Russ Fulcher

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to stand today to remember the life and legacy of a dear friend and fellow Idahoan, Dirk Kempthorne.

Dirk was a trusted leader and a devoted public servant. Throughout his distinguished career, he served as mayor of Boise, Idaho's Governor, United States Senator, and Secretary of the Interior.

In each role, Dirk worked tirelessly to strengthen our communities, promote responsible stewardship, and expand opportunity for Idaho families.

His leadership helped support job growth, drive commerce, and invest in infrastructure across the Gem State. He was also instrumental in the commissioning of the USS Idaho nuclear submarine, championing support for its crew and their families.

Beyond his many accomplishments, Dirk was a loving husband, father, and grandfather. He was just a good man.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6409, the FENCES Act. I thank my good friend from Alabama for holding this debate.

You may not think of my home State of Idaho as a border State when you start thinking about border States, but Idaho is a border State. We share an international border with Canada in the northern panhandle of the State of Idaho.

There is a lot of timber on both sides of that borderline. Especially in a dry year like this--and this is going to be a dry year for us--it is not uncommon to have wildfire break out on one side or the other. It has happened many times before. Unfortunately, it will probably happen again, where, on the Canadian side, a wildfire breaks out.

Oftentimes, that smoke, those pollutants, blow right over the border, and there is absolutely nothing that the State of Idaho can do with that. Sometimes, we share some firefighting resources, but the bottom line is that it didn't break out in our forest.

It is true that the Clean Air Act has a provision to address that. What is not being brought up, at least consistently, is that there is also a conflict with that through the EPA. The EPA guidance, largely enforced with the previous administration, conflicts with the Clean Air Act provision allowing States to adjust their emission plans. Every time one of those fires breaks out, we become at risk of falling out of our emissions standards.

Mr. Speaker, this is really a pretty simple bill. All it does is ensure a fair and consistent ability for these air quality designations to be put in place.

I stand in strong support of that. That is just one example. There are many other examples that some of my colleagues have brought up already.

It is not fair for States to be penalized for something that is out of their control. This simply takes steps in order to put fair and consistent air quality designations in place. That is it.

Mr. Speaker, I stand in strong support of H.R. 6409, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6398, the RED Tape Act.

In my home State of Idaho, we have more than 34 million acres of federally controlled land. I just want to put that in perspective for a minute. My good friend on the other side of the aisle is from the great State of New Jersey. You can put more than six New Jerseys just within the Federal land mass in the State of Idaho. That is how big it is.

Why is that pertinent here? It is pertinent because, with that much land mass, you have a seemingly endless flow of processes going on from departments or agencies for approvals for one thing or another: energy impact statements, the NEPA process. Everything ongoing all the time takes years each time.

We had a recent situation with a wind farm project in my home State. Regardless of what you think about wind farms, this was just an actual occurrence. There was a long process of approval where an EIS, an environmental impact statement, was required, and the EPA was a part of that statement every step of the way, running in parallel as part of that EIS. As soon as that was completed by mandate, the EPA had to go back and publicly comment on the process it just went through itself.

That is just one example, Mr. Speaker, of the duplicative situation that we have. This is really problematic when you have a lot of these projects going on. In my home State, that is a prime example.

All the RED Tape Act does is eliminates that duplicative mandate. There is still the process. We are still going through all the areas of concern. It just eliminates the duplication of it.

Mr. Speaker, I would just add, as I close, that this is potentially even more important now than ever before, to make this easier to deal with, because our energy needs as a country are taking a hockey stick in the demand curve. It is only going one way.

So much of the energy needs have to go through these processes. A lot of it is coming right out of my home State. We see this as a real problem. Again, I rise in support of H.R. 6398, and I encourage my colleagues to do the same.