Today, House Committee on Natural Resources Ranking Member Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) sent a letter to Chair Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) requesting that the committee conduct a fair and transparent budgetary process. In part, Westerman wrote:

"To ensure that we are good stewards of taxpayer resources, it is incumbent upon us as legislators to engage in vigorous discussions when addressing any budgetary matters. Therefore, critical to constructing a fiscally responsible budget is ensuring that there is robust deliberation of the fiscal realities our nation faces, and that begins with our committee’s views and estimates. 

"To that end, members of the Committee on Natural Resources, who have been selected based on their subject matter expertise, should be afforded the opportunity to engage in a bipartisan and productive discussion and amendment of our committee’s views and estimates as part of a regular order markup process. Our committee would not be alone in this pursuit. Various other committees of the House have recognized the significance of such deliberation and made the prudent decision to mark up their views and estimates last Congress, and will do so again this year."