Watch her floor speech here.

Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, urged her colleagues to encourage the U.S. House of Representatives to take up the consensus agreement on energy and natural resources legislation.

Sen. Cantwell discussed many of the hard-fought, breakthrough agreements that were made on public policy issues that persist from year-to-year, including funding for fighting fires, cybersecurity, drought, protecting hundreds of thousands of acres of land, innovation and science, energy efficiency and relicensing for hydropower.

“We worked hard with our colleagues here on the Senate floor … all summer long and all fall with our House colleagues to reach consensus. It is so disappointing to have our House colleagues refuse to agree to these important provisions,” Cantwell said. “It is really irresponsible for our House colleagues to drop the ball.”

Cantwell also encouraged her colleagues to pressure the House for the hope of future legislation: “if you want your hard work on energy policy considered in the future, and if you want to reach consensus on energy policy working in the regular order process of the United States Senate, you need to say to our House colleagues and to those who are refusing to move forward on a conference report: ‘this is problematic.’ The conference is a process for us to work out agreements—not to sidetrack them or drop them into other bills that have not been worked out and don't adhere to the rules of the Senate or even the rule that the House is claiming to have on earmarks.”

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