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

Floor Speech

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment, which cuts programs in this bill by an additional 16 percent, and for not all of these programs do local governments or entities have a taxing authority to pay for them.

The underlying bill provides $25.4 billion in new nondefense discretionary spending which is $13.4 billion, 35 percent below the fiscal year 2023 level. The bill also rescinds $9.4 billion in funding provided to the EPA, The Presidio Trust and the Council on Environmental Quality through Inflation Reduction Act.

In drafting this bill, we worked really hard to rein in Federal spending. One thing that all Republicans agree on is that we have to reduce spending. The debate occurs on how much and how fast.

In drafting this bill, as I said, we worked very hard to rein in Federal spending while prioritizing critical needs within our reduced allocation.

Unfortunately, this is kind of a sledgehammer approach when we just want to reduce the bill across the board by 16 percent.

We would be reducing wildfire fighting. We have done everything we can to protect wildfire fighting, which is devastating, particularly in the West where I live.

We have also done everything we can to protect the Indian Health Service. That is something that is vital here. We don't actually do a very good job of supporting the Indian Health Service overall.

Mr. Chairman, if you look at the amount of money per patient that the VA spends and the amount that average Americans spend, and then how much we spend per person on the Indian Health Service, it is about one- half of what we spend on other healthcare needs. So we are trying everything we can over the years in a bipartisan way to bring up the Indian Health Service and improve their health, but they don't have a separate taxing authority to be able to do that. That is the Federal Government.

This sledgehammer approach which would just reduce every budget in this bill by 16 percent that is not mandatory spending, I think is inappropriate, and I don't think it is the proper way to go.

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chair, I sympathize with what the gentleman is saying. I agree with him. It is a huge problem, and it is a math problem. He mentioned something that is really important.

We used to spend about 70 percent of the budget on discretionary spending--that is the money we appropriate through these appropriations bills--and about 30 percent was spent on mandatory spending. That has been reversed, where it is about 70 percent mandatory spending today and only 30 percent in discretionary spending.

Consequently, we have to address mandatory spending. That is difficult to do because anytime you say we have to reform Social Security if we are going to save it, all of a sudden, the commercials are going: Oh, they are going to take away your Social Security.

It is a political football that Republicans and Democrats have to get together and address. That is why the Speaker has said we are going to create a debt commission to look at how we can reduce this debt that we are facing.

I agree with the gentleman. It is horrible what is going on. As I said earlier, the debate is not really whether to cut spending, it is how much and how fast. I guess the gentleman said it best when he called it a small nuclear weapon in this, but I agree with what he is saying in general. It is how we go about it that is the challenge.

Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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