Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, on October 25, 2023, America's gun violence nightmare became a living hell for the people of Lewiston, Maine, and everyone who calls our State home.

At 6:54 p.m., a man carrying a semiautomatic rifle walked into a bowling alley and fired 18 rounds, taking the lives of eight patrons in 45 seconds, including a 14-year-old boy.

The shooter then drove to a nearby restaurant, where he opened fire again, killing 10 more innocent civilians in 78 seconds, including 4 members of Maine's deaf community who were gathered at the restaurant for a cornhole tournament.

It was Maine's worst mass shooting ever and the tenth deadliest in American history. The total time the gun was operating was 2 minutes. That is 2 minutes of 1 man pulling a single deadly trigger, killing 18 human beings, 18 of our neighbors.

This shouldn't be allowed to happen, not by anyone, not anywhere, not ever again.

Today, I ask my colleagues to join me in remembering the victims of this horrifying tragedy and in holding in our hearts the people of Lewiston, a city that so beautifully embodies the resilience and dynamism of our great State. I also ask my colleagues to commit to the kind of sensible gun-control measures supported by 80 percent of Mainers and supported by a vast majority of Americans.

Please never forget, and never again.

New York Climate Week

Mr. Speaker, maybe my colleagues have heard of New York Fashion Week, which was at the beginning of this month, but this week is New York Climate Week, giving us an opportunity to spur climate action.

The fashion industry is a massive, $2.5 trillion global industry and an economic driver with a presence in every State. We cannot ignore the wide-ranging impacts of the fashion industry. Clothing production is surging, textile waste is rising, and workers' wages and conditions are worsening.

Fashion, and particularly fast fashion, is a climate issue. The apparel industry is responsible for about 4 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and 4 percent of the solid waste in the United States alone.

In 2021, the World Economic Forum identified the fashion industry and its supply chain as the world's third largest polluter.

In June, my colleagues and I took an important step by launching the first-ever Congressional Slow Fashion Caucus. We are working to educate Members and the public about the negative impacts of the fashion industry and to develop policies to support a more sustainable industry.

There are important actions we can all take as individuals. We can buy less clothing and get more use out of our clothing by patching holes or buying secondhand, but there is a critical need for new policies to encourage brands to design better clothing and take responsibility for the end of life of their products.

Other countries and States are already starting this work. We cannot only make the planet healthier, but we can use these opportunities to create jobs and support communities and American businesses.

The time for action is now. I invite my colleagues to join me in the Slow Fashion Caucus and raising awareness and making an impact for the future of our planet.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the 25th anniversary of a critical and innovative program in my state. For the past 25 years, the Island Institute Fellows Program has functioned to enrich the lives of both its participants, as well as the coastal and island communities of Maine by engaging volunteers, providing a hub of tools and resources, and fostering community leadership along the Maine coast.

As a proud resident of North Haven, an island off the coast of Maine, I know firsthand that our coastal and island communities share a distinct and treasured way of life. I've also seen that way of life face unique challenges, from a rapidly changing climate and rising seas to shrinking populations and a shifting global economy. The Island Institute Fellows Program seeks to meet these challenges by pairing recent college graduates with local governments and nonprofits in coastal communities where the fellows live and work for two years to help address community-identified needs. This partnership brings together the energy, resources, talent, and capacity that the fellows can provide with the spirit, resiliency and creativity of Maine's coastal communities, strengthening and enriching the lives of everyone involved.

To date, 148 Island Institute Fellows have brought new perspectives and ideas to support local needs such as broadband access, affordable housing, clean energy transitions, education initiatives, and community resiliency projects. When 75 percent of Maine's coastal communities have fewer than 3,500 residents, and 25 percent have fewer than 800 residents, the addition of one full-time fellow's work and dedication can make the difference in a community's ability to write a grant, facilitate community planning, preserve historical documents, launch a new initiative, or train volunteers and future leaders.

Over their two-year placements, the fellows truly become a part of the community, helping to plan potlucks, coach sports teams, volunteer with the town's Emergency Medical Services, and more. This program provides these recent graduates firsthand experience in a range of projects, providing them unique professional development and valuable skills for their future careers. A true testament to the program, at the end of their fellowships, half of alumni stay in Maine long-term, continuing their commitment to the community long after their placement ends and contributing to our state with their knowledge, experience, and relationships.

The Island Institute Fellows Program's 25 years of service, dedication, innovation, and community-building makes me very proud to represent the Institute, their fellows and alumni, and the state of Maine in Congress. I wish the program many more years of success and wholeheartedly thank them for their impactful work on behalf of Maine's coastal and island communities.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a visionary leader who has dedicated his career to advocacy for the arts in Maine. Throughout his career, Jack Riddle has worked tirelessly to elevate opera in Maine, ensuring the artform is accessible and inclusive to all. He has made certain that Mainers, and visitors alike, have the opportunity to connect with this historic tradition of storytelling through music and song.

In 1994, Jack co-founded Opera Maine, the state's only professional opera company, with a dream of providing high-quality opera productions to the people of Maine. Though our state did not yet have an established opera community at that time, Jack believed in his vision of establishing a local company that would showcase nationally recognized singers and composers. As the former president of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Jack possessed a strong background in arts leadership and marketing in New England. His skills and experience were essential to Opera Maine's founding.

As the company grew, Jack served as a trusted board member and the principal fundraiser, securing major gifts and guiding the board through a recession and a pandemic. Jack's unwavering passion and energy have been essential to the growth and success of the organization. And the calculated risks he has taken over the years for the advancement of the artform, remaining steadfast in his eternal optimism about the importance of opera, have been critical to growing the audiences.

For more than 35 years, Jack has worked to expand the opera community in Maine, ensuring that it is affordable and accessible to all. From including contemporary works in English, to providing no- to low-cost tickets for all Opera Maine productions and programs for anyone under age 25, active-duty and retired military and first responders, and their families, the company has brought new audiences and appreciators to opera. Opera Maine has also led free in-school programming across the state, teaching thousands of students about the fundamentals of opera.

Additionally, Jack has worked to strengthen Opera Maine's Studio Artist Program, which provides annual trainings and performance opportunities for emerging and professional artists seeking opera careers.

Jack Riddle's enthusiasm, vision, and commitment to Maine's vibrant arts community make me very proud to represent him and the State of Maine in Congress. I wish him continued success, and I thank him for his many years of influential work.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a milestone for a treasured group in my state. August 6, 2024, marks the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the Shakers in the United States. Since 1774, the Shakers have been consistently dedicated to the pursuit of faith and community, enriching Maine and national culture in countless ways.

The Shakers embody the essential American values of inclusivity and equal treatment and have remained committed advocates of pacifism and nonviolence. They have been steadfast champions of racial and gender equality since their early existence, as evidenced by their community's leadership structure and their welcoming of members and neighbors regardless of their race or national origin. Their message is one of universal humanity--a message that is more relevant and necessary than ever.

Throughout their long history, the Shakers' ingenuity and craftsmanship have contributed immeasurably to the development of American arts, agriculture, and manufacturing. Collectively, we continue to benefit from Shaker inventions such as the circular saw blade, the flat broom, and the paper seed envelope. Their sustainable agricultural practices, incorporating water power and regenerative farming, put them on the forefront of environmental stewardship. And their renowned furniture, architecture, and crafts continue to inspire makers, scholars, and artists around the world.

Today, Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village in New Gloucester, Maine, is the last remaining settlement in the world where Shakers continue to live, work, worship, and steward their legacy. They are an important community hub--hosting events and workshops, involving local young people, and preserving and sharing knowledge of rural Maine life.

I'm honored to have experienced their warm hospitality and kindness, and I'm proud to represent them in Congress. I wholeheartedly congratulate them on 250 years of community, peace, and progress in America, and I know their message will continue to resonate for generations to come.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, to be clear, I fully support all oversight efforts and believe the mission of the inspectors general across government is vital, but I disagree with the offset and the treatment of the EPA in this bill generally.

In the base bill, the EPA is cut by nearly 20 percent. Almost every single account is cut except for the Office of the Inspector General. Quite frankly, the Inspector General's Office does pretty well under this bill.

Cutting every single program at the EPA and seeking to increase funding for only one office, which happens to be the oversight office, is a clear attempt by the majority to politicize the Inspector General. That is unacceptable.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I certainly hope that the gentleman from Georgia is able to get his road paved. This is the wrong way to go about doing it. I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, one of our greatest strengths as a Nation is our diversity. The American experience is not a singular experience, and diversity programs exist to recognize this.

The fact is, and business leaders agree, that having a diverse and inclusive culture in the workplace is critical to performance. Attempting to defund or block the implementation of these efforts only takes us back to a time when our Nation's diversity was not seen as an asset.

This working group specifically looks for ways to foster an inclusive and respectful culture as it relates to water quality monitoring and assessment. Our success in achieving water quality goals depends on learning from people of all backgrounds.

I oppose this amendment and encourage my colleagues to do the same, Mr. Chairman, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would block an EPA rule that implements a program to further reduce air pollution, including ozone and particulate matter from heavy-duty engines and vehicles across the United States. Both of these pollutants have significant negative impacts on human health.

Ozone is the main component in smog, and it has been scientifically proven to aggravate lung diseases, increase the frequency and severity of asthma attacks, and reduce lung function.

We have a responsibility to protect the millions of Americans affected by ozone and particulate matter pollution. For that reason, Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment, which would effectively bar the EPA from approving a waiver of Federal preemption for California's in-use locomotive rule.

Congress carefully crafted the Clean Air Act to recognize the diverse air pollution challenges facing each State. Due to a history of severe air quality problems, the EPA can grant California waivers to set vehicle emissions standards that are more protective than those at the Federal level, including for locomotives.

While the EPA retains the authority to promulgate emission standards for new locomotives and locomotive engines, California is well within its rights to request a waiver of Federal preemption for regulations having to do with existing, or in-use, locomotives and locomotive engines.

Legal technicalities aside, this rule is critical to the public health and welfare of Californians and for residents of the States that may choose to adopt these stronger standards in the future, thanks to the flexibilities embedded in the Clean Air Act.

Diesel-powered locomotives emit dangerous air pollutants, including particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and greenhouse gases. Exposure to this toxic and harmful pollution has been linked to cancer, asthma, cardiopulmonary illnesses, reproductive health harm, and premature mortality. California's rule is expected to prevent 3,200 premature deaths, 1,100 hospital admissions, and 1,500 emergency room visits and deliver $32 billion in health savings. For California communities near rail yards, this rule is projected to decrease cancer risk by over 90 percent.

This amendment is yet another Republican attack on EPA's authority to protect public health from sources of dangerous pollution and simply another item on their polluters over people agenda.

A ``no'' vote on this amendment is a vote for protecting public health and preserving States' rights under the Clean Air Act. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to side with the law and with science.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, we are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and this provision prevents a fair return to the American taxpayer from oil and gas leasing conducted on public lands.

By prohibiting the modernization of the Mineral Leasing Act, we are catering to the oil and gas interests and enabling them to continue to operate at rates that do not benefit the American people.

Fossil fuels accelerate the impacts of climate change, and this amendment demonstrates my Republican colleagues would rather pay billions for disaster relief than focus on clean energy. Our economy, health, livelihoods, food security, and quality of life all depend on healthy ecosystems.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and focus instead on addressing climate change and making our Nation stronger.

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

Mr. Chairman, my colleague on the other side of the aisle says this is a measure to give relief to the American consumer and is pro-middle class.

First off, I don't know how anyone with a straight face has a giveaway to the oil and gas industry and says it is a relief to the American consumer or a benefit to the middle class. There is nothing in here that does anything good for the middle class, and there is nobody in America who thinks that if the oil and gas industry is helped, somehow consumers have gotten a personal benefit from that.

Mr. Chair, we all know climate change is real. We are very actively engaged in trying to produce more renewable energy and reduce our fossil fuel dependence. That is number one. That has to be our number one goal as Members of Congress.

Second, this simply says that when we use public land for accessing oil and gas, we ask those companies, which make billions in profits, which everybody in America knows--they actually think that they should get a break?

This actual fee has not changed since the 1920s. It is going from 12.5 percent to 16 percent when it has not changed since the 1920s. Does anybody think we should continue to give the same incredible break to the oil and gas industry that they have had since the 1920s?

It is a small modernization. It is money in the pocket of American taxpayers for using American land to derive this resource.

Mr. Chair, I think it is ludicrous that anyone should block this provision in law. It is about time we modernize the Mineral Leasing Act, and this is a simple provision that just says to make the oil and gas industry pay its fair share.

When my colleague on the other side of the aisle says that countries around the world are laughing at us because we are not producing more oil and gas, they might be laughing at us for giving away money to the oil and gas industry.

As I said, no one thinks that they are hurting. No one thinks that if we gave them a savings on this, they would somehow miraculously pass it on to the consumer, and because they are such a benevolent industry, the first thing that they want to do is take this little break that we are giving them and say to give the consumers a break.

No one thinks that the price at the pumps or the price they are paying goes down because we give them 12.5 percent instead of 16 percent. This is a ludicrous amendment. I can't believe that anyone would propose this with a straight face.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, the Financial Advisory Board supports the EPA's mission to lower the cost and increase investment in environmental and public health protection.

Just to be clear about its role, here are some of the activities the board pursues: ways to lower the cost of environmental protection; removes financial and programmatic barriers that raise costs; increases public and private contribution in environmental facilities and services; and builds State and local financial ability to meet environmental laws.

This mission is critical if we want to ensure that the investments we need to make to protect our country from climate change are sound and achievable.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, we are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change, such as the drought, flooding, severe storm, and wildfire events we are experiencing.

As of July 9 of this year, the United States has experienced 15 confirmed weather-climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each. As we all know, Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas on July 8, and we know more storms will follow this year. This amendment seeks to prohibit funding for the EPA's Global Change Research Program, which will result in more resilient communities, mitigate the impacts of climate change, and protect our world for future generations.

Not investing in strategies that minimize and prevent the acceleration of climate change and instead paying billions in disaster relief shows my Republican colleagues are not thinking about what is best for the American taxpayer.

Our economy, health, livelihoods, food security, and quality of life all depend on healthy ecosystems.

I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and focus instead on addressing climate change and making our Nation stronger.

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

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

Mr. Chair, this is yet again another one of those amendments proposed by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that seeks to deny climate change and actively proposes that we do nothing.

Once again, they use all kinds of terminology. They call this alarmist. They call it a progressive, woke, democratic agenda. I don't even know what all these words mean. What is a woke agenda on climate change?

This is the majority of scientists in this world who tell us that we have a crisis, not only a crisis coming, but a crisis that is already upon us: flooding, extreme weather, extreme heat.

We are in the hottest summer on record. We are in the hottest month on record. What does it take to convince people that it is our responsibility to protect the American public, to protect American industry and economy, and to protect the planet instead of paying billions?

Did anyone hear that statistic I had before? As of July 9, the United States has experienced 15 confirmed weather-climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each.

It means we have already had 15 events totaling more than $1 billion, and we are only in July. I do not understand the economics, the math of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who say, oh, no, we will just think about this some other day. This is just a climate woke agenda and we don't care if we pour out billions of dollars.

Has the gentleman had a climate disaster in his district? I had two extreme storms in January that wiped away fishing wharves, wiped away commercial businesses. He talks about getting out of the way of businesses and how we have to be pro-business.

How would he feel if he was the owner of a small fishing pier, and it was wiped away, and the climate disaster money wasn't there for him? What if there wasn't some kind of fund that immediately rebuilt his fishing pier? What is he doing this summer? Where would he put his lobster traps? Where would he dock his boat?

How would he deal with this?

What about the small restaurant that was flooded twice in one month by extreme storms, tides, tidal surge like we have never seen before?

We have had two 100-year storms in one month. We used to call them 100-year storms because they are only supposed to happen once in 100 years. Now they have some other category because we don't even know what to call them anymore.

These are climate disasters that are real, yet my colleagues on the other side of the aisle consistently keep making these amendments that just deny the climate change, which say we shouldn't even spend any money on it and say somehow this is pro-middle class.

My colleagues say: We are helping the American consumer. We are helping the American taxpayer.

Are they really?

How does it help the taxpayer to spend billions in relief because they won't even admit to the facts that we have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, American oil, and fossil fuels. We have to reduce that dependence.

We have to invest and continue to invest in renewable energy, which actually has produced hundreds of thousands of green jobs. They talk about innovation, getting out of the way of industry, yet they consistently get in the way of renewable energy innovation because they don't want to admit that this is real because they are all somehow continuing to support the oil and gas, the fossil fuel industry.

This progressive, woke, democratic agenda, whatever they want to call it, is just the facts. The fact is that climate change is upon us. This extreme weather is here today, and somehow my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to waste American taxpayer dollars, want to not make the investments that we need to make, want to continue to cut in bills like this, and it is not helping the American public. It is not good for the future of Americans. It is not good for our health.

I don't know if the gentleman has children or grandchildren, but I worry about what the future will be for my children and my seven grandchildren. I don't want them to come to me some day and say, hey, grandma, what were you doing when we needed to do something about this? What were you doing when we needed to prevent the climate change that is upon us today?

Were you just sitting there with your eyes closed and pretending it didn't exist? Were you using a bunch of jargon, quoting social media, and some memes that you saw somewhere, or were you talking about scientific facts and really doing things to invest in your children and grandchildren's future because it is upon us.

Mr. Chair, I encourage everyone to oppose this, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I strongly oppose this amendment that would cripple the EPA's ability to exercise its criminal enforcement function by preventing EPA criminal enforcement from being able to issue warrants, make arrests, or carry firearms.

I am truly befuddled by this attack on law enforcement. The majority's disdain for the EPA has been evident throughout the debate of this bill, but this amendment is beyond the pale.

I cannot understand how anyone would think it is a good idea to give a pass to criminals who deliberately break the law.

EPA's criminal enforcement function is a vital part of our efforts to help protect the environment and safeguard the public health, but it is important to recognize that it is only one part of these efforts.

The fact is the EPA's compliance and enforcement process is a multistep process that uses criminal law enforcement only as a last resort. EPA initially provides compliance assistance to help the regulated community understand and comply with the regulations.

EPA compliance monitoring then subsequently assesses compliance through inspections and other activities. Enforcement actions are initiated only when the regulated community does not comply or when cleanup is required. Criminal actions are usually reserved for the most serious violations, those that are willful or knowingly committed.

The mere threat of a criminal action can and does help ensure compliance. If this irresponsible amendment passes, and we remove the threat of criminal action, we will inevitably see a decline in willful compliance of our environmental laws. That would be bad news for all of us, as the quality of our air and water and the public health will inevitably suffer.

As to the issue of EPA personnel carrying firearms, I would point out that more than 70 Federal agencies employ law enforcement officers who are authorized to carry firearms and make arrests from the United States, including the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The EPA is hardly unique in this regard.

Make no mistake. This amendment is clearly anti-law enforcement. It cripples the ability of the EPA to ensure enforcement of our environmental laws and will inevitably lead to more harm to the public health.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, the Interior bill we are considering today includes 92 poison pill riders in the base bill that cripple environmental protection, undermine climate change policies, add to the national debt, and include discriminatory riders targeting millions of American citizens that have already proven so divisive in earlier markups. I object to the inclusion of any more.

This amendment would block the EPA from implementing air pollution regulations for lime manufacturing plants. The EPA rule will reduce emissions of toxic air pollution by nearly 900 tons per year from hazardous air pollutants such as dioxin and mercury.

EPA initiated this rulemaking as required by a court case to comply with their 8-year technology review timeline required under the Clean Air Act.

As a result of the lawsuit and subsequent emissions data collection, EPA found four pollutants that were unregulated in proposed reasonable standards to achieve better air quality and public health.

EPA worked closely with the Small Business Administration and included regulatory flexibilities to address small business concerns.

EPA balanced industry concerns alongside their duty to protect public health and the environment in this rule, and they were statutorily required to update.

The rule is important to the people who live in communities next to these facilities, to the workers at these facilities, and it is critical that this rule go into effect and not be a political pawn in the appropriations process.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. I do want to assure my colleague on the other side of the aisle that I thoroughly understand the importance of lime in many manufacturing and agricultural processes. I actually have a cement manufacturing facility in my district, agricultural lime facility in my district, and I personally have spent many years as a farmer or gardener.

Just last week, I spread lime on my soil to make it more alkaline because we have very acidic soils in much of Maine. I am not unaware of the importance of lime, but I am also aware of our role in Congress of making sure that we reduce pollution and that we make sure we keep our citizens safe. This is a perfectly appropriate rule.

Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, section 115 of the Clean Air Act is essential. It enables the United States to work with other nations to address transboundary air pollution.

As we saw last year, while Canada was experiencing historic wildfires, that pollution knows no boundaries and can travel anywhere, whether by air or water. We cannot address these environmental issues on our own, and we must work with other nations.

Prohibiting the EPA from implementing section 115 of the Clean Air Act is shortsighted, and I oppose this amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would allow those that pollute the Chesapeake Bay to ignore the Environmental Protection Agency's water quality standards.

Restoring the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed continues to be a priority. The EPA established mandatory water quality standards, and Congress has appropriated over $1 billion for the Chesapeake Bay program to help States, localities, and businesses meet those standards. This amendment would jeopardize that funding and have devastating effects on the health of the bay.

This amendment is not about the well-being of Virginia, Maryland, and the surrounding States. It is about the fact that some industrial operators don't think they should be responsible for controlling the pollution they dump into our rivers and streams across the country. The courts have sided with the EPA on this matter.

For more than 35 years, the regional partnership created through the Chesapeake Bay program has sought to restore and protect the Nation's largest and most productive estuary. This amendment would undermine decades of work and have lasting damaging effects to the health of the bay and the economy that it supports.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, any time I hear one of my colleagues across the aisle say we don't need the EPA or that the actions of the EPA are extortion or retaliatory, I don't know about the specific actions that he is talking about today, but I do know, as someone who represents a State with as much coastline as any State in the Nation with estuaries, with bays, with an extreme dependence on our shorelines, on our watersheds, on the ocean itself, I know that the Chesapeake Bay is an incredible resource to this country. The health of the bay has been a big concern for over 35 years, and the work that the EPA does to keep it clean is extremely important.

This amendment that attempts to undermine those efforts, to undermine decades of work, is absolutely unnecessary and not anything that any of us should support. This has the likely impact of undermining the efforts of our fishermen, our residents of coastal communities, and the economy in the Chesapeake Bay, and it is a misguided amendment.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment eliminates funding for the Council on Environmental Quality.

The office is responsible for coordinating the Federal Government's efforts to improve, preserve, and protect Americans' public health and environment. It also works to ensure that environmental reviews for infrastructure projects and Federal actions are thorough, efficient, and reflect the input of the public and local communities.

This amendment would hobble the office and result in significant delays to infrastructure projects around the country.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment. It is a legislative earmark to benefit oil and gas producers. It would tell the EPA to ignore potentially unhealthy air in the counties that make up the Permian Basin.

For the past few years, air monitors located in the Permian Basin area have shown violations well above EPA's 2015 ozone standard. So it is more than reasonable for the EPA to evaluate conditions in the area, consistent with the requirements of the Clean Air Act, but this amendment would prevent the EPA from redesignating the Permian Basin as being in nonattainment of the 2015 ozone standard.

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to set a national ambient air quality standard for contaminants, like ground-level ozone, that are adequate to protect public health, including the health of sensitive groups such as children and the elderly.

These health-based standards, the NAAQS, must reflect recent scientific and medical data. Once the EPA sets or revises the NAAQS, EPA uses air monitoring data and recommendations from States to determine which areas meet the standards and those that do not, known as being in nonattainment.

States then go to work to develop plans using the most cost-effective strategies to bring nonattainment areas in compliance with the standard.

Allowing a region that exceeds the standard to be considered in attainment doesn't do anything for the families and the workers living in those counties breathing the toxic air. It tells Americans that there is nothing to see here while they bear the brunt of the environmental hazards.

Contrary to what polluters would have you believe, being designated as nonattainment does not shut down the economies. Businesses have and do continue to operate and expand in nonattainment areas. However, the designation ensures that States and businesses are taking measures to control air pollution and help communities to achieve cleaner, healthier air.

The Interior bill we are considering today includes 92 poison pill riders in the base bill, and I object to the inclusion of any more.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, my colleague on the other side of the aisle said that I hate oil and gas, I hate civilization, and I hate energy. Honestly, I don't hate oil and gas. I certainly don't hate civilization. In fact, I hope we can continue our civilization.

I am deeply concerned that if we continue our dependence on oil and gas that we won't have a civilization, that our children and grandchildren won't have the opportunities that we had, that our small businesses and our communities won't be able to function.

The whole reason we are talking about any of this is because we have the impending challenge of climate change that is already upon us today. In order to reduce the effects of climate change, we have to reduce our use of oil and gas, and we have to make sure that the pollution, as we are talking about in this bill, isn't impacting our communities.

It is interesting, my colleague mentioned that in the airport he sees people traveling to and from work in this area. Is it possible that crowd of people don't want to live in this area because the pollution and the effects are too strong and they would prefer just to go to work and get home to breathe some clean air somewhere else?

My colleague assumes that if we don't continue at the level we are operating on that we will be buying oil from Iran or China or Russia. He seems to forget that we have a booming industry going on in green energy. Whether it is renewable solar or wind or many of the other innovations that are taking place right now, they are far outpacing our use of oil and gas. In many States, the green energy jobs and the innovation are where all of the economic development and activity is.

For him to say this is our only opportunity or this is all because some of us hate oil and gas or want to penalize people for this, it is absolutely wrong. We are merely trying to bring our country into this modern era and make sure that we are investing in energy. I don't hate energy. I believe in renewable energy, and I believe there are tremendous opportunities out there.

I also want to make sure that communities that are impacted by the pollution, as we are talking about here, are protected, that those communities have the right to breathe clean air as we all hope we can do.

I would ask my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, in recent years, Democrats have made historic investments in environmental justice, and the EPA has already put those dollars to good use.

It is unfortunate that my colleagues across the aisle continue to attack good government programs. Environmental justice ensures that all Americans receive the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards, which is particularly important in rural communities, many of which are in the very districts of my colleagues across the aisle and myself.

Rural communities and low-income communities have long been targeted by corporations, regulatory agencies, and local planning and zoning boards when siting polluting facilities. This includes things like landfills, waste transfer stations, incinerators, garbage dumps, diesel bus and truck garages, auto body shops, smokestack industries, industrial hog and chicken processors, oil refineries, chemical manufacturers, and radioactive waste storage areas.

Because of this, these communities typically have lower property values, higher health disparities, and shorter lifespans.

Why would my colleagues try to defund any effort to improve the lives of people in rural and low-income communities? It is yet another attempt to implement an extreme agenda, to attack minority groups at all costs, and to return the United States to a time when environmental discrimination was the norm.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support our rural and our low- income communities by rejecting this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, the right to vote is a foundation of American democracy. Free and fair elections are a hallmark of our country, and all Americans should have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote without confronting obstacles.

The laws of the United States prohibit racial discrimination, but we are aware of instances where Americans in certain communities are confronted with long lines at the polls or barriers to their participation. I am disappointed that my colleague would want to restrict funding for this executive order that strives to make voter registration easier, expand access to information, and make voting more accessible.

My colleagues across the aisle talk about protecting First Amendment and Second Amendment rights, yet Republicans would prohibit funding for efforts to ensure the basic democratic right for every American to vote.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment would be detrimental to the Forest Service's ability to maintain quality fisheries and safe public drinking water.

Decommissioning of roads is a critical tool in the management of the National Forest System that allows the service to remove roads that are no longer necessary and are likely to cause resource damages to the local watershed affecting fish habitat and water quality.

Decommissioning is used judiciously within the National Forest System, and it is necessary for the Forest Service to ensure that the removal of the road will have little to no impact to public access or fire suppression. Often, when one road is decommissioned, another existing road is identified as the alternative access to the local area which allows access to be maintained. This is an unnecessary amendment.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Madam Chair, first, I thank the chair of this committee. I appreciate the chance to work with him. We have a good working relationship, and I always enjoy the time that we spend together in the committee.

I also thank Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro for her tireless efforts on this committee and the chair of the committee and the staff on both sides of the aisle for the work that they have put into this bill.

As ranking member of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, I am deeply concerned that the majority has once again put forward an Interior appropriations bill that debilitates America's ability to address the climate crisis, and it hobbles the agencies within its jurisdiction.

Climate change is a clear and present danger. Experts agree that we must take bold action to avoid a major, irreversible catastrophe. I am greatly disappointed and frustrated by the bill before us that completely disregards the reality of a warming planet and ignores the need for us to do more, not less.

As the ``Fifth National Climate Assessment'' confirms, the effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States. With that understanding, cutting funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by $1.8 billion, or 20 percent, is irresponsible and severely impacts needed investments in environmental justice, enforcement, and climate change.

If we are going to preserve the health of our environment and our economic well-being, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase our efforts to respond to and mitigate against harmful climate impacts.

This bill also curtails the progress that has been made to ensure that all people are equally protected from environmental and health hazards. The bill abandons our most vulnerable groups that currently bear a disproportionate share of negative environmental impacts, which includes large swaths of rural communities that I and many of my colleagues across the aisle represent.

The bill also slashes funding for land management agencies. The National Park Service alone is cut by $210 million. This cut will mean fewer park rangers to protect and preserve the parks' natural and cultural resources and will negatively impact on the visitor experience.

Funding for cultural institutions, such as the Smithsonian and National Gallery of Art, is also significantly reduced, and the Smithsonian may be forced to consider reducing the number of hours or days each week that the museums are open to the public.

When our constituents bring their families to see our Nation's Capital, I think all Members in this room expect that they should have access to these museums, but this bill could take that away.

The arts have incredible value as a positive tool for economic development, education, and community building, and I will strenuously oppose these cuts in the final spending agreement.

There are areas of bipartisanship, though, and I commend Chairman Simpson's work on wildland fire. The bill includes authorizing language and funding necessary for the administration to carry out its permanent pay reforms for Federal wildland firefighters. This is something we agree on, and I am pleased the bill addresses this important issue.

I am also proud of our work to address treaty and trust obligations on a bipartisan basis. Unfortunately, though, once again, House Republicans have loaded up the bill with widely unpopular policy riders. This year, they have included a whopping 92 poison pill riders that cripple environmental protection, undermine climate change policies, and add to the national deficit.

A majority of Americans support the United States taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2050, and they support taking responsibility for future generations. The austere and irresponsible cuts in this bill do not align with America's values. We need to rise to this challenge and not squander the opportunity to make the planet better for our children and grandchildren.

Madam Chair, I oppose the bill. I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from

Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), the distinguished ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.

Madam Chair, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on Defense.

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

I oppose this bill because it contains 92 poison pill riders that cripple environmental protection, undermine climate change policies, add to the national debt, and include discriminatory riders targeting millions of American citizens that have already proven so divisive in earlier markups.

For this reason, at the appropriate time, I will offer a motion to recommit this bill back to committee. If the House rules permitted, I would have offered the motion with an important amendment to this bill. My amendment would strike these 92 poison pill riders.

The riders in this bill give an open invitation to exploitative oil, gas, and mineral leasing and block rules that protect our public lands and resources for our children and grandchildren.

It is our job as legislators to preserve pristine water and undisturbed arctic landscapes and save iconic species and apex predators, which maintain healthy ecosystems that benefit us all.

I am strongly opposed to any effort to discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community or prevent flying a flag that is chosen to reflect the full history, culture, and people of this great country.

This bill is the latest in a string of appropriations bills that create divisions in our society instead of fostering collaboration to address challenges, like climate change, that impact all of us.

If my Republican colleagues hope to have a bill that is not dead on arrival in the Senate, they would strike these egregious riders.

Madam Chair, I include in the Record the text of the amendment.

Ms. Pingree moves to recommit the bill H.R. 8998 to the

Committee on Appropriations with the following amendment:

Strike sections 116, 117, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129,

130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141,

142, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155,

156, 157, 158, 159, 430, 431, 434, 435, 436, 440, 441, 443,

444, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, 458,

459, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 470,

472, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483,

484, 485, 486, 487, 488, 490, 491, 492, 493, 494, 495, and

496.

Madam Chair, I hope my colleagues will join me in voting for the motion to recommit.

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

Madam Chair, I support the en bloc amendment, I urge its adoption, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus).

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Kennedy).

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history, and more than 1 million species are currently threatened with extinction, many within decades.

This amendment seeks to legislate species status rather than providing species with the protections they are afforded under the Endangered Species Act, our principal conservation law, and it would potentially increase litigation regarding the government's responsibility to implement the statutory requirements of the Endangered Species Act.

Once again, my Republican colleagues are disregarding the law. The best available scientific and commercial information, not politics, should determine whether a species is listed as threatened or endangered.

This amendment circumvents the rigorous process that is in place to make these determinations as well as the role of public input. Human activities that are threatening and diminishing animal habitats, polluting nature, and accelerating global warming are driving species to extinction.

When we lose a species, impacts reverberate throughout ecosystems, and we all suffer because our economy, health, livelihoods, food security, and quality of life all depend on healthy ecosystems.

Defunding the service's ability to list species would work against the clear intent of the Endangered Species Act and would further litigation by outside groups on both sides. It would undercut the service's ability to work collaboratively with Tribes, other Federal agencies, States, local communities, and landowners to conserve the species.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and protect vulnerable species so that future generations benefit from a world with healthy ecosystems and robust biodiversity.

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

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, the Interior appropriations bill we are considering today includes 92 poison pill riders in the base bill, and I object to the inclusion of any more.

We are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change, such as the drought, flooding, severe storm, and wildfire events we are experiencing.

As of July 9, the United States has experienced 15 confirmed weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each. That is 15 events over $1 billion this year alone by July. As we all know, Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas on July 8, and we know more storms will follow this year.

This amendment seeks to block the Fish and Wildlife Service from working with willing sellers to expand conservation of the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge through fee title and easement acquisitions. Investment in and expansion of the National Wildlife Refuge System follows on to the Service's work with partners to identify a conservation strategy and limited acquisition boundary that will support sandhill crane, pronghorn, and the lesser prairie-chicken, as well as a full suite of other wildlife that relies on grassland and wetland habitat types.

This plan is a critical step in protecting the future of the Southern High Plains region in New Mexico and Texas for iconic species. This area is also important to conserve for related benefits, like clean water filtration and carbon sequestration, which are essential to environmental and human well-being. Our economy, health, livelihoods, food security, and quality of life all depend on healthy ecosystems.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and focus instead on addressing climate change and making our Nation stronger.

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

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, this amendment would prohibit funding for the establishment of any national monument in Malheur County.

The Antiquities Act provides the President with the authority to designate national monuments in order to protect objects of historic or scientific

interest. Both Republican and Democratic Presidents have used this authority to increase the protection of special Federal lands.

This amendment inappropriately restricts the President's ability to declare a national monument in specific parts of the country. It goes against 100 years of American tradition to protect the Nation's cultural and natural resources.

The Antiquities Act represents an important achievement in the progress of conservation and preservation efforts in the United States. Congress should not stand in the way of these achievements.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to the amendment, and I am sorry to tell my good friend from Oklahoma that I oppose her on this misguided amendment.

One of our greatest strengths as a Nation is our diversity. The American experience is not a singular experience, and diversity programs exist to recognize this. We should not defund or block the Smithsonian from holding LGBTQIA+ events and restricting program and content development when we know the Smithsonian is committed to broadly sharing information so parents can make decisions about what is appropriate content for their children.

Madam Chair, I oppose this amendment, I encourage my colleagues to do the same, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I will remind the body, again, that I strongly oppose this amendment. One of our greatest strengths as a Nation is our diversity.

The events that my colleague on the other side of the aisle was referring to were all held during Pride Month. It is an extremely important activity during that month to talk about the importance of our diversity and that America is not a singular experience. We represent a whole variety of people.

I think that any kind of restriction on the content or programming of the art that goes on in the Smithsonian is a terrible, slippery slope. We have seen this happen at other times in our country. Some of us are either old enough or have a memory of Edwin Meese when he was the Attorney General and decided to drape the statues in the Capitol and spent thousands of dollars because he was deciding what was culturally appropriate or what should be going on.

The fact is these are all widely advertised programs that parents can make decisions about. I don't think we should do anything to restrict the content, the art, or the programming at the Smithsonian.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, this amendment is petty and punitive. Rather than pursuing grudges against public servants, my colleagues across the aisle should focus their energy on negotiating with the Senate on a bill to fund the government. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, this amendment, once again, is petty and punitive. I don't think this is the appropriate place to pursue grudges against hardworking public servants who we ask to do an extremely important job in Washington.

Let me just say this. This is a use of the Holman rule in a way to-- just talking about my colleague on the other side of the aisle--object to the work that is going on related to climate change.

This bill is going to be full of amendments from people who either don't believe in climate change, don't think we should invest in it, or aren't willing to think about the future.

It is our job to make sure that we are protecting the future of this planet, of this country, of our economy, of the people who live in the United States, and the future of our children and grandchildren.

We are going to hear a litany of opposition through amendments, amendments like these, from people who

don't believe that we are having the hottest summer on record, who aren't paying attention to the extreme floods and to the storms that are impacting us, to the damage it has already done to the economy, to the billions of dollars we are already spending, and who are going to use any means possible to block the work we are doing to fight climate change.

I oppose this amendment. I am going to continue to oppose these amendments that are really just another way to deny that climate changes exists and that we have a responsibility to work on it.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, once again, I will say that we are going to have a litany of amendments from people who don't believe in climate change no matter what they say, no matter how many times people on the other side of the aisle say, oh, no, no, I really want clean air and clean water, but I don't want to do the hard work that has to be done.

To call these policies extremist Green New Deal policies is just a way to dismiss that we have a serious problem before us.

We have serious work to do. It is our responsibility to protect the planet for future generations to make sure that we can continue to live and exist on this planet.

Madam Chair, I reject this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment is one more controversial poison pill policy that sadly shows that extremist Republicans are not interested in bills that can gain bipartisan support and become law.

In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, the BLM drafted a proposed draft resource management plan and draft supplemental environmental impact statement for the Colorado River Valley field office and Grand Junction field office. This plan is an updated, comprehensive, and environmentally advocate framework for managing uses of these public lands and resources. Sadly, this amendment seeks to block that plan.

We are here to protect the welfare of the American public and preserve our public lands and resources for future generations. Once again, my Republican colleagues are disregarding the law and trying to circumvent the rigorous process that is in place to update resource management plans. The amendment also nullifies the public comments that have been collected by legislating the outcome.

We cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change we are experiencing as our economy, health, livelihoods, food security, and quality of life all depend on healthy ecosystems.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and to focus instead on addressing climate change and being good stewards of our public lands and resources for the benefit of future generations.

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

Mr. Chair, I just want to say one thing about my colleague's amendment. She is making the case for the fact that we have to continue to drill for oil or natural gas in Colorado, and I understand the concerns that people have when the economy changes. I can imagine how difficult it is when people have to look at new opportunities as opposed to continuing the careers that they have always done.

However, the reason we are here addressing this and the reason any changes would be made at a Federal level are because we are facing catastrophic climate change. The scientists have told us we have no time left to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel, and yet my colleague is talking about how we need to bring more fossil fuels back into our energy stream.

We have made incredible strides with solar power, wind power, and all of the renewable energy we are investing in today. She talks about her role to protect Colorado. Well, my role is to protect the State of Maine. I invite the gentlewoman to come and visit anytime. The ocean in Maine is warming at a rate 99 percent faster than the oceans around the world.

I talked to a fisherman this weekend when I was home, and I asked him how fishing was going this summer as the weather has warmed up and as the ocean has warmed up. We are seeing a serious depletion in the fishing stocks. They can't survive in warmer waters. They migrate to colder waters. They devastate the economy of our fishermen.

If the gentlewoman wants to preserve the economy in her State, then it is important to think about renewable energy and ways to make sure that we can support an energy future that works for all of us and not just for her own State's needs.

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

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

This amendment would prohibit the use of any Federal funds to create national monuments under the Antiquities Act of 1906 in Montrose, Mesa, Montezuma, San Juan, or Dolores Counties in Colorado.

The Antiquities Act provides the President with the authority to designate national monuments in order to protect objects of historic or scientific interest.

This amendment inappropriately restricts the President's ability to declare national monuments in specific parts of the country. Both Republican and Democratic Presidents have used this authority to increase the protection of special Federal lands. It goes against 100 years of American tradition to protect the Nation's cultural and natural resources.

The Antiquities Act represents an important achievement in the progress of conservation and preservation efforts in the United States. Congress should not stand in the way of these achievements.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I reiterate once again that climate change is a serious issue. It is something to be debated with facts and actual information, not just speculation or things heard on the internet.

One of the reasons we passed the Inflation Reduction Act is to bring some of the manufacturing for renewable energy back into the United States, and I strongly support that.

I support all countries making a serious effort to reduce their investment in fossil fuel and their dependence on fossil fuel. That is what we were debating in the last amendment.

This amendment is about national monuments. Again, I reiterate that national monuments and the designation of them has been an important tool for Presidents of both parties. We should not be doing anything that diminishes that opportunity for an administration.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment, again, is purely an anti- climate messaging amendment. It prohibits funds for section 134 of the Clean Air Act, which is better known as the greenhouse gas reduction fund.

The greenhouse gas reduction fund is a $27 billion investment to mobilize financing and private capital to address the climate crisis, ensure our country's economic competitiveness, and promote energy independence.

Mr. Chair, I note that all of that $27 billion is mandatory spending. This bill does not contain any funding for the greenhouse gas reduction fund. The effect of this amendment is nothing more than anti-climate rhetoric.

We are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the impact of climate change. We need to make smart investments that will result in more resilient communities, mitigate the impacts of climate change, and protect our world for future generations.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, as my colleague well knows, the Federal Government has a special trust responsibility and legal obligation to provide quality healthcare to American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Unfortunately, we have fallen short of providing the funding that is required to overcome the staggering health disparities and address the health crisis in Indian Country.

Healthcare is provided to sovereign and independent nations, and we have no right to discriminate against or dictate the health services they choose to provide.

I am disappointed that my colleague would want to prohibit funding for any healthcare service to American Indians and Alaska Natives because of his own partisan agenda.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, the National Endowment for the Arts is the Federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans with diverse opportunities for arts participation. This small but mighty agency supports arts organizations and artists in every congressional district in the country and these investments yield enormous economic benefits.

This amendment would cut the NEA by nearly one-third. That would result in a reduction of an estimated 900 awards. These funds are one- to-one cost-share matched, which means that funding from 56 State and jurisdictional art agencies and 6 regional arts organizations would also be cut by nearly one-third. That would be a reduction of roughly $20 million. This means that there would be nearly one-third cuts across the board to each and every State art agency.

The arts have an incredible value as a positive tool for economic development, education, and community building, and deeply cutting this important agency would cause catastrophic harm.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), chairman of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

Mr. Chair, this amendment is incredibly destructive. It would result in a cut to services for active military and veterans by nearly one-third. The NEA has recently expanded its Creative Forces program outside of clinical settings into communities across the country. This would be a huge setback.

In addition to expanding Creative Forces since FY19, the NEA has increased its engagement in rural communities through additional investment in Citizens' Institute on Rural Design, as well as Tribal communities and Tribes, and these would all suffer.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

This misguided amendment would significantly hinder support for high-quality projects and programs that reach every State and territory and benefit millions of Americans.

The NEH is a unique source of funding for a wide range of local, nonprofit institutions and organizations across the country. These grants strengthen teaching and learning in schools and colleges; facilitate research and original scholarship; provide opportunities for lifelong learning; preserve and provide access to cultural and educational resources; and strengthen the institutional base of the humanities.

NEH grants are sound investments in our communities. These awards stimulate significant financial participation and commitment by local and private partners. We should be doing more for the NEH, not less.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), chairman of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for scholars is the official memorial to President Wilson and a nonpartisan forum for tackling global issues through independent research and open dialogue.

In a divisive world, we need more opportunities to listen to and have dialogue with others who may not share our point of view. The Wilson Center is a great resource for policymakers as they confront today's challenges.

I am disappointed my colleague would want to eliminate funding for this important institution.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, one of our greatest strengths as a Nation is our diversity.

The American experience is not a singular experience, and diversity programs exist to recognize this. The fact is, and many business leaders agree, that having a diverse and inclusive culture in the workplace is critical to performance.

Attempting to defund or block the implementation of these efforts only takes us back in time where our Nation's diversity was not seen as an asset.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, encourage my colleagues to do the same, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, we are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change, such as the drought, flooding, severe storm, and wildfire events we are experiencing.

Climate change has reached a crisis point, and we must take bold action to avoid a major irreversible catastrophe. We must invest in renewable energy if we are to tackle this problem.

This shortsighted amendment does not prepare this Nation to address climate change by prohibiting funds for updating a roadmap for solar energy development across the West that is designed to expand solar energy production and make renewable energy siting and permitting on America's public lands more efficient.

I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Chair, this is my experience: Climate change deniers, the people who want to just support the fossil-fuel industry, continually use misinformation, disinformation, social media memes, all kinds of things to argue their point, but the ultimate challenge here is we have an overdependence on fossil fuels.

The use of fossil fuels is contributing to too much CO2 in the atmosphere, which has created this extreme weather that we now have to live through and experience, whether it is the heat, flooding, extreme storms, whatever it is.

If we care about the future of our planet, if we truly believe that it is our job as elected officials to protect the American public, we can't close our eyes to these impacts of climate change, so arguing about where things are manufactured or how they are disposed is a way of avoiding the fact that we have to move into renewable energy, and that is our challenge today.

Of course, we don't want to use things that are strictly manufactured in China. That is why we passed the IRA, to put more domestic investment in things like solar panels and batteries and the things that we desperately need.

As to this question about end-of-life solar panels, I wholeheartedly agree, we should recycle as much as we possibly can of everything that we are using in this country. Let me just read this little fact about that: ``Waste from end-of-life solar panels presents opportunities to recover valuable materials and create jobs through recycling. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, by 2030 the cumulative value of recoverable raw materials from end-of-life panels globally will be about $450 million, which is equivalent to the cost of raw materials currently needed to produce about 60 million new panels. Diverting solar panels from landfills to recycling saves space in landfills in addition to capturing the value of raw materials.''

I am all in favor of recycling them. That is absolutely something that we can accomplish, and those are the facts, not a social media misinformation/disinformation meme, whatever it is.

Mr. Chair, I wholeheartedly urge my colleagues to join me in opposing this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment is one more controversial poison pill policy rider that sadly shows that extremist Republicans are not interested in bills that can gain bipartisan support and become law.

In accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, the BLM drafted the proposed draft resource management plan and environmental impact statement for Rock Springs and provided a 90-day comment period.

This amendment prohibits the BLM from finalizing, implementing, administering, or enforcing an updated, comprehensive, and environmentally adequate framework for managing uses of public lands and resources.

We are here to protect the welfare of the American public and preserve our public lands and resources for future generations. The land considered for protection has low prospects for oil and gas yields and includes natural treasures such as petroglyphs, North America's largest sand dunes, and migration corridors for bighorn sheep, mule deer, and elk.

Once again, my Republican colleagues are disregarding the law and trying to circumvent the rigorous process that is in place to update resource management plans. This amendment also nullifies the public comments that have been collected by legislating the outcome.

We cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change that we are experiencing as our economy, health, livelihoods, food security, and quality of life all depend on healthy ecosystems.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and focus instead on addressing climate change and being good stewards of our public lands and resources for the benefit of future generations.

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

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

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment would block the EPA from operating its Office of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. The EPA established this office to be the primary liaison between rural and agricultural stakeholders and the agency. It works to find practical science-based solutions that protect the environment while ensuring a vibrant and productive agricultural system. Taking away this important resource would put our farmers at a disadvantage. We should be working to increase the coordination in the agriculture community, not stifling it.

Mr. Chair, I oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I just want to wholeheartedly disagree with my colleague on the other side of the aisle and the premise of this amendment.

I serve on the Agriculture Committee. I have been a farmer much of my life. I represent a tremendous number of farmers, and I come from an agricultural State.

I don't see what benefit it would be to farmers to put them at this level of disadvantage to take away this office that was there to support communication between the EPA and farmers.

I will admit it is not always an easy relationship between farmers and the EPA. Sometimes there are challenges that go on there, certainly with waters of the U.S., which we have debated at length in the Agriculture Committee. I know it is really important for farmers to be heard so that when regulations are made, they serve both our environment and the farmers. You can actually do both.

When I hear people dismissing climate change or calling them ridiculous policies that are enacted by this administration, I think they don't really understand the challenges that farmers are facing today. Farmers are the first ones impacted by the adverse weather we have, whether it is extreme drought or extreme cold.

In my State of Maine, we have had unusual temperatures, cold weather late into the spring that has frozen the blossoms on our fruit trees or drought in the middle of the summer when it wasn't expected, rainy summers where we can't manage all of the water or flooding that impacts our farmers. These things are happening all over our country.

Climate change policies, those things that will mitigate climate change, where farmers can be our partners, which they often are in many of the policies that are implemented through this administration, things that help to sequester more carbon or help farmers to deal with many of the issues that they are challenged by, are critically important to them to make sure that we continue to have farmers during this difficult time.

Also, there are some issues that farmers in my State are dealing with, particularly related to PFAS, this forever chemical that has turned up in the soils of many farms in our States. That is regulated by the EPA. Many of the decisions that have to be made about what is allowable in a vegetable or in our milk or how to remove it from the water or the soil, those are things that go on at the EPA.

To not have this liaison with farmers, many of whom are losing their farms in States like mine and States all over the country because they are contaminated with PFAS from previous flood spreading, not having that liaison so farmers can engage on what the EPA is going to advise and how to work with it, is frankly just a ridiculous idea.

This is a ridiculous amendment. It doesn't speak to the needs of farmers. It is a messaging amendment, once again, to be anti-climate change, antigovernment, and anti-EPA. My colleagues should oppose it. It has no business being before us here today.

Mr. Chair, I recommend people oppose this, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I claim time in opposition, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment is one more controversial poison pill policy rider that sadly shows extremist Republicans are not interested in bills that can gain bipartisan support and become law.

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names is a Federal body created in 1890 and established in its present form by Public Law in 1947 to maintain uniform geographic name usage throughout the Federal Government.

The board is comprised of representatives of Federal agencies concerned with geographic information, population, ecology, and management of public lands.

In this age of geographic information systems, the internet, and homeland defense, geographic names data are even more important.

The board works in partnership with Federal, State, Tribal, and local agencies and more than 50 nations have some type of national names authority.

My Republican colleagues should be more focused on creating bills that will garner bipartisan support and become law, not prohibiting funding for a board that helps surveyor, mapmakers, and scientists, and serves the Federal Government and the public as a central authority to which name problems, name inquiries, name changes, and new name proposals can be directed.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prevent the EPA from designating certain Michigan counties as being in nonattainment of the 2015 ozone standard.

Under the Clean Air Act, the EPA is required to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards for contaminants, like ground-level ozone, that are adequate to protect public health, including the health of sensitive groups, such as children and the elderly. These health standards, or NAAQS, must reflect the recent scientific and medical data.

Once EPA sets or revises a NAAQS, EPA uses air-monitoring data recommendations from States to determine which areas meet the standard and those that do not, known as being in nonattainment. States then go to work to develop plans using the most cost-effective strategies to bring nonattainment areas in compliance with the standard.

Allowing a county that exceeds the standard to be considered in attainment doesn't do anything for the families and workers living in those counties who are breathing toxic air. It tells America that there is nothing to see here while they bear the brunt of the environmental hazards.

Contrary to what polluters will have Members believe, being designated as nonattainment does not shut down economies. Businesses have and do continue to operate and expand in nonattainment areas. However, the designation ensures that States and businesses are taking measures to control air pollution and help communities to achieve cleaner, healthier air.

This amendment is a sweetheart deal for just three counties in Michigan. It puts polluters over people, allowing industry to emit more toxic contaminants, and leaving Americans to pay with their own health.

Breathing air containing ozone can reduce lung function and inflame airways, which can aggravate respiratory systems and trigger asthma attacks. Ozone exposure also increases the risk of premature death from heart or lung disease. More asthma attacks and more respiratory disease mean more medication, more doctors' visits, more trips to the ER, and more hospital admissions. It also means more absences from school and work. All of this is a drag on the economy.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, which fails to recognize the serious threat of air pollution and leaves families and children unprotected.

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

Mr. Chairman, I do appreciate the concerns that my colleague on the other side of the aisle expresses. Representing Maine, we are actually one of those States that receives the bad air of much of the Midwestern States. I am well aware of the concerns that the gentleman is expressing.

It actually sounds like my colleague on the other side of the aisle is in favor of the Good Neighbor Authority, which the Supreme Court recently pushed back on, which would, in fact, do more to penalize the perpetrators.

I agree with the gentleman. We should penalize polluters, but I will say that much of the agenda on the other side of the aisle has been to do the opposite. I hope we can continue fighting to make sure we are pointing fingers at exactly the sources of that pollution and not allowing random counties to be penalized or whole States like mine, who often experience bad air from other States.

I urge opposition to this amendment. The fact is that these three counties are out of attainment. Those people who live in those counties need a remedy and need to have cleaner air.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment seeks to reduce the Fish and Wildlife Service back to fiscal year 2021 levels. The House-based bill already reduces the Service's funding by $144 million, or 8 percent below the enacted level, which would make it impossible for that critically important agency to function.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment. I encourage my colleagues to oppose it as well, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history, and more than 1 million species are currently threatened with extinction, many within decades.

This amendment seeks to legislate species status, rather than providing species with a protection they are afforded under the Endangered Species Act, our principle conservation law, and would potentially increase litigation regarding the government's responsibility to implement the statutory requirements of the Endangered Species Act.

Once again, my Republican colleagues are disregarding the law. The best available scientific and commercial information, not politics, should determine whether a species is listed as threatened or endangered.

This amendment circumvents the rigorous process that is in place to make those determinations as well as the role of public input. The primary factor influencing the viability of the Texas kangaroo rat is habitat loss and conversion, largely related to historic land use changes.

Human activities that threaten and diminish animal habitats, pollute nature, and accelerate global warming

are driving species' extinction and creating unhealthy ecosystems.

When we lose a species, impacts reverberate throughout ecosystems, and we all suffer because our economy, health, livelihoods, food security, and quality of life all depend on healthy ecosystems.

Defunding the service's ability to list species would work against the clear intent of the Endangered Species Act and would further litigation by outside groups on both sides. It would also undercut the service's ability to work collaboratively with Tribes, other Federal agencies, States, local communities, and landowners to conserve the species.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and protect the vulnerable species so future generations can benefit from a world with healthy ecosystems and robust biodiversity.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize an unwavering leader in my state who is retiring after several decades of dedicated service to environmental stewardship, legislative leadership, and an inclusive democracy.

For over thirty years, Beth Ahearn has worked tirelessly to protect Maine's environment, advance climate policies, expand voting rights, and secure elections. As the Director of Government Affairs for both Maine Conservation Alliance and Maine Conservation Voters, Beth's guidance was instrumental in shaping impactful policies for the betterment of Maine's natural resources and democratic processes.

Prior to Beth's tenure with Maine Conservation Voters, her experience and breadth of knowledge were influential in various capacities. Beth's previous roles included lobbying on behalf of Moose Ridge Associates, representing children as guardian ad litem, as staff attorney for Maine Audubon, and as an Assistant District Attorney in Cumberland and Androscoggin Counties.

Throughout her distinguished career, Beth oversaw several achievements that will protect Maine's environment for generations to come. In addition to crafting common sense legislation to make conservation, climate action, and voting rights political priorities, Beth guided the restoration of alewives on the St. Croix River, led the passage into law the Extended Producer Responsibility Program for Packaging and secured funding for the Land for Maine's Future Program.

Beth Ahearn's commitment to the environment and strengthening our democracy makes me very proud to represent her and the State of Maine in Congress. I wish Beth the best in her retirement, and I wholeheartedly thank her for her many years of influential work.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a dedicated advocate and leader in my state who is retiring after several decades working to improve the lives of her fellow citizens. For nearly fifty years, Christine (``Chris'') Hastedt has worked tirelessly to further equity, economic security, and access to higher education--among many other things--for all Mainers.

At the start of her career, Chris worked as a paralegal at Pine Tree Legal Assistance, a nonprofit organization which provides free, civil legal assistance to low-income people in Maine. Through her dedication and ingenuity, Chris proved to be fearless and deeply effective at expanding access to legal representation for countless people. Chris' years with Pine Tree were only the first of her forty-eight celebrated years as a respected and well-known force in the Maine State House. During my years at the State House, I relied on Chris for accurate information, strategic thinking and passion for all of the right causes. Many of our successes during that era were due to her assistance and persistence.

In 1996, Chris co-founded Maine Equal Justice, a nonprofit civil legal aid and economic justice organization. Under her guidance as Senior Policy Advisor, Maine Equal Justice has empowered people to better understand laws and independently navigate government systems to support their needs. By sharing her resources and policy knowledge, Chris has established coalitions among government agencies, policymakers, experts, academics, and national partners. Chris has consistently led with empathy and a distinct understanding of how to work with people across all backgrounds and life experiences.

In addition, Chris has dedicated her time to making higher education and workforce training more accessible for Mainers with low incomes. By advocating for programs such as Parents as Scholars, the Competitive Skills Scholarship Program, and Higher Opportunity for Pathways to Employment, Chris has helped thousands of Maine people reach their goals by expanding access to postsecondary education.

Chris Hastedts' nearly half-century as a uniquely dedicated advocate makes me very proud to represent her and the State of Maine in Congress. I wish Chris the best in her retirement, and I wholeheartedly thank her for her many years of influential work.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize a visionary advocate and leader in my state who, for decades, has worked to improve the lives of her fellow citizens. Over her influential career, Mary Henderson has worked as an attorney and co-founded a legal aid and economic justice nonprofit--among many other roles--to consistently address root causes of poverty.

Mary's advocacy for Maine people began at Pine Tree Legal Assistance, a nonprofit organization which provides free civil legal assistance. As a staff attorney, Mary tirelessly provided representation on a variety of cases. Under Mary's guidance, countless people were able to access government supports for which they were eligible but had previously been improperly denied.

In 1996, Mary co-founded Maine Equal Justice, a nonprofit civil legal aid and economic justice organization. In her role as Executive Director, Mary assisted in the acquisition of a location and the securing of funds to create a sustainable and reliable resource for Maine's most vulnerable populations. Through her defense of government programs for public healthcare, education access, and housing and food security, Mary's work has improved the lives of thousands of Maine people.

Since leaving Maine Equal Justice, Mary has brought her expertise and unwavering dedication to the Office of Substance Abuse, Maine Department of Labor, Office of Maine Care Services, National Academy for State Health Policy, Maine Children's Alliance, and Preble Street Resource Center. In each of her roles, Mary has intentionally centered the voices and experiences of the people of Maine who are served by these critical government and anti-poverty programs.

I had the great pleasure of working with Mary during my years in the State House and was able to see firsthand how the State of Maine benefitted from her knowledge, skills, and advocacy. I am very proud to represent her and the State of Maine in Congress. I wish Mary continued success, and I wholeheartedly thank her for her many years of influential work.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding the time.

I, too, rise to support the fiscal year 2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act. I particularly thank Ranking Member DeLauro for her leadership and perseverance in working on this. I also thank my chair on the committee, Chairman Simpson, who is a pleasure to work with. I appreciate his collaboration and partnership throughout this process.

I thank Chairwoman Granger for her work on this and to all the staff who have made all the difference in us being able to put this together.

As my colleague, Chairman Simpson, said, this wasn't necessarily an easy bill. It is never easy to make cuts to programs that I consider vital and particularly important to what we do, but I am pleased that this bill continues our investments to care for our planet, fight the climate emergency, and meet our trust obligations to Tribal nations.

This bill rejects the $13 billion in devastating cuts imposed in the House Republican bill originally and does not include more than 100 poison pill policy riders.

The bill provides necessary resources to deal with the threat of wildfires in the West and additional funding to continue the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act's pay supplement for wildland firefighters.

The bill also protects arts and humanities, maintaining the enacted funding level for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, supporting arts in communities across this country.

Finally, this bill supports Native American families by investing in a strong and resilient Indian Country, including through education and healthcare programs.

Mr. Speaker, these are important investments to all Americans, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, since December 18, 2023, my home State of Maine has endured a barrage of devastating storms causing severe flooding, power outages, and millions of dollars in damages.

The sheer destruction that these storms have done to our working waterfronts is astonishing.

More frequent, intense storms, floods, and rising sea levels mean our communities will continue to be faced with the kind of devastation we have seen in Maine over the past few weeks.

At the same time, our working waterfronts are rapidly disappearing nationwide due to heavy development pressure.

When fishermen must grapple with the loss of wharves, processing facilities, and other essential infrastructure, in addition to navigating the challenge of climate change, it threatens the very survival of our communities.

My and Congressman Wittman's bipartisan Keep America's Waterfronts Working Act will help reverse a worrying trend of shrinking waterfronts while simultaneously protecting jobs and preserving the character of our coastal communities.

Congress must act to protect our working waterfronts and the more than 30,000 Mainers and 2.3 million Americans who rely on marine- related industries for their livelihoods. This is bigger than any of us.

Mr. Chair, I thank my friend, Mr. Grijalva, for yielding me the time.

Mr. Chair, this bill does nothing to address the immigration crisis facing our Nation. It does not help New York City, and it doesn't help the asylum seekers.

I represent Portland, Maine, which, like New York, has welcomed an influx of asylum seekers this year. Portland has also struggled to find sufficient housing for our new neighbors.

If Republicans are serious about getting asylum seekers out of shelters, then we should be debating my amendment to replace this misguided bill with my plan to get asylum seekers to work faster. Currently, asylum seekers must wait at least 6 months before they are eligible to receive work authorization. The bipartisan Asylum Seeker Work Authorization Act would cut this waiting time to 30 days, allowing asylum seekers to get to work faster and no longer rely on social safety net programs to survive.

I have spoken to countless asylum seekers who are anxious to get to work and start supporting themselves and their families and contribute to their communities. We just need to get out of their way.

I have also heard from employers from across the country who would jump at the chance to hire asylum seekers. At present, there are 9.5 million job openings in the United States and only 6.5 million unemployed workers. That leaves a gap of 3 million job openings that businesses need asylum seekers to fill. That is why business groups like the United States Chamber of Commerce have endorsed my bill.

My commonsense proposal would make no changes to the asylum process. It would simply reduce the amount of time that asylum seekers are barred from filling critical job openings.

As President Reagan once said, immigrants are one of the most important sources of America's greatness.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues across the aisle to join me in supporting this commonsense, bipartisan solution.

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

Mr. Chair, in recent years, Democrats have made historic investments in environmental justice, and the EPA has already put those dollars to good use. I think it is unfortunate that my colleagues across the aisle continue to attack good government programs.

Environmental justice, just to explain this, ensures that all Americans receive the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards. It is particularly important in rural communities, like the one I represent and like the one I imagine my colleague represents. Many of these rural communities are in the very districts my colleagues across the aisle are representing.

Rural communities and low-income communities have long been targeted by corporations, regulatory agencies, and local planning and zoning boards when siting polluting facilities.

Let me give you a list of the kinds of things we are talking about here: landfills, waste transfer stations, incinerators, garbage dumps, diesel bus and truck garages, auto body shops, smokestack industries, industrial hog and chicken processors, oil refineries, chemical manufacturers, and radioactive waste storage areas.

Because of this, these communities typically have lower property values, higher health disparities, and shorter lifespans. We are not talking about something trivial here. We are talking about serious concerns about your health, the length of your life, and what your property is worth.

Why would my colleagues try to defund any effort to improve the lives of people in rural and low-income communities?

I am sorry, but it is just another attempt to implement an extreme agenda to attack minority groups at all costs and to return to a time when environmental discrimination was the norm.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support our rural and low-income communities by rejecting this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Chairman, my colleague on the other side of the aisle said no one ever calls his office and talks about environmental justice. I understand. There are all kinds of words we use in Congress that people rarely talk to us about. They don't talk to us about many of the procedures that we have on the floor, all kinds of things that we do.

However, you do have people who call your office to say: Do you know what? I don't want that chemical manufacturer sited next to my house. I am worried about that hog farm that is coming down the road from me. I am worried about the garbage dump. I am worried about the health impacts that my family is experiencing because of where we live.

Maybe that didn't happen in your district. I will admit that everything doesn't happen in all of our districts, but there are certainly districts across the country where people are experiencing adverse health impacts. They are experiencing loss of property values because things have been sited in their neighborhood.

Maybe my colleague, like so many times here in Congress, just doesn't like the words. I understand. I have heard the term ``environmental justice'' so many times over the last couple of days, as if it is some kind of a discriminatory term, or as if it is some kind of term that they just can't get out of their mouth without feeling angry.

We can call it anything we want. We can call it poor siting of messy places. We can call it anything my colleagues want. To make sure that all Americans get a fair deal and that people don't have adverse health impacts, I am willing to change that, just like we can't say ``climate change'' without people getting upset.

I am happy, every time we have to discuss this, just to say ``extreme weather.'' Okay, it is extreme weather. It is too much melting. It is too much heat. Too much of things that aren't supposed to happen and going wrong--the hottest summer on record, melting of the polar ice cap, and people who live in communities like mine experiencing the greatest heat in the ocean of any oceans on Earth.

These are things that are impacting all of us. I will call it whatever my colleagues like, but we have to do something about it. We have to have equity here, and we have to make sure it is a fair deal for everybody.

I heard you didn't like the term ``tree equity.'' I get it. It is one of those things that you just think: What are we talking about now?

In fact, urban areas have changed. I am so fortunate that I live in the most forested State in the Nation. I don't know what it is like where my colleague lives. If my colleague lives on top of a hill, maybe there are some trees up there. It makes a huge difference if you are in a part of the city that has trees, if your playgrounds are paved and black and hot in the summer, or if your playgrounds have some trees and shade and some cover so kids can go out and play. We are just talking about kids being able to play on the playground and having a decent life.

When we are talking about making sure we plant trees, which often my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say is a really good idea, we go ahead and believe we should plant more trees.

Let's not get caught up in the terminology. I think there is a lot we could work on together here and that we believe in together. This amendment to disregard all funding for environmental justice--tell me what you want to call it--that is just not appropriate and is not how we should be funding our environmental laws and not how we should be dealing with climate change.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chair, we are only 14 days away from a government shutdown, and instead of focusing on keeping the government open, we are working on a bill that is going nowhere.

The draconian cuts that are proposed in this bill violate the agreement reached by former Speaker McCarthy and President Biden and that were memorialized in statute in Public Law 118-5, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.

We would not be teetering on the brink of a government shutdown if my Republican colleagues had held up their end of the bargain.

Now we are here today to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change, such as the drought, flooding, severe storms, and wildfire events we are experiencing.

As of October 10, the United States has experienced 24 confirmed weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each. This is a new record.

This amendment seeks to prohibit funding that will result in more resilient communities, mitigate the impacts of climate change, and protect our world for future generations.

Not investing in strategies that minimize and prevent the acceleration of climate change and instead spending billions in disaster relief shows my Republican colleagues are not thinking about what is best for the American taxpayer. Our economy, our health, our livelihoods, our food security, and our quality of life all depend on healthy ecosystems.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and to focus instead on addressing climate change and on making our Nation stronger, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, my colleague on the other side of the aisle has proposed this bill that would really slash and burn so many of the important programs that our President has implemented to tackle climate change.

Why did he have to do that?

I have been in Congress for about 15 years, and I am very fortunate to have served that amount of time. But since I came here, I have been dealing with colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have denied that climate change existed, who have done everything they could to support the oil and gas industry, and who have pushed back on any kind of legislation or funding or anything we could possibly do to deal with climate change, and 15 years later we are in a very serious situation.

Now, my colleague is proud of saying that it is a simple truth. It is a simple truth this, it is a simple truth that.

Mr. Chair, let me tell you a simple truth. Our planet is warming. We had the hottest summer on record, oceans are heating. The polar ice cap is melting. We are in a very serious state, and most scientists will say that things are happening much faster than we ever anticipated. Here we are having a ridiculous debate about something that is not actually going to go anywhere and a bill that is not going to happen with a party on the other side of the aisle that wants to cut everything we have already done in the last 2 years to support funding for climate change.

This is our responsibility to our children and our grandchildren. Mr. Chair, you can say that we are just going to handle it in my small town and my small State. I am just going to explain to you that the planet is warming as an entire entity. Yes, we have to deal with foreign countries, but we also have to make sure that our country is on the right track, that we are investing in renewable energy, that we are not putting our heads in the sand and just ignoring what is going on out there, that all of these things are critically important. We have to stop digging in our heels on every single bill and denying that climate change is real and making all kinds of crazy arguments about well, it is India's fault or China's fault or America can't do it.

We can do all these things. We can manufacture the batteries in this country. We can manufacture the solar panels in this country. That is much of what we have done in the last bill, the infrastructure bill, the IRA, investing in our country, and investing in American manufacturing so that this can be homegrown American energy.

Every time the gentleman talks about gas prices, he refuses to acknowledge that we are trying to end our dependence on gas and oil, we are trying to make sure we are an energy-independent nation, and, yes, that takes a transition. Nonetheless, at this moment in time, we have to make those investments in the future.

I have never seen a party so unwilling to invest in our economic future and to acknowledge what is actually happening in our daily lives and in our families' daily lives.

If the gentleman really listened to his constituents or took their calls or listened to what people are saying about their worries about the future, one of their greatest worries is what are we going to do about the warming planet?

What are we going to do about the number of days when kids can't go outside and play because it is too hot?

What are we going to do about making sure we are looking at our future together?

That is not what the gentleman is doing here. He is just denying that climate change exists. He is denying that we have real work ahead of us and we ought to be doing it together.

Once again, I oppose this horrible amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, as far as I can tell, this is just another attack on environmental justice. The Council on Environmental Quality is coordinating the development of an ocean justice strategy that will propose equitable and just practices to advance safety, health, and prosperity for communities that are residing near the ocean, the coast, and the Great Lakes. This amendment seeks to block that strategy.

Coastlines are home to approximately 40 percent of the United States population. Unfortunately, coastal communities do not share equitably in the benefits provided by the ocean or equitably bear the burden of the negative impacts of human activities associated with the ocean, such as climate change, coastal flooding, and other threats.

Environmental justice ensures that all Americans receive the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards. This amendment is just another way to attack minority groups at all costs and return the United States to a time when environmental discrimination was the norm.

Mr. Chair, I oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, once again, I am kind of caught in this challenge of not understanding exactly what it is that my colleagues don't like about the term ``environmental justice,'' or in this case, ``ocean justice.''

It seems like ``justice'' is a word that we are very comfortable with in a patriotic way that everyone understands. Justice is important in this country.

As a Member who represents as much coastline as anybody in here that is extremely impacted by the challenges that are going on in the ocean, such as sea level rise and extreme storms, I have to deal with these questions. I think it is totally appropriate to have a justice strategy in making sure that we have equitability in how we take care of people.

If you live in a community where it is underresourced and are impacted by these ocean storms that come at us with total surprise--for example, a winter storm or nor'easter, as we call them, or a hurricane in the southern part of the country, and there aren't resources to rebuild. Perhaps sea level rise is making it so that your community needs to be moved.

I was talking last night about the 31 Native communities in Alaska that have to be moved because of sea level rise. If you don't have a justice lens, somebody might turn around and just say: I am sorry. This community isn't valuable enough. You don't have the resources, and your people can't move their own homes. You can't deal with rebuilding the coastal protections, so the money is going somewhere else, to a wealthier community, to someplace where we think people matter more.

Those decisions are critical decisions about how we spend our Federal funds, about how we make sure the work we do is equitable. Climate change is having a huge impact on life on the ocean.

I do not want to criticize my colleague. I am sure he has put this forward in good faith, but the last I saw, Arkansas doesn't have an ocean, and my colleague is trying to make policy for those of us who represent ocean communities in the East, West, and South throughout this country, the 40 percent of the United States population that lives on the ocean. These are critical strategies for us.

We don't need to make the same mistakes that we made in the past with not having a lens of environmental justice. Why in the world would we want to turn back and have discrimination and make bad policy? Why in the world when we are facing some of the most severe crises we have ever seen? We have hurricanes that come on us with no warning, extreme storms in the winter, extreme storms at times of the year we never expected them.

I can go on for much more time than I have to talk about what just happened in my own State and the challenges people are worried about, about sea level rise, about the ocean impact

of storms. This would take away the opportunity to look forward on that and make sure that our funding is equitable, that all communities are taken care of, that all parts of the country, particularly those rural areas that probably my colleague represents and I represent that are often underresourced are thought about, as well.

Again, this is a misguided amendment. People are going after a language that either they just don't want to say or somehow don't believe in or want to bring us back to a time when we had discrimination in our Federal policy and how we spent our Federal funds. It is a misguided amendment. It is a bad idea.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, as ranking member of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, I am deeply concerned about the majority's lack of urgency to fund the government. The continuing resolution expires in less than 3 weeks, but instead of getting to work negotiating with the Senate on a full-year bill, we are wasting time on bills that violate the terms of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.

I strongly oppose the fiscal year 2024 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill. This harmful bill debilitates America's ability to address the climate crisis and hobbles the agencies within its jurisdiction.

It slashes funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by nearly 40 percent. That is nearly $4 billion less than we appropriated in 2023.

It also rescinds more than $7 billion of vital investments provided by the Inflation Reduction Act for the United States to take immediate economy-wide climate action. Climate change has reached a crisis point, and experts agree that we must take bold action to avoid a major, irreversible catastrophe.

In addition to the cut proposed by the State-Foreign Operations bill, the Republicans' Interior bill virtually eliminates the greenhouse gas reduction fund, which was established by the Inflation Reduction Act to mitigate the costs of climate pollution through investment in low-and zero-emission technologies.

The damage inflicted by this bill extends far beyond climate change. The bill wipes out the environmental justice program and cuts $1.4 billion from the environmental and climate justice grants made possible through the Inflation Reduction Act.

It curtails the progress that has been made to ensure that all people are

equally protected from our environmental and health hazards. This bill abandons our most vulnerable groups that currently bear a disproportionate share of negative environmental impacts, which includes large swaths of rural communities that I, and many of my colleagues across the aisle, represent.

The bill also slashes funding for enforcement of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, which will enable polluters.

The cuts in this bill are so severe that even agencies that usually garner bipartisan support are targeted for damaging reductions. Funding for the National Park Service, for example, will be cut by 13 percent.

This bill also significantly reduces funding for the arts and humanities agencies. The cuts to the Smithsonian Institution and National Gallery of Art are so deep that they will be forced to reduce the number of hours or days each week that the museums are open to the public.

When our constituents bring their families to see our Nation's Capital, I think all Members in this room expect they should have access to these museums, but this bill takes that away.

The bill also fails our Nation's wildland firefighters. It does not provide any of the funding requested by the administration to support wildland firefighters and their families through better compensation, safe housing, and health and well-being assistance. Without this funding, firefighters will lose the compensation increases first provided in the bipartisan infrastructure law.

Sadly, this bill also contains numerous discriminatory riders, as well as an exhaustive list of anti-environment riders that seek to derail any effort to combat climate change, and it undermines clean water and clean air protections.

They give an open invitation to exploitive oil, gas, and mineral leasing by blocking environmental regulations and even overriding judicial review. At the same time, the bill suppresses clean energy production. Clean, renewable energy is critical if we are going to save our planet for future generations.

The majority of Americans support becoming carbon neutral by 2050, and they support prioritizing the development of renewable energy sources and preserving biodiversity for the benefit of future generations. The austere and irresponsible cuts in this bill do not align with their values.

Mr. Chairman, I thank Chair Simpson and Ranking Member DeLauro for their tireless efforts on this committee. As Mr. Simpson mentioned, we don't always agree on everything, but we have a chance to work well together. I thank the staff on both sides of the aisle who work tirelessly.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose this bill, and I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill to protect the world we are leaving to our children and grandchildren.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), who is the distinguished ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum), who is the distinguished ranking member of the Defense Subcommittee and the former chair of this subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), my good friend and the distinguished ranking member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), the distinguished ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee and my good friend.

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise to support this en bloc amendment, which includes several noncontroversial amendments that we support.

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

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

Mr. Chair, I thank the chair of this committee for opposing the amendment.

As far as I am concerned, this amendment is extreme. It will not gain bipartisan support and become law.

The draconian cuts proposed in this bill violate the agreement reached by former Speaker McCarthy and President Biden that were memorialized in statute in Public Law 118-5, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.

We would not be teetering on the brink of government shutdown if my Republican colleagues would hold up their end of the bargain.

As to this amendment, with the West reeling from the historic megadrought, the worst in 1,200 years, why would any of my colleagues want to hamstring the Bureau of Land Management from protecting our public lands for the American public and future generations?

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment completely eliminates the Council on Environmental Quality. This important office is responsible for coordinating the Federal Government's efforts to improve, preserve, and protect Americans' public health and the environment. These are very important tasks.

It also works to ensure that environmental reviews for infrastructure projects and Federal actions are thorough, efficient, and reflect the input of the public and local communities.

This proposed amendment would hobble the office and result in significant delays to infrastructure projects across the country at exactly the wrong time.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), the committee chairman.

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

Mr. Chair, once again, this is a terribly misguided amendment to completely defund and eliminate the Council on Environmental Quality. I appreciate the remarks by the chair that, while in different administrations, we may feel differently about the kinds of decisions or the tactic taken, but we understand the importance of this particular agency, and defunding it would be absolutely the wrong move.

I appreciate the gentleman who sponsored this amendment, his desire to fund the national parks, and we have a way to do that. Just go against the cuts that are made in this bill, vote against the Interior Appropriations bill, and we will make sure that, in a future iteration of this bill, we fully fund the national parks. I appreciate his understanding the importance of making sure that funding is available.

As to this amendment, this is a bad amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, let's just remember, we are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change: the drought, the flooding, the severe storms, the wildfire events that we are experiencing. Climate change has reached a crisis point, and we have to take bold action to avoid a major irreversible catastrophe. That means we have to invest in renewable energy.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are proposing this amendment that would focus all of BOEM's resources on conventional energy. If my colleague from New Jersey wants to talk about the tragedy of what could happen to our States--I represent Maine, and we care about our beautiful coastline. We are worried about offshore oil drilling and the fishermen's impact, the potential impact on tourism of an oil spill, all of the things we have seen happen in other places.

We want to invest in the renewable and wind industry. To say it would reduce our tourism industry down to zero is ludicrous. To say it would do this to our fishing industry without careful management would be ridiculous.

I have been to visit the countries of Norway and Denmark. I have talked to the people from Scotland about their offshore wind projects. It hasn't eliminated tourism or reduced their fishing industry. This is misinformation made up because people want to stick to their dependence on oil and gas and the things that we have to eliminate.

I oppose this amendment. It has nothing good about it. We should not reduce the funding from the renewable energy programs, and we should continue in the way that we are.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this is another partisan amendment that wastes more time on a bill that should go nowhere. Cutting $15,000 and taking away the Cabinet Secretary's ability to host Tribal members and other important dignitaries is just petty.

At a time when we are seeing record numbers of historic storms and climate events, this is what my colleagues across the aisle have chosen to care about?

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I want to be clear. I fully support hazardous fuels reduction activities at the BLM. I am so sorry for the wildfires that have occurred in Colorado and in so many other States across our Nation.

I come from the most forested State in the Nation, the State of Maine. We know how important good forest management is. We know how important this is, but I absolutely do not support the offset.

The EPA has already been cut by 39 percent, and further cuts to its core programs will only embolden polluters and weaken the safety of our water and air.

We could easily fund both things, the EPA and forest management at the Forest Service, if the majority had produced their bills at levels that were agreed upon and passed into law in the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

If my colleagues across the aisle are serious about managing hazardous fuels at BLM, it would have been fully funded in the base bill.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I want to address some of the same concerns about this amendment as I did in the previous amendment.

To be clear, I fully support active forest management at the Forest Service. I feel very bad about the wildfires that have occurred in Colorado and so many other States across our country. I can't imagine the devastation to a family who loses their home or a community that finds the entire community leveled by a forest fire.

I am also very aware of the importance of managing our forests, whether it is the timber sales or the great benefit we get from well- maintained forests. I come from the most forested State in the Nation. Sustainable forest products and our wood products industry are extremely important, and managing those forests is extremely important.

Mr. Chair, I cannot support this offset. The EPA has already been cut by 39 percent. Further cuts to its core program will only embolden polluters and weaken the safety of our water and air.

We can easily fund both things, the EPA and forest management at the Forest Service, if only the majority had produced a bill at the level that was agreed upon and passed into law by the Fiscal Responsibility Act. If my colleagues across the aisle are serious about active forest management at the Forest Service, it would have been fully funded in the base bill.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, to be clear, I fully support all oversight efforts and believe the mission of the inspectors general across government is vital, but I disagree with the offset and the treatment of the EPA in this bill generally.

In the base bill, the EPA is cut by nearly 40 percent. Every single account is cut except for the Office of the Inspector General. Quite frankly, the inspector general's office does pretty well under this bill.

Cutting every single program at the EPA and seeking to increase funding for only one office, which happens to be the oversight office, is a clear attempt by the majority to politicize the inspector general, and that is unacceptable.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am pretty sure this is deja vu all over again. I think we have already had an amendment to cut or eliminate the Council on Environmental Quality. This one does it by cutting 36 percent.

This office is responsible for coordinating the Federal Government's efforts to improve, preserve, and protect Americans' public health and environment. It also works to ensure that environmental reviews for infrastructure projects and Federal actions are thorough, efficient, and reflect the input of the public and local communities.

This amendment would hobble the office and result in significant delays to the very important infrastructure projects going on all across this country.

We have debated this once already. This was a bad amendment then. It is a bad amendment now. I oppose it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment is back again. I think it is still deja vu all over again because this is now the third time we have taken up this amendment. It is to, once again, eliminate the Council on Environmental Quality. We have a pending roll call on that very exact question.

It just seems to me we have plenty to do around here. We have plenty to do and are having a very busy day. We will have a very busy day tomorrow, and we have very ambitious goals on the part of the majority to pass through a lot of appropriations bills.

Why in the world would we have three of the same amendments?

I appreciate that different people wanted to give different perspectives on it, but couldn't they all have spoken on the same amendment?

I also would just say that a lot of my colleagues on this side of the aisle had amendments that were eliminated and that weren't given a chance to speak on the floor.

If the majority had just gone from three to one of these amendments, they could have used the time for two more of my colleagues' amendments and we could have had a little more Democratic debate, perhaps on reinstating funding for the National Museum of the American Latino. There were a lot

of good things we would like to see discussed under this bill.

Why in the world did the majority have to have us discuss this a third time?

Mr. Chairman, I do want you to know I have my talking points. I can say exactly the same things about why it is very arbitrary to eliminate the Council on Environmental Quality, why the office is important in establishing the Federal Government's efforts to improve, preserve, and protect Americans' public health and environment, also to ensure that environmental reviews for infrastructure projects and Federal actions are thorough, efficient, and reflect the input of the public and local communities, and I know you appreciate hearing that from me three times.

Nevertheless, it just seems to me that if we were managing this floor in a way that really made the best use of all our colleagues' time we would either give a few more amendments to the Democratic minority or we would just do this once, have one roll call, and give the majority all a chance to speak on that particular bill and voice their opinion.

It is still a bad amendment. We will still oppose this amendment, and we shouldn't be doing this at this particular time.

Once again, I oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Chairman, I am just so sad that we have to debate this amendment to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.

The NEA is the Federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans-- that is all Americans--with diverse opportunities for arts participation.

With the very small $186.3 million in this bill, the small but mighty agency supports arts organizations and artists in every congressional district in the country, and these investments yield enormous economic benefits.

My colleague on the other side of the aisle says that he pays for his own arts. He makes sure that his family has the arts opportunities and that his children's art is paid for.

However, every community does not have the funding to pay for their own arts. Not every community can afford arts and music in their schools. They can't afford these opportunities. Yes, there is private- sector funding, but private-sector funding goes to where the private sector wants it to be spent. It doesn't make sure that in rural States like mine that small towns can take advantage of this and that small arts organizations can have these opportunities.

A 2021 analysis done by the Department of Commerce and the NEA found that arts and cultural industries add over $1 trillion to the U.S. economy, support nearly 5 million jobs, and account for 4.4 percent of the GDP--4.4 percent.

In what other sector wouldn't we make a lousy $186 million investment in something that was going to add 4.4 percent to our GDP?

These guys would be all over it if it was auto manufacturing or chips or something else.

The arts have an incredible value as a positive tool for economic development, education, and community building. Defunding this important agency would cause catastrophic harm. It is a terrible idea.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), who is the chair of the committee.

Mr. Chair, to close, I appreciate the words of Mr. Simpson, and I appreciate his acknowledgment that it is the rural communities, whether in his State of Idaho or my State of Maine, where there are so many communities that don't have the benefit of the private funding, they don't have the benefit of wealthy parents who can maybe afford to pay for their children's music and arts education. These are communities that desperately depend on this money.

I also want to say that while there is a lot of economic growth going on in the arts industry, that it is a huge contributor, that many of these venues--particularly the small ones--were the first to have to close their doors during the pandemic and the last to open, and many haven't recovered.

Many people who work in the arts industry, many artists themselves are still struggling to get back on their feet. That just makes this funding even more critically important.

This is a great way to make sure that everyone in America has the great educational benefit that all young people should have in arts and music and developing that level of creativity and curiosity and the so many wonderful educational benefits that we know come from having that education in the arts. This makes sure that it is available to everybody.

We are already facing a cut in this bill. We are going from $207 million--which was never enough; it ought to be at least a dollar per person--down to $186 million. This cut has already been taken. We don't need to do any more. Certainly, eliminating it would be a travesty.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chair, may I inquire how much time is remaining?

Mr. Chair, I would just reiterate that I oppose this amendment that would defund the National Endowment for the Humanities. I thank the chair for his eloquent remarks about the importance of it in Idaho.

Idaho and Maine have a lot in common. Our potatoes are so much better, but other than that, we really could see eye to eye on so many issues. Sorry, I am sure their potatoes are perfectly fine.

This misguided amendment would significantly hinder support for high- quality projects and programs that reach every single State and territory and benefit millions of Americans.

NEH is a very unique source of funding for a wide range of local, nonprofit institutions and organizations across the country. This money goes to our States and our local organizations. These grants strengthen teaching and learning in the schools and colleges. They facilitate research and original scholarship, provide opportunities for lifelong learning, preserve and provide access to cultural and educational resources, and strengthen the institutional base of the humanities.

My colleague on the other side of the aisle who proposed this amendment says he doesn't really see the value of it and goes about to disregard some of the programs that are being funded through this. The fact is that sometimes we need to use literature, history, or the arts to talk about difficult topics. You may not think it is important for us to talk about climate change but, in fact, millions of young people, in fact millions of people in this country, are very worried about that and want to talk about it and think about how we can come with very diverse ideas to a solution that works for all of us.

The same with our diversity and equity issues. These are tough topics, and my colleague on the other side of the aisle would just have them eliminated, sweep them under the rug. Yet, we have the opportunity to use our great literature and the history of this country and the lessons that we have learned to have those conversations.

I don't know what planet this amendment comes from; someplace where these issues aren't important. Here they are very important. These programs are used by American veterans, by American senior citizens, and young people in our schools. They are so widely used in large and small communities, and they are good investments in our communities. These awards stimulate significant participation and commitment by local and private partners. They generate more money to do exactly what we are doing, so we should be doing more for the NEH, not less.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this misguided amendment.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment is one more controversial poison pill rider that sadly shows that the extreme Republicans are not interested in bills that can gain bipartisan support and become law.

In 2012, before the Bush tax cuts, the Congressional Budget Office showed revenues exceeding primary spending for the next 65 years and that debt as a percent of GDP would decline indefinitely.

Since then, tax cut extensions and the Trump tax cuts have added $10 trillion to the debt to date, and their cost will increase enough over time to account for the entire long-term growth in debt ratio. Remember, those benefits are disproportionately enjoyed by the wealthy.

If we want to truly protect the American taxpayer, we should be marking up bills at the levels agreed to between the President and Speaker McCarthy and signed into law in the Fiscal Responsibility Act rather than bringing the government to the verge of a shutdown and now marking up bills that just don't just break the deal but obliterate it and cut crucial domestic investments.

Let's get serious about passing bills that can gain bipartisan support and become law.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote against this harmful amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would prohibit all funds to the United States Board on Geographic Names. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names is a Federal body created in 1890 and established in its present form by public law in 1947 to maintain uniform geographic name usage throughout the Federal Government. The Board is comprised of representatives of Federal agencies concerned with geographic information, population, ecology, and management of public lands.

In this age of geographic information systems, the internet, and homeland defense, geographic names data are even more important. The Board works with Federal, State, Tribal, and local agencies, and more than 50 nations have some type of national names authority.

My Republican colleagues should be focused on creating bills that will garner bipartisan support and become law, not prohibiting funding for a board that helps surveyors, mapmakers, and scientists, and serves the Federal Government and the public as a central authority to which name problems, name inquiries, name changes, and new name proposals can be directed.

I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I am not an authority on this, but my understanding is that the Federal Government could not rename a town in a State. The Federal Government has authority on public lands on names that are related to public property.

I am very pleased that we have Secretary Deb Haaland as the Secretary of Interior right now, and I respect the fact that we have someone, for the first time ever, who is a member of a Tribe. Secretary Haaland has made a statement that using the word ``squaw'' is offensive to Native American Tribes, and I fully agree with her, and many people in my own State agree with her and have changed those names, but, in this particular case, I don't believe that the Department of the Interior can arbitrarily rename a town in any State in the Nation.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would prohibit the use of any Federal funds to establish or modify any national monuments under the Antiquities Act within Colusa County, California. Now, I am very sorry that my colleague on the other side of the aisle feels this way. I appreciate being able to serve on the Agriculture Committee with him. We often have areas on agreement, but on this, we disagree.

The Antiquities Act provides the President with the authority to designate national monuments in order to protect the objects of historic or scientific interest. This amendment inappropriately restricts the President's ability to declare a national monument in specific parts of the country. Both Republican and Democratic Presidents have used this authority to increase the protection of special Federal lands.

In our State, we are particularly pleased that a previous President declared the Katahdin Woods and Waters as a national monument. And we are very glad about the way it has been managed and the fact that it is an important resource to our State. This bill would go against 100 years of American tradition to protect the Nation's cultural and natural resources. The Antiquities Act represents an important achievement in the progress of conservation and preservation efforts in the United States. Congress should not stand in the way of these achievements.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment would block New York City from completing the terms of its lease agreement with the National Park Service, and it offers no solution for those seeking refuge.

This amendment would put up yet another obstacle for the residents of New York City as they try to address this unique challenge.

We should be looking for ways to help both residents of the city and the migrants as they navigate the often complicated and lengthy immigration process.

I know a little something about this challenge the cities are facing because while I don't represent New York City, I represent Portland, Maine, and other cities in Maine that have had a large influx of asylees coming to our State. Now, we are a very welcoming State, but we have some of the same challenges with finding sufficient housing for people while they are navigating this difficult process of asylum seeking.

Now let's just remember, we are a welcoming nation. Asylum seekers are coming from war-torn countries, from political challenges, and the process of seeking asylum can take a very long time. In my State, we have some of the same challenges trying to find sufficient housing.

I want to say that we can't forget the fact that, again, we are a welcoming nation. We are a welcoming State, and we are a nation of immigrants.

I don't know about my colleague across the aisle, but I am very fortunate that my grandfather had the opportunity to come to this country. And that allowed my family to be a part of the American Dream.

So many of the people who are coming here today are leaving, as I said, difficult political situations, war-torn nations, with real challenges to get here. Our immigration process is lengthy. They are, for the most part, legal asylum seekers. They need to go through a long court process.

If, in fact, she really wanted to do something that would significantly change the amount of time that people have to be in shelters or in housing, perhaps--I know it is on another bill--she could support my bill to reduce the amount of time that asylum seekers have to wait to get their work permits so that they could more rapidly go to work, so that they weren't waiting in shelters, in tents, in other places.

I don't know about your State, but in mine our chamber of commerce is constantly asking for more workers. We are constantly behind in having sufficient people to do the work. So to say that we do not want to welcome these people who come from war-torn nations and difficult political situations, and that we don't want to find a way to accommodate them, we should be looking for ways to speed up the process to make sure that people can go to work, and so that they can make sure that they can move forward and become those extremely responsible and hardworking members of American society that they choose to be.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I am very sorry. I fully sympathize with the city of New York and the many challenges they are facing in managing this influx of people.

As I have said, I have had numerous conversations, whether it is the mayor of my own city of Portland or the city council or the many people who are working hard in social service agencies to make sure that we continue to be a welcoming country; that the asylum seekers who are legally in our country but waiting for the long process of their asylum application to be approved or denied, to get through that process, that they require housing.

I will just say a couple of things. I am sorry also that New York City recently had to experience the foot of water, but I encourage my colleagues to stop opposing measures to reduce the impact of climate change. Once again, they are turning their head at the things that are going to continue to happen more and more to some of our biggest cities in the country and rural areas, as well.

I also recommend that people don't have to stay in shelters for so long if we would only let them go to work. We have a provision for asylum seekers to get a work permit, but right now it takes 180 days. Why not just shorten it down to 30 days. When you are concerned about the cost of this and the cost of people going to work, we can make sure they go to work. I have talked to so many asylum seekers and their families. They are so anxious to go to work, and we have a worker shortage. This is one thing it seems like we could agree upon on both sides of the aisle.

I have no idea if you block this particular park in New York City, what you are going to do to solve this problem. This seems to me like just a mean-spirited attempt to try to turn away people who have nowhere else to turn, who are anxious to become workers in our society, and who need to go through a lengthy process. We could shorten that process.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would allow those who pollute the Chesapeake Bay to ignore the Environmental Protection Agency's water quality standards.

Restoring the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed continues to be a priority. The EPA established mandatory water quality standards, and Congress has approved over $1 billion for the Chesapeake Bay program to help States, localities, and businesses meet those standards. This amendment would jeopardize that funding and have devastating effects on the health of the bay.

This amendment is not about the well-being of Virginia, Maryland, and the surrounding States. It is about the fact that some industrial operators don't think they should be responsible for controlling the pollution they dump into our rivers and streams across the country.

The courts have sided with the EPA on this matter.

For more than 35 years, the regional partnership created through the Chesapeake Bay program has sought to restore and protect the Nation's largest and most productive estuary.

This amendment would undermine decades of work and have lasting damaging effects to the health of the bay and the economy that it supports.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history. More than 1 million species are currently threatened with extinction, many within decades.

This amendment seeks to legislate species status rather than providing species with the protections they are afforded under the Endangered Species Act, our principle conservation law, and would potentially increase litigation regarding the government's responsibility to implement the statutory requirements of the Endangered Species Act.

Once again, my Republican colleagues are disregarding the law. We can have a legitimate debate on how to best manage our border and how to handle these issues, but that belongs in the Homeland Security bill and not here under this and not talking about the Endangered Species Act.

The best available scientific and commercial information--not politics--should determine whether a species is listed as threatened or endangered. This amendment circumvents the rigorous process that is in place to make these determinations, as well as the role of public input.

Historical range for these species was throughout the mainstem Rio Grande and select major tributaries in Texas and Mexico but today have been reduced to a single population that occupies only a fraction of this area.

Human activities that threaten and diminish animal habitats, pollute nature, and accelerate global warming are driving species extinction and creating unhealthy ecosystems.

When we lose a species, impacts reverberate throughout ecosystems and we all suffer because our economy, health, livelihoods, food security, and quality of life all depend on healthy ecosystems.

Defunding the Service's ability to list species would work against the clear intent of the Endangered Species Act and would further litigation by outside groups on both sides.

It would also undercut the Service's ability to work collaboratively with Tribes, other Federal agencies, States, local communities, and landowners to conserve this species.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and protect vulnerable species so future generations benefit from a world with healthy ecosystems and robust biodiversity.

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

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would bar the use of any Federal funds to create national monuments under the Antiquities Act in Malheur County, Oregon.

The Antiquities Act provides the President with the authority to designate national monuments in order to protect objects of historic or scientific interest. This amendment inappropriately restricts the President's ability to declare national monuments in specific parts of the country.

Both Republican and Democratic Presidents have used this authority to increase protection of special Federal lands. It goes against 100 years of American tradition to protect the Nation's cultural and natural resources.

The Antiquities Act represents an important achievement in the progress of conservation and preservation efforts in the United States. Congress should not stand in the way of these achievements.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment is petty and punitive. Rather than pursuing grudges against public servants and spewing inaccurate and disrespectful information, my colleagues across the aisle should focus their energy on negotiating with the Senate on a bill to fund the government.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chair, the Endangered Species Act is the Nation's principle conservation law whose ultimate goals include preventing the extinction of species and providing for their recovery.

On June 4, 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Marine Fisheries Service announced a plan to improve and strengthen implementation of the Endangered Species Act to address 21st century conservation challenges.

These agencies are proposing to revise three final rules issued in 2019 under the previous administration that do not adequately guide the implementation of the Endangered Species Act. The proposed revisions are intended to improve and clarify the interagency consultation processes; listing, delisting, and reclassification decisions; and designation of critical habitat.

Why would anyone object to making regulations clearer, more straightforward, or improving implementation of the Endangered Species Act?

The Services also proposed to reinstate the 4(d) blanket rule options for protecting and conserving threatened species. Remember, Mr. Chair, providing a suite of protections for threatened species will help it avoid becoming an endangered species.

These proposed rules are now subject to public review and comment, and the Services will carefully consider the comments they receive before finalizing any changes.

The proposed revisions do not alter the standards for making listing and delisting decisions, nor will they automatically lead to an increase or decrease in the total amount or area of

critical habitat that is designated. These decisions will still depend on the Services using the best scientific information available.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to consider how these revisions will make ESA regulations more consistent and efficient, and to reject this amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, we are now only 15 days away from a government shutdown, and instead of focusing on keeping the government open, we are working on a bill that is going nowhere.

The draconian cuts proposed in this bill violate the agreement reached by former Speaker McCarthy and President Biden and that were memorialized in statute in Public Law 118-5, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. We would not be teetering on the brink of a government shutdown if my Republican colleagues had held up their end of the bargain.

We are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change, such as the drought, flooding, severe storm, and wildfire events we are experiencing. As of October 10, the United States has experienced 24 confirmed weather/climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each. This is a new record.

This amendment seeks to prohibit funding for the Bureau of Land Management to finalize, implement, or enforce a Draft Resource Management Plan and draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that would remove 1.6 million acres of public lands in Colorado from future oil and gas leasing. These lands do not have high oil and gas potential, and BLM's actions would protect the important wildlife habitat, recreation areas, and water resources, as well as reduce emissions and the impacts of climate change.

Not investing in strategies that minimize and prevent the acceleration of climate change and instead paying billions in disaster relief shows my Republican colleagues are not thinking

about what is best for the American taxpayer.

Our economy, health, livelihoods, food security, and quality of life all depend on healthy ecosystems.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and focus instead on addressing climate change and making our Nation stronger, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment is one more controversial poison pill policy rider that sadly shows extremist Republicans are not interested in bills that can gain bipartisan support and become law.

The proposed rule on fluid mineral leases and the leasing process aims to enhance the administration of oil and gas-related activities on America's public lands and reflects provisions in recently enacted laws that modify aspects of the Federal onshore oil and gas program whose regulations have not been updated since 1988. However, this amendment seeks to prohibit that.

Once again, my Republican colleagues are disregarding the law. This amendment circumvents the rigorous process that is in place to update outdated regulations, which includes opportunities for public input, protects the fiscal interests of the American public, and ensures proper stewardship of public lands and resources for the benefit of future generations.

The Government Accountability Office and the Department of the Interior's Office of Inspector General have conducted audits of the BLM's Federal onshore oil and gas program and highlighted weaknesses that BLM needs to correct to ensure the American public receives a fair return from oil and gas activities on public lands.

I do not understand why my Republican colleagues would seek to undermine the efforts that address those weaknesses and protect the American public. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment to protect the fiscal interests of the American public and our natural resources so future generations benefit from a world with healthy ecosystems and robust biodiversity.

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

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would block the Department of the Interior from its Bicycle Subsidy Benefit Program, which encourages Federal employees to use bicycles to commute to the office. Not unlike many wellness programs that are available in the public and private sector, this is a good idea for the fresh air, for personal health, for a whole host of reasons. It is also good for the environment. More of us should be on bicycles instead of occupying a car to commute back and forth to work.

The Department created this program in response to a 1993 law in which Congress authorizes each agency head to establish a program to encourage employees to use means other than single-occupancy motor vehicles to commute to and from work. It is a governmentwide program, and this amendment unfairly targets Interior employees.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to treat all employees fairly and reject this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, this amendment would prohibit the EPA from hiring scientists using its title 42 authority. Title 42 authority is a flexible hiring mechanism that allows agencies to attract and retain staff with outstanding scientific, technical, and clinical skills.

The authority is used by the EPA, CDC, NIH, and other agencies that require candidates to have specialized degrees in areas such as medicine, science, and engineering.

It is not always easy for the Federal Government to attract high- level professionals who have invested many years in school and can easily make more in private practice or even in academia. That is why the Federal Government allows these agencies to provide some additional funding to retain or recruit these employees.

Mr. Chair, I am dismayed that the gentleman does not believe such highly specialized employees deserve title 42 recognition.

With our Nation facing crises like COVID and climate change, we should be investing in our scientists. It is a shortsighted amendment that unfairly attacks Federal employees who devote their lives to public service.

Mr. Chair, I urge the defeat of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), the chair of the committee.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.