Press Releases
Currently showing results related to Federal Lands
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
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
07.17.18
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
05.24.18
Ranking Member Grijalva: Republicans’ Unrelated Anti-Environment Riders Made Bloated, Misguided DOD Bill Even Worse
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) released the following statement after voting against this year's National Defense Authorization Act: "This bill was unacceptable. After spending nearly $5.6 trillion, taking service members from their families, and prosecuting the so-called 'War on Terror' for nearly two decades, the United States has done little to stabilize volatile regions across the world. It's long past time to fundamentally change course. This measure au… Continue Reading
05.22.18
Rep. Huffman Introduces Bill to Repeal GOP Tax Scam’s Arctic Wildlife Refuge Drilling Mandate
Washington, D.C.- To halt the oil and gas drilling exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge currently being rushed by the Trump administration, Vice-Ranking Member of the House Committee on Natural Resources Jared Huffman (D-CA), Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ), Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), Donald McEachin (D-VA), and Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) today introduced the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act. The Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act would protect… Continue Reading
05.10.18
Grijalva Presses Zinke on Diversion of National Park Police to Border – Seeks Answers on Next Steps, Cost to Taxpayers
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Rember Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) sent a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke today pressing him for information on Zinke's recently announced decision to send National Park Police personnel to the U.S.-Mexico border as part of President Trump's ill-defined and poorly thought-out border security efforts. Treating the Department of the Interior (DOI) or National Park Service (NPS) as border security agencies, and ordering staff to participate in operat… Continue Reading
04.19.18
Democratic Letter to Zinke: Arctic Drilling Proposal Shows Trump, GOP Care More About Pleasing Oil Companies Than Public Opinion
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) sent a letter with eight House Democratic colleagues to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke today questioning the haste with which the Department of the Interior (DOI) is moving the country closer to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The letter highlights tomorrow's expected announcement in the Federal Register - publicized this morning - that DOI is preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to allow dri… Continue Reading
04.12.18
Grijalva Applauds the American People for Speaking Up and Opposing the NPS Fee Hike
Washington, D.C. - House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) praised the American people for making their voices heard and opposing the National Park Service (NPS) proposal to nearly double the entrance fees at 17 of our most popular national parks. More than 100,000 people submitted public comments opposing the fee hike and as a result, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke pulled back his original proposal and announced today that NPS is only increasing the ent… Continue Reading
02.16.18
Grijalva Questions Interior Department’s Ignorance as Questions Mount on Utah National Monument Foe’s Conflicts of Interest
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) sent a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke this morning questioning whether the Department of the Interior (DOI) was aware of Utah State Rep. Mike Noel's (R) significant conflicts of interest in touting President Trump's shrinking last year of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. As the Salt Lake Tribune reported earlier this week, Noel - a leading figure in pushing Trump's move and a vocal opponent of federal land … Continue Reading
02.14.18
Ahead of Tomorrow’s Hearing on Managing Federal Lands Along the Border, Grijalva & McEachin Call Out Republicans for Depriving Border Communities of Their Basic Rights
Washington, D.C. - Ahead of tomorrow's 10 a.m. hearing on Republican calls to further degrade environmental protections along the U.S. border with Mexico, House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Ranking Member Donald McEachin (D-Va.), are criticizing Congressional Republicans for their efforts to deprive border communities of basic rights in the guise of increasing border security. Republicans are proposing … Continue Reading
02.12.18
As Trump Proposes to Destroy Land and Water Conservation Fund & Privatize Infrastructure, Grijalva Highlights 219 LWCF Cosponsors
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today highlighted his bill permanently reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which funds public land acquisitions and conservation efforts across the country, and underscored the bill's 219 House cosponsors as a rebuke to President Trump's budget proposal slashing LWCF land acquisition by approximately 90 percent from fiscal year 2017 levels. Grijalva's bill, H.R. 502, would pass the House today if given a … Continue Reading
02.12.18
Grijalva: We Need to Know Who Directed Trump’s Environmental Budget Cuts, Understand Potential Conflicts of Interest
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) today said the Trump budget plan's deep cuts to popular environmental programs and failure to address climate change, despite clear national security warnings from his own top military officials, need to be understood through the lens of the Interior Department's ongoing conflict-of-interest scandals and lack of transparency. Grijalva pointed to regulatory carveouts and industry-slanted budget priorities that strongly suggest lo… Continue Reading
02.12.18
Grijalva on Trump’s Infrastructure Plan
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) responded to the release of President Trump's "infrastructure plan" that aims to gut fundamental clean water and air protections and puts our children's health at risk: "This is not a plan, it's not even a proposal. This is a sheet of tired, Republican talking points that blame everything on basic environmental protections and in the end, do nothing," Grijalva said. "Local communities, not big corporate developers who solely ca… Continue Reading
01.29.18
Grijalva Highlights Long List of Republican Attacks on Our Communities’ Health and Environment Ahead of State of the Union
Washington, D.C. - Ahead of President Trump's State of the Union address, Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva's (D-Ariz.) staff released a year-end report today titled, 2017: A Year of the Resistance to highlight the relentless attacks Republicans in Congress and the administration have made on our country's foundational environmental policies. Republicans have successfully undermined key environmental laws and have introduced new pieces of legislation that put our public lands, waters, clean… Continue Reading
01.29.18
Grijalva Will Circulate Letter at Tomorrow’s Hearing Urging Sec. Zinke to Declare Bears Ears Monument Off Limits to Extraction
Washington, D.C. - Ranking Member Raúl M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) will ask members of the Natural Resources Committee at tomorrow's hearing on the fate of Bears Ears National Monument to sign a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke urging him to withdraw the land inside the monument's traditional, lawful boundaries from new oil, gas and mining claims. The move comes shortly ahead of the Feb. 2 opening of much of the monument to new extraction claims, which could be maintained even when Presi… Continue Reading