Ranking Member Pingree Remarks: FY27 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Subcommittee Markup

-- Remarks as Prepared for Delivery --

Thank you for yielding. 

I would like to thank Chairman Cole, Ranking Member DeLauro. and the staff on both sides of the aisle. 

Chairman Simpson, I appreciate our working relationship and that we were able to find common ground last year to enact a bipartisan full year funding bill. I think those of us on the Committee understood our responsibility and the importance of achieving that milestone, particularly during such a tumultuous time for our government. 

Unfortunately, the bill before us reverts to the same partisan playbook, with grossly insufficient funding and a surplus of poison pill riders. 

The bill cuts EPA by 20 percent. This agency has already lost one-fifth of its workforce since President Trump took office. The cuts in this bill would completely cripple EPA’s ability to fight climate change, respond to environmental disasters, and hold polluters accountable. Meanwhile, the administration continues to roll back regulations that protect public health and the environment, including an announcement earlier this week that will increase exposure to toxic “forever chemicals.”

I’m disappointed that the bill further cuts funding to states for water infrastructure. This is first year that states won’t have the additional funding provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and I believe that it is critical that we don’t lose the momentum we built with those investments. 

Amid all of this, the President is diverting significant resources toward pet projects that most Americans oppose – tearing down the East Wing for his ridiculous ballroom, dumping the toxic debris in a National Park golf course, making the reflecting pool look more like a swimming pool, the Arch – the list goes on.

At the same time, this administration is trying to sideline anything it deems artistically or culturally offensive, regardless of the effect its decisions will have on people and communities.

Last year, the Trump Administration illegally terminated thousands of grants at both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for Humanities. A judge has since ruled that the mass termination of the NEH grants was “unlawful, unconstitutional…, and without legal effect.”

This is money that is supposed to support scholars, research institutions, and humanities organizations. Instead, the administration is using it as another funding source for the President’s pet projects—including the Arch and the Garden of Heroes. 

In the wake of these assaults, it is critical that Congress assert its support for the NEA and NEH. So, I am vehemently opposed to the cuts in this bill, which would slash each endowment by $72 million (or 35%). 

With a relatively small budget, the NEA helps power a $1.2 trillion arts economy—creating jobs and sustaining Main Streets in even the smallest towns. NEA funds go to book groups for veterans. To after-school theater programs in rural towns. To folk festivals that preserve cultural heritage. To local arts councils.

Cutting the NEA doesn’t just silence voices and stymie creators—it erases the spaces where healing, connection, and community happen.

The bill also cuts funding for cultural institutions, such as the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian Institution. Last year, we prevailed and beat back these cuts. I intend to do the same again this year. 

While the administration is focused on building a gilded ballroom and a triumphal Arch in the President’s honor, Americans are facing soaring gas and energy prices. It is deeply disappointing that this bill does nothing to reign in the administration’s assault on energy projects that states have been counting on. Rather than including policies fighting the administration’s use of nearly two billion in taxpayer dollars for payouts to companies for abandoning offshore wind projects, this bill instead just continues to pile on by adding additional fees for offshore wind companies.

Finally, I have to express my opposition to the dozens of poison pill riders included in the bill. These riders aim to cripple environmental protection, undermine climate change policies, and override the Endangered Species Act. Frankly, I’m surprised that the Majority even feels they are necessary since this administration is already doing all of these things. For example, just two months ago, it convened its so-called God Squad and exempted all Gulf of Mexico oil and gas activities from the Endangered Species Act. 

As written, the bill before us is not something I can support.

I oppose the bill, I urge my colleagues to oppose it, and I yield back.