On the recordMarch 29, 2023
Madam Chair, there is a strategy for critical minerals, but whatever we do going forward, the essential protections that are in place for communities, the requirement of the Tribal consultation and being at the table, that is our obligation--our constitutional obligation. Those need to be followed. The reason they need to be followed is the energy strategy that I am hearing from the Republicans is just going back to the good old days. The good old days created these laws, these protections. I use the example of Navajo Nation and uranium contamination. The list can go on and on and on. If we are saying that that collateral damage, those bad health impacts, that destruction of a community, that toxic cleanup left to local taxpayers, that that is okay because that is part of the past and that is part of the mining history of the past under the 1872 law, that we should replicate that now? No. This amendment is wrong-headed. It takes us in a different direction. It cuts the public out of the process. It violates our nation-to-nation consultation responsibility. Madam Chair, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I yield back the balance of my time. The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman). The amendment was agreed to. Amendment No. 23 Offered by Mr. LaMalfa The Acting CHAIR. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 23 printed in part B of House Report 118-30. Mr. LaMALFA. Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.…





