Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was unable to make the following votes. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 157; NAY on Roll Call No. 158; and YEA on Roll Call No. 159.

Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was unable to make the following vote. Had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 153.

Mr. Speaker, I regret that I was unable to make the following votes. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 132, and YEA on Roll Call No. 133.

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

Mr. Speaker, when I call this a deeply unserious bill, I think I am probably being charitable. It is unserious, and it comes from a Republican majority that is either unable or unwilling to do the real work of Congress.

In the first disastrous 100 days of President Trump's second term in office, we have seen him sow chaos and distraction in every direction.

This deeply corrupt and unhinged leader has put his biggest campaign donor and the wealthiest man in the world in charge of slashing programs that millions of Americans depend on, from food assistance to nuclear safety to disaster response, all in the name of ``efficiency.'' They have indiscriminately fired thousands of Federal workers, like this is some dystopian reboot of ``The Apprentice,'' except in this episode, they are filling the government with unqualified sycophants, who are running around firing meteorologists, health experts, and emergency responders, people who keep our government running.

Today, in the face of all of that, all of this chaos that our Republican colleagues don't want to talk about, at least we are hearing them engage in some debate over this unserious bill

about renaming the Gulf of Mexico, which I suppose is an improvement because for the past couple of weeks in the markup hearings on their disastrous budget reconciliation bill, they have been unwilling to debate at all. It has just been silence from Republicans as they move through one of the most reckless bills in American history, the same silence as they duck their constituents by canceling townhalls and avoiding media inquiries.

Instead of debating that very important and destructive legislation, they are speaking up today about this deeply unserious bill to rename a body of water. We wish that our Republican colleagues would join us in asking the question that is on more and more Americans' minds: What the heck is going on?

This administration is not draining the swamp. They are torching the country. The global economy is in chaos. We are teetering on the brink of recession. Administration officials are telling us we should perhaps prepare to ration dolls and toys this Christmas. Yet, they want to debate renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

Congress, which more and more appears to just be a joke, is now advancing a bill that literally started off as a joke. That is right. The first person to publicly suggest the name change was not Donald Trump or the author of this bill. It was comedian Stephen Colbert on ``Comedy Central.'' It was a joke back when the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was happening.

Eleven people died in that disaster. Entire ecosystems collapsed. The Louisiana coast was wrecked, along with industries and livelihoods that depend on that Gulf Coast ecosystem. It was all devastated, and Colbert used the fake name ``Gulf of America'' to satirize the absurdity of oil-soaked nationalism.

Now, here we are, 15 years later, in a Congress that apparently thinks they have no real work to do, turning a late-night punch line into the legislative business of the United States House.

I would love to say this is just a one-off, but it fits a disturbing trend. Again and again, this majority keeps replacing science with slogans, governance with grievance, and policymaking with cheap performance art.

The truth is, this bill won't fix a single problem. It does absolutely nothing to help the Gulf Coast. It won't create a single job. It is not going to fix our climate crisis. It is just dumb.

The only thing this bill will do is waste time and taxpayer dollars to stroke the ego of a guy who Sharpied a hurricane map on live TV.

In committee, I offered an amendment that would actually advance the value of efficiency because if this is all about stroking the ego of one man, if it is all about cultish sycophancy, why do it in a piecemeal way with all these individual bills to put his face on Mount Rushmore and the $100 bill?

We actually have legislation from folks across the aisle to do all these things: to rename Dulles Airport, to do national holidays. Why not go all the way? We know that is where this is all heading anyway since everything is in service of one man's fragile ego.

Why not rename the entire planet ``planet Trump''? At least that would be efficient. We would hurry up and get to the inevitable outcome of where this Republican Congress is taking us.

If you like this unserious bill, there is another deal for you because Eric and Don Jr. are selling Gulf of America hats on their website for 50 bucks a pop. One hat even says: ``Gulf of America, Yet Another Trump Development.'' The sales pitch for one includes ``as seen on President Donald J. Trump,'' and get your meme coin while you are at it.

Remember, all of these grifts are for a limited time. They won't last much longer.

The American people deserve much better. A recent FOX News poll--yes, FOX--showed that a big majority opposes the name change for the Gulf of Mexico: 67 percent. Americans know a joke when they see one, even if this Republican Congress doesn't.

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman is right about one thing: Democrats are outraged because as this President is crashing the global economy, careening us into recession, destroying retirement plans and 401(k)'s, driving up costs for American families on everything from cars to eggs to now us being told we may have to ration toys and dolls this Christmas, as all of that is happening, he is using Congress' Article I trade and commerce authority to do it.

What do you hear from Republicans across the aisle about this thing that is wrecking the lives of so many American families? Nothing. Worse than nothing, they have tied their own hands with a gimmicky bill that they passed to create a false legislative day that never ends so that they can't even invoke Congress' Article I trade authority and put some sensible sideboards on this trade and tariff policy.

It is madness, and the gentlewoman is right. We are outraged.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) to talk about it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor), who represents the Gulf and may have some wisdom to share with us about this subject.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Rivas).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Magaziner).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cisneros).

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

Mr. Speaker, the most encouraging thing so far in the debate on this bill is that the only speaker that the Republicans have offered in support of it is the gentlewoman from Georgia. That is it.

I think that is hopeful. It suggests that maybe there is still a little bit of dignity somewhere in the Republican Conference. I guess we will see in a few minutes when we start voting on this bill that is an insult to any serious Member of Congress. It is certainly an insult to the American people and a giant middle finger to the rest of the world.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Jeffries), our fantastic Democratic leader, his magic minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Dexter).

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

Mr. Speaker, I think it says a lot that as we have wasted the last hour of Congress' time on a deeply unserious bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico, and while Republicans have offered just one speaker in support of this preposterous piece of legislation--this monumental disaster, this insult to the American people, and this giant middle finger to the rest of the world--the only speaker to speak in support of this was the gentlewoman from Georgia. I think that just tells us an awful lot today.

The American people think that Congress should do real work, and there is plenty of real work to be done. Americans are watching their 401(k)'s in free fall from this President's reckless tariff games, tariff chaos that is happening by using Congress' Article I trade and commerce authority.

What is this Congress doing about it? They are doing worse than nothing. They have tied their own hands because, in their government funding bill, they have created the gimmick of a never-ending legislative day to prevent them from using their emergency authorities to put some sensible sideboards on Donald Trump's tariff madness.

In the district right next to mine in Napa County, the Trump administration abruptly canceled a $50 million wildfire prevention grant just 4 months after one of the deadliest wildfires in California history. That has been the story throughout the West. Critical funding for a critical need for firefighters and for projects that make us safer from wildfire is in total chaos or canceled because of this madness with Elon Musk, DOGE, and an unhinged President.

What do we hear from our colleagues across the aisle? Nothing. We get bills like this to rename the Gulf of Mexico.

Tribal communities are being hammered around the country. Food insecurity programs are being defunded. Education programs are being frozen. Healthcare resources are being slashed. All the while, the administration continues to fire essential agency scientists and public servants en masse as this Republican Congress shrugs.

The majority is wasting time on an ego-driven rebrand, a performative stunt rooted in President Trump's imperial edict absurdly titled: ``Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness.''

Mr. Speaker, this is so obviously what authoritarians through history have done. They do things like call for parades on their own birthday, or rename things, or do other stunts to distract the American people from the way they are lining their own pockets and taking away fundamental rights.

This Republican Congress appears to be perfectly fine with that.

A new CNN national poll shows that the majority of Americans believe Congress is not doing enough to check this

President's actions. Nearly one-half say that the current administration is weakening our democracy, our economy, and our global standing. This bill really is Exhibit A.

We are not just renaming a gulf. We are drowning public trust in what this institution is supposed to do: serve the people, solve problems, and defend democracy.

Yes, this bill has been called a joke more than once. In committee, I even offered an amendment to rename the entire planet ``Trump'' just to underscore the absurdity of their sycophantic bootlicking.

Now, after seeing this bill advance not only through committee but all the way through to the House floor for a final vote, it is getting a little bit harder to laugh. That is because it is not a joke anymore. It is a case study in misplaced priorities.

Mr. Speaker, when you start erasing or changing phrases like ``climate change,'' ``equity,'' or ``disadvantaged communities'' from government websites, when you ban them from scientific reports, then you are not just playing word games. You are dismantling our capacity to even name the problems we face, let alone fix them, but we are renaming bodies of water.

Mr. Speaker, we are about to open the roll, and as we watch the red and green light up on the big board, I think it is going to be a pretty good proxy for which Members of Congress still think that we should be doing serious work, that we should be reclaiming our Article I responsibilities under the Constitution, that we should have a little bit of dignity in the face of a deeply unserious bill that has wasted our time, and to see which Members of Congress are simply bending the knee to Donald Trump and stroking one man's ego in everything they do.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

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

This resolution, H.J. Res. 78, continues a very familiar pattern that we are seeing from this Republican majority: distractions and scapegoats instead of dealing with real crises, real

problems, and solutions to the challenges that are facing working families, including American farmers and rural communities all over this country.

Today, they are bringing us a resolution that tries to blame an endangered fish, the bay-delta longfin smelt, for California's water problems and shortages. They are doing that instead of addressing major problems that are actually impacting farmers in rural communities.

Let's be clear. Removing protections for the longfin smelt will not make it rain. It will not rebuild California's snowpack. It won't refill our reservoirs, not even the reservoir that President Trump recently drained in a public relations stunt that had nothing to do with fighting fires or water supply.

California's water shortage is driven by climate change and also prolonged drought, aging and outdated infrastructure, and overallocation. It is not the fault of some tiny fish.

Meanwhile, farmers, including those in my district, are grappling with worsening droughts, wildfires, floods, extreme weather, and now the fallout from President Trump's disastrous trade policies for agriculture.

All the while, Republicans won't talk about any of those things. Instead, they bring us here to debate whether a small fish should be allowed to go extinct or be protected under the Endangered Species Act. All the while, the significant damage that their policies are causing continue to pile up in rural America, including President Trump's tariffs.

Trump is treating not just our adversaries, but some of our neighbors and our best friends in the world, like they are enemies. He is turning them into adversaries. Tariffs on key trading partners have already cost farmers tens of billions of dollars in lost exports. Markets are shrinking. Input costs are soaring, making it hard for farms to stay in business.

We see the sweeping budget cuts and mass layoffs at critical agencies like NOAA and the Bureau of Reclamation, threatening the services that farmers depend on: water deliveries, weather forecasting, climate data, and much more. Farmers need that stuff. They don't want to go back to the ``Farmers' Almanac'' in order to make key business decisions.

We see hundreds of millions of dollars in water supply infrastructure projects suddenly in limbo because of DOGE, while our colleagues across the aisle say nothing.

We see the entire rural healthcare safety net, including nursing home care, including services that anyone who has a person with disabilities in their family, depend on. All of that is in limbo as we brace for catastrophic cuts from Republicans as they try to fund their tax cuts for billionaires.

If this Republican majority were serious about helping farmers and rural communities, they would be working to reverse these harmful policies. They would be standing up for rural America right now. Instead, they are wasting our time. Just because we are debating a 3- inch fish today doesn't mean we need to think like one.

Now, about the impacts of these policies that my friends don't want to talk about. You don't have to take my word for it, you can listen to farmers across America.

Here is Caleb Ragland, president of the American Soybean Association, who says: ``Our grave concern is we could permanently lose another big chunk of our export market that we are dependent on for our production. . . . And the U.S. farm economy is in a tough spot, and we just don't have any room for error right now.''

Here is Chris Harner, owner of Harner Farm in Centre County, Pennsylvania: ``We did get a letter from our one supplier that once the tariffs kick in, they will be passing on the costs.''

Paul Krueger, a corn and soybean farmer from Bladen, Nebraska, says: ``Any time our country gets involved with any sort of tariffs that affect the agriculture industry, every farmer just kind of groans about that. We're powerless to do anything except take what comes out in the wash.''

Here is Travis Johnson, who farms cotton, sorghum, and corn in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. He says: ``There's a lot of uncertainty around, and I hate to be used as a bargaining chip. I am definitely worried.''

Moving to California, here is Ryan Talley, vice president of Talley Farms in San Luis Obispo: ``We don't have months to wait something out. We have to continue our operations at the intensity that we currently farm. We're going to have to take those rising prices and deal with it the best we can.''

This is what Republican agriculture policy is doing right now: losing export markets, raising costs, telling farmers to just deal with it. They are complicit in the dismantling of rural healthcare, in the freezing of funding for rural infrastructure, in the threat to programs like SNAP that many families across rural America depend on.

It gets worse. President Trump, Elon Musk, and their enablers are gutting critical Federal services that include scientists. They are hollowing out NOAA and weakening the Bureau of Reclamation. They should listen to the people that these decisions are actually hurting.

I know I am quoting a lot right now, Mr. Speaker, but I want to make sure my colleagues across the aisle are listening, since they are not having any townhalls these days. They need to hear from farmers and the folks in these rural communities that their policies are hurting.

In response to mass firings at NOAA and the National Weather Service, Andrea Young of Hidden Creek Farm in Fauquier County, Virginia, said this: ``I cannot bring the animals to safety. I cannot cover up those tender plants. I cannot know that a rainstorm is coming and so I shouldn't water. I cannot function as a farmer in an indoor environment.''

The general manager of 14 California Central Valley Project irrigation districts, in a recent letter to the President about layoffs at the Bureau of Reclamation, said this: ``That elimination of Reclamation staff will not further the goal of achieving significant cost savings to the American people.''

In other words, they are harming the agency that these irrigators depend on, and they are not even saving money for the budget.

Mr. Speaker, the damage from all of this is real. There are real farmers, real communities, and this is real harm caused by failed leadership. While all that is happening, we are here debating whether to strip protections from an endangered fish. They are turning a small fish into a very large scapegoat, pretending it will somehow provide real support to farmers.

The truth is, the listing of the bay-delta longfin under the ESA is both scientifically and legally sound. The longfin population has declined over 99 percent since the 1980s. Think about that. In just a few decades, only about 1 percent of the population is left. That is like the number of environmentalists left in the Republican Party these days.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service followed the law, the data, and the science, just as a bipartisan Congress intended when they passed the ESA back in the 1970s, just as Republican President Richard Nixon intended when he signed it into law. The system is supposed to work that way.

Protecting species like the longfin is not just about a single fish, but it is about protecting the ecological health of the entire bay- delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas. This delta is the heart of California's water system. Its health underpins clean drinking water for millions, healthy soil for agriculture, and waterfowl populations that hunters depend on.

It is so important, and it requires a broad ecological balance to sustain the farms, fisheries, entire ecosystems, and so many communities and millions of people that depend on it. You can't destroy an ecosystem and expect farms, cities, and wildlife to just thrive. These things rise or fall together.

This resolution takes us in the wrong direction. Let's actually do something real for farmers instead of deflecting and debating distractions. Let's repeal the mindless tariffs on our allies and top trading partners. Let's protect the Bureau of Reclamation and NOAA from these disastrous sabotage cuts. Let's protect rural families and communities by opposing cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution that merely distracts and deflects and scapegoats instead of solving the pressing challenges facing farmers and the rest of rural America.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the question has been posed about whether this ESA listing of the longfin smelt is supported by science. I guess this Congress, in all of its infinite mastery of science, has decided to superimpose itself over the scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Service who went through a very public and deliberative process to reach this determination. We are going to now get, I guess, a different scientific interpretation from the great minds across the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, the first Trump administration, back when there was still at least a few people around who followed the law and told the truth, agreed that the longfin smelt was a candidate species for listing under the Endangered Species Act.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans slow walked that listing because of politics. That is why the administration was sued. That is why the Biden administration had to comply with the law and follow through with that science-based process. That is how we got a listing.

Let's not pretend that there is no scientific foundation for this listing. Even my friends across the aisle know better than that.

Mr. Speaker, my friend from the Sacramento Valley has suggested that we live in parallel universes. If that is the case, I will choose the universe where Members of Congress face their constituents and answer hard questions instead of running off to Mar-a-Lago or other people's districts or having distractions about fish in the delta and scapegoating them as the cause for all of our problems.

Answer some hard questions from constituents. Talk about facts and reality of California water instead of all of this scapegoating.

With California water, it is always a challenge not to break the fact-check machine across the aisle. It has been suggested that all of this water is wasted out to the ocean for fish, and you have to explain again how the delta system works. That water that flows out to the ocean, almost all of it, the vast majority of it, is for one reason: to make sure that the saltwater in the Pacific Ocean does not intrude far enough into the estuary that the whole system that tens of millions of Californians depend on and that all the farmers in my friend's district depend on doesn't salt up and cease to function.

The Speaker doesn't have to believe me about it or choose between two parallel universes. Ask any California water manager how this works. This is basic stuff, but we have to explain it over and over again because of the fog of political theater that we always hear across the aisle.

It is a little bit like the President of the United States right now who says that there is a magic spigot in the northwest and in Canada that, if we could get past all of the radical environmentalists and just open up this spigot, unlimited water would flow to southern California, and they would always be able to fight fires.

It is absolute nonsense. Then he pretended to open a magic spigot, and he dumped and wasted a bunch of water a couple of months ago into a dry lakebed.

Our friends across the aisle retweeted all of these totally fake narratives, and now half the world, the world in that other parallel universe, believes this stuff.

It is a constant challenge just to bring the subject back to facts and reality. Talk to water managers. Do a little bit of basic research. This is how the California water system, especially the delta estuary, actually works. Politics is a poor substitute for understanding basic hydrology and facts.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. DeSaulnier), a colleague who actually represents the amazing delta region of our country.

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

Mr. Speaker, President Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE continue dismantling Federal agencies, shredding constitutional norms. Meanwhile, House Republicans refuse to lift a finger to rein in rogue actors or defend the rule of law.

In the face of all of this, American farmers and rural America are paying the price for all of this chaos.

Right now, the real threats to rural America and to water security and the livelihoods of America's farmers are trade wars that are hammering agricultural exports. It is not this endangered fish.

They face a shrinking Federal workforce hollowed out. The very agencies responsible for permitting and delivering water to farmers and communities are being dismantled.

Congressional Republicans are threatening to rescind critical Inflation Reduction Act investments in drought resilience and water delivery.

We also are facing this administration's efforts to block and cancel key funding that Congress has already approved to support drought resilience and repair vital water infrastructure, support that rural America needs right now in the face of extreme heat and weather from the climate crisis and the burning of fossil fuels.

These are the urgent challenges that farmers and communities are actually facing. Instead of confronting them, House Republican leadership devoted this entire week to voting on performative Congressional Review Act resolutions that are meant to deflect and distract from the real problems created by this administration and the complicity of this Congress.

Passing a rule to actually abdicate Congress' own oversight powers when it comes to our Article I trade authority all the way through the rest of this fiscal year is shameful.

Let's be honest. The longfin smelt didn't cause California's water challenges. This resolution won't solve them. It won't improve drought conditions. It won't help farmers one bit.

Yet, here we are, debating a symbolic resolution that is designed to distract, deflect, and scapegoat rather than talking about and trying to solve real problems affecting farmers and rural communities.

This isn't legislating. It is grievance politics.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reject this resolution, 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, this resolution would nullify a National Park Service rule that manages motor vehicle use within the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. It is a commonsense rule that this resolution targets, and it outlines where cars and off-road vehicles are allowed to travel within the boundaries of the national recreation area. It shouldn't be controversial. It shouldn't be political.

The Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is a very popular destination. It offers ample opportunities for backcountry exploration across 1.25 million acres of public land. To put that in perspective, this area is larger than the entire State of Rhode Island.

Now, the National Park Service is tasked with managing park units in a manner that balances public access and enjoyment while ensuring responsible stewardship of the natural environment. That is their job.

Achieving that balance can be a tall order under the best of circumstances. It has become even more difficult as the Trump administration works to dismantle the National Park Service. More than 12.5 percent of the entire workforce has left the agency since Donald Trump took office. It has only been a little more than 100 days, and we are already down 2,000 rangers and park employees.

House Republicans have stood by and watched, and now they are proposing a resolution that undermines national park management even further. As a reminder, this resolution would repeal a rule that manages all motorized vehicle access within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, a unit of the Park Service that is home to very fragile ecosystems like the Orange Cliffs adjacent to Canyonlands National Park and countless cultural and archeological resources.

Initial planning started way back in 2007 and was not finalized until the first Trump administration published an overly permissive record of decision in 2018. A court determined that the 2018 version of the rule did not do enough to consider the environmental consequences of allowing off-road vehicles on certain roads, so the Park Service went back to work and they published a new rule that achieved a better balance.

The updated rule, which is being targeted today, balances visitor use and access with the long-term stewardship and management of park resources.

Despite some of the rhetoric that we may hear from the other side of the aisle, the Park Service did not shut off access to off-road vehicles. Nothing could be further from the truth. The rule allows off- road vehicles on 388 miles of road within the park, only closing access to approximately 6 percent of the existing roadways to protect sensitive resources.

Even those roads are still open to cars, jeeps, and other street- legal vehicles. They are just closed to vehicles that have the ability to travel off-road and cause severe damage in proposed wilderness and other sensitive landscapes.

That is 94 percent of the roads in this Park Service unit open to motor vehicles, including off-road vehicles, and

then just 6 percent where only street-legal vehicles are allowed. That is a very reasonable tradeoff that protects the park for future generations.

It is also worth noting that Congress has never used the Congressional Review Act in the way it is being used right now to repeal a Park Service decision of this nature. This is meddling and micromanaging at its worst, and it could have some unintended consequences as we will discuss in the course of this debate.

When Congress uses the CRA to repeal a rule, then the agency is prohibited by law from issuing a substantially similar rule on the same topic. The decision to repeal this rule could lead to some unintended consequences that would backfire on the very off-road vehicle community that my friends across the aisle are saying that they are trying to protect.

Park managers would be unable to change or alter access even if a proliferation of off-road vehicle use is damaging park resources. That is the downside from the environmental perspective, but even worse, from the perspective of these off-road vehicles, it could mean an end to all off-roading in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

Mr. Speaker, Park Service has to have a rule in place if they want to authorize any access. That is what this rule does. If Congress repeals it and the CRA says no replacement rule can be issued, that is how it works. It is like Cortez when he got to Mexico, he burned the boats so nobody would go back. That is how the CRA works.

You burn the bridge; you can't go back on that particular subject area. A court in the future may well decide that the absence of a rule means no off-roading. Period.

It is the kind of uncertainty that would be discussed and fleshed out if you took the time to have a hearing and have a little bit of deliberation instead of jamming a CRA like this, a blunt instrument, right on the House floor.

If the intent is truly about preserving access, there are better ways to do it. There are certainly much better ways for Congress to uplift and support our national parks; for example, standing up to Donald Trump and Elon Musk's gutting of the National Park Service.

I wish we spent more time talking about that rather than a very reckless use of the Congressional Review Act.

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

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

I stand by what I said a few minutes ago. Without the rule in place or a replacement rule, off-roading could very well be illegal in all of Glen Canyon.

I did expect that my colleagues across the aisle would state that they assume the Park Service would simply revert back to a previous rule. Now, I don't know for sure because Republicans didn't hold a hearing on the legislation to bring in a witness from the Park Service to answer any questions, but there are two problems with this assumption they seem to be proceeding under.

One, the current rule was issued under a settlement agreement to enforce compliance with environmental protection laws. Repealing that rule doesn't repeal those legal obligations, so whatever outdated rule the administration might try to revive will still have to comply with those laws, and a court is going to strike it down when it doesn't.

Two, as we keep having to remind our colleagues, using the CRA to repeal a rule doesn't just remove that rule, it also prohibits the agency from ever issuing a substantially similar rule on this same topic. That means any rule regarding off-road access in this park unit.

This repeal is practically inviting a court to strike down whatever fallback rule the administration tries reverting to, and when that litigation ensues and they comb through the Congressional Record to divine the intent of Congress, they will see pretty plainly that I warned you folks that that was the case right here on the record.

Now, since this information seems new to some of my colleagues, they may be thinking: Wait, that can't be right. Wouldn't this sort of thing have happened before?

The answer is no, because Congress has never used the CRA to micromanage a park or a park-access rule this narrow in the way that is being proposed with this resolution. The entire scheme is untested, reckless, and ill-advised.

If my colleagues accidentally ban off-roading in Glen Canyon, I hope they are ready to explain that to their constituents, assuming they ever hold townhall meetings again.

Mr. Speaker, in closing, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this legislation. Last week was National Park Week, an annual tradition meant to honor our deep connection to national parks. President Trump carried on the tradition by issuing a proclamation to officially designate the week--this is one of the few noncontroversial actions in the first 100 days of this administration--because all Americans love and value and support national parks.

Unfortunately, the proclamation also highlighted how the administration is trying to use national parks to tell a myopic and narrow view of our history. This revisionist turn is exemplified by President Trump's decision to rename Mount Denali in Alaska despite overwhelming criticism and concern from Alaska Native leaders and other voices in the State. It is clear the President is more interested in branding and flashy stunts than actually supporting our national parks and public lands.

House Republicans have stood by and watched as all of this happened. They did nothing as President Trump and Elon Musk decimated the land management workforce, shuttered critical buildings, and froze funding for critical grant programs designed to safeguard and restore our parks and our public lands.

Just since January, the Park Service has lost 1,700 rangers and Park Service staff, leaving parks understaffed and resources vulnerable just before the busiest time of the year. There have to be better ways to celebrate and cherish our national parks than to dismantle them.

We could be doing something to restore all the jobs that have been cut by this administration. We could debate proposals to create new parks or expand existing ones to honor our shared history and protect our most cherished landscapes. We could advance comprehensive and thoughtful appropriations bills that invest in the future of our parks and our public lands.

Instead of doing any of these productive and responsible actions, House Republicans decided to use some more precious floor time to overturn a narrow and specific rule at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. That is a disappointment, another missed opportunity, and a testament to the priorities of this Republican majority. Mr. Speaker, I again urge a ``no'' vote and yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today along with my colleague, Representative Mike Thompson, to recognize the enduring work of long- time community leader, Lisa G. Carreno, as she concludes her tenure as Chair of the Board of Los Cien.

Lisa is a founding member of Los Cien and has been a guiding force since its inception in 2009. She served three terms on the board of directors, making her its longest-serving member. Throughout her tenure, she has been instrumental to serving the organization's mission of amplifying Latino voices.

Born and raised in Tampa, Florida, Lisa is the descendant of Cuban and Sicilian immigrants. From a young age, Lisa was inspired by the stories of her grandmother and grandfather, helping lay the foundation for her distinguished career in community advocacy. After graduating cum laude with a degree in Latin American history from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Lisa earned her JD from the Columbus School of Law. As a member of both the Maryland and California bar, Lisa has built her career around leading non-profit organizations and championing social justice.

In addition to her work with Los Cien, Lisa has served the extended region through professional contributions to YWCA Sonoma County, 10,000 Degrees, and United Way of the Wine Country. An authentic trailblazer, Lisa has frequently been the first Latina and/or woman in many leadership positions, both in her professional and volunteer service. She was the first woman and Latina to serve as CEO and President of United Way of the Wine Country, the first Latina to chair the Sonoma County Fair Board, and the first community member appointed to the Press Democrat Editorial Board.

As a volunteer, she has also served on numerous boards, including Forget Me Not Farm Children's Services, LGBTQI Giving Circle Steering Committee, Sonoma County Secure Families Steering Committee, Rebuild North Bay Foundation, St. Joseph Health Sonoma Community Benefit Committee, Sonoma County Health Action Partnership Council, Cradle to Career Operations Team, and Congressman Mike Thompson's Immigration Advisory Group. Mr. Speaker, it's clear that Lisa G. Carreno is an extraordinary leader, making meaningful contributions to the community through both her professional and volunteer work. Therefore, it is fitting that we honor her legacy of accomplishments for Los Cien and the community and extend to her our best wishes on her future endeavors.

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

Mr. Speaker, we are just 2 months into this Congress, yet we have already seen one favor after another to Big Oil from our friends across the aisle.

Republicans just can't get enough, and so we are back here once again giving another favor to Big Oil. One gets the feeling that the majority is just warming up and that this is going to be a recurring theme in this Congress.

Meanwhile, we are 1 week away from a government shutdown. We are on the heels of what we know is a Republican plan to gut Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for billionaires. Today, are my colleagues across the aisle talking about any of those things? No.

Republican Members have brought us here to talk about repealing a minor rule that simply protects marine archeological resources. If that sounds ridiculous to my colleagues, that is because it is.

This bill targets a rule from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which is the agency that regulates offshore energy development in Federal waters. The rule says that underwater surveys, which these companies already conduct before they drill, simply have to meet some basic, consistent standards. Wow, the heavy hand of government.

Republicans have argued that this is simply too burdensome for their friends in Big Oil. Yet, the rule doesn't even require companies to conduct any new surveys. Companies already do these surveys.

The rule simply states that future surveys need to adhere to minimum standards to be used for archeological reports. No matter how my colleagues slice it, this rule will not cause a substantial financial burden to operators. It just ensures that the data that companies collect can be used to look for things like shipwrecks and other historically important objects.

Mr. Speaker, the chairman said in his opening remarks that he doesn't like the fact that they need to look for these things in areas where they are not known to exist.

That is kind of the whole point. If you are not going to look for them while already there doing a survey, we may never know that things actually exist in some areas. Without these surveys, operators might not discover these archeological resources until they go to drill.

Here is what happens when they find out at that point: It forces costly delays for their friends in the oil industry because, regardless of whether this survey work is completed beforehand, companies still have to comply with laws that protect shipwrecks and mitigate impacts to sites that were once above water and home to indigenous peoples.

The rule actually promotes efficiency, something Republicans say that the majority cares a lot about. It prevents delays and extra costs for good actors who report unexpected finds, as they are required to do under the law. It keeps bad actors from just quietly working and hoping that no one notices, something that is much easier to get away with if you are not required to do those studies in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, why do Republicans want to roll this rule back? Well, for one, my guess is that Republicans saw that it was a Biden regulation on offshore oil and gas. If Biden did it, it must be bad.

My colleagues want to pick a fight with anything that Republicans perceive to be a threat to Big Oil, even a minor rule that actually helps the industry avoid unexpected costs.

The second very likely reason that we are here is that my Republican colleagues are looking for ways to kill time. The majority needs some pretext to chew up some floor time here in Congress to distract the public.

This resolution does that, and it allows Republicans to keep working behind the scenes on their plan to find tax giveaways for their billionaire friends and working behind the scenes on their plan that we know is coming to cut Medicaid and SNAP deeply, hurting working families all over this country. My Republican colleagues have voted on the framework for that last week and are still squabbling with the Senate over the details and what comes next.

Clearly, we are not doing work this week to fund the government or to stop Trump's new tax on energy, which he calls a tariff, standing up to self-dealing billionaires who are taking a sledgehammer to our Federal Government, or dealing with their illegal firing of workers and constituents of many of us and causing complete chaos across the country.

Instead of holding this administration accountable for all of that, House Republicans are urgently tinkering,

trying to create the appearance that my colleagues across the aisle are busy doing something here in Congress on a minor rule that simply requires scientific standards for underwater surveys.

Republican Members don't want people to remember that the majority voted just last week to set in motion devastating cuts to Medicaid and SNAP or that, a few days ago, Elon Musk said that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Yet, the other night, my Republican friends stood and applauded for him like he was Elvis Presley.

The majority also doesn't want people to remember that the Trump administration has announced plans to cut staffing in half at the Social Security Administration, guaranteeing that services for seniors will suffer, or that the Trump Secretary of Agriculture just went on television and told Americans who are struggling with food prices to get a chicken.

That is why House Republicans want to talk about something else. That is why we are here to debate and vote on this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this farcical resolution and the theater that it represents, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues across the aisle are arguing that the rule is duplicative and that the offshore drilling industry is already doing these surveys.

Mr. Speaker, that is kind of the point. The fact that these surveys are already being done is exactly why this rule is so simple and not burdensome. The rule does not require any new or standalone surveys for the vast majority of leases. It simply makes sure that these surveys are done right, these surveys that are already being performed, so that we can protect archeological sites by identifying them before the work starts.

This is common sense. It is a tweak that will provide important protection for offshore archeological resources, bring the agency into compliance with the law, and actually promote efficiency.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Elfreth).

Mr. Speaker, let's talk about this claim of a double standard and of hypocrisy. Oh, the poor fossil fuel industry is being singled out.

Poor Big Oil with its record profits and its record exports and its executive bonuses and its collusion with OPEC to gouge American consumers, they are just such a victim in the telling of my friends across this aisle.

I hate to intrude on that narrative with a little bit of truth, but the fact is, the offshore wind industry already does this stuff. They have to comply with the National Historic Preservation Act.

The reason that the fossil fuel industry is the subject of this regulation is to bring them into compliance. I guess it reflects the radical proposition that the Big Oil oligarchs, your pals in the industry, should play by the same rules as everyone else. That is not socialism or wokeness or anything else. It should just be common sense and fairness.

Mr. Speaker, I will talk about the real human cost of our Republican friends' allergy, opposition, reflexive opposition, to any type of regulation and what this CRA would mean for working men and women on the Outer Continental Shelf.

Marine archaeological surveys are not just a nice idea. They actually are safeguards that protect workers from hidden dangers lurking beneath the waves. These surveys can detect unexploded ordnance, UXOs, which are military ammunition, that has never detonated.

There is actually a lot of that out there. From World War II into the 1970s, the Federal Government dumped massive amounts of UXOs into the ocean, including depth charges, torpedoes, munitions, mustard gas, and even chemical weapons, all in designated explosive dumping areas. If that wasn't bad enough, these same waters were used to dispose of radioactive waste.

The old technology used to map these areas was crude at best, leaving countless unexploded devices scattered beyond known dumping areas, but modern marine archaeological surveys can identify these things and save lives before disaster strikes.

Rather than protect workers from these deadly hazards, Republicans want to repeal this commonsense rule, rolling the dice with human life in the name of corporate profits. They wrap it all up in a phony pitch about prices like they are standing up for the little guy while they look the other way when their oil oligarch pals collude with OPEC to gouge American consumers.

Well, what about the working-class men and women who power our offshore energy industry? What about their safety? Are they just collateral damage for the latest favor to Big Oil? Let's be clear. This resolution isn't about helping the common worker, it is about Republicans making good on their promise to deliver for Big Oil billionaires destroying our planet.

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

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

My Republican colleagues decided that the best use of our time today is to debate whether or not we should keep a commonsense rule that protects Tribal resources, worker safety, and our Nation's history. They claim we must do this because this rule is too burdensome for oil and gas companies and will create higher energy prices for American consumers. All of that is nonsense.

What does this rule actually require of companies like Shell, BP, ExxonMobil, companies that make between $28- and $85 billion a year? It requires them to tweak surveys that oil and gas companies are already doing so that they can proactively look for marine archaeological resources or unexploded ordnance, discoveries that would actually stop oil and gas development if they didn't do this proactively.

Even without this rule, this is a commonsense look-before-you-drill provision that benefits the American people and keeps offshore workers safe.

Republicans aren't delivering for everyday Americans. If they were, they would take a stand on ridiculous tariffs that Trump is imposing on our closest allies or unconstrained exports of liquefied natural gas that are driving up energy prices or repealing energy tax credits in the IRA, all policies on their side that are going to raise energy prices.

If they were delivering for everyday Americans, they wouldn't allow working-class people to go out into the Outer Continental Shelf without the guarantee that they aren't working on top of unexploded military ammunition or radioactive waste. That is what this rule does. It protects workers and the public interest.

If they were delivering for everyday Americans, they would not allow massive firings of essential employees who protect public lands.

If they were delivering for everyday Americans, they would not vote for healthcare to be ripped away, like they just did last week.

The Republican agenda in the House today accomplishes one thing and one thing only--selling out the American people and our planet so they can continue to enrich the oil baron oligarchs and billionaire class. This resolution is just the latest favor to these elites.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

In just 4 weeks, Donald Trump has sown chaos all over this country. His administration is defying court orders, firing Federal workers, freezing vital funding that our constituents depend on, impacting everything from wildfire preparations to water security, health and housing programs, and a lot more. All of this is under the guise of cost savings, but the reality is there are no meaningful savings or other benefits for average taxpayers.

Real people's lives are being turned upside down: our National Park Service and workers at a number of Federal agencies, farmers, and firefighters. Everyone who depends on Federal services is feeling the squeeze of this reckless agenda. Meanwhile, Republicans are preparing their budget reconciliation bill, which is going to cost at least $4 trillion.

Mr. Chairman, our Republican colleagues are being coy about the specifics, but Americans can connect the dots. There can't be a tax cut for billionaires of that magnitude without either dramatically slashing Medicaid and maybe Social Security and Medicare while you are at it, or dramatically exploding the deficit.

Just like every other action before us, the Republicans' budget is a betrayal of the American people. The majority is choosing billionaires over programs that everyday people depend on.

In my district alone, hundreds of thousands of people will lose Medicaid. Tens of thousands will lose SNAP benefits that help put food on the table. The Natural Resources Committee is tasked with finding at least $1 billion of these savings, $1 billion for their billionaire joyride. Their plan is to sell off public lands and do more favors for Big Oil.

Mr. Chairman, Republicans plan to do more favors for Big Oil even though they are rolling in record profits and even though we are already producing and exporting record amounts of oil and gas. Of course, their old favorite is to open up the Arctic Refuge for drilling and pretend that that will bring in money, as well. Last time, it brought in zero dollars when they did that in 2017.

Mr. Chairman, I am going to vote ``no.'' I urge my colleagues to vote ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Rodney T. Taylor, Jr., who passed away on November 25, 2024, at the age of 80. Dr. Taylor was a dedicated psychologist and an influential figure in the field of addiction treatment.

Born in Winchester, Virginia, in 1944, Dr. Taylor grew up in Pennsylvania. In 1974, Dr. Taylor and his wife, Sushma Deva Taylor, moved to Marin County. Dr. Taylor dedicated his professional life to helping individuals and families facing the challenges of addiction. After earning his master's degree in counseling psychology and his Doctorate in clinical psychology, he served as Director of the Chemical Dependency Program at Gladman Memorial Hospital and later became Senior Clinician at Center Point, a nonprofit rehabilitation agency in San Rafael. Throughout his 38-year tenure he provided expert care and transformative counseling to help countless individuals achieve lasting recovery. Known as `Doc,' he was respected by peers and former clients alike for his ability to connect deeply with others.

In addition to his work in Marin County, Dr. Taylor shared his knowledge and advice around the world. His contributions were valued by colleagues in the U.S., India, Australia, Europe, and South America, and his work continues to influence the work of addiction professionals today.

Dr. Taylor and his wife were married for over 52 years. Their bond was one of deep partnership, rooted in both personal and professional endeavors. Together, they traveled the world, bringing knowledge and compassion to communities in need. Dr. Taylor is survived by his wife, Sushma, his son Thaine, his two sisters, Jane Fox and Leanna Van Buskirk, and a host of friends, colleagues, and former clients who considered him not only a mentor but also a dear friend.

Mr. Speaker, Dr. Rodney T. Taylor, Jr.'s contributions to the field of addiction treatment, his genuine kindness, and his unwavering commitment to making the world a better place will never be forgotten. He left an indelible mark on the countless lives he touched, and his legacy will continue to inspire those who had the privilege of working alongside him. Please join me in expressing appreciation for his lifetime of generosity and sincere condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Joseph (Joe) Garbarino who passed away at the age of 91 on December 19, 2024. Mr. Garbarino was an iconic public figure, one of the Nation's foremost leaders in recycling, and a beloved family member.

Born in 1933 to Italian immigrants, Mr. Garbarino grew up in San Francisco where his father and uncle ran the Scavengers Protective Association. They instilled in him the value of reusing materials, and this became a guiding principle throughout his life. Mr. Garbarino joined Marin Sanitary Service in 1955 and spent the next five decades establishing the company as a national leader in recycling.

Mr. Garbarino set the bar for leadership in the waste reduction industry. Many credit him with establishing modern recycling standards and practices. In 1980, Mr. Garbarino created the first county-wide curbside recycling program in the United States, reaching a national record by recycling over 74 percent of the two million pounds of waste collected. He founded Marin Recycling and Resource Recovery Association and built the Nation's first indoor dump, recycling 65 percent of materials that would otherwise be diverted to landfills. A decade before recycling ordinances were mandated by the State of California, he introduced a curbside food and yard waste program that reduced greenhouse gas emissions by collecting over 32,000 tons of organic waste. Applying his mantra, ``an item should never be made that cannot be reused or recycled,'' Mr. Garbarino developed the Environmental Classroom to educate more than 200 students weekly about waste reduction.

A staunch advocate for recycling legislation and funding, Mr. Garbarino was well respected throughout the industry and by local and state elected officials. In 2000, Mr. Garbarino's eldest daughter Patricia (Patty) became President and CEO of Marin Sanitary Service, Marin Recycling Center, and Marin Resource Recovery Center, but he remained active as Chair of the Board until his passing, stopping by the facility every day to check in with his employees whom he considered his extended family.

Beyond his professional work, Mr. Garbarino was revered for the joy and goodwill he brought to the community. This included dressing up as Santa Claus and delivering gifts to children with disabilities during the holidays. He also served on the boards of Marin General Hospital and San Rafael Planning Commission, and was President of Marin Civic Center's Lions Club, San Rafael Chamber of Commerce and Marin County's Solid Waste Management Association. He also served on the boards of Marin General Hospital and the San Rafael Planning Commission, and was President of Marin Civic Center's Lions Club, San Rafael Chamber of Commerce and Marin County's Solid Waste Management Association. Perhaps most notably, Mr. Garbarino was a lifelong, avid supporter of veterans. Over four decades, Mr. Garbarino collected World War II memorabilia, building a fleet of more than 100 vehicles, which he shared with the public at his military museum, displayed outside funerals of veterans, and in parades throughout the country. Countless veterans speak to how Mr. Garbarino made them feel valued and important.

For his decades of leadership, Mr. Garbarino received numerous accolades, including San Rafael Chamber of Commerce's 1987 Citizen of the Year, California Refuse Removal Council's coveted John Moscone Award in 1994, and he was inducted into the National Waste and Recycling Association's Hall of Fame in 2014. His company was voted Best Curbside Recycling Program in California and Outstanding Solid Waste Recovery Program in California by the California Resource Recovery Association.

Mr. Garbarino was married to the love of his life, Sally Safholm for 64 years before she passed. He is the proud father, grandfather and great grandfather of a large family, many of whom work beside him in the multi-generational family business he created. He is survived by his daughters and their families: Patty Garbarino, Judy and Steve Rosa, Joanne and Mike Pelfini, Suzi and John Oranje; his grandchildren, Joseph and John Rosa, Joseph, Gwen and James Pelfini, Jenna Oranje Erlich and Jonathan Oranje; and his great grandchildren, George, Giovanna, Rico, Dominic, Justin and Natalie; and his many cousins in Oregon and Italy whom he considered his brothers and sisters.

Mr. Garbarino was known for his larger-than-life personality and unwavering drive to serve his community. It was my privilege and honor to work with him, and witness firsthand his innovative approach to waste conservation. Mr. Speaker, Joe Garbarino's depth of character is surpassed only by the legacy of his good deeds in Marin County and beyond. I respectfully ask that you join me in expressing my sincere appreciation for his many decades of good work and expressing my deep condolences to his friends and family.

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

Madam Speaker, I welcome everyone to the first installment of House Republicans' fulfillment of their misguided, billionaire-funded, pro- polluter, drill, baby, drill agenda.

I like Valentine's Day as much as anyone. I don't mean to be cynical, but what I don't do is introduce empty love letters to polluting industries masquerading as legislation. That is what we are here to do today. This bill we are considering is one massive letter to Big Oil signed by the House GOP.

Meanwhile, Americans are grappling with the actual fallout from the White House's unconstitutional, illegal freeze on Federal funding across dozens of agencies and tariffs on our allies that will increase energy costs and inflation.

Instead of addressing all of these things, we are here today with a little love letter for Valentine's Day from House Republicans to Big Oil.

H.R. 26, the Protecting American Energy Production Act, pretends to ban Presidential fracking bans. Let me be clear: This bill is a solution in search of a nonexistent problem. President Trump is not going to ban fracking. President Biden didn't ban fracking. No President, past or present, has banned fracking.

Of course, now we do have President Trump. Democrats are not election deniers. We acknowledge that President Trump won the election. He is our President, and he loves fracking. Who are we kidding by passing this bill pretending to stop him from banning fracking?

If Republicans really want to push back on Presidential power and assert congressional rights, that would be interesting. We would love to work with Republicans on something like that.

We could start with the fact that President Trump has unleashed his unelected buddy, billionaire Elon Musk, to do all kinds of things in the first few weeks of his administration that ought to offend the sensibilities of the Article I branch of government, like blocking funds lawfully enacted by Congress that should be helping hardworking families and protecting communities from wildfires and droughts; firing civil servants working on behalf of the country and inspectors general charged with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse; attacking civil rights and disability protections that Congress enacted into law; and attempting to abolish USAID, an agency that might not be familiar to many Americans but is incredibly important to American interests. It advances U.S. global leadership all over the world and counters the malign influence of Russia and China.

We are here on the House floor to give Republicans a stage to gush over the oil and gas industry. This is political theater at its worst. Instead of addressing real crises like the climate crisis or the crushing cost of living for American families, Republicans are wasting everyone's time banning imaginary fracking bans, claiming it will somehow lower costs for communities and small businesses, but it won't.

What we are about to see is Republicans previewing their undying devotion and the many favors they are going to offer to Big Oil in the months to come. Let's review a couple of facts. The United States is already the largest producer of oil in the world. We are producing more oil and gas than ever before. In fact, we are producing more than any country in history.

What do we have to show for it? How is that working out for us? We are still facing volatile energy prices because we are exporting record amounts of fossil fuel and because fossil fuels are global commodities vulnerable to international price shocks. The fossil fuel industry will do whatever it takes to make the most money, even if that is exporting its products in ways that increase costs for American consumers.

There is a cost to this industry joyride. Communities living near this record-breaking production are bearing the brunt of fossil fuel pollution, and their health and well-being are paying the price.

The United States should be leading the way to a new, cleaner future. Instead, we are drilling deeper into this catastrophe.

It is not as if Big Oil is hurting right now. The oil and gas industry enjoys $15 billion in subsidies from American taxpayers each year, and that is just the direct handouts. When you factor in health and environmental impacts because taxpayers pick up the tab for all of that, the United States spends $757 billion propping up the fossil fuel industry every single year.

What do we get in return for all of this generosity? It sure seems like unrequited love because Big Oil has been colluding illegally with foreign cartels to purposely drive up gas prices for American consumers, increasing inflation and padding their pockets along the way.

Big Oil doesn't need any more favors. What it needs is to be held accountable. That didn't stop President Trump from asking for a billion dollars from the oil and gas industry during the campaign.

We are going to see Big Oil billionaires ask for more tax breaks and deregulation every day for the next two Congresses, but this bill is particularly absurd. If nothing else, the debate over this love letter to Big Oil makes one thing clear: House Republicans are more interested in passing love notes to Big Oil than in holding Big Oil accountable.

During the fracking process, oil and gas companies inject a high- pressure mixture of water, sand, and toxic chemicals into the ground to extract fossil fuels. It is a dirty business, yet for years, there have been loopholes around it to boost the industry's profits even further while leaving communities vulnerable to pollution.

I will highlight some examples. All industries, if they want to inject toxic pollutants underground, have to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act. This makes sure that drinking water resources and public health are protected, which fracking is not. Fracking companies aren't subject to the Safe Drinking Water Act regulations. They don't have to disclose any of the toxic chemicals that could seep into your drinking water.

Another example: Under the Clean Air Act, we can aggregate smaller nearby sources of pollution that can be regulated together to protect public health. That is something the Clean Air Act does that applies to all other industries but not from oil and gas development. They have a special exception.

Now, what about the Clean Water Act? Well, that has provisions to prevent polluted stormwater runoff from contaminating water sources, except if that runoff comes from oil and gas facilities.

These are just a few of the loopholes that this industry enjoys, loopholes that have real impacts on public health, especially children's health.

Studies have found that exposure to fracking and associated chemicals can lead to low birth weight for babies, preterm births, congenital abnormalities, asthma, and even certain childhood cancers.

We should be able to agree that protecting children from these impacts and ensuring that communities have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink should be our priorities, not sending love letters to Big Oil.

Unfortunately, this bill and the many other giveaways that are going to be coming our way in this Congress will not protect these communities.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. DeGette).

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Colorado an additional 30 seconds.

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

Madam Speaker, it is interesting. I hear my colleague from Minnesota saying that he is interested in constraining Presidential power, just not this President, and apparently only when it applies to Presidents who might go against the interests of Big Oil. I guess at least there is some semblance of interest in defending Article I, but it is a pretty twisted remnant of what should be Congress' Article I authority.

If we really want to work on constraining Presidential power, there is a lot we could do together. Right now this administration is illegally blocking funds enacted by Congress to help hardworking Americans, funding meant for wildfire management and water infrastructure projects at a time when communities in California are still reeling from disaster. Instead, we are debating this.

This administration has fired inspectors general from at least 18 Federal agencies without warning and without explanation in clear violation of the law which requires 30 days' notice to Congress and a substantive explanation. There was a time when Members of both parties would be furious over a flouting of the law like that. However, today it doesn't seem to matter to our colleagues across the aisle.

These independent watchdogs exist for one purpose: To prevent waste, fraud, and abuse and to hold Presidential power in check, working closely with Congress. Apparently that doesn't matter anymore.

We know the administration is actively trying to abolish USAID, a nonpartisan agency established by Congress which supports nutrition and other basic humanitarian assistance all over the world for people who need it. We know that NOAA could be next on the chopping block, a science-based agency that people all over this country depend on every day to get weather alerts and to save lives. However, we are on the floor debating this love letter to Big Oil instead of standing up for Congress' Article I authority and holding Presidential power in check.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Phoenix, Arizona (Ms. Ansari).

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

Madam Speaker, do you know what is bad for energy prices here in the United States? This LNG export bonanza that my friends across the aisle support that President Trump is unleashing with one of his executive orders restarting LNG exports to non-free trade agreement countries. Unconstrained exports of LNG could increase wholesale domestic natural gas prices here in the United States by over 30 percent. Households could pay $100 more per year by midcentury, and congressional Republicans are threatening to repeal clean energy tax credits which could result in a 10 percent jump in electricity costs. Let's not kid each other about who cares about energy prices for American consumers.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Casten).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I close by making one thing very clear. Even though fracking can undeniably present very real health threats and risks to the public, the reality is that no President has ever tried to ban it, and President Trump is certainly not going to ban it. He absolutely loves fracking.

Why are we here? Why are we having this totally performative debate?

This bill and this debate serves two purposes for my colleagues across the aisle. First, it is a chance to provide an assurance, a love letter, to Big Oil, telling them that House Republicans will have their backs, an early Valentine's Day gift, if you will.

Second, it is a distraction. House Republicans are distracting the American people by saying they are doing something. To put it in theological terms that my friends might appreciate, it is like Jesus is coming, look busy.

However, as we have laid out, this will do nothing for energy costs. The entire drill, baby, drill agenda will do nothing for inflation because the industry is already producing record amounts of oil and gas. They are doing more than that. They are purposefully and illegally price gouging Americans, colluding with cartels. They are not interested in lowering costs for the American people.

This is also a distraction from the trade war that President Trump is starting to unleash, including against close allies of the United States, something that is going to painfully raise

prices for everyday Americans. It is a distraction from the President's threats and attacks on democracy.

We are sliding down the slippery slope to dictatorship, Mr. Speaker, and we are here debating a love letter to Big Oil.

Just under 3 weeks into this administration, it is clear, and it is no surprise, who the Republican leaders in Congress are for. They are for billionaires. They are for Big Oil, corporations, and polluters.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defend people over polluters and vote ``no'' on this bill, 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.

I rise in support of this legislation introduced by the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao).

In a few minutes, I will also have a lot to say about one of the bills that was abruptly and outrageously pulled from our agenda today, but right now, I am happy to support my friend's bill.

I point out that the text of this bill passed the House as part of Chair Westerman's H.R. 471 less than 2 weeks ago. I recognize that this is the beginning of a new Congress. Things are pretty chaotic, and our friends across the aisle want to appear busy amidst all the unconstitutional chaos and illegal action that is flooding our in-boxes and our newspapers, and we are constantly on the defensive because our democracy is under attack by someone who doesn't want to be a President--he wants to be a king--and has no regard for Article I of the Constitution.

We have silence from our friends across the aisle about all of that, but I guess we have time today to move a bill that we have already passed and that nobody opposes. Congratulations for this particular head-scratcher.

It is a real missed opportunity since we could be using this time to talk about critical issues like the Federal wildland firefighting pay and benefits that are set to expire a few weeks from now.

I think there is bipartisan support to extend those, but I can't get my friends across the aisle to talk about that, let alone come together and move some legislation to get it done.

Of course, fixing firefighter pay wasn't in the recent Republican package. It is not on the agenda today either. I hope we get to it at some point, but we are not doing it today, and that is a shame.

We should also be talking about disaster relief for California, but that is not on the agenda today either. Since we are considering this bill for a second time, Groundhog Day on this bill, instead of all of the other priorities, I will say committee Democrats continue to support this bill.

There is no opposition to this bill. We are going to pass it again and again, maybe, if we run out of other things to do this in this Congress.

The legislation would require relevant Federal agencies to complete an updated evaluation of the Container Aerial Firefighting System to support wildland fire mitigation and suppression efforts across the country. The system involves using a box or a container for aerial drops of water or fire retardant.

Its proponents claim that the utilization of this technology could improve delivery time and make it easier for aircrafts to fight fires. That is fine. That is a good thing.

However, back in 2011, the Forest Service conducted a study and determined that this particular system did not meet existing standards and posed safety risks to our communities and forests. Since that initial report, there have been technological advancements.

This bill aims to take another look at a potentially useful tool while ensuring the Forest Service retains its authority to decide if the tool is ready to use or not. This is an important safeguard for wildland firefighters and the communities who are impacted by the wildfire crisis.

As we saw in the recent southern California fires, the climate crisis is clearly increasing the severity and duration of wildfire season. Evaluating new technology that can help keep communities safe needs to be a priority.

This bill is one of many examples of the potential for truly bipartisan collaboration on the issue of wildfires. I hope we can keep this work going. I hope we can extend it to actually be a permanent fix for the firefighter pay problem that we need to address.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly didn't think I was engaging in personalities by talking about a President that wants to be a king. I thought I was just acknowledging the reality of what is happening in this country.

I was also referring to these 19-year-olds in hoodies that have been given read-write access to our most sensitive, personal data who are inside the Treasury Department's payment system right now rummaging through our private information doing who knows what.

We can't even get answers because our friends across the aisle don't want to talk about it. They want to rerun all these bills that we have already passed and that are, frankly, not opposed, and this is a waste of our time here on the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' again on this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation. My Democratic colleagues and I agree that it is a good idea to authorize the conveyance of the Pleasant Valley Ranger District Administrative Site to Gila County in Arizona.

However, I do want to talk about the broader context for this bill because it

was supposed to be considered today alongside a Democratic-led bill, the National Museum of Play Recognition Act. It is about as innocuous as it gets.

This is a bill that has a Republican co-lead. It would merely confer the title of ``national'' to this museum in Rochester, New York, which is a unique institution dedicated to the exploration of how play serves to promote learning, creativity, discovery, and cultural history.

The bill wouldn't provide Federal funding or any other benefits that my friends across the aisle could object to. I am talking about conferring an honorary title on a children's museum. It has areas for kids to play and imagine that they are in Sesame Street or the Berenstain Bears books.

Unfortunately, House Republicans have pulled the bill from today's agenda at the last minute because we are told that many Republicans think the museum is too woke and too DEI. That is right. That is the explanation we have been given for why the deal is off and the Democratic bill can't be considered today.

I don't know the names of who made this decision or what specific complaints are behind it, but I am guessing that some of my Republican colleagues don't like the fact that the museum currently has a small temporary exhibit called Black Doll Designers that lets visitors ``learn about the pivotal role that Black designers have played in diversifying toy aisles.''

In September, the museum also posted on Instagram about Hispanic Ballerina Barbie and how the My First Barbie line of dolls ``come in various ethnicities and styles, encouraging inclusivity and diversity. . . . ''

That doesn't strike me as controversial or offensive in any way, but is that why we can't have a vote on this bill here today? Some unidentified Republicans are triggered by that, by Hispanic Ballerina Barbie, or are our Republican friends just taking their orders from the far-right website Breitbart, which posted yesterday, attacking this museum for its content and for offering what it called diversity and inclusion internships. I guess those are dirty words these days.

That is how it works these days. Shortly after the Breitbart post went up, this bill disappeared from the agenda. It was pulled. That is how it works these days. Breitbart posts something. Congress reacts. Elon Musk tweets. Republicans in Congress walk away from a bipartisan budget deal.

Mr. Speaker, this is disgusting. Are my colleagues now puppets on a string, something that maybe should be an exhibit in the play museum that we are talking about here? It sure would seem so.

There is nothing more I can say. I believe this is disgusting. I will save my comments about the remaining bill on today's agenda for later, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will close by saying I support this legislation. As we have already heard, this is a property that is adjacent to the rural town of Young, Arizona, surrounded by the Gila National Forest and formerly a Forest Service office building and administrative site that is no longer used by the agency.

This conveyance will provide Gila County with the opportunity to do something productive and important with the property. It will establish a veterans retreat and community center. That is a worthy goal. It will support and uplift our deserving community of veterans in that location, and the partnership made possible by this bill would provide some new life to deteriorating buildings, barns, barracks, and existing wastewater systems.

This is a bill that passed the House last Congress. It is unfortunate that the Senate didn't take it up. Hopefully, this time around, they will, and we can help fulfill Gila County's goal in creating what they have described as ``the ultimate experience for veterans and their families.'' We support all of that.

If this bill does become law, I hope our Federal Government will be sufficiently staffed to carry it out. With furloughs, firings, and attempts at encouraging early retirement, including a whole bunch of lawless attempts that I wish my friends across the aisle were a little more concerned about, we are already seeing basic government functions at risk.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues across the aisle to tell their friends in the White House to look before they leap and to stop dismantling the offices that serve our constituents.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 471, the Fix Our Forests Act, sponsored by Chairman Westerman.

While this bill is flawed, and we will be discussing those flaws here in a moment, I do appreciate that Chair Westerman and Representative Peters did come together to work on this issue in a bipartisan way that acknowledges our wildfire crisis. That is a good thing. Addressing that should be a bipartisan priority, and the Fix Our Forests Act includes some helpful provisions.

For starters, it has incorporated a number of key Democratic priorities that are in direct alignment with the recommendations of the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission. That is what is referenced in this poster here behind me, 148 nonpartisan consensus recommendations for making us safer from the threat of wildfire.

If this bill simply moved those consensus recommendations forward and also did something that the commission told us we had to do, a critical priority, which is to fund them and make sure that the agencies responsible for overseeing these projects have staffing--if this bill were simply doing that, we wouldn't be here today because this bill would already be law, and many of these good things would already be keeping communities safer.

Mr. Chair, as you will hear in a moment, this bill goes off on some tangents that have nothing to do with fire safety.

Also, with respect to the good provisions it does include, it fails to fund them. That is why we are here. That is why the path of this bill has been more complicated. That is, unfortunately, a missed opportunity.

We were able, in this bill, to include reauthorization of the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program and the Joint Chiefs' Landscape Restoration Partnership sponsored by our newly reelected Subcommittee on Federal Lands ranking member, Joe Neguse.

The latest version of the bill also includes a revamped version of the Fireshed Center, which aligns with several of the commission's consensus recommendations aimed at enhancing coordination, using predictive services, and unifying decisionmaking capabilities.

I am glad this bill has evolved to include these priorities my Democratic colleagues have championed. In fact, we have Democratic bills that do all of these good things and more because fire safety is a huge concern for all of us, but our Democratic bills do not pair these good provisions unnecessarily with harmful environmental rollbacks. That, unfortunately, is what the bill before us does do.

If you scratch beneath the surface of H.R. 471, you start seeing problems, starting with the fact that the beneficial provisions are totally unfunded.

There is simply no money, no resources, to help any of the good things actually happen.

There are also several poison pills that have the potential to undermine science-based management and public engagement.

On top of doing nothing to address the key driver of catastrophic wildfires, climate change, the so-called Fix Our Forests Act inappropriately co-opts emergency authorities under the National Environmental Policy Act, undercuts the Endangered Species Act, and even makes it more difficult for communities to engage and scrutinize or even know about projects that could directly impact them.

Wildfire is deadly serious. In a matter of minutes, iconic landscapes and entire neighborhoods can be reduced to ashes. I know because it has happened all too often in my district. It is not something politicians should use as a pretext to jam through unrelated industry favors or special interest agendas that undermine our foundational environmental protections.

Let me be clear. House Democrats agree that we need to increase the pace and scale of restoration in our national forests and on public and private land. That is why we worked to secure robust funding in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. This enabled the Biden-Harris administration to develop the Wildfire Crisis Strategy and other key restoration activities.

Thanks to the funding we provided, the Forest Service has been able to achieve record numbers for both hazardous fuels reduction and prescribed burning. They have even identified southern California as a priority landscape through this work. The only thing holding them back from doing even more beneficial work on the ground is lack of money.

However, as we are seeing with the Los Angeles fires, addressing the wildfire crisis is not all about work in the woods. Southern California is dominated by chaparral, where things like timber sales and clear- cutting simply do not provide a fire safety solution for these communities.

My Republican friends seem to think that logging is a panacea for fire safety. In fact, it will do little or nothing to reduce wildfire risk in many of the most vulnerable communities. The fuel in the Los Angeles fires was not trees. The fuel was homes, schools, and businesses.

We will learn many lessons from this tragedy, but one I hope we can take away right now is that we can't keep taking a siloed, myopic approach to wildfire management and prevention. Built environments, like Los Angeles, must be a priority.

We shouldn't have to fight lies and disinformation as our brave Federal firefighters, who are already underpaid, are out there still fighting fires. I would like to set the record straight on some of the misinformation and disinformation swirling around this debate.

While Los Angeles has some of the strongest building codes and fire safety requirements in the Nation, there are still thousands and thousands of homes that require retrofitting to ensure that they are adequately protected. Clearly, we have a lot more work to do, and this bill misses the mark by failing to advance that work.

Keeping homes and property resilient also requires constant upkeep and maintenance. Our communities need guidance, and again, more than anything else, they need resources to ensure that this happens.

While the Fix Our Forests Act includes a community wildfire risk program, which is a good thing, it is not enough. We need to pass the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act that I introduced earlier this week with my Republican colleague, Congressman Obernolte. It provides actual resources to help local communities defend themselves from the growing danger of wildfires.

Our bill would empower communities to implement science-based methods for mitigating wildfire damage, and we provide funding to design and implement new community protection and wildfire resilience plans with community members, first responders, and relevant State agencies. It would designate a targeted, specific grant program for home hardening within FEMA and add home hardening as an allowable project under an existing Forest Service program.

The bill provides actual support with an adequate focus on the built environment, and that is why I filed it as an amendment to this bill. Unfortunately, the majority decided to move forward on this bill without allowing a vote on that and many other amendments.

I had been hopeful that the amendment process would be an opportunity to address some of the critical gaps in this bill, especially the absence of a pay raise for our Federal wildland firefighters. That, too, has been left out.

What happened in Los Angeles this month is a national tragedy. In moments like this, we should overcome all politics and find ways to work together on solutions that actually help the people we are here to serve.

With that in mind, I want to discourage any of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who might want to embrace this wrongheaded idea that relief and support for Los Angeles can somehow be a bargaining chip or used as leverage to advance other policy goals.

The majority is not going to turn California into a red State by hijacking critically needed disaster relief. In fact, a thought like that never would have crossed our minds when we had the backs of the people in Florida, North Carolina, and Louisiana. We have simply been fellow Americans helping each other in the face of these terrible tragedies. That is the way it has always worked in this Congress, and I hope we are not going to set a terrible new precedent now.

Mr. Chair, I will be recommending a ``no'' vote on this bill today. I hope that we can continue to work together, however, to improve this bill and to address all the critical issues that have been left out. I also hope that when it comes to the broader critical need for Federal disaster relief, we can remember that we are all fellow Americans and that we need to have each other's backs in these moments.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, it is always refreshing to hear my colleagues across the aisle, who typically deny climate science forcefully, to suddenly get interested in things like CO2 emissions. They have discovered, correctly, that forest fires actually cause CO2 to go into the atmosphere. I guess that is progress.

I hope now they will begin to listen to the overwhelming majority of climate scientists who are saying that this fossil fuel energy bonanza of theirs is actually the primary driver of catastrophic climate change. It is the reason we have record-breaking disasters, one after another because of this fossil fuel bonanza. I hope that we can build on the progress, this awakening that we have begun to hear on at least some climate science.

Now, it was mentioned by the chairman, I believe erroneously, that forest treatments have gone down since the passage of the legislation that I mentioned two Congresses ago. In fact, we need to do a little bit of correcting there.

Since the passage of these two laws, the Forest Service has been treating a record number of acres, including a record number of prescribed fires in California and across the country. We also know that from 2002 to 2023, the Forest Service consistently increased the acres that it treated.

Nevertheless, let's pick up where the Trump Administration left off. Mr. Chair, 2.65 million acres were treated in 2020, and we know that the Biden administration was able to treat 4.3 million acres, a lot more than the Trump administration, in 2023. The numbers, admittedly, leveled off over the last 2 years because of Republican budget cuts, but they have still topped 4 million acres a year, and so it is a very different trajectory than what has been suggested.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer).

Mr. Chair, the picture my friend from northern California just showed is instructive because both the right and the left side of that picture are areas that were clear-cut. You can tell that, Mr. Chair, because all the trees were exactly the same height. It is what we call a plantation forest. It is unhealthy. It is absolutely vulnerable to wildfire.

I am glad that they did some thinning on the left side of that picture, but the unhealthy forest on the right side is also a vestige of clear-cutting, which does not make anyone safer. It actually makes communities a lot more vulnerable to wildfire, and it is exactly the kind of project that would go through the huge loophole created in this legislation.

More clear-cutting is not going to make us any safer from wildfire risk.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from San Diego in southern California (Mr. Peters).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Min).

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

Mr. Chair, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Chair, I think we can all agree that wildfire is a complex, traumatic, and challenging issue. It is serious stuff. The devastation it can wreak on entire communities and destruction can happen in a matter of minutes.

Addressing our wildfire crisis is a national priority that should never be politicized. House Democrats are committed to supporting a robust all-of-government response, and to doing that in a way that acknowledges critical realities.

Starting with the climate crisis and the role of human-caused climate change, especially the burning of fossil fuels, and these worsening conditions are exacerbating not just wildfires but many other natural disasters.

Second, the reality that solutions, including many of the ones in this bill, actually require resources in order to mean something.

We hope to continue working with our Republican colleagues to address our outstanding concerns about this bill, and we hope that the majority will work with us on additional legislation to address critical issues, like adequate pay for Federal firefighters, that were left out of this bill. They need the resources to do their work. Communities devastated by wildfires also need the resources to rebuild.

There is plenty of work that we still have ahead of us. I hope we can do that together.

It is unfortunate that this bill came up so quickly. In fact, Republicans refused most Democratic amendments. At a time of crisis, we should be trying to find ways to work together.

Democrats have a lot of good ideas. I really think this bill could have benefited from an open and transparent amendment process and, unfortunately, we were denied that.

Forests are critical carbon reserves. They are majestic destinations for outdoor recreation, a habitat for a range of wildlife enjoyed by millions of Americans. Short-circuiting environmental review and not allowing the public to participate in decisionmaking actually has negative consequences. It could put all of these values at risk.

We have to also be able to talk about the climate. Like the recent fires in southern California or the ones that tear through my northern California district all too often and throughout the West all too often, some of the most destructive and devastating fires that we have seen in the past 5 years on non-Federal land started as grass fires, exacerbated by the climate crisis.

In the winter of 2021, the Marshall fire broke out in Boulder, Colorado. At that time, it was the most destructive fire in Colorado history, with over 1,000 homes lost. At the time, Boulder County was experiencing hurricane-force winds just like Los Angeles. The fire blazed across open spaces that had been desiccated by months of extreme drought conditions.

Everything about the Marshall fire was unusual: the level of high winds, the condition of the landscape from an unstable climate, and the proximity to an urban interface. What was once considered unusual is rapidly becoming the norm. We need to acknowledge that reality.

Like the Marshall fire, the fires in Maui started on non-Federal grassland. They were fueled by hurricane-force winds and significant drought. This is a climate disaster.

Fix Our Forests would not have stopped either of these fires. Communities like the ones in southern California; Boulder, Colorado; and Lahaina, Hawaii need resources so they can prepare and respond and be more resilient.

Unfortunately, even the sections of this bill that purport to help in these situations completely lack funding. They need to be refined. They need to be backed up by dedicated funding in order to mean more than just thoughts and prayers.

Rushing bills like this to the floor to capitalize on a crisis does not always lead to the best outcome. We should know that by now.

Let's hope this is not a model for the entire 119th Congress.

Mr. Chair, I close by urging my colleagues to oppose this bill and by urging my Republican colleagues to do a better job of working with Democrats. We should be tackling these issues together.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, we were under the impression that this was essentially a closed rule. Many of our beneficial amendments were rejected out of hand or ruled out of order, but apparently, there is always room for an amendment that will make the bill worse. We have a great example of that right now.

CO2 sequestration benefits and potential ecosystem benefits of biochar are a couple of the most attractive possibilities for this program. I know Chairman Westerman believes that because we have talked about biochar. He has talked about the possibilities of this. The truth is that the science on biochar is not settled.

We have more work to do by way of studies, so establishing a program to carry out demonstration programs for the development and commercialization of biochar could be a good opportunity to better understand its role in a healthy forest and explore some of these interesting potential benefits.

Now, with this amendment, we have to do it with ideological blinders on because apparently merely mentioning words like CO2 sequestration and ecosystem benefits are triggering, so we are going to end that part of the study. We are going to put the ideological blinders on. We are going to fire the scientists. We are going to burn the books and rename the Gulf of Mexico.

This is just remarkably wrongheaded. I am so surprised and disappointed. The chairman actually put a good provision into his bill.

Let me make it very clear: Democrats like that part of this bill, and we are about to lose the beneficial aspects of it because of this absurd ideological obsession where you have to deny all climate science and not talk about the environment. It is just deeply disappointing.

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

Mr. Chairman, if the excuse for this amendment is that we don't have the money, then you do an amendment to strike the whole program. You don't simply single out the parts of it that are environmental or that have to do with climate solutions. That is what is happening with this amendment. It is just the same old ideological blinders.

Mr. Chair, again, I am greatly disappointed that the chairman is allowing a flawed bill to become even worse with this wrongheaded ideological amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, we still have concerns, obviously, with the underlying bill, but we do support Congressman Carbajal's good amendment. I thank him for his leadership in working on this issue.

Vegetation management around utility lines is a very important priority.

That is why the Forest Service and BLM require operating plans and agreements for maintenance and vegetation of these lines through our public land.

This amendment aims to improve the process and make it easier for utility companies to complete that work, especially when hazardous conditions exist. That is a good thing, and we should all support it.

I should mention that it doesn't fix the underlying problem with section 203 of the bill, which includes some language that will have unintended consequences on this issue.

Utility line operators are already responsible and liable for hazard tree mitigation around their lines, but the Forest Service has told us that the current language in this bill could potentially increase liability for utilities by a factor of 15 making it even more challenging for them to get the insurance that they need to operate.

Utility lines often spark fires. We need to make sure they are operated more safely and efficiently, but it is also critical that whatever relief we seek is carefully drafted and thoughtfully drafted.

Mr. Chair, unfortunately, there is still a lot of work to do on the underlying parts of this bill. Hopefully, that work will take place in the Senate.

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