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[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 128 (Thursday, September 20, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6498-S6499]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                             THE FARM BILL

  Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I wanted to come to the floor today to 
speak on a different subject, which is to demonstrate my support for 
the Sportsmen's package compiled by Senator Tester from Montana. I know 
the bill was discussed on the floor last night and the request to pass 
this package of bipartisan bills was objected to, which is horribly 
unfortunate. I hope we are going to have the opportunity to vote on the 
measure before we leave town.
  Sportsmen and women are an essential part of the fabric of our 
country, the fabric of my home State of Colorado. This community 
supports millions of jobs and contributes billions of dollars annually 
to our economy, and they are often the drivers of our most important 
conservation initiatives across our rich landscape.
  While serving on the Senate Agriculture Committee, I have enjoyed 
working with sportsmen to craft a revamped conservation title in the 
farm bill. Some people forget that the farm bill conservation title is 
the largest single legislative vehicle for the programs and resources 
that help us conserve private land all across this country, all across 
the western United States. It enhances vital wildlife habitat across 
the country. Sportsmen have always played a vital role in crafting that 
bipartisan title. That was exactly the way they participated this time 
as well.
  While it is not the reason I am here today--I want to talk about 
Senator Tester's bill--I do want to take the chance to say once again 
that in my view the House of Representatives ought to pass the 5-year 
farm bill. We passed a bipartisan bill out of this Senate with well 
over 70 votes, Democrats and Republicans. On the committee we worked 
together for over 2 years to create the only bipartisan deficit 
reduction that has happened in this Congress in either the House or the 
Senate. We got rid of direct payments for producers, which was an 
important reform. We strengthened the conservation title, as I was 
saying earlier. There is absolutely no reason the House should not pass 
this bill.
  Over the break, I traveled 2,500 miles around the State of Colorado, 
rural communities all over my State, and no one wanted to know what was 
going on in the Presidential election. No one wanted to talk about 
anything except why can't the farm bill get passed? There has never 
been a time in modern history that a committee in the House, in this 
case the House Agriculture Committee, passed out a bill in a bipartisan 
way and it cannot even get to the floor for a vote. That has never 
happened before. Something is wrong over there.
  I can tell you that my farmers and ranchers in Colorado who are going 
through the worst drought in a generation want people to knock the 
politics off and pass this bill. Bipartisan, it is real deficit 
reduction, and it is a good bill. We are doing an incredible 
disservice, as I said to our farmers and ranchers, and also our 
sportsmen by failing to act on this bipartisan legislation.
  There was a time in my life when I had the chance to live in Montana 
for a brief time, Senator Tester's home State, and I thought of myself 
as a sportsman then. I used to fish a lot, chopped a lot of wood out 
there. These days I spend a lot more time on airplanes and chasing my 
three daughters to soccer games, but some day I will get back there. 
That brings me to the importance of the package, this package for our 
Nation's sportswomen and men. The provisions in Senator Tester's bill 
represent some of the best bipartisan ideas out there to promote 
hunting, fishing, and recreational access, bills from both sides of the 
aisle that have been hanging around here for a long time and now need 
to get passed. The measure would require that 1.5 percent of annual 
Land and Water Conservation Funds go to provide public access to lands 
for hunting and for fishing. I am a huge supporter of the Land and 
Water Conservation Fund. This provision builds on the fine legacy of 
that program.

  The bill also contains a provision that is homegrown from our 
sportsmen in Colorado. Section 103 provides certainty and parity for 
America's bow hunters, that they can cross National Park Service land 
with their bows to legally hunt nearby lands outside the park 
boundaries. This access is provided to hunters with firearms but not to 
hunters with bows.
  I started working on this issue over 2 years ago when a Colorado bow 
hunter encountered a problem. After 14 years of trying, this particular 
hunter had finally drawn a license to hunt elk in the premium game unit 
in northwest Colorado. He scouted the unit, found the area he wanted to 
hunt and he was all set to go until Federal officials told him he could 
not cross a narrow strip, a very narrow strip, of Park Service land to 
hunt the BLM land next to it. This is despite the fact that hunters 
with loaded firearms can cross Park Service land legally and without 
applying for a permit.
  The problem with this particular hunter is what brought this issue to 
my office. But the broader point of the provision is to provide access 
for our sportsmen and women. We know that we lose thousands of acres of 
land every day to development, some of it important wildlife habitat. 
We need to provide all Americans reasonable access to the land that we 
have set aside for preservation and wildlife habitat, bow hunters 
included.
  That is why I was pleased to increase funding for the Voluntary 
Public Access Program when we marked up the farm bill. That is why I am 
proud to have worked with Senator Tester to include this provision in 
his package that I hope we will be voting on soon.
  The bow hunting provision was carefully tailored to ensure that 
hunting of wildlife within Park Service boundaries remains illegal. Yet 
the measure still provides reasonable access, which is so important to 
the sportsmen in Colorado and across the country.
  I have received a letter of support for the Bennet-Tester bow hunting 
from Colorado stakeholder groups across the spectrum, including the 
Colorado Wildlife Federation, the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep Society, 
Pheasants Forever, and the Bull Moose Sportsmen's Alliance, and the 
list goes on. I ask unanimous consent to have this letter printed in 
the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                 December 7, 2011.
     Hon. Michael Bennet,
     Senator of Colorado, Russell Senate Office Building, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Bennet: The Credit Card Accountability 
     Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, PL 111-24, 
     permitted concealed carry in the National Parks System

[[Page S6499]]

     and National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS). NPS regulations 
     to implement the concealed carry provisions of PL 111-24 
     became effective on February 10, 2010 and included all 
     firearms legal in the jurisdiction in which the park was 
     located. Park Service regulations continue to exclude bow and 
     arrows in the National Parks. In some locations this 
     effectively limits bowhunter access to hunt other adjacent 
     BLM, USFS or private lands that are otherwise open to hunting 
     and can now be legally accessed through NPS or NWRS lands by 
     firearms hunters.
       36 CFR 2.4 d 4 allows the possibly of permitting for such 
     access through NPS lands where it is otherwise impossible or 
     impractical to make other access except through NPS lands. In 
     2009 one such request for permitting for Dinosaur National 
     Monument was denied by the Park Superintendent, effectively 
     denying practical bowhunter access to some BLM and state 
     school lands. Firearms hunters may now access these lands 
     across NPS lands without any requirement for permitting.
       Similar access issues occur in several of Colorado's game 
     management units bounding on Dinosaur National Monument. 
     These situations likely occur at many National Parks and 
     National Monuments both in Colorado and other states. 
     Attempts to rectify this situation through an administrative 
     rule making process in the Department of the Interior have 
     been denied.
       The undersigned sportsmen, representing several major 
     sportsmen's groups and retailers in Colorado request that, 
     barring any change in the DOI stance, legislative action be 
     taken to give bowhunters with archery equipment equal rights 
     in crossing NPS and NWRS as that enjoyed by those carrying 
     firearms.
           Sincerely,
         Tim Mauck & Gaspar Perricone, Co-founders, Bull Moose 
           Sportsmen's Alliance; Ivan James, Vice-Chairman for 
           Legislation, Colorado Bowhunters Association; Robert 
           Ong, President, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep Society; 
           John Smeltzer, President, Colorado Wildlife Federation; 
           Dean Derby, President, Colorado Traditional Archery 
           Society; Bob Hewson, Executive Director, Colorado Youth 
           Outdoors; Robert Hix, Colorado Regional Director, 
           Pheasants Forever, Inc.; Joel Webster, Director--Center 
           for Western Lands, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation 
           Partnership; John & Kathy Tidwell, Owners, Bear Creek 
           Archery Inc; Michael Lewellen, President, Colorado 
           National Wild Turkey Federation; John Gale & David 
           Lien, Co-Chairs, Colorado Back Country Hunters and 
           Anglers.

  Mr. BENNET. The overall sporstmen's package from Senator Tester is 
also widely supported, ranging from the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation 
Partnership to the Boone and Crocket Club to the National Rifle 
Association. The Tester bill represent a bipartisan package of 
commonsense bills that will benefit our Nation's sports men and women. 
I want to thank Senator Tester for his leadership on behalf of the West 
and urge a ``yes'' vote.
  I will simply close by saying it is my fervent hope that once this 
election is over, some 45 days from now, we will come back to this 
Chamber, Republicans and Democrats together, and work to avoid surfing 
over this fiscal cliff that will be so damaging to this economy.
  People at home know something that people here have not yet figured 
out, which is even if you believe you are always right on your side or 
had a monopoly of wisdom on your side--which I do not, but some people 
seem to--even if you believed it, we cannot accomplish this meaningful 
deficit reduction without doing it in a bipartisan way. It is 
impossible to do it without doing it in a bipartisan way.
  People at home actually want to see it bipartisan, frankly, because 
they do not believe in either party's go-it-alone strategy when it 
comes to the debt and deficit. So my hope is this election will clear 
the air, we will get back to work, and that before January we will have 
something convincing to say to the American public on this subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.

                          ____________________
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