Joe Neguse: “Mr. Speaker, we are on the floor this week debating three Congressional Review Act resolutions that would overturn…”

“Mr. Speaker, we are on the floor this week debating three Congressional Review Act resolutions that would overturn balanced, forward-looking resource management plans, or RMPs, that have been carefully developed over the past 4 years. Now, with all due respect to my friend and colleague, the chairman, I heard a lot of slogans, a couple of references to Moscow. I will just say that the CRA before this body is very simple. It is an effort by House Republicans to do something that has never been done before in the history of the Congressional Review Act, which is to overturn a resource management plan. Why, you might ask, Mr. Speaker, do Republicans intend to take this unprecedented step? It is simply because they would like to open up millions of acres in Montana, North Dakota, and elsewhere to coal extraction. That is it, very simple. Balanced resource management plans were developed in consultation with the communities and States at issue, and this Republican Congress has decided that it is of the utmost priority to, via legislative action, overturn resource management plans that, by the way, Mr. Speaker, could simply be reversed with a phone call to the Secretary of the Interior.”