Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, earlier this year President Donald Trump submitted his budget request for fiscal year 2018 to Congress. The budget request included a 20 percent reduction in funding for the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance to $419 million, $129 million below the fiscal year 2017 level.

The underlying bill cuts roughly 15 percent of the EPA's enforcement budget, and my amendment would get us closer to meeting the President's request by cutting an additional $10,234,000 from the EPA's programs and management account enforcement line item.

Reducing the EPA's enforcement budget will help rein in inappropriate bureaucratic actions. It is necessary to revive the American economy and restore regulatory sanity to environmental regulations.

Make no mistake, Mr. Chairman, the American people cannot afford to continue to be burdened by an out-of-control EPA that overregulates and promulgates rules and then punishes the American by adjudicating unconstitutional penalties.

Mr. Chairman, I urge all Members to vote ``yes'' on my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. The EPA has no statutory duty to pursue or enforce regulation. My home State of Arizona, along with the States west of the Mississippi, are those who are most affected by the heavy hand of the enforcement arm of the EPA.

In my community, dust is the number one particulate. The EPA's response is to come to us in a desert and say: ``Water it down. Water it down.'' Then they come after us because of misuse of water.

This is the inconsistency that we see in the EPA that is weighing down the economy of many of the areas within the West.

The more I meet with local and national natural resource leaders, their number one concern mostly deals with the EPA's burdensome regulations and its enforcement proceedings. Further reducing the EPA's enforcement budget will limit its ability to stifle the economy and enforce unconstitutional rules.

I also want to emphasize the need to restore fiscal sanity in our country. With the ever-growing national debt, my amendment will return $10 million back to the United States Treasury.

I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Smith) for partnering with me on this effort, and to all Members who support our effort to restore fiscal and regulatory sanity in our country. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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