Chellie Pingree

Ms. PINGREE

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 yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I thank the chair of this committee for opposing the amendment. As far as I am concerned, this amendment is extreme. It will not gain bipartisan support and become law. The draconian cuts proposed in this bill violate the agreement reached by former Speaker McCarthy and President Biden that were memorialized in statute in Public Law 118-5, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. We would not be teetering on the brink of government shutdown if my Republican colleagues would hold up their end of the bargain. As to this amendment, with the West reeling from the historic megadrought, the worst in 1,200 years, why would any of my colleagues want to hamstring the Bureau of Land Management from protecting our public lands for the American public and future generations? Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment.

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

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, this amendment completely eliminates the Council on Environmental Quality. This important office is responsible for coordinating the Federal Government's efforts to improve, preserve, and protect Americans' public health and the environment. These are very important tasks. It also works to ensure that environmental reviews for infrastructure projects and Federal actions are thorough, efficient, and reflect the input of the public and local communities. This proposed amendment would hobble the office and result in significant delays to infrastructure projects across the country at exactly the wrong time. Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), the committee chairman.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, once again, this is a terribly misguided amendment to completely defund and eliminate the Council on Environmental Quality. I appreciate the remarks by the chair that, while in different administrations, we may feel differently about the kinds of decisions or the tactic taken, but we understand the importance of this particular agency, and defunding it would be absolutely the wrong move. I appreciate the gentleman who sponsored this amendment, his desire to fund the national parks, and we have a way to do that. Just go against the cuts that are made in this bill, vote against the Interior Appropriations bill, and we will make sure that, in a future iteration of this bill, we fully fund the national parks. I appreciate his understanding the importance of making sure that funding is available. As to this amendment, this is a bad amendment. Mr. Chair, I oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, let's just remember, we are here to protect the welfare of the American public, and we cannot close our eyes to the impacts of climate change: the drought, the flooding, the severe storms, the wildfire events that we are experiencing. Climate change has reached a crisis point, and we have to take bold action to avoid a major irreversible catastrophe. That means we have to invest in renewable energy. My colleagues on the other side of the aisle are proposing this amendment that would focus all of BOEM's resources on conventional energy. If my colleague from New Jersey wants to talk about the tragedy of what could happen to our States--I represent Maine, and we care about our beautiful coastline. We are worried about offshore oil drilling and the fishermen's impact, the potential impact on tourism of an oil spill, all of the things we have seen happen in other places. We want to invest in the renewable and wind industry. To say it would reduce our tourism industry down to zero is ludicrous. To say it would do this to our fishing industry without careful management would be ridiculous. I have been to visit the countries of Norway and Denmark. I have talked to the people from Scotland about their offshore wind projects. It hasn't eliminated tourism or reduced their fishing industry. This is misinformation made up because people want to stick to their dependence on oil and gas and the things that we have to eliminate. I oppose this amendment. It has nothing good about it. We should not reduce the funding from the renewable energy programs, and we should continue in the way that we are.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, this is another partisan amendment that wastes more time on a bill that should go nowhere. Cutting $15,000 and taking away the Cabinet Secretary's ability to host Tribal members and other important dignitaries is just petty. At a time when we are seeing record numbers of historic storms and climate events, this is what my colleagues across the aisle have chosen to care about? Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I want to be clear. I fully support hazardous fuels reduction activities at the BLM. I am so sorry for the wildfires that have occurred in Colorado and in so many other States across our Nation. I come from the most forested State in the Nation, the State of Maine. We know how important good forest management is. We know how important this is, but I absolutely do not support the offset. The EPA has already been cut by 39 percent, and further cuts to its core programs will only embolden polluters and weaken the safety of our water and air. We could easily fund both things, the EPA and forest management at the Forest Service, if the majority had produced their bills at levels that were agreed upon and passed into law in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. If my colleagues across the aisle are serious about managing hazardous fuels at BLM, 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. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

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

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, to be clear, I fully support all oversight efforts and believe the mission of the inspectors general across government is vital, but I disagree with the offset and the treatment of the EPA in this bill generally. In the base bill, the EPA is cut by nearly 40 percent. Every single account is cut except for the Office of the Inspector General. Quite frankly, the inspector general's office does pretty well under this bill. Cutting every single program at the EPA and seeking to increase funding for only one office, which happens to be the oversight office, is a clear attempt by the majority to politicize the inspector general, and that is unacceptable. Mr. Chair, I oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chairman, I am pretty sure this is deja vu all over again. I think we have already had an amendment to cut or eliminate the Council on Environmental Quality. This one does it by cutting 36 percent. This office is responsible for coordinating the Federal Government's efforts to improve, preserve, and protect Americans' public health and environment. It also works to ensure that environmental reviews for infrastructure projects and Federal actions are thorough, efficient, and reflect the input of the public and local communities. This amendment would hobble the office and result in significant delays to the very important infrastructure projects going on all across this country. We have debated this once already. This was a bad amendment then. It is a bad amendment now. I oppose it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is back again. I think it is still deja vu all over again because this is now the third time we have taken up this amendment. It is to, once again, eliminate the Council on Environmental Quality. We have a pending roll call on that very exact question. It just seems to me we have plenty to do around here. We have plenty to do and are having a very busy day. We will have a very busy day tomorrow, and we have very ambitious goals on the part of the majority to pass through a lot of appropriations bills. Why in the world would we have three of the same amendments? I appreciate that different people wanted to give different perspectives on it, but couldn't they all have spoken on the same amendment? I also would just say that a lot of my colleagues on this side of the aisle had amendments that were eliminated and that weren't given a chance to speak on the floor. If the majority had just gone from three to one of these amendments, they could have used the time for two more of my colleagues' amendments and we could have had a little more Democratic debate, perhaps on reinstating funding for the National Museum of the American Latino. There were a lot of good things we would like to see discussed under this bill. Why in the world did the majority have to have us discuss this a third time? Mr. Chairman, I do want you to know I have my talking points. I can say exactly the same things about why it is very arbitrary to eliminate the Council on Environmental Quality, why the office is important in establishing the Federal Government's efforts to improve, preserve, and protect Americans' public health and environment, also to ensure that environmental reviews for infrastructure projects and Federal actions are thorough, efficient, and reflect the input of the public and local communities, and I know you appreciate hearing that from me three times. Nevertheless, it just seems to me that if we were managing this floor in a way that really made the best use of all our colleagues' time we would either give a few more amendments to the Democratic minority or we would just do this once, have one roll call, and give the majority all a chance to speak on that particular bill and voice their opinion. It is still a bad amendment. We will still oppose this amendment, and we shouldn't be doing this at this particular time. Once again, I oppose the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chairman, I am just so sad that we have to debate this amendment to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA is the Federal agency that funds, promotes, and strengthens the creative capacity of our communities by providing all Americans-- that is all Americans--with diverse opportunities for arts participation. With the very small $186.3 million in this bill, the small but mighty agency supports arts organizations and artists in every congressional district in the country, and these investments yield enormous economic benefits. My colleague on the other side of the aisle says that he pays for his own arts. He makes sure that his family has the arts opportunities and that his children's art is paid for. However, every community does not have the funding to pay for their own arts. Not every community can afford arts and music in their schools. They can't afford these opportunities. Yes, there is private- sector funding, but private-sector funding goes to where the private sector wants it to be spent. It doesn't make sure that in rural States like mine that small towns can take advantage of this and that small arts organizations can have these opportunities. A 2021 analysis done by the Department of Commerce and the NEA found that arts and cultural industries add over $1 trillion to the U.S. economy, support nearly 5 million jobs, and account for 4.4 percent of the GDP--4.4 percent. In what other sector wouldn't we make a lousy $186 million investment in something that was going to add 4.4 percent to our GDP? These guys would be all over it if it was auto manufacturing or chips or something else. The arts have an incredible value as a positive tool for economic development, education, and community building. Defunding this important agency would cause catastrophic harm. It is a terrible idea. Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment, and I reserve 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.