ROWATA Act

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.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6011) to direct the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to notify applicants of the completion status of right-of-way applications under section 501 of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 and section 28 of the Mineral Leasing Act, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 6011, as amended, the bill now under consideration.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 6011, the Right-of-Way Application Transparency and Accountability Act.

H.R. 6011, introduced by Congressman Valadao, would expedite right- of-way applications on Federal lands for energy projects by requiring agencies to notify applicants within 90 days if the right-of-way application is complete or deficient.

The Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service would both be required to meet this deadline and specify the information needed for applicants that are deemed deficient.

The Federal Land Policy Management Act, or FLPMA, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture to grant rights-of-way on Federal lands for several activities that cause land disturbance. The Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 allows the respective Secretaries to issue rights-of-way for oil, natural gas, and refined product pipelines over Federal lands.

While both statutes include application requirements, neither includes timelines for the agencies to respond to applicants to tell them whether their applications are complete or deficient.

The lack of a timeline has created a bottleneck in the permitting process for energy projects that need a right-of-way to proceed, which is why this bill is needed.

During the Committee on Natural Resources' hearing on this bill, the American Clean Power Association testified in support of it and pointed out that the permitting system on Federal lands is overly burdensome and actively curtails investment.

Specifically, their testimony stated that ``delays are largely due to procedural inefficiencies in processing permits and have ripple effects throughout the economy, throwing off project timelines, domestic supply chains, and the indirect jobs and economic activity that would otherwise occur. Without further permitting reform, the United States may not be able to meet our growing energy demand.''

They also noted that the current average timeline for a project to obtain a right-of-way is often over 5 years, mainly due to the delays between filing an application and beginning the environmental review process.

That lag time, an unnecessary delay, is exactly what H.R. 6011 addresses.

This bill will also help expedite the process for rights-of-way for oil and gas gathering lines on Federal lands, which would help increase production while reducing emissions.

While this commonsense legislation is not a panacea for permitting on Federal lands, it does provide a meaningful step forward by allowing complete applications for energy projects to move forward and provide certainty to those with incomplete applications so that they can fix and resubmit those applications.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 6011, and I reserve the balance of my time.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Agriculture,

Washington, DC, March 7, 2024.

Hon. Bruce Westerman,

Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources, Washington, DC.

Dear Mr. Chairman: This letter confirms our mutual

understanding regarding H.R. 6011, the ``Right-Of-Way

Application Transparency and Accountability Act''. Thank you

for collaborating with the Committee on Agriculture on the

matters within our jurisdiction.

The Committee on Agriculture will forego any further

consideration of this bill. However, by foregoing

consideration at this time, we do not waive any jurisdiction

over any subject matter contained in this or similar

legislation. The Committee on Agriculture also reserves the

right to seek appointment of an appropriate number of

conferees should it become necessary and ask that you support

such a request.

We would appreciate a response to this letter confirming

this understanding with respect to H.R. 6011 and request a

copy of our letters on this matter be published in the

Congressional Record during Floor consideration.

Sincerely,

Glenn ``GT'' Thompson,

Chairman.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao).

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time. I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague from California, Mr. Valadao, for working across the aisle on this bipartisan, all-of- the-above energy bill.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 6011, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

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.

Mr. Chair, I thank the good chairman from Arkansas for his leadership on this issue.

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

To begin developing geothermal resources on Federal land, developers must first obtain a lease. While there is significant potential in this resource, 90 percent or thereabouts of the Nation's viable geothermal resources are located on Federal land. It makes lease sales crucial to the expansion of this energy source.

On the map behind me, Mr. Chair, you can tell just some of the regions where this resource is available, and it is vast. However, the time and costs associated with multiple environmental reviews, as well as the overall leasing and permitting processes, result in development schedules longer than many other power production projects.

The Geothermal Steam Act of 1970 currently requires the Secretary of the Interior to hold ``a competitive lease sale at least once every 2 years for land in a State that has nominations pending.'' However, this timeline is not always adhered to. As the chairman mentioned before me, some States, like California, have not held a competitive geothermal lease sale since 2016. If any State needs to be doing more proactive work for clean baseload, it would be our friends in California.

This legislation, H.R. 1449, amends the Geothermal Steam Act to require annual lease sales, instead of once every 2 years, for geothermal energy exploration on Federal land. Prioritizing geothermal exploration on Federal land will increase certainty for domestic companies looking to explore for geothermal resources while still requiring a full environmental assessment if the resources prove exploitable.

In addition, this bill requires the Department of the Interior to notify an applicant whether or not their application for a geothermal drilling permit is complete within 30 days of receiving the application.

I noticed my good friend across the aisle mentioned the resource concern for the Department of the Interior. There are some 70,000 employees in the Department of the Interior. If some need to be redirected, I am sure that can be accommodated.

If the Department of the Interior determines that an application is complete, then it must issue a final decision on the application within 30 days of the date the Department of the Interior sent the notification.

Securing American energy independence should be a top priority for Congress, and geothermal is a renewable, clean power source that can help us accomplish that goal.

Idaho already plays a leading role in geothermal energy production.

It is critical that we leverage every available resource to ensure that our Nation is self-sufficient and resilient in meeting its energy needs. Geothermal is a proven, clean, and efficient means to provide reliable baseload power.

Geothermal energy is one of the most promising and underutilized energy sources in the United States and has the potential to provide consistent power available 24/7, 365 days a year. The Department of the Interior projects that U.S. geothermal capacity could increase from the current 16 gigawatts to 38 gigawatts by 2035 and 90 gigawatts by 2050.

By expanding access to geothermal resources, we can increase energy production, create jobs, and reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, which are oftentimes not friendly to the United States.

By ensuring geothermal lease sales are held annually, we can provide more certainty for energy developers, reduce delays in the development process, and create good-paying jobs, all while helping to meet our energy goals and reduce our dependence on foreign energy.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this important legislation, and I look forward to working with each of my colleagues to advance reliable domestic energy for all Americans.