Republicans are gearing up to move their agenda through Congress via “reconciliation”—the same process they used during the first Trump administration to slash the corporate tax rate and give breaks to the top 1 percent. Understanding reconciliation is essential for tracking the GOP’s policy plans, anticipating impacts on the rest of us, and holding lawmakers accountable to the people they serve.
Join the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center, Indivisible, and the National Women’s Law Center as we break down what you need to know about reconciliation and what it means for our communities. We’ll explain why this process matters, discuss history’s lessons learned, and answer YOUR questions!
Speakers:
Tricha Maharaj, Indivisible
Bobby Kogan, Center for American Progress
Catherine Rowland, CPC Center
Ben D’Avanzo, National Immigration Law Center
Zoom’s automated captioning will be available during the webinar. All registrants will receive a follow-up email with a captioned recording of this briefing.
Please note that our webinars are recorded and often posted to our website and/or social media. If one of our panelists reads your comment or question, or if you come off mute to ask your question, your name or voice may appear in the recording.
The Trump’s administration’s unconstitutional funding freeze is disrupting “funding streams through multiple federal agencies including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Service, Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Native American Programs.”
The federal government provided $32.6 billion in direct funding last year to federally recognized tribes through various programs and agencies.
As the freeze was enacted, Gov. Doug Burgum (R-N.D.) was confirmed overwhelmingly by the U.S. Senate on January 30th by a vote of 80-17.
The Democrats who joined the Republicans were Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Baldwin (D-Wisc.), Bennet and Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cantwell (D-Wash.), Cortez Masto and Rosen (D-Nev.), Durbin (D-Ill.), Gallego and Kelly (D-Ariz.), Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Hassan and Shaheen (D-N.H.), Heinrich and Lujan (D-N.M.), Kaine and Warner (D-Va.), King (I-Maine), Klobuchar and Smith (D-Minn.), Padilla (D-Calif.), Schatz (D-Hawaii), Slotkin (D-Mich.), Warnock (D-Ga.), Welch (D-Vt.), and Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
Subcommittee hearing on the Department of Energy national laboratories.
Witnesses:
Dr. John Wagner, Director, Idaho National Laboratory
Dr. Thom Mason, Director, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Dr. Paul Kearns, Director, Argonne National Laboratory
Dr. Kimberly Budil, Director, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren has sent letters to the heads of the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation requesting answers about the administration’s unconstitutional assault on federal science.
On Tuesday, February 11, 2025, at 2:00 p.m., in Room 1324 Longworth House Office Building, the Committee on Natural Resources, Subcommittee on Federal Lands will hold an oversight hearing titled “Restoring Multiple Use to Revitalize America’s Public Lands and Rural Communities.”
Eric Clarke, County Attorney, Washington County, St. George, Utah
• Jim D. Neiman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Neiman Enterprises, Hulett, Wyoming
• Tim Canterbury, President, Public Lands Council, Howard, Colorado
• Dan Gibbs, Executive Director, Colorado Department of Natural Resources, Denver, Colorado [Minority Witness]
On January 27, 2021, President Biden issued
Executive Order (E.O.) 14008, directing the U.S.
Department of the Interior (DOI), the U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Council
on Environmental Quality (CEQ), and other
federal agencies to preserve at least 30 percent of
the country’s lands and waters by 2030.
The BLM’s enabling statute, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976
(FLPMA), requires the agency to manage its 244 million acres of land and more than 700 million
acres of subsurface mineral estate in accordance with multiple use and sustained yield
(commonly referred to as a ‘multiple use mandate’).
On May 9, 2024, the BLM published its final “Conservation and Landscape Health”
Rule (commonly referred to as the “Public Lands Rule”). The rule enables BLM to lease federal parcels under “restoration and mitigation” leases and change certain standards
governing land-use decisions. Moreover, if BLM determines that uses previously authorized
under FLPMA are incompatible with a restoration and mitigation lease, new land-health
standards, or an Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), those uses would no longer be
allowed.
President
Biden created or expanded 12 national monuments and restored the boundaries of three others
that Presidents Obama and Clinton had created. This included two national monuments that
President Biden created in California during the last two weeks of his presidency: the 624,000-
acre Chuckwalla National Monument and the 224,000-acre Sáttítla Highlands National
Monument.
In April 2022, President Biden issued E.O. 14072, directing USDA and DOI to define, identify,
and inventory “mature and old growth forests” on public lands and develop policies to protect those forests. The interagency mature and old growth initiative began in July 2022 with
a Federal Register Notice and public comment period, resulting in roughly 4,000 comments and
more than 100,000 signatures on various form letters from across the country. In April 2023,
USFS published an “initial draft” seeking to define and inventory “old-growth and mature
forests” and convened a “Definition Development Team.” The report identified 91 million acres of “old-growth and mature” forested lands on
National Forest System (NFS) lands, comprising 63 percent of all land managed by USFS. USFS published a Notice of Intent to amend all
128 national forest land management plans to provide direction on managing, conserving, and
stewarding old-growth forest conditions. On June 21, 2024, USFS released a Draft Land Management Plan Direction for Old-Growth Forest Conditions Across the National Forest System. USFS announced they were withdrawing the proposed amendment on January 7, 2025.
A selection of bills planned for consideration or already considered this Congress in the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Natural Resources include the following:
H.R. 471 (Rep. Westerman), “Fix Our Forests Act”: Comprehensive, bipartisan legislation to restore forest health, improve resiliency to catastrophic wildfires, and protect communities by expediting environmental analyses and deterring frivolous lawsuits.
H.R. 3397 (Rep. Curtis) (118th), “Western Economic Security Today (WEST) Act of 2024”: Withdraws the proposed Public Lands Rule and prohibits the BLM from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing any substantially similar rule.79
H.R. 5499 (Rep. Miller-Meeks) (118th), “Congressional Oversight of the Antiquities Act”: Amends the Antiquities Act by requiring congressional approval for the designation of national monuments. If Congress does not approve the designation within six months, the monument cannot be redesignated by the President for 25 years.80
H.R. 6085 (Rep. Hageman) (118th), To prohibit the implementation of the Draft Resource Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement for the Rock Springs RMP Revision, Wyoming: Restricts the Secretary of the Interior from finalizing, implementing, administering, or enforcing the RMP and Environmental Impact Statement for the Rock Springs RMP Revision, Wyoming.81
H.R. 6547 (Rep. Boebert) (118th), “Colorado Energy Prosperity Act”: Restricts the Secretary of the Interior from finalizing, implementing, administering, or enforcing the Draft RMP or Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the CRVFO and GJFO RMPs.
H.R. 7006 (Rep. Curtis) (118th), To prohibit natural asset companies from entering into any agreement with respect to land in the State of Utah or natural assets on or in such land: Restricts a NAC from entering into any agreement regarding land or natural assets in Utah.
The House National Security and Department of State Appropriations Subcommittee (formerly State-Foreign Operations) will hold a hearing entitled “Mexico’s Water Treaty Violations and the Impact on Americans,” to discuss frustrations with the 1944 Water Treaty, under which the United States and Mexico share water from the Rio Grande and Colorado River.
“The panel will focus on Mexico’s looming shortfall on deliveries of flows from the Rio Grande to Texas farmers, which total more than 1.3 million acre-feet ahead of an October deadline.”
Witnesses:
Rep. Monica De La Cruz (R-Texas)
Jed Murray, Director of Government Relations, Texas International Produce Association
*. Dale Murden, Grower and President, Texas Citrus Mutual
Jennifer Cervantes Washington Representative, Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers
Climate change is already provoking mass migration, and as environmental conditions worsen, that trend will accelerate. In the coming decades, the United States will be increasingly affected by sea level rise, hurricanes, extreme heat, wildfires and freshwater shortages, among other hazards. Millions of Americans will respond by moving. How to prepare for and respond to the challenges of climate change will be a primary governance question for the years to come.
On January 22, join Governance Studies at Brookings for a conversation on domestic climate migration in the United States. Experts will explore questions including: How are U.S. communities vulnerable to climate change? What steps are being taken at a federal, state and local level to prepare localities to adapt to climate risks and to welcome new residents displaced by climate disasters? Can preparations for the upheaval of climate change be structured to help address longstanding inequities of wealth, health and opportunity?
Viewers can submit questions for speakers by emailing [email protected] or via Twitter at @BrookingsGov by using #USClimateMigration.
