Natural Resources Democrats cry foul about border hearing

Republicans plan to hold the hearing at the same time as a Democratic retreat next month.

January 18, 2024

House Natural Resources Democrats say they’re being excluded from a committee field hearing on border issues in Arizona next month.

The hearing is scheduled for the same time Democrats are planning to hold their annual policy retreat outside Washington, and say requests for a change of date have been denied.

Lawmakers argued about the matter during an hourslong markup Wednesday on energy and outdoor recreation legislation.

Ranking member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) sent a letter to Chair Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) on calling the scheduling move “an outrageous abdication of decorum and comity” and requesting again that the hearing be rescheduled.

“As always, the days of the conference are blocked out on the official House calendar so it can be honored as a period in which members are unable to engage in official committee business. Throughout my more than 20 years in Congress, both Republican and Democratic leadership have always respected this norm for both parties’ conferences," Grijalva wrote.

“Your decision to shirk this longstanding practice and refuse to reschedule this hearing (which requires members to fly into my district) is not just a break of protocol — it is an outrageous abdication of decorum and comity,” he said.

The Subcommittee on Federal Lands hearing, which has not yet been publicly announced, is planned for Feb. 8 per Grijalva’s letter, clashing with the timing of the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference.

It will be held in Republican Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s Arizona district and “center on the border crisis, particularly its environmental and national security impacts,” according to Rebekah Hoshiko, GOP communications director for the committee.

Border issues have been at the center of congressional fights over supplemental funding in recent weeks, with Republicans in both chambers calling for the restrictive immigration policies in H.R. 2, a bill the House passed last year.

“There is an issue of fair play here. And extending to a significant part of the American people the opportunity to have their representatives there. To have that point of view heard and to deal and to provide some balance to a hearing,” Grijalva said during the markup.

“On an issue as critical as immigration, as divisive as immigration, as politically fraught as immigration, needs the presence of everybody there, but we've been denied that participation,” he said.

Westerman responded that “there's only so many weeks in the year, and especially weeks in times when we can do field work, and in order for us to get this field hearing in the schedule dictates more than anything else when we must do it.”

“While I regret that Mr. Grijalva will not be participating in this field hearing, it is not taking place in his district. This will be the eighth field hearing we’ve done this Congress, and the ranking member has not yet attended any of them,” Westerman added in a statement to E&E News on Wednesday evening.

"I always welcome a bipartisan dialogue at our hearings, but it’s near impossible to accommodate members who choose not to participate.”

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) called the field hearing plan “performative political theater about the border” during the markup.

“It's bad form. It's bad politics. It's bad in every way. And it's just very disappointing,” he said.

...

For complete article, please visit source link below. 


By:  NIDHI PRAKASH
Source: E&E Daily