Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chairman, today, I rise in support of my amendment that cuts funding for the Bureau of Land Management by 50 percent.

The mission of the BLM is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. Unfortunately, the BLM isn't living up to its stated purpose, and it has lost its way.

It is becoming harder and harder for each new generation to use and enjoy our public lands because the BLM is locked in on its goal to lock out land users, including recreationists, livestock grazers, and energy producers.

Earlier this year, the BLM proposed the so-called landscape health rule, which seeks to replace productive activities under the BLM's multiple-use framework by creating an additional use, so-called conservation leases, a designation never approved by Congress.

The current framework already balances conservation with other uses. Creating an entirely new use under the umbrella of conservation is simply a means to eliminate other uses and bar anyone from even setting foot on these lands.

Now, I am grateful that this act also includes a section that prevents funding from going toward the implementation of this proposed rule, but that is not enough. We must also address the BLM's overall agenda to lock us out of our Federal lands. My amendment does just that, and I request my colleagues to support it.

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chair, The BLM has recently launched an attack on 3.6 million acres in Wyoming through its proposed draft Rock Springs Resource Management Plan, or RMP. Through their preferred alternative, they are trying to lock out land users by designating 1.8 million acres as areas of critical environmental concern, which essentially prevents us from accessing and using these lands, particularly as it relates to recreation, livestock grazing, energy production and mineral extraction.

The Rock Springs Draft RMP is entirely biased, unscientific, violates FLPMA and NEPA, and is an abuse of BLM's authority. We can mine, we can drill, we can graze, and we can recreate on Federal lands while also conserving our important natural resources and wildlife, and, in fact, we have been doing so for literally decades.

Come to Wyoming and see how we have managed these resources. We have a beautiful State, abundant wildlife, clean water, and clean air. We are also one of the largest energy producers in the United States. Conservation and protection go hand-in-hand with grazing and energy development.

The BLM's preferred alternative for the Rock Springs RMP does not strike the proper balance between conservation and development. It would ravage Wyoming's and the Nation's economy and ultimately destroy opportunities to use the land in a productive, profitable, and effective way.

The BLM has turned into an arm of the radical environmental organizations running this administration, is aggressively exceeding its authorization, and ignoring its very purpose for existence.

I encourage adoption of my amendment so that we can begin to right this ship.

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chair, the BLM is attacking not only the State of Wyoming's economy, but the economic well-being and security of every American. It continues to pursue these failed policies that force us to depend on importing our food and our energy, while also stifling competition for companies that operate on public lands.

Examples of these aggressive actions include: Leading out on President Biden's war on oil and gas, as well as his war on coal;

Crippling conservation efforts by eliminating uses that improve the environment;

Preventing local and State and multigenerational input as to what the most appropriate uses and management of land are, while also pursuing policies that impact the value and quality of our property resources;

Holding projects on Federal lands hostage to environmental litigation, and then selling out to the demands of environmental groups that are gaining traction in the fight against local control.

The BLM has perfected the sue-and-settle model, and all of us are suffering the consequences.

There are so many other examples of the BLM attacking the State of Wyoming, as well as the economic well-being of every citizen in the United States.

Mr. Chairman, today, my State faces an onslaught of proposals from the Bureau of Land Management and other Federal agencies as they pursue the terribly destructive Green New Deal. Cutting the BLM's budget as proposed in amendment No. 2 is one step forward in addressing those attacks.

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chair, the system that we have with the BLM is no longer sustainable, and most States across the West are struggling as a result. My colleagues in the House and Senate are wholly opposed to reining in the executive state, so I have no choice but to try to slash this agency's budget to try to rein in what they have been doing.

The fact is that the Federal Government's ever-growing presence in the West and its adversarial nature to our way of life is undermining our prosperity. In short, the BLM doesn't work for us anymore, it doesn't work for the people of Wyoming, and it doesn't protect our natural resources. It is time that we do something about it, recognize where the problem lies, and slash the budget.

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

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chair, today, I rise in support of my amendment, which prohibits the BLM from finalizing its draft Rock Springs resource management plan, the purpose of which is to severely restrict livestock grazing, mining, energy development, recreation, and other activities on 3.6 million acres of land in southwestern Wyoming.

The BLM is required to update its resource management plans approximately every 10 years. The Rock Springs field office began the process of updating its own plan in 2011 in accordance with FLPMA.

The proposed RMP contains four alternatives for the planning area, including alternative A, which keeps the current management plan in place; the BLM's preferred plan, alternative B, which would have tremendous negative consequences for Wyoming and the Nation as a whole; alternative C, which severely restricts recreational activities; and alternative D, which provides a better balance between various uses but still substantially impacts the activities of key contributors to Wyoming's economy, such as our trona mining and existing oil and gas operations.

Contrary to the very purpose of the BLM, it has chosen the most restrictive, the most draconian, and the least scientifically defensible plan--the one that Wyomingites are the most opposed to--as its preference, that being alternative B.

In total, under BLM's preferred alternative B, about 2.5 million acres would not be available for new rights-of-way. This would be an increase of more than 480 percent in acreage off-limits to important things like power lines, pipelines, and maintaining roads.

The draft RMP restricts the use of vehicles on millions of acres of land, restricts recreation, cuts livestock grazing, destroys our trona industry, and severely restricts our ability to explore for and produce oil, gas, and coal.

BLM's alternative B is a nonstarter and will have severe impacts on the economy of not only Wyoming but the Nation. It will impact our food supply.

It is for these reasons that I have introduced my amendment to defund the BLM's efforts to finalize or implement the RMP as a whole.

Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

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Ms. HAGEMAN. Mr. Chairman, none of the responses from my colleague on the other side had anything to do with the amendment before us, so I am going to proceed with the statistics related to this particular RMP.

The RMP severely restricts vehicle access, including 4,500 miles of routes to all uses, while removing an additional 10,000 miles of routes from the transportation network.

This draft RMP designates 1.8 million acres out of 3.6 million acres as areas of critical environmental concern without any congressional input whatsoever.

Perhaps what is most disheartening and disturbing and illegal about this RMP is the fact that it has ignored not only stakeholder input over the past 12 years, but the input and analysis undertaken and completed by the BLM personnel in the Rock Springs district's office.

The administration has proven time and again that its primary agenda is to push forward with the radical Green New Deal, as we just heard from my colleague on the other side, and that it views the opinions of unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., over the citizens of this country, and that it does not care whether its actions actually work in the real world or cause severe damage.

In addition to the fact that alternative B is just plain bad on its face, it was also adopted in violation of FLPMA and NEPA. According to a former BLM engineer who worked in the Rock Springs field office on this very RMP, most of the research and work went into studying and pursuing alternative D. What does that mean? The most controversial alternative, the alternative that the BLM is now seeking to impose on Wyoming, was never adequately evaluated.

Alternative C, which includes heavy recreational restrictions, also had little time and little review. The lack of planning and analysis and input related to alternative B exposes the fact that this is a political decision that is not based on the real-life situation in the Rock Springs district, but more related to the idea of blocking any access to our natural resources for the things that we have historically used them for.

Mr. Chair, we have historically balanced our energy development, land use recreation, wildlife management, and grazing, and we have done it well. Come to Wyoming. It is a beautiful State. We have been able to balance all of these interests and, in the process, become the largest producer of trona in the United States, raised hundreds of thousands of head of cattle and sheep, and produced massive amounts of coal and oil and gas to power this country, all the while protecting our habitat, our air quality, our water quality, and our very way of life.

I am proud of Wyoming producers, ranchers, and recreationists and what they have created, and we cannot allow BLM to destroy it.

It was said the other day by a reporter that this BLM RMP takes the public off public lands. I couldn't have said it better.

Mr. Chairman, we have seen this kind of thing happen across the interior West, including with the Bears Ears designation in Utah, and others in Colorado and Arizona. We need to put a stop to this effort to block our access, use, and management of our resources.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, which would prevent any funds from going towards implementing this monstrosity of a plan.

Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleagues to support this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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