Providing for Further Consideration of H.R. Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. STAUBER. Mr. Speaker, I find myself in rule debate today because my very reasonable amendment was not made in order. The amendment was germane to the bill, written with proper offsets, and in accordance with House rules. The denial of my amendment was purely political.

I wanted to debate my amendment on its merits because the passage of my amendment would mean jobs for families in Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District.

In northern Minnesota, there are vast reserves of copper, nickel, and other precious metals, offering the opportunity for northern Minnesota to power our economy while providing high-wage union jobs and diminishing our reliance on foreign resources.

The Twin Metals project has a long and difficult regulatory review ahead because our approval processes are the strongest in the world. Twin Metals is following the process. We require that they cross every ``t'' and dot every ``i,'' and they will employ our friends and neighbors in good mining jobs of the future.

Unfortunately, politicians in Washington and the Twin Cities metro area oppose this project. They know that we have the strongest environmental reviews in the world, and they know Twin Metals will have the opportunity to succeed, so they decided to change the rules.

They included language in this spending bill creating a ``study'' that does nothing more than delay this project. It is changing the rules when they know a project has a great chance to be successful.

Instead of including it in the base bill, they snuck it into committee report language. Instead of making my amendment in order, they decided to reject it, all because they want to interfere with a promising project in Minnesota District Eight.

Twin Metals will offer a mine plan of operation in the coming months. In that mine plan, they will lay out how they will extract our minerals and store tailings in an environmentally sound way. They will illustrate how they plan to meet or exceed all existing standards.

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