Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I wasn't planning on speaking on this bill this morning, but I have to say that I cannot stand when politicians come into the Chambers of these hallowed Halls to represent the people of this country, pretending to represent the hardworking poor and working families of this country, and actually are doing the bidding of corporations and industries that are asking them to do things to cut cheap deals for them.

This is not about poor people. This is not about working people. This is not about making manufactured homes and trailers better for people that live in them. This is about doing the bidding of corporations that ask them to carry this bill.

As a low-income person who actually grew up in a trailer, let me tell you that efficiency standards and efficiency programs and support programs that make it possible for low-income people to actually have high-quality utilities and to be able to afford their utility bills is what actually helps working people.

We are tired of your hypocritical and cheap bills that you are running on the floor.

I just want to say this, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday was a good day for the American people. What it looks like when you work for working people is you get shit done. Yesterday we passed for the first time this Congress an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies so that hardworking Americans can actually--actually afford healthcare.

Mr. Speaker, as they say, follow the money: invading a foreign country, stealing their oil, extortion, violence, giveaways to corporate America, American oil and gas companies, and, yes, Trump donors.

What is going on here? Today, Donald Trump will convene the CEOs of some of the largest oil and gas companies in America, the same individuals who promised to raise a billion dollars in campaign donations for him when he was a candidate.

In fact, this week I was shocked to learn that the White House and the President are not only planning to sell the oil of Venezuela, but to place it in foreign bank accounts that only the President controls.

We are asking what is going on here: endangering the lives of our servicemembers, unauthorized use of the military, extorting foreign countries, invading foreign countries and taking their leaders, and, yes, stealing their resources.

I will say this to you, Mr. President: We are watching. We will follow the money, and we will hold you to account.

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Moore of West Virginia.) Members are reminded to address their remarks to the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on the House floor with a heavy heart for the family and the community of Renee Nicole Good.

My heart is heavy and not just because of the unabashed and violent killing that happened last night by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, but because I am also sad for our country, to see the Vice President of the United States and officials impugn a young woman who leaves behind her community and an orphaned child.

This is not our country. Shame on you. To those of you who are continuing to provide cover for this lawless, unconstitutional, abusive, and violent administration, shame on you.

I will be joining to file Articles of Impeachment against Secretary Noem. Enough is enough.

Mr. Speaker, there are days, increasingly so, when I cannot believe my eyes and my ears in this

Chamber. It is about 7 p.m. East Coast time. It has been a long day. I just came from the Oversight Committee where we just subpoenaed additional witnesses in the Epstein investigation including potential co-conspirators in the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.

We spent several hours today getting a classified briefing on what happened in the unauthorized invasion of Venezuela by this administration and the capture of a foreign leader, as our President and his administration are threatening to invade other foreign countries and have failed the most basic constitutional duty of seeking the consent of Congress and advising Members of Congress.

Today, we forced a vote on this floor, forcing all of my colleagues to ensure that we vote to save the Affordable Care Act so millions of Americans could have healthcare.

Mr. Speaker, we have to understand how absolutely inane and bizarre it is to come to the floor at 7 p.m. for the first real bill of this Congress this year and it is on showerheads.

When I heard that we were going to vote on showerheads, I literally had to google and look up what this was all about. I was actually genuinely shocked that the President, of course, had signed an executive order in April, demanding that we change the efficiency standards for showerheads.

As I often do, I went down a rabbit hole. In fact, I pulled up pictures of the kinds of showerheads we are talking about. It was fascinating to me, Mr. Speaker, to hear the impassioned pleas for regular working people to take high-pressure showers in motels because that is not why Donald Trump signed an executive order on this issue.

No, Donald Trump likes his big, fancy showers with multiple heads. We are talking about showers for rich people. These aren't even everyday showers.

Mr. Speaker, my question is: Why on God's green Earth on the first full day that this Congress is back in 2026 are the Republicans using their floor time in the midst of armed conflict and daily corruption by this administration to run a bill on rich people's showers for Donald Trump? It is just absolutely amazing.

Mr. Speaker, I have a little less than a minute left in my time. I would ask my colleague across the aisle one simple question: Did Mr. Donald Trump ask him to run a showerhead bill today on the House floor? If my colleague across the aisle cannot answer a simple question about why we are running legislation on the United States House floor on showerheads, I think we rest our case.

Mr. Speaker, I just heard my colleagues across the aisle give a lecture about irresponsible policymaking. I remind this body that we are 7 days from Christmas. We were scheduled to take votes tomorrow, but the Speaker and my Republican colleagues are in such a hurry to get out of town before the holidays that you have canceled votes tomorrow and are leaving town. In many cases, many of you are planning to leave in the next several hours, and this is the bill that you are running? This is the bill that you are running, not a bill to save the healthcare of millions of Americans? This is your bill 1 week before Christmas, to take healthcare away from LGBTQ kids in the United States?

I mean, it is hard to believe that this is what you are doing with your majority. This is one of the most powerful bodies in the world, and you have canceled votes, to take away healthcare from LGBTQ+ kids.

If passed, this bill would prohibit young people in communities all across the United States, in low-income families, from receiving lifesaving care. I am proud to come from a State, New Mexico, that has protected gender-affirming care and which stands with the LGBTQ+ and trans community and their families.

Let me tell you that, yes, this is necessary care, and it is care that keeps kids alive. It is about mental health. It is about self- harm. It is about reducing suicides. It is about making sure that human beings, young people, have access to care that is essential for them to live their lives.

In addition to this, this bill tramples on the so-called States' rights that you tell us every day you want to protect by penalizing States that would take their own resources to ensure that kids have access to care.

If you are actually concerned about the welfare of children, if you are actually concerned about healthcare in this country and its costs, and if you are actually sincere about your care for the American people, then bring a vote on the Affordable Care Act extension to this floor now.

The American people are tired of these games. You all are going to get on a plane and go home in a couple of hours while millions of Americans lose their healthcare, and this is the bill that you are running on the floor before you do that? Shame on you. It is disgraceful.

Madam Speaker, imagine being so ideologically committed to destroying an imperfect healthcare bill that has helped millions of Americans access care over the last 15 years that you would block a vote--just a vote--to extend the lifesaving credits that help keep millions of Americans on their healthcare.

Madam Speaker, imagine that you would block members of your own party from bringing an amendment to extend those credits and that those members would be forced to join all 214 Democrats to force a vote on the floor. Also imagine that you would kill a motion to vote on that one day before you plan to send everyone home for the holiday.

Welcome to Donald Trump's America and the Republican Congress where the leadership would rather let children, seniors, veterans, and small businesses lose their healthcare than even take a vote.

Thankfully, we have filed a discharge petition that will ripen in 7 legislative days, but we know that is not enough. We are calling on the leadership to call a vote now.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 4371, or what the GOP is calling today the Kayla Hamilton Act.

Let me begin by saying what should be clear to every Member of this body: The murder of Kayla Hamilton is a horrific and truly heartbreaking tragedy, and no family should ever have to endure such a loss. Nothing that we can do or say here will diminish the pain of those who loved her.

Mr. Speaker, our responsibility as lawmakers in this Chamber is not only to grieve and stand with our communities but also to legislate wisely and honestly, and not to allow the tragedy of one family to become the tool for potential violence against other children.

While the majority claims this legislation is about protecting children, this bill does not do that. In fact, it establishes a situation where children could be further incarcerated, abused, and traumatized by the hands of the United States Government, detained in immigration enforcement.

If passed, this bill could not only require placing unaccompanied children in detention centers with little to no due process, in the exact kind of private prisons where we know horrific abuses are happening under this administration, or perhaps even, yes, the kinds of kids in cages that happened in the first Trump administration, which we will never forget.

Not only will this bill not make it safer for children, but it could prohibit immigrant children from being reunified with their families here in the United States and would require government officials to conduct potentially invasive examinations of children as young as 12 years old.

One would think that we could all agree that that is not okay, especially in the institutional setting of jails, where we know already that physical abuses are happening.

This is a disgusting overreach of government authority. No government official should be allowed--more or less mandated under the law--to examine children's bodies in ways that could subject them to abuse, whether that is in this bill in government detention facilities, or whether the other bills that you all have been trying to pass this year that would possibly make it possible for children's bodies to be subjected to invasive examinations, including young girls and trans kids. None of this is okay.

I have to say that if my colleagues are so truly concerned about child trafficking and the abuse of young women, then I say to you, tomorrow is the deadline for the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires that the President, who threatened many of you not to vote for that bill, is required to release the files that show why the U.S. Government never prosecuted one of the most notorious sex traffickers of all time. Why are we not focused on that?

If the House rules permitted, I would have offered a motion now to send this bill back to committee because this bill is dangerous for our children. My motion to recommit would also strike provisions that would allow Border Patrol and HHS to conduct physical examinations of children in detention centers.

Mr. Speaker, I ask for unanimous consent to include in the Record the text of this amendment, and I hope my colleagues across the aisle will have the moral compass to protect our children.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is undeniable that Letty Belin is somebody who will be remembered for her laugh, her kindness, and her compassion.

Even when dealing with the most serious of subjects concerning the fate of our Nation's waters, Tribal water rights, the protection of lands and ecosystems, and their legal and policy arguments, it was her laughter, her love, and her kindness that shined through.

The last time that I saw Letty was over a meandering cup of coffee, as they often were, on Stanford campus, where she was a twice-alum and where she contemplated the future of Western water as she often did.

Letty Belin was most certainly one of the greatest legal and policy minds of our generation, working to protect the waters of the West, but Letty was also a dear friend and mentor to me and so many others who worked on Western water issues.

She served as the lead counselor to two Deputy Cabinet Secretaries at the Department of the Interior; led the Environment Division at the New Mexico Attorney General's Office; spent decades practicing water, environmental, and Tribal law; and served on numerous boards.

Above all else, she was a devoted parent to three children, loving grandmother, and friend who shared her deep love of wildlands, open spaces, and traveling the world.

Mr. Speaker, it is with the greatest sadness that I rise this morning to honor the life of Letty Belin and her passing just a few weeks ago.

I became close friends with Letty during her time at the Department of the Interior, where she served as counsel to Deputy Secretaries David Hayes and Mike Connor and as the chair of the Indian Water Rights Working Group.

At the Department of the Interior, she championed the negotiation of water settlements to protect the water rights of 15 Tribal nations, which most certainly must be a historical record for what are often difficult, decades-long cases.

In fact, so exemplary was her work that President Obama himself honored her with a special award for her negotiations involving the water rights of the Navajo and Hopi Nations.

Letty certainly was no stranger to resolving difficult issues and, in fact, led on the legal and policy work that transformed water law in New Mexico during my lifetime to ensure that stream flows for our rivers and streams would remain.

In fact, for any New Mexican who sat along a river grateful to see its waters flow, especially during a time of drought, it was Letty who created the legal framework to sustain those waters.

This is perhaps one of her most enduring legacies, which she led after Attorney General Tom Udall, later Senator Udall, hired her to lead a brand-new Environment Division at the AG's Office in the 1990s. As Senator Udall shared with me just yesterday, Letty was uniquely superb at finding those commonsense solutions that people could support while still pushing for what needed to happen.

It was through this lens that she also helped to protect the Middle Rio Grande River through a legal challenge under the Endangered Species Act. Where some saw only a small, endangered minnow, Letty saw the opportunity to save a vital habitat that supports two-thirds of New Mexico's species.

In the process, her work helped save these species from extinction and brought a renewed urgency to protecting our beloved Rio Grande. It is that same commitment that she brought to her work in the Bay Delta in California.

In fact, decades later, after her years of work as an environmental attorney, as a State and Federal civil servant, she would bring that same creativity and can-do spirit to her work on behalf of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Mr. Speaker, it is with the greatest sadness that I honor Letty's legacy. The impact that she has had on this country is immeasurable. From her roots in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to her career defending the water resources and lands of the West, her lifetime of service continues to influence decisions and communities across the country today. Whether hiking through the hills, floating a river, or traveling the world, Letty leaves behind a legacy of friendship, wisdom, and extraordinary accomplishments.

I, like so many, am forever grateful for her mentorship and friendship and join those who are honoring her memory and mourning her loss.

It is with the deepest condolences and prayers, Mr. Speaker, that I send my love to her family, to her community, and to everyone who called her friend, mentor, sister, mom, and grandma.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more that we need a fix to healthcare now--not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, but today. Put your cards on the table, my friends. We want to see your fix to healthcare. We are ready to pass an extension of the ACA, and the people of this country cannot wait.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule on the floor. There is so much going on in this rule: the NDAA, the INVEST Act, a bunch of so-called permitting bills that will gut environmental protections. But I rise, in particular, to advocate for an amendment that I submitted to this package to stop the President from bulldozing more public buildings, including further changes to the White House that they are planning right now.

The President has already bulldozed the East Wing of the White House, a public treasure visited by millions, to build a private ballroom for himself and his billionaire friends. There were no hearings, no public input, and no regard for the law. Now the White House is quietly soliciting bids to repaint another White House building and to demolish four more historic Federal buildings here in Washington, D.C.

They are shopping our shared heritage to the highest bidder. Yes, those bidders just happen to be some of the President's personal friends and campaign donors. This is corruption happening in broad daylight, right in front of our eyes.

Mr. Speaker, these Federal properties belong to the American people, not to Trump's real estate empire.

My amendment, which is based on the bill that I will file in the coming days, is urgent. It stops the President and any Federal official from unilaterally demolishing, selling, remodeling, or giving away the buildings that we own as the American people. It restores enforcement and accountability that existing laws already provide but that this administration is ignoring, and it increases the penalties to ensure accountability.

Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court is on the verge of overturning 80 years of precedent, stripping away independent agencies of the power to say ``no'' to a President. When that happens, the guardrails will disappear.

Mr. Speaker, we will stand here on the House floor and say to the executive branch: In the people's House, you do not have this authority. You do not have it now. You did not have it then. We will make sure that the law is clear.

We are reaffirming the separation of powers before the Supreme Court attempts to dismantle it, and we cannot wait another day. We know the bulldozers are coming.

Mr. Speaker, I urge every Member who believes in coequal power on both sides of the aisle to vote ``yes'' to this amendment. Stand up for the Constitution, stand up for our shared history, and stand up for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as we debate the NDAA to highlight the important wins for New Mexico, even as we are investigating reports of unlawful strikes in the Caribbean.

I applaud the bipartisan work that produced some major wins for my district and for New Mexico, including a long-overdue 3.8 percent pay raise for all military personnel, authorization of funding for Kirtland Air Force Base, and language which I am most grateful for to hold the Department of Defense accountable for cleaning up munitions and unexploded ordnance on Tribal lands, including in Isleta Pueblo.

It also authorizes funding to stand with our allies in Europe against Russian aggression and strengthens our critical partnerships with allies in the Indo-Pacific.

While I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for the great work in achieving these wins, we will continue to hold this administration accountable.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to give an ode, perhaps a eulogy, to the downfall of DOGE and to the people's movement that brought about its demise.

As we say good-bye to the departing, we take solace in knowing that our democracy endures in our people and our communities.

The centralized Department of Government Efficiency, imagined in the insane mind of Elon Musk and empowered by those around him, which wreaked havoc on the vital programs that sustain our communities appears to no longer exist.

In fact, the Director of OPM said just a couple of weeks ago: It doesn't exist. Even Musk himself downplayed his involvement this weekend, calling it merely a very interesting side quest. While the administration claims DOGE is now integrated into the agencies themselves, its existence as a formal priority appears to finally be dead.

Even in Congress, the future of the DOGE Subcommittee, created by once eager and enthusiastic GOP allies on the Oversight Committee, is uncertain. The explosive breakup of Musk and Trump just a few months ago, and now the sudden pending retirement of the subcommittee chairwoman over the Epstein files and GOP threats and lies, leave the DOGE congressional arm uncertain and rudderless, but perhaps with the opportunity to be repurposed.

Services for the departed will not be held. In lieu of flowers, please, America, continue to organize and fight for our democracy.

As we reflect on DOGE's short but destructive life, we remember how it laid waste to vital programs despite its lofty promises of cost- cutting and efficiency. Unfettered by the rule of law and driven by unchecked hubris, DOGE unleashed chaos, illegally dismantled agencies, conducted mass firings, canceled contracts, and mined the sensitive data of millions of American people.

The speed with which DOGE brought destruction to lifesaving agencies was matched only by the ferocity of the public outcry. Americans refused to sit idly by while children went hungry, while services for veterans, families, and elders were slashed without cause. In fact, in unison people across the political spectrum stood up to say: Hands off our data, hands off Social Security, and hands off the vital programs that keep our families alive in this country, and they showed Elon Musk the door.

Millions marched, attended townhalls, wrote letters, made calls, and demanded that Congress stop DOGE's disastrous work. When the hypocrisy of this so-called efficiency agency was exposed in the President's big, ugly bill, even Trump and Musk split up, and ultimately the Chairwoman herself announced her departure from this body in the wake of broken promises and threats by the administration.

The administration, while claiming to pursue savings, was cutting services for the most vulnerable not to reduce the debt, but ultimately, as has been shown, to fund tax breaks and giveaways to billionaires and those with the most.

Even in its final moments, DOGE found comfort in self-dealing and everyday grift. As it dismantled agencies and fired workers, it seized opportunities to privatize public assets and laid the groundwork for billions in private contracts and self-dealing for the ages.

Despite the Trump administration's claims that DOGE is still alive, and even its own X page dismissing the news as fake, we all know the truth: DOGE as the grifting scam it was imagined is dead, and its demise is a victory for the American people.

Not only is its formal office gone, but its downfall demonstrated the strength of our unity. Americans rejected DOGE because they recognize a dirty deal when they see one.

Now, let us be clear: We want to address the national debt, root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and build a government and programs that can serve everyone, but when the fraudsters themselves claim to have the fix, the American people see right through it.

Yet, DOGE's end does not mark the end of our work. We know that the time to organize is now, that we must stay focused and resist the barrage of distractions designed to sap our resolve, that we must continue to mobilize like our democracy depends on it because it does, and we must continue to do this work every single day.

This is not a time for despair. It is a time for action because the American people are strong. We are resilient, and we are ready for the fight ahead.

Mr. Speaker, it is always instructive to come down here to the floor and listen to the debate. I think it speaks for itself.

I rise today in opposition to the bills that are before us and in strong defense of the Department of Education, our students, and kids across America.

As a public school student myself, I can say unequivocally that these bills are fundamentally unserious and designed to distract from the fact that the Trump administration is currently dismantling the Department of Education right before our very eyes.

They have laid off thousands of employees, shuttered offices, carved up programs and transferred them to other agencies, declassified educators from getting student loans, threatened schools and universities, and given their friends contracts to not only rewrite educational curricula but to even rewrite American history itself.

Let me remind my colleagues: This is the agency that was born out of the civil rights movement, the agency that ensures kids with disabilities have opportunities and ensures that all kids, no matter who they are or where they live, have access to education.

Before the Department of Education, millions of children all across this country were denied access to schools and educational opportunities. Federal programs were duplicative and wasteful, and States regularly violated the basic civil rights of students.

If our colleagues want to stand with students, want to stand with schools, and want to stand with educators, then we should be fighting to protect our schools, fighting to protect them from an administration that is trying to dismantle education as we speak. My colleagues should be fighting to address housing, food, and healthcare and to fix our broken economy.

That is why, Mr. Speaker, I am here today to stand to oppose these bills and to stand with every public school and every kid across America who is fighting for a fair shot. That is what we were elected to do.

Madam Speaker, Chaco Canyon is sacred ground. It is the ancestral homeland and living landscape to both Pueblo and Dine people. It is a World Heritage Site, a place of ancient ruins, kivas, and sacred lands as far as the eye can see. It is a place that is a mere 50 miles south of the San Juan River where I was born.

I rise today in solidarity with Tribal leaders from across New Mexico to say that it is time to protect Chaco Canyon and these sacred lands. Before our very eyes, the Trump administration is trying to open these sacred lands to oil and gas drilling that would irrevocably destroy them.

Can my colleagues imagine? This is one of the most sacred sites, not just in New Mexico but in North America. It is a place that Secretary Deb Haaland worked to set aside in 2023 and a place which the New Mexico delegation is seeking to permanently protect.

As Pueblo leaders tell us, Chaco holds the footprints of our ancestors. Countless generations have carried forward their teachings and traditions. As Navajo leaders have said, it is a landscape deeply embedded in our way of life and which protects the living community, youth, elders, and our culture.

Even as Tribal leaders are saying no, this administration is forging ahead to open these lands to desecration of sites that could never be recovered.

Madam Speaker, we call on this administration to stop. These sites are sacred. We call on the American people to join us in this fight. We must protect Chaco Canyon, and Chaco Canyon is not for sale.

Mr. Speaker, Free D.C.

To my colleagues across the aisle, I appreciate the debate, but I have to say I thought we were going to try to fix healthcare, to address costs, try to fix the economy, and get the country back on track. Isn't that what the promise at the end of the shutdown was when we came back into session?

Yet, here we are, 1 week after the end of the shutdown, after a truly harrowing several days dealing with the Epstein petition, and what are you guys putting on the floor to eat up precious floor time as we are headed into the holidays? We are debating bills to micromanage D.C. affairs, bills to open public land and Tribal sacred sites to oil and gas drilling, and a ridiculous political resolution that I heard your own Members last night on the floor talking about. They called it stupid

and kind of crazy. Those are their words, not mine, but I don't disagree, so don't get me wrong.

After 54 days of the House of Representatives being shut down, all you guys really seem to have time to do is run bills like this?

What I find particularly offensive is that in a week that we should be working to address the healthcare crisis in a bipartisan manner, you are trying to pass bills today that would undo local police reforms that our Nation's Capital put into place after George Floyd's murder to ensure that the people of this city are safe and that the justice system is fair for them.

If it is not clear, I am a hard ``no'' on these bills, not just because I believe they represent congressional overreach and abuse of power, but because they will harm the people of our Nation's Capital.

Also, and I think this is where the conversation needs to be had, if we actually want to address public safety and help communities across this country that elected us to do this work, we need to be addressing real solutions. We need to be addressing the addiction crisis; investing in behavioral health and addiction recovery programs; investing in diversion and community-based programs that help people who are hurting and living on the edge get back on their feet; investing in our children and pipelines for young people to have lives that they can only dream of; fixing a broken system that makes it difficult for people who are living on the edge to survive; raising wages; lowering the costs of housing, food, energy, and healthcare; and, yes, fixing the broken healthcare system that you all said you were going to come back to address.

These are the systems that are broken and that are hurting our people, especially in New Mexico. It is not just the cost of healthcare that is going up, but our hospitals, clinics, and providers who are struggling to make sure that they can stay afloat, especially after the big, ugly bill gutted and promised to take $1.5 trillion out of the public healthcare system.

It is why I have been working to champion bipartisan healthcare and health solutions, like bills to invest in urban, rural, and Tribal healthcare; to invest congressional funds into building clinics; to sponsor legislation to address the fentanyl crisis; to recruit and train more nurses and healthcare professionals; to recruit more counselors to fix the Medicaid and Medicare system; to expand telehealth and broadband; and, yes, to finally put this country on a track to universal healthcare.

I believe that healthcare is a human right. I believe that access to food, water, shelter, and safety is a human right. I believe that justice, freedom, and access to the criminal justice system are human rights. I believe that basic dignity is a human right. That is why I implore my colleagues to stop with these divisive political tactics every day and these bills attacking our communities and focus on the issues that matter and that the American people are asking us to do. That is why we were elected.

Real lives are on the line, so let's get back to work on real issues. Stop attacking Washington, D.C. Stop attacking our public lands. Stop attacking the basic dignity and human decency of our communities.

Mr. Speaker, Chaco Canyon is sacred, the ancestral homeland, and a living landscape and home to the Pueblo and Dine people. It is a World Heritage Site and a landscape of ancient ruins, kivas, and sacred lands as far as the eye can see, which is why I stand here tonight in solidarity with Tribal leaders from across New Mexico to say protect Chaco Canyon, protect it from the attacks of a Trump administration that is trying to open these lands once again to oil and gas drilling.

Can you imagine, one of our most sacred sites, which Secretary Haaland protected in 2023, which the New Mexico delegation is trying to permanently withdraw, a place the Pueblo leaders say holds the footprints of their ancestors and countless generations; Navajo leaders who say that it is deeply embedded in our way of life, the living community, and our very culture.

However, this administration has forged ahead to open these lands to the irreparable desecration of drilling on this sacred site.

I call on the administration and the American people to join us in this fight to protect Chaco Canyon.