H.Res. 951

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

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Scanlon), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Rules met last night and reported a rule, House Resolution 951, providing for consideration of six measures.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, we heard a lot of words from the gentleman from Virginia, but the reality is that some people's premiums are going up 100 percent. Their big, grand plan is to give people an 11 percent coupon. This is laughable. It is pathetic.

Mr. Speaker, here we are, likely one of the very last floor debates of the year, and Republicans have decided to use it to eliminate healthcare for millions of Americans, not by accident, but because they simply don't care, because they are clueless. They are incompetent, and they are unbelievably out of touch.

This Republican majority has done nothing for working people, nothing to lower costs, nothing to make life more affordable, but, boy, have they delivered for billionaires, corporations, and special interests.

They have spent an entire year screwing over the people they represent. They are betraying the voters who sent them here.

They are pretending like Trump's economy is great, even though they know it sucks. They have showered tax breaks on the ultrarich. They have bent the knee to Big Oil, Big Pharma, and Big Tech. They have handed the Pentagon billions it didn't even ask for, and now they have the nerve to tell working families: Sorry, no money for your healthcare; can't do a thing.

I mean, really? Give me a freaking break.

The American people are begging for action on affordability. They are begging for action to lower the cost of healthcare. What more do they need to do to get Republicans to take action?

Premiums are about to double, triple, and in some cases, quadruple. Families could see their premiums increase as much as $1,000 a month.

Open enrollment deadlines have already passed. Parents have sat at their kitchen tables and realized that between rent, groceries, childcare, and Trump's tariffs driving up the cost of damn near everything, health insurance is something they could no longer afford.

Instead of a plan on healthcare, last night in the Rules Committee, I heard one Republican excuse after another about why they can't extend these tax credits that help people get insurance coverage.

You guys have been in charge of this place for 3 years, for God's sake. Donald Trump has been President or running for President for like a decade. Where the hell is the Republican plan on healthcare? Where is it?

Republicans keep blaming the ACA. They have spent years and years trying to repeal it, but they haven't repealed it yet because they have no replacement, no alternative.

Mr. Speaker, one of your own Republican Members called this entire charade political malpractice. He was right.

Meanwhile, Democrats have been trying for months to avert this crisis.

Governors, doctors, and patients have been sounding the alarm. Instead of working with us, they decided to shut down the government. Instead of trying to partner with us, Donald Trump is calling affordability a con job. That is unbelievable and so out of touch with reality.

Now, Republicans have slapped together this pathetic bill to provide cover, a bill that is not worth the paper it is printed on, a bill that actually kicks people off of coverage and fails to extend the tax credits that keep healthcare affordable for over 20 million Americans.

I mean, come on. Get real.

Just to make sure that we all know that they aren't serious, Republicans included a poison pill which brings us closer and closer to a nationwide abortion ban. They are going after abortion even in States where it is legal.

I mean, who the hell asked for this? This is like a plot of ``The Handmaid's Tale.''

Despite Republicans' endless attempts to undermine the ACA, it is popular because it works. After Democrats strengthened people's ability to pay for healthcare by plussing up the premium tax credits, enrollment more than doubled from around 11 million to over 24 million Americans with real health insurance.

Eighty-eight percent of that growth happened in States that Donald Trump won in 2024, by the way. So by choosing to not extend these credits, Republicans are simply hurting their own constituents, hurting the people who trusted them, and hurting the people who voted for them.

More than 20 million Americans will see their healthcare costs explode on January 1. Instead of a fix, we get a stupid, pathetic, last-minute bill designed to let Republicans cover their ass before they flee town for the holidays.

What a lousy, rotten, pathetic thing to do. This is a terrible bill that screws over millions of American families. I urge every Member of this House to vote ``hell, no'' on this Republican rule.

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

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

The gentleman from Virginia keeps saying that if we really supported premium tax credits that we would have made them permanent.

I think we all know that is kind of ridiculous because I want to point out that their number one floor protocol requires that programs end or sunset by a certain date. I mean, it was part of their ridiculous Pledge to America. I mean, maybe they don't believe all of the garbage that they put out there, but that is their protocol.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

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

Mr. Speaker, I merely point out Republican hypocrisy which we deal with every single day, and we want to have a vote on extending the tax credits, but Republicans denied that in the Rules Committee.

Republicans could be bringing up a bill to make the enhanced premium tax credits permanent, but they are not. Instead, what they did is they brought a bill to the floor to make tax cuts for multimillionaires and billionaires permanent. Every millionaire in this country is going to get an $80,000 tax break. That is where their priorities are. Every millionaire will get an $80 million tax credit, and the 25 million people in this country who are relying on enhanced tax credits so they won't lose their health insurance, they are basically saying to them: To hell with you.

That is where their priorities are.

We don't share the same values when it comes to making sure the people in this country have healthcare that is affordable and that is quality. That is the difference. That is the difference.

We are here today to fight to make sure that we have a vote to extend these tax credits so that people do not lose their health insurance and people do not see their healthcare premiums explode.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Sykes).

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

Mr. Speaker, Republicans keep talking about how Democrats want to give more money to insurance companies, which is absolutely absurd, and they all know that. Nothing could be more ridiculous.

Let me correct the record. First of all, ACA tax credits go to our constituents to help them pay for healthcare. Second, it was the Affordable Care Act, you know the bill that the gentleman and a lot of Republicans want to repeal, which mandated that greedy insurance companies have to spend 80 percent to 85 percent of premiums on medical care. It is called the medical loss ratio. The gentleman should look it up. It is in the Affordable Care Act.

When he is talking about repealing the ACA, he is the one who wants to overturn that provision and let insurance companies rip people off even more than they already do.

Let me make one last point. We could easily move away from health insurance companies ripping people off. We could do what the vast majority of developed nations do and move toward a public option so that people don't have to choose a private health insurance company. But to say the Democrats are the ones who want to enrich insurance companies is absurd.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans support big banks. They support Big Tech. They support billionaires, and they support tax breaks for huge, greedy corporations. And they accuse Democrats of being in the pocket of the insurance industry?

Give me a break. Nobody believes this BS.

Mr. Speaker, look at your big, ugly bill. Look at all the tax breaks that go to millionaires and billionaires and big corporations. Every millionaire, as I stated before, because of Republicans, are getting an $80,000 tax break, every millionaire in this country.

What we are saying here is we want to make sure that health insurance is affordable for every single person in this country, and Republicans are replying by: We can't be bothered with that. That is not where our priorities are.

Maybe they don't write big enough checks for their campaigns.

The bottom line is that we are here arguing that people in this country shouldn't lose their healthcare because they can't afford it. We could do something right this instant to fix that. Republicans are blocking every attempt, and they are bringing this crappy bill to the floor that didn't even go through regular order and it didn't go through committee. They just patched it together and brought it before the Rules Committee.

By the way, CBO says that their terrible bill that they are bringing to the floor will throw another 100,000 people off of health insurance. By just passing this bill, 100,000 additional people will lose their health insurance. This is ridiculous.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman, the chairwoman of the Rules Committee, knows I have great affection for her, but I just want to correct something. She says that the Republicans have always had a plan to deal with healthcare and to lower costs for people, but the truth is they have always said they have a plan, but they have never had a plan.

Let me just go through a list of things here.

In February 2016, then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump said: ``We are going to replace ObamaCare with something so much better.'' Nothing followed.

On February 27, 2017, the President said: ``We have a really terrific, I believe, healthcare plan coming out.'' Never did.

May 10, 2018, Donald Trump said: ``But wait until you see the plans that we have coming out literally over the next 4 weeks. We have great healthcare plans coming out.'' Nothing happened.

At a press gaggle near Air Force One in May 2019, he said: ``We are coming up with a great healthcare plan. We are going to have fantastic healthcare, and the plan is coming out over the next 4 weeks.'' Nothing ever materialized.

June 16, 2019, the President said: ``We are going to produce phenomenal healthcare, and we already have the concept of a plan, and it will be so much better healthcare. Yeah, well, we will be announcing it in about 2 months, maybe less.'' Nothing happened.

In a FOX News interview, the President said: ``We are signing a healthcare plan within 2 weeks, a full and complete healthcare plan.'' Nothing happened.

July 2020, the President said: ``Well, we are going to be doing a healthcare plan. We are going to be doing a very inclusive healthcare plan. I will be signing it sometime very soon. It might be--it might be Sunday, but it is going to be very soon.'' Nothing happened.

August 3, 2020, the President said: ``We are going to be introducing a tremendous healthcare plan sometime prior--hopefully, prior to the end of the month. It is just about completed now.'' Nothing.

September 15, 2020, the President says: ``You are going to have new healthcare. We have other alternatives to ObamaCare that are 50 percent less expensive, and they are actually better.'' Nothing. It never happened.

September 10, 2024, ABC News Presidential debate, he says: ``I have concepts of a plan. . . . You will be hearing about it in the not-too- distant future.'' Nothing happened.

December 8, 2024, he said: ``Yes, we have concepts of a plan that would be better. You will see it very soon.'' It produced nothing.

In May 2025, at a White House event, he said: ``So we are going to maybe come up with something. I think this gives the Republicans a chance to actually do a healthcare that is much better than ObamaCare.'' Nothing.

People are sick and tired of the empty rhetoric. They are sick and tired of Republicans saying they have a plan, and they never produce one. All they want to do is undermine healthcare for hardworking, average Americans.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Rivas).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, this is it. This is the one last chance this year, this session, for this Republican majority to do the right thing and vote to extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits.

If Republicans allow them to expire, millions of Americans, millions of their constituents, will be faced with rising health insurance costs and, in some cases, by more than $1,000 per month.

Mr. Speaker, I have an important announcement to make, and if there is anybody in the press gallery listening, I want them to hear this. I have called on Republicans to put country over politics, put country over their party, to do the right thing for their constituents. We have a discharge petition that 214 Democrats have signed on to, to force a bill on a 3-year clean extension. While we have been debating, four Republicans have actually done that.

We are now at 218. What that means is that it sets in place a process that will allow us to vote on a clean extension. We have 218 people who will vote for it, which means we will pass it.

Unfortunately, the procedures on a discharge petition mean that we can't get to it until we come back from our holiday break in January, but we don't need to wait for the discharge petition to ripen. We can actually act today if we want to preserve the tax credits for 20 million working-class Americans that rely on them.

Democrats in this House and in the Senate have acted like adults during our entire monthslong effort to get Republicans to do the right thing. I thank those Republicans who signed the discharge petition because that is actually going to make sure that we have a vote and that we can extend these tax benefits.

Again, we can kind of short-circuit the process. If we defeat the previous question, we could vote on it today. We are offering this to be able to bring it up immediately.

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 to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett) for the purpose of a colloquy.

That is correct. We do thank these Republicans for getting us to 218, but we hope they would join us.

This would be the key vote.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Hayes) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to the time remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans love to find ways to justify kicking millions of working people off of healthcare. The chairwoman of the Rules Committee talked about fraud. If fraud is your primary concern, how about you start with President Trump, who has pardoned or commuted not one, not two, but 12 people. He pardoned 12 people convicted of healthcare fraud. My Republican friends have been silent, not a word.

One guy was convicted of $1.3 billion in a Medicare fraud scheme, the largest healthcare fraud scheme charged by the Department of Justice. We had another woman convicted of orchestrating $205 million in a Medicare fraud scheme involving assisted living facilities. We had another guy convicted of 67 counts of healthcare fraud and related charges relating to Medicare and other healthcare programs.

I could go on and on, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure what they did to earn those pardons, but maybe they promised to say nice things about Trump.

When Republicans come to the floor and talk about fraud, just remember that they are the ones who pardoned over and over and over again healthcare fraudsters while at the same time screwing over the American people by taking away their healthcare.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, let's be honest about what is happening here because this really is not that complicated, and the American people aren't stupid.

This Republican bill does not fix the healthcare crisis facing this country. It doesn't even try. Instead, Republicans are going to raise costs, weaken coverage, and deliberately allow the Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire, knowing full well that millions of families will lose affordable coverage as a result.

That outcome is not a side effect. It is the point. For more than a decade,

Republicans have promised a better healthcare system, a replacement for the ACA, something, anything that would justify taking coverage away from people who need it.

Ten years later, there is still no plan, no replacement, no solution. Why? Because they are totally fine with a system of the haves and have- nots. They want a system where those at the top have affordable care, and everyone else is left in the dust.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans have controlled the House of Representatives for 3 long years. During that time, the priorities of this majority have been crystal clear.

When billionaires, CEOs, and corporate special interests need something, Republicans move with lightning speed. Loopholes appear out of nowhere. Regulations vanish into thin air while Big Oil, Big Tech, and big banks get what they want.

Republicans have no problem handing out massive tax giveaways to donors who write big campaign checks. They have no problem padding the profits of greedy corporations. They have no problem voting to give the Pentagon $8 billion more than it even asked for without so much as a shrug.

When it comes to working people, when they need affordable healthcare, suddenly the story changes. Suddenly, there is hand- wringing. Suddenly, there is paralysis. Suddenly, the money is gone. Suddenly, America can't pay for it.

If my friends on the other side of the aisle are okay with that, we do not share the same values. If they think it is fine to give handouts to billionaires, while stealing healthcare from regular people, we do not have the same moral compass.

The bottom line is this country has a Republican Congress that works just fine for the rich and powerful, while telling everybody else to tighten their belts.

There is always money for giveaways to CEOs and corporate stock buybacks. There is always money for billionaire tax shelters. When a working family needs help staying insured, Republicans say it is too expensive. This is a question of our priorities as a Nation.

What makes this even more infuriating is that Democrats have already put forward a responsible and reasonable solution that would help stop this crisis in its tracks. We have 218 people who have signed this discharge petition. Mr. Speaker, four Republicans signed this discharge petition. I hope they will vote to bring this same bill up today.

To the moderates who didn't get the opportunity to sign it, I say this. This is their chance to go on record and show their constituents that they are serious about getting this done. Imagine what that would mean. It would mean lower costs, stable coverage, and a Congress that proves it still answers to working families instead of to the billionaire class. Instead, we get this GOP inaction and incompetence.

Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, healthcare coverage should not depend on how much money someone makes. We live in the richest country on Earth. Healthcare should be a human right available to every person and every community without exception.

The United States remains the only major developed Nation that does not guarantee healthcare for everyone. That is not because we can't afford it. It is because powerful interests make too much money from the status quo.

To any Republican who knows this bill is wrong, who understands what this will do back home, and who still believes that this institution should work for the people it represents, this is the moment. Extend the tax credits. Protect the coverage of our constituents. Stand with us to say that it is time for Congress to put patients ahead of profits and working families ahead of billionaires.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote 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, 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 three measures: H.R. 6703, Lower Healthcare Premiums for All Americans Act; H.R. 498, Do No Harm in Medicaid Act; and H.R. 3492, Protect Children's Innocence Act.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 953 provides for consideration of H.R. 6703, the Lower Healthcare Premiums for All Americans Act, under a closed rule. The rule provides 1 hour of general debate, equally divided among and controlled by the respective chairs and ranking minority members of the Committees on Education and the Workforce, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means, or their respective designees, and one motion to recommit.

The rule also provides for consideration of H.R. 498, the Do No Harm in Medicaid Act, under a closed rule with 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, or their respective designees, and provides one motion to recommit.

The rule further provides for consideration of H.R. 3492, the Protect Children's Innocence Act, under a structured rule with 1 hour of general debate, equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on the Judiciary, or their respective designees, and provides each one a motion to recommit.

Finally, the rule provides that, during consideration of H.R. 4776, pursuant to House Resolution 951, the further amendment specified in section 5 of this resolution shall be considered as adopted.

Mr. Speaker, this rule deals with several important bills that will lower healthcare costs for Americans and protect children. One of the bills, H.R. 3492, the Protect Children's Innocence Act, is led by the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Greene).

This bill prohibits genital and bodily mutilation and chemical castration for a minor, which generally is anyone under the age of 18 years, while also preserving the exception for this care if there is a legitimate medical need for certain procedures.

Another bill we are considering in this rule is H.R. 498, the Do No Harm in Medicaid Act, led by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Crenshaw).

This is a simple bill that prohibits Federal medical dollars to pay for gender transition procedures for individuals under the age of 18. The bill also includes protections for individuals if some of those treatments are medically necessary.

These are important bills to ensure that Federal taxpayer dollars are not going toward a minor's gender transition surgery if it is not medically necessary. These bills also put guardrails in place so that minors cannot make permanent life-altering decisions before they are 18 years of age.

Finally, we are considering H.R. 6703, the Lower Healthcare Premiums for All Americans Act, led by the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller- Meeks).

This bill lowers premiums for Americans, creates more insurance options, brings greater transparency, and cuts red tape.

Unlike our Democrat friends' plan, our Republican plan actually lowers premiums by double digits, roughly 11 percent, according to the data.

All the Democrats want to do is throw billions more dollars toward insurance companies. Instead of attempting to lower the premiums of the individuals who are on the insurance plan that the Democrats created, which should be called the unaffordable care act, the Democrats have cried wolf that Republicans are responsible for premiums being unaffordable, but let's get the facts straight.

Every single Democrat voted in support of the so-called Affordable Care Act. They claimed that people's premiums would be lowered; patients would have more choice; and if you like your doctor, you can keep him or her. However, just the opposite has happened. Their so- called Affordable Care Act has caused premiums to skyrocket. Due to this, the Democrats are too afraid to own up to the fact that their health plan has failed to actually lower premiums.

Instead, they have said to themselves: Hey, instead of acknowledging our failure, let's just blame the Republicans for that failure.

Mr. Speaker, I distinctly remember a hearing before the Committee on Energy and Commerce, shortly after I was elected, where most of the witnesses said that the so-called Affordable Care Act was going to make insurance premiums go up for Americans.

Mr. Speaker, that was over a decade ago, but the Democrats on the committee insisted that the witnesses were wrong and that Republicans were merely trying to scare the American people.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately for the American people, the witnesses were right. The so-called Affordable Care Act has, in fact, negatively impacted the price of health insurance in America. This plan, the so- called Affordable Care Act, is a major reason that your insurance premiums have gone up and have done so repeatedly.

When not blaming Republicans for the failures of this so-called Affordable Care Act, do you know what the Democrats' solution is? Folks watching this debate at home won't be surprised to know it. Democrats want to throw billions of additional dollars to healthcare insurance companies in an attempt to distract the American people from their own policy failures.

I don't know if you all have been following the news closely, but the insurance companies that the Democrats want to give an additional $85 billion to with their 3-year clean extension of the temporary COVID enhanced premium tax credits have not been knocking on the doors, Mr. Speaker, of the United States bankruptcy courts seeking protection or aid. In fact, they have been making record profits--record profits.

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Further, we know these temporary COVID-enhanced premium tax credits have been riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse.

The independent Government Accountability Office recently came out with a preliminary report that showed one Social Security number was used to receive over 125 different insurance policies in 2023 alone. That is fraud.

There is also a huge amount of waste. Mr. Speaker, my estimate, based on data that I have seen, is that roughly 20 percent of enrollees in the temporary COVID-enhanced premium tax credits don't really exist. They are shadow enrollees.

Let me explain. In most healthcare insurance plans, they generally have about 15 percent of the enrollees who make no claims in a given year. In the arena of the temporary COVID-enhanced premium tax credits, that number for those particular policies that have no claims is closer to 35 percent. There is no reasonable explanation, Mr. Speaker, other than those extra 20 percent of people not making claims don't really exist. Now, I call this waste and not fraud, and that is because I actually believe the insurance companies don't know which enrollees are shadow enrollees.

How does this happen? It is a glitch in the way the bill was written originally. People move around. If an individual signed up for a program in north Florida to receive the enhanced premium tax credit and then moved to south Georgia, or even to another city in Florida, and signed up again, thinking, ``Well, I have moved, so I probably need a different plan,'' the consumer has a right to believe that somebody at their new plan or new company will notify the old carrier that they have switched policies.

The way the program was designed by our friends on the other side of the aisle, that never happens, and because an individual is automatically reenrolled each year, this can go on for years. Thus, over time, it builds up to that 20 percent of shadow enrollees.

We cannot, in good conscience, in defense of the American taxpayers' money, just cleanly extend these temporary COVID-enhanced premium tax credits without addressing the realities behind the waste, the fraud, and the abuse that is occurring in this program.

I also find it interesting that the Democrats voted twice to extend these temporary enhanced premium tax credits but specifically did not make these

premium tax credits permanent. They didn't do it. They had many opportunities to make these permanent if they wanted to do that as much as they say today, but they didn't. They had many opportunities to make these permanent if the enhanced premium tax credits were as imperative to make the system work as they will claim here on the floor today, and have been for several weeks, but they didn't do it.

Whose fault is that? Logic would tell us it is the Democrats' fault, but when it comes to healthcare, the Democrats are never willing to admit their policies failed. What do they do? Blame Republicans.

In the Inflation Reduction Act, Mr. Speaker, the Democrats prioritized giving out around $1 trillion to Green New Deal initiatives instead of making their temporary premium tax credit program permanent.

The fact is, even they couldn't find the votes when they had control of both Houses and the White House to make the enhanced premium tax credits permanent. Now, they are demanding Republicans do what they could not do and clean up their mess, which was an add-on to the so- called Affordable Care Act.

I can't make that make sense, and, Mr. Speaker, I bet you can't either.

What are they asking for now? You guessed it: another temporary extension that fails to address the underlying causes of the skyrocketing costs; doesn't deal with the waste, fraud, and abuse; and worsens healthcare access caused by their so-called Affordable Care Act. Instead, they just want to blame Republicans, use it as a political issue, and give more money to insurance companies making enormous profits.

What the Republicans have drafted is a plan to address health issues across the board for our people and for our Nation. This bill brings more transparency on the pharmacy benefit manager middlemen, better known as PBMs, for employers. For too long, PBMs have gotten away with operating in a black box and causing drug prices to rise. We are bringing transparency into the commercial market for PBMs under this bill.

The bill also expands access to association health plans, which allow small businesses and self-employed workers to band together and purchase health insurance. One of the biggest complaints we hear from businesses, especially small businesses, is the rising costs of premiums that they have.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, Virginia tried to create these plans, and CMS told them they couldn't do it, that they would penalize them. The Virginia Association of Realtors--let's see if I got the name right--in an article from 2023, the leader said that they would create a plan for 7,000 association members who were uninsured because they don't make enough money to afford the Federal marketplace coverage--that would be the so-called Affordable Care Act--or to qualify for subsidies in the small group and individual plans.

These small businesses don't have the bargaining power that larger businesses do to help lower their premiums. Allowing these small businesses to join together and have more bargaining power will help lower their health insurance costs.

Another part of the plan codifies a 2019 Trump administration rule that allows employers to give tax-advantaged dollars to their employees, who can then use those dollars to purchase health insurance and for other medical costs. When businesses are planning their financial future, unpredictable health insurance costs and rising premiums make it almost financially unviable in some cases. Allowing businesses to have this option brings them more certainty and will give power to their employees to choose a plan that is best for them.

Another flexibility we grant under this bill is by exempting stop- loss insurance from the definition of health insurance coverage. Stop- loss coverage is a type of coverage an employer can purchase to protect themselves from unexpected catastrophic health claims if that employer has chosen to self-insure their employees' healthcare. This allows an employer to limit the financial risk imposed on them if an employee, or a few of them, have unusually high medical claims that exceed the budgeted amount. Some States have attempted to restrict or prohibit these plans, which makes a self-insured option less attractive.

This bill clarifies that this type of coverage is exempted from the definition of health insurance coverage, which means that these States would be limited in how they can regulate stop-loss coverage while still having to follow the regulations of ERISA.

On top of all of this, I would reiterate that the bill lowers premiums of individuals who are enrolled in the so-called Affordable Care Act plans by roughly 11 percent. It does this by appropriating dollars for cost-sharing reductions. This will stop the practice of silver loading by putting dollars toward lowering beneficiaries' out- of-pocket costs, which in turn lowers premiums for Americans who are on the so-called Affordable Care Act, again, by roughly 11 percent.

Today, Mr. Speaker, you will hear my friends and colleagues on the other side, the Democrats, tell you this plan is not meaningful and that the only way to help individuals is to throw more money at big insurance. Throwing more money at the insurance companies, Mr. Speaker, is not the answer.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Ms. Greene).

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

It gets curiouser and curiouser.

The gentleman from Massachusetts referenced that our protocol is to have sunsets, but when my colleagues on the other side of the aisle had the opportunity to make permanent the premium enhanced tax credits, we didn't control the floor. They controlled the floor.

They don't have that protocol, as I understand it. They don't have that protocol that they put sunsets on things. They could have and did make other programs in the Green New Deal permanent. They could have made it permanent; they chose not to. They had the Senate, the House, and the Presidency.

It is not House Republican protocol that stopped them. It was a lack of votes or will. If the program is so imperative today, why wasn't it imperative for them 3 years ago?

I submit this is a paper tiger and that there is no substance in their arguments or, if some substance, just a small amount.

Mr. Speaker, they had the chance. They had the power, and they didn't use it to do what they want us to do today to fix their problems with their so-called Affordable Care Act.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) who is the chairwoman of the Rules Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues on the other side continually say that we haven't done anything. We just received a message from the Senate on a Republican bill that does something. Now, they may not like it, but I find it fascinating. These debates are always so interesting, Mr. Speaker.

They say we haven't put forward anything at some points, and at other points in their debate, they claim that this bill is terrible, that it does nothing.

Let me remind you, Mr. Speaker, that a part of this bill revives a Democratic plan that was supposed to be short term called cost-sharing reductions. It is fascinating because during the first Trump administration, in May 2017, my Democratic colleagues--and I know some of them weren't here yet--but 196 of them, including the gentleman from Massachusetts, signed a letter asking--because it was not codified-- President Trump to use his executive power to continue the cost-sharing reduction plan.

Mr. Speaker, I would love to hear from my colleagues why cost-sharing reduction by them was considered to be so important to be continued to help 7 million hardworking Americans and their families, more than half--I am reading from their letter--of all marketplace enrollees for 2017 afford their out-of-pocket healthcare costs. That is what cost- sharing reduction does.

Today, they claim, as a part of our bill, it is nothing. It is worthless. It is

not worth the paper it is written on, but in 2017, 196 of them, including the gentleman from Massachusetts, asked the President of the United States to continue the program.

Today, we are answering that call, saying we will answer that and put it in our bill, but because it is now proposed as part of a Republican bill, my colleagues, for some reason, don't remember their position in 2017 and call it trash.

Could it be mere political posturing for November elections? I submit it is.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is absolutely correct on this one point. If what they want is socialized medicine, yes, I am against it and so are most of the Republicans in this House. We are not for socialized medicine.

When I was a student, I remember being in Edinburgh in 1979. Mr. Finch across the hall with socialized medicine had to wait 10 months to get surgery for a blockage in his heart.

When I came home, I discovered that in the United States it would have been 3 days before he would have had that surgery. He died a couple of years later because socialized medicine warehouses people until they have time to get to them. That is not what our system does nor should it.

Further, I would say that the Democrats come here today, and it is their healthcare system. They created it. When they created the Affordable Care Act, there were no Republican votes. When they extended it or changed it a little bit and eventually renewed it again in the Inflation Reduction Act, there were no Republican votes for that.

Today, they want to blame Republicans for their policy failures. The American people will eventually see through that. I know they have done a great job of convincing the American people that is the case, but it isn't true.

They talk about the fact that, as costs are going up and they want this new plan to throw $85 billion at the insurance companies, 85 percent has to be spent on healthcare. That is true.

Mr. Speaker, 15 percent of $500 that the insurance companies get to put in their pockets is a whole lot less than 15 percent of $2,000. If we throw more money at the insurance companies, the big insurance executives get more money to put in their pockets. They are smiling like Cheshire cats as the costs go up and they pocket larger profits.

Perhaps my Democratic colleagues don't want to admit it or don't realize that they are the front men for big insurance, but that is what they are. They are the front men for big insurance. Instead of facing reality, their answer is to blame the Republicans and throw more taxpayer money at the big insurance companies.

Mr. Speaker, giving the insurance companies more money will not solve our healthcare problems.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 951, I call up the bill (H.R. 4371) to amend the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 to enhance efforts to combat the trafficking of children, 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.R. 4371.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of this legislation, H.R. 4371, the Kayla Hamilton Act.

This legislation, at its core, is about common sense, in that if we had done a simple fix like this, Kayla would still be alive. It is something that I think my Democrat counterparts have lost track of during the last administration.

During the Judiciary Committee hearing, Kayla was referred to by one of my Democrat colleagues, who repulsively called her a ``random dead person.''

Kayla was a beloved daughter. She loved life. She loved her family. She had a cat named ``Oreo'' that she cared for. She loved her God. She was a young woman whose future was stolen from her by someone who never should have been in this country to begin with it.

In 2022, during the Biden-Harris administration, Kayla's killer illegally crossed the southwest border as an unaccompanied alien child, what they commonly refer to as a ``UAC.'' Walter Javier Martinez, a 16- year-old Salvadoran national, admitted to authorities that his aunt paid a guide $4,000 to smuggle him into the United States.

As is required by law with most UACs, Walter was then transferred to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Department of Health and Human Services. Instead of conducting a basic criminal or gang affiliation check, HHS instead focused on programming and wellness activities while missing clear signs of gang involvement.

Despite incomplete information and the sponsor's lack of legal status in the country themselves, HHS approved the placement. Martinez ran away within weeks from his sponsor, becoming 1 of more than 150,000 UACs that the last administration lost track of.

According to his sponsor, months later, Walter left to: ``do what he was doing in his home country--get in trouble on the streets and hang out with gang members.''

The Federal Government just needed to make a phone call to El Salvador. That is all that would have solved this. Instead, Kayla was brutally murdered because the government failed to vet Walter, a known MS-13 gang member with gang tattoos and a criminal history.

The Kayla Hamilton Act will help to ensure that another murder like Kayla's does not happen. First, this bill requires HHS to find out for UACs who are over 12 years of age if there is a criminal history or gang affiliation or gang activity in the child's home country.

Opponents falsely claim that the bill mandates strip searches. It simply allows checks for gang tattoos during routine medical intake. This stuff already happens. We are just asking that somebody ascertain whether that tattoo is related to a gang.

We also ask that they check their home country and see if they have a criminal background. We are not doing that. This is common sense.

Under this bill, gang-affiliated UACs would be housed in a secure facility designed to protect them from themselves and others. Opponents say this provision will lead to the indefinite detention of children.

In reality, UACs will be held only for the pendency of their immigration proceedings. That is it. When an alien is in a secure placement, their immigration proceedings generally are resolved expeditiously, within weeks or months.

Next, the bill bars illegal aliens from serving as sponsors. I think that is a key component to protect the children themselves. UACs should not be placed in the home of a person with no immigration permanence in this country, where their caregiver may be deported at any moment. That is not a stable environment for a child to live or thrive.

The Democrats say that this bill will cause family separation. This reform ends the perverse incentive that encourages illegal alien parents to have their children smuggled across the border. That practice is happening right now. This has been happening for years, particularly under the last administration. We should not be complicit in the smuggling of children into this country. No more.

In the last administration, the UACs were placed with sponsors before required background checks were even finalized. Mr. Speaker, that is kind of the point, right? For a UAC, we are not going to place a child in somebody's home where we don't know who they are and don't know their background. That is actually what was happening under the last administration. In some cases, criminal and sex offender checks were never initiated.

H.R. 4371 will end this insanity. By enshrining in law rigorous background check requirements, this will ensure UACs will not be placed with criminals or child abusers.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this very important legislation to take a first step in reforming our very flawed UAC Program.

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

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

I prefer to keep the focus on the actual bill and not distracting arguments on a myriad of topics.

I think it is important to remember how we got to this place. We got to this place because of the failed policies of the Biden-Harris administration that imported millions of people into this country, that smugglers, paid in cash by parents in other countries, smuggled kids into our country.

Many of those kids, probably the vast majority of them, are innocent kids. But the Democrats in the House, specifically in the Judiciary Committee, seem to focus that that is the entire picture. That is not the entire picture.

Walter Javier Martinez was a gang member, and we didn't know it. Our own Federal Government, that is tasked with protecting the lives of the citizens of this country, did not know because they never called his country of origin. If they had, instead of doing paper-mache or other things they were doing for this kid that came into the country, they would have found out from his country that, yes, he has a history of gang activity. Yes, if we had screened him for gang tattoos, we would have found that, yes, he has a gang tattoo.

All we are saying in this legislation is that we have a little bit of common sense in this country. At the end of the day, when somebody comes in, the vast majority of these kids will probably go to a sponsor and not be in some sort of secure facility. But for the kids who are over 12 and under 18 who have a history of criminal actions, who have a gang tattoo on their forehead or another part of their body, all we are saying is maybe we shouldn't put those kids in our streets, right? Because every week seems to be another story, another Kayla Hamilton.

For the 3 years that I have been a part of this body, what I have seen is that the other side of the aisle buries their head in the sand to the real malaise that is going on in our streets

when these immigrants are causing a lot of these problems.

Why don't we get a little bit smarter about the things that we do in this country? Maybe we wouldn't have so many Kayla Hamiltons. I think that is important.

On the flip side of this equation, we know that the last administration lost kids, hundreds of thousands of kids. They did not know where they were. That is unconscionable to me that we were so busy--HHS, with Secretary Becerra, was so busy trying to set up his Ford assembly line that he was pushing people out into our communities who run away and who cause mayhem in our streets. That is alarming to me that our Federal Government would not be more responsible.

Can you imagine going to a State family court and saying to the Judge: Don't worry about the background checks; just send the kid out. Don't worry about the background checks on the sponsor. Just place them in this home, because at least he has got a roof over his head. We don't know anything about the people he is going to live with, but just place him up there. That State court judge would be thrown out of his position in a minute.

Somehow it is okay for the Federal Government to not do its job here. I think that is reckless. I think that is completely irresponsible, not only to the citizens who expect safety and security from their Federal Government but to the kids who are here.

Why would we give a child to a sponsor who we don't know anything about their background? We haven't done the sexual background checks; the sex registry checks. We haven't done the criminal background checks to see who these sponsors are. We are just going to let the kid go out there.

By doing nothing, that is exactly what the Democrats are arguing right now. I think that is irresponsible on so many levels.

Part of this is to protect future Kayla Hamiltons from happening in this country by unscrupulous and dangerous minors who are in this country. The other is to protect the kids themselves from sponsors who haven't been properly vetted.

If we care about the safety and well-being of children, which I hope that we all do, this is an easy lift, that our Federal Government would have a little bit more common sense, that we wouldn't set up a Ford assembly line and push people out into our communities and lose track of where they are.

In the case of Walter, think about this: He goes to his sponsor and within weeks he is gone. The Federal Government had no idea that he left, for months. The only way that they found out was after he killed Kayla Hamilton, months later.

The sponsor didn't say anything. Walter didn't turn up anywhere until he killed somebody. We didn't know about it? We didn't know about these things? I think that is reckless.

This bill is common sense. I think this country wants a little bit of common sense. I think they deserve a little bit of common sense. They want their Federal Government to work for them. They want to feel like when a child comes to this country, however he or she came to this country, that we would vet them before we place them in our communities and allow them to cause mayhem.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), my good friend.

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

Mr. Speaker, just briefly, in response, I appreciate the comments, but I wish that the gentlewoman from California would have been in the Judiciary Committee hearing to learn what the law actually says. It is something that she

has completely omitted from her remarks.

She said that kids are subject to strip searches under this bill. Mr. Speaker, we already do medical evaluations of children when they come into this country. That is already in practice. All we are saying is that when there is a tattoo on your shoulder or on your forehead that is a gang tattoo, then maybe we shouldn't send you into the streets.

They said that this bill is anti-children somehow, that it keeps children from being separated from their families. If there is somebody who is smuggled across our border who has a gang affiliation or prior gang convictions or charges in their country of origin, then maybe we shouldn't unite them with their family in this country when they are a danger to themselves and to the rest of society.

I appreciate the comments, but I think a little bit of homework and due diligence would have made those remarks a lot more effective.

I think it was said that the sponsors already receive background checks. Yes, presumably, they do. However, in these cases what we saw during the Biden-Harris administration was while the background checks were ongoing and not yet complete, we were sending kids to houses with sponsors without background checks.

That is the rub. That is the problem. That is what this bill will fix so that we no longer have the lawlessness that we saw in the last 4 years.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I have been sitting here stunned and astonished for 1 minute that just 1 second ago I talked about what the law was, and despite that, the gentlewoman from Illinois comes forward to, again, repeat the same old, tired hackneyed lies that they have been perpetuating for months about this bill.

If they want to complain about theses strip searches that they say occur or are occurring under this bill, maybe they should go talk to the Member of their conference who wrote the original law that processed this: the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008. That was a Zoe Lofgren bill.

They want to complain about the medical evaluations that happen right now under a bill that they wrote, and they want to blame Republicans.

This kind of reminds me of: The economy is the Republicans' fault, but they are the ones who caused the inflation crisis under Joe Biden. The border is secure, but we saw millions of people illegally come into this country causing mayhem. Housing is too expensive, but they have regulated all businesses in this country into the ground in the last administration.

These are things that they have caused.

They want to talk about how we can perfect the medical evaluations of minors who come into this country. Fine, we can talk about that. However, I think there has to be a little bit of ownership for a minute that they are the ones who created the dang law, not us.

All we are saying is that when you go through that medical evaluation, Mr. Speaker, when you come into this country and you are screened, that we just look for gang tattoos.

The hyperbole is, quite frankly, disturbing and absurd. There was one member of the Democratic Judiciary Committee who said that kids were going to have a colonoscopy because of this. The last time I checked, Mr. Speaker, you can't get a tattoo on your colon. That is not how this works. We are just saying that when you go through this medical evaluation, Mr. Speaker, that somebody checks and says that they have a tattoo. They have a tattoo on their shoulder, on their forehead, on their neck, on their ear, below their eye, I don't know.

When we identify that and it looks like a gang tattoo, then maybe we shouldn't release that person into our streets. I think a little bit of intellectual honesty would go a long way. If they want to talk about medical evaluations and whether we should do them or not, good, then write a bill that amends the bill that they already wrote that became law in 2008.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman said that we were ripping children away from their mother's arms. Let me remind the gentlewoman from Florida that these are kids who are by themselves when they come to this country. However their parents decide that they should send them here. They are here without their parents. That is why they are a UAC. That is the legal term, an unaccompanied alien child. They do not have their parents present.

Again, the gentlewoman thinks that we are criminalizing kids. No, we are not. We are just saying that we should check the backgrounds of these children when they come in because not every child is this innocent, sweet child when they come in here. Most of them probably are, but not every one of them is. Sometimes, they have very troubled home lives and troubled communities, and for whatever reason, they are in our country.

Let's not repeat the mistakes of their country of origin and just let them out onto our streets. In the case of Walter Javier Martinez, he didn't stay with his sponsor but for a couple of weeks. Then, he was out on the streets by himself again, doing the exact same thing he did in his country of origin.

Let's get the facts a little bit straight when we talk about this.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, today, we have an opportunity to take seriously the deficiencies in our UAC Program that have been exposed in the last 4 years of the Biden-Harris administration. Kids who are gang members in their country of origin are allowed to go to a sponsor.

Instead of doing background checks on the kids or checking for tattoos, we give them papier-mache projects and ask them to identify their gender if they feel comfortable talking about it. These are things that actually happened with Walter Javier Martinez.

Rather than take that money that the American people have given to the U.S. Treasury to spend for their safety, we are doing these ridiculous things instead of actually vetting a gang member from El Salvador.

Why don't we do it a little bit better in this country? Why can't we be a little bit smarter in this country?

Mr. Speaker, I will concede very easily that most kids are probably innocent. I have no problem with that, but for the ones that aren't, why are we putting them on our streets? Why are we not conducting adequate background checks on their pasts?

It took, in this case, a local cop in Maryland calling his country of origin to find out, after Kayla was murdered, that he had a criminal past. Why wouldn't we do that on the front end before we have a Kayla Hamilton?

On the flip side of this, I think this is just common sense, that if the law says that sponsors should undergo background checks before we release a kid, sure. Under the last administration, they were too busy pushing kids to sponsors at a record pace that they never even allowed those background checks of the sponsors to come back. They pushed kids into homes before we even knew what the sponsor was like, who they were, or what kind of background they had.

Mr. Speaker, that is reckless endangerment of a child. If we have, all of a sudden, the care and custody of an unaccompanied alien child, maybe we should make sure that the person we send them to isn't a criminal themselves, isn't engaged in sexual exploitation, and isn't engaged in human trafficking.

That is common sense, but what I have heard is that we are going to keep repeating the same tired lies, the same tired fabrications of what actually is going on in this country. Let's be a little bit smarter about the way that we do business.

We can protect kids with this bill. We can also protect our citizens to make sure that Kayla Hamiltons don't happen in every community in our country.

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

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

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

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

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

and the problems that they want Congress to solve.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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