Energy & Environment

Mr. Chairman, my amendment gets to the heart of what sustains our western communities from Colorado to California to New Mexico to Montana--our water and our land. My amendment is the answer to concerns from my constituents in Colorado, outcries from farmers, from ranchers, local communities, from sportsmen, from recreationists, and from many others who know this bill threatens their livelihoods, and my amendment corrects that component. This bill contains a troubling oil shale provision. Now, i... Read more

Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) released the following statement in reaction to President Obama’s State of the Union Address. “President Obama tonight outlined not only a blueprint for an economy built to last but an action agenda that reflects what Coloradans have been telling Congress to address for months: create jobs and strengthen the economy; reform education for our children and economic future; make college more affordable; invest in clean renewable energy to make us energy independent; a... Read more

To support the needs of local firefighters and protect area residents and property, the House today passed the Sugar Loaf Fire Protection District Land Exchange Act, which was authored by Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO). The bill will help the Sugar Loaf Fire District maintain and upgrade the two fire stations serving Sugar Loaf and the other nearby growing communities by exchanging two parcels of land on the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest between the U.S. Forest Service and the Sugar Loaf Fir... Read more

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to provide a description and some color for this important bill, which passed this body last session in the 111th Congress without any objection and did not make it through the Senate last session. Well, I am proud to say that, since that point, Senate bill 278 has cleared the Senate. It's the companion to my bill, H.R. 643. There are some minor changes to comply with House rules that are going to be sent back to the Senate, and we sure hope that, expeditiously, we can ... Read more

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. I rise today in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill. Today, there are very serious challenges facing our country, facing rural America, suburban America, and urban America. In the next 3 weeks, Congress has to address the payroll tax cut issue, or there will be an enormous tax increase, over $1,000 per family, to the American middle class. This Congress has to p... Read more

Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) and Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) today lauded the announcement of new drilling air pollution rules and called for tighter safeguards to protect public health. The new proposed rules announced today by the Environmental Protection Agency update federal limits on air pollution caused by oil and gas drilling, a growing problem throughout the country. The rapid expansion of shale gas drilling associated with hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” has been accompani... Read more

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman from Utah for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume. I would also like to congratulate the gentleman from Utah on the occasion of his birthday and convey my warm birthday wishes to the gentleman from Utah. Despite it being his birthday, however, I have to disagree with much of what he said regarding the rule and the bill. I rise in opposition to the rule and the bill. This is an important debate that o... Read more

Mr. Chair, our country's worst polluters don't deserve a get out of jail free card. I think that's an unintended consequence of the current language of the bill, absent this amendment. And I encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to adopt this amendment. Regardless of one's position on the underlying bill, one thing I hope we can all agree on is that the most egregious polluters--these are polluters that Republican and Democratic State administrations, Republican and Democratic exper... Read more

Mr. Speaker, today the House considers the "BP Respill Bills." That might not be what they are officially called, but it's a much more accurate title for this legislation. It's clear that the authors of these BP Respill Bills did not learn any lessons from the Deepwater Horizon disasters. These bills would make offshore drilling more dangerous for offshore workers, 11 of whom died on the Deepwater Horizon. These bills would make offshore drilling more dangerous for the environment, which was coa... Read more

Madam Speaker, it has been a remarkable April in the House of Representatives. Last week, the majority rewrote the Constitution with a bill stating that one House of Congress can deem a law made all by itself regardless of what the Senate or the President of the United States might think. And if that wasn't enough, today the majority is proposing to rewrite the laws of science itself, the definition of taxes, and the laws of economics. Despite indisputable scientific evidence, the Republicans ar... Read more