Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to "Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights".

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate our Republican colleagues on finally releasing their big plan to end inflation. What a day.

We have all been home for 2 weeks. We know inflation is a big problem. We hear about it at the supermarket. We see it in our communities. It is a global problem impacting every single country.

Now over the last 2 years, Democrats here in the House, alongside President Biden, have taken aggressive action to fight inflation and lower prices, and at every step Republicans have voted ``no,'' ``no,'' ``no.''

At every step, they have boasted about their own alternative comprehensive plan to stop inflation in its tracks. It has got to be big. It has got to be really big; can't wait to read it. Wow, wait until you hear about the Republican plan to stop inflation in its tracks.

Forgive me if I am confused today, because after months of waiting with bated breath, after all your announcements and after all your press releases and all your tweets about inflation, we finally find out what your big plan to stop inflation really is, your big bill to address the American people's number one concern.

It is a report. More government paperwork. Great.

I mean, will people be able to print out the report and trade it in for cheaper gas or lower food prices? Because unless they can, and I am not an economist here, but I don't think this is going to make a difference.

The bill, and I hesitate to call it a bill, because it might as well be a tweet or a press release, does nothing. Maybe it should be an amendment to an actual bill that fights inflation--just a suggestion. Don't try to pass this off as a real plan. Don't pretend this actually does anything.

I am embarrassed. I am embarrassed for my Republican colleagues, to be honest.

Mr. Speaker, it took 2 years to put this together?

The number one issue for the American people and this is what they come up with?

A book report on inflation.

It reminds me of the time last year when they tried to solve crime with a report. This is what happens when you

try to write a bill for Twitter instead of a bill that actually helps everyday people.

The audacity, the sheer audacity of saying all this inflation was caused by President Biden when the guy before him added nearly $8 trillion to the national debt, when the guy before him presided over a 39 percent increase in the national debt, when the guy before him accumulated 25 percent of the total debt in American history. The hypocrisy is incredible.

Now, just contrast that with what Democrats did to rein in inflation and lower costs for people.

Democrats capped insulin at $35 per month.

Democrats reduced the price of prescription drugs for seniors.

Democrats, for the first time in history, are making sure that Big Pharma faces penalties for raising their prices faster than inflation.

Democrats are saving families money with special tax credits for making good investments--all things that Republicans voted against.

Mr. Speaker, 100 percent of Republicans voted against reducing drug prices; 100 percent of them voted against cheaper insulin for our senior citizens; 100 percent of them voted against lower gas prices.

I guess we could give them some credit because only 95 percent of them voted against lower food prices.

Hear me out here. Maybe Republicans don't want to solve inflation. Maybe they know that addressing inflation takes on greedy CEOs, Big Oil, and billionaire corporations. Maybe they know it means standing up to Putin, who is driving up energy prices with his war in Ukraine.

Maybe Republicans are too scared to fight inflation, but Democrats are ready to go to bat against corporate greed, because we stand with everyday families who are being hurt by rising costs.

Today, Leader Jeffries is introducing the PRO Act, a bill empowering workers to unionize and hold their employers accountable for improper work practices. Because while Republicans continue standing with the billionaire corporations responsible for price gouging, Democrats stand with workers hurt by inflation. We support their right to organize for better wages.

Instead of wasting time writing a bill that only requires a book report on inflation, we spent the last 2 years taking action to actually stop inflation in the long term by bringing jobs and manufacturing back to America.

Democrats secured over $300 billion in investments in U.S. manufacturing to move supply chains back to America.

We voted to lower food and fuel prices, made the most robust updates in 70 years to the Buy American Act to boost domestic manufacturing, and after the Ocean Shipping Reform Act to cut costs for American families and bring down shipping prices, oversaw the largest 1-year decrease in the Federal deficit in American history. That is the Democratic record.

Now, we don't claim its perfect. Prices are still too high. Inflation is hurting people. I know it. Joe Biden knows it. Democratic leadership knows it. So there is a difference here. There is a difference here, and it is a big one.

Democrats are fighting for the families being hurt by inflation and taking on the greedy corporations who are driving prices up. And Republicans, their solution is to blame Democrats, blame Biden, and write a book report.

Now, I guess when you have no plans, when you have no real ideas, you will do anything to say you did something. That is all this is: a talking point, a press release, and a total waste of time. Apparently, the bar is on the ground for this new House majority, and it is a real shame.

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

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a resolution that affirms the House's unwavering commitment to protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare and states that it is the position of the House to reject any cuts to the programs.

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

Mr. Speaker, Social Security and Medicare are the bedrock of our Nation's social safety net. Yet, as many of my Republican colleagues demand reckless cuts in exchange for paying our Nation's bills, these programs are under threat.

Despite recent rhetoric to the contrary, Republicans claim that they won't cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Well, Mr. Speaker, today, Democrats are giving Republicans a chance to back up that claim with action by providing them a chance to reassure the American people not just with their words, but with their votes.

Today, they can vote unequivocally that they won't cut these vital programs. Anything short of that is an empty promise.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that none of my fellow Republican colleagues want to come down and join in with my colleague from Texas to talk about how great this bill is to fight inflation. I would be embarrassed to be here defending this measure, as well.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from The Washington Post titled, ``What should the White House do to combat inflation? Experts weighed in with 12 ideas.

[From the Washington Post, Jan. 26, 2022]

What Should the White House Do To Combat Inflation? Experts Weighed in

With 12 Ideas

(By Jeff Stein and Rachel Siegel)

The United States is experiencing its most dramatic burst

of inflation in four decades, as rising prices hit nearly

every sector of the economy and create new political hurdles

for the Biden administration.

As the country frets over inflation and the administration

weighs how to react, The Washington Post asked independent

experts from across the ideological spectrum how they would

respond if they controlled the White House.

Their 12 ideas include using antitrust to break up large

corporations, relaxing the trade war with China, and

massively scaling up U.S. manufacturing production, among

other proposals. Some of the experts blamed President Biden

for increasing economic demand, while others insisted that

concerns about inflation have been overblown. The proposals

are not meant as exhaustive, and many of these economists

support each other's ideas.

1: make america produce again

We can once again make the United States the world's workshop

for democracy

(By Robert C. Hockett)

It should have been obvious even in February 2020 that the

coronavirus was going to present the American economy with

both demand-side and supply-side challenges. It should

therefore also have been obvious that measures to boost

demand with government programs--such as stimulus checks and

unemployment benefits--would fuel inflationary pressures if

not accompanied by measures to boost supply and the

availability of goods and products.

Almost two years after our pandemic began, policymakers are

now finally talking about supply chains, as they should have

done early in 2020. But thus far they are talking almost

solely about improving the domestic transport links in those

chains--not the production of what is being consumed.

Attention to truck routes, warehouses and loading docks is

helpful, but it isn't nearly enough in our present

environment--not in a world where we needlessly import so

much of what we used to produce.

This presents all of us with a grand opportunity now--to

reverse inflation in a manner that restores American

production and world leadership in the industries of today

and tomorrow. We can, in other words, make our war on

inflation a war on national decline.

For instance, America invented the semiconductor industry

and then globally dominated it for decades until the turn of

the millennium. Yet since we relinquished our lead over

microchips to insecure sources such as China and Taiwan, the

importance of this ubiquitous input to all modern products

has only grown. That is why so many supply shortage stories

we read about now--from autos to homes to appliances--boil

down to chip shortage stories.

Next, consider electric vehicles and their lithium-ion

batteries, as well as other related forms of high-capacity

power storage, such as the big battery packs used by power

generation stations nationwide. Here, too, production lines

are bottlenecked, slowing

product availability, lengthening product waitlists and

raising product prices.

Similar stories to these can be told about solar power

cells; hydrogen fuel cells; steel, concrete and other housing

materials; essential medical equipment; affordable cutting-

edge pharmaceuticals; rare-earth metals; and a host of other

essential inputs to modern life. If we want to end inflation

and reclaim the mantle of ``workshop of the free world'' in

one stroke, there can be no better way forward than to invest

massively in restoring U.S. productive prowess.

It can be done. When Nazi Germany rolled over France in but

six weeks in 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt demanded

that our aircraft industry, which had produced just over

3,000 planes the previous year, produce at least 50,000

planes that year. Roosevelt then directly set about building

the factories, in consultation with public officials and

private-sector industries, to produce U.S. planes, ships,

tanks, trucks, munitions, synthetic rubber and other

materiel. The government then cheaply leased these facilities

to manufacturers with plausible production plans, selling

them once the war had been won.

Roosevelt also built entire neighborhoods for workers

wishing to move near the new factories, schools for their

children, clinics for their health and power lines for their

domestic needs, making the United States the world's

``arsenal of democracy.''

This massive expansion provided the productive foundation

for America's global economic leadership from the end of the

war to the late 1970s. We lost that edge only when we began

massively ``outsourcing'' in the 1980s and 1990s.

We have all the tools Roosevelt had. The president and

White House Cabinet, in consultation with experts from

industry, should plan a national reindustrialization across

industries in every region of the country, and the Federal

Financing Bank within Treasury can fund projects devised by

all relevant federal agencies.

We can once again make the United States the world's

workshop for democracy. That will reverse not only inflation,

but also four decades of decline.

--Robert C. Hockett is a law professor at Cornell Law

School.

2: stop the spending

This surge in spending is a key driver of other prices

(By Brian Riedl)

A year ago, the Federal Reserve forecast that inflation

would increase by 1.8 percent in 2021. Instead, consumer

prices jumped 7 percent--the highest rate since 1982. Some of

this unanticipated inflation was driven by knotty issues such

as supply chain disruptions, rising energy prices, and shifts

in demand to sectors with less capacity to maintain low

prices.

Yet Washington poured gasoline on this fire by enacting the

$1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March. This surge in

spending is a key driver of higher prices faced by consumers.

To combat it, lawmakers should begin paring back portions of

the remaining $500 billion in scheduled spending from the

rescue plan, put Biden's Build Back Better legislation on the

back burner and resist new spending sprees.

The critics of Biden's rescue plan were ignored, mocked--

and ultimately vindicated. A year ago, the Congressional

Budget Office estimated that the baseline economy would

operate $420 billion below capacity in 2021, and then

gradually close that output gap by 2025. Biden and

congressional Democrats--believing that the Great Recession

had been unnecessarily lengthened by insufficient stimulus--

overlearned their lesson and decided to shoot a $1.9 trillion

bazooka at a $420 billion output gap.

The problem is that once America's output capacity taps

out, any additional stimulus will simply bring inflation

rather than additional production--especially when financed

in part by Federal Reserve bond purchases. Economists on the

left and right warned lawmakers that ARP would accelerate

inflation, with top Clinton and Obama White House economist

Lawrence Summers leading the charge.

With the word ``trillion'' becoming commonplace, it is easy

to downplay the sheer size of the American Rescue Plan. It is

the most expensive spending law of the past 50 years,

including the Cares Act approved under President Donald

Trump.

In its first seven months, ARP spent $1.2 trillion--which

exceeds the entire cost of the 2017 tax cuts from their

enactment through the same late 2021 date. All this spending

is on top of the December 2020 stimulus bill that poured in

$900 billion.

The inflation damage created by Biden's stimulus would be

more justifiable if it was necessary to end the pandemic.

However, just 1 percent of its cost went toward vaccines and

5 percent had any direct relation to health care. Instead,

the law gave state and local governments $350 billion for

budget deficits that did not exist. Schools received $129

billion even as they sat on $50 billion in unused relief

funds from earlier emergency bills. The unemployment bonuses

were so large and self-defeating that 26 states took the rare

step of refusing federal assistance and canceling the bonuses

before they expired. Even the popular relief checks--which,

combined with earlier checks, amounted to $11,400 for a

typical family of four--contributed to the very inflation

that ultimately eroded their value.

Moving forward, combating inflation requires addressing

supply chains, reducing tariffs and gradually tightening

Federal Reserve policy. Yet it makes no sense to push one

foot on the gas and one foot on the brake. Lawmakers should

explore options to pare back the $500 billion in scheduled

ARP spending, such as rescinding extraneous assistance to K-

12 education, businesses and private pension bailouts. They

should also reject BBB legislation that would spend trillions

more upfront, yet delays many of its disinflationary taxes

until later years. BBB's subsidies and regulations would also

drive drastic price increases in child care, and thus should

be rejected.

--Brian Riedl is a senior fellow at the Manhattan

Institute.

3: Control the covid pandemic

`Covid's fingerprints on inflation are unmistakable`

(By Claudia Sahm)

Consumer prices rose 7 percent in 2021--the fastest pace in

40 years--and covid deaths doubled to more than 800,000.

These two facts are bound together. The solution to today's

high inflation, as with labor shortages and supply chain

disruptions, is clear: Contain the pandemic.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell agrees. Asked at his

reconfirmation hearing by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-

Nev.) if he believes containing the pandemic is the best way

to fight inflation, Powell said: ``I do. And imagine a world

in which we no longer have to deal with the pandemic. . . . .

We would quickly see the supply-side problems alleviate. We'd

probably see significantly more labor supply. So these issues

are still related to the pandemic.''

The data supports Powell and experts like me who focus on

covid. As one example, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank

of San Francisco estimate that the price increases in the

spending categories most sensitive to covid disruptions

accounted for about half of the total inflation (excluding

food and energy) before the pandemic. Now they account for

three-quarters of it. Of course, what's pandemic-related and

what's not is impossible to know for certain. But covid's

fingerprints on inflation are unmistakable.

We do not have a monetary policy crisis. We have a covid

crisis. In fact, up to this point, fiscal and monetary policy

have been a relatively bright spot in the pandemic and

notably better than after the Great Recession. Yes, inflation

is high. Consumer spending, even with the higher prices, is

strong. The unemployment rate dropped below 4 percent in

December, less than two years after the recession began.

Overall, the economy is moving rapidly in the right

direction. But the pandemic is moving rapidly in the wrong

direction with the omicron variant.

To fight inflation, the Biden White House must end the

pandemic. The goals the administration set in January 2021,

including ``expanding masking, testing, treatment, data,

workforce and clear public health standards'' and

``protect[ing] those most at risk,'' are the right ones.

Julia Raifman, a public health professor at Boston

University, argues: ``That's what we need to do now that will

help us navigate our way out of this pandemic. If we don't

have that, we will continue to have the virus manage us.''

High inflation and labor shortages will continue too.

The White House must use all its influence to push business

leaders, community organizers, members of Congress, governors

and mayors across the political spectrum to join in these

public health efforts. Instead, administration officials used

their bully pulpit to bust a strike by the Chicago teachers

union over a lack of coronavirus protections, saying that

they ``do not believe people should be sitting at home'' and

should go to unsafe workplaces. That won't solve our economic

problems, but it will kill people.

The Fed is not ``behind the curve'' in fighting inflation.

It's the White House that's behind on ``bending the curve''

of covid cases, and it's falling further behind every day.

--Claudia Sahm is the director of macroeconomic research at

the Jain Family Institute.

4: Invest in child care

Child-care policies `can boost the capacity, productivity and

the potential of our economy'

(By Lauren Melodia)

Although the unemployment rate is falling faster than

expected, the pandemic continues to fundamentally disrupt our

economy. Many people are choosing to remain out of the labor

market altogether until public health conditions and

disruptions subside, which in turn limits productive capacity

and can raise prices. One policy that could address many of

these issues across sectors at once has already passed the

House and is waiting for Senate action: public investment in

our child-care system.

Child care is the backbone of our economy and can enable

all parents--who historically have some of the highest labor

force participation rates across all genders, races and

education levels--to get and keep a job. But as of 2018, many

communities across the country are child-care deserts--a

result of our nation's complex history of underfunding,

undervaluing and under-compensating care work and women's

labor more broadly.

The covid pandemic has further decimated this

infrastructure. As of this time last year, 20,000 child-care

providers were estimated to have permanently shut down. And

yet ample evidence exists that access to even part-time day

care and preschool programming has a

dramatic impact on parents' labor force participation.

Private markets and existing policies will not solve these

problems on their own, for many reasons.

First, America's historical and continued reliance on

unpaid care workers drives women's wages down throughout the

economy. This is one of the major dynamics of the gender pay

gap and makes the choice of paying for child care

unaffordable for many families. Because care work

traditionally done by women is unpaid, women are undervalued

in the labor market--where they make 83 cents on the dollar

to men. That disincentivizes them from entering the labor

market. What results is a cycle in which women are unable to

secure jobs that allow them to pay for the cost of child

care, which in turn keeps the pay for child-care providers

low.

Second, because of this dynamic, the child-care industry is

built around low wages and thin, unsustainable profits that

have contributed to the failure of the market to deliver a

greater supply of child-care centers to meet demand.

Lastly, the government's existing consumer subsidies

program, while making child care more affordable for many,

has not resulted in the growth of the supply of child care. A

2021 Government Accountability Office report found that 78

percent of families eligible for child-care subsidies do not

use them, often because there are no available spaces at

local child-care facilities or because they live in a child-

care desert.

By making supply-side child-care investments--building new

child-care centers; offering loans and grants to existing or

recently closed small-business child-care providers; and

offering universal pre-K--we could both enable parents to

reenter the workforce and create new jobs in child care.

Those new jobs would disproportionately go to Black and Brown

women, who have been hit hardest by the pandemic and are

still suffering from some of the lowest employment rates.

Black women, who historically have some of the highest labor

force participation rates in the country, currently

experience the largest gap (3.5 percent) in their employment

rate, comparing December 2021 with pre-pandemic levels.

Many of these policies were passed by the House in the

Build Back Better Act and are now on the table in the Senate.

And once they are passed and implemented, we can boost the

capacity, productivity and the potential of our economy and

reduce future economic disruptions--all of which can be

deflationary and stabilizing.

Insofar as today's inflation--or the fear of future

inflation--is linked to labor market tightness or dynamics,

investment in child care is critical for minimizing ongoing

disruptions and expanding people's ability to work across all

industries in our economy.

--Lauren Melodia is the deputy director of macroeconomic

analysis at the Roosevelt Institute.

5: Tax wealthy investors

The richest 10 percent consume as much as the bottom 40

percent combined

(By William Spriggs)

The economy proved far less resilient to the shock of the

global coronavirus crisis than most people had expected. We

need to focus on measures that increase the supply of goods

and target price inflation--particularly in markets where

inequality is helping drive prices--rather than taking

measures that would destroy jobs and weaken growth. One way

to do so would be to raise capital gains taxes on investors

and levy new taxes on income from stock dividends.

Consumption in America is currently extraordinarily ``top-

heavy,'' meaning the wealthy consume far more than most

people. In fact, the richest 10 percent consume as much as

the bottom 40 percent combined, according to the Bureau of

Labor Statistics. Instead of taking measures that would hurt

growth and cost jobs, policymakers could temper demand amid

massive supply chain disruptions by slowing down the

consumption of those at the very top with modest taxes on the

rich.

A tax on short-term capital gains and dividends would

disproportionately target wealthy Americans who are currently

responsible for very high demand. This would alleviate the

pressures on the supply chain without leading to a broader

economic slowdown. Encouraging longer-term savings--and

having companies retain earnings--will keep balance sheets

strong and result in investments that can help the economy

become more resilient.

It's worth stressing the potential danger of alternative

approaches. Using the blunt instrument of raising interest

rates, the tool of the Federal Reserve, would be an attempt

at price controls. But that mechanism for lowering prices

would broadly shrink demand across the income distribution.

Lower demand would lower prices, at the cost of even lower

production. In the case of automobiles, for instance, that

would be disastrous, because the unprecedented spike in used-

car prices is caused by the collapse in the current auto

supply; domestic production in November was at 58 percent of

its February 2020 level. We do not want to solve inflation by

starving the economy and causing production to plummet.

Policymakers should remember that inflationary trends are

caused in part by numerous factors outside higher demand, and

we need to be careful if we are attempting to tame it. We

have seen a rapid recovery in demand for consumer goods, but

weak demand for services. This switch in consumption has

helped protect employment by facilitating the movement of

workers forced out of the service sector, but it comes with

higher prices for some goods. In addition to exacting a

devastating human toll, the lack of protections for workers

has led to millions getting sick, creating disruptions that

lead to supply shocks that drive up prices. And it's not

clear exactly how broad-based inflation is. For instance,

rental costs have been relatively stable--well within the

Federal Reserve's target level for inflation--in another sign

that price pressures have more to do with supply shocks and

demand shifts than an overheating economy.

Mr. Speaker, maybe my friends on the other side of the aisle should take a look at this article. While I don't agree with all the ideas in here, at least this article has actual ideas to bring down inflation, instead of the Republican plan to write a book report on inflation to Congress.

Mr. Speaker, all I can say is that the American people deserve better. They deserve more than a book report. They deserve action that will make a positive difference in their lives.

I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from The Hill titled, ``Five actions Biden has taken in response to high gas prices.''

[From The Hill, Apr. 22, 2022]

Five Actions Biden has Taken in Response to High Gas Prices

(By Zack Budryk)

Gas prices are both a top concern for American consumers

and a consistent drag on President Biden's approval rating,

prompting the administration to take several measures to

counter pain at the pump.

An ABC News/Ipsos poll in March indicated widespread

approval for the president's decision to ban oil imports from

Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, which Biden has warned

could exacerbate energy costs. However, the same poll

indicated 70 percent of respondents disapprove of Biden's

handling of gas prices.

A number of factors impact gas prices, and experts note

many of them are outside the White House's control. Still,

the administration has taken several steps in hopes of

providing some temporary or near-term relief.

Here are five actions the Biden administration has taken so

far on gas prices:

1. Releasing oil from the strategist reserve

Biden initially announced a release of 50 million barrels

of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in November in

response to rising gas prices.

However, after a further spike around the time of Russia's

invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, Biden announced

another one-time release of 30 million barrels followed by an

average daily release of 1 million barrels over the next six

months--or about 180 million barrels overall.

Biden told reporters in late March that the price of gas

``could come down fairly significantly'' as a result of the

move.

In the days after, gas prices fell about eight cents,

according to AAA, although they have since crept up. However,

during the same period, some regions of China imposed

lockdowns in response to new COVID-19 outbreaks, which

reduced overall demand.

``This is a wartime bridge to increase oil supply until

production ramps up later this year. And it is by far the

largest release from our national reserve in our history,''

Biden said as he announced the release. ``It will provide a

historic amount of supply for a historic amount of time--a

six-month bridge to the fall.''

2. Removing restrictions on sale of higher-ethanol fuel

In an executive order last week, Biden removed restrictions

on the sale of E15, or fuel that is 15 percent ethanol,

between June and September of this year.

Ethanol-heavy fuel is sold at a limited number of stations

concentrated in corn-producing states, and sales are normally

restricted during the summer months due to concerns that

another mix, E10, could contribute to increased air

pollution. Ethanol and renewable fuel industries, however,

maintain that tailpipe emissions, rather than fuel

volatility, is a bigger contributor to smog, and that E15 is

less of a contributor than E10.

Biden administration officials projected at the time that

the availability of E15 could save a family about 10 cents

per gallon on average.

``This will also help us bridge towards real energy

independence and implementing the emergency fuel waiver the

[Environmental Protection Agency] EPA will work with states

across the country to ensure there are no significant air

quality impacts in the summer driving season,'' an official

said on a call with reporters. ``EPA is also considering

additional action to facilitate the use of E15 year-round,

including continued discussions with states who have

expressed interest in allowing year-round use of E15.''

3. Asking oil-producing nations to increase production

The U.S. has appealed to members of OPEC to step up

production and exports to cover demand, including Saudi

Arabia in particular.

However, this plan has encountered difficulties due to the

rocky Washington-Riyadh relationship.

The Biden administration has faced tensions with the Saudis

due to America's vocal criticism of the Gulf kingdom's human

rights record, particularly the Yemen civil war and the 2018

killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Meanwhile, human rights advocates have called it

inconsistent to seek closer ties with Saudi Arabia while

seeking to isolate Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

``I hate that the Biden administration has to figure out

how to leverage our relationship with Saudi Arabia to get

them to do that so that my constituents aren't being squeezed

at the pump,'' Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) told reporters in

March.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who numerous

intelligence agencies have concluded ordered Khashoggi's

killing, reportedly refused a call from Biden soon after the

Russian invasion. White House press secretary Jen Psaki has

denied the report.

4. Pressuring U.S. oil companies

Republicans have vocally blamed the Biden administration's

energy policies, in particular an executive order freezing

new oil and gas leasing on public lands, for gas prices and

insufficient supply.

That pause has been in limbo since a court order halting it

last summer, and the Biden administration last Friday

officially announced a forthcoming lease sale.

In the meantime, however, the administration has sought to

shift the blame to oil companies and accused them of gouging

customers, pointing to the industry's numerous currently

unused leases, which include some 9,000 approved drilling

permits.

Biden has called for Congress to enact a ``use it or lose

it'' policy that would impose fees on companies that do not

make use of their leased land.

``I have no problem with corporations turning a good

profit. But companies have an obligation that goes beyond

just their shareholders to their customers, their communities

and their country,'' Biden told reporters in late March. ``No

American company should take advantage of a pandemic or

[Russian President] Vladimir Putin's actions to enrich

themselves at the expense of American families.''

5. Promoting the transition to renewable energy

Amid concrete steps to bring down consumer prices, the

Biden administration has emphasized the necessity for

increased support and infrastructure for renewable fuels,

saying the current market illustrates the need for less

volatile resources.

In a fact sheet distributed to reporters, the

administration presented its steps to increase access to

clean energy as a key tenet of its response to gas prices.

Specifically, officials pointed to sales of offshore wind

leases, with a goal of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind

installed by the end of the decade. Officials further cited

the Interior Department's road map this week that sets a

target of doubling clean energy permits, with a goal of 25

gigawatts installed by 2025.

Mr. Speaker, President Biden has taken steps to lower prices at the pump for the American people. Since prices began to rise, President Biden released 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, removed restrictions on the sale of higher ethanol fuel, and called out oil companies for taking advantage of their customers, communities, and their country. He also continues to promote a transition to renewable energy.

So President Biden has acted to try to lower prices. My Republican colleagues cannot do the same.

Mr. Speaker, I will say finally that we have some serious challenges in this country. Inflation is one of them. The idea that after all the buildup, after all the talk of, We have a comprehensive plan to fight inflation. This is it? This is it?

This is an embarrassment, Mr. Speaker. There are things that we can do together to lower costs for the American people. A book report doesn't lower the cost for anybody.

By the way, under this bill, the book report that is required for executive orders, it is not even required to be published. They could write a book report, and no one gets to see it.

I mean, this is not what the American people had hoped for. They had hoped we would come together and kind of rally around ideas that would actually make a difference in their lives.

So, yeah. You can pass this and say, we just passed this big plan to fight inflation and then hope that nobody realizes that you did nothing.

I will say, Mr. Speaker, this is a missed opportunity. This was a time, quite frankly, where committees of jurisdiction should have come together, done hearings, heard ideas, Republican ideas and Democratic ideas, and taken the best of them and brought them to the floor; ideas that would have made a difference in people's lives. This does nothing. This does nothing.

So I guess you can tweet out that you voted for a book report on inflation and hope that your constituents will think that somehow you accomplished something big, but I would say that my constituents certainly would not be satisfied with this.

Mr. Speaker, all this talk about bringing down the deficit--and do I need to remind everybody that the first Republican bill passed this year when we came into the majority, their first bill added $114 billion to the national debt. I mean, come on.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record an article from The Hill titled, ``CBO: GOP's IRS bill will add $114 billion to deficit.''

[From The Hill, Jan. 9, 2023]

CBO: GOP's IRS Bill Will Add $114B to Deficit

(By Mike Lillis and Aris Folley)

The Republican proposal to eliminate billions of dollars in

IRS funding will pile more than $100 billion onto federal

deficits, according to a new estimate from Congress's

official budget scorekeeper.

The bill, which is slated to hit the House floor Monday

night as the first legislative act of the new GOP majority,

would claw back most of the almost $80 billion in new IRS

funding provided under the Democrats' massive climate, health

and tax package, which was signed by President Biden last

year.

Almost $46 billion of that spending would go toward agency

enforcement efforts designed to prevent certain taxpayers--

largely corporations and wealthy individuals--from paying

less than they owe.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated Monday that

the legislation would cut federal spending by $71 billion,

but would reduce tax revenue to the tune of almost $186

billion. The net effect would be a $114 billion increase in

deficits over the next decade.

The numbers were not overlooked by Democrats, who wasted no

time hammering Republicans for vowing to rein in deficit

spending, then defying that promise in their first act of

business.

``It's a giant tax cut for rich tax cheats,'' White House

chief of staff Ron Klain tweeted on Monday. ``Bill #1 from

the new House GOP. Adds to the deficit.''

Republicans had made the IRS funding cut a top promise on

the midterm campaign trail, warning that the money would lead

to the hiring of 87,000 new tax collectors to target middle-

income Americans. Some Republicans said those agents would be

armed.

Those claims were highly misleading, however, as much of

the funding will go to hire thousands of customer service

agents and other employees with no auditing responsibilities.

And the 87,000 figure is a reference to the total number of

employees--not just auditors--the IRS hopes to hire over the

next decade, when 52,000 workers are expected to retire.

Additionally, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said

that, while the new funding is crucial to streamline

processing and eliminate the backlog of returns, the agency

will not increase audit rates for those taxpayers making less

than $400,000.

Still, few government agencies are less popular than the

IRS, and the Republican message appeared to resonate with the

GOP base.

``On our very first bill, we're going to repeal 87,000 IRS

agents,'' Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who was newly

elected as Speaker, said last year as he unveiled the

Republicans' agenda. ``Our job is to work for you, not go

after you.''

Zach Moller, who previously worked as a Senate Democratic

budget aide, says the GOP's bill would violate previous House

rules targeting legislation that would add to the deficit,

known as PAYGO, that were in effect when Democrats held

control.

Under the prior rules, Moller explained, it wouldn't be in

order for lawmakers to ``have a bill on the floor that

increases the deficit over the first five or seven or first

10 years.'' The PAYGO rules were often waived, but aimed at

fiscal responsibility, Moller said.

The Republican majority is expected on Monday to pass a new

set of rules governing the new Congress, to include a so-

called ``CUTGO'' rule that exempts tax cuts from the deficit

spending prohibitions.

So anyway, look, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question, and again, I want to repeat that.

The reason why you want to vote ``no'' is because the previous question basically would allow us to bring up an amendment that basically says it is not the intention of this House to do anything to cut Social Security or Medicare.

My friends, they are all upset, notwithstanding their rhetoric, that they want to go after Social Security and Medicare.

Yeah, they were all upset that they were being called out on their words. Well, here is an opportunity to put

that to rest; very, very simple. We are not going to cut Social Security. We are not going to cut Medicare.

So if you vote ``no'' on the previous question, we can do that. I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule, ``no'' on the underlying bill.

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

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

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

Last night, the Rules Committee met and reported out a rule for three bills.

First, let me just say, this is an awful rule; and I don't want to hear my Republican colleagues talk about fairness or openness ever again. We got lecture after lecture about how they wanted to be more open and more inclusive.

Well, guess what? So far, in this Congress, 22 of the 26 rules have been completely closed. I mean, there are more closed rules in this rule than Democratic amendments made in order.

Speaker McCarthy promised he would open things up, but he has locked things down more than ever.

My colleague from Kentucky (Mr. Massie) said that he joined the Rules Committee to be our conscience. So I would ask him, I mean, does he think this is okay?

Madam Speaker, 43 of 44 amendments submitted by Democrats were blocked by his majority; is that right? Is that the openness that we were promised by his Speaker?

The bottom line is the last time Republicans controlled the House they had more closed rules than any other time in the history of our country, and they are on track to beating their own record.

Our first bill today, considered under a closed rule, is S. 619, the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we all want to know how COVID started. But I also want to point out, for the Record, that Donald Trump was President when COVID started, not Joe Biden.

Donald Trump said: ``China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well.'' Joe Biden didn't say that.

What Joe Biden actually did do is he ordered this investigation, and thanks to his investigation and the work of the intelligence community, we now have a report that gives us some answers.

The gentleman from Kentucky says, Democrats all believe this was a conspiracy theory. Yet, strangely enough, it was a Democratic President who told the intelligence community to look into the origins of COVID. So I am just a bit confused here as to his logic.

I will quickly mention two other bills. H.J. Res 27, also considered under a closed rule, seeks to roll back a majority of the protections on rivers, lakes, and streams that have been implemented since the creation of the Clean Water Act.

I find it particularly ironic that Republicans go to East Palestine, Ohio, saying, we stand with you, we are with you, while here in Congress, they are passing a bill that makes it easier for the company that dumped toxic waste into their rivers to get off scot-free.

Finally, we have H.R. 140, the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, which does not protect free speech from government interference. In fact, it seeks to expand the First Amendment to include Vladimir Putin and the Chinese Communist Party, while telling America's own Federal law enforcement agencies that they are now forbidden from even notifying social media companies of attempts by Russia and the CCP to spread propaganda.

But there is one more thing I want to bring up today, Madam Speaker, and it is not in this rule, but it is just as important and consequential for our democracy.

On Monday of this week, FOX News aired an offensive, dishonest, shameful representation about what happened on January 6, 2021. For nearly an hour, Tucker Carlson said that January 6 was not, in fact, a violent attack on American democracy. In fact, he said it was not an attack at all.

He called it a peaceful sightseeing day; downplayed what happened; tried to sanitize and gloss over the first responders who were attacked and died; called the people attacking our Capitol Police officers meek; ran interference

for a racist mob that came into these Halls that day to overturn an election.

I am furious because I was here that day. I was literally in this room. I was one of the last ones off the House floor. I sat in the Speaker's chair that day. I saw how close we came to disaster, and I don't need Tucker Carlson or anyone else to tell me what happened that day.

I am not just furious for me; I am furious for the people he lied to. I am furious for the memory of the officers he insulted. I am furious for the police officers who were beaten and injured that day. I am furious for the staff who thought that they were going to die.

January 6 was an attack on our democracy, and now Tucker Carlson has chosen to side with the enemies of democracy.

But what is most alarming about all of this, what is most dangerous, is that he was aided and abetted by Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.

I have to say, this is a new low. Speaker McCarthy's treacherous decision to coordinate with Tucker Carlson to deliberately distort what happened that day is beyond the pale; and the worst part is the blatant lying.

On November 21, 2020, Carlson said in a private text that lies about voter fraud were shockingly reckless and called the very conspiracy theories he was promoting on the air as insane and absurd to his colleagues.

He called those propagating the big lie dangerous as hell. He knew that claims the election was stolen were dangerous lies.

But instead of owning up to the truth, he went on TV, and with zero respect for his viewers and for the people of this country, zero respect for the truth, zero respect for our democracy, he sold those dangerous lies to the American people. He should be ashamed.

Speaker McCarthy's disgraceful decision to help him spread these lies will forever be a stain on this institution.

So my question for the Speaker is: Was it worth it?

Was the backroom deal with the far right to help Tucker Carlson lie about what happened that day worth the damage done to our democracy?

Was it worth insulting the memory of the law enforcement officers who died defending this building and what it symbolizes?

The family of fallen Officer Brian Sicknick doesn't think so. I want to enter their full statement into the Record today, but our rules prevent me from doing that. So let me just read a part of it here:

``The Sicknick family is outraged at the ongoing attack on our family by the unscrupulous and outright sleazy so-called news network of FOX News who will do the bidding of Trump or any of his sycophant followers, no matter what damage is done to the families of the fallen, the officers who put their lives on the line, and all who suffered on January 6 due to the lies started by Trump and spread by sleaze- slinging outlets like FOX.''

They go on to say: ``Every time the pain of that day seems to have ebbed a bit, organizations like FOX rip our wounds wide open again and we are frankly sick of it.''

That is what Speaker McCarthy is doing here. It is sick. It is indefensible. Frankly, I find it disgusting.

So when the hell will House Republicans stand up here and say this is wrong?

At least some Senate Republicans, to their credit, have actually denounced Carlson's lies.

Senator John Kennedy said: ``I was here. It was not peaceful. It was an abomination.''

Senator Thom Tillis says: Tucker's depiction was B.S. He called it indefensible.

Senator Mitt Romney says: ``You can't hide the truth by selectively picking a few minutes out of tapes and saying this is what went on. It's so absurd. It's nonsense. It's a very dangerous thing to do. . . . `'

But all we get out of this side of the Capitol is deafening silence; and every moment House Republicans do not come out and condemn these evil lies, more damage is done to the fabric of our democracy because, mark my words, January 6 will happen again if we do not correct the record and tell the truth about what happened that day.

It was an attempt to overthrow the government of the United States, based on lies spread by the former President of the United States. So for the sake of this institution, for the sake of the country, it is time to tell the truth.

For my Republican colleagues, it is time for you to condemn these lies.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record a USA Today piece titled: ``Fact check: COVID-19 vaccines primarily designed to prevent serious illness, death.''

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record an AP News article titled: ``Ex-Twitter execs deny pressure to block Hunter Biden story.''

Madam Speaker, Twitter itself is saying the government isn't telling them to suppress anything. This is yet, unfortunately, just another Republican conspiracy theory.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record an article from The Hill titled: ``Trump officials roll back Obama oil train safety rule.''

Madam Speaker, on February 3, 2023, a train with 38 cars derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, and the full devastating aftermath of that tragedy is ongoing. The affected community needs answers and change to make sure that something like this does not happen again.

The Trump administration rolled back train safety rules. Now, Republicans want to make it easier for polluters to pollute. They put a chemical industry lobbyist in charge of the EPA office in charge of chemical safety. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. They rolled back regulations on train brakes, and they reduced rail inspections.

I just want to say one thing to my colleague from Kentucky. I have no problem with releasing all the tapes, but that is not what happened. The Speaker of the House selectively and carefully released them to one person, to one news agency, who then deliberately cherrypicked things to advance a distortion of what happened that day, an insult to the people who work here, an insult to the Capitol Police officers who were injured that day. That is not transparency. That is propaganda. That is deliberately distorting a horrific event in which this Capitol was attacked, our democracy was attacked. So, please, give me a break.

Madam Speaker, I urge that we defeat the previous question, and if we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a resolution that affirms the House's unwavering commitment to protect and

strengthen Social Security and Medicare and states that it is the position of the House to reject any cuts in the program.

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

Madam Speaker, Social Security and Medicare are the bedrocks of our Nation's social safety net. Yet, as my Republican colleagues demand reckless cuts in exchange for paying our Nation's bills, these programs are under threat.

Despite recent rhetoric to the contrary, Republicans claim that they won't cut Social Security and Medicare benefits. Well, Madam Speaker, today, Democrats are yet again giving Republicans another chance to back up that claim with action by providing them a chance to reassure the American people not just with their words, but with their votes. Today, they can vote unequivocally that they will not cut these vital programs. Anything short of that is an empty promise.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Alaska (Mrs. Peltola), to discuss our proposal.

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

Madam Speaker, I don't want to be lectured about farms and our farmers. I represent a district with thousands of farms in it.

The bottom line is my farmers care about things like clean water. They care about the environment because they know that contaminated water can contaminate the food supply, among other things. My farmers are worried about climate change and the impact it is having on their ability to grow crops.

I don't want to be lectured about farms or what farmers want. I don't know of any farmer who wants to create a situation where polluters are basically not held accountable for the pollution they cause.

Think about what happened in East Palestine, Ohio. Is it the position of the Republicans that the railroad should not be required to pay for the damage that they have done, that the community should assume those costs, or the Federal Government? I don't know who should pay for it. The farmers should pay for that? Come on.

We can hear a lot about, ``This does X, Y, and Z,'' when we know it is an exaggeration.

Putting that aside, I will say for the record that I represent a lot of farmers. I talk to my farmers all the time. I do farm tours every single year. What they talk to me about is making sure that we have a clean environment, that they have access to clean water, and that we actually start paying attention to climate change, which is destroying their ability to be profitable and to be able to thrive.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I don't think there is any controversy over the bill to make as much of the classified report unclassified that is possible. There is no controversy over that.

I want to make sure that people understand who is responsible for actually doing the investigation. It was Joe Biden, not the previous President.

I want people to remember what the previous President said. On January 24, 2020, Donald Trump said: ``China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank President Xi.'' Really?

On February 7, 2020, Trump said: ``I just spoke to President Xi last night, and, you know, we are working on the problem, the virus. It is a very tough situation, but I think he is going to handle it. I think he has handled it really well. We are helping wherever we can.''

On February 7, he said: ``Just had a long and very good conversation by phone with President Xi of China. He is strong, sharp, and powerfully focused on leading the counterattack on the coronavirus. He feels they are doing very well, even building hospitals in a matter of only days. . . . Great discipline is taking place in China, as President Xi strongly leads what will be a very successful operation. We are working closely with China to help.''

Then he also said: ``Late last night, I had a very good talk with President Xi, and we talked about--mostly about the coronavirus. They are working really hard, and I think they are doing a very professional job. They are in touch with the world organization--CDC also. We are working together, but World Health is working with them. CDC is working with them. I had a great conversation last night with President Xi. It is a tough situation. I think they are doing a very good job.''

Then he said on February 10: ``I think China is very, you know, professionally run, in the sense that they have everything under control,'' Trump said. ``I really believe they are going to have it under control fairly soon. You know, in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather, and that is a beautiful date to look forward to. But China, I can tell you, is working very hard.''

On February 13: ``I think they have handled it professionally, and I think they are extremely capable. And I think President Xi is extremely capable, and I hope that it is going to be resolved.''

On February 23, President Trump said: ``I think President Xi is working very, very hard. I spoke to him. He is working very hard. I think he is doing a very good job. It is a big problem, but President Xi loves his country. He is working very hard to solve the problem, and he will solve the problem. Okay?''

Then, on February 29, he said: ``China seems to be making tremendous progress. Their numbers are way down. . . . I think our relationship with China is very good. We just did a big trade deal. We are starting on another trade deal with China, a very big one, and we have been working very closely. They have been talking to our people. We have been talking to their people, having to do with the virus.''

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from Politico titled: ``15 times Trump praised China as coronavirus was spreading across the globe.''

Madam Speaker, I remind my Republican colleagues that the leader of their own party repeatedly applauded China during the peak of the pandemic.

The bottom line is that we should all be grateful that we have a President now that has actually launched an investigation to get to the bottom of this.

Today, hopefully, we will, in a bipartisan way, vote to make as much of that investigation declassified as possible.

Let's not forget the history here. Let's not forget who was praising China's reaction to the coronavirus because I think it is important that we keep that in mind, especially listening to some of the rhetoric coming from the other side.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, this is the second time the gentleman has said that all the tapes of what happened on January 6 were released. Maybe he can tell us where the general public can find them. How do they get access to them?

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman.

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, the gentleman said that all the tapes had been released. The only person who got the tapes was a political hack at FOX News who used them to distort the reality and the truth and to insult the service of the people who work up here, including our Capitol Police officers.

I am for releasing as much as can be released so long as it doesn't violate any security protocols. Let's listen to what the U.S. Capitol Police chief said in response to Tucker Carlson's coverage of January 6. He said: ``Last night, an opinion program aired commentary that was filled with offensive and misleading conclusions about the January 6 attack. The opinion program never reached out to the department to provide accurate context.

``One false allegation is that our officers helped the rioters and acted as

`tour guides.' This is outrageous and false. The department stands by the officers in the video that was shown last night. I don't have to remind you how outnumbered our officers were on January 6. Those officers did their best to use deescalation tactics to try to talk rioters into getting each other to leave the building.

``The program conveniently cherry-picked from the calmer moments of our 41,000 hours of video. The commentary fails to provide context about the chaos and violence that happened before or during these less tense moments.

``Finally, the most disturbing accusation from last night was that our late friend and colleague Brian Sicknick's death had nothing to do with his heroic actions on January 6. The department maintains, as anyone with common sense would, that had Officer Sicknick not fought valiantly for hours on the day he was violently assaulted, Officer Sicknick would not have died the next day.

``As some people select from 41,000 hours of video clips that seemingly support the narrative they want to push, those of you who were here on January 6, those of you who were in the fight, those of you who ensured that no Member of Congress was hurt, those of you who contributed to the effort to allow this country's legislative process to continue know firsthand what actually happened.''

I would just simply say, Madam Speaker, if we want to make sure that we do not see another January 6 ever again occur in our country's future, then we all ought to speak with one voice, condemn what happened that day, and characterize it for what it was: an attack on our democracy.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, when the gentleman says that what Tucker Carlson aired somehow destroyed the narrative, I mean, give me a break, he is essentially basically saying what happened on January 6 conforms with what Tucker Carlson said. It is offensive to everybody who was here that day. It is offensive to the staff, and it is offensive to the Capitol Police officers. It is offensive to everybody.

Madam Speaker, let me just say to the gentleman that what I said before was that I favored releasing tapes so long as they did not--it is my personal opinion--so long as they do not at all compromise any security. That is what I said.

But it is so sad to be on this House floor after what happened on that day and to hear Members of Congress basically try to cover up the horrendous atrocity that occurred that day, the attack on our democracy. It is shameful.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining?

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

Madam Speaker, what is just as revealing as what we are debating this week is what we are not talking about.

We are now 3 months into the Republican majority. They haven't passed a single bill into law yet, and, in fact, rather than debating things that people care about, we are spending week after week passing bills that are designed to get Facebook likes and retweets instead of making an actual difference with the people back home.

Three out of four Americans say that the Republicans in Congress do not have the right agenda.

Madam Speaker, if you want proof that they are right, then look no further than what so much of today's debate was focused on.

Democrats passed bills to bring jobs back from China and take on Putin's war of aggression. Republicans are passing bills to make it easier for Russia and China to spread their propaganda here in the United States.

Democrats passed laws holding polluters accountable, took action to get rid of lead pipes and clean up our rivers and lakes. Republicans are passing bills to protect the polluters that dump toxic chemicals into our water.

The American people expect more. They expect us to pass bills that actually matter to our families. Democrats have been putting people over politics to do it. We get stuff done while Republicans are chasing down the approval of the hyper online far right that spends all their time on Twitter trying to own the libs.

So that is why I am asking my colleagues to join me in defeating the previous question so we can get this House on record as saying that we are going to protect Social Security and Medicare.

Finally, Madam Speaker, again, the idea that the leadership on the Republican side was complicit with FOX News and with Tucker Carlson to spread lies and distortions about what happened on January 6 and to insult the service of the brave men and women who protect this building and all of us who are in it is unconscionable.

It would be so refreshing for Republicans to join us in condemning the distortions that were on FOX News. It is stunning to me that we can't get any of them to condemn. Some of them--their Senate counterparts--did, and I praise them for it. But the silence here is deafening, and it is offensive. It is offensive.

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

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

On that, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 199 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to amend the pending resolution with an amendment that I have placed at the desk.

Madam Speaker, last night, the Rules Committee met and reported House Resolution 199, providing for consideration of three measures: H.R. 140, H.J. Res. 27, and S. 619.

The rule provides for H.R. 140 to be considered under a structured rule with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability or their designees.

The rule further provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 27 under a closed rule with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

Additionally, the rule provides for consideration of S. 619, under closed rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

Finally, the rule postpones the vote on a potential veto message from the President on H.J. Res. 30 until the legislative day of March 23.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Roy).

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation, H.R. 140, which went through regular order, which was marked up in the Oversight and Reform Committee, where Democrats had copious opportunities to offer amendments and to change the bill, as did Republicans.

H.R. 140 is called the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, and would prohibit Federal employees from using their official authority to censor a private entity, including outside of normal duty hours or away from an employee's normal duty post.

Under President Biden, administration officials and Federal bureaucrats have abused their positions, authority, and influence to encourage censorship and erode Americans' First Amendment rights.

Recently released reports have uncovered efforts by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Centers for Disease Control, the Department of Homeland Security, and other government agencies to pressure social media companies and internet providers to censor and remove speech posted on social media platforms.

Advocates for this censorship flag certain posts and users as spreading misinformation on various topics, including COVID-19, racial justice, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Executives at Facebook and Twitter have admitted that prior to the 2020 Presidential election, after a warning from the FBI, they censored the sharing of news regarding Hunter Biden's laptop leak, which has since been proven true. It was not a Russian disinformation campaign.

Even former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, during a July 2021 press briefing, called on Facebook to ban specific accounts from its platform.

Congress should recognize that the biggest spreader of misinformation over the last several years, whether it has been about elections or about COVID, has been the Federal Government.

The censorship must stop. Congress must restore constitutional protections enshrined in the First Amendment.

H.R. 140, and the amendments that are pending votes here as well, are critical to ensure that government officials can never again promote censorship and pressure private entities to suppress Americans' First Amendment rights.

Additionally, the rule before us provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 27, a resolution ``providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of Title 5, United States Code, of the rules submitted by the Department of the Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Defense, and the Environmental Protection Agency relating to ``Revised definition of `Waters of the United States.' ''

It is Groundhog Day again in America. Every time the administration changes, this rule changes.

The Biden administration's new rule would radically redefine the term ``Waters of the United States'' to expand the Federal Government's authority in regulating bodies of water.

Specifically, Biden's EPA would expand the term to include impoundments of jurisdictional waters, tributaries, adjacent wetlands, and additional waters.

To be clear, what the Biden administration is pushing through here will heap serious burdens on farmers, small businesses, homebuilders, and rural communities across our country.

In 1972, Congress didn't tell the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers: Do whatever you think is necessary to protect water. That is not what the bill said. Yet, that is what they have taken as their directive.

The Clean Water Act was never intended to be applied as broadly as the

Biden administration is proposing. Every Member of Congress should be concerned about the EPA's attempt to expand its authority over individuals' private property and regulate farms and communities, even those which lie far away from any lakes, rivers, or streams and very far away from Washington, D.C.

Congress has the constitutional authority and responsibility to provide oversight and to review regulations issued by the executive branch. If the executive branch promulgates rules that could overstep their authority, as President Biden is doing here, it is vital that we exercise our oversight authority in Congress.

Finally, the rule before us provides for consideration of S. 619, the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023, which would finally declassify any information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of COVID-19.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, anyone who spoke out questioning whether COVID-19 might have come from the Wuhan lab in China was denounced as a conspiracy theorist, and their words were labeled as ``dangerous misinformation.'' People were censored online, their accounts were suspended, and their reputations were damaged for questioning the origins of COVID-19.

What is the difference between COVID-19 conspiracy theory and the truth? About 2 years. We have seen them called natural immunity conspiracy theories. We have seen people who said masks don't work called conspiracy theorists. Now, we are finding out that all of those conspiracy theories, so-called, were accurate.

Fast-forward to today. Even the government admits it. The Department of Energy and the FBI have both publicly reported their conclusions that COVID-19 likely emerged as a result of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a research institute in Wuhan, China, controlled by the People's Republic of China and, ultimately, the Chinese Communist Party.

Was it funded in part by our government? Yes, it was.

This legislation is long overdue and is necessary to expose the truth about the origins of COVID-19. Americans deserve to see the information. President Biden could have released this information at any point. It could have been released a year ago. It could be released today without this resolution. But this resolution is important because the President has not released this information. The last Congress, led by Speaker Pelosi, could have voted to do what we are doing here today. But no, they wanted it to remain hidden from the American public. I fear the Federal Government has been involved in a coverup about the origins of COVID-19 because they are afraid of being exposed as culpable in the creation of the disease at the center of the pandemic.

To my colleague's point about the videos that were released on Monday, I think the other side of the aisle is out of touch and out of step with the American public on this.

A recent poll by Rasmussen showed that 81 percent of likely voters believe that all of the tapes should be released. The Democrats had 2 years to release these tapes. But 81 percent of voters believe that.

Is that just Republicans? No.

Madam Speaker, 86 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats--they are out of step with their own party--believe that these videotapes should be released because Americans deserve to know the truth and the defendants in these trials deserve to have the evidence they need to present their defense.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy).

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

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article in the New York Post titled: ``10 myths told by COVID experts-- and now debunked,'' by Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Madam Speaker, in this article that I have just referenced, misinformation No. 7 was that ``COVID originating from the Wuhan lab is a conspiracy theory.'' It is not. I think we are going to find that out when this resolution passes, and I expect a lot of Democrat support for the resolution. It passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.

``Google admitted to suppressing searches of `lab leak' during the pandemic. Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health, claimed, and still does, he didn't believe the virus came from a lab.

``Ultimately, overwhelming circumstantial evidence points to a lab leak origin, the same origin suggested to Dr. Anthony Fauci by two very prominent virologists in a January 2020 meeting he assembled at the beginning of the pandemic. According to documents obtained by Bret Baier of FOX News, they told Fauci and Collins that the virus may have been manipulated and originated in the lab, but then suddenly changed their tune in public comments days after meeting with the NIH officials. The virologists were later awarded nearly $9 million from Fauci's agency.''

Maybe this is why we are not getting the truth yet. We will get the truth if this rule passes and the subsequent S. 619 passes here in the House. I think it is very important.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, although it is not the subject of today's resolution or any of the bills covered by this resolution, the Democrats just can't avoid talking about the release of the January 6 videos. They keep going back to it during this debate.

Madam Speaker, I would remind them that 78 percent of Democrats out in America support the release of all of these videos.

The fact that they are apoplectic about the few minutes of video that Tucker Carlson released on Monday shows that Tucker Carlson is over the target. For 2 years, they have been selectively releasing information and videos to set a narrative. In just a few minutes, the entire narrative was challenged--might I say it collapsed under the scrutiny, under the review of just a few minutes of undoctored video that came from this body.

I applaud Tucker Carlson for releasing that. The American people are right. If the Democrats are so upset that only a few of these videos were released, I would remind them that they were able to release these at any point in the past.

Moving on to something that is the subject of this resolution, I want to talk about the repeal of Joe Biden's 2023 WOTUS ruling, the waters of the U.S. ruling. Like I said before, it is ``Groundhog Day'' again.

Under President Bush, we had one set of rules that farmers, homebuilders, and landowners came to understand. They were a little hard to comply with because every division of the Army Corps of Engineers might interpret them differently, or different States would interpret them differently, or different bureaucrats at the EPA would interpret them differently.

Then, Obama came along with a rule to expand the definition of waters of the U.S., and then Trump came into office and the rules changed again. Now, Biden is here trying, once again, to change the rules on what are the waters of the U.S.

The farmers and homebuilders I talk to don't say they don't want any regulations. Nobody in this body has said no regulation is what we want.

The question is, give us clear, precise, understandable regulations we can follow that do not change. Frankly, those should be written by Congress. They shouldn't be made up by every administration that comes into power. Yet, that is what we are doing, or that is what has happened.

Today, we are talking about repealing those onerous changes and unclear changes. For instance, Susan Bodine testified in front of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this year on this topic, and she talked about the significant nexus test that they apply in WOTUS 2023, waters of the U.S. To support expanded jurisdiction under this rule, the agencies now claim that isolated water can affect the biological integrity of navigable water.

What does that mean? If you have a puddle of water that a bird lands in and drinks from and takes some seeds or some larvae, and when it drinks and flies to a river and deposits it in its bird droppings, or maybe as it flies over the river and it doesn't even visit the river, if there is any kind of biological connection--and as we have found, everything is biologically connected on this planet. If there is any biological connection that they can establish between a puddle of water on your property and a navigable water, then they say, this is now covered under waters of the U.S. This is ridiculous.

The only certainty that our farmers and our landowners are going to get from Biden's 2023 WOTUS rule is the certainty that if a raindrop has fallen on your property, a government agent will show up someday and tell you what you can and can't do with that property under this rule.

That is why it is important for us to repeal that, and that is why this resolution is so important.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, I said that the other side could have released them.

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

Madam Speaker, I surely didn't expect this to turn into a debate on the January 6 videotapes or to hear the Democrats propose that it sounds like they are in favor of all of the tapes being released instead of just some of them.

I think if the gentleman would review the transcript, and I could be wrong, but I think he will find out that I said Tucker Carlson only released a few minutes of that, and those few minutes were able to destroy the narrative that had been constructed over 2 years.

But if the gentleman cares to answer a question, then maybe we have come to some bipartisan agreement that all of the tapes should be released.

Madam Speaker, I would ask if the gentleman when he speaks next if he would speak to that topic and if he would be in favor of releasing all of the tapes instead of releasing them partially.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, it is somewhat serendipitous, but in the context of this debate on a rule about other bills, it seems we have come to some agreement, it appears to me, with the American people, 81 percent of whom believe that all of the tapes should be released. It seems as if we have come to some agreement that we all would be better off if we get to the bottom of the truth and all of the truth comes out and all of the tapes come out so that no one side can distort what actually happened that day, and then let the American people decide.

So in the interest of transparency and in the interest of getting back to the subject matter at hand, which are three bills covered by this rule, I want to talk about S. 619, which is so important. It is transparency, and it is the transparency that the American people deserve. It passed by unanimous consent in the Senate. Even though it seems like there is some opposition on the other side, I suspect we are going to get a lot of votes from Democrats on S. 619.

I think it is important to go on the record for elected Representatives to say whether or not they believe their constituents are entitled to the truth which our government possesses or at least information that they possess that would help somebody come to a conclusion of what the origins of this virus were and did they come from Wuhan.

The President could do this at any time. He could have done it at any time in the past 2 years. He hasn't done it. It is time to put him on the spot and say: You either veto this or you release that information that you have withheld from the American public for 2 years, which is too long. I suspect we could overcome his veto.

Next, Madam Speaker, I want to talk about the Waters of the U.S. rule.

Why is this timely?

Because on March 20 this goes into effect. That is why it is so urgent to repeal the 2023 Waters of the U.S. rule.

These are laws.

Were they written by lawmakers?

No. Our Founding Fathers created three branches of government. We have the executive branch which enforces laws, we have the judicial branch which resolves disputes, and we have the legislative branch which is supposed to make the laws. Yet, here we sit abdicating that authority and that responsibility. You can delegate authority, but you can't delegate responsibility, Madam Speaker.

We have a responsibility to the American people to make sure that these laws are concise, that they don't change on the whim of an executive who gets in the White House, that they are not onerous, that they have their intended effect, and that they are applied uniformly across the country.

Yet we have abdicated that responsibility. But we will take that responsibility back by the passage of this rule and the subsequent legislation to repeal the WOTUS, Waters of the United States 2023, by Joe Biden. We, the American people, deserve that.

Finally, I will close by talking about H.R. 140. This is a bill that went through regular order. What a wonderful thing. We have talked about it so much. It is a bill that covers one topic only. We have talked about that so much. Here we are, and we even have a chance--even though it was amended in the committee--to amend it here on the floor to perfect it even more for Members and by Members who aren't members of that committee.

Are these amendments that are not germane?

Are these the kind of amendments that the American people hate where Members offer an amendment and then they stick something into a bill that is completely unrelated to it?

No. Every one of these amendments is germane to this bill. We have made sure of that in the Rules Committee. The gentleman serves on the Rules Committee, and he had plenty of time to voice his concerns there.

So we have a lot of amendments that are great. I think they will improve the bill. But what is most important is that people have a chance to have their point made and to get a vote on this.

Finally, I will talk about what H.R. 140 would fix. It would fix this loophole that they think they have constructed that allows the Federal Government to violate the Constitution.

Obviously, Federal agents can't take away our First Amendment rights, and, obviously, the Constitution wasn't meant to bind social media companies. It was meant to bind the administration.

What we have is a loophole where the administration leans on a social media company that they are paying money to. Millions of dollars have gone to these social media companies from the CDC and from the FBI.

So when they say:

Would you pretty please ban this user?

Or:

Would you pretty please take down these posts? There is a

whole series of these posts.

The government doesn't get in line. They have a back door that they can trot to every day and submit lists of people whom they think should be banned because they don't like what they have said.

This is dangerous to our Republic. If the other side wants to call it a democracy, then it is dangerous to the democracy. But this is a republic.

Our government has built an elaborate but constitutionally unsound framework for violating these natural rights.

As we have seen with the Twitter files, they boldly work in close cooperation with private-sector actors who aren't subject to constitutional restrictions imposed on government by our Founders.

But they also claim foreign influence and national security so they can target U.S. citizens with agencies in the government under the military chain of command whose missions are ostensibly directed at foreign actors who have no constitutional rights.

Elected lawmakers be damned, legions of government lawyers create shaky legal scaffolding and ad hoc doctrine to indemnify the actors within our government who eagerly exploit these loopholes.

In this way, government actors can claim everything they do is legal. They have a bunch of lawyers to back them:

Oh, we didn't do anything illegal, it is all legal. Here,

look at our doctrine. The lawyers have gone through it, it is

all legal.

Here is the problem, Madam Speaker: much of what they do is unconstitutional.

So whose job is it to resolve that difference?

It is actually not the Supreme Court's job. We are entrusted with oversight. We all here swore an oath to the Constitution, and if we know that authorizations that we have made or that funding that we have appropriated has been twisted in a way to get around the Constitution or to drive through a loophole that some lawyers in the administrative branch have created, then it is our obligation--we owe it to the American people, we swore an oath to the Constitution--to fix that--not to make them go to court to get some remedy--but to fix it, to stop it in its tracks.

H.R. 140 with its pending amendments is a good down payment on that promise to the American people.

Madam Speaker, I support this rule, I urge my colleagues to vote for it.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Indiana for yielding me the time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is good to be back on the House floor with the gentlewoman from Indiana. It is great to be with her, and so far, she is allowing me to actually speak and hasn't called for me to be silenced.

The last time we debated, I stated an uncomfortable fact about he who shall not be named and the gentlewoman had me silenced, had my words stricken from the Congressional Record.

You just have to love that, Mr. Speaker. The party of free speech that rails against woke this and cancel culture that, and calls us snowflakes, can't handle it when someone comes down here and tells the truth. They try to silence the people they disagree with. It is really quite stunning.

Here is more of the truth, and let's see if I am allowed to talk this time.

Mr. Speaker, under Republican control, the House of Representatives has become a place where trivial issues get debated passionately and important ones not at all. What we are dealing with today is a bunch of weird, whacky, poorly drafted culture war nonsense.

This is all just a waste of time. These bills aren't going anywhere. It is not even political theater. It is theater of the absurd.

The government shuts down in a few days, and instead of actually working with Democrats to keep the lights on, instead of actually doing something to fix the problems that the American people want us to fix, my Republican friends are doing nothing.

The roof is on fire, and instead of calling 911, they are sweeping the floors. I mean, it is beyond nuts.

Last night in the Rules Committee, during our hearing on this rule, I had some Republican Members telling me they didn't like my tone. They didn't like the fact that I said we don't share the same values.

I am sorry I hurt people's feelings, Mr. Speaker, but the truth is the truth. We don't all believe in the same things. When it comes to my friends on the other side of the aisle in this Chamber, we really don't share the same values. I know many of my friends on the Republican side are nice and good people, but their ideas are not nice and are not good.

Let me just give you a couple of examples.

Democrats want to make sure that our kids go to college and get a good education that prepares them for the workforce, and instead of working with us, Republicans go on and on about woke this and woke that in our schools.

Apparently, anyone who wants to teach facts is woke nowadays. They want colleges to stop being ``woke,'' even though they can't quite define what that even means. It is all political BS, Mr. Speaker.

Here is another example. Democrats actually want an economy that works for everyone, and thanks to the Biden-Harris administration, we are fighting to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, but not Republicans. They are talking about woke economic policies.

I don't even know what they are talking about or what they mean, but do you want to know what people back home talk to me about? They are asking me: Why are Republicans trying to cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires? Why are Republicans trying to go after Social Security and Medicare?

Another example, Mr. Speaker, is that Democrats actually care about strengthening and protecting the Violence Against Women Act, but not Republicans. A majority of their Conference voted against extending the Violence Against Women Act. Let me say that again: A majority of their Conference voted against extending the Violence Against Women Act.

Now, they have the nerve to come down here and talk about violence against women and use it as part of their sick ploy to go after immigrants. Give me a break. Their bill is so poorly written that it could hurt survivors of domestic violence.

I could go right down the list. It is obvious to me that, at some point, the RNC talking points went out to everybody, and those talking points said woke, woke, woke. Now, we have to waste time on this trash.

It is just another week of the GOP circus. As I have said before, calling this a clown show is an insult to actual working clowns.

Most of all, it is an insult to the American people for Republicans to use these hallowed Halls and to spend hours and hours of time this week on these absurd, awful bills. Again, none of them are going anywhere.

The reason to be in Congress is to help people. That means putting people over politics. It means not caving in to the most extreme members of your party. It means getting stuff done, which is a radical idea.

None of these bills, as I said, are going anywhere. Yet, here we are, playing these absurd, ridiculous games.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed listening to the chairman of the Rules Committee, but let me just state for the record that nothing he talked about will be at all impacted by any of the stuff that we are talking about here today. None of these bills are going anywhere.

If you want to pass legislation to address some of the issues that were raised, maybe we ought to work in a bipartisan way. Maybe it ought not to be ``my way or the highway.''

These aren't serious pieces of legislation. These are press releases. Let's all be honest with the American people about that. This is not serious legislating. We haven't done serious legislating here in a long time.

Mr. Speaker, I will zoom in a little bit on this Congress in general. I just mentioned that this is the most dysfunctional Congress in history. If anyone wants proof, look no further than this resolution: five more closed rules that allow zero amendments to come to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, for folks who don't know, a closed rule means no amendments. It means: Take it or leave it. If you have a good idea and want to improve a bill, too bad.

This is how they govern in Russia and China, and that is what the Republicans are turning this place into.

With these five closed rules they are bringing to the floor today, Republicans are breaking their own record for shutting down debate. With today's vote, there will be 106 closed rules in this Congress-- 106. This is now officially the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, what gets me is that my friends on the other side have been totally fooled. They were tricked by their own leadership, first by Speaker McCarthy and now Speaker Johnson.

The gentlewoman from Indiana and her colleagues on the Rules Committee were promised a more open process. They were told the Rules Committee was going to be different, more open, would have more regular order and more amendments, and more debate.

Speaker McCarthy was even blackmailed into putting members of the Freedom Caucus on the Rules Committee to guarantee a more open process, but apparently, it didn't matter because he totally broke his promise, and now Speaker Johnson is shredding it.

During the first 9 months under Speaker Johnson, we saw 64 closed rules, even more than the 42 closed rules we saw under Speaker McCarthy. They traded a bad Speaker for an even worse one. Republican leaders have blocked 5,799 amendments from even coming to the floor. Mr. Speaker, 5,799 amendments have been blocked from coming to the floor by the Republican majority.

By the way, they are not just Democratic amendments. They blocked Republican, bipartisan, and Democratic amendments. They blocked an amendment to disrupt the smuggling of U.S. firearms across the Mexican border. They blocked an amendment to combat fentanyl trafficking at ports of entry.

Holy hell, Mr. Speaker, they even blocked my amendment to protect food for seniors who participate in the Meals on Wheels program. They have even blocked over half of their own Republican Members' amendments.

Let me say that again. Most Republican amendments have been blocked by this Congress. These amendments have been prevented from even seeing the light of day or getting a debate on the House floor. There have been 98 amendments that Rules Committee Republicans had either authored or supported that have been blocked by their own majority.

When you are on the Rules Committee, you like to have a little juice, but 98 of your amendments, Republican amendments, have been blocked by your own party. That is almost 100 amendments, and that is just Rules Republicans.

I am sure they would have loved to have had the opportunity to debate their amendments on the floor. If Rules Committee Republicans can't get amendments, how the hell do you think the rest of us are doing?

Republicans said they wanted an open process in this Congress. They want an open process, my foot, Mr. Speaker.

Under this majority, the Rules Committee has become a place where democracy goes to die. Their Members should be outraged with the Speaker and this leadership just as much as Democrats should be. Again, 106 completely closed rules blocked all amendments--a shameful statistic, an all-time authoritarian high set under this Republican majority.

Let's look at the results. Look at what they have to show for it. Republicans had the most unproductive Congress in the history of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, 26 days we went without a Speaker because they were fighting with each other. Weeks were wasted with failed rule votes while they argued among themselves instead of negotiating with Democrats.

There were broken promises on the appropriation process where they kicked the can down the road with another failed CR, bringing us to the brink of catastrophic debt default and then asking Democrats to bail them out. Mr. Speaker, 10 months of passing no legislation through the Rules Committee that ever became law.

I congratulate my friends. In addition to being the most incompetent, dysfunctional, unproductive Congress in American history, they now have also presided over the most closed Congress in American history. Well done, well done, and they are not done yet. We have to live through 3 more months of this. God help us.

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

Mr. Speaker, again, I reiterate what the gentleman from South Carolina just said. We have different viewpoints and different values.

I am sorry that he feels he lives in a wrecked country. I don't believe that. I think the United States of America is the greatest country on this planet, and I am proud to serve in Congress to try to help the people of this country. I would never refer to this country as a ``wrecked country.''

Again, the gentleman who just spoke, I thought when he was appointed to the Rules Committee, he was appointed to make sure that we had a more open process.

I regret to inform the gentleman that 106 closed rules slipped by him this Congress. I appreciate him standing in the breach.

By the way, when he refers to all the amendments that were rejected as being dumb, 50 percent of them were Republican amendments.

I think 27 of your amendments were denied. I wouldn't classify them as dumb, even though I may disagree with the intent.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a list of the 106 closed rules issued by the Republican majority in the 118th Congress.

Mr. Speaker, beneath all these statistics about closed rules are actual ideas that are being blocked from being debated on the House floor.

These are thoughtful proposals that Members have worked hard to develop, ideas to help actual people, and they deserved a debate in an up-or-down vote.

They are proposals like this: An amendment to disrupt the smuggling of U.S. guns across the Mexico border to help cartels, an amendment authorizing funding for DHS to combat fentanyl trafficking at our ports of entry, and an amendment to prevent cuts to Meals on Wheels.

Those are home-delivered meals to seniors, Mr. Speaker, and that was my amendment, by the way, so I can assure you that it was a very, very good idea.

They even blocked an amendment to provide postpartum mental health information to pregnant students, and that was a Republican amendment.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans haven't just blocked amendments by reporting out closed rules. Their structured rules, the rules that allowed a few amendments, have also continually blocked thoughtful, rule-complied amendments.

They seem especially focused on blocking Democratic ideas from a debate in an up-or-down vote on the floor. A quarter of their structured rules--get this--blocked all Democratic amendments.

Now, let me quickly just list a few ideas that Republicans were either too afraid to debate or couldn't spare 10 minutes for consideration on the House floor: An amendment to protect children from getting asthma; amendments to ensure the regulation of dark money in politics, and to prevent corrupt pay-to-play political donation deals with Federal contractors; and an amendment to provide cancer screenings to Federal firefighters as part of their DOD annual physicals, when we know they are exposed to cancer-causing chemicals as part of their jobs. There is simply no excuse for this, Mr. Speaker.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, after listening to the gentlewoman from Minnesota, I was confused when she said, you don't offer alternatives. That is what amendments are. They are alternative ideas.

I just went through a list of some of the alternatives we wanted to offer dealing with firefighters and cancer screening, dealing with children with asthma, and dealing with making sure senior citizens have adequate access to nutrition. Those are alternatives. Those are ideas.

My friends, unfortunately, are in control of this place, so they get to bring the bills to the Rules Committee.

We try to present alternatives through the amendment process, but here is another alternative. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 16, the American Dream and Promise Act of 2023.

Mr. Speaker, the bigoted hatred that we are seeing directed at immigrants in Ohio and across the country is sickening. According to research done by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, there has been a rise in conspiracy theories that stigmatize minorities and promote hatred of ethnically diverse communities.

Get this. Politicians' use of bigoted rhetoric can also play a role in hate crime incidents. It is sad, but to be frank, we didn't need researchers to tell us this.

We can see and we can hear it from the Republican Party every single day, and it does a grave disservice to the Dreamers, to TPS holders, and to DACA recipients in this country who only know America as their home.

These are taxpayers, small business owners, educators, and critical parts of our communities. Dreamers were brought to the United States as children through no fault of their own, and it is past time to grant them the pathway to citizenship that they rightly deserve.

Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. There is a lot of work that needs to be done to fix our broken immigration system and secure our border, but unlike the messaging bills before us this week, this is a bill that actually does something, and it is actually bipartisan. It sends the message that we are sick of the vitriol and hate crimes against this community and that we value their many contributions that make this country a better place.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Escobar), a great leader, to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Garcia), who will also speak on the importance of defeating the previous question.

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

You have got to love when Republicans try to talk tough about immigration reform. I just want to remind my colleagues that one of the most conservative Senators in the United States Senate is from Oklahoma. He wrote a comprehensive immigration reform bill that has some very tough provisions in it. Their standard-bearer, the man who I cannot name on the floor for fear that my words will be taken down, told Republicans to not allow it to come to the floor for debate or a vote.

They would rather have a campaign issue than to solve a problem. I mean, let that sink in. Let that sink in.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article from the National Institute of Justice titled: ``Undocumented Immigrant Offending Rate Lower Than U.S.-born Citizen Rate.''

Mr. Speaker, all day long, Republicans spout hateful rhetoric about undocumented immigration and crime because they want us to be scared and they want to divide us, but their claims are simply not rooted in truth. In fact, undocumented immigrants are less likely, not more, than U.S.-born citizens to commit crimes, including violent crime.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record an article by the CATO Institute titled: ``Sanctuary Jurisdictions in Florida Do Not Have Higher Crime Rates.''

Mr. Speaker, there is no evidence, none, either in Florida or in the rest of the country that sanctuary cities result in more crime. There is none, zero. However, that won't matter to Republicans because they are unmoved by the facts.

Mr. Speaker, earlier I listed some examples of ideas that Republicans blocked from even being considered on the floor. Here are a few more. I just want people to appreciate this.

An amendment that would protect access to IVF for Federal employees, they blocked it.

They blocked an amendment to require a study for Tribal consultations before enactment of an oil and gas bill that could affect their subsistence resources.

An amendment to make critical targeted investments in small-town police departments for the recruitment, retention, mental health support, and training they need to protect themselves and their communities, they blocked that, too.

They blocked an amendment to ensure continued access to emergency care for pregnant servicewomen at military treatment facilities.

Maybe Republicans don't believe in IVF or any of these other ideas, but they can just vote ``no.'' Why block these ideas from even being debated unless they are afraid they would pass?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to close yet. There may be someone else.

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

I want to get back to this extraordinary closed House. I just want everybody to appreciate how awful this process is.

Here are yet more examples of ideas that were too scary, too revolutionary, too controversial to even be debated on the House floor, according to this Republican majority:

An amendment to provide grants to organizations that are helping to transition servicemembers to civilian life, including job recruitment training, they blocked that. I mean, what are they thinking? Who does that?

They blocked an amendment to ensure that students with dietary restrictions like lactose intolerance can have an alternative to whole milk at lunch. Is lactose intolerance now woke? I mean, I don't get it. That was blocked.

They blocked an amendment to ensure that a bill wouldn't cause our domestic energy prices to increase.

I ask, again, what is the majority afraid of? I mean, we have our differences. We ought to have substantive debate on the floor and then have votes. I am willing to bet there are some thoughtful Republicans who would support some of these amendments that I mentioned here.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

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

We have heard a lot about wokeness here today, but I want to focus on the woke Democratic ideas that Republicans have blocked in this record- breaking closed Congress. I mean, ideas like protecting IVF, fighting fentanyl trafficking, and making sure lactose-intolerant students have something nutritious to drink at lunch. Wow. I mean, that those ideas are woke is crazy.

There have been 106 closed rules. That is a big number, a record- breaking number, but much more important is what that number represents. These ideas and all the other blocked amendments I highlighted would have helped everyday Americans. Is that woke? Is it woke to try and keep kids from getting asthma, to provide job training to veterans? To provide cancer screenings to firefighters, is that woke?

Mr. Speaker, I don't know what my Republican colleagues are afraid of. Maybe they are afraid to vote ``no.'' Maybe they are afraid to vote ``yes.'' This is Congress, Mr. Speaker. We are here to take hard votes. This record-breaking number of closed rules is a disservice to the people the Republicans represent.

Mr. Speaker, while Republicans want to talk about being woke, I wish instead that they would wake the hell up and do the people's business. For example, I don't know, maybe pass a bill to prevent a government shutdown. What we are doing today is merely a political exercise. Their obsession with trying to inject politics and culture wars into everything is getting really old, almost as old as the Presidential nominee.

Let me just say I love this place, and I love all the different things that we have been called on to do. I will just say this, Mr. Speaker: I want everybody to join with me and let's end this. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.J. Res. 30, a Congressional Review Act joint resolution of disapproval to nullify a popular and sensible rule issued by the Biden-Harris administration last year.

Workers should be able to invest their retirement savings in a way that reflects their values, such as combating climate change, without sacrificing investment returns.

That is why the Biden-Harris administration issued a rule to clarify that retirement plan fiduciaries may consider the economic effects of climate change and other environmental, social, and governance factors, or ESG factors, when they make investment decisions for participants in retirement plans.

Now, to be clear, this rule is not an ESG mandate.

Additionally, the rule does not change the fiduciary standard to which professionals who make investment decisions for retirement plans are bound. They must still prioritize the interests of retirement plan participants and cannot sacrifice investment returns to pursue ESG goals.

Let's be clear. Consideration of ESG factors is not at odds with making a profit. In fact, workers' profit is still central, but if a company has negative externalities, such as carbon-intensive business practices, vulnerability to sea level rise, high liability risks, or a record of mistreating workers who may go on strike, its stock could suffer in the long term.

Workers often contribute to their retirement for decades before drawing down on their savings, so it makes sense that retirement plan beneficiaries must consider the long-term time horizon when making investment decisions.

Finally, there is widespread support for the Biden-Harris administration's rule. Of the comment letters submitted on the proposed rule, 83 percent of the letters submitted by institutions like corporations, financial firms, and labor organizations supported the rule.

Over 97 percent of the letters submitted by individuals supported the rule. Simply put, the Biden-Harris rule reflects the best interests of the American people and our economy.

We should not get rid of this popular and reasonable rule by this resolution. The rule just simply allows retirement plan fiduciaries to appropriately consider ESG factors.

Retirement fiduciaries, not House Republicans, are best positioned and bound by law to make prudent investment decisions on behalf of retirement savers.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Casten), the co-chair of the Congressional Sustainable Investment Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. DeSaulnier), the distinguished ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. Omar), a distinguished member of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Vargas), a co-chair of the Congressional Sustainable Investment Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Magaziner).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, during this debate, we have heard a lot about ESG investing. It is clear there is a difference of opinion on it, but whether Members of Congress see things the same way is not the point.

What matters is that the Biden-Harris rule puts the decisionmaking when it comes to considering ESG factors where it belongs, in the hands of retirement plan fiduciaries who are best positioned and bound by law, which has not changed, to act prudently on behalf of plan participants. That is where the decisionmaking should stay.

They, not Members of Congress, know what is in the best interests of their plan participants, and they are bound by their fiduciary responsibilities to do the right thing.

Now, when supporters say that a fiduciary should not consider nonpecuniary factors, they ignore the fact that ESG factors can, in fact, be pecuniary, because often ESG factors, such as sea level rise, can have a profound effect on the value of the investment. Those who recognize this should be able to make reasonable investments based on that knowledge.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record several letters from organizations opposed to H.J. Res. 30. Eighty-three percent of institutions that submitted comments were in favor of the underlying rule. These organizations, who are opposed to H.J. Res. 30, include the AFL-CIO, Americans for Financial Reform, Public Citizen, SEIU, Environmental Defense Fund, League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Union of Concerned Scientists, and others.

Mr. Speaker, these organizations have diverse missions, but they all agree that H.J. Res. 30 should be rejected.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record two letters from financial services firms who submitted supportive comments on the underlying rule. These firms are BNY Melon Investment Management and Lazard Asset Management, who have trillions of dollars in assets under management.

BNY Mellon,

December 13, 2021.

Office of Regulations and Interpretations,

Employee Benefits Security Administration,

U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC.

On behalf of BNY Mellon Investment Management, thank you

for the opportunity to submit comments on the notice of

proposed rulemaking entitled ``Prudence and Loyalty in

Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder

Rights'' (the ``Proposal'') published by the U.S. Department

of Labor (the ``Department''). We strongly support the

Department's efforts to clarify the regulatory treatment of

environmental, social, and governance (``ESG'') factors under

Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of

1974, as amended (``ERISA'') following the publication of

``Financial Factors in Selecting Plan Investments'' and

``Fiduciary Duties Regarding Proxy Voting and Shareholder

Rights'' (together, the ``Current Rules''). To continue the

Department's efforts to add clarity to the use of ESG factors

by fiduciaries we suggest the Department add clarification in

the rule or preamble that a fiduciary can use a screen to

consider ESG factors based on the fiduciary's determination

that a particular ESG factor will impact investment value

consistent with Section 2550.404a-1(c)(2) of the Proposal.

BNY Mellon Investment Management is a division of BNY

Mellon, one of the world's largest financial services groups.

With a presence in 35 countries, BNY Mellon looks to connect

investors with opportunities across every major asset class.

BNY Mellon Investment Management encompasses BNY Mellon's

affiliated investment firms and global distribution

companies, constituting over $2.3 trillion in AUM (as of

September 30, 2021).

BNY Mellon Investment Management follows a multi-boutique

investment management model that weds the specialist

expertise from its investment firms offering solutions across

every major asset class, backed by the strength, stewardship,

and global presence of BNY Mellon. Each investment firm has

its own unique culture, investment philosophy, and

proprietary investment processes, and provides a global

perspective. Our seven majority owned investment firms, are

as follows (all AUM figures as of September 30, 2021):

Alcentra ($41.0B), ARX ($7.0B), Dreyfus Cash Investment

Strategies ($342.7B), Insight Investment ($1,100.0B), Mellon

($448.6B), Newton Investment Management ($139.1B), and Walter

Scott ($99.9B).

At BNY Mellon Investment Management our Responsible

Investment (RI) approach varies across our investment firms,

but the effective stewardship of our clients' assets is

common to all and core to our own purpose. Many products or

solutions offered by BNY Mellon Investment Management examine

ESG factors in their investment processes and decision-making

to better manage risk and generate sustainable long-term

returns. Six of our investment firms--Alcentra, ARX, Insight,

Mellon, Newton, and Walter Scott--are signatories of the

Principles for Responsible Investment (``PRI'').

As we have noted in a previous comment letter, over the

past decades, fiduciaries and investment managers have come

to appreciate the materiality that ESG factors can have on

investment value. We welcome the Department's clarifications

to the Current Rules regarding the use of ESG factors and the

exercise of shareholder rights. The acknowledgement by the

Department that climate risks and other ESG factors can be

and often are material to investment risk and returns will

better allow fiduciaries to mitigate risk and enhance returns

based on evaluating ESG factors.

Within the last decade, a deep body of research has been

produced that demonstrates the material influence of ESG

factors on the profitability of an enterprise and the

performance of its securities. For example, weak control of

environmental activities such as pollution, over-consumption

of raw materials or lack of recycling of waste materials

readily leads to volatile or lower achieved margins or

financial penalties that reduce investor returns. Similarly

with social issues: high staff turnover, high strike rates or

absenteeism or death or injury rates have all been linked to

lower productivity and poor quality control. Regarding

governance, we know from years of empirical observation that

poorly managed issuers can seriously damage investor returns.

To ignore the entire category of information and analysis

that comprise ESG factors, therefore, could be deemed an

abrogation of a fiduciary's responsibility to consider all

material information when assessing the risk and return of

any investment opportunity.

The Proposal appropriately balances the materiality that

ESG factors can have on investment value with the

Department's longstanding principles that a fiduciary's

duties of prudence and loyalty require the fiduciary to

consider factors that are material to investment value. In

particular, a fiduciary should not subordinate the interests

of plan participants and beneficiaries to other objectives,

nor sacrifice investment return or take on additional

investment risk to promote goals unrelated to the plan and

its participants and beneficiaries. We specifically believe

that the proposed removal of the definition of ``pecuniary

factors'' and the revision to the Current Rules providing

that a fiduciary's evaluation of an investment or investment

course of action should be based on factors that ``are

material to investment value'' both clarifies the rule and

ensures that the rule reflects the analysis performed by

fiduciaries when making investment decisions.

We also support the removal of the special rule prohibiting

certain investment alternatives from being considered

qualified default investment alternatives (QDIA) because the

investment references ESG factors. The QDIA restrictions in

the Current Rules add uncertainty and would be difficult to

apply. We agree with the Department that there is not a

reason to prohibit fiduciaries from prudently selecting a

fund that meets the QDIA requirements and includes the

consideration of ESG factors.

We support the Department's efforts to reduce the

uncertainty in the market caused by the Current Rules and we

suggest additional clarification regarding the use of

screens. We believe this clarification could further reduce

uncertainty that might otherwise prevent fiduciaries from

considering ESG factors which are expected to enhance

investment value and performance or improve investment

portfolio resilience against the potential financial risks.

As noted above, we support the removal of ``pecuniary

factors'' and that a fiduciary's evaluation of an investment

or investment course of action should be based on factors

that ``are material to investment value''. We think that the

Department could add additional clarity to the rule or

preamble by clarifying that the proposed rule does not per se

prohibit a fiduciary from using a screen on investments based

in whole or in part on ESG factors.

A common method used by investment managers to incorporate

ESG factors into the assessment of investment risks and

returns is the use of screens. As described in the Proposal,

``negative screening refers to the exclusion of certain

sectors, companies, or practices from a fund or portfolio

based on ESG criteria.'' The Proposal's discussion of the

benefits that can occur from the use of ESG factors in the

assessment of investment risks and returns relies on sources

that studied the impact of investment managers using screens

based on ESG factors. However, the Current Rules and some

past guidance regarding the use of ESG factors could be read

to preclude the use of screens based on ESG factors.

We suggest that the Department clarify in the final rule or

its preamble that the investment prudence duties and the

investment loyalty duties under Sections 2550.404a-1(b) and

2550.404a-1(c), respectively, do not per se prohibit the use

of screens. For example, it should be permissible for a plan

fiduciary to select investment managers and funds that use

screens to the extent that doing so would otherwise be

consistent with its duties. It should similarly be

permissible for any such investment manager to select an

``investment course of action'' that uses a screen to the

extent that the resulting investment strategy would otherwise

be consistent with its duties. Such a clarification would

provide certainty to fiduciaries seeking to use ESG factors

in the assessment of investment risks and returns in

accordance with their prudence and loyalty duties. It would

further ensure that plan participants realize the full

benefits of fiduciaries using ESG factors as described in the

Proposal.

We strongly support the Department's efforts to bring

clarity to the use of ESG factors and the exercise of

shareholder rights by plan fiduciaries. We believe the

Proposal and the changes suggested here will promote

retirement income security and further retirement savings by

allowing fiduciaries to better manage risks and improve

investment returns.

Sincerely,

Hanneke Smits,

Chief Executive Officer,

BNY Mellon Investment Management.

Mr. Speaker, this is just a small sample of the financial industry's support for the underlying rule. We should not overturn the rule with this resolution.

Mr. Speaker, for these reasons, I oppose H.J. Res. 30, I encourage all Members to do the same, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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