News List

WASHINGTON – Representative Lee Terry (R-NE) today delivered the following testimony on the need to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline and it’s importance to U.S.-Canada relations to the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Read more »

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Steve Daines announced today that he has helped introduce legislation that will provide Montana farmers and ranchers with relief from costly and burdensome Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fuel storage regulations. Daines serves as an original co-sponsor of the Farmers Undertake Environmental Land Stewardship (FUELS) Act, which eases the EPA’s Oil Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) rules for small farmers and ranchers by modifying the exemption level to be more reflective of a producer’s spill risk and financial resources. Read more »

WASHINGTON, DC – House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders today outlined a new path forward on the Keystone XL pipeline, releasing a discussion draft of legislation that will remove the project’s fate from the president’s hands and clear away the roadblocks preventing construction of the pipeline. The draft legislation, authored by Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE), will eliminate the need for a Presidential Permit and find that the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) issued by the Secretary of State on August 26, 2011, shall satisfy all NEPA requirements. The legislation also limits the legal challenges that can be brought against the project to prevent further unnecessary delays. Read more »

Canada and the United States are each other’s most important trading partners, sharing a 5,500-mile border and close ties in culture, language and values. We are vital allies and friends. In 2010, our bilateral trade was close to $645 billion, which means more than $1.7 billion worth of goods and services cross the Canada-U.S. border every single day. Canada is the United States’s largest supplier of crude oil and refined products, natural gas, electricity and uranium. It is especially important to the U.S. that Canada has always been a reliable and secure energy supplier. Read more »

Washington, D.C. (March 6, 2013) – On the eve of the Senate’s confirmation hearing, Members of the Congressional Western Caucus sent a letter to the President highlighting questions and concerns about Sally Jewell’s nomination for Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI). In the letter, caucus members emphasized the impact the DOI has on the West, and laid out the basic qualifications any Secretary of the Interior should possess. Read more »

Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson today supported a continuing resolution that extends government operations through the end of the fiscal year with a provision specifying that cuts under sequestration must be enacted for all non-security accounts as required by current law. Simpson, who chairs the House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, was instrumental in ensuring that the CR included adequate funding for fire suppression shortfalls in FY13. Read more »

WASHINGTON D.C. – Congressman Cory Gardner (CO-04) applauded the House of Representatives for approving $48 million of Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) funding to help states like Colorado rebuild its watershed infrastructure after a summer of devastating fires. Read more »

Today, Congressman Scott Tipton (CO-03) grilled Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on his agency’s motive behind a controversial Forest Service plan to implement a directive that would require the transfer of privately held water rights to the federal government as a permit condition on National Forest System lands. The permit condition circumvents state water law and jeopardizes… Read more »

Washington, D.C. – Today, freshman Congressman Chris Stewart (R-Utah) was named Chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment as part of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. Read more »

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rep. Scott Tipton’s (CO-03) pro jobs clean energy development bill received a legislative hearing in the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power. The Bureau of Reclamation Small Conduit Hydropower Development and Rural Jobs Act (H.R. 678) would streamline burdensome red tape and reduce administrative costs for the installation of small canal and pipeline hydropower development projects. Read more »