Ranking Member Pingree Statement at the Subcommittee Markup of the 2026 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Funding Bill
Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME-01), Ranking Member of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's markup of the fiscal year 2026 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies funding bill:
Thank you for yielding. Chairman Simpson, I very much appreciate our working relationship and I do hope that we will be able to find common ground during this appropriations cycle so that we can enact a full year funding bill.
This seems especially important now that we are acutely aware of the damage that the full year continuing resolution has allowed this administration to inflict. We have been witnessing how the majority’s unwillingness to negotiate a full year bill last year has undermined the power of this Committee and the Congress. The administration is funding – or rather, not funding – programs at whatever levels it wants, all while refusing to share details with this Committee.
The Chief of the Forest Service testified in a Senate budget hearing that he didn’t know whether any of the funds appropriated for state and local fire assistance would actually go to the communities that they serve.
Instead, the dramatic flexibility afforded by the continuing resolution has allowed the Forest Service to divert millions of dollars to pay employees who took deferred resignations. Talk about waste. States are losing critical funding while the Trump Administration is paying employees not to work.
And this is not the only way states are suffering. We’ve seen grants that didn’t have the right buzzwords be illegally terminated. In my state of Maine, EPA canceled three PFAS grants. It then reinstated them, only to re-terminate one for not meeting so-called administrative priorities.
The upheaval and uncertainty caused by these frozen funds and cancelled grants is causing real harm and will have lasting damage. President Trump continues this assault on states through his budget request. The budget proposes to cut EPA funding to states, asserting that the grant programs have, “become a crutch for states.” I don’t even know what that means.
This amounts to an enormous unfunded mandate, and I am deeply disappointed that this bill does not rebuke the proposal. Instead, the bill cuts funding to states for water infrastructure by 62 percent. It also cuts grant programs that fund state environmental programs, and slashes funding for the EPA operating programs by 23 percent.
Withdrawing federal funding will mean states and local governments will be forced to raise their taxes or cut their services. Nobody will benefit. Republicans just increased the federal deficit by $3.4 trillion during reconciliation, and at the same time, they are cutting funding for programs that protect public health and the environment, that maintain our national parks, and that support the arts and humanities.
The cuts in this bill, taken together with the rescissions in the Big Ugly Bill, will debilitate America’s ability to address the climate crisis. It has become clear to me that the administration has moved beyond climate change denial and into actively dismantling the government’s climate work. If we are going to keep the public safe, then building resilience and fighting against the impact of climate change is a commonsense measure. Yet Republicans clawed back those funds so that they could give tax breaks to billionaires.
Defunding the EPA’s climate change work isn’t just a policy position. It is condemning future generations. And our children and grandchildren will suffer because of these cuts.
The bill cuts the National Park Service by $213 million. That is on top of the nearly $1 billion Republicans rescinded from national parks and public lands in their Big Ugly Bill. That funding would have supported conservation projects, habitat restoration, and staffing at our parks. Making matters worse, the majority’s failure to reauthorize the Great American Outdoors Act means that the National Park Service will no longer receive an annual $1.3 billion to address deferred maintenance. If we add them all together, these cuts have created a crisis that risks destroying the legacy of our national park system. Support for our national parks used to be bipartisan and a point of pride for this country, and I do hope we can recapture that spirit.
The administration is trying to sideline anything it deems artistically or culturally offensive, regardless of the effect its decisions will have on people and communities. I think it was appalling to watch the Trump Administration illegally terminate thousands of grants at both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities earlier this year. It fired nearly 80 percent of the NEH staff and revoked funding for the State Humanities Councils. This is money that was supposed to help artists and workers. To teach kids in rural areas. To support local economies that rely on cultural institutions but cannot afford to sustain them alone. In the wake of these assaults, it is critical that Congress asserts its support for the NEA and NEH. So, I am vehemently opposed to the cuts in this bill, which would slash each endowment by 35 percent or $72 million. 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 of 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. This comes on the heels of the President accusing the Smithsonian of promoting “divisive, race-centered ideology,” and not doing enough to “promote American greatness.” It’s one thing to criticize a particular program or funding stream. But attempting to recast entire agencies in your own political image, or silence expression you don’t like, goes against the values that we hold dear: free speech, equal opportunity and the idea that our democracy is strengthened when everyone has access to knowledge, culture and a voice in the national story. The president’s attempt to dismantle our artistic and cultural institutions will not “Make America Great Again”, and it must not be tolerated.
Despite having control of both chambers and the White House, Republicans could not restrain themselves with the inclusion of policy riders. There are 72 poison pill riders that cripple environmental protection, undermine climate change policies, and add to the national deficit. There is one rider in particular that is particularly egregious to me. The bill includes a provision that would block EPA from finalizing or implementing its draft risk assessment regarding PFAS in sewage sludge. PFAS contamination is a crisis facing the entire country. Maine has seen its devastation firsthand and has been ahead of the curve in testing and responding to contamination. Farmers in my state have lost their entire livelihoods and their farms, and watched their families get sick from forever chemical contamination in their fields from sewage sludge formerly used as fertilizer. Blocking the EPA from working to better understand the potential risks to human health and the environment posed by the presence of PFAS in sewage sludge makes absolutely no sense. We know that PFAS remediation is going to be immensely costly. Why wouldn’t we take steps to prevent contamination in the first place?
In closing, I would like to thank Ranking Member DeLauro for her tireless efforts on the Committee. I want to thank Chairman Cole, and the staff on both sides of the aisle.
The cuts in this bill are irresponsible and will hurt agencies that are already struggling to deliver services to the public. Any arguments that these cuts are somehow fiscally responsible ring hollow in the wake of Republicans adding $3.4 trillion to the national deficit. I oppose the bill. I urge my colleagues to oppose the bill, and I yield back.
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