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Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) today urged her House colleagues to support the Subcommittee’s funding bill for fiscal year 2024. In remarks on the House floor on Wednesday, Ranking Member Pingree said the bill “continues investments to care for our planet, fight the climate emergency, and meet our trust obligations to tribal nations,” while rejecting “the $13 billion in devastating cuts imposed in the House Republican bill and does not include more than 100 poison pill policy riders.”

Click here to watch Pingree’s full remarks. 

Pingree’s remarks as prepared for delivery are copied below.

The fiscal year 2024 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies bill includes $38.9 billion in regular appropriations. The legislation: 

• Rejects more than $13 billion in devastating cuts imposed in the House Republican bill and blocked over 100 new House Republican poison pill policy riders. 
• Protects the Arts and Humanities, funding the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities and the National Gallery of Art at the fiscal year 2023 enacted level. 
• Provides additional funding to continue the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act pay supplement for wildland firefighters. 
• Supports Native American families by investing in a strong and resilient Indian Country, including through education and health care programs. 
• Protects environmental justice efforts to address unacceptable pollution in communities of color. 

Find a detailed summary of the bill here.

For more than 15 hours on the House floor in November Ranking Member Pingree fought back against 131 extreme Republican riders to a Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations bill. 

Pingree has been a member of the House Appropriations Committee since 2013. As Chair of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Subcommittee in the 117^th Congress, Pingree wrote Appropriations bills for the 2022 and 2023 Fiscal Years that made unprecedented investments that reflect House Democrats’ enduring commitment to environmental justice, renewable energy, health infrastructure on tribal lands, and the arts, among other notable investments. 

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I rise to support the Fiscal Year 2024 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

 

I want to thank Ranking Member DeLauro for her leadership and perseverance. 

 

Thank you, Chairman Simpson, for your collaboration and partnership through this process. And thank you, Chairwoman Granger.

 

I am pleased that this bill continues investments to care for our planet, fight the climate emergency, and meet our trust obligations to tribal nations. It rejects the $13 billion in devastating cuts imposed in the House Republican bill and does not include more than 100 poison pill policy riders. 

 

The bill provides necessary resources to deal with the threat of wildfires in the West and provides additional funding to continue the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act pay supplement for wildland firefighters. 

 

The bill also protects the Arts and Humanities, maintaining the enacted funding level for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, supporting the arts in communities across the country. 

 

And finally, this bill supports Native American families by investing in a strong and resilient Indian Country, including through education and health care programs. 

 

The investments in this bill will improve the lives of Americans and I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

 

Thank you, I yield back.

 

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