The question is: will legislation aid our communities' future survival or hinder it. I hope for all our sakes it will be the former.

I look forward to working with you and my colleagues to protect our public lands and to meet our obligations to our indigenous communities.

Right now, the EPA and Interior Department are run by former lobbyists for coal and oil companies.

Methane is more than 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat, and is responsible for about a quarter of the warming we are experiencing today.

Thank you, Chairman. Welcome to all of you and thank you so much for taking time to be with us today.

Climate change poses an unprecedented threat to our communities and our environment.

Climate change has forced us to live in a new normal, in which fires, floods, droughts, and hurricanes wreck our communities and our national heritage.

Simply put, we must have legislation that clearly prioritizes investments in scalable projects like those mentioned today that reduce emissions at the source and address the historical harm and discrimination communities like mine have…

I want to recognize her leadership. I'm so grateful for the work that she's doing across America on behalf of the American people.

So we're here because we need answers to these injustices with reforms that restore and protect the voice of the American people and our democracy.

Here's something to remember. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all renewed and strengthened the Voting Rights Act.

We've seen the diminishing and suppressing of voters. In many states across America in recent years, we saw polling places get closed, the shortening of voting hours.

In January 2019, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham issued Executive Order 2019-003 Addressing Climate Change and Energy Waste Prevention.

How much does the debt piece of that worry each of you?

It seems, also, that the Chinese model of development in Africa is something that we should be thinking about as an opportunity.

I think that we are falling down on our engagement with African leaders.

Let's talk about what the opportunities are in Africa that, currently, we are missing.

Today's hearing is an important step toward fully understand the scope and working to address the crisis in Indian Country.