Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies (113th Congress)
[[{"fid":"106","view_mode":"full","fields":{"format":"full","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Rep. Betty McCollum","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Rep. Betty McCollum"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"full","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Rep. Betty McCollum","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Rep. Betty McCollum"}},"link_text":null,"attributes":{"alt":"Rep. Betty McCollum","title":"Rep. Betty McCollum","height":"4052","width":"2697","style":"height: 282px; width: 188px;","class":"media-element file-full","data-delta":"1"}}]]Betty McCollum (MN), Ranking Member
Chellie Pingree (ME)
Derek Kilmer (WA)
Steve Israel (NY)
Jurisdiction
Department of the Interior (Except Bureau of Reclamation and Central Utah Project)
Environmental Protection Agency
Other Agencies
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (HHS)
Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board
Commission of Fine Arts
Council on Environmental Quality and Office of Environmental Quality
Forest Service (USDA)
Indian Health Service
Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Culture and Arts Development
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
National Capital Planning Commission
National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities (Except Institute of Museum and Library Services)
National Gallery of Art
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (HHS, formerly EPA/Superfund)
Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation
Presidio Trust
Smithsonian Institution
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Eisenhower Memorial Commission
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Thank you Mr. Chairman.
Let me start off by saying that you have done a great job since assuming the chair from our colleague, Mike Simpson. I have enjoyed working with you and appreciate the cooperation exhibited by you and the subcommittee staff as we have worked to address some of the important issues facing not only our nation but our planet. You have carried out your duties as chairman in an open and collaborative manner and for that I am truly appreciative.
It has been my privilege to serve on this subcommittee for nearly 20 years, including serving as chairman, and for the last four years as the ranking member. I consider Interior and Environment a very important subcommittee. Literally the very quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink depends on the programs funded by this bill.
Thank you Mr. Chairman. And since this is our first hearing with you as chairman, let me publicly congratulate you on assuming this new role and say that I look forward to working with you on the many issues that this subcommittee faces. You have big shoes to fill following Chairman Simpson but I am confident that you are up to the task.
Chairman Calvert took over just as we were entering the final stretch on the FY 2014 budget and helped shepherd the Interior and Environment bill to completion. It was a significant achievement. While it took our budget colleagues 9 months to come up with an agreed upon overall number, it only took the Appropriations Committee 3 ½ weeks to turn that number into 12 appropriations bills. We all know how important it is that the Interior Department has a regular appropriation, rather than a CR, with which to operate.
Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY), Ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, today issued the following statement on President Obama's FY 2015 budget request:
"The FY2015 budget and appropriations process offers Congress its best opportunity in years to reject the politics of brinkmanship and crisis management, and instead fulfill our responsibility to invest in our future, create and protect jobs, and support services on which American families rely.
"I commend President Obama for a budget request that keeps faith with discretionary spending levels set in the Bipartisan Budget Act, yet recognizes that the federal government can and must do more to achieve significant economic goals in research, education, manufacturing, and skills training. We must reject a single-minded focus on austerity, which has unnecessarily slowed our economic recovery while starving our economic future.
2013 enacted level: $29.8 billion
2014 Committee mark: $24.3 billion
2014 Omnibus: $30.1 billion
· $3.938 billion for wildland fire, which is $417 million more than the 2013 enacted level.
· $4.4 billion for the Indian Health Service, which is $78 million more than the 2013 enacted level.
· $2.5 billion for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is $18 million more than the 2013 enacted level.
· $8.2 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is $143 million less than the 2013 enacted level and $299 million more than the post-sequester level.
o A total of $2.35 billion for the Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Funds, which is $4.7 million less than 2013 enacted levels but $119 million more than the post-sequester level.