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Nebraska--and Senator KERREY has been a wonderful supporter and very helpful in terms of arguing that States and local governments should have a say as we divide this money annually and should be able to count on something and not have to wait until October, which costs the taxpayers more and which is difficult at the State level. Nebraska has a grand total of $400,000 for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Under CARA, they would have gotten about $14.5 million.
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Nevada, which is the State of my good colleague, Senator REID, got $2 million. CARA would have brought them $37 million. A lot of that money would have been for PILT payments because the Senator represents a State where the Federal Government owns 92 percent of the land.
So it is our obligation to provide money for those local units in Nevada which lose revenues when the Federal Government takes over land from the private sector. They would have benefited from the formula that would have acknowledged that and tried to, in some ways, make them whole by improving their PILT payments. They would get $38 million under CARA; instead, they get $2 million.
New Hampshire, a small State but a very important State, under this bill gets $3.6 million; under CARA, the total it would have received is $17 million.
New Jersey, the Garden State, with a Republican Governor whom I admire a good deal, Governor Whitman, just passed--and I am sure with Democratic help--a bond issue to provide over a billion dollars for Saving Open Spaces in New Jersey. They are one of the most populated States and are trying to preserve the farmland they have left and the green spaces. That is very important to many people along the east coast, the west coast, the interior, and the coastal communities. They passed a
billion dollar, multiyear effort. I believe, and the CARA coalition believes, we should try to match that effort. Instead, under this bill, we have given New Jersey $2 million. CARA would have provided them a $40 million partnership every year.
New Mexico--and Senator BINGAMAN has been an outspoken advocate and a ranking member on our side--gets $4.7 million. It would be $44.9 million under CARA.
I know my time is going to be running short. In a moment, I will be prepared to yield my time back to Senator FITZGERALD, who had the floor. I was taking some time from him. I say to our floor leader, I will yield back some time to Senator FITZGERALD.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Mr. REID. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator yield for that purpose?
Mr. FITZGERALD. Yes, for a question.
Mr. REID. I just have a parliamentary inquiry. The Senator would not lose the floor. I have a question to ask the Chair.
Is the parliamentary situation that the Senator from Illinois has the floor?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I am going to continue speaking about this $120 million proposed Abraham Lincoln Library in Illinois. I realize my colleague from Idaho wishes to be recognized. What I am going to ask is unanimous consent that the Senator from Idaho be recognized for 10 minutes at this time and that I then be re-recognized.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, the reason I say that is, there is a unanimous consent agreement already in effect, and the Senator from North Dakota wishes to speak as well. I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
The Senator from Illinois has the floor.
Mr. FITZGERALD. Continuing on, Mr. President, to bring the Senate back up to date, we are talking about a proposed Abraham Lincoln Library in downtown Springfield, IL, that would cost approximately $120 million.
The library would be one of the most expensive buildings in the city of Springfield. The estimated value of the State capitol in Springfield is, I believe, $78 million, in inflation-adjusted dollars. This library would be approximately half the size of the State capitol, but it is a substantial building. It is also going to be very close to the Renaissance Springfield Hotel, which we have been examining in detail this afternoon.
The reason I am concerned or have an objection to the conference committee report now before the Senate is that the conference committee report authorizes $50 million in Federal funding for the Abraham Lincoln site but does not carry the requirement that passed out of the Senate that the project be competitively bid in accordance with Federal law. Instead, it would appear the money that is authorized in the conference committee report--instead of having a competitive bid requirement, it says that the $50 million is authorized to go to an entity that will be selected later which would design and construct the library.
The language does not make clear that the entity would be a governmental entity. It is possible, based on reading the conference report, that the $50 million could be channeled to private sources. Presumably, that would not happen however. Presumably, the money would be given to the State of Illinois.
We have reviewed what would happen if the money were given to the State of Illinois, how the State of Illinois would award construction contracts. Presumably, the State of Illinois would turn the project over to its Capital Development Board. We reviewed and examined earlier today a giant loophole in the Capital Development Board--the statute on procurement that governs the Capital Development Board. They have a right to opt out of competitive bidding. Apparently, in the statute, they can just decide they are not going to have competitive sealed bids on the project.
That loophole gives me pause for the reason that I thought we ought to have a tighter set of restrictions. I proposed an amendment that would require that the Federal competitive bid guidelines be attached to the project. I think that would take care of the problem. We are examining in detail the concerns I have and some of the red flags that have occurred to me with this project.
I spent 6 years in the Illinois State Senate in Springfield. I have a pretty good idea of how State government operates. I am familiar with many of the people who are involved with this project. After taking a very close look at the project, it originally started out as a $40 million project, then went to a $60 million project. At one time they were talking about a $140-something million project; now it is back down to a $115 million or a $120 million project. They are seeking $50 million from the State of Illinois, $50 million from the Federal Government, and $10 million in essentially tax breaks from the city of Springfield, and possibly the contribution of some land.
They are, in addition, creating a not-for-profit corporation that was filed with the office of the Illinois secretary of state in June of this year. They have recently made, are making, or have made--it is not clear which--a request to become registered as an official charity. They could solicit and retain contributions for the Lincoln Library Foundation. They have set an ambitious goal for the foundation of raising somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 or $55 million.
I received from published reports that the foundation's board of directors appear to be Mrs. Julie Cellini, who is the head of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, and Mrs. Laura Ryan, the first lady of the State of Illinois.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, will my friend from Illinois yield for a question without losing his right to the floor?
Mr. FITZGERALD. I yield for a question.
Mr. REID. The Senator from Illinois has the floor. The Senator from North Dakota, under a unanimous consent agreement, has a right to speak when the Senator finishes. The Senator from Idaho wishes to speak for 10 minutes. I am wondering if the Senator from Illinois would agree that Senator CRAIG could speak now for 10 minutes, with the Senator from Illinois retaining his right to the floor, and at such time as Senator DORGAN comes to the floor we allow him to speak for up to 20 minutes.
Mr. FITZGERALD. I would go along with that as long as I could be recognized upon the completion of the remarks of the Senator from Idaho and upon the completion of the remarks of Senator DORGAN, and that my recognition would count as a continuation of the speech I am now delivering on the Senate floor.
Mr. REID. That was the intent of the unanimous consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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Mr. REID. As I understand it, the Senator from Idaho is now going to be recognized for 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I thank both Senators and the Senator from Illinois for yielding. It certainly was his prerogative not to yield because he controls the time, and I appreciate that, and the Senator from Nevada for accommodating me and working out the differences.
Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I had hoped that I would be able to respond in part while the Senator from Louisiana was on the floor speaking about her concerns about the CARA legislation. She certainly has made every effort to move that legislation, which is important to her State.
Both the Senator from Louisiana and I serve on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on which that legislation was formed. She has always been courteous. We have worked closely together on the issue.
I could not and do not support CARA as it is currently crafted and as it was voted out of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. I said very early on to the citizens of my State and to my colleagues on that committee that I would strongly oppose any bill that created a Federal entitlement that allowed the Federal Government to own more of the State of Idaho. The Federal Government already owns nearly 64 percent of my State. And this year you watched Federal forests in my State burn, with tremendous fire and heat, causing the destruction of the environment and resources. My State forests did not burn. The private forests in Idaho did not burn because they were managed. They were thinned. They are healthy, growing, dynamic forests that provide marvelous habitat and quality water to our streams, to our fisheries, and to the life-style of my beautiful State.
Two weeks ago, I was in a helicopter flying over the nearly 1.2 million acres of charred national forests in my State--charred almost to a point of nonrecognition. It will take a decade or more for the natural environment to begin to return. That could have been avoided to some degree, if the Forest Service and its management had not become an agency of benign neglect, which had simply turned its back on these living environments, and had helped Mother Nature to improve them in a way that they would not have burned in such a catastrophic fashion.
The reason I say that is because many want the Federal Government to own more land. Somehow the Federal Government's ownership has in some people's minds become synonymous with quality environment. That is simply not true today.
Nearly 40 million acres of national forest land are in a dead or dying condition--bug-infested, overpopulated with trees, and as a result drought stricken, with the health of the trees declining and the health of the forests faltering.
Is that a way to manage lands? No, it isn't. The Senator from Louisiana knows that. She knows my strong opposition to additional ownership of Federal property in my State. She worked with me. She worked with me very closely to try to change that equation, and we simply could not get that done.
That is why we did something different in this Interior appropriations bill. It is not CARA and it is not land legacy, but it does recognize the importance of spending money for certain resource values, for certain wildlife habitat values, for certain coastal needs of the kind the Senator from Louisiana has for the general well-being of the environment with moneys coming from offshore oil royalties, many of them generated in the gulf south of her State and out into the ocean beyond Louisiana. On that, she and I do not disagree. But I will continue to be a strong opponent of an attitude or a philosophy and an effort to fund an attitude and a philosophy that somehow if the Federal Government owns the land, it is going to be better protected. In my State of Idaho, because nearly 64 percent is owned by the Federal Government, they also dictate the economy of my State.
Today we had a hearing in the Small Business Committee about the impact of forest policies on all of the small communities of my State. I chair the Forestry Subcommittee of this Senate. We have held over 100 hearings since 1996 examining the character of decision-making in the U.S. Forest Service and that they ignore small business today, and they turn their back on small communities that adjoin those forests.
Is it any wonder why nearly all of those small communities in Idaho and across the Nation today associated with public forests have 14 and 15 percent unemployment while the rest of our country flourishes because of the high-tech economy? No. It is quite obvious that is what is happening because this Government and this administration have locked the door on the U.S. forested land and turned their back and walked away. With that, thousands of jobs and 45,000 schoolchildren in rural schools across the Nation are deprived of the money that would have come to them by an active management plan of the U.S. Forest Service because of long-term policies that allowed counties and school districts to share in those revenues.
I can't stand here as someone representing the State of Idaho and say: Give the Federal Government more money to buy more land in the State of Idaho to make it Federal. I can't do that in good conscience, and I won't.
I am joined with my western colleagues to tell the Senator from Louisiana, somehow it has to be done differently. I am not going to suggest what we do in this bill is answer the problems or concerns of the Senator from Louisiana. I think it probably isn't.
But I will say it is no longer an entitlement. It is not automatic for 15 years. We do not give this administration or any future administration half a billion worth of cash a year to go out and buy more and more land to turn into forest fires or dying habitat for wildlife because they won't actively manage it and care for it.
There is a lot of money in here to help our national parks. There is money for urban parks. There is money for coastal acquisitions. There is a great deal of money--$1.8 billion, nearly $2 billion worth. A chart shows it ratchets it up over the next number of years to nearly $2.4 billion. It is not as originally envisioned by the CARA Coalition, but it is a great deal of what they asked for.
Ms. LANDRIEU. Will the Senator yield for clarification?
Mr. CRAIG. I have very limited time. I apologize.
I am not in any way--how do I say this--taking offense at what the Senator from Louisiana has said. We have worked very closely on this issue. She and I held fundamental disagreement on one portion of the bill. I made an effort to change that. I made an effort to have no net gain of Federal lands in the States. Willing seller, willing buyer--all of those kinds of things we worked to get. We couldn't get them.
So I have fought, as other colleagues have fought, not to allow CARA to come to the floor this year for a vote.
Let me talk more about something else before my time is up. I mentioned that nearly 1.2 million acres of Federal land burned in my State this year, beautiful forested land that was in trouble environmentally, and when Mother Nature came along and struck with her violence, it all went up in smoke.
There is a lot of money in this bill to begin to deal with those problems, a great deal of money in this bill to pay off the fire expenditures that are natural to do so. A lot of this money is to pay back the expenses that were incurred this year, the millions and millions of dollars spent each day for nearly 60 days across this country during the peak of the fire season when the skies of Idaho were gray to black, as it was true in other States across this Nation. There is a lot of money in this bill for that purpose.
There is also additional money in this bill, new language, and new policy, on which Senator DOMENICI of New Mexico and I worked with a lot of others, to try to create an active management scheme that will allow in areas where there are now urban dwellers--we call it the urban wildland interface--which I will come back to.
I thank my colleague from Illinois for yielding. This is an important bill. We have addressed a lot of the problems. I hope my colleagues will join in supporting the passage of the Interior appropriations conference report.
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I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, reviewing again the proposed Abraham Lincoln Library in Springfield, IL, I emphasize the magnitude of the project. It is a proposed $120 million project. It started as a $40 million project, went up to $60 million, and now it is at $120 million. At one time, it was up to $140 million.
Reviewing the cost of other important buildings in the city of Springfield, the estimated cost, adjusted for inflation:
The State capitol building built in 1868 to 1888, $70 million.
The Willard Ice Building, I believe for the State Department of Revenue, a very large State office building built in 1981 to 1984, took 3 years to construct, $70 million;
The Prairie Capitol Convention Center, a large convention center, built in 1975 to 1979, $60 million.
This Abraham Lincoln Library will be one of the largest, most important buildings in the city of Springfield. I am supporting the project. However, I want the city of Springfield to get a $120 million library out of the project, not a $50 million library that just happens to cost $120 million.
It is for that reason I have tried, and the Senate has tried, to insist that the project be competitively bid. The Senate has gone on record with the legislation that cleared the full Senate last night, unanimously requiring, with our authorization of $50 million for this project, that the Federal rules of competitive bidding, which are set forth in this volume and are very extensive, very well thought out, were worked on by then-Senator Bill Cohen from Maine, now the Secretary of Defense--a lot of thought has gone into these rules. A lot of refinements have been made over many years. They have had to correct problems, and they have gone back to them repeatedly.
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