Chellie Pingree

Ms. PINGREE

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment. My colleague proposes that we don't allow the cancellation of lease sales in a pristine environment that is already suffering from the impacts of climate change. The Arctic is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the planet. It shows that my Republican colleague and so many others are not thinking about what is best for the American taxpayer. He should be focused, instead, on investing in strategies that minimize and prevent the acceleration of climate change. He invoked one of my favorite colleagues, our dear departed colleague Don Young. I remember several years ago when Don Young came to visit me in Maine to an Arctic conference, and we discussed climate change. He said: I haven't decided yet if this is man-made, but I do believe climate change is happening. None of us can expect to share the words of Don Young, who is not with us here today, but I think he witnessed the warming that is going on in the Arctic in his State, the glacial melting. I recently visited Alaska, and I met with Tribal communities. There are 31 communities, most of them Tribal communities, that currently have to be moved because of the glacial melting, because of the permafrost melting. The cost of that, I have heard some people estimate, is about a million dollars a person to move a community, not to mention the cultural loss, the economic loss. The challenges that people are facing, what is going on in the Arctic today is unfathomable. Nothing we could have ever predicted. Nothing that the scientists could have predicted. Yet, my colleague wants us to continue drilling for oil. My colleague wants us to deny the importance of renewable energy. We are talking about an area where it is expensive to drill. The fact is, most of the oil companies don't often want to be up there anymore, and it is not practical for us to be drilling for oil. To be doing it in the very places that are experiencing the losses because of climate change in such an extreme way makes absolutely no sense. It is a misguided policy. To go against this cancellation of these lease sales is wrong. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and focus instead on addressing climate change, making our Nation stronger, and investing in renewable energy. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, this amendment blocks an executive order that seeks to reestablish the Federal Government as a leader in sustainability and improve the Nation's preparedness and resilience to the effects of a changing climate. We are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change such as the drought, flooding, severe storm, and wildfire events we are experiencing. The Federal Government is the single largest landowner, energy consumer, and employer in the Nation, and it is appropriate that it would lead the Nation on a path to achieving net zero emissions by transforming how the government builds, buys, and manages electricity, vehicles, buildings, and other operations to be clean and sustainable. Not investing in strategies that minimize and prevent the acceleration of climate change and instead paying billions into disaster relief shows my Republican colleagues are not thinking about what is best for the American taxpayer. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment and focus instead on addressing climate change and making our Nation stronger, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I thank the chairman for yielding. I just say that, again, this idea of asking public servants to be volunteers, to serve for $1, actually carries no weight until all of the Members of Congress are also willing to serve for $1. It is completely impractical, and it would mean that only a few people would have the opportunity to serve as Members of Congress or to be in the executive branch. Also, to criticize Deb Haaland, a woman who I was very proud to serve with in the House of Representatives, who we were very pleased to have her here as one of the first Native American women elected to Congress, but then to go on to lead the Department of the Interior as a Native American woman who also has oversight of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who has had so much personal experience but also experience within her own community, who has a deep love of our public lands, of our natural systems, and in my opinion, has done a fantastic job, this is insulting. It is petty. We shouldn't even be here standing at this hour of the night talking about such a highly regarded and well-respected public servant. Mr. Chair, I thoroughly oppose this amendment.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, this amendment seeks to block air quality monitoring. So often, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle start their speeches by saying, We believe in clean air, we believe in clean water, but apparently they don't, and certainly, in this case, this amendment does not. Now, I come from a State with one of the highest rates of asthma. Asthma is directly attributed to not having clean air. One in nine people in Maine is experiencing asthma. Those are children. Those are adults. Those are people who have serious health impacts because of that, so why we would ever deny the opportunity to do more air quality monitoring to make sure our citizens are safe, to make sure our children don't have asthma, it is just beyond me. I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chairman, I don't know that I could say it any better than the chair of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee did about the reason that it never makes sense to use this amendment to reduce somebody's salary. Reducing somebody's salary to $1 is basically firing them. When it comes to Michael Regan, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, my colleagues are talking about a hardworking public servant. I think we are very fortunate to have him there and to have him dealing with some of the biggest challenges our country is facing, whether it is climate change or environmental pollution, and moving our country forward in a very difficult time. We are grateful to have him there. To ask a public servant to take $1 for their hard work in carrying out this administration's goals is ludicrous. To my colleague on the Agriculture Committee, we serve together and have many areas that we work together on, and to have sort of a grudge match about this consideration about solar panels on agricultural land, frankly, doesn't make any sense to me. Of course, his mission is to make sure we incentivize solar panels, absolutely, of course. However, to say that he is trying to do this on rich, fertile farmland goes against the mission of the USDA, and it goes against the mission of this administration. It is always a difficult balance to figure out where to put solar panels. I know in my State we have found some projects where we have dual use where some kinds of agriculture actually can accommodate solar panels and also have grazing land and blueberry land. We have a variety of things going on. Nobody thinks we should use rich farmland--in a time when we are losing farmland all too fast--for solar panels, and I am sure Administrator Regan doesn't either. Nevertheless, incentivizing solar panels, yes, that is absolutely the mission of the EPA. I am thrilled they are doing that and moving us faster and faster towards renewable energy. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I claim time in opposition to this amendment.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Ms. PINGREE

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I want to address some of the same concerns about this amendment as I did in the previous amendment. To be clear, I fully support active forest management at the Forest Service. I feel very bad about the wildfires that have occurred in Colorado and so many other States across our country. I can't imagine the devastation to a family who loses their home or a community that finds the entire community leveled by a forest fire. I am also very aware of the importance of managing our forests, whether it is the timber sales or the great benefit we get from well- maintained forests. I come from the most forested State in the Nation. Sustainable forest products and our wood products industry are extremely important, and managing those forests is extremely important. Mr. Chair, I cannot support this offset. The EPA has already been cut by 39 percent. Further cuts to its core program will only embolden polluters and weaken the safety of our water and air. We can easily fund both things, the EPA and forest management at the Forest Service, if only the majority had produced a bill at the level that was agreed upon and passed into law by the Fiscal Responsibility Act. If my colleagues across the aisle are serious about active forest management at the Forest Service, it would have been fully funded in the base bill. Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), who is the chair of the committee.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva), the distinguished ranking member of the Natural Resources Committee and my good friend.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, this amendment would allow those who pollute the Chesapeake Bay to ignore the Environmental Protection Agency's water quality standards. Restoring the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed continues to be a priority. The EPA established mandatory water quality standards, and Congress has approved over $1 billion for the Chesapeake Bay program to help States, localities, and businesses meet those standards. This amendment would jeopardize that funding and have devastating effects on the health of the bay. This amendment is not about the well-being of Virginia, Maryland, and the surrounding States. It is about the fact that some industrial operators don't think they should be responsible for controlling the pollution they dump into our rivers and streams across the country. The courts have sided with the EPA on this matter. For more than 35 years, the regional partnership created through the Chesapeake Bay program has sought to restore and protect the Nation's largest and most productive estuary. This amendment would undermine decades of work and have lasting damaging effects to the health of the bay and the economy that it supports. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I am not an authority on this, but my understanding is that the Federal Government could not rename a town in a State. The Federal Government has authority on public lands on names that are related to public property. I am very pleased that we have Secretary Deb Haaland as the Secretary of Interior right now, and I respect the fact that we have someone, for the first time ever, who is a member of a Tribe. Secretary Haaland has made a statement that using the word ``squaw'' is offensive to Native American Tribes, and I fully agree with her, and many people in my own State agree with her and have changed those names, but, in this particular case, I don't believe that the Department of the Interior can arbitrarily rename a town in any State in the Nation. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I rise to support this en bloc amendment, which includes several noncontroversial amendments that we support. Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.