If you’ve been reading our Wasted Resources series, you have a pretty good idea how Republicans ran this Committee for the past two years. (If you haven’t, or if you just missed an installment, start here and work your way forward.) Under their leadership, instead of holding hearings on climate change impacts, we “debated” how much we should deregulate armor-piercing bullets and gun silencers. Instead of increasing federal mining royalties for taxpayers — they’re at zero, by the way — we listened to Republicans call the Endangered Species Act a weapon used by radicals to destroy the economy. Instead of a hearing on how we can rebuild Puerto Rico, we held a hearing on whether wealthy investors in Puerto Rican bonds are being treated fairly.
Oversight hearings on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s many embarrassing scandals? Forget about it. As far as Republicans are concerned, that’s none of Congress’ business. Hearings on President Trump’s destruction of Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument? Never mind that the move is being challenged in court — not only did we not hold substantive hearings on the issue, Republicans have backed up the administration every step of the way.
This list of failures could go on for another 10 pages — and that’s the point. The 115th Congress has seen one hearing after another focused on the wrong things. Republicans held an entire hearing on how right-wing think tanks believe the Interior Department should be run. Instead of hearing from anyone at the Department itself, scientists, experts, or people affected by government decisions, they’ve wanted to hear from the same ideological opponents of environmental laws they’ve been listening to for years.
Over time, the impacts of this approach add up. The Land and Water Conservation Fund, one of our country’s most popular bipartisan conservation programs, expired at the end of September — not because it was controversial or difficult to resolve, but because Republicans were in no hurry to do anything about it. Even if Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) wants to reauthorize the program, as he says he does, he’s shown no sense of urgency in addressing it. When your attitude toward our environmental laws is “Don’t worry about it” or, worse, “It’s just getting in the way,” your priorities tend to reflect that.
Democrats have very different priorities for this Committee and for our environment. If you’ve been reading this series, you already know that. The thing to do now is to share this information:
- Tell everyone you know to give Wasted Resources a few minutes of their time.
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- Check out our Committee website, where you can learn more about the issues we’re fighting for.
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We think this information is important. If you agree, let’s make sure it gets to the right people.
The 116th Congress starts in January. Let’s hope it treats the environment, the taxpayers and the country a lot better than the 115th Congress.
