About The Committee

The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources considers legislation and conducts congressional oversight on all issues within the Committee’s jurisdiction (see below). The Committee's responsibilities include promoting environmental stewardship, sustainable resource management, and the preservation of natural and cultural heritage. By conducting oversight, writing legislation, and engaging in bipartisan collaboration, the House Committee on Natural Resources aims to ensure the responsible and equitable use of the United States' natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations. 

 

  Dems Mission

Natural Resources Committee Democrats' Mission

Advance meaningful, justice-oriented solutions to fight climate change, pursue a healthier, more sustainable planet,
and elevate the interests of Indigenous Peoples and residents of U.S. Insular Areas.

 

Subcommittee Priorities

Energy and Mineral Resources

1
  • Reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants caused by onshore and offshore fossil fuel energy development.
  • Prioritize clean, renewable energy, including solar and wind.
  • End subsidies for exploitive, polluting industries and hold them accountable to the American people.

Federal Lands

1
  • Protect and enhance America's national parks, national forests, and other public lands, waters, and special places.
  • Promote meaningful tribal consultation and tribal co-management of public lands, waters, and special places.
  • Strengthen bedrock environmental and public participation protections, namely the National Environmental Policy Act.
  • Foster opportunities for hunting, fishing, and other outdoor recreation.

Water, Wildlife and Fisheries

1
  • Protect our oceans, coasts, and wildlife from pollution, climate change, and other threats.
  • Support sustainable fisheries and resilient coastal and ocean economies.
  • Secure water supply certainty for tribal communities and prepare communities for climate change-related impacts on water supplies.
  • Conserve and recover American species and their habitats
  • Enhance international wildlife conservation efforts

Indian and Insular Affairs

1
  • Strengthen tribal sovereignty and self-governance, honor the federal government’s trust and treaty responsibilities, and protect ancestral homelands and tribal cultural resources.
  • Acknowledge and elevate Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge in federal decision making.
  • Foster political, economic, and social development of the U.S. Territories and reckon with the unjust impacts of America's colonialist history.
  • Affirm our relationships with and support economic self-sufficiency of the Freely Associated States.

Oversight and Investigations

1
  • Conduct congressional oversight of activities of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Atmospheric Administration, and the industries that engage with these agencies.
  • Ensure federal decisions and actions are grounded in science and free of undue influence.
  

Jurisdiction

The House Committee on Natural Resources has jurisdiction over a diverse range of areas, including the ongoing climate crisis; environmental justice; fisheries and wildlife, including research, restoration, refuges, and conservation; forest reserves and national parks created from the public domain; forfeiture of land grants and alien ownership, including alien ownership of mineral lands; Geological Survey; international fishing agreements; interstate compacts relating to apportionment of waters for irrigation purposes; irrigation and reclamation, including water supply for reclamation projects and easements of public lands for irrigation projects; and acquisition of private lands when necessary to complete irrigation projects; Native Americans generally, including the care and allotment of Native American lands and general and special measures relating to claims that are paid out of Native American funds; Insular areas of the United States generally (except those affecting the revenue and appropriations); military parks and battlefields, national cemeteries administered by the Secretary of the Interior, parks within the District of Columbia, and the erection of monuments to the memory of individuals; mineral land laws and claims and entries thereunder; mineral resources of public lands; mining interests generally; mining schools and experimental stations; marine affairs, including coastal zone management (except for measures relating to oil and other pollution of navigable waters); oceanography, petroleum conservation on public lands and conservation of the radium supply in the United States, preservation of prehistoric ruins and objects of interest on the public domain, public lands generally, including entry, easements, and grazing thereon, relations of the United States with Native Americans and Native American tribes, Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline (except ratemaking). For more details, please visit the House Rules.