Reliable Power Act

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 951 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), 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, the Committee on Rules met last night and reported a rule, House Resolution 951, providing for consideration of six measures.

The rule provides for H.R. 4776, the SPEED Act, to be considered under a structured rule, making in order six amendments. Additionally, it provides 1 hour of debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, or their respective designees, and it provides for one motion to recommit.

Further, H.R. 1366, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act, and H.R. 845, the Pet and Livestock Protection Act, will be considered under closed rules, with 1 hour of debate, each equally divided and controlled by the chair and the ranking minority member of the Committee on Natural Resources, or their respective designees, and provides each with one motion to recommit.

Additionally, H.R. 3616, the Reliable Power Act, and H.R. 3632, the Power Plant Reliability Act of 2025, will each be considered under closed rules, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, or their respective designees, with one motion to recommit.

Finally, H.R. 4371, the Kayla Hamilton Act, will be considered under a closed rule, with 1 hour of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary, or their respective designees, and provides one motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule and in support of the underlying legislation.

The rule before us gives this House an opportunity to finally begin undoing the damage caused by years of reckless regulatory overreach and economic mismanagement driven by Democrats' failed policies.

Joe Biden may no longer be in the White House, but American families are still paying the price for his administration's failures. Under President Biden, this country experienced the worst inflation spike in 40 years, and we are still paying the price. Groceries costs were more, housing costs were more, transportation costs more, and working families were left wondering how much further their paychecks could stretch.

Mr. Speaker, that pressure didn't stop there. Under Democratic leadership, electricity prices surged by more than 20 percent in many parts of the country, including my own in New York.

Families opened their utility bills and asked a simple question: Why is this getting so expensive so quickly?

The answer is clear: Democrats chose ideology over affordability. They chose mandates over reliability, and they chose Washington control over simple, plain common sense.

Mr. Speaker, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4776, the SPEED Act. For years, Democrats have taken the well-intentioned National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, and twisted it far beyond its original purpose.

NEPA was meant to be a commonsense safeguard for our environment, not a tool to block projects indefinitely, but that is exactly how it is being abused today. NEPA is now one of the most litigated statutes in Federal law, not because projects fail environmental standards but because a small group of activist organizations exploit the process itself. They file endless lawsuits to stall infrastructure, energy, and conservation projects for years and years, sometimes decades, with little regard to the real-world consequences for workers, families, communities, and progress.

Those consequences are real. Projects get shelved. Costs skyrocket. Jobs disappear, and families pay more for energy, housing, and basic infrastructure.

We see this broken system clearly in upstate New York. Take Micron, a company and a project too big to fail. This historic investment to bring advanced semiconductor manufacturing back to the United States is critical for our country, for our national security, and for the upstate economy. This project means thousands of good-paying jobs and a stronger domestic supply chain. Yet despite meeting some of the most stringent environmental review requirements in the country under New York law, Micron is still being forced through duplicative Federal reviews that reach the very same conclusions as the State reviews.

As a result, Micron is the only semiconductor project in the country held up, pending a full environmental impact statement, not because of environmental risk, but because of bureaucratic delay and regulatory duplication.

This is not environmental protection. This is regulatory paralysis, and it is costing us jobs and a brighter economic future.

Time and again, Democrats defend this broken system because it gives Washington more control and activist groups more leverage. Because of this process, the result is gridlock. Nothing gets built. Nothing gets fixed. Nothing gets cheaper.

The SPEED Act restores balance. It reins in duplicative reviews. It requires the Federal Government to make timely decisions and stop endless delay from becoming the official policy of the government.

If Democrats are serious about infrastructure, clean energy, and environmental progress, they should support fixing the permitting system that they helped break. They should have no problem supporting things like the SPEED Act.

Mr. Speaker, the rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 3632, the Power Plant Reliability Act.

Years of Democratic energy policy have put our electric grid under real, significant strain, and Americans are feeling the consequences in real time.

Demand is rising rapidly. Manufacturing growth and electrification are pushing this system harder and harder every single year. At the same time, Democrats are forcing reliable baseload generation offline, without a serious plan to replace it. Instead of coordinating policy, they regulate in silos. Instead of planning for reliability, they react after the fact.

The Power Plant Reliability Act forces accountability. It ensures regulators cannot quietly retire critical power plants without fully understanding the reliability consequences on our Nation.

Americans don't need a white paper to understand what happens when reliability is ignored. They see it when the power goes out. They feel it when their energy bills spike. They pay the price when Washington refuses to plan for real-world demand.

Keeping the lights on should not be controversial. It should be something we should be able to get 435 votes on, but Democrats chose politics over reliability. The families in this country are the ones paying the price right now. Premature plant retirements are only part of the problem.

The rule further provides for consideration of H.R. 3616, the Reliable Power Act.

This bill addresses another uncomfortable truth that Democrats don't want to admit. Federal agencies are finalizing regulations that directly threaten grid stability without fully accounting for the consequences, and it is just purely reckless.

The Reliable Power Act requires a long-term reliability assessment that ensures that when serious risks are identified, regulators cannot simply ignore them and press ahead anyway.

Quite simply, this legislation is about ending, once and for all, the implementation of asinine regulations that only harm our grid's reliability. Reliable electricity underpins everything: public safety, economic growth, hospitals, schools, and national security. Republicans are treating that responsibility seriously, and that is why we are bringing this legislation forward today. Unfortunately, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are not.

Mr. Speaker, the rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 1366, the Mining Regulatory Clarity Act.

Democrats talk endlessly about supply chains and national security, but their policies undermine both. Domestic mining projects are stalled, not because they fail environmental standards, but because Democrats have once again allowed endless regulation and regulatory ambiguity to choke them off.

That means fewer American jobs. It means greater dependence on foreign adversaries that are getting rich in the process. It means higher costs across our economy.

If Democrats want secure supply chains and fewer imports from hostile foreign powers, this is exactly the kind of bill that they should support.

Mr. Speaker, the rule also includes consideration of H.R. 845, the Pet and Livestock Protection Act.

It is impossible to deny that the recovery of the gray wolf is a success story. Population goals were met years and years ago, yet Democrats refuse to trust the science and acknowledge the clear success of saving the gray wolf population in this country. Why? Because it would mean betraying the radical environmental groups that want to see laws like the Endangered Species Act weaponized rather than work as intended, to save these animals.

Instead, bowing to their base and ignoring the science, Democrats have kept the future of gray wolf management trapped in endless litigation, leaving farmers and ranchers to deal with the real consequences that they face on their ranches and farms every single day.

What are those consequences? Livestock are attacked, and livelihoods across rural America are threatened, all to satisfy the whims of a radical left activist base that thinks their food comes from the grocery store and their energy comes from a socket in the wall when you plug something in.

The Pet and Livestock Protection Act puts an end to this endless litigation and weaponization of the ESA. It recognizes science, acknowledges success, and restores balance, something our colleagues on the other side of the aisle seem unwilling to do.

Mr. Speaker, finally, the rule provides for consideration of H.R. 4371, the Kayla Hamilton Act.

The bill exists because of a tragic failure, one that my Democratic colleagues, who supported the last administration for 4 long years of open borders, would rather continue to ignore. As the first Trump administration recognized, the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program has been exploited by criminals, including gang members, who come to this country as wolves in sheep's clothing. These individuals use the UAC system not for protection but to recruit and traffic new members and to wreak havoc on American communities.

Under the Biden administration open-border, no-consequences policies, policies my Democratic colleagues wholeheartedly supported, that exploitation exploded. During the Biden years, approximately 465,000 unaccompanied alien children were released to unvetted sponsors. The program lacked basic safeguards to prevent illegal aliens from serving as sponsors.

According to Health and Human Services, roughly 85 percent of UAC sponsors lack lawful immigration status. Thanks to the Biden administration's own policies supported by Democrats for 4 years, countless smugglers, cartels, and bad actors profited from nothing less than the exploitation of children and human trafficking.

Instead of tightening safeguards as encounters surged, Democrats chose to roll back background checks and sponsor reviews, moving children out of law enforcement custody faster, regardless of risk. The consequences to innocent children harmed from years of this horrific policy choice have yet to be fully reckoned with and will certainly haunt generations of innocent victims for years to come.

What we do know is that in May 2024, the Biden administration had lost track of more than 320,000 unaccompanied alien children, placing them at heightened risk of sex trafficking, forced labor, and abuse.

Mr. Speaker, this is not compassion. This is pure negligence.

Picking up the pieces from the wreckage of the Biden-Harris immigration policies, the Trump administration has committed to locating these children and to saving lives, something that eluded Democrats for 4 long years. So far, more than 22,600 unaccompanied children have been located, and over 400 sponsors have been arrested. Tragically, 27 minors have been found dead, victims of murder, victims of suicide, victims of drug overdose. Those are not statistics. Those are lives that are forever lost to tragedy.

The Kayla Hamilton Act restores basic safeguards. It requires background checks. It seeks criminal records from home countries. It puts public safety first.

I urge my colleagues to support this rule. I urge my colleagues to support the underlying legislation.

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

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

I think we are now approaching about year 9 of Democrats suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. No matter what is before this House, no matter what the rule before us today actually contains, my colleagues across the aisle find a way to make this about President Trump, not the substance of the legislation, not the issues before the American people, not the suffering the last 4 years have brought on them, not the costs facing families, not the failures of their own record. It is just about Trump to them.

While they are fixated on that, the American people have paid the price. In 2022, while Democrats were consumed by their latest Trump obsession, families were being crushed by the worst inflation spikes in 40 years after trillions upon trillions in Democratic spending overheated the economy.

Groceries, gas, and rent all skyrocketed. You didn't hear a peep on the other side of the aisle. Democrats didn't fix it. They didn't even acknowledge it. Then they doubled down on it and made it worse.

In 2024, with the border wide open and millions of illegal aliens pouring into our communities across the country, Democrats once again ignored the top concerns of American families.

Instead of securing the border or addressing affordability, they doubled down on the same, tired narrative claiming that President Trump was a threat to democracy. You will hear more of it today, Mr. Speaker.

The voters rejected it. They lost the electoral college, they lost the popular vote, and they lost every swing State on the table. Since then, Democrats haven't learned a thing. They have spent their time defending wasteful programs, failed policies, and bureaucratic overreach all while opposing every serious effort by President Trump and House Republicans to clean up the mess that they left behind.

Yet here we are today hearing the same hysterics. The American people have tuned it out. They know what actually matters: trying to lower costs, keeping communities safe, securing reliable energy, and restoring accountability in Washington. That is exactly what the bills under this rule are about.

While Democrats rehash old grievances and relive the same political fixation for the ninth year in a row, Republicans are focused on delivering results for working families. After 4 years of the economic mismanagement under Democratic leadership, Democrats are suddenly pretending to care about trade, tariffs, and the American economy. It is quite a performance. The American people see right through it.

For 4 years, Democrats told families not to believe their own eyes as inflation hit 40-year highs, as their grocery bills exploded, and as their energy costs soared. They brushed off concerns from workers and manufacturers who were watching their jobs disappear overseas and while Washington signed one bad trade deal after another.

They told Americans that surrendering leverage was smart trade policy even as foreign countries flooded our markets and shut their own doors for American producers.

Now President Trump is back in office and trying to right the ship. He is delivering results, and Democrats are scrambling to rewrite history.

Under President Trump's America First trade agenda, the trade deficit has narrowed to its smallest level since the mid-2020 year, down more than 35 percent over last year alone. Exports are up 6 percent year- over-year, reaching their second highest level on record. Inflation- adjusted exports of consumer goods are the largest ever. The trade deficit with China has narrowed to its second smallest since 2009. In the third quarter of 2025, real exports grew 4.1 percent annual rate while imports fell 5 percent, adding roughly 1 full percentage point to real GDP growth.

In November alone, the trade deficit was cut by more than one-half compared to last year, driven by rising tariff revenues as President Trump secured better terms for American workers, farmers, and manufacturers.

This didn't happen by accident. For decades, weak trade policies allowed foreign governments to exploit American openness while protecting their own industries.

President Trump ended that arrangement by using tariffs as leverage. He forced countries to come to the table. They have, and they are continuing to.

Since announcing his trade agenda in April, President Trump has secured new and improved trade deals with major partners covering more than one-half of the global GDP, spanning Europe, Asia, and the Americas. At the same time, companies are responding by committing trillions of dollars in new investment, bringing jobs back here at home, rebuilding supply chains, and putting American workers first again.

Mr. Speaker, shouldn't that be what we are working on here?

I could go on and on, Mr. Speaker, but today's debate is not about relitigating trade policy or listening to Democrats pretend to suddenly discover economic responsibility. Today we are focused on the six bills under this rule, bills that reflect the same commonsense approach that President Trump has applied to trade, strengthening domestic production, lowering costs, restoring reliability, and undoing the damage of the Biden years. That is the work before us today.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to open up the text of the rule before us today, and for good measure the underlying legislation as well, and hit ``control F'' on the words Affordable Care Act. They will quickly see that despite their fixation on making everything about the topic, nowhere in this rule or the underlying legislation is the Affordable Care Act, ACA subsidies, or marketplace coverage mentioned.

However, the policies that they are working, and hopefully there will be further bipartisan discussions about, were set to expire by their own hand at the end of a 5-year window because it was COVID emergency spending. I don't think I am breaking any news here, but COVID is over. Something that Democrats don't seem to want to ever end is an unlimited spigot of public money devoted to an issue.

We have to get to the core reasons why health insurance for all, not just those that are on Affordable Care Act plans, but for people in private insurance, all the public expenditures through our Medicare and Medicaid programs, why is healthcare an explosive cost year over year?

That is going to take bipartisanship and working together and putting some of these petty fights aside, because even if we extended these credits for 3 years, as they would like, it doesn't solve the problem for the millions upon millions and tens of millions of Americans who are on private pay insurance.

We have to really get serious about affordability, health insurance affordability, and the cost of delivering our healthcare in this country. Their remedy to this problem is putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole. It is an expiration that is by their own hand and own design because it was designed for COVID-era emergency spending.

As a reminder, the measures in this rule are straightforward and common sense: strengthening energy reliability and tackling affordability in this area, streamlining permitting so that infrastructure can actually get built, restoring certainty to domestic supply chains, trusting science over ideology in wildlife management, and advancing public safety measures that protect our communities.

These bills are about lowering costs, keeping the lights on, and restoring accountability. That is the agenda before us in this rule today. That is an important agenda to the American people and the affordability issues that stand before us and our future prosperity.

Democrats want to lecture us about being serious on energy, but the American people remember exactly what 4 years of Democratic energy policy delivered. Under President Biden, Democrats drove up costs, weakened our electrical grid, and forced the premature retirement of reliable baseload power. They flooded the market with mandates and subsidies picked by Washington, not by engineers, and then acted surprised when electricity prices spiked and grid operators started warning about blackouts.

When those prices spiked, the price of everything spiked because increased electricity and energy costs drive up the price of all goods and services. Families paid more, reliability got worse, and Democrats told Americans that somehow it was all worth it.

Now that President Trump is back in office and reversing that damage, Democrats suddenly claim that these

bills are partisan not because they are extreme, but because they expose how reckless the last administration was.

President Trump and House Republicans are doing what Democrats refused to do: streamlining permitting so that projects can actually get built, restoring common sense to environmental review, and prioritizing dispatchable power sources that actually keep the lights and the heat on in this country.

The truth is, Democrats don't have a serious answer to rising energy demand, grid reliability, or affordability. Their answer is just throw up a few more windmills and all will be well with the world. We can shutter every other power plant that has proven baseline power, and the windmills and solar panels will solve all the problems.

Their solution is always the same: more mandates, more subsidies, more regulation, and hope that the grid holds together by wishes and dreams, not by science and practicality.

Republicans are offering something different: policies grounded in reliability, affordability, and domestic American production so American families aren't left paying more while China builds coal plant after coal plant month after month and laughs all the way to the bank.

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what this rule advances. The energy bills before us are commonsense measures to strengthen reliability, streamline approvals, and support American jobs as well as ensure that American families have access to affordable American power, not slogans, not lectures, not dreams and wishful thinking.

If my colleagues across the aisle are truly serious about lowering costs and securing Americans' energy future, they should stop posturing and support this rule because Americans don't need more talking points. They need the lights to stay on.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague across the aisle wants to paint these bills as giveaways, which is wild considering what Democrats themselves have already done.

Democrats passed a so-called Inflation Reduction Act, the most poorly named bill in the history of the Congress because it did nothing but skyrocket inflation. Everyone has the proof of that in their weekly grocery bills and their utility costs.

It happened on their watch. They dumped massive new spending on an overheated economy and helped drive the worst inflation in 40 years. That is just fact. That is indisputable. Despite the title, it didn't reduce any inflation, not even close.

What it did was create a massive subsidy pipeline for green energy companies, all tied to the People's Republic of China. Chinese firms, ultimately answerable to the Chinese Communist Party, rushed in to take advantage of all these credits and the programs that Democrats set up. Apparently, that part has slipped their memory.

When House Republicans tried to add basic guardrails to stop those subsidies from flowing overseas to China, Democrats objected. They objected loudly, not quietly.

When Democrats are throwing around the word ``giveaway,'' it is fair to wonder whether they have forgotten their own record or are just hoping that everyone else is focused on something else.

Democrats are perfectly willing to outsource Americans' energy future and our national security to foreign adversaries to pursue their agenda.

Republicans are doing the opposite. We are strengthening domestic production. We are securing supply chains here at home in the United States and reducing our dependence on China.

That brings us back to the rule before us today. The six bills in this rule are focusing on restoring reliability, supporting domestic production, and streamlining permitting so that projects can actually move forward and lower costs for American taxpayers.

Mr. Speaker, that is the work before the House today, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, the rule before us reflects a clear choice. After years of regulatory overreach, misplaced priorities, and Washington-knows- best policymaking, this House is taking steps to restore balance, accountability, and common sense.

The legislation considered under this rule addresses real problems Americans are facing: higher energy costs, delayed infrastructure, weakened supply chains, threats to grid reliability, and failures that put public safety at risk.

These bills do not eliminate environmental protections or public input. They simply require the Federal Government to act responsibly, plan for real-world consequences, and stop using endless process as an excuse for inaction.

Republicans are focused on getting things built, keeping the lights on for Americans, keeping the heat on, protecting communities, and strengthening America's economic and national security. That is what the American people expect, and that is what this rule and the underlying legislation advances. 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.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to today's rule.

While Americans are going into the holiday season struggling with rising prices and the high cost of living, with just days left before health insurance premiums are set to skyrocket for 22 million Americans, while the President is leading the country to war with Venezuela, and yet another mass shooting has claimed the lives of young Americans, Republicans are using the final legislative days of 2025 to prioritize six unserious, make-work bills.

They are using precious floor time and resources to put forward messaging bills with no chance of passing, bills that have nothing to do with the reality that most Americans are living

and the problems that they want Congress to solve.

But that is what this country has come to expect from House Republicans who have used their control of the House as a vehicle for PR stunts and to pick the pockets of working people in order to line the pockets of the wealthy and the well connected.

Under Republican control of the House, the Senate, and the White House, 2025 has been a year of chaos, controversy, and corruption in which every day brings a new self-inflicted crisis.

While most of this chaos has originated from the White House, congressional Republicans are no less responsible, for they have aided and abetted this administration's agenda at every turn. How humiliating that in recent weeks, staff at the White House have openly mocked the subservience of House Republicans.

From day one of this term, Republicans in Washington have made clear they are here to serve their donors, to serve billionaires and big business, and not the American public. They spent the first half of the year ramming through their partisan big, ugly bill which gave permanent, budget-busting tax cuts to the rich while canceling Medicaid and SNAP for millions of Americans.

They continually prioritize big business and culture wars in legislation like the bills before us in today's rule, a series of bills that put their thumb on the scale for the oil and gas industry at the expense of Americans' health and the stewardship of the environment. Republicans are deliberately choosing to raise Americans' healthcare costs because they refuse to extend the ACA tax credits.

Americans everywhere are pleading with Congress to lower the cost of living as families struggle to afford housing, healthcare, childcare, and even groceries. Trump campaigned on a promise that he would lower prices on day one, but once in office, he has put tariffs on almost every good coming into the U.S., directly raising the prices for nearly everything we buy.

Whether it is food at the grocery store, home appliances, a new car, Trump's trade wars and tariffs have made everything more expensive. These trade wars have undermined key portions of our economy. The tariffs have already cost us nearly 50,000 manufacturing jobs, and our tourism industry is suffering greatly.

Making matters worse, Congress could end the tariffs today. The House could vote today on any number of Senate-passed resolutions that would end the Trump tariffs, but Speaker Johnson has blocked every one of those bills. House Republicans have now voted on four separate occasions to block legislation that would end the Trump tariffs. They have repeatedly doubled down on that decision to keep your prices high.

But it is not just the tariffs. Just last week, House Republicans blocked bipartisan legislation that could have become law, that would have built new homes all over America, lowered rents, and made mortgages more affordable.

With healthcare, Americans are seeing the biggest increase in health insurance costs in 15 years, yet the Republican majority is actively opposing extension of the ACA tax credits that lower premiums for 22 million Americans.

While Republicans fail to act on affordability, they are also conspicuously silent on the near daily corruption emanating from this White House. Trump has pardoned hundreds of criminals convicted of serious offenses, including drug traffickers, money launderers, and fraudsters, depriving Americans of justice and restitution and enabling at least some of those pardoned to commit further crimes.

In many of these pardons, they have come at a price. Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez, who is convicted of trafficking 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Ostensibly, this pardon will influence a Presidential election in Honduras.

Trump pardoned the CEO of Binance after he made a $2 billion investment in the President's company, World Liberty Financial. Nearly a dozen well-connected individuals, many of them donors to the President's campaign or investors in his companies, have also received pardons.

Trump has also shown a curious leniency to major criminals. He pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who ran one of the biggest drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations on the deep web.

The President also dropped criminal charges against multiple MS-13 gang leaders in order to help cover up a corruption scandal for his ally, Salvadoran President Bukele.

He has directed Federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers to drop investigations of serious crimes, including drug and human trafficking, in order to focus on immigration enforcement, letting countless criminals off the hook.

Of course, we can't forget the yearslong coverup of the Epstein files. On the campaign trail, Trump and his allies swore they would release the Epstein files, but once in office, they have blocked the release for 11 months. Ultimately, it has taken an act of Congress to force the President to release those files. The deadline to release the Epstein files is this Friday, but we still haven't seen a single document from the White House or the Department of Justice. Again, all of this begs the question: What exactly is this White House trying to hide?

All this time, while Trump is pardoning drug traffickers and dropping charges against gang members and violent insurrectionists who assaulted cops, congressional Republicans have been silent. If you ask Speaker Johnson about it, as the press has, he will tell you he has no idea what you are talking about.

Republicans are silent as Trump and his White House cause crisis after crisis. Trump and Hegseth are leading us into another forever war in Venezuela. The President has called for the execution of Democratic Members of Congress. The administration has withheld FEMA funding for disaster victims but gave a $40 billion bailout to Argentinean hedge funds.

Administration officials are wasting taxpayer dollars to fly around the country for personal business and photo ops. ICE and Border Patrol have detained more than 170 American citizens, including nearly 20 children, and that total is growing by the day.

The national debt is over $2 trillion higher in just this year alone. It is all so insulting to you, to me, to every American, to see this flagrant corruption and shameful mismanagement on a daily basis. House Republicans seem to have priorities so completely at odds with the needs of the American people that they have ignored all year the kitchen-table issues that American families struggle with every single day.

Instead, they have spent their time in Washington, when they have actually come to Washington, working on industry handouts, gold-plated ballrooms, and stirring up insane culture wars.

You deserve better. America deserves better. We deserve a functioning Congress that actually works for the American people, not just the wealthy and well connected.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I think the point we are trying to make is that this shouldn't be about economic policy. The Republican leadership's refusal to address the Trump tariffs and the damage they have inflicted upon our economy and upon American families' pocketbooks should be the topic before the House instead of these makeweight bills that are never going to become law.

Mr. Speaker, at the start of 2025, the Republicans knew there were two big tax provisions due to expire at the end of this year, now, within the next 10 days. One of them was the 2017 Trump tax cuts which overwhelmingly went to the wealthiest Americans, and the second was the ACA tax credits that helped millions of Americans afford health insurance. This has been known to everybody all year.

Now, our Republican colleagues made the choice in their big, ugly bill, which they spent so much time and energy on this summer, to extend the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, and they have also made the intentional choice to let the ACA tax credits expire. In doing so, they are causing the premiums for 22 million Americans to skyrocket. It is likely that millions of Americans will lose their health coverage this year due to our Republican colleagues' failure, refusal, in fact, to address that issue.

Mr. Speaker, when we hear our Republican colleagues talk about their healthcare bill that they are trying to bring to the floor this week, know that their legislation will not renew the ACA tax credits. It will not lower premiums, and it will not lower costs.

Mr. Speaker, 80 percent of the bill is simply new paperwork requirements for pharmacy benefit managers, and the parts of the bill that do involve healthcare costs are horrible. They basically want to sell Americans junk insurance policies, and people know about these. These are the policies that have low sticker costs but terrible coverage when you need it, Mr. Speaker.

We really just have been imploring our colleagues to come to the table to try to do what the American people need them to do so that Americans have health coverage when they need it, and we have not seen them be willing to do that.

That is why we have a discharge petition sitting there at the desk. We just need four Republicans to join all of the Democrats in the House to force a vote to extend the ACA tax credits, and we would invite them to do so.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of H.R. 6074, which would extend the Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits for 3 years, through 2028.

Mr. Speaker, for months, Democrats have sounded the alarm about the expiring enhanced premiums, urging the Republican majority to join us in extending these premiums before the end of the year so that all of our constituents can get the healthcare coverage they deserve.

Millions of Americans have already received notices from their health plan that their premiums are going to skyrocket starting January 1, 2026, just a few days from now, in some cases by over $1,000 a month. The median income in my district is about $80,000 for a family of four. They can't afford an additional $12,000 a year for health insurance.

However, there are only 3 legislative days remaining to fix this problem before the health insurance costs of over 20 million Americans rise, but this Republican majority has ignored and blocked any effort to extend those credits. The majority even told their own moderates they won't get a vote on the floor to extend them.

I am happy to give them that vote right now. We can defeat the previous question, and we can consider a bill that would extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits for 3 years.

There is no more time to waste. The deadlines are all passed. We have to act now for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment into the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Min) to discuss our proposal.

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

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague from New York that Congress needs to get serious about affordability both of everyday products and services but also health insurance, and that is why we have offered the amendments that we have and why we have been urging our colleagues across the aisle for months to address this issue.

However, as we focus on the rule today, which does not address affordability, there are a number of issues dealing with electricity prices. American households right now are paying record-high electricity prices, prices that have been rising, and most analysts are predicting will continue to rise more in 2026.

There is only one real way to lower electricity prices. That is to build more energy in the United States. Democrats did this, made serious efforts toward this when we passed the Inflation Reduction Act. We provided a forward-looking mix of financial incentives to build more power from all sources but especially from wind and solar. Those measures have been embraced by the American people, and they have been embraced by our energy industries.

However, while our Republican colleagues say they want to lower electricity bills, they have actively torpedoed these efforts to build more domestic energy.

President Trump and congressional Republicans have rescinded nearly all the investment incentives from the IRA. As a result, we are seeing domestic power generation decreasing, household electricity costs rising, and thousands of good-paying jobs being effectively canceled.

At the same time, the big, beautiful bill gave huge handouts to the oil and gas industry. These are handouts that won't increase energy production but will simply pad the profits of Chevron and Exxon. This is the Republican energy agenda: higher prices for you, the consumer, and higher profits for the oil and gas industry.

It is an incentive that we see continued in some of the bills under consideration in this rule today, which will require that coal- generating electricity plants stay online even when they have outlived their usefulness and profitability. Meaning, once again, consumer costs go up, but the coal industry gets the benefit.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, we have heard some well-intentioned debate from our Republican colleague today, but the fact remains that this week is being wasted on messaging bills that will not become law.

All year, Republicans have failed to act on affordability. They failed to bring down housing costs, to control inflation at the grocery store, or to lower electricity bills. They were elected to office to tackle these problems, but for an entire year, they have sat on their hands, opting for press conferences and tweets instead of legislation and dealmaking.

Earlier this year, Republicans ended healthcare coverage for 15 million Americans with their big, ugly bill. All this year, Republicans have blocked each and every effort to renew the ACA tax credits. Now, health insurance costs are at a 15-year high, and premiums are set to skyrocket for 22 million people.

In my district and in most of America, electricity prices are through the roof. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has bent over backward for AI companies, cut billions of dollars in energy investments, and canceled major clean energy projects.

In Congress, Republicans' energy agenda continues to boost oil and gas profits but does nothing to actually lower bills.

This past weekend, America witnessed yet another mass shooting that took the lives of two and critically injured nine more. This year has seen 391 mass shootings. We have lost nearly 14,000 people to senseless gun violence. No matter how many times we see the same tragic story play out on the news, our Republican colleagues keep their heads in the sand and refuse to bring forward or endorse commonsense gun safety legislation, which the majority of Americans and law enforcement leaders support.

This term, Republicans have turned Congress into a rubberstamp for executive action. It is a major abdication of our constitutional responsibilities, and it has done irreparable damage to this institution. It is my sincere hope that 2026 brings new opportunities for bipartisan action on these pressing issues.

The American people deserve better than a President who governs by tweet and a Speaker who has neutered Congress' role in our constitutional order.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question and rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 3616, yet another Republican bill that puts large corporate polluters over people. At a time when American families are struggling with rising monthly energy bills, this legislation does nothing to address the affordability crisis.

Electricity prices continue to go up. They have increased by 13 percent just since President Trump took office, and they are about to get worse as the Republicans' big, ugly bill is expected to increase those prices another 61 percent.

You would think Republicans would want to do something to address the affordability crisis, but this is just more of the same from them. They refuse to address healthcare affordability, and this afternoon, they continue to ignore the crisis with regard to electricity.

I guess we shouldn't be surprised. After all, they just blindly follow President Trump, who simply does not care. He does not believe the affordability crisis is real. In fact, he recently said: ``Affordability is a Democrat scam.'' That is what he actually said. The President should tell that to the hardworking families who are facing skyrocketing prices across the board. It is a crisis, and Republicans are simply ignoring it.

This bill is basically a thinly veiled attempt by Republicans to obstruct any future administration's EPA regulations that keep our air, lands, and water clean. This bill would allow the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, to block any regulation from any other agency under certain circumstances. It takes what should be an apolitical process, a neutral review of the reliability of our Nation's electric sector, and twists it into a fully partisan exercise. That is why we should reject this bill entirely.

Right now, a number of Federal agencies have authorities that could impact the power sector. FERC and the Department of Energy have the ability to comment on those regulations if they have concerns and work through the interagency review process to ensure that those concerns are heard.

FERC Commissioners in recent years have not been shy about using their powers to publicly highlight and comment on Federal actions that they deem flawed or insufficient. Agencies can, and do, respond to that feedback, as we saw with the EPA during the previous administration.

What no agency has the power to do now is to arbitrarily block another agency's regulations that Congress gave that agency the power to make. That is simply ridiculous.

If Republicans have their way, agencies would not only have to seek review from the Office of Management and Budget but will also have to ask permission from FERC to see if FERC likes the regulation or not. If not, even if the White House likes the regulation, the agency can't finalize it.

If that is not bad enough, FERC testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee that it does not even have the capacity and expertise necessary to investigate every other agency's regulation for the impacts that they will have on electric reliability. That was before the staff attrition that has hit FERC over the past 10 months.

The agency has lost over 11 percent of its staff through September. Who knows how many additional staff have left over the last 3 months because you know that the President is wanting to fire everybody.

Let me just review this, again, because I don't want to be too bureaucratic here, Mr. Speaker. House Republicans want FERC to do something it has no ability to do, that would politicize our Nation's electric reliability regulator, and that would make FERC into a super- authority with powers rivaling those of certain White House offices.

This is all to kill regulations that keep our air clean and our water drinkable. That is what this is all about. Let's not pretend that House Republicans are worried about regulations coming from the Trump administration. They knew those regulations were all going to destroy whatever clean air or clean water we have.

Instead, they are worried about the next time we have a President who actually cares about protecting public health and the environment, a President who wants to restore the bedrock environmental laws that the Republicans have gotten rid of.

Republicans then want to use this bill as a shield to protect polluters. If the polluter now, under a new President, isn't going to have the protection, and the public is going to have the protection to make sure that the water and the air are clean, then they want to make sure they have some shield to protect the polluters.

We shouldn't let them do that. That is not what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to worry about the public.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no,'' and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor), the ranking member of our Subcommittee on Energy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Balderson), who just spoke, but the bottom line is that I think it is dishonest for Republicans to claim that the cost of compliance with environmental regulations is driving up utility prices.

The regulatory chaos that the gentleman from Ohio mentions is created by the Trump administration. Since President Trump took office, his administration has created tremendous regulatory uncertainty through DOGE, senseless tariffs, and unprecedented executive actions. As a result, as I mentioned, electricity prices are up 13 percent, and natural gas prices are up 8 percent since the President took office.

Mr. Speaker, this holiday season, Americans are struggling to afford record-high utility bills and skyrocketing grocery prices. Donald Trump and the Republican Party were elected on their promise to bring prices down. Instead, the Republican Party is about to become the grinch who stole Christmas. They want to let the Affordable Care Act credits that kept health insurance affordable for families expire on January 1.

This bill, the Reliable Power Act, would let the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, kill any environmental regulations they don't like. In other words, this bill would make Americans sicker as health insurance prices are skyrocketing.

Republicans in Congress are just not delivering on their promise to bring down prices. The big, ugly bill will increase electricity prices for American families by 61 percent. Instead of passing partisan bills this week that would increase energy prices, Republicans should be working with us and Democrats on bipartisan proposals that can decrease energy bills.

Mr. Speaker, Americans are just begging for relief on skyrocketing prices, and President Trump's only response has been to call the affordability crisis the ``Democratic hoax.'' His rhetoric is an insult to the American people, but my Democratic colleagues and I are taking the affordability crisis very seriously. We hear the concerns of the public, and we strongly urge our Republican colleagues to come to the table to pass commonsense legislation that brings prices down for the American people.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I stress again that the President promised to cut Americans' power bills in half. Instead, he and his Republican accomplices in the House are causing those prices to soar with their backward policies and, essentially, their war on cheaper, clean energy.

Thanks to Republicans, electricity prices are climbing more than twice as fast as inflation, and more than 80 million Americans are struggling to pay their utility bills. Many of these Americans are having to make the impossible choice of either paying for housing, medicine, and food, or keeping their lights on.

Let me just give some examples. Since President Trump took office, electricity prices are up, 13 percent nationwide, as I mentioned. However, in Iowa, they are up 23 percent. In North Carolina, they are up 21 percent. In Pennsylvania, they are up 16 percent.

Mr. Speaker, electricity prices aren't the only bills that are skyrocketing. Residential natural gas prices are now 8 percent higher than they were a year ago nationally, but, again, 19 percent in Pennsylvania, 14 percent in Wisconsin, and 13 percent in North Carolina.

We mentioned that the big, ugly bill will raise electricity prices by a staggering 61 percent over the next decade due to its attacks on cleaner and cheaper energy and its crippling of the American clean energy industry.

The big, ugly bill destroyed tax credits that were designed to incentivize developers to build more domestic energy projects, raising barriers to those buildings in the process, and it will half the deployment of cheap, renewable American energy and imperil our power grid. These historic price hikes are on top of the $29 billion in electricity bill rate hikes that utility companies have requested since the start of President Trump's term.

Mr. Speaker, I don't want to just talk about prices because the bottom line is we are also talking with this bill about a cost to Americans' health and safety.

This bill allows FERC to override regulations established by other agencies. This is the Christmas gift to some of the Nation's largest polluters. Think about that. FERC, which has no expertise in public health or environmental protections, would just be able to stop another agency's regulation meant to protect public health.

These are regulations that are responsible for safe drinking water, for

reducing air pollution, and preventing exposure to cancer-causing chemicals. We are not just talking about price increases here that the Trump administration has imposed. We are also talking about the impact on health and people's ability to breathe and drink clean water.

By advancing this bill, Republicans are telling communities that their health and safety is not a priority. Pollution is exacerbating your child's asthma. Who cares? Your water may be contaminated. That is nothing to worry about. We don't care.

Other agencies spent years crafting regulations, often after an extensive analysis that shows that the benefits of that regulation from a health and safety point of view outweighs the costs. However, this bill would throw all of that out the door by allowing FERC, which has no expertise in these areas, to just say ``no,'' and FERC doesn't even want to do it. They told us.

As the ranking member of the Energy Subcommittee, Ms. Castor, said-- they literally told us at the committee--that they didn't want to do this and didn't have the capacity to do it.

We have made so much progress in the United States on environmental protection over the last 50 years. Our Nation's rivers used to catch fire. Now, they don't. Smog used to surround our cities, particularly Los Angeles. Now, it doesn't.

President Trump and House Republicans want to undo all of that. They have waged an all-out war against public health, and this bill is just one piece of that.

If my colleagues care about public health, if they care about prices, if they want to make sure people can breathe and can still pay their electricity bills, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. It just makes common sense.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Pallone for yielding the time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 3616. It is another Republican bill that fails to address skyrocketing electric bills that are a part of the overall affordability squeeze that is gripping the country right now.

What should we be doing on the floor of the House right now?

We should bring up the discharge petition to make sure that healthcare costs don't skyrocket for 20 million Americans and 4.7 million Floridians back home in the Sunshine State.

Now that the discharge petition has the necessary number of votes to come to the floor and extend those lifesaving and cost-saving ACA tax credits, we should be doing that instead. That would have a real impact. That would send a great sign to folks back home who are struggling with the rising cost of living and are wondering how they will pay for their health coverage next year. That would really help our neighbors back home. Alas, we are not doing that.

At a time when prices are up, inflation is up, and despite the Republican promises to do something about it, all of their bills and their policies are making it worse and making life even more expensive. Household electricity prices are up across America by about 13 percent and a lot higher in some places.

Why is that the case? First of all, the big, ugly bill that Republicans passed in July to provide tax breaks to the wealthy and well-connected took away tax credits to keep cleaner, cheaper energy producing across America. They ripped away rebates for households to help them afford the cost of upgrading their homes, making their lives more energy efficient.

Also, these arbitrary Trump tariffs are at the highest levels since the 1930s. We see it in our grocery bills, but it is also impacting electricity costs. Costs are way up for poles and wires and things that we import for our electricity systems. Those are being passed along to consumers.

The Trump administration has canceled hundreds of projects across America, some that were permitted and approved, ready to bring cleaner and cheaper energy onto the grid to help keep electricity prices lower. All of that is a recipe for skyrocketing electricity bills.

What do Republicans in Congress do? They keep bringing these random bills to the floor to boost the profits of polluters. This bill is a good example of that.

This bill would elevate the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission above any other Federal agency, give it unprecedented veto power, and transform it and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation into political actors. That is a world away from the independent agencies that they are now where they act in the public interest and not in the interest of polluters.

Mr. Speaker, FERC doesn't even want this power. They lack the capacity and the staff for this highly technical work.

When we discussed this bill 2 years ago, David Ortiz, then FERC's Director of the Office of Electric Reliability, testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee that FERC couldn't execute on the bill because FERC does not have the capacity to assume other agencies' expertise. That was before FERC lost 11 percent of its staff-- hardworking public servants--due to resignations and layoffs under the Trump administration.

This bill doesn't do anything to provide FERC with the staff or funding they would need to implement the bill. No, it doesn't. Polluters simply want to short-circuit any oversight of their higher costs and pollution. That is what this is about.

FERC already has the power to intervene and comment on agency rulemaking dockets if they think there could be a reliability issue, as does NERC, as does any of the grid operators, and any utility. This polluter-friendly bill is a way to sabotage cleaner and cheaper energy, however, and energy storage. It is a recipe for higher costs and electric bills for American families.

Regional grid operators have the necessary expertise and staffing to maintain reliability on their grids already. Regional operators know that there are cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable energy sources available, not just expensive coal and gas.

There are modern grid solutions that the committee has refused to take up this year. That is another reason electric bills are so high. There are solutions like energy storage, demand response, grid- enhancing technologies, and regional and interregional coordination that can provide reliability at a lower price with less pollution.

Republicans also don't want us to know that, while this bill gives FERC more responsibilities that it cannot meet and does not want, the Trump administration has been busy gutting the agencies that are already working to ensure that we have a reliable grid.

For example, the Trump Department of Energy eliminated the Grid Deployment Office last month. That was an office created under the bipartisan infrastructure law to manage important and cost-saving investments to make our grid more reliable. Over $3 billion in grid deployment investments were cut in October.

The real Republican mantra should be a less reliable grid with higher costs because that is what this year has produced. Republican energy policy is creating a less reliable environment for businesses, making it harder for companies to invest in America.

Just yesterday, Ford announced they were laying off all 1,600 employees at their battery manufacturing plant in Glendale, Kentucky. In October, on top of the grid modernization cuts at the Department of Energy, DOE canceled 321 awards, totaling $8 billion in funding. The largest award was $316 million to support the manufacture of components from recycled EV batteries in Kentucky. That would have helped us compete with Chinese batteries.

Mr. Speaker, $197 million was supposed to help a plant in St. Louis producing 30,000 metric tons annually of critical minerals products. Mr. Speaker, $117 million was intended to support production of synthetic graphite, including construction of a large plant in Alabama. Also, $31 million was cut that was going to build an advanced glass factory at the site of an old coal plant in Detroit.

As a result, the United States will have less capacity to support real and reliable power. This bill does not solve problems. It doesn't tackle the affordability crisis. It makes it worse. It doesn't even support more reliable power. Republicans are just trying to slap a new permitting reform label on bad ideas that they have never been able to pass into law.

Here we are, the last week in session this year, Mr. Speaker, and Republicans have not brought a single bill to the floor of the House that would lower costs for hardworking families. They have no new ideas here. They have no ideas on how to make energy more affordable for everyday Americans and no ideas to help us out of this healthcare crisis.

Mr. Speaker, people really deserve better. They deserve better over the holidays, and they deserve better from this Congress. I urge my colleagues to vote against the bill.

Mr. Speaker, it was with interest that I heard the remarks of my colleague from New York. I just wanted to correct a few things as someone who just won one of those swings seats that was in play last year.

I would say that that was not a mandate, but the Republicans did win Congress, they did win the Presidency, and I think that Republicans last year rightly focused on inflation, the cost-of-living, and the economy as key issues that Americans are facing.

Now, I represent a very wealthy district. The median income in my district is about $130,000. Even in my district right now, people are suffering. When I go visit my food banks, the usage right now is at record highs. This is directly related to the policies that were in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it is Orwellianly named by our Republican colleagues.

The tariffs and the OBBB in combination have caused costs to skyrocket, and inflation right now is as high as it has ever been, as high as it ever was under Biden.

They are seeing their electric costs go up because of the giveaways to utilities and the crackdown on renewable energies, very cheap forms of energy. In places like California, they are seeing their grocery prices go up because of the tariffs. They are set to see their health insurance costs go up massively.

When I go out there and I talk to my families, it is not as if they have one budget for utilities, one budget for food, and one budget for health insurance. They have a budget, and they are struggling right now to pay for things. They are now going to see in the State of California, in my district, their health insurance costs, if they are purchasing it on an exchange, go up between 50 percent to 200 percent or more as was announced by Covered California just last month.

That is a cost that people just can't afford, no matter how much they are making. I know the billionaires do pretty well under this Presidency, under this Republican-controlled Congress, but regular people, even people who are making a good amount of money are struggling to get by right now, to pay those bills.

I have talked to too many people in my district who are making that hard decision. Many of them, we know, will drop their health insurance because they just can't afford to pay it. They need food. They need to keep the lights on. They need to buy gas to get to work. Consequently, they are going to drop health insurance.

That means that we will have more families who are one catastrophic illness or injury away from bankruptcy, something that is far too common. You can multiply that by millions and millions of households across this country right now because millions of households are facing that same dilemma.

I urge my Republican colleagues right now to ignore what their President is doing. He is focused on the ballroom. He is focused on building out our golf courses here in D.C., according to yesterday's news. He is focused on foreign affairs, giving money to Argentina, and blowing up boats off the coast of Venezuela.

What I would urge my Republican colleagues to start focusing on is the cost of things right now. We have a way to do that, a bipartisan initiative. We would love it to be bipartisan, if you all would join us in just giving a clean 3-year extension of the ACA tax credits. This is something that would give immediate relief to millions of families out there that are seeking to lower their costs.

Now, I know we have this vote coming up on this package of healthcare bills. I would say it is very complicated stuff, lots of random proposals in there. There is clearly an attack on women's reproductive rights and access to contraception. That is a key part of what these healthcare bills will do.

What they do not do in any way, shape, or form is address the fact that people are going to pay thousands of dollars, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars more for their health insurance because of Republican policies.

You have a chance right now to do right by the American people to try to rectify the wrongs that your policies have created. This has nothing to do with Trump. It has nothing to do with Biden. It has to do with an opportunity right now to get some bipartisan legislation passed.

This is going to save lives. We are literally talking about people in your district, in my district, in Mary Gay Scanlon's district. We have a chance to really help save lives right now. Even in districts like mine--again, a wealthy district--I have talked to many people right now who are set to lose their health insurance, set to lose their healthcare.

Whether they have kids with cancer or whether they have autistic children, they are struggling right now. We have a chance to show the American people that we can rise above partisan politics and do what is right. I think there is broad consensus on both sides of the aisle that extending the ACA tax credits is good policy. I urge them to join us.