WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Senator Tom Udall, lead Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies, delivered opening remarks at an appropriations subcommittee markup of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies funding bill for fiscal year 2017.
Audio of Udall's remarks is available here (Udall's remarks begin at 25:48): http://www.appropriations.senate.gov/hearings/subcommittee-markup-of-the-fy2017-interior-appropriations-bill
Below are Udall's opening remarks as prepared for delivery:
I'd like to begin by thanking my chairman, Senator Murkowski, and her terrific subcommittee staff, including her staff director, Leif Fonnesbeck, for working with me and my staff on the 2017 Interior Appropriations bill.
The bill before us does some good things. It provides more funding for national parks and more funding to improve our nation's crumbling water infrastructure. It increases funding for health care and education for American Indians and Alaska Natives. It fully funds the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program - payments that our counties depend on for schools, public safety, roads and many other services.
I appreciate the special effort that the chairman made to fund New Mexico priorities and the priorities of the other members on this committee on both sides of the aisle.
I'm also pleased that the bill helps the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) begin its historic overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act. It is critical for the EPA to get off on the right foot as it rebuilds this program to keep our families and communities safe from dangerous chemicals.
These are all tremendous accomplishments, especially because we're operating under tight budget caps. These good things make it all the more disappointing that I cannot support this bill.
Unlike the nine other subcommittees that marked up before us this year, this bill includes a number of poison pill riders. These riders take aim at the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Superfund law, and other bedrock environmental laws that protect our environment and our communities, and ensure we have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink.
In many ways, I feel like it's "déjà vu all over again," and it's very frustrating. Democrats have been clear. The White House has been clear. We are not prepared to gut environmental laws as the price of getting spending bills passed, and yet this bill before us contains many of the same bad policy riders we faced last year - riders that were rejected so that we could come together and pass a bipartisan omnibus. It even includes a few new controversial provisions that don't belong in this bill. It doesn't make sense. We should be focusing on passing 12 clean spending bills, and we shouldn't be cherry picking certain bills for controversial policy items.
In addition to the riders, I am also concerned that the bill includes deep cuts to programs that are vital to public safety and health. These programs address climate change, enforce environmental laws and protect endangered species. I am troubled that the bill also scales back investments in the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a program that has broad bipartisan support. And finally I am concerned that the bill undermines firefighting needs since it funds only the 10-year average of firefighting costs.
Just last year, this subcommittee finally recognized that simply funding the 10-year average isn't enough to cover actual firefighting costs. We worked together on a bipartisan basis to pass an omnibus that gave federal firefighters the funding that they actually need, not just the 10-year average. Unfortunately, this bill walks away from that commitment.
I appreciate that the majority has included legislation to authorize a new disaster cap to pay for wildland firefighting as part of this bill, but the proposal has a long way to go before it becomes law and we can actually use the funds it authorizes. And in the meantime, this bill doesn't give agencies the funding they need up front before fire season starts.
For all of these reasons, there's clearly room for improvement to this bill. It's not too late for us to work together on a bipartisan basis as it goes forward.
With that in mind, I'm willing to allow this subcommittee to move this bill through the process today. I also support the chairman's request to defer any amendments to this bill until we mark up in full committee on Thursday. Deferring amendments has been the tradition of this subcommittee for many years, but I want to be clear that on Thursday, I expect to offer amendments to strip out these troubling policy riders and to address the firefighting budget. Until we address those issues, I will have to oppose this bill.
