Jared Huffman

Mr. HUFFMAN

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, we hear it over and over again from the other side: NEPA should just be a purely procedural law. Well, a lot of really important things are procedural--MRIs, X-rays, any number of things. Those are procedures, but you don't turn the power off and reduce that very important procedure to a meaningless exercise. That is what this legislation would do. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Lee).

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Nevada.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chair, I am glad to hear the gentleman's concern for projects that are awaiting approval, but for the past year, we have seen huge projects that were already approved that were under construction. In one case, the Revolution Wind project in Rhode Island was 80 percent complete, with thousands of jobs and some of the cheapest electricity that New England would see to bring down these soaring utility bills, and President Trump stepped in and stopped it. They had to get a court to release the hostage, to allow this already approved project to simply move forward. I am always grateful to hear concern for projects awaiting approval. What this bill does, though, unfortunately, is nothing at all to end the crazy war on clean energy that is killing off projects that have already been approved. Our colleagues really should care about that, too. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, we just heard a list of projects that were allegedly halted by frivolous litigation, a case study for the SPEED Act. In fact, many of these are really bad projects, and the examples are often examples of the environmental review process working to protect the environment and protect people. The Dakota Access Pipeline decision was challenged by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which won in court because the Army Corps of Engineers had failed to consider the impact of catastrophic oil spills on the Tribe's water supply and culturally sacred sites. The Resolution Copper mine was delayed because the proposed mine would, in fact, destroy Oak Flat, the most sacred site for the San Carlos Apache Tribe. Micron chose to build its semiconductor manufacturing facility near federally regulated wetlands and endangered habitat. I think what we are hearing, unfortunately, is that permitting reform to my friends across the aisle means a green light even for bad and destructive projects. That is not something the American people want to see. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chair, a lot of numbers have been thrown around on how NEPA takes so very, very long. Much of this is looking deep into the past and extrapolating from that. I want to correct the Record because, as of January 2025, $1 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act for permitting was actually doing its job quite well. It had helped reduce the median time it takes to complete an Environmental Impact Statement, the most complex environmental review, by 28 percent. That is compared to times under the first Trump administration. The time was down a little over 2 years in 2024 compared to over 3\1/ 2\ in 2019. That is 1\1/2\ years of improvement. Unfortunately, these steps forward have been taken away by our friends across the aisle. We are going in the wrong direction. Mr. Chair, in closing, the majority had a great opportunity here. Democrats were ready to work with them on meaningful and bipartisan permitting reform. They chose to reject our efforts to engage in good faith. Instead, what we have here is another Christmas giveaway to the wealthiest, most powerful people and companies in the country. I guess this is the golden age. These are wonderful times. A person can throw Great Gatsby parties if they are a billionaire, if they are one of these very, very rich interest groups. We should be thinking about everyday Americans right now. Many overburdened communities are saddled with significant pollution. We should think about helping them instead of making it harder for them to challenge projects that threaten the health and environmental damage visited upon their community. We should also think about rising utility bills, something we hear more and more about in this affordability crisis driven by Republican policies. Yet, our friends across the aisle look the other way as President Trump's crazy war on clean energy drives utility bills higher and higher. We should work toward a level playing field for clean energy instead of another handout for Big Oil. The American Clean Power Association has pulled its support for this legislation. The bill is opposed by the Solar Energy Industries Association and, of course, countless environmental justice organizations who know this bill will take a wrecking ball to government transparency, to community engagement, and to health and environmental protections. It didn't have to be this way. This was a terrible missed opportunity, but a bad bill has actually gotten worse through the process and not better. I strongly oppose the SPEED Act. I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, regardless of whether they may have supported this in the past--the bill has gotten worse--to vote ``no.'' Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, this is a perfect example of how, even when team extreme puts together the most dramatic rollback of America's most important bedrock environmental law, it is not enough for some factions within the Republican Conference. Mr. Chair, I do oppose this amendment because, at its core, it is built on a tired trope--the trope that NEPA litigation is some huge driver of frivolous litigation and an argument that we hear all too often to justify more and more limits on judicial review to make it harder and harder for the public to participate in the review process and to help oil and gas and other polluting projects. However, the facts do not back up the story that we keep hearing. One recent study from the University of Utah found that only 1 out of every 450 actions subject to NEPA are ever even litigated. That amounts to 0.23 percent. According to a recent Congressional Research Service report: ``Historically, fewer than 1 percent of Federal actions subject to NEPA have been litigated.'' That is important context. Mr. Chair, the idea behind this amendment, that we need to keep layering on more and more restrictions to shut out the public, to eliminate legal challenges, and to stop frivolous litigation is overblown, especially in the context of an underlying bill which already imposes dramatic new barriers that make it almost impossible to bring a case to court. Among other hurdles, the underlying bill says that you have to have commented during a comment period, even as the Trump administration is restricting the opportunity to comment. It also requires that your comment has to be ``unique.'' This is a new term of art. It doesn't exist in current law. We don't even know what it really means, but, presumably, if anyone else has submitted the same comment or has flagged the same problem with a Federal action, you are out because your comment is no longer unique. To add a cherry on top of all of that, even if you get into court, the SPEED Act would bind judges, forcing them to allow even dangerous and illegal projects to proceed, making the judicial review process extremely hollow. Mr. Chairman, judicial review is a cornerstone of democracy. When the government makes a bad decision or an illegal decision, I would hope we could all agree that there are times, since the government doesn't get everything just right, that citizens need to be able to challenge that action and hold the government accountable to make sure the law is followed. Access to the courts is a backstop for communities, who are left out of the NEPA process, to make their concerns heard and to ensure that Federal Government actions properly consider environmental impacts. Though we have heard a lot of fear-mongering about frivolous lawsuits, there are already effective safeguards in place. All plaintiffs have to demonstrate that they have actually been harmed by a project to have standing, and NEPA will be meaningless unless there is a way to enforce it when the government does something harmful or illegal. That is what this is all about. Mr. Chairman, I urge a ``no'' on this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I think we have found some common ground. I hear that any frivolous lawsuit is one too many, so I just want to remind the gentleman that maybe one of the most prolific frivolous litigators in history is in the White House right now. I remind the gentleman about the raft of frivolous lawsuits challenging the 2020 election results, resulting, in many cases, not just in losses in court but in the disbarment of some of the Republican luminary lawyers like Rudy Giuliani. If we pretend to care about frivolous lawsuits, I know consistency is out of fashion these days, but we should really mean it. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, we should be against all truly frivolous things--not just frivolous lawsuits but frivolous legislation masquerading as permitting reform, frivolous amendments, frivolous distractions at the end of probably the most unproductive Congress in American history this year at a time when the American people are struggling. That is what is truly frivolous. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment. I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, the majority has suggested that the underlying bill's changes to NEPA on the scope of review simply codify the Supreme Court's Seven County decision, but the SPEED Act actually goes much further than that Court decision. The Court left broad discretion for agencies to determine what impacts are relevant and how far the environmental analysis should go. The Seven County decision allows agencies to analyze environmental impacts when those impacts are reasonably foreseeable, although the Court did limit what agencies are required to review. The underlying bill and this amendment do something entirely different. They strip agencies of their discretion to consider a broad range of environmental impacts. This could have far-reaching consequences for communities, the environment, and public health, even when the science is clear and the consequences are very real. The bill would prevent agencies from examining the harms that communities across the country are living with right now. A perfect example is Louisiana's Cancer Alley, where predominantly Black neighborhoods face some of the highest pollution-related cancer risks in the Nation, and those risks come from cumulative emissions from many facilities that have been built over decades and impacts that are well documented and directly tied to Federal permitting decisions. Under this bill, agencies would largely be prohibited from considering any cumulative effects, anything that worsens that preexisting problem. That is not streamlining. That is telling Federal agencies to look the other way in the face of obvious, foreseeable harm. NEPA's strength has always been its requirement that agencies take a hard look at the real-world consequences of their actions. That is how agencies avoid unintended harm. It is how the public stays informed, and it is how Federal decisions remain accountable and transparent. The language in this bill dismantles that approach, and this amendment takes it even further by continuing to strip away what courts have left in terms of discretion for agencies to consider. This will result in more harm to many American communities, including some of our most vulnerable communities that are already overburdened with pollution. Mr. Chair, I oppose the amendment and reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I think common sense is that if an agency is proposing or is considering a project that would be the tipping point for a community that is already overburdened by pollution, and that would dramatically increase a problem like Cancer Alley in Louisiana, they ought to be able to consider those cumulative impacts. I would call that common sense. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, if this amendment is simply about codifying the Supreme Court's decision, why doesn't it say what the Supreme Court said? The Supreme Court said that agencies would be able to have discretion to consider cumulative impacts, traffic patterns, and other things in circumstances where those were very compelling factors. This amendment says, No, you can't consider any of that. Let's not kid ourselves. This is not codifying the Supreme Court's decision. This is taking it much, much further. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I urge opposition to the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I strongly oppose this amendment. It is one more attempt to restrict what the government can consider in an environmental review and turn NEPA into nothing more than a box- checking exercise. You get all of the bureaucracy but none of the benefits under this approach. The amendment would add a narrow definition of significant effects on the human environment in order to limit which projects get a closer look under NEPA. It is important to recognize that we already have a high standard for which projects get that closer look. Only proposed actions that are anticipated to have a significant effect on the environment undergo an environmental impact statement, or EIS, which is the most thorough form of NEPA review. Agencies don't do environmental impact statements willy-nilly. Only about 1 percent of all projects go through this process. These are the types of large-scale, complex projects that can have serious, long- lasting impacts on the environment, things like mines that remove entire mountaintops, things like the construction of a new nuclear power plant, exactly the types of things that should get close scrutiny and that the public deserves to have a chance to weigh in on. This amendment redefines significant effect on the environment to mean only concrete harms that are directly caused by the proposed agency action and materially impair human health or property. That is a drastic narrowing of how we think about the impacts of Federal actions. To use a public lands example, I will just quote from the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976. It says: The policy of the United States is to manage public lands in a manner that will protect the quality of scientific, scenic, historic, ecological, environmental, air and atmospheric, water resource, and archaeological values. Now the courts have backed up this spectrum of values for decades. The Supreme Court has held that NEPA should analyze a broad range of harms, including recreational and esthetic enjoyment of the environment. Who here really thinks that there is no significant effect on the environment of a proposed refinery that would only light up a protected dark sky all night, every night next to a neighborhood? Or is there really no significant effect on the environment if a pipeline would disrupt big game migrations that hunters depend on to feed their families? Of course, this definition means no amount of climate-changing emissions that could be considered to have had a significant effect on the environment would ever be considered. The American people deserve the full picture of a proposed action and its significant effects on the environment. This amendment puts the blinders on even more than the underlying bill, which already goes too far in that direction. Mr. Chair, I urge a ``no'' on the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, we have a major disagreement on what ``common sense'' means in this Congress. To me, and I think really to most Americans, it is just common sense that if you have a project that would destroy hunting access to some vital part of our public lands that generations have depended on, if you have a project that would cause a sacred Tribal site to no longer be enjoyed by folks who have depended on it for millennia, that that should undergo an environmental review. That seems like common sense to most people. But in this strange Congress, I guess common sense just means just do those projects anyway and don't even consider alternatives and don't even consider the impacts. That is why I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chairman, I thought we were debating a bill that proposes a permitting reform. Of course, we have lots of disagreements about how it impacts our bedrock environmental laws, but I guess we never want to miss an opportunity to go into the fever swamp of conspiracism that is the Kash Patel FBI these days. I will bring it back to the subject at hand. This is a bad amendment. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. HUFFMAN

Mr. HUFFMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I remind everyone that we are at the end of this year. We are running out of time to fix the healthcare crisis that Republicans have created. Christmas break is right around the corner, and hardworking Americans are struggling. They are being crushed under the weight of rising costs. What do our Republican friends have us voting on? The next bill that we have up today, H.R. 1366, the so-called Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, is just a gift for folks who really ought to be on the naughty list this time of year: foreign mining companies. I strongly oppose this bill. According to its sponsors, it is a legislative fix to the Rosemont court decision, a court case that determined that a mining company was not allowed to dump its toxic mine waste on public lands based on an invalid mining claim. You see, Mr. Speaker, for years, mining companies were allowed to dump their waste wherever they wanted without paying fair market value for that land, without public land managers having any real option to say no regardless of which precious public lands might be destroyed forever. However, in the Rosemont decision, the court held that under current law, a mining claim is only valid when it actually contains valuable minerals. That makes sense. That is common sense, if we want some common sense. However, the mining industry didn't like that. They were not happy that they could no longer dump their toxic waste on phony, invalid claims anymore. So here we are today passing a so-called fix for the industry. Now, let's remember that enormous benefit is stacked on another one: Mining companies don't pay back the American people a cent in royalties for the minerals that belong to the people of the United States. The antiquated Mining Act of 1872 essentially gives away America's valuable mineral resources for free, often to foreign-owned mining companies, even companies controlled by our adversaries. Even so, the industry calls the Rosemont decision an existential threat. Give me a break. You know what happened to the Rosemont mine after that court decision came down? The next day, the company paid for private lands for its waste disposal. The mine wasn't stopped. It is just the industry would prefer to use the public lands, your lands, and to be able to dump for free. Industry argues that this bill would provide certainty and clarity for mining and exploration. In practice, this fix would just allow mining companies to use a different type of claim called a mill site for unlimited mine-waste dumping. They could use it for pipelines and processing whatever else they would like, again at cut-rate prices. For the record, I have found no evidence that any mines are currently being held up because of the Rosemont decision anywhere in America. This is a solution in search of a problem. Time and time again, Democrats have raised legitimate concerns with this legislation, and we have offered good-faith amendments to address those concerns. I offered an amendment to strike the broad definition of operations in the bill, which effectively means that mining operations don't need a mining claim at all. Representative Lee from Nevada offered an amendment to clarify that mining companies should only use the public lands that are actually necessary for their operations, and to make clear that nothing in the bill limits the rights to regulate mining and related activities on Federal lands. Representative Leger Fernandez offered an amendment to exempt companies that are owned and controlled by our adversaries from these incredible benefits under this bill. All of these amendments were very straightforward. None of the issues raised should be a surprise to the majority. They have had time to work with us, but they chose not to. They rejected all of these amendments. I guess they would rather let foreign mining companies controlled by our adversaries pillage our public lands for cheap or even for free. Noted. Again, I strongly oppose this legislation and reserve the balance of my time.