Senator Mike Enzi (ME) -- First I'll give just a little rundown on last week. We are in the process of doing the appropriations bills around here and we're doing almost an appropriations bill a day. We are on a record pace for the Senate. We should have all but one or two of them finished by the end of this week. In both instances those are ones that haven't completed the committee yet and one is the District of Columbia's budget and the City Council hasn't agreed yet so it's pretty hard for the senators on the committee to agree. As part of the effort last week, though, we were able to bring up for a vote, the global warming issue. That's something we in Wyoming have had a critical interest in for some time. I was a cosponsor on a bill, (resolution) with Senator Byrd from West Virginia. The bill (resolution) that we passed last week (would in effect) prohibit the President from entering into a legally binding agreement that would subject the developed countries to stricter standards on global warming than the undeveloped countries. It's an attempt to keep the United States from shipping jobs overseas. We have been quite concerned about that. In 1990 a voluntary agreement was entered into between the United States and a number of other countries. The President, next month, in Kyoto, Japan will be attempting to make that legally binding. We have some very serious difficulties with the Global Warming Treaty. We already have some difficulties with job exportation in the Untied States but the Global Warming Treaty that they've been working on would allow undeveloped countries to avoid restrictions on their emissions while placing us under 1990 restrictions on emissions. While it might be possible for us to meet those 1990 restrictions, a lot of the money and jobs would go overseas to those countries where they wouldn't have to abide by those same restrictions. We've seen that in a number of instances in the past and we don't want it to happen again. Incidentally that resolution passed 95 to nothing. So, it sends a pretty strong message that we don't want to export jobs and the only way they can even talk about it is if they are going to bind all of the countries of the world under the same standard. That's a little wrap up of last week. I'd be happy to take any questions you might have.
Roger Waggner (RW) -- Senator, this is Robert Waggner here at the Buffalo Bulletin. Instead of me trying to come up with some questions, I called several of our local residents this morning and obtained some questions from them. The first one is from a retired gentleman here by the name of Frans Flag(?) here in Buffalo. His question is -- When a home sells in our neighborhood, they base our property taxes on that home sale. Question: Is there any more equitable way to assess property values?"
ME -- That's actually a state question and I participated in that when I was in the State Legislature because I was Chairman of the Revenue Committee. I know that takes some state action to make a change on that. It doesn't have anything to do with the tax relief bill that we are doing at the present time. It is a state law that would have to be changed. Right now the property taxes are based on the present value of the land. That's based on sales that are representative in the area. There is some discussion about how large that area should be and also what's (to be done about) an unusual sale in the area because there are people from California who are selling properties for unusually high amounts compared to Wyoming. Coming to Wyoming under the present tax law, if they reinvest all of that in property, they don't have to pay taxes on it. They are making some incredible offers to people in Wyoming for properties that normally wouldn't even be on the market. People of course are accepting them because it's more than they ever expected to get for their property. That is driving up property values. Over in the Jackson Hole area, there has probably been more than a 25 percent increase in property values each year for the last eight years. That's pretty incredible and it does have a significant impact on the old timers there. But again it would be a state problem. We are trying to keep as many decisions as possible made on the state level rather than on a federal level.
RW - Thank you Senator.
Helen Warpness (HW) -- Senator this is Helen Warpness in Riverton. The Tribes have said they can contract or negotiate directly with the Department of Interior if the State refuses to negotiate with them on gaming. Do you see anything happening with the Department of Interior at this time with the tribes?
ME -- No I don't. I think the Department of Interior has been hoping that some tribe with a lot of money would be willing to step up to bat and negotiate directly on it to see if that was possible because I don't think the Department of Interior is necessarily going to be backing the lawsuit that would entail from it. There is a significant state's rights issue there and the states in my opinion do have the right to negotiate for gaming on the reservations as opposed to the federal government so some of the restrictions are placed on it to the same extent they are placed on other types of gambling in the State of Wyoming.
RW -- Senator the next question comes from a retired woman here by the name of Mary Shell(?) here in Buffalo. She says, "I can't see sending our troops to foreign countries like Bosnia. I don't think we should interfere in their business. Senator, what is your feeling on this?"
ME -- Well, I really do think that the United States needs to have a plan and that has to include the kinds of criteria that we could all debate on what kind of situations we would send our troops overseas on. I don't find a lot of support for what we've done although I do think it's critical when our troops are overseas to support the troops. I personally don't support any effort where we place American troops under United Nations command. I really think we need to have a plan on what kinds of things we are going to support, what kinds of situations we'll go into, and not try and be a policeman to the whole world.
HW-- Senator Enzi, I believe the federal government entered into a contract with power companies that they would have some type of monitored retrievable storage system available by the year 1998. I don't know if that's the first of 1998 or the last of the year. What do you see happening there? That's a big thing here. Former Governor Sullivan has before said, "Absolutely not in Wyoming." And now we have a Fremont County Company Newcorp that is planning one of these storage systems outside of Shoshoni. What are your feelings on this and what's happening federally?
ME -- Wyoming, in anticipation of somebody wanting to do that, did put in place a law that sets steps for people to do it and it is one of the toughest laws in the nation. That's to make it as difficult as possible for anybody to put a retrievable storage there. I have some difficulty believing that a person wants to put in a retrievable storage when there is going to be a federal temporary monitored retrievable storage location and it's going to be right adjacent to the place where they are undoubtedly going to put the permanent storage. There is going to be a long fight in the process of trying to prevent the temporary one from happening and definitely from preventing the permanent one from happening. The folks in Nevada aren't any more pleased about having it on their property than the people of Wyoming would be of having it in our state. They are doing everything they possibly can to fight it. I'm sure the President will take a look at it while he's out there on vacation this week. But Congress rather substantially said that's the place where it ought to be. We ought to move the materials there one time and then move them into a permanent storage one time as soon as it's available.
HW -- Thank you.
RW -- Senator, this really isn't a question. We saw you down at the sheepherders' rodeo in Kaycee a few weeks ago and I was just wondering how you enjoyed it and if you had been to one of those and if you have any observations?
ME -- Actually that was my first one. It was phenomenal and I would encourage anybody to go. As one of the residents there explained it to me it's one of the biggest family picnics in the state and of course anybody can be a part of that family. You just go to Kaycee. You pay your dollar a car and that entitles you to watch all the games and skills. Some of those dogs that perform down there are tremendously skilled as are the people who trained them. I'm just in awe of how those dogs operate and take sheep right in front of a group of people where they don't want to go, run them around barrels, through chutes, and get them back again in a timed event with very little participation by the owner, who has trained that dog to know the best psychology of the sheep to get them from one place to another. It was my first time of seeing sheep hooking. It was quite an introduction there. They have just at tremendous event. This year they had the Bud Light girls (local ranchers doing their impersonation of the models). Hope everybody asks about that. They just had a great time. It was easy to see that Wyoming spirit, the spirit of community where everybody gets together and participates and displays the way they are able to work hard while they are having a great time. Of course that's the sort of event that's happening across Wyoming right now everywhere between the rodeos and fairs. But that's a little different rodeo where it's a family event and brings out some of the shepherding techniques and skills. I hope everybody takes in the rodeos and fairs this summer.
RW -- That's all the questions I have.
HW -- I have a couple more if you don't mind.
ME -- Okay that's fine.
HW -- You know that APHIS (Animal Plant Health Inspection Service) study(?) that APHIS did in Wyoming on brucellosis is very controversial at this time. I am wondering what you feel federally needs to be done in order for Wyoming to be able to maintain the brucellosis free status. With all the different testing that APHIS has now said that farmers and ranchers are going to have to do before they sell their cattle. Should we be receiving some federal funds for that?
ME -- The first thing we are trying to do is get them to cut back the number of counties to those counties that are actually affected by the National Park problem. We will be talking about some federal funding to help the process. It doesn't look very likely that we would get it because that is considered to be a local problem partly because Montana hasn't been affected. They haven't been required to do any testing at all. They border on the same Park that we are having the problem with and in fact have more bison go into their state than we have go into our state. So it isn't fair at the moment and while it isn't fair we'll be pushing for both funding and for them to cut back the area of testing to a reasonable area realizing they will expand it if they run into cases of brucellosis but to keep the costs down in the short term and to show that we are a brucellosis free state.
HW -- What do you think the chances are of being able to cut back those counties and does APHIS look like it's going to compromise on this?
ME --They seem to be pretty steadfast in their desire to have all of those areas tested. They feel there may be some problems in some of those other areas and by testing some of the areas that are not contiguous to the Park that they will get a better sampling for the state. In that case we do need some funding because if it's a sampling for the state it shouldn't fall on just few people.
HW -- What's a happening with the Ethics Committee hearing on campaign finance reform?
ME -- The efforts by the Republicans to cover the situation are being blocked in most cases by the Democrats and by the Attorney General who will not appoint an independent investigator. The Republicans on the other hand have had their main witness appear before the Committee and have shown pretty substantially that there was nothing illegal. Now there were probably some things that should not have been done but nothing illegal and they (the Democrats) are blocking at every opportunity the chance to see if there was anything illegal with selling of the country to the Chinese. The Chinese are not being brought forward. I did notice though that over the weekend one person I guess has volunteered to talk about it now without immunity so there may be a breakthrough on it.
HW -- Are you doing anything at all in the area of Indian affairs back on the national level?
ME -- Actually both Representative Cubin and Senator Thomas are on Committees that deal with that. In our weekly delegation meetings, they bring me up to date with it. I write some letters. I make some telephone calls. But, on the whole they take the lead in covering those because it is covered in the normal committee business that they handle.
HW -- Okay and one final question for me, what do you feel is the most important issue facing Wyoming at this time?
ME -- Actually I think from an individual perspective of the Wyoming people that probably taxes are the biggest single problem. We've been working on that through the Tax Relief Act back here which is in Conference Committee now. Not many details on that Conference are being shared as they try and reach some compromises and agreements so that there can be a tax relief package this year. For my part, I hope that we will back up and take a look at all of tax policy and actually determine what it is we are trying to do and then move forward with designing a simpler fairer tax system for everyone. I think that can be done. The only way we are going to do it though is to back up and take a look at the whole system instead of doing the things that sound good over the short term. Although we need to do some of those things for the short term just to give the people an immediate break. There will be some.
