McCollum Statement on House Republicans Senseless Attacks on Public Health and Our Environment

House Republicans just wasted another week in Washington with no legislation to show for it that would address our shrinking economy or rising cost of living. 

Instead, they launched a series of attacks on a national park, an endangered species, and the ability of states to set strong standards to protect the air that we breathe. 

H.J.Res. 60 would prevent the National Park Service from regulating motor vehicle use in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, where just 6% of the roads had safeguards put in place to restrict the damage that off-road vehicles had caused. This was a narrowly focused rule to target protections in sensitive areas for the cultural sites, native wildlife, and other natural resources that the Park contains.

H.J.Res 87, H.J.Res. 88, and H.J.Res. 89 all attempt to misuse the Congressional Review Act (CRA) process to overturn decisions at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce air pollution. Under the Clean Air Act (CAA), California can apply for waivers to set its own vehicle emissions standards, and other states can adopt California’s exact regulations under certain circumstances. The law explicitly grants these states the ability to protect their citizens from air pollution and address climate change with stronger standards, and in doing so they are saving Americans $89 billion in fuel costs through 2040. 

These Republican resolutions would make the air dirtier, raise costs for drivers, and also violate the law. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Senate Parliamentarian have already made it clear that CAA waivers do not qualify as a target for a CRA! These decisions are not rules subject to review, but House Republicans are ignoring the law to try to set a precedent for drastically expanding what other protections for the American people they can undermine with a CRA.

As if all this wasn’t enough, Republicans wrapped up the week with an attack on an endangered species of smelt in the San Francisco Bay-Delta. Delisting a fish won’t solve the water shortage problems of the West; it is a distraction from the real issues of climate change, outdated infrastructure, and competing water allocations. Furthermore, this smelt is a critical part of the foodweb in an ecosystem on the verge of collapse. H.J.Res. 78 would not only overturn the current listing of the longfin smelt but prevent it from ever being listed in the future, no matter how much the threat to this species and its estuary increased.

I voted against all five of the Congressional Review Act resolutions that were brought to the floor this week, and I urge the Republican House Majority to stop bringing these harmful and nonsensical attacks on our public health and the environment to the House floor. Stripping away protections for our wildlife, for our national parks, and for the very air in our lungs doesn’t improve Americans lives.