Press Releases
Grijalva, Bordallo Lead Letter to Cabinet Officials Urging Focus on Seafood Industry Slavery in SE Asia – Grijalva Requests GAO Study
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and eight House Democratic colleagues, including Del. Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam), sent a letter today to Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen urging them to crack down on human trafficking in the seafood industry. The authors note that despite multiple activist and media exposés in recent years and a heightened level of public interest, litt… Continue Reading
09.17.18
Natural Resources Committee Democrats Launch #SaveLWCF Countdown, Urge Vote On Bipartisan Bill Before LWCF Expires
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and the House Natural Resources Committee Democrats launched an online #SaveLWCF initiative today highlighting successful Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) projects implemented across the country in the more than 50 years since the program was established in 1965. Natural Resources Democrats will tweet an LWCF success story every hour until Sept. 30, when the program is set to expire. Each tweet will tell the story of how… Continue Reading
09.17.18
Natural Resources Committee Democrats Launch #SaveLWCF Countdown, Urge Vote On Bipartisan Bill Before LWCF Expires
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and the House Natural Resources Committee Democrats launched an online #SaveLWCF initiative today highlighting successful Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) projects implemented across the country in the more than 50 years since the program was established in 1965. Natural Resources Democrats will tweet an LWCF success story every hour until Sept. 30, when the program is set to expire. Each tweet will tell the story of how… Continue Reading
09.13.18
Natural Resources Committee Democrats Kick Off “Wasted Resources” Series Highlighting GOP Oversight Failures, Misplaced Priorities
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and the House Natural Resources Committee Democrats today launched Wasted Resources, a new multimedia series highlighting the major natural resources policy issues the Republican majority ignored over the course of the 115th Congress and the misguided hearings they chose to hold instead. The series kicks off today by highlighting a Committee hearing on July 13, 2017, featuring Republican witness testimony accusing multiple Nati… Continue Reading
09.13.18
Grijalva: Historic Bipartisan Agreement Reauthorizing LWCF, Paying for Park Maintenance Should Advance Quickly
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said today that measures just passed by the House Natural Resources Committee permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and dedicating new funding to National Park Service maintenance represent a historic bipartisan moment and should move forward quickly. "This is a taste of what's possible when people work together in good faith," Grijalva said today. "Days like these are far too rare in Congress, a… Continue Reading
09.13.18
Grijalva: Historic Bipartisan Agreement Reauthorizing LWCF, Paying for Park Maintenance Should Advance Quickly
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said today that measures just passed by the House Natural Resources Committee permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and dedicating new funding to National Park Service maintenance represent a historic bipartisan moment and should move forward quickly. "This is a taste of what's possible when people work together in good faith," Grijalva said today. "Days like these are far too rare in Congress, a… Continue Reading
09.13.18
Natural Resources Committee Democrats Kick Off “Wasted Resources” Series Highlighting GOP Oversight Failures, Misplaced Priorities
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and the House Natural Resources Committee Democrats today launched Wasted Resources, a new multimedia series highlighting the major natural resources policy issues the Republican majority ignored over the course of the 115th Congress and the misguided hearings they chose to hold instead. The series kicks off today by highlighting a Committee hearing on July 13, 2017, featuring Republican witness testimony accusing multiple Nati… Continue Reading
08.16.18
Ranking Member Grijalva: Yesterday’s IG Finding Overlooks Attempted Behind-the-Scenes Politicization of NPS Climate Report
Washington, D.C. - In response to a request from Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Reps. Donald McEachin (D-Va.), Niki Tsongas (D-Mass.), Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), the Department of the Interior (DOI) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) yesterday afternoon released its conclusions on how a recent National Park Service (NPS) report on human contributions to climate change was produced. The lawmakers requested the investigation in early April to determin… Continue Reading
07.25.18
Grijalva, House Democrats Urge Trump to Offer Same Tariff Relief to Fishing Communities He’s Now Offering to Farmers
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and three key House Democratic colleagues sent a letter to President Trump today urging him to extend financial relief to American fishermen and women reeling from his failed tariff battle with China. The letter points out that Trump's tariffs on steel have impacted the price of boats, fishing hooks, and lobster and crab traps, and that China's 25 percent retaliatory tariff on 170 American seafood products has had an already cri… Continue Reading
07.25.18
Ranking Member Grijalva Introduces Suite of Bills to Protect Southern Arizona Historic, Environmental Sites
Washington, D.C. - Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva today introduced a set of bills designed to promote Arizona public land conservation, including the Great Bend of the Gila National Monument Act to designate a national monument on approximately 85,000 acres of federal land in Southern Arizona. The monument will be managed as part of the Bureau of Land Management's National Conservation Lands. The area identified by the bill is filled with cultural and histori… Continue Reading
07.19.18
Ranking Member Grijalva: Trump’s Endangered Species Act Changes Put Species at Risk as Favor to Industry
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) released the following statement on the Trump administration's newly announced weakening of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) through three separate rulemakings that will be announced in the Federal Register early next week. The changes were posted moments ago on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website. "The Trump administration doesn't seem to know any other way to handle the environment than as an obstacle to industry profi… Continue Reading
07.18.18
Grijalva: GOP Just Voted to Protect Secretary Zinke From Accountability by Denying Full Funding for DOI Inspector General
Washington, D.C. - Moments ago the House Republican majority voted down Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva's (D-Ariz.) amendment to the Department of the Interior (DOI) funding bill that sought to increase the DOI Office of Inspector General's (OIG) funding by $2.5 million. Grijalva said the vote shows how stubbornly Republicans refuse to hold Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke or the rest of the Trump administration's DOI appointees accountable for their multiple scandals, policy failures and em… Continue Reading
07.17.18
Ranking Member Grijalva: Gosar Attack on Ironwood Forest Shows Little Respect for Historic Conservation, Local Input
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today said Rep. Paul Gosar's (R-Ariz.) amendment to the Department of the Interior funding bill prohibiting the use of funds to manage Ironwood Forest National Monument - which is entirely within Rep. Grijalva's district - shows no respect for historic conservation or local input. The public strongly supports maintaining national monuments in Arizona, as the Trump administration learned in the midst of its 2017 push to shrink na… Continue Reading
07.17.18
Ranking Member Grijalva Leads Letter With More Than 100 Democrats Opposing GOP Defense Bill’s Attacks on Endangered Species
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.), a member of the House-Senate conference reconciling the two chambers' versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), sent a letter with 118 of his House Democratic colleagues this morning urging House and Senate lawmakers to remove language in the House version of the NDAA that weakens the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). The letter, signed by House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-M… Continue Reading
07.12.18
Grijalva: Republicans Still Scamming the Public on Endangered Species Act, Pushing Destructive Corporate Favors as “Reform”
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva today said that House Republicans' announcement this afternoon of a suite of nine bills that gut the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is part of their undisguised years-long pattern of pushing unpopular, environmentally destructive favors for corporate supporters. Grijalva questioned the thinking behind Republicans' in-your-face partisan destruction of one of America's bedrock environmental laws. Without the ESA, Grijalva pointed out, specie… Continue Reading
07.05.18
Grijalva: Congressional GOP Owns Pruitt’s Scandals as Much as Trump, Must Conduct Oversight or Public Will Expect More Ripoffs
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) released the following statement on Scott Pruitt's resignation as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. "The sad truth is that Mr. Pruitt is exactly the kind of person President Trump believes should run our government: someone who lies, abuses his office, enriches himself and his family at taxpayer expense and thinks his job is to keep CEOs happy rather than make Americans' lives better. From day one of his shameful ten… Continue Reading
06.28.18
Grijalva: Proposed Fish and Wildlife Service Rule Would Likely Cause Extinction of Endangered Red Wolves in the Wild
Washington, D.C. - Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) formally proposed a rule shrinking the management area for the North Carolina red wolf from the current range of nearly 2 million acres down to a single national wildlife refuge and an adjacent former bombing range, a plan that Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said signals the Trump administration's total capitulation to a small group of ideological wolf opponents. The proposed rule shrinks the red wolf management … Continue Reading
06.27.18
Grijalva, Pallone Highlight Lack of Administration Transparency and Oversight Compliance as Zinke Skates on Threats to Senators
Washington, D.C. - Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) today highlighted the Trump administration's total lack of compliance with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Department of Interior (DOI) Office of Inspector General (OIG) in the matter of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's reported threats to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) during a 2017 phone conversation based on her vote o… Continue Reading
06.27.18
Ranking Member Grijalva, Team of House Democrats Call on Pruitt to Reissue Canceled Information Request on Methane Emissions
Washington, D.C. - In the wake of fresh evidence that the oil and gas industry's methane emissions are far greater than previously thought, Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and four House Democratic colleagues today sent a letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt urging him to reinstate a formal Information Collection Request (ICR) to the industry that he canceled in early 2017. The letter comes as a new report in the journal Science found that m… Continue Reading
06.21.18
Citing Internal Emails, Grijalva and Committee Dems Call for Investigation of Zinke Misusing Official Resources for Financial Gain
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and two other top Natural Resources Committee Democrats today sent a letter to the Department of the Interior (DOI) Office of Inspector General requesting an investigation into Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's apparent use of official resources for personal financial gain. The letter points to internal DOI emails and a Zinke official schedule, revealed through Freedom of Information Act requests, showing that Zinke met with Monta… Continue Reading