Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. NORMAN. Madam Chair, I have been sitting here for about an hour listening to the debate back and forth on amendments. The amendments the Republicans are putting up are wanting to put some fiscal sanity back in this House. My good friends on the left are wanting to spend more money. The priorities and the cancer in this country is the bankruptcy of America. The amendments I have will offer to cut programs that need to be cut.
Amendment 108 prohibits funding for the American Climate Corps. My amendment would prohibit funding for the American Climate Corps that the Biden administration recently established through executive order. This costs, by the way, $30 billion. The Biden administration describes the American Climate Corps as a workforce training and service initiative for careers in clean energy and climate reliance economy. As part of the administration's Justice40 goal, the Corps will focus on equity and environmental justice. The American Climate Corps will cost, as I mentioned, $30 billion.
Instead of funding Democrats' woke climate agenda, why don't we focus on a pro-growth agenda that spurs the economy and prioritizes American energy independence?
Mr. Chair, I urge support of my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, I met a lot of the young people in the Corps. They are good people. They build bridges. They build roads in our national forests. Now, to task them with stopping storms and stopping hurricanes, that is preposterous. They do active work. To say they can effect that is just, it is laughable if it wasn't so serious.
Democrats want to focus on social movements and further entrench environmental justice in the bureaucracy. These priorities are misguided and harmful. I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and ensure that we don't waste more valuable taxpayer dollars and resources to fund the Biden administration's radical climate agenda.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, this is another spend-a-thon by my friends from the left. My amendment would prohibit funding for the rule titled, ``Control of Air Pollution from New Motor Vehicles: Heavy-Duty Engine and Vehicle Standards.''
My good friend, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Miller) and her family are big time farmers in Illinois, and anybody that farms the land--let me tell you what this is going to affect. As far as the actual vehicles, it affects all models in model year 2027.
EPA last tightened the NO
The American Truck Dealers estimates it is more likely a $42,000 increase. That is per truck. Talk about putting people out of business. Talk about attacking farmers and everyday Americans. This overreach of government could reach over $55 billion in the lifetime of the program.
I urge my colleagues on the left to reconsider this vast overreach of government.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, the compliance cost is unbelievably high. Owners and operators of trucks will be forced to leave the market or keep less safe trucks on the road.
According to the Truckload Carriers Association, the rule outpaces available technology and would worsen the already tight equipment market.
I hope everyone that is tuning in tonight listens to what this amendment will do to every American in this country, regardless if you are a farmer. If you just own a pickup truck, this is what we are talking about.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, my amendment would prohibit funding for policies that advance the Biden administration's radical diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda.
Specifically, my amendment would prohibit the use of funds for the Department of the Interior's Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Civil Rights. This office's goal is to promote equity and justice for all Americans. What does that mean? I think what they mean is they want equal outcomes instead of equal opportunity. What this does is further entrenches environmental justice in the bureaucracy in and of itself.
From the military to corporations to Federal agencies, we have seen time and time again that the DEI mission fosters tribalism in the workplace, undermines our shared American identity, and distracts from the missions of our Federal agencies.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, I close out by saying the cancer in this country is the $33 trillion in debt. Companies have to expend funds for this, which the interest alone is over $20,000 per second. Woke programs have got to be dealt with. The only way you deal with them is cut their funding.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, my amendment would prohibit funding for the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases. This is another bureaucratic nightmare that businesses are having to put up with.
This amendment would prohibit funds from being used by the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases. This group was originally convened by the Obama administration before being disbanded by the Trump administration and reimposed through Biden's radical climate Executive Order No. 13990. Democrats use the social cost of greenhouse gas metrics to justify sweeping climate policies and strict regulations that are vague and have no ending to the cost.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, I close by saying that by boosting the climate cost of projects, regulators can use the social cost of carbon to derail everything from energy to infrastructure projects. Agencies can also use a higher value to justify new regulations on everything from power plants to appliances in the home. This administration has attacked every appliance known to man, including the gas stove.
Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to adopt my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, what my amendment does is it reduces the salary of Tracy Stone-Manning, director of the Bureau of Land Management, to $1.
Mr. Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rosendale), my good friend.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, I will add that you are not firing anybody. You are just reducing their salary to what, in the minds of this body, they believe that it is worth. A dollar is plenty of money for what this lady does. By the way, she makes $148,500.
In the words of Bob Abbey, who was the first BLM Director under President Obama, he said that Stone-Manning's involvement with tree spiking should disqualify her from leading the agency.
Mr. Chairman, I urge support for my amendment.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chairman, my amendment will reduce the salary of Michael Regan, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to the large sum of $1.
Mr. Chair, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Miller), my good farmer friend.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, I just take issue, a dollar is--we are providing a person an opportunity to volunteer, which is a tremendous opportunity. Mr. Chairman, if you want to be serious about combating emissions and supporting good environmental policies, why don't we start with getting countries like India and Communist China to reduce their pollution? Nobody says anything about that from the left.
This administration is only interested in creating unfair, costly, and burdensome regulations that will kill American jobs. I am a developer. The gentlewoman mentioned solar panels. We priced them.
Mr. Chairman, guess where most of the components of solar panels are made?
China, which is not exactly a friend.
Mr. Regan's salary is a whopping $183,000. Like I said, we are promoting volunteerism and doing good work for mankind.
Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, my amendment would prohibit the funding for EPA's Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Workgroup. This group is, in their own words, committed to fostering an inclusive and respectful culture and improving justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. It commits to training and educating members on the implicit biases and historical environmental injustices.
Mr. Chair, you can look on their website to a page of resources with hundreds of woke documents. I will read just a few for my colleagues: The Whiteness of America, ``Remaking Manhood: The Battle Against Dominance-Based Masculine Culture,'' and Greed's Not Good: 10 Movies That Expertly Criticize Capitalism.
This is the one thing that has made America the greatest country in the world.
Another one is 23 Movies for Those Days When the Patriarchy's Got You Down. Another one is Inclusive Scientific Meetings. I don't know what that is.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, I just urge my colleagues to accept my amendment. If there were a salary I could cut, I would cut every bit of it. Taxpayers don't deserve this type of supposed work encouraging these types of things that are being done in this country.
Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, my amendment gives another member of the Biden administration's paid employees a chance for volunteerism and doing well for mankind.
It reduces the salary of Deb Haaland, who is the Secretary of the Interior, to a dollar. She is currently making $221,400. She holds extreme land and energy views, like support for the Green New Deal and opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline.
We are being forced to buy from OPEC countries that hate America that are funding Hamas now, and that is what this lady was for, doing away with the Keystone XL pipeline.
She has used the power of the Department of the Interior to implement her radical agenda at the expense of hardworking Americans.
Under her leadership she has shut down pipelines, delayed federally mandated onshore and offshore leases, repealed commonsense regulations, shuttered mining projects, and much more with no regard for how these actions have and will continue to raise energy costs, eliminate American jobs, and harm our national security and increase reliance on foreign energy sources.
We should not spend another dollar of taxpayer money funding her salary.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rosendale), my good friend.
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Mr. NORMAN. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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