Advancing Telehealth Beyond COVID–19 Act of 2022

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Scalise for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the House will meet at 12 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed, as usual, to 6:30 p.m.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. I reiterate that because that's 2 hours earlier than the usual meeting, but we have a lot of business to do. So the House on Wednesday and Thursday will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business.

On Friday, the scheduled last day of the session before the August break, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.

Next week, pending action of the Senate, hopefully, the House will consider the CHIPS Plus legislation to

combat inflation by easing supply chain bottlenecks and semiconductors that are critical components in everything from cars to dishwashers to small electronics.

Essentially, all of that, so many things that we use, rely on having chip presence. That will help lower costs for Americans and increase supplies.

This bill also will authorize a generational shift in research and innovation in America, helping ensure the next big ideas will start here, and, importantly, stay here.

The House will also consider H.R. 5118, the Wildfire Response and Drought Resiliency Act. All of us have seen the awful drought and wildfires that are occurring in the West and in other parts of the country, actually.

A package of bills aimed at helping those living in Western States meet the challenges of fire and drought exacerbated by the climate crisis will be in that legislation. It would save lives, property, farms, and businesses from damage and destruction from fire and extreme drought.

The House will also consider, Mr. Speaker, Representative Kildee's bill, the Susan Muffley Act, to restore retirement benefits for over 20,000 hardworking Delphi salaried employees. That is a bipartisan bill.

We will also consider Representative Quigley's H.R. 263, the Big Cat Public Safety Act, which would ban the private ownership of big cats and bring an end to the harmful cub petting industry in an effort to enhance the safety of our communities.

You may not think about this, but law enforcement has indicated this is a significant issue for them because they are the ones that are called in to handle it. This is an effort to enhance the safety of our communities and protect first responders and safeguard these wild animals.

The other reason it is on is because the Senate has asked, and I think there is a possibility that they will pass this through their unanimous consent process.

Representative Jayapal's bill, H.R. 3771, the South Asian Heart Health Awareness and Research Act, will also be on the floor to raise awareness regarding the alarming rate of heart disease in the South Asian community and invest in reversing this trend.

Lastly, I would say that we are going to have Representative Liz Cheney's H.R. 4040, the advancing telehealth beyond COVID-19 Act, which would further extend critical telehealth policies implemented during the pandemic, while also making it easier for seniors, especially those in rural areas, to access emergency healthcare technology.

Additionally, Mr. Speaker, the House may consider public safety legislation, including legislation marked up yesterday by the House Judiciary Committee with a focus, as well, on accountability in terms of enforcement.

The House will consider bills under suspension of the rules, of course. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business today. As always, additional legislative items are possible, particularly in this last week for us of our planned session prior to the August break.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Republican whip for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen for his question.

Of course, we are hearing rumors all the time and press reports all the time about what may happen. I think most of us don't know actually what will happen. But to speculate, we clearly on our side of the aisle, and, obviously, there is discussion that continues in the Senate about taking some parts of the reconciliation bill that can be agreed upon by sufficient numbers to pass it through reconciliation.

If something does happen, and it doesn't happen next week and it happens the following week when we will not be here, then we may well have to come back.

I tell the gentleman the reason for that is it may well deal with the Affordable Care Act and the premium subsidies that were included in the American Recovery Plan and then further extended in the Build Back Better Act.

The reason that is important is because the insurance companies will be setting prices in September and maybe as late as October. In order to price their product properly, they will need to know what we are going to do.

Now, with respect to the gentleman's--and everybody's interested in this, of course. The gentleman asked the question, I think, that everybody wants to know: Are we going to come back in August?

I don't know the answer to that, but I will tell you this--and you and I have discussed this before--one of the reasons we are leaving next week and the week thereafter is because we have a lot of people with young children. We see them on the floor all the time.

Of course, schools now are going back earlier than they used to. When I was in school in the 1800s, schools went back after Labor Day. Now, as you know, we have schools going back as early as the middle of August. Therefore, what we have tried to do is have 2 weeks that Members will have to be with their families on vacation.

So my expectation is if we have to come back that we will not come back during the first 2 weeks. That would be from my perspective, and I don't want to guarantee that, but I feel pretty strongly about that.

I am telling our Members that, and I want to respond publicly, but we may have to come back in August, again, because if the Senate passes language, if it has an impact on ACA, then we need to let the insurance companies know, not as a favor to them but as a favor to our constituents, so the pricing of their product will be more affordable.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. We are all very concerned about inflation, and one of the things that I talked about in the Affordable Care Act, a significant cost for Americans is their health insurance, and that bill is designed specifically to help them with the costs that they are incurring.

But I would point out to the gentleman: Gas prices, which are a significant part of inflation, have come down 36 days in a row, have come down over half a dollar in most areas of the country, and so we are making some progress, but not enough.

We passed a bill, of course, through this House which talked about price gouging. I don't know that anybody is for price gouging. Obviously, how to define price gouging is not simple, but having said that, I think certainly Americans want to make sure that they aren't gouged because they have to have a product.

We have also passed the act related to food and fuel to help with supply lines, to help with competition and help consumers bring their food prices down and gasoline prices by, for instance, helping out in the Midwest with E-15 being available, which is a cheaper price.

The gentleman is correct. We have and we are dealing with inflationary issues. In fact, hopefully, the CHIPS bill is going to pass the Senate. Hopefully, we are going to pass it here, and it will have other items involved in it, hopefully dealing with manufacturing.

I have an agenda that I think the gentleman has heard me talk about probably ad nauseam, Make It In America. I believe we ought to make things in America, and in doing so, help bring prices down because we will have supply availability here. I don't know if the gentleman has heard me use a phrase, we need to stop relying on the unreliable. I think the gentleman has made some of those comments himself.

I also want to say that there is a lot of, in my opinion, political assertion of the fact that this administration has caused inflation, which I think is completely without any factual support. In fact, although clearly inflation is unacceptably high at 9.1 percent in June, the OECD average of economically developed countries in the world is 9.6 percent, so this is not something unique to America.

It is a global inflation. It is not Biden policy inflation. It is global, largely caused by the pandemic, largely caused by the reduction in supply of goods and the reduction in demand for a period of time. And then with the American Rescue Plan we saw, not only in our country, but all over the world, there came a surge of demand, but because you had had the pandemic and you had sent workers home and they hadn't come in to produce goods, the supply was down, the demand went up, and unfortunately, inflation followed, which is very harmful to our people.

As I say, the average OECD, however, is higher than we are. We are not an outlier. The G20 average is 8.8 percent, just about exactly what we are, and our closest peers--Germany, Canada, and the U.K.--are all around 8 percent inflation, so we are all in that place where inflation is causing our people a lot of pain, and we need to deal with it.

The President has been trying to deal with it, and I think we have been trying to deal with it. As I said, we passed a lot of legislation. I think the CHIPS bill is going to have a really big impact.

The car industry and related industries are one-third of inflation.

Why is that? Because the chips shortage has caused literally millions of cars to be sitting on docks or sitting in parking lots somewhere unable to be sold because we can't get the chips. Used car prices have gone up because they are in greater demand. Again, when you have greater demand, prices go up.

So I would say to my friend, you and I agree 100 percent that inflation needs to be dealt with. The Fed, obviously, is trying to do that as well because one way you deal with inflation is to increase interest rates and try to slow down the economy. When you slow down the economy what you are trying to do is reduce demand to meet supply and stabilize prices.

So I say to my friend, we have been doing a lot of things to try to deal with inflation. I mentioned a number of those bills that we passed. A number of them are still in the Senate. But let us hope that gasoline prices keep coming down. There are some who expect they may go back up.

They are not set by us. They are set on the international market, and clearly there is no doubt that the war has had an impact on those prices, a significant impact on those prices. That is not the only reason because, as I said in our colloquy a couple weeks ago, the oil companies reduced production by 800,000 barrels per day.

Why? Because demand was down.

Why? Not for a bad reason. The pandemic kept people in their homes, and they weren't driving, so demand went down, so the normal reaction of the supplier was to reduce their supply.

This President believes that inflation is one of the top problems confronting the American people and the administration, and he is going to continue to work to try to bring that down.

I am hoping the CHIPS bill comes over soon, the Senate gets that done. In whatever form it comes, I hope it is more robust than less robust. I think it will have a positive impact on bringing down inflation.

And it would surprise him.

Mr. Speaker, we have had this discussion for over a month now about these bills, but also every time we have it, there is the plea that we produce, and if we would only produce. I bring this statistic up.

As the gentleman knows, as a result of our going back and forth, my staff has prepared a paper--and they have done an excellent job--as to what actually is the fact. Fact one, U.S. rig count--that is what drills for oil--is at current levels of 733. That is up 272 from 1 year ago. That is a 59 percent increase from a year ago, so that there is no doubt that we are producing more.

Now, as a practical matter, those of us who believe in the private sector and the capitalist system understand that the reason production goes up is because demand goes up and, therefore, companies want to sell more. But there are also companies that have not chosen to produce more for reasons of their own business judgment as to whether they think producing more will cause them to have better profits or lower profits or stay even.

This administration has presided over greater production in their first year than was true in the first 3 years individually--2017, 2018, and 2019, each one of those 3 years--under the Trump administration.

We are producing oil, and we are producing product. We are going to continue to do that. I can give you statistic after statistic of how many applications have been approved, are ready to go, and are not being used.

Rather than just rehash that, I will simply say, back to the issue of the gas prices, gas prices are lower today in real terms than they were at the end of the Bush administration in 2008. I pause for emphasis. In real dollars, the cost of gasoline at the pump at the end of 2008 was higher than it is today, and it is way too high today.

I was out in Virginia, in a rural area, and I saw gas for $4.36. At home, it had been almost $4.95, and that was an extraordinary decrease. I said: Boy, look at that. Then I caught myself because it is still a burden on our consumers, middle-class, working families, when, as the whip says, they confront a price of two or three times what they were used to when filling up their car. So, we need to continue to work on that.

I disagree with the whip in the sense, Mr. Speaker, that I think the President's visit overseas--there was some controversy to it. I get that. I think it was very positive vis-a-vis our close ally Israel, and Israel said it was a very productive visit. I am glad the President did that. I also think that it gave additional stability indicating that this President, although we are focused like a laser on Ukraine and focused like a laser on the Far East, we are still focused on the Middle East and trying to make that region of the world a stable region of the world.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, when it comes to bailouts, Congress just can't seem to help itself. Under President Biden, taxpayers have been forced to bankroll the so-called American Rescue Plan which included an uncapped bailout for failing and insolvent multi-employer pensions.

From footing the bill for this excessive government spending to record-high gas prices, taxpayers can't catch a break in Biden's America, and today we are considering another bailout that will force taxpayers to cover the tab for failed, privately run pensions.

What message does this send to the men and women who have their own retirement accounts to worry about or have no retirement accounts at all?

More pension bailouts set a damning precedent. In case anyone has forgotten, we work for hardworking taxpayers in this country. As Members of Congress we have an obligation to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent as efficiently and effectively as possible. Unfortunately, too many ignore this important duty and are happy to mortgage the future of the next generation with reckless spending.

On top of the price tag, there have been no hearings and no markups on H.R. 6929.

Is this the standard the House wants to operate under--one where any piece of legislation can be fast-tracked to the floor without due consideration and scrutiny?

Under Democrat control, good governance has long been abandoned in the people's House.

In 2009, when Delphi Corporation completed its 4-year bankruptcy, its defined benefit pension plans were terminated and taken over by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, PBGC, a process that has been well-established. At that time, the Delphi pension plans were collectively underfunded by $7.2 billion. Delphi did not make required contributions to its pension plans in the 4 years it was moving through bankruptcy. The salaried employee plan, in particular, was only 48 percent funded with $2.4 billion in assets and liabilities of $5 billion.

Fast forward to today, and we are considering a bill that would dole out money like candy. Under this bill, participants would receive a retroactive lump-sum payment, or ``top-up,'' of the difference between what was paid by PBGC and what the plans would have paid had they not been terminated.

But here is the kicker, Madam Speaker: this top-up would come with an additional 6 percent interest, and all participants would receive their original monthly benefits moving forward.

Let's turn our attention to the precedent that this bill sets for the entire single-employer pension system. Currently, PBGC's single- employer insurance program is funded exclusively by premiums paid by employer plan sponsors and does not--does not--receive taxpayer dollars. PBGC is the trustee of over 5,000 terminated single-employer plans.

Madam Speaker, please pay attention to this next part. By topping up one plan, Congress will be pressured and expected to top up the remaining 5,000 terminated plans and every future terminated plan.

How many plans does PBGC currently insure?

More than 23,000 active, single-employer plans are currently insured.

So, Madam Speaker, what is next on the docket?

Should Congress roll up its sleeves and make whole every American's 401(k) plan that took a few hits?

Again, how about Americans who do not have a pension plan?

There are many of those. Imagine the harebrained schemes that Congress could start pulling out of its hat if given this encouragement. We should be protecting taxpayers, not feeding them to the wolves.

This bill is a slap in the face to fiscal responsibility. H.R. 6929's cash giveaway will force taxpayers to shoulder a

cost of $800 million over the next decade and $1.3 billion in all to bail out underfunded, privately run pension plans.

Another bailout of failing pension plans does nothing but stick it to hardworking taxpayers. This bill simply underscores the fact that Congress is too misguided to focus on real issues.

Madam Speaker, hardworking taxpayers cannot afford more senseless bailouts. Enough is enough.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Keller).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Good).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Turner).

Madam Speaker, my colleagues say we are here to help people. Our first job is like the doctor's oath: First, do no harm. This bill does harm.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Davidson).

Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Madam Speaker, proponents of H.R. 6929 continue to cite the statistics that the salaried employee pension plan was 86 percent funded in 2009 and, therefore, should not have been terminated. This is misleading and simply not the case.

When the salaried employee plan was terminated in 2009, it was roughly 50 percent funded with $2.4 billion in assets and $5 billion in liabilities. Delphi had not made required contributions to the plan in the previous 4 years.

Further, Delphi was moving through bankruptcy proceedings, and the company stated publicly it was unable to fund its pension plans before reaching an agreement with PBGC to terminate the plans.

Delphi had not made required contributions to the pension plans in the 4 years it was in bankruptcy proceedings. Delphi was liquidating assets in bankruptcy, and the plan had only enough assets to pay for half of its benefit obligations.

Finally, if the Delphi salaried employee plan was truly as well funded as proponents suggest, then why did it not have enough assets to cover the benefits owed to workers and retirees?

Madam Speaker, this is a big problem for the taxpayers of this country when we start bailing out pension plans in this way. We have a process through the PBGC, and that process should be followed.

Madam Speaker, it is important, really important, to make sure the Record is accurate. Most Delphi salaried pension plan participants who are being discussed today either received no cuts in their pensions or saw cuts of less than 10 percent.

PBGC typically becomes a trustee of a single-employer plan when the employer that sponsors the plan declares bankruptcy and the plan has insufficient assets from which to pay all promised benefits. When PBGC becomes a trustee of a single-employer pension plan, plan participants receive their full benefits up to a statutory maximum benefit, a benefit set by Congress.

The maximum guarantee in 2009, the year of Delphi's bankruptcy, was $4,500 per month or $54,000 per year for retirees who began receiving benefits at age 65. That is a very high amount of money that many Americans will never earn per year, let alone have for retirement.

PBGC reported in 2019 that 84 percent of retirees who receive benefits from PBGC are paid the full benefit amounts they earned under their retirement plans, meaning they do not have their benefits reduced.

In the case of the Delphi salaried employee plan, 72 percent of participants were not affected by PBGC's statutory benefit limit. Of the remaining 28 percent, 36 percent saw less than a 10 percent reduction.

Madam Speaker, again, I am speaking for the Americans who will never get a pension benefit because they have worked so hard but never made enough money to have a pension or don't have employers that pay pension benefits. We are bailing out people who are making a lot of money.

Madam Speaker, wages aren't keeping up with inflation. A Washington Post economic columnist recently pointed out that workers are experiencing the biggest decline in years in inflation-adjusted pay. According to a new report, 75 percent of middle-income families say their ``income is falling behind the cost of living.''

Given persistent and rising inflation, H.R. 6929 is the last thing we should be considering. It will cost taxpayers nearly $800 million over 10 years and $1.3 billion in all to bail out Delphi's underfunded, privately run pension plan.

Americans across the country do not want to fork over their hard- earned dollars to fund a costly project that was cooked up in Congress, especially when many have their own retirement accounts to consider or have none at all.

By doubling down on an already failed strategy, taxpayers will be forced to cover the cost of this cash giveaway. This sets a terrible and troubling precedent that will embolden the Federal Government to bail out thousands of other privately run pensions.

Madam Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to oppose this fiscally irresponsible catastrophe of a bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The first thing I will say, I never said that the bill was a partisan bill, and I would like to clarify the record on that point.

This amendment directs the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to issue a public request for information regarding the long-term solvency of the agency's single- and multiemployer insurance programs, and to submit legislative recommendations to Congress within 2 years.

I don't question the sincerity with which my colleague from Virginia offers this amendment. However, if H.R. 6929 is signed into law, this report will be a day late and a dollar short.

Last year, under the guise of COVID relief, congressional Democrats and President Biden enacted an uncapped taxpayer-funded bailout of failing and insolvent multiemployer pension plans. While the most recent estimate of the bailout indicates taxpayers are on the hook for $90 billion, without a cap on the total amount of spending, the bailout could cost much more.

Worse yet, Democrats refused to address the structural failures of the system, refused to hold plan trustees accountable, and encouraged further plan underfunding.

The Education and Labor Committee has been wrestling with the problems facing the multiemployer pension system and the looming insolvency of PBGC's insurance program for decades. The committee has held countless hearings on the topic. Congress even established a Joint Select Committee on Solvency of Multiemployer Pension Plans, of which Chairman Scott and I were members.

We already know the problems with the system, and we don't need to wait another 2 years for PBGC to issue a report with recommendations. Plans do not adequately fund their promises. A comment was made about keeping promises. Well, we need to fund the plans. They overpromise, undercontribute, and refuse to make responsible adjustments, ultimately, digging themselves into deeper holes.

Further, PBGC has submitted legislative recommendations regarding multiemployer pensions that Democrats have routinely ignored. For years, under both the Obama and Trump administrations, PBGC recommended

Congress establish a variable rate premium for multiemployer plans to align premiums better with the risk these plans pose to PBGC.

Single-employer plans pay a much higher flat rate premium as well as a variable-rate premium. Multiemployer plans should do the same. Single-employer plans are also subject to much stricter funding requirements that better protect the benefits of workers and retirees.

Meanwhile, poorly managed multiemployer plans fail to collect adequate contributions for the benefits they promise and bet on risky investments in hopes of making up the difference.

While I appreciate the amendment's implicit admission that throwing billions of dollars at multiemployer plans has not solved the problem, this fig leaf amendment does nothing to address the fundamental flaws of the underlying bill.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close.

Madam Speaker, again, I don't think we need another study. We don't need to delay action on this 2 years. What we need to do is increase premiums and impose stronger funding requirements.

The plans are underfunded. It doesn't take an accountant or a rocket scientist to figure that out. Pogo said, ``We have met the enemy, and he is us.'' We, in Congress, are the problem. We need to do this.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1254, I call up the bill (H.R. 6929) to increase the benefits guaranteed in connection with certain pension plans, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on the bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 6929, the Susan Muffley Act of 2022, will restore the hard-earned pensions of more than 20,000 Delphi salaried retirees, including 5,000 in my home State of Michigan.

The Susan Muffley Act is a bipartisan bill supported by Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate. I worked most particularly with Mr. Ryan of Ohio and Mr. Turner of Ohio on this legislation along with the other cosponsors. It is endorsed by the AARP, the AFL-CIO, and the UAW. I am glad we can come together finally to do what is right for these workers. These are workers who lost their pensions through no fault of their own.

In this country, Madam Speaker, if you work hard and play by the rules, you should be able to retire with dignity and with peace of mind. Instead, these workers had the rug ripped out from underneath them and lost their hard-earned benefits. When General Motors filed for bankruptcy during the Great Recession the Federal Government--I repeat, the Federal Government--made the unprecedented step to move in and save the auto industry. At the direction of the Federal Government, however, the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the PBGC, assumed responsibility for the Delphi salaried retiree pensions. After negotiations with the Federal Government, the PBGC cut those hard- earned benefits by as much as 70 percent for 20,000 Delphi salaried retirees.

These retirees were treated differently than other retirees impacted by the GM bankruptcy. They suffered significant cuts to their benefits, upending the lives of thousands and thousands of families.

In September of 2019, the Delphi Salaried Retirees Association filed suit against the PBGC to have their pension benefits restored. It went all the way to the Supreme Court until the Court declined to hear the case, making it clear that only congressional action could restore these earned pension benefits.

Our legislation would make this unique group of retirees who had their pensions unfairly and disproportionately cut will make them whole again. This means that beneficiaries will receive a payment of the difference of what was actually paid to them by the PBGC and what they would have earned had they been able to keep their pensions like everyone else did. Moving forward, beneficiaries will receive their full earned pension.

This bill is fully paid for and will not add to the deficit.

Delphi salaried retirees deserve to have their pensions made whole because it was the Federal Government that singled these workers out. It was the Federal Government who stepped in to rescue General Motors but decided to treat these workers differently and cut their earned pensions. It was the Federal Government, not General Motors, who directly negotiated with the PBGC.

What happened to these hardworking retirees was wrong, and now it is the Federal Government who has the responsibility to fix the mess that itself created.

We need to get this legislation done for people like Susan Muffley for whom this bill is named. David Muffley, Susan's husband, worked at Delphi as an electronics technician for 31 years but lost the full value of his pension in 2009. His wife, Susan Muffley, was a core part of the Delphi Salaried Retirees Association's leadership team fighting to restore these pensions.

Because of the financial difficulties of losing their pension, Susan avoided seeing her doctor because they couldn't afford it. Sadly, she was ultimately diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away.

After working hard for 30 years to earn a pension to support your family through retirement, no worker and no family member should be forced to forgo medical treatment to make ends meet. These workers need the Susan Muffley Act. The last 13 years have been an absolute nightmare for these families. These are people I know.

During the Obama Administration, the problem was created but never addressed. During the Trump administration, the former President talked about fixing the issue but never acted. He ran out of time before that moment could occur. But now, today, after lots of talk and not so much action, Congress can finally act to provide relief and justice for these workers, these Delphi salaried retirees.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments of my colleague. I disagree with the conclusions that she makes, and I would only challenge a couple of things.

One is on the issue of precedent. There is no precedent, unless the precedent is when the Federal Government intervenes and takes control of a company, takes ownership of a company, it buys the problem. It then owns the solution. It owns responsibility for the solution.

So the only precedent that I think this sets is one that I learned a long time ago: if you broke it, you bought it. The Federal Government intervened and made these decisions disproportionately affecting these particular employees.

The rest of the employees got their pensions topped up, why wouldn't this particular set?

Secondly, I disagree with the reference that this is candy. For these taxpayers, these families, this is rent, this is food on the table, it is their mortgage payment, it is a car payment, and it is medicine-- medicines that, sadly, Susan Muffley didn't have the ability to get to because her pension was cut. This is about justice.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Lawrence), who unfortunately is spending her last months in Congress. I wish that weren't the case.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Higgins), my colleague on the Ways and Means Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciated the gentleman's comments. I will point out, since the gentleman did refer to the former President, Mr. Trump, that Mr. Trump saw this as an injustice and directed his administration to address it as well.

And I also think there is enough partisanship in Washington, more than enough, so let's not make something that is bipartisan just for the point of rhetorical value into something that is claimed to be partisan.

This is not a partisan piece of legislation. I see Mr. Turner on the other side of the aisle. We have worked together on this for years; 17 of the 37 cosponsors of this legislation are Republicans, including Members with whom I don't think I have ever shared sponsorship. I don't recall, for example, being a cosponsor of any piece of legislation with Mr. Mo Brooks. We are on this one.

This is not a partisan bill, so let's not call it that. You can disagree with it. You can vote against people getting their hard-earned pensions, but let's not make it into something that it isn't.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Dingell), a friend that I have known for a very long time, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), a gentleman that I have been working with on this issue for as long as I have been in Congress.

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur), the longest-serving woman in the history of the United States Congress.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to close.

I do believe, and I agree with my colleague, that the facts ought to be correct and that the Record ought to be clear. That is why I want to clarify a couple of things.

Number one, I continue to hear opponents of this legislation depict it as a Democratic bill, a partisan bill. That is just not true. It is amazing to me in this body that we can still have people say things that just are patently untrue. That is not true.

Just look at the list of Republican cosponsors of this legislation. If you don't want to look at that list, don't look at that list. Just look back a couple of years when then-Republican President Donald Trump saw this as an injustice and directed his administration to solve this problem.

This is not a partisan piece of legislation. I understand the game; I get it. Everything around here somehow has to be turned into Democrats versus Republicans.

I am going to tell you something about the Delphi salaried retirees. Some are Democrats. Some are Republicans. Some are Independents. They live in every part of this country. They are people who worked really hard and did nothing wrong and lost everything that they had worked for in some cases.

Two, the other fact that I want to correct, it is true that only the losses that these pension recipients received, the losses that they experienced would be made up for. So when my colleague points out the fact that some did not receive a 70 percent cut, that is true. People will only receive what was promised to them. That is kind of an American ideal, isn't it? We keep our promises.

As to the point that this is a private pension that was mismanaged and failed and the government shouldn't become involved, that ship sailed a long time ago when the government got involved. The government took control of the company, took control of its assets, made these decisions.

So if there is a precedent to be set, the precedent is this: The Federal Government makes a mistake, the Federal Government has the obligation to fix it. I don't know what is wrong with that. I don't know what is wrong with that. I mean, that is the way I was raised.

I don't know who is watching today. I don't know how many Americans are watching, but I hope they are paying attention. I know a lot of those Delphi salaried retirees are watching. Despite some of what you heard today--because this place becomes very political, unfortunately-- despite some of what you heard, what you saw and what you are about to see in a little while, we are Democrats and Republicans who disagree on a lot of things and we are coming together to fix a problem that has lasted for 13 years, a problem that occurred on the watch of a Democratic President, a problem that a Republican President was attempting to address, but who didn't get it done, and now in this moment Members of Congress--with whom I have very little in common-- share one thing for sure, we represent many of the same people, people who have suffered an injustice and are looking to the Congress of the United States as the last chance they have to have that mistake made right.

That is a precedent I don't mind seeing us set. If the Federal Government makes a mistake, we fix it. That is what we are about to do here today.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), my friend, the majority leader of the House.

Mr. Speaker, there are a few bills that we have been hearing might come that weren't discussed, and I know the gentleman alluded to the CHIPS Act. I know the Senate still hasn't finalized anything there. We are hearing they may.

There are some other bills we have been hearing might come over. Of course, it seems like we keep hearing talk that something on Build Back Better may come back over on budget reconciliation, whether it is the trillion plus, whether it is something different, whether we would come back in August to deal with that.

I don't know if the gentleman can touch on what he might be hearing from the Senate, and if there would be any plans beyond next week to come back in August where it is currently not scheduled to be a legislative period that we would be in session. I am not sure if the gentleman is willing to share that, but I will yield.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I appreciate especially the concern about that first 2 weeks because as with my family and a lot of families, those first few weeks where the families are still together before everybody goes back to school, you know, a lot of plans are made.

We have a lot of work to do. We also have families, and you don't want to, you know, lose that element of having people be able to spend the time back in their districts and back with their families. If schedules have to change, at least give some lead time. I know Members on both sides appreciate that.

Clearly, a lot of this depends on what the Senate does or doesn't do. For those of us that would prefer the Senate work in a bipartisan way or especially work in a way that focused on addressing and being aware of the inflationary problems in the country, and, of course, we just saw last week, 9.1 percent inflation, 40-year high, a lot of that driven by the spending in Washington.

There is still talk that the Senate is trying to reach some agreement that would lead to a potential large amount of tax increases. A trillion dollars is a number that keeps being thrown around. It seems like trillions of dollars keep getting thrown around to the point where inflation has gotten out of control from the spending.

We all know how much families are paying for so many things: gas prices, when they go to the grocery stores, all the things that they buy, if they can afford to buy them, those things are dramatically higher.

Hopefully, the Senate doesn't keep adding to that inflation by coming up with more ways to spend money that we don't have. We will see.

There is also talk that as part of the ObamaCare subsidies--you know, that is an entirely different conversation--that bill still needs heavy subsidies that are not affordable, but they are talking about drug price controls that would be paired with that.

Again, more a message to our friends on the other side of the Chamber in the Senate, just for situational awareness when countries do price controls, there is a cost in terms of lifesaving drugs that are not available in countries where they have done price controls. When you look at the United States, clearly a leader in innovation--we have seen it with Operation Warp Speed where we were able to get three different vaccines approved in less than a year because we encourage innovation in this country, we don't penalize that innovation.

But there are countries that do try to fix prices. While it might sound populist to do it, the cost for those countries is that many lifesaving drugs are not available in those countries. We all hear about Canada. Canada clearly is a country that fixes prices. France is a country that fixes prices. You can see here, almost half of the drugs that are available in America that save lives are not available in Canada and France.

I know there is a temptation, as they are negotiating over in the Senate, to get into the price-fixing business. I am not sure which lifesaving drugs the Senate would like to remove off the shelves of the United States, but there will be lifesaving drugs removed off the shelves. Let's not do to drug manufacturing and lifesaving innovation in America what they have done to baby formula in America, where you can't even find it on the shelves. You will not be able to find many lifesaving drugs on the shelves in America if they go to price fixing.

I know it is a heated negotiation over there. They haven't come to an agreement. Hopefully, they won't come to an agreement on something that would actually take lifesaving drugs off the shelves in this country.

I would yield to the gentleman.

I know there has been a lot of work by Members on both sides on the CHIPS Act. Mr. McCaul on our side, through the China Task Force, put out a number of recommendations. The CHIPS Act was one of them. Of course, one of the concerns we are seeing, as that bill continues to be negotiated in the Senate, it is not being negotiated more narrowly, it is being loaded up to the point where we are hearing numbers of well over $100 billion in unpaid-for new spending as part of that bill.

As we talk about inflation, any economist will tell you, inflation is too much money chasing too few goods, and if we already acknowledge there are too few goods, to put another $100-plus billion, maybe $150 billion--it keeps growing every day--of borrowed money, none of that-- they are not prioritizing existing money. Everything we are hearing is all of it would be completely borrowed money.

Next week, we are hearing the Fed is going to raise interest rates maybe up to another point, and that is without $100-plus billion of additional debt being added on. If the Fed is telling us that the spending is leading to higher interest rates, which makes it harder for low-income families to buy their first home, for people to maybe expand their business where they can hire more people to go and meet the needs of the supply chain, they won't be able

to do that if interest rates keep going up.

And yet, as interest rates are about to go up again next week, the Senate is trying to figure out how to keep adding and adding and adding on top of what is already probably well over $100 billion in borrowed money that they are going to send over here.

I hope that we would keep that in mind as we are also trying to address these other problems like gas prices. I know we have talked about this many times. I shared it with the majority whip last week and would ask the majority leader again. We have identified a number of bills that have strong support that would address the many problems we are hearing that are leading to an inability to produce energy in America.

We saw the President go hat in hand to Saudi Arabia last week. As I and many others predicted, we all knew that they were going to tell the President no, but I also suggested that if the President just saved the 11,000-plus miles on Air Force One and stayed here and called places like Port Fourchon, Louisiana, they would say yes to producing more energy, not in Saudi Arabia where their carbon emissions are much higher, but here in the United States where nobody in the world does it better, does it cleaner, or more efficiently.

That would create more jobs in our country, and it would give more energy security to our country. It would allow us to lower gas prices, not just for us but for our allies around the world. And yet, instead of working with us on these bills, the President chooses to go to foreign countries who have no interest in lowering gas prices, and so we still end up in this situation.

I don't know if there is an opportunity to get any or all of these bills brought up where we could actually come to an agreement on some things that would move the needle and help families in America lower gas prices. Today, we are still over double what the price of gasoline was before President Biden took office.

Wherever the price moves, up or down, when families are paying over $150 to fill up their car, it is taking a huge hit out of low- and middle-income families' budgets, and that is one of the driving factors behind the sluggish economy.

I don't know if the gentleman wants to make an announcement of some of these bills coming to the floor. I would welcome that, and I would yield.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. This debate will continue. It would be great if we were debating these bills next week. I stand to be surprised and happily surprised if the announcement comes out over the weekend that some or all of these bills will be brought to the floor.

I would give the gentleman a prediction that if the House were to take up and pass these bills, we would see a dramatic reduction in the price of gasoline. I will leave that out there for the gentleman to consider as one more reason why these would be good debates to have, where we could talk together in support of good policy.

We are both blessed with good staff that help us identify really good pieces of legislation that we could bring to address these big, big problems that families are facing.

Mr. Speaker, unless the gentleman has anything else, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Representative from California and my colleague on the Rules Committee for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Today, we are here to discuss the rule providing for consideration of H.R. 4040, the Advancing Telehealth Beyond COVID-19 Act, and H.R. 263, the Big Cat Public Safety Act.

First, H.R. 4040 will extend several Medicare telehealth flexibilities that were initially utilized during the pandemic.

Telehealth has allowed many Americans to receive needed healthcare across the Nation. While my Republican colleagues and I appreciate the extension of these important programs, we believe that permanently authorizing them is the better option.

Once again, the Democrats have decided to skip the committee process and refuse Republican input or look at any possible improvements to the bill. I know that many Members will be supporting this bill, but I still must mention this missed opportunity to strengthen healthcare and telehealth, especially for rural Minnesota and rural America.

Second, H.R. 263, the Big Cat Public Safety Act, would make it illegal for any person to trade, breed, or possess any prohibited wildlife species, specifically exotic big cat species like lions, tigers, snow leopards, et cetera. The bill would impose civil and criminal penalties for violators and grant the Federal Government the authority to order forfeiture of big cats held in private captivity. Many of the provisions of this legislation already exist under the USDA regulatory scheme.

More than anything, Mr. Speaker, I am wholeheartedly disappointed in how my colleagues are managing the remaining time left in this Congress. The absence of any sense of urgency to fix the real problems facing this country is incredibly frustrating.

This country is at the doorstep of a recession, but instead of addressing it, the U.S. House of Representatives is spending time on the regulation of big cats. My constituents are calling my office because their families are struggling to pay for basic needs like food and gas. They are calling because they want us to secure national borders and address the fentanyl epidemic. They are calling because they want to know what Congress is doing about rampant crime in cities across the country. These are the issues facing our constituents. These are the issues they are calling about because they are the issues affecting their everyday lives and the ones we should be focusing on.

It is because of the irresponsible policies by Democrats that we have such a big hole to dig ourselves out of, and now they want to ignore these problems altogether and take up our precious time left in Congress to consider legislation built off reality TV.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose the rule, I ask Members to do the same, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to immediately consider H.R. 8488, a bill to prohibit the Secretary of Energy from sending petroleum products from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or SPR, is an important national security tool and safety net for this country. The United States has already been improperly depleting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve under this administration since it is refusing to increase domestic production during an energy crisis.

We most certainly should not be selling our emergency supply to an adversary like China.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan) to speak further on the amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleague from the Rules Committee that, as I mentioned before, many of the Republicans plan on supporting the telehealth bill, although I think we missed the opportunity to have Republican input and have an improved bill. But we are able to do more than one thing.

My colleague mentioned that this is very partisan. Gas and oil prices are a serious, serious issue for our constituents. As I mentioned before, it is about their getting to work, it is about their getting to school, and it is about their getting to church. They need us to address the cost of oil and gas.

The Democrats have really just simply tried to distract from this issue and tried to distract us with all kinds of other things and not really talk about the issues facing our constituents.

And like I said earlier, we certainly do have Republican support for the telehealth bill. As a matter of fact, I believe that there are Republican sponsors of that bill.

But I think that what is happening now is the Democrats are truly trying to distract from the issues that are really facing our constituents.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I just have to say that the calls for working together ring hollow to me because working together should be happening in markup. Working together should be happening in committee meetings. But the Democrats have repeatedly and consistently chosen to skip the committee process and bring things directly to the Rules Committee and directly to the floor. And so when they call for working together, I think that that starts at the committee process.

And as for bringing solutions to the floor, the Westerman-McMorris Rodgers bill that would address the energy costs has been brought repeatedly as a PQ to the floor. The Democrats had the opportunity to take a look at that and to vote on it.

With a more exact answer, I yield 1 minute to my colleague from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to mention that finding middle ground actually starts with allowing the minority input into bills, whether that be in committee or offering amendments on the floor. But that is where finding middle ground and that is where finding bipartisan solutions starts.

I would also like to remind my colleague from the Rules Committee that this PQ would not stop consideration of the bills in the rule. It would simply allow consideration of the amendment that was proposed.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I have to just mention again, because I am confused, and I want it stated very clearly what I have said repeatedly. There are many Republicans who will be supporting the telehealth bill.

Mr. Speaker, there are many Republicans that will be supporting the telehealth bill. That is not where I am concerned that we are not addressing constituents' issues with.

Where I am concerned about our constituents is the price of gas and the inflation that they are facing, and that we need to be addressing those issues; and that is why we offered the PQ that we did. And that is why we have offered repeated solutions to the cost of gas and the inflation facing our constituents.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I do continue to be disappointed in my colleagues. It is possible that they are really this out of touch.

The typical family is now spending almost $500 per month. Across the country, people are making changes like skipping meals, changing driving patterns, and even delaying retirement to adjust their lives to cope with the accelerating inflation; inflation caused by out-of- control government spending and regulation.

Cities across the country are experiencing record crime waves. We have a serious immigration crisis leading to the deaths of countless people at our southern border and in our hometowns because of the fentanyl drug crisis crossing along with them.

I know that, like mine, your offices are getting daily calls about all of these. Why are we spending time on anything that does not work directly to solve those devastating problems in our country?

Maybe it is because Democrats want to distract us from the fact that their policies got us here, rather than fix them. We could be discussing genuine efforts to stop crime or increase domestic energy production or alleviate pressure points to the supply chain.

But, for the sake of the Green New Deal and rampant government spending, Americans are going to have to suffer through inaction on real issues facing Americans by this Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose the rule, and I ask Members to do the same.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.