Floor Statements

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

Mr. Speaker, we are on day 19 of Trump's illegal war of choice with Iran. So far, 13 American servicemembers are dead, and 200 more are wounded. Gas prices have surged 80 cents a gallon just in the last 3 weeks. Grocery bills are climbing. Oil is over $100 a barrel. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed.

Mr. Speaker, what is it, in the face of this chaos and calamity, that the United States House of Representatives has chosen to do this week: debate a bill about lead ammunition in our Nation's wildlife refuges.

Mr. Speaker, we should consider the iconic national symbol of the bald eagle when we talk about this subject. Every year, bald eagles across America die. They drop out of the sky in some cases because they ate carcasses and remains that were laced with lead fragments.

Bald eagles are not alone. Lead poisoning has been documented in over 130 species: the common loon, condors, trumpeter swans, many species of ducks, and even some mammals. For species already struggling on the brink of extinction, each piece of spent ammunition or lost fishing tackle left in the environment is another potential lethal dose of lead.

We banned lead from gasoline. We banned it from paint. We banned it from children's toys. We did that because lead is a known lethal neurotoxin that never breaks down.

That same lead in the form of spent ammunition or lost fishing tackle can kill wildlife, and it does so on our public lands and waters right now, in some cases at levels that are far too high.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans are proposing a bill that would make this a lot worse. H.R. 556 would block Federal land managers from using commonsense, science-based safeguards, when necessary, to protect wildlife from lead poisoning on Federal lands and waters.

The bill does have an exception, at least technically or hypothetically. Agencies can act when a species decline is ``primarily caused'' by lead. That evidentiary requirement and the standard that goes with it, the way this bill is written, is going to be impossible to meet.

The bill demands site-specific field data for each individual unit of land, ignoring decades of peer-reviewed science and imposing costs that most land units, already stretched thin by Trump's budget cuts, simply cannot afford.

States are already moving to protect wildlife in many cases. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont banned lead tackle to protect loon populations. California banned lead ammunition to protect the California condor. However, this bill creates a very murky legal landscape that would undermine these safeguards, replacing State laws and policies with a Federal mandate written by and for the gun lobby.

Most concerning, this bill claims to protect access for hunters and anglers. Yet, in reality, the bill could result in less access for some of America's biggest conservationists. The legislation conflicts with the Endangered Species Act and with a 2022 settlement governing hunting and fishing in the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Mr. Speaker, even under the Trump administration, the Fish and Wildlife Service issued targeted lead restrictions in eight refuges, specifically to open new hunting and fishing opportunities near sensitive Endangered Species Act-listed wildlife species.

Yet, if this bill is enacted, the Fish and Wildlife Service would have to close those sensitive areas for hunting and fishing entirely to comply with the ESA. That is going to leave hunters and anglers with fewer places to fish and hunt.

Transitioning away from lead is a step toward a more sustainable future for the sport. We saw this in 1991 when the Federal Government phased out lead shot for duck hunting. The gun lobby said at the time all the same things that it is saying now: This will kill the sport. People will be priced out. It will be the end of a way of life.

It was nonsense. It was wrong in every case. Waterfowl populations rebounded, giving duck hunters more opportunities, more birds, and more places to hunt.

Proponents of this bill often claim banning lead will price out hunters and anglers, but the data tells a very different story. An analysis of 86 different bullet calibers and cartridge sizes found no significant price difference between lead-free and lead-core ammunition in popular calibers.

Switching to non-lead tackle can add less than 1 percent to the average angler's total annual cost. In the handful of refuges that do restrict lead to protect endangered species and to make sure that they can continue hunting and fishing, the Fish and Wildlife Service already offers vouchers and programs providing free or low-cost ammunition and tackle to hunters and anglers.

Congress should always remember that our public lands belong to the American people, not to the NRA and the gun lobby. H.R. 556 imposes a Federal mandate to allow the spread of a known lethal toxin across our Nation's

wildlife refuges, waterways, and the habitats that our children will inherit.

My colleagues must reject this bill and let public land managers make the tough calls and do their jobs.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of points. First of all, Federal wildlife managers under current law already have to follow the best available science. If they were to issue lead ammunition regulations randomly, arbitrarily, in a way that contravenes science, they would find themselves immediately in court, and those actions would be overturned.

In terms of deference to State law and State wildlife managers, I certainly agree with the gentleman on that. The problem is that many States have actually taken steps to restrict lead ammunition and tackle. This bill is so poorly written that it is not clear whether Federal wildlife managers could continue to comply with those State laws or whether they would have to ignore them and continue to allow lead in those cases.

Those are several reasons why this bill, in addition to the policy problems I have highlighted, is technically not ready for prime time.

Mr. Speaker, at this point, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Michigan.

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

About this best available science, just to be very clear, best available science is what wildlife managers have to do right now. If they don't, any regulation that they promulgate involving lead tackle or lead ammunition restrictions is going to be invalidated and will mean nothing.

What this poorly written legislation would do, though, is substitute a brand-new scientific standard that we have never seen. We have no idea what it really means. It would have a narrow exception to allow restrictions on lead ammunition or tackle on specific units of land if the applicable Secretary determines that: ``A decline in wildlife population at the specific unit of Federal land or water is primarily caused by the use of lead in ammunition or tackle, based on the field data from the specific unit of the Federal land or water.''

These are very new and ambiguous terms. A simple reading would suggest you have to do a complete forensic analysis that would, in the real world, make this standard totally unattainable. It would effectively mean you would never be able to regulate lead ammunition or tackle, even when it was forcing the closure of hunting and fishing in our National Wildlife Refuge System.

As the National Wildlife Refuge Association has pointed out, this is an impossible standard because population monitoring data is not available at the unit scale in most cases.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot today about hunters and anglers, but let's talk about what this bill actually does.

First, it is bad for wildlife. It strips our land managers of the tools they need to limit lead, a known neurotoxin, on our public lands and waters, putting the recovery of species like the bald eagle, our national symbol, and the California condor at great risk of further loss and potentially extinction. We cannot claim to support wildlife while handcuffing the people tasked with managing it.

My colleagues across the aisle talk constantly about States' rights and keeping the Federal Government out of local decisions. Then they bring a bill like this that amounts to a Federal mandate preempting, overriding, State laws on behalf of the gun lobby.

Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and California have already banned lead ammunition or tackle in some cases to limit lead and protect wildlife. This bill would throw all of that into legal limbo. Land managers wouldn't even know whether they can honor these State laws.

This bill also harms the very people it claims to champion: our hunters and anglers. It creates a direct conflict with the Endangered Species Act in ways that would force the Fish and Wildlife Service to close off public lands currently open to fishing and hunting.

It does all of this for a problem that doesn't even exist. Lead-free alternatives are widely available and cost about the same in most cases for the most popular calibers. They have been working since 1991. Fewer places to hunt and fish does not grow the outdoor economy, and the places that have sensibly restricted lead tackle and ammunition have not seen a reduction in hunting and fishing.

The people who actually use these lands--our hunters, anglers, and families--are among the strongest conservationists in this country. We agree on that. The last thing they need is for Congress to do favors for the gun lobby at the expense of these lands and wildlife that they love.

We banned lead from gasoline, from paint, and from children's toys. I don't think anyone in this Chamber would argue for putting lead back in any of those circumstances, but House Republicans are asking us, through this bill, to guarantee the sacred place of lead in our wildlife refuges. The people and the wildlife who depend on healthy public lands would pay the price for that.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to see this bill for what it is, a step backward for our environment and our economy, and vote ``no'' on

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think we have figured out the rhythm, the prime directive here for Republican governance these days.

First, they slashed the services that working families actually depend on. Then they turn around and hand the savings over to their billionaire friends. They do it time and again. It is rinse, lather, repeat.

What do we have on the floor this week? We have all guessed it. It is another corporate handout, this time to the biggest technical oligarchs in the world. These folks have shown that if a person has enough money and if they are willing to bend the knee, they can pretty much get anything they want these days under MAGA Republican governance.

Every time we have tried to add protections and regulations to their platforms that would keep users and children safe, they stop it. Every time we try to do something about the disinformation they allow to run rampant in order to appease the White House and cater to extremists, they stop it.

Now they have schmoozed their way into getting Republicans to add another huge giveaway to this long, favored list of theirs. That means millions of dollars in savings so that they can run cables through our national marine sanctuaries for free.

I have to ask: What is the endgame here? Where does it stop? Are we systematically privatizing every piece of America's national heritage for the richest and most powerful corporations in the world? That is exactly where H.R. 261 seems to be taking us.

It rigs the game so that, for example, family fishing operations, dive boat captains, whale watching guides, and the other businesses that operate in marine sanctuaries have to navigate regulations. They have to play by the rules and pay fees but not the Big Tech oligarchs. These conglomerates, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, get special treatment and exemptions.

Our national marine sanctuaries encompass over half a million square miles of America's most precious underwater ecosystems. They are economic engines generating billions in tourism revenue, sustaining entire coastal economies. They are living laboratories also where families snorkel with sea turtles, divers explore historic shipwrecks, and scientists unlock climate secrets.

This legislation would let tech moguls bulldoze right through these

waters with industrial-scale operations--massive drill rigs, heavy machinery, and construction fleets--all without the environmental review that everyone else would have to undergo.

The sponsors insist that these undersea cables are just little needles in a haystack, and they will probably hold up a little segment of one of these cables to try to suggest these are just needles in a haystack. It is true that the fiber-optic lines themselves are thin, but the installation process is anything but delicate.

We are talking about seafloor excavation projects that can obliterate coral reefs and hurt marine mammals across vast swaths of the ocean. What could go wrong when these projects are happening on the seafloor?

We can look at what Meta tried to do off the Pacific Northwest coast. Their drilling operation collapsed, scattering pipes, toxic fluids, and heavy equipment across the seafloor like an underwater junkyard. Then the company just wrote a tiny check and left town. It was nowhere near the cost of the actual damage that was incurred, and the marine habitat there is still trashed.

My district is home to one of our Nation's iconic marine sanctuaries. I can say without hesitation that my constituents don't want to see these industrial activities rip through our sensitive kelp forests that support fisheries and tourism. No project in these places should happen without very careful study, without mitigation and, most importantly, without paying their fair share.

This bill would let tech executives treat these national treasures off our coasts like some kind of an industrial sacrifice zone without even paying a cent for the use of these resources.

The National Marine Sanctuaries Act is the only statute requiring compatibility with the conservation objectives of each sanctuary. If we strip that away, as this bill would do, we have created a regulatory sacrifice zone.

House Republicans can't even identify which licenses and permits would qualify in this bill in lieu of the special use permit process that would ordinarily apply.

Mr. Speaker, how can we look the American people in the eye and assure them that no environmental safeguards are going away when we don't even have that very basic information? For many in the majority, the truth is, the details just don't matter.

Meta and Amazon are what matter, and they want this legislation. The majority is willing to take it at face value and just pass this along, no questions asked. They will give the oligarchs what they want.

Democrats have proposed amendments to this legislation, commonsense protections. They have proposed a mandatory insurance coverage requirement, for example. They have also offered off-limits zones for very sensitive habitats and standard user fees like these oligarchs pay when they run one of these on land.

Our amendment would have allowed the basics of H.R. 261 to move forward, allowing an alternate process to the current special use permit, while preserving some of these basic operational guardrails to ensure the protection of these very special and fragile places.

The majority shot down every one of these proposals. This is not about efficiency. It is about preferential treatment for oligarchs like Meta and Amazon.

Consider this: When telecom companies want to access our national forests for one of these projects, they pay rent. When they cross national parks, they pay fees, but somehow marine sanctuaries are supposed to be free. That is nothing more than a corporate giveaway and a terrible precedent that won't stop with our marine sanctuaries.

The sponsors wrapped this handout in national security rhetoric. We have already heard some of it from the chairman. They claim that there is an urgent telecommunications crisis.

Mr. Speaker, it is important to remember that these are multibillion- dollar projects spanning years and thousands of miles. They make their maps public. Everyone knows where these projects are taking place. The cost of environmental assessments is pocket change for these operations, but it could mean the difference between healthy habitats and destroyed resources in our national marine sanctuaries.

Here is what really stinks about this bill: While working American families are facing an affordability crisis, our Republican friends prioritize special favors like this for the wealthiest corporations on the planet. These are companies that could easily afford to just follow the rules and just pay a fair market rate for access to these places.

This sets a terrible precedent. We are witnessing the wholesale commercialization of America's natural inheritance, one sweetheart deal at a time. Today, it is cables and sanctuaries. Tomorrow, it will be mining in a national monument. Next week, it will be drilling in national seashores. Where does this corporate favoritism end?

If my colleagues want to modernize telecommunications, we can do that the right way. Let's invest in broadband infrastructure. Let's address transmission issues. We can incentivize clean, local, renewable energy. We can end President Trump's crazy war on clean energy.

Sure, maybe we can have a few fiber optic cables running through marine sanctuaries, but let's do it through proper analysis and siting. Let's be careful in these very special places. We don't need this bill to enable any of these shared objectives to move forward. Let us not create sacrifice zones in America's national marine sanctuaries.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this shameless corporate giveaway, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a little bit rich to suggest that if this became law, we would lose no environmental protections. This bill eliminates the special use permit, under which the folks who protect our national marine sanctuaries make sure that there is proper siting, proper environmental review, proper mitigation, and proper accountability for when things go wrong, and things do go wrong.

The one example I can hold out is in Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary because that is something that went through the special use permit process. It was for one of these undersea cable landings. Things got very complicated.

Thankfully, the National Park Service was able to charge market rent for the rights to go through this area, and it turns out that that was a good thing because there were all sorts of complications. In fact, there are still all types of ongoing repair and monitoring areas where things weren't installed properly and where there was all sorts of damage that wasn't foreseen on the front end.

Having that fair market value paid in the first place and then retained by the Federal agency that may need to follow up and make sure that these special places are protected is very important.

Mr. Westerman has suggested that the existing special use permit sets a fair market value that is just so prohibitive that none of these landings will ever happen in marine sanctuaries. The estimates from lobbyists are that without this bill, two 20-mile segments through a California sanctuary would cost these huge tech companies between $2.8 million and $7 million per year.

To put that in perspective, in the time that we have been arguing, these companies have made more than that. This is pocket change to these companies. They can afford to pay fair market value in order to go through our national marine sanctuaries.

As Mr. Westerman I am sure would not disagree, if they were proposing to run these things through a national park in Hot Springs, Arkansas, for example, it is a good thing they would have to get a special permit to do that, that they would have to pay fair market value, and that the funds they pay would be available to that unit of the National Park System to make sure things were done right and to make sure that there was accountability and mitigation going forward. We are just asking for the same thing for our national marine sanctuaries.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Carbajal), who is from the Central Coast.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a very selective concern about national security, apparently, because right now, every one of these landings has a publicly available map. The whole world knows where everything is. If my friends were concerned about the national security exposure that that presents, you would think we would be working on some way to make that less of a publicly obvious piece of information. No, we are not hearing about that. We are hearing it raised as a bit of a pretext here to try to run these projects through national marine sanctuaries rent- free and environmental review-free. One of the speakers across the aisle actually said a few moments ago that there is no need for a special use permit, that it is ridiculous to require one because there is no environmental impact to these projects.

We have heard about what happened off the Oregon coast. Certainly, the people of the Oregon coast would differ mightily with the notion that there is no environmental impact. They are still cleaning up the mess, and taxpayers ultimately had to do it.

We also have the example from the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary that I referred to earlier. This, of course, is a tough place to work on the seafloor. It is mud. It is sensitive habitat. Fishermen are active in the area. There are national security assets there. There is the Northwest Training and Testing Range, so it is a complicated place to do a project like this.

It is a good thing that NOAA was able to charge market fees when they approved a special use permit that took into account all of these complexities, because those fees ended up being very necessary.

This project had huge issues over the last 25 years. The sea plow that was used to trench across the sanctuary left a 3-meter wide gash across the sea floor that is still recovering. Tell me about no environmental impacts.

The installation company never did post-project monitoring. They left the project without checking that the cables were even buried to the correct depths. NOAA had to come back in with submersible equipment to monitor the cables. It is a good thing they had the resources to do that from those market fees because they found numerous locations where the cable was exposed, floating above the sea floor, putting the fiberoptic infrastructure itself at risk--if we care about national security and telecommunications integrity--and posing a danger to other sanctuary users and their gear. A fishing boat, for example, could have easily gotten snagged on some of these exposed, loose cables, taking down the entire network, destroying equipment, that a small business fishermen had invested in.

To this day the fiberoptic company has to enter that sanctuary regularly in order to repair and rebury the cables that were improperly installed. All of this would have been an even greater mess had this bill been law at the time, had NOAA been unable to put some conditions and some guardrails into the special use permit, had NOAA been unable to charge that fair market fee that has enabled it to follow up and clean up some of this mess.

That is what at risk if we pass a thoughtless corporate giveaway like this.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 4090, a bill that hands the mining industry, amazingly, the power to gut its own regulations while doing nothing to secure American mineral supply chains or help make life more affordable for the American people.

It is more of the same from House Republicans and this administration, more favors for their billionaire buddies, and more ways to enrich themselves all at the expense of the American people, who are struggling.

If we asked everyday Americans right now to list 100 things that you care about that you want Congress to be working on to make your life better, I promise you that giving more sweetheart deals to multinational mining corporations would not be anywhere on that list. I can think of a thousand better ways to spend our time than debating this bill on the House floor. We could be reining in the out-of-control agency ICE, which is terrorizing communities around the country and murdering people in the streets.

We should be addressing skyrocketing healthcare costs, which our Republican colleagues seem to have forgotten entirely about. We could be talking about how to lower energy prices, including the skyrocketing utility bills caused by Donald Trump's crazy war on clean energy, but no. We are back here, once again, talking about deregulation designed for and by the mining industry.

H.R. 4090 would codify parts of President Trump's executive orders on mining. I will say that we can agree on many of the bill's stated goals: creating good jobs, strengthening our supply chains, reducing the global influence of our adversaries, and safeguarding national security.

The stated goals are one thing. Then there is what actually is in the bill, what the bill does, and that is quite another thing.

We should not confuse the mining industry's best interests with the public interest. This bill would direct the Interior Secretary to take all necessary steps to expedite and approve certain priority projects with no restrictions on who operates the projects, what they mine, or where.

There is nothing to stop this administration right now from prioritizing mines owned and controlled by our foreign adversaries. That loophole, that glaring problem, that national security threat, is not corrected at all in this bill. There is nothing to require a focus on minerals actually needed for clean energy and national defense. There is nothing to prevent the administration from approving mines on sensitive public lands or even in our national parks. These are all simple safeguards that, for some reason, are not in this legislation. That is ripe for abuse and misuse of our public resources when you advance a bill like this.

In prioritizing lands for mining, the bill makes no mention of minimizing conflict with neighboring communities, like Tribes, or protecting other important natural resources and uses of public lands like logging, grazing, and recreation. The bill also looks to the mining industry itself for direction on which regulations to roll back, and again, no public input and no Tribal consultation.

My colleagues across the aisle often tout the United States' environmental and labor protections as the best in the world, but as protections are eroded in favor of polluters over people, who is to say that basic protections for drinking water and worker safety aren't the next targets?

Mr. Speaker, our environmental laws have reined in the industry's worst pollution and abuses, but regulations being successful doesn't mean that we no longer need them. Nothing in this bill guarantees that minerals mined here will stay here or benefit Americans.

Time and again, we have suggested guardrails that could be put in place, into bills like this, to make sure that foreign adversaries don't end up taking advantage of all of these corporate giveaways that our Republican friends keep putting on the table. It ensures that they don't come here and, practically for free, extract our publicly owned natural resources and take them to other parts of the world and use them in ways that are not in our interests. We keep offering these guardrails. Our Republican colleagues keep saying no.

Under the General Mining Act of 1872, anyone, including subsidiaries of foreign adversaries, can claim our publicly owned materials, mine them for free, ship them abroad into the global market, and do nothing to help the interests of the United States of America.

Time and again, we have raised this glaring vulnerability with legitimate solutions on the table to address it, and our Republican friends refuse to work with us.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose H.R. 4090, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, there we have it, and I am sure not for the last time in this conversation. The risk of terrible environmental harm by this huge corporate giveaway is nothing to worry about because we have NEPA. We have the Clean Water Act. We have the Environmental Protection Agency. We have all of these environmental safeguards, every one of which is under withering attack from the same colleagues across the aisle who are moving bills like this and from this administration.

This is across the board. There is legislation to gut all of these bedrock environmental laws. There are actions by this administration and litigation moving forward from the industry.

Mr. Speaker, it is cold comfort indeed. I am, frankly, shocked that anyone across the aisle could even say these things with a straight face and point to our bedrock environmental laws as an assurance that nothing will go wrong for the environment, our public lands, our natural resources, Tribes, and others who are worried about this corporate giveaway.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from upstate New York (Mr. Tonko).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Grijalva).

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

Mr. Speaker, there they go again. For the second time, we hear references to NEPA, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the bedrock environmental laws, that they will protect us from all of these terrible scenarios that they say Democrats are raising as scare tactics.

I just can't think of anything less persuasive than hearing that kind of cold comfort from the very folks who are attacking every one of those bedrock environmental laws with other legislation and through administrative actions by this President and in the courts. It is remarkably hypocritical and certainly not very persuasive.

Now, when we think about this mining free-for-all that our Republican friends are trying to create with this legislation, we are not having this conversation in a vacuum. We have to think about who benefits.

Just 2 weeks ago, the Trump administration announced that it would invest over a billion dollars and take an equity stake in USA Rare Earth, a mining and manufacturing company. So much for concerns about socialism. Reporting uncovered that USA Rare Earth hired Cantor Fitzgerald to help with fundraising, a firm chaired by Brandon Lutnick. If that sounds familiar, it is because he is the son of Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

In October, the Trump administration announced equity investments in the mining company Trilogy Metals, while simultaneously directing agencies to fast-track permitting for Ambler Road, the controversial project needed to access Trilogy Metals' proposed mine site. Trilogy Metals' third largest shareholder is John Alfred Paulson, a Trump mega donor and an economic adviser. His Trilogy shares increased by $70 million in value after that announcement.

It is a similar story for Trump adviser Stephen Miller, who personally sold shares worth between $50,000 and $100,000 in the mining company MP Materials following a July announcement of one of these lucrative equity deals.

The administration is making a pattern out of picking winners and losers in the mining industry, and a suspicious number of those winners have close ties to Trump officials or Trump family members. This is an incredible grift that our friends across the aisle are playing into.

These deals tie taxpayer dollars to corporate balance sheets and incentivize administration officials to prioritize individual corporate interests over the broader public good.

Earlier this week, myself, Ranking Member Robert Garcia of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Ranking Member Martin Heinrich of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources sent a joint letter to the administration, demanding answers on Trump's taxpayer-funded mining spending spree.

To date, there has been no public disclosure of procedures or safeguards in place to ensure these ownership stakes do not influence permitting decisions, regulation, enforcement, contracting decisions, or other agency decisions relating to these mining and mineral projects. Before we give this administration even more power to enrich themselves and their friends at the expense of everyday Americans, let's get some answers to these basic questions.

Now, with that, Mr. Speaker, a lot has been said about China, the boogeyman of China, our adversary on the global stage. Yet, we have a bill before us that, my guess is, the People's Republic of China would absolutely love. Here to tell us more about that is the gentlewoman from New Mexico.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez).

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

Mr. Speaker, if my friend from Minnesota actually heard us say the things that he just says he heard in his own mind, I am genuinely worried that we need to get an audiologist in here. I am glad that we have a court reporter and that we have a video record because we said nothing of the kind.

My friend, Mr. Westerman, did say something very important. I don't know if this was his intent, but he sort of made one of our points for us. We cannot mine our way to security with brute force because China controls 80 percent of the world's processing power and nearly 90 percent for rare earth elements. If our only solution is to just have more and more mines and to open up this mining free-for-all in the United States, as Republicans seem singularly focused on, we are essentially giving a gift to our largest adversary.

Let me tell you what this bill does to address the lack of processing capacity here in the United States--or anywhere outside of China-- nothing, absolutely nothing. That is what it has been throughout this Congress from our friends across the aisle--crickets about addressing the real problem when it comes to our competitive threat of China on processing but a rush to open

up our public lands and gut our environmental laws for the mining interests.

Setting up a safe, environmentally sound processing industry in the United States and with our allies does have some barriers right now, but rarely is the lack of raw mine materials one of those barriers.

Take copper and lithium, for example. The Bipartisan Policy Center published a report last year that found that sourcing feedstock domestically or from free trade agreement countries was not a primary barrier to processing.

Much bigger barriers are competition for labor and a lack of price competitiveness, which are major barriers across the board. For some of the other essential minerals like cobalt, nickel, and rare earths, while feedstock is a challenge, it certainly isn't the only one. It is naive to think that fast-tracking mines alone will secure our supply chains and fix these problems.

Instead, we should support a responsible processing strategy, build a more circular economy, and innovate around low-impact mineral sources, like byproduct recovery from mine tailings and recycling, as Mr. Tonko from New York talked about a moment ago.

We need to train the highly skilled American workforce that we need to do all of these jobs. These are things that we need to be working together on. Instead, it is always a rush to open up public lands and give more corporate giveaways for mines.

It has been suggested that there is some sort of a spiteful agenda behind all this, a NIMBY interest where some States allow oil and gas extraction but they don't want it done in Minnesota and other places.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez) to speak about some of those accusations that have been made.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from New Mexico.

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

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I oppose H.R. 4090 for all the reasons that have been discussed.

This is a bill that directs the administration to prioritize and approve mines, any mines that it wants, even ones owned by foreign adversaries, giving them an expedited path to mine our publicly owned minerals and to export them, usually straight to China.

The Republicans have named it the Critical Mineral Dominance Act, but they forgot to make sure that it was America that would benefit. Democrats have tried again and again to add commonsense guardrails to stop foreign adversaries from benefiting from our

minerals. Republicans have repeatedly blocked these efforts with creative new excuses every time.

Let's drop the facade. This bill is not about American mineral dominance. It is not about critical minerals, either, because nothing in this bill limits the special treatment to strategically important minerals. Nothing in this bill would stop the administration from declaring a gold mine a priority and fast-tracking it. We have already seen them give millions of taxpayer dollars away to a gold mine in Nevada. Gold has never been critical, except when it comes to, I guess, decorating the White House.

This bill is an industry giveaway, pure and simple, and it leaves Americans footing the bill.

We have heard a lot of passionate talk from across the aisle about mining more here in America because we do it best and because we have such strong environmental and labor safeguards. However, this bill tells the Interior Department and the Forest Service to roll back those very regulations that my colleagues brag about and to go ahead and weaken pollution protections if the mining industry thinks they are too ``burdensome.''

Communities around the country know the consequences of unregulated mining all too well, especially Tribal communities who have borne much of the brunt of mining pollution: toxic waste, poisoned land, polluted water, and generations of pollution and disease.

Is this what it means to Make America Great Again? I think we can do a lot better than that. Democrats are willing to work to find responsible, strategic solutions to securing our critical mineral supply chains, but this bill takes us in the wrong direction, creating an industry-led free-for-all that allows anyone to mine our minerals, profit from them on the global market, and then leave Americans with nothing but the pollution.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the extraordinary life and legacy of my constituent and the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Bob Weir. Bob was more than a musical icon. He was a neighbor, a friend, and a beloved part of our North Bay community.

For decades, Bob made his home in Marin. He raised his family there, opened his doors to other artists, and helped build the vibrant local music vibe that so many of us cherish. He played intimate shows at Mill Valley's Sweetwater and took the stage at the Mountain Theater atop Mount Tamalpais.

Bob's music, his generosity, and unmistakable creative spirit helped define the identity of the North Coast. His legacy will endure every time a kid picks up a guitar, every time the lights come up at the Sweetwater, and every time music echoes across Mount Tam.

We are grateful that he made our community part of his life. We send our love to his family, friends, and all my fellow Dead Heads across the world.

Mr. Speaker, let the record reflect, I delivered these remarks barefoot in honor of Bobby Weir. I think he would appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in recognition of more than 45 years of extraordinary public transportation service by Nancy Whelan.

A lifelong public servant, Nancy has dedicated her career to innovating transportation infrastructure. Before landing in Marin, she served in roles with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the San Francisco Municipal Railway as well as provided technical and managerial services to

agencies throughout the Bay Area, including Marin, as the founder of Nancy Whelan Consulting. She was unanimously appointed to the position of General Manager for Marin Transit by the Board of Supervisors in 2014.

Strategic and steadfast, Nancy skillfully navigated Marin Transit through a challenging 11 years, supporting community members through the pandemic and pushing the agency towards a greener future. Under Nancy's leadership, Marin Transit is well on its way to meeting its goal to transition to zero emission by 2040, with the introduction of battery-electric buses and its recent property acquisition in San Rafael for fleet maintenance and operations. Nancy always prioritized accessibility for all Marin residents, including expanding mobility services for people with disabilities and older adults through the Marin Access Mobility Management Center. Her many notable achievements include increasing ridership by 10 percent from pre-pandemic levels, securing and improving the Rush Landing Bus Operations Hub in Novato, and developing the Marin Access Operations Facility in San Rafael.

Nancy is known for her critical thinking and professional style, developing strong partnerships with community stakeholders and applying informed decision making. She has been a terrific mentor to the next generation of transit professionals and other local women leaders. A tireless champion for affordable, inclusive transit, her work has influenced strategic planning and projects beyond Marin County and the Bay Area. For her commitment to sustainable and equitable transit, Nancy was awarded the WTS Lifetime Achievement Award.

It was my privilege and honor to work with Nancy. She does not shy away from complicated projects, confidently rising to the occasion and embracing complex challenges. I appreciate her collaborative leadership style and strong work ethic.

Mr. Speaker, Nancy Whelan is a visionary transit leader, and her legacy cannot be overstated. I respectfully ask that you join me in expressing my sincere gratitude for her decades of good work and in sending her best wishes on her next endeavors.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 140, a resolution that would threaten America's beloved Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota.

Mr. Speaker, Boundary Waters draws more visitors than any other wilderness in the country. Millions of Americans have paddled, fished, swum, and found solace among its pristine lakes and forests. It supports a multibillion-dollar outdoor economy, thousands of jobs, and a way of life that has been passed down for generations.

It is an area that Presidents, reaching back to Teddy Roosevelt, and Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have long recognized in terms of its value, and we have protected it as part of our American heritage.

Yet, the Boundary Waters have been under threat for years. Twin Metals, owned by Antofagasta, a Chilean mining company with close ties to China, has been lobbying for years to set up a mine just outside the wilderness area, along the banks of waters that flow north, directly into the wilderness.

The type of mining that Twin Metals has proposed has a 100 percent track record of toxic pollution. There has never been a mine of this kind that did not leach toxic pollution.

Despite what the other side of the aisle might say, there is no guarantee that the precious minerals that were just talked about produced from this mine would actually stay in the U.S. and benefit the American economy or American national security at all.

Antofagasta sends most of its minerals to China, where they are then sold on the global market, likely the same fate for these minerals if this mine is allowed to happen.

All of this is why, nearly 3 years ago, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland protected the lands surrounding the Boundary Waters and its headwaters from mining for 20 years through a public land order, a standard tool and process backed by peer-reviewed science and extensive public engagement.

The Congressional Review Act resolution on the floor today would overturn those protections, once again putting our beloved Boundary Waters at risk of toxic pollution from a foreign-owned mine.

If that weren't enough to convince my colleagues that this resolution is a terrible idea, I will briefly touch on the abuse of the Congressional Review Act itself that this resolution represents.

The Congressional Review Act, or CRA, has been used to overturn rules finalized by administrations of both parties since it was signed into law in 1996.

This Congress, the Trump administration and Republicans in both Chambers have been using the CRA to overturn public lands protections that have never been considered rules in the past. In an entirely unprecedented move, they are moving forward, even though the Government Accountability Office hasn't yet ruled on whether they believe this public land order constitutes a rule that would be subject to the CRA.

This administration and its allies in Congress have just unilaterally decided that they can do this, despite the fact that the Department of the Interior has never before considered a land withdrawal like this to be a rule.

Congress received notice of this withdrawal 3 years ago. If the resolution's sponsor wanted to pursue a CRA, he should have inquired then.

If this CRA succeeds, it won't just open the Boundary Waters to pollution but would set a terrible and dangerous precedent for Congress to roll back protections for any of our treasured public lands with little oversight or notice, just because Republicans have decided they would rather pillage them for profit.

Some places are just worth protecting, and this pristine, one-of-a- kind place is one of those incredible places.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this backdoor attempt to open our public lands to foreign mining, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, to the claim that Secretary Haaland failed to notify Congress as required by law, I am holding the notification that went out 3 years ago to the gentleman from Minnesota, personally, from the Secretary of the Interior. Maybe there is a misunderstanding there, but we have the receipts on that one.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).

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

I appreciate that the gentleman from Montana is suddenly so forthcoming about all of the analysis that has gone into this particular mining project because that wasn't always the case. When he was Secretary, we asked to see that analysis, and what we got back was page after page of redaction. We got zero information.

I appreciate the newfound candor from the gentleman, but I have to question his scientific credentials when he assures us that this will be the first ever copper mine of its kind to have no toxic pollution, even though 100 percent of mines using this particular method have leeched toxic pollution. Somehow, we are told this will be the first one to not do that because of all the extra scrutiny it has received.

Well, this series of black pages tells you a lot about the transparency and the scrutiny we have come to expect from the folks across the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. Morrison).

Mr. Speaker, just for clarification, we are well aware that the Twin Metals mine is proposed just

outside of the border of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. We have been very clear on that. However, it is very much within the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. In fact, it is right on the edge. It is just a couple of miles upstream on a river that flows right into this area. Let's stop kidding ourselves. To try to say that it is outside the border on this map and, therefore, the Boundary Waters have nothing to worry about when this mine leaks-- because it will, because every mine of this kind, 100 percent in the past, have leaked and have caused toxic pollution--when it happens, that pollution is going straight into America's most popular wilderness. That is a fact.

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

Mr. Speaker, now we hear about a gold mine on the Canadian side of the Boundary Waters watershed that has been producing minerals without incident. I am beginning to worry that my colleagues don't understand basic hydrology and how water flows and moves. To begin rebuttal, I include in the Record two articles on New Gold:

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/ industry-news/mining/new-gold-fined- for-2016-discharge-772366

https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/new-gold-inc-fined-100000- after-sediment-spill-from-dam-988742

Mr. Speaker, the mine was fined nearly $200,000 for discharging 19 million liters of pollution into the watershed. New Gold was fined again in 2018 after a sediment spill from a dam.

The only reason that that wasn't catastrophic for the Boundary Waters is because that mine is on the north side of the wilderness, where the water flows away from the protected areas.

That is how it works: Water in a watershed flows downhill in whatever direction that watershed takes it. I don't know why that basic principle seems so hard to understand, but apparently we have some hydrology problems across the aisle.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, we have been told time and again by our friends across the aisle that we have nothing to worry about here because this mine, even though it is proposed right next to the Boundary Waters wilderness on a river that flows directly into the wilderness with a type of mining that has a 100 percent track record of leaching toxic pollution, that, in spite of all that, we have all these wonderful environmental standards that will protect America's most popular wilderness.

That is pretty cold comfort, Mr. Speaker, coming from lawmakers who are working overtime to gut every single one of those bedrock environmental protections.

It may not be in this particular bill, but do I have to remind my colleagues that, just a few weeks ago, we were here on the floor debating their legislation to gut the National Environmental Policy Act. In our markup the same week, Republicans led the charge to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act. Separately, in other committees, they are going after the Clean Water Act.

Every one of these safeguards that we are told will be a backstop against anything going wrong in the Boundary Waters is under unprecedented attack

from the same folks who are pushing this legislation right now.

Don't be fooled that everything will be fine because of our environmental laws and standards. Those are under an unprecedented attack.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose this resolution for both the extreme danger that it poses to the Boundary Waters and the outrageous abuse of the Congressional Review Act that it represents.

As you have heard today, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is an American treasure with a strong, nonpartisan history of protection, dating back to 1909 through treaties with Canada and to 1964 with the Wilderness Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support back when we had great conservation champions in both parties.

Americans from across the country who have experienced the serenity of this wilderness know exactly what is at stake. Passing this resolution would pave the way for toxic mining that would, without a doubt, cause permanent and irreparable harm, mining that wouldn't even benefit the U.S. economy.

This move is deeply unpopular in Minnesota and does not put American critical mineral security first. This material will go to China.

It would also have far-reaching consequences for the future of public lands management, making beloved, protected lands across the country vulnerable to exploitation with very little oversight.

At the end of the day, some places really are worth protecting, and this is one of those places. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.J. Res. 140, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, in 1962, Congress authorized a 130-mile pipeline, known as the Arkansas Valley Conduit, to deliver clean, reliable water to communities in southeastern Colorado. More than 60 years later, the project remains uncompleted, while communities in the region continue to face unreliable water supplies and serious water quality challenges.

The drinking water sources they rely on are often contaminated with unsafe levels of radium, uranium, and other pollutants. Treating these contaminants places a significant burden on rural communities and forces many families to rely on bottled water or expensive filtration systems to meet basic needs that we all take for granted.

The Arkansas Valley Conduit was designed to address these challenges, but the project is still not completed largely because the communities that it will serve do not have the financial capacity to meet the traditional repayment obligations. They need our help.

For over a decade, the Colorado delegation has worked to advance this project so that families in southeastern Colorado can finally have access to clean, safe drinking water. Senators Bennet and Hickenlooper helped secure $500 million through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for this project that was a major step toward completion.

Last year, this body worked in a bipartisan manner to pass H.R. 131. Now, as introduced, Representative Boebert's bill did raise some concerns about removing interest payments and extending the repayment period, but our colleagues in the Senate worked to address these shared concerns, and we in the Natural Resources Committee came together to build on that work to ensure that this legislation addresses the real water reliability challenges facing the people of southeastern Colorado while remaining consistent with core reclamation law principles.

Together, Congress sent the President a carefully negotiated and narrowly tailored bipartisan bill to support the completion of this project.

The administration has no problem subsidizing water for certain stakeholders, including large-scale agricultural projects, yet when it comes to a tailored bill to ensure access to safe drinking water for rural communities, unfortunately, the President has taken a different path.

Now, we are going to talk about the merits of this bill today, I am sure, but we all know that this veto has nothing to do with fiscal policy, nothing to do with the merits. There has been extensive reporting that raises broader concerns about the administration's posture toward the State of Colorado and even toward the sponsor of this bill.

We know what this veto was about, and the message that that sends to Colorado and communities awaiting the

completion of the Arkansas Valley Conduit is deeply troubling.

Meanwhile, and the good news, is that this Congress has kept working to find a solution, and the legislation before us today is reasonably negotiated and bipartisan. It is going to help communities who have waited too long to finally have clean water.

I thank my colleagues for their commitment to working with us to reach the language before us today. I am deeply disappointed that the President chose to veto a bill that would help communities gain access to clean drinking water. The communities of southeastern Colorado deserve better, and today we have a bipartisan opportunity to do that for them.

I express my support and urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on overriding the President's veto, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse).

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

I really, in this moment, could care less about Ms. Boebert's politics or Mr. Hurd's politics. What I see before us is a piece of legislation that does an awful lot of good for people, a bill that was carefully negotiated, is bipartisan, and is common sense.

It is a water infrastructure bill, and every Member of this House looked past their political differences and did the right thing when we passed this unanimously out of the House of Representatives. That was Congress just doing its job.

If a noncontroversial, bipartisan, good bill like this can be taken hostage and become a weapon for settling political scores, well, it may not be in your State, it may not be in your district, but that could happen and will happen to any of us.

Mr. Speaker, this may seem like a little water infrastructure bill, but this is a bigger moment than that. This is a bit of a Spartacus moment for the Members of this body because any of us could face this, and we are about to find out.

I hope the people of this country are watching. I know history is actually going to be watching what happens here because if Congress is able to override this veto, it is a statement that even in a moment of extreme polarization, dysfunction, and conflict, we were able to get some work done. That would be Congress doing its job. If we fail to override this veto, that would say something much, much more troubling.

I urge my colleagues to do the right thing, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

The Natural Resources Committee is entrusted with working on behalf of Indian Country. While we don't always agree on everything, we have a long history of bipartisan work and a shared commitment to advancing legislation that benefits Tribal communities. H.R. 504 is one clear example of this. It addresses longstanding challenges caused by past Federal policies, and it is an opportunity--I would argue, an obligation--to support the Miccosukee Tribe in their efforts to protect their homelands.

President Trump has undermined that work, vetoing this bill based on unrelated policy disputes and a fundamental misunderstanding of Tribal sovereignty.

H.R. 504 would expand the Miccosukee Reserved Area to include Osceola Camp, which would strengthen the Tribe's ability to self-govern and, importantly, to address serious flooding concerns facing the village. This bipartisan bill is narrow, targeted, and respects Tribal sovereignty.

After reviewing the President's statement regarding his veto, it is very clear that this decision was not limited to the merits of the bill or to any particular policy. Instead, his statement criticizes the Tribe for actions taken to protect the Everglades, their homelands, from environmental risks. It even takes issue with the Tribe's opposition to his administration's unpopular immigration policies.

Moreover, the statement reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of Tribal Nations and the obligations that the United States has to those sovereign governments. Let me be clear: Tribes are not special interests. They are not seeking special treatment. They are sovereign nations with legal and moral responsibilities to protect the well-being of their citizens, their homelands, and the United States has a government-to-government responsibility to work with them. Unrelated policy disagreements should never be used to undermine that relationship.

The Miccosukee Tribe has worked for generations to protect their homelands within the Everglades. H.R. 504 would ensure that a historic Tribal village is protected, while allowing for critical restoration efforts to move forward without displacing the community.

It is pretty straightforward. It is noncontroversial. It was broadly universally bipartisan. It never should have been vetoed.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 504. Vote ``yes'' on overriding this veto. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

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

Mr. Speaker, to state the obvious, this bill has nothing to do with immigration. It is a very important bill, though, about Tribal sovereignty. It is a well-crafted bill. It is bipartisan. It is noncontroversial. Someone in the White House has decided to use it as a hostage to play politics, very petty and personal politics because of score settling.

They have chosen to do that, but that doesn't mean that all of us have to be used as pawns to advance that nastiness. This veto signal sends a terrible message, and it comes after a year of uncertainty in Indian Country, which included significant funding cuts, workforce reductions, and a withdraw of key executive orders that were designed to support Tribes.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to do the right thing by the Miccosukee Tribe and pass this veto override. Let's ensure that this Tribe continues to have access to the historic Osceola Camp and their homelands remain protected for future generations.

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

Mr. Speaker, there were few people in the Congress that tangled with Doug LaMalfa more than me. There is probably some competition for that honor among House Democrats, but I was certainly right up there.

Yet, I can tell you as we honor Doug today, I know plenty of people who disagreed with him, but I don't know anyone that disliked him. When you hear these qualities about his authenticity, his warm sense of humor, just how relatable he was, that is all very, very true.

I go back almost 20 years with Doug because we were in the State legislature together. A lot has been said about his sense of humor, which is also very, very true. I want to just share something that I always think of with Doug because it speaks to the type of humor which is really, I think, something that tells you about the man. There are plenty of people who have a great sense of humor at other people's expense. Doug LaMalfa had a very gentle and disarming sense of humor.

One of our colleagues together in the State assembly was our former colleague and the current mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass. I will always remember how Doug used to crack her and me up by calling her Bassomatic. That was the nickname. His staffers back here are far too young to remember the ``Saturday Night Live'' skit in which Dan Aykroyd puts a bass in a blender and makes this gross smoothie and drinks it. It was funny, and that is the kind of thing that Doug would pull up spontaneously and crack everyone up. I loved that.

I will tell you, Karen Bass loved it too. She liked it so much that she went up to Doug's district when she became speaker of the assembly, and I remember he just not only welcomed her there--this is a person he had very little in common with, a southern California urban African- American member that voted together with him almost never, but Doug gave her the VIP tour of his farm and of the Sacramento Valley and rice country. He got her up in a combine and had her do things that I am sure she will never forget. I think he loved every minute of that.

That is how I am going remember Doug. He was a great guy. I am certainly thinking and sending best wishes to his family and everyone who loved him.

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

This is our last day in session before Republicans close up shop and send everyone home for a couple of weeks.

The majority could be using this time to do something, such as provide actual solutions to the healthcare cliff that the country is about to go off of, address the affordable cost of all manner of goods and utilities that have been set in motion by their wrongheaded policies, but no. Instead of doing anything to help Americans make ends meet, we are here on the floor giving more gifts to Big Oil, multibillion-dollar foreign mining corporations, and specialty interests like the NRA.

I guess merry Christmas to all of them and a big lump of coal for everyone else.

To no one's surprise, Republicans have been working all year on handouts to Big Oil that were written for and by the oil and gas industry. The first bill up on our Christmas list is for polluters. It has been at the top of their wish list for as long as I have been in this Congress. It is the SPEED Act, which is being sold to us as permitting reform, and a spoiler alert: It is not permitting reform.

The bill takes a sledgehammer to the National Environmental Policy Act, one of our foundational environmental laws.

NEPA was enacted in 1970 on a bipartisan basis to require Federal agencies to do something that seems very basic: to understand the consequences of their actions and to listen to the affected American communities before approving major proposed projects. It is often described as telling agencies that they need to look before they leap.

Madam Chair, I am not opposed to reforms to make NEPA and other laws work better and to make it more efficient, especially for the build-out of the stuff we need: clean energy and essential infrastructure. However, we can do that while maintaining appropriate environmental protections, respecting Tribal consultation, and protecting community input. The SPEED Act does great damage to all of those things.

Instead, it abandons transparency and accountability, while ignoring the single biggest permitting problem facing the energy sector right now: the Trump administration's all-out war against wind and solar, which includes a total refusal to permit these projects.

From the beginning, Democrats across Capitol Hill have expressed a willingness to negotiate on permitting reform, including changes to NEPA, but the first thing we needed to see was an end to the crazy, arbitrary war on clean energy that is needlessly driving up energy costs for millions of Americans.

I hope you will just take a look at the spaghetti mess behind me because this is what Republicans have done to the permitting process for wind and solar projects.

On July 15, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum signed a memo listing 69 individual actions that require his personal sign-off. Of course, this requirement only applies to wind and solar projects, not to fossil fuels.

However, I will name just a few of the things that now require Secretary Burgum to pause his global tour promoting fossil fuels all over the world and give personal sign-off. If you need a temporary use permit for anything, if you need a national trail system impact evaluation, or if you need visual impact analysis, the Secretary of the Interior himself has to take a look at what you are proposing and sign off--69 times if you want to actually get a permit for a wind and solar project.

This is madness. Since the memo's enactment, there has been only one single solar project all year long that has been approved. It was just yesterday, and it happened only after heavy lobbying from the Republican Governor of Nevada, who told the Department of the Interior that it wasn't just that project, that there are actually 33 gigawatts of solar and storage projects that are in limbo right now because of this logjam that they have created, and that they are going to be key to supporting affordable, reliable energy to meet increased load growth.

To be clear, this is just one project that has made it through the gauntlet. It was fully approved, by the way, under the Biden administration, but then the Trump folks came along and put the brakes on that project.

That is where we are. That is the context for this conversation, where my friends across the aisle claim to care so much about an efficient permitting process.

I think most Republicans would agree, at least privately I think they would agree, that wind and solar are essential parts of the energy mix, despite the President's war against them.

That is why, at markup, Chair Westerman did incorporate a few Democratic ideas that at least attempted to provide some permitting certainty for projects of all kinds. Now, those amendments didn't come anywhere close to actually providing certainty for wind and solar projects in the face of the administration's crazy war on clean energy. The amendment would not get clean energy permits moving again, and it did nothing to help projects that the administration had already pulled the plug on.

Even that largely cosmetic step was too much for the Freedom Caucus, and so they struck again. They demanded that the Committee on Rules attach language to further stall clean energy permitting and to make it even easier for the Trump administration to continue blocking wind and solar projects in order to bring the SPEED Act to the floor today. That was the condition for our being here, debating this bill on the floor right now.

A bad bill got worse, so bad that the American Clean Power Association pulled its support, joining the Solar Energy Industries Association in opposing the bill. For months, we heard from Chair Westerman exhibit A for why Democrats should feel comfortable supporting this bill: The American Clean Power Association supports it. That support has now curdled into opposition.

Mr. Chair, do you know who still supports it? The American Petroleum Institute and the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, which put out a statement immediately after the Freedom Caucus made the bill worse to announce their great affection and support for this bill.

The bill has lost any claim for advancing tech-neutral energy policy, if it ever had one. Trust me when I say that even if the House passes this bill today, it is going nowhere in the Senate. What a missed opportunity to tackle a serious issue that Democrats were very interested in working on in good faith to find some solutions for.

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

Mr. Chairman, I need to provide some translation services for those who may not be fluent in Orwellian distortion.

When my colleague says that this legislation only deals with NEPA, that it doesn't touch the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, or Endangered Species Act, what that really means is that within the four corners of this particular bill, they are not gutting those other laws. Rest assured, they are working separately to gut those other laws.

In fact, just last week, Republicans attacked longstanding Clean Water Act protections, and just yesterday, the Committee on Natural Resources had a markup that advanced their legislation to gut the Endangered Species Act.

For those who want to see a complete annihilation of environmental protections across the board, rest assured, our Republican friends are doing that, just not all of it within the four corners of this bill.

There is another translation that I think is needed. We heard from my friend from Arkansas that they want to end the administrative ping-pong process. What they really mean by that, if we actually read this bill, is that they want the 69 individual steps that Secretary Burgum has imposed on all solar and wind projects to remain in place. I guess that is not administrative ping-pong, but I think it is an important part of the translation.

Then, finally, we heard that this legislation is about restoring NEPA's original intent, to just be a procedure bill. It is important to understand that NEPA does require procedure, but it requires meaningful procedure for a very important purpose: making sure that government actions consider the impacts of what they are doing and, with transparency and accountability, include communities so we can protect the environment, human health, and other values.

When you strip all of that out and leave NEPA as a box-checking exercise, which is what this bill is, that is not preserving the original intent of NEPA.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Randall).

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell).

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Peters).

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

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

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

Mr. Chairman, we have heard over and over again in this debate that this bill is not about lowering environmental standards. This is another one of those rather remarkable inversions, when you actually look at what the bill does.

Entire classes of projects are simply eliminated from environmental review. Entire classes of impacts no longer count in an environmental review under this proposed legislation. Certain types of comments that allow people to take part in the public review process and potentially challenge a project are no longer qualifying for them to be part of the public review and legal challenge process. If that is not lowering environmental standards, I don't know what is.

Another aspect of this bill should be considered specifically: allowing broad exemptions for grants, loans, and other financial assistance, which this bill does. It means that large, federally backed projects could avoid triggering a NEPA review, even when those impacts could be very significant.

This includes projects like many Federal highways, which were one of the original reasons that NEPA was passed, because they often ran right through disadvantaged communities. Those communities didn't even know about the proposed projects, let alone have the ability to require consideration of environmental impacts.

If you just take a look at this image here, this is what happens to transportation projects without NEPA. When we hear that this is not about lowering environmental standards, I think it is important to bring it back to the reality of what this bill would do. This is what this bill would do: no environmental review process at all for many of these projects.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, we hear it over and over again from the other side: NEPA should just be a purely procedural law.

Well, a lot of really important things are procedural--MRIs, X-rays, any number of things. Those are procedures, but you don't turn the power off and reduce that very important procedure to a meaningless exercise. That is what this legislation would do.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Nevada.

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

Mr. Chair, I am glad to hear the gentleman's concern for projects that are awaiting approval, but for the past year, we have seen huge projects that were already approved that were under construction.

In one case, the Revolution Wind project in Rhode Island was 80 percent complete, with thousands of jobs and some of the cheapest electricity that New England would see to bring down these soaring utility bills, and President Trump stepped in and stopped it. They had to get a court to release the hostage, to allow this already approved project to simply move forward. I am always grateful to hear concern for projects awaiting approval.

What this bill does, though, unfortunately, is nothing at all to end the crazy war on clean energy that is killing off projects that have already been approved. Our colleagues really should care about that, too.

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

Mr. Chair, we just heard a list of projects that were allegedly halted by frivolous litigation, a case study for the SPEED Act.

In fact, many of these are really bad projects, and the examples are often examples of the environmental review process working to protect the environment and protect people.

The Dakota Access Pipeline decision was challenged by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which won in court because the Army Corps of Engineers had failed to consider the impact of catastrophic oil spills on the Tribe's water supply and culturally sacred sites.

The Resolution Copper mine was delayed because the proposed mine would, in fact, destroy Oak Flat, the most sacred site for the San Carlos Apache Tribe.

Micron chose to build its semiconductor manufacturing facility near federally regulated wetlands and endangered habitat.

I think what we are hearing, unfortunately, is that permitting reform to my friends across the aisle means a green light even for bad and destructive projects. That is not something the American people want to see.

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

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

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

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

Mr. Chair, a lot of numbers have been thrown around on how NEPA takes so very, very long.

Much of this is looking deep into the past and extrapolating from that. I want to correct the Record because, as of January 2025, $1 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act for permitting was actually doing its job quite well. It had helped reduce the median time it takes to complete an Environmental Impact Statement, the most complex environmental review, by 28 percent. That is compared to times under the first Trump administration.

The time was down a little over 2 years in 2024 compared to over 3\1/ 2\ in 2019. That is 1\1/2\ years of improvement. Unfortunately, these steps forward have been taken away by our friends across the aisle. We are going in the wrong direction.

Mr. Chair, in closing, the majority had a great opportunity here. Democrats were ready to work with them on meaningful and bipartisan permitting reform. They chose to reject our efforts to engage in good faith. Instead, what we have here is another Christmas giveaway to the wealthiest, most powerful people and companies in the country.

I guess this is the golden age. These are wonderful times. A person can throw Great Gatsby parties if they are a billionaire, if they are one of these very, very rich interest groups.

We should be thinking about everyday Americans right now. Many overburdened communities are saddled with significant pollution. We should think about helping them instead of making it harder for them to challenge projects that threaten the health and environmental damage visited upon their community.

We should also think about rising utility bills, something we hear more and more about in this affordability crisis driven by Republican policies. Yet, our friends across the aisle look the other way as President Trump's crazy war on clean energy drives utility bills higher and higher.

We should work toward a level playing field for clean energy instead of another handout for Big Oil. The American Clean Power Association has pulled its support for this legislation. The bill is opposed by the Solar Energy Industries Association and, of course, countless environmental justice organizations who know this bill will take a wrecking ball to government transparency, to community engagement, and to health and environmental protections.

It didn't have to be this way. This was a terrible missed opportunity, but a bad bill has actually gotten worse through the process and not better.

I strongly oppose the SPEED Act. I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, regardless of whether they may have supported this in the past--the bill has gotten worse--to vote ``no.''

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

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

Mr. Chairman, this is a perfect example of how, even when team extreme puts together the most dramatic rollback of America's most important bedrock environmental law, it is not enough for some factions within the Republican Conference.

Mr. Chair, I do oppose this amendment because, at its core, it is built on a tired trope--the trope that NEPA litigation is some huge driver of frivolous litigation and an argument that we hear all too often to justify more and more limits on judicial review to make it harder and harder for the public to participate in the review process and to help oil and gas and other polluting projects.

However, the facts do not back up the story that we keep hearing. One recent study from the University of Utah found that only 1 out of every 450 actions subject to NEPA are ever even litigated. That amounts to 0.23 percent. According to a recent Congressional Research Service report: ``Historically, fewer than 1 percent of Federal actions subject to NEPA have been litigated.'' That is important context.

Mr. Chair, the idea behind this amendment, that we need to keep layering on more and more restrictions to shut out the public, to eliminate legal challenges, and to stop frivolous litigation is overblown, especially in the context of an underlying bill which already imposes dramatic new barriers that make it almost impossible to bring a case to court.

Among other hurdles, the underlying bill says that you have to have commented during a comment period, even as the Trump administration is restricting the opportunity to comment.

It also requires that your comment has to be ``unique.'' This is a new term of art. It doesn't exist in current law. We don't even know what it really means, but, presumably, if anyone else has submitted the same comment or has flagged the same problem with a Federal action, you are out because your comment is no longer unique.

To add a cherry on top of all of that, even if you get into court, the SPEED Act would bind judges, forcing them to allow even dangerous and illegal projects to proceed, making the judicial review process extremely hollow.

Mr. Chairman, judicial review is a cornerstone of democracy. When the government makes a bad decision or an illegal decision, I would hope we could all agree that there are times, since the government doesn't get everything just right, that citizens need to be able to challenge that action and hold the government accountable to make sure the law is followed.

Access to the courts is a backstop for communities, who are left out of the

NEPA process, to make their concerns heard and to ensure that Federal Government actions properly consider environmental impacts.

Though we have heard a lot of fear-mongering about frivolous lawsuits, there are already effective safeguards in place. All plaintiffs have to demonstrate that they have actually been harmed by a project to have standing, and NEPA will be meaningless unless there is a way to enforce it when the government does something harmful or illegal.

That is what this is all about.

Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' on this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I think we have found some common ground. I hear that any frivolous lawsuit is one too many, so I just want to remind the gentleman that maybe one of the most prolific frivolous litigators in history is in the White House right now.

I remind the gentleman about the raft of frivolous lawsuits challenging the 2020 election results, resulting, in many cases, not just in losses in court but in the disbarment of some of the Republican luminary lawyers like Rudy Giuliani.

If we pretend to care about frivolous lawsuits, I know consistency is out of fashion these days, but we should really mean it.

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

Mr. Chairman, we should be against all truly frivolous things--not just frivolous lawsuits but frivolous legislation masquerading as permitting reform, frivolous amendments, frivolous distractions at the end of probably the most unproductive Congress in American history this year at a time when the American people are struggling. That is what is truly frivolous.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment. I urge a ``no'' vote, 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. Chairman, the majority has suggested that the underlying bill's changes to NEPA on the scope of review simply codify the Supreme Court's Seven County decision, but the SPEED Act actually goes much further than that Court decision. The Court left broad discretion for agencies to determine what impacts are relevant and how far the environmental analysis should go.

The Seven County decision allows agencies to analyze environmental impacts when those impacts are reasonably foreseeable, although the Court did limit what agencies are required to review. The underlying bill and this amendment do something entirely different. They strip agencies of their discretion to consider a broad range of environmental impacts.

This could have far-reaching consequences for communities, the environment, and public health, even when the science is clear and the consequences are very real.

The bill would prevent agencies from examining the harms that communities across the country are living with right now. A perfect example is Louisiana's Cancer Alley, where predominantly Black neighborhoods face some of the highest pollution-related cancer risks in the Nation, and those risks come from cumulative emissions from many facilities that have been built over decades and impacts that are well documented and directly tied to Federal permitting decisions.

Under this bill, agencies would largely be prohibited from considering any cumulative effects, anything that worsens that preexisting problem. That is not streamlining. That is telling Federal agencies to look the other way in the face of obvious, foreseeable harm.

NEPA's strength has always been its requirement that agencies take a hard look at the real-world consequences of their actions. That is how agencies avoid unintended harm. It is how the public stays informed, and it is how Federal decisions remain accountable and transparent.

The language in this bill dismantles that approach, and this amendment takes it even further by continuing to strip away what courts have left in terms of discretion for agencies to consider. This will result in more harm to

many American communities, including some of our most vulnerable communities that are already overburdened with pollution.

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

Mr. Chairman, I think common sense is that if an agency is proposing or is considering a project that would be the tipping point for a community that is already overburdened by pollution, and that would dramatically increase a problem like Cancer Alley in Louisiana, they ought to be able to consider those cumulative impacts. I would call that common sense.

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

Mr. Chairman, if this amendment is simply about codifying the Supreme Court's decision, why doesn't it say what the Supreme Court said?

The Supreme Court said that agencies would be able to have discretion to consider cumulative impacts, traffic patterns, and other things in circumstances where those were very compelling factors. This amendment says, No, you can't consider any of that.

Let's not kid ourselves. This is not codifying the Supreme Court's decision. This is taking it much, much further.

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

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

Mr. Chair, I urge opposition to the 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 strongly oppose this amendment. It is one more attempt to restrict what the government can consider in an environmental review and turn NEPA into nothing more than a box- checking exercise. You get all of the bureaucracy but none of the benefits under this approach.

The amendment would add a narrow definition of significant effects on the human environment in order to limit which projects get a closer look under NEPA.

It is important to recognize that we already have a high standard for which projects get that closer look. Only proposed actions that are anticipated to have a significant effect on the environment undergo an environmental impact statement, or EIS, which is the most thorough form of NEPA review.

Agencies don't do environmental impact statements willy-nilly. Only about 1 percent of all projects go through this process. These are the types of large-scale, complex projects that can have serious, long- lasting impacts on the environment, things like mines that remove entire mountaintops, things like the construction of a new nuclear power plant, exactly the types of things that should get close scrutiny and that the public deserves to have a chance to weigh in on.

This amendment redefines significant effect on the environment to mean only concrete harms that are directly caused by the proposed agency action and materially impair human health or property. That is a drastic narrowing of how we think about the impacts of Federal actions.

To use a public lands example, I will just quote from the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. It says: The policy of the United States is to manage public lands in a manner that will protect the quality of scientific, scenic, historic, ecological, environmental, air and atmospheric, water resource, and archaeological values.

Now the courts have backed up this spectrum of values for decades. The Supreme Court has held that NEPA should analyze a broad range of harms, including recreational and esthetic enjoyment of the environment.

Who here really thinks that there is no significant effect on the environment of a proposed refinery that would only light up a protected dark sky all night, every night next to a neighborhood? Or is there really no significant effect on the environment if a pipeline would disrupt big game migrations that hunters depend on to feed their families?

Of course, this definition means no amount of climate-changing emissions that could be considered to have had a significant effect on the environment would ever be considered.

The American people deserve the full picture of a proposed action and its significant effects on the environment. This amendment puts the blinders on even more than the underlying bill, which already goes too far in that direction.

Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' on the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, we have a major disagreement on what ``common sense'' means in this Congress.

To me, and I think really to most Americans, it is just common sense that if you have a project that would destroy hunting access to some vital part of our public lands that generations have depended on, if you have a project that would cause a sacred Tribal site to no longer be enjoyed by folks who have depended on it for millennia, that that should undergo an environmental review. That seems like common sense to most people. But in this strange Congress, I guess common sense just means just do those projects anyway and don't even consider alternatives and don't even consider the impacts. That is why I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I thought we were debating a bill that proposes a permitting reform. Of course, we have lots of disagreements about how it impacts our bedrock environmental laws, but I guess we never want to miss an opportunity to go into the fever swamp of conspiracism that is the Kash Patel FBI these days.

I will bring it back to the subject at hand.

This is a bad amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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

Mr. Speaker, I remind everyone that we are at the end of this year. We are running out of time to fix the healthcare crisis that Republicans have created. Christmas break is right around the corner, and hardworking Americans are struggling. They are being crushed under the weight of rising costs.

What do our Republican friends have us voting on?

The next bill that we have up today, H.R. 1366, the so-called Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, is just a gift for folks who really ought to be on the naughty list this time of year: foreign mining companies.

I strongly oppose this bill.

According to its sponsors, it is a legislative fix to the Rosemont court decision, a court case that determined that a mining company was not allowed to dump its toxic mine waste on public lands based on an invalid mining claim.

You see, Mr. Speaker, for years, mining companies were allowed to dump their waste wherever they wanted without paying fair market value for that land, without public land managers having any real option to say no regardless of which precious public lands might be destroyed forever.

However, in the Rosemont decision, the court held that under current law, a mining claim is only valid when it actually contains valuable minerals. That makes sense. That is common sense, if we want some common sense.

However, the mining industry didn't like that. They were not happy that they could no longer dump their toxic waste on phony, invalid claims anymore.

So here we are today passing a so-called fix for the industry.

Now, let's remember that enormous benefit is stacked on another one: Mining companies don't pay back the American people a cent in royalties for the minerals that belong to the people of the United States. The antiquated Mining Act of 1872 essentially gives away America's valuable mineral resources for free, often to foreign-owned mining companies, even companies controlled by our adversaries.

Even so, the industry calls the Rosemont decision an existential threat. Give me a break.

You know what happened to the Rosemont mine after that court decision came down? The next day, the company paid for private lands for its waste disposal. The mine wasn't stopped. It is just the industry would prefer to use the public lands, your lands, and to be able to dump for free.

Industry argues that this bill would provide certainty and clarity for mining and exploration. In practice, this fix would just allow mining companies to use a different type of claim called a mill site for unlimited mine-waste dumping. They could use it for pipelines and processing whatever else they would like, again at cut-rate prices.

For the record, I have found no evidence that any mines are currently being held up because of the Rosemont decision anywhere in America. This is a solution in search of a problem.

Time and time again, Democrats have raised legitimate concerns with this legislation, and we have offered good-faith amendments to address those concerns.

I offered an amendment to strike the broad definition of operations in the bill, which effectively means that mining operations don't need a mining claim at all.

Representative Lee from Nevada offered an amendment to clarify that mining companies should only use the public lands that are actually necessary for their operations, and to make clear that nothing in the bill limits the rights to regulate mining and related activities on Federal lands.

Representative Leger Fernandez offered an amendment to exempt companies that are owned and controlled by our adversaries from these incredible benefits under this bill.

All of these amendments were very straightforward. None of the issues raised should be a surprise to the majority. They have had time to work with us, but they chose not to. They rejected all of these amendments. I guess they would rather let foreign mining companies controlled by our adversaries pillage our public lands for cheap or even for free. Noted.

Again, I strongly oppose this legislation and reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Minnesota for listing all of those States and places because it is important for the American people to know that if this becomes law, a free toxic dump site on your public lands is on its way in all of those places. That is what this is about.

One of the cynical euphemisms we keep hearing is ``regulatory certainty,'' so let's talk about what that really means.

Mining permitting has continued after the Rosemont decision. The Rosemont mine itself proceeded. It wasn't impacted. There is no legislative fix needed to this fake problem. This bill would codify only the most industry-friendly interpretations of the mining law and introduce additional uncertainty around the government's ability to enact basic commonsense regulations on mining on public lands.

To expand on that, the bill's current definition says that mining operations include: ``All functions, work, facilities, and activities in connection with the prospecting, development, extraction, and processing of mineral deposits and all uses reasonably incident thereto, including the construction and maintenance of means of access, whether the operations take place on or off the claim.''

This is sweeping. Effectively, this means that mining operations don't need a mining claim at all to conduct operations on your public lands. While this definition is currently in regulation, the Interior Department, and the leading public land law treatise have found that offsite mining activities do not currently get the same rights and priority use as mining claims. That is what is at stake in this legislation.

Permanently codifying this into law would further put mining over other uses of our public lands, doing an end run around the multiple- use balancing requirements that are foundational to public land management.

While our land managers have limited discretion right now to deny a mine on public lands, they do at least have some authority over their roads, pipelines, and toxic waste dumping. That would all be taken away by this legislation.

This is not regulatory clarity. It is regulatory charity to an industry that has already gotten 150 years of giveaways.

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

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record a letter of opposition from 189 organizations, Tribes, companies, and local elected officials.

December 17, 2025.

Dear Member of Congress: The 189 undersigned organizations,

Tribes, companies and elected officials are writing on behalf

of our millions of members and supporters to express our

strong opposition to H.R. 1366, The Mining Regulatory Clarity

Act (MRCA). The legislation includes sweeping provisions that

would weaken the already outdated 1872 Mining Law and give

even more control over our public lands to the mining

industry. We ask you to oppose The Mining Regulatory Clarity

Act.

Most mining in the United States is governed under a 150-

year-old, extremely permissive law enacted when Ulysses S.

Grant was president. The law disempowers frontline

communities, has no environmental guardrails, and doesn't

require mining companies to pay a royalty on the billions of

dollars of publicly owned minerals they extract. This law

governs mining on public lands that are currently being

dismantled by the administration and their Congressional

allies with active threats to sell off millions of acres of

our lands, roll back protections such as National Monuments

and mineral withdrawals in secret, and firing thousands of

workers whose jobs are essential for the future existence of

our public lands. Additionally, recent executive orders were

signed invoking emergency powers to increase domestic mining

and processing of minerals, including those by foreign owned

mining companies. They cover not just critical minerals, but

others like gold. The executive order explicitly calls for

agencies to prioritize mining above all other uses of public

lands, and aims to provide funding and loans for mining

projects, as well as accelerate permitting processes under

the guise of the Defense Production Act. If you combine the

antiquated mining law, the recent EO's, and the

administration's efforts to dismantle our public lands, along

with the now unpredictable compliance with the National

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) (due to President Trump's

executive actions) communities are now more at risk from

mining harms than they were even 10 years ago.

History already paints a clear picture of the risks posed

by irresponsible, deregulated mining for critical resources

across the country. The EPA estimates that 40% of headwaters

and 50% of lakes have been contaminated by hardrock mines,

decimating

watersheds and the communities that depend on them for

freshwater, including drinking water. Recent research reveals

that the vast majority of critical mineral resources in the

United States are located within 35 miles of Native American

reservations. As demand for hardrock minerals grows

domestically and globally, it is critical that we ensure

mining laws and standards protect communities and the

environment while strengthening and securing our supply

chains. Unfortunately, the MRCA would take us backward, not

forward, and create more conflict over mines, not less.

First, the MRCA would allow mining companies to claim

indefinite numbers of millsites on public land, without

meaningful limitations, where multinational mining companies

can permanently dump toxic waste and construct infrastructure

like pipelines and roads. These millsites could block public

lands from being used for more suitable purposes, such as

renewable energy projects, watershed protection, cultural

resource access, and recreation. This provision would remove

any effective limits on millsites and eliminate the

requirement that such claims be located only on non-mineral

land, a key feature that prevents lands with valuable

minerals from being buried under waste or made inaccessible.

Second, several additional provisions contained within MRCA

would weaken, if not negate, over a century of precedent that

has limited the amount of damage to public land caused by our

permissive mining law. According to current law, operators

must first prove that there are in fact valuable minerals on

a mining claim before they gain the right to conduct large-

scale operations on those claims. Additionally, operators

cannot conduct operations outside of their claims without

obtaining further permits. MRCA could render these

requirements meaningless by codifying a regulation that

defines all activities related to mining under the term

``operations,'' even if they are not directly on a mining

claim. This could allow mining companies to build pipelines,

roads, and powerlines and conduct other activities across

public lands without ever having to get a permit for them.

The MRCA does not contain any meaningful limits to prevent

abuses of the millsite provision. It states that mining

companies may use public lands in accordance with an approved

plan of operations. But that is of little assistance given

the bill grants mining companies an unlimited, statutory

right to use those lands--a right that cannot be denied in a

mining plan of operations. The offered protections are thus

no protections against the giveaway of public lands.

Finally, MRCA includes a savings clause that states mining

companies still have to prove that there are valuable mineral

deposits on claims within lands that have been withdrawn from

mining. However, the exclusion of similar language for claims

on unwithdrawn lands could be read by a court to imply that

Congress intended to eliminate the requirement for such

checks on unwithdrawn lands, which make up the vast majority

of public lands. Altogether, these sections essentially give

mining companies a nearly unlimited right to dump waste

across an indefinite number of acres of public lands under

the proposed millsites provision.

This bill's provisions will have a devastating impact on

frontline communities, cultural resources, and sensitive

ecosystems. Instead of passing this legislation, Congress

should enact true reforms to our mining laws such as those

identified by the 2023 Interagency Working Group on Mining

Laws, Regulations, and Permitting, especially those that

would close loopholes for foreign companies, improve

environmental standards, and create competitive leasing to

balance the nation's clean energy mineral needs with other

public land uses. We urge you to oppose the passage of S. 544

& H.R. 1366, whether as a standalone bill or as a part of a

larger legislative package.

Sincerely,

1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations, 350 Bay Area

Action, 350 Hawaii, A2 (Anthropocene Alliance), Access to

Thrive, Alaska Clean Water Advocacy, Alaska Community Action

on Toxics, Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association, Alaska

Wilderness League, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Amigos

Bravos New Mexico, Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, Arizona

Faith Network, Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, Arizona Trail

Association, Arizonans for Community Choice, Basin and Range

Watch, Becky Daggett, Mayor of Flagstaff, AZ (as an

individual, Biofuelwatch, Bitterrooters for Planning.

Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, Black Hills Preservation

Project, Bold Visions Conservation, Borderlands Restoration

Network, Cabinet Resource Group, California Environmental

Voters, Californians for Western Wilderness, CalWild, Cascade

Forest Conservancy, Cascadia Wildlands, CDT Preservation

Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Chilkat Indian

Village, Circle Z ranch, Citizens for a Safe & Clean Lake

Superior, Citizens to Protect Smith Valley (NV), Climate and

Community Institute, Climate Justice Alliance, Coalition for

Sonoran Desert Protection, Colorado Citizens Against

ToxicWaste Inc, Concerned Citizens Retired Miners Coalition.

Conservation Northwest, Conservatives for Responsible

Stewardship, Continental Divide Trail Coalition, Corona de

Tucson Preservation Alliance, Day One, Deer Tail Scientific,

Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice Action, Earthworks,

EcoFlight, Emily Mine Information Group, Environmental

Protection Information Center--EPIC, Esker Cycles, Friends of

Santa Cruz River, Friends of Sonoita Creek, Friends of the

Amargosa Basin, Friends of the Bitterroot, Friends of the

Clearwater, Friends of the Inyo, Friends of the Kalmiopsis.

Friends of Santa Cruz River, Friends of the Sonoran Desert,

Gallatin Wildlife Association, Gila Resources Information

Project, Global Witness, Grand Canyon Trust, Grand Staircase

Escalante Partners, Great Basin Resource Watch, Great Basin

Water Network, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, GreenLatinos,

High Country Conservation Advocates, Idaho Conservation

League, Idaho Rivers United, Imperial Valley Equity and

Justice, Inclusive Development International, Indigenous

Environmental Network, Information Network for Responsible

Mining, Investor Advocates for Social Justice.

Izaak Walton League Rapid City SD Chapter, Jeff and Karen

Ives, Kalmiopsis Audubon Society, Kalmiopsis Guides

Association, Kettle Range Conservation Group, Klamath Forest

Alliance, Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center, League of

Conservation Voters, Living Desert Alliance, Living Rivers &

Colorado Riverkeeper, LNE Engineering and Policy, Local

Environmental Action Demanded (LEAD) Agency, Inc., Los Padres

ForestWatch, Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance, Lynn Canal

Conservation, Madrean Archipelago Wildlife Center, Malach

Consulting, Maricopa Audubon Society, Mennonite Central

Committee U.S., Mining Impact Coalition of Wisconsin.

MiningWatch Canada, Montana Chapter Sierra Club, Montana

Environmental Information Center, Mount Shasta Bioregional

Ecology Center, Multicultural Alliance for a Safe

Environment, Native American Land Conservancy, Native Village

of Fort Yukon, Natural Resources Defense Council, Nature For

All, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Nevada

Conservation League, New Mexico & El Paso Interfaith Power

and Light, New Mexico Environmental Law Center, Next 100

Coalition, Nicole Palese PLLC, Noowuh Knowledge Center, North

Carolina League of Conservation Voters, Northeastern

Minnesotans for Wilderness, Northern Alaska Environmental

Center, Norton Bay Watershed Council.

Oregon Natural Desert Association, Oregon Wild, Our Roots

Multi-Cultural Center, Partnership for Policy Integrity,

Patagonia Area Resource Alliance, Patagonia, Inc., Pipe Line

Awareness Network for the Northeast, Prairie Hills Audubon

Society (of Western SD), Progressive Leadership Alliance of

Nevada, Protect Thacker Pass, Protect the Kobuk, Public

Citizen, Rachel Carson Council, Responsible Jewelry

Transformative, River Alliance of Wisconsin, Rivers Without

Borders, Rock Creek Aliance, Rural Arizona Engagement, San

Juan Citizens Alliance, San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council.

San Pedro 100, San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham

Nation, Save Lake Superior Association, Save Our Cabinets,

Save Our Sky Blue Waters, Save Our St. Vrain Valley, Inc.,

Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, Save the South Fork Salmon,

Sheep Mountain Alliance, Sierra Club, Sierra Protection

Action Network, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice

Team, Sky Island Alliance, Smith River Alliance, Soda

Mountain Wilderness Council, Southeast Alaska Conservation

Council, Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary

Commission, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Southwest

Research and Information Center (SRIC), SPAN.

Sustainable Ocean Alliance, Sustainable Tucson, The

Becoming Project INC, The Calabasas Alliance, The Healthy

Environment Alliance of Utah, The Native Village of Dot Lake,

The Ocean Project, The Wilderness Society, Tri-Valley CAREs,

Tucson Bird Alliance (formerly Tucson Audubon), Turtle Island

Restoration Network, Universidad Popular, Upper Peninsula

Environmental Coalition, Uranium Watch, Washington Wild,

Water Legacy, Weber Sustainability Consulting, West Berkeley

Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs, Western Shoshone

Defense Project, Western Shoshone Nation.

Western Watersheds Project, Wild Arizona, Wild Connections,

Wild Hope, Wild Horse Education, WildEarth Guardians,

Wildlands Defense, Wildlife for All, Yellow Dog Watershed

Preserve.

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

Mr. Chair, the signers of this letter express their strong opposition to this bill. Specifically, they argue that it would weaken the already outdated 1872 mining law and give the mining industry even more control over our public lands.

They note that mining in the United States is already governed under a law that is 150 years old, enacted under President Ulysses S. Grant.

These organizations, Tribes, and leaders remind us that the 1872 law has no environmental guardrails, that the mining industry is already the only industry that doesn't have to pay any royalty when it extracts our minerals on public lands, and that 40 percent of headwaters and 50 percent of lakes have been polluted by mining activity.

They also raise specific concerns within the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act.

First, the bill would allow multinational companies to claim an indefinite number of mill sites to permanently dump toxic waste on our public lands for free.

Second, it could block renewable energy development, recreation, and other uses of our public lands by allowing mining companies to build roads, pipelines, and other infrastructure by right and without any permits, as long as they are connected to a plan of operation.

Finally, the bill could be read to eliminate the requirement that mining companies prove that there are even some valuable minerals to validate their claims on the vast majority of our public lands.

The letter urges us to enact real reforms to the 1872 mining law that would improve environmental safeguards for communities and ecosystems impacted by mining, give Federal land managers a say in deciding where mining is and is not appropriate, and close loopholes that allow foreign companies to exploit our public lands.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), who has shown great leadership on this seemingly commonsense need to put some guardrails in place to make sure that foreign-owned mining companies, including those owned and controlled by our adversaries, don't have the benefit of all these lavish giveaways.

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

Mr. Speaker, this bill is another unnecessary giveaway to the mining industry. It lets literally anyone, including foreign mining companies controlled by our adversaries, claim as much of our Nation's public land as they want for next to nothing, extract our publicly owned minerals without paying a cent in royalties back to the American people, and then permanently bury our public lands in toxic mining waste.

Our mining laws need reform. They don't need this.

With bipartisan interest in securing our critical mineral supply chain, we actually have an opportunity to create modern mineral policies that would empower American innovators to recover the minerals we need while honoring indigenous sovereignty, protecting the environment, and making sure American workers and communities share in the benefits, as well as the American taxpayers. Instead, the majority is doubling down on the extraction above all land grab from the gold rush back when we codified this 1872 mining law.

They refuse to engage with Democrats to include even commonsense safeguards against letting foreign adversaries take our public minerals for free. They refuse to limit the industry's waste dump mill sites to only the public lands necessary for their operations. Ominously, they refuse to clarify that this bill does not affect the Federal Government's ability to regulate mining on public lands, which the unnecessary Savings Clause in this bill calls into question.

It bears repeating that the mining industry already has a sweetheart deal on our public lands. We are the only industrialized Nation that lets anyone claim whatever they want on public lands and extract public minerals for free.

This bill is no minor technical fix to overturn a court decision. It is a massive giveaway of public lands to an industry afraid that one of those many giveaways that they have had for all of this time was about to be challenged.

Mr. Speaker, I urge opposition to the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.