Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Chair, my appreciation goes to Chairman Simpson and Ranking Member Pingree and to the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee staff for their hard work on this bill, especially Rita Culp and Jocelyn Hunn.

The departments and agencies funded in the Interior-Environment appropriations bill ensure that our air is safe to breathe, that our water is safe to drink, that our national parks and other public lands are protected and accessible to the American people, and that our Nation's unique and iconic flora, fauna, landscapes, and ecosystems are preserved for our health, safety, and enjoyment for generations to come.

Rather than making sound investments to protect our air and water, preserve our national parks, and ensure the environment we all share and live in remains clean and protected, the majority's bill benefits the most egregious polluters and climate science deniers, jeopardizes public health and safety, hinders our responses to the climate crisis, and endangers rural and low-income communities.

This disastrous proposal did not come out of nowhere. This is explicitly where the majority wants to take the country. Project 2025 is the Trump MAGA Republican agenda to take over the government and destroy our rights and freedoms, but it is not just a document on a website. We can see the fingerprints of Project 2025 across each of the majority's appropriations bills.

Project 2025 commands that environmental oversight and regulations be rolled back or entirely eliminated, preventing the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency from safeguarding the atmosphere, our waterways, and public lands, and preventing the Department of the Interior and EPA from tracking emissions and pollutants. It reverses critical protections for endangered species, including for the grizzly bear and gray wolf.

Of course, Project 2025 steps on the gas, so to speak, when it comes to fossil fuel extraction, and it pumps the brakes on any green energy investments.

In short, Project 2025 advocates for climate and environmental arson. We can see exactly where the majority has taken its cues from the climate catastrophe manifesto in this bill.

The majority cuts the EPA's clean water and drinking water State revolving funds by $678 million. This is funding for water that we drink and bathe and cook with, a basic necessity that we have a clear obligation to protect for the American people.

The bill zeros out funds for environmental justice, worsening the impacts of environmental discrimination for poor and rural communities. Every American deserves to live in a healthy, clean, and safe environment, but this bill abandons those who are most affected by environmental destruction and climate change.

By cutting efforts to reduce carbon emissions, slashing community resiliency programs, and requiring fossil fuel lease sales on public lands while prohibiting clean energy projects, the bill unwinds our response to climate change and promotes dirty energy, taking the side of fossil fuel companies and those who deny the scientific reality rather than address the escalating risks to our economy and our national security presented by the changing climate and growing number of extreme weather events.

The impacts of climate change are deadly, costly. They can be felt in communities around the world, including in our own districts. We cannot put our heads in the sand and act like climate change will disappear.

I proudly worked across the aisle to protect our environment and public lands for Americans past, present, and future, and I am immensely disappointed to see the majority abandon their obligation to conserve America's lands and natural resources.

I believe the national parks are America's best ideas, but sharp cuts to the National Park Service means fewer seasonal employees and furloughing existing permanent employees, making it more difficult and cumbersome for our constituents to visit and enjoy our Nation's crown jewels.

Cuts to the Smithsonian Institution will likewise curb America's access to the world's greatest museum, education, and research complex.

To top it all off, the majority has included some 83 new policy riders that put endangered species at risk, damage the environment, obstruct clean energy development, hinder the work of the Environmental Protection Agency, and discriminate against millions of Americans.

I would like to read a portion of a letter that we received from 69 environmental organizations, led by the League of Conservation Voters and Trust for Public Land. They say: ``This bill is riddled with so many outrageous policy attacks on our environment that it is impractical to list them individually. Similarly extreme riders were removed from the final FY24 Interior appropriations bill just a few months ago. By going down this path again, we fear Congress is wasting valuable time that could be better spent producing bipartisan legislation that has a realistic chance of becoming law. We urge you to reject this proposal, which is equal parts damaging and unrealistic.''

The ramifications of this bill will reach into every corner of this country. This bill damages our public lands. It promotes dirty energy. It jeopardizes biodiversity and obstructs our response to the climate crisis. Thus, I cannot support this bill. I encourage my colleagues to vote against it.

Democrats are ready to pass legislation that protects our environment, our public lands, and the health and the safety of the American people. I implore the majority to join us.

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