Keystone XL Pipeline Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BENNET. I congratulate the Presiding Officer for sitting in that
chair.

I wish to speak about the Fischer amendment which is slated to be
voted on at some point. While I respect where my neighbor from Nebraska
is coming from with this effort, the proposal unfortunately misses the
mark by a mile.

The amendment would set up a new and unprecedented process for
protective land designations. It says the Secretary of the Interior or
Agriculture has to publish in the Federal Register two findings before
any congressional protections on public lands would go into effect.
First, the Secretary has to find that new, protected land would not
adversely affect our efforts to administer existing protected land.
Second, the Department has to have ``sufficient resources''--whatever
that is--to implement plans for existing protected land. While perhaps
innocuous sounding, these would be huge changes in how we do business
around here.

Coming from a State that is over a third Federal land, I prefer that
drastic reform proposals such as this at least have the benefit of a
committee hearing before we vote on them on the floor. That way, we can
hear expert testimony as to whether this is a good idea or consider
ways we might be able to improve the measure. But as far as I know,
this language hasn't had a hearing in this Congress, or any other
Congress, for that matter.

Proponents of this amendment are going to argue it simply ensures
that our land agencies can afford to keep up with the maintenance of
new protected lands. Listen, I am the first--and I have been on this
floor year after year after year talking about the fiscal condition of
this country--to believe we need more fiscal discipline around here, but this is not the way we should get it. I am also a huge believer that we shouldn't be overburdening these agencies, and we shouldn't be overregulating through them, either.

Unfortunately, this amendment takes a hatchet when the absolute most
that is needed, if anything, is a surgical fix. In fact, under the
amendment, the opponents of protected lands could reduce funding for
our land agencies through the appropriations process and then turn
around and say the Secretary got a veto of the new proposals because
sufficient resources aren't available. As one of my friends from
Colorado said in the paper this morning: ``This amendment would be a
one-two punch--first starve conservation agencies of needed funding and
then block any new protections.''

This amendment is drafted in a way that it leaves huge discretion to
a future Secretary to approve or veto protections that Congress has
seen fit to create. If the amendment passed, nothing would stop a
future Secretary from finding that every single conservation bill this
Congress has passed should not take effect, all because he or she
failed to publish the vague set of findings laid out in this proposal.

Historically, we don't give a member of the executive branch any
discretion as to whether they implement the laws that Congress passes
and that the President has signed. Yet, this measure would do just
that.

I think keeping that historical precedent--where the legislative
branch makes the laws and the executive branch implements them--is
important. We have heard a lot about that on this floor recently,
particularly in a case such as this where we are talking about our
national heritage.

Coloradans, and all Americans, love their public lands and want to
see more done to protect them. Instead, this amendment creates new
layers of redtape and makes enacting protective designations even more
difficult than it has been.

Once again, I wish to say on this floor that I appreciate the effort
of the Senator from Nebraska and I would be happy to work with her to
address some of her concerns. But I would argue that the investments we
make in our public lands are worthwhile ones, and I would invite anyone
in this Chamber to come to Colorado and see what I am speaking about.

Protected lands and wide-open spaces are a huge driver of economic
growth all across our country. They help sustain a $600 billion outdoor
recreation economy, and a lot of those businesses, for obvious reasons,
are headquartered in Colorado. On top of the economic benefits,
wilderness areas, national monuments, and national parks are a
fundamental part of the fabric of our country and of our country's
history. It is important to preserve these lands for our kids and our
grandkids, just as our grandparents preserved them for us. It is worth
investing some money to do that so the next generation and the one
after that can experience the greatness that all Americans feel when
they first visit the Grand Canyon or Rocky Mountain National Park, or
Chimney Rock National Monument, or the Everglades, or wherever we find
the next beautiful or historically significant area that Congress or
the President decides to protect.

This discussion is actually a timely one because just this past
December we passed a large package of conservation measures into law on
a bipartisan basis. That package included a bill that we worked on in
Colorado called the Hermosa Creek Watershed Protection Act. Let me say
at the outset that our office may have introduced that bill in
Congress, but it was really the people I represent in southwest
Colorado who wrote that bill. This legislation grew from the grassroots
up from day one--Republicans, Democrats, Independents working together
to cement a long-term plan for their community's future. Not only was
it bipartisan at the local level, but also in Congress. My friend Scott
Tipton championed the bill on the House side.

The Hermosa Creek Watershed deserved to be protected. That is why the
community came together to keep it just as it is. That was the plan in
the community, and that is what our bill finally accomplished at the
end of the last Congress. However, if we were to pass the amendment in
front of us today, all the hard work that went into passing the Hermosa
bill could be undone by the Secretary of the Interior. Every single
meeting that took place in southwest Colorado, every single
conversation that led to the improvement of this legislation--all of
that could be gone in an instant, not because the Congress undoes the
law but because some administrator, using their fiat, is able to undo
the law. It is unlikely--I can't say this for sure, but it is unlikely
that person is going to have any idea what is in the Hermosa Creek bill
or any of the other bills we have worked on in the past. That is just
simply not how we do business around here, and there is a good reason
for that.

I am compelled, therefore, to urge other Senators in this body to
please oppose the Fischer amendment so we can avoid such a scenario.
Rejecting the amendment will preserve our conservation legacy--a legacy
that goes straight back to President Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, who
signed the Antiquities Act into law in 1906. It includes the formal
establishment of the national park system almost 100 years ago.

This is an extraordinarily beautiful country that we all have the
privilege to represent. We ought to encourage conservation efforts, not
make them harder to achieve. We ought to build on the legacy of
generations of Americans and generations in this body of Republicans
and Democrats working together to preserve our natural heritage.

I will, therefore, oppose the Fischer amendment when it comes up for
a vote, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a
quorum.

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