Raúl Grijalva

Mr. GRIJALVA

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. McEachin), who is a new member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Torres), also a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Congressional Republicans have a scorched Earth policy when it comes to anything originated under President Obama. It is the same approach with the Affordable Care Act. They want to completely destroy it, regardless of any merits. The majority is not spending all this time and effort simply to repeal this planning rule. This is one of the steps in their massive campaign to convince Americans that Barack Obama wasn't a good President. They simply can't stand to allow the accomplishments of the previous administration to stand, so they reflexively strike out to destroy anything President Obama supported. This is not legislating. It is certainly not public service, and it isn't even smart. To paraphrase a former Speaker of the House, Sam Rayburn: anybody can kick down a barn; it takes a carpenter to build one. This isn't how our government is supposed to work. It is especially counterproductive when it comes to something like Planning 2.0, which is specifically designed to make a Federal agency more efficient and more transparent. The BLM rule is about bringing our land use plans into the 21st century. It is about local input. It is about using the best available science. The majority wants to return to 1983 so that polluters and developers are the only ones with a seat at the table. We should support BLM 2.0, reject this resolution, and I urge my colleagues to do so. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it is time to face the facts. Congressional Republicans do not value our Nation's public lands the way everyday Americans do. I know this because they opened the 115th Congress by adopting a rules package that makes it easier to sell our national parks and national forests to the highest bidder without pesky budget rules getting in the way. That was just a start. Last week, they voted to gut clean water and clean air protections in coal country, suspended a rule requiring oil companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments, and pulled a plug on a waste prevention regulation that would have saved money and improved air quality. Today, their assault on the environment and our public land continues with this misguided effort to scrap the Bureau of Land Management's effort to update its planning rule. This resolution targets what is commonly known as Planning 2.0, an initiative to make public land management more transparent and efficient by enhancing opportunities for public input and utilizing actual science. The American public does not support erasing this new planning rule, and they certainly don't support the broad antipublic land agenda being pushed by the Republicans. Our constituents are sick of seeing corporate interests, especially big polluters, come first. They do not want their national parks and cherished natural places turned over to industrial polluters. We have seen this in the massive response to the Dakota Access pipeline, heartbreak over what happened in Flint, Michigan, and the millions of people who marched worldwide on the first full day of this new administration. Just last week, we saw how much Americans truly value their public land. After a prominent Republican introduced a bill to sell off more than 3 million acres of taxpayer-owned land, thousands of people picked up the phone and called their Representatives to express their outrage. Because of that passion and deep concern, the sponsor of that bill has vowed to withdraw it from consideration for the first time in five Congresses. This is an important story because it speaks to our constituents' true priorities. They sent us here to be responsible stewards of their special places. They sent us here to protect their national parks and public lands. They sent us here to make government work for them. This resolution fails on all those tests. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, when you don't look at the whole field, you make mistakes. Without using their vision, quarterbacks throw passes into double coverage and Presidents trigger angry protests of their ill- conceived policies. Seeing the whole field is what BLM 2.0 is all about. Instead of managing lands by looking at isolated units and only soliciting the input of local governments, this new framework takes a landscape view of BLM's multiple use mission. This update is absolutely necessary if we expect BLM to address the problems we all acknowledge the agency has. Climate change, wildfire, drought, and invasive species are just some of the problems that need landscape-level solutions. On the flip side, coordinating planning for outdoor recreation and renewable energy development across multiple BLM units will help increase the growth of these industries. Rejecting landscape-level planning is like rejecting air traffic control; you can do it, but the results won't be pretty. By repealing this rule and locking a broken system in place in perpetuity, Republicans hope to fulfill their own prophecy that BLM does a poor job managing public lands. If enough people believe them, they think, then maybe they will achieve their goal of giving away America's public lands. The problem, though, is that not enough people believe them. Those who do are shrinking every day, and the ones who don't are making their voices heard. People who care about sound management of BLM lands know that the Planning 2.0 rule is an important step forward. They know it isn't an abuse of executive authority or a government land grab, and they are tired of hearing from discredited voices who say it is. These views are backward looking and ignore the fact that these lands belong to a kid from Chicago just as much as they do to an oilman from Wyoming. Landscape-scale planning allows BLM, with the input of all stakeholders, to manage across the lands. Under Planning 2.0, BLM State offices and the scientists and the land management professionals they employ are finally allowed to build a consistent land management policy that doesn't stop at the State line. Planning 2.0 helps our land managers see the whole field and looks to the future. The majority wants to send us back to the past. We shouldn't allow that to happen. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer), a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, if there is a war on coal, it is being led by the natural gas industry who produces a cheaper product at a lower cost. And if there is any trouble that coal is in, it is directly attributed to the free market and that competition. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Water, Power and Oceans.

Mr. GRIJALVA. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Brown), a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise in strong opposition to this resolution, which would put coal company profits ahead of clean water and public health. The stream protection rule has been in development for 7 years and puts in place modest, commonsense protections for people who live near coal mines. This isn't just a rule to protect streams. This is a rule to protect people's health, to protect people's homes, and to protect the clean water that they rely on. These folks felt strongly enough about this rule to submit public comments. The rule is designed to protect people like Donetta from West Virginia, who nearly lost her life when chemicals from coal fields found their way into her water supply and interacted with her medication in such a way that it nearly destroyed her liver. The rule is designed to protect people like John from Alabama, who reports lakes that have turned gray and streams that have turned orange. This rule is designed to protect people like David from Tennessee, who watched a creek near his grandmother's home become lifeless due to strip mining nearby. This rule is designed to protect people like Josh from North Carolina, who can no longer fish in the streams near a family home and wants coal companies to be held accountable for the damage that they did. This rule is designed to protect people like Jonita from Kentucky, a coal miner's daughter whose water supply is tainted with heavy metal and other toxins from coal sludge. She wrote: ``Coal put the food on my table. It also put the poison in my water. Reasonable trade-off?'' I don't believe that Jonita or anyone else should have to make that trade-off. No one's water supply should be sacrificed in the name of higher bonuses for coal company CEOs. Those coal executives have made it their overriding goal to kill this regulation; and after spending nearly $50 million on political campaign contributions over the past 6 years, they now have a Congress and a President to do it. So for the first time in 16 years and just the second time ever, Republicans are going back to Newt Gingrich's playbook and trying to successfully use the Congressional Review Act simply because the coal industry feels like it shouldn't be held accountable. But as we know, this is only the first of five regulations that we will be repealing just this week. Later today, they are going to get rid of the rule that requires increased transparency on the part of oil, gas, and the mining industry. Later this week, we will be fighting for the right of oil and gas companies to pollute the air with methane. This is the Republican agenda in the age of Trump; an attack on clean water, an attack on clean air, an attack on transparency, and an attack on human health. If you are a CEO or a wealthy Republican donor, this is great news; and you will love the next couple of years. But if you are an ordinary American that depends on their government to hold companies accountable through tough but fair enforcement of regulations, you should be extremely worried. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, it should be noted for the record that the Republican majority conducted a 4-year investigation into the development of this rule, holding 12 hearings, issuing two subpoenas, collecting 25 hours of audio recordings and 13,500 pages of documents, but were unable to uncover any political interference or misconduct in the development of this rule. I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Lawrence).

Mr. GRIJALVA. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Lowenthal), the ranking member of the Committee on Natural Resources' Subcommittee on Energy and Minerals Resources.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. McEachin), the ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), my friend.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote. I think the arguments have been made. The precedent being set tonight by this House is a dangerous and extreme precedent that we will all come to regret. I urge a ``no'' vote. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, our opposition to this action being proposed by the Republicans to eliminate the stream protection rule is, indeed, an action that goes against fundamental science, goes against the public health of the American people in those communities, and, overall, takes the Congressional Review Act and uses it as a bludgeon to keep generations and generations in those areas at risk in their health, their water, and the general environment in the area. The issue of cost is an issue that comes up. The loss of jobs has been the creation of competition, not because of any proposed rule. Second of all, when we were dealing with the horrors of black lung, we were dealing with issues of mine safety for coal miners and the struggles that their unions had to go through to get mine safety and healthcare protection for their workers. At the time, I am sure, those were considered cost factors and why not do it. The cost factor here is about human life and it is about protection of water. I would suggest that that should be the priority of this Congress and not emboldening or enriching the mine operators and their profit line. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The use of the Congressional Review Act has been categorized as reckless and extreme. The CRA was going to cause significant and lasting harm. If successful, two things are going to happen: the regulation is void and the agency is prohibited from issuing another similar rule ever again. I mention that because this is about health. It is about the health of the people living around those mining operations and it is about mountaintop removal and the documented analysis that proves that it is a danger to health. It contaminates water and it is destructive to the environment. It is curious that we had 13 hearings--I stand corrected--and an investigation that went on in perpetuity, it seemed like. Yet, once the rule was finalized and published in 2015, we never had another hearing on the item again, which begs the question: If the whole point was to delay and prevent this rule from ever taking effect and, more importantly, make it susceptible to the Congressional Review Act, mission accomplished for the majority. But the long-term consequences of using the CRA on a rule that is designed to protect people's health, on a rule that is designed to make coal companies be transparent and disclose to the public, on a rule that every scientific analysis and the science is clear that this rule was indeed there to protect both people and communities, I think that is the permanent harm being done by this action today--denying the people in those communities to return to past practices that created the problem that we are dealing with and that this rule attempted to address that created that problem. Now we return to those times where unregulated mountaintop removal causes the destruction to both human beings and the environment that we see as a legacy. I think it is not only disrespectful to the people of those regions, but it, again, puts their health and the well-being of both the environment and humanity in that area at major risk. It is not only reckless and extreme to use the CRA, it is also dangerous. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.