot of our communities in public land States are impoverished--at least impoverished relative to what they might otherwise face. They are impoverished relative to what their ability would be to collect revenue through property taxes in public land States.

For that reason, this PILT Program was created to try to offset--at least to some degree--the heavy cost, the disproportionate burden that is placed on the shoulders of public land States and communities.

So each year Congress funds this program, and that program then partially offsets the lack of property tax revenue flowing through these public land States and communities.

Here is the problem I wish to focus on today: The omnibus spending package we are considering this week contains no funding for PILT--no funding whatsoever. This is potentially devastating to public land States, including Utah, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and many other States, especially those throughout the West. The problem is that America's public land States and counties can't wait any longer. This program must be funded, and it must be funded in this bill.

Here is a letter from a commissioner in Piute County, UT. This commissioner states:

PILT not being funded in 2014 will have a devastating impact on all counties in the West, but it is particularly devastating to a county the size of Piute. With 74 percent of Piute County under Federal control, $225,000 of our $1 million budget--almost one-fourth--comes in the form of PILT payments from the Federal Government. Without this funding, we will be in the midst of one of the biggest disasters to hit Piute County in years.

We have been scraping and scraping to try to figure out how to fund a fourth deputy sheriff in our county and thought we had it figured out until this $225,000 evaporated from our county's revenue.

At the present time it is virtually impossible to staff all of the police, search and rescue, and emergency services we need. With this cut, it will be impossible.

The Piute County commissioner continues:

We will be forced to abandon services, including all services on public lands. It will be sad to have our public lands left without police, search and rescue, and emergency services. I think it is critical to understand that the loss of PILT funding cuts clear to the bone and will be devastating to counties such as Piute.

Now, some argue--some insist when faced with arguments such as these--that this is all OK and we can just wait to make PILT funding available, that we will make it available through another legislative vehicle we will supposedly pass later this year. In fact, some of these same people maintain that we will make it better, we will make it automatic, we will make it mandatory spending when we actually do this later this year.

It is true that between 2008 and 2013 PILT was funded through a mandatory spending mechanism. That has now expired. But it is important to remember that there is nothing mutually exclusive about these ideas; no reason why we can't go ahead and fund PILT now with discretionary spending and then adopt something later to restore the mandatory nature of funding for PILT. We can fund PILT now in this bill, and then we can make it mandatory later. We can and we should. This would give States and counties the certainty they need, the certainty they have been waiting for, the certainty that will allow them, finally, to plan their budgets.

Remember, for many of these counties, such as Piute County, UT, PILT is a substantial portion of their annual revenue stream. It is about one-fourth of the money that Piute County, UT, has to spend every single year.

Importantly, I offered an amendment to last year's budget that would build a deficit-neutral reserve fund to make sure PILT continued to be fully funded. That amendment passed. Unfortunately, the fact that it passed has apparently not been enough to make sure it continued to be funded.

Now we have a major funding bill before us. This spending bill occupies no fewer than 1,582 pages. It spends in excess of $1.1 trillion. Yet PILT still isn't funded.

It is important to point out that even if we do the right thing and even if we fully fund PILT in this program this year, the PILT Program is itself still not adequate. It is still in need of reform. PILT payments are quite insufficient.

PILT was intended to soften the economic impact associated with the Federal Government owning so much of the land in the United States. In the case of Piute County, it is about three-fourths of the land. It is about two-thirds of the land throughout the State of Utah. In some counties in Utah, it is well in excess of 90, sometimes 95 percent of the land in a county. PILT was designed to soften that economic impact. But, regrettably, the Federal Government gives States, through the PILT Program, what amounts to in many instances only pennies on the dollar of what the taxing jurisdictions would receive if they were to tax that land, if they were to collect taxes--even if they were to collect those taxes at the lowest property tax rate, let's say the Greenbelt rate in many counties. We must correct that imbalance.

In the coming days I plan to introduce legislation to begin the process of doing precisely that. After all, it makes no sense to have a program that some would argue is deceptively entitled ``Payment In Lieu of Taxes'' if, in fact, the payment in lieu of taxes doesn't even closely approximate the value that counties would receive if they were actually allowed to tax that land and collect that revenue as taxes.

If an American citizen, a U.S. taxpayer, for example, decided to adopt his or her own PILT Program and on April 15 of each year just sent a check to the IRS saying: These are not my taxes, but this is my payment in lieu of taxes; I am just paying what I feel like paying, that would cause problems. The taxpayer in question would probably end up in prison. In any event, it wouldn't end well for the taxpayer. Yet we have allowed the Federal Government to get away with this over and over, often to the detriment of vulnerable communities, of poor communities, of communities that rely on the Federal Government's unsteady stream of revenue--a stream of revenue that, insufficient as it is already, is now being threatened altogether.

In a sense the problem we face with the Federal Government owning all this land is not new. It is a problem that has been around for a long time. In many respects it was a problem envisioned by some of the Founding Fathers. In fact, we can go all the way back to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and see that it was on the minds of some of the Founding Fathers.

On September 5, 1787, at the Constitutional Convention they were discussing the public land-related authorities in the Constitution, including the authority that has now been included in what is often referred to as the enclave clause--article I, section 8, clause 17.

One of the delegates to the Federal Convention of 1787, Elbridge Gerry, the delegate from Massachusetts, stood before the Convention and made an astute observation. Mr. Gerry said as follows. He expressed concerns that ``this power''--that is, the power of Congress over Federal public lands--``might be made use of to enslave any particular State by buying up its territory, and that the strongholds proposed would be a means of awing the State into an undue obedience to the General Government.''

Then, as now, wise observations often came from the State of Massachusetts. Then, as now, we have a grave risk associated with the fact that when the Federal Government owns this much land, the Federal Government has this much power. It was on the minds of the delegates to the Convention of 1787 that one of the things they needed to protect against was the concentration of too much power in the hands of a few, especially the concentration of too much power within the Federal Government. Each of them had a mission to protect the sovereignty of their respective States. And they understood that if Congress had too much power to simply buy up too much land in any one State--disproportionately in some States--the Federal Government would have too much influence within that State.

I would ask you, when you look at this map I have in the Chamber, does that look equitable? Does that look like an equitable distribution of Federal land ownership? We have to keep in mind that, just as there are benefits associated with some of our public lands, there are also burdens attached to those benefits. When you look at those burdens, it is difficult to say anything other than that they are disproportionately allocated into a certain region of the United States. They are overwhelmingly located within the Rocky Mountains and areas west of the Rocky Mountains.

So to the extent these benefits benefit everyone in the United States, then the burdens ought to be shared by everyone in the United States as well. Yet they are not. PILT, again, is woefully inadequate as it is. But now Congress is trying to withdraw funding for PILT. Even though some may say: Well, we will fund it later this year, we have no guarantee of that, and we should be funding it right now.

As an interesting side note, in response to Elbridge Gerry's concern on September 5, 1787, the Founding Fathers put a qualifying clause into article I, section 8, clause 17. They said that Congress's plenary legislative jurisdiction over Federal public land lying within a sovereign State's boundaries would exist and could be exercised only if that land--the land in question--was acquired by the consent of the host State's legislature.

Some have suggested that this may well mean that when the Federal Government owns land, when it acquires land within a sovereign State's territorial boundaries, that it owns that land just as any other proprietor would own it; that is, subject to the authority of the State and its political subdivisions to tax and regulate that land, unless or until such time as the host State's legislative body parts with that bundle of sovereign rights relative to that land. In other words, the State retains its taxing power over that land unless or until it voluntarily relinquishes it, gives it up, hands it over to the Federal Government. Yet, in nearly all instances where you see red on this map, that has not occurred.

Many of these States have been content with the fact that they have been receiving PILT funds, however inadequate those PILT funds may be. But now even those are going away. Even if there is a promise that they might be restored later--later this year--they are still inadequate, and we still do not have the promise that is going to occur now. There is still a lot of uncertainty in a lot of parts of the country--in places such as Piute County, UT, and elsewhere within my State and elsewhere within the western United States.

In order to protect against this kind of concern, the kind of concern that the delegate from Massachusetts described on September 5, 1787, Congress adopted a practice, when admitting new States into the Union, of incorporating language into the enabling act for each new State, describing what would happen to public land within the new State's boundaries after statehood. They adopted this practice and this language that would be used each time a new State was admitted into the Union.

That language was included in Utah's statehood enabling legislation--legislation that was adopted about 18 months before Utah finally came into the Union in January of 1896.

Section 9 of Utah's enabling legislation says that public land located within the State, lying within the State of Utah, ``shall be sold by the United States subsequent to the admission of said State into the Union. ..... '' Adding to that, section 9 of Utah's enabling legislation said that 5 percent of the proceeds from the sale of that land would be given to the State and would be held in a trust fund by that State for the benefit of the State's public education system.

So, as I mentioned, Utah was not the first State to have that kind of language in its enabling legislation. Many of the States that were admitted into the Union much earlier than Utah had similar language in their enabling acts. Missouri had such language. North Dakota had such language. We could name State after State after State that had such language.

When you look at Missouri, when you look at North Dakota, and when you look at most of the other States that had language such as that in their enabling acts, you see very little Federal public land. You see because Congress and the Federal Government honored the promises made to those States. Congress followed through with that commitment. Congress did what it was supposed to do. It sold that land subsequent to statehood. Holding on perhaps to a few parcels here and there that it deemed necessary for one reason or another, it made good on that promise. Those States benefited. The Federal Treasury benefited. The American people benefited.

It is important to remember that what we are talking about here--when you see all this red on the map, representing Federal land ownership--is not about national parks. National parks represent a very tiny percentage of Federal land ownership. We are not talking about national monuments, which also represents a very tiny percentage of Federal land ownership. What we are talking about in the context of the PILT program are lands that are managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an agency that is considered obscure, almost unheard of throughout most of the United States, but an agency that operates with a particularly dominant force in States such as mine, where you see a lot of red on the map.

I remember the first time I showed this map to my children, my daughter Eliza, who was about 8 years old at the time, was just barely old enough to understand what I was explaining to her. I told her that the red indicated ownership of land by our national government. And 8-year-old Eliza looked at that portion of the map that represented our State, and she said: Look, dad, they own Utah. I said: You're right, Eliza, they own Utah. They certainly own the overwhelming majority of it.

Some of us have not forgotten this promise made in the statehood enabling acts of most of the States admitted into the Union, and yet Congress seems to be determined to overlook it. I am determined not to let that happen. Some of my friends back in Utah are likewise determined not to let that happen.

A good friend of mine, Representative Ken Ivory, who serves in the Utah State legislature, has done an amazing job educating people throughout Utah and, in fact, across America on this very subject, on what happened with these statehood enabling acts, and why it is that States in the western United States got left behind when it came to promises made long ago by the Federal Government. I commend Representative Ivory for his work on this issue and pledge to continue working with him on this important project.

You see, this is about much more than land. This is about the ability of local communities not only to thrive, but to survive. This is about communities where it is very difficult for people to get jobs. It is very difficult for people, in some instances, even to access their own property, even to access their own farms because it is impossible to get anywhere without crossing Federal public land and in some instances Federal land managers will block access to the only roads they can use to access their own property. This has to stop.

In the meantime, it is vitally important that we focus on the issues at hand, that we focus, at a bare minimum, on promises that the Federal Government has extended in lieu of the other promises. That is not to say we are going to forget about the promises made in the statehood enabling acts. We are not. But, for the moment, my attention remains focused on making sure we fund the PILT Program. It has to be funded. In fact, it has to be funded even more than it has been in the past. It ought to reflect at least a rough equivalent of the amount of money the taxing jurisdiction could collect if it were taxing that land at its lowest rate. And, at a bare minimum, even below that, we have to make sure the program continues to exist. We have to make sure the program is funded at least at its current levels. This is not asking much. But it is necessary that we do this.

The broken PILT Program is, one could argue, just another example of government applying significant and unnecessary weight to the shoulders of hard-working Americans, many of whom are struggling just to get by, many of whom are barely able to keep food on the table for their families, others of whom are able to provide for the day-to-day needs of their families but they are worried about what happens next. They find that whenever they find a little bit of additional income, no sooner have they earned it than they find it has been swallowed up--swallowed up by increasing taxes, swallowed up by higher prices for goods and for services, and they do not know how to get out of this rut in which they find themselves somewhat trapped. These are the kinds of people who suffer the most as a result of the Federal Government's failed policies relative to its Federal public land.

We have to remember that lifting these weights is not only within the government's power, it is the affirmative obligation of government to lift those weights. In an 1861 address to Congress, President Abraham Lincoln said the ``leading object'' of American government was ``to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance, in the race of life.''

Current PILT policy imposes government waste that makes it more difficult for communities to provide important services such as schools, police, and fire departments. It hampers the ability of States to budget, plan, and provide for infrastructure improvements, make needed reforms to their tax systems, and attract new businesses and new jobs.

This policy--and the Federal land management policies that accompany the PILT policy more generously--is broken, and it is imposing a heavy burden on our communities, particularly in rural areas where the Federal Government owns much, most or in some cases nearly all of the land and where needs are at their very greatest.

The program is already broken. The program is already causing millions and millions of Americans to suffer. The program is already severely impeding economic opportunity for Americans, deepening the existing crisis of opportunity that we have in this country, which manifests itself on three different levels: immobility among the poor, insecurity among the middle class, and cronyist privilege at the top.

If you live in one of these States, it might be great if you are one of those people who owns one of the few parcels of land that is not owned by the Federal Government. It is not so great if you live in one of the areas where the Federal Government owns basically everything, where you can do very little anywhere around you without permission from the Federal Government, where your local government is barely able to survive because it lacks a property tax base, and the Federal Government fails to adequately fund PILT and threatens--in this circumstance--to withdraw funding from PILT altogether.

I respectfully implore all of my colleagues to consider the inequities inherent in this map, the inequities inherent in the PILT Program, and, for present purposes, to remember we need to fund PILT.

It has to be reformed, absolutely, and we have to examine our Federal land ownership and management policies more broadly. Today we need to focus on making sure PILT is funded.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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