Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Ms. MURKOWSKI. Madam President, earlier there was a lot of discussion about the NDAA--the Defense authorization bill--and the very important provisions which are contained in that which will provide for our men and women who serve us so honorably. I concur with all who have spoken today about the importance and significance of this bill and why we should pass it and why we should pass it today.

An area of controversy that has certainly come up--and my colleague from Oklahoma has pointed it out very clearly--is the public lands package that has been attached to the NDAA. I will speak a little bit about where we are today and why we are dealing with this issue and why it is important that the Senate and Congress advance these public lands provisions for our country.

I had an opportunity to speak in greater detail yesterday, but I felt it was important to let colleagues know why we deal with public lands bills traditionally in a package.

The Presiding Officer comes from a Western State, but Hawaii does not have large portions of land held by the Federal Government.

In the 12 Western States, which includes Alaska--93 percent of the Federal lands that are held by this country are contained in these 12 Western States. What does it mean when you are a State like Alaska where some 68 percent of your lands are Federally held? What does it mean when you are a State like Nevada, where our majority leader is from, where 85 percent of your State is held in public lands? It means that when you want to do a conveyance, a conveyance doesn't come about just because you are able to get a real estate attorney and you have a transaction; it literally requires an act of Congress.

We are dealing with one provision in this public lands bill that Senator Franken, from Minnesota, has been working on. It is a conveyance of one acre of land that is currently held by USGS, and it is a conveyance to a school district. Most people around this country--or certainly on this end of the country--would say: Wow, that really requires congressional action? That really requires a vote? That really requires the President to sign it into law? The answer is in the affirmative.

We have been processing, as a committee--on the Energy Committee and committees on the House side--public lands bills throughout this Congress. We have been working on some of these public lands measures not for months, not for years, but in several instances a decade. It has taken a decade to bring about some of these conveyances and these exchanges.

I believe it is important to set the record straight--for those who are suggesting that somehow or other this was conjured up in the dark of the night or that there has been no process for these bills--and let colleagues know about the procedural process that has led to its inclusion in the NDAA.

For the record, I will note that the process included not only the committees of jurisdiction for the lands bills but the committees who crafted the NDAA bill, leadership from both sides, and individual Members who all agreed to cobble together a package that was fair and balanced, bipartisan, bicameral, revenue neutral--which is exceptionally important--and also addresses the need for conservation on one end and economic development and jobs and prosperity on the other end. With this package of bills, one can see that compromise come together.

It has been noted that these public lands bills have nothing to do with defense authorization, but I will say that this is not without precedent. Adding lands to an NDAA bill has been done in the past. We have seen it in the past several NDAAs. What we did here was to amend the existing lands package within the House-passed NDAA--which is hardly out of balance or unusual.

As I said before, I would much rather have us move individual bills through the floor as we process them, but many Members have said to me: Well, your small lands transaction is important, but does it really rise to the level of occupying floor time? It is tough to win the undivided attention of the Senate on some of these measures.

Just because this issue doesn't rise to a level of keen interest in this body doesn't mean these issues are not critically important for individuals, communities, and States around our country, and so it is hard to put that together. But just because it is small or more localized or perhaps more parochial--like this one acre of land we are

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trying to convey to this school district--doesn't mean we should disregard it or overlook it or not try to enact it because somehow or other it is not as important as the other things we do around here.
So knowing how valuable and precious floor time is around here, we worked together. We have been working together for months--again, in a bicameral and bipartisan way--to combine many of the bills that are in the package. The result of what we have in front of us is provisions that will help boost natural resources and community development while we are also advancing conservation. We are moving toward economic development in certain areas, creating jobs. We have opportunities in both Nevada and Arizona to create thousands of good-paying jobs and will increase our resources and our minerals security.

Other aspects of the bill focus on conservation. There are additional wilderness provisions that are in there, but again, as we attempt to achieve that balance, what we have in front of us is a good structure.

I want to make sure colleagues recognize that when we are discussing the concern my colleague from Oklahoma has raised, the concern he has so well articulated that within our National Park System we have a maintenance backlog that is awful--and in many cases it is overwhelming. To his credit, he has given keen attention to this maintenance backlog we have and has pressed us to do more to improve that situation. He put together a very considerable report that we are using in the energy committee to help build a series of necessary reforms that will be required to deal with our issues within the National Park Service. Thanks to Senator Coburn's good work on this issue, we will be able to see some true reforms.

I met yesterday afternoon with Director Jarvis in my office, and I made it clear to him as the head of Park Service that this is going to be an area on which we must be focused. Our national parks are a national treasure, but when we can't attend to their needs and ensure that they are maintained to the level that, as Americans, we all want, then we are failing on that.

He has a very good point when he says we need to be doing something about maintenance and backlog. I agree. We actually have a couple of provisions in this public lands bill that will help us with that, and one of them is the bill Senator Coburn has sponsored which will allow for donors to have discreet recognition within our parks. So if you want to give a private donation, there is a way for recognition. We also have a provision in here that will allow for minting of a coin, which again will help with private dollars. Those private pieces are very important, but we need to do more, we will do more, and my commitment is to help do that.

One of the things that I think are important to recognize with the park provisions that are included in title XXX is that it is critically important to recognize the local support these park provisions have that will encourage economic development, tourism, and recreation. The agreement includes five new national historic parks, and it transfers management of two existing Federal areas to the Park Service. All of the new historical parks have been formally studied and have been recommended for inclusion in the National Park System. They focus on specific historic sites of national significance.

Studies have also been done--and my colleague has referenced that--on potential additions to the National Park System. These study authorizations have previously passed the House under suspension or gone through the Senate by unanimous consent. Again, we are not trying to go through the backdoor. The study that has been conducted and the process that has taken place in both the House and Senate is to ensure that there is that local support and that this is not just something a Member wants to attach his or her name to,

that this has local support, and that in turn will help us with some of the funding issues we are going to need to address for our park systems.

I wish to conclude my remarks quickly because Senator Flake was asked for a few minutes and I would like to defer to him. First, the issue has also come up about existing national heritage areas. I think it is important for colleagues to know that we do provide for limited extensions for existing heritage areas, but there are no new heritage areas that are created. I think it is important to recognize that when we talk about extensions, it is extensions of existing heritage sites.

So with that, if I may, I wish to yield to my colleague from Arizona, Senator Flake. We have been working not only with Senator Flake but with Senator McCain on a provision that will certainly not only benefit his State, but it will benefit the United States in terms of jobs, economic opportunity, and a mineral resource; namely, copper, that is extraordinarily important to us.

With that, I turn to Senator Flake

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