Press Releases

During today’s House Appropriations Committee markup of the 2026 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies funding bill, Democrats shined a light on how Republicans drafted yet another funding bill that makes the cost-of-living crisis worse. Their bill raises energy utility bills while slashing funds for National Parks and the arts.

House Republicans’ Interior funding bill takes an aggressive anti-environment, pro-pollution stance with crippling cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and policy provisions that endanger public health. 

The bill:

• Raises utility bills by shifting costs onto state and local governments and making utilities more expensive through funding cuts and extreme policies that would cripple renewable energy development.
• Exposes more Americans to contaminated and polluted water by cutting funds for state and local governments to help communities across the country access clean, safe drinking water.
• Worsens the climate crisis by defunding all Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) climate work.
• Slashes funding for national parks, threatening Americans’ ability to enjoy public lands.
• Guts resources for museums, arts, and culture, suppressing American’s engagement with the arts and art education.
• Favors polluters over public health through dozens of harmful policies that undermine EPA’s ability to regulate pollution. 
• Promotes environmental discrimination against rural and poor communities by defunding environmental justice initiatives, making it more difficult for hardworking people to deal with the rising costs associated with climate change. 
• Exploits public lands and accelerates ecosystem decline by allowing harmful and dirty mining activities and by removing Endangered Species Act protections for numerous species.

“Since President Trump took office, his Administration has undertaken a concerted and alarming assault on Congress’s power of the purse, with Republicans willingly ceding their authority to the Executive Branch,” Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Chellie Pingree (D-ME-01) said.“Coupled with the Administration’s illegal funding freezes, reckless cuts and rescissions, and the Republican Majority’s inability to pass full-year funding bills, it’s clear that the FY2026 Interior and Environment funding bill Republicans on the Committee passed today is nothing more than a hollow attempt at governance. This funding bill perpetuates a dangerous pattern of cuts and policy decisions that harm public health, weaken environmental protections, and threaten our treasured national parks. It undermines bipartisan agreements, deepens existing crises, and puts critical programs at risk, including drastic cuts to water infrastructure, EPA programs, and the arts and humanities. Congress must reclaim its constitutional authority and stop enabling this destructive agenda.”

Congresswoman Chellie Pingree’s full remarks are here.

“We are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. President Trump promised to lower costs on day one, but instead, he and House Republicans are making the cost-of-living crisis even worse,” Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) said. “House Republicans 2026 Interior, Environment funding bill would raise utility bills and energy prices, worsen the climate crisis, put polluters over public health, and abandon stewardship of our National Parks, all to benefit billionaires and big corporations. It doubles-down on President Trump’s pro-pollution, anti-environment, anti-Arts agenda. Instead of working with Democrats to make investments that can help lower their costs, protect our environment, and preserve our public lands and institutions, Republicans have put forward a bill that favors billionaires’ and corporations’ right to pollute and destroy the environment over the health and safety of the American people.”

Congresswoman DeLauro’s full remarks are here.

During today’s markup, Democrats fought to:

• Increase funding for the Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds to overcome House Republicans more than 60 percent cut to these critical funds that help ensure people in every state have access to clean water.
• Restore funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
• Prevent Republicans’ elimination of environmental justice resources. 

House Republicans rejected these efforts. 

A summary of the bill is here. A fact sheet is here. 

The text of the bill, before the adoption of amendments in full committee, is here. The bill report, before the adoption of amendments in full Committee, is here. Information on Community Project Funding in the bill is here.

###