Less than a week before the midterm elections, U.S. House Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D- Arizona, released a report detailing how the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources, on which he has served for 14 years, stacked its hearings with industry interests. “Under Republican leadership,” he wrote, “hearings have disproportionally included witnesses who pad their profits by degrading public lands.”

Now that Democrats have won a majority in the House, Grijalva will have his chance, as the committee’s new chairman, to change the direction of the governing body that oversees federal lands and energy and water resources. Grijalva’s committee will also oversee and investigate the Interior Department, employing the system of checks and balances that Grijalva thinks his predecessors neglected.

Last week, High Country News spoke with Grijalva about his priorities and what his leadership could mean for climate change policies and resource management in the West. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

High Country News: As you assume chairmanship, what do you hope to do differently than (outgoing chairman) Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah)?

Raúl Grijalva: We have an opportunity to take this committee and its priorities and its policies and legislative initiatives and steer it in a different direction. Under our jurisdiction, we have issues that have to be dealt with — tribal sovereignty, education, health care, historical and cultural resource preservation.

The other issue is climate change. It touches every issue that we deal with, and the fossil-fuel extraction industries are making such a rush for resources in our public lands. This administration, in two years, has made every effort to suppress science and dumb down the issue of climate change. We want to elevate that again to the status it deserves in decision-making.

HCN: How will you do that?

RG: We will begin to look at ways in which our jurisdiction can help mitigate the effects of climate change. We’ll do that legislatively, by holding hearings and introducing policy initiatives. My committee will revisit all of the rules that have been changed by this administration that have to do with climate change and science, the Endangered Species Act, the Wilderness Act, and responsibility over our federal waters and waterways. The list goes on and on.

_________
Source: High Country News – Nov 29, 2018
This is an excerpt. The full article can be found by clicking here.

After the Democrats seized control of the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections, Rep. Bishop’s tenure now has an expiration date. Come January, the congressman is expected to hand over his gavel to the ranking Democratic member of the committee, Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona.

With support from conservation groups and his more environmentally minded colleagues, Grijalva will soon be able to reverse much of the legacy that Bishop leaves behind. Here are five urgent priorities that Grijalva can tackle in the months ahead:

CONDUCTING REAL OVERSIGHT

During his short time in office, Ryan Zinke’s Department of the Interior has been a den of unseemly industry influence, ethical infractions, and troubling conflicts of interest. After close consultation with conservative ideological groups, for instance, his department drastically reduced the size of Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, both in southern Utah. And, after scores of meetings and regular communication with oil and gas groups, the DOI rolled back the Obama-era methane rule that sought to regulate potent greenhouse gas emissions on federal land.

_________
Source: Pacific Standard – Nov 29, 2018
This is an excerpt. The full article can be found by clicking here.

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva is expected to chair the House Natural Resources Committee when the Democrats take control of the House in January. The change in power means investigations into Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, Grijalva said, calling the two Trump appointees “ethically challenged.”

“They’re going to be held accountable, and if they don’t want to participate in that accountability then we have other legal recourses to make them do that. And I think we are expected to do that and we need to do that,” said Grijalva.

The Natural Resources Committee will handle the Zinke investigation. The interior secretary faces scrutiny from the Justice Department over a Montana land deal.

_________
Source: Arizona Public Media – Nov 8, 2018
This is an excerpt. The full article can be found by clicking here.

Southern Arizona voters have given Rep. Raúl Grijalva — one of the biggest critics of President Trump — a ninth term in Congress.

Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat first elected to the House of Representatives in 2003, had nearly 60.9 percent of the vote, while Republican challenger Nick Pierson had about 39.1 percent in early returns.

It is unclear how many votes had not been counted in Congressional District 3, but it was unlikely Pierson could mount a comeback based on trends in early ballots counted and in provisional ballots.

“It is our turn at the wheel,” Grijalva said Tuesday night of Democrats taking back the House. “Congress will be checking the worst excesses and instincts of the Trump administration.”

In the heavily Democratic district, where 43 percent of voters are Democrats and 20 percent are Republicans, Pierson joins a long line of Republican challengers who have tried to unseat Grijalva.

_________
Source: Arizona Daily Star – Nov 6, 2018
This is an excerpt. The full article can be found by clicking here.

Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva will run unopposed for his ninth term in the U.S. House. But he says his district will still figure heavily in upcoming elections. Grijalva tells KAWC’s Victor Calderón that he expects Republicans to heighten their rhetoric about the U.S.-Mexico border.

Arizona’s Third Congressional District includes parts of four Arizona counties, three of which share a border with Mexico. Congressman Grijlava said Republicans and President Donald Trump will use the border to rally their base as they look to the November elections.

“(They) blame the whole border region for all the problems that exist in the country,” Grijalva said. “All that rhetoric will not go away; in fact, it’s going to intensify.”

Earlier this month, Grijalva visited a facility housing children separated at the border in Tucson. He said immigration, separate from the border, will also be a divisive issue. He said he worries that, for voters, the disputes are not about policy, but about race.

“Those fires get stoked around the issue of color… turning the issue of immigration into ‘us versus them’,” he said. “At the same time you hear of growers in the Yuma area asking for guest worker programs so they can take care of their crops because they can’t hire anybody else that wants to do those jobs.”

Looking ahead to elections, Grijalva said Democrats need a clear message. It is not enough, he said, to simply counter the President’s rhetoric on the border and immigrants.

“Running just against Trump is not going to get us a victory,” he said. “We have to run for something… for thungs that matter to the American people- their health care (and) Medicare for all (among other issues).”

_________
Source: KAWC 88.9 Colorado River Public Media – Jul 12, 2018
This is an excerpt. The full article can be found by clicking here.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva on Friday toured a facility in Tucson that houses dozens of the thousands of migrant children who have been separated from their relatives under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” border enforcement policy.

The facility, one of eight shelters operated by Southwest Key that house migrant children in Arizona, has long cared for minors who were alone when they were detained by immigration officials. Outcry over the separation of families under President Donald Trump’s policy has drawn new criticism and protesters to the facilities.

“It’s clean, but it’s still a place kids can’t leave,” Grijalva told reporters following his tour. The facility currently houses 279 minors, including 79 separated under the “zero tolerance” policy, he said.

Despite touring and talking with Southwest Key employees for more than an hour, Grijalva said he did not get answers on how the reunification process works. The government must reunite all children younger than 5 by Tuesday, and all other minors by July 26.

Grijalva said he was told that in the last week, the facility had reunified just two children with relatives.

“I hoped to learn more about the unification process, the use of the DNA during this whole thing, and the implications of the Flores” settlement, which limits how long the government can hold migrant youth, he said. “Those questions were not answered.”

_________
Source: Arizona Republic – July 6, 2018
This is an excerpt. The full article can be found by clicking here.

Democratic lawmakers and advocates demanded Thursday that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos disavow her statement from earlier this week that schools can decide whether to turn over undocumented students to immigration officials.

If she does not, they said, she should resign.

“She’s already proven that she wants to dismantle our public schools, but now we are using as cannon fodder the very children that the Constitution and Supreme Court said are protected and have equal access and equal rights,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson.

Grijalva joined several Congressional Hispanic Caucus members, along with immigration advocates from UnidosUS, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), at a Capitol Hill news conference to decry what one called DeVos’ “awful legal policy.”

The event followed DeVos’ appearance Tuesday before a House Education and the Workforce Committee hearing where she was asked if school officials should report students to Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they know that the student is undocumented.

_________
Source: Cronkite News – May 24, 2018
This is an excerpt. The full article can be found by clicking here.

Congressman Raul Grijalva (AZ-03) has teamed up with the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity to sue the Trump administration over the proposed border wall.

The suit seeks to ensure that environmental laws–and all the red tape and studies that come with them–are enforced as Trump moves forward with his beautiful wall.

“American environmental laws are some of the oldest and strongest in the world, and they should apply to the borderlands just as they do everywhere else,” Grijalva said in a prepared statement. “These laws exist to protect the health and well-being of our people, our wildlife, and the places they live. Trump’s wall–and his fanatical approach to our southern border — will do little more than perpetuate human suffering while irrevocably damaging our public lands and the wildlife that depend on them.”

The filing in federal court comes one day after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions used a visit to Nogales to announce new Justice Department policies designed to increase criminal prosecutions of undocumented immigrants.

_________
Source: Tuscon Weekly – Apr 12, 2017
This is an excerpt. The full article can be found by clicking here.

President Trump’s administration has promised changes in a lot of places where government touches our daily lives.

That includes education.

But Tucson area Congressman Raul Grijalva is worried those efforts would actually destroy public education.

Monday he invited education advocates to share ideas on how to defend public education.

In the school zone there is extra concern these days. Schools were already feeling pinched by year after year of tight budgets now there’s concern the new administration in DC wants to dismantle public schools altogether.”

That’s why Congressman Raul Grijalva asked education activists to help develop plans to hold off the changes they fear.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is advocates charter schools which use public money without direct control by an elected school board. She favors vouchers, which would give families public money to help pay for private school.

Sunnyside school board member Eva Carillo Dong says districts will have to mobilize parents.

“…and let them know these vouchers are not a good thing for your children. These vouchers will take money away from public education where we have already been losing an incredible amount of money.”

Education activist Linda Lyon says even if you don’t have children in school. as a taxpayer you should worry whether schools that get government vouchers can prove your taxes are being well spent.

“…and with vouchers, with private schools, you get none of that. You get no financial visibility and you get no testing result, any academic achievement visibility. So my right to know how my tax dollars are being used should not be trumped by your right to send your child where you want.”

Congressman Grijalva says it’s more important to influence members of Congress than the Education Secretary or the President because Congress controls the money.

_________
Source: KGUN-TV ABC 9 – Feb 20, 2017
This is an excerpt. The full article can be found by clicking here.

In less than two weeks, voters in Iowa will cast the first ballots of the 2016 election. As county clerks tally their votes, our nation will begin once again its loud, hard-fought, at times messy, but uniquely American experiment in democracy.

Nearly 240 years of relatively peaceful self-governance–of the people, and by the people–should make every American proud. But mounting threats to our free and fair elections instead leave many wary and disenchanted, if not outright disenfranchised. As President Barack Obama cautioned in his final State of the Union address: “Democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn’t matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some narrow interest.” With today marking the sixth anniversary of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court decision, those fears have never been more well-founded.

Citizens United opened the floodgates to unrestricted special-interest spending in our campaigns and our politics. While you and I can only spend $2,700 on a given candidate per election–and while the reality of pocketbook economics for many households means they will give less than that–unregulated super PACs can spend with impunity, allowing the mega-donors funding them to influence elections anonymously and without restraint.

In 2012, super PACs and other special interests spent more than $1 billion–more than $300 million of which from undisclosed donors–to influence the election’s outcome. That’s three times the amount of outside spending as either the 2008 or 2010 election. Fast forward to the current election, and the picture is far worse. As of Dec. 9, 2015, super PACs were responsible for 81% of all TV ads in the Republican presidential primaries–a 71% increase from 2011, and a whopping 12,000% increase over 2007. If you’re sick of the political ads already, brace yourself for the coming year.

This is far from the first time that our elections have faced similar threats. The struggle to ensure an equal voice for all Americans is as fundamental to the history of our nation as our conviction that all men are created equal. And just as slavery and the subjugation of women undermined the opening words of our Declaration of Independence, voter intimidation and institutionalized disenfranchisement eroded the integrity of our democracy.

_________
Source: Time Magazine – Jan 21, 2016
This is an excerpt. The full article can be found by clicking here.