Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. Chair, I rise in support of the amendment from the gentleman from Minnesota.
Every worker is entitled to receive pay for the hours they work; however, there are employers that refuse to pay for overtime, make their employees work off the clock, or refuse to pay minimum wage. At the very least, we should take steps to ensure that these employers don't receive new Federal contracts.
This amendment would ensure that lawbreaking contractors don't get rewarded for stealing from their employees.
I support this amendment, and I ask for an ``aye'' vote.
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Ms. McCOLLUM. The fact is that this is a very broadly written amendment that would prevent the Federal Government from requiring polluters to pay for cleanup costs. Specifically, I would point out that the EPA is involved in numerous consent decree negotiations that result in payments to the Federal Government by responsible parties.
The ability of the Federal Government to recoup these funds from polluters is an essential part of maintaining good environmental policy and protecting public health and protecting taxpayers, not polluters. For example, some Superfund sites that the EPA may spend Superfund trust moneys up front to initiate the cleanup of a potential responsible party are not yet identified or the cleanup order or settlement agreement with the identified parties is not yet finalized.
In the event that the EPA does expend Superfund moneys at a site with veritable parties, reimbursements may be included in the terms of any settlement agreement that may be entered into with the parties. However, this amendment would prevent the EPA from receiving such reimbursements from the responsible parties in such an instance.
There are also times when defendants in settlement negotiations seek payments to third parties rather than the Federal Government. One such example is the settlement negotiations that followed the catastrophe at the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
As part of the criminal settlements that BP and Transocean reached with the Federal Government, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a congressionally chartered nonprofit, received the funds to undertake the projects to help remedy the harm that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico--something I would agree all needed to happen--yet under this amendment, those payments would have been prohibited. It would be completely irresponsible.
This amendment is bad for the taxpayer, bad for public policy, and very bad for the environment.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BUCK. I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, once again, voting for this amendment and having it move forward would be completely irresponsible. This amendment is bad public policy, bad for environment, and it is bad for the taxpayer. I urge defeat of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, this amendment clearly would serve no purpose but to erode collective bargaining rights for civil service employees and may violate collective bargaining agreements negotiated between workers and these agencies.
Federal unions are legally required to provide representation to all members of bargaining units, whether or not those workers elect to pay voluntary union dues. Representation for employees working their way through the administrative procedures is a cost-effective process for administrating and adjudicating agency policies.
The alternative for official time is for the government agencies to pay for costly third-party attorney and arbitration fees. Eliminating official time would increase costs, and it would increase more time and effort for agencies to work out any conflicts with employees. That drives up the cost for taxpayers.
Official time is essential to maintaining workplace safety. Union representation uses official time to set procedures to protect employees from on-the-job hazards. Official time is used to allow employees to participate in work groups with management teams to improve the process and improve performance outcomes.
Under current law, official time may not be used to solicit membership, may not be used to conduct internal union meetings, may not be used to elect union officers, may not be used to engage in any partisan activities, and the notion that official time is used for any of these purposes is false.
I urge a ``no'' vote on the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. BUCK. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, once again, this amendment would serve no purpose but to erode the collective bargaining rights of civil service Federal employees, hard-working Americans.
For that reason, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. Chair, there are many of us here in Congress who want to build a better America, a stronger America, a healthier America. And there are many of us here who are willing to work and fight to move our country in that direction forward, which is the direction the American people want to go.
For most Americans, for families and communities all across this country, protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink is an essential role of government. The American people expect Congress to protect the public's health from polluters who are all too willing to reap larger and larger profits as they pump poison into our air and water.
We hear all too often the cries of ``burdensome regulation'' from those who defend the polluters. But rarely do we hear the cries of ``burdensome asthma'' or ``burdensome cancer'' from average Americans who all too often suffer in silence when they are sick because the air, water, or land they need has been poisoned.
My Republican colleagues are very content to cut funding and place riders on the enforcement of environmental standards to make life easier for the polluters.
But what about the families and the communities put at risk? What about the children who are at risk because avoiding environmental regulations to pump up profits is more important than public health?
The role of the Environmental Protection Agency is to protect the public, to protect our health, to protect our water, to protect our air, to protect our land from polluters who are all too willing to cut corners, enabling them to reap larger profits.
Investing in environmental regulation to protect the American people is a government function that is not burdensome. It is essential.
We should all want to protect the public's health and the vital role that the Environmental Protection Agency plays on behalf of the American people, but this bill fails to protect the American people. It fails to protect the public's health, and it fails to provide the tools necessary to hold polluters accountable for poisoning our air, our water, and our land. If this bill ever finds its way to the President's desk, President Obama will veto it.
Mr. Chairman, this is an important bill, and the investments we make together in this Interior-Environmental Appropriations bill speak to our values as a nation. We are the stewards of a bounty of resources, the inheritors of a nation of natural treasures; and there are 300 million Americans who depend on this Congress to ensure those resources, including our clean air and clean water, are protected.
Sadly, Mr. Chairman, very sadly, this bill lets them down. So I will urge my colleagues at the end of the day to vote against final passage, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of
the gentleman from California's opposition to this amendment.
It has been used in my State and States all over to improve air quality, and, yes, pollutants have been cut. But as I just pointed out, Mr. Chairman, we still have a long way to go before we can turn to our children and say that we did everything we could to make sure that respiratory illness is decreased and that the air quality in this country is better.
So I strongly oppose this amendment, and I thank the gentleman from California for his opposition to it as well.
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Mr. Chairman, I will just be short and sweet. I support the gentleman from California's strong objection to this amendment and would encourage people not to vote for it.
Let me conclude with this: an EPA law enforcement official deserves the right to come home to their families safe at night, and so they should have the tools that they need in order to do that.
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Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. I am actually quite surprised that we find ourselves here tonight attempting to overturn the National Park Service recent policy changes to stop allowing the Confederate flag to be displayed or sold in national parks.
Mr. Chair, just yesterday, this House passed amendment after amendment supporting the removal of the symbol of racism from our national parks, which are visited every day by Americans and foreign visitors of every race.
We have read about the divisive tactics happening in the South Carolina statehouse as they debate the removal of the Confederate flag after the murder of nine Black parishioners.
I never thought that the U.S. House of Representatives would join those who would want to see this flag flown by passing an amendment to ensure the continuing flying of the Confederate flag. I strongly urge every Member to stand with the citizens of all races and to remove this symbol of hatred from our National Park Service.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CALVERT. Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of the amendment.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Ms. McCOLLUM. Mr. Chair, I want to restate: On June 25 when National Park Service Director Jon Jarvis requested that Confederate flag sales be removed from national park bookstores and gift shops, he also followed a decision by several large national retailers--Walmart, Amazon, and Sears--to stop selling items with Confederate flags on them, and I agreed with these decisions. I commend those for their prompt action.
While in certain and very limited circumstances, it might be appropriate in a national park to display the image of the Confederate flag in a historical context--and I say that as a social studies teacher--the general display or sale of Confederate flag items is inappropriate and divisive. I support limiting their use.
I strongly oppose this amendment, which is an attempt to negate amendments which were approved yesterday without any opposition to limit the displaying of the Confederate flag, and so we should make sure that we uphold what this House stood for yesterday, which is to say no to racism, which is to say no to hate speech.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. Chair, as we prepare to finish consideration of H.R. 2822, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate my subcommittee chairman, Ken Calvert, for getting this bill to this point.
It has not been an easy process, as we just realized a few moments ago. We have had to consider nearly twice as many amendments as any other appropriations bill taken up in the House this year.
While I have not agreed with a considerable number of the amendments that have been made to the bill, I do appreciate that the chairman and I have been able to disagree when necessary without ever being disagreeable. My working relationship with Chairman Calvert has been first rate. I appreciate the hard work and effort he has put into the bill.
Let me also express my sincere thanks to the committee staff on both sides of the aisle, as well as the personal staff in both of our respective offices for their work on the bill. They put in long hours to smooth a way for consideration of this bill, and I appreciate their efforts.
Once again, I want to say that we have had a good working relationship, Mr. Chair, but I cannot hide my surprise and my outrage that we find ourselves here tonight attempting to overturn the National Park Service recent policy change to stop allowing the Confederate flag to be displayed or sold at our national parks.
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