Q&A: ‘Underestimated’ Grijalva reflects on GOP takeover

BY: EMMA DUMAIN | 11/17/2022 06:45 AM EST

E&E DAILY | House Natural Resources Chair Raúl Grijalva is preparing to be back in the minority — and the occasion gave him an opportunity him recall a conservation with the committee’s top Republican, Bruce Westerman of Arkansas.

“I think I whispered once to Westerman, ‘Sometimes, you get what you wish for, Westerman,'” the Arizona Democrat remembered with a laugh.

“‘Let me just tell you,’” Grijalva said he told his colleague, “‘I’m a much better ranking member than I’ve been a chairman.'”

After a week of vote counting, Republicans clinched control of the House on Tuesday evening, clearing the way for Westerman to take the Natural Resources gavel next year. With that comes the power to scrutinize the administration’s energy and natural resource policies.

Even though chairs must often corral an unruly flock toward consensus while managing leadership demands and the administration’s wishes — if they share the same party — ranking members are largely reactionary.

“It’s a different role,” Grijalva said in a recent interview about a position he held between 2015-2019. “The chairman role is trying to pass legislation and change things; in the minority, you’re trying to keep the worst from happening, legislatively. … I understand how to function in that environment and how to be effective in that environment.”

Grijalva doesn’t take the expected power shift as a demotion — or, in his words, as a “diminishment” — waving aside suggestions that no longer being able to drive the agenda would hasten his departure from Capitol Hill after two decades in the House.

He did acknowledge that “the sunset and retribution are conflicting emotions, and right now, they’re conflicting.”

But, he added, “It’s kind of like my career is defined by being underestimated and this is one of those, ‘Well, you’re in the minority, oh, dark days ahead, life is over as we know it.’ And for me, it’s another underestimation. So, I enjoy those, I really do, in a sick, twisted way.”

Ultimately, Grijalva considers the ranking member position a responsibility ahead of the 2024 elections, and one he doesn’t want to walk away from.

“I’m not afraid of our minority status. I don’t like it, but I think we can prove to the public why this has to be a temporary situation for all of us,” he explained.

“The environment and climate are going to be huge issues, and we didn’t make that central to our theme [in 2022], and I think, in generations coming up, it’s central to their thinking,” he said. “The reason the cost of living’s going to shit is because we have pressures that are global and one of them is goddamn climate change. Get a grip.”

Grijalva recently spoke with E&E News about the job he has now, the job he’ll have soon and what he expects Republicans will do with their majority status in the realm of energy, environment and climate.

So, how are you feeling? What’s it going to be like going back to being the ranking member?

Collectively, [Democrats] understand that our umbrella is going to be what it was for the last four years: Our umbrella is climate change, everything related to that, whether environmental justice, conservation, all those issues are going to continue to be where our umbrella is.

Bringing it back to climate, back to climate, so they’re going to have to deal with that question they want to avoid, and I think we can continue to keep the public on our side by having climate change as a central theme of our committee.

[Being ranking member is] going to be a different mindset. The work is just as intense and difficult. You still have to do your homework, you still have to be prepared, but you’re coming from a perspective where — one of the things I want to do is a much better is, for lack of a better word, [improve] the public narrative of why we’re opposed to something. … You’ve got to call [Republicans] out more, and Democrats in general try to convince you on the facts and that doesn’t seem to be working. So now we have to point out the stupidity.

But I’m also into it, honestly. I would love to be chairman, would love to finish some of the other work, blaze-of-glory kind of thing, but that’s not what democracy laid out in front of us.

What do you want to finish?

The “Environmental Justice for All Act” — I think we deserve a vote on that. That’s going to be a push. It probably won’t go anywhere in the Senate, but that doesn’t matter, I think, historically, we need to make that an issue. If that’s the issue that [Democrats on the committee] raised to priority policy status, it’s environmental justice.

What else can you say about your legacy as chair of this committee?

I have shaped this committee differently. I know that. I’ve shaped the content and the personalities on this committee. We have very strong personalities on this committee, and that was on purpose. I didn’t want to run a passive committee, I wanted to run an active and aggressive committee, and we have that.

And we have a lot of leadership on that committee, from senior people to new people, and so one thing I’m proud of is, we changed how the Resources Committee is perceived. It [used to be] perceived as, ‘OK, if you can’t get another committee, go over there, spend a couple terms there and then we’ll move you to something else.’

Now you’re seeing more and more people staying here, and that, I think, elevated the importance. We’re becoming significant players in all the discussions that happen not just on our committee jurisdiction but other legislation that impacts our jurisdiction.

So what’s the legacy? The legacy is, climate change is important, natural resources are important and that the profile of our committee now becomes a critical policymaking arm of the Congress. The primary thing I wanted, institutionally, was to take us from a doormat committee to a front-row committee, and I think we’ve done that.

What’s your prediction for how Republicans will operate in their majority on the committee and how do Democrats prepare for that?

It’s not too hard to anticipate what [Republicans are] going to do. This is a playbook that goes back to my time in Congress 20 years; it’s the same playbook. It will be [weakening] Endangered Species Act and NEPA, energy independence, “tap the resource, don’t protect the resource.”

And then the internal investigation requests, trying to tie up [Interior Secretary Deb] Haaland, the department. You can see all that. It’s the same playbook. And then the absolute and total avoidance of climate change. So it’s not even a guessing game. You know what that’s going to be.

When there’s middle ground, I’ll pursue it with Westerman, but I think … this [election] is not a wipeout. We’ve been reduced to minority status in the work sense of the word, but if the Republicans want to get anything done, they’re going to have to look across and they’re going to have to deal with us. And if they want to get anything signed into law, they’re going to have to deal with us

The margins will be as close as they are now, and so we will retain some ability to block legislation and, when there is room for agreement, help pass legislation.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.