Reclaiming my time, a couple of weeks ago Secretary Salazar acknowledged, ``There are changes and improvements that can be made to how we deal with endangered species'' and that ``we need to have an endangered species program that does, in…

I thank the chairman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, as you know, 2 months ago, the Secretary of the Interior announced that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would remove gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act list in areas covering the…

I have an amendment at the desk. The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment. The Clerk read as follows: Page 62, after line 2, insert the following: Sec. 609. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used by the…

Last Friday, the Department of Energy made a surprise announcement that not only was the Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management--or EM--leaving but that they were restructuring the entire $6 billion program under the Under…

In reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I will simply say that this may be a good idea; but for goodness sakes, what is the benefit to a $6 billion program that only 6 days ago was announced is moving under another structure? There may be a…

I have an amendment at the desk. The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment. The Clerk read as follows: At the end of the bill, before the short title, insert the following: Sec. ___. None of the funds made available in this Act…

For years, the Walla Walla District of the Army Corps of Engineers has managed several miles of the public shoreline along the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the Tri-Cities area of my congressional district. Five years ago, in 2006, the…

I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, in these tight budget times, it is more important than ever that the Federal Government focus its funding on the most essential and core functions. The Federal Government…

I appreciate the chairman's concurrence on this. If that is the same on both sides, I will be more than happy to yield back. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by…

I thank the gentleman very much. With that concurrence on the other side, I yield back the balance of my time and urge adoption of the amendment. The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Washington…

For the last time, I have an amendment at the desk. The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will report the amendment. The Clerk read as follows: At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following: Sec. __. None of the funds made…

I would like to enter into a colloquy with the distinguished chairman of the subcommittee. Mr. Chairman, the Office of River Protection was created to put a focus on the 53 million gallons of wastes in the 177 underground tanks at Hanford…

In reclaiming my time, I thank the chairman, and I appreciate his visiting Hanford. I appreciate the distinguished ranking member of the subcommittee for visiting Hanford; and of course, I appreciate the ranking member of the full…

I too rise to oppose this amendment offered by the gentleman from Virginia, an amendment offered, in my mind, to protect this administration's overreach on regulating all bodies of water in this country. As my friend from Montana alluded…

The issue for me is not the Clean Water Act. The issue was the attempt to amend the Clean Water Act to take out ``navigable,'' and that is what is being done potentially by the guidance with this drafting.

The law is clear. It only says ``navigable.'' Now, that is where the danger comes.

I appreciate my friend from Washington yielding. This amendment is about a bureaucratic guidance on an issue, on an issue that this Congress attempted to take up last time that simply, among other things, said that the jurisdiction of the…

Delaying or abandoning Yucca Mountain means that Hanford will be home to high-level defense waste even longer.

At a time of record debt, massive bailouts and trillion-dollar deficits, our country cannot afford to waste billions of dollars going back to the drawing board on a national repository.

For more than 16 months, the Obama Administration acting through the Department of Energy has acted outside the scope of the law.

The decision to dismantle the Yucca Mountain project was political and not based on sound science.

With more defense waste slated to go to Yucca Mountain than any other State in the union, the stakes for my State of Washington cannot be higher.

First and foremost, there should be no disputing that Yucca Mountain is a national repository for high-level defense waste and commercial spent nuclear fuel.

What is truly not workable is the uncertainty that faces our commercial nuclear power industry.

Due to a death in my family, I missed a series of roll votes. Had I been present: I would have voted ``yea'' on (rollcall No. 330) H.R. 1627, Honoring America's Veterans Act; I would have voted ``yea'' on (rollcall No. 331) H.R. 1383…