Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2017

Floor Speech

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, maybe the gentleman is aware, or maybe perhaps you are not aware, that there is an existing prohibition on lobbying that applies to all Federal employees that has been in place since 1919. I can cite it for you. So, in my opinion, this is unnecessary and redundant.

I would also remind my colleagues that Federal employees are not prohibited from providing information to Congress on legislation, policies, or programs. But there must be an open dialogue between legislative and executive branches to ensure laws are being implemented appropriately and that programs achieve their intended goals. We cannot, or we should not, operate in an information vacuum.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, there is an existing prohibition on lobbying. We have agreed with that. It applies to all Federal employees, and it has been in place since 1919. If a Federal employee breaks that, then a Federal employee needs to be held accountable.

So, in closing, Mr. Chairman, I believe we do not need an extraneous, redundant provision to a bill that is already overburdened with harmful legislative riders. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I want the gentleman to know that I, at times, have shared his frustration with getting answers back from the administration. His amendment, I think, is going to get everybody's attention. Unfortunately, his amendment seeks to restrict the information provided from the EPA by just eliminating the funding for the Office of Congressional/Legislative Affairs.

I use that office quite a bit. Sometimes I agree with them, sometimes I don't, but we have a dialogue going forward. In order to make educated and informed decisions on environmental legislation, I believe Congress should have all of the material available, including from the administration.

What I am hearing from the gentleman is that they are not responding to him in an adequate fashion. I hear his passion in this and, at times, I have shared his frustration.

I would suggest that we work together to figure out ways to improve communication dialogue and hold them accountable when they don't get it--put a bright spotlight on it--but I oppose eliminating it.

I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, over the past few years, we have taken several votes on whether or not we should waive prevailing wage requirements that are contained in Davis-Bacon. In each and every instance, the Congress has rejected these efforts because there is strong bipartisan support for fair labor standards for construction contracts.

Davis-Bacon is a pretty simple contract, and it is a fair one. What the Davis-Bacon Act does is it protects the government as well as workers in carrying out a policy of paying a decent wage on government contracts. Davis-Bacon simply requires workers on federally funded construction projects be paid no less than the wages paid in the community for similar work. I want to stress this again--Federal construction projects to be paid no less than wages paid in communities for similar work.

It requires every contractor for which the government is a party in excess of $2,000 contain a provision defining minimum wages paid to various classes of laborers and mechanics. This law has helped workers in all trades all over the Nation, and there is no need to abandon those workers today. I urge my colleagues to oppose the King amendment.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Kilmer).

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, while I would just like to point out that corporate interests and their advocates often claim that Davis-Bacon increases taxpayers costs, there isn't a study that proves that. In fact, a study of school construction costs in the Great Plains States shows that prevailing wage laws did not only not raise constructions costs, but also that repealing such wage laws hurt taxpayers and workers.

After Kansas' prevailing wage law was repealed, wages fell 11 percent, training programs declined by 28 percent, and job site injuries rose 19 percent. Highway construction costs are actually higher when workers are paid less, according to an analysis of the Federal Highway Administration data by the Construction Labor Research Council. The studies showed that the cost to build 1 mile in States average $17.65 per hour, compared with low wages of $9.97 per hour, on average. Money was actually saved, on average, by higher productivity. Better productivity, better wages.

In Wisconsin, a study of the State's prevailing wage laws shows that potential savings from wage cuts were never outweighed by the cost of income to communities. Annual costs of repealing the law has estimated between $123 million in lost income and net tax revenues to a loss of $6.8 million. In Missouri, a similar study showed a loss to the State of $380 million to $384 million. Cost overruns are more likely without prevailing wages.

As a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, I urge my colleagues to oppose the King amendment and pay people in the community a prevailing wage under Davis-Bacon.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. This amendment would prohibit the Bureau of Land Management from implementing a uniform national standard for hydraulic fracking on public lands. This amendment would prohibit the BLM from implementing a uniform national standard for hydraulic fracking on public lands. Public lands only. Such a standard is necessary to ensure that operations on public and tribal lands are safe and environmentally responsible.

Of the 32 States with potential for oil and gas development on federally managed mineral resources, only slightly more than half have rules in place to address hydraulic fracturing. And those that do have rules vary greatly in their requirements.

So BLM continues to offer millions of acres of public land for conventional and renewable energy production, and it is critical that the public have confidence and transparency that effective State and environmental protections are in place.

So, as I said before, there are 32 States, and half of them don't even have anything in place that BLM could use. BLM is looking to have an implementation of a rule in State offices, and they are in the process of meeting with their State counterparts, undertaking State-by- State comparisons and regulatory requirements. I believe what the gentleman has told me about Colorado; it looks like that would be best practices and something BLM would want to look at and maybe model under.

So they are trying to establish memorandums of understanding. Unfortunately, what your amendment does is stop that from going forward. I think that, for right now, BLM needs to come up with a transparent standard so that when people are interacting with BLM State by State and when the taxpayers are looking at what BLM is doing, there is transparency, there is clarity, and there is uniformity.

Unfortunately, I have to oppose the gentleman's amendment.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. I thank the gentleman for an interesting discussion, but here is the challenge I see: 32 States with the potential of oil and gas development on federally managed lands, only slightly more than half have rules in place. So then, if the Federal Government is considering possible development on its own land and it is in a State that doesn't have a rule, they need to have a rule. They need to have transparency. They need to have accountability to the taxpayer, to our constituents.

So they are trying to form rules and regulations, and I am hopeful that BLM--and I will make some inquiries--is in the process of meeting with their State counterparts and taking best practices to develop rules, to develop transparency, to develop accountability in the States where no rules exist.

At this current time, I really have to oppose the gentleman's amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, the service attempts to comply with the statutory mandate to review the status of listed species every 5 years to determine whether or not the classifications of threatened or endangered are still appropriate, and you gave some eloquent answers.

However, the service has a backlog of such reviews due to the funding limitation, such as the 30 percent listing reduction contained in this bill--$3 million less than they had last year. This has been cumulative time and time again.

So if you don't have the resources, if you don't have the staff, if you don't have the wherewithal to get out in the field and do the job, a backlog occurs. The reason why, that they are behind with the backlog on this, is because they don't have the resources to do their job.

And whose responsibility is that?

It is Congress' responsibility to make sure that they have the funding necessary to get up, go to work in the morning, and get rid of this backlog and do their job. We have a responsibility to put the tools in the toolbox for them to be able to do their job properly; and this Congress, and this piece of legislation, fails to give them the tools in the toolbox, and so the backlog will continue.

So I oppose the gentleman's amendment because it is not U.S. Fish and Wildlife's lack of wanting to do their job. It is their lack of ability, through the lack of funding, to do the job the way that they would like to do it.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Once again, I thank the gentleman for being here because I think we have had some discussions about the work that needs to be done on the policy committees and some of the challenges that we have in this bill with our limited resources.

As my grandmother would say, and maybe you had a grandparent who had a similar saying: You can't get water out of a rock.

We keep asking the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, all kinds of wonderful people who get up every morning wanting to do the best job possible and protecting our natural resources, to do more and more and more and more with less. At some point, they just can't do any more because they don't have the full-time equivalents. They don't have the scientists that they can hire. They don't have the resource managers who can get out and work in the local community. They are hamstrung.

So for only that reason, I oppose the gentleman's amendment. If they were fully funded and I could look them in the eye and say, ``You have all the tools in the toolbox; get the job done,'' I would be with you, sir. But they do not have all the tools in the toolbox, and this Congress has underfunded them repeatedly, and that is why we have the backlog. I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit Fish and Wildlife from implementing or enforcing a threatened species listing of the Preble's meadow jumping mouse under the Endangered Species Act.

On April 11, 2016, the service announced the availability of a draft recovery plan for the Preble's meadow jumping mouse which the public could review and comment on until June 10, 2016.

Now the service is currently reviewing and considering all the comments that they received, so nothing is final yet. So this is premature. You are predicting an outcome that I don't know whether or not you would agree with. So under this amendment, the service would not be able to continue to recover this species because the Endangered Species Act would still apply. The service would not be able to work with agencies. It would not be able to work with developers. It would not be able to work with landowners in order to abide ESA compliance.

Additionally, the amendment will also limit the service from undertaking required status reviews of the subspecies from being able to implement any rulemaking down-listing or delisting the species if they thought it was appropriate after they were done with their review.

Sadly, the gentleman's amendment would undermine the service's ability to work collaboratively with States, local governments, communities, and landowners to conserve this imperiled species, and the amendment would create uncertainty for landowners and also make them vulnerable to lawsuits. So I think we should be supporting Fish and Wildlife to finish doing the job that it started and not blocking it from doing the job it is currently getting ready to do when it comes to this species.

So because nothing is final yet, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, the fuel standards for the trailers that they are studying were jointly proposed by the EPA and the Department of Transportation.

Does the gentleman have a rider in anything from the Department of Transportation to prohibit their funding?

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Ms. McCOLLUM. That answers part of my question, because even if he was to be successful with his amendment in the way the amendments are going--I am kind of predicting that he might be on a voice vote--it would still be moving forward under the Department of Transportation.

The standards that they are looking at are to help achieve greenhouse gas emissions and reductions. In my opinion, that is a good thing to do. The amendment would prohibit the EPA from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing its greenhouse gas rules by carving out this exemption for trailers.

Now, the other reason why I am opposing the amendment, and I am being consistent with this, is the proposed regulation is still currently open for public comment. We don't know what the final comment is going to be. We don't know what is going to happen in the future, so I don't think we should be interfering with a rulemaking process on an appropriations bill.

I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, once again, my primary reason for getting up and opposing the amendment is it blocks the EPA from finalizing regulations. The amendment would ensure that there are no public health or environmental standards tailored specifically to address the technologies and challenges associated with this most widely used method of uranium recovery.

What the EPA is looking at doing is establishing requirements for leaching, which is a mining process in which boreholes are drilled into a deposit of uranium, and liquid solution is injected into the holes to absolve the uranium deposits to make sure that the aquifers are protected.

I believe that the EPA should be looking at standards that will establish requirements to ensure that groundwater is restored to pre- mine levels, that restoration is stable before a site is abandoned, and that these rules should be, moving forward, being finalized.

To the gentlewoman from Wyoming--and I don't say this on the floor very often, and I think she knows this--who I consider a dear friend and I will miss upon her not running for reelection, I am concerned when I hear my colleagues say that they are not hearing back from people in a timely fashion. So I am going to be looking into that. But right now, at this particular time, because we are in the process of finalizing regulations and we don't know what they are going to look like as of right now, I have to oppose this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, Fish and Wildlife inspections serve an important role for ensuring sustainability in regularly harvested species, which is essential to preserving the economic interests of the industry as well as the ocean ecosystems.

The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee has been discussing the perishability of ecoderms for many years. Yet it has not had any other in-depth discussions about any other species.

I know the authorizing committee has been looking at this issue, and I would suggest that they are the proper committee to address any changes to permanent requirements that are requested in this amendment--permanent requirements.

Unlike the ecoderms, it is my understanding that these species are frozen seafood products instead of fresh.

Is it true they are frozen seafood products instead of fresh?

I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas so he may answer that question.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, in reclaiming my time, it is my understanding that they are frozen. Therefore, they are not perishable as are the other ecoderms we had been speaking to.

I would ask that Members oppose this amendment and consider any legislation produced from the House Natural Resources Committee as the appropriate vehicle to resolve this issue.

I asked the gentleman a question about whether they are frozen seafood products or not. That seems to be in doubt. I have it under good information that they are. The gentleman is not sure. Therefore, I think it is really appropriate that this amendment be tabled, or voted down, until the proper committee has had a chance to review it, because what we are about to engage in here is a radical, radical change in what current law is.

I oppose this amendment.

Mr. Chair,

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, without doing inspections, we have no way of knowing whether or not these are potentially endangered species. They are not. They would be exempted from the Lacey Act. That is why I am saying that this amendment is so radical in its nature of changing what current practice is.

I am pretty confident that these are frozen seafood products. What we were looking to address in the report language in the discussions that we have had in the committee is, for example, sea urchins, which are highly perishable, and that you have to have a quick turnaround in working with Fish and Wildlife to make sure that those inspections are taking place like that so that the fishermen and -women aren't put at an economic disadvantage.

I am very strongly in opposition to this amendment. I think the gentleman is going to go forward with it, but I really wish this could be tabled so that we could have a full discussion about what we are talking about. I think, with the best of intentions, the gentleman will go someplace, and I am not sure we will fully understand what the final product will be at the end. I oppose the amendment strongly.

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

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

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, as the gentleman pointed out, the wolf is an animal which exists in the great State of Minnesota, where I am from. This is not an issue that I am unfamiliar with, having worked on it in the State house when the Federal Government and the State were coming to fruition on how to protect this iconic American species.

But this amendment is an attack on that species. The work of the Keystone species, as we both know, plays a vital role in keeping our ecosystem healthy. Deer populations, the gentleman and I, being familiar with that, know how important they are to the entire ecosystem. It is also an animal to my Native American brothers and sisters in Minnesota and the surrounding area that have a deep kinship and bond with. In fact, at a wolf roundtable I had, I heard directly from many tribal leaders that the protections that are afforded under the Endangered Species Act for gray wolves is the only way in which they have been able to keep wolf hunts away or out of the tribal reservation boundaries.

I understand many of my colleagues have very strong feelings about listing and delisting and the way it affects their States, but currently, this is in the courts right now. We don't know how the courts are going to come down on its ruling, so I think we should not interfere in what is a court process.

The Endangered Species Act also exists to offer necessary protections and ensures species survival, which the majority of my constituents and constituents all across the United States support.

And this is the same law that helped successfully restore another iconic American system: the bald eagle.

This amendment would restrict the Department of the Interior's ability to implement the Endangered Species Act. However, it does not alter the protection for the endangered wolves in the State. Regardless of one's position on species protections, the amendment is problematic.

Its restrictions will ultimately hurt farmers, ranchers, landowners, and business owners because under this amendment the Fish and Wildlife Service would not be able to offer any exemptions or permits for incidental killings of wolves to landowners, ranchers, and other parties who might need them. Right now, the way the law stands, they can do that. If this amendment were to pass, they would not be able to do that.

The prohibition against accidental kills or takes would remain, and it would still be legally enforceable. Constituents in these States would either have to stop any activity that led to the taking of wolves or they would be put in harm's way to lawsuits and heavy penalties.

So I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. I thank the gentleman. I think we just disagree on the timing of this amendment and what this amendment would actually lead to have happen in our States and our communities. It is in the courts right now. The courts could very well rule in a way that you would be very pleased and very satisfied with, and I think we should let the court procedure take place.

Simply put, in my opinion, this amendment is bad for wolves, bad for our ecosystem, bad for business, and my constituents think it would be a really bad thing to have move forward. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I claim time in opposition.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, to my colleague, I think we both would agree that drinking water is critical and limited in some of our rural communities, and we need to work together to address real threats to those sacred and precious resources. We should be protecting those communities from irresponsible factory farms rather than shielding large corporations from liability when their actions do make people sick. I think we probably both agree on that.

But your amendment isn't about drinking water. It is about RCRA. Your amendment prohibits the EPA from, maybe in the future, regulating an animal feed operation under RCRA, which is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

Right now, the EPA does not regulate animal feeding operations, and the Agency has no immediate plans to develop or issue such regulations, so this amendment is unnecessary, and I strongly oppose it because it also gets involved in blocking the EPA Administrator from working on possibly anything else in the future that we might agree that would affect drinking water, which I don't think is part of this.

So the fact that RCRA does not regulate animal feeding operations underneath this statute and the Agency has no immediate plans to do it, and the way that the defunding is happening, I just have to oppose this amendment at this time.

Mr. Chair, if I could just say something about some of these amendments, I understand that sometimes people are fearful of what may or may not happen in the future, and so we have had many amendments that have either interjected before a court has ruled or interjected before a final rulemaking has taken place or interjected before all the public comment has been taken in consideration.

I just think that the authorizing committee needs to be looking at what happens in public comment, and then if the Congress disagrees with a rule that comes out, that is when our role is most appropriate. I don't think we should have a role in predicting the future. I oppose this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I want to be very clear. I think people who lose livestock to wolf predation should be reimbursed. I want to be very, very clear about that. I supported that as a State legislator, and I support it now. However, in 2014, this program for recouping farmers and ranchers is in the Agriculture bill. The Agriculture bill hasn't come to the floor yet.

EPA has been cut enough. We aren't doing enough for clean drinking water. You have seen the cuts that have been on the floor to fund other programs today.

We have funded this out of Fish and Wildlife, and now you are taking the funds for the Fish and Wildlife out of the Environmental Protection Agency. This belongs in the Agriculture bill.

And so, in effect, what you are doing--because you continue to fund it out of the Interior bill, we are going to have a significant reduction to the EPA. The EPA was already reduced $164 million below 2016. These deep reductions impact the ability of the EPA to protect human health and the health of our environment. It jeopardizes our ability to ensure that there is clean air and clean water for families today and for future generations.

I just cannot support reducing the EPA any longer. I will join you on an amendment to fund this out of where it belongs--from the 2014 Agriculture bill--but I cannot support it coming out of the EPA. It belongs in the Agriculture bill, where it is authorized.

For that reason, I urge my colleagues to reject this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. McCOLLUM. Will the gentleman yield?

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Ms. McCOLLUM. In 2009. We passed a law in 2014. The legislation that is in charge of this program now, in 2014, current law, is not in this bill anymore. It is in the Agriculture bill.

And I thank the gentleman for yielding.

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