deaths in the future and let's be clear about the funding situation for land acquisition by the fish and wildlife service right now fish and wildlife is on track to have more money to buy a land next year than it has had in every year except one for the last fifteen years based on the interior appropriations act passed by the house even if we don't pass this legislation the fish and wildlife service would still have over one hundred  forty million dollars to buy a land next year that's thirty five million dollars more than last year these are dramatic increases in land by a time when our economy is in a recession and the federal deficit is over one trillion dollars and moving towards two trillion dollars clearly the fish and wildlife is awash with money to buy more land we don't need to wring another few million dollars from america's ducks cutters for this purpose and i must ask also how much federal is enough the federal government already owns eighty five percent of the that is sixty nine percent of alaska fifty eight percent of utah and fifty three percent of oregon so how much is enough well i obviously have serious reservations about more land ownership i strongly support efforts to reduce the staggering and growing operations and maintenance backlogs within the national wildlife system our wildlife refuges currently face  backlog of over two point six billion dollars within and which includes over three thousand mission critical projects with this two point six million dollars backlog for caring for existing refuge lands how can we justify buying millions of dollars or more land every year and for that matter literally forever for those who hunt ducks and geese in our nation's five hundred fifteen national route wildlife refuges  funding are over what they are finding i should say are overgrown trails and roads out of and control invasive species reduce many opportunities and a growing number of either close refuges or those units opera by only a skeleton crew of fish wildlife service staff if we were to dedicate funds from the ducks dam to this backlog we could improve her access expanding opportunities and improve existing lands to better benefit water waterfall tell me among those  personally appreciate our bird water fall populations in fact as i looked out the window of my home along the come from the river at home i can see and have watched thousands of birds nest on an island in the middle of the river we can improve habitat for ducks and other water fall without increasing debt stamps a viable more land republicans have expressed these concerns to the democrat majority in this committee and the democrats sponsor of this legislation we had hoped that a compromise would have been reached for the record i want to state that i appreciate mr chairman your willingness to do at least discuss potential compromise to improve this bill and address republican concerns however a willingness to talk and a willing and listen has result the one modification or change to the bill if the sponsors of this bill refused to even budge one inch to reach consensus or compromise then i think we as republicans have a right to offer amendments to markup to try to improve this bill they will exercise that right today this is not our first choice but it is the only choice we have when we offer when we offer to compromise with no success so for the record i want to make clear that every amendment offered is targeted at the proposed increase in the stamp price no changes are being proposed that affect the fifteen dollar cost of the ducks and there is not an effort to change the current fifteen dollars targeted at the proposal by ducks unlimited in the united states on fortunately as a result of the economic downturn and a significant loss of fundraising dollars ducks unlimited now finds itself financially unable to meet the one hundred percent matching requirement according to the u s fish and wildlife service the north american wetlands council has approved conservation projects in canada worth nearly seventy million dollars during its current five year funding cycle which began in two thousand and seven under law  canadian non governmental entities as chairman the authorization of the appropriations for the north american wetlands conservation act does not expire until september thirty two thousand and twelve we simply cannot wait to make this change because the non matching balance will continue to grow and must be paid for before the authorization expires the language of this amendment has been fully vetted and it's my understanding it's been endorsed by all interested parties including the u s fish and wildlife that we need more representation in order to properly administer the s and so my amendment seeks to increase the numbers represent representatives on the commission from hope that an agreement could be reached to recognize and begin to do something about the two point six million dollars backlog in operations and maintenance of our wildlife refuges so it's in that spirit that this amendment is different from the version that was filed in our previously scheduled markup on this bill on june tenth under the terms of that original amendment the entire ten dollar increase in the price of federal duck stamp would have been dedicated to operations and maintenance on refuges while the current back log of two point six billion dollars has not shrunk during the last three days i have had discussions with the sponsor of this legislation a number of hunting and conservation groups based on those discussions i am offering this modified a funds would be set aside for that purpose this is an effort mr chairman to offer a middle position on both sides one that ensures that the current fifteen dollars generates some twenty two million dollars a year will continue to be used for infrastructure of that system continues to deteriorate according to the u s fish and wildlife service there are now over three thousand mission critical projects in need of attention as listed that includes two hundred seventy seven two hundred seventy seven projects in the last two hundred forty eight in california two hundred forty three in north dakota one hundred fifty two in my home state of washington one hundred twenty four in oregon ongoing backlog and maintenance problem that we've i think not only diminishes the strength of the purpose of the program but what understand the program to be about what i don't believe us i mean the letter that the outdoor sporting community conservation partnership whitetails unlimited wildlife management in the letter making it clear that they don't want to the diversion of funds for this purpose does not alleviate our responsibility to deal with this backlog issue habitat by simply acquiring more land and those who are working on the ground said nah it's not quite this is one of those situations in which we have a washington mindset that is not necessarily correlate one to one with meander into the great salt lake i don't have ponds which have the potential of providing habitat and sea birds i just have one large mudflat that creates mosquitoes and nothing else happened in the in the summer if one of those dikes were to break it does not solve the problem by being able to acquire more land further on down the road what we need is to make sure that those are there and stable so that you actually control the way land acquisition and does not solve habitat does not necessarily solve hunting needs and i think we all understand that which is why some flexibility in this money needs to go there to make sure that what we do have is maintained in a way that it something they have already provided and paid for the funds asked them to pay additional money now i think is a violation of a long standing trust that the user pays user benefit which mean and others have volunteered conservation programs on the ground with the recently acquired lands where they're doing a lot of the land management in conjunction with federal and state agencies to maintain the maintenance and  about that national wildlife refuge and i think we need to have the the bigger conversation about how some of those folks can also come to the table and find a way to  refuge some of them are hunters a vast majority of them are not and i think we need to have a lot larger conversation about how we broaden the responsibility and don't necessarily always put this on the back to you know i'll just as a final thing you know i think there are a few people who understand our national wildlife refuge system better than some of the people on on that list of organizations but i would certainly look forward to working with the gentleman federal government already owns nearly thirty percent of all u s land in the vast majority of land is located in twelve western states the federal government already owns more than fifty seven percent of my state and we believe it is time to allow states particularly those of the mississippi river to have the opportunity to welcome an increased amount of federal presence in the need for additional investment by the federal government in the mississippi river is apparently great according to the u s fish and wildlife services fiscal year two thousand  land and water conservation fund project twenty two of the top fifty refuges which would require federal land acquisition are located in alabama connecticut delaware georgia florida illinois maryland new jersey ohio pennsylvania tennessee and south carolina idea and intention of this is to allow people to participate across the country and just give a little bit more priority to those states in those areas they don't have access to these types of opportunities because there are so few federal land fly in there to use the habitat that their needs are not flying with past not knowing if they're in the batter utah or wisconsin or anywhere else and the land acquisition decisions that are made are based on where they go and what they use about greater public land acquisition in a state like utah but real basis of the program is to try to preserve and protect the land in the habitat that the migratory birds are using and where they're going and i think that more than anything the science of the research done there is going to dictate these acquisition decisions not border considerations or where there's a high concentration of public land already held with the gentleman yield i'd like to respond to that if i could  we certainly don't have enough money to acquire everything that's on the list all this simply does is say that according to the fish and us fish and wildlife service they have come up with a priority list twenty two of the top fifty projects that they have moving forward  in just the last along so there are programs both public and private to address the gentleman's concerns but if we start going down this road there will be literally hundreds and hundreds of requests for a very five the fundamental goal of this law is to compensate local counties for the loss of tax revenues when private lands within their communities are incorporated within the national wildlife refuge system according to the fish and wildlife services division of realty quote the refuge revenue revenue sharing act allows us to offset the tax losses by annually paying the county or other local unit of government and amount that often equals or that which would have been collected from taxes if in private ownership and quote as the size of the refuge system significantly increases over the years this law provided badly needed money to build hospitals roads and schools and to encourage local community support for the refuge system it is no exaggeration to suggest that local communities to nava stablished more than two hundred fifty refuge friends group are some of the best advocates for the refuge system sadly however for over a decade during both the bush and clinton administration the amount of money provided the local counties significantly places have upwards of ninety percent of their county land owned by the federal government and i guarantee you that when that hunter wants access on a road to get there or gets hurt and they want to have the ambulance services and when they have their kids to go to school these are all things that are affecting the quality of life of the hunter and it's part of the agreement and the understanding you know we've argued on the previous amendment that one of the fundamental things we need to do is live up to the and i would say penalize it's part of the commitment of being able to acquire private land the county that has to provide all the services all the services that surround that count so for you to characterize it as a penalty  i don't think so it's an added benefit and it's part of the relationship compensating the county for most part county for all the services that access the schools and everything hospitals that are out of it's in the prior year the fish and wildlife service had one hundred million dollars to spend on land acquisition this figure of one hundred million dollars is calculated by totally in the funds appropriated in land in the land acquisition  simple it simply says that the price of the duck stamp doesn't increase if unemployment is above eight percent rate the president said we wouldn't go higher than sixty one days  buffer zones outside its boundaries one of the hits is a discussion of the buffer zone between germany and russia during world war two another is a mention of thomas jefferson of louisiana purchase of a buffer against the the sound and we want to study its potential national marine trail system simply to give people more information about available sites and how to use it pretty straightforward on the land and it is my guess is not this was not the intent but this amendment would create a disincentive to considering impacts on private property making it more difficult to securing written approval from each and every individual land owner is a needlessly time consuming and expensive if we adopted the rational thing for m p s to do would be to simply conduct the study without considering private property at all consultation there is a definition of what requires consultation with the gentleman from arizona said is correct this is how it should be done they should know what impact any kind of study will have on their private property what we have in this committee as bill after bill has come through our property owners coming back after the study was committed and after the decision had been made having no clue or idea what was happening to them it is right that the national park service should commit and contact private property owners ahead of time to let them know exactly what the study is and exactly what the impact of those studies will have and too often we have had testimony given this commission where they are told that everyone is contacted only to find out that was inaccurate or that everyone was in favor only to find out that was inaccurate or simply having private property owners coming to us and say they did not know what was happening to them this is exactly what should be done on every one of these issues coming through so that every private property owner knows what's ahead of time i have nothing to do with the advocacy of the study at all it has how you treat the private property in the area of this particular study this is how it should be done this is how it should be done every time and unfortunately under current status it is not consultation different things to different people with it should not be that way there should be written not