mr. chairman , i yield myself such time as i may consume . 
this amendment cuts $ 15 million from the account of the national endowment for the arts and applies $ 4.8 million to the payments in lieu of taxes account . 
what i wanted to do is make that equal ; but it was subject to a point of order , so this is what we came up with . 
it would reduce the nea account to about the level at which it had been funded for about a decade , while bringing pilt just a little bit closer to its $ 340 million authorization level . 
now , i want my colleagues to know that this is not an nea-bashing amendment . 
the nea i think has considerably cleaned up its act since the days of mappelthorpe and serrano , and the challenge america grants program has helped return the nea to educational outreach , the thing that it did with some success at its founding . 
no , this amendment is an acknowledgment , and we have been hearing a lot about it this afternoon , but this is an acknowledgment of the need for the pilt program . 
people have often said to me , you are so lucky to live in the west with all of the open space and all the public land , and i do consider myself lucky because of that . 
but people who do not live in the public land states do not realize sometimes that these public lands and all that open space comes at a cost . 
my colleagues saw the gentleman from utah 's ( mr. cannon ) xz4000590 map up here with the red and so forth showing the public lands . 
east of the mississippi , there are a few red spots scattered around . 
west of the mississippi , it is almost solid red . 
the west is essentially owned by the government . 
for every acre under public ownership , western counties and municipalities lose part of their tax base . 
in colorado , this amounts to almost 30 percent of the state 's acreage . 
of course , we heard earlier , this pales to the about 85 percent of the states ' acreage in nevada that is under federal control . 
we have one county in colorado , hinsdale county , that is close to 98 percent public land . 
you have lake city , the county seat , you have a mountain , and then you have the rest of hinsdale county ; and almost all of it is owned by the government . 
so services , as you can imagine , are limited . 
services mean fire and police and schools and health care and all kinds of things . 
there are other more direct costs too . 
due to federal underfunding of its own land , local municipalities are often asked to bear the cost of road maintenance and police coverage for those areas . 
all of this , while operating under the diminished tax base that i mentioned earlier . 
so i have always supported full funding of pilt , and i know we can not get there this year . 
i do appreciate the gentleman from north carolina ( mr. taylor ) xz4003981 and the gentleman from washington ( mr. dicks ) xz4001090 for what they have done for pilt in this bill . 
they have moved it forward somewhat . 
but since we have all this land , i think we should give us the funds we need to help take care of it . 
mr. chairman , i urge passage of this amendment . 
mr. chairman , i reserve the balance of my time . 
