Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Energy relating to "Energy Conservation Program for Appliance Standards: Certification Requirements, Labeling Requirements, and Enforcement Provisions for Certain Consumer Products and Commercial Equipment".

Mr. President, I have a question for my colleague from Massachusetts, if she would yield for a question.

In your knowledge of American history, has there ever been a Presidential first 100 days that showed this level of corruption that we are witnessing with this administration?

Mr. President, I appreciate the Senator's speech in laying this out.

I am going to address another aspect of the first 100 days, which is about the phenomenal strategy of President Trump to undermine our Constitution; to undermine the separation of powers, the checks and balances, for the purpose of creating a strong-man state, which is also just an extraordinary, extraordinary experience to be living through.

The first 100 days of the Trump administration have plunged our Nation into a constitutional crisis unparalleled since the Civil War. How bad is it, and how will we respond? How will this Chamber respond? How will the House respond?

Our democratic Republic, with its separation of powers and checks and balances, is sliding into an unaccountable strong-man state.

To the first question--how bad is the constitutional crisis?--I summarize: worse than we could possibly have imagined. It is an authoritarian takeover, emboldened by a subservient majority in Congress, a deferential Supreme Court, and an aggressive, authoritarian President.

We all know that strong republics can slide into corrupt strong-man states. Witness Venezuela. Witness Turkiye. Witness Hungary. It can happen gradually. It can happen suddenly that Congress becomes a rubberstamp, that the courts defer to an aggressive Executive, the press softens its criticisms, and other institutions tread ever so carefully.

However often we have witnessed this happening elsewhere, however, we always thought that it could never happen here, not in the United States of America. It could never happen here because our commitment to the separation of powers is too secure, our 250 years of dedication to a democratic republic too established for it to ever happen here.

But the last 100 days have shown us that we were robbed. So tonight, I am ringing the alarm bells. The danger is clear. The danger is present. This crisis calls upon every patriot, every individual who cherishes a deliberative republic, every institution--whether it is Congress or the court or the people or the press or the university or the law firm--to use their heart and mind and sinew, their clout and their connections, to resist this authoritarian takeover and save our Republic.

In only 100 days, Trump has aggressively pursued five strategies to advance his authoritarian powers. The first strategy has been to willfully violate a host of Federal laws.

One hundred days ago, on January 20, I sat in the Rotunda of the Capitol, just down this hallway, halfway between here and the House of Representatives, for Donald Trump's inaugural address. It was not a traditional address. A traditional address is when the President lays out a vision and says: Here in our democracy, I will be working with Congress to pass laws to provide a foundation to implement that vision.

That is the way it works when power is divided between a court and an Executive and Congress. But instead, the speech that President Trump gave just down this hallway in the Rotunda didn't talk about working with Congress. It didn't talk about passing laws. He spoke only of governing by Executive order, as if he was already a King.

Well, governing by Executive order is exactly what he has done, with 26 Executive orders on that first day and over 130 Executive orders and counting as of now. And many of those Executive orders directly violate laws on the books.

He fired 17 inspectors general, violating a law that allows a President to fire an inspector general only for cause and with 30 days' notice to Congress.

He fired members of the Boards that lead independent Agencies, violating the law that provides these members with established terms and says that they can only be fired for cause.

Trump's targets have included Gwynne Wilcox of the National Labor Relations Board, Rebecca Slaughter of the Federal Trade Commission, and quite a few others.

Trump violated the Antideficiency Act when Elon Musk and DOGE sent the ``fork in the road'' email to 2 million Federal employees, offering a buyout with pay through September 30, committing funds beyond the March 15 deadline that the law allowed.

Trump violated the Privacy Act of 1974 when Trump, Musk, and DOGE accessed sensitive personal information from the computers of the Social Security Administration.

Trump violated a 2018 law banning reductions in indirect costs covered by the National Institutes of Health research grants when he capped those rates at 15 percent.

The mastermind behind this strategy of deliberately, willfully breaking the law, time and time and time again, is one man. His name is Russ Vought.

Who is this man? He directed the Office of Management and Budget in the last year of Trump's first term. He is an architect of Project 2025, and he is leading the Office of Management and Budget for Trump's second term.

As the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, I interviewed him in my office before his nomination hearing, and he was very clear, very direct about his viewpoint. He is a proponent of the fringe unitary executive theory that says the President has complete authority over every element of the executive branch. The President, he believes, can ignore any detail in law passed by Congress and perhaps ignore any order by the courts that constrains how the President manages the executive branch.

Vought anticipates that when Trump's lawbreaking reaches the Supreme Court, a deferential Court will legitimize his unitary executive theory and hand vast power to President Trump.

Mr. Vought's deliberate desire to break the law and violate the separation of powers caused me to label him the most dangerous man in America. He is a direct threat to the entire vision of our Constitution.

I led a 30-hour debate here in this Chamber on his nomination to put a spotlight on him and on his ideas, but it was a party-line vote. Every one of my colleagues across the aisle looked to their loyalty to President Trump over their loyalty to the U.S. Constitution.

The second Trump strategy to expand the power of the President--the authoritarian power of the President--is to usurp Congress's article I power of the purse by impounding the funds that Congress has dedicated in law and long passed in the Senate and passed the House and signed by the President, impounding funds in those laws for specific programs. This is illegal. It violates the law, and it is unconstitutional, and it violates the separation of powers.

You know, Nixon tried this. He impounded funds for the EPA for fiscal year 1973. The Supreme Court ruled, when this case finally reached it in Train v. City of New York, that impoundments violate article I of the Constitution, which so clearly--this Constitution so clearly gives the power of the purse to Congress.

And when Congress passed the law in 1996 that gave the President a line-item veto on program funding, the Supreme Court ruled again, in Clinton v. City of New York, that Congress could not give to the President the power the Constitution reserves to this Chamber, to Congress.

It is worth noting that Trump had a choice. Instead of illegally impounding funds, he could have sent a legal rescission request to Congress. And there is a good possibility, perhaps a probability, that the Republican-led House and Senate would have passed that rescission. A rescission formally undoes a law by Congress reconsidering it. But he deliberately--he, being Trump--deliberately chose the illegal path of impoundments, the unconstitutional path of impoundments in order to put a case before the Supreme Court so the Supreme Court could rule--Trump and Russ Vought hope--for the unitary executive theory of power, the vision of a strong-man rule in our Nation rather than government by the people.

Note the parallel. Trump fired thousands and thousands of employees across this country. He could have done it legally through reductions in force, RIFs, but he chose to do it illegally. Why? To put a case before the Supreme Court so the Court could enhance the power of the President of the United States of America. It is that hope that they have for that deferential Court.

Trump and his team have impounded funds for so much now. There are so many cases in the courts. Court ruling after court ruling are saying: This is illegal. You cannot do this. This is unconstitutional.

But he just keeps doing it.

Electric vehicle charging stations, impounded. Security systems to Ukraine, impounded. Program funds for sanctuary cities, impounded. Immigration lawyers for 26,000 unaccompanied children, impounded.

But the most tragic example of impoundment is Trump's attack on the U.S. Agency for International Development.

On February 3, Elon Musk posted that he and DOGE had ``spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.'' Musk was bragging that he and Trump had destroyed an Agency in a single weekend, in violation of the law. They fired almost all of USAID's employees and canceled more than 5,000 contracts, crippling America's delivery of lifesaving aid around the world and, I might add, crippling relationships that create soft power for the United States of America to accompany the hard power of our military.

In February, a senior USAID official Nicholas Enrich estimated that a yearlong pause in AID's programs could cause between 71,000 to 166,000 additional deaths just from malaria, with huge increases in deaths from tuberculosis and infectious diseases like Ebola. Shortly after making these estimates, Enrich was fired.

Speaking the truth in this administration is a cause to be fired because the truth scares Donald Trump. He doesn't want the truth. He just wants

his power and everyone to be in line behind it.

Another study estimates that shutting down USAID over 15 years could result in 25 million additional deaths worldwide. That is a hard number to digest--2 million more deaths from tuberculosis, 8 million more deaths from malaria, from malnutrition and other causes, and 15 million more deaths from AIDS, with PEPFAR shut down. And those 15 million deaths from AIDS generate 14 million additional orphans.

Just let that sink in. One illegal decision in one weekend by Musk and Trump putting AID in the wood chipper could result in millions of deaths. Illegal defunding and dismantlement, done in one weekend, to an Agency that constituted only one-third of 1 percent of our national spending in 2024 could result in more deaths than World War I.

Now you may say: Is this some crazy theory on the internet?

It was a study put together by prestigious medical organizations, groups like the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the New York University Grossman School of Medicine--serious people, serious modeling, serious understanding of what USAID does around the world.

And do you know what else his decision did? It created an enormous opportunity for China to move in and say, ``You can't count on the United States of America, but you can count on China,'' hugely undermining our standing and influence in the world.

That is what was done illegally in one weekend.

A third Trump strategy for amassing Executive power is to attack the constitutional power of the courts. The Founders gave the courts the power to address ``all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution,'' and that power includes the ability to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. It includes the ability to invalidate Executive actions that violate the laws or violate the Constitution. But for the court's check--this crucial check on Executive misuse of power--to be effective, the President must follow the decisions of the court, and that is why the oath of office is so important. You are taking an oath to the Constitution that lays out this structure of accountability.

But President Trump is stiff-arming the court. He is not honoring the Constitution. He is not honoring his oath to the Constitution.

He ignored Federal Judge James Boasberg's order not to deport Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador, refusing to keep the planes on the ground or turn them around. He ignored the judge's order to provide details regarding the flights to El Salvador. And in a stunning stiff- arm to the Supreme Court, he refused to facilitate, after a 9-to-0 Supreme Court decision saying he must do so, the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from El Salvador despite the Court's order.

In yet another confrontation with the Supreme Court, Vice President Vance claimed in February that ``judges aren't allowed'' to check Executive power.

Then, in March, Trump called for the impeachment of Judge Boasberg, calling him a ``crooked'' judge, a ``troublemaker and agitator.''

What in Trump's mind is a ``crooked'' judge? One who is actually ruling on the law because the last thing Trump wants is a judge who honestly rules on the law. He wants subservience.

This call for impeachment of a judge provoked a rebuke--a rare rebuke--from Chief Justice John Roberts, who said:

Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement

concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review

process exists for that purpose.

Calm language to address a massive constitutional violation.

Over the last 100 days, Trump has brazenly signaled to the courts that they should not interfere with his management of the executive branch.

A fourth authoritarian strategy by Trump is to attack the free press and free speech. Benjamin Franklin wrote that ``whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.'' Apparently, President Trump was paying attention because he is seeking to overthrow the liberty of our Nation, and he is trying to subdue the freeness of speech.

One of his tactics is to intimidate the free press by suing them. He sued the Des Moines Register for an inaccurate poll predicting he would lose Iowa. He sued CBS News for $10 million because he disliked its editing of an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris on ``60 Minutes.'' And he sued ABC News because George Stephanopoulos said on the air that Trump had been found liable for ``rape'' when, in fact, he had been found liable not for ``rape'' but for ``sexual assault,'' under the detail of the law, in the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.

Trump hasn't just launched suits; he is succeeding in compromising our free press. ABC bent the knee, agreeing after Trump won and fearing for how Trump might misuse Presidential power, to pay Trump that $16 million to settle the case involving Stephanopoulos, even though Trump had, in the view of experts, little chance of prevailing in court.

And last week, Bill Owens, the executive director of ``60 Minutes,'' resigned, citing encroachment of his journalistic independence in the face of mounting pressure from Paramount, CBS's parent company, again potentially for fear of the misuse of Executive power that would compromise the success of Paramount.

A reported possible source of that pressure is from Shari Redstone, Paramount's controlling shareholder, who is reportedly eager to settle this issue to secure the Trump administration's approval for the multibillion-dollar sale of Paramount to Skydance.

Trump further pressured the press by playing favorites with access to White House events, barring the Associated Press from the White House press pool for continuing to use the name Gulf of Mexico instead of Gulf of America. It is a style manual question, and Trump doesn't like that a free press can choose its own style.

A judge ruled on April 8 that, under the First Amendment, if the government opens its doors to some journalist, it cannot shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. The Constitution, the court said, requires no less. But a week later, the White House was still excluding AP from the press pool.

In yet another action against the press, Trump has silenced the Voice of America. The Voice of America was created to counter propaganda from authoritarian governments in the Second World War. The Voice of America has grown to be a powerful check on disinformation from authoritarian governments. It broadcasted in 40 languages, bringing facts to bear against that propaganda from those strong-man states.

But now Trump has canceled that powerful counter to authoritarian governments around the world.

He is attacking free speech as well as the free press. Like many of us here, I was in the House Chamber last month for Trump's State of the Union Address when he claimed to have ``brought free speech back to America.'' That is completely wrong. The opposite is true. He has sought to end free speech in America, taking control of content at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian museums, canceling programs, firing employees, even scrubbing Federal websites simply because of words he doesn't like.

But most egregiously, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is using a 1952 Red Scare law--a McCarthyist law--to strip students and others of their visas and deport them, students like Mahmoud Khalil at Columbia University or Rumeysa Ozturk of Tufts University. Neither was accused of a crime. Both had simply exercised free speech. I think every Member here would have assumed that a student has the right to express their opinion on an issue because we are here in the United States of America.

You know, many of us grew up hearing the phrase: I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. That is the conviction behind free speech. I don't like what you say. What you say even makes me angry. But I defend your right to say it. I defend your right to have that opinion because we live here in the United States of America, where we honor free speech.

It is the freedom of the individual, and it is an important check on power that people can express it, can express it without having their documents canceled, without being arrested as they

leave a classroom, not being swept off to some prison halfway across the country because you say something the government doesn't like. But all that has changed here in the United States of America because students who are saying things the government doesn't like are being swept off the street and transported halfway across the country and held in prisons in preparation to deport them.

This particular 1952 Red Scare McCarthyist law being used by the Secretary of State says an alien can be excluded if ``the Secretary of State personally determines that the alien's admission would compromise a compelling [U.S.] foreign policy interest.''

``[A] compelling [U.S.] foreign policy interest.''

How does a student expressing an opinion on a campus somewhere compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest? Does it compromise our foreign policy interests when I say I disagree with some foreign policy venture? I have said it about Democratic Presidents, that I disagree with them. I have said it about Republican Presidents, that I disagree with them. So has virtually every single Member of this Chamber. That is freedom of speech. And we don't expect or believe that compromises the United States; we think it makes it stronger to have an actual debate of ideas, opinions expressed and hopefully considered.

It is an extraordinary law that came from another era where free speech was under attack. It is an extraordinary power to have vested in one person--the Secretary of State--that power to punish free speech. It is a chilling attempt to silence free speech that presents viewpoints out of favor with this administration, and it is wrong. It is wrong under our Constitution.

I would hope that every single Member of this Chamber would share the view that when they hear someone speaking with whom they disagree, they would still stand and defend that person's right to say it.

Note that there was no due process for students Rubio disfavored, just as there was no due process for the Venezuelan immigrants Trump sent to El Salvador.

``Due process''--those two words. What does it mean? And maybe it sounds like legal mumbo-jumbo. Due process is the guardian of our freedom. It means you cannot be grabbed by the government at their will, tossed into a van, and thrown into a prison because they cannot do so, they cannot take away our liberty or our rights without a fair, public process. That defends our freedom.

It is about freedom, but this administration isn't about freedom. They are about power, authoritarian power, about creating a strongman state. If we want to preserve freedom, we damn well better defend due process vigorously.

The fifth authoritarian strategy by Trump is to target other power centers in our communities, including law firms and universities.

Trump has attacked a host of major law firms, in some cases hamstringing the firms by suspending their national security clearances and therefore making them unable to represent their clients in key cases. He has done this to punish their past association with individuals or cases that threatened his power or to sway them from using their skills, their legal skills, in new efforts that might threaten that power.

The attacks that Trump has launched on law firms have generated some results. Skadden, Arps and Paul, Weiss have capitulated, agreeing, among other concessions, to end diversity policies and contribute millions of dollars of pro bono work to conservative clients. It is extortion. That is what this administration is involved in. They are using the power of the Presidency to take away the ability of law firms to operate in order to extort them to contribute free services to causes the President favors.

Well, these law firms--Skadden, Arps and Paul, Weiss--are not alone. As of a month ago, nine firms had surrendered, nine firms had bent the knee, agreeing to provide $1 billion in pro bono legal work for causes preferred by this administration. Again, it is extortion, and it is misuse of the President's power.

But some of the law firms actually believe in an America where a President cannot exercise this sort of extortion. Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, and WilmerHale have fought back. They are challenging Trump's authority to do this. Impressively, more than 500 other firms have stood with them, signing briefs denouncing Trump's extortion.

Trump and his team have also pressed to reshape policies at universities by launching investigations of their practices and freezing millions or billions in their Federal grants--$510 million in Federal grants frozen at Brown University; $175 million in grants frozen at the University of Pennsylvania; $210 million frozen at Princeton; $2.2 billion in Federal grants frozen at Harvard University.

Some universities, like Columbia University, have capitulated. Others, like Harvard and Princeton, are fighting back.

A sincere compliment to Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber, who published an op-ed in The Atlantic when the first attack occurred on Columbia University. He called on presidents to ``speak up and litigate forcefully to protect their rights.'' He said: This won't be the last university that is attacked. Not soon after, his own university was attacked. He noted that this attack on universities is ``the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s.''

Looking back on these 100 days and these five strategies to convert a robust Republic, our robust Republic, with its checks and balances, into a strongman state, it raises a number of questions--questions that I hope folks will ponder.

First, Trump nominated a man, Pete Hegseth, to be Secretary of Defense who is fabulously unqualified for the position. He fired several highly capable, top-tier military leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, CQ Brown, and the Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Lisa Franchetti. These firings make plain that Trump doesn't value these professionals' management--nonpartisan management of our Armed Forces.

Is Trump seeking to fill these top tiers of our military with loyalists? If that is what he is up to--replacing these highly professional, impartial managers of our military enterprise with loyalists--what additional authoritarian risks does this pose for our Republic?

Second, what has the Supreme Court unleashed through its Trump v. United States decision? Last summer, less than a year ago, at the beginning of July 2024, the Supreme Court found some invisible ink in the Constitution. Grab your Constitution. Take a read of it. Where does it say in here that the President is above the law?

Our Founders were terrified that a President would try to become a King. They had just escaped one King; they didn't want another. Instead, they had a theory of the world: Equal justice under law-- equal. For the powerful and the nonpowerful, for the rich and the nonrich, equal justice under law.

It is carved into the stone above the pillars of the Supreme Court, which, if you go out the doors I am pointing out to my right and you continue down the hallway, there is another set of doors, another set of stairs, and you can see the Supreme Court straight across from here, and you can read ``equal justice under law.'' That is the principle. But I will tell you what--that Supreme Court last year decided no equal justice under the law. In fact, the President has complete immunity from committing a crime as long as he calls it a government act.

It is invisible ink in here somewhere, but I will tell you, the Founders are rolling over in their graves at this betrayal of the Constitution by this majority in the Supreme Court. Think about what they have done. You take this immunity from being accountable under the law and you pair it with pardon power, and you now have an entire executive branch that considers itself immune from the law, which helps explain some of the items I went over before--how there are deliberate and willful violations of law by this administration.

Quite a challenge for the future of our democracy has been created by the Supreme Court, but the Supreme Court will have a chance to redeem itself. It never really considered how the combination of the new power they found in invisible ink that a President is above the law combined with pardon

power has completely destroyed the foundation of law in our Nation--an executive that considers itself not accountable.

A third issue is the stretching of laws that really don't even begin to convey the power that Trump has claimed.

We are all aware of the tariffs that he is setting and tearing down day after day. Tariffs are up. Tariffs are down. Tariffs over here. Exceptions over there. Oh, iPhones? Too important. Let's create an exception. Oh, cars are too expensive. Let's create an exception. Who knows? It is certainly not a foundation for companies to invest in America because it is chaos.

He is using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act as a legal basis to set tariffs. But read the act. It says nothing about powers of tariffs, nothing that gives the President the ability to raise and lower tariffs on one fiat after another. It provides power for sanctions and seizures, not tariffs. It has never been used by any other President to set tariffs.

There is no precedent for it, and there is no language in the law that serves it.

Or let's see him reaching further back into history, using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act. That act was passed when our early Members of Congress were afraid that France would invade the United States, and they wanted to be able to deport French citizens who might help the French invasion, should it occur.

But Trump is using that as the legal basis for deporting Venezuelans, saying: There is an invasion of Venezuelans.

Well, clearly there is no invasion by the Venezuelan Government. This act was used, shamefully, in World War II, in particular, to lock up Japanese-Americans in concentration camps, and it is being used shamefully and inappropriately now.

It raises the question: What other ancient law is the President and Russell Vought going to dust off and use in a way that was never intended?

Whatever emergency power law--and there are 25, several dozen laws that provide emergency power--is the President going to dust off and say this gives me some additional ability? How might those laws be used in ways to reinforce the strongman state and erode our Nation?

And might the President invoke the power in article II, section 3, a power that is in the Constitution that says that the President can adjourn Congress? Of course, it was never intended to undermine the ability of laws to be crafted here or Congress to serve as a check on Executive power. It has never been used, in fact, by a President ever, but what is this President going to do with that power? Might he--given how he is stretching other laws, misapplying them in situations for which they were never intended--deliberately adjourn Congress to advance his goal of the strongman state?

And let's ponder a few questions that are specific to our Congress. Will Trump's impoundments and rescissions destroy the congressional process for drafting bipartisan spending bills? For fiscal year 2025, the year that started last October 1, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed 11 of the 12 spending bills out of committee in an overwhelmingly bipartisan fashion. In fact, most of them were passed unanimously out of committee.

That was possible because compromises were struck. Compromises were the priorities of both parties, compromises for priorities of different regions of the Nation with different concerns.

Just think about the difference in types of natural disasters that strike different parts of our country. Some States endure hurricanes, others grapple with earthquakes. The Pacific Northwest, where I come from, battles wildfires. Different parts of the country have different needs. Different parts of the country have desires to have those needs met, resulting in compromises in these spending bills.

But if Trump is allowed to impound the funds for programs for the priorities of his political opponents of either party, then that destroys the foundation for these compromises since no Senator can be assured that the deal they are striking--you get what you need, but you agree to help me get what I need for my part of the country--no one can be assured that that compromise will be honored.

Second, what is the most effective way for Congress to confront Trump's authoritarian exercise of power? In the second week of March, just a month ago, with the authority for government spending set to run out on March 15, the Senate Democrats had the ability to reject the spending bill written by the House Republicans that created a massive slush fund for Trump to use as he pleases to reward or punish specific States or specific congressional districts.

Some on the Democratic side of the aisle here in the Senate argued Democrats should not block this bill because it posed a potential shutdown, and that shutdown had political and policy risks, given that Trump might love the opportunity to operate a shoestring government with the President deciding what constitutes essential services.

Others on the Democratic side of the aisle here in the Senate argued differently, believing that the risk to our Nation was much greater if we let Trump's authoritarian ambitions go unopposed and that history teaches us that the best time to confront an authoritarian is right away, before he amasses even more power.

Both of these arguments had some merit. We will face this decision again soon when the existing continuing resolution runs out on September 30. That will be a critical moment for Congress to confront the President and not hand him more power. We should be preparing for that moment now.

A third question specific to the operation of Congress: Over the next several months, the national policy debates are likely to be dominated by Republican pursuit of a reconciliation bill, a fancy term for a bill that has a special fast-track, simple majority, no filibuster path through the Senate. This bill is designed to cut $2 trillion from programs families use to thrive--healthcare, housing, education, good- paying jobs--gifts $2 trillion in tax breaks to the richest Americans. So families lose and billionaires, they win. That is the philosophy of this bill.

It also abandons the use of nonpartisan calculations of how much a specific policy will cost and instead decides to engage in smoke and mirrors so the American public won't realize what is being done. And it will explode the national debt, adding 7 trillion of additional debt over 10 years and 52 trillion of additional debt over 30 years. Families lose; millionaires win. And America's future is deeply damaged, perhaps drowned in an ocean of red ink created by this bill.

You know, it was stunning at the inauguration, the one that happened just down this hallway in the Rotunda, to see President Trump with a lineup of billionaires standing behind him. Some countries would call this oligarchs--oligarchs standing behind him.

Will Congress really pass a bill that takes away 2 trillion from families to give 2 trillion in tax breaks to the very richest Americans to buy the support of oligarchs? Is that what we are headed to--a strongman state in which Congress acquiesces in buying the support of the oligarchs?

We saw this happen just yesterday and today. Amazon was going to put up honest impacts on its website saying how much Trump's tariffs would add to the cost of products so people could see why they were being charged so much for things that were much cheaper a little while ago, but Trump in this relationship with the oligarchs called up Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, and said: That is bad for me. Don't do it.

Here is what is going on. Trump is doing what is good for the oligarchs, 2 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans, and then he is asking them to do his bidding, and that includes not being honest with the American people about the impact of his tariffs.

The first hundred days of Trump's administration has made clear that his quest for authoritarian power is a threat to the framework of our Constitution, to the separation of powers, to the checks and balances that must be fiercely resisted, fiercely resisted by Congress.

And I call my colleagues across the aisle: Remember your oath is to the Constitution. You did not take an oath to the President of the United States, not to one individual. That is what people do when they kneel to a King, and we are not a kingdom. We are a Republic, fiercely resisted by the courts, fiercely resisted by the people through

mass action. The press needs to channel AP, not CBS. The universities need to channel Harvard, which is resisting, not Columbia that bent the knee. The law firms need to channel Perkins Coie, not Paul, Weiss, which capitulated.

And to the American people across the country who are angry and disturbed by what is happening, who want to stop this authoritarian takeover, I have three suggestions:

Get off the couch. You can't help change the world curled up in a fetal position on your couch.

Second, fiercely hold your elected representatives accountable with your phone calls, with your mail, with your demonstrations outside their office. Hold your representatives accountable. That is what you get to do in a free nation.

And, third, join affinity groups. Being angry and frustrated alone is depressing. Being angry and organized with others is energizing and effective.

Next year, the United States of America will celebrate its 250th anniversary. Let it be a celebration of our determination and our effectiveness in confronting and turning back Trump's authoritarian assault, a celebration of the reenergization of our constitutional framework and the vision of government by the people, not by the powerful.

We are participants in a 250-year relay of democracy, where the responsibility to govern ourselves has been handed from one generation to the next. We inherited it from our parents and our grandparents. Let's pass it on to your children and our grandchildren.

When Ben Franklin was leaving the Constitutional Convention, he was asked: What type of government do we have?

He responded:

A republic, if you can keep it.

Let's keep it.

Mr. President, we are closing things out here till midnight, but I do want to thank my colleague from Oregon for his passion for this country.

We all do dream of that world where, in fact, the people in this country can once more have a say in what is happening; that we do not have this chaos that is actually not what they bought into.

I just came back from a 19-county trip across my State, and people came up to me all the time and said: You know, I voted for you, and I voted for Donald Trump. But I voted for him because I thought he was going to bring costs down. That is not what is happening right now. Or I thought he was going to do something about housing because we don't have enough housing in rural Minnesota. Or I thought he was going to do something about childcare.

They actually, understandably, thought it because it was the stuff that he talked about in the campaign. But that is not what has happened in these first 100 days. In fact, what do we have? We have got costs are up; ask anyone in the grocery aisles. Corruption is up; look at the budget being proposed, $50 million in tax cuts for millionaires. And, yes, chaos is up.

Sadly, retirement savings are down. When you look at what has been happening with the market, we haven't seen this kind of decline in the first 100 days--I don't think it has been since Richard Nixon that we have seen this kind of a drop.

So in his campaign, the President promised ``to lower prices on day one.'' Instead, Americans are paying more today than we did on January 20. And then you look at the tariff taxes: $4,000, $4,000 per family, $200 of that an increase in groceries. That is what it is; it is a tariff tax.

At the pharmacy, prescription drugs will cost Americans an extra $70 a year, and clothing prices will soar more than $900 a year.

Look, Elon Musk is going to be able to afford that. Millionaires, billionaires, OK, they can afford this doubling of certain prescriptions. They can afford things going up at the grocery store. Agriculture prices going up like they were--they can afford that. But regular people, people who aren't in the Trump Cabinet, can't afford that.

When you talk to people out there--I am not talking about activists, as much as I am excited that they are showing up at things. I am just talking about people that maybe have never even gone to a townhall meeting before.

I had one case where a farmer was sitting next to a woman who had one of the signs that said ``This is not normal.'' She is right, it is not normal, but he didn't know what that meant.

He said to her: I am normal. What do you mean?

She said: No, it is not normal.

Well, he wasn't an activist. He was just someone that is worried that his whole life's work is going to go to waste because he is a soybean farmer, and that market is going to dry up where he sells his soybeans in China because, guess what, they are going to look to buy from Brazil.

People are worried about costs and their own families. They are worried about healthcare access and the impact of Trump's tariff taxes on the economy; people who live on fixed incomes, and suddenly those costs are ballooning or they saved in a 401(k) or some other retirement savings, and that has gone down to where they didn't expect it. Then they try to call Social Security to figure out what they are going to get or they are getting or they have a spouse who died.

One man who I met with--I could not believe his story. He has worked with Social Security before. His wife died in January after a long illness, and he emailed, and they asked for his fingerprint. He couldn't do that online, but he kept emailing. Then he called. Then he finally had to drive into Brainerd, MN, to get to the office. Then he finally ended up having to call our office, and we figured it out for him. That is happening now.

I think about the businesswoman Beth Benike from southern Minnesota. She is an Army veteran and the owner of a little company called Busy Baby and this year's Minnesota Small Business Person of the Year. She is feeling really good about that. She has a business where she gets mats for highchairs so these little babies can't throw things over. Many of us who are moms remember that. All of a sudden, in come those tariffs.

So some big businesses and their CEOs have a red carpet to the White House. You know, Tim Cook--I am glad he saved his phones. But he is able to make a call to the President at any time, and he can go in there. Beth Benike at Busy Baby doesn't know the President's number. She can't just waltz in there. She can't just go and make a call and make sure that they are going to take care and make an exemption for her Busy Baby gear.

Maybe the other ones got to go to that special, secret investment meeting at J.P. Morgan with the Treasury Secretary. That soybean farmer at the townhall meeting was not invited to that meeting. The owner of Busy Baby was not invited to that meeting. So they don't actually know. Maybe they revealed what countries are close to trade agreements.

Today, the Commerce Secretary claimed he has an agreement with a secret country--his words--secret agreement. But my constituents who are living on the margin, who, maybe because of input costs for their business or their farms or their ranches or because of a weather event for farmers or because of avian flu for some of our poultry producers-- they are just on the edge. They are on the edge, and they just barely make it every year or maybe one year, they have a really good year.

But these tariffs for them came out of nowhere. They actually never would have believed that this would have been going on as long as it has.

You know, one of the problems is that even if it gets fixed, a lot of those markets may not come back because we have become undependable to other countries.

If we continue along this path, as we have already seen--the farmers told me: Sometimes, because we need consistency, we figure out what crop we are going to plant, what seeds we are going to plant. But we are really not sure. It is a guess for us now because we don't know about soybeans with China or ethanol--40 percent goes to Canada. But we don't know which ones we are going to get the trade agreement with.

They need consistency.

So what happens when they don't have that consistency? Well, they

freeze their investments. They don't buy new stock. They kind of keep what they have. Who loses out? Customers will lose out, yes, but the people that work there lose out. They start laying people off. That is what you are seeing. There are more announcements today about laying people off.

The supply chains get messed up. They don't know--one of my major manufacturers, about 20 percent of their parts come from China, but they employ nearly 10,000 people in America, and they put stuff together. They don't know which parts are going to be available or not because they probably don't get them directly from one company. They don't get them directly from China; they get them from someone in the middle who doesn't know if they are going to get them. There is an incredibly complex supply chain in this country.

We learned during the pandemic the hard way, the sad way, what happens when that supply chain gets messed up. If just one thing is missing, a piece of a part that goes on some furniture manufactured in North Carolina, but they need some parts from somewhere else, then you can't have it at the room and board in Minneapolis. That is what got messed up during that time with the supply chains.

Those were the simplest examples.

When you have this intricate supply chain, as leaders of this country, when we take out things like tariffs, we do it in a targeted fashion, but we also do it in a smart way, and the best way to do it is with trade agreements.

One of the things that always confused me about the President going after Canada the way he has--we congratulate Prime Minister Carney, who just won his election. One of the things that really confused me about these attacks on one of our biggest allies, the incredible country of Canada--the attack of calling it our 51st State--it was this country, Canada, that fought alongside our soldiers in two world wars; it was this country, Canada, that was there as the first ones on the ground outside of America after 9/11; it was this country, Canada, that, on their Embassy, had draped for years, when others sometimes didn't even want to admit they were America's friend, ``friend, ally, partner.'' That is the country you are going to mess around with?

In my State, it is the top trading partner, and it actually eclipses the next three added together. This is the State--my State--that is the fourth biggest ag-exporting State in the country, that has multiple Fortune 500 companies but also has very successful small- and medium- size businesses.

So that is the messing around and the chaos we are talking about. That creates a situation where some of our best friends who love coming to America for vacations--they will go to Minnesota to go fishing even though they have a lot of lakes in Canada. They will go to Vegas. They will go to our national parks. They will go to New York City. They will go to see one of their Canadian hockey teams play an American hockey team. But do you know what is happening now? They are not just booing at those hockey games. What is happening now is they are canceling their trips, so they are not coming at all. It is viewed as a sign of patriotism because of what President Trump has been saying about the people in their country. They are predicting a 70-percent reduction in Canadians coming to America.

I was just up in a small town on the North Shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota. They have already seen like 15 percent down in just 1 month in border crossings. Average tourists, when they visit from another country, spend $4,000 in our country. That is going to restaurants-- waitresses, waiters, jobs, chefs. That is money spent on going to small community theaters or going to the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN. That has a huge number, in normal--normal--conditions, of Canadian visitors.

That is the mess just with one country. I could use similar examples with Mexico--40 percent of corn to Mexico. I could use examples from some of our best allies--Japan, South Korea, Europe--countries that have stood with us through thick and thin. But just slap a tariff on it, and say it is paused but keep it in place. What is this going to do to, yes, our national security but also to our relations with the rest of the world?

That is why, when you see these public opinion polls, two-thirds of Americans say they don't like these tariffs or tariff taxes across the board--so many polls in the last week assessing these 100 days. Americans say they don't like the way Donald Trump has handled this economy--nearly two-thirds of them say that. His approval rating is down to lower than any President in the last 80 years since they started to do polling. People have noticed. It is their livelihoods.

Unfortunately--I would love to tell them: Hey, that is going to turn around tomorrow. They have these secret deals. They are going to negotiate.

I don't actually believe that anymore. I never really did.

But then to compound everything, you have this billionaire budget going on. To pay for these tax cuts--I think it is $37 trillion total in 30 years, but when you take out the tax cuts for people making under $400,000--some of the ones that I strongly support--when you take those out, you are left with about $25 trillion. You have $25 trillion added debt in those 30 years.

What is it all about? How are we going to find ways they think will pay for these tax cuts for these millionaires and billionaires? Well, why not do it on the backs of working Americans? Because that is the proposal from over in the House, where they have suggested hundreds of millions of dollars--something like $800 billion--$800 billion. And the way they have done it, the Congressional Budget Office has looked at it, and they say the only way this will work is if you make reductions to Medicaid. Eighty million Americans are on Medicaid. In my State, one out of two people in nursing homes is on Medicaid. One out of five people overall in our State is on Medicaid for their healthcare.

One constituent from Mora, MN, told me that Medicaid helps her afford a direct-support professional for one of her daughters who has a complex developmental disability. You have people who are in nursing homes.

This is what is interesting about this. It is not just our seniors who are on Medicaid; it is our family members. When my dad got sick late in his life--he lived into his nineties--he was in a nursing home. I knew exactly the day his savings were going to run out. We calculated it because we knew that the place he was staying didn't take Medicaid. I knew the exact day, the exact week, the exact month we were going to move him. We were going to move him to Catholic Charities. They said they would take him. It was about a year after he died that that date hit, but I knew that date. So many families know exactly what I am talking about. That is real--if we start messing around with Medicaid-- the effect that is going to have on families.

Then there is food assistance, which is big-time on the chopping block. I think the farm bill estimates for the Senate bill would be about $1 billion down, but in the House, it is $230 billion. Food assistance for 42 million Americans, including 16 million children, 8 million seniors, and 1 million veterans is on the chopping block.

If you cut that in this reconciliation bill, if that gets cut under the Trump budget and it gets transferred to the States--Texas alone-- let's say you have 20 percent. That is a number that was thrown out in the House. Texas would have to take out of the State budget over $1 billion. This is in part because of the escalating costs of groceries-- $18 billion overall for the Nation.

When we talk about costs being up, we talk about real people, not just what is happening with Wall Street and the shock it meant to the market and the stocks going down. It is real people and their livelihoods.

What else is up? Chaos is up. Yes, the billionaires' budget is cruel, but so is the chaos that people are experiencing every day.

Social Security--I used that one example already. They proposed stopping phone service on a number of Social Security claims. There was so much pushback from AARP and seniors, I heard that they rolled it back some, but it still does not allow the phone answerers for certain things.

I mentioned the widower, the 79-year-old from Crosslake who couldn't get the Social Security benefits after his wife died. That is unacceptable.

They have also attacked food safety inspections, cutting medical research out there, of course, when all those probationary employees were fired and then, of course, brought back because of court orders because this wasn't legal, because we in Congress, Democrats and Republicans--a Republican-run House and a Democratic-run Senate--had actually authorized that money and put a budget together that passed the Congress and was signed into law.

Servicemembers, classified battle plans on unclassified Signal chats, releasing the address of a secret CIA facility, sharing the names of 200 CIA officers in an unclassified email, planning to lay off 80,000 employees from the Department of Veterans Affairs--that will, of course, increase wait times. You can't decimate this. You could--as a CEO would do, you could go in there and say: OK. How can I do more with less? Where do I want to move employees? What are my important priorities?

That is not what happened. DOGE came in there and did this before most of those Cabinet members were even in.

When our soldiers sign up to serve, when people in this country want to serve our country, there is not a waiting line; and when they come home to the United States of America and they need their benefits, they need a job, they need healthcare, they need a place to live, there should never be a waiting line in the United States of America.

But no amount of chaos has blinded Americans to this issue of corruption. There have been attacks on the rule of law, attacks on our Constitution, attacks on our system of checks and balances. Of course, as I have discussed before, one of the President's first acts was to pardon those who attacked law enforcement heroes, who defended our democracy and the Capitol on January 6. He has used our justice system to reward friends and punish who he considers his enemies. I have multiple examples of this.

I think of one guy Chris Krebs, who was running the Agency that made sure that our cyber was safe, that our elections were safe. He did this during the last Trump administration, and he did a good job. He worked with the military, and he came out of this and said after that election that, in fact, it was a safe election. It was exactly what Bill Barr, President Trump's Attorney General at the time, said--that it was safe. This made the President mad. He fired Chris Krebs. All of a sudden, just in the last month, he mentions Chris Krebs again--the guy who had the audacity to make sure that our elections were not broken into by a foreign country, that we didn't have data stolen--and he says he should be investigated.

Or how about the taking away of security clearances on people whom he doesn't like? Or how about just deciding ``this university I am going to go after, not this one. I will go after that one. I will go after that one.'' One of the things I have seen that I believe we didn't see at the beginning of all of this that is worth noting is more and more other universities that aren't being targeted have come together, all signing a letter saying: No. This isn't right. Or law firms, the ones who aren't being targeted, saying: Wait a minute. This isn't the rule of law. You should be able to represent clients even if they are people you don't agree with.

I have been at law firms. I know what this is like. I may not agree with every client that our law firm represented. And I have also been in politics. I might not like a story that was written about me. I might not like what has happened in a certain race, but I don't go after the media and say that they are enemies of the state, which is what the President's FBI Director did.

The President has also--as you know, while the administration has agreed with some court orders--OK. Great. It is important for probably most of them--they just pick out ones they are not going to agree with here and there. That is not how the law works.

Access to personal financial data that was given to Elon Musk and illegally firing independent watchdogs from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to inspectors general, to the FTC. Why would you fire the very people who are rooting out the waste and fraud that you claim you want to root out? In 2023 alone--I will use the example of the FTC--the FTC returned more than $330 million to consumers who lost money from scams and deceptive business practices.

We always had a Commission and Commissioners from both parties. They didn't always agree on everything, but it was actually a functioning Agency. They are actually the ones who are bringing that case against Meta right now, which was supported by both Republican and Democratic Commissioners. Unfortunately, the President fired the two Democratic Commissioners illegally. They are contesting it, but that happened.

Another example: Since it was established just 14 years ago, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has returned more than $21 billion to Americans. Why would you want to get rid of that? President Trump is attacking these consumer watchdogs while giving Musk deals and while giving tax breaks and tariff exemptions to those who just happen to have a connection to be able to get them.

This is not what the American people voted for. The American people might disagree greatly on issues, but they did not vote for costs going up. That is for certain. They wanted costs to go down. They did not vote for someone who is engaging in: Hey, I am going to get rid of this person because I don't like him. I am going to cut off this grant because I don't like it. I don't like this program, even though Congress authorized it. Even though it is illegal to stop it, I am going to try.

They didn't vote for that, and they certainly didn't vote for this chaos. Life is hard enough right now without having this chaos.

So what is happening? The courts and the Congress are constituents. That is what is happening. So when you look at these court cases across the country, there have been over 200 so far. There have been over 100 instances where judges--and this is really important to know that there are major cases handled by judges appointed by President Trump himself where those judges said: No. This is wrong. Under our laws, this is wrong and under our Constitution.

There have been cases by Bush judges and, yes, Reagan judges, including a very recent one by Judge Wilkinson, who is a revered conservative judge on the circuit court, who upheld the district court's decision and said the district court judge had done the right thing under the law when it came to the wrongful deportation of a man who they have now admitted was a mistake. They have made very clear that he shouldn't have been deported, that it was a mistake. Then when they tell him that they should, in fact, remedy their mistake by bringing him back and U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen actually went to the country to get his constituent and was able to meet with him, it became very clear they could get that guy who was mistakenly deported back. That is called when you follow the law and you do the right thing, because, in America, the President is not King. The law is King.

How else do we hold them accountable? Congress. We are holding people accountable when we do oversight hearings, but now we just avoid it. We hold them accountable when we have votes, just like had happened on the Canada tariff bill that Senators Kaine and Warner and I put forward. It basically said the President didn't have the authority to say there was an emergency at the Canadian border, because there wasn't. Four of our Republican colleagues stood up--Senators Collins and Murkowski, whose States border with Canada, and then Senator Rand Paul and Senator Mitch McConnell, in Kentucky, which does a lot of ag. I know they have a lot of soybeans; they have a lot of exports; they also have bourbon that was being taken off the shelves, Kentucky bourbon, in the country of Canada. They understand that that is really hitting their constituents in a big way, and they stood up when it came to tariffs. It passed. Now it is sitting over there in the House of Representatives in the Speaker's freezer somewhere next to the frozen peas. I don't know, but nothing is happening right now on that, and it should, because we should actually have votes on this. Then if the President wants to veto it, go ahead. Then we could override his veto if people stood up, and this madness would stop about the Canadian tariffs. We could go

back. We are not saying we don't negotiate things. Negotiate them in the reauthorization of the USMCA, which was one of the President's crown jewels when he negotiated that. I supported it. But why not do it that way instead of rubberstamping everything that he does?

We are also doing this with our constituents by our side, and this means, to me, yes, some of the loudest voices in the room with the big townhalls and people at the microphone. Someone I ran into the other day who was not used to politics called them open mic events. Yeah, those are happening, but what is more important to me is some of the smaller ones in small towns of 1,000 people, in rural towns, with people showing up from local businesses, with people showing up from the Farmers Union, from the Farm Bureau, with people explaining what is going on in their lives in a real way, people telling the stories of trying to call Social Security. Or the two women I met who are in the middle of cancer trials that have been incredibly successful, and no one gave them a chance to live at the University of Minnesota, and they went through this cancer trial, and now they don't know what is going to happen because, while some of those cuts were put off, when you start threatening the universities, when you start threatening the funding that makes those cancer trials possible, when you have so much chaos and you want people to leave and you gave them all these buyouts and you say: Please go away, they are going to find other jobs, especially people in the medical profession where we know it is hard to keep people because they have other opportunities.

That word ``opportunity'' is really what people ask me about. What do you think we are not talking about enough when it comes to this chaos? You know, maybe we are not talking enough about what is going on in the world. I think people are starting to do that. But I think what people are not talking enough about is this opportunity that we are squandering away because of the mapping of the human genome.

Because of the investments Democrats and Republicans made together the last 11 years, every year we have increased funding to NIH--this incredible development of personalized medicine. So when you find out you have cancer, they can better figure out what your treatment should be and try to use the least invasive procedure possible, as happened to me, so that you can get through this with the breast cancer, with a lumpectomy, and you can get through it with just 5 days of radiation. You can be back at work that night. You may be a little tired, but you can.

That never would have happened 20 years ago. I don't know if I would even have been standing here. But because we invested as a country in the technology and in the work that had to be done, we are where we are, and now we are on the cusp, thanks to that mapping of the human genome, the personalized medicine, all the information we are gathering, and, yes, AI, if done and used professionally and ethically. We are on the cusp of leading the world again when it comes to curing rare diseases and when it comes to the next great big thing.

But that is not going to happen if we suddenly pull back, and people start quitting all of our research facilities and go do their clinical trials in other countries because it is more dependable, which is what is happening right now. That is not going to happen if FDA inspectors-- which it is very hard to get these doctors and medical professionals who can look at medical devices and make a decision. That is not all going to happen if they start leaving because of the negativity coming from the White House about their work, because of the forced departures, because the incentives put in place cannot keep them there, which is what we should be doing rather than incentivizing them to leave.

On the day of the inauguration, I had the opportunity to speak for, like, 4 minutes, and I picked every word really carefully. I knew it was an important event. I knew what my role was--I would have done it no matter who won--but on that day, I made three points, and I think they are still more relevant than ever. I wanted to pick three things that I thought would stand the test of time.

The first was that, before this and certainly now, our democracy has been a hot mess. There is a mess of division, and I think it has gotten much worse. But it is our job as citizens, especially as elected Representatives, to be the ``shelter from the storm,'' to quote Bob Dylan, a great Minnesotan. A shelter from the storm--that is what our democracy should be: a place where people civilly debate things and come up with a compromise and get through all this, and it is still on all of us, especially in the U.S. Senate--what has been called the world's great deliberative body--to do that.

The second thing: In America, the inauguration is not held in a gilded palace. It is not held in an executive office building. It is held in the ``People's House.'' It is held in the Congress for a reason because we have three equal branches of government. That means we have a court that decides the law. That means we have a Congress that should be able to show its weight. And all of these Representatives, duly elected in each State and each congressional district over in the House--and show its authority on behalf of the people whom we represent. That means taking on these tariffs and votes. That means making sure this is a fair budget for the people of this country.

And the third and final thing that I believe will stand the test of time is, remember that day in the Rotunda and there were all those powerful billionaires in that room and there were also the people's representatives in that room, but the thing that we had in common, from a freshman Member of the House of Representatives to the President of the United States that day, is the power did not come from within that room; the power came from outside of that room, from the people.

So what you are seeing right now in the form of, yes, townhalls, also in the form of rallies, yes, but also in the form of regular people writing our offices, burning up the phone lines, showing up at events, talking to you at a grocery store, talking to you on Main Street, and they are saying: This is not OK, Senator; this is not OK, Representative; I need you to do something about it. That is the power of the people from outside this building. That is the power of the people who gave us the honor of serving in this building.

So as we look at these first 100 days of this chaos, of these costs going up, of the retirement funds going down, we still have to remember why we are here. So instead of throwing our hands up in the air, either side, and saying: Oh, what can I do? This is our moment in the U.S. Senate to stand up, our moment to stand up on tariffs, our moment to stand up on this budget. All we need is, like, four Republicans in the House of Representatives to stand up and say ``enough is enough'' and listen to their constituents instead of rubberstamping what this President wants. This is truly our moment to do that.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 177 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse), 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 to revise and extend their remarks.

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

Mr. Speaker, I remind my Democratic colleague that the rule we are debating today provides for consideration of H.J. Res. 42 regarding a Department of Energy appliance rule, H.J. Res. 61 regarding an EPA National Emission Standards rule on rubber tire manufacturing, and S.J. Res. 11 regarding the EPA's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management rules requiring burdensome archaeological reports on energy producers.

There will be ample opportunities to debate, amend, and provide suggestions when the appropriate authorizing committees move forward when we begin our work on spending reforms in a budget reconciliation package. We should focus on the legislation before us this week.

I encourage my colleagues to engage in regular order as our authorizing

committees begin to work on our reconciliation and not prejudge their outcomes and make baseless assumptions.

My colleagues across the aisle have mentioned how they find these measures not worthy of our time. This certainly isn't the first time they have mocked House Republican efforts to curb regulations on appliances, from heating systems to dishwashers, refrigerators, and freezers.

If this were such an unserious endeavor as my colleagues across the aisle claim, then why did the administration they supported for 4 years issue at least 31 regulations covering a vast array of different appliances and other products out of the DOE and the EPA? Is $60 billion foisted on to our Nation's manufacturers and consumers in new regulatory and compliance costs not serious enough for Congress to thoroughly scrutinize?

Democrats seem to be confused about what it is that the American people voted for in November, and one of those items was lowering day- to-day costs that are hurting workers and families. Reversing these regulations is something that House Republicans are deeply committed to doing, and we are working with the administration to actually get this done.

I would also recommend that my colleagues across the aisle speak with the fellow Democrats in their Caucus about how harmful these regulations are and why CRAs to reverse Biden's anti-energy and economically harmful regulations are so important.

Last Congress, Democrats voted with Republicans to pass at least five measures to halt Biden administration green energy regulations, including the following:

A CRA to halt the Biden definition of the Waters of the United States. Nine Democrats voted ``yes.''

A CRA to halt draconian emissions standards on heavy-duty vehicles. Four Democrats voted ``yes.''

A CRA to halt draconian emission standards on light-and medium-duty vehicles. Eight Democrats voted ``yes.''

In this Congress, a whopping 11 Democrats voted just last week in support of a CRA on the Biden administration's rule on conservation standards for consumer gas-fired instantaneous water heaters, one of those appliance-related regulations that my colleagues here today claim is not worth our time in the House, but their colleagues voted ``yes.''

Finally, six Democrats voted ``yes'' on last week's CRA to halt the Biden-era implementation of a natural gas tax that would harm our Nation's energy producers and consumers.

The Democratic Party is busy pulling their hair out over President Trump, Elon Musk, DOGE, whatever else is their outrage of the day. However, they have lost sight of the kitchen-table issues affecting everyday Americans. They ignore the rising costs hurting workers and families in order to cater to their own extreme leftwing base. It is so bad that even Members in their own Caucus are breaking ranks to vote for commonsense reforms such as the rolling back of these radical anti- energy agenda items that the Biden administration foisted upon us in the eleventh hour of their administration.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, we listen to calls from our Democratic colleagues for compassion and concern. I must ask the question, where was the compassion and concern while they watched prices skyrocket over our constituents over the 4 years of the Biden administration?

Where was the compassion and concern where the Biden regulatory environment smothered the U.S. economy with regulation after regulation, trillions of dollars in off-budget spending,

which soared inflation for the American people? Where was the compassion then?

Where was the outrage when House Republicans were calling for relief for the American people in the last Congress?

They said that we were following the wishes of only President Trump. They followed the Green New Deal playbook to a t, and that is what we are here to debate today are these important rollbacks of the Green New Deal agenda.

We sat idly by and watched our country get invaded by at least 10 million people that came across our country's borders with the direct will of the President to do it. President Trump has proven in just less than 2 short months the ability for a President to roll this all back with executive orders. Yet, the cost to New York alone was $7 billion in costs on New York taxpayers. Where was the outrage then?

For 8 years, this hysteria has cost them. While they persisted in their witch hunt of President Trump in 2022, Americans contended with 40-year high inflation, after Democrats and President Biden dumped trillions of dollars into a recovering post-COVID economy, which even one of their chief economists told us would create massive inflation. They ignored that guidance.

Did they seek to address everyday Americans' concerns about the direction of our economy? They did not. They doubled down on lawfare against President Trump, and it lost them the House in 2022. In 2024, when the world was on fire with our borders flung open to the invasion of millions of illegal aliens into this country that prompted a crisis in countless communities, including my own, Americans' top concerns coming back time and time again, poll after poll, were the economy and our border. Democrats did no work to address those concerns.

Did Vice President Kamala Harris address them? No, she did not. She didn't make that sale to the American people when she was campaigning across this country. Instead, all we heard was about Kamala brat summer and the last-ditch jittery attempt at once again trying to convince Americans that Trump was somehow a threat to democracy. Democrats lost, historically, on November 5, 2024. They lost the electoral vote, the popular vote, and they lost every swing State on the table.

Did Democrats learn from this smarting defeat since President Trump took office? They clearly have not. Instead, they focus their time again defending USAID slush funds, flat-out government waste, and pretty much every problem, trying to lay it at President Trump's feet, including what he is doing every single day as well as DOGE and how they are trying to fix the crisis and the mess that was left behind by the Biden years.

Mr. Speaker, the American people have time and again responded to Democratic hair-pulling with, at best, disinterest. Yet, here we are today on the House floor with more of the same.

The rule before us considers legislation focused on ridding American consumers in an industry of harming regulations that are truly impacting their wallets and their financial well-being and our Nation's economic future. I urge my colleagues to quit the hysterics and for once listen to the voices of the American people after years of refusing to do so.

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

Are you yielding me your time?

Mr. Speaker, we have seen a lot of masterful theatrics out of the Democratic Party recently, and we are seeing nothing different from that today. It is amazing that people who are so concerned about burdensome regulations and costs on people offer no solutions.

We are here doing the work of that today. We are taking price concerns off of the back of industries. We are preserving jobs. We are creating a brighter future for our communities by getting rid of this eleventh hour rulemaking that was put forward by the Biden administration.

They had all the power to make this country move in the right direction when Democrats controlled all of Congress and the White House following the 2020 elections. They had the ability to make those changes, but they took the country in the wrong direction.

That is why the country, at the ballot box, made the changes that they made. They took the House out of Democratic hands and made Republicans lead the House of Representatives. Then, they did the same with the Senate and the White House in 2024.

That is the report card that the Democratic Party earned because they prioritized the things that the American people did not want prioritized. They haven't read the room. They answer to their woke and angry mobs that they are foisting on Members of Congress and people all over the country right now. It is a very coordinated effort. They deny it, but make no mistake, every U.S. Senator today released a video that has the exact same script. It is very clearly a theatrical performance that the American people are seeing out of Democrats in the U.S. Senate.

We are here with solutions to problems created by the last administration. We are putting them forward to get the job done. We have a timeline that we have to focus on, and that is why these CRAs are so important for us to tackle right now. We have limited legislative days in order to roll back these unnecessary, burdensome regulations that no one asked for and no one wanted. We are getting the job done that we were sent here to do.

Let's look again at the numbers. The Biden administration has issued at least 31 regulations for residential and commercial appliances and equipment, totaling $60 billion. If my friends on the other side of the aisle don't think that added regulatory costs filter into the price of new appliances, then we

have several bridges available for them to purchase.

Let's look further at some of the regulations that will reap financial savings for American consumers. In one example, under the Biden DOE's dishwasher efficiency standards, Americans are expected to save a whopping $1.12 under that regulation. Was that necessary to put out there? Of course, it wasn't.

These are savings that the left expected the American people to be excited about as they racked up more regulations and more restrictions that cost us jobs from the results of the Biden years.

Under the latest DOE rule that H.J. Res. 42 would fortunately curb, home appliance manufacturers have already outlined how the rule requires their industry to provide a myriad of unnecessary information and data that is meaningless when demonstrating efficiency but simply is required to meet compliance with the rules.

It is regulations for the sake of regulations, and the American people are left to pay higher prices and have fewer choices.

At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, my colleagues simply refuse to acknowledge the natural dynamics of the marketplace. When left to their own devices, the American people will seek out the most efficient model of an appliance that they can afford.

I agree with my colleagues when they say that the American people want cost savings, both at sale and with efficiency over the lifecycle of an appliance. What they don't want is government intervention that limits their ability to make those choices themselves. They want to have more affordable options available to fit tighter budgets, not fewer, more expensive choices because unelected bureaucrats at Biden's DOE needed to micromanage what refrigerators, dishwashers, heaters, air-conditioners, you name it, were permissible under unrealistic efficiency standards.

H.J. Res. 42 will help curb these costly, limiting, and anti-natural gas standards from the final days of the gasping Biden administration that were finalized at the behest of his radical climate lobby.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the epiphany that those on the other side of the aisle now have--and they are so concerned about costs and economic concerns-- when they fought us tooth and nail on every single action that we tried to take to curb the Biden administration's uncontrollable regulatory environment is just laughable.

We watched, warned, and fought in the 118th Congress to stop an administration that created a regulatory environment that has added about $1.5 trillion in needless regulations that have stifled the growth of industry and jobs in this country. Now, we are seeing them all of a sudden change their tune.

As our new administration is less than a month and a half old, things are moving in the right direction. People have a new view of what the future is. We are fighting hard to preserve a predictable tax code in this country. We are extending the current tax code so that we can have regulatory certainty, tax certainty, so that businesses can thrive and grow and not fear the hammer of government that they did in the Biden years.

There was an explosion after election day of people ready, willing, and able to invest in America. We have seen unprecedented investment come in from overseas, bringing new jobs, new opportunities, and new future creation here to the United States since election day. That will continue because that is what President Trump campaigned on. That is what House Republicans fight for and what we will achieve together.

Mr. Speaker, this epiphany that we have had on the other side of the aisle, that they are now all of a sudden concerned with the costs of everyday Americans, was nowhere to be found for 2 years in the 118th Congress, as we fought every day about the costs of gas and groceries and how it was pinching away because of Biden's inflation and what it had done to the purchasing power of everyday Americans' accounts.

People in probably both of our districts said the same exact thing, that they were watching the American Dream slip away from our kids and grandkids because we couldn't necessarily be certain that the future would be brighter under the current trajectory of this country.

We have saddled the country with $36.5 trillion in debt. It is a debt service that is higher than what we spend on our national defense. It is an unacceptable legacy that we are leaving to our future generations. We are working every day toward our budget reconciliation to get that under control so that we can be the era that bent the curve on spending and got this country back on track.

Yet, we have other people on the other side of the aisle who want to keep spending levels at the COVID era. COVID fell upon us 5 years ago this week, yet they still want to spend like we are in the midst of an emergency.

It is time that we have a commonsense revolution in this country, commonsense like what we are doing here today: rolling back needless regulations that hurt jobs, hurt workers, and hurt consumers. That is what we were asked to do by our constituents.

These CRAs this week are important because they reinstitute choice in the marketplace. They take the bureaucrats that DOGE is fighting every single day out of the equation and put the

American consumer back in the driver's seat so that we can have choice in our consumer goods, not creating a standard just to justify someone's job in a cubicle somewhere. That is what this government has been about for far too long, but those days are over.

Mr. Speaker, we are now putting common sense in the driver's seat in this country. We are working toward a brighter future for our kids and grandkids.

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

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

For 4 years, Democrats gaslit the American people in a vain attempt to convince them that costs weren't going up, inflation wasn't real, our economy wasn't in trouble, and there wasn't a crisis at our borders. The American people saw past that deception, and they voted for a President and a Congress that promised to put our country back on track.

Part of fulfilling that promise includes unwinding a slew of burdensome rules, prohibitions, restrictions, and other ticky-tacky attempts to micromanage everyday life for Americans. It also includes ensuring that the woke mob and their radical environmental NGOs can no longer call the shots at these Federal agencies at the expense of our manufacturers, our domestic energy producers, and good-paying jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support the rule before us today.

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

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

Madam Speaker, I am strongly opposed to H.R. 2096, which would repeal provisions of a law enacted by the District of Columbia. Madam Speaker, D.C. deserves the right to govern itself. The Supreme Court has held that Congress can delegate full legislative authority to the District of Columbia for local matters. However, Republicans choose not to do so.

Police officers are entrusted with extraordinary authority to protect public safety. The vast majority of officers exercise it honorably and bravely. However, there must be accountability and transparency for instances in which officers violate their oath of office.

H.R. 2096 would repeal provisions of a 2023 D.C. law that made it easier for the police department to discipline officers for crimes and serious misconduct. Before that law, the department had been forced to rehire a significant number of officers it had fired for crimes and official misconduct.

Let me provide examples of the types of officers the department had to rehire: officers convicted or arrested for child abuse, sexual assault, indecent exposure, drunk driving causing injuries, domestic violence, and assaults while off-duty. D.C. also had to provide millions of dollars in backpay to those officers it was forced to rehire. D.C. also had to pay millions of dollars to resolve police officer misconduct lawsuits.

Before the 2023 D.C. law, every single D.C. police chief, for at least the prior 25 years, has requested more authority to discipline officers. H.R. 2096 would inexplicably revoke this authority. By bringing H.R. 2096 to the floor, Republicans are declaring they know better than the D.C. police chiefs how to run the department.

Let's hear what some of these D.C. police chiefs have had to say about this authority. Let's start with former Chief Peter Newsham. He said that he had to allow ``very bad police officers back into our department.''

Former Chief Charles Ramsey said: ``It is demoralizing to the rank and file who really do not want to have those kinds of people in their ranks. It causes a tremendous amount of anxiety in the public. Our credibility is shot whenever these things happen.''

Former Chief Robert Contee said that this authority would ``help reduce the risk of returning poor performers to the force. . . . ''

Following the devastating murder of George Floyd, D.C. enacted the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022, which, in pertinent part, made it easier for the police department to discipline officers. H.R. 2096 would repeal that discipline provision in that law.

H.R. 2096, as introduced, includes a purpose section. The purpose is ``to combat the rise in violent crime in our Nation's Capital by eliminating policies which place law enforcement personnel of the District of Columbia at risk and discourage them from serving, ensuring that such personnel will be treated equitably and fairly and the recruitment and retention of such personnel shall be increased.'' We are not surprised that the version of H.R. 2096 on the floor today does not include that purpose section since it is inaccurate.

Violent crime is not rising here in D.C. In 2025, violent crime in D.C. is down 22 percent compared to the same period in 2024. In 2024, violent crime in D.C. was the lowest in over 30 years. Let me repeat. Violent crime is falling in D.C. and is at a 30-year low in the District of Columbia.

The D.C. Police Department is not alone in having difficulty in recruiting and retaining police officers. Police departments of all sizes across the country have had this difficulty for many years. A survey conducted in 2019, before jurisdictions across the country enacted police accountability and transparency legislation after the murder of George Floyd, found ``that the difficulty in recruiting law enforcement officers and employees is not due to one particular cause. Rather, multiple social, political, and economic forces are all simultaneously at play. . . . ''

H.R. 2096 would repeal four discipline provisions.

First, H.R. 2096 would repeal a provision that removed police officer discipline for collective bargaining. Several States, including States represented by Republicans, prohibit collective bargaining by police officers. The 2023 D.C. law maintained the right of police officers to collectively bargain, except over discipline, and maintained the civil service protections and due process rights of officers.

Collective bargaining by police officers has been widely criticized for protecting police officers from discipline. A Republican staff report for the Joint Economic Committee said: ``Collective bargaining plays a significant role in shielding police officers from the consequences of their misconduct. . . . ''

Second, H.R. 2096 would reinstitute a 90-day statute of limitations on the police department to commence discipline. The 2023 D.C. law repealed that provision because 90 days was not enough time, in some cases, to commence discipline. Adjudicators had overturned discipline because the department had exceeded the 90-day statute of limitations. There is no statute of limitations for most D.C. employees. The home State of the sponsor of H.R. 2096 has an 18-month statute of limitations to commence discipline against police officers.

Third, H.R. 2096 would repeal a provision that gave the police chief the authority to increase the discipline proposed by a police trial board, which consists of police officers. Before the 2023 D.C. law, the police chief could only impose or reduce the proposed discipline or order a new trial. The D.C. law increased the discipline power of the chief and reduced the discipline power of the trial board, which may be more inclined to protect their fellow officers from discipline.

Fourth, H.R. 2096 would repeal a provision that required the police department to publish on a public website a schedule of officer discipline hearings which are open to the public. The House of Representatives itself publishes on a public website a schedule of its committee hearings.

I close with a question and a plea. If Republicans support police officers, why hasn't Speaker Johnson installed the plaque honoring the brave police officers, including D.C. officers, who defended this Capitol on January 6? Federal law requires its installation by March 15, 2023, more than 2 years ago.

That plaque in honor of officers who were killed defending the Members of this Congress, defending this institution, is apparently sitting in a closet. The families of those officers who were killed and beaten that day are waiting for the due respect that is owed to their husbands, sons, and fathers.

The more than 700,000 D.C. residents who have all the obligations of citizenship, including paying Federal taxes and serving in our Nation's wars, deserve voting representation in Congress and full home rule. I call on the House of Representatives to pass H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Madam Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Stansbury).

Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a letter from Deirdre Schifeling, Anthony Romero, and Deborah Archer of the American Civil Liberties Union in opposition to H.R. 2096.

June 10, 2025.

Re Vote ``No'' on H.R. 2096 Protecting Our Nation's Capital

Emergency Act Which Would Allow Dangerous Officers Who

Have Been Terminated for Criminal Conduct or Police

Misconduct to Remain Employed as D.C. Metropolitan Police

Officers Endangering Public Safety, Evading

Accountability, and Eroding Public Trust.

Dear Representative: The American Civil Liberties Union

strongly urges you to oppose H.R. 2096 which would make it

easier for police officers accused of criminal conduct or

police misconduct to be reinstated as D.C. Metropolitan

Police Department officers. H.R. 2096 removes key polic

misconduct oversight provisions from The Comprehensive

Policing and Justice Amendment Act of 2022 which was signed

into law.

H.R. 2096 repeals key portions of current local law that

address the problems highlighted in recent D.C. Auditor's

report of officers being rehired despite being previously

terminated for police misconduct or criminal conduct.

Specifically:

1. H.R. 2096 would reinstate the ineffective, slow, and

costly arbitration process for handling cases where officers

are accused of crimes or police misconduct and face

termination of employment.

2. H.R. 2096 would place a 90-day limit on the police

department to start a disciplinary response, but this bill

does not place a time limit to take a case to arbitration.

From 2015-2021 officers who were fired and/or their

representatives allowed years to pass before bringing a case

to arbitration resulting in large awards for backpay and high

administrative costs for the District.

3. H.R. 2096 would remove the transparency requirement for

the police department to publish on a public website a

schedule of adverse action hearings in which the proposed

discipline for an officer is termination, including the date,

time, and location of the hearing, the name and badge number

of the officer, and a summary of the alleged misconduct or

charges.

4. H.R. 2096 also removes the D.C. Metropolitan Police

Chief's ability to increase proposed penalties for officers.

H.R. 2096 Will Reinstitute Closed-Door Arbitration Hearings

for Officers Accused of Criminal Conduct and Police

Misconduct, A System Which Puts Dangerous Officers Back in

the Metropolitan Police Department and Costs Taxpayers

Millions.

H.R. 2096 will institute a police officer negotiated, non-

public arbitration for cases where an officer has been or

will be fired for misconduct. This system makes it nearly

impossible to fire officers from the D.C. Metropolitan Police

who have engaged in criminal

conduct and conduct that violates civil liberties due to the

convoluted and lopsided nature of the arbitration. According

to former Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham,

the arbitration system puts ``very bad police officers back

into our department.'' In 2022, the Office of the District of

Columbia Auditor issued a report studying the cases of

officers fired and then reinstated by the D.C. Metropolitan

Police from 2015 to 2021. Thirty-seven D.C. Metropolitan

police officers were fired for allegations criminal conduct,

civil rights violations, and officer conduct violations.

These dangerous officers were reinstated, on average, 8 years

later, and 36 of those officers were paid $14.3 million in

taxpayer dollars.

Of the 37 police officers who were terminated and then

reinstated by the closed-door arbitration system that H.R.

2096 would reinstitute, 17 (46 percent) were terminated for

police misconduct defined as `threat to safety' which meant

these officers engaged in conduct that included a risk of

harm to persons through action or inaction, such as physical

and sexual violence, mishandling firearms, or compromising

evidence related to an arrest. The other 20 officers (54

percent) were terminated for reasons such as

misrepresentation of injuries, time theft, fraud, and other

misconduct that violated the Metropolitan Police rules and

code of conduct (see below for examples from the 2022 audit

report).

H.R. 2096 Will Protect Dangerous Police Officers from Being

Fired and These Officers Will Continue Their Pattern and

Practice of Civil Liberties Violations.

Officers who were fired from the D.C. Metropolitan Police

Department for criminal conduct or police misconduct continue

their pattern of dangerous behavior and have police

misconduct complaints even after being reinstated. As of

September 2022, 15 of the 37 officers that were fired and

reinstated through the arbitration process which H.R. 2096

will reinstate are still working at the D.C. Metropolitan

Police Department. Six of the 15 officers (40 percent) had

another official misconduct complaint filed by the

Metropolitan Police Department after they were reinstated.

H.R. 2096's arbitration system encourages officers to engage

in civil rights violations against the public because

dangerous officers know they will simply be reinstated

through the arbitration process and cannot be fired.

This bill fails to learn any of the lessons of the murder

of George Floyd by police officers: officers with a pattern

of misconduct must be removed from employment, not simply

cycled back into positions of authority and control.

H.R. 2096 Will Reinstate the 8 Year Arbitration Process

That Pays Dangerous Police Officers $374,000 on Average in

Backpay and Costs the District $895,000 Annually in Personnel

Resources. H.R. 2096 does not create a timelier process for

the resolution of police misconduct cases. H.R. 2096 will

reinstate a termination process that is not public and

overseen by arbitrators. This process is heavily skewed to

protect dangerous police officers by allowing them to

capitalize on a drawn-out arbitration process that does not

set any time limits for officers to bring their case to

arbitration.

According to a 2022 Report issued by the Office of the D.C.

Auditor, from 2015 to 2021, the police officer termination

and reinstatement process lasted an average of 8 years, the

average amount of backpay the District paid to these officers

was $374,000, and the District personnel and resources spent

on these drawn-out arbitration processes totaled an estimated

$895,000 each year for a period of five years.

H.R. 2096 sets a 90-day limit on the police department to

commence corrective or adverse action against a police

officer or civilian employee but does not place any time

limits on the fired officers, or their representatives, to

bring a case to arbitration in a timely fashion. Fired

officers and their representatives have allowed years to pass

before bringing a case for arbitration creating a process

that takes, on average, 8 years before a misconduct case is

resolved resulting in costly backpay payouts for the District

of Columbia. Additionally, the 90-day time limit in this

legislation allows individuals engaged in criminal conduct to

avoid any accountability for misconduct through a technical

hurdle and one-sided timeline requirement.

The officer discipline process H.R. 2096 would reinstate

has proven to be excessively slow, a waste of taxpayer money,

and puts officers unfit to serve back in the Metropolitan

Police Department.

H.R 2096 Creates a Wall of Secrecy and Undermines Public

Transparency and Accountability.

This legislation will remove the current requirement for

the Metropolitan Police Department to publish on a public

website a schedule of adverse action hearings in which the

proposed discipline for an officer is termination, including

the date, time, and location of the hearing, the name and

badge number of the officer, and a summary of the alleged

misconduct or charges.

Public access to police misconduct information is a key

component of accountability and reduces the likelihood that

an individual engaging in criminal behavior or police

misconduct can simply resign and join another law enforcement

agency. A recent study published in The Yale Law Journal

found 800 officers in Florida who were fired, some even for

serious misconduct, and were rehired at another police

department. Police misconduct records are often inaccessible

to the individuals and communities most affected by excessive

use of force and police misconduct. H.R. 2096 would remove a

critical tool that allows for greater transparency and

accountability.

For these reasons, the ACLU strongly urges you to vote

``NO'' on H.R. 2096. If you have any questions, please

contact Nina Patel, Senior Policy Counsel, Justice Division.

Sincerely,

Cynthia W. Rosebery,

Director, Justice Division,

ACLU National.

Nina Patel,

Senior Policy Counsel,

ACLU National.

Monica Hopkins,

Executive Director,

ACLU District of Columbia.

Melissa Wasser,

Senior Policy Counsel,

ACLU District of Columbia.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York (Mr. Langworthy) for the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I will try to clarify for the American people, those who may be tuning in, certainly the individuals who have joined us in the gallery today, what this debate is all about.

Just by way of context, let's consider what is happening in the world today. I don't know if my colleague from New York has checked his phone, but the stock market is plummeting. The 401(k)'s of residents in New York and residents in Colorado are wiped out. The massive tariffs that the President of the United States applied to our neighbors at midnight we know will increase the price of everything: groceries, fuel, energy, you name it.

There were mass layoffs of Federal workers, mass purges of veterans at different Federal agencies, mass terminations of Forest Service employees in my district working on wildfire mitigation, scientists at NOAA, individuals doing cancer research, all of that is happening as we speak. Yet, here we are in this august body debating what? Labeling requirements for appliances.

That is what the Republicans have decided to spend today debating, labeling requirements for pool heaters. I don't know if the gentleman from New York has a pool. I don't have a pool. I don't understand why we are wasting time in the House of Representatives debating regulatory requirements for pool heaters or labeling requirements for coolers and air-conditioners. Seriously.

The stock market is crashing, and this is how House Republicans choose to spend their time. Government funding is about to dry out 10 days from now and we want to spend our time talking about pool heaters.

Give me a break, Mr. Speaker. Let's get serious. This isn't what the people of the United States elected us to do. I implore my Republican colleagues to come to the table, work with us in good faith, and stand up to the Trump administration that is dismantling Federal agencies in your own districts.

Social Security offices are being shut down. There are constituents who can't get services from the Federal Government because this President has decided to dismantle these agencies piece by piece.

It is time to get our priorities right, Mr. Speaker. I can assure you that the priorities that the House Republicans are pursuing today and have been pursuing for the better part of the last 2\1/2\ months are grossly out of step with the values of the American people.

It is why I would hope every Member of this body would oppose the rule.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it feels like I am living in the twilight zone again. I understand the gentleman from New York very much wants to spend a half hour debating labeling requirements for pool heaters. I get it. We all get it. It is important to you. It is not important to me and not important to the people who I represent. In the 5 minutes that you just spent describing the reasons for this bill in your view, the stock market has continued to go down. More corporations have announced that they will be increasing prices later this week because of President Trump's tariffs. I don't understand how you believe that that is lowering costs.

Again, I would implore my colleagues, let's get serious. There are plenty of substantive challenges facing this country that merit and warrant the attention of lawmakers here in Washington. For the record, House Democrats are not scared to debate any single one of them.

Apparently, reports this morning indicate that in the Republican Conference meeting, a member of Republican leadership stood up in the meeting and supposedly told his Conference a simple instruction: Not a single one of you should attend or participate in a townhall.

Why? It is because they are scared of their own constituents, Mr. Speaker. They understand that if they hold a townhall with their community, they will hear outrage from everyday American citizens who are pissed off, who are angry that the prices for everything are going up because of this reckless Trump administration's policies.

Again, you want to spend a half hour, an hour, 8 hours debating labeling requirements for pool heaters? Be my guest. However, don't expect House Democrats to participate in it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California (Mr. Tran), a veteran who served our country honorably who can speak to the reasons why this amendment is so important.

If we defeat the previous question, I will be offering an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 1637, the Protect Veteran Jobs Act.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the gentleman from New York. We have a lot of folks who come to Washington, D.C., to observe these proceedings. I suspect it might seem a little rote to them. I would love to have an actual debate. Maybe there are some folks here from New York, some folks from Colorado who would like to see us engage in some substantive debate.

Therefore, I might ask the gentleman from New York because he ended his last remarks by appealing to the voices of the American people and that he and his Conference, in his view, are standing up for the voices of the American people.

I wonder if the gentleman might answer a question. Mr. Langworthy, have you held a townhall this year? It is not a rhetorical question. I am just asking.

Mr. Speaker, if I might ask the gentleman from New York, I believe colloquies are permitted in this Chamber.

I am not. I am asking, rather, through the Speaker to the gentleman from New York if he has held an in-person townhall with the people of New York that he represents this year. I am just curious.

He doesn't have to answer if he doesn't want to answer. It is a yes or no question. It is not a complicated question.

Okay, I will take it as a ``no.''

Clearly, he has not held a townhall in 2025. I would think he would be jumping up to clarify the record that he, in fact, had met with his constituents, Mr. Speaker, if that were the case. He clearly has not held a townhall. I understand why. I get it, because at this juncture, if House Republicans held townhalls, as their constituents express their outrage and indignation at the mass layoffs of Federal workers, of civil servants and at the tariffs that are increasing prices and at the stock market crashing, if their only response is: We took up a really important bill this week on labeling requirements for pool heaters, I could understand why one would have some trepidation about hosting a townhall under those circumstances.

Again, let us be serious about the work that we are called to do in this body. We are here to lower costs for working families, to build safer communities, to ultimately ensure that the American people, the American taxpayers, the Constitution is vindicated. It is unfortunate that my colleagues don't feel the same way.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about so-called theatrical performances. I didn't realize that asking the simple question of whether or not the gentleman had held a townhall this year counts as theater. I understand it is a forbidden question in the House Republican Conference now as to whether or not one has held a townhall, for obvious reasons.

My constituents certainly don't find that to be an offensive question. We have held five townhalls in the last 2 months. We look forward to holding more because we are going to be responsive to the American people. I wish my colleagues would do the same.

What I won't do, and I think what the American people won't do, is be lectured by Republicans about rising costs when literally, as we speak, Trump's tariffs are taking hold and beginning the process of increasing prices, which already started 30 days ago, and putting it into overdrive.

These are just a couple of headlines from the last 8 hours. ``New England, New York grid operators prepare to collect millions in tariffs on Canadian electricity.'' The New York Post says that car prices could potentially surge by $12,000 because of these tariffs.

House Republicans have the audacity to lecture us about increased costs when they are increasing the costs of everything?

By the way, this is not some foreign debate. I represent Colorado. I am proud to represent the great State of Colorado. I have never been to the gentleman's district in upstate New York, but my understanding is that it is pretty close to the Canadian border. There are billions of dollars of economic development in New York and commerce that is transacted between Canada and the United States a mere few miles from the gentleman's district. He describes this as theater?

I am not so sure that the folks in his district and that the people of New York will feel that way as these tariffs begin to kick in. I am sure that the farmers and the ranchers in Colorado that I represent, I can assure you, won't call it theater.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would like to spend every second of every minute of every day talking about the prior President. It has been a half hour now of my colleague on the other side of the aisle starting and ending every sentence with Joe Biden. Donald Trump is the President of the United States.

My colleague reminds us, yes, Republicans have a majority in the House and in the Senate. All I am suggesting is that maybe they should use that majority to do better things than waste everyone's time on labeling requirements for pool heaters. That is it. Maybe we ought to be a little bit more concerned with the 401(k)'s of our constituents, of working families in Buffalo and in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think that is too much to ask, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, as expected, we have a rebuttal replete with references to the 118th Congress, what Democrats did in the last Congress, assigning blame, and all the rest. I remind my colleague that the Republicans are in charge. They have the majority. They have the ability to shape events. They have a Republican President and a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate.

I can certainly assure my colleague that my constituents, who are seeing their 401(k) balances vanish in real time, would not describe these policies as common sense. The stock market tanking, prices of fuel going up, prices of food going up, prices of cars and vehicles going up, car insurance, home insurance, you name it, under Trump's economy, everything goes up.

By the way, he is unabashed about it. I watched some of his press conference yesterday. He is not hiding it. He has acknowledged it. He has said outright that he knows these tariffs will increase prices in the short term, according to him, and he expects the Republican Conference to defend him tooth and nail as these prices go up.

The gentleman talks about economic growth. The Federal Reserve, the Atlanta branch, just yesterday forecasted negative GDP growth for this quarter. That is the first time in a long time there has been negative GDP growth under President Trump. This is the commonsense agenda that my colleague from New York sells to farmers and ranchers in Colorado? We are not buying it. The American people aren't buying it.

It is why I implore every Member of this body to oppose this rule.

Mr. Speaker, it is also why I would implore everyone to support the amendment to the rule that we would like to pursue by bringing up H.R. 1637, the Protect Veteran Jobs Act, which was brought up previously.

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

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

I will direct my comments to the Chair, to you, Mr. Speaker, to express my frustration, which is the frustration felt by so many of the hardworking people of the great State of Colorado that I have the privilege of representing in the House of Representatives. It is a frustration borne from the realities that they are facing each and every day.

As I mentioned, we have an economy that is in free fall, a stock market that is tanking. They are seeing their neighbors, their friends, public servants, being purged from Federal agencies, hardworking civil servants who do wildfire mitigation work in Colorado and across the Rocky Mountain West, unceremoniously fired.

There are scientists at the NOAA and NWS facilities in Boulder and elsewhere being subject to these mass terminations by a Federal executive who seems intent on dismantling agency after agency. We have a House Republican caucus that is walking with him in lockstep every step of the way as they prepare to slash Medicaid to the tunes of hundreds of billions of dollars.

The frustration that my constituents feel is justified, because notwithstanding every single one of those transgressions, every single one of those challenges, those obstacles that Republicans have manufactured and created in their daily lives, if they tune in to this debate, they will see that the focus is on none of that and instead on the matters that we have discussed today.

My constituents, Mr. Speaker, do not want to see me debating labeling requirements for pool heaters. They don't. I won't speak for what the people of New York have to say about their Representatives. I will just say for Colorado and Coloradans, they expect me to be here pursuing policies that will make their lives easier, that will promote economic growth and a better quality of life. They are not getting it from this House under Republican control. I can assure you of that.

I understand House Republicans, I am sure, will pass the rule and they will get their bill on water heaters and pool heaters and air conditioners passed through the House. They will have a big fancy signing ceremony at the White House where they will celebrate the fact that they repealed a labeling requirement rule that was promulgated a year ago.

I fear for what the broader economic trends will be when they have that signing ceremony. Who knows. But if past is prologue, I am reasonably confident that the economy will continue the free fall unless Republicans work with us, Democrats, in good faith, to pursue policies that would advance opportunity in our country.

That is my humble request, Mr. Speaker. The best way to get started is by opposing the previous question, opposing the rule, opposing the underlying bills, and getting back to the business of this House.

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

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