Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk. Madam Chair, I rise to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman rule to reduce the salary of EPA Administrator Michael Regan to $1. On his watch, Administrator Regan has used the EPA to…
Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Madam Chair, I rise to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman rule to reduce the salary of EPA Administrator Michael Regan to $1.
On his watch, Administrator Regan has used the EPA to impose Green New Deal policies, such as electric appliance and EV mandates, power plant closures, strict regulations on American energy production, and environmental justice initiatives.
On Michael Regan's watch, the EPA has prioritized DEI over domestic energy, climate change over consumers, and EVs over our great economy.
In a hearing with the Oversight and Accountability Committee, he was unaware that the EPA has never formally been authorized by Congress, something that someone who oversees an agency should know. If the body of government who is directed to create such agencies has never authorized them, well, then we have a problem. However, this hasn't stopped him from jeopardizing American energy security, overloading America's power grid, and raising costs for all American consumers and businesses.
In fact, in March of last year, the EPA Twitter account posted, ``As a bicultural, bilingual, and bisexual woman, Iris deeply empathizes with communities at the intersection of overlapping crises of injustice, #climatechange, and environmental racism.''
We cannot have the head of the Environmental Protection Agency claiming that even the environment is racist.
This is another season of all the questions are made up and none of the points matter. The American people want their government to work for them, not against them. This administration's Green New Deal regulations are increasing regulatory costs at a rate of $617 billion per year of rulemaking. Is that clear? $617 billion in just rulemaking alone.
This isn't a bill that Congress is passing; it is just rulemaking by the agency itself. If they continue at the Obama administration's regulatory pace, this will cost American families $60,000. It is time to put an end to governing by the Green New Deal, which is very much a scam, and the first step is to get rid of Administrator Regan.
Madam Chair, I urge the passage of this important amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I appreciate my colleague, Mr. Simpson, here who is chair of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee. I believe that we absolutely have the authority to exercise the Holman rule.
Congress, the House of Representatives, is a majority rule, self- governing body. We have rules that we vote on to put in place that allow us to govern and govern ourselves as Members of Congress. We have the Holman rule to have a check on unelected bureaucrats.
I agree with my colleague that elections do matter and that we do need to get out and vote for the best candidate. However, my constituents in Colorado do not have the opportunity to vote for these unelected bureaucrats who are happy to stay in their position and wait out a majority of their disliking, and it is very difficult to remove them.
My colleague is also correct in saying this is essentially a way of firing these unelected bureaucrats who are abusing their position, who are using their power, their job, and their position to hurt American citizens when they are creating rulemaking that is costing $617 billion per year and increasing the household costs of families by $60,000.
I don't care if that is technically illegal or legal. It is immoral, it is unjust, and it is unsustainable.
I stand by my amendment to reduce the salary of the EPA director, Mr. Reagan, to $1 and to exercise our House rule that we have voted on and that Mr. Simpson even voted on in the Rules package in January of 2023 and hold this unelected bureaucrat accountable.
I am here to represent my constituents and save the American taxpayers money. Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Madam Chair, I am going to exercise the rule of the House to offer the Holman rule amendment here in this appropriations bill, and I rise to offer my amendment that reduces the salary of Melissa Schwartz, Director of Communications of the Department of the Interior, to $1.
Melissa Schwartz is yet another horrendous and miserable use of taxpayer dollars. Look at this. She is a mask-wearing, quadruple-vaxxed Green New Deal extremist, and unfortunately, a liberal troll who has harassed me, even in committee hearing rooms.
She shouldn't be employed at the Department of the Interior. Melissa Schwartz belongs under a bridge. Melissa had the nerve and lack of respect to confront me in the Halls of Congress following a Department of the Interior meeting.
In this hearing, she had the audacity to come and personally attack a Member of Congress. This DEI hire made clear she doesn't work for the American people, and she is simply another misguided mouthpiece for liberal extremists that hates conservatives and people that disagree with her eccentric views.
Rather than focus on agency priorities or the American people's priorities, facts, and seeking to do what is best for America, Schwartz spends most of her taxpayer time tweeting nonsense and trying to promote the Biden regime's radical new deal scam.
Melissa and her colleagues believe that climate change is the ultimate threat to humanity. They are willing to kill American jobs and sacrifice the health of our economy at all costs as they pursue their extremist ideology.
I am committed to taking a stand against the Biden regime's attempt to cripple American energy and cater to radical extremists.
I urge my colleagues to exercise our voted-on House rule and implement the Holman rule and support my amendment that reduces the salary of Melissa Schwartz to $1.
Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Madam Chair, I rise today to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman rule to reduce the salary of Director of Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Elizabeth Klein to $1.
Ms. Klein is a radical environmentalist and a partisan hack comprised of special interests and mired in ethical conflicts. Her conflicts of interest were so severe that even Senator Manchin voted to block her nomination as Deputy Secretary of the Interior.
As deputy director of the New York University School of Law's State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, Klein placed and paid the salaries of legal fellows in State attorneys general offices to advance Michael Bloomberg's radical environmental agenda.
The use of private money to conduct public business is ethically flawed. Indiana's attorney general categorized Ms. Klein's program as an ``arrangement through which a private organization or individual can promote an overtly political agenda by paying the salaries of government employees.''
In just the first year of the program, SEEIC fellows participated in filing at least 130 regulatory, legal, and other challenges to President Trump's policies--successful policies, I might add. Now Ms. Klein is working for the Federal Government and on the other side of lawsuits that she helped file. Under President Biden's own ethics rules, she should be prohibited from participating in matters involving her former employer.
During her testimony in the House Committee on Natural Resources, I questioned Ms. Klein about her failed nomination to become Deputy Secretary of the Interior.
I asked if she had been provided with a recusal list and formally requested that she provide that list to the committee. Ms. Klein told the committee that she was happy to provide that list.
Shamefully, it took a letter from the committee and this aggressive committee questioning for Klein to send the committee a very delayed recusal list that should have been in place almost immediately after her hiring.
Ms. Klein spent several years funneling money from Michael Bloomberg to sue the Trump administration and pay for the Green New Deal scam lawyers she had placed in attorneys general offices across the country.
Given her myriad of Federal lawsuits and conflicts, there should be little to nothing that Ms. Klein is allowed to work on at any subagency within the Department of the Interior.
Senior Federal employees are required to be transparent in their ethical obligations and act impartially, placing their sole loyalty to the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America.
Ms. Klein's history of infiltrating State governments with Michael Bloomberg's minions and supporting lawsuits against the Federal Government makes it impossible for her to meet the ethical obligations that her position of public trust requires.
Ms. Klein's continued employment as the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has been riddled with a controversial and extensive history of ethical conflicts.
This is a stain on the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Radical partisan extremists have no place in the Federal Government, especially those in charge of our energy security.
Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to restore integrity to the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I care deeply about our environment. I want clean air. I want clean water. I want to be a good steward of the land that we have been gifted here in the United States of America.
I don't believe that pursuing these extremist Green New Deal scam policies is advancing that agenda that we have. I don't want to spend tax dollars on these initiatives and this purpose.
I want to do the work of the people, and I believe that my amendment gets us one step closer to that by reducing the salary of Ms. Klein to $1.
Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Madam Chair, I rise to offer my amendment that redirects $2 million to hazardous fuel reduction activities within the Bureau of Land Management to prevent catastrophic wildfires and save lives.
The year I was elected, Colorado suffered the worst fire season in Colorado history, with the three largest recorded wildfires we have ever had. Hundreds of homes were destroyed and evacuated, and Coloradans endured more than 100 days of fire.
The Cameron Peak fire burned more than 208,000 acres and more than 460 structures to the tune of $6 million in property losses. The East Troublesome fire on the border of my district killed two people. Coloradans also suffered severe health issues resulting from significant smoke from these fires.
Wildfire smoke causes serious disorders, including eye and respiratory tract infections, reduced lung function, bronchitis, exacerbation of asthma, and even premature death.
Catastrophic wildfires also cause significant damage to the environment. A few years ago, NASA concluded that one catastrophic wildfire can emit more carbon emissions in just a few days than all of the vehicle emissions in an entire State over the course of an entire year. Decades of mismanagement have left our Nation's Federal lands vulnerable to insects and disease, ripe for catastrophic wildfires.
The good news is, there is finally significant bipartisan support throughout the country to prevent wildfires, and the Forest Service is seeking to treat 20 million acres of national forest and grasslands and 30 million acres of State, local, Tribal, and private lands over the next 10 years.
However, we need to do more, as Federal agencies have stated that more than 1 billion acres throughout the country are currently at risk of catastrophic wildfires. Our Federal lands are overgrown and poorly managed, making them more susceptible to wildfire, disease, and even bark beetle attacks.
There are Federal lands in Colorado and the West where we once had 50 to 100 trees per acre, but now we see 500 to 1,000 trees per acre, proving the overgrowth of our forests. There are also 6 billion standing dead trees in the Western United States. Some people call that a problem. I call it a tinderbox waiting to ignite and burn.
Fuel treatments are effective, and Federal agencies have made clear ``over 90 percent of the fuel treatments were effective in changing fire behavior and/or helping with control of the wildfire.''
Let's put the lives of the American people first, take significant action to benefit our environment by passing my hazardous fuels reduction amendment and redirecting $2 million to these hazardous fuels reduction activities within the Bureau of Land Management.
Madam Chair, I encourage the adoption of my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I am proud of my party's work in reducing taxpayer spending by $1.8 billion in this bill, and I also am encouraged to find even more offsets where we can redirect funding and put them to a more appropriate use for the taxpayer, showing that their best interest is what we are all here serving in Washington, D.C., on their behalf for.
Madam Chair, again, I support the adoption of my amendment that redirects $2 million for the fuels hazardous management in the Bureau of Land Management. I yield back the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Madam Chair, I rise to offer my commonsense amendment that redirects $2 million of the inspector general to combat waste, fraud, and abuse within the EPA.
As a proud member of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, I am a firm believer in increasing transparency of Federal programs and actions within the executive branch. Honest, hardworking Americans should be able to trust that their tax dollars are being spent responsibly and for their intended purposes.
The EPA Office of Inspector General is charged with providing critical oversight over tens of billions of dollars that are spent by the EPA, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, as well as more than $100 billion that is being doled out through the so-called Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that we all know did nothing to reduce inflation. Ask anyone you meet in the grocery store.
Unlike other inspector general offices, the EPA IG did not receive additional funding from the Inflation Reduction Act, expansion act, to carry out the additional oversight mandates associated with this law. Oversight by the IG is critical to ensure that the EPA, as well as its grantees and contractors, are responsible stewards of scarce American tax dollars. The IG also seeks to root out fraud, waste, and abuse, mismanagement, and misconduct within the agencies it provides oversight to.
Recently, the IG identified significant taxpayer risks and vulnerabilities that are associated with the administration's Clean School Bus Program. Sounds great, right? The inspector general pointed out: ``There is a high potential for, among other things, falsely substituting or duplicating requests from multiple Federal agencies for the same or very similar materials and associated labor.''
Ever since the passage of the Inspector General Act of 1978, inspectors general have uncovered billions of dollars of fraud and exposed numerous instances of criminal wrongdoing. The EPA IG is no exception. During the first half of the fiscal year of 2023, the EPA IG identified $135 million in wasted spending, fraud avoidance, and other monetary benefits to American taxpayers.
However, vigilance by the EPA inspector general is needed now more than ever for the more than $100 billion of Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act that have been distributed and are still going out the door. Funding currently allocated in this bill for the EPA IG is significantly below the budget estimate, yet they are being asked to do significantly more.
My commonsense amendment will help ensure that the inspector general has the funding and resources they need to provide strict oversight of the EPA. I have found a pay-for, so this is not deficit spending. We are not wasting taxpayer dollars. We are redirecting these $2 million. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to redirect important resources to the inspector general.
Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Chair, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson).
Madam Chair, I yield back.
Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Mr. Chair, from day one of this regime, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris declared an all-out war on American energy production and exploration. They have made very clear that they care more about appeasing radical climate change activists than protecting the millions of oil and gas workers and producers in America.
I was disappointed but not surprised when the Biden regime finalized the rule titled Fluid Mineral Leases and Leasing Process, which mandates provisions from the partisan so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which increased the royalty rate for production on Federal lands while also increasing and creating new fees for domestic energy producers.
This new fluid mineral leasing rule is further proof that the Biden- Harris regime is using every tool in their administration to dismantle American energy production. It increases bonding levels for production on Federal lands, proposes ending nationwide bonding, and increasing the minimum bond amounts for individual lease bonds and statewide lease bonds from $10,000 to $150,000 and from $25,000 to $500,000, respectively.
This significant increase will tie up capital that would otherwise be put back into production and is unjustifiable as there are only 37 orphaned oil and gas wells on BLM-managed lands. These increases will impact smaller producers who can't afford to operate in the market. These additional fees will ultimately harm returns and reduce revenues to State and local governments by disincentivizing development on Federal lands.
The rule also introduces the idea of using preference criteria to inform the BLM selection of lands for lease sales. BLM's rationale for this change is to avoid conflict in areas ``with sensitive cultural, wildlife, and recreation resources.'' This means that BLM field offices could avoid leasing in all areas with endangered or threatened species, critical habitat, or nearby recreation areas, a move that would greatly limit leasing on our Federal lands.
With the wars happening in the Middle East and Europe, and with OPEC significantly lowering oil production, we cannot rely on other foreign nations to control our energy supply. America makes the cleanest energy in the world. We do it the most responsibly.
American innovation, in particular fracking, has allowed America to be the global leader in reducing emissions since the year 2000. We need to stop buying oil and gas from Russia; stop begging OPEC, Venezuela, and Iran to produce energy for us; and start producing more energy responsibly here in America.
I am ready to bring back the American roughneck and to drill, baby, drill because no one does it better than we do here in the United States of America. We must restore American energy dominance and produce clean, reliable energy right here in America.
Mr. Chair, I urge the adoption of my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson).
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Mr. Chair, I rise to offer my amendment that prohibits funds made available by this act to be used for the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Council at the Department of the Interior.
In February 2022, Secretary Haaland established the first-ever Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Council, through Secretary's Order 3406, to incorporate these practices into the Department's work across many bureaus.
Let's be honest here, the DEI agenda is a destructive ideology that breeds hatred and racial division. It has no place in our Federal Government or anywhere else in our society. DEI exists to be a jobs program for otherwise unemployable holders of gender studies degrees who ruin just about everything they touch.
Since taking office, the Biden-Harris regime has implemented DEI policies across virtually every agency in the Federal Government. DEI is focused on coddling unequipped and incompetent employees, and I think we have seen that by all the resignations from these DEI hires in this administration in just a few short years.
As we saw a mere 11 days ago, DEI hires and incompetency at the Secret Service were responsible for letting a deranged gunman come centimeters from killing President Trump. I am not talking about the folks who were there, the boots on the ground. I am talking
about the disgraced Director of the Secret Service who resigned today after scrutiny from both Republicans and Democrats and those all throughout our country.
Mr. Chair, we should no longer allow DEI in the Federal Government to continue to divide America and waste taxpayer money. It is absurd to fund these diverse policies, and it is time for Congress to put an end to them once and for all.
The Department of the Interior should be focused on restoring American energy dominance, not pandering to radical leftists. This is not about race, gender, or anything else included in the DEI agenda of the left. This is about having the best, most equipped, most qualified personnel in their positions, no matter their race or gender.
Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to abolish this demonizing DEI council, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.
Mr. Chair, America is great, and we are going to make America even greater in the upcoming months and years.
America is diverse. America is the great melting pot of the world. We have some of the world's best and the world's finest.
It is amazing. All it took were people coming together to adopt the 19th Amendment to allow women to vote. It took people coming together and collaborating to hire women as police officers or firefighters or pilots. Heck, I have flown a plane, a little Husky 180. It was a great time enjoying the sights of Colorado and all of the mountainsides.
We have an economy right now that is failing because we have a party and an administration that is prioritizing DEI, something we didn't need to have women as police officers or firefighters or pilots or servicemembers, those who would offer up their own lives to serve in the honor of our great country, who would stand for our flag.
Because of DEI and this administration's woke agenda and their radical views, we have now been relegated into poverty. I remember a time also where women could, if they chose, stay home and raise their children. Now women are forced to work and have homes with two incomes because they cannot afford their groceries or their gasoline to get their children to school. It is all because of the policies of this radical agenda.
I am fine with diversity. America is known for being a welcoming country.
This DEI program isn't what makes America great, and we never needed it to be great. I am calling for it to come to an end.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Mr. Chair, I rise to offer my amendment to prohibit funding for the Bicycle Subsidy Benefit Program at the Department of the Interior.
The DOI Bicycle Subsidy Benefit Program provides taxpayer dollars to DOI employees and paid student interns and/or unpaid student volunteers for the purchase, improvements, repair, storage, and/or maintenance of a nonmotorized bicycle that is used as a primary means of commuting to and from work, as well as a monthly stipend. Welcome to the Federal Government.
American taxpayers' hard-earned money is being wasted on covering bicycle commuting expenses such as bicycles, bicycle locks, bicycle parking, storage, bicycle safety equipment, bicycle improvements, or accessories, including reflective lights, racks, bicycle repairs and general maintenance, personal safety and protective equipment, including high-visibility safety apparel, headwear, and bicycle gloves and bicycle share memberships as well as getting paid to bike to work. Praise the Lord.
Coloradans across my district are struggling right now. They are hurting. The economy is bad. Inflation is high. The policies are ruining their lives that are brought by the Biden-Harris administration. They are struggling right now as they deal with the disastrous effects of Joe Biden's and Kamala Harris' destructive economic policies. We
must redirect our attention and their money to much more important things than subsidizing employees for riding bicycles.
The Biden administration has unleashed record inflation on Americans that has decimated our bank and retirement accounts, increased gas prices to record levels, raised utility bills, drove up grocery costs, and made it harder to live for the American people.
The primary root cause of this record-breaking inflation was trillions of dollars of wasteful Federal spending. This excessive spending has real-life consequences that the people I represent are experiencing every single day.
American families will pay an $8,581 inflation tax over the next year. They didn't vote for that, but unfortunately, too many elected officials did.
Currently, 20 million Americans cannot pay their electric bill. We have seen a 4.3 percent decline in real wages since Joe Biden and Kamala Harris entered the White House. Americans have lost more than $2 trillion in retirement savings, savings they have worked their lives for.
America is $35 trillion in debt, and Democrats want us to continue to print money and pay bureaucrats to bike to work when our Commander in Chief himself cannot even ride a bike.
I urge my colleagues to support my amendment to cut wasteful, silly, Federal spending by prohibiting funding for the Bicycle Subsidy Benefit Program at the Department of the Interior.
Mr. Chair, I sure do hope we can get this one through. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Mr. Chair, I rise to offer my amendment that prohibits the Bureau of Land Management from taking any action to finalize, implement, or enforce a draft resource management plan and draft supplemental environmental impact statement to end new oil leases on 1.6 million acres in Colorado.
Colorado's Western Slope used to have a booming energy production economy. I remember because the roughnecks used to come into my restaurant. They would patronize my business and the businesses all around us. I knew we were having a really good day by the amount of mud we had to clean up off the floor from their boots after working hard all day in the field to earn a living for their family and produce good, clean energy for us, not just in Colorado and America, but throughout the world.
There used to be 112 drilling rigs on the West Slope, but now we have four rigs. Now not-in-my-backyard extremists and job-killing Federal policies have driven away those good-paying jobs, those good-paying jobs that also supported local businesses.
The Bureau of Land Management draft resource management plan for the Colorado River Valley field office and Grand Junction field office is the latest fossil fuels attack.
This proposed land grab could remove over 1.6 million acres of public lands in Colorado from future oil and gas leasing and establish nine different areas of critical environmental concern on over 100,000 acres of BLM land. If this proposal is finalized, the United States will lose access to vital energy resources, many more than the 600 fewer wells projected by the agency to be lost by 2043.
The consequences will be felt far beyond the State of Colorado where residents will lose their livelihoods and see increased gas and energy prices, yes, even more than the increases we are seeing today. BLM is proposing to close all areas with no known, low, and moderate oil and gas development potential and is basing its analysis off the oil and gas potential on out-of-date information that does not take into consideration modern technology.
The Permian Basin was once thought to be low to medium, and now it is the highest producing oil field in the world. As a result, the Permian Basin would be closed if this proposal had been in place in New Mexico and Texas prior to the significant amount of production that is now occurring.
This proposed land grab is nothing short of partisan politics meant to further restrict access to the oil and natural gas development that could reinvigorate the economy of the West Slope of Colorado and help ensure energy security for all Americans.
There are already stringent standards and requirements in place for oil and gas producers that aim at reducing environmental and cultural impacts. This proposed rule is yet another blatant land grab disguised to dismantle the fossil fuel industry and force a green transition. Closing the door to over 1.6 million acres of vital public lands for energy development is not just an issue of economics. It is a threat to our Nation's energy independence and security.
This proposal goes beyond necessary environmental considerations and instead seeks to restrict access to promising resources, hindering the potential of economic growth and prosperity, particularly in the West Slope of Colorado where we have been regulated into poverty thanks to the Biden-Harris administration.
Rogue bureaucrats at the BLM shouldn't be unilaterally locking up more land in Colorado. It is urgent that we block this overreach and prioritize responsible energy production. That will help reduce gas prices during these challenging times.
Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, on behalf of Coloradans, I am here to say: End the land grabs, bring back the American roughnecks, and drill, baby, drill.
Mr. Chair, I urge the adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Mr. Chair, I rise to offer my amendment that prohibits funds made available by this act from being used to declare a national monument with the use of the Antiquities Act in Montrose, Mesa, Montezuma, San Juan, and Dolores Counties in western Colorado.
Green new scam extremists in Colorado have been petitioning Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to use the Antiquities Act to designate a roughly 400,000-acre Dolores River Canyon County national monument.
The proposed designation of the Dolores River as a national monument threatens to impose severe economic hardships on the communities in western Colorado. This unilateral land grab will cancel all mining in the uranium-rich area, end hunting and cattle grazing, and curtail motorized travel. These are practices that have been part of the Western way of life for generations.
The Biden-Harris regime is no stranger to abusing the Antiquities Act. In little over 1 year ago, they locked up over 225,000 acres in Colorado with the stroke of a pen and prevented Colorado from using our public lands for activities that we want and need. This is a right of Coloradans and Americans just taken away.
Taking even more Federal lands off the table for multiple use is attacking American energy production, American jobs, American workers, and leaving American consumers to pay the tab.
This amendment ensures Joe Biden and Kamala Harris cannot lock up land by executive fiat and encourages the administration to look for stakeholder-supported solutions like my bipartisan, bicameral Dolores River National Conservation Area and Special Management Act.
This is something I worked on with my Colorado Senators. We found a way to compromise without compromising our principles. We came to a place of agreement.
The Dolores NCA seeks to designate the Dolores River Corridor for the best preservation, benefit, and access of the majority. It is the result of over a decade of community engagement between rafters, agriculture producers, outdoor enthusiasts, water rights stakeholders, conservationists, miners, loggers, businessowners, and all the impacted local governments and Tribes.
Disregarding the agreements achieved and the significant time vested in the Dolores NCA would be an absolute insult to citizens of southwest Colorado and would contradict DOI's own description of the Antiquities Act which states: ``The administration consistently strives to take into account the interests of this wide range of stakeholders.''
This proposed national monument designation has the potential to restrict access and land use in ways that threaten and subvert the will of the people in Colorado. I have constituents on the ground daily fighting this proposal, and I am here on their behalf to bring an end to it once and for all through the position they have elected me to, and I urge adoption of my amendment.
Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman from Maine recently said that it is her priority to focus on Maine and that I should focus on Colorado.
Well, here we are with an amendment related to my home State of Colorado, and I am here to protect my constituents and our land from another land grab from the Biden-Harris administration.
The gentlewoman from Maine has complained of concerns that she has with so-called climate changes and warming of the water. If that is the Maine concern, then perhaps the gentlewoman from Maine would like to partner with me from ending energy production in China who has the worst regulations and emits the most emissions of anyplace in the world and stop buying solar panels from China where they are using child and slave labor in mines in the Congo and work to partner with me for better American energy production.
It is more reliable, it is more efficient, it is cleaner, and we are creating jobs. In the meantime, I will stick right here on Colorado with this amendment, and the gentlewoman from Maine can focus on Maine as she said she would prefer to do.
Mr. Chair, I urge the adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Mr. Chair, I rise to offer my amendment to prohibit funds from being used for the EPA's greenhouse gas reduction fund.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which should have been more accurately named the Green New Deal in disguise, established a taxpayer-funded $27 billion slush fund that sends taxpayer dollars to far-left political organizations and--their favorite--the Chinese Communist Party.
This green bank is nearly three times more than the EPA's entire fiscal year 2023 appropriated funds. Eliminating this slush fund will reduce the budget deficit, protect the government against corruption, and stop China from receiving our taxpayer dollars.
When asked during a committee hearing if the EPA could guarantee that none of the funds from this green bank slush fund would go to China, the EPA official in charge of overseeing how funds were spent literally stated that it is a little more complicated. He didn't say yes or no, but it is a little more complicated.
Over 20 million Americans are currently behind on their utility bills. The American people are not begging for more electric vehicles or solar panels. They are asking for lower energy costs.
In fact, the world is demanding it of us because we could literally export freedom to our allies across the globe if we were to export our liquefied natural gas rather than purchase energy from our enemies.
If Democrats wanted to do something about the current energy crisis rather than pandering to radical environmental extremists, the minority would unleash American energy instead of forcing us to use inadequate and unreliable green energy. These policies will not only fail to meet our economy's energy needs, but they will also make America reliant on wind turbines and solar panels that are made in China.
America is an energy superpower. We should use our vast resources to restore our economy's vitality, ensure our national security, and put hardworking Americans back to work.
Mr. Chair, I urge the passage of my commonsense amendment to put an end to the Biden-Harris regime's pandering to the CCP, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Mr. Chair, I rise to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman rule to reduce the salary of Secretary Deb Haaland to $1.
Under Haaland's leadership, the Department of the Interior has shut down pipelines, delayed federally mandated onshore and offshore leases, repealed commonsense streamlining regulations, shuttered mining projects, failed to comply with numerous laws, and so much more.
She also has quite a history of conflicts of interest. Under Haaland's leadership, the Department of the Interior has cultivated close and potentially improper relationships with extreme environmental activist groups, many of which are working overtime to drive the Biden- Harris administration's social and environmental justice agenda.
Her daughter is a member of the Pueblo Action Alliance, which opposes all oil and gas production on Federal lands, advocates for the dismantling of America's economic and political system, and believes America is irredeemable because there is no ``opportunity to reform a system that isn't founded on good morals or values.''
Haaland's daughter even engaged in a violent protest with 100 or more protesters, breaking through police barriers and trying to get into the Department of the Interior's building. Did she just want to hug her mom, or was this a real act of violence with intent?
Despite multiple attempts from this institution to do its constitutional duty and provide congressional oversight, the Department of the Interior has failed to respond to 80 percent of the requests from Congress.
I would be remiss not to mention Haaland's all-out war on American energy production, from canceling the Keystone XL pipeline on day one, imposing new rules to block pipeline projects, canceling oil and gas leases on millions of acres in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, suspending oil drilling leases in a small sliver of ANWR even though Congress passed a law for this very purpose, imposing a moratorium on new Federal oil and gas leases throughout Federal lands, failing to meet the statutory deadlines for quarterly lease sales, and taking countless other anti-energy measures that have contributed to gas prices and inflation reaching record levels.
We need to make America energy dominant once and for all. It is time for us to have energy security, and it is clear that it won't happen with Haaland leading the Department of the Interior.
Mr. Chair, I urge the adoption of this important amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.
Mr. Chair, I rise to offer my amendment that utilizes the Holman rule to reduce the salary of BLM Director Tracy Stone- Manning to $1.
Mr. Chair, let's call a spade a spade. Tracy Stone-Manning is a terrorist, and her terrorist booby traps still threaten the lives of foresters and firefighters to this very day. Tree-spiking Tracy's abysmal record as BLM Director has included radical anti-energy activism, engagement in ecoterrorism, failure to carry out laws, and prioritization of climate initiatives and public land grabs over domestic energy production.
Tracy Stone-Manning is a radicalized environmental terrorist whose repugnant philosophy includes tenets such as ``we must breed fewer consuming humans,'' children are ``environmental hazards,'' ranchers are ``destroying the West,'' and the solution to houses threatened by wildfires is ``to let them burn.''
Her hateful language spilled over into ecoterrorism when she became involved in a tree-spiking attack, threatening the lives of wildland firefighters, foresters, and mill workers in Idaho.
Stone-Manning's extremist antigovernment, pro-population control, anti-law enforcement, pro-wildlife, tree-worshipping, antifarmer, and anti-responsible energy views should have been more than enough to prevent her from getting to this position, but her involvement in an ecoterrorist, tree-spiking attack, threatening the lives of wildland firefighters, loggers, and mill workers, is beyond the pale.
She also perjured herself to Congress when she lied twice to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. The first lie was that she denied ever being investigated by U.S. special agents, and the second lie was that she denied participating in tree spiking. She belongs not in the Department of the Interior but in Federal prison.
Mr. Chair, Tracy Stone-Manning, tree-spiking Manning, has to go, and I urge the passage of this amendment, as lives are still at risk for her ecoterrorism today.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.