H.Res. 392

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

First, I want to rise in agreement with my friend from Washington's statement about civility in this Chamber and beyond. I think that, while it is extremely important that those of us who are elected to represent 700,000 to 800,000 people reflect the passions that we bring to our service, at the same time, we need to make sure that nothing that we say in these walls or outside is used to incite those who hear those words in a different way than they are intended.

That is the fine line that we walk as elected Representatives who are passionate about our ideals and our values, and it is one that I encourage the President to walk, as well as other opinion leaders who we often see on the cable talk shows hurling inciteful phrases back and forth that could be used to further incite the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the two underlying bills: H.R. 1873, the Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act; and H.R. 1654, the Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act.

Frankly, both of these bills are trying to address real problems that have bipartisan solutions that I support, but neither of these bills solve the problems in a thoughtful, effective way without creating collateral damage that, in many ways, is as damaging as the problem that they are designed to solve.

The majority will claim that similar bills received hearings last Congress, but I want to point out from a procedural perspective that neither of these bills have had hearings. These bills have not gone through the committee process. But what they won't say is there are dozens of new Members of Congress. New members of the Natural Resources Committee didn't have hearings at all, but it was rushed through a markup in committee and to the floor without any hearings in this session, without the new members of the National Resources Committee having a chance to ask questions about these bills.

There is a reason we have regular order. It is so that we elected Representatives can use the passion we bring to service to ask the difficult questions to find out how to get at these very real problems that we are trying to solve.

Unfortunately, this secrecy, lack of hearings, and lack of participation appears to be the norm, and, in fact, the standard that Republicans are setting in both Chambers of Congress right now. It is how the Republicans handled the healthcare bill in the House. It is how the Republicans are handling the secret healthcare bill behind a closed door somewhere over in the Senate.

We know some things about the Republican healthcare bill. We know it will increase healthcare costs, throw people off their insurance, reduce access for the American people. We know it will burden small businesses and the middle class. We know it will hand hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. But there is also a lot we don't know because the process has been closed. This type of secret backroom deal is, unfortunately, becoming the norm of the way Republicans are running their agenda in Washington.

The rule for this bill is another example. It blocked at least three amendments from being considered on the floor.

Why can't we discuss the ideas of all Members, especially since there was no hearing on this bill?

Representative McEachin from Virginia, Representative Schneider from Illinois, and Representative Torres from California all offered amendments, all had good ideas and were not even allowed to discuss those on the floor for 10 minutes, 5 minutes, not even for 1 minute, to offer or discuss any of those amendments.

If my colleagues on the Republican side don't think they are good ideas, let's at least have a vote. They can vote against them. If they defeat them, that is the process. But they are not even allowing a vote on these amendments.

Unfortunately, the process of this bill is typical of the Republican process on healthcare and the way they have approached so many other issues. Republicans are working in secret and limiting debates so the American people won't see the horrible things they are trying to do, like throwing tens of millions of Americans off of healthcare.

Now, getting to these bills.

First, the Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act has the goal of preventing forest fires and disruptions to power distribution; something that I strongly agree with.

I represent a district that has over 60 percent public land and a number of rural power districts. It is an admirable goal. We are a district that is at risk for forest fires. We had several devastating fires in the last several years alone. In fact, I am representing a State that is getting even more ravaged by fire, in light of the changing climate.

We need to take action to prevent them and allow additional work with

regard to preventing the forest fire risk. Unfortunately, this bill is not a positive step, but I am glad to say there is an alternative out there.

Representative Cramer from North Dakota and I, along with five of my Colorado delegation colleagues, recently introduced bipartisan legislation that will decrease these types of fires and protect power lines and transformers the right way--a way that Democrats and Republicans can agree on; a way that we can probably run the bill as a suspension and get 410 votes; a way that the stakeholders are involved and utilities, fire prevention experts and firefighters, environmentalists all agree on.

My legislation, known as the National Forest System Vegetation Management Pilot Program Act of 2017, gives power and electricity companies the ability to remove dead trees, but without the recklessness included in the bill that we are considering today.

It is a stark contrast. We can actually solve this problem in a way that would bring the country together, or there can be a divisive bill--maybe against one Democrat, maybe against five; I don't know, but it is not a broadly bipartisan bill. It is not one that has the support of the communities that are most affected by forest fires in my district. It is not even a bill that has the support of our main utility company in Colorado that actually sought the ability to reduce forest fire risks, which is done by Representative Cramer's and my bill.

This bill we are considering today simply lacks the protections that we need to have confidence. In this bill, the company can come up with a plan to remove vegetation, and then it can be accepted with no questions asked. They can't require them to fix obvious problems, like the power company cutting down trees for no reason other than to sell it for timber. They can't even deny an application.

Frankly, I think this legislation's real goal is to take a small step toward turning management of public lands over to private industry.

Once this plan that they would submit under this bill is approved-- because the plans have to be approved--the utility companies would be able to do massive devegetation and clearing work without any reason related to fires and without any risk of liability.

On the other hand, the bipartisan legislation I introduced with Mr. Cramer gives that liability waiver that the utility companies need to do the additional work, but only if there is no gross negligence by the utility company and has something to do with actually reducing the risk of fires, as well as putting reasonable limits on the distance that the work can be done from the power lines or transformers themselves.

Mr. Cramer's and my bill has some of the most conservative and some of the most liberal Members of this body as cosponsors. So I just wonder and I ask the majority leader why we aren't bringing that bill to the floor--a bill that lacks controversy, that helps prevent forest fires, that saves American people time and money, a bill that this body could be proud of advancing with, if not all, almost near unanimity.

I would suggest that, instead of bringing the bill we are considering today to the floor, we should have been focused on fixing something that we know needs to be fixed: the Forest Service's problem with fire borrowing.

Fire borrowing means the Forest Service has to spend all their money fighting fires and little money to reduce the risk of forest fires, deal with climate change, or clear the extensive backlog of maintenance. We can do that today by bringing to the floor the bipartisan Wildfire Disaster Funding Act that Representative Simpson and I introduced, along with my colleague, Mr. Schrader.

These are the types of commonsense measures that would actually reduce the risk of forest fires, put the right parameters around utility companies doing additional work, and free up additional resources to prevent forest fires from occurring, rather than simply doing the cleanup after they occur.

H.R. 1654, the Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act, also is an admirable and needed goal, one that there is potential for bipartisan cooperation to speed up the process of approval of water projects and hydro dams.

There truly is a problem with the speed of which some of these problems are approved. I represent a district and a State where we understand how difficult and important water is, and we also believe in the new renewable energy economy.

Unfortunately, this bill also does it the wrong way. It circumvents and undermines important input from experts and scientists that actually understand the reviews that are being made by the Clean Water Act. It even circumvents tribal sovereignty in the Native American Tribes and their sacred lands by overriding their input.

That is why a wide spectrum of organizations are opposed, from conservation groups like Oceana and League of Conservation Voters to sportsmen's groups like Trout Unlimited and The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. Dozens are opposed to this reckless bill.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter of opposition.

July 20, 2017.

Please Oppose H.R. 1654

Dear Representative: On behalf of the undersigned

organizations, we write to urge you to oppose H.R. 1654

(McClintock, R-CA), a bill that would significantly limit

meaningful public and environmental review of new dams and

other surface storage projects throughout the west. H.R. 1654

would likely reduce protections for fish and wildlife, and

could lead to further damming and destruction of western

waterways. Similar provisions were included in H.R. 2898 and

H.R. 23--anti-environmental bills from 2015 and 2017,

respectively--and the Department of Interior has previously

expressed opposition to these efforts.

H.R. 1654 would undermine existing laws by making the U.S.

Bureau of Reclamation (``Reclamation'') the lead agency for

all environmental reviews, including reviews under the

Endangered Species Act. Giving Reclamation this unprecedented

power over project permitting could undermine the ability of

the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and N.O.A.A. Fisheries to

share expertise and inform the development of major

infrastructure investments, placing imperiled fish species at

risk. H.R. 1654 also establishes strict project-review

timelines, including provisions that could require expedited

review under the National Environmental Policy Act. These

fast-tracking provisions could make it difficult for

responsible agencies to meaningfully analyze proposed

projects, and could limit the public's ability to weigh in on

infrastructure that could affect communities for decades.

Further, the bill permits non-federal public entities to

contribute funds to expedite project permitting, raising

questions about the fairness of the federal review process.

This damaging bill would affect states throughout the west,

and could even impact how state agencies are able review

proposed projects within their jurisdictions. H.R. 1654

allows states to subject state agencies to the bill's

procedures, thereby requiring those agencies to cede control

to Reclamation and comply with Reclamation's timelines.

Consolidating project review in this manner could weaken the

essential role that states play in reviewing water

infrastructure projects within their jurisdictions.

As we recently learned from the emergency at Oroville Dam

in California, careful planning and design for major

infrastructure projects is critical for ensuring public

safety and protecting the environment. Environmental review

of surface storage projects is also essential for protecting

endangered and commercially important salmon runs and the

thousands of jobs that depend on healthy salmon populations.

With so much at stake, the streamlining provisions in H.R.

1654 are unwise and irresponsible. Instead of fast tracking

dam projects in the West, we should be investing in fiscally

sound, environmentally friendly water supply solutions like

conservation, water use efficiency, wastewater recycling, and

stormwater capture.

For these reasons, we respectfully urge you to vote no on

Mr. Speaker, the letter is signed by a number of sportsmen and environmental organizations, the very groups that we should seek to work with, the very groups that actually support, as I do, hydropower, facilitated permitting of hydropower, the right way.

We need to speed up the process. In Colorado, we have had water projects that have been waiting on a decision for far too long.

But instead of going around experts, rolling over tribal sovereignty, why don't we fund the agencies doing the reviews so that they have the manpower and time to look at an application, give feedback, and make a decision quickly?

Again and again we have underfunded the Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA, not acknowledging that that is what is causing and contributing to this very slowdown.

We can solve these issues that we are facing. We can expedite permitting for water projects and hydropower. We can allow utilities to do additional work to reduce the risk of forest fires.

I call upon this body, please, let's do it in a way that brings Democrats and Republicans together, proudly gets a bill to President Trump's desk in a fast and effective way involving input from Democrats and Republicans, not just Republicans.

I yield to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

Absolutely. I agree with the gentleman from Texas. This House and the institution of Congress, as a separate agency of government in Article I, section 1 of our Constitution has the responsibility to exercise oversight of the executive branch.

It absolutely is.

Sometimes the American people in the back-and-forth say: Hey, why aren't Democrats participating in the healthcare debate? And the reason, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) articulated, is we have never been invited into this room.

I would ask the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett): Have you seen the Republican healthcare bill in the Senate?

I yield to the gentleman.

Isn't that too short a period of time to even come up with a thoughtful amendment?

I have one more question on that.

I am a member of the Education and the Workforce Committee, one of the three committees that had original jurisdiction over the Affordable Care Act. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) is a member of the Ways and Means Committee, one of the two committees with jurisdiction under the budget reconciliation for this healthcare bill. I want to ask: Have you ever been invited by President Trump to discuss your ideas for healthcare reform?

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) and would just add, look, fire prevention, expediting water projects and hydropower, these are not partisan issues; and to prove that point, there are bipartisan bills sponsored by conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats that would solve these issues. Rather than moving either of those bills through the floor, they are moving a divisive ideological bill with unintended consequences--or, perhaps, intended consequences--that would devastate a lot of our natural resources that sportsmen and recreationists rely on for our quality of life in the mountain West and across the country.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, President Trump campaigned on a promise to bring, somehow, jobs back home. He said he was going to overhaul the Tax Code, introduce an infrastructure package, and remove barriers to job creation. Unfortunately, we have yet to hear specifics on any of the administration's plans to accomplish that.

My colleagues will be happy to hear that in my hand I have an amendment that will help to accomplish this goal by providing tax incentives to companies that bring overseas jobs back home. What a great idea.

Mr. Speaker, when we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Pascrell's Bring Jobs Home Act, H.R. 685. This bill closes a tax loophole that actually rewards companies for moving jobs overseas while providing a tax credit to companies that move jobs back home to our country, the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck), my friend, that there is a problem here we are trying to solve. Unfortunately, these are not the bipartisan bills that Democrats and Republicans from both sides of the aisle have worked hard to put together to do.

Of course, Democrats, myself, and so many others want to expedite water projects permitting for hydro renewable energy projects. Of course, we want to free up utilities to do extra mitigation work around power lines to reduce the risk of fires. We have solid bipartisan bills that would do that. We could put them on the floor today or tomorrow, and they would have over 400 votes. There are liberal Democrats, conservative Republicans, and firefighters who support them. Utilities, Democrats, Republicans, and sportsmen support them.

That is a route we could go. We could get those bills to President Trump's desk by next week and actually start preventing forest fires and facilitate the permitting process around hydro projects. But, no, instead, we are doing a very divisive bill, one that has a lot of problems that it creates, in addition to solving some of the problems that it sets out to address.

I encourage my Republican friends--they are in charge; they control the agenda--to take a look at pragmatic, smart, and thoughtful ways to reduce forest fire risk, speed up water project approval, such as the bipartisan National Forest System Vegetation Management Pilot Program Act, which is a bipartisan bill.

Look, this bill around the expedited water projects would circumvent a lot of the public input process that is actually so important to the success of these projects. My colleague from Colorado was referring to several water projects. One that we both care deeply about, the Northern Integrated Supply Project, NISP, is currently with the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation.

I strongly supported extending the public comment period from 30 to 60 days--a very reasonable time to allow people more input, which actually changed how the project was done and planned. It was a very meaningful form of input to build additional public support for the project; and, when the project is completed, will lead to a better, more meaningful project, serving the water needs of our communities, as well as the impact on the lives of those who live in and near it.

So, look, whether it is fixing fire borrowing, giving utilities a liability waiver while not giving them a free pass, making sure that our agencies doing water project reviews have the men and women power they need to actually get them done quickly, these are reasonable, good ideas that I think we could pass with unanimity, or near unanimity.

I promise the Republicans, if you would just work with us and have an open process, we could find common ground. Let's start with these small things. Let's start with preventing forest fires around electrical fires. We will get to healthcare. We can find common ground with you on that, too.

But let's start on finding common ground around reducing forest fire risk around electrical wires, Mr. Speaker. There is a path to do that. Let's solve our small problems, and let's build a pathway to work together on the big problems our country faces.

I urge everyone to vote ``no'' on this restrictive rule, this rule that goes to the floor with no hearing, this rule

that rules out Democratic amendments, doesn't even allow discussion of them, and has a controversial piece of underlying legislation, when there is no need for controversy around such an important aspect of life in the American West, and, nationally, reducing forest fire risk and facilitating water projects and hydroelectric projects. Please join me in voting ``no,'' so we can get this House back to working on commonsense legislation that is bipartisan, with the full support of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, we are debating today what is being called an infrastructure bill. I wish that were actually the case. Our country certainly needs Congress to take action to address our country's infrastructure needs, yet this Congress is spending its time today debating another sham infrastructure bill that won't actually provide a single cent for real infrastructure.

Our Nation currently spends less on infrastructure as a percentage of our GDP than at any time during the past 20 years, and it shows. Far too many areas around the country have infrastructure that is crumbling before our eyes. We have seen this occur with the recent tragedy and the situation for water at the Oroville Dam in California, and this bill offers no solutions for these issues. In truth, this bill is simply an environmental deregulation bill disguised as an infrastructure bill.

Now, the bill's proponents have claimed that environmental laws, and specifically NEPA, are blocking new dam construction. This claim, Mr. Chairman, simply put, is bunk. According to the Bureau of Reclamation, not a single dam has been denied construction because of a lack of coordination between Reclamation and other agencies or because of delays associated with environmental review or permitting.

So why do we not see all sorts of new dams sprouting up around the West like we did for years and years in the previous century?

Because there is no new water to be captured, and because, frankly, all the best dam locations around the West were taken in the previous century when we had a heck of a dam-building spree.

New dams don't get built because they don't yield enough water to justify their multibillion-dollar price tags. You can ask the CRS if you don't believe other experts. In 2012, the Congressional Research Service found that the most likely causes of delay for major infrastructure projects are a lack of funding and State permitting issues, not environmental laws.

Now, new surface storage may be appropriate in some cases. The fact is, however, that much of the United States is already saturated with dams because of that dam-building spree we had in the previous century. The United States built tens of thousands of dams in the 20th century. California alone built 1,400 major dams. The best dam sites are already taken. Other than extraordinarily wet years like this one, thankfully, in California we are having a hard time even filling up the reservoirs that we already built.

Despite these facts, my Republican colleagues continue to peddle this fiction that we have to gut our Nation's environmental laws to build new dams and other infrastructure. I guess we should not be surprised because this crusade against our Nation's environmental laws is being led by a President whose relationship with the truth is complicated at best.

A couple of weeks ago, President Trump claimed that projects like the Hoover Dam were built in 5 years because they didn't have to go through years of permitting and regulation that current infrastructure projects are subjected to.

Well, the independent fact checkers at The Washington Post evaluated this claim and they awarded the President's claim, as you can see to my right, three Pinocchios, which is the rating for statements that include ``significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.''

Now, the fact checkers noted that, according to the U.S. GAO, 95 percent of public infrastructure projects are actually excluded from environmental reviews under current law. They further pointed out that the President ignored the many years of planning, permitting, negotiating, and preparing that was required to make sure that projects like the Hoover Dam were financially feasible and actually had public support.

In fact, dam planning on the Colorado River began in 1902, yet the Hoover Dam was not completed until 1937. Not completed, I might add, until the Roosevelt administration put actual public infrastructure dollars on the table to get that project financed and moving. The project took many years because, even despite the absence of modern environmental laws, big complicated projects take time to plan and finance, and they always have.

I am sorry that my Republican colleagues refuse to let such facts get in the way of their decades-long crusade against our country's bedrock environmental laws, but I hope we will eventually move on from this debate and get on to addressing real problems affecting our infrastructure, and that real problem is investment.

In terms of water infrastructure, our Nation is still not making necessary investments like water reuse projects and recycling projects. These are 21st century infrastructure projects that can provide us with water supplies that don't depend on the whims of an increasingly unpredictable hydrology. Given our changing climate, we can no longer rely exclusively on our 20th century infrastructure projects like dams.

Despite this, we have barely scratched the surface on building modern water infrastructure projects like reuse, recycling, desalination, groundwater storage, storm water capture, and water-use efficiency projects. Our country currently reuses less than 10 percent of our Nation's wastewater. Climate change will require us to do better. As George W. Bush's Reclamation Commissioner once said, the reuse of wastewater and recycled water could actually be the next river for the Western United States to tap for critical water supply.

This Congress should be working across the aisle to fully tap that next great river for the 21st century.

Reoperating existing facilities, modernizing those operations, is another example of something we should be working together on across the aisle.

All around the West we are dealing with dams and reservoirs that are being operated with the best technology from decades ago. The flood control manual at Oroville Dam, for example, hasn't been updated since 1970, which actually makes it cutting edge when compared to many of the reservoirs that are operating on 1950s flood control manuals. We are using slide rules instead of computers, with meteorological predictions that are based on historic data, backward-looking data, instead of looking up at the sky and using the data from modern satellite technology.

At Folsom Dam, we are watching a long overdue update to operations as part of a new auxiliary spillway. Forecast-informed operations, which is something that I have long advocated as part of comprehensive water legislation, is something we could work on together, and it would provide significant increases in water supply.

If my Republican friends are interested in expediting environmental reviews for infrastructure projects, then there is another thing that we can work on together, and that is we can end the slashing of budgets in Federal agencies that are in charge of environmental reviews for infrastructure projects. Budget cuts do nothing but hamper the ability of these agencies to participate in the review process and to protect our other Nation's fisheries and other natural resources.

This bill before us today compounds the problem by further undercutting the important role these agencies play to protect our natural resources. That is why several conservation and fishing industry groups have warned that this Congress should reject this bill, that it threatens tens of thousands of jobs in the fishing industry across the Pacific Coast.

Many of our Nation's iconic fisheries are already on the brink of extinction. We have heard firsthand in our committee from the fishermen struggling to pay their mortgages, boats being scrapped because owners can't pay mooring fees, homes being repossessed, and restaurants, hotels, and other retail and service businesses struggling just to scrape by. Let's not add to these struggles by passing an ill-conceived bill that does nothing to actually improve our infrastructure.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

I was in the California Legislature for at least one of the those environmental waiver bills that the majority leader referenced involving an NFL stadium, and I am glad to hear him criticize that because I, too, criticized it. It was a bipartisan mistake. I voted against it.

There was a bit of vindication because at least one of those stadiums ended up not getting built anyway, despite the environmental waiver, and it sort of exposed the fact that these environmental laws are often put forward as scapegoats. We are often told that if you just clear away the environmental permitting, we can do these things.

There were many other reasons why that stadium didn't get built, complicated issues involving NFL franchises and financing, which is usually the real scapegoat when these projects aren't moving forward. So it is a worthy example to talk about in the context of this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, the State of California is being mentioned quite a bit in this conversation.

It bears noting that the State of California is not asking for this legislation; and, in fact, the State of California has consistently opposed the rolling back of environmental standards and is busy passing bill after bill in this State legislative session to try to backfill for anticipated rollbacks in Federal environmental standards. So, certainly, if we are talking about the State of California and what it wants and it needs, its elected leaders are taking a very different direction than posing the false choice between environmental standards and infrastructure.

Again, the United States Bureau of Reclamation has emphasized that there are other factors, that it is not environmental review that has stopped any water projects in the West. The Congressional Research Service has reached the same conclusion.

And I just heard from my friend, Mr. McClintock, that we can't build new reservoirs until we change these laws. Well, I have got to point out that California has built new reservoirs under current law. You can ask the folks in Contra Costa County about Los Vaqueros Reservoir.

They didn't need any environmental waivers or special legislation. They built their dam. And in fact, they are getting ready to move forward with an expansion of that surface storage project. It should be broadly supported, and they are not asking for any special tweaks to the environmental laws. The same would apply to Diamond Valley Reservoir in southern California.

And, in fact, we have actually added nearly 6 million acre-feet of new surface and groundwater storage over the past few decades in California, all while honoring bedrock environmental protections like ESA and NEPA.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Fresno, California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank my colleague from Orange County for those comments. I have been to Orange County and I have seen the cutting-edge water management work taking place in Mr. Rohrabacher's district. Among other things, they are doing amazing groundwater recharge and water-use efficiency, water recycling. In fact, they have got one of the most cutting-edge potable reuse systems in the country. It is their reliance on those 21st century water management tools instead of large reservoirs--that, for the most part, were running dry during this drought we just went through--that enabled them to get through the most critical drought any of us have ever seen in much better shape than any communities around the State.

So kudos to the forward-looking water managers in Orange County. But if the gentleman is concerned about low-income people being impacted by water shortage and water management issues, I really hope he will pay a visit to my district, because on the north coast of California, you get the other end of this water management challenge.

The fishing communities of the north coast have been hammered by the fact that our iconic salmon runs are teetering on the brink of extinction. We have left very little flow in the rivers, and this drought only exacerbated the problem.

So I am representing people that are deeply impacted by water shortage and water management decisions that need to be part of this consideration instead of trivialized when we talk about water wasting out through the estuary. This is water that sustains these fishery runs that have been the lifeblood of the communities in my district for many years.

Now, just to inject a couple of facts into what has been called a radical environmental agenda that caused the waste of all of this water during the drought--in fact, that didn't happen. In 2014, the fact is only 4 percent of all the runoff in the entire Bay Delta Watershed flowed to San Francisco Bay solely for environmental protection. In 2015, it was even less. Two percent of the runoff for the entire watershed made it all the way out to San Francisco Bay solely for environmental purposes. The rest of that flow that made it through was to control salinity in the delta so that you could continue to serve municipal and industrial and other water-use needs. Most of that water was diverted and used.

We need to remember the facts in what can sometimes be a hyperbolic discussion of California water.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

It has been a good conversation, but I hope one thing is clear: this is not an infrastructure bill. This is an environmental deregulation bill that is masquerading behind the issue of infrastructure.

Environmental laws, environmental reviews are not the reason new dams have not been built and it is not the reason new dams will not be built. All of the serious analyses point to other factors, the big one being they don't generate enough water to justify the huge price tags that go along with these projects. They are just rarely financeable, rarely do they make economic sense. So let's not scapegoat the environmental laws to try to address that problem.

Now, if my colleagues across the aisle are interested in an honest infrastructure bill, including a water infrastructure bill, they will find a lot of willing partners across the aisle, including myself. We have put forth all sorts of ideas. We want to see water infrastructure. Surface storage and new dams can be part of that, but we have got to put real dollars on the table. We have got to do what prior generations did when they got serious about building infrastructure, and not hide behind this ulterior agenda of gutting our environmental laws, repackaging that, and representing that as being responsive to our Nation's critical need for new infrastructure. This bill simply doesn't meet that test.

I request that my colleagues vote ``no,'' and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I, unfortunately, must oppose this amendment. I am not sure if it was the intent of my friend, Mr. LaMalfa, but it appears that this amendment would prioritize permitting surface storage projects under the WIIN Act and not groundwater storage WIIN Act projects.

The WIIN Act, of course, authorized money for both surface and groundwater storage projects. These projects are yet to be named and prioritized. That still needs to happen.

Yet this amendment applies this bill's streamlining provisions to WIIN's ``State-led projects for new surface water storage projects.''

Now, providing surface storage above all other types of water infrastructure projects certainly is in keeping with some of the obsession with new dams that we have heard from my colleagues across the aisle. But the truth is, there are all sorts of other worthy projects that are needed if we are going to get serious about water infrastructure in California; and to put a thumb on the scale for one particular kind is not the right way to go.

So, Mr. Chairman, I respectfully request a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

I rise in support of this amendment.

My colleague across the aisle just asked the rhetorical question: Why is this amendment needed?

It is needed because fishing jobs matter. The people whom I represent on the north coast of California and also other fishing communities up and down the Pacific Coast, including Oregon and Washington, their jobs matter, and their limited opportunity to have their interests considered when a dam project is moving forward is what is shortened by the streamlining in this bill.

Their interests are already subordinated oftentimes, but they get subordinated even further by the streamlining in this case, which places the Bureau of Reclamation, the proponent of the new dam, in charge of the administrative record, which places the fish agencies-- which often advance the interests of protecting fisheries--in a subordinate role to the Bureau of Reclamation that controls the administrative record, which imposes shortened timelines to make it even harder for their interests to be considered.

Fishing jobs matter. And the truth is, right now, in my district and in many other fishing communities, people are hurting because they have been damaged by poorly operated and poorly permitted dams.

Let's not make things worse. This amendment is absolutely necessary, and I urge an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 392 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, before I begin the rule on the two measures that are before us today, let me just make a couple of comments that have come to mind in light of the events over the last week.

Mr. Speaker, you may know that this is the first formal debate that we have had as a legislative body since last Wednesday morning's shooting. I think

it is appropriate that we take a minute to reflect and remember those who were injured and are still struggling to recover from their injuries as well as those who did not receive physical injuries on last Wednesday morning but who are still recovering.

Let me also say, if I could be so presumptuous, Mr. Speaker, I believe that perhaps some people in the United States look to us here in Congress--their Representatives--and look and see how we act towards one another and how we conduct ourselves in our interaction with each other. Let me just say that if we are disrespectful to each other, others may see that and think that it is okay; that if Congress can be that way to themselves, maybe we can act that way, too. They may not even realize that. It may be just a subconscious thing.

I ask how can we expect others to have a high opinion of us if we don't even show each other the respect that we should and that we deserve?

I believe that we must all remember that we are--before we are Republicans, before we are Democrats or Independents--all Americans. We are all here trying to do what is right, what is right for our country, certainly what is right for our constituents, and we shouldn't say that someone is not here for those purposes.

I don't know your district, Mr. Speaker, and I might say that you don't know mine. So let's argue, which is what we are here for. As ugly as sometimes it can be, that is our job, to debate on the merits of ideas. But it is not our job to win a debate by degrading the ones who are making the arguments against. I think we all have this obligation to win debates or to argue debates on the merits of the issue. Last Wednesday reminded me that it is up to us, if we want changes, to make them and to begin them here in this body.

I was heartened in our meeting as a Congress in the auditorium over at the Capitol Visitor Center that there were several Members asking for a change in tone--a change in tone in how we interact with each other. It is important that we act civilly, that we be polite, and that we be respectful--kind of like how we treat each other on the journey over here from our offices in the elevators and in the hallways.

I would assert that this is also something that is the responsibility of our President, our country's leader, someone who can set the tone for our country, someone who can describe our hopes and our dreams and help us aspire to reach those things. It is also the responsibility of our media and for those advocacy groups that we all have and that we all work with. It is up to our parties. I think it is up to every single American.

We need to rediscover the faith that we should have in each other, our respect for each other and those bonds that make us one nation under God.

Now, it is simple to state, but how do we accomplish this?

It can start right here on this floor. Say something positive. We all call each other lady and gentleman. We all start off that way, and then sometimes the gloves come off.

I can assert to you that not every idea that is presented here is all good or all bad.

What is the risk of acknowledging a good part of a larger idea even if you may disagree with that larger idea?

I believe we have some very articulate people in this body who can figure out quite easily how we can accomplish that.

We shouldn't impugn the motives of others. We don't assign blame. We don't get personal. In fact, if you look in the rules that were adopted by this Congress, in section 363 of Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice, it says: ``The consequences of a measure may be reprobated in strong terms; but to arraign the motives of those who propose to advocate it is a personality, and against order.''

So it says in no uncertain terms that we should not make this personal. We can object without being objectionable, and maybe--just maybe--others will see this and discover a tone that we need and a change in America. I believe that we can start this right here, today, with our very first debate right now.

Will we agree on everything?

Absolutely not. In fact, this is where our disagreements should show the most. We are duty-bound to shape legislation by pointing out weaknesses but also by accentuating strengths. Mr. Speaker, every debate, every speech on the floor or in committee, our interactions with the media, in townhalls, or press releases, we are being listened to and being watched. I hope that we can change our tone and begin to change the tone in the United States of America.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to announce that, on Tuesday, the Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 392, providing for consideration of two important bills: H.R. 1873, which is the Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act; and H.R. 1654, the Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act.

This combined rule provides for consideration of H.R. 1873 under a structured rule, making three amendments in order, all of which were submitted by Democratic Members of our Chamber. H.R. 1654 will also be considered under a structured rule, with one Democratic and one Republican amendment made in order.

H.R. 1873 will help ensure reliable electric service and reduced wildfire hazards, which can result from inadequate vegetation management near power line rights-of-way on Federally owned and operated lands.

Mr. Speaker, over the past several decades there have been numerous electricity outages as well as incidents of wildfires due to contact between power lines and trees on Federal lands.

In 1996, my home State of Washington was impacted when three power lines in the Pacific Northwest sagged onto overgrown trees, leading to a massive electricity blackout that impacted 7.5 million people across 14 Western States, two Canadian provinces, and even parts of Mexico. Then, in August of 2003, an outage left 50 million electricity customers without power when a falling tree came into contact with transmission lines.

These are not isolated incidents. According to the U.S. Forest Service, in 2012 and 2013, contact between power lines and trees on Forest Service lands led to the outbreak of 113 and 232 wildfires, respectively. This legislation would reduce such wildfires in part by promoting Federal consistency, accountability, and timely decisionmaking to protect electricity transmission, grid reliability, and distribution lines on Federal lands from overgrown and under- maintained trees and vegetation.

H.R. 1873 will cut red tape to create a streamlined and consistent process for removing hazardous trees and vegetation without wasting time and money before they cause a wildfire or an outage. Preventing forest fires and maintaining a reliable electrical grid for our communities is an obvious priority for all of us here in Congress, which is why I was pleased to see this bill pass through the House Natural Resources Committee with bipartisan support.

I have seen countless catastrophic wildfires devastate Western communities just in the past several years, which is why this issue must be addressed and resolved. However, due to existing regulations, it is extremely difficult for utility companies to remove hazardous vegetation or trees that have the potential of falling on these power lines.

The scope of this problem is evident when considering the U.S. Forest Service manages 155 national forests and 20 national grasslands-- encompassing over 192 million acres--that include 2,700 authorized electric transmission and distribution facilities.

Similarly, the Bureau of Land Management administers 245 million acres, including over 71,000 miles of electrical transmission and distribution lines on its Federal lands.

In order to perform infrastructure inspections and operate and maintain power lines on these lands, electric utilities must seek permission and approval from the appropriate Federal land management agency, which typically use processes under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 to assess whether the proposed vegetative management measures comply with Federal environmental laws.

This often leads to delays and cumbersome bureaucratic requirements, which often prevent utilities from carrying out important vegetative management activities on a consistent and

timely basis. Yet the costs of operating, maintaining, and repairing these electric lines on Federal lands fall to the utility companies and their customers, which can lead to higher electricity costs for ratepayers.

Mr. Speaker, the rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1654, the Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act. This legislation will streamline the permitting process for new surface water storage projects, which is critically important for many Western and rural communities that have endured severe droughts in recent years.

Currently, the regulatory process for constructing new surface water storage projects often involves applying for a host of Federal, State, and local permits, as well as approvals from various agencies, which can be a very cumbersome, costly, and time-consuming undertaking.

Additionally, conflicting permit requirements and agency reviews can add time to the project, the planning, and implementation process while also increasing the potential for last-minute surprises that could endanger the success of a project or require significant additional work.

In order to address this problem, H.R. 1654 creates what is seen as a one-stop-shop permitting process to expedite construction of both new and expanded non-Federal surface water storage projects. The measure establishes the Bureau of Reclamation as the lead agency for purposes of coordinating all reviews, analyses, permits, licenses, or other Federal approvals as required by law, which will streamline the current multiagency permitting process and eliminate unnecessary delays for job-creating construction projects that directly benefit local communities and economies.

As the lead agency, Reclamation will be required to coordinate and prepare the unified environmental documentation that will serve as the basis for Federal decisions authorizing the use of Federal lands, as well as to coordinate project development and the construction of qualifying projects.

Additionally, H.R. 1654 will allow the Secretary of the Interior to expedite the evaluation of permits for qualifying projects through the use of funds contributed by a non-Federal public entity.

Mr. Speaker, the rule we consider here today provides for the consideration of two bills that will have positive and lasting impacts for the American people, ratepayers, rural communities, and many Western States, as well as our entire country's economy.

H.R. 1654 will provide the type of coordination and streamlining that is essential to the development and construction of much-needed water storage projects, certainly benefiting my home State of Washington, as well as water-stricken communities across the country.

H.R. 1873 will create a framework for vegetation management near transmission and distribution lines on Federal lands while also providing electric companies with much-needed clarity and defined authority to remove hazardous trees that pose a risk of falling into power lines. Managing this vegetation is a critical component in ensuring the safety and reliability of the electrical grid, which will benefit all of our constituents.

For these reasons, I urge my colleagues to support this rule as well as the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, the beauty of having a diverse membership in this body is that we have people from all over the country who live and breathe the issues that are before us. We are privileged today to have the young lady from Wilson, Wyoming (Ms. Cheney) here to speak on these bills. I appreciate her offering to help in these arguments.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Cheney), my young colleague.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say that it is good news that our brother from Louisiana is in fair condition. I appreciate that news report.

And I also want to take up the previous speaker's offer to work with us on tax reform. We look forward to his assistance in moving that issue forward.

I might say that he is mistaken. The bill that we are talking about today is about protecting public interests. The last time I checked, people who I know like green trees, not black ones; they like their electricity to be there when they turn their light switch on; and they like water. These are three issues that we are looking to protect and make sure that people in the United States can enjoy all of these attributes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck) to talk about exactly that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the time of my colleagues, who have joined me on the floor today, to speak in support of these underlying bills, as well as for the hard work of the House Natural Resources Committee.

First of all, H.R. 1873 is a bipartisan bill by any measure--five Democratic cosponsors, passed bipartisanly through the committee.

This will reduce the threat of electricity outages caused by contact between overgrown trees and power lines. It is that simple.

Existing Federal regulations and red tape can make it extremely difficult for utilities to gain the access that they need to their rights of way in order to perform needed maintenance. Before taking this action, they must receive approval from Federal agencies. They have been criticized for not allowing these utilities to carry out vegetative management policies on a consistent and timely basis.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, just one down tree on a transmission line can have devastating impacts, causing blackouts for thousands or millions of homes as well as businesses, or it can ignite fires that consume entire forests. Yet it can take months to remove one single tree, due to our outdated Federal regulations and cumbersome bureaucracy.

H.R. 1654 streamlines the current multiagency permitting system, which creates significant delays for project construction and completion, by creating a one-stop shop, a permitting process at the Bureau of Reclamation.

Mr. Speaker, the Bureau was created to oversee water resource management in the West and to prevent water shortages by building dams and conveyance systems. Yet, over the past 40 years, Federal regulations and policies have slowly made it increasingly difficult to build dams and reservoirs throughout the Western United States. Presently, it is nearly impossible to even expand the storage capacity at existing facilities.

The Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act establishes a framework where the Federal agencies with jurisdiction over new surface water storage projects must work together, coordinate their schedules, share technical information and data, and publish their findings publicly. This important measure will allow water providers to better manage their systems to modernize and enhance their water storage infrastructure and optimize water resource management in preparation for future droughts and shortages, which we know will come.

The Electricity Reliability and Forest Protection Act will prevent wildfires and power outages while enabling utilities to safely supply electricity to rural and Western communities.

H.R. 1873 will ensure that practical measures are taken to protect power lines and conserve our public lands, which is especially important in Western States where overgrown Federal forests are too often the norm rather than the exception.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the rule provides for consideration of two commonsense measures that will implement much needed improvements to the Federal management of our water resources, our Federal lands and forests, and electricity infrastructure. I urge my colleagues to support this rule as well as the underlying bills.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding and for his leadership on the Water, Power, and Oceans Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, droughts are nature's fault; they happen. But water shortages are our fault. Water shortages are a choice that we made a generation ago when we stopped building new reservoirs to meet the needs of a growing population.

The unvarnished truth is we will not solve our water shortages until we build more reservoirs, and we cannot build new reservoirs until we overhaul the laws that have made their construction endlessly time- consuming and, ultimately, cost-prohibitive.

For years, the Natural Resources Committee has heard testimony from frustrated water districts unable to navigate the Byzantine maze of regulations and the phalanx of competing, overlapping, duplicative, and often contradictory Federal agencies.

After years spent trying to satisfy one agency, another suddenly pops up to claim jurisdiction with an entirely new set of demands in an often endless permitting process, despite the fact they are studying the same project in the same location with the same data. The burden this places on our ability to deliver water for the next generation is crushing.

The leader mentioned the High Savery Dam in Wyoming--14 years to permit, only 2 years to actually build. The Federal Government has literally studied four storage projects in California nearly to death. One project, the Sites Reservoir, had over 50 alternative

locations studied, and there is no end in sight for the feasibility process on that potential reservoir. Similar delays have prevented the expansion of the Shasta reservoir for 39 years.

Mr. Huffman tells us that no dam permits have been denied because of this. The problem is very few dam permits have been approved because of this. And the costs are caused by cost-prohibitive delays in time that run up millions and millions of dollars in costs until the agencies simply throw up their hands and give up.

H.R. 1654 will bring order from this bureaucratic chaos. It establishes a framework in which Federal agencies with permitting responsibilities for the construction of new reservoirs must work together, coordinate their schedules, share data and technical materials, and make their findings publicly available. The end result will be fewer delays, more efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and, ultimately, more abundant water supplies.

It is modeled on the Obama administration's approach to constructing new electric transmission lines to accommodate its reliance on wind and solar generation. There is nothing new in this process. In October of 2009, the administration formed the Interagency Rapid Response Team for Transmission, a consortium of nine Federal agencies to coordinate a single unified environmental review document for each project analysis.

It is also modeled on provisions sponsored by House Democrats that expedited improvements on the Hetch Hetchy dam serving the San Francisco region. This bill simply says, if there is a potential project on Interior or Agriculture Department lands, then the Bureau of Reclamation will be the coordinating agency for the permits. That is a one-stop permitting agency.

It will call together all of the agencies, the local and State jurisdictions and tribal governments of our Indian nations, establish a timeframe for studying decisionmaking, and then coordinate all the reviews and analyses and opinions and statements and permits or licenses and other Federal approvals required under Federal law.

It also requires transparency, assuring that all data is available to the public online so the science guiding these decisions can be rigorously scrutinized by all interested parties.

It also allows water agencies to fund the review process if Federal funding isn't provided, removing one of the excuses that Federal agencies have made in slow-walking or stalling project reviews.

I want to make this very clear: It does not bypass or alter or waive any environmental or safety laws. It doesn't waive CEQ or ESA or NEPA or any other law. It simply says the process needs to be more efficient, and the government agencies should coordinate and cooperate with each other rather than talking past each other as isolated and often inscrutable fiefdoms.

Five years of drought in California brought entire cities within months of exhausting their water supplies. The epic drought has now been followed with the wettest year on record, and we have helplessly watched our dams spilling millions of acre-feet of water to the ocean because we have no place to store the excess for the next drought.

Perhaps that is nature's way of reminding us that, if we didn't store water in wet years, we won't have it during dry ones, and the economic and social devastation have been immense.

Mr. Chair, if you want to misuse our environmental laws to block any new water storage, well, then you should vote against this bill. We will continue to see increasingly severe water shortages and spiralling water and electricity bills.

But if you want to preserve our environmental laws, you ought to be supporting this bill because it places those laws back within a workable and practical framework, and it places our society back on the road to an era of abundance where our children can enjoy green lawns and gardens, brightly lit homes, and abundant and affordable groceries from America's agricultural cornucopia.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, first I would point out to my friend from California, if the climate continues to warm, we are not going to be able to store as much water in our mountains as snow, and we are going to need much more surface water storage reservoirs than the laws have allowed us to build because of the delays they have imposed in planning and construction.

The gentleman's amendment gives the Secretary of the Interior the ability to ignore this streamlining law if he determines it could ``cause harm to commercial fisheries.''

Well, now, remember, this bill makes no changes to any of our existing laws or regulations. It makes no changes to the licenses and permits required for a project or the criteria for obtaining those licenses and permits. It makes no changes to any law or regulation that could affect commercial fisheries or, for that matter, anything else.

It simply says that the agencies and jurisdictions involved with these projects have to cooperate and coordinate and communicate with each other, and it requires the science guiding these decisions to be available to the public to review and scrutinize.

So why the amendment? Well, for one reason and one reason only, I think, because for the last 8 years, we have had an administration that was actively hostile to constructing new reservoirs. That administration has used the fragmented nature of the approval process as a way to delay projects indefinitely. That is what this proposal corrects.

Mr. Lowenthal's amendment would allow any administration so inclined to make a specious finding as an excuse to ignore this law. Project applicants would not know from one election to the next whether their millions of dollars of studies and investments would suddenly come to naught, and projects already well along in the planning and approval process could find their efforts coming to a screeching halt.

For our laws to work, they must be predictable and fair. Mr. Lowenthal's amendment is a poison pill to render this law unpredictable and capricious.

The irony is this: the gentleman's constituents in southern California have the most to lose from his amendment because southern California depends on surplus water from northern California. And let me make this very clear to the gentleman and his constituents: northern California has first claim on northern California water.

If we can't store the extra water in the north, there is no surplus for the south, and the gentleman's constituents can look forward to dead lawns and gardens, brown parks, empty swimming pools, astronomical water and electricity prices, spiraling grocery prices, and a future where they will have to ration and stretch every drop of water and every watt of electricity in their parched and sweltering homes. They might want to ask him about that some day.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would first point out that commercial fisheries are controlled and regulated by the Secretary of Commerce, not the Secretary of the Interior, and yet it is the Secretary of the Interior to whom the gentleman would give the power to ignore this streamlining law and impose endless, repetitive, and duplicative delays in the consideration of these projects.

I would again point out that all of the considerations that are given to fisheries, that are given to environmental laws, that are given to engineering laws, everything that goes into the planning process in our dams under

our laws and regulations is fully respected under this measure.

All that it does is say that the agency, that the Bureau of Reclamation, when an application is provided, will pull these agencies together, and all of the jurisdictions and all of the affected parties establish a timetable according to their best judgment of what is necessary, have them talk with each other, and then stick to that plan.

That is what the bill does, and that is why it is so desperately needed in a State that has not built a major reservoir of over a million acre-fee of storage since the New Melones was completed in 1979.

Mr. Chair, by that token, I will include in the Record the support of the United States Chamber of Commerce as well as the Family Farm Alliance and others in support of this bill and the jobs that will expand as a result of its adoption.

Chamber of Commerce of the

United States of America,

Washington, DC, June 20, 2017.

To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives: The

U.S. Chamber of Commerce urges you to approve H.R. 1654, the

``Water Supply Permitting Coordination Act,'' which would

streamline the permitting process for new surface water

storage projects. The Chamber may consider including votes

on, or in relation to, H.R. 1654 in our annual How They Voted

scorecard.

H.R. 1654 would establish the Bureau of Reclamation as the

lead agency for coordinating environmental reviews and

permitting new or expanded non-federal surface storage

facilities. The bill also would allow the Secretary of the

Interior to accept funds from non-federal public entities and

to use those funds to expedite the permitting process for

designated projects. This type of coordination and

streamlining is essential to the development and construction

of much-needed water storage projects.

The structure of H.R. 1654 tracks the permit streamlining

provisions contained in Title 41 of the Fixing America's

Surface Transportation Act, which was passed during the 114th

Congress. The Chamber urges you to approve H.R. 1654.

Sincerely,

Neil L. Bradley,

Senior Vice President & Chief Policy Officer.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Wildfires are a huge problem in our country. They are becoming more frequent and more intense, and they pose a growing threat to public safety and local economies.

But, instead of taking steps to reduce wildfire threats, this bill tries to scare us into weakening environmental safeguards and giving away public land management to States and localities.

I agree with the bill's sponsor that overgrown vegetation and falling trees can spark forest fires. However, government data shows that this accounts for less than one-third of 1 percent of fires in the past 5 years.

Why are we focusing on this minor problem when it is clear that real wildfire solutions require treating these fires like the disasters that they are under the law, and allowing the Forest Service to use its base budget for preventing wildfires, not just fighting them?

Given what we have seen from Republicans in the Natural Resources Committee, the answer is simple: to chip away at the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA; shut expert Federal agencies and concerned citizens out of the land management process; and allow Big Business to profit at the expense of taxpayers and our public lands.

The bill lets State and local electricity reliability standards trump public land management rules. There is not even any requirement that the standards are based on sound science or principles of risk assessment.

If a county says it needs to clear-cut a half mile into a national forest to protect power lines, this bill would allow it, and the Forest Service could only watch. Further, there is no prohibition on selling timber harvested during these operations.

The bill also mandates the Forest Service and BLM use its NEPA categorical exclusion authority, even when vegetation management projects could cause environmental damage. This means that people who value public lands would be completely shut out from the management process. So much for transparency and public input.

Adding insult to injury, the bill waives liability for companies that start forest fires or cause other damage. This is nonsense and shifts an incredible burden and risk onto American taxpayers.

The bill also fails to deal with the root causes of our fire crisis, including the fact that the Forest Service cannot afford mitigation work to prevent wildfires because it spends half of its budget fighting them.

I support legislation making wildfire disasters eligible for disaster assistance under the Stafford Act, and I know many of my colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, do as well. I am disappointed that we are not passing a bill to do that today, and, instead, are here just pretending to do something about a very serious problem.

I urge a ``no'' vote on this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, let me repeat: We are talking about caution and what is causing fires; and 0.03 percent of fires caused by transmission lines is the data that is available to us. I know facts sometimes don't matter, but they should matter in something as important as this; and 0.03 percent is the cause by transmission lines of fires in the forest on public lands.

We are generalizing the huge wildfires that we have seen to make a case for this bill when the case is about transmission lines, rights- of-away; and it is 0.03 percent as the root cause of those fires over 5 years.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Schrader).

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

An example that supporters of this legislation use is from Oregon. It is from 1984. In the 33 years since then, I am aware of no example of a Federal agency refusing to allow a company to do vegetation management work and then holding the company liable for the damages.

In fact, as the committee report for this bill states, the issue of land managers allowing access to rights-of-way was largely resolved by language in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, stating:

Federal agencies responsible for approving access to

electric transmission and distribution facilities located on

lands within the United States shall, in accordance with

applicable law, expedite any Federal agency approvals that

are necessary to allow owners and operators of such

facilities to comply with any reliability standard approved

by the Commission under section 215 of the Federal Power Act

that pertains to vegetation management, service restorations,

or any situation that imminently endangers the reliability or

safety of the facilities.

If the utility companies feel that BLM and the Forest Service are not complying with the law, they should seek resolution in the court. Instead, they are coming after a backdoor opportunity to affect our public lands.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

At a hearing on similar legislation in the Natural Resources Committee last Congress, both the Forest Service and BLM testified in opposition and explained how they work with utility companies to address vegetation management issues.

In addition to entering into voluntary vegetation management plans, the Forest Service testified that the agency's 2013 vegetation management guide specifies for field staffs the procedures and practices that should be included in operation and maintenance plans for power lines. This guide states that, where vegetation conditions inside or outside the authorized right-of-way pose an imminent threat to power line facilities, utility companies may remove those threats immediately, without prior approval from the Forest Service.

For its part, BLM testified that, under the terms and conditions typically included in a right-of-way grant, a utility company may conduct minor trimming, pruning, and weed management to maintain the right-of-way of a facility after simply notifying BLM. The utility company can often obtain BLM approval for removal of hazardous trees through a streamlined process. For an emergency situation causing an imminent hazard, no BLM preapproval would be necessary.

I understand that some of the companies believe they should be able to do whatever they want whenever they want, but the land does not belong to them. It belongs to the American people, and Federal agencies have a responsibility to all Americans to ensure that those lands are not abused.

Again, facts do matter, and 0.03 percent of fires in public lands were caused by trees falling on transmission lines in the last 5 years--0.03 percent. So we continue to exaggerate the common sense behind the facts that I just laid out.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

My colleague from California (Mr. Costa) brought up one of the real causes of wildfire, and that was climate change, the lack of mitigation, and the situation within the Forest Service budget in which half of the revenue dedicated to that department is used to suppress wildfires.

This administration has denied the existence of climate change, scrubbed it from its vocabulary, from its science, from its study. If we are going to look at the causes of wildfires, if we are going to look at strategies and how we protect the urban and forest interface, if we are going to look at really addressing the subject, then the very salient point that Mr. Costa brought up regarding climate change has to be part and parcel of the discussion.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

You know, this legislation, with a few modifications, could help prevent the 0.03 percent of wildfires that are caused by electricity infrastructure, but the majority refused to work with us on those modifications.

Most importantly, the failure to make vegetation management plans for utility rights-of-way mandatory negates any positive impact this bill might have had. As we have heard from Forest Service and industry at a hearing on similar legislation last Congress, voluntary vegetation management is already allowed and is quite common. This includes the ability for rights-of-way holders to access these areas and conduct vegetation management without notifying Federal land managers until after the fact. This is current law.

The majority claims we need this bill to address delays caused by the approval of unplanned work and delays

associated with removing dead trees on public lands outside of rights- of-way.

Without an up-front planning requirement, I can see authorizing limited activity for utility companies to do targeted vegetation management adjacent to rights-of-way. But instead of offering the commonsense trade off, the bill before us today simply cuts Federal agencies out of the process of managing the American people's land by requiring the Forest Service and BLM to approve plans with no option to modify or reject them if the plans are inadequate.

So whatever the company turns in--the utility company turns in, that is the plan that will become the management plan for that vegetation, regardless of any opinion by Forest Service or BLM.

Further, the bill does not define ``adjacent,'' meaning that companies could cut trees that are well outside the rights-of-way on public lands. This makes public lands vulnerable to a level of abuse that no one who values them would be willing to support.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Let me just say that this legislation is a solution without a problem. And as I mentioned earlier several times, facts do matter.

When we are doing a whole-scale change of how we manage rights-of-way on public lands because of 0.03 percent of the causation by utility lines of fires on public lands, that is a heavyhanded way to approach doing legislation. There have been opportunities and modifications, opportunities of expediting the process, but those were not allowed as part of this legislation.

If we, indeed, are going to look at both the wildfire situation, the budget stress on Forest Service to suppress those fires, and this rights-of-way issue, which is miniscule compared to the bigger issues, then I think this legislation has to be rejected, and work on a piece of legislation that has consensus, that is bipartisan, and that addresses the real problems with wildfires in this country, not this utility giveaway that we are doing here today.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.