Press Releases
Chair Grijalva Unveils Discussion Draft of Bill Providing Climate Solutions for U.S. Territories, Seeks Stakeholder and Public Input
Washington D.C. - Natural Resources Committee Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today released a discussion draft of legislation to reduce climate crisis impacts on U.S. territories and freely associated states. Chair Grijalva encouraged local government officials, organizations and communities to provide feedback on the discussion draft by Friday, Nov. 13. "U.S. territories are facing sea level rise, more frequent and intense tropical storms, extreme temperatures, and serious public he… Continue Reading
10.02.20
Chair Grijalva, Ranking Member Bishop Highlight New GAO Report They Requested on Deficiencies in Federal Oversight of Human Rights Abuses
Washington, D.C. - House Natural Resources Committee Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Ranking Member Rob Bishop (R-Utah) today highlighted a newly released Government Accountability Office (GAO) report they had requested demonstrating more safeguards need to be put in place to ensure taxpayer money does not support human rights abuses by park rangers overseas. The GAO report, Combatting Wildlife Trafficking: Agencies Work to Address Human Rights Abuse Allegations in Overseas Conserva… Continue Reading
09.30.20
Natural Resources Committee Advances Bills to Protect Boundary Waters From Mining, Remove Confederate Monuments, Protect Public Lands
Washington D.C. - Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today led a Committee markup to advance 19 pieces of legislation, including key Natural Resources measures to protect federally recognized waters from dangerous mining, remove Confederate monuments from public lands, and support Indian Country. One bill provides federal recognition for the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. Bill texts, amendments, amendments in the nature of a substitute, and vote counts can be found at the House of Represe… Continue Reading
09.25.20
Chair Grijalva on Ruling Against William Pendley: Gov. Bullock Was Right to Bring This Case
Chair Raul M. Grijalva released the following statement on the federal ruling that William Perry Pendley was illegally running the Bureau of Land Management: "The lesson of this ruling is that Gov. Bullock was right to bring this case and Mr. Pendley's apologists were wrong to support him. His decisions should be erased from the record. Our form of government is stronger than the the Trump administration's authoritarian impulses, and the Senate Republicans incapable of standing up to it have onl… Continue Reading
09.24.20
Chair Grijalva Statement on Forest Service’s Newly Announced Roadless Rule Exemption for Tongass National Forest: “This is Putting Polluters Over People”
Washington, D.C. - Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) released the following statement on the U.S. Forest Service's newly announced upcoming publication of a Final Environmental Impact Statement that will exempt the Tongass National Forest in Alaska from the 2001 Roadless Rule. "The Trump administration just opened up one of the world's biggest carbon sinks to more resource extraction and ignored overwhelming public opposition in order to do it. This is what America looks like when those i… Continue Reading
09.24.20
Chair Grijalva Leads House, Senate Members in Sending Amicus Brief on Dakota Access Pipeline to Federal Court Ahead of Crucial Ruling on Tribal Rights
Washington, D.C. - Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today led the filing of an amicus curiae brief alongside House and Senate colleagues with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a case filed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other Native American tribes against the Army Corps of Engineers over permits granted to build the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). Among other issues, the brief - available at https://bit.ly/3i1w6Y0 - cites Congress' interest in "preser… Continue Reading
09.24.20
Chair Grijalva, Committee Members Question DOI Efforts to Build Road on Congressionally Protected Lands, Properties Purchased with Conservation Funds
Washington, D.C. - Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) led a letter today with seven other House Committee Democrats to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt questioning the Department of the Interior's (DOI) effort to rush forward a road-building project through the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area (NCA) in Southern Utah. Under DOI's preferred alternative, the planned four-lane highway, part of the Northern Corridor Project for St. George, Utah, would run through land protected by Congre… Continue Reading
09.22.20
Chairs Raúl M. Grijalva and Eddie Bernice Johnson Lead House Letter to NOAA Pushing for Explanation of Political Interference in Whale Safety Assessment
Washington, D.C. - House Natural Resources Committee Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and House Committee on Science, Space and Technology Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) today led a letter with three other key House colleagues asking for an explanation of political interference in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) assessment of seismic testing impacts on North Atlantic right whales. The letter seeks the swift release of a pending scientific integrity inqu… Continue Reading
09.22.20
Chair Grijalva Applauds House Passage of Bills to Strengthen Indian Country, Combat Crisis of Murdered and Indigenous Women
Washington D.C. - Yesterday the House of Representatives passed six bipartisan Natural Resources Committee bills under suspension of the rules, including two bills to combat the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). Of those six, five have now been approved by both the House and Senate and are set to become law. "This Committee is working to strengthen Indian Country at every opportunity," said Natural Resources Chair Raúl M. Grijalva. "Since the beginning of this Cong… Continue Reading
09.18.20
Chair Grijalva: Administration Delays and Incompetence Cost Puerto Rican Lives, and Finally Approving Overdue Assistance is No Triumph
Washington, D.C. - Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said today ahead of the administration's expected 9:30 a.m. Eastern time press conference in Puerto Rico to announce the release of a formerly withheld round of disaster aid that four years of Trump administration abuse and neglect have caused preventable deaths in Puerto Rico, and today's announcement will not erase Puerto Rican memories of how the president has treated the island and its people. "President Trump talks about Puerto Ric… Continue Reading
09.17.20
After Trump Admin Refuses to Testify, Chair Grijalva, Rep. Gallego Question Bureau of Indian Education’s Decision to Open Tribal Schools In Person
Washington, D.C. - Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), chair of the Subcommittee on Indigenous Peoples of the United States, wrote to two key Trump administration officials today seeking more information about the Bureau of Indian Education's (BIE) attempt to open all BIE-operated schools for in-person classes on Sept. 16 regardless of each Tribe's preparedness or concerns about the decision. This letter comes after the administration declined an invitation … Continue Reading
09.15.20
Chair Grijalva, Rep. Huffman Seek Explanation From NOAA Following Political Hire of Climate Denier David Legates to Leadership Role
Washington D.C. - Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), chair of the Subcommittee on Water, Oceans, and Wildlife, sent a letter to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Acting Administrator Neil Jacobs today seeking information about the process used to hire climate denier Dr. David Legates as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction. Legates has spent his career denying the widely accepted scien… Continue Reading
09.14.20
Chair Grijalva Leads 61 House Democrats Calling for Trump Admin Suspension of Regulatory Rollbacks That Threaten Health and Environmental Safety
Washington, D.C. - In a new letter to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Department of the Interior (DOI) and Department of Agriculture, Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and 60 other House lawmakers today call on the Trump administration to suspend more than a dozen recent regulatory actions that weaken environmental, public health, and public lands protections, including a new rule going into effect today that undermines federal assessments of the climate risks and o… Continue Reading
09.08.20
Chair Grijalva: Trump Administration Bowed to Public Pressure to Stop Offshore Drilling – Now it’s Time to Show Real Seriousness on Climate Change
Tucson, Ariz. - Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said today that the Trump administration bowed to overwhelming public pressure in its newly announced withdrawal of the South Atlantic and Eastern Gulf of Mexico from new oil and gas leases, and that the administration should listen to the equally overwhelming pressure to implement serious limits on climate-damaging emissions and protect climate stability while we still can. "The administration took one step today in what needs to be a muc… Continue Reading
09.03.20
In New Letter, Chair Grijalva Asks Interior to Defend Misleading Rationale for New Giveaways to Mining Companies
Tucson, Ariz. - In a new letter to Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Casey Hammond, Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) thoroughly rebuts the Department of the Interior's (DOI) arguments for giving away more than $177 million to soda ash producers, a recently announced decision with no discernible public benefit that will cost taxpayers and private landowners for years to come. The giveaways, part of a constant Trump-era pattern, come in the form of a new rule called the N… Continue Reading
09.02.20
As Trump’s Interior Department Tries Unsuccessfully to Spin Ethics Record, Natural Resources Committee Highlights Three-Plus Years of Scandals
Washington, D.C. - The House Natural Resources Committee majority released a new review of the Trump Interior Department's history of scandals, conflicts of interest, formal investigations and ethical lapses today in a Medium post underlining Secretary David Bernhardt's complete failure to control the sometimes illegal behavior of his subordinates. The review comes after the Interior Department attempted to brag in a press release earlier this week about the strength of its ethics training. The… Continue Reading
09.01.20
Chair Grijalva: Trump Proposal to Transfer Millions in Taxpayer Money to Soda Ash Producers is Perfect Example of Trump’s Destructiveness
Tucson, Ariz. - Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said today that the Trump administration's draft final rule providing a $177 million giveaway to producers of soda ash - an industry whose output has grown in the United States by about 1 percent per year since 1998 - is a perfect example of everything wrong with the president's environmental and economic policies. The rule - Draft Final Rule - Non-Energy Solid Leasable Minerals Royalty Rate Reduction Process - will be effective 30 days af… Continue Reading
09.01.20
Chair Grijalva on Forest Service Oil and Gas Deregulation Proposal: The Trump Administration is Giving Away Our Public Lands as Fast as Possible
Washington D.C. - Natural Resources Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) released the following statement on the U.S. Forest Service's (USFS) publication of a proposed deregulation of oil and gas development on National Forest System lands. Under the proposal, the Forest Service - part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture - would have fewer opportunities to push back against potentially problematic lease sales, keep the public in the dark about proposals to drill, and shortcut reviews of ho… Continue Reading
08.17.20
Chair Grijalva: Trump Opening Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to Drilling is What Happens When Rejecting Science, Being Destructive is the Whole Point
Washington, D.C. - Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today said the Trump administration's decision to open the entire Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to fossil fuel extraction is the inevitable consequence of empowering an administration for whom the principles of rejecting science and being destructive dictate national policy. He pointed to the House-passed bill protecting the Arctic Refuge, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has ignored. "Republicans talked a big game about l… Continue Reading
08.14.20
Chair Grijalva Condemns Interior Department as Major Alaska Oil Drilling Project Nears Approval
Washington D.C. - Natural Resources Chair Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) released the below statement following the publication of the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) final environmental review for ConocoPhillips' Willow Master Development Plan in the National Petroleum Reserve - Alaska (Reserve). "This massive oil and gas project in Alaska is a victory for Big Oil executives and the Trump administration's political allies. This project will have disastrous impacts on the region's air, wa… Continue Reading