Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life of a great American, Lewis M. Fields. Mr. Fields lives in Lexington, Kentucky. Lewis Fields was born February 21, 1927, to Nancy and Gano Fields. He grew up in Sadieville, Kentucky as the oldest of 4 children. An active young man, Mr. Fields worked on the family farm, raised and sold miniature ponies, drove the local school bus, was a member of FFA, and played basketball and baseball at Sadieville High School.

Mr. Fields enlisted in the United States Navy on February 4, 1945, just prior to his 18th birthday. His father drove him to the enlistment office in Louisville, Ky. He trained at Great Lakes, Illinois. He was then sent to California, where he was assigned to the USS Pensacola as a Seaman 1st Class assigned to the Supply Division. The Pensacola CA-24 was a heavy cruiser that received 13 Battle Stars for its campaign during WWII. It was nicknamed ``The Grey Ghost'' by Tokyo Rose for its resiliency. Mr. Fields remembers sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge as they left California for Okinawa. All personnel were on deck and Sentimental Journey was played.

The battle in Okinawa, Operation Iceberg, was the last battle of WWII and was very intense. During the onslaught of enemy fire, numerous injuries were incurred by the crew. Mr. Fields still remembers how slippery the deck was from all the blood and was staggered by the thought that this blood was from his shipmates and friends.

Mr. Fields earned a Navy Occupation Service Medal, a WWII Victory Medal, an Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal with 1 Bronze Star, a Combat Action Ribbon, a Discharge Button, and an Honorable Service Pin. He moved to the Reserves on August 4, 1946 and his final separation was August 3, 1954.

Mr. Fields moved back to Kentucky and married his high school sweetheart, Jeannine Hiles Fields. They were married for 69 years until she passed away in 2016. They have 2 children. He accepted a job with Gulf Oil, where he worked for 38 years. Mr. Fields has been a faithful member of Southland Christian Church and Tates Creek Christian Church. He used his woodworking hobby to craft many items for each church. He was also active in starting Right to Life.

Lewis Fields is a true patriot, a great American, and an inspiration to us all. I am forever grateful to him and other members of the Greatest Generation for sacrificing and fighting to preserve the freedoms that we hold dear. It is my honor to recognize him before the United States Congress.

Mr. Speaker, the Chinese Communist Party is intent on replacing the United States as the world's preeminent economic, military, and technological power. They have a sophisticated plan to challenge American hegemony and leverage every possible avenue to finance their goals. Defending against these advances is one of the most significant geopolitical challenges of a generation.

Today, the House, led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy, is voting to establish a select committee on China to do just that. This select committee will examine the threats from the Chinese Communist Party with a fine-tooth comb and expose them for the American people and for the whole world to fully understand.

In addition, we will develop concrete solutions for how we can better position the United States to prevail in this competition and ensure that the 21st century is led by the United States and defined by a rules-based international order.

The stakes are high, and the CCP's list of offenses against the norms of international order is long: violating an international treaty and dismantling Hong Kong's civil liberties; egregious zero-tolerance COVID-19 restrictions in mainland China that led to mass protests with brutal crackdowns from CCP authorities; oppressing ethnic minorities; persecuting Uyghurs and Tibetans; conducting increasingly belligerent provocations on land and air and in cyberspace; using debt-trap diplomacy through the Belt and Road Initiative to assert colonial dominance over lesser developed countries; engaging in economic warfare through unfair trade practices; the theft of $600 billion of intellectual property from American businesses each year through the forced transfer of technology; and threatening through military, economic, and diplomatic coercion the democracy in Taiwan.

Last year and the year before, the threat from the CCP came into focus when the CCP silenced doctors and corrupted the World Health Organization to spread disinformation and cover up substandard biosecurity at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, leading to a deadly virus becoming a global pandemic, killing millions, devastating the global economy, and giving the CCP the opportunity to weaponize the global supply chain against the West.

Many Americans may not be aware that Beijing's malign activities are fueled, in part, by unwitting American investors. In 2020, $120 billion of U.S. foreign direct investment flowed into China from American businesses and investors.

Mr. Speaker, the United States is the economic envy of the world because we possess a capitalist free market economy, the deepest, most competitive liquid capital markets on planet Earth. This empowers individual investors and businesses to make decisions for themselves, but we cannot allow Wall Street banks, asset managers, and global equity index providers to fuel the rise of the CCP military and surveillance companies hell-bent on targeting Americans. These companies pose an imminent and growing threat to American national security and the security of our allies.

That is why I will be reintroducing the Chinese Military and Surveillance Company Sanctions Act of 2021 in the 118th Congress, legislation that uses the economic power of the United States through OFAC to sanction Chinese companies that threaten U.S. national security.

I commend Speaker McCarthy for following through on his promise to

create the select committee and for naming Congressman Mike Gallagher chairman of the committee. He has been a fighter on the front lines and will do a great job leading this committee.

I will close with this. Every President from Harry Truman to George H.W. Bush understood the need to confront the threat from the Soviet Union and defend the United States and our principles against communism. Because of that bipartisan commitment and because of the strength and vitality of the American system, our Nation was victorious in the Cold War. We must come together again as Republicans and Democrats to confront this new threat.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their support of this legislation.

I rise today in support of an issue obviously that is very near and dear to my heart, our legislation, the Cardiovascular Advances in Research and Opportunities Legacy Act, or the CAROL Act, named after my late wife, Carol Leavell Barr.

Mr. Speaker, my life changed forever, and the lives of my daughters and Carol's family and friends' lives changed forever, when we lost her, my best friend, to sudden cardiac arrest on June 16, 2020. She was only 39 years old.

At a young age, Carol was diagnosed with an underlying condition called mitral valve prolapse, or floppy valve syndrome, a typically benign condition that results in sudden cardiac death in only 0.2 percent of cases.

We were told that this was no big deal, so there was no cause for alarm for most of her adult life. We knew about her condition, but it was not cause for alarm. Even her doctors were not alarmed by the condition because of the very low incidence of sudden cardiac death with this.

The end of her life didn't define her life. I want to just share a little bit. I mean, obviously, this is a picture of her. She was beautiful, inside and out. She had an amazing smile. She was smart. She was fun. She was accomplished professionally.

Ironically, she was in pharmaceutical sales, and she was in the cardiovascular space. Her motivation and willingness to give back to the American Heart Association and charity, a lot of that had to do with the fact that she was aware that she had this underlying preexisting heart condition.

She was an organized list maker. She would always say: Let's just get it done.

She loved to read, travel, and cook for her family.

She loved Kentucky. She loved the Kentucky Derby, horses, and her beloved Wildcats.

She loved her country, and she loved her family. She loved her friends and especially our girls, and that was her gift: motherhood. Motherhood was her gift.

She was a selfless giver to them, to me, to all of her friends, and we have gratitude in our grief. We have gratitude for the 39 wonderful years we did have with her.

We miss her terribly, but we are grateful and blessed that we now have this to extend and amplify her legacy, this bill that is going to help save lives, so her selfless giving goes on. I thank all my colleagues for helping advance this.

Since this was such a rare situation where someone would die of MVP, what were the factors that put Carol in the 0.2 percent versus the 99.8 percent category? That was the question that I had after her passing.

In my discussions with top cardiologists, medical experts, researchers, and advocates following her passing, I learned the extent to which the medical community seriously lacked the answers to that critical question.

Sadly, over 25,000 of our fellow American citizens die each year from heart valve disease, primarily due to underdiagnosis and undertreatment of the condition, which was obviously the case with our Carol.

Inspired by her extraordinary life, my family and I decided to take action and introduce the CAROL Act to better equip our medical community with the resources needed to develop predictive models, inform communities, and possibly save the lives of other loved ones.

Specifically, the CAROL Act authorizes a grant program administered by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to support research on valvular heart disease, including MVP.

This legislation marshals the full power of 21st century medical innovation and encourages the utilization of technical imaging and precision medicine to generate data on individuals with valvular heart disease.

It is through this research, Mr. Speaker, that we can help identify Americans like Carol at high risk of sudden cardiac death from valvular heart disease and develop prediction models for high-risk patients, enabling interventions and treatment plans to keep these patients healthy throughout their lives.

Additionally, the CAROL Act will instruct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to increase public awareness regarding the symptoms of valvular heart disease and effective strategies for preventing sudden cardiac death.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful and honored that the CAROL Act earned the bipartisan cosponsorship of 180 Members of this body.

I am grateful for so many others. I am grateful for Congresswoman Kathleen Rice from New York, who I worked with in a bipartisan way on the Energy and Commerce Committee. Obviously, Dr. Joyce was a powerful spokesperson for this legislation in committee. I appreciate Chairman Pallone's partnership in this. Ranking Member Cathy McMorris Rodgers and my colleague from Kentucky who was friends with Carol, Brett Guthrie, they really contributed mightily to this.

My friends Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, Brad Wenstrup, and Bill Huizenga, they really helped us push it forward.

I thank Steny Hoyer, who himself lost his wife at a young age, and I think he really helped push this forward.

In the Senate, Leader Mitch McConnell obviously knew Carol very well, and his wife, Elaine Chao, was good friends with Carol. He was really instrumental in pushing it through the Senate.

Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema lost a sister to a condition similar to Carol's, and she was our lead Democrat in the Senate. I just saw Kyrsten in the airport. She gave me a big hug to celebrate this great day.

Finally, I thank Claire Osborn of my staff, who worked tirelessly on this bill and made it a personal cause of hers. We would not be here today without her tireless efforts.

The American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, WomenHeart, Edwards Lifesciences, and over 20 additional medical groups that supported our bill, I thank them for their advocacy.

Carol's greatest legacy will always be our two beautiful daughters, Eleanor and Mary Clay. However, today, I hope that my colleagues in the House will help me enshrine her legacy in a way that helps others avert the tragedy that has profoundly impacted our family.

We thank all of our colleagues for helping advance this legislation, and we are so grateful for the continued extraordinary legacy of Carol Barr.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the life of a great American, Mr. Robert Douglas Flynn. Known to everyone as Bobby, he passed away September 22, 2022.

Bobby Flynn was born July 25, 1927, in Lexington, Kentucky. He attended Lafayette High School where he excelled in athletics, especially track and basketball. Bobby joined the United States Army and later served in the Merchant Marines. On August 3, 1946 he married Ella Ritchey. He attended the University of Dayton on a basketball scholarship. Bobby became the first white man to play on an all-black semi-pro baseball team, the Lexington Hustlers. He was drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Bobby and Ella had 3 children, Doug, Brad, and Melanie. Bobby owned a restaurant and then pursued a career in the insurance business, where he worked for 30 years. Bobby was elected and served in the Kentucky Senate from 1968 to 1972. He served on Lexington's city council from 1988 to 1996. His love for athletics never stopped, as he enjoyed and excelled at golf, bowling, and fishing for many years. He served as a referee for football and basketball. He was the manager of press row at Rupp Arena for many years. Bobby was also involved at Keeneland, the Lexington Legends, and KHSAA games. Due to his long-time support of Lexington sports, the annual Bluegrass Sports Award is named after him. His last years were spent at Sayre Christian Village, where he received a Lifetime Achievement Award for service to the community.

Most importantly, Bobby Flynn was a devoted man of faith and a member of Grace Baptist Church. His faith in God directed his life and he modeled his faith in the way that he lived. He was always willing to help others, even at personal sacrifice.

It is my honor to recognize the life of Mr. Bobby Flynn; an outstanding citizen, a patriot, and a man of integrity who loved and served God through his service to the community of Lexington. America is great because of people like Bobby Flynn and I am forever grateful.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in solidarity with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smucker), my good friend, to raise an important issue that my constituents, my friend from Pennsylvania and his constituents, and, frankly, constituents all over this country care about, and that is the state of the fiscal crisis facing our country right now.

This is really not a Republican issue or a Democrat issue. All hardworking American taxpayers of all political persuasions should be concerned about the state of the fiscal mess that we face in our country: a $31 trillion national debt that is literally burying our children and our grandchildren in a mountain of debt. This is mortgaging our future, and we need to get our fiscal house in order.

The American taxpayer works hard for their income, and they deserve a government that lives within its means. That is why I am proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with my colleague Mr. Smucker, who will later highlight this issue of fiscal recklessness and the need to tighten our belts and to live within our means so that we do not continue to put this burden on our children and our grandchildren. We need to stop the spending spree and live within our means.

Just to highlight how serious this problem is, Madam Speaker, it is not a lack of tax revenue. The issue is not that we don't tax the American people enough from Washington, D.C. The issue is that we are overspending.

In fact, this year, the Federal Government has raised more revenue from taxes than in any period in history, and it is actually over a trillion dollars when you consider inflation, a trillion dollars more in tax revenue in inflation-adjusted terms.

The problem with our debt and deficit is not that we are taxing the American people too little. The problem is that we are living beyond our means, spending well beyond our means, and it is not only threatening the future fiscal solvency of our country. This overspending, this addiction to deficit spending, has delivered a historic 40-year high inflation crisis. It has created excess demand. When combined with the constraints that this administration has put on energy production, it is a classic supply-demand mismatch, overspending creating excess demand, combined with constraining energy, a war on domestic energy production constraining the supply. That supply-demand mismatch has pushed up prices.

What is the result of that, Madam Speaker? It means the Federal Reserve must engage in a precipitous quantitative tightening process. It must raise interest rates fast. It must engage in tightening monetary policy. What does that mean? Higher interest rates. And higher interest rates mean higher debt service costs. We have to pay higher interest on the national debt, which compounds the problem.

The solution, Madam Speaker, for the fiscal policy policymakers, those of us in the Congress and the White House and the executive branch, is to start living within our means. Then and only then can we get our inflation crisis under control and the Federal Reserve can start lowering interest rates once again.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for his leadership in advocating for fiscal sanity in Washington and the restoration of fiscal responsibility. We need to exercise fiscal discipline and get this ship turned around.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Reschenthaler) for yielding.

I rise to oppose the previous question so that we can immediately consider Representative French Hill's H.R. 8589 to prohibit the Securities and Exchange Commission from trading its independence and statutory authority away in the name of alarmist climate advocacy.

The proposed climate change rule from the Securities and Exchange Commission will further crush our fragile economy, and struggling families will ultimately pay the price.

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index numbers for the month of August. As has been mentioned already today, CPI surged to 8.3 percent, above projections, still a 40-year high, showing that this inflation crisis is not going away anytime soon.

Americans are paying more for everything, and rising prices continue to wreak havoc on farmers, middle-class families, and small businesses struggling to stay afloat all across America.

Of course, Democrats' overspending for the last year and a half has produced excess demand, pushing up prices, but no amount of Fed tightening can fix the inflationary supply-demand mismatch without also addressing the supply side.

At the heart of this inflation crisis is the Biden administration's war on American energy production. This policy of deliberately constraining the supply of energy is taking its toll on the American people. According to a Penn Wharton study, inflation reduced the purchasing power of American households by approximately $6,000 last year. That is like taking an entire paycheck away for an entire month for every American household.

Real earnings, hourly earnings, dropped 2.8 percent over the year in August. Wages are down because of this inflation crisis. Credit card debt is up. It hit an all-time high last month.

One in six American households are now behind paying their electricity bills and in danger of losing their utility services altogether, with natural gas prices up 30 percent since last July. Effectively, electricity prices are now up 15 percent, a 14-year high.

When Joe Biden took office, the average price of gasoline was $2.36 per gallon. Today, the average gas price in America is $3.72 per gallon, and stubbornly, diesel prices are much, much higher. That goes into everything: transportation, manufacturing, farmers having to fill up the tank on their tractors. All of that is passed on at the retail point of sale. In less than 2 years, America has gone from energy dominant to energy desperate.

Mr. Speaker, ground zero for the Biden administration's war on American energy is the weaponization of financial regulation and the politicization of access to capital.

What do I mean by this? We all know that the Biden administration killed the Keystone XL pipeline and other critical energy infrastructure projects. We know that they are frustrating the construction of new refineries. We know that they have held up 4,400 drilling permits. But ground zero is the weaponization of financial regulation to deny American energy the access to the capital that they need to invest in a very capital-intensive business.

Throughout the executive branch, at the Treasury Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, the OCC, and other financial regulators, Biden has installed or nominated unelected climate alarmists and given them free rein to attack American energy businesses, all in the name of climate change.

The sad irony, Mr. Speaker, is that if we want to innovate and actually solve climate change, we wouldn't be denying American energy companies and the scientists there access to financing. We would be giving them more financing to innovate and to solve the problem the American way, through free enterprise and innovation. One of these radical nominees even called for bankrupting American fossil fuel companies.

Perhaps the most dangerous regulation issued by the Biden administration to destroy American energy is the SEC's climate risk disclosure rule proposed in March. This 534-page monstrosity marks the transformation of the SEC from an independent agency dedicated to investor protection to an unaccountable and politicized bureaucracy intent on advancing radical environmental and social policy over which it has neither expertise nor jurisdiction.

This proposed rule is totally disconnected from the longstanding investor-driven materiality standard and will politicize the agency and reduce its credibility by hurting investors, elevating nonpecuniary factors above financial returns, and steering retail investors into lower performing, higher fee, and less-diversified ESG investments.

As a reminder, Mr. Speaker, the statutory mission of the SEC is to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation. This is not about protecting investors. It is about hurting investors. It is not about capital formation. It is about capital destruction. It is definitively not to reduce carbon emissions or solve climate change, but the SEC is wading into environmental policy debates like climate change with its top-down, government-directed, one-size-fits-all mandatory environmental, social, and governance disclosure regulation, or ESG.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler claims that the requirements in the proposal are material because institutional investors are demanding this information. But according to a study conducted by the University of Chicago and FINRA, only 21 percent of surveyed retail investors in this country even knew what ESG stands for.

The fact of the matter is, retail investors are not demanding this information. They want returns, not politics, guiding their retirement and college savings.

What do retail investors really care about? Yesterday's bloodbath in the stock market when the Dow plummeted by over 1,000 points in a single day, the worst drop since June 2020.

That tells me what investors actually want, Mr. Speaker, and it is returns. They need returns. They don't need an inflationary environment that is eating away their purchasing power and rising interest rates because of it that result in turmoil in the financial markets, destroying retirement savings.

ESG funds are hurting American investors. They are tech-heavy, and in a market where tech stocks are in a massive sell-off and are vastly underperforming non-ESG funds that contain investments in energy, who are the losers? Retail investors who are unwittingly invested in and overexposed to ESG. On top of that, ESG funds charge 43 percent higher fees than non-ESG funds.

In short, the government is redirecting capital away from energy, and it is costing retail investors, which include teachers, police officers, and other ordinary Americans saving for retirement, extraordinary amounts of money.

But, today, Congress can actually do something to protect investors. I am leading this previous question that would amend the rule to immediately consider H.R. 8589, legislation offered by the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill), my friend, to stop this SEC rule in its tracks before it causes more damage to retail investors and to Americans struggling to keep up with unsustainable energy prices.

Mr. Speaker, House Republicans will keep pushing for America to get back to basics. We need to deliver economic relief to the American people to alleviate the pain of inflation. To do that, we need to unleash the supply side. That means more, not less, financing of American energy to lower the price at the pump, to reduce the cost of heating your home.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, we need financial advisers to get back to the basics of investing. That means diversified portfolios that include American energy, not just tech, because the point of investing your hard-earned money isn't to further a political agenda or some far-left view of America that some woke asset manager on Wall Street thinks. Instead, it is to generate a financial return that will enable you to send your kid to college, ensure you can live a comfortable life in retirement, or pursue some other aspect of your American Dream.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is about capital formation. It is about giving heroic American energy companies access to the capital and the financing that they need, not only to make energy affordable and reliable for the American people but to make America competitive in the global economy.

It is for all of these reasons, Mr. Speaker, that I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join me in supporting this previous question.

Mr. Speaker, let me respond to my friend from Maryland on some of the specific points that he made in rebuttal to my opposition to the previous question.

The gentleman says that we don't want to talk about the underlying bills.

What Republicans want to talk about is what the American people are worried about, which is rising prices. What we are focused on is opposing a previous question so that we could actually go and consider legislation that would actually help improve the record inflation, 40- year-high inflation that Americans are suffering with.

What we are talking about is how we are going to lower the pain at the pump and lower the cost of heating your home, which is at a 15-year high in America right now. That is what Republicans want to talk about; what the American people actually care about right now.

The gentleman says that, Oh, unemployment is down.

Let me tell you the statistic that matters.

It is the fact that we have 12 million unfilled jobs in America because the Democrats' spending spree has paid Americans to not go to work, because employers in my district and every district around the country can't find labor.

The supply-demand mismatch that has produced this inflation crisis is the result of fiscal policy errors. It is the result of a war on American energy constraining the supply of energy. It is because of excessive spending that has discouraged people to return to the labor force.

So we have excess demand from overspending, and we have constrained labor supply and constrained energy supply, which is impounded into everything and results in higher retail prices.

The gentleman says that, Oh, don't look here; don't look at us; don't look at the Biden administration's war on energy and labor supply. No, it is not that. It is not the Fed that continued to keep interest rates too low for too long and flooded our money supply at a time when all of these fiscal policy errors were going on. No, it is not that. It is global inflation.

Well, why is it, then, in March of 2021, at the precise time that this Congress passed the American recovery plan, $2 trillion of unpaid- for spending, why is it then that U.S. inflation rates became untethered from global price increases? That is what happened, in synchronicity with their legislation.

Mr. Speaker, finally, he blames Vladimir Putin.

Gas prices on the day Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine were the highest in 40 years. Inflation was over 8 percent on the CPI, the highest in 40 years, the highest since 1981 on the day Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.

This is not about Vladimir Putin. It is about Americans not producing energy anymore.

And why do we want this particular legislation, the legislation to block the SEC's climate disclosure rule? Because we need more financing of American energy.

Mr. Speaker, I would argue to my friend from Maryland, also, if the obsession on the other side with the climate, if that is the concern, if that is why we have this SEC rule, if that is why we have weaponized financial regulators to go after the American energy sector and redirect capital and financing away from the American energy sector, if that is the solution to climate change, I want the gentleman to explain that to me. Because the best scientists in the world working on the issue of carbon capturing, carbon sequestration, and harnessing the carbon cycle, they work at American energy companies.

The answer to climate change is not to centralize power in Washington and add a thousand pages to the Federal Register. That will not change the weather. What will solve climate change is to solve that problem the American way. The American way is through innovation, technology, and science, and that means robust, free enterprise. That means more, not less capital formation. That means more financing of American energy, more financing of innovation. That is the Republican solution to climate.

It is also the Republican solution to our energy crisis and our inflation crisis. That is what we are focused on, not these bills that the American people don't care about.

We are focused on lowering prices at the grocery store and at the pump and financing American competitiveness, American innovation, and American know-how.

That is what we want to do.

We may have found a point of bipartisan agreement that we all dislike Vladimir Putin. But one of the main reasons why Vladimir Putin was able to invade Ukraine was the removal of deterrence: unilaterally waiving sanctions on Nord Stream 2, refusing to respond for a full year of a buildup, inviting aggression by retreating from Afghanistan, and signaling to our allies that we are not coming to help you. That might be one of the reasons why we have a problem with Vladimir Putin right now.

To the gentleman from Maryland's argument that we are just purporting to speak for all Americans, we are the Representatives of the American people, and we are their only voice in this Chamber. I am not purporting to speak for Americans. I am telling you what my constituents in Kentucky are telling me.

Charlie from Fleming County says that he can't afford to fill up his tractor as a farmer because diesel prices are where they are. He says: I don't know where they get their numbers in Washington, Congressman, but it feels three times 8 percent on the CPI.

Lorna from Mount Sterling, Kentucky, owns a floral business, a Main Street small business, and everything costs more. She said: This is not the America I know.

Then, Jamie, who is a mom of two kids, she goes to get baby formula. She goes to the grocery, and she can't afford groceries. She tries to fill up her car to take her kids on errands, and she can't afford it.

This is not purporting to speak for the American people. These are the American people, and they are suffering because this administration will not fix the supply side.

They raise taxes on businesses, which discourages business investment and capital expenditures that we need to fix the supply bottlenecks. They raise prices at the pump by declaring war on American energy production by weaponizing financial regulation. They refuse to take actions that actually will solve the supply problem by encouraging people to go back to work.

We don't need to be discouraging people from going back to work. We need to fill those 12 million unfilled jobs right now by encouraging productivity and American people going back to work.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that we can go to some legislation that would actually help lower prices, what the American people do care about, not what they purport to care about, what they tell us they care about, and that is lowering prices.

This bill would help us do that because it would unlock the financing we need to make America energy dominant once again and lower prices across the board.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the life of a patriotic American, Mr. James Tipton. Mr. Tipton lives in Waco, Kentucky. He celebrated his 99th birthday on July 24, 2022.

Mr. Tipton grew up on his family's farm in Union City, Kentucky. In 1941, a new Ordinance called the Bluegrass Army Depot was opening in Richmond and Mr. Tipton helped work on it. In December of 1942, he decided to enlist and joined the United States Army Air Corps. Following basic training, he was assigned as a right-wing gunner. He was sent overseas and flew missions over Europe. On his last mission in April of 1944, his plane ran short of fuel, and they lost engine power. The crew had to jump out of the camera hatch. They landed over enemy territory in France and were captured by German soldiers and taken as prisoners of war. Mr. Tipton spent 13 months as a POW in Krems, Austria in STALAG XVII-B. After a march of about 160 miles, the prisoners were liberated on April 26, 1945.

Following his time in the service, Mr. Tipton returned to Madison County and worked at the Bluegrass Ordinance for many years. He is a faithful member of the Waco Baptist Church, where he is the oldest male member. Mr. Tipton is well-respected by his community.

It is my honor to recognize Mr. James Tipton, celebrate his 99th birthday and thank him for his service and sacrifice to our nation during World War II. As a part of ``The Greatest Generation,'' Mr. Tipton and his fellow soldiers are true heroes who bravely served and sacrificed to preserve the freedoms that we enjoy today, and we can never thank them enough. I am forever grateful for Americans like James Tipton.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the life of a patriotic American, Mrs. Virginia Mae Hudson Lodmell, on the occasion of her 100th birthday. Mrs. Lodmell lives in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Mrs. Lodmell was born in southern West Virginia on August 17, 1922. She graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Beckley and attended Beckley College. Wanting to support America's war effort when World War II started, she went to work in an ammunition plant in Maryland. On December 18, 1943, she enlisted in the WAVES. Following basic training in New York, Mrs. Lodmell was assigned to Norman, Oklahoma, as an Aviation Mechanist Mate where she worked as an airplane mechanic. She also taught classes on radar. She was discharged on November 2, 1945, as a 3rd Class Petty Officer.

Following the war, she married Russell Carl Lodmell. They lived on a farm in Minnesota for several years then returned to West Virginia. She worked at a Montgomery Ward's store until her retirement. Mrs. Lodmell has three sons, John, Joe, and Jim; nine grandchildren; and 27 great- grandchildren. She is a member of the United Methodist Church in Versailles.

It is my honor to recognize Mrs. Lodmell, celebrate her 100th birthday and thank her for her service and sacrifice to our Nation during World War II. As a part of the Greatest Generation, Mrs. Lodmell and her fellow soldiers were a part of the war effort to preserve the freedoms that we enjoy today, and we can never thank them enough. I am forever grateful for Americans like Virginia Lodmell.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor an incredible woman, Virginia Bell. Mrs. Bell lives in Lexington, Kentucky and turned 100 years old on June 30, 2022.

Mrs. Bell was born and raised on a farm outside of Cynthiana, KY. She attended Transylvania University, graduating in 1944 with degrees in mathematics and biology. After raising five children with her husband Wayne, she went back to school and earned a master's degree in social work in 1982 at the age of 60. She became the first family counselor at the University of Kentucky's Sanders Brown Center on Aging. Mrs. Bell developed the revolutionary Best Friends Approach for the care of people with Alzheimer's and other dementias. She created the Best Friends Adult Day Program, one of the first dementia specific adult day care centers in the country. Her ideas have been replicated world-wide.

Mrs. Bell is internationally known in the field of dementia care, having lectured in over 30 countries.

She has co-authored 5 books and been widely published in professional journals. She was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Transylvania University in 1992. The National Council on Aging presented her with the prestigious Ruth Von Behren Award in 1994. She was the first inductee in the University of Kentucky College of Social Work Hall of Fame in 2004.

Mrs. Bell is a true pioneer. Her work leaves a lasting legacy and her advocacy for people with dementia has impacted countless lives. It is my honor to lift up the accomplishments of

this remarkable woman and to honor her 100th birthday before the House of Representatives.

Madam Speaker, whether it is Putin's price hike, corporate greed, transitory--depending on the day, Madam Speaker, these are just some of the false narratives in the laundry list of excuses President Biden and Democrats have used to try to explain away the impact of their disastrous economic policies.

The truth is, Madam Speaker, that this historic inflation crisis, the fastest rate of inflation in 40 years, is the direct result of policy errors.

The latest excuse from the President comes in this tweet from yesterday: Can you believe it? At current prices, the average driver will spend less than they would if prices had stayed at their peak.

The problem is, Madam Speaker, the peak was under his policies.

Here is the real--here's the real tweet: At current prices, Americans will spend $1,200 more per person for gas and a whole lot more than they would have if Joe Biden had not been President of the United States.

The reality is, our country went from energy dominant to energy desperate, and gas prices have almost doubled in less than 2 years from $2.36 per gallon to $4.32 today.

Not only did that peak occur under President Biden's policy, but I think I

speak for all Americans when I say I never thought I would see the day when an American President would celebrate gas prices north of $4 nationwide.

My story is Charlie from Fleming County, Kentucky. He is a farmer, and he cannot afford these diesel prices. He told me: I don't know, Congressman, where you come up with these numbers in Washington, D.C., 9.1 percent inflation. To us in America, it feels two or three times that much.

This inflation is hurting Americans. Time to reverse course and end these disastrous policies of war against American energy.

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the Citizens Guaranty Bank on its 50th anniversary.

The bank was chartered in 1971 and Kentucky Governor Louie Nunn signed the charter. The bank opened in 1972 in Irvine, Kentucky. Over the years the bank has expended its reach and opened offices in Richmond, London, and Stanton. It serves many customers living in the 6th Congressional District. The bank is locally owned and operated, with over 75 team members and seven locations. The mission of the bank is ``To help our customers enhance their lives and achieve their dreams while actively supporting our communities where we live and work''. Kathy Samples, who started with the bank in 1977, serves as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the bank.

It is my honor to recognize the dedicated leaders and team members of Citizens Guaranty Bank. I congratulate them on their 50-year history, celebrate their many accomplishments, and look forward to a bright future of serving their customers.

Mr. Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 346.

Members Recorded Pursuant to House Resolution 8, 117th Congress

Allred (Neguse)

Barragan (Correa)

Bentz (Obernolte)

Bowman (Neguse)

Brown (MD) (Trone)

Cardenas (Correa)

Castro (TX) (Neguse)

Cohen (Beyer)

Comer (Fleischmann)

Connolly (Beyer)

Crist (Stevens)

DeFazio (Pallone)

Doggett (Beyer)

Dunn (Cammack)

Evans (Neguse)

Fallon (Carl)

Gonzalez (OH) (Armstrong)

Hartzler (Bacon)

Herrera Beutler (Moore (UT))

Jacobs (CA) (Correa)

Jayapal (Pallone)

Johnson (TX) (Jeffries)

Kahele (Correa)

Katko (Meijer)

Kelly (IL) (Kuster)

Kirkpatrick (Pallone)

Lawrence (Stevens)

Leger Fernandez (Kuster)

Lieu (Beyer)

Moore (WI) (Beyer)

Moulton (Stevens)

Newman (Beyer)

Panetta (Beyer)

Pappas (Kuster)

Pascrell (Pallone)

Payne (Pallone)

Pingree (Kuster)

Porter (Neguse)

Pressley (Neguse)

Reschenthaler (Keller)

Rice (NY) (Murphy (FL))

Ryan (Beyer)

Salazar (Cammack)

Sires (Pallone)

Stewart (Curtis)

Suozzi (Correa)

Taylor (Armstrong)

Timmons (Armstrong)

Trahan (Stevens)

Upton (Meijer)

Walorski (Baird)

Wasserman Schultz (Stevens)

Wilson (SC) (Lamborn)

Amendment No. 461 Offered by Mr. Evans

Madam Speaker, I rise to today to honor St. John's Episcopal Church in Versailles, Kentucky, on their 175th anniversary.

The church was officially established on June 29, 1847, under the leadership of Reverend John N. Norton and Mr. John Amsden. The current church building was consecrated on May 28, 1885. In 1930, the parish house and the chapel, gifts from Senator Johnson Camden and family, were consecrated. The church has been visited by important dignitaries including Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II of England in 1986 and President George Herbert Walker Bush, who worshipped unannounced at St. John's in 1989.

As the congregation gathers to celebrate the 175th anniversary, I recognize the impact that this congregation has made on the Versailles community over the years. The church has reached thousands of people with material needs and spiritual sustenance.

I congratulate the Reverend Dana Lockhart and all the members of St. John's Episcopal Church in Versailles on their 175th anniversary and wish them many more years of successful ministry, serving God and reaching out to the community.

Madam Speaker, I rise to honor the city of Versailles, Kentucky, on its 230th anniversary.

Located in Woodford County, Versailles was founded June 23rd, 1792. This was only 22 days after the Commonwealth of Kentucky was accepted into statehood. The city was located on 80 acres of land that was owned by Hezekiah Briscoe, who at that time was only a child. It was named for Versailles, France, in honor of General Lafayette and his contributions to the victory in the American Revolution.

Versailles is located in the beautiful Central Kentucky area. The area is renowned for its thoroughbred horse farms, bourbon distilleries, and small-town charm. Over its history, Versailles has been home to military leaders, artists, actors, athletes, and politicians. Tourists from all over the world visit this beautiful town, with the most famous visitors including Queen Elizabeth II and President George H.W. Bush. Versailles is currently led by Mayor Brian Traugott.

Thank you to the Woodford County Historical Society for preserving the history of this wonderful town and for organizing the 230th anniversary celebration. As the citizens of Versailles remember their history, I wish them all the best for a bright future.

Madam Speaker, had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 291.