Raúl Grijalva: “House Democrats filed several amendments to H.R. 1 that would help mitigate some of the outright damage to our climate…”

“House Democrats filed several amendments to H.R. 1 that would help mitigate some of the outright damage to our climate, our communities, and our economic future that this bill would cause. Unfortunately, only 7 out of 95 were made in order to get an open debate and an up-or-down vote. Some Republicans have also filed amendments that I support. But I am afraid that at the end of the day, there is ultimately no path forward for making H.R. 1 any semblance of a legislative proposal that the American people, not polluters, deserve. The polluters over people act will actively and aggressively take us backward regarding emissions and in our transition to clean energy. It guts our bedrock environmental laws and takes communities out of the permitting process entirely, the public's right to know. Some of the Republican amendments add to that mess. To start, I rise today in opposition to this amendment, which would make a harmful bill even worse by arbitrarily eroding community protections under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. This amendment greatly expands the limited environmental review standards of the 2015 FAST Act to a series of coal waste extraction activities that can cause significant environmental damage and warrant strong environmental review standards. There is already a deliberate process in place under the FAST Act to expand its limited environmental review standards to new types of projects under certain conditions.…”