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Committee Republicans Offer Amendments to Lopsided, Partisan Legislation

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Today, the House Committee on Natural Resources held a markup, reporting a total of eight bills out of committee. Several of these bills were bipartisan, and passed by unanimous consent:

H.R. 438, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), amends the Alyce Spotted Bear and Walter Soboleff Commission on Native Children Act to extend the deadline for a report by the Alyce Spotted Bear and Walter Soboleff Commission on Native Children.

H.R. 1146, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.), revises the Abandoned Mine Land Reclamation Program, which restores land and water adversely impacted by surface coal mines that were abandoned before Aug. 3, 1977.

H.R. 2641, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), amends the Reclamation Project Act of 1939 to authorize pumped storage hydropower development utilizing multiple Bureau of Reclamation reservoirs.

However, Democrats also advanced legislation that would be detrimental to American workers. H.R. 2415, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (R-N.M.), would be harm American energy, jobs, innovation and more, so Republican committee members offered eight amendments to remedy some of these issues. Committee Democrats rejected all of them, including:

Amendment to H.R. 2415, offered by U.S. Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), conditions implementation of the bill on a certification by the Secretary of the Interior that any provision of this act will not result in less production of oil and gas resources and will not result in the increase of gas prices at the pump.

Amendment to H.R. 2415, offered by U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.), conditions implementation of the authorization for regulatory improvement grants on the completion of a study on the estimated lifecycle emissions associated with wind turbines and solar panels.

Amendment to H.R. 2415, offered by U.S. Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.), authorizes states to be eligible for regulatory improvement grants if the state works with public or private entities on innovative ways of addressing methane emissions.

View the full list of amendments here.