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Show Gam sids oversight legisatiea Senator Jake Garn (R-Ut) announced his intention to support legislation designed design-ed to improve Congressional oversight of Federal agencies agen-cies charged with managing public lands. Garn said he is joining Senator Paul Lax-alt Lax-alt (R-Nv) in sponsoring the bill which would also restrain regulatory agencies from making rules which are inconsistent in-consistent with Congressional Congression-al intent. The Senator said the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 provides pro-vides Congress with some oversight of the regulatory agencies but that this new bill amends the Act to provide pro-vide for a more comprehensive comprehen-sive application of the legislative legis-lative veto. "In passing the Land Policy Poli-cy and Management Act of 1976, Congress gavetheSec-retaries gavetheSec-retaries of Interior and Agriculture Agri-culture broad authority to issue rules and regulations to carry out the purposes of the Act," said Senator Garn. "We should now take positive posi-tive steps, to make certain that power is not abused and that the public lands are kept available for the beneficial use of the majority of the , people in whose states the lands are located." The legislation amends the Land Policy Act by requiring requir-ing that no rule or regulation regula-tion concerning the public lands, including their management, man-agement, use and protection, will take effect for 90 days and then only if Congress has not adopted a Concurrent Resolution of DisaDDroval. "Senator Laxalt and I feel that only through this proposed pro-posed method can we accomodate ac-comodate the many, and sometimes competing, interests inter-ests of public land users," Senator Garn said. "In addition, ad-dition, the legislation would provide many groups of public pub-lic land users who can't afford af-ford costly litigation or who do not have a close working relationship with the regulators, regu-lators, a safeguard against regulatory overkill." "I see this bill having two major beneficial effects. It will make the regulators more responsive to the needs and interests of Utahns and other Westerners whose states are largely owned by the Federal government. And, it will restore to the Congress the power to ensure en-sure that its intent is not subjected to bureaucratic misinterpretation." |