Reid: Lands package is long overdue

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) praised the bipartisan agreement to pass more than 60 land use bills included in the defense bill.

“We’re going to move to the defense bill but we’re also as part of that going to do something that is at least 10 years overdue,” Reid said on the Senate floor Thursday. “That is why the package of lands bills in the National Defense Authorization Act is vitally important to America.”

{mosads}Later Thursday, the Senate is expected to vote on the House-passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Some Republicans have complained about the lands use portion, saying it is unrelated to defense issues.

“The NDAA for fiscal year 2015 is a legislative hodgepodge that includes those straightforward, noncontroversial items that almost all of us support, but also numerous other provisions that are unrelated to national defense,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said. “Most egregiously, the drafters secretly added 68 unrelated bills pertaining to the use of federal lands.”

Reid said the bill protects acres of landscapes and watersheds, as well as allowing local communities to convey some federal land for mining and drilling. He said the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee deserved a win after working years to get some of these measures approved.