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".

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. 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'', 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. 106.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.J. Res. 106, a Congressional Review Act resolution led by Congressman Nick Begich of Alaska. This CRA reverses a resource management plan, or RMP, for the central Yukon region in Alaska, which locked up an astonishing 13.3 million acres of land.

Alaska is crucial to our national security and economic prosperity. In 2020, President Trump announced a draft RMP for the central Yukon that, among other provisions, revoked Public Land Order 5150 and unleashed American energy.

For more than a decade, the State of Alaska has worked on this RMP to revoke Public Land Order 5150, which would unlock millions of acres of land from restrictive, de facto wilderness management and return it to multiple use.

Unfortunately, the previous administration reversed this decision against the wishes of Alaskans and finalized a new RMP that enshrined Public Land Order 5150.

On his first day in office in 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 14153 on ``Unleashing Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential,'' which directly called for repealing the Biden administration's central Yukon RMP. This CRA advances President Trump's executive order.

Why is this CRA so important? Revoking Public Land Order 5150 is the first step in allowing the State of Alaska to acquire lands that are critical to two essential projects: Ambler Road and the Alaska LNG pipeline.

Currently, our adversaries have a choke hold on worldwide mineral supply chains. Alaska, our 49th State, has rich deposits of 49 out of the 50 minerals on the critical minerals list.

With such abundant resources in our own backyard, it should be appalling to

every American that the United States relies 100 percent on imports for 12 of the 50 critical minerals on the critical minerals list. What is more, our Nation is 50 percent net import reliant for an additional 29 critical minerals on the list.

The smartphones that we carry around every day in our pockets contain 15 critical minerals. Computers, home appliances, and batteries all rely on critical minerals.

The Ambler Mining District in Alaska is home to some of the largest deposits of these minerals, including copper, cobalt, and zinc. Just four deposits in the Ambler Mining District alone have an estimated resource value of $26 billion.

Currently, there is no way to access these minerals. To do so, we need to construct Ambler Road. Last year, the Biden administration denied a permit for Ambler Road, effectively preventing Alaskans from developing their own resources.

Passing this CRA is the first step in allowing Alaska to acquire these lands outright, creating long-term certainty for this project.

Constructing this road and allowing access to the Ambler Mining District is expected to create thousands of new jobs and produce $1.1 billion of revenue for Alaska. Road construction alone will create more than 350 jobs, creating economic opportunity desperately needed in rural Alaska.

Keep in mind, this is only one project unlocked by this CRA. This CRA will also help the advancement of the Alaska LNG pipeline project.

Global demand for energy is expected to double by 2050, and our domestic energy production must rise to meet that demand. With the rise of data centers and AI fueling this growth, it is more important than ever that we produce energy here at home rather than ceding energy dominance to hostile foreign nations like China and Russia.

Once online, the project will produce 3.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas daily and sustain more than 10,000 jobs. Through this project, Alaskans will gain long-term and affordable gas for home heating and industrial needs.

Currently, the gas supply for Alaska from the Cook Inlet is uncertain, and local utilities are evaluating alternate supplies, including importing LNG. It goes against all common sense to import LNG into Alaska when the State is blessed with abundant resources that can supply the State and beyond.

Every action must be taken to provide North Slope-produced gas to Alaskans for their home heating and local industry needs. In addition to providing gas to Alaska, the Alaska LNG pipeline will be able to export 20 million tons of LNG yearly, reaching our Asian allies in 6 days with no strategic choke points. It is no exaggeration to say that creating this pipeline is one of the most crucial steps we can take to counter China's influence in the Indo-Pacific.

Earlier this year, I led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. Taiwan has already signed a letter of intent with the State of Alaska to purchase Alaskan LNG, and both Japan and South Korea are deeply interested in pursuing American energy from Alaska as well as other Pacific Rim nations.

The message we heard at each stop was universal and resounding: Without certainty in the timeline and our permitting system, these countries won't be able to buy our energy.

Make no mistake, these are our allies, and they desperately want to buy American. They would much rather get their energy from the North Slope than from China and Russia, the friends of North Korea.

Today's CRA is the first step in providing energy certainty to Alaska and our allies abroad. We are taking strong, decisive action to remove barriers that prevent us from accessing our own energy and minerals.

By unleashing Alaska's extraordinary resource potential, we are providing energy certainty and affordability to Alaska and creating thousands of well-paying jobs, generating billions of dollars in revenue for Federal and State coffers, and keeping America and our allies safe from foreign adversaries.

I commend Representative Begich, the entire Alaska delegation, and Governor Dunleavy for their work on this effort.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the joint resolution, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Begich), the lead sponsor of this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will point out the great work that my colleague from Alaska has done on this issue and the potential that is in Alaska.

We had the Committee on Natural Resources up there last week, and we had a bipartisan group there turning around and looking at all of the many, many resources that are in Alaska, the vast size of Alaska, and the burdens that the Federal Government has put on the State and really, I think, fallen short of living up to the promises that were made when Alaska became a State. We talked about Native Americans and their input in the process.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record this letter from Doyon Limited.

Doyon, Limited,

Fairbanks, AK, July 21, 2025.

Hon. Nicholas J. Begich III

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative Begich: Thank you for introducing H.J.

Res. 106, to disapprove the November 12, 2024, Central Yukon

Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan

(Central Yukon RMP). Doyon, Limited (Doyon) strongly supports

this joint resolution and urges Congress's and the

President's swift action to reject this misguided and harmful

planning decision.

Doyon is a major stakeholder in the Bureau of Land

Management's (BLM) Central Yukon RMP planning process. Many

large tracts of lands that were conveyed to Doyon under the

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) are surrounded

by, or abut, BLM-managed public lands. Doyon owns substantial

interests in the Central Yukon Planning Area, holding an

ownership interest in approximately 4.65 million acres. In

addition, it has selected an additional 127,000 acres in the

Planning Area under ANCSA that have not yet been conveyed.

Doyon's land base shares approximately 3,000 miles of border

with BLM lands--potentially more than any other Indigenous

landowner in the nation. Consistent with ANCSA's intent, much

of the land that Doyon selected was selected for its economic

development potential.

As Doyon explained to BLM throughout the Central Yukon RMP

planning process, further enveloping Doyon's lands within new

or expanded Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs)

and other restrictive land designations, and otherwise

imposing restrictions on use of surrounding lands, will

further complicate access to and use of Doyon lands, and

potentially prevent Doyon from fully realizing the economic

and other benefits that Congress intended it would enjoy as a

result of ANCSA's settlement of aboriginal land claims. In

addition, because oil and gas, mineral, and other resource

prospects often straddle federal, state, and/or private

lands, the more that BLM planning processes place lands off

limits to multiple uses, the more likely resource development

opportunities will be unavailable on Doyon (and other non-

federal) lands in the vicinity, impeding Doyon's ability to

make economically productive use of its lands as Congress

intended when it settled aboriginal land claims in Alaska.

The management decisions made in the 2024 Central Yukon RMP

also will have long-term implications for communications,

electric transmission, and other infrastructure activities in

the region, adding further obstacles to what already are

extraordinary challenges to connecting rural communities in

Alaska.

Doyon devoted significant resources to engaging with BLM

over the course of the Central Yukon RMP planning process to

ensure that the result of that process reflects the

principles of multiple use and sustained yield established

under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, as well as

the unique framework that Congress established in Alaska

under ANCSA and Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation

Act (ANILCA). Unfortunately, despite these concerted efforts

of Doyon and others, the 2024 plan fails to do that.

Key flaws justifying congressional disapproval of the 2024

Central Yukon RMP--as further detailed in the protest that

Doyon submitted in response to the Central Yukon Proposed

Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact

Statement released by BLM on April 19, 2024--include the

following:

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP improperly designates certain

ACECs/Research Natural Areas by including areas that do not

meet applicable requirements for designation and management

of ACECs and improperly determines special management

attention is required. It also improperly designates ACECs

that effectively surround or restrict access to Doyon-

conveyed lands, as well as that include Doyon-selected lands.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP fails to appropriately address

impacts of right-of-way exclusion and avoidance areas on

access and other activities.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP fails to adequately and

appropriately address access rights guaranteed under Section

1323(b) and Title XI of ANILCA.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP inappropriately concludes that

hypothetical future development of mineral deposits in the

Ambler Mining District, Wiseman East and West deposits, and

the Ray Mountains could ``significantly restrict subsistence

uses and have a disproportionate negative impact'' on certain

``environmental justice communities'' as well as

``significantly restrict subsistence uses for'' certain

communities.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP fails to fully consider

potential impacts of designating certain lands as Visual

Resource Management (VRM) Class II and redesignate them as

VRM Class III or IV.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP improperly ignores the long

history of BLM's calling for the lifting of the ANCSA

17(d)(1) withdrawals and fails to provide a rational

explanation for retaining those withdrawals other than for

the limited purposes of selection by Alaska Native Vietnam-

era veterans.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP violated the National

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in adopting a new alternative

not made available to the public for review and comment and

in not providing the public an opportunity to provide

informed comment after correction of an error in stated ANCSA

17(d)(1) acreages.

We appreciate your efforts to move forward with disapproval

of the 2024 Central Yukon RMP and we urge Congress and the

President to move quickly to enact this joint resolution.

Please let us know if you have any questions or if we can

provide any additional information.

Sincerely,

Sarah E. Obed,

SVP External Affairs Doyon, Limited.

Mr. Speaker, I will read from this letter to show what is really happening in Alaska.

It says: ``Doyon strongly supports this joint resolution and urges Congress' and the President's swift action to reject this misguided and harmful planning decision.

``Many large tracts of lands that were conveyed to Doyon under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act [ANCSA] are surrounded by, or abut, BLM-managed public lands. Doyon owns substantial interests in the Central Yukon Planning Area, holding an ownership interest in approximately 4.65 million acres.

``Doyon's land base shares approximately 3,000 miles of border with BLM lands--potentially more than any other indigenous landowner in the Nation. Consistent with ANCSA's intent, much of the land that Doyon selected was selected for its economic development potential.

``As Doyon explained to BLM throughout the Central Yukon RMP planning process, further enveloping Doyon's lands within new or expanded Areas of Critical Environmental Concern [ACECs] and other restrictive land designations, and otherwise imposing restrictions on use of surrounding lands, will further complicate access to and use of Doyon lands, and potentially prevent Doyon from fully recognizing the economic and other benefits that Congress intended it would enjoy as a result of ANCSA's settlement of aboriginal land claims.''

That is from the people who were affected on the ground by this misguided resource management plan that the previous administration put in place. It is an honor to be here today to be able to use the CRA to, hopefully, reverse that plan and prevent other administrations in the future, from either party, from putting such ridiculous management plans in place.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this idea that Alaska native Vietnam-era veterans can't select lands is just factually inaccurate and fear-mongering.

Congress has already statutorily codified the Alaska Native Vietnam- era Veterans Land Allotment Program in 2019. Nothing in this CRA repeals those requirements under the 2019 law. In fact, the House just passed a 5-year extension of this program in July. To suggest that we are now somehow unsupportive of this program is ludicrous.

Congress is using the CRA for this RMP because there weren't enough public land order revocations, not because there were too many. Keeping the withdrawal revocations for Alaska native Vietnam-era veterans and adding new withdrawal revocations would be entirely consistent with the CRA. The argument is ironic coming from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle as Secretary Haaland unnecessarily delayed the implementation of this program for years, despite strong demands from the Alaska delegation that outdated PLOs be lifted so land selections could begin.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alaska (Mr. Begich) who understands this better than anyone.

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

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

This CRA is crucial to unleashing Alaska's abundant natural resources. It will unleash billions of dollars' worth of oil, natural gas, and critical minerals that are critical not only to Alaska's economy and security but also to the economic and energy security of the United States and will extend further to our allies around the world.

This is a very important issue. This CRA shifts land management back to Alaskans and away from NGOs and environmentalists in the lower 48 who have had way too much of an oversized impact on the decisions made in Alaska. It is essential to projects that will create tens of thousands of jobs, generate billions of dollars in revenue for the U.S. Treasury and the State of Alaska, and again make our Nation less reliant on hostile foreign nations.

I commend Representative Begich once again for his work on this effort. He is a tremendous and fierce advocate for Alaska. Through his efforts, we are helping President Trump and his administration advance executive orders and usher in the golden age of American and Alaskan energy dominance.

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

Mr. President, we have all talked about what the primary goal is right now in the Senate. It is to reopen the Federal Government, but that is not all we need to reopen right now.

As we focus on ending this shutdown, I have come to speak in support of a disapproval resolution that is now pending. This is H.J. Res. 106. This is the companion to the resolution that Senator Sullivan and I have introduced to reopen the Central Yukon resource management plan after BLM finalized it over our objection last fall.

The formal name of this rule is the Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan. The name is big, and it is a really big area, encompassing nearly 56 million acres, mostly in Northern and Interior Alaska, so the full State of Alaska.

But it is this central area here that is really quite substantial. Not all of that is Federal land. You will see the different colors here. In fact, most of it is not. This RMP is only supposed to affect 13.3 million acres managed by BLM. That is still a lot of land. To put it into perspective, it is more than twice the total acreage of Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Vermont. That is what you are looking at here within this region.

We do need an RMP, resource management plan, to guide management of the Central Yukon's Federal acres. This plan is meant to replace older regimes that were put in place back in 1981, 1986, and 1991, as well as some lands that are unplanned. This is a big undertaking. It has been going on for a long time. It started back in 2013, 12 years ago, costing taxpayers millions of dollars to complete.

I didn't want to have to overturn this RMP because I really do respect much of the work that was done--certainly, the people who worked really hard to do it. I also recognize that some Alaskans support pieces of last year's final plan and are concerned that their input could be lost if it is reopened.

But the problem we have here and why we are taking this resolution up today, is that the Biden administration, which was in office during the last few years of this 12-year process, really has left us with no choice here. They lost sight of the need for balanced management. They dropped any pretense of it from the final plan.

So despite objections from me, from Senator Sullivan, the State of Alaska, many Alaskan stakeholders, BLM kind of plowed ahead, and they finalized a plan that overwhelmingly prioritizes conservation but fails to reflect the principle of multiple use, multiple use that is required with our public lands and fails to honor the explicit requirements of a Federal law.

There are some very significant issues within this plan. There are further deficiencies based on what BLM pledged to do and then refused to do. And that combination is what caused us to file this resolution and to seek a more balanced plan going forward.

Let's go through those problems in a little bit greater detail. I expect that one of the things you are going to hear today in opposition is that this is unprecedented; that Congress is now overturning 12 years of nonpolitical, legally sound Agency work. If that were true, I would not be standing here in opposition to this. I would be a no on the resolution, but that is not where we are.

In December of 2020 and BLM's eighth year of work on this RMP, the Agency released a draft plan with a pretty reasonable preferred alternative. This is a proposal that would have protected sensitive areas; it would have upheld subsistence and recreational uses; it would have provided opportunities for resource development and other legal uses on BLM land. Under that proposal, many outdated public land orders--we call them PLOs--would have been lifted, and the majority of BLM lands would have been accessible.

Just a few years later, we saw a very different preferred alternative emerge from BLM. This was in the middle of the Biden administration. The final Record of Decision issued last November is 362 pages long. There are multiple appendices that total another 1,428 pages. It is 1,800 pages. This is the stack of the maps and the pages of the final Record of Decision--1,800 pages showing those various designations and restrictions.

This is in not a user-friendly plan. It is not a printer-friendly plan, that is for sure. But it is also not a BLM employee-friendly plan. It is long and complex. And unless you are really superinvested in learning what was designated as visual resource management class II as opposed to class III or IV, you are probably not really going to enjoy reading it.

The differences between what the BLM proposed in 2020 and what BLM finalized in 2024 show how this process went off the rails. I will give you a couple of examples here. In 2020, BLM proposed one area of critical environmental concern--we call them ACECs--and research natural area. These are administrative withdrawals for conservation and restrict other uses. This covered 77,000 acres.

Then, last year, BLM's final RMP ballooned this to include 21 ACECs and RNAs, covering 3.6 million acres. This is imposing restrictions on nearly 47 times more land.

In 2020, BLM proposed 497,000 acres of special recreation management areas. In 2024, we saw that triple to 1.453 million acres. In 2020, BLM proposed a little over a million acres of utility and transportation corridors. In 2024, that fell by two-thirds to just 33,000 acres.

In 2020, BLM proposed to have almost 7.5 million acres open to fluid mineral leasing. Then, in 2024, it leaves just 845,000 acres, and that is 89 percent

less. So you can see the dramatic differences between the plan in 2020 and the plan in 2024.

There is a lot more I could go through, but the point is that restrictions exploded in the final plan while opportunities for economic development were severely curtailed. We saw it over and over in Alaska over the last 4 years. We don't think it was any accident. You have heard my colleague speak on the floor about this a great deal, but it was just, really, the last administration's goal to reduce and curtail many of these activities. BLM's treatment of public land orders, which have been obsolete in Alaska for decades, also backslid dramatically. These came to be in the 1970s when Alaska's land ownership was greatly unsettled, but they should have been revoked a long time ago.

In 2020, BLM proposed to revoke 5.863 million acres of so-called d-1 withdrawals, but then, in 2024, BLM zeroes that out. Instead, they have only lifted withdrawals for one narrow purpose. It is an important purpose, but it is very narrow, and that is allotments for eligible Alaska Vietnam veterans but no others. In 2020, BLM proposed to lift PLO 5150, reflecting State and Native selections around our Trans- Alaska Pipeline corridor, but then, in 2024, BLM reversed course. It refused to lift a single acre of PLO 5150 within the RMP process.

The problem is that BLM told us--they told me; they told my team-- that they would address PLO 5150 through a separate process. They called it a tiered environmental assessment, and they said that that was going to begin immediately after the finalization of the Central Yukon RMP. They just had to get to that point, and they just needed us to back off so they could. Guess what never happened. The day after the State of Alaska's consistency review period for the Central Yukon RMP ended, BLM canceled its separate process for PLO 5150. It was an absurd decision.

BLM spent years--they spent years--telling us that they could only lift public land orders within the RMP process. And then, as the Central Yukon RMP nears completion, they then tell us that they could only lift one of the most visible PLOs in Alaska outside of it. And then as soon as we reach that point, they break their promise, immediately pulling the whole thing down.

My team was actually on the phone with BLM when this happened. They asked about the process, and they were told everything was on track. Everything was going just fine. Right after--probably not even more than 30 minutes after that--BLM calls State officials to tell them it is off and is never coming back. If that is not a bait and switch, you know, I don't know what is. This is where you can start to see how BLM's actions--both what it did and what it refused to do in this RMP-- directly contradict multiple Federal laws.

The first is ANILCA, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. That was Alaska's grand bargain. This is where Congress withdrew and conserved tens of millions of acres in our State in exchange for reasonable opportunities for economic development, whether it be within the 1002 Area, the Ambler Road, but this was the deal back in 1980. And to confirm that Alaska had done its part for national conservation, ANILCA also includes several of what we call ``no more'' clauses, reflecting the fact that we were done and that no more wilderness needed to be designated in the State of Alaska.

It should be pretty apparent that the unilateral, administrative designation of 3.6 million acres of ACECs, dozens of other restrictions across millions of other acres, and the retention of virtually all land withdrawals, which were supposed to be lifted decades ago, are all directly contrary to ANILCA.

The Central Yukon plan also conflicts with a law that I wrote called the Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act. Some people around here are still surprised that Alaska's land ownership is still not settled yet. Sixty-six years after statehood, neither our State nor our Native land entitlements have been fulfilled. We have got millions of acres remaining outstanding on both of these, and their settlement hinges on the Federal Government making available and then transferring selected lands.

Congress agreed to enact my Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act back in 2004. We set this goal that our land entitlements would be complete by 2009. That was the 50th anniversary of statehood. Well, that didn't happen, but some good did come from it. BLM surveyed its land withdrawals in Alaska. Then, in 2006, there was a report to Congress that recommended that 95 percent of them--covering 152 million acres--could be lifted consistent with the protection of the public's interest. The only caveat here was that BLM preferred to lift its orders through its land planning process.

So we worked with them. We pushed to make that happen. We have appropriated funding to make it happen. But when BLM undertakes a new RMP and decides that not a single acre of a single PLO can be lifted across 13.3 million acres for any other purpose other than Native allotments, you are going to see patience run out, and then it turns to frustration; it turns to opposition. Then it takes us to where we are today, which is to the congressional disapproval of a resource management plan.

I would also point out that the Central Yukon RMP conflicts with ANCSA, or the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The regional ANC in the Central Yukon area, Doyon, has rightly pointed out that BLM's actions in this RMP would make it difficult, if not impossible, to utilize its lands for the benefit of its people in line with congressional intent.

In a letter to Alaska's congressional delegation, Doyon explained how BLM's restrictive land designations will ``complicate access to and use of Doyon lands and potentially prevent Doyon from fully realizing the economic and other benefits that Congress intended it would enjoy as a result of ANCSA's settlement of aboriginal land claims.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Congressional Record immediately following my remarks.

We also received a letter of support for this resolution from the North Slope Trilateral, which includes the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope, the North Slope Borough, and the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, ASRC. Their letter lays out a series of fundamental flaws within the final Central Yukon plan, including its failure to account for North Slope priorities, the impact that it would have on Native lands, the barriers it creates to cooperative land management, the restrictions it imposes to foreclose the production of rare earth elements and other resources, as well as the lack of consultation with Alaska Natives who live on the North Slope during its development.

As the Trilateral writes, ``The result is a plan that ignores congressional intent under both ANCSA and ANILCA, disregards the economic needs of North Slope communities, and creates unnecessary obstacles to infrastructure, energy, and community health across northern Alaska.''

So, again, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the letter from the North Slope leaders be printed in the Congressional Record following my remarks.

The sad part is that what these Alaskans are pointing to-- restrictions that encumber access to lands and opportunities--was largely the point of BLM's final RMP, and that again points to why we are here to disapprove this plan.

I should point out that there is a big misunderstanding about the effects of this resolution. There have been some false claims out there, and I think there has been some kind of sloppy reporting of them. But when the House passed this resolution, we saw over and over again in different articles that somehow or other the passage of that resolution had approved the Ambler Access Project, which is not the case. That project has been in permitting for a decade. Then, just on Monday, President Trump issued a determination reapproving it, which we appreciate, but nothing in this disapproval resolution approves that project. So that is just misinformation out there.

What is true is that, over the course of decades, Congress has ceded a lot of authority on Federal land management to the executive branch. We trust them to follow the laws that we have made and find a balance between competing uses and priorities. We know it is not

an easy job, especially in a State where you have more than 223 million Federal acres, but when the Agencies lose sight of that, it is our job here--it is our responsibility--to rein them in.

That is what we are doing. We are reminding BLM that these are public lands that are generally available for multiple use, not exclusively conserved lands with layer after layer of administrative restrictions heaped onto them.

Before I end here, I would like to briefly discuss what comes next if we are able to pass this disapproval resolution.

It should be very clear. Passage does not invalidate 12 years of Agency work. It does not overturn the environmental analysis that has been done or the public comments that have been received. We are simply reopening this plan, and we are telling BLM: Return. Come back with a new one that is more balanced. That shouldn't be hard, and it shouldn't take that long because the plan already exists. It was just abandoned once the Biden administration took office.

For 8 years, BLM was on the right track in this process. It has a readymade plan in the form of its preferred alternative from 2020. The record of decision from last year even acknowledges that the 2020 preferred alternative features a ``blend of resource protection and resource development.'' It is an actual balance between the two, and that is what we should be seeking. It is time to go back to that proposal, update it as needed based on the passage of time, and put into place a final Central Yukon plan that maintains access, respects multiple use, and conserves where necessary and appropriate.

It is entirely possible to serve the varied interests of this region, and through this resolution, that is exactly what we are telling BLM to do. When they do, we will have a final Central Yukon resource management plan that Alaska's delegation, the State of Alaska, the largest landowner in the region--Doyon--and a wide range of Alaska stakeholders can support. So I would urge my colleagues to support this resolution.

I yield the floor to my colleague from Alaska, who has worked very, very hard on this resolution, and I appreciate his leadership of the same.

Mr. President, my colleague from Oregon has laid out the situation very well. An authoritarian President emboldened by a rubberstamp Congress, emboldened by a deferential Supreme Court, is sending military troops against American citizens who are peacefully protesting in city after city.

This is un-American. It is a fundamental violation of the purpose of our military, which is to defend us from foreign powers, not to be a tool in a President's hand to attack people who disagree with his point of view. That happens in countries that don't have a President but have a King--that have a dictator. That is not our tradition here. Our whole entire Constitution is about government by and for the people, not by and for a man at the top of the executive branch, using the military against his own citizens.

By law, federalizing the National Guard is quite limited. It can only be done, unless it is done in partnership with a Governor, if there is an invasion or if there is a rebellion. At the time these laws were written, it was well-understood exactly what those are--an invasion, just what you picture: a military force on our border about to cross that border and attack the United States of America, or they have already crossed the border. That is an invasion. Or a rebellion--a rebellion: a large group, well organized, well weaponized, that is trying to overturn the Government of the United States of America.

At the very start of our Republic, there was a rebellion called the Shays' Rebellion. A whole group in the northeastern part of our country were very upset about the challenges they were facing as farmers. They got organized. They had weapons, and they were shutting down the courts that were doing foreclosures on their farms. And they were seeking access to a Federal armory.

Shays' Rebellion--a large group, well organized, weaponized, trying to overturn the government.

The last time we saw a rebellion in the United States of America was when President Trump, in his first term, organized a mob to attack this Capitol to prevent the votes from being counted in the electoral college. That would meet the test of a rebellion.

But peaceful protesters holding signs of concern about the policies of this President or the actions of one of his

Agencies--that is freedom of speech; that is freedom of assembly. That goes to the core of who we are as Americans.

Obviously, there is nothing approaching an invasion or a rebellion in the city of Portland. Senator Wyden and I were outside of ICE a couple weekends ago. I saw three women in a group holding a couple of signs. Right now there is a group called Paws for Peace. They are getting together with puppy dogs and dogs. And the ``paws'' is P-A-W-S. Creative, Portland-style protesting to say they are not happy with the administration.

I don't think a bunch of folks holding their puppy dogs constitute a well-organized, well-armed group trying to overthrow the government.

Then there is another group that is called Pastry and Pajamas, and they are out there in the morning handing out pastries to people. They are in their pajamas, encouraging peaceful protesting. They may disagree with the administration, but what they are exercising is as American as an apple pie or an apple pie pastry--making their voice known.

But Trump decided he wanted to create a riot in Portland. Why does he want to create a riot in Portland? Because he wants a violent encounter in order to justify putting the military in our cities--in other words, put the military into the cities to create a riot, then use that as a justification for the military being in the cities.

That is an extraordinary risk to our Republic. That is an extraordinary risk to people--a government of, by, and for the people-- and not just in Portland but in L.A., in DC, in Chicago.

What the instructions appear to be to his Federal agents is to provoke violence by attacking peaceful protesters. The Oregonian, a major newspaper in our State, did a report in which they said their staff witnessed the Federal agents attacking peaceful protesters. I thought that was a very unusual article. It wasn't the newspaper reporters saying people present at the protest alleged that the Federal agents attacked peaceful protesters. No, it said: Our staff witnessed this.

Then there is Oregon Public Broadcasting. Oregon Public Broadcasting was down there with videographers. What they witnessed was this: The Federal agents asked the protesters to move back several blocks, and they did. And there was no conflict between the protesters and the Federal agents. Behind this line of Federal agents were videographers.

Why were the videographers right behind the line of Federal agents? Well, a very interesting thing happened. After the protesters moved back--not just one block or two blocks but three blocks--and the Federal agents have a line across the street with the videographers right behind them. Upon command, the Federal agents threw down tear gas. They threw down these bang-snap devices that sound like gunfire going off--flash-bangs, they are called; it sounds like gunfire--and pepper balls. And, of course, you suddenly have a cloud of smoke. You are hearing what sounds like gunfire, and people are retreating from the tear gas. And they were taking videos of that, trying to say they were disrupting a riot; they were dispelling a riot.

This is like ``Wag the Dog,'' where a totally artificial war is reported, only in that case, it happened overseas. This is the first time I know of in American history that a President has staged a fake riot to try to convince the courts or one of his news stations that serve him so well that something is there that isn't there; that a riot is there when it is not there.

Any true-blooded patriot of the United States of America should be terrified that we have a government faking a riot to try to be able to justify sending troops into our cities. That is what we face right now.

This picture to my right was witnessed by the news media. They put this up. You have a woman who is talking to two officers. She had not disobeyed any command they had given her. There was no physical confrontation.

A third agent walks up holding pepper spray in his hand and, after a few seconds, fully unleashes it straight into her face and to the man standing next to her.

That is the type of assault from these Federal agents occurring on peaceful protesters, recorded by the news media and reported. This is not something from some bystander who happened to put the scene up on TikTok, who didn't witness the entire thing or understand what was happening, but from the major news media.

Here is a case in Chicago. A pastor in the traditional motion of praying and blessing is standing outside the building, by himself--no obvious resistance to any kind of command--and he is shot in the head from agents on top of the building. He reports that he was hit twice in the head and, I think, five times on the body.

Wow.

These folks are unleashing rapid-fire attacks, apparently with pepper balls or, as he described it, some kind of ammo that releases some kind of chemical taking him right down to the street by this attack, for praying--an attack by Federal agents on a pastor praying in front of a building.

This is an extraordinarily dangerous moment in which an authoritarian President is proceeding to attack due process, to attack freedom of speech, to attack freedom of the press, to weaponize the Department of Justice, using it against those who disagree with him, and then seeking to get the court's permission to send the military in the streets to attack people who are peacefully protesting who disagree with him.

We are at the moment right now where we are awaiting a decision from a panel of three judges in the Ninth Circuit. The district judge who adjudicated the effort by Trump to federalize the Oregon National Guard said: There is nothing close to rebellion. There is nothing close to an invasion. So the standard is not met.

Then President Trump said: I am going to send the federalized force from California and Texas to Oregon.

In fact, 100 agents arrived from California. The same judge said: The same standard applies.

Regardless of what happened that federalized those folks in California or Texas, the question is: Is there a rebellion or invasion in Oregon?

And there is not. So she put a temporary stay on it.

The Ninth Circuit said: We are going to take a look at this. So we are going to freeze things in place.

Those Oregon National Guards and those 100 from California are going to stay at a training ground until they make their ruling. Their ruling--they held a hearing today--may be tomorrow. It may be days from now. We don't know.

Of course, that will be appealed to the Supreme Court.

There are legal scholars who are saying: Here is the challenge. Although there is an objective standard in the law, we have a Supreme Court that has already invented things that are not in the Constitution, interpreted things in a way that was totally different from the way they were considered at the time the law was written.

So the Supreme Court may say--in spite of the fact that there is an objective standard for federalizing the National Guard, the Supreme Court may say we are simply deferring to the President.

Are you kidding me?

This is a fundamental issue in the United States of America, that the military might be used against American citizens. There is a standard in the law.

Supreme Court, wake up. Do your job in the framework of the Constitution and in the framework of the laws that were passed. Quit inventing things to create an authoritarian state.

Why am I so worried that our Supreme Court has gone so far off track? Because, last year, they found invisible ink in the Constitution.

They had a case, Trump v. the United States of America. In that case, the question was: Is the President above the law? Is the President immune from any potential criminal prosecution for acts that he deems acts of the government?

I thought, well, absolutely not, of course. Our Founders were terrified that a President would become a King. If they wanted the President immune from prosecution, they could have put that in the Constitution.

Can you find that in the Constitution? Can any of my colleagues on the left side of the aisle or the right side of the aisle show me that in the Constitution? It is not there because our

Founders were that worried about the President becoming a King. So they did not give the President immunity from prosecution.

But the Supreme Court did because they thought that is too big a burden for the President to bear. They thought: In our judgment, we think it is a good idea to give the President protection, so he doesn't have to stay up late at night worrying whether he is creating a crime or not.

Well, let me tell you, the Constitution says policy is written here-- written here in the U.S. Senate and in the House of Representatives down the hall. That becomes policy when the President signs it. Policy is not the purview of the Supreme Court of the United States. They are supposed to be defending the Constitution.

The pastor said:

It was clear to me that the officers were aiming for my

head.

He was shot seven times with pepper balls in the face and arms and torso without warning, a Presbyterian pastor.

That is what our country is coming to--an assault on anyone who stands up and exercises freedom--freedom--to share their opinion.

Aren't there 100 Senators here who stand for freedom? Why is there not one Senator across the aisle standing for freedom here on the floor of the Senate today, not one? Why? Why is there not one Senator standing up and saying that there is no clause in the Constitution that makes the President a King--immune from prosecution for crimes committed under their law? Why is there not one Senator across the aisle saying that we will not stand for the attack on due process? the attack on free speech?

I assure you, if there were a President saying to FOX News that ``you have to take a program off the air'' that the President doesn't like, every Senator across the aisle would be standing up and saying that that is a breach of free speech. I would be standing up and saying the same thing, just as I am now, because it shouldn't matter whether it is a right-leaning or a left-leaning network. They should be able to put on air what they want. That is what freedom of the press is.

So we have seen 9 months of this President making this country sicker and poorer; 9 months of personal corruption, selling access to himself through his crypto enterprises; 9 months of covering up the Epstein files that he doesn't want released because his name is in them; 9 months of slashing healthcare for families to fund tax breaks for billionaires; 9 months of cutting nutrition for children to fund tax breaks for billionaires. A bill passed this body that runs up $30 trillion in additional debt, over 30 years, to fund tax breaks for the richest Americans.

It is a families lose, billionaires win vision, and it is the wrong vision here in a Republic where we celebrate government by and for the people. A Republic that is exercising appropriately would be families thrive and the affluent and the powerful pay their fair share. That is the vision that all of us should be pursuing.

The fact that this horrific bill came out and passed--the ``Big Ugly Betrayal of Americans Act''--that slashed healthcare in order to fund more riches for the richest among us shows you it is not working right.

What is really not working right is that the President of the United States is deploying military forces, hoping to establish that it is OK to do so; that it is OK for them to accept orders to go out and attack our cities, to attack peaceful protesters; that he will get a court decision that gives him this power.

Colleagues, let's be 100 strong behind the vision of freedom, the vision of rights for Americans and say: Hell no.