Washington, D.C. – Today, the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-OR) delivered the following remarks as the Senate Appropriations Committee met for a full committee markup of the fiscal year 2026 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.
Senator Merkley’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:
“Thank you, Chair Collins and Vice Chair Murray.
“And thank you, Chair Murkowski—we have changed roles, but we have not changed our close partnership on the Interior subcommittee, working together on programs integral to the stewardship of public lands, the health and livelihood of Tribal communities, healthy and productive forests, human health, clean water, and clean air.
“I’m supporting this bill today because it fully protects funding for operating our public lands—that means no funding cuts to the operations of the National Park System, the National Forest System, the National Wildlife Refuge System, or National Conservation Lands.
“The bill also includes language requiring that public lands agencies maintain staffing levels to carry out their important missions, such as protecting important natural and cultural resources, maintaining access and recreation for visitors, conducting Tribal consultation, maintaining infrastructure, and providing information to stakeholders and the public.
“I would like to think we wouldn’t need a new provision requiring that there be enough staff to carry out these activities that are fundamental to managing federal lands.
“But this Administration has pretended that everything will be just fine while, for example, cutting staff at the National Park Service by 24 percent since taking office.
“The bill also ensures that all of our national park units remain in the National Park System—an important response to the Administration’s frankly shocking request to spin off park units and pare down the system that Americans so treasure.
“I’m also supporting this bill because it fully protects, and even provides targeted increases for, Tribal programs—a bold answer to the President’s proposal to slash $1.5 billion from Tribal communities, including cutting $450 million, or a full one-third of funding, from Tribal schools.
“In addition, this bill fully protects funding for wildfire preparedness and operations, as well as funding for wildfire-related staffing.
“And while I’m disappointed that we were unable to strike harmful legacy riders, which don’t belong in an appropriations bill, I’m happy that we were able to hold off on controversial policy items and focus on appropriating.
“These are the core reasons I’m here supporting the bill today.
“That doesn’t mean I agree with every piece of this bill.
“This is far from the exact bill I would have written.
“I’m sure this is not the exact bill that Chair Murkowski would have written either.
“But the point of this Committee is not that one side gets everything they want and the other side gets shut out.
“The proud tradition of this Committee is to hammer out a bipartisan compromise by balancing priorities, making tradeoffs, and keeping the government working for the American people in a cost-effective manner.
“There’s a reason why we hadn’t had a rescissions package pass into law for 30 years.
“This Committee made bipartisan agreements and stuck by them.
“But the enactment of last week’s partisan rescissions package was an alarming— and grave— change of direction.
“It eroded the trust we have in this room.
“But Chair Murkowski and I worked together on this bill on a bipartisan basis, and I know that she values the tradition of this Committee.
“So I’m proud to move forward on our bill to show bipartisanship can still be done.
“As we move this bill forward, however, I want to continue working on some of the areas in this bill
“This isn’t a time to cut back or even tread water.
“We should be investing more in EPA’s research arm, not fighting to just make sure it doesn’t disappear.
“We should be investing more in maintenance for public lands, not trimming back more every year and kicking the can down the road.
“We should be investing more to modernize health care for Tribal communities—not settling for Tribal members getting MRIs in shipping containers.
“We should be investing more to confront the extreme threat that climate chaos poses to our air quality, drinking water, wildlife, forests, ecosystems, and our shared future.
“As we sit here today, 70 large wildfires are burning across the country.
“There are 6 major wildfires burning in my home state of Oregon.
“Overall, there have been almost 40,000 fires reported this year, burning 2.9 million acres.
“We need the resources in this bill to do more than survive—we have to tackle these problems head on.
“As I close, I want to thank my staff and Senator Murkowski’s staff for working to get us here.
“On my team: Melissa Zimmerman, Ryan Hunt, Anthony Sedillo, and Rishi Sahgal…
“And on Senator Murkowski’s team: Daniel Mencher, Anna Smith, Sarah Jorgenson, and
Aaron Thiel.
“I also want to again thank our Chair, Senator Murkowski, and our Vice Chair, Senator Murray.
“With that, I yield back to Chair Collins.”
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