STATEMENT OF HON. HARRY REID, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEVADA

I'm very happy to convene this hearing. I'm fortunate that during my entire time in the United States Senate that I've been able to serve on this committee. And I'm fortunate for 17 days this year that I was the chairman of the committee. Now I have a great working relationship with the chairman of the committee, Bob Smith, from New Hampshire.

The Wildlife Conservation successes that we have had in Nevada are, in a great deal, owed to a number of people in this room. I have worked with many of you on the Truckee, Walker Lake, Lake Tahoe, and Lake Mead. We have also worked together to restore several Lahontan Trout, desert Tortoise, and Nevada's other sensitive wildlife.

I'm very grateful today to have with us a member of Congress, Congressman Sandlin, from eastern Texas. He is a fourth-term member of Congress. He is a friend of Don Henley. Don Henley graces us with his presence today. I've told him personally, and I'll say to publicly, it's very good for our country and it speaks well of him that he would lend his prestige, his notoriety and his fame to something like the environment. I'm very grateful to him for being here.

This hearing in Nevada is being held here rather than in Washington D.C., not just because it would be more convenient for the people that I want to hear from today, but it's being held here because I think it's symbolic of how we need to work on our wildlife conservation efforts. We need to come to the people doing the work on the ground to find out what works for them. Without the support of our sportsmen and women, local conservationists and university scientists, State agency people, and the local officials of our federal agencies, conservation efforts would never get off the ground.

So your input is critical because this year Congress will consider at least two conservation initiatives that could benefit state of Nevada if we work together.

The first act is what we refer to as CARA, Conservation and Reinvestment Act. Most of you worked hard last year to see CARA was enacted. We're going to take another try at it this year. The House recently reintroduced CARA, and soon I will introduce the parts of that bill that are in this committee's jurisdiction.

The bill will provide funding for State wildlife conservation, education and recreation initiatives. It will also provide funding for endangered species conservation, and also conservation efforts that are designed to remove the need to list species. I know that many of you are involved in the effort to protect the sage grouse so that we don't need to list the sage grouse. I think we should be supporting proactive conservation efforts like that. It's my hope that between the efforts in the House and in the Senate, we will be able to pass a CARA bill this year.

Another conservation initiative Congress will take up this year is the Farm Bill. While some people overlook it, the Farm Bill brings about $2 billion in annual conservation spending into play. Nevada doesn't see much of that money, and I'd like that to change. And this is spending that must take place. This isn't discretionary. This is mandatory spending. Nevada doesn't see much of that money, but that's going to change. I'm happy that see Karen Denio and Nick Pearson are here today, and they will talk with us about those programs.

It's my hope that I will have all of your help as we move forward in those two conservation initiatives to craft programs and policies that work for us.

Again, I thank each of you for being here today. We have staff from my Washington D.C. committee that are here with me and local staff. We will prepare a report. We will circulate it to the other members of the committee. There are other hearings taking place around the country. We will assimilate, coordinate, and correlate all this information, hopefully in the process of bringing more legislation to Washington that is better than what we have done in the past.

We have, as I have indicated, a number of good witnesses. We chose this very scenic place to do this hearing rather than some building in downtown Reno for the obvious reasons. It's nice to be here and see what can be at a State park, to show off a little bit of what we have is outside.