During a House Natural Resources Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) spoke about DOGE cuts to the Department of Interior.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00With that, I will now recognize the Ranking Member, Mr. Neguse.
00:06Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:10I want to read just two brief excerpts from two different articles in the last two weeks.
00:16One is from the Star Tribune, Superior National Forest Staff Deficit Worsens.
00:22An agency employee in Minnesota who requested an anonymity out of fear of retribution said
00:28the cuts and fallout have SNF, Superior National Forest Staff, in crisis mode.
00:36Other forest colleagues are worried that they'll lose their jobs and some career employees
00:41feel pressure to resign or risk losing benefits to the worker added.
00:46We were already hanging on by a thread, the person added.
00:51Now Musk, Trump, and Doge are thinning us even further.
00:58This is huge for the Boundary Waters, recreation, and timber and fire management.
01:06There's another article, a headline.
01:12There is literally no one.
01:15The fallout coming to Lake Tahoe after forest service gutted.
01:21This is from a San Francisco Gate newspaper.
01:27Mr. Chairman, across the country, forest service employees, Department of Interior employees,
01:37civil servants at the Bureau of Land Management are losing their jobs.
01:42They're being purged from the federal government.
01:45In many of your districts, as is the case in mine, timber management, wildfire management,
01:56wildfire mitigation, watershed protection, all of it put at risk.
02:04And while I have great respect for my colleague from Arizona, we work closely together on
02:09a number of different matters, I have to be candid that I am disappointed that this subcommittee
02:19has not even entertained the idea of convening on any of the matters that I just described.
02:31I understand this is a priority for my Republican colleagues.
02:37I understand this bill that you proposed that directs, I guess in my senses, it essentially
02:44tells the Forest Service and the Department of Interior that they can't impede any efforts
02:51of DHS.
02:53Of course, it seems like that could be achieved by a phone call, right?
02:58You could call Secretary Burgum at the Department of Interior and say to him, hey, it would
03:04be helpful if you didn't impede any of the efforts of Secretary Noem at the Department
03:09of Homeland Security.
03:10I'm not really understanding why it requires a federal law and the expenditure of our time
03:17here today, when in every single one of your districts, Forest Service employees are being
03:24fired as we speak.
03:27Does not make sense to me.
03:30The priorities of this committee, as is the case with the priorities of the majority,
03:35are out of step with the facts on the ground.
03:39Chairman, you know me to not be, I think at least, a particularly partisan person.
03:48We have run this, we've worked together for years on this particular subcommittee, considering
03:54bipartisan legislation.
03:56It's the most productive subcommittee, at least it was, in the United States Congress.
04:02Hundreds of bills by members on both sides of the aisle that are largely supported on
04:07a unanimous basis.
04:09So it pains me to lay bare my fears in this regard, but I have to do that because when
04:20I go back home to my district at the end of the week, I can promise you, they're not going
04:26to ask me about this bill.
04:28What they are going to ask me about are the wildfire mitigation projects in the national
04:32forests that I have the privilege of representing that are now in jeopardy because the Trump
04:38administration has decided to gut the federal workforce.
04:42And they will ask why, as the ranking member of the federal land subcommittee, we haven't
04:48taken that up.
04:49And I will tell them, well, it's because this week Republicans decided that rather than
04:54telling Secretary Burgum to work with the Department of Homeland Security, they'd pass
04:59a federal law to force him to do it.
05:02That's your prerogative.
05:04You choose the agenda here.
05:06But make no mistake, I don't think the American people are going to be supportive.
05:11And with that, I yield back.