H.Res. 672

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

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

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

General Leave

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is fascinating. It is absolutely fascinating.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I am.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I also compliment the chair of our subcommittee, Mr. Fleischmann of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for his very gentlemanly behavior on both sides of the aisle so that we can actually move bills, which is our public responsibility.

I thank our diligent staff for all their hard work on this bill. I have to say I am very proud that ours is one of the first three bills to come to the floor. They are long delayed, not because we didn't do our work. We are ready. We want to pass funding for the new fiscal year, which begins on October 1.

I also thank the minority staff, Scott McKee, Anisha Singh, and Adam Wilson, and my personal staff, Kaitlin Ulin, TJ Lowdermilk, and Margaret McInnis. I thank them all, and I thank them for putting up with me.

Engineered energy and water systems undergird America's way of life. Energy and water are not optional but essential to sustaining life.

Of late, we have been piercingly reminded about our subcommittee's purpose. July brought nearly double the usual flood warnings, the second highest in 40 years. On July Fourth, Kerr County, Texas, sadly, saw one of the deadliest flash floods in U.S. history, with 117 lives lost. These tragedies inform us of the power of water and wild energy in our atmosphere.

Let me be clear: No matter how much Members on the other side of the aisle want to pretend that climate change is not happening, for the record, the last 10 years are the 10 hottest in recorded history. Think about that.

Our Great Lakes, the region I represent, comprise the largest body of freshwater on Earth. Specifically, Lake Erie, the southernmost of the lakes, no longer freezes over. Some of our favorite sports, ice boating and ice fishing, are now becoming a memory of the past, and hockey is now played indoors.

America's electric grid is old and under deep strain. The Energy Information Administration documented that the U.S. just set new records twice in July for peak electricity demand. The old grid system is being tested by hotter weather and higher usage. When the grid strains, costs rise and the most vulnerable families suffer first. How would you like to be in Tucson at 120 degrees week after week?

Unchecked growth in data centers alone could raise average U.S. electricity generation costs by roughly 8 percent by 2030. This is not hypothetical. It is happening as we meet today.

In Ohio, rapid demand growth from Big Tech data centers pushes electricity prices dramatically higher every month. Starting this July, households in Ohio saw their monthly energy bills increase a minimum of 10 percent. Some more than doubled. Families noticed a massive increase in monthly bills. I have one constituent

who called and told us that her family's bill moved from $230 a month to $494 in July. This cost of energy increase is not sustainable for working families.

Sadly, this Republican energy and water bill does not meet our Nation's energy and water imperative for the future nor for the present. We must invest faster in modern infrastructure to become energy independent in perpetuity. That is our awesome--underline ``awesome''--responsibility. We must reduce energy costs by investing in modern grid resilience and an all-of-the-above energy portfolio.

This bill fails to address the cost-of-living crisis currently underway. Overall, household electric bills nationally are up 10 percent. That is just since January. In places like northern Ohio, I am hearing that, for many people, the total for energy and water bills has doubled. Every family in this country knows that. Even higher energy bills lie ahead for families and businesses.

China is investing record levels in energy, making its products more competitive. Sadly, this bill retreats from U.S. global energy leadership. What do I mean? The bill cuts $1.6 billion, or 47 percent, from the Department of Energy's energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. This undermines our Nation's imperative to deliver clean, affordable, and secure energy to the American people.

Our Nation should lead, not lag, in the global race toward energy independence in perpetuity. We must build an abundant clean energy future.

This bill eliminates funding for the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, which means building the future. It revokes $5.1 billion of bipartisan infrastructure law resources from the Department of Energy, which will cede the U.S. global lead in hydrogen, direct air capture, battery recycling, and consequent energy savings possible in every public and private structure.

Already, U.S. businesses have delayed or canceled--this is a shocking number--more than $33 billion in investments in energy projects this year. That is lost economic growth. Over 64,000 jobs have already been lost or stalled in the clean energy sector. That is uncalled for.

In May, this administration revoked $3.7 billion in Federal energy investment for 24 energy projects already signed, sealed, and delivered across America, including for manufacturing companies to become more energy-efficient and including over $100 million for Libbey Glass, Owens-Illinois Glass, and Kraft Heinz across our region of Ohio alone.

President Trump promised he was going to help American manufacturing. That revocation actually goes completely in the opposite direction.

Thus, I must strongly oppose these additional Republican cuts to vital energy production and conservation--and America's future--through the U.S. Department of Energy.

Shortchanging these advances pushes our Nation backward and raises already high energy prices even more for consumers.

In other areas, this bill dangerously shortchanges our national security. The bill slashes $412 million from the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account. This effectively guts our efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, detect covert nuclear threats, and uphold arms control agreements that keep us safe. All of those cuts are a big gift for Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea.

Additionally, this bill turns its back on communities still living with the toxic legacy of America's atomic past by zeroing out the Army Corps program to clean up radioactive waste at early nuclear sites. This is deadly.

It slashes $779 million from nuclear cleanup efforts. That is three- quarters of a billion dollars. This will delay the cleanup that these communities have been promised for decades. I will note that one of these American atomic waste sites is in the village of Luckey, Ohio, not so far from my district.

Finally, this bill includes numerous controversial poison pill riders that are so extreme that they cannot gain bipartisan support and become law.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. America can and must meet the new age frontiers of energy and water. Nature is signaling. Times are changing. We must not turn back the clock but seize the baton for future generations to come.

Now is the moment to keep America on a steady path forward for an all-of-the-above energy, water, and nuclear security portfolio.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Mrvan), a very hardworking member of the Appropriations Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone), the hardworking and highly able distinguished ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the authorizing committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor), who works so hard on all climate issues. I thank the gentlewoman so very much for speaking today.

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster), who is a genius who just happens to be a Member of Congress, as well, so the country is twice blessed.

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

Mr. Chair, this Energy and Water bill costs American households, undermines U.S. global leadership, and weakens national security. Sadly, this Republican Energy and Water bill does not meet our Nation's imperative for the future.

In closing, I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill. America can do better,

and we must lead in the new frontiers of energy and water. We must keep this country secure. Our Nation's future depends on all of these.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this bipartisan amendment and offer the comment that I wish all legislation could be accomplished in this manner.

This en bloc contains noncontroversial amendments from Members of both parties. I have no objections and urge support of the amendment.

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

Mr. Chair, I thank Congressman Taylor for coming to the floor, who is a fellow Buckeye. It is great to have southern Ohio and northern Ohio on the floor at the same time.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oregon (Ms. Dexter).

Will the gentleman yield?

Representing the largest fishery on the Great Lakes where we have white fish, perch, and pickerel, I would be very interested in the gentleman letting us know how long brown fish grow. What is their length?

Mr. Chair, we ought to have a fish day up here on Capitol Hill to make everybody feel better.

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

Mr. Chair, I thank the Chair for his good measure today.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, in rising in opposition to this amendment, I do so because the amendment prohibits funds provided by this act from being used to close campgrounds or parks operated by the Army Corps of Engineers that are located at or around Lake Sidney Lanier in Georgia.

I can certainly understand the strong interest in preventing the Corps from closing campgrounds and parks in any particular area and certainly this one. The Corps is one of the Nation's leading Federal providers of outdoor recreation. They do not provide it in my district, though it would be nice if they did.

In this place, the Corps' recreation sites receive more than 260 million visits each year and include more than 400 lake and river projects in 43 States. They have a very broad reach.

Unfortunately, the Corps of Engineers' recreation funding has declined in recent years, and I support the notion that we do not want the Corps to close recreation sites due to lack of funding.

However, this is an issue that affects hundreds of sites across dozens of States. Then there are places like I represent where we don't have any Corps sites but we would like one.

I don't believe we should begin the practice of using funding prohibitions to carve out special designations but, instead, should develop a comprehensive solution to address the challenge of funding Corps recreation sites.

For this reason, at this moment I oppose the amendment. I look forward to working with my colleagues to develop a solution to the larger challenge at the Corps. The door is open if we can find other sources of funding.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition because this amendment, as I understand it, creates a funding prohibition related to the Delaware River Basin Commission.

The Delaware River Basin Commission is a Federal interstate compact agency charged with managing the water resources of the Delaware River Basin on a regional basis without regard to political boundaries.

As established by law through the Delaware River Basin Compact that went into effect in 1961, which is a half century ago, the Commission consists of the Army Corps of Engineers and the four basin State Governors. Those States include Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. Each is a significant place in the union.

The Corps of Engineers and these States work as equal partners for planning, development, and regulatory action for the river basin. Given the Commission's statutory mission, it analyzed the risks to water resources posed by high-volume hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques.

We know something about this in Ohio; that is for sure.

Through a public rulemaking process, the Commission developed regulations related to high-volume hydraulic fracturing within the Delaware River Basin.

As a reminder, the Commission consists of the Governors of the four basin States--Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York--and the North Atlantic Division commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

It does not strike me as the proper role for Congress, particularly through an appropriations rider, to overrun or overrule regional and local governments on this matter.

While the commission's work could be further discussed, I am also concerned that this implicates funding provided to the Delaware River Basin Commission as community project funding on behalf of a Member of this body.

For those reasons, Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to think about all this. I will be voting against this amendment, but I think there is a little more homework that has to be done on this one.

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

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, as I am listening to this debate, and I haven't studied the maps completely, it sounds like Pennsylvania's effluent flows into points east of Pennsylvania.

Is that correct, Congressman?

I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

We understand this challenge from Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana. We have our own tristate issues there.

This amendment prohibits funding for the Delaware River Basin Commission. It is hard to oppose the gentleman from Pennsylvania, but established by law through the Delaware River Basin Compact that went into effect in 1961, the commission consists of the Army Corps of Engineers and the four basin State Governors. Those States include Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York.

I guess any State could disagree, but the purpose of a commission is to try to get people to work together.

The effluent that is flowing from Pennsylvania into New Jersey may have to be tested for its content.

I don't really know, but the Corps of Engineers in these States work as equal partners for planning, development, and regulatory actions for the river basin.

While the commission's work could be further discussed, my strongest reason for opposition to this amendment is that the underlying bill provides $715,000 to the Delaware River Basin Commission as community project funding on behalf of a Member of this body.

The community project funding process allows Members of Congress to request funding for their community to meet urgent needs that they identify, and there is a rigorous process for the vetting and inclusion of community project funding including strict transparency and accountability rules.

I am a little surprised that one Member would target another Member's community project funding through an amendment on the floor.

Mr. Chair, I strongly urge my colleagues to work together and to vote against this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chair, I say to the fine gentleman from Pennsylvania that I drive a conventionally powered car. I put gasoline in my car. I don't have a favorite. I had a brother who was a race car driver, so he tried everything.

This amendment, though, would strike all funding provided in our bill to oversee and administer the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, ATVM for short.

All I have to say is that we need lots of hands on deck in inventing the new overground transportation systems for this country because, globally, we are falling behind, and the companies know it.

This program is currently responsible for carefully vetting and conducting oversight of more than $30 billion in loans that are either active or have conditional commitments. There are ATVM loan projects across the country, across industrial America--my colleague and I share that, both bounty and struggle--in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, New York, Michigan, and Indiana. These are projects that support the production of advanced vehicles, vehicle components, and critical minerals.

I am actually fast at the task of building a Toledo car because I don't want all of those gizmos they put on the cars today. You are forced to buy it when you go in, but you don't want it. Then, if it breaks, it costs $500 or more to get it fixed. People don't want all of that stuff. If they want the stuff, let them select it.

However, the ATVM program is projected to add almost 40,000 jobs nationwide, and we need it. Today, we are faced with an amendment to undercut those investments and jobs across our country.

Even for those who do not support the critical work of this program, eliminating this funding is truly cutting off our nose to spite our face.

Mr. Chair, if you want to increase fraud or hinder the ability of the Federal Government to interact with private business quickly and efficiently,

then, by all means, vote for this amendment. I, however, will vote against it because we must continue to invest in the manufacturing expertise of this country. I underline ``manufacturing,'' not ``copying.'' I mean building, creating, innovating. I want to make sure we do so as efficiently and responsibly as possible.

Without the necessary support to advance and oversee these investments, we risk our national security by letting our international competitors, China in particular, outpace our efforts at home.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this misguided amendment.

I have staff members who drive hybrids. They like those. I don't like the particular hybrid one of them drives because it is too close to the ground and you feel the road too much.

We all have opinions based on what size we are and how we can see out the windows and all, but I really do think that anything that has to do with advanced technology vehicle manufacturing is something I do not want to displace in the array of options that we have as a country. There is too much at stake here.

We have just seen the rebirth of the steel industry and are fighting for that every day. I was just up at the Soo Locks in Michigan looking at our ability to move steel and other material from Duluth all the way down through the seaway and then out to the world. We are working very hard on reinvesting in manufacturing America.

Madam Chair, I would not at all support the elimination of this program or the cutting short of this program at a time when America really needs it. So much of our componentry has been shipped offshore because they pay cheap wages. They pay penny wages, and they can move componentry.

Madam Chair, I had something happen to my car, and they took out the part. Sure enough, a foreign part failed. I could have been killed. You look at this, and I thought: I know this wasn't made in our country. Where was it made? You can guess.

We have to restore American manufacturing. I think that this is one way that we can do it.

We also have to invent new fuels. We, in our region, flew the first biofueled F-16 aircraft in this country. It didn't crash. They loved it. We are inventing the new fuels of the future, biofuels.

Half of the corn and soy in my region goes into fuels. It is a good thing it does because we have lost our agricultural markets to Brazil and Argentina selling to China, so our farmers aren't exporting into China anymore because of what is happening globally in the marketplace.

For manufacturing America, I oppose the amendment because I want invention here. I want manufacturing here.

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

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Madam Chair, the gentleman's amendment reduces funding for the Northern Border Regional Commission by $13 million.

The Northern Border Regional Commission is a Federal-State partnership focused on economic and community development within the most distressed counties in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York.

Except for New York--but New York in the north is different than New York in the south--many of these States don't have very many Members of Congress.

When you look at Vermont, I actually have more citizens in my district than the State of Vermont does in its entirety. The Northern Border Commission really does focus on places that often get ignored simply because those States don't have enough people in them to warrant the kind of attention maybe Pennsylvania gets because of its number of people, or California.

The NBRC was created by Congress in 2008 to provide infrastructure and economic development assistance to projects in counties that had varying degrees of economic and demographic distress. These investments lead to new jobs being created.

I have seen what it has done, for instance, in the Appalachian Regional Commission. It has taken a while, but I think many of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle from these States, where these commissions function, will agree and say it is the first time that kind of help has come in creating new businesses and trying to create roads that didn't exist and try to promote economic development in really some of the forgotten corners of America.

It is critical to support the rise of all Americans to become part of a thriving middle class. In some parts of the country, it is more difficult than others.

I can guarantee where there has been deindustrialization because of the outsourcing of production, there ought to

be a whole separate set of activities that occur in those areas of the country, whether it is Kenosha, Wisconsin, whether it is Toledo, Ohio, or Flint, Michigan. One of the reasons the public is so unstable politically is because they are looking for an answer and neither party has been able to fully accommodate the needs of those places.

I think we are becoming more sensitive to it, and these commissions provide us a very important means to do it.

Madam Chair, I oppose the gentleman's amendment. Actually, I think part of Pennsylvania, is it not covered by the Appalachian Regional Commission? Will the gentleman yield?

I just think that when you look at some of the money that goes out to different places in the country, Pennsylvania hits higher than Ohio does actually. For us, the Appalachian Regional Commission in southern Ohio has been just terribly important.

Has it been the most important vehicle for restoring what was lost or trying to convert to other economic activities? No. Are we crawling forward? Yes. At least we are not falling behind even more.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman for offering this amendment, but I have to oppose it.

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

Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, this amendment prohibits the use of funds to implement or enforce the Delaware River Basin Commission's rule to ban hydraulic fracturing within the Delaware River Basin.

The best way to combat high energy prices is to produce more energy in America and in places like my own Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the second largest natural gas producer in the Nation.

Unfortunately, unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats at the Delaware River Basin Commission have instituted a hydraulic fracturing ban for a portion of the State of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, stripping away property and mineral rights from Pennsylvanians in contravention of the will of the State's own legislature.

The result is a prohibition on the development of critical shale plays in eastern Pennsylvania that can bring desperately needed natural gas to market and the unconstitutional taking of the mineral rights of Pennsylvanians, all while keeping prices high.

To be clear, this amendment simply prohibits the Delaware River Basin Commission from implementing or enforcing its hydraulic fracturing ban but does not impact the ability of the States in the Delaware River Basin Commission to regulate hydraulic fracturing as they see fit.

During previous debates on this issue, mistruths were spread about the impact of this policy change on the water reservoirs that serve New York City. These claims are false and easily disproven by the facts.

The safety of hydraulic fracturing has been demonstrated through its extensive use across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and across the country for decades now.

The Obama-era EPA determined that the practice did not pose a threat to drinking water.

Simple geography and hydrology make this outcome an impossibility. All of New York City reservoirs are upriver from Pennsylvania or on the Hudson River, which does not connect to Pennsylvania, precluding any impact in Pennsylvania from reaching these reservoirs.

Mr. Chair, the intention of this amendment and its primary impact will be unleashing Pennsylvania's full energy potential by allowing Pennsylvanians in the river basin to use their property and mineral rights as they see fit as free Americans, subject to the laws passed by their elected Representatives.

It is time to stop this underhanded attack on property rights, representative government, and State sovereignty and restore American security. Opposition to this amendment is support for the hydraulic fracturing ban and for higher energy, in particular, natural gas prices for our constituents.

Mr. Chair, I urge passage of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have done my homework for years now, and it is the same song every time because nothing changes. While I agree with the gentlewoman from Ohio--she does know something about this and, of course, it is allowed in Ohio, but she said that it is not appropriate to overrule regional and local governments, but that is exactly what the DRBC does. It overrules regional and local government.

By the way, it overrules the Commonwealth Government. While the Governor has a say, there are four other voting members who can overrule that Governor. Quite honestly, what we don't need is somebody from another State telling us how to run our business.

There is no political accountability. We don't vote for people in Delaware, New Jersey, and New York. They are wonderful people, and we appreciate them, but our job is to represent Pennsylvania. That is what I am doing. Pennsylvanians want to have access to their land and to their mineral rights, and they should have it, not unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.

Mr. Chair, I urge passage, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment eliminates earmarked funding for the Delaware River Basin Commission.

Unfortunately, this bill includes an earmark providing nearly three- quarters of a million dollars to the Delaware River Basin Commission, marking just the third time the Federal Government has provided the DRBC funding since 1998.

The unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats at the DRBC have unilaterally instituted a hydraulic fracturing

ban for a portion of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, stripping away property and mineral rights from Pennsylvanians in direct contravention of the will of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth's legislature.

The result is a prohibition on the development of critical shale plays in eastern Pennsylvania that can bring desperately needed natural gas to the market and the unconstitutional taking of the mineral rights of American citizens.

This attack on Pennsylvania energy and American energy is at a time when residential natural gas prices are near record highs, and my friends on the other side of the aisle literally run ads saying that I increase their energy prices while they do it every single day and they are just about ready to do it again.

It creates significant inflation for my constituents and the constituents of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and it empowers our enemies abroad.

The earmark in this bill rewards the radical commissioners with money from the very taxpayers and ratepayers the DRBC is attacking.

Providing funds to such an out-of-control, radical commission is a step in the wrong direction that incentivizes others to follow its lead, and it keeps our energy costs high.

This amendment would prohibit Federal funding for the DRBC, ensuring that we do not further incentivize this commission to attack American energy and the rights of Pennsylvania's citizens.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentlewoman yield?

That is correct.

Mr. Chairman, the community funding process, just understand if you are not familiar with congressional jargon, that equals earmark. That is three-quarters of a million dollars to this organization that heretofore hasn't needed the money because they extort members of the States that they exist in all kinds of fees, applications, and licensing agreements from townships and other municipalities for private individuals. That is how they are paid for. Yet now we are going to pay three-quarters of a million dollars from the Federal Government when we are $37 trillion in debt.

While I am happy to agree that we should test the effluent, I am good with that, but apparently we don't care about the effluent from Ohio to Pennsylvania or from Pennsylvania to Ohio where we conduct the same activity. Oh, by the way, there have been no cases of any issue where hydraulic fracturing caused some effluent issue that I know of or that I imagine my counterpart on the other side of the aisle can speak to.

As a matter of fact, I said that the Obama-era EPA said that it was completely safe.

While I agree that we should do those things, and if there is a problem we absolutely have to get after it, but we are just throwing money at this thing when there is no evidence that there is a problem. There is zero evidence that there is a problem, number one, and there is zero evidence that they need any of this money, but there is $37 trillion of evidence that we don't have the money to pay for it.

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

Mr. Chairman, this amendment would eliminate funding for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, program.

Modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as DARPA, the agency funds research and development of advanced energy technologies.

It sounds like a noble goal.

Despite a purported goal to identify and promote revolutionary advances in energy, the agency is more focused on misguided, ineffective climate and so-called green priorities.

For years, ARPA-E has drifted from its mission and provided grants to companies and projects that are neither high risk nor something that the private sector cannot and does not support.

Among recent awards, ARPA-E has supported the Net-Zero Game Changers Initiative, which is subsidizing climate-warming refrigerants and Jetsons-style electrification of aviation.

With all due respect, as a member of the Transportation Committee, if they want to electrify aviation, God bless them. Let them and the Wright brothers from the gentlewoman's great State of Ohio invest. It is always better when the private sector invests. It is always more efficient, and the outcomes are always better.

The Trump administration has also called for the elimination of this program, and rightly so, recognizing the private sector's primary role in taking risks to commercialize breakthrough energy technologies with actual, real market potential, not made-up ones by the good idea fairy from the Federal Government.

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

Mr. Chair, I certainly appreciate the chairman's view. I think his view is actually the same as mine, recognizing that it has already had a 24 percent reduction. Quite honestly, that is great that it has produced all of these patents, but wouldn't it be better if the private sector produced those patents? Right now, the American taxpayer is paying for those patents, but you know who is not getting any of the money, the royalties, or the licensing for those patents? The very taxpayers who pay the bill.

Again, I get that many see this as a great jobs program, and it provides a lot of great things for America, but those things should be provided by the private sector because we simply cannot afford to pay for all of this stuff. Something has to give.

The private sector wants to make money. It wants to get patents. It wants to license things. Good for them. They should do it. The American taxpayer doesn't want to pay for it. If they are paying for it, where is the return on the investment?

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

Mr. Chair, this amendment eliminates funding for the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program and transfers that savings to spending reduction. This is another wasteful, so-called green energy handout program that should be and must be eliminated.

The ATVM Loan Program has been plagued by a failure to produce viable products, political favoritism, inefficient use of taxpayer funds, a failure to create promised jobs, and a significant potential for fraud and misrepresentation.

Unfortunately, this is to be expected from this kind of program. The very nature of the program ensures that it will be the government selecting winners and losers based on political considerations, as opposed to actual marketable technologies.

Instead, we can and must empower the market to provide consumers with products they actually want rather than forcing them to adapt to whatever technology the bureaucrats and good idea fairies in Washington, D.C., think they want or demand that they want.

Despite the massive amount of subsidies provided through this program and others to electric vehicles, it is clear that the majority of the American people do not want them.

The government-funded EV bubble appears to be deflating. The truth is, 98 percent of all cars on the road today are gas-powered, and 97 percent of all annual car purchases are gas-powered.

I am not against EVs. If you want to buy one, God bless you, go buy one. It is just that the Federal Government should not be involved in it. What is the proper role of the Federal Government in buying your car? I submit it is not the proper role.

Despite literally paying folks to produce and buy these cars, overall market penetration has been minimal, sales are slowing, and consumer sentiment is moving away from EVs.

According to McKinsey & Company, the place where the last Secretary of Transportation worked, 46 percent of current battery electric vehicle owners are likely going back to internal combustion engine vehicles for their next purchase.

Consumer Reports found EVs to be associated with 79 percent more problems than conventional vehicles. It is absolutely clear that this program has failed, and we need to stop the forcing of Americans to transition to EVs, even though we think that they should and they don't want to.

It is long past time to finally bring an end to the green new scam and defund this misguided program, as well as all the other DOE loan programs that pick winners and losers based on politics rather than markets.

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

Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Madam Chair, the gentlewoman from Ohio and I certainly agree that we shouldn't be forced to buy things for vehicles that we don't want. They are heavier. They are more technologically sensitive. I mean, you are essentially driving a computer around. Like the gentlewoman said, when it breaks, you are paying through the teeth for the whole thing. We certainly agree on that.

Yet, Madam Chair, that is all being forced on us by Washington, D.C. It comes out of this town. That requirement and those mandates come from this town.

To the 40,000 jobs that this supports, Americans are great at building cars. I don't care whether you drive a hybrid, an electric vehicle, or a traditionally powered vehicle, including diesel. That should be your business. Yet, this picks the winner and says: You are going to drive an electric vehicle, subsidizes it, subsidizes the manufacture of it, and then subsidizes the purchase of it.

Madam Chair, no one is subsidizing the purchase of my vehicle. It has 340,000 miles on it.

Even Elon--I talked to him, once a darling of the left, now much supported by the right--agrees that there should be no subsidies for these vehicles. He doesn't want subsidies on anything, and I agree with him on that.

As far as being in competition with China, unfortunately, China provides the vast majority of what makes these vehicles work. We are buying this stuff from our enemies. Let's buy it from Americans and let Americans determine what they want. What they have said is that they don't want EVs forced down their throats.

If they want to buy one, they can buy one. If they don't, then they can buy whatever they want. I am just saying that the government shouldn't be involved in paying for it. It is not fair to people who don't buy them and have to pay for them anyhow.

Madam Chair, I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, Federal loan guarantee programs transfer the risk of the loans to the taxpayer, pure and simple. As with any government subsidy, they reduce market discipline of loan recipients. You are not worried if you are getting a loan because the taxpayers are going to pay it. You don't care whether you produce anything or not.

The checkered past of the DOE's loan guarantee program demonstrates that it is not immune from these concerns. Among the most egregious examples of title 17 loan failures are Solyndra, Fisker Automotive, and A123 Systems. All three entities received hundreds of millions of dollars in loan guarantees, paid for by the taxpayer, before filing for bankruptcy and leaving the taxpayer holding the bag and getting nothing for it.

To add insult to injury, A123 Systems and Fisker Automotive were purchased by Chinese companies for pennies on the dollar. The taxpayers paid, and China was enriched, meaning the CCP was the ultimate beneficiary.

Madam Chair, this is crazy that we are even talking about this. What government supports another government that says that they are your enemy or that you are their enemy? China has said that we are their enemy. Yet, we are selling them, at pennies on the dollar, these taxpayer subsidized failures. It is outrageous.

Madam Chair, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act provides for approximately $11.7 billion for the Loan Program Office to issue new loans. This additional funding raises significant concerns that the program will, once again, be used as a piggy bank for energy sources and vehicles that the American people don't want and that drive up costs to consumers.

People will ask why everything costs so much. It is because we are subsidizing it. When you are guaranteeing the loan and the loan fails and you are on the hook for it, the American taxpayer doesn't know that they cosigned these loans, but they did.

Like I said, to add insult to injury, then China gets the place. It is unbelievable that we should even have this conversation, but we do.

Madam Chair, I urge adoption, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I certainly respect the chairman of the committee and his views, and I say this: Next year, when I offer this amendment, I will leave some room in there for administrative purposes to oversee the loans that are already out there. That is a fair argument.

Yet, I would say this, too: I am the proud Representative of Three Mile Island, which is going to be reopened without any government assistance. It is privately owned. They made a deal with Microsoft, which just proves the point.

The American taxpayer already pays the rates for electricity. They are already paying the investors for the investment in nuclear, and I am a great supporter of nuclear. I just don't think it should be the position of the Federal Government to take money out of people's pockets to pay for these things.

Madam Chair, maybe you live in an area where you are not serviced by nuclear power. Maybe you live in south central Pennsylvania where Three Mile Island is going to reopen, but all the money and all the power is going to go to Microsoft. Why should the consumer pay for that?

I am sorry. We have figured out how to do nuclear power and do it well in the United States of America. Quite honestly, probably one of the only times it is screwed up is when the Federal Government gets involved with it. I understand the chairman's position and I appreciate it.

Madam Chair, I still urge adoption of the amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise to offer this amendment to reduce funding for the Northern Border Regional Commission, or the NBRC, to fiscal year 2019 levels.

We are changing up here a little bit. We are looking for ways to reduce spending so the American people can keep their money, so we don't have to go further into debt. This is just another unnecessary, redundant program. Like the other regional commissions, the NBRC provides economic development assistance to projects in various States, in this case, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont.

These commissions simply serve as a slush fund for parochial and regional projects with little to no national nexus. There is no Federal connection to these things.

Let's take a look at some of the funded programs taken from the 2022 annual report, which is the latest one available: $304,000 to purchase a sound system for an auditorium in New Hampshire, over $350,000 to expand rail yard capacity in upstate New York, another $350,000 for a sailing center on Lake Champlain.

Madam Chair, these projects are probably awesome. They are probably all great. Some of them ought to be funded by private investments and others should be funded by States or localities. Instead of pandering to special interest groups, we must pare back these wasteful programs that only serve as a boondoggle for a limited slice of Americans.

The sailing center on Lake Champlain sounds awesome, but most south central Pennsylvanians aren't going there, but they are paying for it. They get to pay.

Let's be clear: This amendment does not zero out the commission's funding. It simply reduces the funding to pre-pandemic, pre-Biden spending levels.

I think most people agree we are spending too much money. Let's start there and see how we can do better.

Madam Chair, I urge adoption, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I will get to that one later.

Madam Chair, I certainly appreciate the gentlewoman's arguments. I just say that there is a guy named ``Friedman'' who was traveling overseas. He came upon a public works project. Everybody was down in the ditch with shovels digging--many men digging with shovels, and he said to the person running the thing: What is with all of the shovels? Why don't you buy them some equipment so they can get this work done faster? The guy said: This produces a lot of jobs.

Mr. Friedman said: Why don't you give them all teaspoons instead and you can have even more jobs, or at least the job can last longer.

Of course, throwing money around produces jobs. As far as it being infrastructure, a sound system for an auditorium, while it is infrastructure, I don't think--many people think of infrastructure as roads, bridges, airports, ports, things like that, not a sound system or a sailing center. Those are nice things to have, but those are parochial. Those are local interests that should be provided at least by the State, not the people in the Federal Government. We have lost sight of the role of the Federal Government, which is why this amendment is in order.

Mr. Chair, I urge adoption, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer this amendment to halve the funding for the Southwest Border Regional Commission, again trying to save some money by not spending money on redundant things.

Yet again, this commission serves as a duplicative slush fund for parochial interests, this time for projects in the southern border regions of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.

This commission only had its first chairman confirmed in 2022 and was only funded starting in fiscal year 2021, so it is relatively recent.

Look, I know folks on this side of the aisle care about the border. I imagine and hope that folks on the other side of the aisle care about the border. However, the answer to solving the border problems is to actually enforce our Nation's immigration laws, not to give $4 million to a commission that does not even appear to have an operational website.

By the way, this current administration, the Trump administration, is handling the border, so we don't need to waste another $4 million on this commission.

The commission received $250,000 in FY21 but is now being funded at $4 million in this bill for zero results.

Can anybody show or tell me what the results of this commission are?

Again, this amendment simply strikes this figure in half, so even though it is wasteful and useless generally speaking, I am only taking away half, which is still $2 million.

I don't care whether you are from Ohio or south central Pennsylvania, $2 million is a lot of money.

Mr. Chair, I urge support of the amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why? Why would he refuse to do it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, what do Republicans think of that?

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

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

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

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

While all of this stalling goes on, what happens?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it seems lonely over there.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

Another pardoned rioter committed a home invasion less than 4 months

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

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

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

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

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

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

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, is the gentleman prepared to close?

He has no more speakers?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 672, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 106) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land Management relating to ``Central Yukon Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan'', and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 106.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doyon, Limited,

Fairbanks, AK, July 21, 2025.

Hon. Nicholas J. Begich III

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

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

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

Record of Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan

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

this joint resolution and urges Congress's and the

President's swift action to reject this misguided and harmful

planning decision.

Doyon is a major stakeholder in the Bureau of Land

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

large tracts of lands that were conveyed to Doyon under the

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) are surrounded

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

interests in the Central Yukon Planning Area, holding an

ownership interest in approximately 4.65 million acres. In

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

Planning Area under ANCSA that have not yet been conveyed.

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

with BLM lands--potentially more than any other Indigenous

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

of the land that Doyon selected was selected for its economic

development potential.

As Doyon explained to BLM throughout the Central Yukon RMP

planning process, further enveloping Doyon's lands within new

or expanded Areas of Critical Environmental Concern (ACECs)

and other restrictive land designations, and otherwise

imposing restrictions on use of surrounding lands, will

further complicate access to and use of Doyon lands, and

potentially prevent Doyon from fully realizing the economic

and other benefits that Congress intended it would enjoy as a

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

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

prospects often straddle federal, state, and/or private

lands, the more that BLM planning processes place lands off

limits to multiple uses, the more likely resource development

opportunities will be unavailable on Doyon (and other non-

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

make economically productive use of its lands as Congress

intended when it settled aboriginal land claims in Alaska.

The management decisions made in the 2024 Central Yukon RMP

also will have long-term implications for communications,

electric transmission, and other infrastructure activities in

the region, adding further obstacles to what already are

extraordinary challenges to connecting rural communities in

Alaska.

Doyon devoted significant resources to engaging with BLM

over the course of the Central Yukon RMP planning process to

ensure that the result of that process reflects the

principles of multiple use and sustained yield established

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

the unique framework that Congress established in Alaska

under ANCSA and Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation

Act (ANILCA). Unfortunately, despite these concerted efforts

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

Key flaws justifying congressional disapproval of the 2024

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

Doyon submitted in response to the Central Yukon Proposed

Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact

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

following:

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP improperly designates certain

ACECs/Research Natural Areas by including areas that do not

meet applicable requirements for designation and management

of ACECs and improperly determines special management

attention is required. It also improperly designates ACECs

that effectively surround or restrict access to Doyon-

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

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP fails to appropriately address

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

access and other activities.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP fails to adequately and

appropriately address access rights guaranteed under Section

1323(b) and Title XI of ANILCA.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP inappropriately concludes that

hypothetical future development of mineral deposits in the

Ambler Mining District, Wiseman East and West deposits, and

the Ray Mountains could ``significantly restrict subsistence

uses and have a disproportionate negative impact'' on certain

``environmental justice communities'' as well as

``significantly restrict subsistence uses for'' certain

communities.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP fails to fully consider

potential impacts of designating certain lands as Visual

Resource Management (VRM) Class II and redesignate them as

VRM Class III or IV.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP improperly ignores the long

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

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

explanation for retaining those withdrawals other than for

the limited purposes of selection by Alaska Native Vietnam-

era veterans.

The 2024 Central Yukon RMP violated the National

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in adopting a new alternative

not made available to the public for review and comment and

in not providing the public an opportunity to provide

informed comment after correction of an error in stated ANCSA

17(d)(1) acreages.

We appreciate your efforts to move forward with disapproval

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

President to move quickly to enact this joint resolution.

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

provide any additional information.

Sincerely,

Sarah E. Obed,

SVP External Affairs Doyon, Limited.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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