Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. SIMPSON. Madam Chair, I rise today in support of the Interior and Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations bill. I applaud Chairman Calvert and his staff, along with Ranking Member McCollum and her team for crafting a responsible bill.

As a former chairman of this subcommittee, I know firsthand the challenges assembling this bill presents. There are diverse views across the United States on how our public lands and environment should be managed. For those of us that represent states with high percentages of federal lands--more than 60 percent in Idaho--you would be hard pressed to find a more important bill in Congress.

The bill before us today addresses the most important issues in Idaho. Perhaps most pressing is the need to adequately fund wildfire suppression and prevention. If you look at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) outlook map, it indicates that almost my entire district is at an increased fire threat during July and August. Sadly, this has been the new normal.

The bill under consideration today addresses this by fully funding the 10 year average for wildfire suppression and provides an additional $500 million to combat this growing threat. It also provides increased funding for prevention efforts. Next year, relief is on the way in the form of my Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, which will treat catastrophic fires like natural disasters. This will set us on a path to reduce the threat of wildfires and allow land managers to do the prevention work without their resources being stolen to fight fires.

The bill also contains many other important provisions:

Provides Funding for PILT that is vitally important in Idaho for rural counties that depend on it.

Establishes certainty for biomass which is critical to the landscape of our forests.

Rolls back regulations like the previous Administration's ``Waters of the United States'' rule.

Provides increased funding to address the $12 billion backlog in to our National Parks.

Provides $2.6 billion for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Loan fund, which states and localities use for water infrastructure projects.

The list goes on, but the underlying point is the Interior and Environment bill is a critical piece of legislation, especially for those of us in western states. I want to reiterate my appreciation to Chairman Calvert and his staff of Dave LesStrang, Darren Benjamin, Betsy Bina, Jaclyn Kilroy, Kristin Richmond, Ian Foley, and Mac Cloyes. Their late nights and early mornings have produced a product that members of Congress, particularly in the west, should be proud of.

I urge my colleagues to support this measure.

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