the nepa process -- mr. tymon, the nepa process you had mentioned earlier, is a slow, and we know that that historically if that i-35 bridge went through the process, it would be 8 to 10 years before it was built. when you delay projects, mr. tymon, would you say that cost the taxpayers money? mr. tymon: every year there is a delay, absolutely there is an increase in the cost of the project. rep. stauber: so you take my home state of minnesota. when freeze up happens, it's hard to build in december. you can't. so it stops december and it doesn't come -- you can't start building till the may the road restrictions are off. so we've lost 5+ months already. every delay of nepa, the redundancy, the duplication of federal resources and state resources -- i think the states do a very good job of making sure that the laws are followed and that the environment is taken care of. when you have two processes following each other, one can get snagged up and stop projects for many years. would you agree with that? mr. tym

the big problem with nepa is litigation. you can't solve that problem, which is a problem in the courts, unless you get congress to change the statute. we have years of bipartisan conversations that have led to the point of possible changes in the next few years, but that's a slow moving process. >> joe? >> the chevron case is important. it's going to help the incoming administration take a more prudent pro-growth, pro-business friendly agenda. i understand the litigation side of it. but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't move forward. i think the administration having the experience of what worked the first go around will be very successful in implementing and look for a better second go around. >> i was nodding along. joe makes a good point. tobin makes a good point. i would love do this again. appreciate your time. joe and tobin. >>> the president-elect weighed in on meta's changes today by saying, it's come a long way. the social media giant announcing it is removing restrictions on certain topics, echoing a move by musk

they reformed nepa, which is the national environmental policy act, which is a nixon era thing that gotr carter. and that really was, these are environmental regulations that really did restrict home building. they restrict green energy plants. they restrict manufacturing. and so one of the reasons we have high housing prices is because it's very hard to build in a lot of places, especially places like california, because of nepa and other things. kamala harris said she was going to deregulate. i'm not sure she could have been able to do it, but trump did it. and so we have much greater grounds to hopefully the home building. and housing can be affordable for young people. so that's a very positive thing that trump people did. on immigration, i obviously don't approve. he's doing what he said. and i understand why people who are undocumented in this country, the 13 to 15 million are scared, terrified out of their minds. i totally understand that. but it should be said that the way politicians talk about immigration and the way policy experts talk about it is totally different. they can

you know what doesn't require a nepa analysis or doesn't face the threat of years of litigation, mr. speaker? it's a wildfire. until we fix our broken regulatory system that is putting american lives and our pristine and national environment at risk, we're going to continue to lose this battle. the good, bipartisan legislation that will pass before us today will help address this by bringing some sanity back to our forest management practices. i urge all my colleagues to join me in supporting this good legislation and i yield back. mr. westerman: i reserve. the chair: the gentleman from arkansas reserves. the gentleman from california is recognized. mr. peters: mr. chairman, i yield one minute to the gentleman from the san joaquin valley, mr. costa. the chair: the gentleman from california is recognized for one minute. mr. costa: i thapg the ranking member and the -- i thank the ranking member and the chair for this effort on the legislation. over the last two weeks we've seen the devastation that the los angeles fires have caused. the lives, the housing and the commercial structures

good options include batch processing of nepa exclusions, preaward authority or setting deadlines. this program can move faster with no additional risk and that would be good for america to build. on the safety and regulatory front i ask tay the committee keep the big picture in mind. rail is the safest mode of transportation. any new regulation should be focused on solving problems and be practical for short fund railroads. for short line the biggest derailment comes from broken rail and wide gauge and invest in the track and chris yes already does. finally, i ask the congress not increase the size of weight of trucks. we are joined by a broad coalition of cities, counties, police, first respond hers, labor organizations and highway safety groups in that request. for railroads, trucks are direct competition and don't pay fair share of highway maintenance and shift to truck and end up with bigger trucks. thank you. mr. webster: our next witness. >> good morning chairman websters. i'm track division manager of railroad construction company or r.c.c. and i serve as chairman of the bo

bridge falls down and you are going to build it in exactly the same place you don't have to do any nepa review at all. it got 10 or 20 votes. we could not even pass an amendment that common sense. because it is going in the same place. another quick anecdote and then back to questions. did you seen the story recently about the snail darter? the snail darter was discovered in tennessee in the 70's when they were building a dam. he told people at the time this will stop the dam. it is a new species. they have done genetic testing. it's not a new species. it's everywhere. we had a dirt darter in kentucky. it must be a relative of the snail darter. we had to lower one of our dams in our lakes by 30 feet where there are a lot of marinas and recreational activities. underneath, they found dirt daughters in a river and -- dirt darters in a river and said we don't want to fill up the lake back up and we will hurt the dirt darters. my question is, it is a fish. doesn't it like water? and we have the pocketbook muscle. it is listed under the endangered species act. have you ever seen them? they a

reasons we have high housing prices is because it's very hard to build in a lot of places because of nepamp did it and so we have much greater grounds for homebuilding and hopefully housing can become affordable. that's a positive thing he did. on immigration, i obviously don't approve. he's doing when he said. i understand why people who are undocumented are scared. i totally understand that. but it should be said that the way politicians talk about immigration and the way policy experts talk about it is totally different. they can talk about mass deportation but we have, like, 750 immigration judges. some of them have backlogs of six years, eight years. who is going to pick up people? the military, national guard? so the changes that will come out are going to be slower and more drawn out. geoff: on the campaign trail, he has said we are going to go after violent undocumented immigrants or as he says illegal aliens, but between the lincoln riley -- laiken riley act and other things, it has broadened to where immigrant families, the terror in those families is real. let's talk about the

if your bridge falls down you'll build a bridge in exactly the same place you don't have to do any nepa review at all. i got about 20 votes or 15 votes and we couldn't pass an amendment that common sense saying it's going in the same place and reminds me of one quick anecdote and then we'll go back to a couple questions. did you see the story recently about snail darter? apparently the snail darter was discovered in the 1970's when they were building a dam in tennessee and got somebody to admit he told people at the time this will stop the dam, it's a new species and apparently they've done all these genetic testing and it's not a new species and the more they looked they found the snail darter is everywhere and we had a dirt darter in kentucky and had to be a relative to the snail darter and had to lower our lakes and while the dam was lowered, they found in dirt darters in a river and said we can't fill the -- we don't want to feel the lake back up because we'll hurt the dirt darter. my question is it's a fish and doesn't it like water? and you can't imagine the crazy of all this. we

so the book was written with tallulah in nepa, who's the white house bureau chief at the washington post. and we gather all our interviews and we put them all in a word document. and so many of the most of the interviews. and we did more than 400 of them. since this is an intimate crowd. i will tell you, it was more like hundred until my publisher said that. but i we we noticed we noticed we noticed something wrong. and the first time i was speaking one of his girlfriends, she had said to me, we were talking and then we kissed and he said, i love you. and i thought to myself, good game, george floyd. and then i talked to another girlfriend and he said and she said and then he told me loved me. and i thought, well, keep going. and then we realized then tolu is realizing that no matter who he spoke with, like whether or not it was intimate connection or, a semi intimate connection, or a person who he worked with at the salvation army, there was a point in which george floyd had to the person i love. and when a asked him about it, he simply that people like him didn't have enough love their

it does so by reforming nepa to expedite environmental reviews, reducing frivolous lawsuits and increasing the pace and scale of forest restoration prompts. additionally, h.r. 471 promotes federal, state and tribal cooperation for a fire shed center and provides agencies with new technologies to allow a quicker response to wildfires and the ability to implement the most vital forest management forces immediately. as we're unfortunate seeing, more active forest management techniques and a focus on forest health are needed now more than ever. this bipartisan product is a step in the right direction. moving on, mr. speaker. the rule also providesser in consideration of s. 5, the laken riley act. another bipartisan piece of legislation. mr. speaker, laken riley was murdered in my home state of georgia in february of 2024, by a venezuelan man who was illegally present in the united states. he previously crossed our southern boarder in september of 2022, where he was parole and released for further processing. between arriving here and commit his heinous act the individual was arrested in new yo

it is well worth noting that nepa and esa, these rollbacks proposed today, were not among the consensus recommendations from the nonpartisan 2020 three wildland fire mitigation and management commission report. other aspects of that report are reflected in the bill, although they are not funded. these controversial need for and esa rollbacks were not consensus recommendations from that report. these changes would limit judicial review and rewrite the rules to tilt the scales against communities who go to court looking for help. the bill's draconian shot clock would crush meaningful public participation and good-faith collaboration between the public, federal agencies, and project proponents. when that process works, it actually makes projects better. it doesn't just delay things. most glaringly, this bill does nothing to address the climate crisis. the scope and severity of these wildfires is a direct result of climate change. that is a fact. we cannot just bury our heads in the sand and ignore the climate component of this disaster. democrats on the natural resources committee and acro

the portal project is environmentally cleared pursuant to the requirement of nepa and secure t.j. has completed 30% design of the portal and secured up to $3.4 billion of federal funding. the portal has a target revenue service date of 2034. >> the pennsylvania avenue extension led by s.f. cta is a proposal to extend the portal's underground rail tunnel south of the planned fourth and townsend station along seventh and pennsylvania streets to the 22nd street station area. >> pabst would eliminate the existing surface tracks and the at grade rail crossings at 16th street and at mission bay drive projected increases in surface frequency along this rail corridor would require substantial gate down traffic stoppage during peak commute periods and the california high speed rail authority has further indicated that at grade crossings are not acceptable along its surface alignment. >> barring reconfiguration of the rail infrastructure, these two critical road freight roadway crossings which are the only access points to mission bay along its western side would need to be either submerged