Hoyer Opening Remarks During Full Committee Markup of Fiscal Year 2026 Interior and Environment Bill
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-05), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), delivered opening remarks at the House Appropriations Full Committee Markup of the Fiscal Year 2026 Interior and Environment Bill. Below is a video and transcript of his remarks:
Click here to watch a full video of his remarks.
"Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have referred to many of these bills over the last number of years as the product of the 'YOYO' philosophy. 'YOYO' philosophy says, 'You're On Your Own,' you take care of yourself; we're not going to help you. This bill, in many respects, reflects that philosophy. I say that with extraordinary respect and affection for the chairman of the subcommittee, who I believe is one of the most responsible Members of the Congress, but that's the message this bill sends to the American people.
"You're on your own if you want to save money on electricity with this legislation, cutting funding from green energy projects that generate a fifth of America's energy. You're on your own in your
community — if your community lacks access to clean water with a 62% cut in this bill to drinking water and sewage infrastructure projects. You're on your own if you want your families to have clean air to breathe, as this bill includes dozens of riders that roll back the federal government's ability to crack down on pollution. Crucially, you're on your own if you want to protect our public lands. These cuts affect every corner of the country. In Maryland, for instance, I'm concerned about what the nearly 5% cut to the Environmental Protection Agency's geographic program will mean to the Chesapeake Bay, not only an extraordinary asset for the state of Maryland, but an extraordinary asset for our country.
"This bill, Mr. Chairman, will also have a severe impact on the National Park Service, cutting it by roughly 6% below the Fiscal Year ‘25 budget, which was, of course, the Fiscal Year ‘24 budget. My office has been in contact with the team down at Piscataway Park in my district, and they're rightfully worried about what the cut to the Park Service will mean for their institution and the community it supports. Same is true of the parks across the country in your districts, especially at a time when the Trump Administration has illegally purged some 1,000 National Park Rangers. One of them used to work at the Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine in Baltimore [and] said this in a letter to me: 'My skills were not looked into. The work that I had been doing was not looked into. It was just an arbitrary slash and burn.' I've said this before. DOGE had no idea of the consequences of their actions; it was sort of like a '3,000 a week' objective. It was not based upon analysis, it was based upon a number.
"I urge my colleagues to help stop that slash and burn by voting against this legislation, and very frankly, allowing Mr. Simpson and Ms. Pingree to bring a bill to the Floor, bring the bill to this committee, that would get votes on both sides. That was true at one time, some of you have never been here when that's been true and that's a shame, because it was a productive process. The chairman said when we left after the last bill last week, that these numbers were not going to be the same, this language was not going to be the same, it's going to be different. I think that's true, but it's going to be much more difficult and much more probable that we'll have a CR or maybe an omnibus in December or maybe March 15th of 2026, halfway through the fiscal year, past the 2026 Appropriations Bill. That's unfortunate. We ought to be working together, and this bill deals with, as the Ranking Member [Pingree] said, the legacy we will leave our children and our obligation as stewards of our land, our water, and our air. Sadly, I'm going to be voting against this bill. And I do mean that because this is an important bill for the country, for the future, for the legacy that we will leave. I yield back."