▶ 0:04:40Today's discussion helps inform our budget review process. It helps us gain a fuller understanding of your priorities and the vision for the future of the department, and for us to share our priorities and grapple with areas where we may disagree. One of the priorities of this subcommittee, under both republican and democratic leadership, is upholding and fulfilling our treaty and trust responsibilities. We look forward to continuing to work together to direct funding to tribes greatest needs, including health care, education, law enforcement, and community economic development.
▶ 0:05:11Finally, no discussion of this budget will be would be complete without mentioning our wildfire firefighters. I look forward to hearing more about the department's strategies and funding levels needed to support them in their fight to keep our communities safe and protect our forests. Secretary burgum, thank you again for joining us this afternoon. With that, I want to yield to ranking member pingree for any opening statements that she might like to make. >> thank you, Mr. chair, and thank you, Mr. secretary. I do really appreciate you being here today.
▶ 0:05:39And thank you so much for your recent trip to maine. I know it was greatly appreciated by the parks, the tribes and others that you were able to meet with. But I have to say, unfortunately, after a year of observing this administration and its impact on our country, I have some very deep concerns. The department of the interior is supposed to protect and manage our natural resources, to uphold our trust and treaty obligations, and to follow the science.
▶ 0:06:02Instead, from my observation, this administration is bending the department's mission to serve the interests of oil and gas companies, and the administration's policies are allowing unfettered consumption of natural resources in this country. We have seen that very clearly in the gulf of mexico, where last month the administration convened the so-called god squad and approved an extraordinary exemption from the endangered species act protections for offshore drilling.
▶ 0:06:27That decision would be alarming enough on its own, but it was even more disturbing because it came from an administration that seems determined to weaken every safeguard that stands in the way of industry profits. Speaking of those critical safeguards, 16 years ago on this day, the deepwater horizon explosion killed 11 workers and devastated the gulf with the largest and most destructive oil spill in america's history.
▶ 0:06:53In the wake of that disaster, investigation found investigations found that employees had inappropriately close ties to the oil and gas companies, and the agency was then broken up because the oversight model had failed so badly. Yet this budget proposes reviving that disgraced structure, potentially returning us to the days of corruption and a model that jeopardized worker safety and the environment.
▶ 0:07:17The administration has also taken dramatic steps to block renewable energy development, eliminating competition for oil and gas and reducing the amount of energy produced at a time when our country's overall energy needs are growing. Shortly after taking office, the white house moved quickly to halt offshore wind development and took steps to rein in solar and wind projects. Why?
▶ 0:07:43Why are we kneecapping industries that create jobs, expand our energy supply, and help address the climate crisis? Because this administration's energy policy is based on political grievance, ideological hostility, and of course, propping up big oil and gas. Plus, we know trump has. I don't understand it. But a vendetta against windmills and the courts vacated the president's wind moratorium and stopped the president from blocking five current leases.
▶ 0:08:10The administration took the unprecedented step of spending nearly $1 billion of taxpayer money to coerce a private company into abandoning offshore wind projects. And now we know the administration's public justification for that deal does not hold up. Newly disclosed settlement terms show the company was not required to make any new investment in american oil and gas production at all.
▶ 0:08:33Instead, it could simply claim credit for spending that it was already planning to make, including fossil fuel projects that had already moved forward to make this deal even more stunning. The waste of the taxpayers money is being used to reward a company for abandoning clean energy, while helping to prop up more oil and gas development. At the very moment that families are getting hammered by high energy costs, americans are struggling with high utility bills and higher gas prices.
▶ 0:09:00Yet this administration chose to spend nearly $1 billion not to build affordable energy, but to kill it. All of these dirty deals are to benefit the industry, and it's at the expense of american people who are now paying an average of $4.04 for a gallon of gas, according to the stanford institute for economic policy research. Gas prices could peak at $4.36 a gallon, costing the average household $740 more for gas this year.
▶ 0:09:27So it makes no sense to me why this administration would be actively sabotaging renewable energy, which we know is cheaper and more affordable of an energy option for families. To tell you the truth, this just makes me very angry. I don't even usually speak this long, but it makes me that angry. This administration's policies are causing an affordability crisis, and there seems to be a lack of focus on what the department's mission actually is.
▶ 0:09:54It seems to me that the white house has you distracted with duties unrelated to being secretary of the interior. For example, what is bringing back a case of gold from venezuela have to do with the doi's mission? Meanwhile, our national parks are falling apart, staff are stretched thin, and the budget proposes to further gut them with a 32% cut.
▶ 0:10:18Science should be at the core of the department's management decisions, but this budget eviscerates the us geological geological survey of vital research agency, cutting its budget by 66%, and the budget abandons our trust and treaty obligations to native americans, slashing the bureau of indian affairs by 27%, and the indian and indian education by 32%.
▶ 0:10:42I have been appalled to watch this administration decimate the staff at the department, and it certainly looks as if it is trying to deliver the final blow with this budget. The department is on a dangerous course. This budget would only make the damage worse, and as the ranking member of the subcommittee, I will do everything in my power to oppose these reckless cuts and fight the administration's destructive policies. I hope you will put politics aside.
▶ 0:11:09Listen to the serious concerns that will be raised here today, and please take immediate steps to pull this department back onto a safer and more responsible course. So thank you again for being here. I look forward to your answers to our questions and I yield back. >> thank you, ranking member pingree. Now, I'd like to yield to the chairman of the full committee, Mr. cole. >> thank you very much, Mr.
▶ 0:11:29Chairman, chairman, ranking member pingree, I appreciate you holding this hearing, and I want to certainly thank you again for all the focus you have on this topic. Secretary burgum, welcome and thank you for testifying before the subcommittee on the administration's budget proposal for the department of interior for fiscal year 2027.
▶ 0:11:52Over the past year, this white house has worked with urgency to remake the federal bureaucracy and rebalance america's natural resource policies. Cutting red tape fuels opportunity and enhances our competitiveness. I believe in our ability to innovate and work together to achieve shared conservation goals, while preserving the economic vitality of our communities.
▶ 0:12:14When we make the right strategic federal investments and govern effectively, those resources pay dividends in the form of stable economic growth and the creation of good paying jobs. To that end, Mr. secretary, I appreciate your efforts to implement strategic reforms at the department of interior. I look forward to hearing about what you have been able to accomplish and about your vision for the future of the agency.
▶ 0:12:37As we begin the fy 27 appropriations process, informed by your experiences in your first year as secretary. You're doing important work. The department manages our beloved national parks and conserves our public lands to keep them healthy and productive for future generations. The agency plays a critical role in upholding the government's tribal trust and treaty responsibilities, work that is of the utmost importance to me personally, and I know to each and every member of this subcommittee.
▶ 0:13:07It's imperative that those programs are supported by budget requests that reflect their importance and impact on native communities. Our trust and treaty obligations are national commitments to be honored. Tribes already do their best with limited resources and further reductions in funding for services and self-governance have real and serious consequences in indian country.
▶ 0:13:30That's why it's paramount that thorough and proper tribal consultations are conducted when changes to programs are proposed that would impact the delivery of services. I look forward to hearing more about agency plans to support these programs and improve efficiencies and upholding these sacred responsibilities. Thank you for being here today, secretary bergen. We will continue to work with you collaboratively on executing your agency's mission and ensuring constituent needs are met. With that, I yield back.
▶ 0:14:01>> thank you, Mr. chairman. Uh, now I'd like to yield to ranking member of the full committee on appropriations, Mr. laurel lee, for any opening remarks that she might. >> thank you very much, Mr. chairman and ranking member, for holding this hearing. And, Mr. secretary, uh, thank you for being with us today and testifying and, uh, looking forward to our questions and answers, uh, with you. Uh, the american people sense that this administration is out of touch.
▶ 0:14:27While the cost of living continues to climb, while the price of gas, groceries, utilities, and everyday goods goes up and up, this administration is asleep at the wheel. They do not have any idea of what the american people need or want. That disconnect between what the public wants and what the administration does is present in the proposed budget for the department of interior.
▶ 0:14:48Rather than address the problems that are actually impacting people's lives, the trump administration is proposing to slash billions of dollars across a range of programs that protect wildlife, maintain public lands, and promote clean energy programs that enjoy broad public support. The national park service is the most popular government agency in the united states. According to the pew research center, 76% of americans have a positive view of the agency.
▶ 0:15:19The public are rightly enamored of the natural beauty of our country and that our country is blessed with. They are overwhelmingly supportive of the good work that the national park service does to maintain and to protect our park lands. Yet in the budget proposal, the trump administration slashes funding for the national park service by more than $1 billion. That includes a more than 25% $760 million.
▶ 0:15:45It's a cut to operations, a 93% cut to national recreation and preservation, and a 94% cut to the historic preservation fund. These cuts will impact the public's access to our national parks and negatively affect the visitor experience. Visitation is rising, but if these cuts are implemented, more and more people will arrive at our national parks. They will find them mismanaged, unsafe, shut down entirely due to lack of resources.
▶ 0:16:15As a result, people will be unable to fully experience the beauty that these parks have to offer, and public support for them will be put at risk. But I believe that is the goal of this administration, so that when they move to sell off more land to big corporations who want to drill for oil or cut for lumber or mined for coal, they will meet with weaker opposition, and less of our public land will be preserved for public use.
▶ 0:16:44The president's budget request also proposes cutting the national wildlife refuge system by 20%, hampering conservation efforts, putting more species at risk and eroding the overall quality of our environment. The administration proposes the outright eliminating all funding for renewable energy under the interior department, slowing our transition to a green energy economy. While global competitors like china race far ahead.
▶ 0:17:11In fact, we are seeing right now how vulnerable our continued reliance on fossil fuels makes us. As president trump's war of choice with iran devolves into a conflict over who controls the global supply of oil. Meanwhile, the american people are forced to shoulder the burden of a 40% increase in gas prices so far, which president trump admits will likely get worse.
▶ 0:17:38The trump administration also proposes slashing funding for the us geological survey by 37%. That weakens our ability to observe, to understand the impact that their dangerous policies are having on the environment.
▶ 0:17:52The future that this administration envisions with this budget proposal is one of fewer national parks shrinking public lands, more extinct species, dirtier air and water, and higher profits for fossil fuel executives, who are the only people who stand to benefit from these disastrous cuts. I look forward to hearing, Mr.
▶ 0:18:14Secretary, your answers to our questions today and to hearing an explanation as to how decimating these agencies will help to solve any of the problems that the american people are facing. I thank you, and I yield back. >> thank you. Ranking member delauro. With that, Mr. secretary, you may proceed with your opening statement. Your full statement will be included in the record.
▶ 0:18:42>> thank you, chairman and chairman cole and ranking member delauro and subcommittee ranking member pingree, uh, and subcommittee chairman simpson, uh, it's great to be with all of you today and the distinguished members of the subcommittee. Thanks for the opportunity to testify today in support of the president's fiscal year 2027 budget request for the department of interior to discuss, uh, what we're doing to make america safer, stronger, more beautiful, and more prosperous.
▶ 0:19:10Interiors 2027 budget totals just over 16 billion in current authority, of which nearly 15 billion is when the is within the jurisdiction of the interior environment and related agencies appropriations subcommittee. The budget reflects president trump's priority to pursue american energy dominance, uphold law and order, make federal lands safe and accessible for all americans, all of which will make life more affordable for families across the country. The department touches the lives of millions of americans.
▶ 0:19:39We manage america's vast energy supply and natural resources. We honor federal trust responsibilities and unique relationships with tribal nations. We deliver water to the west. We fight fires, enforce the law, and steward our treasured wildlife refuges and national parks. Interior's efforts to expand across the country, uh, ensure border security and the safety of indian country.
▶ 0:20:03Our law enforcement officers have removed illegal growing operations on public lands and have removed millions of dollars of opioid from our commitment communities, including confiscating thousands, tens of thousands of fentanyl pills. This broad portfolio is reflected as america's balance sheet.
▶ 0:20:21Uh, all of these assets are worth tens of trillions of dollars that should be responsibly managed, conserved, and as they were designed and designated in many cases since inception, should be put to use for the benefit of the american people. While prior administrations have handcuffed prosperity and locked americans out of the land that belongs to them, the trump administration is doing the opposite, unlocking access and prosperity through recreation and responsible use, including by our nation's hunters and anglers.
▶ 0:20:50This summer, we invite all americans to share in the access they deserve. As we celebrate our country's 250th anniversary, interior is taking steps to recognize america's rich history and celebrate the bright future that is being built under president trump's leadership. The 2027 budget focuses on the continued beautification of interior's most used assets to continue addressing deferred maintenance.
▶ 0:21:16The budget proposes a reauthorization of the great american outdoors legacy restoration fund, or lf, for an additional five years. Uh, we certainly would appreciate this subcommittee's support on that through the lf the department invests in properly maintaining assets and infrastructure so visitors can continue to safely enjoy our national parks and public lands for years to come.
▶ 0:21:40This budget also includes several new proposals, including one the presidential capital stewardship program that provides for priority construction and beautification projects in and around the nation's capital region to address years of neglect and inadequate maintenance. This program will support the president's make america beautiful again projects, improve safety and accessibility, rehabilitate historic buildings and landscape, and enhance our architectural grandeur.
▶ 0:22:07The budget also includes an increase of over $100 million for the united states park police, which, as you all know, is a separate group from the park rangers that serve our national parks. Uh, the U.S. park police is the oldest federal law enforcement agency in the country, founded by george washington in 1791. Uh, and it's actively engaged in addressing the district columbia's crime emergency under the president's leadership.
▶ 0:22:36Uh, and that has enabled the us park police to expedite hiring of more than 300 new officers to help keep america's capital and our national park lands here within the capitol safe and beautiful. The department is also focusing on making its operations more effective while reducing costs.
▶ 0:22:53The budget features three proposals designed to improve efficiency, while further including a further strategic unification of the forest service wildland fire programs into the department's new us wildland fire service. The budget consolidates the endangered species act and the marine mammal protection act implementation responsibilities from noaa to the fish and wildlife service to reduce costs and streamline permitting for key facets of our economy.
▶ 0:23:24The budget also unifies the department's two offshore minerals management bureaus into a single entity, the marine minerals administration, streamlining governance of offshore energy and mineral resources will deliver greater value to the american public and ensure the safe, expeditious and orderly development of the outer continental shelf energy and critical mineral resources. These unification efforts will make our work to manage fires, forests, wildlife and offshore resources faster, smarter, and more effective.
▶ 0:23:52Uh interior is committed to increasing energy development on our public lands. Uh, establishing our position as the dominant in is dominant in critical minerals, uh, releasing the stranglehold that china has on critical minerals over the us economy and making sure that we've got the proper and secure supply chains while protecting our economic and national security.
▶ 0:24:16The department has eliminated burdensome, redundant, ideological and counterproductive regulations that undermine efficient land management and economic development. We've restored access to the national petroleum reserve in alaska. Uh, we held a record lease sale last month, which generated more than 163 million for the treasury.
▶ 0:24:37Uh, and this will help capitalize on the country's vast and affordable energy resources and in compliance with the working families tax cut act, uh, we are scheduling and holding energy lease sales as required by law and reducing royalty rates to increase supply and lower costs for americans. The ongoing regulatory reform is of cutting red tape and unnecessary bureaucracy across a range of industries, including energy development, coal and critical minerals, mining, agriculture, ranching and logging.
▶ 0:25:06Logging that will unlock american prosperity, deliver better outcomes for american people and for our tribal nations, and secure financial returns on federally owned land and mineral interests, the department, uh estimates that revenues in 2027 will now exceed over $20 billion, which is more than offsetting the operational costs to run this department.
▶ 0:25:31The budget, uh, also advances key administration priorities, including upholding trust responsibilities and empowering indian country, conserving america's wildlife and natural resources, and making public lands accessible to all americans for hunting, fishing, recreational, and other uses. We are expanding efforts to cooperate with tribes and federal agencies to fulfill federal trust responsibilities by committing to open door engagement, transparency, and sustained communication with all 575 federally recognized tribes in 2027.
▶ 0:26:01The department will also continue its commitment to advancing tribal sovereignty, promoting economic opportunities, reducing the tremendous probate backlog that was inherited, and combating violent crime and the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous people. Millions of americans visit interior managed lands each year, fueling a booming outdoor recreation economy estimated at $1.3 trillion and supporting almost 3% of the jobs in america.
▶ 0:26:30Now in outdoor recreation. Building on on the hundreds of visitor facility improvement projects underway around the country that will be the focus of celebrating america's upcoming 250th anniversary. The budget focuses resources on visitor facing operations at parks, wildlife refuges and across public lands.
▶ 0:26:51This will help improve the visitor experience, drive tourism, create jobs and generate revenue for local entrance communities, all while promoting responsible stewardship of our natural resources. In closing, this budget is about putting america first and doing what's best for the american taxpayer. As interior moves forward, these initiatives advance responsible resource management, economic prosperity, cultural preservation, and serving the interests of the american people and securing our country's future.
▶ 0:27:18I appreciate the subcommittee support for the department's mission, and I look forward to working closely with you to advance the president's priorities. >> thank you, Mr. secretary. As I understand it, uh, chairman cole and Mr. laurel have other meetings that they have to get to subcommittee marks and stuff, so I'm going to call on them first. Mr. cole. >> thank you very much, Mr. chairman. Uh, Mr.
▶ 0:27:40Secretary, in november, the department of education announced that interior would begin to take on a greater role in administering indian education programs through an interagency agreement with the department of education. While your agency begins to manage these new programs, I would strongly recommend. I'm sure you will. Carrying out a thorough tribal consultations to ensure that there are no funding, award delays or program disruptions that would potentially harm.
▶ 0:28:07As you know, if that money doesn't arrive, literally, we've got kids that are not going to get the educational benefits they're entitled to. So given that, what resources is bia receiving to support these additional programs? Because you haven't had to do them in the past, and is there an adequate number of staff to efficiently administer these new programs? Uh, and are they receiving the training they might need? >> I thank you, chairman.
▶ 0:28:36Uh, the answer is as part of that transfer, there's four programs that are coming over from department of education to the bureau of indian education. Uh, with that, there's 16 ftes that are coming to help manage those.
▶ 0:28:52Uh, and I'm certain that as those, uh, people come, some of those are actually the people that were doing it, uh, at, at education, they're being detailed over to b, so we should have both transfer of knowledge as well as transfer programs to administer and keep those dollars flowing out to our, our tribal communities. >> I appreciate that, and I would just ask you to keep us up to date as that goes, because it's a new function for you to do.
▶ 0:29:17And, uh, but an important one, uh, when it comes to programs that serve indian country, my focus is always on improving service delivery. Can you give us some examples of how, in your view, uh, this initiative should enhance these programs for native youth and adults? Uh. >> are you referring specifically to the department. >> of education transfer?
▶ 0:29:36>> well, I think one of the reasons why they're they selected those four programs, uh, because some of them are grant based is because of the existing systems that already exist within within the bureau of indian bia in terms of managing grants, uh, and doing all the appropriate consultation. So I think that it was a, it was a nice fit because it basically fits in with the work that we're, that we're already doing. So I think the team that I've met with at bia is, is, uh, is I excited?
▶ 0:30:05It's probably too strong of a word, but they're, they're definitely up to the task of receiving this, uh, this responsibility from the department of education. >> okay. Thank you. As we talked about briefly beforehand, chickasaw national recreation area resides in my district in sulfur, oklahoma. The area was struck by a tornado in 2024, leaving the community and the recreation area, the park itself needing serious infrastructure and rebuild efforts.
▶ 0:30:31A pivotal part of disaster recovery efforts is getting the engineering, surveying, construction contracts underway. How's the department doing and working to expedite these contracts so that rebuilding efforts can move ahead expeditiously? >> well, one of the things of course, we're working on across the whole department is, uh, responsiveness. Uh, and I think of it in terms of, uh, the private sector, like customer service measures.
▶ 0:30:58But, you know, when we've got, when we have a, when we have a grant program, we've got dollars that have to get out the door. What can we do to make sure that we're building business processes to make sure we're following all the rules, but still doing it quickly so we can have impact? I know in the particular case of the recreation area you're talking about, I think there's, uh, recently there was some additional, uh, contracts. Uh, I think I'm just from memory, I think maybe $13 million worth across four contracts that were being pushed out.
▶ 0:31:26Uh, but, you know, these are things that we're taking. We take a look at all these things and we're saying, how can we do this better, faster, more efficiently? I think one of the things that speaks to is we've got really, uh, aging it across a lot of these business processes. And that's one thing we're taking a hard look at on how we can provide better tools and systems to be able to, uh, you know, deploy the capital where it goes more quickly and more responsibly.
▶ 0:31:53>> again, this is an area we touched on before, but I think it's important to get in the record. The staff that work at national parks and recreation areas play a huge role, as you know, in providing positive experience and safety for tourists and visitors. Many parks, certainly including the one I represent, chickasaw national recreation, has struggled to hire, uh, essential permanent staff. And I know you've implemented some reforms and changes to try and speed that up and give the local managers more flexibility. I'd like you to talk a little bit about that.
▶ 0:32:23>> well thank you. Yeah. We discovered this issue is like all over the country, which is there was an opening and people were trying to hire. Then they would have to go through a really burdensome federal hiring process within the park service. We'd have to post people would apply from all over the country. Uh, there was, you know, a ranking system of, you know, who, who, who's eligible, who's not.
▶ 0:32:41Uh, meanwhile, the folks in oklahoma have just got an empty position and maybe it takes six months to go through this process, and then you get somebody hired and then they don't, they can't find a place to live because some of our national parks are housing is an issue. Then they all come to all of you and say, we need tens of millions of dollars for housing. Uh, one of the things that came up, you know, through the ranks, the front line says, would you just allow us to hire people locally without going through the federal process?
▶ 0:33:08If we can find someone who's qualified to do this job that already lives in an entrance community or nearby, and we said, great. So we've established local hiring. Uh, it's been in the last month. It's been out there. I was in four western states in the last two weeks. All the superintendents I spoke to were thrilled about this because it solves a housing problem. It speeds up hiring, uh, it gets someone who might live in the community and not transfer out. They can be a long term team member there.
▶ 0:33:32Uh, in addition to that, with the 1500, uh, summer hires, which we posted last fall, uh, we were able to get a change. Those were always limited to, not to exceed, not to exceed six months. We've got to change a waiver for this year, not to exchange, not to exceed nine months.
▶ 0:33:50It'd be great if the appropriations subcommittee could make that permanent because that flexibility, if someone needs to hire someone for seven months or eight months, if the if the, you know, if particular park, you know, the busiest season is, you know, fall leaf season in october, november. And then we have to get rid of staff in end of september because there's six months is up, even though they've been hired and trained in there and they'd like to keep working. I mean, giving the flexibility.
▶ 0:34:17And if you take, you know, 5000, six months and turn them into 5009 months, it's really giving you another 2500. Effectively, it's like hiring 7500 people for six months. Same in terms of, you know, hours worked. Uh, but you've got a, you know, you've got fewer people, uh, the better trained can stay longer and then they can come become repeat summer hires. So we're making some common sense changes, which we hope can help out on the, the local hiring, hiring and staffing.
▶ 0:34:45>> I really want to commend you for that effort. I mean, I think too often, and this is probably true across the entire federal government, uh, we run these agencies to the convenience of the people that, that work in the agencies, not the convenience of the people that are supposed to be served. And particularly don't think about the local impact of waiting for months as positions are filled, as we wait for people to be picked someplace else and move. So I think this is really a revolutionary change and one that has a lot of positive benefits.
▶ 0:35:15So I just want to publicly commend you for your efforts in this regard. I think it's an important move in the right direction. Uh, with that, I yield back, Mr. chairman. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. Mr. laura. >> thank you very much, Mr. chairman. I just have a quick note. This was I was not going to it's not part of my questioning, but I worry about transferring the programs from education, uh, to, uh, to bia. Quite honestly, ai doesn't have a great track record.
▶ 0:35:40And I don't know whether or not the funding that goes along with those programs is going to come over to bia and I'm, you know, concerned that they will be, uh, that will, they will be shortchanged. But, um, let me it's worth remembering that roughly this time last year, the so-called doge was running rampant across the federal government. Uh, justice trump had taken office, uh, putting in proverbial gasoline on the fire that is his cost of living crisis with a chaotic tariff policy.
▶ 0:36:08Uh, musk and others were firing thousands of employees and rescinding job offers. National park service nps was among the federal agencies that was hardest hit by this destruction. August. By august, nps had lost roughly a quarter of their staff, while some positions were reinstated by court orders that found doe's actions to be unlawful. Many others retired early or took buyouts. Um.
▶ 0:36:31Pleased that the final fiscal year 2026 agreement that we signed into law in january included 3.3 billion for the nps, by which we rejected a proposed $1.2 billion cut. And we did that in a bipartisan, bicameral manner.
▶ 0:36:48We also were able to put, uh, guardrails into the statute, including requiring nps to hire and retain sufficient park staff to perform the agency's mission to give congress notice of any significant reorganization or mass firing efforts, given that another potential reduction in force could be catastrophic for park staffing. Um, what is the major reason congress so roundly rejected the proposed cuts last year? Quite simply, Mr. secretary, our national parks remain that extraordinarily popular.
▶ 0:37:17Many parks in the system saw record attendance in 2025, with the exception of 2020. Every year over the last decade now ranks among the ten busiest years for the nps. So disappointed to learn that for fiscal year 2027, this administration is proposing to slash $736 million, roughly 20% from the nps budget.
▶ 0:37:40More and more, and that there's going to be another round of buyouts, deferred resignations, uh, was offered to the employees. Can you tell us, does the department have targets for how many national park service staff it can lose to these buyouts? Is this just another way to preempt congressional action on this budget? >> uh, first of all, thank you for the question, sir.
▶ 0:38:08And I know that this committee, uh, and like many americans, cares deeply about the national parks. So there's no question that we all we all care deeply. I think there if we can have a discussion about, uh, about staffing, the first question we need to ask is, uh, not just how many people are in the national park staffing total, but how many of those people actually work in a park?
▶ 0:38:31Turns out when we, when we arrived last year, uh, when there had been, uh, a lot of hiring going on over the last four years, people working remotely, a lot of, lot of the numbers that you see, uh, that you're that were they were, they were not, they were not, not only not working in a park, we couldn't even find out which park or national park historic site they were attached to. So the goal that we've had from the beginning is to get more people working in our parks.
▶ 0:38:56Last summer, in spite of everything that you've described in your opening remarks, and just now, we had parks last year that had including some of our biggest like yellowstone, where we had more people in the parks last summer than we'd had for years because we were focusing on filling the roles that were citizen facing roles. That still is our thing. We need less people that districts, regions, uh, service centers, headquarters, etc. We need people actually in the parks. There's another, the big numbers that you're talking about.
▶ 0:39:25Again, I would, uh, I know that there's a sure, we'll talk about it, but we're creating the wildland fire service. And so there is transfers in this budget where there are, uh, lots and lots of people across wildlife refuges, bia and national park service that were designated as wildland firefighters that are moving to the wildland fire service. They will still have a national park, uh, uniform. They'll still be fighting fires.
▶ 0:39:55Uh, but that may be where you're seeing some of these dramatic percentages that you're describing is actually a, it's a transfer, it's an inter transfer within the budget as opposed to a dramatic, dramatic cut. >> well, but there have been dramatic cuts. I think it would have to agree with what dosage last year that I mean, I'm not making up the numbers. They cut back with a quarter of the staff. Uh, there were some that were reinstated by court order. Um, and the only the.
▶ 0:40:22>> only dose cuts, the only dose cuts were people that had been hired within the last 12 months and they were all reoffered jobs back. So the fact that there was a massive reduction in the national park or anywhere across interior related to dosage is not simply not factual. >> okay. Well, listen, there were there were buyouts. There were buyouts, buyouts.
▶ 0:40:38Are there any, uh, does the department have targets for how many parks staff can lose to buyouts if you don't hit an arbitrary target with buyouts and retirements, are you going to plan to move to, uh, to terminations? >> there's no plans for, uh, riffs. Uh, and we've just completed, uh, a buyout and the buyout, the early retirement, uh, if you want to call, it was offered to people primarily that weren't offered it last year, uh, to give them a. >> why don't you get for us?
▶ 0:41:07Because we did put guardrails in the, in the bill last year that had to do. We're following. >> we're following all of those very closely. >> okay. So that it's clear to the committee that we're following the letter of the law, it will be important to know how many people were gone, how many people were reinstated. Are we looking at the same numbers? How many people, you know took a buyout?
▶ 0:41:26And what you're doing now with with regard to buyouts, if we're going to transfer, uh, programs from education to, uh, to, to, to interior, uh, who are the people that are going to handle those, those information, you know, those programs, if you're, if all these people are going to be in the parks, who is going to handle, you know, the, the issues. >> of 16 people, 16 people coming from department of education to manage the four programs that are being transferred over.
▶ 0:41:56>> is the money coming as well? >> yes it is. >> okay, great. Let me do I have time to ask another question, Mr. chairman. Thank you. Uh, fish and wildlife service, similarly dire. The budget is proposing to consolidate the service along with the national marine fisheries, while also proposing to make underlying cuts. Quote, it's a classic move from the budget playbook. When you try to starve an agency, what you do is to consolidate and then you cut. It's very similar. That's what's going to happen with education.
▶ 0:42:26I'm going to fight education and being dismantled, but that is what's happening. Consolidate. And then you slash the funding. So there's less money, uh, to deal with the missions that these agencies have to, uh, take out. Just like the park service, the agencies are stretched thin, understaffed, oversubscribed, again, largely a function of the indiscriminate and careless cuts that doge made last year.
▶ 0:42:54Um, for example, national wildlife refuge system supports conservation efforts like the stewart mckinney national wildlife refuge in my home state of connecticut, the administration is proposing steep cuts. What's worse, some components of fish and wildlife service are proposed for complete elimination, including state and tribal wildlife grants.
▶ 0:43:16Your budget talks about up the importance of prioritizing the promotion of recreational access to our refuge systems, and expanding opportunities for hunting and fishing. But doesn't shifting the focus, cutting funding guarantee that conservation efforts are going to be able are going to suffer in this process? >> I don't think so at all.
▶ 0:43:40Again, again, there is a separate firefighting unit inside of us, fish and wildlife, which is being transferred to the proposed wildland firefighting group, which is a separate budget area. So in the budget, there's a big net increase in in wildland firefighting. So you have to net that against the thing that you're seeing as cuts, because we're moving them in within the agency, even we're taking the for, we have a firefighting group in us, fish and wildlife, we have firefighting and bia. We have firefighting.
▶ 0:44:09>> what's going to happen to the state and tribal wildlife grants? What's happening, uh, to the, um, that's slated for for total elimination. What's happening to the cuts in the stewart mckinney national wildlife refuge? >> we with which cuts are you talking about specifically? >> I'm talking about the two areas, the wildlife refuge system.
▶ 0:44:34Stewart mckinney, national wildlife refuge, they are the administration is proposing steep cuts in that effort. When I look at, uh, in some components of the fish and wildlife service are proposed for complete elimination. That includes the state and tribal wildlife grants. Is that wrong? >> uh, they're on there. There's a was a review done of the grants on the grant side.
▶ 0:45:06And that is an area where there's been a substantial review. We found organizations that were receiving grants from interior where, uh, 80 to 100% of the revenue of that, of that ngo was a grant from the federal government. And yet those organizations, we were the sole source of their revenue, but they would have a ceo making $650,000 and for $400,000, lobbyists. >> let me let me just ask the last question, because my time has gone well over here.
▶ 0:45:33I hear this from a state foreign operations. We cut these programs. It would be very interesting because we can't get any information we may agree with. You give us the reasons why all of these grants are cut. The organizations are cut. Such for what? Why give us the rationale? And as I say, maybe we will agree, but it's important. We just can't take it. To be very honest.
▶ 0:45:58We just can't take your word for saying that there was, you know, $650,000. There was this there, this. I heard this over and over and over again in the last several months without any backup, without any data or information about what's happened that would help us make determinations as to whether you're on the right track or we have to do something else. So, Mr. chairman, I thank you and I yield back. >> thank you.
▶ 0:46:27Uh, we really can't talk about the budget without talking about wildfire fighting. As we have mentioned it a couple times already. I understand the department has consolidated all fire activities from bureau of land management, national park service, fish and wildlife service and bureau of indian affairs, as well as operations within the office of aviation services and the office of wildland fire into this new wildland fire agency. I have several questions that I'll kind of combine into one.
▶ 0:46:51Uh, recognizing that fire season is now year round, and that service has largely already seen a good amount of action this year. Can you provide an update on how things are going? How is the new us wildland fire service more prepared, efficient and effective in fighting wildfires? And secondly, understanding that many wildfire fighters are not full time firefighters.
▶ 0:47:14Uh, how is this consolidation impacted federal land management activities within the bureaus and offices in which the firefighters were moved to the us wildland firefighting service? >> I thank you, Mr. chairman. Uh, let me start with the clarification at the very top that there is not a consolidation. Uh, that word has been used here, but in the effort, uh, of related wildland fire, it's unification.
▶ 0:47:39We had four dedicated groups fighting fire across blm, us, fish and wildlife, uh, b b I a and the national park system. Uh, think of it as the army, navy, marines and air force, but we had no joint chiefs of staff. Uh, we had, uh, incidents that I saw as governor my last couple months as governor, we had a fire that broke out in north dakota, uh, wildland grass fire.
▶ 0:48:05Uh, we called for federal help, uh, on a saturday morning at 6 a.m. Because we knew our blackhawks wouldn't be able to manage it. And on, uh, in the federal government, aviation services arrived on tuesday. Two ranchers had lost their lives. Uh, a tremendous amount of livestock had died in the fires.
▶ 0:48:24And it turns out after review that the aircraft that was would have helped put this fire out quickly was on the ground in bozeman, montana, a short flight away from where the fire was in western north dakota. So that was my own personal experience before ever knowing I might end up in this job last year. Some, uh, people may be familiar with the dragon bravo fire, which started by a lightning strike, uh, in the, uh, grand canyon national park.
▶ 0:48:53Uh, in on the 4th of july, uh, on july 13th, uh, nine days later, uh, historic lodge on the north rim burned down. Um, the adjacent to that land was blm land where the fire was put out. Blm was operating under their operational thing under, uh, under suppression. The national park service was operating under a strategy called containment.
▶ 0:49:18Containment didn't work due to high winds and the conditions, uh, this, you know, catastrophic loss was a, was something that occurred after we had already begun the process of saying, we need to have a joint chiefs of staff.
▶ 0:49:34We have to have leadership, we have to have firefighters on the front line that report to firefighters, report to firefighters all the way up through the chain, as opposed to firefighters reporting to land managers who may think that, oh, if I let it burn, I'm going to take care of some, uh, you know, take care of some of my, uh, fuel load management, uh, efforts.
▶ 0:49:54So, and so we, we've, uh, did a, we announced the unification, we posted the position, we did a national search, we hired brian fennessy, uh, an experienced began his first 14 years as a hotshot and went up through all the ranks, worked in federal agencies, worked in state agencies, and was the fire chief for san diego county, uh, most recently. So we understood the tremendous issue that california was having with fires.
▶ 0:50:19Uh, he has got his, uh, for leaders, uh, you know, established for the four groups. We've got nine geographic leaders, all firefighters, uh, they're building, building this thing with input from the bottom, but top down and we're going to be ready to go for this what will be maybe an extraordinary fire season. We've, we the, the chief will report directly up to the secretary's office as opposed to being buried down below.
▶ 0:50:46Some of the biggest air quality issues we've had in america have been related to uncontained, uh, fires. Some of the biggest losses of timber resources we've had related to fires. We spent nine times as much in just in blm last year fighting fires as we did on that's money out the door from the taxpayers as money that came in the door from us doing timber sales. And so we, we have we've got to flip it around because it's just unaffordable to let our national resources burn.
▶ 0:51:12It kills, it's kill the timber industry, but it's also killing the communities that were dependent on that timber, whether it's for, you know, recreation or timber harvesting. So this is the beginning. We have we have established, uh, I've sent out a secretarial order that across the four groups, uh, that were already under interior that we're going to be under full, uh, suppression. That's the, at the beginning of this fire season. If you get a fire, you put it out.
▶ 0:51:41Uh, we've got to reserve both our dollar and our human resources and our aviation resources for the rest of the year. We've also unified the aviation resources. So we don't have a situation like I described, where nobody knows how to make a decision across all of this, we can then send the most appropriate aircraft, uh, to help on suppression quickly. So it's under a good ship. The budget also includes. And one of the big the transfer dollars in there.
▶ 0:52:06It the budget includes, as it did last year, the transfer of the firefighting component of the us forest service into interior. So they would become the fifth leg of this group. Uh, that would then also, uh, be into the same reporting structure where firefighters would report up to firefighters, right? >> that's, uh, and that's a challenge that we looked at last year.
▶ 0:52:29And this committee, uh, asked that a report be done, independent report, uh, directed by the secretary of interior and secretary of agriculture. Where are we on that report? >> well, we are, I'd say we're progressing ahead. And of course, we've got a brooke rollins and I've got a great working relationship. She's hired a terrific leader for the us assistant secretary for the us forest service, who's gone through all of the senate hearing confirmation.
▶ 0:52:54Mike moran and, uh, mike boren is, uh, also highly supportive of this unification effort to make sure that we do a better job fighting. But the, um, I don't have a specific date for the report yet, but I'll check on that. >> uh, as I told you when we met, uh, earlier last week, uh, that this might be the best idea since sliced bread. I just don't know. There's still some questions that have got to be answered and stuff.
▶ 0:53:20Once those are answered, then we can then we can deal with this and it might be the right thing to do. Uh, my challenge is what's left with the department. If you take wildfire fighting away from, say, the forest service and put it in interior, how does the how does the forest service function and stuff? So that's a, that's a separate issue, but it's, uh, some questions that we need to ask before we do it and stuff. So we look forward to working with you on this and seeing if we can establish the best service we can. >> yeah.
▶ 0:53:48And I would just say on the, uh, with the proud heritage we have in each of these, if you're, uh, whether you're, if you're a us forest service firefighter, if you're a blm firefighter, uh, you keep your uniform, you keep your badge, but on your other sleeve, I mean, if you're in the armed services, you have an american flag, you'll have a badge on the other sleeve that says us wildland fire service.
▶ 0:54:07And everyone will know that, uh, when we're fighting fires, the fires don't know whether they're on federal land, state land, private land, blm versus whatever, but it should, you know, break everyone's heart to see that, you know, on the fire map last year that we had a, you know, the jaggy edge of here's a fire that expanded over 13 days and cost hundreds of millions of dollars of damage. And on one side of the line, it's a straight line. And I'm like, is the map wrong? Was the printer wrong? And they said, no, that's blm land. Blm put it out. I mean, the same fire.
▶ 0:54:35So it's like, you know, we we part of this is we have to take accountability, responsibility and, but we have to put an organizational structure in place where if we say we're going to put a fire out, that everybody's on the same page. >> and I will tell you now, as I've been studying this, some of that responsibility or some of the fault in the responsibility is congress's fault, in that we write different laws and different rules for the forest service and the blm and stuff. And I think that's got to change. >> well, absolutely.
▶ 0:55:00And one of the things that we will be doing, because we have the ability within interior to do it, but we've got different pay scales, different retirement plans, different everything. I mean, we've got cases of people that, you know, train, get on board in one agency and jump to another one because they might have, you know, some better benefits than the other one. We've got to have a unification around how we think about compensating and recruiting and hiring and, and, and then from an equipment standpoint, it'd be great to get some unification as well. >> absolutely. Miss pingree. >> yeah. Thank you, Mr. chair.
▶ 0:55:30And, and I really appreciate the work you're doing and trying to dig in on this idea of as, as you said, very well, you know, it may be the best thing ever to combine these, but just having a better understanding of it. And on the heels of that, you know, we're talking about the potential of another extreme fire season, the costs of it, the cost of human lives, um, the cost of real estate and property.
▶ 0:55:49And then just the number of people it takes to fight the fires and we never talk about, um, and we're not going to, I'm not bringing it up, but, you know, the fact that we are in some extreme weather here that seems to contribute to the amount of fires that we have that may be related to climate change.
▶ 0:56:05And I don't understand and I appreciate your, um, in, you know, talking about the major purpose of the department of interior having american energy dominance, I do not understand why this administration is so reluctant to talk about renewable energy and so unwilling to keep up our investment in renewable energy when we know that fossil fuels contribute to climate change.
▶ 0:56:25But I just I want to dig in on one of the things that you could see was just I found very upsetting and brought it up in my opening remarks, and that is this on nearly $1 billion payout to, um, total energies. So total energies is one of the five companies that had offshore wind projects. Uh, they were all suspended by this administration under u. Um, the particular project that total energy had was four gigawatt capacity off new york and north carolina.
▶ 0:56:55Um, it was very detrimental to lose that because that would have been part of the atlantic grid. Fastest way to add capacity. Um, electricity costs are rising on the east coast. I know that very well. And um, I don't understand, uh, administration that doesn't say all of the above. And so it seems like you've targeted offshore wind as one of the things to get rid of. In this case, the courts rejected the argument of the administration that there was some national security concern.
▶ 0:57:25I don't know exactly what they were because they were not, um, public. Um, but now you're asking us to believe that somehow you're still justified in this $928 million payment, the judgment fund, which I understand that you're using, can only be used if there is a final judgment or some imminent litigation. I'm not clear who approached who first about this year's deal. The total energies come to the department, to the department, go to total energies. Did total energies file a claim?
▶ 0:57:50Um, if no claim has been filed, then what justification is there for imminent litigation rather than a sort of political payoff to get this done? Um, I just don't understand this argument that you're making here and why you're spending $1 billion of taxpayer money, why you have, um, negated five of the projects that were projected to be out there and given the american public the opportunity to have renewable energy as well as your interest in oil and gas. So can we start there? And can you explain any of that to me?
▶ 0:58:21>> yeah, I'd be happy to. Uh, first of all, we have to, uh, disagree on a couple of facts. One is that, uh, that this is, uh, affordable, uh, the highest cost of electricity we produce in america is offshore wind. And in some of the most disruptive to the environment is offshore wind. Uh, the, the, and also the total agreement was not one of the five that's under litigation. It was a separate one.
▶ 0:58:46And it also just strongly, uh, reject your characterization. Uh, this is a, this is a refund of money that total gave to the united states of america. They paid to buy an offshore lease. That $928 million was their money that they gave us. And they were they then see themselves as being ineligible to, uh, build on that.
▶ 0:59:12So it would have been lost dollars, uh, when the biden administration, you know, canceled, uh, pipelines arbitrarily on day one with the executive order, there was, uh, american companies that lost billions of dollars, people lost jobs, uh, all of the, the things that happened. And there was no, there was no kind of, oh, well, you guys paid a bunch of money. If we're going to arbitrarily cancel something, then maybe we should pay it back here. There was there is a national security concern. The national security turn came from the department of war.
▶ 0:59:41Uh, the five, the five projects that are actually under construction kind of wrap around, uh, the new york area where we've got some of the highest population in the country and it's very close to the population center. And if anyone would understand how the war has been fought between russia and ukraine, or it's being fought in the middle east right now, the, uh, low flying drone drone swarms are what's happening.
▶ 1:00:09It's been people aren't, you know, it's less piloted and more autonomous. It's flying. And it's also, as we also know, that there's autonomous undersea. The department of war, uh, report that came out that said it was a national security concern matches those that had done by sweden. Sweden has canceled offshore projects due to concern over over, uh, national security concerns. There is clear. It's not it's not a theory. It's not whatever.
▶ 1:00:35It's just true that when you've got a 600 foot or higher tower, most of these offshore towers are taller than the space needle. There's hundreds of them that are out there, and they've got blades that are 250ft, you know, spinning, you know, the outer edge moving at more than 100 miles an hour. They have, uh, set up enormous amounts of radar interference.
▶ 1:00:57So if we want to endanger, you know, our greatest population area because of the someone launching a drone swarm attack, uh, in, you know, at our country through that or autonomous undersea because of the vibration of the, when they're operating also affects and distorts sonar. So it gives us less detection ability if someone is coming across across there.
▶ 1:01:18But then when we have this, this offshore wind, each of those towers has to be connected by a cable, just one of those five that was under litigation had over 460 miles of deep sea trenching. That was no permit required, you know, whatsoever. Let's go up there and blow up the bottom of the ocean. The, the all of the marine fishermen from the new england area, uh, that have come forward and said it's killed our fishing area, uh, has been tremendous.
▶ 1:01:46They were lined up at the department of ag last week when they were setting up their, their seafood office, cheering, cheering out loudly that the finally that, that the, that there had been a stop to putting these, uh, wind farms right in the middle of where they did all of their fishing. We had more whale groundings than we've ever had before.
▶ 1:02:06The marine mammals issue, uh, because when you're pounding those and building those pylons in the ground, uh, we know from 50 years ago, from go back to the, you know, the 70s with the whale song, how far whale whale voices can conduct underwater a pounding. It's up over 200db a rock concert. You can lose your hearing at 140, 200db. Pounding these things into the ground. >> I have to stop you here.
▶ 1:02:31You just had the god squad get rid of the endangered species act in the gulf of mexico, which will probably be the end of the right whale. So I'm sorry, but so many of these arguments, I just. I mean, you can provide me with some facts. I don't agree with you on costs. I don't agree that they're disruptive. I represent the gulf of maine. Believe me, if I thought this was disruptive, we wouldn't be permitting offshore wind off the coast of maine. Uh, you know, I'm sorry. We just disagree on some of these arguments, but.
▶ 1:03:00And I understand your argument and, you know, back in the biden administration, I'm not going all the way back there. Um, but this was $1 billion that you're giving back. You can decide it's unaffordable, but that is now for the company to understand. Do you have another plan to re permit that, or are you going to have another company go in there? Um, there's no good argument for taking it away. I, and I just want to be clear. >> there's no good, there's no good argument for taking company's money and then not refunding it.
▶ 1:03:28If they're, if they, if they're choosing to be unable to use it. >> you can say all these things. I don't know all the national security agreements because the courts kept that under seal. I didn't go into the skiff or whatever skiff there was around that, but the courts threw that out. So the court said to you, um, there were no good national security arguments. So I don't know all these things that you're saying. >> that's that's a mischaracterization. They in some cases, the court said it's not an issue because the blades aren't turning yet.
▶ 1:03:53And as soon as the blades start turning, then they would be a national security. >> going to be talking about pounding and those kinds of things. Then we can't have offshore drilling. And you want to permit the whole east coast for offshore drilling. If you want to talk about danger to marine mammals and danger to fisheries. You know, my next question, when I come back to it, is going to be about what happened with the deepwater horizon, and you want to reduce the permitting standards there. There's there's just a lot of hypocrisy.
▶ 1:04:19>> there's no there's zero desire to do anything but continue to improve on the process. And in your opening remarks, you made a statement, which I also disagree with that said that somehow the findings showed that there was an issue and therefore these agencies should be broken up. It didn't say that. It said there wasn't enough inspections. It said there weren't people present from, uh, the at that time, mma present, observing those pressure tests on those on those blowout well devices.
▶ 1:04:45And with, uh, with this organization we have, have are proposing now to go back, we've kept honor out. That's the group that does the revenue. So the revenue is in a separate group, but having the people that are doing the inspections and the regulation in the same group makes an enormous amount of sense, not about cutting corners. It's not about anything. It's about improving our ability to make sure that we never have a deepwater horizon again.
▶ 1:05:11And to to suggest that somehow anybody in the industry or this administration wants that to happen, we'd be willing to do that. That's that's ludicrous. Why would we want to do anything that would harm our country, our industry, our wildlife? Why would we want to do that? We wouldn't want to do that. >> because it appears to me that this administration is trying to roll back regulations wherever they can, about whether it's about toxicities in the toxics, in the environment or in this case. And I'll just jump right into that when I was going to save it for the second round. But I'll just get it done.
▶ 1:05:41Um, you know, I went back and looked at the deepwater horizon tapes and the, in the investigations that were done. And one of the things that was of deep concern to people is that there was a combined organization that was doing both the permitting and the inspections. Um, there was an incredible amount of corruption. I'm sure you've read about it and seen what was going on at that particular moment in time. Because of the close relationship between the oil and gas industry and the people who are doing the permitting. And it was recommended that we separate those two agencies.
▶ 1:06:09So I would love to see more about how you think there will be protections. But, um, as with so many things about this administration and the ranking member of the full committee said the same thing. Um, you've already announced this transition and you're moving forward without congressional action. We don't get to see what you're trying to do differently.
▶ 1:06:28I would love to, if you want to make the case to me that somehow this isn't going to repeat those exact things and that the god squad wasn't set up so that you can do more damage to endangered species in the gulf of mexico. I'd love to see all those things, but we don't currently have that because this administration gives us so little information. And I just want to be clear, the administration is also attempting to roll back other reforms, such as the blowout preventer regulations and decommissioning requirements.
▶ 1:06:54And I had forgotten until I rewatched all the videos from that horrific oil spill and the loss of 11 lives of those people who were on that rig, that the blowout preventer hadn't been properly inspected. And it was a big cause of the problem. So why would you be rolling back at this moment in time? And how can I feel confident that we're going to have adequate environmental and human protections in what you want to do in the future and drilling for more oil? >> well, first of all, we're not rolling anything back.
▶ 1:07:21So you have to stop saying things that aren't true because it's not true. We're not rolling anything back. I just got done saying that we are, that we're actually making sure that we have our team members present during the inspections and the, uh, of the, of those blowout preventers specifically. It's one of the things that we want to make sure that we we're doing, and this new organization is going to make sure that we do that. So you and I are trying to solve the same problem.
▶ 1:07:49>> could we see more about what you're planning to do in combining these two organizations to have a better level of confidence that we're not going back there again? >> yes. Yeah. Happy to share what we're doing. >> and I've used up plenty of time here, but I'm just going to go back to the beginning to say it is ludicrous in my mind to say that you have deep security concerns and phishing concerns and all these other things about offshore wind, yet you want to increase the amount of oil drilling off the coast of the east coast, in alaska and everywhere else. It's hard for me to believe that that is not more dangerous.
▶ 1:08:18And I would like to see the information that you have to tell me otherwise. Thank you, Mr. chair. >> miss malloy. >> I feel like I'm your attorney sitting over here with you on the side of the table. I forgot I actually had to ask questions as well. Uh, thank you for being here. I want to start with the great salt lake. Um, as you know, the president put $1 billion in his budget for salt lake restoration.
▶ 1:08:47And I know it's early days and your team is still working on what that's going to look like. So I just have an ask that, that you work with me and my team and our state and make sure that we have a good plan in place if we're going to be investing in restoring the great salt lake. Let's make sure it's something that helps us for decades to come. >> yes, absolutely. We look forward to working with you and the governor and the team and bureau of reclamation to make sure we have that plan. Okay. >> thank you. Um, america the beautiful.
▶ 1:09:16When when parks, national parks sell park passes, they get a cut of the revenue from that park pass. And now with so many of the america the beautiful passes being bought online, um, and digital passes, some of the high visitation parks, like the ones we have in utah are losing out on revenue. Um, when it gets split evenly between some of the low visitation parks that don't take the same wear and tear that the high visitation parks do, how is the department addressing that?
▶ 1:09:46To make sure that we're still taking care of the, the backlog and the maintenance issues at these parks that get millions of visitors a year? >> well, I think one thing, uh, which we talked about earlier is the encouraging, uh, this committee to support the reauthorization of goa, which of course included dollars for, uh, deferred maintenance.
▶ 1:10:04So that would be a, is one piece, uh, your, what you're describing, however, on the increase in the, you know, online purchase of the park passes, this is a, a, a relatively new phenomenon, but it's great that great they're popular. It's great that people are buying them ahead of time, help reduce lines getting into the parks. Uh, but it's something from a revenue standpoint, we're going to have to take a look at to see what, uh, on the major parks that have the highest visitation, what kind of, uh, lost revenue they might have.
▶ 1:10:33And so we'll take, we'll take a look at that. But the good news, the good news is people want to get to the parks and a lot of people are buying the park passes. >> yeah, we'd love to work with you too, on innovative ways maybe that we can help out these. >> I know you've got multiple large high visitation parks in your district, so. >> which we're really proud of, but we want to make sure that we're taking care of them. Um, the nepa regs. As the chair of western caucus, I led a letter with rep hageman and 23 of our colleagues in support of the new nepa regs.
▶ 1:11:02Thank you for those. Um, can you just explain quickly how moving the regs from the cfr to the departmental handbooks will help improve the process for americans who are project proponents or concerned about, uh, especially on public lands. >> I want to make sure the first part of that question was related to was nepa nepa okay. Yeah. On uh, yeah, they're they're the, the goal, of course, here on the regulation is to basically make sure we, you know, we're following the law.
▶ 1:11:30And there had been a lot of, uh, I want to say regulatory, uh, creep, if you will, over time, uh, that got out of the bounds of that. And so in the cases of, of how we're approaching this is that if there is things that would be, uh, considered, uh, you know, you know, interesting suggestions for people to consider, but aren't part of what it takes to actually get the permit.
▶ 1:11:54Uh, we pulled, uh, the 80% of the, of that, you know, that growing and growing and growing forever regulation that was slowing down, uh, all kinds of projects, both, you know, on federal and private and state land, uh, to push it into an appendix.
▶ 1:12:11Uh, so it's still there for people to take a look at, but then this can help, uh, both project proponents and project opponents understand that it's going to be litigated over the piece that was actually the law, which is about 20% of what that the weight of that of those rules were. >> thank you. Uh, I really appreciate that you're taking a look at that. It's something we talk about a lot on capitol hill. Uh, we haven't been able to do much about it.
▶ 1:12:36>> I think the number is at $1.5 trillion of capital is proposed in america to be spent, but it's waiting for a permit. >> yeah. That's crazy. And a lot of the capital gets eaten up in the permit process. I just have one more question. Um, and it has to do with access to roads on public lands. So the, the minimization criteria, which came because of an executive order has resulted in closed roads and loss of access to a lot of the public land in my state.
▶ 1:13:03Um, I've introduced cras to keep access open in specific places, but can we work to protect road access on a broader basis and take a look at the minimization criteria? >> uh, yeah, I'd be happy to. And I think in your case, given the, um, given given the amount of public lands in utah, you're, it's a state where I think we're at over 60% is public lands, uh, access matters. Uh, and we're trying to make sure that we're increasing access as opposed to reducing it.
▶ 1:13:30So we'd be happy to, uh, specifically review with you any particular, uh, sites or locations where we could work together to see if we can come up with a solution? >> thank you. And I just saw news today about doi implementing the congressional review act on glen canyon national recreation area to make sure that it's being treated like a recreation area. And I just want to say thank you for that, and I yield. >> Mr. carter. >> thank you, Mr. chair, and thank you, Mr. secretary, for for being here.
▶ 1:13:58I'm going to start by saying something that I really agree with you on, uh, in establishing the national energy dominance council, which you chair, this administration said we must expand all forms of reliable and affordable energy production, drive down inflation, grow our economy, create good paying jobs, and reestablish american leadership. Uh, that sounds pretty good to me. Uh, and I really share a vision where it should be easier to build more affordable energy.
▶ 1:14:25Unfortunately, the record that I see doesn't always match that rhetoric, especially the pause, uh, that was started at the interior department, uh, july of last year on wind and solar. Since then, 18gw of solar have been canceled or stalled, four gigawatts of wind, 500 projects total. At a time when I think our grid needs the cheapest electrons it can as fast as possible, help me understand what's going on.
▶ 1:14:53I know there's been a little bit of a thaw since then, and thank you for that. Uh, tell me, what's the hold up on getting solar and wind projects out the door? >> well, the the key thing here is part of, uh, understanding the, that, again, I don't want to debate on, on cheapest, but there is this view that has been held and said here many times that that somehow wind and solar is, you know, solar wind earlier wind was the
▶ 1:15:24Cheapest, solar is the cheapest. Uh, I just have to say, you know, we had a huge winter storm, like eight weeks ago. This is undisputable. Fern was here. It was affected 22 states. Uh, the during that storm, wind and solar at the peak moments produced 2% of the total electricity. And yet in the northeastern part of the country where the storm was centered has spent hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing wind and solar.
▶ 1:15:52So wind and solar doesn't work right now, today, unless you use taxpayer subsidies. And those taxpayer subsidies were were what promoting this thing we had. And people in many cases. >> just pause their. Mr. secretary, I hear that argument, but you've instituted higher standards for wind and solar projects, right? To move forward to wind and solar project. It requires personal approval from your office, is my understanding, to do an oil and gas project. It doesn't.
▶ 1:16:19So you're telling me that the market doesn't want these projects? Why not let the market decide that you're complaining about favoritism in the past? It feels to me like this department is putting a thumb on its scale. Why not have the same standard for all projects, period? Well. >> the market is not building, uh, offshore wind. For example, there are zero zero people trying to build offshore wind. >> talking about offshore wind.
▶ 1:16:49>> no, but since the since the subsidies, you know, were eliminated, no one's building it because it's just not it's not effective solar. Uh, there were there were concerns there about, uh, you know, again, supply chain security because as you know, a lot of these solar projects were, uh, built almost exclusively with chinese made solar panels. You know, that's, that's an issue for national security. And so. >> there's more national security risk in doing solar than doing nuclear or gas plant.
▶ 1:17:18>> there is if you're building a, if you're building a, it's, it's, it's the same as huawei was a few years ago. I mean, if you're buying chinese equipment and then you've got the ability for them to listen to every call and, and follow every text that's sent, that's one thing.
▶ 1:17:33But on the solar panels, the same thing where, you know, us being dependent on, on a rival for us for supply for solar panels and some of the other parts of the review we want to make sure is because some of the solar panels in the prior, some of the projects in the prior administration, it was the exact flip of what you're saying, where things were green lit, if it was wind and solar.
▶ 1:17:55And in some of those cases, with our multiple use mandate that we have on blm, like in the case of nevada, where if we got solar panels that are being built over the top of, of, uh, you know, rare white sage, uh, in ecosystems, then we have to review those. >> I where we are right now. I see that there is again, one standard for one type of energy and another standard for another type. I don't think that's good policy and I don't think it's sustainable. You've talked about the need for permit reform. I want permit reform yesterday.
▶ 1:18:24I think any precondition for moving that forward is going to require a level playing field for all types of energy. So I know that's a legislative question as well, but I. >> another factor in the thinking is beyond just the project of generation itself. It's also the grid because in places in our country where we over rotated towards sources that are dependent on the weather then, and we build highly expensive transmission lines as well. Then when the sun goes down, the wind's not blowing.
▶ 1:18:52There's no electrons going down those transmission lines. The the cost of all of that is borne by the person paying for the electric bill. So we, we're, we're, we're we're weather dependent. Intermittent can work is if we have enough baseload, it has to be the right mix between. >> your perspective. Again, I think if we have a level playing field, we let the market decide. We have one type of permit process for everybody. Be a huge improvement. I hear the complaints about previous administrations putting their thumb on the scale.
▶ 1:19:18What I see now is secretary level approval required for one type of project, but not for another. And again, I don't think that's sustainable or good policy. But moving on, I wanted to quickly talk about wildfires nine months ago. Wildfires are a big issue in california. Thank you for some of the work that you've done on that. I think it's an area of wide bipartisan agreement. Nine months ago, I sent you a letter asking about the wildfire wildland fire center proposal. Uh, we're still waiting for an answer.
▶ 1:19:45Uh, can you respond to this letter and at least give us a little bit of a sense on how we can work together, not at this hearing, but on this wildland fire center proposal. >> yes. And I'll and I'll personally take accountability and apologize to you because we should be responsive to, uh, people that are writing to our department. So I'll follow up on that. >> you got a lot going on, but.
▶ 1:20:08>> if our team, if I need to, I'll ask you again if we can get a copy of the letter you sent nine months ago, because we'd like we want to be responsive. >> to it. I think it's an area we want to be able to work together on, to make sure that you and the forest service have all the tools possible. Thank you. One last issue on gas prices. Uh, big issue across all of the country, but especially in an area like mine. Last week, I was paying $8 a gallon at the pump, which I know for some of my colleagues. Sounds insane. Even for california, that's pretty extreme.
▶ 1:20:36Uh, you're the chair of the president's national energy dominance council. What should I be telling my constituents when they tell me that they can't afford to fill up at the pump? >> well, I think that you should tell them that that the state of california should, because you're talking about gasoline. >> and it's not just a california problem. I mean, you know, folks are paying four bucks, 15 a gallon all across the country. >> yes.
▶ 1:20:57Uh, and the california has a special challenge, uh, in that there's been a california imports more oil from foreign countries than any other state, 63%. Uh, they were one of the only states that was dependent on, on, on oil coming through the strait of hormuz. The number one importer from california was iraq, where it was coming in. There used to be 40 refineries. In california. There was eight.
▶ 1:21:23Now there's seven, seven going to six because of the regulatory environment. And so now we have oil that's shipped around the world to be refined in korea, to arrive back in long beach, california as a refined product. So a big chunk of the cost in california, excluding the taxes, which are high, but just looking at the core price is because of the supply chain that comes to california. And you can't right now get gas from the permian, from the bakken, from whatever to california's. It's california became hawaii.
▶ 1:21:51They turned themselves into an energy island. Uh, and that's the root cause of the, of the high prices. So what you tell your constituents is, is that the, there has to be a policy change, which is california's is essentially a national security risk. Because if we really had an issue, uh, then, and you couldn't even those ships couldn't arrive every day. If there aren't ships arriving every day in san francisco bay and in long beach offloading energy.
▶ 1:22:18Uh, there would be lines in california when the rest of the country, there would be no lines because we've got an excess supply and the rest of the country. But we've got a we have to import it into california. >> thank you. I've exceeded my time. But thank you, Mr. chair. >> Mr. hamadeh. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. Um, Mr.
▶ 1:22:38Secretary, um, just real briefly, no disrespect to to african american folks in the country, but in nevada, at all points in time, blm stands for the bureau of land management. And so recently, you know, black lives matter. It's like it's always been blm. You own eight out of every ten acres, not blm, but the federal government does in the state.
▶ 1:23:03So while utah is has got a whole bunch, um, nobody is more dependent upon federal land management policy than nevada is. You got bureau rec, you got forest service. But the biggest one by far is blm. Can you tell me what your number one nevada specific priority is as the secretary of interior? What's number one on your list? When you wake up and you go, those guys between california and utah.
▶ 1:23:28And by the way, we got a whole bunch of our gas in las vegas and western nevada from you folks. People are thinking about driving to elko to buy it from utah. But anyhow, what's the number one priority? >> well. Having just been back in, in nevada, uh, in the last two weeks and had a great, you know, rancher roundtable, I would be saying, you know, number one is to make sure that we, uh, stop, you know, I mean, get, get the burdensome regulations that are killing ranching in america on public
▶ 1:23:58Lands. Uh, and along with that, we got a big wild horse and burro problem in nevada that we've that's, uh, you know, wreaking havoc on, on all on the, uh, the, uh, on the habitat, but the, at a higher level than, than any of that is actually is on the, the mining and mineral side. And of course, nevada, uh, had a rich history of mining and can again, and one of the things that we face as a nation are incredible, incredible dependance on china for critical minerals mining.
▶ 1:24:28Nevada can play a huge role, as you know, uh, in, in getting us back into the game, uh, doing that. But it's nevada is a, uh, and then the third thing, of course, uh, having spent time, uh, with your governor, uh, and with staff recently is we've got, you know, the, um, you know, making sure we've got adequate water supply for, uh, for, for southern nevada. Those are all things that are on top of the thing.
▶ 1:24:54But again, you're, as you said, 80% of the land we spent a lot of time, uh, is federal land. We spent a lot of time thinking about nevada. >> so when you're talking about land management, I get the economic development side and the effect on on private business and whatever. Any plans for the checkerboard? Because several people here have mentioned access to public lands and and as you know, you've got it in utah, when you talk about the checkerboard from the transcontinental railroad that locks that up x miles on either side of it.
▶ 1:25:22And so when every other one. Any plans that are starting in, in, in your department to say here's consolidation not you'll win. You know, somebody gets more than the other. It's like it's checkerboard. So here's our blocks and here's private blocks. Maintain any plan at all at at at the at the department level to address checkerboard. >> well we're where we're allowed to by law.
▶ 1:25:49We're happy to, uh, you know, pursue and address that we did last year complete a, a checkerboard effort in, uh, elimination in, in utah. Uh, and so we've seen the, the results can work where we were, we were able to swap land. >> plans for nevada. >> don't know, no plans that I'm aware of right now. But if you've got some ideas or suggestions, we're happy to work with you and your staff.
▶ 1:26:18>> um, I heard you talk about the fire stuff and and that's all great. And I'm a little concerned that that we were asking for a report and it's been a year and people gripe about congress's timeliness, which is fair. Um, but one of the things I didn't hear you say and we got this leg, we got that leg, these guys over here for services, the fifth leg. Is there a leg on that? You said that the head guy is going to be from san diego. I've spent a lot of my time over the years.
▶ 1:26:47When you got to type whatever team coming here, coming there with calls from local fire chiefs going, I need you to call whoever the incident commander is from. Sometimes it's from cal fire, so we talk slower for cal fire. Other times, I just couldn't help that. You know, we need it. Yeah. Other times it's, you know, forest service, blm, whatever. I would like to know who to talk to to say where's the I know the plans being the recipes being finalized. I'm hoping that there's a there's a part in there to go.
▶ 1:27:14One of our big things is since you guys are going to go around and, and hotshot it and go to wherever you're needed, that there is something dedicated to making sure we talk to. I didn't even hear mention of state foresters. Not that they're blameless in anything but the local folks, the state, so that we don't have this and this isn't that you personally, obviously, or even at the department of interior, we're from the federal government, and we're here to help you. And you talk about your frustration in north dakota.
▶ 1:27:42It's like, I just need the plane from one hours flying time away. But that's a great example of there better be a sixth leg that talks about local liaison having a seat at that table of 5 or 6 or whatever it is. Any thoughts on that? Is anybody in charge of that at your unification process? >> yes. And we'll there'll be a leader for nevada who will be responsible for that as part of the.
▶ 1:28:11It's one of the geographically designated areas in the. >> so how are you going to pick them? Do you know. Okay, we're going to have nevada person who is it? Southern nevada. Northern nevada, because your acres are in the north. No disrespect to the trips to las vegas. I mean, it's a hard place to talk people into going to. But the majority of the mission is north of there. Your retirement. Yeah, thanks for that, Mr. chairman. Um, last thing, who do I talk to? It's probably in the accounting thing.
▶ 1:28:40For years we've been around, we talked and you guys touched on it a little bit in previous stuff, you know, how are we going to fix the deal and park service? We're going to hire local, all that sort of stuff. I have six blm districts in my district and it's always, hey, we got we got range cons where those things are empty. We got this, that. And oh, by the way, even the fire personnel is like, yeah, we're going to hire them. We're going to speed that up, which is all good.
▶ 1:29:06But oh, by the way, we got to figure out where they're going to live to renting hotel, motel rooms, blah, blah, blah for them just to live at if they're in the winnemucca district or whatever, they can't afford to take the job, wherever it may be on those far flung missions. And for several congresses, it's like, hey, what are we going to do about the peeps so they can afford to live where anything underway in that?
▶ 1:29:33Or is it still just it's great work and hope you can be a little bit self-sufficient or sleep in the back of your car because you're working in the ely district office. Anything floating around? >> well, your, your question about housing or. >> my question is about either whether you provide them housing or whether you pay them more, whether whatever, it's like they can't afford to take the job and work out in the hinterlands. Hmm.
▶ 1:30:00And it's been like, yeah, we need to do something about that. We do anything about that? >> well, I, I know that we've got, we've had housing issues expressed in affordability exists in the national park service, uh, around our, uh, especially around our entrance communities. Uh, but we're happy to, happy to follow up with you if there's specific areas in nevada where you think that we've got the same, same issue, because that's not one that I had heard, uh, about during our I.
▶ 1:30:29>> hear from district office, I go to. So I will follow up with you. And also, by the way, I would be remiss, you got a guy who's a state director in nevada, john rabe, who I guess is pulling the plug here in a couple weeks. Please replace him with somebody as good as him. Problem solver, true pro, sorry to see him go. And I won't put any of my other real feelings about that. He's a quitter or stuff like that. On the record at the hearing, I yield back. Thank you, Mr. chairman. Thank you. Mr. >> thank you, Mr. cohen.
▶ 1:30:59>> thank you. And, um, I, I don't want to get into relitigating, um, what happened last week in the senate with the boundary waters, but I do have some questions about how moving forward, the department of interior might be looking at things and I'll send you the questions, but I'm just going to let you know what's coming to your office. >> okay. >> thank you. As you're aware, the senate passed the congressional review act as a resolution.
▶ 1:31:26It overturned a 2023 mineral withdrawal for the headwaters of the boundary waters. The mineral withdrawal overturned, um, you know, puts great risk. All these mines have failed to date, uh, toxic sulfide ore, copper mining to contaminate this water. And as you're well aware, being from our neck of the woods, this is 20% of the purest water in the forest system, probably some of the purest water in the world. Now, this is my opinion.
▶ 1:31:55Uh, I believe that the trump administration has possibly weaponized the cras to get a do over when the political winds are in the are in the administration's favor. The cra wasn't created to overturn public land orders, uh, especially one that's nearly three years old. The biden administration followed the law.
▶ 1:32:18The withdrawal for the boundary waters was conducted following a federal land policy management act known as flippa, and it was notified congress was notified of the withdrawal in 2023. Following that notification following the law, congress had 90 days to adopt a resolution of disapproval. The congress did not act. The window of the disapproval closed. And now we just had what happened in the senate last week. Now, this process had been in place since 1970.
▶ 1:32:49It's the same process that my my colleague, uh, now secretary zinke used when he was secretary. He followed he followed the law. Um, so this is the first time in the history of the department that the interior has submitted a public land order to congress under a cra. So it's changed. It's changed the landscape. So here's what I, I I'm trying to understand going into the future. And I, as I said, I'll submit these so that whoever needs to help you write them.
▶ 1:33:18So we all have the same language down pat. Uh, so my first question is going to be our public land orders no longer governed by, uh, flippa. Can congress expect a flood of public land orders now that the cra has been overturned?
▶ 1:33:34And, um, you know, maybe it's just this one case, maybe it's just for the boundary waters, but we aren't going to see that happen when the state of montana and washington, you know, the boundary waters got singled out in the early two, um, in the first trump administration. And so I want to know what the process is, is going to be modified now. And if it is, we need to do public notices and have public hearings and do all that.
▶ 1:34:03So I look, I look forward to figuring out what the landscape is going to be like in the future. So here are some of my, my in these might be questions and concerns. Shifting gears, um, I want to talk about a couple of things that I'm very concerned about. And I know you care deeply about as governor, um, you had great relationships with, with, with tribes. And, you know, I have 11 in minnesota and some of them are, are brother sister tribes.
▶ 1:34:30Um, there's a cut of 20, uh, 7% to the bia and it's grossly underfunded. This committee tries to put as much as we can into it. Um, they're the tribal loan program has, is, is at risk of being zeroed out. And this is the one that really has me concerned. Um, um, Mr. burgum, the b I e that's the bureau of indian education.
▶ 1:34:56There's a 23% cut to that, but I don't know if the department of education informed you what they were doing to the department of education is sending for programs your way. So that's going to be even a larger cut. So I'd like to work with you on what we can do to help those programs that have been, um, really underfunded. And then on solar, if you get a chance in your travels and you can go to the reservation, it's wind river.
▶ 1:35:25It's, uh, in wyoming. They have, uh, using some money from the biden administration when, when we were working on solar, there are homes in the wind river for the first time ever that have solar. It's a us company. Um, and, um, they do amazing work. Um, they're, they're training the tribes how to set up their own projects, maintain them and everything else.
▶ 1:35:52So we hope to be able to roll this out throughout some of the other tribal nations. They're still going to be a need for propane. But anything we can do, you know, moving propane to these rural areas is you. And I know it's very, very expensive. So if you get a chance, if you could put wind river on your list. The other thing I'm going to ask is, could you get me the national security information?
▶ 1:36:14National security was used in the boundary waters, even though it's a foreign owned company that took the leases, a foreign owned company that, uh, will be shipping, uh, the or when, when, and if it's ever mined to china and it'll be sold on the global market. Um, my colleagues on the other side of this argument, I, they kind of dropped the argument after I pointed that out, but I'm, um, Mr.
▶ 1:36:39Elzey and I are both on the appropriations defense subcommittee and I would like to see all these national security arguments because we have never had anyone from the pentagon raise them to us. So it would be very helpful for me to see and really dig into and understand how all these, um, wind and other solar projects that you're talking about are national security. So with, with that, Mr.
▶ 1:37:04Chair, you know, being a teacher, I guess I gave the secretary some homework, but I want to thank you for making sure that all the school kids from the states around in the five state area get to go into a wonderful place in the in the science museum in saint paul and see our national parks. I thank you for that, sir, I yield back. >> thank you, Mr. cloud. >> thank you, Mr. secretary, for being here.
▶ 1:37:33Thank you, chairman, for having this hearing. Uh, I want to first of all, just thank you for the hard work that you're doing. I find it kind of ironically humorous that some on this committee would accuse you or this administration of being asleep at the wheel, especially after four years of defending an auto auto pin presidency.
▶ 1:37:51Um, it's very it's very obvious that, uh, you're knowledgeable in what you're managing, uh, that you and this administration are active and proactive. While they may disagree with what you're doing, you are certainly engaged. And I want to thank you for that. Um, a couple issues that were brought up that I wanted to talk about. One talked about the park maintenance and how there's a backlog.
▶ 1:38:15Uh, and then also, um, the number of employees that we have, there seems to be kind of a, um. A tendency to measure our success or our productivity based on how many employees are on the payroll as opposed to whether the work's being done.
▶ 1:38:35Um, and then we can look at the previous administration when it came to, uh, maintenance backlog and we saw more dollars in, in your, uh, agency and your department. Meanwhile, the backlog increased dramatically. So they're not necessarily related that more dollars equals, uh, backlog, more employees equals work done.
▶ 1:38:57Um, I wanted to ask you what is being done, uh, when it comes to the backlog and then on the employee issue, I don't know if you've been made aware of this, but, uh, after president trump was sworn into office the first time there was stood up an alt national park service, uh, that initially launched itself as the internal resistance movement of the national park service.
▶ 1:39:25I, the trump administration. Now, they've since been very careful about digitally scrubbing their footprint where it doesn't say internal anymore, but we've talked to those within the national park service who says this is very much alive. It's being done on work time, and it goes pretty high in the organization, at least as of some months ago.
▶ 1:39:42So I wanted to see I think you agree that anyone serving in the executive branch should be serving at the pleasure of the president and under the authority, uh, designated and by the president of the united states or the people to the president of the united states. What's being done to to clean that up? And then what's being done on the maintenance backlog? >> let me take the maintenance backlog first.
▶ 1:40:08And I appreciate, representative claude, your understanding, uh, sort of the difference between the operating line and the capital expenditure line because, uh, one of the things that when we talk about budgets, you know, going up and down, uh, it just in an overall, uh, coming into this thing, uh, last year, it was clear that based on the, all the hiring that had occurred, but all the hiring that had occurred where people were working remotely and weren't actually working in our parks or refuges that we had a,
▶ 1:40:38An increase the people cost to the line, but we were decreasing the, the expenditures relative to capex. So trying to get those things, get the business model back in, in line so that it would actually be working. Uh, is, is what we've been trying to do. And I think we're making some good progress there.
▶ 1:40:55But again, uh, the, uh, the reauthorization of undergo the, you know, the mrf would be fantastic because I think the estimate for backlog now has grown to $35 billion, uh, across interior, across the assets. >> a decades old issue. It's not like it appeared. >> last year. And we need, we need to, uh, we need, we need to absolutely get after it.
▶ 1:41:19This is, you know, everybody that's worked in these problems knows that that number doesn't get smaller because there's a tipping point where if you don't repair a road, you don't repair a building, you don't repair a roof. At some point, you go past the repair thing and then you flop, drop into replace, and then the number just jumps up to the next level.
▶ 1:41:35So again, appreciate that we are, um, uh, working hard to make sure that we've, you know, both got the resources, but also the procurement because sometimes when we've got deferred maintenance, we run into these issues where the federal procurement is so, uh, complex, uh, that, you know, I was out at the presidio and they had, they had vandalism on 12 windows and a year later he had 12 broken windows and he was still going through the procurement process to replace 12 windows.
▶ 1:42:03And if it had been if the national park foundation, the presidio foundation, you know, could have been able to take over that project, uh, you know, they would have replaced them the next day. And so again, working with these partner organizations, friends group, national park foundation, other foundations, if we can get more, uh, more dollars and more authorities to them than sometimes we can actually take care of these things when they cost a lot less.
▶ 1:42:26Uh, as far as the, uh, the sort of the underground as you're, as you're describing it, it's there. Uh, yeah, this has been a, uh, we, it's a, a known, a known problem and we're, uh, trying, trying to address it, but also trying to address it with education. There's a lot of fear based, uh, fear based organizations.
▶ 1:42:48Uh, one of the, one of those is a group called the national parks conservation association, uh, which uses the national parks name, but they, you know, they hire lawyers and they fund candidates that are, uh, you know, opposed to this, uh, agenda. And it's not, they're not spending any of the money they raise to actually do conservation. And so it is a, you know, there's plenty of plenty of folks that are out there that are benefiting from the be afraid, be afraid. This is what's happening to your parks.
▶ 1:43:17But they don't say, send the money to the parks, send the money to the national park foundation, send the money to us, uh, so that, you know, and we'll, we'll solve the problem. But they're, they're not investing in, in actual conservation. So it is, it is a, you know, a challenging environment to work in because there's real, there's, there's large business models.
▶ 1:43:35It's also almost become like an industry of, uh, attack, you know, spread misinformation, generate, you know, generate fear and then generate revenue, uh, but not actually work to solve the problem that they profess to be concerned about. >> wow. Well, thank you for that insight. Uh, that's yeah. Um, touching on american energy dominance, you've done a lot on that.
▶ 1:44:01Uh, and certainly this administration has kind of bringing us back specifically to baseload energy, uh, to cheap energy, affordable energy. Obviously, we have a conflict in iran that's creating a temporary issue, but we were on the right path and I'm sure soon will be, uh, again. Uh, and even then, we're right at about what biden era prices were, uh, even given the conflict going on. >> we're a dollar below. >> a dollar below. >> the high was during the biden administration. So it's. >> so that's pretty extraordinary, actually.
▶ 1:44:31Um, currently, I think we bring in about $10 billion in our land. Uh, it's an amazing resource for our country. Some estimates say we could bring in hundreds of billions of dollars if we were able to use it all, uh, properly, which would be an amazing benefit to the taxpayer. Uh, some, some states, though, in some states, you're actually managing over 50% of that state's territory as well.
▶ 1:44:55And so maybe there's an issue of whether we're, especially with the maintenance backlog owning too much. Um, one issue you mentioned as well was wind. I appreciate what you're doing with wind. I'm sending to a guy who knows a whole lot more about radar than I do, uh, for sure.
▶ 1:45:14Uh, but my, my understanding is that turbines cause beam blockage shadowing attenuating of signals that they can create blind spots, they produce false targets, reduce detection sensitivity, they complicate tracking of aircraft. You could also say missiles as well. Uh, and this seems to me like this would be a national security issue to have along our coast. Uh, so I think, uh, the decisions you're making there are very, very important. Could you speak to what you're doing?
▶ 1:45:42We're in a race against china for ai, among other things. Uh, that is really an energy race. Uh, and the importance for us to do what we can to, to ramp up energy production very speedily. And again, baseload energy. Could you talk to what you've been doing on the side of permitting to help us ramp up energy permitting quickly? >> yeah, yeah. Thank you. Uh, it is we are in an arms race with china.
▶ 1:46:08And this is an interesting because it's the first time in history that we've been able. It's a miracle that we can turn electricity into light or heat. I mean, we take that for granted, but we've never been able to turn electricity into intelligence before. So the demand for electricity is going to go up. The value of electricity is, is, is skyrocketing. And, and the under the under the, the framework of what was always called an energy transition.
▶ 1:46:33If you took a look at the, the actual, uh, gigawatts being generated, we weren't transitioning under, under that those policies, we were actually doing energy subtraction. We were prematurely shutting down baseload from hydrocarbons, shutting down baseload from nuclear, and then adding intermittent, uh, and then at a time when you needed it most, if the, uh, you know, the sun was shining, the wind wasn't blowing, then it was, uh, you know, we were having a shortage of electricity.
▶ 1:47:02So part of what we in the arms of china, china last year added 93gw of coal. Last year, one gigawatt would would run all of the denver metro or all of utah. Uh, it's a it's a lot of power, but they need 93. They're opening up a gigawatt coal plant every four days. Uh, so they're racing ahead on electric generation.
▶ 1:47:25Uh, and people make comments about china doing renewables, but they're doing baseload at a level that allowed them to also do, uh, you know, do the solar that they were investing in as well. The, the, in terms of the permitting, uh, part of what we had to drive through is, is how do you generate the power? And then how do you, you know, and how do you, um, get it connected to the grid?
▶ 1:47:49The good news is we didn't have to come up with an appropriation because the, the five hyperscalers, the largest, uh, you know, tech companies in the country that are all driving towards ai, their capital budgets for this year, for this year right now is over $400 million.
▶ 1:48:06I mean, this is I mean, there's never been an appropriation to say, oh, we got appropriate federal dollars to go build electricity, but the nation's been, you know, crawling along at sort of a, in the tech industry, you know, using about 1% of the nation's electricity over a period of time. And then now that's the area that's really causing the huge demand push, uh, relates to the manufacturing of ai. Uh, so to, to do two things. One is we said we've got to stop shutting down baseload.
▶ 1:48:34If you want to protect any of these intermittent sources we have now and make sure that the grid doesn't collapse. So we literally through the authorities that chris wright has, as the secretary of energy, uh, worked with the power companies to get people to stop prematurely shutting things down or ordering them to not shut down. That kept 17gw on the grid without that, during the storm, fern, uh, we would have had tens of millions of americans without power just two months ago. I mean, we were we were at it.
▶ 1:49:04We were at a crisis level. And people were like, why? You know, why did they declare an energy emergency? Uh, you know, that was the big thing last year. Well, we declared it on day one because we knew that our grid was at risk because of the over rotation towards, towards, you know, intermittent, uh, and weather dependent sources versus the, the base load, the on the permitting side, part of that is getting through the ferc, but because the incentives were so high, uh, for, for the wind, wind and solar projects and then battery to accompany those, uh, 95% of
▶ 1:49:34The ferc was, was related to, uh, the, these highly subsidized taxpayer subsidized sources. So working with ferc, uh, working with local grid operators like pjm, working with others around the country to say, we've got to get the interconnects done faster. Uh, we've got to get siting done faster. We've got to allow that capital to flow to actually do it. It's not federal dollars. I mean, the market wants to build more power and they're willing to build it behind the meter.
▶ 1:50:02They're willing to build it off the grid with the new taxpayer or the ratepayer protection plan, which the white house drove, uh, with the pjm grid agreement, which eight democrat governors and five republican governors all signed, all agreeing, uh, that, you know, to figure out a way to be able to add, add power, add ai and not have your rates go up. Because because the idea that you're going to have a, you have a fixed cost thing called the grid.
▶ 1:50:28And if you have somebody that comes in that's willing to pay for power, uh, that doesn't mean rates are going up. That could mean that another person is willing to cover the cost of the existing grid that's there. In north dakota, we built a $1.2 billion, uh, ai factory, and the rates went down for everyone around there. But now I see everybody's campaigning for office. I'm going to be against ai manufacturing because rates are going to go up. No, those two things don't necessarily go together. They go together.
▶ 1:50:54If you have a bunch of other policies or if you're trying to mask the fact that you over rotated towards the wind and solar. And people may get offended when I say that. But when the wind and solar was, that's the thing you still needed everything else for. When the wind's not blowing, you still needed all the other power. You can't, like, shut down the other stuff. And then what do you do when the wind's not blowing? The germans actually came up with a new word for it. It's like this long and it's got, you know, all consonants and no syllables. But it is it means dark doldrums.
▶ 1:51:23And they've had companies, they've had companies that have announced that they've missed their earnings this year as renewable companies, because the wind didn't blow as much as they thought it was and it was cloudier. It doesn't have to be like nighttime. If it's cloudy during the day, you generate less electricity. So they germany spent a half $1 trillion on their green dream, and they produced 20% less electricity. And their rates are three times as high. It's not about, you know, and that all happened before the any conflict in the middle east. It has nothing to do with that.
▶ 1:51:52It has to do with you can't build out an electrical grid on something that's weather dependent. And then you still and you've got complete redundancy. You still need the base load, you still need everything else, and you've added this new thing, and then you've subsidized this thing that costs more. Uh, and people just weren't honest about what the green premium was. It was like the transition was, you're going to have something that's better, but it's going to cost the same. No, there was that second part was never said because it was never true. It was always going to cost in some cases double.
▶ 1:52:20And now you've got capital flowing and capital is going to flow to the parts of the country that have low electric prices. That's where all the capital is going. And it's very uneven. Just like we have a difference in gas prices. We have, you know, it's a spread of 3 or 4 some parts of our country. Electricity costs 3 or 4 times more than other. And those places are not seeing the capital flows because advanced manufacturing and distribution, everything that's going to use robotics, whatever, it's going to require more electricity.
▶ 1:52:45And so we're going to we're going to see some parts of our country look more like europe, where there's a lack of investment in other parts are going to be booming and it'll be on, it'll be uneven. And it's all it's all driven by policy. And it's not it's not ideological. It's it's economics. It's physics. It's just what it is. It's not it's not like, oh, somebody's right or somebody's wrong. It's just, it's, it's, it's things that are immutable, uh, in terms of the cost side of these things.
▶ 1:53:11But, and then, and then we have a, so what we're trying to do is make sure that capital can get deployed faster. And that's easy in some parts of our country. Uh, you know, because it gets down to a lot of times state level policy. So we're, we're working hard to bring on more power and more ai, uh, because you can't, you can't lose the ai arms race. It's non-optional. I mean, that is, that is completely national national security. And you don't have to go through a briefing.
▶ 1:53:37I mean, if, if you got iran launching 500 projectiles at israel last year, all time to arrive at the same time, uh, without without ai, you know, israel, you know, israel shot down one of those attacks last year. There was 400 things that were coming at low level. There was either going to arrive in eight hours. The, you know, the autonomous, slow moving drones that are flying at the height of a wind tower.
▶ 1:53:59Then you had, you know, another 90 things that were coming that were going to arrive in three hours, and then you had ten hypersonics that were going to be there in ten minutes, all time to arrive, say like at 5 p.m. And they shot down, you know, like 96% of them because you didn't have everything targeting, oh, we're all going to shoot at the first one. And then we missed the next 499. Well, that happened last year. And then americans were like, okay, what's you know, what was the score of the ball game? I mean, like, it wasn't even like, it wasn't even like page three here.
▶ 1:54:27What, what an ally of ours just had 500 projectiles launched. Time to come. The same thing. And they shot them all down. And somebody didn't say, how did they do that? It wasn't because you had some guy with a, you know, with a machine gun, you know, like world war two movie, you know, this is this is, this is ai, ai, you know, golden dome, iron dome, it's ai. And if you don't, if you, if somebody's ai is better, you lose that battle. So there is no national security today without ai. And china's winning, winning the electricity race right now. We're ahead of them on chips.
▶ 1:54:56We're ahead of them on software. They're ahead on electricity. We've got to catch up. >> thank you for your work on that. >> yeah. Thank you. >> chairman jake ellzey. >> thank you, Mr. chairman. Thank you, Mr. secretary, for being here. I wanted to talk to you about two things in the time that we have left. Number one is tribal and law enforcement. The other one's battlefield, national parks. Each year, chairman simpson and ranking member pingree hope a tribal will hold a tribal witness roundtable event spanning over multiple days, where tribes across the nation come to share their testimonies with congress.
▶ 1:55:25Conversations are extremely valuable and always moving, and especially on the treaty violation issue. But last year, our conversation, I highlighted my concern with the lack of law enforcement available in indian country. Fbi has recommended 2.4 officers per 1000 people in a high crime area. I'd say that's probably inadequate. Some tribes have less than 0.6 officers per 1000 people. This gap has allowed organized crime to take major advantage of our tribal lands, whether it's human trafficking or the trafficking of trafficking of narcotics.
▶ 1:55:55I understand you're familiar with this issue from your time as servant of governor of north dakota. I know you know you're working on it, but murdered and missing indigenous people and their relatives. For me and for this entire committee, is an extremely important issue. And under your watch, I think this can be solved, but it needs absolute involvement from your from your personal office to help deal with this. The other one is, um, battlefield national parks.
▶ 1:56:23And when my son jack comes up to visit me in washington, we take time to visit one of the nearby parks. Uh, gettysburg is an an outstanding shape. Antietam. Not so much. Needs some help. Uh, he's a major history buff. Uh, but his new favorite place is fort washington. And, uh, it it, it's an incredible value to have this park in the local area. It's only 25 minutes south of here.
▶ 1:56:46Um, but I'd like to show you some pictures of fort washington, and I'm not doing this to put you on the spot. Only because steny hoyer it's in his district, and he and I are going to go visit it together. It's a beautiful place, but it needs some serious work and not in the matter of tens of millions of dollars. But if you use utilize john now or david rubenstein american battlefield trust or something like that, partner with some of these lesser, um, visited parks, I think it would go a long way.
▶ 1:57:11What we have here is the batteries down at, um, at fort washington and you go down some steps, anybody can go down here and have access to these, these doors right here are gigantic. This is they're about 15ft high. I should have taken a picture with somebody there, but they're hanging off their hinges and they're a safety issue. They can be taken off or replaced for a few thousand dollars. Let's see the next one, grace. This is the watch house at the gate. The main gate is right here. It's a beautiful facility.
▶ 1:57:39It's absolutely built like a mack truck. Um, there's another term that I would normally use, but mack trucks going to have to do so. There's some drainage coming off of here and it's coming in. Here's the the main gate to the fort right here. You can see some of the, some of this is has gone away, some leakage right here. And then we'll show the next picture. This is inside the gate house where it's just literally falling down. People have access to all of this stuff. And there's some, some bricks that are falling down.
▶ 1:58:09It wouldn't take too much money to fix something like that up, but for safety reasons, if you haven't been to fort washington, I encourage everybody to go to it. But anyway, it's just something that's a high priority. If we can't fix these and make them look like they're supposed to, then we need to shut them down until they are fixed. The priority that I had today was in the short time we had left. I want to be respectful of your time. Is the ipl uh m I p r issue? If you could engage me on what you've been doing on that.
▶ 1:58:40>> uh, let me first say thanks for bringing the photos. And one of the things that of course, is in the budget, uh, that came from the white house was a $10 billion, uh, capital expenditure fund for deferred maintenance for the capital region, which would include fort washington. Uh, because we've got a lot of examples like that that are out there. So thank you for bringing those to light. >> oh, by the way, thank you. Uh, there were three, uh, ftes until last year. The, the elderly, uh, park ranger who knew everything about that place. She retired and they didn't fix it.
▶ 1:59:09There's hundreds of acres out there and only two park rangers, so that's a big deal, too. But thank you for that. >> thank you. Uh, yes, as you noted, uh, have, uh, sadly direct experience in this as, as governor where we had multiple cases, uh, of, uh, missing and murdered indigenous in this case, women, uh, in north dakota.
▶ 1:59:29Uh, it's where I first became aware of the fact that there was a, you know, caseload of, of, uh, over 6000 cases that the, uh, fbi has, uh, with very little resource against it. Uh, and, and I was always, uh, shocked by that, uh, as, as I think anyone is because it's a, I mean, our nation has the ability if we, you know, lose a coed on spring break, there's going to be a ten part netflix series about it.
▶ 1:59:57And then someone goes missing and, uh, you know, from one of our tribal reservations and it barely makes the local paper. And we, we last year we had one of our advisory boards. I had, uh, 12 regions, two each, 24 tribal leaders there. We, uh, as part of that, we had, uh, the fbi attend for the first time over at interior, invited them over to hear firsthand. We had families that were there that had lost, uh, lost family members. Uh, everybody, everybody around that table is familiar with it.
▶ 2:00:27So trying to raise a raise awareness, uh, the fbi last year agreed for the first time to commit to have a task force, uh, to, uh, work on it. But as you know, there's a lot of these things are cold cases, which is again, which then goes back to the lack of local law enforcement and in some cases, uh, the reporting time frame in north dakota on cases that we thought we might have been able to solve, uh, you know, nobody reported it till five days, you know? Well, we thought she was here. We thought she was there.
▶ 2:00:56She thought she was, you know, doing this. And then and then all of a sudden, no, then they're gone. Then we can kind of leap into, uh, leap into action. Fortunately, in north dakota, we had worked hard to develop mou between, uh, the, our own state, bci and our state highway patrol, where we actually had the ability to get in because some parts of our country, there are no mou and so local law enforcement. So it goes straight from the tribe to the feds. And then you're basically calling, you know, a regional or washington dc office. And it hasn't been a hasn't been a priority.
▶ 2:01:24So in terms of law enforcement in general, we're understaffed. We got capital, capital, maintenance and equipment needs relative to, uh, both, you know, detention centers, uh, that we have around the country and detention centers aren't like, oh, it's just like a building that, you know, for that we in eastern montana, we had a case there on the crow reservation, which is huge, where there was not a detention center. The one that was there was closed down, looked probably like the one the photos you had.
▶ 2:01:50Uh, so there's a, uh, someone who commits a minor crime, knows he's going to get hauled off by the one person who's on patrol at night. Got to drive him over to lame deer. Well, he's over there, then the drug deal is going on over here, you know, in an organized way. This person's going to get released. You know, they do that. And then in the crossfire, a ten year old kid is killed. You know, I mean, this is I mean, these are the nasty side effects.
▶ 2:02:18If we don't have the if we don't have the right kind of staffing and the right kind of resources to do it. And as you noted, uh, there is organized crime. I've had some people have said, oh, that's not true. In north dakota, we did an organized event with the, uh, back in, uh, when I was governor that involved, uh, state, federal, local and tribal.
▶ 2:02:39And we arrested 55 people in one day across three reservations, all of them with ties back to a gang in detroit that was tied to a cartel in mexico. And they were coming into north dakota on amtrak, where there's no tsa. So get on, get on amtrak with the bag of guns, a bag of pills and a bag of cash, and get off at devil's lake to go to spirit lake. They would get off at rugby to go to turtle mountain, and they would get off at minot to go to mha.
▶ 2:03:08And they were, you know, organized recruiting, selling, you know, all of the things that they're doing. And so it's a, it's a, it's a real it's a real issue. If there's other ideas that you have about how this committee and how we can get more resources specifically against this, uh, be b be interested to collaborate with any or all of you on that front. >> well, I think in popular culture, it's starting to become a big deal. And we're seeing a lot of tv shows.
▶ 2:03:34And I'm sorry that it's it's taken this much, but it is in popular culture, it's become an issue. And I'm, I'm glad to see that it's become an issue and that people are talking about it. I'll just close with this because we're out of time. Thank you for indulging me. Is that american indian and alaska native women experience a murder rate ten times higher than the national average. I'd like to close with that. It's tragic. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. secretary. Thank you. >> uh, I think miss pingree has a few other questions.
▶ 2:04:02Miss cohen. Do you have. Yeah, I have a I have a few things I want to mention. One is you mentioned, uh, wild horses and burros. We spent $144 million on wild horses and burros last year. Uh, if you can solve that problem. I don't care what happens to the rest of the budget. We've been trying to deal with that for so long that it that it's crazy. I'm glad that Mr. ellzey brought up the murdered and missing indigenous people.
▶ 2:04:30I know that, and I appreciate the increase in the budget request to deal with that. You're absolutely right. Nobody's focused on it because they're indians and they're out oftentimes in the middle of nowhere. And I've been on this committee for 24 years, and I like to think that I have delved greatly into indian issues because southern border in my hometown was fort hall indian reservation. So I've dealt with them for a long time, worked on the reservation, all that kind of stuff.
▶ 2:04:59And about it was about five years ago. First time I ever heard this issue. After all the time I had served on this on this committee. I was watching a pbs tv program and they were talking about it, that we lose 6000 murdered and missing indigenous people every single year. That's twice as many as died on september 11th. General public doesn't know that. I bring that up in a speech and they all go, you're kidding me. Why haven't I heard that?
▶ 2:05:27I think one of the biggest problems after we held a hearing on it is jurisdictional issues. We need to be working with the fbi, with or with justice department, with the department of interior and stuff. Because when I talk to them, it is I can understand most indian issues, but when I get to law enforcement, it gets very confusing. Uh, for a variety of reasons.
▶ 2:05:51But if you're and a tribal member that commits a crime on a reservation, you're treated one way. If you're from another tribe, you treat it another way. If you're a white person that gets treated on that, commits a crime on a reservation, or if you're an indian that commits a crime off a reservation, it is a joke.
▶ 2:06:09And until we start recognizing that these tribes can control their own lands and have jurisdiction on their own lands and prosecute crimes on their own, on their own lands and so forth, uh, I think we're losing our track, so we need to sit down with you, with the department, with your department, with, uh, the justice department and others and see and obviously with the tribes and see if we can work through, uh, the jurisdictional issues on this issue.
▶ 2:06:34But it is, to me, one of the most, uh, devastating issues that we deal with and we've got to solve this problem. So I was just going to say that a couple other things I just want to mention that are important issues. The fire funding fix. Uh, as you know, a few years ago, it took me years to get this passed that we decided to treat wildfires like we treat every other national natural disaster so that we would end the fire, borrowing out of other accounts and everything to fight wildfires.
▶ 2:07:02Uh, this budget authority increased by $100 million each year. Uh, in fiscal year 2027 is the final year of its authorization. So it doesn't need to be authorized this year, but it does next year to be reauthorized. I like to get a head start on things. Uh, I'd like to do it this year.
▶ 2:07:21And what I'd say if there are any changes that you or your department would recommend for fixing this, or for reauthorization of this ways to improve it, let us know. Uh, I've talked with the chairman of the resources committee and would like to go through the resources committee to get it reauthorization reauthorized. And I think I'm going to try to try to get that done this year, but I would certainly appreciate your input on it. Uh, sage grouse management.
▶ 2:07:49I've included a provision in our bill since I think 2015, except for like one year. I'm sorry, but it was anybody thinks this is a partizan issue. It's not it was actually secretary salazar when they were talking about listing sage grouse that went to the states and said, develop sage grouse management plans in your state and states, got together and worked on that and did it.
▶ 2:08:17We have a plan that has been approved as equal with fish and wildlife services as as the state of idaho's and stuff. And so they've they've been working on this for a number of years because they got local landowners involved in it in the sage grouse committees and stuff. So they have a part in it. Now, all of a sudden, the federal government comes back in and says, no, we're going to take over all this local landowners going, why the hell am I devoting all my time to this and stuff? And you lose their support.
▶ 2:08:45So I've put provisions in our law, uh, area, in our bill all the time that prevent them from listing sage grouse while these plans are being worked on. And so I suspect I don't know for sure, but I suspect somebody will probably add it to a bill again this year. So but it's not it's not that we're not trying to protect sage grouse, it's that there's a way to do it that doesn't involve the federal government and stuff that involves the states and letting the states do that.
▶ 2:09:12And of course, that affects north dakota also because your sage grouse state also, aren't you? Yeah. Uh, this is a question, though. In november, the administration published four proposed rules that would restore endangered species act regulations to their proven 2019 and 2020 frameworks.
▶ 2:09:28The feedback I heard on these proposals was positive that these revisions really would allow the agency to take a balanced, common sense approach to species, listing, delisting and critical habitat determinations. Anytime we try to make a change to the esa, somebody's going to accuse us of not caring about species and letting them die off and all that kind of stuff. Could you walk us through the changes and how they would improve the department's implementation of the endangered species act? >> uh.
▶ 2:09:58>> again, at a high level, uh, the but the roughly across the four take the four different things or again, just all, uh, I would call them common sense and efficiency gains. Going back to, uh, making sure that we're focusing on protecting wildlife versus using it, uh, as a weapon to, to stop development.
▶ 2:10:18I mean, there's, there are, it's also an industry that's been created around, uh, using that to stop just about anything that wants to get built in america and where, where it may or may not have any impact on, on wildlife.
▶ 2:10:34So the, the, uh, so, I mean, I commend you and others that worked on those originally and putting them in there because I think it's a good, it's a good grounding base point to, uh, for, you know, for build policy that's based on the law and based on common sense, based on the science. >> well. >> it is, I said for a long time, the endangered species act really wasn't about preserving species. It was about protecting. It was about, uh, controlling land and water. And that's the problem.
▶ 2:11:00And one of the real problems is trying to, uh, delist species once they're listed and stuff. So. >> well, it is, I mean, to the point that that the 97% of the things that have ever gone on that list have never come off. And so I think if the idea of creating the list would be to celebrate, hey, we saved something. It's coming off the list. I mean, that's that would be the whole point. If we're all like, we want to save something. But instead the culture right now is people celebrate when something gets on the list.
▶ 2:11:28We got, we got something on the list. We got it on the list. It's like, great, when are we going to celebrate this stuff coming up? Nothing ever comes off. It's it's like the hotel california. You can't you check in, you can't check out. But you can't. So it's like, I mean, because if we, if anybody had a program that was designed 50 years ago and you said the goal was to save species, and 97% of the time you concluded you hadn't, I think congress might take a look at that and go, this isn't working. >> yeah. >> it's not working the way it is.
▶ 2:11:56And then when we try to change it, everyone's like, oh, you don't care about species? No, we care about species. We care about saving them. Can we work on something that would actually work? Yeah. I mean, even if it was 5050, you'd be like, great half the time we saved them. Or let's keep up the good work. But if 97% of the time they're they're still on there and they're like, no sight, no line of sight of them coming off. Uh, yeah. Because like I said, then you run out of places where you can actually build something in america.
▶ 2:12:22And yeah, it's a, we, we, we, we, we have to be able to do, do both protect species and, and, uh, build things. >> we had a, maybe you heard about a bird hearing, uh, last thursday in our committee and our full room. We had, uh, uh, an organization that brought in a lot of endangered birds from around the world and stuff. It was very interesting, but we had the peregrine fund there, which is located in boise, and they, they, uh. Helped save raptors all around the world.
▶ 2:12:51They've been in existence for 30 or 40 years, something like that. They've never filed a lawsuit. They find that they get better results by going out and working with ranchers and other people to preserve these species and educate them to that, that it is better to work with them. And it's it's more valuable to have them on their land because the alpha falcon needs the same grasslands as cattle do, and they can work together.
▶ 2:13:20And that's how they save the alpha alpha falcon by, uh, talking with, uh, texas ranchers. Uh, and that's why it's down there. That's how they did the condor and stuff, but they've never filed a lawsuit. And I find that very interesting. Uh, and it's a different way to work to preserve species. We don't always have to use lawsuits to do it. But anyway, miss pingree. >> thank you, Mr. chair. Um, we did get rid of ddt and we got the bald eagle back.
▶ 2:13:46So we have made some progress in some places, and sometimes there is just something else we have to do. And I, I do want to just reinforce what Mr. ellzey and the chair have said many times about murdered, missing indigenous women. It's been really important that this committee has put such a focus on it. So I appreciate the stories that you shared, Mr. secretary, and do think that when we, uh, when we hold our hearings, we often hear that we need about 15% of the need for law enforcement in indian country. And that certainly has a huge impact.
▶ 2:14:15So when it comes to resources, there are things that we could do, um, to increase, uh, our ability to, to help with that situation. So, um, I've come to the conclusion that you and I could argue all day or maybe into the evening, and I don't want to do that with all of your time. Um, but I will say I'm, I'm disappointed about a couple of things I want to be clear about. I, um, you know, we had a chance to meet you last year. I looked over the role that you had played as governor of north dakota.
▶ 2:14:44Um, I always think it's good to have governors in these jobs because you have to take such a comprehensive view of what goes on in your state. I looked up your proclamation in 23 for clean energy week, and you you extolled the virtues of all sources of energy hydropower, solar power, wind power. You mentioned in that proclamation that one third of the energy in your state came from wind power. Um, and that you were fifth or sixth in the nation in wind power. Texas is one of those states. Iowa is one of those states. And we've really proven that renewable energy can make a difference.
▶ 2:15:14So I disagree with your argument that we shouldn't be investing. And I think what Mr. carter said is it's just starting to feel like there's a double standard. Maybe you felt like the other administration had gone too far in the other direction, but by many accounts, we subsidize oil and gas to huge levels. It's about $35 trillion at the federal level, $35 billion at the federal level. And the imf says it's closer to $1 trillion.
▶ 2:15:36When you really look at, you know, all of the benefits that oil and gas gets, um, the cost of it, the health costs of it, um, environmental damage. And certainly at the federal level, when I talk about 35 billion, I'm talking about tax breaks for drilling, um, the use of public land at low prices, environmental loopholes, um, and just many of the things I just disagree with many of the things that you said, I mean, we, uh, yes, we have solar panels that are chinese made, but that's part of the problem
▶ 2:16:06Is that the previous trump administration and other administrations wouldn't make that investment upfront to make sure we built our own industry. We're about to see that happen with electric cars because of what this administration has done to discourage people using electric cars. And believe me, they're going to buy them with gas prices staying this high, but they're all going to just pour in from canada now, because electric cars are going to come from china via canada. So I think we make a huge mistake.
▶ 2:16:30When you talk about the intermittent supply of those powers, you know, in most situations, and I'm sure you did it in your state, you built it into the process. You talk about having, you know, baseload. I'm not arguing with you about that. I'm arguing with cutting out the opportunities for solar and wind. Um, and that's critically important. I looked up something that iso had said, let's see if I can um, iso new england, I'm sure you know, they control our grid in new england.
▶ 2:16:59And when they saw those five projects were canceled, they said these projects are particularly important to system reliability. In the winter, when offshore wind output is highest and other supplies of fuel supply are constrained. It goes on to talk about many other things and why we were counting on that in the northeast. In those wind projects, I'm lucky enough to live in an off shore community myself. We're served by wind power. The wind blows all night long.
▶ 2:17:24The problem is we don't always know how to capture it, but we're trying to build up our battery capacity so that we can capture that. So we have ways to do this. We're not investing in that technology with this administration, and I think we make a huge mistake in doing that. So one of our arguments is just that, you know, you're not thinking about reliability in all forms of it at a time when, as you said, people are going to be putting up more ai, the demand is going to be increasing. Um, and we're just going to need more electricity.
▶ 2:17:54And the last was, um, about regulation. I just want to be clear. I don't want to, I don't want you to think I'm trying to use any misstatements or political vitriol to argue back at you. But when I was talking about, um, the issues that I have deep concerns about around the, um, offshore oil drilling and some of those changes that you're making, I did look it up. Um, there are adjustments being made to the blowout preventer regulations.
▶ 2:18:20It was the blowout preventer that was a deep cause of what happened in the deepwater horizon and into decommissioning requirements. So I double checked, there are changes that you're making and I'm worried that it will lessen the standards. I'm very worried about this combining of administrations will put us back to where we were before. So, um, that's kind of repeating and arguing the points that I've already made, but I think I'm right and you're wrong. So I just had to say it and I'm trying to use facts.
▶ 2:18:51>> if I can be clear on one thing that we're, uh, in this administration, we support hydro, great form of baseload. We support nuclear, which has been under attack, uh, in parts of our country. And we're doing great things to try to bring nuclear back.
▶ 2:19:05Geothermal, uh, represents a huge opportunity for this country and the, and where the advancements in geothermal is going to come from is getting to, uh, you know, advances in advances in material science, which are going to be driven in large part by ai, but it's also going to be driven by all the knowledge we've gained through the entire, uh, the, um, the shale revolution, because the shale revolution really is where precision drilling has come from.
▶ 2:19:32I mean, the ability to go deep and go very precisely, uh, which is what it took to develop things like the marcellus, the permian and the bakken, uh, enormous precision, enormous technology going into that is going to really help on geothermal.
▶ 2:19:46So I'm very optimistic that we're going to have, uh, what, you know, would be considered, uh, baseload and in many ways more, um, better for the environment than, than what it takes, uh, because, you know, with, with electric, uh, you talk about electric cars because of high gas prices, the electricity, uh, prices, you know, under, under the intermittent sources, it's going to be very high.
▶ 2:20:14So, I mean, it's not like it's a big savings. I think, you know, you seem to have a lot of facts that, you know, that you have to drive a, a, a car, uh, ev about 70,000 miles just to get break even on a co2 basis. It's not some immediate thing where I start consuming more electricity that I, that I've, you know, had this instant gain because there's no, uh, no emissions. And, and then all of the, the comparisons that people would use around comparing.
▶ 2:20:46>> you know, fuel is cheaper. >> which fuel is cheaper. >> is currently, it's currently cheaper to drive an electric car than a gas powered car for just the fuel. >> interesting. Um, okay. Well, I the, the, I guess it depends on just like what part of the country you're in because electricity costs different prices in different places. But I mean, we saw the big drop off in purchases in electric cars.
▶ 2:21:13As soon as the subsidies went away, people were buying cars because of the subsidy and the concentration of electric cars. Uh, in terms of where purchases occurred, uh, was, was very confined to certain areas and as it should, because if you're driving an electric car in north dakota and cold weather, you don't get the mileage that you do in someplace warm.
▶ 2:21:32Uh, and, and then we had, uh, in so we would have these things where the subsidy was the same whether you were living, uh, in alaska or north dakota's if you were living in arizona and we had the same subsidies for solar, if you were in, uh, northern climate versus if you were in southern utah. And, and so if you're, if you, if you're ever going to get back to, hey, we got to subsidize these things, uh, to make them work and we got to use taxpayer dollars to do it.
▶ 2:21:59Uh, then latitude needs to be come into the thinking because the, the, these things vary a lot in both the production of electricity and the consumption of electricity based on temperature. Again, that's just physics. Uh, but it was, uh, it was a one size fits all, uh, in terms of how we were, you know, thinking about these subsidies, which also led to really uneven, uh, you know, uneven and maybe unexpected things.
▶ 2:22:25But I'm just saying, again, it to, to suggest that we're not for, uh, clean and baseload power when, when this administration has done more for nuclear with the four executive orders that came out last year, there's billions of dollars capital flowing back into small modular nuclear.
▶ 2:22:45Uh, the example that representative mccullum used on the wind river, uh, example is a great one because there are places where, where you can't get transmission to rural areas where having solar on top of a household to be an adjunct to, uh, some sort of hydrocarbon, like, uh. >> I'm just going to freeze that in time. So you did say something positive about solar on top of a household. Just want to just want to remember that as long as it's very good. So we don't need everybody doesn't need to be on the grid.
▶ 2:23:15Just just to be clear, my house has solar power on the top roof of my household. And so I just plug in my car and I make my own electricity and it all works well. >> and the. >> taxpayer more often. >> and I'm guessing a taxpayer subsidy helped pay for the panel. And then you did. >> do it before we had the taxpayer subsidy. But I did appreciate that we did that. But if you're going to spend $35 billion a year subsidizing oil and gas, it's not a bad idea to subsidize those households that could benefit from it.
▶ 2:23:42>> I won't get into a debate about the number that was and who produced that number and what that means, because that's that's accumulated set of projected costs as opposed to an actual, an actual thing where we were sending federal money out to companies doing these projects. So, I mean, you know, and we started off the conversation talking about offshore wind, uh, the, we could, you could, you could have a hearing of offshore wind people and they from europe or from, and they would all come in the room and say, we weren't, we knew we weren't really producing, uh, electrons.
▶ 2:24:10We were just harvesting tax credits. I mean, they'll tell you that. I mean, that's why they, that's why they were pursuing those things. It made economic sense. These are shareholder driven global companies they were pursuing and coming to projects here, not because it was the cheapest form of electricity or because it was it was because it was the subsidies were so massive. I mean, the project value was really, really high. >> but you see them throughout europe. Most european countries now depend on some form of offshore wind, certainly norway. Denmark. >> yeah.
▶ 2:24:40And they are they are their electricity costs are through the roof. And and their economies like germany are, are, are, are collapsing because they don't have reliable electricity in an era where everybody needs electricity. >> always in any kind of collapse. >> no, because they have $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund built by selling north sea oil. That's why that's why they have. >> it invested in renewables. I really I should not keep doing this. I apologize, Mr. chair. I thank you for your time.
▶ 2:25:06As I said, I have a feeling you and I could do this for quite a long time. >> we could. But I want you to know that there is a broad set of things. And it's not like everyone's. Everyone says all of the above. Why can't you do all of the above? The last administration said all of the above. And then there was a set of rules that were completely punitive against the stuff that we needed to actually, you know, have baseload power in this country. It was just too early. It was too premature to say, we're going to shut all that down and we're going to transition.
▶ 2:25:35It was again, there was no transition happening. It was subtraction. At a time when we need additions. So the with with the with the support for hydro, geothermal, nuclear, uh, and hydrocarbons, uh, that's what, that's what we need right now. Uh, because we, we have in some places, we have a lot of renewables. My home state, which you mentioned that worked in north dakota because we grew our baseload, we weren't shutting down our baseload in transitioning. We knew that we needed more. And when we were doing both, you know, guess what state doe did a report.
▶ 2:26:06Guess what state had the lowest electric prices in the country. North dakota had the lowest electric prices. Guess who had the highest increase in demand for electricity? North dakota when people say, oh, the demand for electricity is up because of a data center and our prices are high, that's a false correlation. And it's and I worry about the northeast.
▶ 2:26:21The northeast has got 20% of our population, and it's on track to get about 2% of the next wave of capex spending in the country, because people aren't going to invest someplace where you wouldn't put a wheat mill where wheat costs three times as much, no one's going to come in and, and put in next generation capital expenses in a place where the electricity prices are high. And that's, you know, I've enjoyed working with ned lamont. He gets it. He gets that that there has to be natural gas from pennsylvania. We have $3 gas in pennsylvania.
▶ 2:26:51And during this winter it was 15 bucks in maine. Why are we subjecting? Why are we. Why are. Why are we subjecting americans to having to pay more to heat their home and more for electricity? Uh, because we can't build horizontal infrastructure, uh, in this thing. It was cheaper to buy pennsylvania gas in europe this winter than it was in new england. Uh, and so, and so anyway, we're, we, we, if we, if people want affordability in this country, then part of it is the equivalent of $3. Gas is like 50 cent diesel.
▶ 2:27:19I mean, when you take the energy component, I mean, we've been blessed with this amazing abundance, uh, of natural gas in this country. And, and it's, it breaks my heart to think that it's not being utilized. I mean, main 80% of their homes are heated by, by heating oil dirty. It's a dirty fuel. At the time of the russian invasion of ukraine, that heating oil was coming from russia. We're importing into new england, just like we import into california. Foreign sources of dirty product.
▶ 2:27:46When we got clean american natural gas right here, which has done more to lower co2 emissions, which was always the stated goal of the movement, was to lower co2. So against the thing that was against the thing that was doing the most to reduce co2 emissions. >> we have dropped that number from 80% down to closer to 65 because we've increased the amount of heat pumps. We've had a huge effort in our state to have rooftop solar. So we have been actively trying to change that.
▶ 2:28:14And we do have more natural gas utilization than we used to, but we've had real investment in heat pumps. >> which is great. And it'd be and we're working with all the new england governors. We've had, you know, multiple calls with all of them together and saying, how can we do that? And we did get the and I misspoke when I said, ned, because that's connecticut. But I, when I, when I. >> but I like ned lamont. >> yeah.
▶ 2:28:37But I'm saying, but again, with the, with the working to make sure that we can get, you know, low cost, affordable, reliable, secure energy to every state as part of what we, we're working on. And we appreciate those governors that have been collaborating with us to try to make that happen because the.
▶ 2:28:57And it was nice to celebrate the nsc pipeline, uh, because that's going to that's going to bring, you know, help bring natural gas to 2.1 million homes in the new york long island area, which will then have benefit benefit to connecticut and others. But it's a, you know, that's going to save over $1,000 a year on home heating costs. I mean, that's billions of dollars a year for one little 30 mile pipeline. You know, I mean, and we could repeat that. And we would have if we if we had support to get that done.
▶ 2:29:25I mean, the estimates are that we could save people in new england, uh, you know, $8 billion a year just by getting, by having more, uh, more natural gas. And then then you start to see along those corridors, those energy corridors, you'd start to see economic development occur because people say, hey, I can afford to build in, you know, in new york or new england if I know I can get the same price for for gas here that I can in pennsylvania. >> thank you. >> this could go on for some time. That's what I mean. Yeah.
▶ 2:29:57Uh, thank you, Mr. chairman, for or Mr. secretary, for being here today. We appreciate your thoughts and responses on these important issues and look forward to working with you as we put together the 2027 budget. Thank you. >> thank you, thank you. And there were a number of questions. My staff has been here writing them down and we'll, uh, we'll follow up. Uh, and, uh, we know that there's been questions, but also concerns. We want to address your concerns and we want to answer your questions. So thank you for. >> I appreciate that there is one thing I will bring up.
▶ 2:30:25I agree with miss mccullum in that indian education has been very important to this committee, too. And when you saw the pictures of port washington, I could show you some pictures of indian schools that look just like that. And I know that they didn't put any request in for building for indian schools. That's something that we will do when we write our bill. But it is very important that we address indian education because, frankly, just like we think that's the future of the american people, that's that's the future of indian tribes also is the education system.
▶ 2:30:57So I appreciate it. Thank you, thank you. Hearing is closed. Is adjourned, closed, adjourned. Whatever.