Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Consolidated Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2024.

I commend Chairwoman Granger for her leadership of the Appropriations Committee and for getting the first six bills across the finish line. I also thank the Interior Subcommittee Ranking Member Pingree for her partnership on this bill.

Together, we have negotiated a reasonable compromise to avoid a government shutdown that fails to respond to our Nation's needs and maintain our public lands.

The Interior and Environment division provides nondefense top-line resources totaling $38.9 billion, nearly 4 percent below the FY 2023 level.

Cutting funding is never easy, but with the national debt in excess of $34 trillion, we make tough choices in this bill to rein in Federal spending. Last Congress alone, $3 trillion was spent outside the normal appropriation process. That is 3 trillion additional dollars. As I have said repeatedly, simply holding funding flat is not enough. We must curb out-of-control spending and get our budget back on track. I am pleased that this bill does that and leads us in the right direction.

We reduced funding across most agencies and bureaus, and the Environmental Protection Agency is cut by nearly 10 percent.

Despite the reduced allocation, the bill provides an additional $34 million for healthcare, law enforcement, and related programs across Indian Country, and for the Indian Health Service, the bill continues advance appropriations, totaling $5.2 billion. The advance appropriation is a program that was started by Ranking Member Pingree when she was chairman of this committee, and we have continued that.

The bill also fully funds the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program. Let me explain that that program is vitally important to public land States. Because we can't collect taxes on Federal lands within those States, this is supposed to make up for the taxes that would come from those lands if they were held in private lands. This is vitally important to public land States. It is not enough, but we fully funded it in this program.

It also provides an additional $260 million to maintain wildland firefighter pay without irresponsible budget gimmicks.

In terms of policy, the bill maintains longstanding legacy riders to prevent the ESA listing of sage-grouse and to exempt farmers and livestock producers from burdensome greenhouse gas permitting requirements.

The bill bolsters our energy independence by encouraging domestic production of critical and rare earth minerals and rejects administration proposals to increase offshore energy inspection fees and authorize onshore inspection fees.

For my constituents in Idaho, I am especially pleased that the bill blocks the Lava Ridge Wind Project until the Secretary of the Interior analyzes, in consultation with local officials and stakeholders, and they look at alternate plans to reduce the harmful impacts of this project.

In closing, I thank all the Members for their work on this bill. It is hard to reduce spending, yet we have been able to do that. I congratulate the staff on both sides of the aisle who worked very hard on this. While we were home, they were here working on this bill all night long. I include the staff on the other side of the rotunda. These bills are hard to compromise on, but we were able to get it done.

It represents a fair compromise that allows us to meet the spending levels agreed to in the Fiscal Responsibility Act and manage our public lands. I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on this piece of legislation.

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