CLEAN Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentlewoman from Minnesota for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1449, the Committing Leases for Energy Access Now Act enforces unreasonable deadlines on geothermal energy permitting that shuts the public out of the process, so my colleagues on the other side can do their favorite thing: Shut out the American people and rush things through in a way that could harm the environment and hurt public safety. That is what they are good at.

The second bill is the so-called Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act. Mr. Speaker, I think we can all agree that families who are held hostage shouldn't be responsible for paying IRS fines or penalties. I think that is a no-brainer. I know that it has already passed the Senate. We could take up that bill and pass it today, send it right to the President's desk, or we could pass a House bill that has been introduced which would do the same thing, ensure that hostage victims don't get charged IRS fines.

If my friends had brought either of those bills up, they could be sent to the President's desk and signed very, very quickly, as I said. That is not what we are doing, and that is not what we are voting on. This bill, the one they are bringing up, has been hijacked and turned into a vehicle to give the incoming administration the ability to revoke the nonprofit status of any advocacy group they want simply by labeling them as terrorist sympathizers. That means the President will acquire the power to just unilaterally accuse an American group of terrorism and then shut them down.

I have to tell you, I just came back from a codel in El Salvador, that is how they do things down there. The government doesn't like you, boom, you are a terrorist.

I am sure the party that talks so much about weaponizing the government, that talks so much about reining in the Federal Government, they have put some guardrails in here, right? Wrong. There are no guardrails, no guardrails for an administration that says it will go after the enemy within, just a bill that gives them the power to do it on day one. This is nuts.

A university has too many protests against Donald Trump: terrorists. An environmental group suing the administration in court: terrorists. Think tanks that think differently than Donald Trump: terrorists. That is what this bill does.

People say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Mr. Speaker, the road to fascism in America is paved with a million little votes that slowly erode our democracy and make it easier to go after anyone who disagrees with the government. There is no due process or right to appeal in this bill, no proof required. Donald Trump says you are a terrorist, so you are a terrorist. It is beyond nuts. My friends on the other side of the aisle know that, even if they don't want to admit it.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly urge a ``no'' vote on this rule and on the underlying legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I just respond to the gentlewoman by saying it wasn't me but it was Donald Trump who said he would be a dictator on day one. It was Donald Trump who talked about the enemy from within and actually mentioned individuals who are in the United States House of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate.

Forgive me if I am a little concerned about somebody who would say such things on the campaign trail and now coming into power again. Forgive me if I am a little concerned about how he might abuse the power that my friends on the other side of the aisle seem so eager to give him. There would be no due process, no nothing. If Donald Trump says we don't like you, he will label you as a terrorist and will shut you down.

They are talking now about recess appointments in the United States Senate. They don't want to do FBI background checks. They don't want to do confirmation processes where Members of both sides of the aisle get to question potential Cabinet officials and be able to find out whether they are fit for office. No, rush everything through, no questions asked, just take him at his word.

I am on the floor today sounding the alarm bells. We should be concerned. We should be concerned. Maya Angelou had this great line. She said: When somebody shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

People did not vote for the stuff that we are doing today. People did not vote for recess appointments. People voted their pocketbooks, and I understand why.

I just want the record to reflect that there are some of us who are raising the alarm bells because this is the time, quite frankly, when people should be concerned, when we can actually do something about it, when we can put some guardrails into place so the excesses that the President-elect talked about on the campaign trail don't become reality.

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 bring up H.R. 12, a bill that would ensure that every American has full access to essential reproductive healthcare, including abortion care.

Since the Dobbs decision, there are now 21 States that have banned or restricted abortion across the country. Without this fundamental right, women are suffering. In Texas, in Georgia, and in Indiana, the number of preventable deaths due to abortion bans is rising.

This is the grim landscape that the incoming administration wants to maintain and even worsen. I wish I could say that it won't get worse, but we know Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to strip more and more rights from Americans.

That is why we must pass H.R. 12, to ensure that every American has full access to reproductive healthcare and to

make sure that women's rights are protected no matter where they live.

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 myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, once again, I do not believe that any of what my Republican friends are talking about on the floor today is in line with what the American people voted for. They voted for cheaper groceries, not whatever the hell this stuff is.

They are asking us to vote for a bill, my Republicans friends, that would give the incoming administration the ability to revoke the nonprofit status of any advocacy group they want just by labeling them as a terrorist sympathizer, a bill that would give President-elect Trump a new power to just unilaterally accuse an American group of terrorism and then shut them down. Again, there are no guardrails for an administration that says it will go after the enemy within, just a bill that gives them power to do that on day one.

Meanwhile, every decision that has been made by this incoming administration so far has not been about the American people. It has been about them. I am reading in the newspaper again this morning that they want to issue blanket pardons to those who committed crimes on January 6. Republicans call them political prisoners. These are people who were arrested, indicted, tried, and convicted by juries and judges in courtrooms across this country for violently attacking our brave law enforcement officers, people who smashed cops in the head with metal barricades, who jammed them in doors until blood was coming out of their mouths, and the incoming administration is thinking about pardoning them? Let that sink in. Let that sink in.

Before I am accused of harping on January 6, I am not the one bringing it up. The incoming President-elect is. He won't shut up about it.

When I am talking about my concerns over the bill we are considering here today, understand that these are not unfounded fears. The new administration is leaking plans to court martial military officers who are not sufficiently loyal. Isn't that usually how things go in authoritarian dictatorships? They purge the military of anybody who might have a spine and refuse to obey an unlawful order. What the hell is going on here?

Their Cabinet picks so far, these are like beyond insane: someone who is credibly accused of having sex with an underage girl; someone who sucks up to foreign dictators and has attracted major concern that they can't be trusted to protect America's secrets from our adversaries; someone who paid hush money to cover up a sexual assault accusation to lead our military--he is picked because Donald Trump likes him on FOX News; and someone who says that tap water turns kids gay? This is the dream team? Really?

Seriously, it would be funny if it weren't so sad. Hopefully, the United States Senate has a backbone and insists on a thorough confirmation process.

The truth is that this is not what people voted for. They voted for their pocketbooks, and, frankly, I don't blame them.

You know who I do blame? I blame the billionaires who have rigged our country against working people and spent the last four decades squeezing every penny they could out of people. I blame the politicians, including the incoming administration, who have abandoned workers and who have done nothing while the rich get richer and everyone else gets screwed.

My friends on the other side want to blame trans people. Guess what, Mr. Speaker? Trans people aren't the ones raising people's grocery prices. Big corporations are. They want to blame immigrants, and here is the deal: Immigrants aren't the ones denying health insurance claims, Mr. Speaker. It is the billion-dollar insurance companies that do that on a daily basis.

They want to blame woke this and woke that. What is woke about thinking special interests should not be able to buy tax breaks? What is woke about telling Chevron and Exxon that they can't dump toxic chemicals into our air and water? What is woke about thinking it is wrong to give tax breaks to billionaires while the rest of us get screwed?

It is time for us to get serious about fixing this country and making sure it works for everyone. Instead, we have BS bills that allow the new administration to go after any group that disagrees with the government and shut them down.

My friends on the other side can keep doing whatever the hell this is. Good luck with that. Democrats will be talking about the economy. We are going to talk about how we will make housing more affordable and lower your grocery bills. We are going to talk about taking on corporate greed and standing up to the donor class that buys off tax breaks for the rich and powerful. We are going to talk about the fact that billionaires pay less in taxes than teachers and police officers.

There is something deeply wrong with that, and it needs to change. We are hearing from the Republicans already that they are planning a tax package that will what? Not help the middle class, not help those struggling to get into the middle class, but, again, more tax breaks for the well off and the well-connected.

Really? Mr. Speaker, do you think that is what the American people voted for?

We Democrats are going to talk about the inequality that has risen in this country under Democratic and Republican Presidents, quite frankly, and the wages that have stagnated for decades and decades as prices go up and people get left behind.

Democrats will be the party of working people in this country, and we are not going to go down every absurd rabbit hole that this majority digs in order to divide and distract us from our mission.

As I have said before, and I am going to say it again today: We will show up, and we will fight for the American people.

Our allegiance is to the American people, not to Elon Musk, not to the billionaires and big donors, not to the oil tycoons and the insurance company CEOs who rip people off on a daily basis. Our allegiance is to the American people.

Mr. Speaker, as I just mentioned, we will show up, and we will fight tooth and nail every one of these policies that is designed to advantage those who are rich and powerful at the expense of those who work hard for a living, regular people: teachers, police officers, firefighters, and people who work in factories. Those are the people whom we will champion, and we are going to do everything we can to make sure that their voices are heard as my Republican friends move forward their agenda that really is about rewarding those who are well-off and well-connected.

Mr. Speaker, again, I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule, and I urge a ``no'' vote on this lousy legislation. I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 1449.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of H.R. 1449, the Committing Leases for Energy Access Now Act, or the CLEAN Act.

First, I thank my friend and colleague Representative Russ Fulcher for being a leader on geothermal energy and for his dedication to this issue.

Geothermal energy is poised to be an important part of America's energy portfolio. Some predictions indicate that geothermal energy can provide up to 90 gigawatts of electricity by 2050. These are great metrics and goals to strive for, but we will never reach this goal if we keep the status quo for permitting and leasing geothermal energy.

Current law requires multiple layers of environmental review for geothermal projects, which leads to higher costs and longer development timelines compared to our power production efforts.

H.R. 1449, the CLEAN Act, would streamline the Federal leasing and permitting process for geothermal energy and spur the development of this renewable energy source in the United States.

California is a prime example of a Western State with huge geothermal potential, but a lease sale has not been held by the DOI in that State since 2016.

H.R. 1449 would fix lapses like this by requiring the Secretary of the Interior to hold annual geothermal lease sales rather than once every 2 years. It will also force the Secretary to hold a replacement lease sale if one is missed.

In addition, this bill requires the Secretary of the Interior to notify an applicant whether or not its geothermal drilling permit application is complete within 30 days of receiving the application. If Interior determines that the application is complete, then it must issue a final decision on the applications within 30 days.

Some may argue that these deadlines are too fast and don't allow adequate time for the bureaucracy to complete reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act and other environmental laws, but this simply is not the case.

The bill itself does not waive the agency's responsibilities under current environmental laws. We all know from experience that agencies will not issue permits until they meet the necessary legal requirements.

The potential for geothermal energy in this country cannot be understated. There are myriad hot spots in the West that are prime for developing this kind of energy. We must do all we can to ensure that bureaucratic red tape does not hamper this resource moving forward.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Fulcher), who is the author of the bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, in closing, I again urge my colleagues to vote in support of H.R. 1449.

As has been said, geothermal energy in the U.S. has potential to generate 90

gigawatts of power. To put that in perspective, that would be like 150 to 200 large power-producing plants.

It is energy, electricity, coming from non-carbon-emitting sources and from a renewable resource.

This should be a no-brainer for both sides of the aisle as we face challenges with as much as an increased rate of three times per year more electricity demand than what we have seen in the past. We know we need energy from anywhere we can get it in greater volumes than we have had before.

Just this last week, we passed a bill that would streamline the permitting process for geothermal plants on State and private lands. This bill is another commonsense solution that will help bring our lagging geothermal industry online.

It is time we build more geothermal plants to reach our full geothermal potential in this country and unleash America's energy resources for our citizens and allies around the world.

It is imperative that we increase the rate of leasing geothermal plants so that American citizens can enjoy the low-cost, reliable, and renewable energy that comes from these plants.

Again, Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 1449, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, it is good to see my colleague, Mr. Grijalva, here in the Chamber today. Although it is good to see him presenting his amendment, I oppose the amendment.

This amendment attempts to mirror the language in the Mineral Leasing Act for oil and gas production on Federal lands, but, unfortunately, there are some key differences. If my colleagues look at it in its whole, the amendment would make it more difficult to lease geothermal resources than to lease oil and gas.

In fact, this amendment would triple the timeline for an agency to respond to a project applicant on whether their geothermal drilling permit application is complete or deficient.

This is not a timeline for permit approval. It is a timeline for simply letting someone know if they submitted a complete application.

Under current law, the BLM is already required to provide similar affirmation on oil and gas permit applications within 10 days. This amendment

would create a timeline for geothermal permit applicants nine times longer than those BLM is already held to for oil and gas.

The amendment also states that the NEPA review must be complete before final permit approval. This language is unnecessary. The bill does nothing to waive NEPA requirements.

Additionally, the amendment would create a new option for the BLM to deny geothermal permits, effectively pulling the rug out from under energy projects at the last step in the permitting process.

Mr. Chairman, for these reasons, I oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, again, the bill does nothing to waive NEPA requirements. It just simply speeds up the timeline.

It shouldn't take an agency 90 days to notify an applicant if an application is complete or not. We need more of this clean, renewable energy. To get more of it, we need to get a permitting process that works.

Unfortunately, this amendment would slow down the process even more. That is why I am opposed to the amendment. I encourage others to vote against it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I oppose this amendment. It would gut the bill by conditioning enactment on a determination by the Secretary of the Interior that the Bureau of Land Management and other relevant Federal permitting agencies have received adequate funding to resolve permitting staff shortages.

If Members felt the urge to laugh when I stated that, they are probably not too far off because this amendment doesn't really pass the laugh test.

I have never heard of a Federal agency admitting to having enough funding or enough staff, and this amendment simply is a poison pill because the action it is conditioned on simply will never happen.

The issue is not DOI staff capacity but burdensome permitting processes that take years, produce duplicative reviews, and consume thousands of hours for regulators and project proponents alike.

Actually, we passed a bill just last week that will help resolve any issue that may be there. H.R. 7409 would decrease the administrative load on staff and field offices by not requiring a Federal permit for geothermal energy produced on State and private lands. That bill would rapidly streamline the approval process by relying on the States' permitting procedures rather than the duplicative Federal process.

My friends on the other side of the aisle had a chance last week to free agency staffers from their redundant work, but many opposed the bill.

Let's not forget that last Congress, as the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Grijalva) stated, the Democrats rammed through a reconciliation package with a billion dollars for permitting. DOI had $150 million, and from that bill, it was to provide for the hiring and training of personnel, the development of programmatic environmental documents, the procurement of technical or scientific services for environmental reviews, the development of

environmental data or information systems, stakeholder and community engagement.

In fact, the Department has grown by 4,000 full-time equivalents from fiscal year 2020 to fiscal year 2023.

More funding and bureaucrats aren't what is needed now. What is needed is for DOI to recognize energy permitting as a priority and create a plan for meeting the required timelines.

We must continue working here to pass more permitting reform measures to help alleviate the permitting burden on important energy projects. These measures will also reduce the redundant permitting tasks performed by the Federal workforce.

H.R. 1449 will hold the Department's feet to the fire by forcing them to act on geothermal leasing and permitting in a timely manner. For those reasons, I oppose the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I think we have to ask ourselves, do we want environmental growth in this country to be based on growing the bureaucracy and spending more money on permits, or do we actually want to make things? Do we want to produce energy? Do we want to use the resources that we have?

Geothermal operators are often required to complete six separate NEPA reviews to get a Federal permit: one for exploration, another if there is a subsurface anomaly, a third for drilling a slim confirmation hole, a fourth to develop the well field, a fifth for the power plant itself, and a sixth if the project is speculative exploration on lands not previously leased.

The status quo is a duplicative and wasteful process and prevents the United States from developing this very clean energy source. Performing NEPA six times does not provide six times the environmental benefit, rather less duplicative NEPA reviews will actually increase the rate at which these clean energy resources come online.

This bill is an attempt to put more clean energy resources on the grid at a faster pace. This amendment would undermine that goal. I oppose it, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it.

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

Mr. Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.

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

Mr. Chair, I am happy to be here once again on another set of energy bills and amendments. While I certainly support the goal of this bill to deploy more clean, renewable geothermal energy on our public lands, unfortunately I and other members of our Caucus are unable to support this bill in its current form and urge opposition to the bill.

Throughout this Congress, geothermal energy has been a bright spot of bipartisanship. Geothermal is an extremely promising and growing source of sustainable and reliable renewable energy.

We have heard from geothermal developers that there can be challenges to permitting new plants and new facilities, so we understand the intent of this bill. That is why our committee has worked on a bipartisan basis to get to solutions that will help support the industry and deploy more renewable energy.

I am grateful to my colleagues who have taken up this issue, bills like the Geothermal Cost-Recovery Authority Act from Ranking Member Ocasio-Cortez, the GEO Act from Representative Curtis, and H.R. 6474 from Representative Steel and others.

I was pleased to see these responsible permitting solutions pass the House, and I hope to see Senate action on them soon and continued bipartisan work.

Unfortunately, this bill is not in a place where we can offer bipartisan support.

H.R. 1449, the CLEAN Act, does contain some important provisions that we would be supportive of, but it also contains some serious technical flaws that could create major constraints and unintended consequences for geothermal projects.

First, the bill mandates that more geothermal lease sales happen. Democrats, in general, support this. We want to see additional geothermal facilities and the use of our Federal resources where appropriate to do that. We would love to see more resources offered through our agencies so that they can actually do this work, but we will take it as it is.

Next, however, the bill says that the Department of the Interior must notify an applicant for a geothermal drilling permit as to whether the application is complete within 30 days. When the Department of the Interior testified on the bill, they recommended increasing the timeline to 90 days to provide sufficient time for the limited situations where staffing, project size, or complexity would prevent an office from complying. For example, let's say an office is understaffed at the moment.

We offered this change in committee and again today are offering it on the House floor. Ranking Member Grijalva's amendment would change the first deadline from 30 days to 90 days, an easy fix. We are willing to negotiate on the exact number, but unfortunately, we have not had willing partners in that negotiation. They are continuing to insist on a timeline that is not workable for our Federal Government.

Next, and most problematically, the bill would require that the Department of the Interior make a final decision on a permit, either approving or denying it, within 30 days of the application being complete. The Department has called this essentially impossible to achieve. Issuing a decision within 30 days would not allow adequate time to complete the analysis required under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. There are other permits from other agencies, like Fish and Wildlife, EPA, and Tribal consultation that must occur before a permit can be issued.

In the best case scenario, this bill would result in uncoordinated, rushed approvals where the Department and our communities barely understand the potential environmental and cultural impacts required by law, which would result in lawsuits and delay projects even further.

In a worst case scenario, good, worthy projects could get denied simply because an agency doesn't have sufficient staffing and time to comply with the deadline in the bill.

All the possible scenarios here are just a bad deal for geothermal developers and a bad deal for Americans who would like to see clean energy deployed responsibly, effectively, and quickly. To solve this, we filed several amendments at markup for consideration on the floor to provide necessary flexibility and time to complete the reviews and prevent avoidable denials, but unfortunately, those were not taken up at the committee level.

I will also point out that the House passed a bill along these lines by voice vote earlier this year. The GEO Act from Representative Curtis of Utah addresses similar permitting concerns but directs the Department to issue a decision on a permit within 60 days of the completion of the review under NEPA and other laws. That is a Republican-led bill that the agency believes they can work with, so we have a possibility of a path forward.

Even in the Senate, we have a Manchin-Barrasso bipartisan permitting bill that would adopt similar language to make a more workable timeline, which is similar to the amendment offered by Ranking Member Grijalva today.

We hope that our colleagues across the aisle will come to the negotiating table if this bill does move forward. It is important that we fix these timelines. I understand that we are trying to expedite and improve the deployment and permitting of these projects, but we have to make sure that they are workable from a practical standpoint within our communities and agencies.

We want positive outcomes, clean energy, and geothermal. This is a bipartisan issue. We can do this. Let's come to the table and get something done that we can all support. Unfortunately, today, I have to urge opposition to this bill.

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

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

Mr. Chair, I want to respond to one comment that was just made about the employees of the Department of the Interior.

For many folks who are not familiar with the Department of the Interior, I will note that there have been people in history who have called it the department of everything because it manages our public lands, water resources and reservoirs, wildlife through the Fish and Wildlife Service, and mineral leasing. It does our geologic surveys. It manages and provides programs and responsibilities to our Tribal nations. The reason why there are 70,000 employees in the Department of the Interior is because they work across all of those bureaus and missions.

The reality is, if you have ever had to work with the Federal Government, Mr. Chair, is that many of these kinds of decisions are made at the most local level in a field office in the Bureau of Land Management, which is the agency responsible for permitting at the most local level. Oftentimes, the agencies find themselves with staff vacancies, a lack of resources, or they have multiple permits come across the desk of a local resource manager.

To expect somebody who is working in a field office, potentially in a rural or remote area of the United States, to process a sophisticated permit and all the related interagency and interbureau coordination and Tribal consultation required in 30 days is just not realistic. While I appreciate the assertion, that is just not how it works.

Let's be reasonable. We all want the same outcome. Let's not create a law that just results in lawsuits and difficulties for our Federal agencies so that we can move on and get this done.

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the debate. Democrats are strong proponents of geothermal energy and support the intent of this bill. This technology is critical for the clean energy transition, jobs, and replacing other kinds of energy.

We want to see responsible development in relation to our public lands. To make that goal a reality, Democrats have supported bipartisan legislation that increases efficiency in permitting processes and other legislation that gets at the same challenges that this bill is trying to address without taking away the necessary environmental and community input.

Unfortunately, there are technical aspects of this bill, including the timelines, that are just not realistic.

In addition to those arbitrary timelines that would undercut community voices and potential protections in sensitive places, this would make projects themselves more vulnerable to delays should lawsuits happen or there are shoddy reviews or a lack of outside input.

I want us to be good bipartisan partners to all of you in this work, but we really do have to come up with some commonsense fixes.

Mr. Chair, as I mentioned just a few moments ago, I hope that we can work together to resolve those technical issues. I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the bill as it is currently drafted, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1576 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. 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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, we are here to debate the rule providing for consideration of H.R. 9495 and H.R. 1449.

The rule provides for H.R. 1449 to be considered under a structured rule. It provides for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and by the ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, or their designees.

The rule further provides for H.R. 9495 to be considered under a closed rule, providing for 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means, or their designees.

The rule provides for a motion to recommit for each bill.

Mr. Speaker, we have had our eyes opened to a lot in the wake of last year's horrifying October 7 attack in Israel. We have been reminded of how much anti-Semitism still somehow exists in our own country. As we saw American citizens taken hostage by Hamas, we were also sadly reminded of the many Americans who have been taken hostage or illegally detained across the world.

H.R. 9495, the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act is twofold.

First, it directs the IRS to disregard the time during which a person being held hostage for purposes of when that person filed their tax returns, paid income taxes, or filed a claim. This will also be true for their spouses.

This is a small thing, given the circumstances they have endured, but an obvious one. It is so obvious that it sounds silly to say it out loud that someone should not have to worry about missing the deadline to file their taxes because they were being held hostage.

This bill also addresses abuses within the nonprofit sector that support terrorism by prohibiting these organizations from maintaining their tax-exempt status if they are found to have provided material support or resources to a terrorist or terrorist-supporting organization.

After October 7 and the anti-Semitism that spread rapidly across campuses, the House Ways and Means Committee began investigating tax- exempt organizations to make sure they were not making contributions that would benefit terrorists.

It seems fairly obvious that if your organization is supporting terrorist activity in any way, shape, or form, you should at a minimum lose your tax-exempt status.

This bill is so sensible it should have been able to pass under suspension, and yet, somehow the Democrats still did not understand the wish of the American people. Americans want to protect their citizens and not support terrorism. It is that simple. I cannot understand how many of my colleagues voted against this bill last week, but I will be proud to vote for it again.

This rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1449, the Committing Leases for Energy Access Now Act, or the CLEAN Act, which will provide certainty for U.S. geothermal energy projects.

Right now, the Department of the Interior is required to have a competitive lease sale every 2 years. However, some States have not had a lease sale for much longer than that. Under this legislation, the Secretary of the Interior must hold these sales annually and must respond to the permit applications within 30 days of receipt to let

the applicant know if their application is complete. If it is, the Secretary has 30 days to issue a final decision.

Geothermal energy is clean and renewable, making it a great way to expand America's energy portfolio and meet our growing demand domestically rather than relying on other Nations. I look forward to supporting these two bills.

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

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

My Democrat colleagues continue over and over and over to try to demonize and vilify President-elect Trump. They just spent months trying to turn him into the boogieman who is going to destroy this country and create chaos. Voters flatly rejected this attempt by Democrats to paint President-elect Trump as a fascist or dictator, all kinds of names they came up with. Instead, they sent him back to the White House and gave him a majority in the Senate and a majority in the House.

Yet, here my Democrat colleagues are again trying to use Donald Trump to scare their voters. The truth is, under President Trump's previous administration, we had terrorists on the run, and Americans at home and abroad were safer than they have ever been under this administration.

While my Democrat colleagues are desperately trying to find a way to justify allowing American nonprofits to send money to terrorists, House Republicans stand ready to defund terrorism and make America safe again.

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

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

I do think it is rich that the Democrats are talking about President Trump going after these groups because the Democrats, both under President Obama and under President Biden, have gone after conservative groups trying to make them look like terrorists and trying to call them terrorists.

I think the bill simply wants to stop real terrorists and stop those groups from receiving favored tax status under our tax laws and making sure that we are addressing terrorism in the United States and abroad.

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

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.

Mr. Speaker, again, my colleague can't move on from the tired old lines. It is the same rhetoric we have heard for the last 4 years. Throughout the election, we have heard it and heard it, but I want to say that the election is over. I urge the Democrats to please stop telling the American people what they voted for or what they should think and start listening to the American people.

The House Republicans are committed to the security and prosperity of the American people, and the two bills before us are further evidence of that.

The CLEAN Act supports domestic geothermal drilling, expanding our energy portfolio, and bringing more safe and efficient energy jobs to our country. It also ensures a timely application process through the Department of the Interior.

The Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act

takes away a small part of the burden for those who return to our country after experiencing the horrors of being held hostage, and it ensures that nonprofits that are receiving favored tax status are not contributing to the terrorist organizations in any way.

These are straightforward pieces of legislation that are good for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I support the rule and the underlying legislation.

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

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment, which I offered a version of at the markup nearly a year ago, would have addressed all the concerns. If adopted, I would be happy to support H.R. 1449.

This amendment extends the timeline for the Department to determine permit completeness, as the Department requested in its testimony, and gives flexibility to issue a final determination on a permit when environmental review is actually complete.

This will ensure permitting is done in a timely manner, in accordance with Federal law, reducing the risk of litigation and promoting responsible development.

There are a few things to note on this amendment. The first thing is, for the 90-day timeline for determining permit completeness, I point my colleagues to H.R. 6011 from Republican Representative Valadao.

That bill directs the Secretary to notify a right-of-way applicant, which is the permit needed for a transmission line or a pipeline to cross Federal land, that their permit is complete or not within 90 days of submission.

My amendment proposes that same standard for geothermal drilling permits.

For my amendment piece about flexibility, I point my colleagues to the Manchin-Barrasso permitting proposal.

I have plenty of concerns with that bill, but even those Senators saw the same issues with approving or denying a permit within 30 days. That is why their bill includes the same environmental review backstop language for geothermal as is included in my amendment here.

These are bipartisan and Republican-endorsed ideas. My colleagues should take yes for an answer and accept that.

This amendment is a reasonable solution to the issues we raised almost a year ago and have continued to raise since.

If this amendment passes, it will be a bipartisan win for geothermal and a demonstration of good-faith cooperation from the other side of the aisle.

Mr. Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote ``yes'' on my amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib) to address this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment consists of reasonable fixes that Republicans have previously supported. If adopted, Democrats would unanimously support the final passage of this bill.

Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleagues to support my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment says that this act cannot take effect until the Secretary certifies that the Bureau of Land Management and other Federal permitting agencies have sufficient staff and funding to actually comply with the deadlines established by this act.

The tight deadlines in this bill are part of what has become the classic Republican permitting playbook of complaining that agencies don't move fast enough, gut their funding, and then impose deadlines impossible to achieve.

If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going to impose these deadlines, let's make sure the agencies can actually do the work.

Mr. Chair, I might add that that is exactly what Democrats did with the IRA. Democrats secured $1 billion for the Federal permitting offices so that they can do their jobs and they can do the jobs that are required by the IRA. It is already working.

The Biden-Harris administration cut 6 months off from the median time it takes for agencies to complete environmental impact statements, a 16 percent time savings compared to the Trump administration.

The Department of Energy has cut environmental review timelines in half, and the Department of Transportation has cut time by more than one-third. These are real permitting improvements, not wishful thinking like we have in this bill.

That is what is dangerous about this bill, the timelines are so short that many good project proposals will get permit denials unnecessarily, not because the application couldn't pass the environmental review, but because the bill forces a decision before the review is completed.

Instead of letting the applicant wait a few more days to get the review completed, the bill forces the agency to move ahead and deny the permit. This is going to set geothermal back right when we should be supporting it the most.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment would prevent this bill from creating a situation where the agency is required to decide on permits before the applicants have had a chance to go through environmental reviews.

Without my amendment, this bill will force the administration to deny permits to good geothermal projects that we should be supporting.

Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleagues to support the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.