Raúl Grijalva: “I thank the distinguished chairman of the Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee for the time and for his longstanding…”

“I thank the distinguished chairman of the Water, Oceans, and Wildlife Subcommittee for the time and for his longstanding leadership on this issue. And also, I thank the 182 Members of Congress who support H.R. 1146. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to strongly support this legislation, H.R. 1146, a bill to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from the irreversible impacts of oil and gas drilling. This bill would undo a particular terrible provision that was slipped into the 2017 Republican tax bill with no debate in this Chamber, no amendments in this Chamber, and no votes in this Chamber. The Republican Party was not content with merely giving trillions of dollars of tax cuts to the wealthiest companies and individuals in this country, tax cuts that have driven us deeper into debt without any of the positives the bill sponsors promised; at the same time they were handing out trillions of dollars to their friends and donors, they threw in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for their oil and gas buddies. They promised that this would be done right, as if destroying a pristine wilderness and threatening the survival of an entire Tribe's way of life can ever be done right. But then the Trump administration took over. Since then, we have had rushed environmental reviews so they could try to get a lease sale done in 1 year, 2 years quicker than the schedule laid out in the tax bill.…”