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Press Release

Republicans Offer Amendments to Make Committee Rules Bipartisan, Transparent

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 18, 2021 | Committee Press Office (202-225-2761)
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Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Republicans offered several amendments during the full committee’s meeting on adopting the rules package for the 117th Congress. Ranking Member Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) issued the following statement:

“Democrats have finally organized the committee and we can begin our work on the important policy questions before us. To do our jobs,  it’s imperative we have a set of clear, bipartisan rules for every member to follow. Initial committee rules the Democrat majority proposed included provisions like striking God from the oath and allowing virtual ‘roundtables’ to pass as official committee business. I appreciate Chairman Grijalva’s agreement to fix several of these issues after Republicans expressed our concerns. However, the final rules package still contained concerning provisions that provided unchecked subpoena authority to the chairman, ceded the committee’s jurisdiction on billion-dollar budget legislation and infringed on Second Amendment rights. Democrats have repeatedly called for unity. Today they had an opportunity to put those words into action by adopting all of our amendments, but they chose partisanship. I hope that going forward we can address critical national issues like energy security, public lands access and pro-growth carbon solutions in a truly cooperative manner.”

Background

Committee Republicans offered five amendments during the full committee meeting:

  1. Challenging Democrat unilateral subpoena authority, offered by U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)
  2. Preserving Second Amendment rights in the hearing room, offered by U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.)
  3. Requiring all budget reconciliation instructions receive a markup, offered by U.S. Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-N.M.)
  4. Encouraging transparency by requiring the publishing of background memorandums, offered by U.S. Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.)
  5. Requiring the use of available audio and visual equipment to conduct hybrid hearings, offered by U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.)

Watch Westerman’s full opening statement here.