Bruce Westerman

Mr. WESTERMAN

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Herrell).

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Bentz).

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Obernolte).

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rosendale).

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Fulcher).

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse).

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, many of the water and power users in the Colorado basin were not consulted on this $500 million Colorado River provision and don't even know what it would be used for. That is another reason why we should actually work on these issues in committee and have a bipartisan markup. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Moore).

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I know there is a lot of talk about the IIJA and what a great bill it was. It was the largest infrastructure bill passed in the history of the world. It was so important that it never even went through a committee here in the House. It came right to the House floor, and it seems like all we are doing is fixing it. We have a suspension bill we will be voting on later that fixes a problem that was in the IIJA. I am confused why my colleague is pushing this bill that would undo much of the core work in the IIJA, including the $170 million that would go to his district under the current 10-year strategy. I think it is another example of why we have to do regular order and why we have to bring these bills to committee. We want to solve these problems, but you have to have real solutions to solve a problem. There are examples of how we can do bipartisan work to fix forestry. Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), who is working on bipartisan forestry legislation.

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to the time remaining on both sides.

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to point out those weren't my words. That was the information we got from the U.S. Forest Service that said there is no funding in this bill. If this bill passes without additional funding in the future, they will have to lay off 610 wildland firefighters. Maybe there is going to be a bill in the future to pour more money into the Forest Service, but this bill doesn't do it. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), the ranking member of the Committee on Agriculture.

Mr. WESTERMAN. Madam Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chair, I am glad we are finally here on the floor today talking about an issue that is important to our whole country. I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado and his concerns about wildfires. I wish that we could work together on actually solving these issues in a manner and with policy that would actually do something. I learned in engineering school that expending effort is not work. For example, you can push on a boulder all day, but until something moves, no work has been accomplished. To put it another way, there is a saying that you should never confuse motion with action, which is exactly what the legislation before us today does. This bill is more than 550 pages yet does absolutely nothing to prevent wildfires or significantly improve our resiliency to drought. This bill will actually make our wildfire crisis worse. Perhaps that is why my Democrat colleagues named it the Wildfire Response Act, instead of naming it the wildfire prevention act, which is what we should be focusing on because we will have to respond to all the wildfires that are going to happen anyway and the new ones that this bill creates. Here is a little bit of forestry 101. There are two ways to reduce wildfire risk: thinning and controlled burning. This bill mentions thinning zero times. Not once does it mention thinning, but it mentions environmental justice 165 times. That should tell you what this bill is really about. Instead of streamlining environmental regulations and addressing frivolous litigation, which delay vital forest management projects across the country, this bill would add mountains of new red tape on our Federal agencies that will grind their already glacial pace of treatments to a complete halt. It would throw out the Forest Service's 10-year strategy to reduce hazardous fuels and make them completely redo this work less than 6 months after they started implementing their current strategy. This makes you wonder if congressional Democrats disagree with the work of the Biden administration or if they have found the administration's work product is deficient and unreliable. It would lock up 58 million acres of land into new roadless areas, despite research showing that more than half of all fires, including most of the largest fires on Western U.S. national forest lands, burn primarily in roadless areas, areas where land use restrictions mean that we can't thin and can't do management. Instead, the bill would fund environmental volunteerism and provide N-95 masks and smoke inhalation equipment for homes, which I am sure will be of little comfort to people as their homes are burning to the ground. Democrats will tell you this legislation raises wildland firefighter pay to $20 per hour. The only problem with that is that firefighters already make at least $20 per hour, meaning this so-called raise is an empty promise. In the long term, the bill would write a check that it can't cash by setting up this new minimum pay rate with no actual money to back it up. The Forest Service has told us this means they would have to lay off over 610 wildland firefighters. Let me say that again: The Democrats' bill could result in the firing of more than 610 wildland firefighters who are putting their lives on the line to protect communities. This is a disgrace and will hurt our fire preparedness and response. As if that weren't enough, the bill would create new pay disparities by leaving out 10,000 brave men and women fighting fires from receiving new benefits. That is roughly 40 percent of the Federal firefighting workforce. Some of my Western colleagues will soon speak about the water provisions in this bill, but I want to say that the bill misses the mark on drought as well by proposing $4 billion in new authorizations and has unlimited mandatory spending. Once again, the other side of the aisle is passing on more debt to our future generations, and we see what uncontrolled spending has done to our economy with inflation, high energy prices, high food prices, and, really, higher prices across the board. According to conventional economics, we have had two quarters of economic decline, and we are in a recession. Why would we want to put more government funding and debt on our constituents? I do not understand. It would also devote some of these dollars to studies, research, and environmental water restoration projects that will not provide any water in the near term. It picks winners and losers in water projects, ignoring the need for expanded water storage reservoirs, the kind of infrastructure investment that has made the West what it is today and is necessary to ensure a drought-resilient future. This bill offers a one-dimensional approach to solving the Western drought that has impacted the entire country through decreased agricultural production. Reservoirs operated by the Bureau of Reclamation provide needed water to 10 million acres of farmland that collectively grow 60 percent of the Nation's vegetables and one quarter of our fresh fruit and nut crops. By throwing money at an issue and not recognizing that regulatory streamlining to expand water storage and efficiency of operations to promote drought resiliency should be part of this equation, this bill fails not only the West but everyone who buys food nationwide. Put another way, this bill fails every American household. This is bad policy and bad process. Democrats cobbled together this 550-plus-page bill behind closed doors, and not one wildfire provision was marked up in the Committee on Natural Resources. Republican Members made real attempts to provide alternatives and additions to this bill. Dozens of regulatory streamlining amendments that could have helped provide water or immediately prevented wildfires were submitted to the Rules Committee by Republicans, only to be ignored. Even the majority of bipartisan amendments were rejected. This is an abomination of process, but it is nothing new that we are seeing on this House floor. If you were here last night, you know that a Senate NEPA streamlining bill was parachuted in at the last minute. It was put on the suspension calendar. I hope this bill passes during the next voting series, but we should be doing NEPA revisions through hearings, through markups, and through regular order. If it takes getting one dropped in on the suspension calendar by the Senate, I guess we will have to take what we have got. But it would be nice if we could actually debate these and come up with more NEPA streamlining. In the midst of historic drought conditions and what is on track to be the most devastating wildfire season on record, we simply cannot afford to confuse motion with action. Madam Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reject this partisan package and, instead, work together on real solutions to prevent wildfires. Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WESTERMAN

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I, too, rise in support of S. 3451. However, when we start sacrificing regular order to score political points, we are on an extremely slippery slope. Unfortunately, that is the course this bill sets us on. It didn't move through the Committee on Natural Resources, the committee of jurisdiction. Instead, it was one of the many promises made by Democrat leadership to secure the votes they needed in the Senate to pass the CHIPS-Plus Act. The irony of this, Mr. Speaker, is yesterday we were in an all-day long markup in the Natural Resources Committee on Chairman Grijalva's Environmental Justice for All Act, which is a bill that really doubles down on NEPA regulations. Obviously, we have differences of opinion on that, but we were having the debate. Democrats wanted to increase NEPA regulations, Republicans wanted to streamline regulations. So you can imagine the shock when Chairman Grijalva's staff, almost simultaneously with my staff, told us to be prepared tomorrow afternoon because there is going to be a NEPA streamlining bill on the suspension calendar. When I was told the bill was being added, I thought to myself, this bill didn't go through regular order, and this is something my colleagues across the aisle would normally really be opposed to. So I Googled the bill, and it turns out that S. 3451 is but a bargaining chip in the larger CHIPS debate. This is what I found on the internet. It said, ``From yesterday's Roll Call, as they reported on the CHIPS-Plus package.'' A quote from that is: ``One of the Republicans who voted for the bill . . . had sought an amendment to fast track the permitting process for companies building semiconductor plants . . . instead he was promised that the House would clear his Senate-passed bill.'' This legislation, S. 3451, provides modest permit streamlining to expedite reviews of infrastructure projects concerning semiconductors, artificial intelligence and machine learning, high-performance computing and advanced computer hardware and software, quantum information science and technology, data storage, and data management, or cybersecurity. Mr. Speaker, I strongly support streamlining. In fact, for the last 18 months, Republicans on the Committee on Natural Resources have been calling to move legislation that would streamline the onerous NEPA process, cut bureaucratic red tape, and fight back against environmental activist litigants, the kinds of meaningful actions Congress needs to take to move our country forward. I woke up this morning, and I was reading online my local newspaper back home. There was actually a story about the CHIPS Act that talked about this very bill that we have on the suspension calendar today. I found it interesting that someone from the Sierra Club was interviewed about it. Now, normally if you are going to streamline NEPA, it sets Sierra Club's hair on fire, and they are calling all of their activists and putting alerts out. But it was interesting that on this one, the Sierra Club was going to study the text a little bit more, even though we are here this afternoon passing this on suspension. These commonsense Republican solutions are crucial to improving the health of our Federal lands, repairing our crumbling infrastructure, constructing water storage projects needed to make our Western communities more resilient to drought, and developing America's domestic resources to secure our supply chain and our country. In response, Democrats have repeatedly told us we were gutting bedrock environmental laws, and that we support pillaging the land from sea to shining sea. Just yesterday, I spent, as I mentioned, over 10 hours in a Committee on Natural Resources markup where the Democrats advanced a bill--we not only debated it; we marked it up and advanced it--a bill to expand NEPA, create more burdensome red tape, and handcuff our great Nation from future development. Now, today, after years of committee Republicans hearing how we are trying to destroy America, suddenly the exact same commonsense streamlining and reasonable sideboards on frivolous litigation are necessary to build semiconductor plants and America's future. This bill is only part of the solution. While building domestic chip manufacturing facilities is important and we want to bring those jobs to the United States for American workers, the reality is there is not much domestic about a chip made with 100 percent foreign materials. For instance, today, the United States is 100 percent reliant on other countries to meet our demand for gallium and indium, both of which are needed in semiconductors. China is the lead supplier for both. Semiconductors also require a mineral called bismuth, 90 percent of which the U.S. imports. Again, China is the lead supplier to the U.S. of bismuth. Semiconductors are among dozens of high-tech commodities, such as satellites, electric vehicles, and missile defense systems reliant on mineral resources to function. China unquestionably controls the market on nearly every one of the necessary minerals. If we truly want to secure the supply chain for semiconductors and the huge array of other products dependent on critical minerals, it is imperative to ensure a robust domestic mining industry through an efficient, predictable mine permitting system here in the United States. While the bill before us is a step in the right direction, it does not address the supply chain necessary to build our domestic high-tech manufacturing technology. Republicans have the solutions. To name a few: H.R. 2604, the Accessing America's Critical Mineral Act, introduced by Congressman Pete Stauber, reforms onerous and duplicative steps in the critical mineral permitting process by requiring Federal agencies to adhere to timelines and improve coordination. H.R. 2637, the American Critical Minerals Independence Act, introduced by Congressmen Michael Waltz and Paul Gosar, invests in recycling technologies and innovative mining and processing techniques, streamlines the permitting of critical minerals production, and requires that agencies analyze the mineral potential of Federal lands. If Democrats were serious about streamlining and promoting a robust domestic manufacturing sector for semiconductors and other high-tech applications, they would be bringing these bills and others to the floor. Mr. Speaker, S. 3451 is a modest step in the right direction, and I support the passage of this bill. Now that it appears Democrats have seen the error of their ways and they suddenly have done a 180 on streamlining environmental bureaucracy, I look forward to working with each and every Member who votes for this bill to advance many other Republican solutions to further address streamlining and secure a robust domestic critical minerals supply chain. Unfortunately, while I would like to say that, with Democrats' newfound support of streamlining, the remaining Republican solutions will be coming to the floor quickly, something tells me Democrats' willingness to ignore environmental extremists and bring up commonsense policy solutions like S. 3451 has a lot more to do with politics than making good policy. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WESTERMAN

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to visit Skamania County. It is a beautiful place, and I know that the people there will be great stewards of this land. It will be good for Skamania County, for Washington, and for the United States, and I urge adoption of the bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Herrera Beutler).

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I, too, rise in support of H.R. 5093, sponsored by the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Herrera Beutler). This is a good bill, and I commend her for her leadership on this effort. Skamania County in Representative Herrera Beutler's district is almost 77 percent federally owned. Unfortunately, because of the large number of public lands in the county, less than 2 percent of the county's land base can be taxed at full market value. The presence of a large Federal estate is shared by many other rural counties in the West, and it makes it very difficult for communities to generate revenue needed to fund schools, roads, and vital public services, such as police and fire departments. H.R. 5093 would transfer ownership of approximately 23 acres of the former Wind River Nursery from the Forest Service to the county to expand uses that will draw in tourism, provide economic opportunities, and create additional tax revenue for the county. The county estimates that this conveyance will ultimately lead to an additional $600,000 in revenue each year. Skamania County has also already made considerable investments to restore this site with upgrades to water mains, full restorations to two residential buildings, and electric improvements to four additional buildings. I, again, thank the gentlewoman from Washington (Ms. Herrera Beutler) for her leadership on this bill. The legislation reflects a locally driven compromise that meets the needs of the community, creates additional recreation opportunities, and will lead to better management of Federal land. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WESTERMAN

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I have no other speakers. I urge adoption of the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. McKinley), who is the Republican lead on this legislation and who is also a fellow engineer and knows a lot about coal mining.

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I, too, rise in support of H.R. 7283, the Safeguarding Treatment for the Restoration of Ecosystems from Abandoned Mines Act, also known as the STREAM Act. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriated $11.3 billion to the Abandoned Mine Lands, or the AML, trust fund. This money is for use by State AML programs to address abandoned mine lands created before enactment of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977. This historic, fee-based AML program allows a State to set aside up to 30 percent of its annual AML grant in an interest-bearing account to cover the long-term costs of acid mine drainage, or AMD, facilities, which are often needed to address water treatment in historic coal mining states. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act reauthorizes the collection of the AML fee at a reduced rate, as well as a 30 percent set-aside authority for States. However, the IIJA neglected to grant parallel set-aside authority for the newly authorized $11.3 billion in Treasury funds for AML projects. This is one of the many areas Congress will need to correct in the hastily passed IIJA bill, and it goes to show why we need to have regular order, why we need to have committee hearings, and why we need to take our time on these large bills. That large IIJA bill never went through a committee in the House. It was sent over from the Senate, hastily adopted, and here we are today, trying to fix it. I am sure it won't be the last time. The STREAM Act is a bipartisan bill that will make a technical fix to IIJA, clarifying that States receiving newly authorized funds for AML cleanup have the authority to set aside a portion of those funds for AMD cleanup purposes consistent with existing law. This will allow States to utilize AML funds according to their specific needs. That said, the Department of the Interior recently released final guidance for States applying to receive funds authorized for AML cleanup that includes requirements over and above the letter of the law. DOI should allow States to make decisions on prioritizing AML sites and refrain from imposing unauthorized and heavy-handed requirements. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. WESTERMAN

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

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Again, this is a simple issue. It is an issue that we shouldn't even be having to debate like this. It should be on suspension; but it just shows you how there has been an unwillingness to work on commonsense solutions to a simple problem. It took up 2 days of committee debate when we could have been talking about energy; when we could have been talking about high inflation prices; when we could have been talking about a water crisis in the West, the drought. Mr. Speaker, there are 600,000 acres of land laying fallow in California this summer because they don't have water. That has not even come up for one debate in our Natural Resources Committee. The gentleman talked about the crisis at the southern border. Forty percent of the southern border is public lands, which falls under the jurisdiction of our committee. We have not had a single discussion about it. We spent 2 days talking about big cats. We are spending valuable floor time before we split for the August break debating big cats. And we are debating an issue that could have been resolved simply. I hope that going forward, I hope we can work on these issues in a way that is better for the country; that is not trying to create some new bureaucracy that can be used to achieve other goals. And I hope that my colleagues will vote against H.R. 263. If it somehow gets out of the House, I hope the Senate will not pass it and maybe, in the next Congress, we can come back with commonsense legislation that addresses this issue; puts the jurisdictions under the right authorities; and we can, once and for all, move on from big cats, and we can start talking about real issues that matter to our constituents and to the hardworking taxpayers across the country. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I just want to point out that it has been argued that we have got a hodgepodge of laws across the State, or across the country, and that is what makes America great is that we can have different laws that are tailored to different regions of the country. But there are two Federal laws regulating exotic animals, and they are already on the books. The Captive Wildlife Society Act governs interstate commerce of big cats, and the Animal Welfare Act governs big cat enterprises. H.R. 263 would overlay existing exotic animal laws, further complicating Federal law and explicitly superseding State laws. If a new Federal law is necessary--I will say it again--the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS, within USDA, has the expertise and knowledge to carry out these responsibilities. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.