Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chair, as the designee of Ranking Member Lowey, I move to strike the last word.

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Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Chair, I acknowledge the work of the appropriators. As an appropriator myself, I have great respect for the work that they do. But I have concerns about the bill that is before us on the floor today.

Mr. Chair, as you know, a budget should be a statement of our national values. What is important to us as a Nation should be how we allocate our resources in that budget, and its manifestations in terms of appropriations bills should not be doing harm. This is really a partisan spending bill that tramples over some of our American values, gutting smart investments in our economy, hurting Americans' health, and endangering families.

The Republicans are pushing forward a minibus appropriations bill that fails to protect the interests of the American people.

Many of us have been attracted to the political process--as moms, as parents--to effect public policy to promote the well-being of our children in ways that are beyond our own control. We can give them all the love, attention, and care, but we cannot guarantee the quality of air that they breathe, the cleanliness of the water that they drink, and the world in which they live in terms of the environment.

So I have very serious concerns about the danger posed in the Energy and Water portion of this bill. It cuts vital clean energy initiatives, even as gas prices surge because of the President's reckless policies. It attacks job-creating investments in transformational energy technologies and slashes funding for critical nuclear nonproliferation priorities.

In terms of the children of whom I spoke earlier, this GOP bill also includes unacceptable poison pill riders that permit deadly firearms to be carried on public land, assaults the clean water our children drink, encourages pollution of our oceans, and pushes our Nation's already endangered species toward extinction.

This bad bill is a first step in the Republicans' plan to choke off funding--and this is really the critical part of it for me--for vital Democratic priorities for America's families later in the appropriations process. It paves the way for their plan to starve key investments in health, education, and good-paying jobs for communities across the country.

Mr. Chairman, the Republicans are wasting everyone's time when we should be focused on meeting the urgent needs of the American people. The majority has spent this entire Congress stacking the deck for special interests, as they do in these poison pills in this bill, while undermining the interests of families.

The Democrats are focusing on what matters in the lives of the American people. We are committed to giving the American people A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Pay, Better Future; and for our children, not to promote air pollution, which is what this bill would do, but to eliminate it.

I urge my colleagues to join in voting ``no'' on this bill for our economy. You know what the sad part of it is: it is so close to doing a better job for the American people. The poison pills take it in a bad direction. The process under which it was put forth is harmful to other priorities that I know we share in a bipartisan way across the aisle.

Hopefully we can work more closely as we go forward in a bipartisan way. That is the tradition of the Appropriations Committee.

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

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