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During today’s House Appropriations Committee markup of the 2025 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies funding bill, Ranking Member Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) highlighted how the bill takes an aggressive anti-environment, pro-pollution stance with crippling cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and policy provisions that will endanger public health, strain the economy, and increase costs. The bill also slashes funding for National Parks and arts programs.

“It seems like every year when we meet to mark up this bill, there's a new record broken for extreme heat. June marked the 13th consecutive month of record-shattering temperatures across the globe. So, I am greatly disappointed and frustrated by the bill before us that completely disregards the reality of a warming planet and ignores the need for us to do more, not less,” Ranking Member Pingree said in remarks before the Appropriations Committee. “[…] The majority of Americans support the United States taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2050, and they support taking responsibility for future generations. The austere and irresponsible cuts in this bill do not align with their values. We need to rise to this challenge and not squander this opportunity to make the planet better for our children and grandchildren.”

Click here to watch Congresswoman Pingree’s full remarks; a complete transcript is copied below.

House Republicans’ Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies bill includes $38.5 billion, which is $72 million below the fiscal year 2024 enacted level and $4.4 billion below the budget request. The bill also provides $2.75 billion for the Wildfire Suppression Operations Reserve Fund.

The legislation:

• Hinders the U.S. response to the climate crisis and fails to address the growing number and severity of extreme weather events by cutting efforts to reduce carbon emissions and community resiliency programs.
• Slashes funding for national parks and cultural institutions, threatening Americans’ ability to enjoy public lands and museums.
• Exacerbates environmental discrimination against rural and poor communities by defunding environmental justice initiatives.
• Promotes dirty energy by requiring fossil fuels lease sales while prohibiting growth in clean energy projects.
• Hastens ecosystem decline by allowing harmful and dirty mining activities and by removing Endangered Species Act protections for numerous species.
• Incites hate and discrimination by prohibiting funds for advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and censoring commemoration of LGTBQI+ pride. 

A summary of House Republicans’ 2025 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies funding bill is here. A fact sheet is here. The text of the bill is here. 

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Climate change is a clear and present danger, and the experts agree that we must take bold action to avoid major, irreversible catastrophe. It seems like every year when we meet to mark up this bill, there's a new record broken for extreme heat. June marked the 13th consecutive month of record-shattering temperatures across the globe. So I am greatly disappointed and frustrated by the bill before us that completely disregards the reality of a warming planet and ignores the need for us to do more, not less. 

With that understanding, cutting funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by $1.8 billion, or 20%, is irresponsible and severely impacts needed investments in environmental justice, justice enforcement and climate change.

If we are going to preserve the health of our environment and our economic well-being, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase our efforts to respond to and mitigate against harmful climate impacts. The bill also slashes funding for land management agencies. The National Park Service alone is cut by $210 million. This cut will mean fewer park rangers to protect the park's natural and cultural resources, and will negatively impact the visitor experience.

Funding for cultural institutions such as the Smithsonian and the National Gallery of Art is also significantly reduced. The arts have incredible value as a positive tool for economic development, education and community building. And I will strenuously oppose these cuts in the final spending arrangement. There are areas of bipartisanship, though, and I want to commend Chairman Simpson's work on wildland fire.

The bill includes authorizing language necessary for the administration to carry out its permanent pay reforms for federal wildland firefighters. This is something we agree on, and I am pleased the bill addresses this important issue. I'm also proud of our work to address treaty and trust obligations on a bipartisan basis. Unfortunately, once again, House Republicans have loaded up the bill with wildly unpopular policy riders.

This year, they've included a whopping 83 poison pill riders that cripple environmental protection, undermine climate change policies, and add to the national deficit. The riders in the bill give an open invitation to exploit of oil, gas and mineral leasing by blocking rules that protect our public lands and resources, dictating the timing of onshore and offshore lease sales. Overriding protections for preserving pristine water and undisturbed Arctic landscapes, and even prohibiting the implementation of recommendations to improve mining on public lands.

And sadly, the bill also contains numerous discriminatory riders targeting millions of American citizens, which have proven so divisive in numerous early markup earlier markups. 

The majority of Americans support the United States taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2050, and they support taking responsibility for future generations. The austere and irresponsible cuts in this bill do not align with their values. We need to rise to this challenge and not squander this opportunity to make the planet better for our children and grandchildren.

Before I close, I too want to acknowledge that this is Representative Kilmer's last full committee markup for an interior bill. He has been a wonderful colleague, a friend. We are truly going to miss him on this committee. As you've heard, he's beloved by all. He's passionate about the issues that he cares about. We heard him earlier defending one of the programs that he started. We've heard him working on tribal issues, helping to move a tribe that was in the flood zone, fighting for timber sales in his home district because he cared so much about the impact on the economy in his district. 

And many of us know him as the co-chair of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. This committee came together, I think, Representative Bice by is now one of the co-chairs. But this committee came together in a bipartisan basis, with 200 bipartisan recommendations. All things that we complain about and worry about every day, and how this institution operates over a third of them have been adopted. And that's really a stellar record that none of us can come close to. 

So congratulations on your time here. You will be missed, and we will look forward to following you in whatever you choose to do in the future.

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