Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor my legislative staffer, Nick Wooldridge, for his service to Kentucky's Second District.

Nick is a native of Kentucky's capital, Frankfort, which helped inspire his interest in politics. In high school, he served as a page in the Kentucky House of Representatives. Nick's interest in American politics continued through his years at Princeton University where he graduated with a degree in history, While in college, Nick interned for both U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito and U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

In November 2021, Nick joined my congressional D.C. office as a staff assistant. Nick's initiative, strong work ethic, and extensive knowledge of Kentucky made him an excellent addition to my staff, and he quickly worked his way up in my office to a legislative correspondent. In this role, Nick does in-depth research on legislation, helps me effectively communicate complex legislative policy to constituents, and responds to constituent inquiries in a timely manner. On Nick's last week in my office, I want to thank him for his work serving Kentucky's Second District and wish him the best in the next chapter of his career.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to this bill.

Make no mistake, this bill is a Trojan horse to advance the radical defund the police movement and will hurt people who need help the most.

This bill would not only keep our dedicated law enforcement officers off the streets at a time when crime is rising and illicit drugs are flooding communities but, also, could significantly reduce access to care for individuals with severe mental illness or substance use disorder. This bill would penalize organizations that have higher rates of institutionalization.

To be clear, we need to promote access to all types of behavioral healthcare and substance use disorder services. However, this bill does not take into account that sometimes these organizations provide the safest, most effective care for individuals with serious mental illness.

If Democrats' goal is to provide effective care for individuals with disabilities, severe mental illness, and substance use disorder, then we already have legislative solutions which this very body overwhelmingly passed in June of this year.

In June of this year, the Restoring Hope for Mental Health and Well- Being Act was passed, and it would bolster behavioral health and substance use disorder treatment and recovery services for millions of Americans, most notably our children.

Democrats need to work with Republicans on addressing some of the root causes of crime, such as our border crisis that the Vice President insists is secure despite record numbers of border encounters and illicit drugs being trafficked into our country.

We have a solution in the Energy and Commerce Committee to provide law enforcement officers the tools they need to get drugs off our streets and break the cycle of addiction. The HALT Fentanyl Act would permanently schedule fentanyl-related substances as schedule I drugs.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to work with Republicans on passing this legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor the retirement of Senator C.B. Embry, Jr. from the Kentucky General Assembly after over 50 years of service to the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

From the youngest elected Mayor of Beaver Dam in 1970 to the oldest member of the Kentucky State Senate in 2022, Senator Embry has earned the trust of his constituents to hold numerous offices, including Kentucky State Representative for District 17 and Ohio County Judge- Executive. A testament to his skills as a legislator, Senator Embry has the distinction of five Kentucky Governors signing his sponsored legislation into law. This includes a bill he proudly championed to give hope to terminally ill patients, who had exhausted all other options, by allowing them to try experimental forms of medication with at least one round of clinical studies.

Being renowned for his tireless work, Senator Embry was recognized with several accolades, including AARP Kentucky's ``Champion of the 50+'' lifetime legislative leadership award, the National Guard Association of the United States' Patrick Henry Award, and the Kentucky Education Association's Friend of Education Award. Earlier in his career, he was awarded the Outstanding Young Republican in the Nation award by George H.W. Bush in 1975.

C.B. Embry and his wife Wanda celebrated 60 years of marriage this year and together they have 3 children, 4 grandchildren, and 2 great- grandchildren. Congratulations to Senator Embry on his retirement and I thank him for his decades of service to the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to wish James L. Wimsatt a happy 104th birthday. James is a World War II veteran and fixture in the Owensboro community for his work to build up Kentucky through his artwork.

James Wimsatt was born in Ohio County on September 18, 1918, to Thomas and Iva Wimsatt. Due to not being able to afford books, James took up painting and drawing and was considered gifted with art at a young age.

Before leaving to serve during World War II, James proposed to Gertrude ``Trudy'' Mitchell. She would not accept at the time but told him she would wait for him. They were married in 1945 and had 77 years of marriage together when she passed away on July 28, 2022. A member of James' family said James and Trudy were one of the greatest love stories.

Following his military service, James worked at Kroger and then GE until his retirement. He also wanted to showcase the beauty of our Commonwealth, so he used his artistic talents to paint scenes of Kentucky, reminding us Kentuckians of the deep pride we have for our home.

I join the Owensboro community and James' family and friends in wishing James a happy 104th birthday and thank him for all he has done to serve our country and make Kentucky shine through his artwork.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 5376, the mislabeled Inflation Reduction Act.

This is another reckless tax and spending spree that is not being accurately portrayed to the American people by Democrats.

Washington Democrats are trying to convince Americans that adding more reckless government spending and raising taxes during a recession will combat inflation. Even nonpartisan organizations say this bill will have virtually no impact on inflation and at least half of the expected tax revenue for next year is estimated to come from Americans making less than $400,000 a year.

Americans will see more IRS audits because this bill gives the IRS the ability to hire an army of new IRS agents. People should pay the taxes they owe, but instead of an army of IRS agents focusing on auditing low- to middle-income Americans, we need to put our resources into hiring more Border Patrol officers to protect the border and stop the flow of illicit drugs such as fentanyl.

More troubling parts of this bill are the healthcare provisions. I strongly disagree with using Medicare money to pay for ObamaCare subsidies for the wealthy. I introduced an amendment to keep Medicare savings in Medicare, which is already at risk of insolvency in the very near future. Unfortunately, House Democrats didn't even give this amendment a chance to be considered.

While Democrats praise government price setting, or, as they call it, negotiation, they fail to mention that such policies would lead to at least 15 fewer drugs coming to market, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

What are the 15 cures? Could it be the cure for Alzheimer's? Could it be the cure for diabetes? It could be.

They also won't mention that the nonpartisan CBO said this bill will lead to higher prices on new drugs.

Finally, Democrats are voting to give Secretary Becerra a $3 billion slush fund to set drug prices, despite HHS botching the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including politicizing guidance that kept schools closed and young children masked in Head Start programs.

How can anyone support giving billions of dollars in more unrestricted authority to HHS that we know will lead to fewer cures for our loved ones?

Let me be clear: We absolutely need to address the cost of prescription

medication. In the Energy and Commerce Committee, there is a bipartisan bill ready to go, H.R. 19, that could achieve this, but the Democrats have repeatedly refused to bring the bill to the floor for a vote.

Our country is also facing an energy crisis created by President Biden and Washington Democrats' war on American energy. Despite this, the Democrats' solution is to double down on the nearly $400 billion to be spent on far-left Green New Deal policies and impose billions of dollars of tax increases on energy that will be passed to consumers.

Unbelievably, even as energy prices are at historically high levels, they have included a new tax on natural gas and revived a tax on petroleum products that will cost consumers tens of billions of dollars.

I filed an amendment to exempt our defense bases from this natural gas tax, but again, Democrats refused even to consider it.

Democrats want to create a $27 billion slush fund at the EPA for a national climate bank to subsidize the solar energy that is heavily dominated by the Chinese Communist Party and even spend $9 billion in rebates for wealthy Americans to green up their homes with new appliances and electric vehicles.

To conclude, this legislation not only crushes hope for patients and their families living with devastating diseases that currently lack a treatment or a cure, but it also significantly undermines our economic and national security.

I cannot vote for the more appropriately named inflation expansion act. Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton), the chair emeritus of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, who is retiring. We are going to miss him.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), my good friend on the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Madam Speaker, I include in the Record an editorial from The Wall Street Journal titled, ``Tilting at Climate Windmills,'' which notes that the massive spending bill reduces global temperatures at the most by 0.28 degrees.

[From the Wall Street Journal]

Tilting at Climate Windmills

Shumer-Manchin will have little effect on the world's temperature

(By Editorial Board)

Nearly all of Washington--Democrats, the press, lobbyists--

is taking a victory lap with Senate passage of the Schumer-

Manchin tax, climate and drug price control bill. The climate

lobby is especially thrilled, claiming a historic victory

that will reduce temperatures, hold back the rising sea, and

save the planet.

Or, maybe not. Our contributor Bjorn Lomborg looked at the

Rhodium Group estimate for CO2 emissions reductions from

Schumer-Manchin policies. He then plugged them into the

United Nations climate model to measure the impact on global

temperature by 2100. He finds the bill will reduce the

estimated global temperature rise at the end of this century

by all of 0.028 degrees Fahrenheit in the optimistic case. In

the pessimistic case, the temperature difference will be

0.0009 degrees Fahrenheit.

In other words, the climate provisions in this ballyhooed

legislation will have no notable impact on the climate.

This isn't surprising. No matter what the U.S. does to

reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, it will be dwarfed by what

the rest of the world does. China, India and Africa aren't

about to stop burning fossil fuels as they develop, and China

is sprinting ahead to build huge new coal capacity despite

its pledge to start reducing emissions after 2030.

Barring a breakthrough in battery or other technology,

carbon emissions will continue to increase. No one knows how

much the Earth's temperature will warm, though even the U.N.

model has modified its estimates from the apocalyptic

predictions of some years ago.

Schumer-Manchin won't reduce inflation, won't reduce the

budget deficit, and it won't reduce the world's temperature.

What it will do is transfer some $369 billion from taxpayers

and drug companies to the pockets of green energy businesses

and investors. It will tighten the hold that politicians have

on the allocation of capital, as they pick winners and losers

with their grants and tax credits. Everyone will get a nice

warm feeling as they pretend they are cooling the climate.

This bill will not do what those on the floor today have said it will do.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Iowa (Mrs. Miller-Meeks).

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

This bill drives a massive build-out of unreliable wind and solar power, not nuclear, not natural gas, and not baseload power.

I include in the Record a report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the authority on electric reliability, which underscores the risk of blackouts from the oversupply of weather- dependent energy.

[From North American Electric Reliability Corporation, May 2022]

2022 Summer Reliability Assessment

Key Findings

NERC's annual SRA covers the upcoming four-month (June-

September) summer period. This assessment provides an

evaluation of generation resource and transmission system

adequacy and energy sufficiency to meet projected summer peak

demands and operating reserves This assessment identifies

potential reliability issues of interest and regional topics

of concern. While the scope of this seasonal assessment is

focused on the upcoming summer, the key findings are

consistent with risks and issues that NERC has highlighted in

the 2021 Long-Term Reliability Assessment and other earlier

reliability assessments and reports.

The following findings are NERC and the ERO Enterprise's

independent evaluation of electricity generation and

transmission capacity and potential operational concerns that

may need to be addressed for the 2022 summer.

Summer Resource Adequacy Assessment and Energy Risk Analysis

Midcontinent ISO (MISO) faces a capacity shortfall in its

North and Central areas, resulting in high risk of energy

emergencies during peak summer conditions. Capacity shortfall

projections reported in the 2021 LTRA and as far back as the

2018 LTRA have continued Load serving entities in 4 of 11

zones entered the annual planning resource auction (PRA) in

April 2022 without enough owned or contracted capacity to

cover their requirements. Across MISO, peak demand

projections have increased by 1.7 percent since last summer

due in part to a return to normal demand patterns that have

been altered in prior years by the pandemic. However, more

impactful is the drop in capacity in the most recent PRA:

MISO will have 3,200 MW (2.3 percent) less generation

capacity than in the summer of 2021. System operators in MISO

are more likely to need operating mitigations, such as load

modifying resources or non-firm imports, to meet reserve

requirements under normal peak summer conditions. More

extreme temperatures, higher generation outages, or low wind

conditions expose the MISO North and Central areas to higher

risk of temporary operator-initiated load shedding to

maintain system reliability.

At the start of the summer, a key transmission line

connecting MISO's northern and southern areas will be out of

service. Restoration continues on a 4-mile section of 500 kV

transmission line that was damaged by a tornado during severe

storms on December 10, 2021. The transmission outage affects

1,000 MW of firm transfers between the Midwestern and

Southern MISO system that includes parts of Arkansas,

Louisiana, and Mississippi. The transmission line is expected

to be restored at the end of June 2022.

Anticipated resource capacity in Saskatchewan will be

strained to meet peak demand projections, which have risen by

over 7.5 percent since 2021. SaskPower is projected to remain

above their planning reserve margin threshold and have

sufficient operating reserves for normal peak conditions.

However, external assistance is expected to be needed in

extreme conditions that cause above-normal generator outages

or demand.

Drought conditions create heightened reliability risk for

the summer. Drought exists or threatens wide areas of North

America, resulting in unique challenges to area electricity

supplies and potential impacts on demand:

Energy output from hydro generators throughout most of the

Western United States is being affected by widespread drought

and below-normal snowpack. Dry hydrological conditions

threaten the availability of hydroelectricity for transfers

throughout the Western Interconnection. Some assessment

areas, including WECC's California-Mexico (CA/MX) and

Southwest Reserve Sharing Group (SRSG), depend on substantial

electricity imports to meet demand on hot summer evenings and

other times when variable energy resource (e.g., wind, solar)

output is diminishing. In the event of wide-area extreme heat

event, all U.S. assessment areas in the Western

Interconnection are at risk of energy emergencies due to the

limited supply of electricity available for transfer.

Extreme drought across much of Texas can produce weather

conditions that are favorable to prolonged, wide-area heat

events and extreme peak electricity demand. Resource

additions to the ERCOT system in recent years-predominantly

solar and some wind--have raised Anticipated Reserve Margins

above Reference Margin Levels and ease concerns of capacity

shortfalls for normal peak demand. However, extreme heat

increases peak demand and can be accompanied by weather

patterns that lead to increased forced outages or reduced

energy output from resources of all types. A combination of

extreme peak demand, low wind, and high outage rates from

thermal generators could require system operators to use

emergency procedures, up to and including temporary manual

load shedding.

As drought conditions continue over the Missouri River

Basin, output from thermal generators that use the Missouri

River for cooling in Southwest Power Pool (SPP) may be

affected in summer months. Low water levels in the river can

impact generators with once-through cooling and lead to

reduced output capacity. Energy output from hydro generators

on the river can also be affected by drought conservation

measures implemented in the reservoir system. Outages and

reduced output from thermal and hydro generation could lead

to energy shortfalls at peak demand. Periods of above normal

wind

generator output may give some relief, however, this energy

is not assured. System operators could require emergency

procedures to meet peak demand during periods of high

generator unavailability.

All other areas have sufficient resources to manage normal

summer peak demand and are at low risk of energy shortfalls

from more extreme demand or generation outage conditions.

Anticipated Reserve Margins meet or surpass the Reference

Margin Level, indicating that planned resources in these

areas are adequate to manage the risk of a capacity

deficiency under normal conditions. Furthermore, based on

risk scenario analysis in these areas, resources and energy

appear adequate.

Other Reliability Issues for Summer

Supply chain issues and commissioning challenges on new

resource and transmission projects are a concern in areas

where completion is needed for reliability during summer peak

periods. Assessment areas report that some generation and

transmission projects are being impacted by product

unavailability, shipping delays, and labor shortages. At the

time of this assessment publication, WECC-CA/MX, and WECC-

SRSG have sizeable amounts of generation capacity in

development and included in their resource projections for

summer. In Texas (ERCOT), transmission expansion projects are

underway to alleviate transmission constraints and maintain

system stability as the BPS is adapted to rapid growth in new

generation; delays or cancellations of transmission projects

can cause transmission system congestion during peak

conditions and affect the ability to serve load in localized

areas. Should project delays emerge, affected Generator

Owners (GOs) and Transmission Owners must communicate changes

to Balancing Authorities (BAs), Transmission Operators, and

Reliability Coordinators, so that impacts are understood and

steps are taken to reduce risks of capacity deficiencies or

energy shortfalls.

Coal-fired GOs are having difficulty obtaining fuel and

non-fuel consumables as supply chains are stressed. No

specific BPS reliability impacts are currently foreseen;

however, coal stockpiles at power plants are relatively low

compared to historical levels. Some owners and operators

report challenges in arranging replenishment due to mine

closures, rail shipping limitations, and increased coal

exports. Some GOs have implemented controls to maintain

sufficient stocks for peak months while BAs and Reliability

Coordinators are continuing to conduct fuel surveys and

monitoring the situation.

The electricity and other critical infrastructure sectors

face cyber security threats from Russia and other potential

actors amid heightened geopolitical tensions in addition to

ongoing cyber risks. Russian attackers may be planning or

attempting malicious cyber activity to gain access and

disrupt the electric grid in North America in retaliation for

support to Ukraine. The Electricity Infrastructure Sharing

and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) continues to exchange

information with its members and has posted communications

and guidance from government partners and other advisories on

its Portal. E-ISAC members are encouraged to check in

regularly to receive updates and to actively share

information regarding threats and other malicious activities

with the E-ISAC to enable broader communication with other

sector participants and government partners.

Unexpected tripping of solar photovoltaic

(PV) resources during grid disturbances continues to be a

reliability concern. In May and June 2021, the Texas

Interconnection experienced widespread solar PV loss events

like those previously observed in the California area.

Similarly, four additional solar PV loss events occurred

between June and August 2021 in California.

This bill does not do what Democrats say it will do.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), the Republican whip.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), my good friend.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson), my good friend,

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I include in the Record a Bloomberg News story reporting how power costs are already forcing U.S. factories to shut down, featuring an aluminum mill in my district, in Hawesville, Kentucky.

This underscores the risk to our Nation's competitiveness that these policies bring about, and this bill will not do what those on the floor say that it will do.

[From Bloomberg News, July 7, 2022]

The US Industrial Complex Is Starting To Buckle From High Power Costs

(By Joe Deaux and Naureen S Malik)

It was only a matter of time, really.

Europe's fertilizer plants, steel mills, and chemical

manufacturers were the first to succumb. Massive paper mills,

soybean processors, and electronics factories in Asia went

dark.

Now soaring natural gas and electricity prices are starting

to hit the US industrial complex.

On June 22, 600 workers at the second-largest aluminum mill

in America, accounting for 20 percent of US supply, learned

they were losing their jobs because the plant can't afford an

electricity tab that's tripled in a matter of months. Century

Aluminum Co. says it'll idle the Hawesville, Kentucky, mill

for as long as a year, taking out the biggest of its three US

sites. A shutdown like this can take a month as workers

carefully swirl the molten metal into storage so it doesn't

solidify in pipes and vessels and turn the entire facility

into a useless brick. Restarting takes another six to nine

months. For this reason, owners don't halt operations unless

they've exhausted all other options.

It's the most poignant signal yet of what's to come-but not

the only one.

At least two steel mills have begun suspending some

operations to cut energy costs, according to one industry

executive, who asked not to be identified because the

information isn't public. In May, a group of factories across

the US Midwest warned federal energy regulators that some

were on the verge of closing for the summer or longer because

of what they described as ``unjust and unreasonable''

electricity costs. They asked to be wholly absolved of some

power fees-a request that, if granted, would be

unprecedented.

It's no wonder. By the beginning of June, natural gas

prices had tripled what they were a year earlier, threatening

households and businesses alike with some of the biggest

utility bills they've ever seen. This summer, electricity

rates for industrial customers are set to hit their highest

levels ever, based on US government forecasts. Because US

plants and factories depend on both electricity and gas, this

could very well be the moment the rug's pulled out from under

American industry.

Manufacturing overtime hours have already declined for

three straight months, the longest downward stretch since

2015, and a measure of US manufacturing activity weakened in

June to a two-year low as new orders contracted. A week after

Century's announcement, the nation's largest aluminum

producer Alcoa Corp. said it's closing a third of its

production at a mill in Indiana because of ``operational

challenges.''

These headwinds could eventually threaten what some see as

a longer-term boom in US manufacturing as corporations look

to reduce their dependence on China. Executives are

highlighting plans to relocate production at a greater clip

this year than they even did in the first six months of the

pandemic, but energy and labor costs will pose challenges for

any company looking to build a new operation in the US.

Manufacturing isn't the bellwether of the US economy it

once was. The plants that 70 years ago employed more than a

third of the nation's labor force now account for about 8

percent of nonfarm workers. An industrial downturn on its own

won't tip us into a recession, but it could if combined with

weakness in other sectors. While the might of American

industry has significantly weakened over the years, it still

accounts for more than a tenth of US gross domestic product-

and for that reason holds an outsize place in the hearts of

politicians whose factory visits are a perennial staple of

campaigns.

Plants will try to operate more efficiently to lower their

utility bills, but there are limits to how much they can

save. In a lot of regions, industrial users aren't just

paying for the power they use; they're also paying for what's

known as capacity, essentially an insurance policy that keeps

enough power on the grid for the most extreme of demand days.

(Think hot summer days when everyone's air conditioners are

blasting.) And with wholesale energy prices near the highest

levels since 2008 and aging power plants shutting, those

insurance premiums are growing exponentially, particularly in

the middle of the country where much of the country's

industrial operations lie.

One potential bright spot, or an indication of how

desperate industrial companies are becoming: Some are

partnering with startups to explore alternative energy

sources: Nature Energy says it expects to start building

facilities this year to collect and convert cow dung and crop

waste into renewable natural gas. Power Edison, which is

proposing to stack massive batteries on barges that can be

shipped around to customers in need, is attracting more

attention.

As Katie Coleman, an attorney for Texas Association of

Manufacturers, puts it, her members have three big cost

drivers: taxes, electricity, and labor. Those three vary in

proportion over time, she says, ``but right now, electricity

is an even larger factor than normal.'' Some companies with

multiple factories are trying to decide which plants to keep

running this summer based on how cheap they can get their

electricity, she says, and some may decide which to

permanently close. Such is the case for Century, which will

keep operations running in Iceland where power is incredibly

cheap because of local renewable energy resources.

There is a lot to blame for this year's surge in US energy

prices: Russia's invasion of Ukraine; the ensuing surge in US

natural gas exports to markets overseas; extreme weather

brought on by climate change; aging fossil-fuel-fired power

plants retiring at a record pace. They're all coinciding with

a sharp rebound in post-pandemic demand.

One group of manufacturers will say they told us so. The

Industrial Energy Consumers of America has been calling on

the Biden administration for months to limit the amount of

gas US energy suppliers send overseas, warning that exports

would eventually lead to supply shortages at home. But a

measure like that would set a dangerous precedent and

threaten the billions of dollar of investments in liquefied

natural gas terminals along US shores. Shipments overseas

have so far remained unfettered.

How severe of an industrial downturn we're heading into

depends on a lot of variables -chief among them being how

long energy prices remain high. Milder weather, fewer power

plant disruptions, and more solar and wind farm deployments

could shift the natural gas market back into an era of lower

prices and improve the fortunes of manufacturers. Today, we

are far from that.

Michael Harris, whose firm Unified Energy Services LLC buys

fuel for industrial clients, says costs have risen so high

that some are having to put millions of dollars of credit on

the line to secure power and gas contracts. ``That can be

devastating for a corporation,'' he says. ``I don't see any

scenario, absent explosions at US LNG facilities'' that trap

supplies at home, in which gas prices are headed lower in the

long term.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Carter).

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Balderson).

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, there is nothing in the bill that increases our production of natural gas. The Methane Emissions Reduction Program is a natural gas tax that will impact the entire economy. The natural gas tax will make everything more expensive for American families. The natural gas tax will increase the price of fuel, fertilizer, and food.

Madam Speaker, 180 million Americans use natural gas to heat homes and run appliances. About 5\1/2\ million businesses use it to run their workplaces and manufacturing facilities.

This bill will give EPA sweeping authority to expand the natural gas tax to other sectors, including agriculture. There are no guardrails to prevent the EPA from ratcheting up the natural gas tax in years ahead.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from the State of Tennessee (Mrs. Harshbarger).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), who is one of my good friends here in Congress, a great leader, and the Republican leader in the House of Representatives.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the abortion on demand until birth act.

This Supreme Court ruled each individual State can decide the rights for the unborn. This bill would override State laws to nationalize abortion for any reason at any stage of pregnancy up until birth.

This does not merely ban pre-viability restrictions on abortion, as supporters say that it does. This bill allows the person doing the abortion to decide what qualifies as pre-viability. This is unacceptable.

The majority of Americans do not support abortions with no limits. In fact, 80 percent of the Americans say abortions should be illegal in the third trimester. This is a radical bill, and I urge a ``no'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 7666 the Restoring Hope for Mental Health and Well- Being Act is a significant bill that will help support our mental health workforce, increase access to pediatric mental health treatment, and help make schools safer.

This bill will bolster substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery resources. The Committee on Energy and Commerce has worked on this for many months, held hearings, and reported it out by a voice vote in May.

Recognizing children's mental health has been negatively impacted by school closures, ineffective lockdowns, and increased violence. This bill provides specific resources to help communities respond to the children's mental health crisis. This legislation also supports community mental health services for children with serious emotional disturbances through crisis-care service and early intervention activities.

The need to strengthen resources for children's mental health has been further heightened after the horrific school violence we have seen in Uvalde.

This bill also works to reauthorize the Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention Program, provide funding for a suicide prevention lifeline, and update a major block grant that States use to provide support to those with serious mental illness.

In addition to supporting those with mental illness, the legislation helps those with substance use disorders. Kentucky has seen a drastic rise in overdoses throughout the pandemic and, nationally, the CDC estimates that drug overdoses exceeded 107,000 between November 2020 and November 2021.

Many of these drug overdoses have been caused by synthetic opioids, like illicit fentanyl poisoning, which were involved in about 70 percent of all Kentucky overdoses in 2021.

Ultimately, fighting the drug overdose epidemic will require a two- pronged approach: Equipping our law enforcement with the tools they need to keep these deadly poisons off our streets and providing recovery and treatment resources.

Through the passage of this bill, we are advancing the second part of this

approach by increasing access to critical treatment and recovery resources for people from all walks of life and every stage of life. This includes resources for moms and pregnant women by supporting care for maternal health and substance use disorders, which are among the leading cause of death for pregnant and postpartum women.

In addition, this legislation also has a provision led by Representative Bucshon, alongside Representatives Miller-Meeks, Axne, and Pappas, to remove unnecessary regulatory barriers to help those with opioid use disorder seek the care that they need as quickly as possible.

The Timely Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder Act removes a Federal requirement of having to live with opioid disorder for more than 1 year to be admitted for in-person treatment. I am proud that my bill, the Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services Block Grant Act of 2022, which I have worked together with my colleagues, Messrs. Tonko, McKinley, and Ms. Wild, is also included in this bill.

The legislation would deliver more coordinated substance use disorder care as well as explicitly reauthorizing funding for recovery support services, which include workforce training and others.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote for this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health Act, or ARPA-H Act. I know this has been an important priority for researchers, industry, and, most importantly, patients who are waiting for life-changing medical technology to improve or even save their lives.

This legislation will authorize the establishment of ARPA-H within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The agency will specifically be charged with helping to foster high-risk, high-reward treatments and cures for diseases with clinically unmet needs.

Some of my colleagues may be concerned about a new agency, and that is where a number of Republicans on the Committee on Energy and Commerce were early in October when this legislation was introduced.

ARPA-H was funded at $1 billion in the previous appropriations bill in 2021. To ensure that funding was used for the best possible result, the Committee on Energy and Commerce for the past several months has worked hard to ensure that ARPA-H has a clear mission. As a result, it passed out of committee with a strong 55-to-3 vote.

We most notably ensure this newly created agency remains separate from the NIH. We limit administration costs associated with setting up ARPA-H to maximize research investments, which would require a strategic plan and transparent reporting on projects; define the number of offices; and require that the majority of offices within the organization be exclusively devoted to biomedical research and development.

In order to ensure this agency is fostering the development of innovative, transformative health technologies that are not being met by Federal programs or private industry, the technologies the agency should pursue are very explicitly defined in the legislation before us today.

The legislation puts guardrails in place to ensure that priority access is granted to U.S. researchers over researchers abroad. There are additional requirements for international researchers to work in collaboration with a U.S. counterpart if they receive ARPA-H funding.

Importantly, the bill makes clear that funding is prohibited from going to nondomestic recipients of a malign foreign country, most notably Chinese research labs or Russian research labs. This is a significant step to ensure the United States' intellectual property isn't being stolen by our adversaries and to ensure we remain the world leader in biomedical research and innovation.

As the Republican leader on the Health Subcommittee, I am leading efforts to strengthen oversight of NIH-funded research. It is unacceptable that some Federal grants have been supporting foreign researchers with ties to governments of adversarial nations like China. We must prevent this from happening moving forward.

Mr. Speaker, I emphasize the need to pass this bill. The funding has already been appropriated in a previous year. If we don't pass this bill and don't authorize this agency to move forward, then this will erode our oversight role in Congress. Funding decisions made by ARPA-H must require diligence to ensure that resources are being spent as appropriately and as effectively as possible.

The Biden administration ARPA-H organizational chart, without this bill, has 14 offices, less than half of which are actually dedicated to research. This gives us insight into how the Biden administration would manage this new agency without congressional guidance. It is just appropriate that the legislative branch sets up the way this money is being spent.

That is what the bill before us today does. It puts ARPA-H on the right track, gives Congress the opportunity to set high standards, and promotes greater biomedical research and innovation for patients.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority for working together. I thank our staff for the excellent work they have done. I encourage the passage of this because if we don't pass it, the money is still going to be spent but without congressional guardrails.

Mr. Speaker, I support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers), who is the Republican leader of the full committee.

Mr. Speaker, as the chair of this committee, Mr. Upton made his signature issue the 21st Century Cures, and not just passing that which has changed people's lives already but being able to work with Ms. DeGette and all the others to say that this is something we all need to work on together in a bipartisan way and make a big difference.

Now as chair emeritus, this is, I think, his signature piece. He may have other pieces of legislation, too, but this is the one that I have worked on with him in the very beginning in the Oval Office with the President. We worked together to say: Can we do something big that is really going to change the lives of people in this country?

He has done it. He has done it his entire career. He is a mentor of mine, and, unfortunately, at the end of this year he is going to do something different than being here in Congress. He will be missed for his voice and being a champion of this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to yield to him so that he can speak on this bill for himself. The gentleman certainly has left a legacy here with the previous legislation and this piece of legislation. So let's work together to move it forward.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton).

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentleman from Michigan an additional 1 minute.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, it is important we are here today.

I thank the chair of the other subcommittee whom I have the privilege to work alongside as the Republican leader. She has been a champion of ARPA-H as it first came out and at the first meeting at the White House. We have discussed quite a bit about where it should be and what the guardrails should be.

I know the funding got out in front of it. We all really wanted Congress to have a say in how this agency operated and not the executive branch the way, unfortunately, getting in front of authorization does.

I appreciate the hard work. I appreciate the work of the colleagues who have spoken and everybody else who is working on this together on our staff.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we pass this bill. I urge my colleagues to vote for the bill tonight, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I claim the time in opposition, even though I am not opposed to the bill.

Mr. Speaker, the Chair of the subcommittee kind of went through what the amendment says. Another thing that we need to make sure is reinforced is that the amendment would ensure that agency and precious U.S. taxpayer dollars can never go to nondomestic recipients organized under the laws of a covered foreign entity as defined by the National Security Act of 1947. This includes China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. So I want to make sure we understand that.

I said this on the debate on the bill that the Chair and I were talking back and forth. And I understood the mission of what we wanted to accomplish with ARPA-H, but I was concerned about the application of it and how it would actually be put into place. We had a lot of discussions based on that.

This amendment really does define as best as we can define in legislation, without vague terms, what we want ARPA-H to do. This amendment ensures that 85 percent of the money goes to research and not to administration and growing an agency. We think that this really does narrow and, as we said earlier, put guardrails. This amendment is what accomplishes that with the bill. I am for this amendment, and I encourage its adoption.

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 today in support of the Food and Drug Amendments of 2022, introduced by Chair Eshoo and myself. This legislation recently passed the full Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously.

The bill will protect access to lifesaving cures, promote innovation, secure our medical supply chains, and lower costs for patients. It would also reauthorize the Food and Drug Administration's medical product user fee programs through 2027.

User fees allow the FDA to collect fees from industry in exchange for timely review of their drug or device applications. Importantly, these fees not only permit the FDA to carry out drug or device application reviews, but they also represent significant percentages of FDA's total operating budget without costing the taxpayer.

Additionally, according to the Congressional Budget Office, sections of the bill will save close to $600 million by promoting increased access to generic drugs. Some of these savings will be used for deficit reduction and other amounts can be put toward preserving access to critical services in the Medicaid program, such as telehealth.

Not only do these agreements help save taxpayer dollars, but they also yield significant returns on investment since they were originally authorized by Congress decades ago. For example, in 2021 alone, 38 of 50 of the world's novel drugs were first approved in the United States. This was made possible by the Food and Drug Administration Amendments of 2017.

I am proud to say that the legislation includes two of my bills, the Pre-approval Information Exchange Act, which will help reduce the time in which patients wait for a drug or a device to be covered by the insurer after it is approved by the FDA.

The bill before us today also includes legislation that Chair Pallone and I have been championing for several years to help facilitate the transformation of drug manufacturing processes, so they are more efficient, less costly, and result in improved drug quality. The use of continuous manufacturing technology will not only serve as an incentive for U.S. drug manufacturers to bring their production back to American soil but will also help reduce drug shortages.

Other important components of the Food and Drug Amendments of 2022 require guidance on the collection of real-world evidence for companies with products authorized under emergency use authorization during the COVID-19 public health emergency. This can serve as a strong foundation for the regulatory community in addition to drug or device companies to best understand how products can get approved more quickly and safely in the future.

Finally, the Food and Drug Amendments of 2022 preserves access to lifesaving therapies approved under the accelerated approval pathway. By preserving the pathway, we are giving patients hope to one day find cures to currently incurable diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease or terminal cancers.

As the Chair said, usually when you come to the floor on suspension bills, they are ones that have great unanimous consent with Congress. This has gone through the regular process, and it has gone through a lot of hard work by Members, but I have to say a lot of hard work, significant hard work, by the men and women who work with us here on the committee. We really appreciate the staff's hard work.

Although we are here in a suspension moment on the floor, I emphasize to my colleagues, there has been a lot of work, a lot of committee work, a lot of subcommittee work, a lot of Member work, and a whole lot of staff work to make this move forward. I really appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation today, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Bucshon).

Mr. Speaker, I was incorrect. I said Mr. Bucshon. Dr. Bucshon; his words on healthcare are certainly very important to all of us.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers), my good friend, the Republican leader of the full Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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

Madam Speaker, through the years, since this medical device fee has been put into place, has Congress taken action to make sure an agency is efficient; that it does its job to make sure that our drugs and medical devices have efficacy, but also are safe? So we make them more efficient and we have drug companies, device companies, other companies, generic companies, trying to get their devices or their pharmaceuticals approved so they can bring them on the marketplace that are safe and efficient. So this is really an example of Congress working together to move this process forward.

And the innovations that have come out in the last few years, if we look at what has gone on in the diabetes world with the artificial pancreas, all the pumps and insulin devices, to hepatitis C, pharmaceuticals and other ways, and just so much more, what is going to happen in the next 5 years as we continue to move this process forward?

We had a hearing in the Subcommittee on Health on ALS, and we had an ALS patient before us who just wants hope. So all of that is accounted for in this process.

We, as Members of Congress, we, as members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce have worked together to make the process streamlined, to make sure we have efficient, efficacy, and safe products. Our hope and our prayers from this is the science will come into place so those who testified before our committee with rare diseases will have the opportunity and hope to be healed.

I urge my colleagues to support this piece of legislation. A lot of hard work went into it. A lot of lives can be affected by it. I encourage everyone to vote for it.

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

Madam Speaker, I am proud to be here today. I worked with my colleague, Diana DeGette. We had hearings on the cost of diabetes and on the supply chain, and we said this is something we can work on together. And we did work on it together. And most of those provisions are in a bipartisan H.R. 19, the Lower Costs, More Cures Act.

Madam Speaker, I am fighting for my constituents to have lower insulin costs. But I think, more importantly, I am fighting for my constituents to deliver a cure for diabetes. Our experts say it is not impossible to have a cure for diabetes in the next decade. And we need to continue to push policies that promote innovation, not slow it down. So the Lower Costs, More Cures Act will help patients, including seniors, afford monthly insulin prescriptions without discouraging future investments in breakthrough medications.

I encourage the majority to come back with H.R. 19, Lower Costs, More Cures Act, and let's work together, instead of the rhetoric that we just heard from our respected leader. Let's work together and do it in a bipartisan way, the way we tried to do it in the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor my former legislative assistant, Katherine Fleming.

Katherine served Kentucky's Second District in my Washington, D.C. office for over five years. After interning in my office in 2013 as a student at Furman University, she joined my office full-time in 2016. Katherine advised me on issues ranging from financial services to transportation, as well as my work for the House Education and Labor Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee.

A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Katherine is a dedicated public servant, who cares deeply about helping the Commonwealth. I thank Katherine for her service to the Second District and wish her the best in this next chapter of her career.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the service of my friend and district office staffer Greg Burkot.

A proud Bardstown resident, Greg served the Second District as a field representative from 2009 to 2021. He represented my office in Edmonson, Hart, LaRue, Meade, and Nelson Counties and was a key liaison to constituents in those communities.

Greg and his wife, Paula, have two daughters, the apple of his eyes, Rebecca and Allyson, with their husbands, and their three grandchildren. They are also active in their community and church.

I will miss Greg's welcoming personality, and I thank him for his service to the Second District and the Commonwealth.

I wish Greg the best on his retirement, and I hope he and Paula enjoy this next chapter of their lives as parents and grandparents and as retirees.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S. 854, the Methamphetamine Response Act. The companion version of this bill, H.R. 2051, was led by Representatives Peters, Curtis, and Harshbarger in the House.

Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant that is illicitly trafficked throughout the United States. This dangerous substance is associated with psychosis, cardiovascular dysfunction, infectious disease transmission, and overdose. The Drug Enforcement Administration even issued a public safety alert for the first time in 6 years in September 2021 warning Americans about the increase in the lethality of fake prescription pills containing fentanyl and methamphetamine.

In response to recent trends and alarming increases in methamphetamine-involved overdose deaths, S. 854 would designate methamphetamine as an emerging drug threat and would direct the Office of National Drug Control Policy to develop a methamphetamine response plan. The development and the implementation of this plan will help coordinate efforts across the Federal Government to more effectively address this emerging drug threat.

I will say, we absolutely have to have this in place, but it stops at the source. I was able in early January to go to the border, and I was outside of El Paso--actually in New Mexico, but outside of El Paso. The Border Patrol agents took me to the point where, on January 20, 2021, they ceased building the wall; and they said this is where a lot of the drugs are flowing through, and they were talking about meth, and they were also talking about fentanyl.

Fentanyl, as we know, mostly originates in China, but it comes through Mexico, so it is just a failure of so many different policies. It comes through Mexico and comes across the border. They said because of the volume of people coming up through the border without the remain in Mexico policy and the wall that it is numbers. If hundreds of people are coming, and we can catch 20 percent of them; and you can put fentanyl--I know we are talking about methamphetamine, but it comes together--you can put fentanyl in a water bottle and bring it through.

We are doing this bill today, which is great, but if the CR expires on March 11, illicit fentanyl and fentanyl analogues will be street- legal in the United States. This committee needs to bring the HALT Fentanyl Act to the floor and permanently ban illicit fentanyl. Seventy percent of all overdose deaths in Kentucky in 2020 were from illicit fentanyl.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill. This is a serious bill. I actually had a sheriff from Nelson County, Kentucky, who was visiting, and he said: We can tell the price--because they do the controlled buys--in the amount of money I have to use to buy meth, the cost, I can tell you what has happened at the border because if it is low, it means we are flooded with it because the border is not in control, and right now the price is so low, the only thing that my drug enforcement officers have said to me is that, well, there is no longer any meth labs or many meth labs, if any, in rural Kentucky because so much is coming from Mexico it has put them out of business. So they don't have to go clean up meth labs as they find them, but it is a tough consolation.

We need to pass this bill, and we also need to pass the HALT Fentanyl Act. We need to get control of our southern border to keep these drugs from flowing into the country illegally to begin with.

Mr. Speaker, I have no additional speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

I rise today in support of S. 1543, the Suicide Training and Awareness Nationally Delivered for Universal Prevention Act, or STANDUP Act.

The House version of this bill, H.R. 586, was led by Representative Scott Peters along with Energy and Commerce Committee colleagues Bilirakis, Blunt Rochester, Upton, and Tonko. It passed this Chamber unanimously last May.

This legislation helps promote suicide awareness and facilitates prevention training for students and young Americans. For the last decade, suicide has been the second-leading cause of death for Americans ages 10 to 24 and the 10th leading cause of overall deaths in the United States.

Initiatives that empower students with knowledge of the warning signs and resources for prevention can help in preventing suicide, which this legislation will help to accomplish.

The pandemic has greatly impacted the mental health of Americans across the country. It is critical that we continue addressing these growing challenges and work to prevent youth suicide while promoting the mental wellness of all.

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 today to speak about S. 1662, the Supporting the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the Food and Drug Administration Act. The companion version of this bill, H.R. 3743, was led by Energy and Commerce Committee colleagues Representatives Hudson and Eshoo and passed the House in December.

Unleashing biomedical innovation in the United States is critical in saving lives and maintaining our global competitiveness. We saw how important it was to invest in creating new treatments during the COVID- 19 pandemic, and we need to carry that momentum into the future.

S. 1662 authorizes increased transfer authorities from the FDA and NIH to the Reagan-Udall Foundation and the Foundation for NIH, respectively. Allowing FDA and NIH to transfer additional resources to these public-private partnerships will give the Reagan-Udall Foundation and the Foundation for the NIH more flexibility to meet the growing research demands and accelerate future medical innovations.

And I close with this: I was in Brussels last week. I am on the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. I was with our allies as everything took place that we all saw in Europe.

This is the Energy and Commerce Committee. We have done some wonderful work on these bills, and they are important. But I will tell you, as I just talked about innovation and world leadership, it reminded me of this. We were energy independent a couple of years ago, and I will tell you, people in my part of the country, and I am sure all over the country, are struggling with what they are paying for gas. But I will tell you this: I was with our European allies, and they are terrified about what this is going to do to the oil markets.

What we are doing now is just not sanctioning the Russian oil because we are all terrified of that. So hopefully, the Energy and Commerce Committee will have the opportunity to look at the policies, why we are no longer energy independent and how we can move forward.

I saw the President's Press Secretary, Ms. Psaki, talking on an interview show yesterday. They asked her was the President going to do something to relieve fossil fuels, and her answer was, well, this just shows why we shouldn't be dependent on fossil fuels. Well, the answer is this is why we shouldn't be dependent on foreign fossil fuels when we have them available to ourselves. Of course, the interviewer didn't ask the following question: Well, maybe that is the case, but what are we going to do in the next weeks, months, and through the summertime?

We all know, because we see it on the television, that it is a dire situation. But when you look them in the eyes and you see it in their faces--the Ukrainians were eligible to come to this meeting, but obviously, they weren't there. We did have Zoom meetings with them. But we looked at our European allies, and it is a tough situation.

We can make it better. We can make it better for ourselves. We can make it better for them. I think it is the right thing to do.

So, hopefully, we will have the opportunity to move forward. But the bills that we are talking about today in my subcommittee are important, and I recommend this bill be passed, as well.

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