Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Agriculture, Rural Development, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2022

Floor Speech

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Ms. TENNEY. Mr. Speaker, I am here today with the support of seven of my House colleagues to introduce an amendment to section B of H.R. 4502.

This amendment will restore the principle of good governance, preventing precious, hard-earned taxpayer dollars from going to the Civilian Climate Corps, which is an unauthorized program.

As Members of the people's House, we have an obligation to ensure taxpayer dollars are spent effectively and that spending is held to the highest standards of accountability.

Yet, tucked away in the House Democrats' spending bill is funding for the so-called Civilian Climate Corps. The Democrats transferred $5 million, initially set aside for invasive species management, and directed it to this new program to fund bureaucrats.

But there is a problem. The Biden administration and Members of Congress have admitted they don't know how the program will function. From what we know about this program, it will be a new massive Federal slush fund focused not on sound climate policy but on advancing the partisan Green New Deal agenda.

Mr. Speaker, it is bad enough for government to fund a program that Congress hasn't authorized and can't effectively oversee.

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Ms. TENNEY. Mr. Speaker, there are plenty of programs that are covered by this bill, including the 2018 farm bill with the mission and expertise to manage invasive species. The Civilian Climate Corps should be debated and considered in the House before it is funded; otherwise, this is just another bureaucratic slush fund.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues in the House to support my commonsense amendment.

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