Bill Lee: “Let me thank our Ranking Member, Congresswoman McCollum, for yielding, and for her tremendous leadership of this…”

“Let me thank our Ranking Member, Congresswoman McCollum, for yielding, and for her tremendous leadership of this Subcommittee. Mr. Chair, the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Interior and Environment bill before us would place health and safety of all Americans at risk. It dangerously cuts finding by $246 million from FY2015 levels and is $3.1 billion less than the President's FY2016 request. The deep cuts to this bill would undermine our air quality, land, water and conservation funding and will have devastating impacts on all communities in my home state of California and across the country. What's worse--this bill slashes funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by more than 700 million dollars--from FY2015 levels and funds the agency at more than a billion dollars less than the President's FY2016 request. These profound cuts would significantly harm the Clean Water Fund and the Safe Drinking Water Fund--critical programs that ensure the safety of our drinking water and our children. It also includes $40 million in cuts to the Historic Preservation Fund (HPP), which would weaken the National Park Services' (NPS) ability to preserve sites significant in the Civil Rights Movement. This includes sites like the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, where many of us participated in the commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday.…”