RELIEF Act

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

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

Mr. Speaker, you have to love these Republicans. I mean, they have no problems with subsidies for Big Oil, Big Tech, Big Ag, or big tax cuts for multimillionaires and billionaires. Yet, when it comes to helping consumers afford electric water heaters or stoves, all of a sudden, they have a big problem.

I just don't get it. I mean, that is where their attention is, on going after consumers, making life more difficult for everyday working families.

Mr. Speaker, tonight is the State of the Union, and I am sure that the President is going to come here and paint a very rosy picture, indeed. He is going to say that the economy is great and that tariffs are working. He is ending wars, not starting them. He is going to spew all kinds of nonsense.

Mr. Speaker, the problem is that the facts are the facts. The fact is that his economy sucks.

I just spent the last week at grocery stores, senior centers, and townhalls. I went to food pantries and Boys and Girls Clubs across Massachusetts. I spoke with people who are working hard and getting crushed.

They are paying more for food, more for rent, more for utilities, and more for healthcare. They are struggling, and they are watching Donald Trump pump the rich with more tax breaks and more giveaways to the billionaire Epstein class while the rest of America struggles just to get by.

With all of that going on, with families begging for relief, this is what Republicans bring to the House floor today: more bills about appliances. This Republican majority has brought up more than a dozen appliance bills. The lobbyists for the appliance manufacturers sure must be getting paid well.

The worst part of these bills is that these bills would actually raise utility costs for consumers. Who asked for that? I mean, one of these bills is H.R. 4626, the Home Appliance Protection and Affordability Act. That is not the original name of the bill, though. No. The original name is the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act.

Republicans changed the name to slap the word ``affordability'' on there, but they didn't change a single word of the actual bill. All of this is slapping on a word to pretend that they are doing something. It is window dressing masquerading as an attempt to help real people because Trump and the Republicans know that their economy sucks.

They know that the public perception is that all they care about is helping Wall Street to get richer and helping billionaire CEOs rip people off because, to be honest with you, Mr. Speaker, that is all they seem to care about.

Guess what. These bills are worse than doing nothing. They would make utility costs go up. I mean, Republicans are trying to gut popular energy and cost-saving programs at the Department of Energy. They would lower efficiency standards and prevent consumers from choosing the best products for their households.

Mr. Speaker, last night in the Rules Committee, I was chastised by the gentleman from Virginia, who was upset with me because I was asking questions that he said were too hard. He said that the witness wasn't prepared and that I was cross-examining him. He said that my questions weren't fair.

Mr. Speaker, let me explain for the gentleman why I asked so many questions last night. It is because this House has been turned into a place where you can hardly ask questions at all.

This majority locks down the process, shuts out amendments, shuts down debate, and then acts offended when somebody tries to get a straight answer about what the hell is going on around here.

This rule that we are debating today officially breaks the record. This is now the most closed Congress ever--ever, in the history of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, 117 times in this Congress, Republicans have advanced bills to the floor with no amendments allowed, including today. They just broke the record for the whole Congress, and we are barely halfway through.

Mr. Speaker, that is insane. More than 8 out of 10 times when we consider legislation under this majority, Republicans lock down the floor and allow zero amendments--zero. That is stunning.

Mr. Speaker, that is a stunning, stunning break from normal.

Speaker Johnson promised transparency and more debate, but the numbers tell a different story. Under Speaker Johnson, the Rules Committee has helped to block 82 percent of all amendments this Congress--82 percent. That is over 3,300 amendments blocked so far in just over a year, including 95 percent of Democratic amendments, 57 percent of Republican amendments, and even 63 percent of bipartisan amendments. Think of that. When a Democrat and a Republican decide to work together to improve a bill, they are told no.

Mr. Speaker, that is the exact opposite of what the people in this country are asking for.

Republicans blocked votes on tariffs. We had to move Heaven and Earth. We had to finally force a vote after months and months of getting blocked.

Republicans blocked votes on releasing the Epstein files. I mean, they sent us home early because they didn't want the Rules Committee to take another vote on whether or not to release the Epstein files. We had to use a discharge petition. That is unprecedented. We had to go around the Speaker of the House simply to get a vote.

Right on brand, Republicans blocked votes on thousands and thousands of amendments designed to make bills better. Under this Republican majority, the Rules Committee has basically become a place where democracy goes to die.

Mr. Speaker, what is this all about? What is this all about? It is all about turning Congress into a giant rubberstamp for you know who: Donald Trump. Nobody in the House of Representatives is allowed to change a comma unless Donald Trump gives Mike Johnson permission. It is embarrassing. It is embarrassing, and it is a stain on this institution.

Clearly, the Speaker of the House thinks that he works for the White House and not for the American people. He has diminished Congress and turned his position into a pathetic echo of what it used to be. Shame on him, and shame on Republicans who go along to get along, even though their amendments are blocked and their voices continue to be silenced by their own leadership.

This is now the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America, and it is happening right here, right now, in real time, because Republicans want to protect Donald Trump by blocking votes instead of doing the job that they were elected to do. It is pathetic.

Mr. Speaker, this economy is a mess. Look at the polls. There is like a 30 percent approval rating for this President. People are hurting. They want us to be on the floor legislating. They want us to be deliberating. They want us to be finding solutions, and that means voting on amendments to try to get this economy on the right track. Instead, we are shut out. Everybody is shut out because they are all too afraid of the guy in the White House.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am really at a loss for words. I am just trying to contain myself because I have never heard such nonsense in my life. The gentleman speaks about Thomas Jefferson. He is looking at us right up here, and he is rolling over in his grave right now at the way this House is being run. My friend should be ashamed of it. They should be ashamed of it.

He is talking about the amendments that were offered in the Committee on Rules last night were dilatory. Let me read one of them. It says: ``This act, and the amendments made by this act, shall not take effect until the date on which the Secretary of Energy publishes a certification that the implementation of this act would not result in increased costs for homeowners and renters.''

What the hell is dilatory about that?

The yada, yada, yada that the gentleman is talking about is affordability.

The gentleman can say as many times as he wants, and my Republican friends can say as many times as they want, that somehow this economy is great and doing much better. That doesn't make it so. Look at the polls. The majority of the American people think that they are driving this economy into a ditch.

People told me this last week when I was going throughout my district: What the hell is going on in Washington? Because all the Congress and this President seem to care about are the well-off and the well-connected, the Epstein class, if you will, the people who have lots of money, the big corporations. They get protected. They get tax breaks. They get all the benefits. The rest of the people in this country get screwed. They are sick of it. That is why they are losing so miserably in the polls. People have had it.

To come onto this floor and defend not only this lousy economy, but to defend this rotten process, I have got to say, I have heard a lot. This is indefensible. Again, if they don't like the amendments that are being brought to the Committee on Rules, vote against them when they come to the floor. If they don't want to debate, then stay in their office; but let the rest of us be able to debate.

Now, they have crossed the line. This is the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America, and all they can say is: Well, we have an obligation to block amendments to the Committee on Rules I guess that we don't like, that are inconvenient.

I don't know what the hell is wrong with saying to the Secretary of Energy: If these bills add costs to average consumers, then we shouldn't move forward with them. That is all. If the Secretary of Energy says: Oh, they won't, then they can move forward with them.

That is what the gentleman is calling dilatory. I mean, God Almighty, what is going on around here? People are disgusted with what is happening here in Washington, and they have a right to be disgusted.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 7615, the RELIEF Act, to force the Trump administration to give back the money it illegally stole through its unconstitutional tariff scheme.

Mr. Speaker, since the beginning of last year, President Trump has declared a series of bogus emergencies as a pretext to pickpocket more than $165 billion from American consumers and businesses of all sizes, including small businesses, family-owned businesses, farmers, and everyday citizens. In response, several small businesses sued the President, arguing that the President does not have the power to arbitrarily tax American businesses and consumers without an act of Congress.

Last Friday the Supreme Court finally--finally--ruled that a large portion of the President's tariffs are unconstitutional. While, as Chief Justice Roberts wrote in his majority opinion that the power to impose tariffs is supposed to be controlled by Congress, Speaker Johnson and the vast majority of congressional Republicans have continued to rubberstamp President Trump's disastrous tariffs, even though they know that they are raising the prices of groceries, housing, and other everyday goods.

In response to the Court's decision, President Trump lashed out at the Justices who ruled against him, even the ones he himself appointed, saying they are: ``unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution,'' ``swayed by foreign interests,'' and ``an embarrassment to their families.''

Who the hell speaks like this? What other President talked like this? It is shocking that anyone can defend these shameful words by this President.

Department of Justice lawyers, in briefs filed during the case, promised more than once to repay the tariffs if they lost. We have that in writing. I am happy to share it with the gentleman and any of my Republican colleagues. They stated: ``If tariffs imposed on plaintiffs during these appeals are ultimately held unlawful, then the government will issue refunds to plaintiffs, including any post-judgment interest that accrues.'' That is the Justice Department's own legal brief.

Well, Mr. Speaker, the Trump administration lost. They lost big time. Now the President is trying hard to break yet another promise.

Get this, when he was asked about the refunds, do you know what the President said? He said, ``. . . We will end up being in court for the next 5 years.'' Again, not trying to help average consumers or small businesses. We are going to stay in court so you don't get anything. You don't get a refund.

However, if the Republicans were to join with Democrats to defeat the previous question, we will offer an up-or-down vote to require the Trump administration to pay out tariff refunds that he owes in the next 90 days. Voting with us is a vote to ensure that President Trump follows through on earlier promises to give back the stolen money.

The main issue that Americans are struggling with is the affordability crisis. People cannot afford food. They cannot afford rent. They cannot afford utility bills, and the basics. Tariffs are one of the primary causes of these rising prices.

Republicans are always willing to bend over backward to give tax breaks to their multimillionaire and -billionaire donors, but when we talk about helping regular people, Republicans are

nowhere to be found. It is never too late to do the right thing.

I urge my colleagues to work with Democrats to ensure that the money that was illegally stolen is returned, that in the future we return the money directly into the pockets of working families who have had to pay more for everything because of these damn tariffs.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford), the sponsor of this bill, to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Nevada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I can hardly believe my ears. The gentleman said that he wants to legislate. He could have fooled me, because as far as I can tell, the gentleman has voted for virtually every single, if not every single, closed rule that has come out of the Rules Committee. There were 117 closed rules he voted for in the Committee and on the floor. There were 117 closed rules, no amendments allowed at all, no amendments, and a lot of them were germane.

Now we are hearing that, oh, well, you know, we are just trying to manage this House better. My Republican friends now regularly do not even call for amendments. They basically let everybody know that whatever you submit, we are going to turn away and we are going to block because we don't want any amendments at all.

Really?

Is that the process that my friends are defending?

I think I just heard the gentleman say for several minutes a lot of words basically trying to justify why the American people don't deserve a refund as a result of Trump's illegal tariffs. Okay. If that is their position, fine. I actually think the American people deserve a refund. They deserve a check. Small businesses deserve a check from this President's illegal tariffs. That is what the Supreme Court has said. They are illegal.

The gentleman has talked a lot about appliances as if that is what is on everybody's mind. I don't know about his district, but when I do townhalls, the first words out of my constituents' mouths are not showerheads or water heaters or stoves. They are worried about prices rising all across the board.

They also want us to talk about real, serious challenges that we are faced with here, not just issues of affordability. That is because right now, right as we gather here today talking about appliances, President Trump is ramping up toward a strike against Iran, a war.

Reports say that his national security team is telling him that the U.S. military could be ready to hit Iran within days, and they are openly talking about a massive, weeks-long campaign.

Why?

They are suddenly claiming that Iran is a mere week away from having the material to make a nuclear bomb.

It sounds like what happened last year if you remember, Mr. Speaker. In June of 2025, Trump said that Iran was weeks away from getting a nuke.

What happened?

The administration proceeded to bomb Iran.

The White House spent the entirety of last summer telling the world that Iran's nuclear facilities had been obliterated in a strike that the U.S. conducted. Those aren't my words. Those are the words of this administration. They said ``obliterated'' over and over and over again--obliterated. It is still up on their website.

So which is it?

If Iran's nuclear facilities were obliterated, then why are we sprinting toward another war based on false claims about weapons of mass destruction?

They weren't obliterated. If that was all political spin to make their strike sound more successful than it actually was, then why should anyone trust the judgment of the people now pushing us toward escalation?

This is how disasters start, not with a clear plan, not with honesty, but with a President who thinks foreign policy is a reality show and human lives are props.

Let's be clear about what is at stake: Americans in uniform, American families, a region that could explode, an economy in which working people are already struggling to survive, and where a wider war could set energy prices soaring and make life even more expensive for everybody back home.

Congress is not a rubberstamp. It should not be a rubberstamp. The Constitution does not give one man the power to drag this country into another war on a whim.

De-escalate. Get serious about diplomacy. Tell the truth. If the President thinks he needs a war, then he can come to the people's House, and he can make his case out in the open where the American people can see, hear, and judge it. Then, let's wait to let us vote on it, because it is Congress, after all, who decides where and when to go to war. It is not the President; it is Congress that is to decide that.

Again, given what is potentially about to happen, you would think that we would want to have that debate here, Mr. Speaker. I don't care which side, maybe even if you want to go to war with Iran, Mr. Speaker, you would think you would want to have that debate to convince the American people that it is the right thing to do. Mr. Speaker, you would think you would want to go on record as voting for that war. I think it is a terrible mistake, but I would think if you felt the opposite, Mr. Speaker, you would want to be transparent and open about it.

Guess what. Nothing.

We are debating phony bills on appliances, on stupid stuff, when people are hurting every day because they can't afford the basics.

We are on the verge of going to war, and this is what we are doing? This is what we are doing, appliances?

Give me a break.

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

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close because I assume the gentleman has no further speakers on his side.

Mr. Speaker, what we are really voting on here is not just a rule. It is whether the House of Representatives

is going to act like a real legislature or whether it is going to keep acting like it works for Donald Trump.

Closed rules have become the norm around here. As I said earlier, 3,300 amendments have been blocked, and many of them have been germane. In fact, most of them have been germane. It has just become a habit for the gentleman and other Republicans on the Rules Committee to vote ``no.'' They vote ``no.''

I don't want to hear an argument about germaneness because when amendments are germane--again, most of those that have been offered have been germane--up to 3,300 amendments have been blocked. That is what is happening here.

We are getting lectures and lectures and lectures about legislating, and the bottom line is that this Republican majority basically has thrown the rule book out. To hell with Jefferson. To hell with this institution. To hell with the Constitution. We are just going to shut everything down. That is what we are doing here.

If the gentleman or anybody on the other side thinks that appliances are the most important thing in the world, fine. They can bring them to the floor. But let us offer amendments and respect us and, by the way, other Republicans who want you to bring more important matters to the floor. Whether it is votes on war and peace or votes on affordability or votes on the tariffs, we ought to have those debates on the floor. They are always blocked. We can't talk about those things. It is so disappointing and so sad, Mr. Speaker.

The bottom line is, it is not just Democratic amendments, but Republican amendments, bipartisan amendments. Anything that might force a real debate or real vote is blocked.

The message that it sends is simple: The leadership doesn't want accountability. They want control, total control.

That is why the exchange with my colleague from Virginia that we had last night is so important. If Republicans are mad because Members are asking hard questions or we are talking about issues that may not be necessarily relevant to the bills we are talking about, it is because we don't have any other chance to do so.

I get it. My Republican friends don't want scrutiny. They don't want daylight. They want us to sit down, shut up, and vote for Trump. Guess what. We are not going to do that. We are not going to do that.

The bills before us today are a perfect example of what happens when you silence regular people and empower those at the top. Working families are getting squeezed by Trump's economic mess. Costs are up. People can feel it every time they swipe a card at the grocery store or open their checkbook to pay a utility bill.

Instead of bringing serious cost-of-living relief to the floor-- housing, healthcare, childcare, prescription drugs, cracking down on price gouging--Republicans bring bills like this so that we can pretend that we are doing something when we are not.

That is the scam: Protect the people at the top. Stage a few votes for press releases. Then lie to the American people and tell them that the economy is going great.

The people I represent are not buying this bs. They are asking us to take on the folks rigging the economy against them. They are asking for a House that debates and approves legislation, not one that takes orders and acts like a rubber stamp for the White House. They are asking for real relief from Donald Trump's awful economy, which is making life harder for regular families.

Mr. Speaker, we have a President who wants to be king, and unfortunately, we have Republicans in this House who bow down to him. We have officials in this administration who have compared the House of Representatives and Congress to the Russian Duma, a legislative body in name only, a body that just rubberstamps whatever the Russian leader, whatever Putin, says.

I don't want to be the Russian Duma. I want to adhere to the ideals of Thomas Jefferson. We ought to be debating. We ought to have amendments made in order. We ought to legislate. We ought to behave like we are the United States House of Representatives, and we are not.

It is so disappointing. The precedents that are being set here are so disappointing. It is depressing what has happened to this House.

I say to my colleagues: vote against this rule. Another two closed rules, that is what we are getting here. No amendments at all, nothing, two closed rules, take it or leave it.

We have to do better. I am so disappointed with my Republican colleagues who go along to get along, who are so afraid of being punished by the bully in the White House, who are so afraid of even changing a comma in a bill because there might be retribution.

We are all elected by the people of this country. We ought to start acting like it. We ought to start fighting back. We ought to start legislating and deliberating. We ought to restore some dignity to the House of Representatives.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1075 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.

During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee met and reported out a rule providing for consideration of two measures: H.R. 4626, the Home Appliance Protection and Affordability Act, and H.R. 4758, Homeowner Energy Freedom Act under closed rules.

The rule provides each measure 1 hour of debate, equally divided and

controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce or their respective designees, and provides one motion to recommit for each measure.

There has been much talk this week about affordability and what can be done to push prices down. Republicans are working on lowering prices with bills like the two contained in this rule.

H.R. 4758 repeals three sections of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that were essentially subsidies for replacing natural gas appliances with electric-powered appliances. In particular, the so- called High-Efficiency Electric Home Rebate Act was intended to distort the appliance market by discouraging the installation of lower cost natural gas appliances.

Instead of leaning on subsidies, electric-powered appliance manufacturers should win the consumer over on their products' attributes and merits. These appliance subsidies were the fruit of an ideology that demands the end of natural gas, the end of significant consumer choice, and the end of fuel competition. These subsidies were really intended to make it too expensive to not buy electric stoves and electric hot water heaters.

Mr. Speaker, don't misunderstand me. I do not begrudge anyone for buying an electric stove or an electric hot water heater. That should be their choice. Maybe that type of appliance works best for their household.

This subsidy is really disappointing. We are taking taxpayer dollars and supporting one class of appliances over another and even giving the subsidy to rich folks. This is just a recipe to increase inflation and make prices go up.

No one can tell me that subsidizing electric appliances by--Mr. Speaker, listen to this--$4.275 billion would not cause relative appliance prices to skyrocket.

Every day we can see how the so-called Inflation Reduction Act has been given one of the most paradoxical bill titles ever in the United States Congress. This was because, after passage, as we have seen, inflation ran rampant. Only recently has that inflation rate started to ebb. That is because of the policies of this House and the Trump administration.

Republicans are not, as my colleagues might try to tell us, trying to ban electric stoves at all. Some of my colleagues on the other side would try to abandon or eliminate certain fuel sources from being used.

H.R. 4758 also repeals a section of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act to train contractors on how to install these electric appliances. While a contractor training program might have some use, it received a huge appropriation of $200 million.

Finally, this bill would repeal a $1 billion program that essentially tried to cajole States, counties, and cities into implementing a zero- energy building code. This opaque emissions accounting scheme attempts to have every building, whether it be a home, commercial storefront, or industrial site, be forced into either purchasing an equal amount of renewable energy or producing as much renewable energy as is consumed on site.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans are bringing bills to the floor that repeal wasteful programs that I believe, as in the case of this zero-energy code section, would end up increasing the final cost for new homes.

When new home prices go up, everybody in the industry knows that leads to increases in the cost of existing homes. I am sure some might ask: Well, how can that be? Mr. Speaker, here is what happens.

If you go to sell your house, you want to get the highest price available. If it costs 20 percent more to put a new house on the market, then all the existing inventory goes up in price at least 18 to 19 percent. If you buy an existing home, your price goes up, as well, because you, as the seller, want to maximize the amount of money you can get out of what is, for most Americans, the largest investment they will ever make.

This resolution would also allow H.R. 4626, the Home Appliance Protection and Affordability Act, to come to the floor.

This bill is important to lower costs for all Americans. The Energy Policy and Conservation Act was enacted in 1975. I don't know where my colleague on the other side of the aisle was in 1975, but I was still in high school. At that time, we had a real shortage of energy in our country. We weren't producing enough, and we were relying on foreign sources.

I submit to you that the bill that we are bringing up this week will save Americans money and energy in a more efficient manner than the 1975 solution.

Mr. Speaker, in 1975, most Americans weren't even born. I don't think you were born in 1975. You look too young. The gentleman has confirmed that with a smile.

What good is an appliance efficiency standard if a small amount of energy is saved, but the cost of the appliance is out of the range of the average family?

The Department of Energy has interpreted the act's ``technologically feasible and economically justified'' test to implement standards that barely save a consumer a couple of dollars in electricity per year. Energy efficiency is great, but not when it leads to appliances that cost more than they save.

This bill would put in a more exact standard. An energy efficiency regulation would have to forecast a saving of at least 10 percent of the appliance's energy consumption before a new standard is implemented.

H.R. 4626 will certainly lower the cost of buying new shower heads, dishwashers, washers, and dryers for all consumers.

Mr. Speaker, I hope all Members of this House support the passage of the rule and then the underlying bills. I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, first, I am going to take up the economy.

Do I wish the economy were better, Mr. Speaker? Absolutely.

Do I think the economy is better today than it was under the Biden- Harris administration? Absolutely.

Do I think the economy is better today with the Republicans in control of the White House, the Senate, and the House than it was when the Democrats controlled all three? Yes, I do. Things are better.

The Democrats spent so much money and said they were helping people to such a great degree that inflation went through the ceiling. It skyrocketed. We are trying to get it down, and part of the way that is done is to limit some of the Federal spending and limit some of these programs that raised costs.

I gave this statement earlier on how existing home prices go up when it costs more to build new houses. The same thing is true when my colleagues suddenly throw billions of dollars at having subsidies on only electric appliances. If they really want to help people have a choice, which my colleagues on the other side of the aisle indicated that that is what they are for, then we give a subsidy for everybody, if that is what they want to do. I still think it is inflationary, but give it for everybody who wants to buy a new appliance, whether that be a natural gas-powered appliance, an electric appliance, or whatever other fuel source is deemed safe. Open it wide open.

No. This was about restricting choices and giving subsidies only to one type of appliance, the electric appliance.

Mr. Speaker, the economy is better. These bills will help bring down inflation. It is not the end-all to save-all. It is not going to solve all of the problems of the country. Step by step Republicans are making advances on fighting the inflation the Democrats under Biden and Harris created.

Now, let's talk about the rule. Oh, I guess I need to first defend myself. What I said was that it wasn't fair to the gentleman who was there to testify. He was there to testify on two bills, and my colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, want to talk about everything under the Sun.

Now, I think this also gets to their concerns--and they are entitled to complain all they want to about closed rules. I get it. Part of the reason that we have closed rules is the same reason that we didn't entertain amendments last night. We have got to stop amendments that are merely put in to just be dilatory. We have got to stop amendments which are clearly not germane.

We have got bills here, as my colleagues on the other side have told you, that deal with appliances. Two of the three amendments that were offered to the Committee on Rules dealt with cryptocurrency, not appliances. In this country, we don't pay, whether it be coin or otherwise, in our homes to have hot water, or a dishwasher, or a washing machine. If the amendments had something to do with cryptocurrency being used for paid appliances in your home, maybe it would have been germane. They are not germane.

The third amendment, offered a mere 30 minutes before the Committee on Rules hearing began, gutted the bill. It wasn't a serious amendment. It said: These bills, if they pass, only become effective if a member of the administration deems yada, yada, yada. It was always something different. I forget exactly what this one was. Let's say it

deems that there is going to be world peace. That is not what it said, but they always put these kinds of amendments in, Mr. Speaker, and they are dilatory at best.

Part of the process in the Committee on Rules that we have adopted over the generations is to say: No, we are not going to allow that. We are not going to bring that to the floor, and I think that is appropriate.

In fact, as the Speaker knows or can learn of, I have long advocated for much stricter germaneness rulings here on the floor, and the Committee on Rules needs to have a much stricter germaneness ruling. I think if it is not absolutely on point with the intent of the underlying bill, even if it is in the same code section, it shouldn't come to the floor.

I have lost those battles over the years. However I have put in numerous amendments to the rules which my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, who now complain that we are not allowing enough amendments on the floor, have opposed.

I submit if we got closer to ``Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice'' in our germaneness rulings and the single purpose of a bill, this place would operate a lot better. Maybe we could have more open debate on the floor. Right now, if we put any bill on the floor, guess what they are going to talk about? They are going to talk about Donald Trump and how everybody hates Donald Trump on the other side of the aisle. They are going to talk about some issue that has nothing to do with the bill in place. That is not an appropriate way to run the body.

The Committee on Rules has to act as the gatekeeper and the referee because the House as a whole, both Democrats and Republicans, have gotten sloppy with the way we do our rules over the last 50, 75--maybe longer--100 years. I want to see us return to stricter rules on the floor and make the debate about the bill that is currently in front of us as opposed to whatever a gentleman or gentlewoman taking the floor wishes to speak on.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting they bring up this previous question, defeat the previous question, and we will present this other bill.

Let me explain to the folks back home, I know the Speaker understands this and my colleagues, I think, understand this: that is, in the form of an amendment and adding to the existing bills in the rule, it is not germane to either of the two bills in the rule.

We talk about trying to follow the rules and do all of that, and in this case, I am going to actually agree with my colleague on the other side of the aisle who said: There is Jefferson looking down on us, and if he saw the way we were operating, he would be disgusted.

I happen to agree with that, but never in my years in Congress have I heard my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say that they want to return to using ``Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice'' as the exclusive way to operate here.

Now, I, for one, would accept that. I owe a lot to Mr. Jefferson because I learned ``Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice'' while I was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and that knowledge ultimately led me to being the majority floor leader for my party.

However, never have I heard my colleagues on the other side--I have heard Mr. Webster of Florida say very positive things about ``Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice.'' I think that Mr. Massie would be agreeable to go along with just having this place operate under ``Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice.'' I have advocated that we get a lot closer to Jefferson than to the Wild Wild West that we have now, where amendments can be offered willy-nilly on the floor if it is an open rule or brought to the Rules Committee that have nothing to do with the underlying legislation.

That is what the previous question does as well. It offers a completely different bill on a completely different matter.

It is fascinating to me as I watch this, and my colleagues on the other side are very skilled at this, it is fascinating to me, Mr. Speaker, that it is always about the political issue of the day.

They play great politics. I wish they played as good at legislating as they do at politicking. I like legislating, and I wish we did more of it around here. Yet this is the system that we have grown into, and I will join them in advocating for all kinds of reform as we come to the next rules adoption at the end of this term.

I look forward to working with them if that is what they really want, but I think it is political lip service and not sincere thoughts of following the direction that Mr. Jefferson set forth after studying 400 years of parliamentary

practice and procedure that he put forward when he was Vice President of the United States and as the presiding officer over the Senate.

So I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that these are fine bills, and that this rule is fine. The one-half hour afforded to my colleagues and friends on the other side of the aisle is often used for political purposes, and that is what we are seeing today. It is for political purposes, but that does not mean we should not vote for this rule, and it does not mean we should not vote for these bills.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, there they go again. It is just amazing. It is. It is fascinating to me. I love the governmental process. I have since I was a kid, and it is just interesting to watch how all this goes.

First, let me just say it. I would appreciate it if my colleagues would not put words into my mouth. The gentleman said something along the lines of that I didn't want to do refunds. I said nothing of the sort.

I talked about how their amendment was not germane. I talked about how Jefferson wouldn't like the way we run things. I talked about how with this defeating of the previous question, they would offer an amendment on something that had nothing to do with the appliances, and now we take a rule on two appliance bills--and, look, Mr. Speaker, they want to say we should be debating other things that are fair game. But we are talking about a rule on two appliance bills, and suddenly--this is really germane, Mr. Speaker--we are making it about war in Iran.

Let me make this perfectly clear. I don't think Iran gives one iota of concern. I had to clean up my language, Mr. Speaker. I don't think Iran cares about what kind of appliances the American consumer buys. American consumers care, but I don't think Iran cares. By golly, we are not going to war over appliances in Iran.

There are lots of other things we can talk about. I do believe that we should be talking about other things as well, but that is not what is before us right this minute.

What is before us is a rule dealing with two bills that deal with lowering prices on appliances, and that is what we ought to be dealing with. Clearly, the bills are not so bad, or my colleagues on the other side wouldn't want to talk about everything but those two bills.

They talked about it a little bit. I give them credit for that, but, Mr. Speaker, I think we have beaten this horse, this dead horse, about as much as it can go.

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.

Mr. Speaker, I know it might be hard for folks back home to follow as they are watching this on C-SPAN, but this is about a rule to bring two small bills to the floor of the House.

I am not arguing that they are the biggest things in the world. They are smaller bills. That is true. That criticism is fair, but everything else that has been thrown into the debate today is not relevant to what we are debating. It is just an opportunity for politicizing everything that the other side of the aisle thinks is wrong.

We have freedom of speech. They can do that in lots of places. I would hope that someday we would return this floor to talking about the relevancy of the issues before us as opposed to having a free-for-all, but a free-for-all is what we have.

Let me talk about--because I believe strongly in doing that--these bills. These bills will roll back some things that were putting pressure on natural gas appliances, saying that if you wanted to buy one, I guess you could, but you are going to end up spending more money by getting cities, counties, and States to say that you have to have a zero net sum if you were going to put in some kind of appliance that you want in buildings. Whether it be a home, factory, or school, they need to be zero-sum. Either buy credits somewhere or come out with a zero-sum model, but you can't use fossil fuels, in particular natural gas, in this case.

I think these bills correct that problem. These bills help in a small way with the economy. It is amazing to me the things that can get said on this floor. My colleague probably would agree with me, except that we see things differently because they keep talking about this terrible economy.

I wish it were better. I have never said it was at its peak or where it ought to be, but I will tell you that it is much better than it was under the Biden-Harris administration. The so-called Inflation Reduction Act actually caused a huge spike in inflation. The American people are still paying the price for that.

They want to blame it on Trump because he has been in office now for 13 months, but the problem was created in the Biden-Harris administration, not in the Trump administration. The Trump administration and this Republican majority, small as it is, have been fighting day in and day out to bring down those costs on numerous fronts.

Today, we are not here to talk about every affront out there or whether we want to go to war or not go to war with Iran--and that should be debated by the House--but about two appliance bills. That is what I am speaking about.

The fact is, as Jefferson looks down, he wouldn't have to worry about closed rules if we operated closer to ``Jefferson's Manual of Parliamentary Practice.'' I look forward to moving us in that direction and working with my colleagues. The first step is to pass this rule on two simple appliance bills that will make things a little bit more affordable, hopefully make the appliances a little more efficient.

I had a constituent talk to me a number of years ago about some of

these regulations coming out where she was having to take a garden hose and fill up her washer because in order to be efficient, they weren't allowing so much water to be put into each load of clothes.

It is because of that kind of silly thinking that we are trying to stop and make things better for the American consumer, to make things more affordable, and to make things just a little bit better. If we can take a half a step today and a full step tomorrow, eventually we can get this economy, that was totally screwed up by the previous administration under Biden and Harris, back on track to serve the American people.

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

Mr. Speaker, for more than a year now, working Members and families have been forced to pay the price for Donald Trump's illegal tariffs. Let's call them what they are. Blanket tariffs are blanket taxes. They are taxes that the American people have paid.

What did Donald Trump tax when he imposed these sweeping, unlawful tariffs?

He taxed your groceries. He taxed your baby formula and your strollers. He taxed the inventory sitting on the shelves of small businesses that are just trying to survive.

In my home State of Nevada, families have paid nearly $1,800 more in the last year because of these unlawful taxes. That is a rent payment, childcare, a car repair, and it is groceries for families that are already struggling to get by.

My district has seen the real-world consequences. A neighborhood cupcake shop, a local brewery, coffee roasters who built their dream from the ground up were all forced to shutter their doors this past year directly because their costs have skyrocketed and their customers can no longer afford these high prices.

Now the Supreme Court has spoken. The emergency authority used to justify these tariffs--taxes that Americans have paid--did not authorize this mess. In simple terms: This administration did not have the power to do it, and yet, they did. Billions of dollars were illegally taken--in my view, stolen--from the American people.

Now what are my Republican colleagues proposing? They are proposing a bill on appliances. They want you, the small business owner, the working parent, they want you to have to hire a lawyer or to sue the Federal Government to get your own money back. Donald Trump himself said that you may have to litigate this for 5 years. Mr. Speaker, 5 years? That is not relief. That is a bureaucratic maze. It is a rigged system designed to exhaust you, to outlast you, and to ensure that the little guy never sees a dime.

Well, we have a solution. My bill, the RELIEF Act, does something radical in Washington. It makes the government fix its own mistake. It requires automatic refunds of all tariff payments from the last year within 90 days--no application, no protest process, no lawyer required. If the government took it illegally, the government must give it back, period.

To the businesses that received those refunds, it is time to bring prices down for working people and families who have stood by you and who kept you afloat.

Mr. Speaker, if Republicans block this vote, they are voting to keep your money. They are telling Main Street America: Take us to court. They are choosing delay over relief and politics over people.

Tonight, the President will stand in this very Chamber and try to sell the American people on his economy. Working families don't need a sales pitch; they need relief. They need honesty. They need their money back--no more excuses, no more delays, and no more courtroom battles.

Let us return what was taken. Let us stand with small businesses. Let us stand with the working families.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question and to support the RELIEF Act.

They vote to keep life unaffordable. This is a rigged system.

Mr. Speaker, the President has disregard and disrespect for the American people when the Supreme Court told him that his actions were illegal, they were unconstitutional, and it is time to give the American people their money back, to give them relief--not disrespect, not disregard, but their money back.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question and to support my bill, the RELIEF Act. If they vote ``yes'' and deny me the ability to bring forward the RELIEF Act, they are keeping your life more unaffordable.