• H.R. 726 (Rep. Downing), “Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Amendments Act of 2025” • H.R. 2317 (Rep. Amodei), “Northern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act of 2025” • H.R. 2406 (Rep. Bonamici), “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention Improvements Act of 2025” • H.R. 2827 (Rep. Cole), To provide for the equitable settlement of certain Indian land disputes regarding land in Illinois, and for other purposes. • H.R. 6251 (Rep. Begich), To amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 to allow importation of polar bear trophies taken in sport hunts in Canada before the date the polar bear was determined to be a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. • H.R. 6893 (Rep. Scott of VA), “Chesapeake Bay Watershed Advancement for Training, Education, Restoration, and Science (WATERS) Act” • H.R. 7889 (Rep. Wittman), “Advancing Water Research and Collaboration Act of 2025” or the “AWRC Act of 2025” • H.R. 8658 (Rep. Kennedy of UT), “Indian Health Service Emergency Claims Parity Act” • H.R. 9436 (Rep. Lawler), To amend the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 to extend the time period for which certain regulations concerning the North Atlantic right whale are effective.
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House Natural Resources U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsJared Huffman
Trump's cost of living crisis is out of control. Our constituents are working harder than ever and falling further behind. They sent us here to do something about those things. They didn't send us here to help pampered elites with a masculinity problem file paperwork to bring dead polar bear trophies through customs. Today's agenda fails the American people, but it shows who you are, who you care about, what you stand for.
And so, we will keep asking questions that our House Republican colleagues refuse to ask. We will use every tool at our disposal to deliver for the hardworking Americans who sent us here and we continue to ask you to join us in that serious business. I yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Pursuant to the markup notice, it is now in order to consider H.R. 6251 to amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 to allow importation of polar bear trophies taken in sport hunts in Canada before the date the polar bear was determined to be a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries be discharged from further consideration of the bill. Without objection, so ordered. Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open to amendment at any point.
Does any member wish to be recognized for purposes of debate on the bill? Mr. Downing.
Troy Downing
Thank you, Chairman Westerman. H.R. 726, the Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Amendments Act, provides crucial adjustments to the Crow Tribe of Montana's water settlement to ensure...
Elijah Crane
Oh, I'm sorry. I know you're excited about the water rights settlement. We'll get to it here shortly. Excuse me, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Crane, you're recognized.
Elijah Crane
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate being recognized and I appreciate Mr. Begich for bringing this bill forward. Look, this bill releases polar bears that were legally hunted in Canada to hunters in the United States. And the 2008 listing of polar bears under the ESA meant that under MMPA, importation of them was illegal.
The hunters who hunted these polar bears, they complied with every law and every regulation that existed at the time of the hunt. Polar bears were harvested from populations that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had already approved as scientifically managed and sustainably harvested. The rules changed while imports permit were still pending. So the permits were still pending when they changed the rules. H.R. 6251 does not reopen polar bear imports.
It doesn't weaken ESA protections. It applies only to a limited number of hunters who legally harvested bears before the 2008 ESA listing and had pending permit applications. It also reinforces that wildlife management should be based on science and sound population management, not on fear. It upholds confidence in the regulatory process by avoiding retroactive changes to legally conducted activities. And regulated hunting supports conservation by providing funding and creating incentives to maintain healthy wildlife populations and habitat.
Retroactively changing the rules creates uncertainty for sportsmen who invest significant time, significant money to comply, to comply with wildlife laws. These bears weren't poached. They were legally taken by as bears that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said were sustainable and manageable. Fairness matters. Individuals who followed the law shouldn't be penalized because the law changed after the fact.
And it's just that simple. And I would say this lastly. This bill supports international conservation. As a hunter, if I know I can spend years planning a hunt, investing thousands of dollars, complying with every law and every regulation, and still have the government change the rules after the fact, I'm going to think twice before making that investment. Other hunters will do the same.
I'm a hunter myself, have no desire to hunt a polar bear, never will do that, but we ought to stand up for conservation and hunting plays a very valuable role in conservation. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion? Mr. Huffman, you're recognized.
Jared Huffman
You just have to shake your head when this is what you prioritize, this is what you care about, helping some pampered elites display their the prize that they that they killed on a trophy hunt. Americans across this country are struggling with high costs of gas, food, and healthcare. The majority chooses to spend this committee's time on giveaway after giveaway for special interests, in this case, the president's wealthy donors and Don Jr.'s Safari Club buddies. This bill, H.R. 6251, puts a for-sale sign on the Marine Mammal Protection Act by selling it out to a few wealthy international trophy hunters. It allows these folks to import decades-old polar bear trophies into the United States, undermining hard-fought protections for threatened marine mammals and setting a dangerous precedent for future environmental protection rollbacks.
The polar bear is protected under both the MMPA and the Endangered Species Act. Prior to its 2008 listing, the Department of Interior permitted imports of polar bear trophies from Canada provided the hunts were legal. However, listing the polar bear as threatened under the ESA automatically classified it as depleted under the MMPA, which legally halted all trophy imports. That's how the system works.
ESA and the MMPA, it wisely intended for them to work in tandem to save our most imperiled wildlife. An ESA listing automatically triggers depleted status under the MMPA, aligning both laws to shield threatened species and their habitat from harm. At the time of the listing, roughly 40 hunters left their polar bear trophies sitting in Canadian freezers. The trophy hunting community was well aware that an ESA listing was imminent and that it would immediately ban imports. These individuals knew the risks, they chose to hunt anyway.
Even though these 40 polar bears have been dead for years, forcing Congress to retroactively waive a core provision of the MMPA sets a terrible precedent. It chips away the bedrock conservation laws designed to prevent extinction and to recover species. And we say, and we're being told that this is about conservation. Congress should not be in the business of carving out loopholes for special interests, but this is not the only wildlife policy this Republican majority seems interested in pursuing. We have yet to see a single ESA or MMPA bill from the majority that actually improves conservation outcomes.
We must allow state and federal wildlife managers to do their jobs based on the best available science, exactly as the Endangered Species Act was intended to work. It's time to start treating our wildlife like the national treasure it is. Let's reject these special interest loopholes for the elite and get back to the real world of, the real work of delivering a safer, more affordable America for our constituents. I urge my colleagues to vote no and yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion on the, on the issue? Mr. Begich, you're recognized.
Nicholas Begich
Look, at the end of the day, this is a common sense bill. Unfortunately, MMPA does not require, or rather, permit the same flexibility that was available under the African lion in 2015. This requires literally an act of Congress to make, to make things whole for, for hunters who follow the law. And look, these, these hunts were sanctioned by the Canadian government. They were within traditional Inuit hunting regions.
They were guided hunts by indigenous peoples in Canada. And again, these folks followed the law. They went about the, going through this process with the full understanding and belief that they would have the ability to return these pelts back to the United States as had been the case for many years. I urge my colleagues to support this common sense legislation and, and I yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion? I recognize myself and I strongly support Mr. Begich's bill, H.R. 6251, to allow for the importation of polar bear trophies that were lawfully taken in Canada prior to the polar bear's listing under the ESA in 2008. Now, I had a chance to celebrate our 250th anniversary and the 4th of July here in D.C. and it was an amazing time to be in Washington, D.C. The festivities, the fireworks show, the concert on the Mall, it was all, I think it was more than, than I even hoped that it would be.
And I've talked to many people who visited here who were very happy and patriotic about the opportunity to celebrate our country's 250th birthday. And we're still in that celebration time. And I think as we look at what we're celebrating, we, we have to think about not only the Declaration of Independence, but also the Constitution, which tells us the very purpose of government is to establish justice.
And I think it's important, whatever the issue is, that we work hard for justice. And this is an issue about justice. These are people who, whether you like hunting or not, whether you don't think that's important to conservation, you should at least look at the facts here and realize that these people followed the law. These polar bears are dead. They're in a freezer in Canada.
And it's, I think it's kind of crazy that we're having to even take up this bill in Congress, that the bureaucracy is so warped in our federal government that Congress has to pass a law to allow people to import polar bears that were legally taken. There was nothing illegal done when these polar bears were taken. And that's our job, to establish justice. So I think that's what we're here doing today. We're establishing justice for people whose justice and freedom was taken away by the actions of an overzealous federal government.
Again, keeping these trophies in Canada does nothing to bring the bears back to life. And there's no conservation benefit otherwise to preventing their importation into the United States. Now, additionally, under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, every import permit includes a $1,000 fee directed into a polar bear conservation fund. The choice before us is simple. We can keep these polar bear trophies stuck in Canada where they provide no conservation value, or we can allow them to be imported into the United States and invest in polar bear conservation.
I appreciate Mr. Begich's work on this long-standing disparity for American sportsmen and women who followed the law and are asking only for fairness and justice. I know this is an issue that your predecessor, Representative Young, worked on as well. And he was very passionate about it. We can support these hunters, we can support polar bear conservation by passing H.R. 6251 today. I support this common-sense bill and I yield back.
Is there further discussion? Hearing none, it is now in order to consider amendments to H.R. 6251. We will now consider the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 6251 offered by the gentleman from Alaska, Mr. Begich, designated Begich 168 ANS. Without objection, the amendment is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Mr. Begich, you're recognized.
Nicholas Begich
The ANS is a very simple title change to the bill. Nothing else has changed since introduction. I echo the chairman's comments just now. At the end of the day, this is common-sense legislation. It's required under the MMPA for Congress to literally act for what equates to about 40 pelts.
We're not talking about hundreds of pelts. We're not talking about changing the law going forward. We're talking about making sure that we have justice for the people who went about following the law. And I urge my colleagues to support this legislation. I yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion on the amendment? I also support the amendment. And if there's no further discussion on the amendment, it's now in order to consider amendments to the ANS to H.R. 6251. No amendments to the ANS have been filed.
Are there any further amendments? Seeing none, the question now occurs on the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 6251 offered by the gentleman from Alaska, Mr. Begich, designated Begich 168 ANS.
All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, no. No. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted.
The question now occurs on reporting H.R. 6251 as amended to the House with the recommendation that the bill be favorably approved. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, no. No.
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. The bill as amended is ordered reported to the House with the recommendation that it be favorably approved. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. Mr. Huffman, you're recognized.
Jared Huffman
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I give notice of my intention to file supplemental, additional, dissenting, or minority views on the measure just considered and ask unanimous consent that this notice be extended to all measures considered at the markup under House Rule 11, Clause 2L. The notice extends to all members.
Bruce Westerman
Without objection, so ordered. Pursuant to the markup notice, it is now in order to consider H.R. 726, the Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Amendments Act of 2025. Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open to amendment at any point. Does any member wish to be recognized for the purpose of debate on the bill? Mr. Downing, you're recognized.
Troy Downing
Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. H.R. 726, the Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Amendments Act, provides crucial adjustments to the Crow Tribe of Montana's water settlement to ensure the tribe can provide clean drinking water to its communities. In 2010, Congress passed the Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Act. This law settled the tribe's water rights and authorized $460 million to design and construct a centralized municipal, rural, and industrial, or MR&I, water system for the reservation. However, due to the project's complexity, rising costs, and extended estimated construction timelines, the initial MR&I pipeline system authorized by the settlement has proven unfeasible for the tribe.
With no current ability to utilize settlement funds for water infrastructure, the Crow Reservation continues to experience a clean water crisis. Over 50% of Crow Reservation households have contaminated water, and multiple studies have linked the tribe's higher cancer rates with this lack of clean water access. This crisis simply can't be allowed to continue. This is why I introduced H.R. 726. This bill expands the scope of authorized water projects under the Crow Tribe's water settlement beyond the initial single mandated pipeline project to include a flexible array of smaller-scale regional water projects.
In doing so, this legislation will dramatically reduce the timeline for delivering clean water to the reservation's communities. H.R. 726 is a straightforward solution that does not alter any existing water rights and appropriates no new federal spending. It simply provides necessary flexibility for the tribe to meet the needs of its citizens. I'd like to thank Chairman Westerman and committee staff for their support on this initiative, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this important legislation for the Crow Tribe. With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
Jared Huffman
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Federal government does have a legal obligation to ensure tribal communities have access to safe, clean, and reliable water and the infrastructure needed to deliver it. As the committee with primary jurisdiction over tribal water rights settlements, it's our responsibility to ensure tribal nations have secure access to water for current and future generations. I remain committed to advancing these settlements on a bipartisan basis. My concerns today are not primarily with this particular bill, but with the lack of progress on a path forward for the many other pending tribal water rights settlement bills that are crucially important.
Since that hearing, committee Democrats and the bill sponsors have repeatedly requested that the committee advance these and other pending settlement bills beyond the hearing stage, mark them up, pass them into law. Several of these bills have passed the Senate multiple times with unanimous consent, but have stalled here in the House. At the end of last Congress, together with our colleagues on the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, we asked committee Republicans what they need to move a bipartisan tribal water package by the end of the year. We received no substantive response. In this Congress, we've continued to ask for the majority to work with us.
Let's find a way to advance these settlements. We still have no clear path forward. We've been more than willing to work with the majority to resolve their procedural concerns related to spending, yet these bills continue to sit before the committee. And today, the majority has cherry-picked one of them. They've chosen to simply consider this one largely technical Republican settlement bill, while the remaining tribal water rights settlement bills are stalled.
Tribal water rights settlements have long advanced through bipartisan cooperation, and committee Democrats have consistently made clear we're ready to work in good faith on all the settlement legislation before the committee. But to date, we have seen requests to include settlement bills rejected markup after markup, despite repeated requests. And today, the majority wants to move a single Republican-sponsored settlement bill after rejecting yet another request of ours to include a non-controversial Democratic-sponsored settlement bill on today's agenda, a bill that's already passed the Senate by unanimous consent. I hope my colleagues will follow through with their statements on working with us. We're ready to work with them to ensure that all these pending settlement bills receive a fair opportunity to advance to the House floor.
But until we have a clear and credible path forward, I have to register my deep concern about the lack of progress with the majority's broader approach and commitment to advancing tribal water rights settlements. I yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion? I recognize myself. I strongly support Mr. Downing's bill, the Crow Tribe Water Rights Settlement Amendments Act of 2025. This legislation recognizes the challenge facing many previously enacted project-based Indian water rights settlements, delivering the original scope of a Federal Reclamation project within the cost estimated nearly 20 years ago.
This bill accomplishes two key goals. First, it converts the existing project-based settlement managed by the Bureau of Reclamation into a fund-based settlement administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. This bill also extends the Crow Tribe's exclusive authority to develop hydropower at Reclamation's existing Yellowtail Afterbay Dam. This bill is a simple, no-cost amendment to an existing settlement that delivers on the Federal Government's commitment to the Crow Tribe. I'm pleased that we can move this bill one step closer to becoming law.
I also recognize that there are several pending bills related to new and existing water rights settlements that have not been able to move due to cost implications. I certainly understand the importance of these bills, and I would like to work to find a path to advance Indian water rights settlements legislation in a way that allows them to be considered in the House. And while those bills still require additional work to address the cost, I applaud Congressman Downing and Senator Daines for coming together to address the CBO score on this legislation and generate a product that we can move through the committee and move off the House floor. This bill upholds our commitment to Indian Country, and I'm glad we are considering it today. I support H.R. 726, and I yield back.
Is there further discussion on the bill?
Hearing none, it is now in order to consider amendments to H.R. 726. We will now consider the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 726 offered by the gentleman from Montana, Mr. Downing, designated Downing 73 ANS. Without objection, the amendment is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Mr. Downing, you're recognized for the ANS.
Troy Downing
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My amendment in the nature of a substitute for H.R. 726 will ensure that this legislation delivers necessary reforms for the Crow Tribe without requiring any new federal spending. Specifically, this ANS removes a provision that would have transferred settlement funds held in existing joint signature bank accounts into new accounts in the U.S. Treasury. In order to ensure that the bill does not score as increasing federal spending by the Congressional Budget Office, this ANS authorizes funds to continue to be deposited into the tribe's existing joint signature MR&I account. Now, I appreciate Chairman Westerman and committee staff for their assistance in crafting this amendment and I encourage all of my colleagues in supporting this, and with that, Mr. Chair, I yield.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion on the ANS? If there's no further discussion on the amendment, it is now in order to consider amendments to the ANS to H.R. 726. Are there any further amendments? Seeing none, the question now occurs on the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 726 offered by the gentleman from Montana, Mr. Downing, designated Downing 73 ANS.
Those opposed, no. The bill as amended is ordered reported to the House with the recommendation that it be favorably approved. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. Pursuant to the markup notice, it is now in order to consider H.R. 9436 to amend the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2023 to extend the time period for which certain regulations concerning the North Atlantic right whale are effective. Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open to amendment at any point.
Does any member wish to be recognized for purposes of debate? Mr. Golden, you're recognized.
Jared Golden
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The U.S. lobster fishery is the most valuable single species fishery in the Northeast. In Maine alone, it contributes more than 3.2 billion to the state's economy, it supports roughly 18,000 jobs and generates hundreds of million in tax revenue. Lobster fishing's the backbone of many communities in my district. In some towns, close to 40 percent of residents can hold a commercial lobster license.
Many of these towns could not survive without this fishery. It forms a tax base that pays for their schools, rural infrastructure, public safety and more. Any threat to this industry is really a threat to the men and women who work on the water, but not only to them, but to the entire community that they are so, so vital to. This is why we need more time to make sure that any new measures we ask lobstermen to take will strike a very careful balance between protecting marine life and protecting the livelihoods of fishermen themselves. When Congress enacted this moratorium in 2023, we funded new efforts to gather information to help support a data-driven process to establish regulations that make sense for both fishermen and whales.
Unfortunately, some of this work, including the work of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team, has been slowed by issues within the federal government, including layoffs and government shutdowns. These circumstances have been beyond the control of Maine fishermen. Meanwhile, those charged with gathering the necessary data say that more time is needed. Maine's Department of Marine Resources, using congressionally appropriated funds, has monitored right whales and studied a potential overlap of the whales and fixed fishing gear. They wrote, "We are still gathering various types of data, and we anticipate that several of these data streams will not be able to be incorporated into decision support tools due to the compressed timeline for rulemaking."
An extension of the pause would ensure that there's time to incorporate this information and that future rulemaking is based on the best available science. Simply put, my friends, Congress paid for this research. Why then would we not provide the time necessary to make the best use of it? Mr. Chairman, let me lay out a few simple facts. First, without the moratorium that Congress enacted in 2023, lobstering communities face the threat of fishery closures that would have devastated local economies and a centuries-old way of life.
Congress enacted the pause out of recognition of that and out of a recognition that we have to get this right. Second, it's undeniable that more time is needed to complete the thoughtful, science-driven process that we need. Despite years of scrutiny, only a single entanglement of a North Atlantic right whale has ever been attributed to Maine waters. So there's no need for a false sense of urgency to rush a process that would be greatly benefited by having more time. Meanwhile, right whale births have exceeded deaths for four consecutive years, resulting in positive population growth.
We take that as evidence that the regulations already in place and the measures that Maine lobstermen have already implemented are working. Maine lobster fishery is really not asking for too much here. We're not asking for new funding, a new process, or any kind of new policy mandate. Simply more time to complete the process that this Congress started back in December of 2022. This legislation, H.R. 9436, will provide the additional years necessary to get the science right so that we can protect both.
Before I complete my remarks, I want to have added into the record for this markup support for this bill from seven different entities. We have the Maine Lobstermen's Association, the Maine Lobstering Union, we have the New England Fishermen's Stewardship Association, the Maine Lobster Advisory Council, the Maine Department of Marine Resources, the New Hampshire Commercial Fishermen's Association, and the Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association, all who have sent in some very helpful, thoughtful remarks in support of this legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Pete Stauber
Without objection, so ordered. The gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion? Mr. Stauber, you're recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, another good bipartisan piece of legislation out of this committee. I rise in strong support of H.R. 9436, the Northeast Lobstermen's Protection Act, introduced by my two good friends, Representative Lawler and Representative Golden of Maine. Each and every day, onerous regulations negatively impact our constituents along with the local economies and local communities that we represent. And too often here in Washington, these onerous regulations are put in place without a full understanding of the impact they will have on the ground. These regulations often set unreasonable standards or are set to go into effect on unreasonable timelines.
The regulations on the North Atlantic right whale, which are currently mandated to be implemented by the end of 2028, are an example of this unreasonable timeline that will have a negative impact on local and regional economies across New England and will have an outsized impact on Maine lobstermen.
This bipartisan legislation before us today does not weaken protections for the North Atlantic right whale. The legislation simply delays implementation of these new regulations so we can get it right. This legislation will allow adequate time to seek input from affected industries and communities, ensuring we have fit-for-purpose regulations that will protect the North Atlantic right whale while not devastating the local economy and our fisheries across New England. I want to commend my good friend Representative Golden for standing up for his constituents and for bringing forth this legislation. And if he wants, I would like to yield the rest of my time to the gentleman from Maine.
Thank you very much, Mr. Stauber, and it's great to be serving on this committee with you, as we did for so many years on the Small Business Committee. At this time, I don't have more to add unless there's anything that comes up in debate, so I'll let you yield back your time.
Thank you. Yield back, Mr. Chair.
Adelita Grijalva
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion? Gentlelady, Ms. Grijalva, is recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act represent two of the nation's most successful and enduring conservation laws, establishing science-based safeguards that protect vulnerable wildlife from exploitation and extinction. This bill undermines both monumental pieces of legislation by unnecessarily extending a broad exemption that allows continued deadly entanglements of the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale. With only a few hundred of these whales remaining, we cannot afford to weaken the very laws designed to prevent their extinction. This year, there have been two recorded deaths due to entanglement.
Congress should be strengthening protections and preventions, not carving out exemptions and placing one of the world's most endangered marine mammals at even greater risk. Congress should be reinforcing, not eroding, the laws that have served as the backbone of American conservation. My father, Congressman Raúl Grijalva, understood that protecting endangered wildlife requires strong laws and political will to enforce them. That is why he championed legislation like the RESCUE Whales Act, which invested in innovative technologies and collaborative solutions to reduce vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglements while supporting the long-term recovery of the whale populations. H.R. 9436 ignores that approach.
Safer fishing gear and other effective alternatives already exist and have demonstrated that we can both protect marine wildlife while supporting sustainable fisheries. Rather than encouraging innovation and conservation, this bill delays progress by shielding harmful practices from the safeguards established under MMPA and ESA. This legislation also sends the wrong message to coastal communities, fishermen, businesses, and industries across the East Coast that have worked in good faith to comply with conservation measures and do their part to recover the North Atlantic right whale. Creating another legislative waiver erodes the integrity of our nation's bedrock wildlife laws and sets dangerous precedent for future exemptions whenever compliance becomes inconvenient. We have a responsibility to protect endangered species before they disappear forever, not after it is too late.
I urge my colleagues to reject H.R. 9436 and recommit to science-based protections that have defined American conservation for generations. Thank you. I yield back.
Nicholas Begich
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I speak in strong support of H.R. 9436, extending the moratorium on North Atlantic right whale regulatory implementation. Look, science must drive the process of rulemaking, and we do not have sufficient science to drive that rulemaking process right now.
Mr. Begich is recognized. Gentlelady yields back. Is there further discussion?
Nicholas Begich
We want to make sure that you have the ability to provide for your families, provide for your communities, and making sure that we pass science-based laws in the House and Senate is one of the ways that we do that. And predictability within industry is important when people are making long-term investments in their small businesses, it's important that they recognize what that environment is going to be like over the horizon of the useful life of those investments. So I support this legislation and I encourage my colleagues to do the same and I yield back.
Speaker 8
Gentleman yields back. There's further discussion. Mr. Huffman, you're recognized.
Jared Huffman
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This bill would prematurely extend a waiver from the ESA and the MMPA actively risking the extinction of the critically endangered Northern Atlantic right whale. Put simply, without collective action, this whale is at risk of becoming the first of the 14 baleen whale species on Earth to vanish. The Northern Atlantic right whale is in urgent need of intervention. The population is just 380 whales.
Only 70 breeding females. The population is so small scientists actually have named and given ID numbers to each individual animal. We're halfway through 2026 and although we were told that there've been some calves born, maybe we should just relax and take it easy on protecting these animals, the truth is we've already lost two calves. Three and four years old, to entanglement. And scientists expect a five-year-old to die soon from injuries from another entanglement.
These losses far exceed our annual limits to keep this whale from going extinct. In the midst of this emergency for the North Atlantic right whale, we're marking up a bill that delays federal protections against entanglements by seven more years. Let's look at how we got here. In 2022, a federal judge ruled that NOAA's Atlantic large whale take reduction plan violated the ESA and the MMPA and ordered immediate updates to avoid entanglements. Shortly after, the Maine lobster industry requested more time to test ropeless gear and gather data.
Congress granted a delay through 2028 before new take regulations would take effect, giving the industry time to test out technology and methods that reduce harm to whales. At the same time, Congress established a new program to fund technology innovation and also required annual reports from NOAA on the progress being made. Now here we are, two and a half years before the regulatory deadline, and this bill would further extend this exemption for the American lobster and Jonah crab fisheries by an additional seven years, bringing the total exemption from the ESA and MMPA to an outrageous 13 years. It is deeply concerning that we have not had a single hearing on this bill or an oversight hearing to ask how things are going with this technology, with these efforts, the monitoring, everything else that we said we would do during this freeze on regulation. The majority failed to hold a hearing to examine why NOAA shirked its duty by failing to deliver a single report to Congress as mandated by the original law.
The committee has not weighed policy options that would support a robust fishery and whale recovery. I want the Maine lobstermen to thrive, but I've also heard from credible sources that this ropeless gear works just fine and that the real resistance to it is the culture and tradition and pecking order among some of these fishing communities and how they stake their claims.
Advanced monitoring technologies have improved mapping right whale patterns. Vessels are using trackers to avoid conflicts. Most importantly for this debate, ropeless gear has a near-perfect retrieval success rate and a critical safety feature, the man-overboard system. It's now an open-source technology for ropeless gear developers. But instead of taking an honest look at these issues and at the progress that we've made and the additional policy levers necessary to support a thriving fishery and to recover this whale population, this bill legislates blindly, throws away the momentum that we have created and kicks the can down the road and is a bad bill.
I request that my colleagues join me in voting no, and I yield back.
Bruce Westerman
The gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion? I recognize myself, and I strongly support Mr. Lawler and Mr. Golden's bipartisan bill to extend the moratorium on regulations that would devastate Maine's iconic lobster fishery and bring severe economic hardship to the families that depend on this industry. For nearly 30 years, the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team has overseen the Maine lobster and Jonah crab fisheries. They have implemented and updated a take reduction plan to minimize the fishery's impacts on right whales.
And for decades, the Maine lobster fishery has led conservation efforts to reduce right whale entanglements in their gear. The industry has removed more than 30,000 miles of rope from the Gulf of Maine, replaced all of its floating rope with sinking rope, and endured significant closures in highly productive fishing grounds, all to prevent interactions with endangered right whales. In its 2020 proposed rule, the National Marine Fisheries Service stated that between 2009 and 2018, the American lobster fishery accounted for just one entanglement every five years. Despite these conservation measures, the usual suspects litigated every permit for the American lobster fishery, seeking ever more draconian restrictions for the American fishery while ignoring the Canadian fishery's impacts. As a result, the American lobster fishery has been subject to regulatory whiplash in four different biological opinions between 2010 and 2021.
In 2021, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued its most recent biological opinion for the American lobster fishery, and these serial litigant groups remain dissatisfied. At the same time, the Maine Lobstermen's Association, joined by Janet Mills, the Democratic governor of Maine, sued NOAA for failing to rely on the best available science and ignoring long-standing conservation efforts to reduce the fishery's impacts. Most recently, the Maine congressional delegation came together to enact a regulatory pause for the American lobster and Jonah crab fisheries in the fiscal year 2023 Consolidated Appropriations Act. The legislation provided ESA and MMPA coverage for the American lobster and Jonah crab fisheries under the 2021 biological opinion through 2028, providing time and resources to develop innovative gear and conservation measures to further minimize the fishery's impact to right whales without disastrous economic consequences to one of America's most iconic fisheries. The Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee has conducted extensive oversight of this issue.
In 2023, the subcommittee held a legislative hearing on a bill sponsored by the late Representative Grijalva to repeal these crucial provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act.
During that hearing, the subcommittee heard from fishermen, unions, and scientists about the poor data quality underpinning NOAA's regulatory approach and the harm a repeal would cause to the industry. More recently, the subcommittee held a July 2025 legislative hearing on draft legislation proposing a broad suite of reforms to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, including provisions identical to H.R. 9436, which was discussed at length during the hearing. More than $90 million has been invested in developing the innovative gear and robust data to understand whale distribution, the effects of new technologies, and the appropriate future management activities. It will likely be impossible to gather the data to inform future management, convene a new take reduction team, and implement a rational management framework by the current deadline of 2028. This legislation extends the pause to 2035, will allow the scientific community, the regulated industry, and fishery managers the time necessary to chart the fishery's future while protecting the families who depend on a vibrant lobster fishery from frivolous litigation by organizations whose only goal is to shut down their way of life.
I would be remiss if I did not applaud Congressman Jared Golden for his tireless defense of his hardworking constituents and his leadership on this important issue. He has been a champion for the American fishing industry and restoring sanity to our broken permitting process. Again, I support H.R. 9436, urge my colleagues to do the same, and I yield back. Is there further discussion on the bill? Hearing none, it is now in order to consider amendments to H.R. 9436.
We will now consider the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 9436 offered by the gentleman from Maine, Mr. Golden, designated Golden 41 ANS. Without objection, the amendment is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Mr. Golden, you're recognized.
Jared Golden
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Pretty straightforward amendment with a simple short title change. You know, I wanted to take a quick minute here and just reiterate to my colleagues, we gave money to the state of Maine back as part of the delay that we implemented in late 2022. This is what has been accomplished with it. Back in 2022, NOAA had almost no oversight going on in the Gulf of Maine.
They did very few flights. They said that they had a hard time really even finding the whales ever in the Gulf of Maine. That's the federal government saying we have no visibility in the Gulf of Maine. So what has the Maine Department of Marine Resources done? It's deployed in the last three years a vast network of acoustic monitors in the Gulf of Maine to listen for right whale calls.
It's also regularly watched for right whales on dedicated voyages and flights. So Maine's now doing the federal government's job for them, for it. They're also using gliders that travel underneath the water and can detect whale calls right down to particular individual right whales if their call has been put into an existing database of known right whale calls. We're getting down to the level of being able to find and say this whale right here, we've found him, he's doing well, she is doing well and healthy. This is the type of information that everyone wants and knows can make a massive, massive difference on protecting the right whale without doing any unnecessary harm to any fisheries.
So much progress has been made here. And yet the take reduction team's work is going to have to start this fall without any of that data that's been collected and that critical information. It just defies common sense to move forward on that timeline. Again, some of the delays in this work, not the fault of fishermen, really the fault of Congress and the federal government. They shouldn't bear the brunt of those delays.
We can take a little bit more time, get more data, deploy more of this new technologies, and as I've said all along, this is about getting it right the next time we go through a TRT rather than doing the job half blind and doing the job poorly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion on the ANS? I recognize myself.
I support the ANS to H.R. 9436. This amendment renames the legislation the Northeast Lobstermen Protection Act of 2026, an apt short title for a common-sense bill. I urge my colleagues to support the ANS. I now yield back. Is there further discussion on the ANS?
Mr. Huffman, you're recognized.
Jared Huffman
Yes, Mr. Chair, I just ask unanimous consent at this time to enter three letters into the record. The first is from conservation science and whale watch organizations across Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida opposing this legislation. The second is from four members of the Atlantic Large Whale Take Reduction Team opposing this legislation. And the third is from hundreds of signers across the United States opposing the legislation.
Bruce Westerman
Without objection, so ordered. If there's no further discussion on the amendment, it's now in order to consider amendments to the ANS to H.R. 9436. We'll now consider the amendment designated Magaziner 1 offered by the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. Magaziner. Without objection, the amendment is considered read. Mr. Magaziner, you're recognized.
Seth Magaziner
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Being from Rhode Island, along with Mr. Golden, I'm one of the few members of this committee from the region that is impacted by this bill. We have a big commercial fishing industry in my district, including a lobster industry, and we also have North Atlantic right whales migrating across our coast. North Atlantic right whale deaths are a real problem. There are only 380 North Atlantic right whales left on Earth and the population is declining.
And by far the leading confirmed causes of whale deaths are boat strikes and fishing gear entanglement, particularly the traps and pots used to catch lobsters and Jonah crabs. I believe that blocking all rulemaking for nearly a decade is the wrong approach and will lead to more whale deaths and drive the species closer to extinction. But look, if we are going to pass this legislation today, let's ask ourselves what else can we do to prevent these whale deaths? So my amendment will do a couple of things, all of which I think should be uncontroversial. It will provide funding to assist fishermen throughout the region to deploy ropeless gear if they choose to do so.
That will reduce entanglements while ensuring that fishermen remain on the water making a living. This will build on work that has already been done and funding that has already been committed in the past. In 2023, I was very proud to help Rhode Island receive almost three and a half million dollars to aid lobster and other fixed-gear fishermen to get ropeless gear on their boats, which was used to great effect. My amendment also makes additional changes. It funds the National Marine Mammal Entanglement Response Networks, which do the dangerous and essential work of freeing whales who get tangled up.
It funds research and monitoring of right whales to ensure that our efforts to recover the species are working. And it once again requires NOAA to send a report to Congress on the state of the right whale and the transition to ropeless gear. This report was first required in 2023, but NOAA has never sent it to Congress, and that is unacceptable. This amendment will help save the North Atlantic right whale species while also protecting jobs in the fishing industry. Again, I don't think anything about it is in any way partisan and controversial.
If we're going to pass this bill, then we might as well at least also do something to help protect this species. So I'll ask my colleagues to support the amendment. And before I yield back, I will just acknowledge and thank my senior LA Marie, who helped draft this amendment.
It's her birthday today. So happy birthday, Marie. And I yield back.
Pete Stauber
Thank you very much. Is there further discussion on the amendment? Mr. Huffman.
Jared Huffman
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This amendment would help move both our US fisheries and the North Atlantic right whale toward a thriving future, so I support it. Our goal must be a robust American lobster and Jonah crab fishery that can coexist safely with right whales in their New England habitat. Over the past four years, there's no doubt we have made progress. Thanks to ropeless gear, over 1 million pounds of North American seafood has been sustainably and safely brought to market.
Unlike the underlying bill, this amendment offers resources to build on this momentum. It would support continued technology research and deployment and would make the United States a global leader in sustainable fishing gear. Being the first nation to reach economies of scale for this technology is within our grasp. We should want to do that, but we won't get there if we stymie progress with this short-sighted and defeatist legislation. While these fisheries have taken some steps to reduce their risk to whales, entanglements in fishing gear continue to far exceed sustainable levels every year.
When the 2021 biological opinion was finalized, we had 350 whales and the population was in freefall. Today, due to the collaborative efforts of scientists, engineers, and fishermen who want to do their part, and backed by strong federal funding, the population may have stabilized at around 380 individuals, at least in the short term. But better is not good enough. Each preventable entanglement is still one too many for a whale population teetering on the edge of extinction, and we must continue to develop real-world solutions that minimize that risk while keeping fishermen on the water. This amendment would also authorize funding for two additional areas: monitoring of North Atlantic right whale and funding for marine mammal entanglement response so that stranding and entanglement response teams have the resources they need to free whales that are caught in lethal fishing rope and conduct necropsies to help inform our management efforts and prevent future deaths.
Lastly, this amendment improves accountability. It would require NOAA to officially report on this topic to Congress no later than 90 days after enactment of this bill. And to date, as has been noted, NOAA just hasn't done this. They've not drafted a single report required by section 101 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. Without this objective information, it's nearly impossible for Congress to craft sound policy and prioritize investments.
As I said earlier, we should be examining a suite of policy options to protect American livelihoods and save an iconic species from extinction. This amendment helps do that. I urge support for it and yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion on the amendment? I recognize myself. I do oppose the amendment because the amendment would effectively end the bill's prospects of advancing through the House. It includes nearly $250 million in new funding authorizations without any offsets.
Further, the one funding authorization that this amendment decreases is critical research funding aimed at developing gear necessary for the future of American lobster fisheries. I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I yield back. Is there further discussion on the amendment? If there's no further discussion, the question is on the amendment offered by Mr. Magaziner, designated Magaziner number one. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.
Those opposed, no.
In the opinion of the chair, the noes have it.
Chairman, a request for a recorded vote.
Bruce Westerman
A recorded vote has been requested. Further proceedings on this amendment will be postponed. Pursuant to the markup notice, it is now in order to consider H.R. 2317, the Northern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act of 2025. Without objection, the bill will be considered as read and open to amendment at any point. Does any member wish to be recognized for purpose of debate on the bill?
Mr. Amodei, you're recognized.
Mark Amodei
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just by way of a brief statement, this legislation in one form or another has been before this committee since the 117th Congress. The biggest footprint in H.R. 2317 is located within Pershing County, which is a county along the route of the transcontinental railroad. Approximately 350,000 acres was checkerboard land granted pursuant to the Transcontinental Railroad Act. The county has come to us and requested that as part of the public lands bill process that we consolidate that ground.
This bill contains that consolidation language, which is important for consideration purposes because the federal estate doesn't grow under the consolidation and neither does the private estate. It is basically, instead of taking an unusable checkerboard land pattern, says basically, here's the federal pieces and here's the private pieces. In addition to that in Pershing County, there are 4,500 acres that are created for economic development and there's a conservation element for over 100,000 acres, all generated from the supervisors in Pershing County asked for those land changes to that. The next biggest footprint is Douglas County, which borders the southeast portion of South Lake Tahoe and goes down into the valley, into the Carson Valley next to that. This footprint contains about 7,000 acres to be conveyed to the Washoe Tribe, which is the indigenous tribe in the Lake Tahoe Basin.
And then it also creates about 7,000 acres that's transferred to the county, the vast majority of which is for municipal floodplain improvements and drainage improvements. So you have that portion. Of the remaining parts of the bill, of the remaining nine counties affected, covers all of the rest of the bill, which are all small parts that are requested by the county for various purposes: cemetery, parks, some economic development, some around housing areas, much smaller footprints than those first two. And you say, well, that's nice, why are you doing that? And the reason we're doing that is because Nevada is a state that's about 83% federally owned, largest percentage of any state in the nation.
It's not because somebody woke up one day and said, hey, it'd be cool to have this federal ground. Literally every community in the state, at that ownership percentage, is surrounded by federal land. So if you want land for a cemetery, or you want land for a park, or you want to convey to a tribe where the county commission has negotiated and agreed, you have to come to this committee and the Congress to do that. So I want to allay any fears. We took up a Nevada lands bill during reconciliation.
This is not that bill. This is a bill that is strictly in Northern Nevada, has been in process, actually was passed out of the House in the 115th session for the vast majority of it.
But I don't want to say housekeeping or anything like that because everybody's antennas will go up. But having said that, if you want to give your communities in your district the ability to grow responsibly, you have to come to the Congress to get some land freed up for various purposes to do that. So I would represent to you that this is a holistic package that balances conservation and economic development that allows Nevada communities to enjoy the ability to plan for their own futures. And as a final thing, I'd like to say that it enjoys bipartisan support: the Governor, the National Mining Association, the Farm Bureau, the Nevada Wildlife Coalition, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, Conservation Lands Foundation, Friends of Nevada Wilderness, and all counties and tribes affected thereby. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Jared Huffman
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am glad to hear from my friend from Nevada that this is not that bill, because we all remember the midnight special when we were here and in the dark of night, without any process, a last-minute attempt was made to sell off millions of acres of public land, an attempt that backfired due to widespread nationwide opposition, including from some Republicans in this body. So I'm glad it's not that bill that we're considering here today. But forgive us if after that experience, we want to make sure there's a robust process. We want to make sure we're careful.
We want to make sure there's scrutiny and deliberation when we're talking about legislation that involves vast areas of our public land, such as this bill. This is an impressive and comprehensive bill that reflects years of engagement, negotiation, compromise. I want to acknowledge Mr. Amodei's hard work and dedication in this regard. He's been at this a long time, and I appreciate the desire to get this done before he retires at the end of this Congress. We'd love to be able to make that happen, but we have to do it right.
The last time this bill was before this committee was in November of 2024, right before the end of the last Congress, and at that time the committee was asked to support an amendment that stripped out all of the conservation pieces in the bill. That meant no more wilderness, no more permanent protection for the Ruby Mountains. This amendment was controversial. It split up a lot of local support that Representative Amodei had worked hard to develop. Committee Democrats expressed concern at that time over losing those conservation pieces, and so it's encouraging to see that some of them have stayed in the bill this time around.
Advancing wilderness designation for almost 150,000 acres of public land in Northern Nevada is progress. And while we're encouraged that our Republican colleagues are ready to support new conservation in the context of this bill, we still have a lot of questions and concerns about process and some of the specifics. First, we're surprised the bill came to us this month. There's been no hearing on it during this Congress. We only recently learned about the possibility of a markup.
This is a 100-page, extremely technical bill that will impact the future of hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in Nevada. It's not something that we should be rushing through without measured consideration. A lot has changed since the committee last considered this bill, including that midnight special attempt to give away millions of acres of public land. Like many Nevada public lands bills that have come before it, this bill is a package of trade-offs. It strikes a balance between economic development and conservation.
That is an ethos that we can all support and understand. Nevada is not the only public land state in the Union. My home state of California has a lot of public land, and my colleagues on the Democratic side certainly understand the dynamic of balancing various needs to ensure long-term stewardship coexists with thriving communities. That is a bipartisan goal and an important one.
So, it's very important that we get this balance right. Our public lands are national treasures that should not be sacrificed or sold off to the highest bidder without safeguards. Americans of all stripes oppose giving away public lands. This committee learned that lesson very clearly at the time of that midnight special during the reconciliation markup. In that instance, we were asked to support selling off public lands to help pay for President Trump's tax cuts for billionaires, a boondoggle.
The response was loud and clear: Americans want to keep public lands in public hands. Now we're being asked to support some of those very same land sales again. The context is different, and while I understand that there's a significant amount of local support for H.R. 2317, this committee has a responsibility to the American public lands and every person who treasures them. The idea of public land sales, especially at the scale envisioned in this bill, is unpopular and potentially problematic. And none of this is happening in a vacuum.
The Trump administration is doing everything right now in its power to undermine federal land management agencies, to roll back decades of conservation progress. Earlier this week, Trump illegally eliminated Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah over the objections of tribal communities. It's a hard time to greenlight the sale of thousands of acres in northern Nevada. Title five of this bill even authorizes the sale of encumbered land, also known as surface estate, directly to mining companies. This is something committee Democrats flagged as a concern last time around.
So again, I want to reiterate that we appreciate the hard work and effort that's gone into this bill. Unfortunately, the spirit of outreach and coordination seems to have stopped when it came to working with committee Democrats. A large, complicated bill like this can't be rushed before the August recess. Better collaboration would have helped to craft a bill that we could have all supported. I yield back.
Speaker 15
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion on the bill? Mr. Bentz, you're recognized.
Cliff Bentz
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Congressman Amodei, for bringing this bill. I'm very familiar with this space because I grew up on a ranch that ran back into Nevada out of Oregon, and the nature of the property that's involved is extraordinarily familiar to me. One of the things that's missing from not only the 19th-century law that created the checkerboard structure for financing railroads and also missing from here at the eastern end of the United States is an understanding of the sheer size of states in the West, be it Alaska, be it Nevada, be it Oregon. But there are 56 million acres in Nevada of public land, 56 million acres. The amount that is being managed by this bill is an incredibly small fraction of that number.
Now, people would come in and say, as we've heard, that every acre of public land is valuable, and there is truth to that. But I will tell you, if you've driven from Winnemucca down to Reno, as I have many, many times, right through the middle of the space that's taken up a big chunk of this bill, you will see that there is a reason that each acre is worth, when I was growing up, six dollars. Today, I was looking at some of the numbers, it's about 150 dollars an acre. Now, that's unheard of in this part of the United States because there's water on this end of the United States, and there isn't water in this particular space that we are discussing today. What Congressman Amodei's bill does is try to repair a structure for financing the railroads that was designed, believe it or not, to drive up the value of federal land so it could then be sold for money.
That was the idea. The idea also was to prevent railroads from blocking up federal lands. So they cleverly divided townships into alternating square miles of ownership, one square mile to the railroad and another square mile remaining public. The concept being that the railroads would sell that property to private individuals and that would drive up the value of the federal land retained and they then would sell, we would then sell that federal land retained to help get our money back from what we used to finance railroads. What ended up happening in places like the county that Congressman Amodei's bill addresses was to freeze the use of that land and those little communities in place.
That's why those towns are so incredibly small. Lovelock, for example, which I've driven through many, many times, is a little bitty town and surrounded by this checkerboard pattern that prevents any kind of economic development. I support federal land remaining federal, but I don't support causing the paupership of people in our states, which is exactly what this structure is doing. The idea here in this bill is to fix that. And it's again has to be viewed in sense of the scale that's involved, 59 million acres of federal land in just Nevada.
And this bill would address some extraordinarily small part of it in a very clever way. I do want to call out one thing on page 61 of the bill, line 11. And this is a situation that they're trying to say to the Secretary that if there's going to be a buyer of a square mile of federal land that is not suitable. And I would say for the record that a buyer that's not suitable would be someone that's not the neighbor that has been using that land for years. A suitable buyer would be the person that's been using that property for years and years and years as part of their operation.
That is a suitable buyer. And I want to make the record extraordinarily clear that if there's a cash sale, the folks that have been using that property, lived adjacent to that property, had for years struggled to try to make this combination of federal and private ownership work, get the first choice and be suitable. With that, I yield back. But Mr. Chair, I just want to make it clear, we cannot leave these little communities in these great big vast areas subject to this crazy jabberwocky approach that was designed years ago to finance the railroads in areas where they actually did have water, as we sure don't have it out in the West in the United States. Yield back.
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion?
Mr. Chair.
Mr. Stauber, you're recognized.
Pete Stauber
Believe it or not, Mr. Bentz said exactly what I was going to say and I yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion? I recognize myself and I want to begin by recognizing that H.R. 2317, the Northern Nevada Economic Development and Conservation Act, is a top priority of Representative Amodei's and something that he's been working on for well over a decade. As he already mentioned, over 80% of Nevada is federally owned, more than any other state in the nation. And as Representative Bentz pointed out, the federal government owns a staggering 56.3 million acres of Nevada in an area larger than the entire state of Kansas.
This enormous federal estate presents significant challenges for rural Nevada communities by limiting economic development opportunities and local control. Because federal lands are not taxable, Nevada's state and local governments are deprived of an important source of revenue to support education, law enforcement, emergency response, and many other critically important public services.
Representative Amodei's bill, which is similar to legislation that passed this committee last Congress by voice vote, offers solutions to these problems that have been developed directly by the counties, towns, and tribes affected by the legislation. The bill permits the eventual conveyance of over 390,000 acres to help bring economic opportunities to Northern Nevada, create new job opportunities, and allow more opportunities for local communities to meet their long-term development, recreation, and conservation needs. While I will be voting to advance this bill out of committee today, I do remain concerned with the inclusion of restrictive land designations, including a significant amount of new wilderness. Representative Amodei and I have talked about this, but he has worked very closely with his local officials back home. I do look forward to working with Representative Amodei to address these concerns as the bill moves forward.
Again, I want to recognize Representative Amodei for his long-standing work on behalf of the communities in Northern Nevada. He has been a strong advocate for his constituents and has worked hard to advance locally supported proposals. I look forward to continuing to work with Representative Amodei to further refine this bill. I yield back the balance of my time. Is there any further discussion?
Hearing none, it is now in order to consider amendments to H.R. 2317. We will now consider the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 2317 offered by the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Amodei, designated Amodei 29 ANS. Without objection, the amendment is considered read and open to amendment at any point. Mr. Amodei, you're recognized.
Mark Amodei
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And first of all, I want to thank you for putting on the record my notable decade worth of effort which failed to bear fruit on this matter. And I'm glad to have that as part of the record permanently on my performance, and I will say it was an accurate statement. With that, I am offering the amendment in the nature of a substitute to update the legal descriptions in Washoe County or in Douglas County because of the tribal transfer language in the bill. During the amount of time when I was being so effective on this, some of those of that estate has been transferred through other processes in the BIA to tribal members.
So the amendment in the nature of a substitute changes the legal description to reflect accurately the present state of ownership and not try to re-transfer those parcels which have been transferred to individual tribal members in the interim. I yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion on the ANS? I support Representative Amodei's ANS, which does make minor changes to Title I of the bill, which is a title that affects Douglas County in Northern Nevada. And I yield back. Is there further discussion on the ANS?
We will now consider the amendment, or excuse me, if there's no further discussion on the amendment, it is now in order to consider amendments to the ANS to H.R. 2317.
Bruce Westerman
So we will now consider the amendment designated by Representative Maloy, designated Maloy 69, offered by the gentlewoman from Utah. Without objection, the amendment is considered read, and Ms. Maloy, you're recognized.
Celeste Maloy
I'm offering this amendment to the ANS at the request of the bill's sponsor, Mr. Amodei. It makes minor changes based on technical feedback from the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, as well as small revisions requested by the minority. Specifically, the amendment clarifies which secretary is identified for titles that include U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. It removes duplicative language, ensures reference maps are properly identified, and at the request of the minority, strikes all reference to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or CERCLA, which Mr. Amodei's team has agreed to.
The amendment text has been shared with the stakeholders and this bill has received no objections. And finally, since I still have some time remaining, Mr. Chairman, I want to take the opportunity to quickly recognize Mr. Amodei, who's retiring after 15 years of service to the people of Nevada's second district. He's been a friend and a mentor to me. We served together on this committee and also on the Appropriations Committee. On both committees, we've worked together on tough issues that really matter to our constituents.
He's a fierce and relentless advocate when it comes to the needs of Nevadans. Nevada is the only state with a higher percentage of public land than Utah, where I represent, and I'm sympathetic to the complexities of public land management in a state where public land acres have a supermajority of the acres. So it's my pleasure to offer this amendment on behalf of my friend and neighbor, Mr. Amodei, and with that, I yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentlelady yields back. Is there further discussion on the amendment? Mr. Huffman, you're recognized.
Jared Huffman
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to continue to express our concern about the process. It's not midnight this time around, I'm grateful for that, but you know, here we are again with a last-minute amendment on a very large technical bill that came to us very late. We only learned about it a few days ago. I understand Representative Maloy's amendment is technical, it may even include some of the changes that we had asked for, so that's great.
But while I appreciate that effort, it was filed late last night, seven pages of cleanup language to a nearly 100-page bill. This does have some echoes to the 33 pages we were presented with, you know, around midnight during reconciliation, and we were told nothing to see here, local support, and there was much more to the story. So, Mr. Chairman, this is no way to run a major piece of legislation and we continue to have concerns about the process. I yield back.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion? I'll recognize myself. The amendment offered by Representative Maloy makes a number of technical and clarifying changes that improve the bill and I'll also say that she was spot on on her comments about Representative Amodei's work. These revisions will improve implementation, provide additional administrative flexibility, and increase transparency and make other minor changes throughout the bill.
These edits reflect feedback from the minority as well as the affected stakeholders. I thank Representative Maloy for offering the amendment and I yield back the balance of my time. Is there any further discussion on the amendment? If there's no further discussion, the question is on the amendment offered by Ms. Maloy, designated Maloy 69. All those in favor signify by saying aye.
Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the amendment is agreed to. The question now occurs on the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 2317 offered by the gentleman from Nevada, Mr. Amodei, designated Amodei 29 ANS. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Those opposed, no.
In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted. The question now occurs on reporting H.R. 2317 as amended to the House with the recommendation that the bill be favorably approved. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, but I will request a recorded vote and the proceedings will be postponed until further notice.
We're going to take a 10-minute recess and then we will reconvene for votes. The committee stands in recess.
The next business is on the request for a recorded vote on amendments to the ANS to H.R. 9436. Members will record their votes using the electronic voting system. The question is on the amendment to the ANS to H.R. 9436 designated Magaziner number one, on which the noes prevailed by voice vote. The clerk will open the vote. The usual delay.
Speaker 25
Have all members voted? Does any member wish to change their vote? Hearing none, the clerk will close the vote and report.
Bruce Westerman
The amendment is not agreed to. The question now occurs on the amendment in the nature of a substitute to H.R. 9436 offered by the gentleman from Maine, Mr. Golden, designated Golden 41 ANS. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Those opposed, no. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, and the amendment in the nature of a substitute is adopted.
The question now occurs on reporting H.R. 9436 as amended to the House with the recommendation that the bill be favorably approved. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Those opposed, no. A recorded vote has been requested. Members will record their vote using the electronic voting system.
Clerk will open the vote. Have all members voted? The clerk will close the vote and report. Does any member wish to change their vote?
Bruce Westerman
The bill as amended is ordered reported to the House with the recommendation that it be favorably approved. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. The question now occurs on reporting H.R. 2317 as amended to the House with the recommendation that the bill be favorably approved. A recorded vote has been requested. Members will record their vote using the electronic voting system.
The clerk will open the vote. Have all members voted? Does any member wish to change their vote? Hearing none, the clerk will close the vote and report.
Bruce Westerman
The bill as amended is ordered reported to the House with the recommendation that it be favorably approved. Without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table. We now turn to the UC package. With the cooperation of Ranking Member Huffman and the other members of the committee, we have worked out an agreement on five bills scheduled for markup today. As we have done before, rather than going through a formal markup process for each of the bills, I will make a single unanimous consent motion to report out the bills favorably with any amendments that have been filed and agreed to.
Before we begin, does any member seek time to speak on any of the bills in this unanimous consent motion? Mr. Kennedy, you're recognized.
Burgess Kennedy
Thank you, Chairman Westerman, and thanks to the Ranking Member, Mr. Huffman, for considering the Indian Health Services Emergency Claims Parity Act during today's markup.
Bruce Westerman
Mr. Kennedy, will you suspend? Members, please pay respect to Mr. Kennedy and keep the noise down.
We're still in the middle of the markup. I'll give you a little bit of time to exit if you're leaving.
Speaker 24
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have eight kids, I'm used to noisy rooms when I'm trying to talk, so it's all right.
Mr. Kennedy, you're recognized.
Burgess Kennedy
Thank you, sir. Before coming to Congress, I practiced as a physician. One lesson that carried me through every patient interaction was the importance of communication. Good decisions depend on having the right people at the table, sharing information early and working together to solve problems before they become larger issues. That perspective also taught me that when families are facing a medical emergency, every moment matters.
Their attention should be on caring for a loved one, not on navigating federal paperwork or worrying that they may miss a notification requirement while dealing with the crisis. This bill provides a practical, common-sense fix by ensuring that families are not unfairly burdened by procedural requirements during some of the most difficult moments of their lives. Utah's third congressional district is home to more federally recognized tribes than any other district in our state, and I know how important it is that federal processes work for the people they're intended to serve. This legislation removes an unnecessary burden while preserving the integrity of the underlying process, and I believe it is a sensible improvement to our current law. I appreciate Chairman Westerman and his committee staff for permitting consideration of this legislation, and I respectfully urge my colleagues to support this bill.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, with that I yield back.
Speaker 26
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion? Mr. Wittman, you're recognized.
Robert Wittman
Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak on the critical piece of legislation that is the Advancing Water Research and Collaboration Act of 2025, which reauthorizes the Water Resources Research Act program through 2029. You know, we're blessed as a nation with abundant natural resources, and I believe firmly that we have an opportunity, but also a responsibility, to steward, manage, and use these resources in ways that allow them to flourish. This bipartisan legislation is going to strengthen the critical partnership between states and federal government and allowing them to coordinate, to plan, to organize, and conduct research that addresses these critical state and regional water programs. The research institutions that carry out this mission are typically housed at major research universities, ensuring that each state will be well-equipped to manage its unique water challenges.
In addition, reauthorizing this program, the Advancing Water Research and Collaboration Act provides for the growing artificial intelligence industry's water challenges in the purpose section to be addressed. This will allow critical technology infrastructure to continue to evolve based on needs and conserving our precious water resources. Conservatism isn't partisan, conservation isn't partisan. It's about protecting the livelihoods and way of life for millions of Americans. Those two go hand in hand.
We have to continue to improve access in our conservation efforts and make sure these efforts are here to stay and we understand the things we can do to continue to enhance these water resources. I want to take a moment to thank the House Natural Resources Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee for their great work on this piece of legislation and their willingness to bring attention to the intersection of conservation and student research through this program. Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the time, and please know I am thankful for the work that this committee is doing to ensure that generations of Americans can live, work, hunt, fish, and play in our beautiful public lands.
Bruce Westerman
Gentleman yields back. Is there further discussion? Seeing none, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 2406, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention Improvements Act of 2025, H.R. 6893, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Advancement for Training, Education, Restoration, and Science, or the WATERS Act, and H.R. 7889, the Advancing Water Research and Collaboration Act of 2025, or the AWRC Act of 2025. Without objection, so ordered. I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs be discharged from further consideration of H.R. 2827, to provide for the equitable settlements of certain Indian land disputes regarding the land in Illinois and for other purposes, and H.R. 8658, the Indian Health Service Emergency Claims Parity Act.
Without objection, so ordered. I now ask unanimous consent that the following measures be approved and favorably reported as described to the House of Representatives: H.R. 2406, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Sexual Harassment and Assault Prevention Improvements Act of 2025; H.R. 2827, to provide for the equitable settlement of certain Indian tribe, or certain Indian land disputes regarding land in Illinois and further purposes; H.R. 6893, the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Advancement for Training, Education, Restoration, and Science, WATERS Act, with an amendment in the nature of a substitute offered by Ranking Member Huffman, designated Huffman 098 ANS; H.R. 7889, Advancing Water Research and Collaboration Act of 2025, or the AWRC Act of 2025; and H.R. 8658, the Indian Health Service Emergency Claims Parity Act. Without objection, so ordered. Without objection, the motions to reconsider are laid upon the table. I ask unanimous consent that the staff be allowed to make any technical and conforming changes to the documents the committee just adopted, subject to the approval of the minority.
Without objection, so ordered. If there's no further business, the committee stands adjourned.