Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to "Miles City Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment".

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 672 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purposes 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, the Rules Committee met last night and reported out a rule providing for consideration of four measures.

Those measures are H.R. 4553, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act; H.J. Res. 104, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management related to ``Miles City Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment''; H.J. Res. 105, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to ``North Dakota Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan''; and H.J. Res. 106, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to ``Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan.''

House Resolution 672 provides for consideration of H.R. 4553, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act under a structured rule, making in order 36 amendments.

The rule provides for 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations or their respective designees and provides for one motion to recommit.

The rule further provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 104, H.J. Res. 105, and H.J. Res. 106, all under closed rules, with 1 hour of general debate each equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources and provides each one motion to recommit.

Finally, the rule provides that H. Res. 668 and H. Res. 605 are hereby adopted and House Res. 598 is laid on the table.

Today's rule, House Resolution 672, allows for debate on several measures including H.R. 4553, the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2026.

This appropriations bill funds many programs at the center of helping to assert our country's energy dominance. The bill cuts $766.4 million, when compared to last year's funding bill, by focusing our efforts on energy innovation and water infrastructure.

This appropriations bill provides funding to numerous scientific energy endeavors from nuclear fusion research, small modular reactors, nuclear fuel production, electric transmission system enhancements, energy storage, and traditional fossil fuel research.

At a time when energy demand from data centers and new manufacturing is increasing, these research efforts will greatly contribute to meeting the new normal. Our example is the increase of funding for nuclear energy projects, which will make more advanced nuclear fuel available and accelerate small modular and advanced reactor testing. The Department is also essential to our national security.

This appropriations bill has over $20 billion in funds for the management of our nuclear weapons stockpile and over $2 billion for our nuclear Navy.

This bill also funds numerous Army Corps of Engineers and Bureau of Reclamation projects to provide dredging to maintain navigable ports and rivers and water storage projects to increase the water supply in drought-ridden sections of our country, as well as helping to forestall flooding in areas from coastal regions to mountainous valley regions such as the area I represent.

The rule also provides for debate on H.J. Res. 104, H.J. Res. 105, and H.J. Res. 106, all of which are Congressional Review Act Resolutions of Disapproval.

These resolutions overturn the Biden administration's Bureau of Land Management plans that were aimed at restricting gold mining and oil and gas drilling on Federal lands.

H.J. Res. 104, sponsored by Congressman Downing of Montana, overturns the Montana Resource Management Plan, which would prohibit new coal mining on about 2.75 million acres of Federal land in Montana. This Bureau of Land Management rule would stop an estimated 30 percent of our country's coal reserves from being mined, even as electricity demand is increasing in the United States for the first time in over 10 years.

H.J. Res. 105, sponsored by my Energy and Commerce colleague, Congresswoman Fedorchak, would overturn a similar Bureau of Land Management Resource Management Plan for North Dakota. Under this Biden- Harris administration rule, 4 million acres of Federal land in North Dakota would not be available for coal mining or oil and gas extraction.

Additionally, the rule allows for debate on H.J. Res. 106, sponsored by Congressman Nick Begich of Alaska, which would nullify the Central Yukon Resource Management Plan. Under this rule, which affects 13.3 million acres of Federal land in Alaska, millions of acres would be barred from energy development.

Disallowing energy development on these lands will also hamstring efforts to get more American liquid natural gas onto the international market and improve our country's standing as the leading energy producer in the world.

We will also be considering a resolution that would direct the House Oversight Committee to continue their investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell files.

The Committee has already undertaken important steps in their investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Just this week, the committee met with the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. They have already issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice related to the Epstein records.

Further, they have already received over 33,000 documents from the Department of Justice with more on the way. Those 33,000 documents, Mr. Speaker, were released last night to the public.

The committee already has transcribed interviews scheduled and have other subpoenas out, as well. They are also doing this work in a bipartisan manner, and we must give them all the tools necessary to continue this important investigation.

This resolution will bring transparency into all the documents and records related to Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, flight logs, any individuals referenced in connection to Epstein, any entities with ties to Epstein, any agency internal documents, documents related to Epstein's detention and death, and other areas.

Mr. Speaker, there are strings attached to this resolution, as well, to ensure that we have full transparency, such as requiring written justification requirements for certain documents that are redacted, unless they fall under certain sensitive categories.

This is a critical step forward in providing transparency into the Epstein files and will give the public all the necessary information.

This vote will show the American people we are committed to full transparency and cooperation when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein and the investigation thereof.

Lastly, this rule is standing up a new select committee to continue investigation of the events surrounding January 6. They will bring more transparency and continue to investigate

what happened that day so the American public is aware of the facts involved.

I believe this new subcommittee is another critical step forward to bringing more transparency to everyone about the events and details surrounding that day. I hope Members of this House support the passage of the rule and the underlying bills and resolutions.

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

Mr. Speaker, I believe that would apply to Members of Congress being called names, would it not. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is so fascinating how facts don't seem to matter sometimes on the floor. The only administration that has ever released anything on the Epstein files is the Trump administration. Last night, the House Oversight and Reform Committee released over 33,000 files. Now they say that 97 percent of it had already been released, 33,000 files. That is a lot of files.

Let's take that 97 percent and say that it is accurate for argument and for argument only.

That means that of 33,000 files, 3 percent of that is new. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I will tell you, as I was going through clips this morning, I noticed one conservative news source that said: Eureka, the missing minute surrounding Epstein's death is in the material that has been released.

There has been a lot of controversy about that. A lot of people want to know about it, and there it is.

More and more information is coming out, and it is coming out because of the Trump administration and because of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

However, somehow if we don't adhere to the exact demands of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, then we are not doing it right. I submit to you,

Mr. Speaker, that the House Oversight and Reform Committee is doing it right. They are going through it.

As I pointed out in my opening, Mr. Speaker, if they decide to use one of the limited areas that they could do a redaction, then they have to explain why. If the administration doesn't turn over some information, if they redact information before sending it to the House, then they have to explain why.

Of course, some of the information that you want to protect, Mr. Speaker, is information related to victims that has not yet been in the press.

Why would we want to take young women who were victims of Epstein and his colleagues and who don't want to have their name in the press, why would we suddenly expose them to that?

Of course, we don't want to do that, so there has to be some limited areas where redactions have to occur, but all of that has to be explained.

Then they bring up the President's comments this morning about a hoax. They are trying to mislead, in my opinion, some are trying to mislead the American people into thinking that the President said that Epstein and the investigation was a hoax. It is not what he said.

Mr. Speaker, if you look at what he said, it was the controversy over the Epstein files that was a hoax because they have been releasing more data than any other administration.

I say that because the Biden administration had all this information, and they didn't release it. They had 4 years. They could have released it all. They didn't choose to do it, and now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle somehow want to claim that it is a conspiracy by Trump to hide information that was in the hands of their party's President and their party's Department of Justice. It was in their hands, and they didn't release it, but somehow it is our fault. Mr. Speaker, it is the Republicans' fault that the Biden administration didn't do what they now claim that the Trump administration should be doing.

It is hard to understand that logic, but somehow we are at fault, Mr. Speaker, for them not doing the job that they think we should have made their President do.

It is fascinating. It is absolutely fascinating.

Then, of course, we get to all the consternation about this January 6th Committee. This is an outgrowth of an investigation that started as a part of the House Administration Committee.

I served on the subcommittee that was doing that investigation. It is really interesting. That group, and I was a part of it, found that there was more than one terabyte of missing data. Based on the inventory of the digest and statements from Chairman Thompson, there should have been four terabytes turned over, and there were only three. That is equivalent to 6.5 million document pages as PDFs or office files, 500 hours of high-definition video, or 250,000 photos. The depositions were not filed properly or they weren't filed at all and archived as they are supposed to be, and as the rule that set up the prior committee said, they were supposed to be there.

I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that as a former member of this preceding group, we are just trying to get the data that is missing. We are trying to make sure we put all the information on the table. We want the files released that were out there. We want to find that missing terabyte of information. Some of it has been recovered, but not all of it, and that work needs to be continued.

Further, the House Administration subcommittee didn't have the power to subpoena records. I would submit that it is necessary just to get all the information out.

As I said last night to my colleagues, as a person who loves history and has a history degree, I need to get all the documents on the table, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and let history determine what occurred on that day.

There is no point in trying to hide it. I don't understand why my colleagues on the other side want to hide a terabyte. A fourth of what the prior committee did was never properly turned over to the House. That information belongs to the House and to the people of the United States. It does not belong hidden somewhere in a drawer or destroyed.

Unfortunately, because of that lack of turning over the records in a proper manner to the House, we have to continue the work that was not done by the previous Democrat-controlled--I know they had two Republicans on it, but they weren't the Members picked by the House Republicans, and it wasn't in the numbers usually allocated or originally called for, for a select committee.

We are going to do it right, and we are going to put the information on the table. We are going to let the American people make a judgment now, and let the historians argue over what happened on that day as time moves forward.

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

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

Let me state up front that I make no apology for being pro-U.S. energy. I make no apology for saying that the United States needs more electric power. I make no apology for saying we can get that electric power with things like these bills that are in this rule today. It works on small modular reactors. It works on nuclear. It works on fusion. It works on coal. It works on making sure that we have the ability to mine the coal in the United States. It makes sure we have the ability to extract our oil and our natural gas resources.

If we want to compete with the Chinese, Mr. Speaker, we are going to have to up our game on producing electric power. It is fascinating to me that when we hear these debates, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will often point out--in fact, they did it last night--that the Chinese are doing so much more with wind and solar. They never mention that the Chinese are building dozens of new power plants, as we speak, powered by coal.

If we are going to use the Chinese as the model that we are supposed to follow in generating electricity, we should, therefore, not be closing down all of our coal power plants.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, the coal in the United States and the way that we burn it is much cleaner than the way the Chinese burn it in their plants. We need to be working on making sure that we have new energy development, which the energy and water bill does, and ways that we can burn that coal and our natural gas even cleaner than we are doing today, even though we produce electricity cleaner with our fossil fuels than any other country in the world.

Guess what we can do, Mr. Speaker. If we can continue to move forward and build new plants and show how this new technology can be used, we can then be the ones who are exporting it to sub-Saharan Africa and India instead of having the Chinese exporting facilities and the technologies that are from the 1960s and 1970s, instead of the technologies that are available today.

When you talk about the air on the planet Earth, Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you that the air is shared by all of us. In fact, there is a NASA study that I often cite that says it takes air 10 days to get from the middle of the Gobi Desert to the eastern shore of Virginia. That is why a majority of the mercury in California comes from Asia and not from the plants in California. It comes from overseas.

Mr. Speaker, the more that we can do with our fossil fuel plants and our technologies to make our processes cleaner and then export it to the rest of the world, the more we can do to clean up the air in the world as a whole because the air is not something that uniquely belongs to the United States. It doesn't sit over one town very long. Sometimes we get a little inversion in the Roanoke area and it sits there for a few days, but it doesn't sit there for weeks and months and years. We need to be looking at the worldwide issue in regard to that.

Mr. Speaker, I make no apology for supporting bills that will take care of making sure that we can, in this Nation, as a nation, all of us, profit and have the AI needed and have the electricity needed for data centers instead of giving it and ceding it to the Chinese because we don't want to work on oil, natural gas, and coal because somehow my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided that those resources are not appropriate to be used in the United States.

If we want to be a second-rate country, have at it, but that is not what I stand for, Mr. Speaker. I stand for us being the leading energy producer in the world and making sure that we do it as clean as possible so that we can export our clean coal technology, our clean natural gas facilities, new fusion if we can get there, new modular reactors, and export that technology to the world and be the leader in the world when it comes to energy production; but, number one, making sure that we take care of our needs in the United States as we are looking at not having enough electricity going forward to keep our economy as the number one economy in the world.

Mr. Speaker, I often tell people back home that this is important not just for today but for the generations to come because when you look at the powers in the economic sphere in the past, some very small nations have reached into the future and benefited their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

In fact, I often talk about Royal Dutch Shell Group, Shell Oil, which was a derivative. Mr. Speaker, you can attack how they got the money because it was all part of colonialism, and I get that. Yet, because they were the number one economic nation in the world from roughly 1650 to 1700, there are still people and families in the Netherlands who are benefiting. Notwithstanding the fact that they moved their headquarters to London, they are benefiting from the fact that, at one time, their nation was the number one economic nation in the world.

I want that for the United States. I want us to be the number one economic nation as long as possible so that children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren out 10 generations will benefit.

Mr. Speaker, I make no apologies for supporting these bills that we have in this rule today and supporting the fact that American energy is predominant and should remain a major force in the world instead of ceding everything to the Chinese.

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

Mr. Speaker, this Epstein situation is very serious, and I take it as such. We have victims whose lives can never be made whole, and this debate has taken on a life of its own. In many ways, it is illogical.

On the one hand, we have the resolution included in the rule that has subpoena power and has broader authority than the Massie-Khanna piece of legislation that my colleagues on the other side want. It gives us the ability to subpoena banking records, estate files, and depositions, none of which are required in the Massie bill.

Further, I find it interesting, because ours is a resolution that gives the endorsement of the House, gives more power in the oomph behind the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's hard work.

The opposing piece of legislation, Mr. Speaker, should it pass the House, goes over to the Senate. Should it pass the Senate, it requires the signature of the very President who they say wants to block it.

I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the American people, it would only be logical to go with the one that can get voted on in the House and have action going forward and have action taking place that deals with these serious issues and brings to light every piece of information that we can put on the table with the rare exceptions of a few redactions, which have to be explained and some of which are necessary to protect some of the victims themselves because they don't want to have their names out there in the public.

Mr. Speaker, I don't understand it. If what we want is the information, we should pass this rule and move forward, and not have to rely on passage in the Senate and signature by the President.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, in regard to energy, I can tell you that I represent a region of the country where when we were using our coal resources, which God has blessed us with abundantly, we had the third or fourth lowest electric rates in the country.

Then suddenly fossil fuels became a bad idea. Even natural gas, oh, my gosh, we can't use it, and the electric rates keep going up and up and up. My district is not a wealthy district, and the people in my district are complaining because their electricity rates are going up.

One of the major drivers are prior Democratic policies, Mr. Speaker, that said we are not going to be doing any more coal-fired power plants. We are not going to encourage natural gas to be used to create electricity, and we stranded the assets.

Now, as you know, Mr. Speaker, what that means is that they are paying for the electricity generated by wind and solar, and they are paying for the electricity that was there for plants that were opened which have not met their full expectation or life cycle.

For example, there is a facility in my district that I went to the ribbon cutting on in 2012 that Democrats in the Commonwealth of Virginia, including some of my esteemed colleagues on the other side from that great Commonwealth, thought it was appropriate to say: Let's close that down early.

It opened in 2012 with a 50-to-60 year life expectancy, and they wanted to close it down somewhere around 2035 or 2040, well before its life expectancy is up. What that does is that pushes the power companies to have to find different and more expensive ways, as it turns out, to create that electricity.

What this bill does is, it pushes us on nuclear, which if you don't want to use fossil, that is the only way you can get the baseload power to supply us and make us competitive with the Chinese in the field of AI. Yet, somehow, once again my colleagues on the other side of the aisle cannot realize that it is the policies of their prior Congresses and their prior administrations which, in large measure--not exclusively, but in large measure have caused the spike--not a general increase, not inflation level, but a spike over and above your general inflation--on the cost of energy in this country.

If we get back to the basics, if we pass this rule--we have three CRAs and the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriation Act, all of which help make the United States of America more viable when it comes to energy and makes those electric prices that my colleagues said was one of the bigger concerns that she heard when touring around the Commonwealth--the cost of those energy prices will go down if we pass this rule and pass the underlying bills. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am.

Mr. Speaker, this rule covers a number of topics, and we have been over them--energy, water. We didn't get much into the full funding of the Army Corps so they can help take care of flooding problems in my district and other districts, take care of water problems, et cetera.

We have argued for over an hour, most of it being the same repetitive things. This rule gives that extra oomph. It shows the support for the work that the Oversight Committee is doing regarding the Epstein files. It moves us forward on energy and water. It moves us forward on energy production in the United States. It moves us forward on nuclear power and making sure that we are using it in a responsible but effective way so that we can continue to be the world's leader when it comes to energy production, instead of handcuffing our capabilities.

We have gone over a lot of serious issues. The American people who are paying attention to this have already heard all of those arguments.

Mr. Speaker, I will simply say that I hope that all the Members of this House will support the passage of this rule. It is important for a number of reasons, and I hope they will pass the underlying bills and resolutions when those come up.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Griffith) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, here we go again. Mr. Speaker, here we go again. This rule is insane. Notwithstanding the gentleman's monotone delivery, there is a lot going on here in this rule, and much of it is not good.

What are Republicans doing the first week back? Are they doing something to lower food costs as Trump's tariffs drive prices up? No.

Are they doing something to fully fund the government before it shuts down in less than a month? No.

Are they doing something to help with skyrocketing healthcare prices or reversing their devastating cuts to Medicaid? No.

They are doing none of that. They are doing nothing to help regular people. They are doing nothing to help workers, families, or people struggling to get by.

Instead, Mr. Speaker, these guys are continuing to cover up the Epstein files.

Republicans are deeming as passed--which means no debate, no hearing, and no markup--they are deeming as passed a new, fake Epstein resolution and killing their last fake Epstein resolution.

All the while we already have a real, bipartisan bill to unseal all these files. It is the Massie-Khanna bill. Last night, every single Republican on the Rules Committee voted against that bipartisan bill, every single one.

As if that is not bad enough, every single Republican on the Rules Committee also voted to create, out of thin air, a brand-new committee to rewrite the history of what happened here on January 6, 2021.

They are so desperate to paper over what happened that day, to whitewash it and to pretend it was a normal tourist visit. I was here, Mr. Speaker, here in this Chamber where you are sitting right now, and you can be damn sure I am not going to let anyone pretend that January 6 was a normal tourist visit. However, Republicans, the gentleman from Virginia included, refuse to even display a plaque to honor the police officers who were here that day.

I am so sick of this BS about how Republicans support law enforcement. Mr. Griffith and every other Republican on the Rules Committee voted against displaying a plaque to honor the law enforcement officers who were here on January 6. That plaque, Mr. Speaker, already exists. Congress already passed a law to create it, and the Speaker just refuses to display it.

Why? Why would he refuse to do it?

I know why, and we all know why. It is the same reason why every Republican voted against releasing the Epstein files. It is because Rules Republicans are scared as hell.

This is not a deliberative body anymore. Under this Republican majority, Congress has become a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. This is all about the ego of the man who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Republicans think they work for Trump. They are obsessed with him. It is pathetic.

Republicans are ruining this institution, Mr. Speaker. They are destroying this institution. Again, let me repeat: Every single Republican on the Rules Committee voted against releasing the Epstein files, every single one.

We heard last night that all Republicans want full transparency, but that is just not true.

Mr. Speaker, let me read you a quote from the top Republican in this country, President Donald J. Trump. This is what he says about the Epstein files: ``It has all been a big hoax. It is perpetrated by the Democrats and some stupid Republicans.''

At a press availability just minutes ago, the President again said that this is all a hoax.

Now, what do Republicans think of that?

Donald Trump says this is all a hoax, and if you want to release the files you are stupid.

Now, I am not surprised. I am not surprised the guy who once called Epstein a ``terrific guy'' and who Epstein considered his closest friend is not actually interested in getting to the truth.

Do you know when this clicked in for me, Mr. Speaker, and for a lot of people?

It clicked after Trump won and then the backtracking began. It clicked again yesterday. It clicked after the same Republican leaders who invited influencers to the White House and then passed out binders about the soon-to-be-released client list suddenly changed their tune. It clicked again yesterday when phase two of the binders came out, more information released that has already been released. Mr. Speaker, 97 percent of it has already been released. It clicked when the same MAGA politicians who once pledged to release everything suddenly came up with more excuses, more delays, and more stalling tactics. What is obvious to everyone is that someone is hiding something.

While all of this stalling goes on, what happens?

Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's partner in crime, winds up in a cushy, country club prison courtesy of Trump's political appointees. There is not a word of outrage from the Republican majority, not a whisper of accountability, just silence.

Now let's not pretend that this is complicated. It is pretty obvious what is going on. The Trump administration has the power to release the Epstein files today. They could redact names to protect victims and survivors and deliver the truth, but they refuse.

There is a simple through line to all of this, Mr. Speaker. We all know why Republicans are doing this with the Epstein files. We all know why Republicans refuse to display the plaque honoring the brave law enforcement officers who protected our democracy and protected all of us on January 6. We all know why Republicans vote again and again and again for all these giveaways for the rich and powerful.

It is Donald Trump. He wants to rewrite history. He wants to hide the truth about Jeffrey Epstein, and he wants to continue his giveaways to the well-off and the well-connected.

This is all straight out of the authoritarian playbook, Mr. Speaker, and you can bet your ass we are going to continue fighting like hell to oppose this insanity.

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

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

This is laughable. It is also unconscionable. We know what is going on here. This is an attempt to distract and to rewrite the history of January 6. Quite frankly, it is offensive. It is offensive to the brave men and women who protected our lives on that day.

There is not a bunch of destroyed evidence like the gentleman claims. That is just not accurate. The select committee complied with the requirements of the resolution establishing it, in consultation with the Clerk of the House and the document retention precedents of other committees of this House. The select committee's final report and its support materials are posted publicly online. Just to be sure, I checked again today. All of them, every single page of every transcript, are posted online publicly. Maybe the gentleman can't find them. I would be happy to give him the website information.

The truth is, they just don't like what the evidence shows, so they want to go on a fishing expedition to try to twist the truth instead of accepting the fact of that day. The fact is this: The people who stormed the Capitol and beat police officers, in order to try to stop the peaceful transition of power, were supporters of Donald Trump, period. It was one of the most shameful and darkest episodes in our democracy. No fishing expedition for alternative facts is going to change the reality.

What is particularly offensive is that Donald Trump pardoned all these people, pardoned the people who beat the police officers who protect all of us every single day. It is shameful.

In speaking about the Epstein files, again, I am looking at the video of a few minutes ago, of Donald Trump speaking to reporters and calling all of this a hoax, the Epstein files a hoax. He is not talking about what we are doing here.

Let me just say to the gentleman and anybody else who wants to know: Listen to what the victims were asking for outside this Capitol just a few minutes ago, the survivors, the survivors of Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell. Listen to what the survivors have been saying. They want the Massie-Khanna bill passed. They want something with teeth in it that will force this administration to comply because they don't trust that they will.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), a distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, that is an awful lot of words to defend the fossil fuel industry. While the gentleman was defending Big Oil and all these big corporations that rip off the American people by charging exorbitant prices for energy and while he was going on that tirade, I went back and I listened to Donald Trump's press conference at the White House.

Not only did he call the move to release the Epstein files a Democratic hoax, he said it was designed to get the American people to focus in on something that was irrelevant.

Mr. Speaker, let that sink in. If you listened to the survivors who were in front of the Capitol just a few minutes ago and listened to their horror stories, that is irrelevant? That the President of the United States of America would say something like that is pathetic.

He could very easily put all of this controversy to rest by just releasing the files, and that is why we need to

pass the Massie-Khanna bill because we could actually pass a bill that would compel him to do that.

What you all did in the Rules Committee last night is a resolution that doesn't really mean anything. It is designed as cover. Quite frankly, it is not enough.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am going to thank the gentleman for publicly splitting with the President of the United States. He said that the Epstein matter was a serious matter. The President just a few minutes ago said it was irrelevant. I think it takes a little courage for Republicans these days to stand up to the President.

I do want to point out for the Record that the resolution that is deemed passed in this rule grants no new authority, no new power, and no new nothing to the Oversight Committee. It doesn't do anything.

If you want to do something, you can go to the well and you can sign the discharge petition to allow us to vote on the Massie-Khanna bill, which would compel and force the Justice Department to release the files.

If the President, by the way, wants to veto that bill, I would like to think that Democrats and Republicans unanimously would join together to override such a veto. I can't imagine anybody here wanting to defend the indefensible.

We have another way you could be helpful here. If we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of H.R. 4405, the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, introduced by Representatives Khanna and Massie.

Mr. Speaker, Republican leadership is twisting themselves into knots trying to look like they are doing something on Epstein to give their Members something to vote on, anything for political cover, while also not upsetting the President.

That is why they have deemed in this rule a nonbinding resolution to tell the Oversight Committee to keep doing what they are already doing, which, best as I can tell, is to slow roll the release of documents that the DOJ seems to think are acceptable to the President for release.

Mr. Speaker, the American people didn't ask for an Oversight Committee investigation. They asked for all the Epstein files to be released, the very thing that the Trump administration promised and then suspiciously backtracked on.

This bill is bipartisan, and it is the only legislation on Epstein that has the force of law. It has the votes to pass. The survivors of Epstein's and Maxwell's crimes spoke today at the Capitol demanding this very bill get passed. Republican leaders need to stop standing in the way, and now is their chance.

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 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Khanna) to discuss our proposal, the sponsor of this bipartisan legislation.

Mr. Speaker, it seems lonely over there.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Virginia (Ms. McClellan).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Jersey (Ms. Pou).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, a vote for this rule is also a vote to create a new select subcommittee to investigate the remaining questions regarding the insurrection on January 6, 2021.

I have a radical idea. Instead of wasting time creating a select subcommittee to investigate January 6, maybe, just maybe, we should read the report that the January 6th Select Committee already finished in 2022. Here it is: thousands of pages, millions of records, testimony from Trump's own people. You could use it as a doorstop, it is so thorough.

But no, Republicans want to rewrite history. If we were all being honest here, that is what this is all about: Pretend January 6 was just a field trip gone wrong; pretend the police weren't bludgeoned, crushed, or tased; pretend the gallows outside this building were just some kind of art installation.

It is insulting. It is a slap in the face to every officer who put their body on the line to save ours. Here is the kicker: This majority still hasn't even hung the plaque honoring those officers, a plaque required by law--required by law. Instead of a sham committee, how about you get a screwdriver and hang the damn plaque because every day it sits in a box is another day Republicans dishonor the heroes who defended this place.

If they insist on this little circus, at least investigate something real, like why Donald Trump pardoned people who assaulted police officers. One of those men is now serving a life sentence for plotting to murder nearly 40 law enforcement officers and blow up the FBI. His lawyers even tried to argue that Trump's pardon should cover his murder plot.

Another pardoned rioter committed a home invasion less than 4 months

later. I bet those homeowners wish he had been behind bars serving his 8-year sentence for assaulting cops instead of terrorizing their family.

In fact, at least 10 of Trump's pardoned insurrectionists have already been re-arrested, charged, or sentenced for other crimes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself an additional 15 seconds.

Quite a record. Maybe we should call this new panel the subcommittee on criminal recidivism by Trump's friends.

But let's be honest. That is not what this is about. This is about distraction, another shiny object, because the majority doesn't want to talk about the things that they are actually blocking, like the bipartisan effort to release the Epstein files.

I will make it simple. Stop rewriting history. Stop wasting time. Stop dishonoring the police. Follow the law, for God's sake. Hang the plaque.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman prepared to close?

He has no more speakers?

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining.

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

Mr. Speaker, what we have heard today is excuse after excuse after excuse, diversion after diversion, but no answers to the questions that I have asked: Why won't the Trump administration release the Epstein files? Why won't the Speaker hang up the plaque honoring the law enforcement officers who defended our democracy on January 6? Why do Republicans continue voting time and time and time again to help their rich and powerful friends?

I know the answer, Mr. Speaker. The answer is because of the man who occupies the Oval Office. Republicans want to let Trump rewrite history to protect the rich and powerful perpetrators of Epstein's crimes, to protect the people who came into this building to desecrate our democracy, and to protect his wealthy donors and Big Oil who want another giveaway.

At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, this is about trust. How can the American people trust Republicans when they promised to release the Epstein files, and then they broke that promise? How can Americans trust Republicans when they claim to support law enforcement, and then they want to rewrite the truth about what happened on January 6? How can we trust Republicans, who want to ignore the fact that Trump pardoned people who brutally assaulted law enforcement officers? How can they be trusted?

How can anyone trust Republicans, when they negotiated spending bills, bills which have become law only to let Donald Trump illegally shut down Federal agencies in direct violation of those negotiations?

I don't trust these guys to tell me the correct time, let alone trust them to do what is right for the American people.

The way to restore trust is simple: Hang the January 6 plaque honoring the officers who defended our democracy on that day, stop the giveaways for those at the top, and release the damn Epstein files. The victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's horrific crimes were outside the Capitol Building this morning to demand that we pass the bipartisan Khanna-Massie bill to release these files.

Mr. Speaker, we have a bill to do it. Stop delaying, stop obstructing, stop protecting the powerful perpetrators of these crimes, and just release the damn files. I urge a ``hell, no'' on this rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 672, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 104) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to ``Miles City Field Office Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment'', and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 104.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.J. Res. 104, sponsored by Representative Downing of Montana.

This Congressional Review Act resolution would permanently repeal the Bureau of Land Management's misguided resource management plan amendment for the Miles City Field Office in Montana, finalized under the Biden administration.

This resource management plan, or RMP, amendment locked up 11.7 million acres of land and mineral estate. To put that in perspective, that is an area roughly the size of the States of Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, and New Jersey combined.

RMPs are meant to be collaborative approaches to land management that balance multiple uses, including energy and mineral production, outdoor recreation, grazing, and timber harvesting. When done correctly, RMPs help guide public land management in a way that provides fuel, food, and fiber for the Nation and conserves our natural resources.

RMPs manage the resources that are the backbone of western rural economies and support thousands of good-paying jobs. That is what makes the Miles City Resource Management Plan amendment so egregious.

This RMP amendment virtually ended future coal leasing across Montana's entire Powder River Basin, dealing a severe blow to America's energy security and threatening Montana jobs and economic growth.

The national security and economic importance of this region cannot be overstated. Montana holds nearly 30 percent of our Nation's coal reserves. In total, coal from the Powder River Basin produced in Montana and Wyoming makes up about 85 percent of Federal coal production and 40 percent of overall coal production in the entire United States.

Coal is reliable and affordable, and we know we are going to need this critical resource of baseload power as electricity demands continue to skyrocket. If your State has coal, we should be developing it, not burying it under bureaucracy. No one produces coal cleaner or more responsibly than the United States. Nobody understands this better than President Trump, who is reversing the war on American energy and ushering in a new age of energy dominance. He is putting Montana over Moscow and the Powder River Basin over the PRC.

By passing the CRA today, we are advancing President Trump's executive orders on unleashing American energy and reinvigorating America's beautiful clean coal industry.

The CRA will immediately reinstate future coal leasing and open access to 37.8 billion short tons of coal, enough to meet U.S. demand for the next 73 years.

In addition, passing Representative Downing's CRA will unleash Montana's coal industry and generate millions of dollars in revenue for the Federal Government and the State of Montana.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this CRA will generate $16 million in revenue for the Federal Government over the next decade. This resolution also protects approximately $46 million in annual revenue for Montana's K-12 public education system.

These estimates are conservative, as they don't account for the thousands of good-paying jobs supported by Montana's coal industry and the broad positive economic effects of producing energy here at home.

The CRA isn't just about Montana. Energy security is national security, and Montana's mining industry plays a vital role in ensuring America and our allies maintain a strategic energy advantage over our adversaries.

We can be sure of one thing: The people who benefit from America not harnessing our abundant natural resources are currently sitting in Beijing, China, where they are building new coal-fired power plants at the rate of one per week. In this global energy race, we cannot afford to lose.

Unleashing American energy should not be a partisan issue. Harnessing and unleashing American energy brings down electricity prices for families and boosts real wages for hardworking

Americans who keep our economy running.

This CRA is about grid reliability, energy affordability, and ensuring that States across the country have access to dispatchable baseload power, especially during extreme weather and peak demand. It will create jobs, generate millions of dollars in revenue, and provide for our national security.

I commend the entire Montana delegation, Representatives Downing and Zinke, and Senators Daines and Sheehy, for their tireless work and leadership on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support the CRA, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, all Americans should have on the top of their priority list energy security and national security. When we block off millions of acres of land from any kind of energy development, that is something that should come right up to the top of priorities.

I heard mention of balance. To think that there was balance in the RMP that the Biden administration put out, especially on this land in Montana, is no kind of balance that I have ever seen. It is totally unbalanced. It locks things down, shuts things off, and leaves the American people to deal with the ramifications of it, with higher energy prices, less reliable energy, and also less national security.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Downing), the lead sponsor of this legislation, who, along with Representative Zinke, knows more about Montana than anybody else in the House.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that the CRAs do have Tribal consultation. If there wasn't Tribal consultation, it was during the development of the RMP.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from the Navajo Transitional Energy Company in support of the CRA repealing the Miles City RMP amendment.

Navajo Transitional

Energy Company,

Broomfield, CO, July 18, 2025.

Hon. Steve Daines,

U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Dear Senator Daines: On behalf of over one thousand

employees, I write to express my strong support for S.J. Res.

61, which seeks to rescind the 2024 Miles City Resource

Management Plan Amendment (``RMPA'') under the Congressional

Review Act (``CRA''). Navajo Transitional Energy Company, LLC

(``NTEC'') is the third largest thermal coal producer in the

United States. NTEC is unique in that it was formed in 2013

by the Navajo Nation to ``promote the development of the

Navajo Nation's resources and new sources of energy, power,

transmission and attendant resources to develop the economic,

financial, social and cultural well-being of the Navajo

People and the Navajo Nation.'' See Navajo Nation Council

Resolution CAP-20-13 (2013), NTEC is, thus, a Navajo Nation

limited liability company with one shareholder, the Navajo

Nation. NTEC owns and operates three surface coal mines

within the Powder River Basin, including one mine--the Spring

Creek Mine--located in Montana and within the U.S. Bureau of

Land Management's Miles City Office's Resource Management

Planning Area.

As NTEC's Chief Executive Officer, I've seen firsthand how

the RMPA prohibits the leasing and development of new federal

coal. The overwhelming majority of the coal within the RMPA

is either federal coal or coal granted to the State of

Montana. The RMPA prohibits the development of all such coal

because it is physically and economically impossible to only

develop coal resources possessed by the State of Montana. The

RMPA will hinder not only Montana's economic growth, as well

as that of the entire Powder River Basin but also disrupt

America's vital energy security well into the future.

The current RMPA prohibits the leasing of federal coal,

leaving skilled workers questioning the sustainability of the

current economic environment. Passing the CRA resolution

sends a clear message to families, small businesses, and

energy partners that Montana is open for responsible

development. I urge the Senate to support S.J. Res. 61 so we

can secure Montana's economic future and maintain America's

hard fought energy independence.

Returning to the 2015 RMP--and allowing leasing that

balances energy security with environmental stewardship--will

yield these immediate results:

A surge in local capital investment as energy companies bid

on new leases, stimulating equipment sales and service

contracts.

Increases to county and state tax revenues to fund schools,

roads, and public safety.

Job creation not only in mining but also in construction,

trucking, and professional services supporting mining

operations.

Spur millions in royalty payments to state and federal

coffers, offsetting budget shortfalls.

Preserve family-sustaining wages for miners, engineers, and

support staff across Montana.

A stable, domestic fuel source that lowers electricity

costs for manufacturers and keeps Montana competitive.

Securing a domestic fuel source to supply affordable

baseload power during a period of unprecedented electricity

demand growth and ballooning projected future development.

The RMPA unfairly targets coal at the expense of working

families and rural economies. Congressional disapproval under

the CRA is the swiftest remedy and will pave the way for a

thoughtfully drafted future management plan that guarantees

the prosperity of the United States, Montana, and

individuals. I urge the Senate to vote ``yes'' on this

resolution and help safeguard Montana's economic backbone for

generations.

Thank you for your leadership on this critical issue.

Sincerely,

Vern K. Lund,

Chief Executive Officer.

Mr. Speaker, the Navajo Transitional Energy Company is the third largest coal producer in the United States and operates three mines in the Powder River Basin. They were strongly opposed to the previous RMP amendment and support this CRA to ``preserve family- sustaining wages for miners, engineers, and support staff across Montana.'' The NTEC also stated that the RMP ``prohibits the leasing of Federal coal, leaving skilled workers questioning the sustainability of the current economic environment. Passing the CRA resolution sends a clear message to families, small businesses, and energy partners that Montana is open for responsible development.''

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Hageman).

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

Mr. Speaker, in regard to my colleague's request for a colloquy, I will just say that it is necessary to do a CRA because the previous administration issued bad resource management plans. Had they not issued bad resource management plans, then we wouldn't be here today.

The thing about a CRA is if Congress passes this law, then another administration can't go back and put it in place. I think that is why my colleagues fear this process of using the CRA because then it would be up to a future Congress to go back and undo what we do in this Congress if we actually pass a Congressional Review Act.

Again, we are here today because the Biden administration decided to unbalance the scales and put onerous burdens on States, on our natural resources, and on the ability to produce our energy here.

Mr. Speaker, they started it by issuing the bad RMP. Hopefully, we will finish it by passing the CRA.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. Boebert).

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

Mr. Speaker, I do have ideological reasons for wanting to lower energy costs across America. The last time I checked at the gas pump, the energy prices are going down there. We are seeing a huge demand for energy across this country that is being driven even more by AI and data centers with unimaginable amounts of energy required for these facilities.

I heard about the announcement of a data center that would require the amount of electricity to run the city of Denver five times over in a year. One data center needs that much energy.

We see electric prices increase because there is more demand for electricity. We have had horrible energy policy in the past, and we haven't kept up with the demand.

The Chinese, on the other hand, are building new coal-fired plants. Every 2

days, they are building a new coal-fired plant, which is even harder to imagine. They are trying to beat us in this race on AI, and they are not going to let energy be the deciding factor on that.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a good thing that we have this tool called the Congressional Review Act that asserts the Article I authority that Congress has. You see, Mr. Speaker, we don't have to go begging a Secretary or asking the administration what actions we take. We get to determine which actions we take, and the Congressional Review Act is one of those tools that we have to take a big hammer to a bad policy.

I am glad that we are taking that big hammer to a terrible policy. We are also making it so that a future administration can't enact another bad policy like the ones that were put into place with these three RMPs that we will be addressing today. That is a good thing.

It is a good thing that we are focusing on unleashing American energy. The time to do that is now. The time to restore balanced management to our public lands is now.

It is now time to put Big Sky Country ahead of Beijing. It is past time that we do that. If allowed to continue, the Miles City RMP amendment developed by the previous administration could have devastating impacts on Montana and the entire U.S. economy.

Passing this CRA will help reinvigorate America's coal industry. Also it will unleash American energy.

In my district, I have a coal-fired plant that was built in 2010. To my knowledge, that was the last coal-fired plant built in the United States. Again, I mentioned earlier that China is building 120 gigawatts a year. That is one every 2 days, one of those 650-megawatt coal plants every 2 days that they are putting on line.

What are we doing with coal plants across America?

We have been closing them down. They provide reliable baseload energy.

That coal plant in my district that provides energy to businesses and energy to homes can't operate without coal, and that coal comes from the Powder River Basin. When we harness our resources out West and use those, it is a good thing, but when we lock them up, then we keep electricity from being affordable and we keep it from being reliable not just for constituents in Montana but for people all across this country.

That is exactly one of the many reasons I am supporting this CRA today. It means affordable, reliable energy. It means improved national security. It means good-paying jobs for rural Americans and millions of dollars in revenue for the U.S. Treasury.

Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. President, colleagues, I think there is a tendency in this place, but probably in the country, writ large, to compartmentalize each news cycle, to get outraged by every new contest to free speech or to the rule of law or to the power of Congress, but to really never see the full picture. Yesterday's assault on a particular democratic norm is forgotten, and we just wake up the next day to some new outrage.

And I know that when people like me start talking about creeping authoritarianism in America, a lot of my Republican colleagues tune out. They think it is hyperbole or just politics. But I think it is time for all of us--Republicans and Democrats--to really step back and come to terms with the full picture of what is happening right now in America.

I know that there are many Republicans in this Chamber who are not ready to give up on democracy, but there are a group of radicals surrounding the President who have convinced him to operationalize a plan that is designed to try to crush political opposition and dissent in this country.

When democracies die, sometimes it is in a coup; sometimes it is through violence; sometimes it is the occupation of the Parliament building; sometimes it is the cancellation of elections. But normally, that is not how democracies wither and vanish.

In countries that have lost healthy democracy, normally what happens is that, over time, the regime--the party in power--just contracts the space for dissent, for speech, for political opposition such that, while elections still happen, the opposition party can never win. The rules get rigged, essentially, so that the party in power never ever loses. That is the plan. That is what President Trump and the radicals around him are trying to do to America.

I know that many of my colleagues aren't on board for this plan, but I worry that many of my colleagues refuse to see it in its totality because they deal with one outrage at a time. They justify one assault at a time without seeing the full scope of it.

We aren't on the verge of an authoritarian takeover; we are in the middle of it. Now, it is not a fait accompli. It is not certain to be successful. But if we aren't clear-eyed about what is happening, then we have no chance to arrest it.

If my Republican colleagues don't force themselves to pull back and see the totality of what is happening to the political opposition--it is hard to see because it is not happening to you. It is happening to your colleagues. You are not in jeopardy of being arrested; my colleagues are. Your allies are not being taken down off the air; ours are.

If we don't all pull back and see this for what it is, we will wake up, and there will be a day where our democracy is gone. And so I want to talk to my colleagues today about the totality of this plan, and it really happens in five steps.

The first step is to convert the justice system into a political witch hunt operation. Every totalitarian relies on the justice system to punish dissent, but also to immunize illegality for loyalists. That is the deal you get in a totalitarian state: If you speak out against the government, well, then the legal system comes crashing down on you. But if you are loyal to the government, then you can get away with crimes.

We are seeing this at scale right now. The indictment of James Comey for no crime--not a single prosecutor in that office in Virginia would sign the indictment--not a single one--until President Trump sent his personal lawyer to take over that office because only she would sign the indictment.

We see this in the arrests that are being readied for at least one Democratic Senator, for the Soros family, for the attorney general of New York--for behavior that is not criminal; for behavior that apparently, reportedly, has been engaged in by plenty of other people.

But you also see it in the way that it ultimately plays out in a very quiet way. The goal here is not to arrest everybody that opposes Donald Trump. The idea here is to just put enough fear into the ranks of those who might speak truth to power that they stay quiet, and it is undoubtedly happening. There are undoubtedly people in this country who see what is being threatened to Senator Schiff, what has happened to James Comey, and they have just decided to remain quiet. This is a tried and true tactic of a totalitarian state, is that they threaten people with arrests if they speak up, and lots of people just decide not to speak up in the first place.

But what also happens is that if you are loyal to the regime, you get away with crimes. See what happened to the mayor of New York Eric Adams. He allegedly had committed a crime. He had committed significant corruption but was exonerated by President Trump only after the mayor pledged his political loyalty to the President. In fact, one of the President's representatives and the mayor went on television to essentially publicly do the handshake--loyalty from the mayor to the President and exoneration of corruption from the government to the mayor. This is how totalitarian regimes control speech: They punish, through the legal system, dissent. They immunize corruption amongst those who are loyal.

The second part of the plan is to eliminate free press and replace it with state-run media. Now, I don't know that I would go so far to say we have state-run media in the United States yet, but there is an attempt underway to try to use the vast regulatory powers of the administration to censor media. And, again, the administration isn't hiding it. They are going on TV and celebrating the fact that, in the latest instance, they threatened to pull the licenses of TV stations that didn't take off the air one of the President's loudest critics.

But we also see it through the consolidation of media into the hands of allies of the President. One family that has just taken control of a major media group that owns, amongst other properties, CBS is looking to also take

control of CNN and may have an ownership stake and a control stake in TikTok. That family has shown a willingness to censor content, pulling Stephen Colbert off the air and to put in place, essentially, Trump- approved censors for their future news content.

So you get to state-run media not necessarily through the state owning and operating media, but by the state using its regulatory powers--its control of licenses and mergers--to make clear to the billionaire class that they can own media, that they can make a lot of money off of media, but only if it propagates Trump's narrative and suppresses criticism. It is happening right now. We are watching it happen.

The third step in the plan is to militarize law enforcement. The deployment of the military to Chicago and to Portland, to Los Angeles, is illegal. It is illegal. But it is designed to try to, once again, quell dissent and protest. This isn't about public safety. This is about political intimidation.

And you are just naive if you think that folks aren't going to be a little bit less interested in showing up at a protest if they are worried about getting roughed up by law enforcement. You are naive to think that there isn't an impact on speech when the military is patrolling your streets. The signal that is being sent is that, if you speak up in opposition to this President, you are going to be greeted by troop deployments and tear gas and military helicopters.

The fourth step in this plan is seizing control of government spending and taxation, and here is where I fail to understand why there isn't bipartisan agreement, why we don't join hands. Our Founding Fathers saw what the British King did: using taxation and spending in order to compel loyalty to Crown, in order to punish the colonists when they rose up in defense of their rights. And so when they wrote the Constitution, they deliberately put the spending and taxation powers not in the hands of the Executive but in the hands of Congress, where every faction is represented; thus, this body is in a position to broadly protect the rights of all people.

Trump is seizing spending power from us, canceling grants unilaterally--most recently brazenly deciding to refuse to spend money only in the States represented by Democrats. The day after the shutdown began, they announced that they were, first, suspending billions of dollars' worth of projects in just one city, New York City--not coincidentally represented by the Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate.

And then, hours after, they released a list of canceled energy projects. They listed the States that they were being canceled in. Every single one of those States was represented by two Democratic Senators.

Everybody knew what was happening. It was an effort to use the spending power, seized by the Executive, to punish--to punish-- representatives of the people who oppose the President politically.

And then the fifth part of the plan is to rig the rules when the rules don't work for you. This is happening in the way that President Trump is going State by State and demanding that congressional lines be redrawn in the middle of a 10-year cycle in which, traditionally, we leave lines as they are. Why? He has, again, been totally honest and transparent about it. He just wants more Republicans elected. Even if the majority of people in a particular State favor Democrats, he wants the lines drawn in a way that would elect more Republicans to Congress. Now, in this case, it has, of course, forced Democratic States to do the same, but it was Donald Trump who started this cycle of changing the rules in order to make sure that his party stays in power and that he stays in power no matter how unpopular he gets.

You see the same thing happening with respect to the control of information. Totalitarian states can't accept truth. They can't accept truth, so they try to destroy truth. Well, that is what Donald Trump is doing by banning reporters from the White House who don't toe the Trump or MAGA line. That is what they are doing in saying to reporters at the Department of Defense that you can't report on military operations unless you are given preapproval. That is what happened to the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. When the labor statistics showed that the economy wasn't good, that guy got fired and was replaced by somebody who would issue fake numbers that made the economy look better.

You convert the justice system so that it pursues your political enemies and exonerates your political loyalists for crimes. You eliminate the free press, and you replace it with state-run or state- influenced media. You militarize law enforcement. You seize control of government spending and taxation. You rig the rules of democracy in your favor.

You can't see the indictment of Comey, the cancelation of Kimmel, and the troops in Chicago as different events. They are all part of the same story. They are all part of a plan--a well-thought-out plan--to try to destroy American democracy and create a new set of rules that will allow Trump and his allies to rule forever.

I know this sounds extreme. It is. But, if you connect the dots, if you allow yourself to see the whole story--the totality--of this story, you will see the grave danger that we are in. I know that it is often easiest for all of us, but probably especially for supporters of the President who still support democracy, to just assume the best, instead of assuming the worst, or to just kind of close the door and batten down the hatches until the storm leaves town.

But think about how we will feel if this 250-year democratic experiment disappears on our watch and we didn't do all we could as a body and as a citizenry simply because we didn't want to face the hard reality. The authoritarian takeover isn't coming; it is here. We are in the middle of it, but it is not too late for everybody to see it and for us to stop it.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I came to the floor a few minutes after Senator Thune, the Republican leader, spoke, and I missed part of his statement, but I think I heard most of it. I listened carefully to the statement by the Senator from Wyoming.

Let me say at the outset that I consider them both to be friends. We disagree on many things politically, but over the years, I have come to work with both of them and look forward to doing that again someday.

I was disappointed in both of their statements because of what was not said. How can you talk about the government shutdown without ever mentioning healthcare costs to American families? How can you do that? I mean, it is a situation where we understand, I hope, that the Democrats are not in this position for any reason other than to stop the dramatic increase in healthcare premiums that American families will face unless we do something and do it now.

In State after State, the notices are going out that the cost of health insurance for working families in America is going to go up dramatically--in some cases, more than 100 percent. That is going to be hurtful to many. They will have to look for different health insurance plans that they can afford, which means more money out of pocket, or they are going to drop their health insurance coverage altogether.

How can the Republican leader stand before us and even refuse to acknowledge that that is the issue that drives this government shutdown?

The Republicans are insisting on their approach to the budget because they don't want to see American families protected when it comes to these

health insurance increases. And the increases are already being announced. Ten States so far have announced them.

October 27 is the magic date, if you will, for the announcement in my State of Illinois. I know what is going to happen. I am going to hear from hundreds, if not thousands, of families across my State that increasing the cost for families is creating a hardship they never anticipated.

We believe on the Democratic side that this is the time to act, now, to move together to stop these increases from taking place because these increases were part of the big beautiful Republican budget--the Trump budget, voted for by every Republican Senator and no Democratic Senators; the Trump budget, which, of course, he signed into law. That is what is leading to these increases, because the Affordable Care Act insurance plans are no longer going to enjoy a subsidy, a tax credit, to help families pay the premiums, and that is why the cost is going to go up so dramatically.

We can change it. We can do it, but we have to do it quickly. We ought to move on it this week.

I wish the House of Representatives were in session. They haven't shown up for 2 weeks. Speaker Johnson happens to believe that being AWOL is the right thing for his Republican Members. I don't think it is the right thing for America.

Democrats and Republicans should be in this Capitol negotiating, sitting at a table together, and the first item on the agenda has to be healthcare costs for American families.

All this talk about a dangerous game and radical-left policies and management--it is not a radical-left idea that a working family ought to have affordable health insurance; it is basic in America.

As flawed as our health system is in this country and as great as it is in many respects, if people cannot afford to have coverage for their family, then hardship follows.

That is the real reason.

They say: Well, what about the cost? Remember, this is an administration that wants to give $20 billion to Argentina. Twenty billion dollars this President is planning to give. I am worried more about 20 million Americans who will lose their health insurance if we don't do something and do it quickly.

The American people get it. This issue has gone from the beltway to the backyards of America. People know that this is coming, and they are worried about it, and they should be. They want us to do something, and they want it done now.

We are making the fight on this continuing resolution because it is timely, and we need bipartisan support to pass it. So let's do something positive in a bipartisan way, and dealing with the cost of health insurance is my approach that I would suggest.

Illinois

Mr. President, let me take this to another issue that is near and dear to my heart, and that is what is happening in my home State of Illinois. We all know the popular quote:

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first

time.

Or, in President Trump's case, if a person shows you who they are a million times over, believe them.

President Trump has shown us his unlawful and inhumane priorities over and over again, city after city. He continues to deploy militarized immigration agents and National Guard troops to more American cities purely for political theater. He wants America to talk about the Texas National Guard in Illinois, not about healthcare costs facing American families.

But it is not going to work.

Unfortunately, the men and women of the Texas National Guard who are in the State of Illinois, as of yesterday, have been sent off on a political assignment, political theater. Instead of working to find a bipartisan way to reopen the government, lower the cost of healthcare, President Trump is focused on scoring points against his perceived enemies.

Just yesterday, 200 or 300 members of the Texas National Guard joined Federal law enforcement officers in Chicago, along with President Trump's loyal FBI Director Kash Patel. The truth is that the arrival of the Texas National Guard and the FBI Director will not make Chicago safer; it will only escalate the unnecessary and dangerous situation this President himself has created.

I still can't get the image out of my mind from 2 weeks ago, when the ICE officials, in full combat gear, carrying long rifles, were marching down Michigan Avenue. It was a hateful effort that was used to provoke people into strong emotional feelings. This administration's unlawful use of military resources to police American cities makes our country less safe, and it is a mistake that will be remembered in the history books.

I pray that the court system will respond accordingly as they did in the case of Oregon and Illinois when the hearing tomorrow is brought before the Federal judge. Deploying the Texas National Guard without the consent of Illinois elected officials is, in my estimation, unnecessary and unlawful.

The Posse Comitatus Act expressly forbids the use of our Nation's military for civilian law enforcement unless expressly authorized by statute or the Constitution.

National Guard personnel do not deserve to be used by the President's political pawns. Let me say and make it clear: As much as I regret the decision by the Texas Governor to send his National Guard troops into Illinois and as much as I want them to leave immediately, I do not make those statements at the expense of the individuals who are in the Guard and volunteered to serve their State and Nation. The same thing is true with the federalized Illinois National Guard. They are doing what they were ordered to do according to the military standards.

But the bottom line is, we all know they are not fighting crime. If the Trump administration truly wants to help Chicago--and I don't believe they do--and Illinois, it won't defy our elected leaders; it will work with us. It will restore millions of dollars the Trump administration suspended in crime prevention and public safety grants. Instead, this administration has chosen to use America's military to create chaos and sow fear in our cities.

We all agree on the importance of reducing crime and making our communities safer. The President claims his aggressive immigration raids and threats to deploy troops are to help get violent criminals off the streets.

I have come to the floor 2 straight days, and this is the third, to condemn what happened last week in the city of Chicago on Tuesday. A South Shore apartment building was raided in the middle of the night. Doors were crashed down, families were rousted out of their bedrooms, many of them brought out to the street and questioned as to whether they were in America legally. Some were American citizens. We don't know how many. We certainly don't know if there were any criminals found as a result of that. No report.

But we do know this: What happened on that street on that night was not the way America does business and shouldn't be. It was to terrorize these families, with no warrant for their arrest and no suspicion that they committed crimes, simply because they looked Hispanic and maybe looked like foreigners--I am not sure. This action was taken against them.

These attacks are part of Stephen Miller's personal agenda for mass deportation at any cost. They pulled FBI, DEA, and ATF agents from their assignments, important assignments, to stop narcotics and other things to carry out the President's immigration agenda. They stopped working on fighting crimes like terrorism, gun violence, human trafficking, and drug smuggling to land a helicopter near a building in Chicago and to bring 30 families out into the street in the middle of the night.

I have fought for humane reforms to our immigration system and evidence-based ways to reduce crimes in our cities. If the President is serious about fixing our immigration system or lowering crime in our communities, I will join in on that effort. But sending in militarized Federal immigration agents and National Guard troops to our communities is not the way to do it. These actions have accomplished what I believe is the President's true intention: sowing fear in the hearts of our communities, especially our immigrant communities, and consolidating the President's power in Washington.

The actions taken by this administration undermine the very fabric of America, a nation that was founded on the belief that all people should be free from tyranny. I remember a time when every Member of Congress would have risen in outrage if an administration attempted to use the military unlawfully against cities and communities and States that they represent. Unfortunately, this time has passed. There is nothing but silence from the other side of the aisle. Congressional Republicans are content to stand aside in abject servility to this President as he tramples the Constitution.

But Americans should not stay silent. People across Illinois are peacefully making their voices heard and letting this administration know the attacks on our city will not go unchallenged.

As a Senator from Illinois, I will do everything in my power to hold this administration accountable for their unlawful actions. They may think this is a diversion of attention from the basic issue of controlling healthcare costs and helping working American families afford their health insurance. I think it is much more. It is a threat to our Republic and our Constitution, and I hope that others will join me in condemning this activity.

I yield the floor.