Committee Holding Markup This Thursday to Vote on Chair Grijalva’s Authority to Issue Subpoenas

Washington, D.C. – The Committee on Natural Resources will hold a markup at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday, Feb. 6, on a resolution to grant Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) the authority to issue subpoenas. Natural Resources is one of only a few committees in the House not to grant the chair such authority automatically at the beginning of each Congress. 

Chair Grijalva and Democrats on the Committee have sent 25 formal requests to the Department of the Interior for information. Only three have received complete or nearly complete responses.

The Committee held a hearing in September 2019 specifically on the Trump administration’s failure to comply with even minimal requests for information. Under former Secretary Ryan Zinke and current Secretary David Bernhardt, Department of the Interior offices and agencies responding to Committee requests for information have sent thousands of pages of entirely blacked-out data, PDFs of wingdings and unreadable gibberish, and other nonresponsive material. 

The administration often points to the number of pages it has provided in response to inquiries as evidence of cooperation, irrespective of the uselessness of those pages’ content.

As with all hearings and markups, the Feb. 6 event is open to media and the public and will be livestreamed at http://facebook.com/nrdems.

Full Committee Markup

When: Thursday, Feb. 6, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time

Where: 1324 Longworth House Office Building

Press Contact

Adam Sarvana

(202) 225-6065 or (202) 578-6626 mobile

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