00:00Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're on the floor this week debating three Congressional
00:07Review Act resolutions that would overturn balanced, forward-looking Resource Management
00:13Plans, or RMPs, that have been carefully developed over the past four years. Now,
00:19with all due respect to my friend and colleague, the chairman, I heard a lot of slogans,
00:25a couple of references to Moscow. I will just tell you, the CRA before this body is very simple.
00:33It is an effort by House Republicans to do something that has never been done before
00:40in the history of the Congressional Review Act, which is to overturn a Resource Management Plan.
00:47Why, you might ask, Mr. Speaker, do Republicans intend to take this unprecedented
00:54step? Simple, because they'd like to open up millions of acres in Montana, in North Dakota,
01:04and elsewhere to coal extraction. That's it. Very simple. We can probably dispense with the,
01:14I guess there's an hour of debate that we're allocated for purposes of these CRAs. It doesn't
01:19really get more complicated than that. Balanced Resource Management Plans that were developed
01:25in consultation with the communities and the states at issue. And this Republican Congress
01:33has decided that it is of the utmost priority to, via legislative action, overturn Resource Management
01:42Plans that, by the way, Mr. Speaker, could simply be reversed with a phone call to the
01:49Secretary of the Interior. Last time I checked, the Secretary of the Interior happens to be
01:55the former Governor of North Dakota. So, insofar as my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
02:01are so invested in overturning this Resource Management Plan, perhaps they should call the
02:06former Governor of North Dakota, who now works two miles from the U.S. Capitol, as the Secretary
02:11of the Interior, and ask the agency to follow the process by which a Resource Management Plan
02:18is historically reconsidered. Instead, we're here on the House floor, debating a CRA on the Resource
02:32Management Plan. A giveaway to some of the biggest mining and oil companies on the planet.
02:40That's how House Republicans have decided to spend our time on the floor today. There are a lot of priorities,
02:52Mr. Speaker, that my constituents back in Colorado believe this House should consider.
02:59Reversing the draconian and cruel health care cuts that House Republicans pushed through just a mere seven weeks ago.
03:11That is at the top of the list. I can tell you what's not on the list. CRA resolutions to overturn Resource Management Plans so that more coal extraction and mining can be done in Montana.
03:28That's not on the list of priorities of my constituents. And I suspect that's the case for the vast majority of Americans.
03:37With that, Mr. Speaker, I'll reserve the balance of my time.
03:41So I'm sorry.
03:42I mean kind of after you know the future of land pottery.
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