S6498 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE September 20, 2012 

Never convince them that they should 

take personal responsibility and care 

for their lives? 

What would Mitt Romney say to veterans who do not owe Federal income 

taxes or receive a government benefit? 

We have seen the tape. He says: They 

are victims who could never be convinced to take personal responsibility 

for their lives. Mitt Romney must have 

known many who served in Vietnam 

during his period of maturity. Did he 

think of them who served in Vietnam 

as not doing their share, not taking 

personal responsibility? 

I am a veteran. I take offense at that. 

These men and women risked everything fighting for our freedoms and our 

rights, and we ought to do everything 

we can to support them. These heroes 

know a great deal more than Mitt 

Romney about personal responsibility 

and sacrifice. Mitt Romney was simply 

saying what many in today’s Republican Party truly believe. He has pulled 

back the curtain on their agenda. He 

has revealed the stark choice facing 

the American people. America deserves 

better than a Presidential candidate 

who dismisses the contribution that 

half—47 percent, to be more precise—of 

our fellow Americans make—they get 

derision and disrespect. That is hardly 

appropriate for a Presidential candidate to be saying. 

He, after all, seeks the job that puts 

him in charge of the whole 310 million 

people in America. And yet he has the 

audacity to say these people are not 

worthy of honor, worthy of thanks, 

worthy of their contribution to this 

country? All this time it was thought 

that Mitt Romney just did not get it. 

But it turns out worse than that. He 

just does not care. He knows what he is 

saying, and he says it deliberately. He 

just does not care. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado. 

f 

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 


tjames on DSK7SPTVN1PROD with SENATE
September 20, 2012 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE 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, Cofounders, 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. 

f 

EMERGENCY WATERSHED 

PROTECTION PROGRAM 

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I see 

no colleagues have come to the floor, 

so I want to speak on one additional 

topic. I will be brief, because I understand we likely won’t have an opportunity to address this issue before we 

leave town. 

My colleague Senator MARK UDALL

and I have been working to provide resources for the USDA’s Emergency Watershed Protection Program, also 

known as EWP. The reason we have 

been doing this is that EWP resources 

help communities recover from 

wildfires, specifically watersheds that, 

after being burned, are unstable and 

risk harm to critical drinking water infrastructure and sometimes jeopardize 

human lives. 

As many in this Chamber know, we 

had a number of devastating wildfires 

in Colorado this summer. In the communities of Fort Collins and Colorado 

Springs in particular, they are having 

trouble protecting their vital drinking 

water infrastructure as their watersheds recover. Despite a letter Senator 

UDALL and I authored to the appropriators, the House version of the continuing resolution did not contain this 

critical funding. That means the Senate won’t be able to vote to help these 

communities recover. And while we are 

disappointed, we are going to continue 

to fight for these resources. 

With that, Madam President, I yield 

the floor, and I suggest the absence of 

a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll. 

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I 

ask unanimous consent that the order 

for the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

FARM BILL 

Mr. BENNET. Madam President, I see 

we have been joined by the Chair of the 

Agriculture Committee, Senator STABENOW. She has just arrived, but I 

wanted to report to her that before she 

arrived I was talking about the need to 

pass a farm bill and the fact that, over 

the break, I had traveled 2,500 miles 

around the State of Colorado—in rural 

parts of our State on the west slope 

and on the eastern plains—and nobody 

wanted to talk about anything except 

why we can’t get a farm bill passed. It 

makes no sense to them. They know it 

was completely bipartisan here in the 

Senate, and they know it is the only 

bipartisan piece of legislation with deficit reduction any committee of either 

Chamber has been able to accomplish. 

In the case of Colorado farmers and 

ranchers, we are going through the 

worst drought we have had in a generation, and they want to know why 

Washington, DC, has a completely different set of priorities than they have. 

There is still time for the House to 

pass this bill. This is the first time in 

modern history a House Ag Committee 

has passed out a bill—in this case a bipartisan bill, though not as good, I 

don’t think, as ours, but a step forward—that hasn’t come to the floor for 

a vote. They cannot even get a vote. 

So while the Senator is here, I wanted to thank her, and I would also say to 

the ranking member of the committee 

if he were here, for their extraordinary 

bipartisan effort over the last 2 years 

that resulted in a very fine bill. I also 

think their work sets a model for the 

way we should be approaching our 

work in this Chamber. 

I thank the Chair, and I yield the 

floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan. 

Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, 

first, I did come to the floor to talk 

about the urgency of the farm bill, but 

I also want to thank my friend and colleague from Colorado, who chairs our 

conservation subcommittee, for the 

tremendous piece of work on the conservation title in the farm bill. I thank 

him for all of that effort and also say 

to him I understand what is happening 

in Colorado. As he and I know, we 

passed disaster assistance—a permanent livestock disaster assistance program—in our farm bill, along with help 

for food growers in Michigan and other 

places. 

We are totally committed in the 

short run to helping those who have 

the riskiest business in the world, 

which is farming and ranching in this 

country, but we also know what they 

want is the economic certainty of a 5- 

year farm bill. So I thank my friend for 

all of his efforts and in coming to the 

floor. 

I want to say, for the record, there 

are 10 days until September 30—10 days 

until the farm bill expires and 16 million people in this country who rely on 

agriculture for their jobs or their livelihood are put in limbo. That is the reality of where we are. 

We worked so hard, on a bipartisan 

basis in the Senate, to pass a farm bill, 


tjames on DSK7SPTVN1PROD with SENATE