Not long ago, the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, said that he wanted to make the House an ``ideas factory.'' But with this bill today, it is clear that the only items being produced by the House are cookie-cutters, because we have done…

Congress is denying Puerto Rico the ability to have an orderly restructuring of its unpayable debt.

I urge this committee to put the American citizens of Puerto Rico first and allow this island to access bankruptcy protection.

That's not a serious way to address this problem.

There is no way to clean these sites without requiring the mining industry to contribute to the legacy they created.

we can't let this hearing get away from the responsibility in the first place.

Unfortunately, it appears from the Majority's memo for this hearing, that the focus today is not going to be on the very real problem of abandoned mines.

This would raise hundreds of millions of dollars each year, and that's what you need to start to address this problem.

the hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that are leaking billions of gallons of toxic wastewater into streams and rivers across the country.

there are a lot of ticking time bombs out there. But, there are lessons learned here that we need to address, and I think getting experts together to work on that is appropriate.

I am ecstatic that the Majority is actually taking on environmental concerns.

I want to attack the half-million abandoned mines throughout this Nation, many of which are ticking time bombs that we need to address sooner, rather than later.