Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to the amendment.

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So the gentleman was talking about the Paris climate agreement, which the Trump administration withdrew from?

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And then you said you were worried about the administration using section 115 of the Clean Air Act to impose
regulations.

It has been my experience, from my point of view, representing my constituents, we were disappointed about the withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, and we haven't seen this administration be aggressive on clean air.

So could you please explain to me your concerns about the Trump administration and section 115 of the Clean Air Act? Because, if they are doing things that you are concerned about, maybe I need to take a
fresher look at what the Trump administration is doing, because I have seen them do nothing but block, cut back, and deny the ability to move forward on the clean air agreement. So I am confused to the point of
your amendment.

The Obama administration is gone, and the Trump administration has removed almost everything I care passionately about with clean air.

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Reclaiming my time, the Perry amendment would only be in effect for 1 year because this is not a policy bill. This is an appropriations bill. So the gentleman's concerns about having long-term consequences of a future President in the future would not be addressed by this particular amendment.

So I oppose the amendment. It is a long line of Republican amendments on the attack of the clean air and the EPA's authority. But I think this really makes it crystal clear the point that we shouldn't be doing deep policy that you want to discuss on an appropriations bill because it only lasts for a year.

As far as I know, the Trump administration has nothing up its sleeve to improve air quality over the next year, so I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment. And I urge my colleagues who care about these policy situations: You control the House, you control the Senate. Please go to the committees of jurisdiction.

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

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Mr. Chairman, once again, there might be some very legitimate points that can be worked on out of these stripper wells that are at the end of their life, and we might find some common ground on some of your issues, but this is the appropriations bills and this isn't the place to do it. It should be done in the Policy Committee.

Mr. Chair, we should be going to the Policy Committee, and we should be asking the Policy Committee to take up and have hearings on these issues that are very important to some of the Members here in this House.

So when I look at this amendment on an Appropriations Committee bill, what it says to me is that it is continuing the administration's agenda that favors oil and gas industry ahead of other uses of our public lands. It says to me that the administration has rolled back and abolished a lot of rules that have been made over many years that are contained and outlined in the Administrative Procedure Act, which includes a consideration of public and travel comments so you can go and register your comment and your concern on it.

The whole point of the site security rule is to protect against the theft of oil and to make sure that the oil and gas production is properly accounted for.

So this rule that we are talking about today also streamlines the process for companies to get new measurement technologies to make sure that they are using the most innovative technology. I think, after 25
years, most businesses, most people who want to make sure that they are paying for product, want to make sure that it is being measured and accounted for right.

This rule was also recommended by the GAO and the Department of the Interior's IG, the Royalty Policy Committee regarding the BLM's production of verification efforts. And those are things that, quite often, we do to safeguard and to protect to make sure that the taxpayer, when involved on public lands, is receiving fair value for the royalty.

So there is a rulemaking process that is comprehensive. There is a rulemaking process that is transparent. And there is also a way to change the rule that is comprehensive, transparent, and allows the public to have their voice, and that is to address these issues in the Policy Committee.

So the main reason--and I want to be really clear about this--for opposing many of these amendments is they are properly done in the Policy Committee, a committee which I served on when I first came here. Mr. Chair, I think that is where these amendments need to start being direct so that we can do the real work and make sure that when Members come to the floor, that they know that we have had a full vetting and full transparency.

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

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Mr. Chair, again, I appreciate what my chairman of the subcommittee is saying in helping Members here, but we have a lot of work to do just doing the oversight on how money is spent and appropriated to make sure that we are doing our due diligence when we appropriate funds, that they are used in the way that this Congress has asked for them to be used. There is a Policy Committee to look at what is happening with policy and to make sure that we move policy forward.

Mr. Chair, sometimes when amendments like this come to the floor, I just think we are failing totally as a Congress to do our due diligence in the Policy Committee, and then there is so much time spent on policy
in the Appropriations Committee, we fail to do our due diligence on what has to happen for oversight for the tax dollars that we do appropriate in these bills.

It is my hope that the Policy Committee will step up, speak out, and start requesting that these bills be heard in the committee of jurisdiction and not just put on as riders on our bills.

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

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Mr. Chair, as I said, I rise in opposition to this amendment, as clearly this amendment would prohibit BLM from regulating flaring, venting, and leaking of methane from Federal onshore oil and gas operations.

In 2016, the BLM finalized its rule which updated regulations that were almost over 30 years old. We have learned a lot about how we have to be more diligent about capturing energy and making America more energy secure, because this rule would prevent the waste of an estimated 65 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year and save taxpayers $330 million annually.

BLM has a responsibility to the taxpayers, and that means capturing what is flared off, what is burnt off, which is potential energy. We have developed technologies in the past 30 years to capture this and make it work even more effectively for the taxpayers when we lease out these leases and royalties.

Just for a fact, I share that the Bakken oil field, when it was at its height, flared more--I am from the Twin Cities--flared more and brighter than the metropolitan area in St. Paul and Minneapolis. That is how bright the flare was that the satellites captured at night. That was burning energy, energy consumption that should have been captured because we owe it to future generations to get it right when it comes to our energy production.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment is bad for public health, it shortchanges the American taxpayers, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it. I don't think we are going to change each other's minds on this because the bottom line is, and I have been consistent with this, this belongs in the Policy Committee. This only would change something for a year. You would have to come back year after year after year. If there is something where we can find common ground on, we can find it in the Policy Committee. We can't find it on an Appropriations Committee where it expires every year.

I ride the elevator with the gentleman, Mr. Chair, and I am sure he is going to enlighten me some more.

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

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Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Colorado is right. We have had this conversation in this Chamber, Mr. Chair, before. The Service does attempt to comply with the statutory mandate and to review the status of listed species every 5 years to determine whether or not it is classified as threatened or endangered.

It is correct. The Service has a backlog in reviews due to funding limitations. This year it is a 17 percent listing reduction contained in this bill so that they have been working on the backlog. But the Service still has only been able to complete 100 to 120 reviews per year, which is half of what is needed.

So in this bill, you and I might agree that there are things that could happen and that money isn't always the solution to a problem, but in this bill you might be surprised to know that it has cut another $3.4 million, so that only builds up the backlog all the more.

That is not necessarily the fault of the chairman of the subcommittee, Mr. Chair. It is just the fact that the allocation that our subcommittee had to work with, tough choices had to be made. I know that the chairman was trying to balance a lot of things.

The gentleman talked about the court and the environment. I would love to have a conversation with the gentleman more about that, because it is my understanding--and I want to make sure I have it correct before we go into depth about it because, as the gentleman knows, we have a good relationship, and I want to make sure that I am correct when I say things--that actually some of the things that have been happening in court have actually helped to reduce some of the costs that the gentleman is thinking about because it is in place.

I will get the information, Mr. Chair, and share it with the gentleman later.

But the fact is that this amendment would not remove species without review from the list of species protected by the ESA so that the ESA's prohibition, again, would still remain, and it still would be the ability of citizens to sue or force compliance even with what the gentleman is proposing. So funding cannot be used to enforce the ESA for species with late reviews; it is going to leave the species unprotected.

Proposed language would prohibit the Service from working with the agencies. It would prohibit working with developers and landowners to comply, compliance to section 7 consultations or section 10 permits for
Federal and private projects that could potentially affect the species. So as you can see, the other thing it doesn't do is the proposed language would not affect the ability of third parties to sue those agencies or landowners.

So I agree with the gentleman that we need to do a better job of making sure that these reviews are done in a timely fashion. I agree that, when a species has attained a classification where it is no longer threatened or it is no longer endangered, it should come off. So I think we have a lot in common.

But I think that the challenge with this amendment is that, without the funding, in order for the Service to do the job that it has to do, it just kind of puts the Service in a box in which we are saying you are not doing a good job and, therefore, we are going to start changing the way in which we proceed.

So I, right now, have to oppose this amendment. But as I said, in the policy committee I think that there is room for some of us to come together and to make improvement, but legislating this rider for 1 year at a time on this appropriations bill doesn't allow us to have the deep, transparent, and open discussion that we need to have to resolve your issue.

So at this time I oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, clearly, what this amendment does--and it is different from the other amendment--is prohibit the Fish and Wildlife Service from implementing or enforcing the threatened species listing of the Preble's meadow jumping mouse under the Endangered Species Act. It full-out restricts the Service from offering any
critical protections to preserve the species.

Once a species like this is listed under the Endangered Species Act, the role of the Fish and Wildlife Service is fairly permissive. They can help parties comply with the act as they carry out their other activities.

The Service right now is reviewing and considering all the comments that they received during the public comment period, and a draft recovery plan is being worked through to develop a final recovery plan. But with this amendment, the Service would not be able to continue to recover the species. All the Endangered Species Act prohibitions would still apply.

So, in other words, we would stop them from moving forward, but they would still be under jurisdiction to comply. They wouldn't be able to comply by working with agencies and land developers and landowners to provide the ESA compliance.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would be barred from issuing permits or from offering exemptions. That means landowners, industry, and other parties who might need to take the Preble's meadow jumping mouse incidental to otherwise lawful activities, such as urban development, are vulnerable to third-party lawsuits.

Another limitation that the Service would have would be undertaking the required status reviews of subspecies or initiating any rulemaking or downlisting or delisting species.

So now we are talking about deep dives into what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife may or may not be impacted by doing or helping landowners or developers on an appropriations bill.

Quite frankly, as I have been saying all night--and I understand people have the right to come here with these amendments--the Service has a responsibility to implement the Endangered Species Act. They are charged with fulfilling their legal requirements. When they don't fulfill their legal requirements, it makes them more vulnerable to lawsuits, which I know is not the goal of the author of this amendment, Mr. Chair. But when there are lawsuits incurred, it creates more costs for American taxpayers.

The gentleman's amendment would just undermine the Service's ability to work collaboratively with States and local communities. It opens the Service up for lawsuits and it would create even more uncertainty for landowners and make them vulnerable, as I said, to lawsuits.

I think we should be working to support the Fish and Wildlife efforts, not blocking the agency from doing its job and going back to what we discussed earlier, that is working through the committees of authorization, and then the authorizing committees having conversations with the Appropriations Committee on how they can achieve their goals, this being one of them.

Because of those reasons, I do not support this amendment. I thank the gentleman for bringing this forward, but at this time I cannot support it.

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