Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the amendment that I introduced with my friend from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) to prevent Federal funds from being used to close or transfer the operations of the U.S. Forest Service Job Corps Civilian Conservation Centers.

Mr. Chair, I am a strong supporter of this administration's demonstrated commitment to rural prosperity for communities often ignored or forgotten across this country. Their focus on promoting policies to protect rural communities is so important to regions of the country like my own district of central Washington.

Unfortunately, the recent proposal to close many Forest Service Job Corps facilities and remove the Forest Service-based mission from the remaining centers will hurt rural America.

It is for this reason that I have been working with a bipartisan coalition of Members from across the country, both in the House and in the Senate, to prevent this proposal from moving forward.

The three centers in central and eastern Washington are critical to supporting our rural communities, which are on the front lines of facing ever-worsening impacts of catastrophic wildfires.

I have met the students who aid active management efforts in our Nation's forests and help restore communities devastated by wildfires. The public service they provide is worthy of our support.

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Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Chair, the National Association of Home Builders accurately states that ``the Department of Labor has not disclosed any performance metrics or data to support its closure determinations, and it has provided little information on how it will continue to serve the thousands of at-risk youth who will be displaced from their local centers.''

In fact, Mr. Chair, many of the facilities slated to be closed, six out of the nine, like the Fort Simcoe facility in my own district, are some of the highest-performing centers in the country.

This simply makes no sense.

I thank Mr. Schrader and Mr. DeFazio, my colleagues from Oregon, as well as my colleague from Montana (Mr. Gianforte), for their leadership on this issue, as well as the dozens of bipartisan Members who have been working alongside Mr. DeFazio and myself to stop this proposal from moving forward.

I urge my colleagues to support our amendment.

Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers), my colleague from just east of me.

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