Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020
Floor Speech
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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for yielding me time, and I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Huffman) for raising concerns that I think many of us have. But in this case, I am supporting this amendment.
Mr. Chair, I have long fought to protect the health of our oceans and the sea life that inhabit them. That is why I have opposed the Trump administration's plan to drill in the gulf of Maine since day one. And I am proud that this Chamber recently passed our ocean acidification bill.
Along with my colleague from Maine's Second District, we represent 90 percent of all the lobster landings in the United States. Lobster is an iconic symbol of our State, especially this time of year when Mainers and visitors from across the country enjoy our coastline and our food.
I am proud of our very well-managed and highly restrictive lobster fishery of responsible operators. We need to work together on a new peer-reviewed tool to address this problem.
Our State also is the home of a vibrant conservation movement that supports marine conservation and protecting the right whale. We have been successful over the past several years in creating tools with NOAA, our lobster industry, and conservationists. Indeed, the State of Maine has been actively involved in right whale conservation and worked with NOAA in the past to ensure that our State is doing all we can to keep whales safe in our very active fisheries.
Unfortunately, in April, NOAA's Large Whale Take Reduction Team announced a plan to reduce right whale deaths that forced lobstermen to reduce their vertical lines by 50 percent. This risk-reduction tool, as my colleague mentioned, has not gone through a peer-review process despite significant concerns from the stakeholders that should be addressed. It does not account for many of the issues specific to the gulf of Maine.
Mr. Chair, for that reason, I urge my colleagues to stand for a fair process, and I support this amendment.
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Ms. PINGREE. Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment.
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Ms. PINGREE. Madam Chair, I am sorry to say that I have to oppose the amendment from the gentleman from Oklahoma and appreciate his thoughts, but he is completely wrong.
The amendment is a harmful rider that would prohibit the EPA from considering the social cost of carbon as part of rulemakings.
The ``social cost of carbon'' may sound a little confusing to people, but, frankly, it is an estimate of the economic damages associated with the small increase in carbon dioxide emissions in a given year. It represents, currently, our best scientific information available for incorporating the impacts from carbon pollution into regulatory analysis.
Weakening or eliminating the use of the social cost of carbon as a tool for Federal agencies would ignore the sobering cost of health, environmental and economic impacts of extreme weather, rising temperatures, intensifying smog, and other impacts.
We just cannot afford to abandon science at this critical moment in time. Our country needs to face the challenges ahead of us with climate change and have the best scientific tools available, and this is one.
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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I do appreciate my colleague from Oklahoma clarifying that it is a big State for renewables and Texas is as well, and I encourage them to continue farther down that path because that is certainly an important challenge that we have to overcome is having more renewables in our country.
I would again say that climate change is the greatest environmental threat that mankind has ever faced. We need to deploy every available tool at our disposal and address this crisis, including the best available science and economics, which I believe is also represented in the social cost of carbon analysis.
I strongly oppose the Mullin amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition, although I do not oppose the amendment.
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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Schrader).
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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this amendment, and I thank my colleague from the Appropriations Committee for doing this. This is an important amendment that would prohibit any changes to the Job Corps centers or their closure.
I appreciate that Secretary Perdue has announced his change of heart, but I want to make sure that the administration doesn't change the plan again.
I think everyone else has said it very articulately. These are really important operations. They teach our young people a tremendous number of things. They provide full-time and temporary jobs. In New England-- as on the West Coast, I am sure--we need a lot of these people to help us with some of the challenges that are going on today.
The Department of Labor had previously announced a proposal to close nine of the facilities. That would have impacted 356 full-time and 107 temporary and contract employees. More than 3,000 students were at risk of losing the opportunity to develop the skills and work experience they need to get jobs, and that would include the 966 students at centers that have been proposed for closure.
Our Nation would lose out as well. We have already heard some of the ways that would happen on the West Coast, as it certainly would on the East Coast as well. These are countless hours for young people in conservation work, forest restoration work, and wildland firefighting.
To quote a USDA web page, I will say that ``there has never been a time when Civilian Conservation Centers were more necessary or a more worthwhile investment in our Nation's future.''
Mr. Chair, I concur with the gentleman, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.
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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment, which would strike section 117 from the bill.
I have been a strong opponent of the current administration's offshore drilling proposals. I am proud to have the chance to manage this time in opposition to this amendment, which would be so devastating to States like my home State of Maine.
I want to start by correcting a mischaracterization that I think has been made. The description of the gentleman's amendment states that it is removing language from the Interior bill ``which prohibits funds'' for the administration's 5-year offshore drilling plan. That is actually not correct.
The language in the bill does not prohibit the administration from working on its plan. What the language in section 117 does is to tell the Interior Department that if it moves forward with oil and gas activities in 2020, it must do so only with respect to lease sales that have been through the entire approval and review process spelled out in the law.
Our language recognizes the fact that the 2017 offshore drilling plan under the previous Presidential administration is the only plan that has completed all the steps required by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. Because of that, we agree that the Interior Department is free to continue to implement the previous 2017 narrow plan.
In the meantime, it is true that the current administration is working on a new oil and gas drilling plan that would cover the 2019 to 2024 timeframe. This new plan, if implemented, would open up the entire East and West Coasts to drilling.
To date, the current administration has put out one iteration of its plan, with two more to go. Despite not having completed the process, the administration has acknowledged it is already conducting pre-lease work in the mid-Atlantic, south Atlantic, and southern California planning areas.
The budget for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management states that it is preparing ``four new environmental impact statements for the lease sales that are planned in early 2020 or early 2021,'' which is where the problem comes in.
The new 5-year plan, which is nothing more than a work in progress, is under siege, both from the courts and a complete lack of political support. In late March, a Federal court reinstated the moratorium in the north Atlantic planning area. That decision has essentially frozen work on the new plan.
In fact, the Secretary told me, under questioning in an Interior Subcommittee hearing last month, that he did not know the outcome of the proposed plan. He said a new plan wasn't ``imminent.'' He was also quick to point out that no previous 5-year plan has ever included drilling in a State that was opposed to such activity.
If that is his bottom line, then he might as well throw in the towel right now as there is not a single State along the Atlantic or Pacific Coasts that is in favor of drilling.
My home State of Maine has a $5.6 billion tourism industry, 71 percent of which comes directly from the Maine coast. Thirty thousand Mainers make their living in marine industries. Our world-famous lobster fishery alone brings in $500 million annually.
Our Governor, our Senators, our congressional delegation, and many of our cities and towns oppose the OCS drilling proposal.
As nearly one-third of the United States population lives in the coastal areas impacted by this proposal, and there is broad bipartisan opposition to this issue, moving forward makes no sense, either fiscally or practically.
The language in our Interior bill simply supports that position. It says to follow the law, complete all procedural steps, including responding to the concerns of the American public, the concerns of their Governors, and the concerns of their Members of Congress, before moving forward on individual drilling projects.
To the Department, it says to save its money until it completes the process and finds out if it can drill for oil off the coast of South Carolina or off the coast of Florida or off the coast of California.
Following a well-thought-out process, especially one contained in law, shouldn't be controversial, and I don't think it is.
As such, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment offered by the gentleman from Louisiana; protect our coastlines from Maine to Florida, from Washington State to California; and support the process contained in the OCS Lands Act.
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Ms. PINGREE. Mr. Chair, I am sorry to disagree, but I hope that my colleagues won't be fooled by the comments coming from the proponents of this amendment.
This is not about energy security or energy imports and exports. It is not about jobs. Instead, this is about whether the Interior Department is going to be held to the same procedural standard we expect every other department and agency to adhere to.
Mr. Chair, if my colleagues think the Department of the Interior should follow the law and complete the process, then I urge them to oppose the gentleman's amendment.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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