Paul Gosar

Mr. GOSAR

Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I might consume. Madam Chair, it is great that the gentleman brought this up. So once again, let's go back to our geological timeframe. This water cuts through. This is the Grand Canyon. This is the shelf that you go over and look over at the beautiful, majestic aspect of the river. Look at what we have cut across, these breccia pipes. Once again, this is exposure. It is water-soluble, air-soluble. It goes back into the watershed. Once again, we are talking about up here, where mitigation should be very, very important. Madam Chair, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber). He has been a stalwart person in regard to the mining industry; that it is a way of life in northern Minnesota.

Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time I have.

Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, once again, let's look at mitigation. The previous speaker on our side, Mr. Stauber from Minnesota, actually talked about it. Well, here is an active mine site called the Pigeon Mine. This is what it looked like: a footprint of less than 40 acres; right around 30 acres. And this is it, newly minted right as it was done for reclamation. In 2 years, you are not going to be able to find anything here. Once again, look at what we are dealing with here. This is an exposed breccia pipe. Any water, any rain, any snow, any air will actually dissolve this and put it in the air--not just uranium, but arsenic as well. These are eroded away. Once again, geology teaches you everything you need to know. Once again, all these breccia pipes are built here. Here is the Grand Canyon. We are not doing anything here. But look at the exposure here for the uranium leaching into the subsurface and into the Colorado River--not just that, but arsenic as well. Look at what we are mining up on here, protecting and clearing that out. And you can see that their mitigation is exemplary. Eighty years ago, we abandoned a bunch of mines, but a lot of Federal Government was to blame about that. We also heard the dissertation in regards to the park could generate all sorts of other revenue. Well, the last time I looked, the park wasn't generating; they were going in the negative. In fact, the backlog on maintenance is over $12 billion. The government doesn't run these very, very well, and this is a great opportunity for multiple use. It actually cleans the water, improves the drainage into the subsurface water, and gets to a problem with a solution that works and has been trusted. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, once again, geology tells us everything we need to know. Once again, the gentlewoman actually talked about the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Once again, I feel sorry for the public being misused and used like pawns by the other side about the misnomer. Once again, the Grand Canyon--this is the Grand Canyon. There is nothing going on right here. Oh, I forgot. Water runs down, dissolves uranium and arsenic, and puts it into the water. What we are talking about is mitigation on this plateau. This is outside the Grand Canyon experience. This is what is so important is that this is helping out the health and the strength of the purity of water. That is the key here. Not only that, but the last time I knew, Arizona fights over water because we have to drink whiskey. We want clean water here, so we are enabling, actually, clean water here. Once again, there are dozens of fights for the conversation we are having today. The American people are being used like pawns. They don't know what is right. Go back to geology. The geology sets you free. You have seen the mitigation. Yes, 80 years ago, there wasn't great mitigation. That was a big part of the U.S. Government and its oversight. But now, there is great opportunity for this to happen. We are not talking about the Grand Canyon. It is outside on the plateau. Once again, as these are exposed through erosion, you have contamination of subsurface water. It seems to me like we should actually clean it up. The other thing I keep hearing about is we have got plenty of supplies. Well, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are so narrow-sided that they forgot about: How did China actually grow to own the world market of rare earths? I mean, think about that. In order to have a cell phone, you have got to have these critical minerals and rare earths. In the trade debate, what did China threaten us with? Withholding rare earths. Why do we have some of our leading battery technology over in China? Because we didn't have supply chains here. The other side talks about globalization. Well, let's talk about globalization. Nobody--let me repeat--nobody--in the world does mining like the U.S. No one does it under the same protections, and the same protections for the workers--nobody. And if we are talking about globalization, which always keeps coming out of the other side's mouth, well, then we ought to be bringing all this home so that we are the entrepreneur, we are the one forcing this issue, and we are the one who controls our own destiny. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, once again, the gentleman made my point perfectly for me: This is about people. There is mitigation. We are holding people accountable. They are empowered because now we are controlling the energy cycle. We are not indentured to another country like China or Russia. We are looking at the long series, making sure that we control our own destiny. That was the American experience. And we are accountable. That is key. So when you look at mitigation like this, you can't dispute it. You are not entitled to your own facts. The facts are what they are. So there is a way forward and a way forward to do this right, and it is being presented right here. The answer is not ``no''; it is about what it takes to get to ``yes.'' This bill is totally wrong for that very format. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time I have.

Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, I include in the Record a list of organizations that are opposed to this bill; a Statement of Administration Policy threatening to veto this bill if it were even to get through; a letter from the Uranium Producers of America in strong opposition to the bill; an article from The Epoch Times, dated September of 2019, basically talking about the U.S. needs alternatives to China's rare earth monopoly, once again, a stranglehold. Western Caucus, Chairman Paul Gosar Opposition to H.R. 1373 So far H.R. 1373 is opposed by: American Exploration & Mining Association (Group Letter), Arizona Liberty (Group Letter), Arizona Mining Association (Group Letter), Arizona Pork Producers (Group Letter), Arizona Rock Products Association (Group Letter), Citizens For America (Group Letter), Conservative Coalition of Northern Arizona (Group Letter), Conservatives for Property Rights (Letter), Denver Lumber Company (Letter), enCore Energy Corp (Letter), Lake Havasu Chamber of Commerce (Letter); the Mohave County Supervisors (Resolution), National Mining Association (Letter), National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (Letter), New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association (Letter), New Mexico Federal Lands Council (Letter), New Mexico Wool Growers Association (Letter), Western Energy Alliance (Group Letter).

Mr. GOSAR. Once again, let's go back. Let's look at the geology. The geology tells us everything that we need to know. We need to understand the minerals. The minerals are water soluble. These are condensed pipes, vertically. What is happening is that, as water runs--and this is a lot of sedimentary rock. That is why the Grand Canyon is so deep. When it runs over these breccia pipes, like we have talked about, they are exposed naturally. Prior to that, they are covered with what they call a sulfite cap. But once they are exposed--and you can see this under the Grand Canyon experience--you walk over these breccia pipes. You walk over them. They are exposed naturally. Don't you think it is wise to remove these? It is a good concentration. It keeps the supply chain in. And if you get rid of our only mining uranium concentrator, it doesn't come back. It won't come back. And then you sold your soul to China and you sold your soul to Russia, because they own the monopoly. That is what is wrong here. Last, but not least, we also have to make sure that multiple-use is put down forward. We are stewards of that--we, as Congress. Public lands were taken aside by the Federal Government from the States in a joint tenancy, that they would be vested properly for the best use, the best investment, and the best return. The last time I have been watching, we have been actually denigrating that. When is enough enough? Arizona has more national monuments than any other State in the country. Congress then told the people that we will give payment in lieu of taxes. We have had to beg for every penny that we get. That is wrong. This contract is about, yes, you can do all this. You can clean up mine sites that were left before. And don't get me started on the Bennett Freeze, by the way. The Federal Government put an arbitrary line, that you can't do anything under that Bennett Freeze line. Wow, that is wonderful. Thank the Federal Government for that. That is amazing, and particularly a lot of the mine shafts that have been exposed from that very era. Once again, this is about common sense, facts. We have disputed everything that they have talked about. This is a natural formation. It is millions upon millions upon millions of years old. As that water runs down, as that air runs down, we contaminate it with low levels of uranium. Wouldn't it be better if we actually got rid of that and actually got better and more clean water, clean of uranium and arsenic? That is an important process here. That is where we are actually helping people out. People benefit from it. Once again, here is a breccia pipe exposed, not by man but by nature. You are walking all over it. Once again, you see this alluvial fan where water runs. What do you think it is running over? What do you think it is dripping down through? What do you think is dissolving in there? Madam Chair, this isn't rocket science, but it is not an emotional one either. It is an articulated, scientific argument. Once again, the mitigation, I could take somebody up here and nobody could find this mine site now. This is after immediate resolution on it. But what is different about this than 80 years ago is that we are holding people accountable. The government failed at that before. We have seen this type of mitigation over and over again. In the Resolution Copper mine down in southern Arizona, we have seen an investment of almost $1 billion by the mining company to mitigate a previously mined area. It is beautiful. It is absolutely beautiful. I want people to go see it. I want them to try the water. It is pristine. It is cleaner than they found it. That is good stewardship. That is utilizing the things that were given to us to make this country and technology grow. That is the opportunity that we have. Arbitrarily just taking things off back and forth, that is not the right way to go. Talking about the indigenous people there, well, it is sad when we use them as pawns, when we have a press conference and they don't even know what they are coming to the press conference for. That is sad. America needs to wake up. This has nothing to do with the Grand Canyon. This has everything to do with monopolization and removing part of the segment that we promised future generations for that investment. That is what we have done. That is what the other side wants to do. There is a way forward, responsibly, clean, and proper. Madam Chair, I would like to have all of my colleagues vote against this measure. Once again, the President issued a SAP that he will not sign the bill, and it will die in the Senate. Once again, this is a messaging bill. It is sad that we are bombarding everyone with bad facts. Spend time looking at the facts. Geology, the rocks, set you free. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Madam Chair, I include in the Record this document. It is titled ``Why I Changed My Mind About Nuclear Power.'' It details very clearly and wisely why nuclear power and its supply chains are very important. [From Environmental Progress, September 12, 2019] Why I Changed My Mind About Nuclear Power: Transcript of Michael Shellenberger's TEDx Berlin 2017--November 21, 2017 (By Michael Shellenberger) Like a lot of kids born in the early 1970s, I had the good fortune to be raised by hippies. One of my childhood heroes was Stewart Brand. Stewart is not only one of the original hippies, he's also one of the first modern environmentalists of the 1960s and 70s. As a young boy, one of my favorite memories is playing cooperative games that Stewart Brand invented as an antidote to the Vietnam War. I'm from a long line of Christian Pacifists known as Mennonites. Every August, as kids, we would remember the US government's atomic bombing of Japan by lighting candles and sending them on paper boats at Bittersweet Park. After high school, throughout college, and afterwards, I brought delegations of people to Central America to promote diplomacy and peace and to support local farmer cooperatives in Guatemala and Nicaragua. Over time, as I've travelled around the world and visited small farming communities on every continent, I've come to appreciate that most young people don't want to be stuck in the village. They don't want to spend their whole lives chopping and hauling wood. They want to go to the city for opportunity--at least most of them them do--for education and for work. What I've realized is that process of urbanization of moving to the city is actually very positive for nature. It allows the natural environment to come back. It allows for the central African Mountain Gorilla, an important endangered species, to have the habitat they need to survive and thrive. In that process you have to go vertical, and so even in places like Hong Kong you can see that with tall buildings they can spare the natural environment around the city. Of course, it takes a huge amount of energy to go up, and so the big question of our time is how do you get plentiful, reliable electricity without destroying the climate? I started out as an anti-nuclear activist and I quickly got involved in advocating for renewable energy. In the early part of this century I helped to start a labor union and environmentalist alliance called the Apollo Alliance and we pushed for a big investment in clean energy: solar, wind, electric cars. The investment idea was eventually picked up by President Obama, and during his time in office we invested about $150 billion to make solar, wind and electric cars much cheaper than they were. We seemed to be having a lot of success but we were starting to have some challenges. Some of them you're familiar with. Solar and wind generate electricity in Germany just 10 to 30 percent of the time, and so we're dependent on the weather for electricity. There were other problems we were noticing, though. Sometimes these energy sources generate too much power and while you hear a lot of hype about batteries we don't have sufficient storage even in California, where we have a lot of investment and a lot of Silicon Valley types putting a lot of investment in battery and other storage technologies. While we were struggling with these problems, Stewart Brand came out in 2005 and said we should rethink nuclear power. This was a shock to the system for me and my friends. Stewart was one of the first big advocates of solar energy anywhere during the early 1970s. He advised Governor Jerry Brown of California. But he said, look, we've been trying to do solar for a long time and yet we get less than a half of a percent of our electricity globally from solar, about two percent from wind, and the majority of our clean energy comes from nuclear and hydro. And according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, nuclear produces four times less carbon emissions than solar does. That's why they recommended in their recent report the more intensive use of renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage. Let's take a closer look at Germany. Germany gets the majority of its electricity and all of its transportation fuels from fossil fuels. Last year Germany got 40 percent of its electricity from coal, 13 percent from nuclear, 12 percent from natural gas, 12 percent from wind, and six percent from solar. Keep in mind that you don't just have to go from 18 percent solar and wind to 100 percent solar and wind. To replace the entire transportation sector with electric cars you'd need to go from 18 percent renewables to something like 150 percent. Germany's done a lot to invest in renewables and innovate with solar and wind, but that's a pretty steep climb--even before you get to the question of storage. Let's look at last year, Germany installed four percent more solar panels but generated three percent less electricity from solar. Even when I'm in meetings with energy experts and I ask people if they can make a guess as to why they think that is, and you'd be shocked by how many energy experts have no idea. The reason is just that it wasn't very sunny last year in Germany. Well, that probably meant that it was windier, right? Because if it's not as sunny then maybe there's more wind and those things can balance each other out? In truth, Germany installed 11 percent more wind turbines in 2016 but got two percent less of its electricity from wind. Same story. Just not very windy. So then you might think, ``Well, we just need to do a lot of solar and wind so that when there's not a lot of sunlight or wind we can get more electricity from those energy sources.'' That's what Germany is trying to do. Its plan is to increase the amount of electricity it gets from solar by 50 percent by 2030, which would take you from 40 to 60 gigawatts. But if you have a year like 2016, you'll still only be getting nine percent of your total electricity from solar. And this is the biggest solar country in the world. Germany is the powerhouse of renewables. The obvious response is we'll just put it all in batteries. We hear so much talk about batteries. You would think that we just have a huge amount of storage. Environmental Progress took a look at our home state of California and we discovered that we have just 23 minutes of storage for the grid--and to get that 23 minutes you'd have to use every battery in every car and truck in the state. (Which, as you can imagine, is not super practical if you're trying to get somewhere. And Germany might be a little different but not very different from California.) Most people are aware that to make this transition to renewables, Germany has been spending a lot more on electricity. And German electricity prices rose about 50 percent over the last 10 years. Today, German electricity is about two times more expensive than electricity is in France. You might think, look, that's a small price to pay to deal with climate change. And I would agree with that. Paying a bit more for energy--at least for those of us in the rich world--is a decent thing to do to avert the risk of catastrophic global warming. But when you compare French and German electricity, France gets 93 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources, mostly hydro and nuclear while Germany gets just 46 percent, or about half as much clean energy. Here's the shocking thing: German carbon emissions have gone up since 2009, and up over the last two years, and may go up again this year. And while German emissions have gone down since the 1990s, most of that is because, after reunification, Germany closed the inefficient coal plants from East Germany. Most of its emissions reductions are just due to that. Let's look at last year. One of the ways you can reduce emissions quickly is by switching from coal to natural gas, which produces about half as much emissions. Coal to gas switching would have resulted in lower emissions except for the fact that Germany took nuclear reactors off-line. And when it did that, emissions went up again. There's still question about the future: if we do a lot of solar and wind, won't it all work itself out? One of the biggest challenges to solar and wind has come from somebody in Germany who is not a pro-nuclear person at all. He's an energy analyst and economist named Leon Hirth. What he finds is that the problem I described earlier--where you have too much solar or wind and you don't know what to do with it--reduces their economic value. The value of wind drops 40 percent once it becomes 30 percent of your electricity, Hirth finds, and the value of solar drops by half when it gets to just 15 percent. One of the things you hear is that we can do a solar roof fast--just one day to put up the thing--whereas it takes five or ten years to build a nuclear plant. And so people think that if we do solar and wind we can go a lot faster. But the speed of deployment was the subject of an important article in the journal Science last year, which was coauthored by the climate scientist James Hansen. They found that even when you combine solar and wind you just get a lot less energy than when you do nuclear. That goes for Germany as well as the United States. They just compared ten years of deployment for the two technologies and it's a stark comparison. Well, I can tell what you're thinking, because it's what I was thinking: it sounds like I might need to rethink my views of nuclear power. But what about Chernobyl? What about Fukushima? What about all the nuclear waste? Those are really reasonable questions to ask. When I was starting to ask them, there were other people who were starting to change their minds. One of the ones I was most impressed by, and who was very influential, was George Monbiot. Monbiot wrote a column shortly after Fukushima where he went through the scientific research on radiation and concluded, ``The anti-nuclear movement to which I once belonged has misled the world about the impacts of radiation on human health.'' I write some pretty harsh things sometimes, but this was a pretty strong column. He was talking to a lot of scientists who study radiation. One top British scientist who studies radiation is Gerry Thomas. She started something called the Chernobyl Tissue Bank out of her concern for the accident. She's a totally independent professor of pathology at Imperial College in London. I called her and said, ``I'd like to present on the science of radiation but I'm not a radiation scientist, so can I just steal your slides? If you let me, I'll put your picture on them.'' The first thing she points out is that most ionizing radiation--that's the kind of radiation that is potentially harmful that comes from a nuclear accident--is natural. I was like, ``That sounds alright. I like natural foods. Natural radiation from hot springs.'' Gerry said, ``No, actually, natural radiation is just as potentially harmful as artificial radiation.'' What's striking is that the total amount of ionizing radiation we're exposed not just from Chernobyl and Fukushima but all of the atomic bomb testing in the sixties and 70s totals just 0.3 percent. Most of the radiation we're exposed to comes from the earth, the atmosphere, and the buildings around us. Let's look at the big one: Chernobyl. This was the event that led me to be anti-nuclear and become an anti-nuclear activist. The United Nations has overseen these very large research efforts involving hundreds of scientists around the world who do this research. So the possibility of somebody fudging the data or covering something up is pretty low in that environment, because there are so many credible scientists at different universities doing the research. This was a pivotal moment for me. Chernobyl is the worst nuclear accident we've ever had. Some people say it's the worst accident we'll ever have. I don't need to make a statement that strong. But they literally had a nuclear reactor without a containment dome and it was on fire. It was just raining radiation down on everybody. It was a terrible accident. But when they start counting bodies, what they come up with is 28 deaths from acute radiation syndrome, 15 deaths from thyroid cancer over the last 25 years. As horrible as it sounds, thyroid cancer is the best cancer to get because hardly anybody dies from it. It's highly treatable. You can have a surgery to remove the thyroid gland and take thyroxine, which is a synthetic substitute. In fact, most of the people who died were in remote rural areas where they couldn't get the treatment they needed. If you take the 16,000 people who got thyroid cancer from Chernobyl, they estimate 160 of them will die from it. And it's not like they're dying of it right away. They'll die from it in old age. That's not to say it's okay, but it's to put it in some context. And there's no evidence of any increase in thyroid cancer outside of the three nations most affected, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. There's no evidence of an effect by Chernobyl on fertility, birth malformations, or infant mortality; nor for causing an increase in adverse pregnancy outcomes or still births; nor for any genetic effects. I think this last one is the most striking thing: there's no evidence of any increase in nonthyroid cancer including among the cohort who put out the Chernobyl fire and cleaned it up afterwards. I'm still surprised by this finding, and so I put the link to the web site on that slide, because I don't think you should take my word for it. Reading about Chernobyl was, for me, a big part of changing my mind. What about Fukushima? It was the second worst nuclear disaster in history and a lot smaller than Chernobyl. There have been no deaths from radiation exposure, which is pretty amazing. Meanwhile, 1,500 people died being pulled out of nursing homes, hospitals--it was insane. It was a panic. The Japanese government shouldn't have done that. It violated every standard of what you're supposed to do an accident. You're supposed to shelter-in-place. In fact, by pulling people out of their homes and moving them around outside they actually exposed more people to more radiation. And you have to put that in comparison of the other things that were going on, like the 15,000 to 20,000 dying instantly from drowning--pinned down by many different technologies, by the way--from that tsunami. So while there was no increase in thyroid cancer, there was the stress and fear from believing you were contaminated despite the evidence showing that that wasn't the case at all. Some scientists did an interesting study. They took a bunch of school children from France to Fukushima and had them wear dosimeters, which is what we call geiger counters now. You can see here that when those kids go through the airport security system their radiation exposures spiked. When they flew from Paris to Tokyo on the airplane their radiation exposures spiked. They went through the French embassy's security system their radiation exposures spiked. When they went to the city of Tomioka, which received a lot of radiation from the accident, it was just a tiny blip compared to the security systems. Let's put this in an even larger context. If you live in a big city like London, Berlin, or New York, you increase your mortality risk by 2.8 percent, just from air pollution alone. If you live with someone who smokes cigarettes your mortality risk increases 1.7 percent. But if you were someone who cleaned up Chernobyl, your mortality risk increased just one percent. That's just because there wasn't as much radiation exposure as people thought. I'm from the state of Colorado in the United States where we have an annual exposure to radiation about the same as what people who live around Chernobyl get. This is really basic science and is right there on their web site but nobody knows it. Only eight percent of Russians surveyed accurately predicted the death toll from Chernobyl, and zero percent accurately predicted the death toll from Fukushima. Meanwhile, there are seven million premature deaths per year from air pollution and the evidence against particulate matter only gets stronger. That's why every major journal that looks at it concludes that nuclear is the safest way to make reliable electricity. All of this leads to an uncomfortable conclusion--one that the climate scientist James Hansen came to recently: nuclear power has actually saved 1.8 million lives. That's not something you hear very much about. What about the waste? This is the waste from a nuclear plant in the United States. The thing about nuclear waste is that it's the only waste from electricity production that is safely contained anywhere. All of the other waste for electricity goes into the environment including from coal, natural gas and--here's another uncomfortable conclusion-- solar panels. There's no plan to recycle solar panels outside of the EU. That means that all of our solar in California will join the waste stream. And that waste contains heavy toxic metals like chromium, cadmium, and lead. So how much toxic solar waste is there? Well, to get a sense for that, look at how much more materials are required to produce energy from solar and wind compared to nuclear. As a result, solar actually produces 200 to 300 times more toxic waste than nuclear. What about weapons? If there were any chance that more nuclear energy increased the risk of nuclear war, I would be against it. I believe that diplomacy is almost always the right solution. People say what about North Korea? Korea proves the point. In order to get nuclear power--and it's been this way for 50 years--you have to agree not to get a weapon. That's the deal. South Korea wanted nuclear power. They agreed not to get a weapon. They don't have a weapon. North Korea wanted nuclear power. I think they should have gotten it. We didn't let them have it, for a variety of reasons. They got a bomb. They are testing missiles that can hit Japan and soon will be able to hit California. So if you're looking for evidence that nuclear energy leads to bombs you can't find it in Korea or anywhere else. Where does that leave us? With some more uncomfortable facts. Like if Germany hadn't closed its nuclear plants, it's emissions would be 43 percent lower than they are today. And if you care about climate change, that's something you at least have to wrestle with--especially in light of the facts I've presented on the health impacts of different energy sources. I'd like to close with a quote from somebody else who changed his mind about nuclear power, and somebody else who was a huge childhood hero for me, and that's Sting: ``If we're going to tackle global warming, nuclear power is the only way to generate massive amounts of power.'' Thank you for listening.

Mr. GOSAR

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I rise as the designee of the gentlewoman from Arizona (Mrs. Lesko), and I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, my amendment states that this act shall not become effective until the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Secretary of Labor, finds that the withdrawal will not adversely affect jobs available to Native Americans, other minorities, and women. I believe deeply in protecting the environment for my grandchildren, but I also believe in protecting the potential employment opportunities of Arizonans, especially those in underserved communities. Resource development benefits the economies of local communities. As noted at markup in the Committee on Natural Resources, the temporary political mineral withdrawal imposed in 2012 by the Obama administration, which focused on banning mining, cost Arizona and Utah thousands of jobs and $29 billion in economic activity. We should not entertain any withdrawal without confirmation that this bill will not adversely affect jobs, particularly for Native Americans, minorities, and women. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, through the Chairman to the gentleman on the other side, I would like to know if the gentleman actually supports a mine in Arizona. That is a question. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, once again, now we find out the true understanding of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), that he doesn't approve of any mines whatsoever. And why that is so important here is that we talk about indigenous people and empowerment. Well, let's focus back on this. Recently, the Navajo Generating Station, which was commissioned by Congress to provide power for the water for CAP that revolutionized Arizona for its growth, the delivery of water, was all given to the Tribes, the Navajo and Hopi--not just the coal mine, but the power plant as well. These were great-paying jobs. They had benefits. It empowered the Native Americans. Now, what is interesting about that is that now we are shuttering this enterprise down. Eighty percent of the Hopis' operating budget per year is going away; 60 percent of the Navajos' operating budget is going away. And, interestingly, what is our answer from our colleagues on the other side? Welfare. Oh, my Lord, my God, I can't believe what I am hearing. Welfare, that is the answer. So let's go back and have a little bit of a geological conversation again, because rock sets you free. Once again, these breccia pipes are on this part of the Grand Canyon. This is where everybody goes. Look at these breccia pipes that are exposed. They are water soluble. That drains down. Gravity takes it down. That is why you are getting that infiltration into the water. I am not here to hurt anybody. I refuse to do that. But I am not here to turn my back on Native Americans who are empowered instead of victimized. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, once again, my points have been made. This is a good amendment because what it does is it looks at the overall application to make sure that we are not blindsiding our Native Americans. There is hardly consensus whatsoever. We heard from numerous groups over and over again that they do not agree with this bill. In fact, when the gentleman from Arizona on the other side actually had a press conference, they gathered leaders, and the leaders had no idea what they were there for the press conference with. Once again, as I asked previously what mine would the gentleman from Arizona on the other side actually endorse, the answer was crickets. That tells you who he is playing for. It is not for Native Americans. Maybe it is the Sierra Club. Maybe it is The Wilderness Society. And I wonder if they get any of their payments from China and Russia. I wonder if there is a collaboration here. Once again this is a great amendment. It talks about empowering people with jobs, holding their dignity, and directing the aspects of their life. That is what is invigorating about America. Victimization does none of that. I ask all my colleagues to vote for this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. What this amendment basically does is, it takes my district out of this withdrawal. Seventy percent of the active mine sites and proposed mine sites are in my district, and we want to make sure that we are not victimized, that we are taken out of this withdrawal area. This body actually had rules that they tried to follow that they didn't usurp Members' districts, they worked with those Members' districts. And with that, I would ask that we endorse that and withdraw my district from this withdrawal. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Once again, I am sure glad that the opposition actually brought that up about New Mexico, because what we are actually doing is, we are representing the voices that didn't get a chance to speak out on behalf of their claim, their allotments, but we will get to that. And we will be showing you exactly why we are doing that. In my district, there are eight historic mines included in this withdrawal area. Six are in my district. Also included in the withdrawal area is the potential for 20 new mines that would provide hundreds of high-paying jobs to the local communities in Mohave County north of Grand Canyon. Not only am I opposed to the inclusion of Mohave County in this bill, but so are the Mohave County Board of Supervisors, who unanimously voted to oppose this bill. In addition to the board of supervisors, local business organizations are also opposed to this bill, including Lake Havasu Area Chamber of Commerce, Arizona Rock Products Association, Arizona Pork Producers Council, plus many others. I say to my colleagues, local residents and businesses in Mohave County should have a say. They should not be swayed. Mr. Chair, I include in the Record the letter against this bill, H.R. 1373, from the Mohave County Board of Supervisors. Mohave County Resolution No. 2019-065

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chair, let's go back through this. You know, we have heard all about the health implications, but rocks set you free. Once again, we look at these breccia pipes that are outlined in this yellow and red. The red are the most concentrated parts of this. What ends up happening is you see them dissolve in water and in air. And so when you look at the Grand Canyon, you are seeing this seepage that comes into the Grand Canyon watershed naturally. What we are actually doing is cleaning this up. Wouldn't that be amazing, amazing that we are actually interceding on the best behavior and the best acknowledgements of the people around there? Amazing. And I would hardly call this a problem. In fact, immediate restoration of these lands is impeccable. Yes, we have this negative connotation about what the past has done. But this is where history and our new technology actually intercede, where we are actually intervening on this, making and improving the landscape. That is amazing. That is absolutely amazing. Once again, this is untouched. Man is not here. This is what nature has done to expose this. Once again, you have an exposed breccia pipe. You have a ravine that carries water that sheets off. Once again, by taking that out, taking that breccia pipe out, it facilitates permeation down into lower aquifers replenishing limited water supplies that we actually have. It is amazing what the rocks do. They set you free. And my district has said, listen, exclude us from this overreach by the Federal Government. The Federal Government has hardly been a champion in regard to Native Americans and people in this area. We rule by fiat and scare people. Once again, this is a good bill. We want to be excluded from this withdrawal. I would hope that everybody would listen to the people from my district. Mr. Chairman, I ask for everybody to vote for this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. H.R. 1373 permanently bans oil, natural gas, geothermal, uranium, and other critical minerals and rare earth leasing and production on over a million acres of land in Arizona. This commonsense amendment does not kill the bill. It delays the effective date until we have done adequate mapping and surveying of the minerals and resources in this area. Specifically, the amendment allows the bill to go into effect when the Secretary of the Interior completes a mineral survey of the area proposed for withdrawal including uranium, rare earth elements, geothermal, and oil and gas resources, and determines that there are no mineral resources, geothermal resources, or critical minerals present, other than uranium. The temporary political mineral withdrawal imposed in 2012 by the Obama administration that focused exclusively on banning mining cost the surrounding areas in Arizona and Utah between two and 4,000 jobs and $29 billion in overall regional economic activity. The previous administration's misguided actions killed more than 7,000 hard-rock mining claims in the area over a 3-year span. This legislation would expand the withdrawal area and also expand the mineral withdrawal in the withdrawal area to include oil and gas leasing, geothermal leasing, and other mineral development in addition to mining. Mr. Chairman, there are rare earths and other valuable minerals, including copper and uranium, in this area. There is also a great amount of geothermal potential. We should at least know all the minerals and resources potential in this million-acre area before we permanently lock it up. This just requires mapping and surveying of the targeted areas for the withdrawal. Once again, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chair, this is a typical breccia pipe, and you are seeing the collapsing of the geological formations. What is so interesting about that is that it concentrates different minerals there, not just uranium. Copper, vanadium, there are a number of things here that have all of a sudden become very critical in our technology sector. This is a very important application here, and we want to make sure that we are studying that properly. Now, if we are talking about the reclamation process, well, here we go. Yes, 80 years ago, we didn't reclaim mines right. We didn't ask them to be bonded. We didn't go back and investigate them for mitigation. This is what American mining actually does. It takes what they need; it returns it. And I would be very interested in taking a Geiger counter to check this versus this when it started. I wonder if there is an improvement. Deja vu? It is. So, once again, the arguments are bland. They are fraudulent. In this aspect, we show mitigation. What we can do when we have a mine site like this is we can actually leverage them and say: Listen, in order to do this, we need you to mitigate some of these other mining sites. It has been something that our side has proposed nonstop, but the other side refuses to let that happen because, they claim, that it is not going to be up to standard. That tells you people are scared of their own laws. This looks pretty good to me. When I look at the mitigation aspects and what is here and available, that is for the common cause for the American people. It is an investiture. You are not doing your due diligence unless you know exactly what you have for today and the future. Mr. Chair, I ask my colleagues to vote for this amendment. It is smart. It is critical and, from that standpoint, empowering. I ask everybody to vote ``yes'' on the amendment. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. GOSAR

Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 2181. Mr. Chairman, this is yet another piece of legislation advanced by my colleagues on behalf of the radical environmental movement. This bill will unilaterally lock up oil and gas development on 316,000 acres of federally owned land in New Mexico. The Department of the Interior is in the process of drafting a resource management plan for this area, but this process is still under review and the resource management plan has not yet been released. This bill would permanently ban all energy development in the area before we know all the facts and before a science-based environmental review is completed. Decisions made in Washington regarding how to manage federally owned land have implications beyond the borders of the acreage in question. Those who own land or operate businesses near federally owned parcels are oftentimes significantly impacted by poor management decisions made by the Federal bureaucrats who do not live there or understand the needs of the rural Western communities. Similarly, my colleagues claim that this bill will do no harm to those who own lands and mineral rights in the surrounding area, but this bill could mean millions in lost revenue for those who own lands along the proposed withdrawal boundary. While it is technically true that the acreage off limits to development under this bill is federally owned, there are lands located throughout the withdrawal area that are privately owned by the members of the Navajo Nation. If you take a look at this map, anything you see in this purple area--particularly in this area is what we are talking about--is owned by the Navajo allottees. So when you are looking at the expansion of this park, it impugns access to that area. Now, as you see, the Navajo-owned lands and minerals are scattered throughout and are located outside the withdrawal area. But if these lands are unavailable for development, they become restricted and further cut off from access points and from development opportunities. If the neighboring land can never be developed, as required under this bill, the economic value of these private minerals is diminished and the Navajo owners will have a harder time attracting investments on their land. Once again, you see the skirting all the way through this area, particularly in this band alongside there, so access is critical. We heard testimony to this fact in the Natural Resources Committee this summer. Ms. Delora Hesuse testified in opposition to this bill, stating: ``Our voices as allotted landowners are being silenced by environmentalists claiming to speak for all of us. These lands were given to our great-great-grandparents in exchange for citizenship, and we have rights as citizens and landowners to develop our lands for oil and gas as we see fit.'' She continued: ``If BLM lands are withdrawn around our allotments, that means oil and gas companies cannot access our lands, because they won't be able to access the Federal lands.'' Mr. Chairman, I include in the Record her testimony. Delora Hesuse, Navajo Indian Allottee, Nageezi Chapter Testimony Before the House Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Legislative Hearing on H.R. 2181 Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act--June 5, 2019 Chairwoman Haaland, Ranking Member Young and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to bring voice to those Navajo tribal members who are being forgotten with this bill--Indian allottees. I am Delora Hesuse, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, Nageezi Chapter. My chapter is in the Greater Chaco region and near the Chaco Culture National Historic Park. My grandmother was a Councilwoman for the Nageezi Chapter for eight years, and my father was a Navajo Nation Council Delegate for the Nageezi Chapter for twenty years. Many people don't understand our Native American heritage and the fact that many individual Navajo Nation members such as I own private lands and the minerals underneath them. This is a steadfast personal property right that sustains our livelihoods and way of life. H.R. 2181 would put many of our mineral rights off limits and stop a much-needed source of income to feed, shelter, clothe and protect our families. I'm not exaggerating the importance of this income. In 2015, the Federal Indian Minerals Office distributed $96 million to 20,835 allottees. That's a significant source of income in an area that continues to struggle with unemployment. My ancestors were allotted the land and mineral rights by the United States government many generations ago, and it pains me to see that my own leaders, both tribal and in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, are supporting a bill that would put my oil and natural gas rights off limits and/or seriously prevent my family from receiving income from the valuable energy resources that we own. I am not alone. Many other Indian allottees in the Greater Chaco region agree with me. In fact, I have here a petition signed by 131 of us allottees opposing this buffer zone bill. I also have with me another petition signed by many allottees that states that the environmentalists' voice is not our voice. Our voices as Allotted landowners are being silenced by environmentalists claiming to speak for all of us. These lands were given to our great, great grandparents in exchange for citizenship, and we have rights as citizens and landowners to develop our lands for oil and gas as we see fit. I also have two resolutions from the Huerfano and Nageezi chapters signed by our chapter presidents supporting us Navajo Allotment landowners and recognizing our opposition to this bill. These chapter resolutions call for a meeting with Senators Udall and Heinrich so that we can express our concerns with the bill and how it will limit our rights. I am disappointed that the Department of the Interior, which is supposed to manage our mineral rights in trust to the benefit of my family and all other allottees, has stopped leasing for a full year. This action delays income to us allottees in the short term, but more importantly, sends a strong signal to oil and gas companies that generate the income on our behalf that investment in the area is risky and uncertain in the long term. I have been participating actively in the Resource Management Planning (RMP) process which is under pressure from environmental groups and others opposed to responsible oil and natural gas development in the area. I continue to feel that the Interior Department and members of Congress are ignoring the voice of Indian allottees and listening only to environmental groups like Dine Care and other outside groups that want to keep oil and natural gas from being developed at all. Besides not being realistic, it would deprive my family of income to sustain our way of life. Our voices should and must be heard equally along with the environmental special interest groups. In fact, with the Interior Department's trust responsibility, our voices should carry much more weight than that of outside special interests, but that is not the case with this bill. The bill would put off limits my mineral rights and the mineral rights of thousands of allottees. While the bill claims not to affect my mineral rights, in fact, many allottee lands are surrounded by federal lands that would be withdrawn by this bill. If BLM lands are withdrawn around our allotments, that means oil and gas companies cannot access our lands, because they won't be able to access the federal lands. Furthermore, since the oil and gas is accessed using horizontal drilling, putting the federal lands and minerals off limits will mean my minerals are also off limits. Because of the checkerboard pattern of lands, where allottee lands are often surrounded by BLM lands, particularly in the northeast segment of the buffer, if companies cannot access all minerals along the lateral of a horizontal well, they will not access any. Companies will simply be discouraged from developing the minerals on my behalf because it just doesn't make sense economically or technologically to pinpoint my small amount of minerals stranded amongst federal minerals. What may be small to them, however, is not small to me. Companies will be discouraged from developing in all areas of the buffer at all, even on allottee lands. I too care deeply about the Chaco cultural heritage. After all, I'm a Navajo who lives right in the Greater Chaco region. But the Chaco Culture National Historic Park already protects the Great Houses. Artifacts that may be outside the park are protected through the National Historic Preservation Act. Any development of my minerals and the minerals of other allottees is done in strict accordance with the act, to make sure they are protected. Not only do we insist upon it, but that is the law of the land. I urge the committee not to pass this bill. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.