Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, AM radio has been an integral part of American history. From FDR's ``Fireside Chats'' to the Emergency Alert System, the importance of this form of media, both culturally and functionally, cannot be overstated.

Forty-one percent of Arkansans live in rural counties, and of those, only 60 percent have access to standard broadband internet. Many of these individuals have long and often hazardous commutes to work. Along many of the beautiful back roads of my district, cell service is oftentimes nonexistent or spotty at best.

I was glad to cosponsor, along with my friend Representative Josh Gottheimer, bipartisan legislation, the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2023, that will require all new motor vehicles to have access to AM radio in an attempt to put the safety of Americans first.

This access has and will continue to save lives during emergencies, improve lives during travel, and support hardworking Americans all over the Nation.

Remembering Mary Mae Fisher

Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Mrs. Mary Mae Fisher, who passed away on Saturday.

Mary was an active member of the Dardanelle Rotary Club and Dardanelle Chamber of Commerce, and she was a dedicated community leader in both Dardanelle and Danville, Arkansas.

For over 50 years, Mary was the editor and publisher of the Yell County Record and the Dardanelle Post Dispatch. Mary had a heart for community service, and her mark on the Fourth District will not be soon forgotten.

My prayers go out to her husband, David Fisher, and all Arkansans mourning this loss.

Honoring the Life of Mark Lowery

Mr. Speaker, I now invite two of my colleagues from Arkansas, Mr. Crawford and Mr. Womack, to join me.

We are here today and rise to honor the life of former State legislator and Arkansas Treasurer Mark Lowery. A Maumelle native, Mark was a devoted public servant. He served as editor of the Maumelle Monitor and the Sherwood Voice and taught communications at the University of Central Arkansas and Henderson State University.

In 2013, Mark began his nearly 10-year career as a State legislator, serving Arkansas's 39th District, where I had the pleasure of serving alongside him. Although his time as State treasurer was short, he was passionate about serving our State.

On behalf of the Arkansas delegation, I want to express our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and staff during this time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack).

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 614, I call up the joint resolution (S.J. Res. 9) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service relating to ``Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Lesser Prairie- Chicken; Threatened Status With Section 4(d) Rule for the Northern Distinct Population Segment and Endangered Status for the Southern Distinct Population Segment'', and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S.J. Res. 9.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of S.J. Res. 9, sponsored by Senator Marshall of Kansas. This bipartisan resolution will protect voluntary conservation while eliminating the litigation-driven listing of the lesser prairie-chicken.

Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a final rule listing the lesser prairie-chicken as an endangered species. The rule created two distinct population segments. In the northern segment, which covers Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and the Texas panhandle, the lesser prairie-chicken will be considered threatened in that area, while in the southern segment, which covers New Mexico and west Texas, it would be considered endangered.

The lesser prairie-chicken is a boom-and-bust species that is extremely susceptible to precipitation in its native range. Simply put, when it rains the lesser prairie-chicken populations grow, and in droughts their populations often shrink.

To ensure a healthy lesser prairie-chicken population, a private, voluntary conservation effort, known as the range-wide plan, was developed and implemented in 2013. At the time, the Fish and Wildlife Service declared that the voluntary conservation efforts being undertaken to be an unprecedented collaborative effort that produced a sound conservation plan for the lesser prairie-chicken.

As part of the range-wide plan, voluntary conservation agreements were formed that allow private landowners and businesses who operate on Federal lands to implement voluntary measures to conserve habitat. These programs have proven to be successful with private industry investing $65 million into species conservation and nearly 6 million acres of habitat conserved for the lesser prairie-chicken.

These investments have produced results. They have resulted in population growth from less than 20,000 birds in 2013 to more than 35,000 birds in 2020. However, the listing puts all of the volunteer conservation efforts to date in jeopardy.

The unavoidable truth about the ESA is that a listing means less private investment which harms conservation efforts.

Mr. Speaker, some people might ask why is it so important that we talk about the lesser prairie-chicken on the House floor?

Some people might say: Why on Earth would the Fish and Wildlife Service move a species from threatened to endangered that went from 20,000 to 35,000 in its population in less than 10 years because of conservation efforts?

What would inspire the Fish and Wildlife Service to do such a thing?

Mr. Speaker, you would think that if a species were increasing, they wouldn't go from threatened to endangered, they would go the other way. However, I think this map behind me tells the motivation behind the Biden administration and the motivation behind this U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to make the lesser prairie-chicken not threatened but endangered.

Mr. Speaker, you see the two ranges here, the northern range where they would remain threatened and the southern range where they would be listed as endangered.

So what is so unique about these areas?

It happens to be where the largest production of oil and gas in America is located. The area that this Fish and Wildlife Service decided to make the lesser prairie-chicken endangered is in the Permian Basin--not just the Permian Basin, but the Delaware Basin and the Permian Basin. It is the richest deposit of oil in our country.

So this is just a tool for the Fish and Wildlife Service to go implement the Biden administration's none-of-the-above energy policy, except their handpicked energy policies, and it is another attack on low-cost energy for the American taxpayer. It is an attack on jobs in America, and at the same time it is weakening our national security. It is making us more dependent on member countries of OPEC, on Russia, and on OPEC+, like Venezuela, all because this administration is using every tool in the tool pouch to stop oil and gas and low-cost energy and safe energy production on U.S. lands and waters.

We just had a hearing this morning in the Natural Resources Committee about how BOEM has delayed the 5-year plan in the Gulf of Mexico and the earliest we could get a new sale in the Gulf of Mexico is 2026. That is the result of this Biden administration energy policy.

The ESA should be about protecting endangered species and about restoring habitat for endangered species. It shouldn't be something used that is going to attack the very heart of our economy and our energy production, that is going to harm our national security, and that at the end of the day it is just going to make prices higher for Americans.

That is why it is important to talk about something like the lesser prairie-chicken on the House floor because this administration made a rule--Congress didn't make a rule--this administration made a rule that said they are going to list the species as endangered that has shown dramatic increases in population.

Voluntary conservation is working, and this listing puts that at risk. That is why repealing the Biden administration's listing of the prairie-chicken is crucial.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would say the only science that went into this decision by Fish and Wildlife was political science. It is all about this administration's attack on American energy.

People all around the world are going to die as a result of food shortages from this administration's attack on natural gas. Natural gas is the main ingredient in fertilizer, and fertilizer is the main ingredient in agriculture.

These are serious problems that have huge impacts to society. That is why it is important that we push back on these ridiculous rules that the administration makes.

Do you think we enjoy coming out on the House floor and speaking about prairie-chickens and bats?

Not necessarily, but when an administration uses that for a weapon against the energy production in this country, then somebody has to speak out against it and has to speak out for the rural communities and the workers across this country.

Mr. Speaker, again, this move by Fish and Wildlife is actually going to hurt the population of the lesser prairie-chicken because it is going to disincentivize private investment that is shown to work.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Jackson).

Mr. Speaker, when an administration takes bad actions, then Congress has to take extreme measures to pull back the power that has been granted to the administration.

I gladly stand behind the statement that it is time for Congress to reel back that power that the administration is abusing.

It is not just me saying that. It is also a Democrat-controlled Senate that sent this bill to the House with Democrat votes in the Senate.

We need to put it on President Biden's desk and let him answer to the American people on what he is going to do about truly protecting endangered species and what he is going to do about energy production in America.

Speaking of energy production in America and agriculture in America, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lucas), who knows a lot about both.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Mann).

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

Mr. Speaker, let's talk about inflation a little bit. My colleagues across the aisle want to talk about inflation. They know a lot about it because they passed laws that put inflation on a steady increase here in our country.

This so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which around D.C. is called the Green New Deal, put money into the economy to push their agenda that has caused prices to increase across the country. Now the administration is doing things like listing species that shouldn't be listed so they can attack American energy even more and drive up inflation even more.

America needs energy. The world needs energy. Attacking domestic energy doesn't mean that the demand for energy is going away. It just means somebody else in the world is going to produce it.

Through their great idea of the Inflation Reduction Act to build a lot of windmills and solar farms, they are now taking American wealth and exporting it to China so we can buy those solar panels and windmills and the components.

China has hoarded the world's resources on minerals and rare earth elements which go into all of this technology. We have that here in America, but it is a not-in-my-backyard policy that my friends across the aisle want to implement. They turn a blind eye to what goes on in the rest of the world that affects the climate and want to put all of the burden on America and on American taxpayers when America is leading the world in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington), who knows just how devastating rules like this can be to the fine people that he represents in west Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Estes), who lives right in the heart of lesser prairie- chicken country.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time and am prepared to close. I continue to reserve.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. Republicans care about the environment. The word ``conservation'' is derived from the word ``conservative,'' and a true conservative is one who is a good steward of the environment and takes care of what we have got so it will be better in the future.

This rule by the Fish and Wildlife Service listing the lesser prairie-chicken is not about conservation. It is about moving a political agenda.

I had the great opportunity to study forestry at--Yale School of the Environment, as it is now called--Yale Forest School. There was somebody who went through that program decades before I did. His name was Aldo Leopold. He is quoted probably as often as anybody in the world of conservation. One of my favorite quotes of his is: ``There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace.''

How applicable that is today in the world that we live in where you have got an urban America that doesn't realize what rural America provides for the rest of the country. They really think food comes from the grocery store and energy comes from the plug-in or heat comes from the furnace without giving any thought to where that comes from.

When you keep attacking the very people who are providing the food and the energy for this country, some day you are going to go to the grocery store and there is not going to be food there. You are going to try to flip on the light switch, and the lights aren't going to come on. You are going to be in a cold winter, and there is not going to be heat. Ask people in Europe who got dependent on Russia for their energy about what it means to have energy shortages. This is serious business.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to think about the American farmer and rancher and the oil and gas worker who are living in this species' range. They are people who wake up before dawn and go to bed late at night, working to provide food and energy for the American people, who have likely made substantial investments to modify their operations to benefit the lesser prairie-chicken and has contributed to the successful recovery of the species; somebody who does the right thing-- they do it day in and day out--yet the Federal Government comes in and says: That is not good enough.

To the extremist environmental community, it does not matter that the lesser prairie-chicken numbers are increasing and millions of acres and hard-earned dollars have been voluntarily contributed toward benefiting the species. They pay no mind to the conservation efforts of these hardworking men and women. Instead, they seek to wield the ESA as a hammer to separate the people from the land and their way of life.

The ESA hammer has come down, and flexibility is gone. That is both unfair and unjust, and at the end of the day, it is going to hurt the very people who are pushing these rules, who think, again, that breakfast comes from the grocery and heat comes from the furnace. They are putting so many burdens on the men and women of this country who provide those things. These are the men and women who didn't work from home during COVID. They went to their job every day so that the world could keep going around, yet they are highly unappreciated and are attacked every day in this country.

This bipartisan CRA, which again was passed by the Senate and sent here, will put an end to the Biden administration's unjust listing decision. I ask my colleagues to support this resolution and return sanity to the ESA decisionmaking process.

Let's make the ESA something that is really about restoring habitat and helping endangered species, not using animals as a tool to move political agendas.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage support of the CRA, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 614, I call up the joint resolution (S.J. Res. 24) providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service relating to ``Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Endangered Species Status for Northern Long-Eared Bat'', and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S.J. Res. 24.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of S.J. Res. 24 sponsored by Senator Mullin of Oklahoma. This resolution will ensure that the northern long- eared bat remains protected as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

Last November, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it would uplist the bat from threatened to endangered. The Service freely admits that a disease known as white-nose syndrome, not human activity, is the bat's main threat.

Why is that relevant? The bat's habitat spans 37 States. Uplisting the species will increase the bureaucratic red tape critical infrastructure and forest management projects will have to go through.

Yet, because a fungal disease is its main threat, those actions will not help the bat. Actually, the actions by Fish and Wildlife will hurt the bat.

The Service is pursuing a preservationist approach to recovering the species by restricting forest management activities, an approach that will prove to be unlikely to benefit the bat but is guaranteed to leave our forests unmanaged, unhealthy, and vulnerable to catastrophic events such as wildfires.

Non-forest management projects, such as roads, bridges, and pipelines that travel through the bat's habitat, will also face bureaucratic red tape. In fact, the Service has identified over 3,000 projects that will require additional permits to operate due to the uplisting.

In my home State of Arkansas, we have a few million acres of Federal land, and we do a great job managing that land. Our Federal land managers will now be focused on the bat instead of managing the habitat that is actually good for the bat.

An example of this is what was done on Federal land in Arkansas to help restore the red-cockaded woodpecker, which is an endangered species.

As you can see by this poster, this is what the forest looks like unmanaged. You see management activity of thinning and burning, and you end up with a habitat that is an open, savanna-type forest that is actually a good habitat for the bat. It is a good habitat for the red- cockaded woodpecker.

With these practices put in place, not only has the woodpecker thrived, but so too have the bobwhite quail, wild turkey, deer, a flourish of new vegetation, and more biodiversity for plant and animal species, all because of good management practices.

They now capture red-cockaded woodpeckers from this land and relocate them to other places. This is a success story, much like other management activities that we saw with the lesser prairie-chicken in the last bill we debated.

When U.S. Fish and Wildlife comes in with an uplisting, it will stop the management, and it will actually create worse habitat for the bat, as well as many other species. This is hurting--let me repeat, this is hurting--an endangered species more than it is helping an endangered species.

None of the actions Fish and Wildlife has proposed will address the bat's main threat, which is white-nose syndrome.

I want to be clear: The CRA will not remove the bat from the endangered species list. Instead, it returns the species to its previous status as threatened. This approach will allow States to continue their efforts to develop effective, voluntary conservation agreements to benefit the northern long-eared bat as a species while also ensuring the long-term viability of local communities.

To date, 6 of the 37 States in the bat's range have developed habitat conservation plans to benefit the bat while providing reasonable assurances to stakeholders that forest management and infrastructure projects can continue. These plans should continue to be developed and implemented.

Again, this is a bipartisan resolution that was sent to us from the Senate. The Democrat-controlled Senate sent us this bill. It is now our obligation to pass this bill and send it to President Biden so that he can sign it into law and stop this egregious action by Fish and Wildlife, which continues to go above and beyond their authority--which has been given to them by Congress--by making rules that are based on political science, not real science.

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

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

Madam Speaker, we talk about the northern long-eared bat, this generation's version of the spotted owl from the West Coast.

What happened with the spotted owl? Radical groups, which were, again, using political science instead of real science, got the spotted owl listed, and they shut down most of the timber industry on the West Coast.

Guess who the largest importer of timber in the world is today. The good old United States. We import more timber than anybody else while we watch wildfires devastate these lands in the West that were ``protected'' so we could save the spotted owl.

We have not saved the spotted owl and restored its habitat on our public lands. It is private landowners who are doing the management to create the habitat that benefits the spotted owl.

This is just another attempt by the Biden administration to kowtow to radical environmental groups and use this as a weapon to stop timber production, stop mining, and stop construction projects.

They are not focusing on the bat. They are not focusing on the real problem of white-nose syndrome. They are using the bat as a tool to stop the things that make America strong, that put America first.

They are using these tools in the next gentleman's district, and he can talk firsthand about how these burdensome regulations hurt his constituents.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota.

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

Madam Speaker, as Republicans, we care about Americans, American companies, American small businesses, and American workers. My colleagues across the aisle were talking about the record profits of U.S. oil and gas companies. Well, they might need to read the news a little bit deeper and look at the profits of Aramco, the Saudi-owned oil company.

There was an article in March of this year that said that Aramco's profits were $161 billion, `` . . . the largest annual profit ever recorded by an oil and gas company. . . .'' Aramco, the Saudi-owned company. The Saudis, the ones President Biden went to and begged them to send us more oil because of his attack on energy here in America. Look who now has the largest profits of any oil company in the history of the world.

That is what these kinds of policies add up to. It is a thousand cuts. It is death by a thousand cuts. It is using every rule, every opportunity that they have to attack American energy, which makes America less strong, which feeds into the hands of our adversaries. Instead of us dominating energy, we become dependent on others to supply energy--OPEC and OPEC+ countries.

How does Putin fund his war in Ukraine? He funds it with high revenues off his oil and gas. We can change that. We can produce more gas and export it to our allies in Europe, but not under this administration, not when they are promoting rules like the lesser prairie-chicken, the northern long-eared bat. They don't do a 5-year plan, they don't do leases on Federal lands or Federal waters. It is an all-out attack on American energy. This is just another spoke in the wheel, another cut against the American people, against the American economy, and against the future of our country.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), chairman of the Ag Committee, who knows a little bit about the northern long-eared bat.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse), the chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard it said, this won't affect the timber industry. This won't affect the construction activities of the country, and I am sure this was said back in the 1990s when the spotted owl was listed. This won't affect the timber companies. Go tell that to the mill towns on the West Coast that were devastated by this weaponized rule.

This, again, is just another attempt by the Biden administration to use whatever tool they can to go against the things that they oppose. It is not based on science. It is based on--it is science, it is political science, that they are trying to push an agenda. I don't understand why they are trying to push this agenda.

Why do they not want America to succeed? Why do they not want rural America to be able to supply the goods and the services that this country depends on?

It is another obstacle that they will use as a weapon that is not going to help the long-eared bat. It is not going to help other species. It is actually going to hurt them when we stop management on our Federal lands and also on private lands where these bats are located.

Again, this is something that is important. It shouldn't be downplayed. I think it is an affront to rural America to say this isn't an important issue, and I think it is an affront to all Americans, even those that believe that breakfast comes from the grocery store and heat comes from the furnace, that don't appreciate the hardworking men and women across this country that provide those things.

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

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

We are having productive talks with our commonsense friends across the aisle on permitting reform. We made some progress in the debt limit bill, and putting some sideboards on NEPA, on pushing back against these out-of-control agencies that are delaying projects.

I would just caution my friends on the other side of the aisle that these rules that are based on a political agenda can cut both ways. Those rules can be used to stop projects that my friends would support, as well as stopping ones that they don't like.

It almost seems like there is this atmosphere of stopping everything. It is what I call the preservationist approach. I believe the central question facing us today is do we support a preservationist approach to not just recovering the northern long-eared bat, or do we support a conservationist approach?

I wholeheartedly believe that a conservationist approach is what will be most successful in maintaining bat habitat, in maintaining lesser prairie-chicken habitat, and helping all of our endangered species if we will actively work for conservation to create habitat that supports these species.

A preservationist approach will do nothing. It is basically this idea that we take a hands-off approach. We put an invisible fence around our public lands and these habitat areas and just hope for the best.

I often tell people that when you talk about conservation, you are talking about being a good steward. It is like being a gardener. It is like taking care of what you have got, leaving the Earth in a better place than you found it for future generations.

A preservationist wants to lock up the natural world and say we are going to keep it here like that piece of art on the wall. I say that conservation is for critters and preservation is for pickles.

The only way we preserve the outdoors with nature that is a living dynamic organism--it is like when you pluck a cucumber and you boil it in vinegar and you put it in a jar, you preserve it. That is not going to work for species habitat. It is not going to work for rural America that provides the necessities that our country needs.

The preservationist approach benefits no one, least of all the northern long-eared bat. By returning the status of the bat to threatened, Congress will be telling this administration that it believes in conservation, not preservation. Again, I remind this Chamber, this is a bipartisan bill that was sent to the House from a Democratic-controlled Senate.

We should pass this CRA, which would put it on President Biden's desk. If he cares about America, especially if he cares about rural America, he should sign this and stop his out-of-control administration.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Dr. Lalit Verma on his retirement from the University of Arkansas Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department.

As a proud alumnus of this department myself, it is my pleasure today to honor Dr. Verma for his distinguished career at the University of Arkansas and everywhere he has studied and taught.

He started in India and continued his academic career at Montana State University and the University of Nebraska. He spent time teaching in Bangkok, in South Dakota, and even made his way down to Louisiana where he spent time at LSU. Thankfully, he made it to Arkansas, where for 23 years, he has left his most significant mark on academia.

Dr. Verma has done an incredible job leading the department and has served in various other organizations, such as ASABE.

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate Dr. Verma for his distinguished career and wish Dr. Verma and his wife Aruna well in their future endeavors and as they spend more time with their two grandchildren.

Food Animal Veterinarian Shortage

Mr. Speaker, as a top-ranking State in livestock production, Arkansas is in need of food animal veterinarians like many other places around the country.

In 2022, 25 counties within my district applied for designated shortage area status. Of the 25 counties that applied, only 13 were awarded the status. Food animal veterinarians who practice in these areas are eligible to apply for the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program, or VMLRP.

Food animal veterinarians are on the decline, and this program is essential to encourage young Americans to consider practicing food animal veterinary.

With the 2018 Farm Bill set to expire in September of this year, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to consider the importance of the VMLRP Program in addressing the food animal veterinarian shortage that poses a concern to my constituents and many of my colleagues' constituents, and also it is critical to the food supply for our Nation.

Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to congratulate Linda Rushing on her retirement from her leadership role as vice chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Monticello College of Technology- Crossett.

Linda has worked tirelessly for almost five decades to serve her community through dedication to teaching, student administration, and academic leadership.

Linda began her career at Forest Echoes Vocational Technical School in 1975 where she was hired as a business instructor. She continued to serve this institution through 1987 when she was named director of the school.

When Forest Echoes Vocational Technical School merged with UAM to become UAM-CTC, she was named vice chancellor, where she has served for 20 years. Linda's commitment to excellence and the success of her faculty, staff, and students at the UAM College of Technology-Crossett has immensely benefited the greater Arkansas community. Her passion for serving others in leadership has cultivated a campus environment in which students can thrive and one that has served the workforce needs of southeast Arkansas and its communities.

I congratulate Linda on a commendable career of leadership and public service and thank her for all she has done for the State of Arkansas.

Congratulating Joe Fox on His Retirement

Mr. Speaker, I also rise today to congratulate my good friend, Mr. Joe Fox, on his retirement.

Joe has had a successful career in forestry in my home State of Arkansas as State forester, directing the Forestry Division of the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.

In Arkansas, Joe Fox and forestry are synonymous. He brings to the table a depth of experience, having served as president of the Arkansas Forestry Association, chairman of the Arkansas Forestry Commission, and president of the National Association of State Foresters.

I express my sincere thanks to Joe for his service and dedication to the State of Arkansas, his knowledge of forestry, and his contributions to the industry. I am proud to say that Arkansas serves as a blueprint for forest management for the rest of the country, and that has been enhanced by the service and leadership of Joe Fox.

Without a doubt, through his work in forestry and conservation, Joe has left a legacy for future generations, not only in the example that he set but also a tangible one: Our forests are better off for our kids and grandkids because of Joe Fox.

Mr. Speaker, I will leave with you a famous Joe Fox quote: ``Trees are the answer. Now, what is your question?'' I couldn't agree more.

Arkansas Is a Wonderful State

Mr. Speaker, Arkansas celebrated its statehood last week. Arkansas became the 25th State of the United States on June 15, 1836.

Arkansas is a wonderful State with a rich history, breathtaking natural beauty, and vibrant communities. From the gorgeous Ozark Mountains to the mighty Mississippi River, Arkansas is a State of limitless opportunities.

Arkansas has changed and flourished since its entry into the Union, leaving its imprint on the history of our country. Arkansas has experienced significant events, overcome barriers, and built a strong and resilient community to be proud of.

From the Delta blues to the world-renowned Hot Springs National Park, our State provides a diverse range of activities that reflect our distinct past. Let us continue to honor Arkansas' diverse culture, customs, and people.

Protecting Our Territories and Friends Is Paramount

Mr. Speaker, the United States stands as a beacon of freedom with a mission to protect the inalienable rights for which many have given their lives. This mission rings from the mountains to the prairies, across our oceans, and across the globe.

This month, the Indo-Pacific Task Force was assembled to evaluate Chinese attempts to usurp our interests in the Pacific. China is a threat to our democracy, and they are attempting to

gain a foothold not only in Cuba but also within our territories across the Pacific and Indo-Pacific regions.

To combat this hostility, our bipartisan team was assembled to support our territories and friends in the Freely Associated States to counter the communist influence.

Protecting our territories and our friends is paramount. I ask Congress to engage in this effort fully, heed the suggestions of the Indo-Pacific Task Force, and work together to strengthen our territories and deter Chinese influence in the Pacific and here at home.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Newhouse not only for his leadership here tonight in setting up the Special Order but also his leadership on the Western Caucus, which is a voice for us on not just Western issues but rural issues all across the country. I am honored to be a part of the Western Caucus even though I reside in Arkansas, which I do say at one time was the Western frontier.

Over its 50-year life, as has been discussed, ESA has gone from being a law geared toward recovering at-risk species through conservation and has now become a weapon to control land and activities through a misguided concept of preservation.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we take a minute here and look at the difference between conservation and preservation.

Conservation, which the Endangered Species Act was built around, is the idea of being a good steward of the resources we have, of taking care of and tending to the habitat of these endangered species. It really is like being the gardener of the habitat.

Preservation is this idea that you can preserve something in the natural world, and you really can't do that. The way you preserve something that is living, Mr. Speaker, is, for instance, take a cucumber. You boil it in vinegar, and you preserve it as a pickle.

Mr. Speaker, what I want to say tonight is that conservation is for critters; preservation is for pickles. The Endangered Species Act, as it was written in 1973, was about conservation and taking care of these at-risk species.

I went back to the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and I want to read here what the people who came before us set forth in Congress in the findings of the Endangered Species Act.

The very first finding was that ``various species of fish, wildlife, and plants in the United States have been rendered extinct as a consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.''

They pulled that out in the very first of their findings.

It goes on to say: ``The United States has pledged itself as a sovereign state in the international community to conserve to the extent practicable the various species of fish or wildlife and plants facing extinction.''

Then look at the purpose of the Endangered Species Act, Mr. Speaker, and I quote directly here: ``The purposes of this chapter are to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved, to provide a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species, and to take such steps as may be appropriate to achieve the purposes of the treaties and conventions set forth in subsection (a) of this section.''

Our men and women who came before us knew that protecting endangered species was all about conservation.

The Endangered Species Act was actually passed as a call to action and conservation, but it has devolved into a weapon for stagnation and leverage for political activism.

The irony is that a misused ESA actually does more harm than good to the animals and plants that it was put in place to protect.

As chairman of the Natural Resources Committee, I have four guiding principles that form my priorities, and they are access, conservation, innovation, and transparency. In my view, the ESA falls short of all four.

The ESA often denies access to our public lands and negatively impacts private property rights. The ESA denies access.

The ESA fails at conservation, as has been mentioned many times here, as only a miniscule--less than 5 percent--of listed species have ever been delisted. It has already been brought out that the Endangered Species Act is a modern-day example of the ``Hotel California.'' ``You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.''

In addition, the act disincentivizes innovation and private investment while at the same time lacks transparency.

We have cases of private landowners who are doing conservation and trying to take the actions necessary to help the habitat for species, and when those species get listed, it is always: ``Hands off. Don't touch it. We are going to preserve it.'' That just doesn't work, and it is not ever going to work. The example is in the dismal recovery rate the way the ESA is being implemented.

We have made reforming the ESA a major part of the committee's business. If we wish to truly help threatened and endangered species, then we must strongly support science-based habitat management, and we cannot tolerate the weaponization of the ESA for political activism.

So far this Congress, the Natural Resources Committee has held two legislative hearings on bills that address

fundamental flaws with how the ESA is being implemented. These bills include three Congressional Review Act resolutions designed to provide oversight of Biden administration rulemakings that represent the true excesses of the ESA. Each of these CRA resolutions has been passed by the U.S. Senate on a bipartisan base.

In addition, three other bills heard by the committee deal with species that have long been recovered, the grizzly bear and the gray wolf, as have been mentioned. These species have been prevented from being delisted due to persistent litigation by activist groups. Even with Republican and Democratic administrations saying these species have been recovered, they are still on the list.

Following these hearings, the committee held a markup on April 27 that resulted in all six bills being reported favorably by the committee. I ask all of my colleagues to join in supporting these measures.

This is just the beginning. This Congress and the Natural Resources Committee will bring forth policies that promote transparency, science- based decisionmaking, flexibility, and voluntary conservation within the ESA.

It is my desire to have a hearing and, hopefully, a bipartisan markup on legislation to allow the restoration of America's wildlife habitat. Focusing on wildlife habitat restoration is definitely the ounce of prevention worth many pounds of cure when it comes to species recovery.

I look forward to working in partnership with Chairman Newhouse and the Western Caucus to ensure that we continue to move the ball forward on bringing much-needed reform to the ESA. It has not been reauthorized in 50 years. Maybe we need to rewrite it and put it up for reauthorization.

Again, Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman so much for his leadership.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the service of Pastor Amelio P. Howard of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Pastor Howard received his calling to the ministry in March 1989 and has served as Pastor of Grace Temple Missionary Baptist Church since being installed as Pastor on May 2, 1993.

Answering the spiritual call to service leads so many people to a rewarding and prosperous life, and that can certainly be said for Pastor Howard. He has upheld his Christian duty to his God, to his family, and to his church of believers for 30 years. That long and steady leadership has certainly changed countless lives for the better, and the Pine Bluff community can be proud of Pastor Howard's commitment to them and to his faith.

Grace Temple Church's motto is, ``We Are The Friendly Church That Loves People.'' That motto is lived by Pastor Howard daily. He has created a church community that embraces, with love and grace, everyone who is guided by God. We can all learn from the Church's motto and from Pastor Howard's faithfulness. As a cornerstone of the Pine Bluff community, I know that I am joined by many in saying to Pastor Howard, ``well done, good and faithful servant.'' He has earned the respect of his community, and I am proud to share his example with the people of the United States of America today.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Pastor Howard for his 30 years of service to his church and his community in Pine Bluff.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the distinguished career of longtime law enforcement Officer L.C. ``Buckshot'' Smith of the Camden Police Department. This week, at 93 years old, Officer Smith will be retiring after over 60 years of invaluable service to the people of Camden, Arkansas.

Officer Smith's dedication to protecting and serving the people of his community goes deeper than just his badge; it's in his heart. His true character has been evident through the relationships he's built within the community he's served for so long. Throughout his record- long career, Officer Smith has treated everyone in Camden with the utmost fairness and respect. He's held the nickname ``Buckshot'' for most of his life, and everyone in Camden knows him as such.

While he will surely be missed by the Camden Police Department, his 60-plus years of service will be remembered forever. Officer Smith is a beloved member of the community, and his legacy will go down in history as one that was built on the Golden Rule to treat others as you would want to be treated.

I'm proud to recognize Officer L.C. ``Buckshot'' Smith for his historic career in law enforcement, and I want to thank him for making such a deep and lasting impact on his community, the 4th District of Arkansas, and our country. I hope his record of service will be an inspiration to all who follow in his footsteps.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Chair, this amendment says that the sense of Congress is that the royalty rates should be 12\1/2\ percent, which was the royalty rate before the very misleading and misnamed bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, was passed by my colleagues on the left.

We all know that it wasn't an Inflation Reduction Act, and they publicly call it their climate bill. President Biden has called it the climate bill.

The increase in the royalty rates was simply another way to attack our energy resources here in America. The Democrats know that. The Biden administration knows that. The officials in the Biden administration know that.

In a bill that they call the Inflation Reduction Act, they actually increased inflation by passing a law to say we are going to raise the costs of energy off of Federal lands. It didn't take the market to do it. It was done by the law passed by my colleagues across the aisle.

If you don't believe what I am saying, take the word of the Biden administration. Earlier this month, the Biden administration confirmed this fact in a leaked Bureau of Ocean Energy Management memo on Cook Inlet Lease Sale 258. This is in response to BOEM trying to do an 18\3/ 4\ percent rate, trying to put the highest rate they could on this sale. The memo reads: ``A 16-2/3 percent royalty may be more likely to facilitate expeditious and orderly development of OCS resources and potentially offer greater energy security.''

The Biden administration knows this. They know that the lower the royalty rate, the more likely we will have energy security and the more likely we will develop our resources.

They choose to use the highest rate possible to do everything they can to attack American energy, to attack American jobs. It is putting Russia and OPEC over the American people because we are still going to use energy. We are not using less energy. We are just using it from different sources.

Laws like this that were passed on a partisan basis last Congress, that were signed into law by the Biden administration, simply put these bad actors over the American people.

It is time we lower energy costs, pass the Lower Energy Costs Act, and pass it with this great amendment by my friend from Tennessee. I support the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the ranking member and appreciate bipartisan support on this very important amendment.

I think this is a sign that we are making progress. This is a sign that America is coming together to stand up against the Chinese Communist Party. We need to stand up not only against them but we need to continue standing up against Russia, against OPEC.

That is what H.R. 1 does. It is a bold step in the right direction, and this is a small part of it. I commend the gentleman from Tennessee for crafting this amendment and for getting it made in order.

I support the amendment for a very good reason: We simply cannot let the Chinese Communist Party continue to dominate and take control of not only mineral supply chains but energy supply chains as they are trying to make a move in that area as well, where they are cozying up with the Saudis. They are working with Russia to buy the oil and gas that we have banned from there.

Their objective is dominance. They have made great strides in the minerals area, and they are working very hard to do that in energy.

The way we push back against China and the CCP is we produce our energy and minerals here, and we, for sure, don't let China come to America and own any kind of lease on Federal lands or private lands. We produce it ourselves. We send it to our allies.

There was a delegation recently in Germany, and the message they brought back from Germany was gas equals peace. They want us to send them our gas, and we have ample supplies of it.

We just need the pipelines. We need the ports. We need the LNG facilities. We need the vessels to send gas to Europe that is much cleaner than the gas they are getting from Russia. It will help bring peace in Europe if they can get more of our energy here.

Mr. Chair, I again commend the gentleman, and I support the amendment.

Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for bringing this amendment that makes very clear a stark reality that we don't need the China Communist Party. America does not need the CCP.

They need us to buy the goods they are producing. They need us to buy the minerals that they are mining out of mines they have developed with child slave labor in Africa. They need us to buy the stuff they are producing with slave labor in China.

But we don't need them, and we sure don't need their money here.

I appreciate the ranking member realizing that. I appreciate that the people are speaking. The House of Representatives is the voice of the people, and I believe this is how America feels.

But we need to go further. We need to put actions to our words. We need to show the CCP that America is strong, that we have our own resources, that we can develop these resources better than they can develop them. We can put these resources out on the world market.

Instead of being dependent on others, we can be the ones exporting our goods, growing wealth and jobs here and being a deterrent to the spread of communism, the spread of dictatorships, and all of those things that we as Americans deplore.

At the end of the day, this is about freedom and about promoting those values that our country was founded on.

Mr. Chairman, again, I support this amendment. I appreciate the gentleman bringing it.

Mr. Chair, again, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania for yielding. I do rise in support of this amendment.

H.R. 1 would allow non-Federal entities to provide money to certain Federal agencies to improve permitting efficiency. This good-governance amendment, offered by my friend from Pennsylvania, would require the Secretaries who accept this money to report on where it came from and how much was provided.

I think there is some confusion about the intent of what is in H.R. 1 about speeding up permitting. Mr. Chair, before I came to Congress, I did engineering work for over two decades. I am a professional engineer, so I worked on a lot of projects where permits were required. Fortunately, we were working with State permitting agencies, and we would hear the same argument from the State permitting agencies: We don't have enough resources and enough people to do these permits. It is going to take longer.

A lot of States have programs where they allow the entity trying to attain the permit to pay money to the agency so their employees can work overtime. It is really a way to increase the resources and get more out of the resources. It is not degrading the environmental protections at all. It is just moving the process forward at a faster rate.

That is what the intent of H.R. 1 is: to move permitting at a faster clip so we can build all kinds of energy; so we can build solar farms and windmills and high-voltage transmission lines; so we can build pipelines; so we can extract minerals and resources here in America. We can process those and we can manufacture things from them.

This is important to making our country a leader in the world by overcoming the position we are in with China on minerals and the position we are in with Russia and OPEC.

Mr. Chair, I support the underlying principle in the bill, and I support the good-governance amendment by my friend from Pennsylvania.

Mr. Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. As we know, this bill is about permitting streamlining, including for domestic mineral projects.

The underlying bill allows for mining projects that have received funding under the Defense Production Act to be placed on the existing FAST-41 permitting dashboard.

My colleague's amendment states that mineral projects that contribute to certain technologies, such as electric vehicles, cannot be placed over and above other mined projects.

This amendment also supports responsible deployment of funds under the Defense Production Act.

Mineral production is vital to our national security, and H.R. 1 creates multiple opportunities to streamline the process for mineral development.

Mr. Chair, I recognize at this time the Natural Resources Committee staff who worked tirelessly to advance H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act.

I thank Ashley Nichols, Rebecca Konolige, Rob MacGregor, Tom Connally, Chris Marklund, Rebekah Hoshiko, Madeline Bryant, Kiel Weaver, Aniela Butler, Murray Miller, Sophia Varnasidis, Will King, Nancy Peele, and Vivian Moeglein.

I also thank the Members of the Republican Conference and their staff for all the work that they have put into this legislation. This has really been a team effort to get this bill to the floor in a record amount of time to address an issue that is very prevalent in our country: to lower energy costs, to make America energy independent, to increase our national security, to break supply chains on China, and to make America be the leader of the world in the future.

H.R. 1 is the first step to that, and we should be proud to have put it on the floor.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and to support the underlying bill.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 1, to include corrections in spelling, punctuation, section numbering and cross-referencing, and the insertion of appropriate headings.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 2 p.m. on Monday next.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of Boebert amendment No. 127. One of the

main goals of the Lower Energy Costs Act is to create certainty in the Federal permitting process for those looking to invest in and build projects that will power our future.

Litigation is one of the main drivers of the uncertainty and delays associated with the NEPA process that holds back critical energy and infrastructure projects. This amendment revises the time frame within which a claimant can file a lawsuit seeking review of a permit, license, or approval issued by a Federal agency for a major infrastructure project, such as a highway project, from 150 to 90 days.

The purpose is to allow critical infrastructure projects to proceed more efficiently without the prolonged threat of a lawsuit that could delay or halt these essential transportation projects.

This amendment still allows a potential claimant a reasonable time frame of 3 months to file a lawsuit and does not impact environmental protections.

I support this amendment and encourage my colleagues to support its inclusion in the bill.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. We have spoken about the link between hard rock minerals and national security today, but there is one resource highlighted by this amendment that must be discussed, and that is uranium.

Domestic uranium is essential for national security, given its role in nuclear deterrence and empowering the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program.

Uranium also supports the United States biomedical community because it is vital to the production of medical isotopes.

As the gentleman has pointed out, the majority of our uranium supply comes from Russia and former Soviet Bloc countries, unfortunately.

We have ample deposits of uranium here in the United States. We just have to mine it and process it, and we need to use more of it to create more nuclear power.

I thank the gentleman for bringing this amendment. I support it.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to this amendment.

Madam Chair, I oppose this unnecessary amendment as it would strike a provision in the bill that reinforces current law and requires the Bureau of Land Management to resolve protests to oil and gas lease sales within 60 days of payment by the winning bidder.

This amendment proposes a standard of accountability for Federal agencies that is worse than the status quo. In current practice, the BLM resolves most protests before lease sales even occur.

For example, when the BLM's New Mexico State office received formal protests for their June 30, 2022, oil and gas lease sale, BLM was able to review and respond to the protests by June 29, completing the process in 42 days and before the sale even occurred.

Once a lease is bid on and won, current law requires leases to be issued within 60 days following payment by the successful bidder.

This amendment strikes a good governance provision that does nothing more than reaffirms current law.

Just yesterday, DOI Secretary Deb Haaland testified before the House Appropriations Committee where she stated: ``Energy independence is a priority to President Biden.''

If energy independence is a priority to President Biden, then House Democrats should not be taking our Nation backward. Let's not undo current law that is actually working.

For those reasons, I oppose this amendment, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in opposition.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Madam Chair, I encourage opposition to this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I rise as the designee of the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Feenstra), and I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise today in strong support of this amendment. This amendment will prohibit the Communist Party of China

from acquiring any interest in American farmland or lands used for American renewable energy production.

China has been aggressively acquiring foreign agricultural and energy assets around the world, and the United States has not been immune to this trend. Our country's food security and energy independence are at stake, and we must take action to protect our critical resources.

In 2013, a Chinese company purchased 300 acres of farmland in North Dakota. This acquisition caused concern among farmers and policymakers in North Dakota and beyond.

This amendment directly addresses these concerns by prohibiting the Communist Party of China, or any person acting on its behalf, from acquiring any interest in American farmland or lands used for American energy production.

It is crucial that we learn from past experiences and take necessary measures to protect our domestic resources and ensure our food security and energy independence.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and join me in protecting our critical resources, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.

Madam Chair, again, I support this amendment by the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Feenstra), and I encourage my colleagues to support it.

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

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the

amendment, even though I am not opposed to it.

Madam Chair, this amendment would require the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Department of Commerce to determine the technological needs for their respective permitting programs and report those needs to Congress annually.

The permitting process can be a significant barrier to economic development and innovation in our country, made even worse if outdated technology and bureaucratic inefficiencies are hindering the process.

While far from a total solution to our Nation's permitting woes, identifying technological deficiencies that contribute to inefficiencies could help Congress prioritize scarce resources to modernize the permitting process.

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

Madam Chair, I rise as the designee of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. James), and I have an amendment at the desk.

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

Madam Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. It is well known by now that foreign nations, China in particular, are dominating global supply chains for hardrock minerals like copper, nickel, lithium, and dozens of others.

China's overwhelming presence in the minerals marketplace is not due to an inherent advantage in mineral reserves but instead is the result of a decades-long strategy to take control of dozens of commodities, from mining to manufacturing.

For instance, China's ``go global'' strategy, which began in the 1990s, included $390 billion in outbound direct investments in the mining sector.

Today, China is the primary global supplier of cobalt for batteries, despite having very limited domestic reserves, through its aggressive investment and processing capacity and foreign direct investment in mines around the world.

China also has billions invested in nickel projects in Indonesia, home to one-quarter of overall global reserves.

Nickel and cobalt are only two out of dozens of minerals that will see surging demand in the coming years. Examples of China's mineral dominance go on and on.

Just yesterday, DOI Secretary Haaland testified before the House Appropriations Committee, where she agreed that electric vehicles and renewables deepen our dependence on China. Congressman Reschenthaler specifically asked Secretary Haaland if electric vehicles and renewables deepen our dependence on China, and she replied yes.

We must not put China over America. We must return our Nation to energy independence. H.R. 1 combats the crisis of Chinese control of the global mineral supply chain.

My colleague's amendment is a great addition to H.R. 1. The amendment directs the U.S. Geological Survey and the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State to identify the mineral supply chains needed for military, defense, and national security purposes that are at greatest risk of disruption because of China.

Once identified, the administration must develop a strategy to bring these supply chains back to the United States, including through bolstering U.S. domestic mining, refining, processing, and manufacturing.

This amendment speaks to the core of the bill under consideration today, the need to increase the domestic production of energy and minerals, a critical part of maintaining our national security.

I support this amendment, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in supporting its inclusion in the package.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Madam Chair, I rise in support of this amendment. The provisions of this bill, such as Representative Graves' BUILDER Act, would streamline the inefficient and costly NEPA process. It is costly in more than just dollars. It is costly to our environment. It is costly in human lives.

As the gentleman explained, we can do better managing our forests. When we keep these forests healthy, we are protecting human life. We are protecting property. We are also protecting the very, very thing that does more to support and help the environment than anything else, and it is our forest.

It is a tragedy that we send up so much of our forest in smoke. This NEPA process, although it is streamlining, will help to produce more domestic energy. It will also help to build infrastructure. It will help to take care of our national forest and Federal lands.

Madam Chair, this is a good amendment. I support it, and I encourage others to support it.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman not only for yielding me time but for bringing another commonsense and good amendment that makes H.R. 1 even a better bill.

As he mentioned, similar provisions were enacted in 2018 to allow electric transmission or distribution facility operators to remove hazard trees that can threaten infrastructure and start a catastrophic wildfire. That is what this amendment was built on.

Madam Chair, I have been to California. I have been to South Lake Tahoe. I have seen the efforts and the fruits of the labor in the field from the work of my colleague from California (Mr. LaMalfa) and our colleague Mr. McClintock, who worked so hard to be able to get this provision in previous legislation.

This has been used to thin the timber on power lines. Actually, these provisions have helped stop wildfires from spreading. This works. This should be added to, and we should be doing it everywhere we can to prevent these catastrophic wildfires like the folks in California and other parts of the West see all too often.

Madam Chair, I support this amendment, and I encourage everyone else to support it.

Madam Chair, I claim the time in opposition to the amendment, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Madam Chair, this amendment requires local units of the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Forest Service to open job positions related to permitting or natural resources, including at local high schools, community colleges, universities, and other institutions.

Madam Chair, I just have to commend the gentlewoman's district. I was recently in the town of Hobbs, New Mexico, and I got to visit an amazing facility called CTECH that is used to educate future workers in that area. I have seen a lot of career and technical education facilities, and this one is second to none.

It was funded by the industry in the oil and gas business. They gave back to the community and built this remarkable facility. I believe they said over 1,000 high school students per year are using this facility. These are the places that are educating these future workers, and these jobs should be advertised there.

We have heard from multiple sectors, including in the energy, mining, and renewable energy spaces, about the permitting challenges they face, and those challenges are magnified by a lack of sufficient qualified personnel in State and local land management offices.

This amendment tasks the administration with performing outreach to local schools and other institutions to help fill open positions in their local offices.

While it is far from a total solution to the permitting challenges in our country, this amendment could help improve permitting backlogs and provide employment opportunities at the local level, including in rural areas.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for her amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Chair, I oppose this amendment, which would strike provisions in the bill to incentivize responsible domestic energy production, create jobs, and reduce energy costs for American families.

This amendment would preserve the higher royalty rates for oil and gas on Federal lands and waters that were just recently raised by my colleagues across the aisle.

Democrat talking points ignore the reality of what it takes to produce energy on Federal lands, while at the same time advocating for increased royalties that will be passed on to consumers in the form of higher energy costs.

The House Natural Resources Committee held a field hearing for H.R. 1 last month where we heard directly from operators that produce on Federal, State, and private lands. Unfortunately, none of our Democrat colleagues came with us to participate in that hearing or they would have heard the facts.

It takes less than a week to obtain a drilling permit from the States of Texas or New Mexico, and it takes over 180 days to obtain a permit from the BLM. That is just one drilling permit. Operators sometimes need 30 to 50 permits and right-of-ways from a Federal agency to develop a project on Federal lands.

It is these delays and inefficiencies that demonstrate why the royalty rate should be lower on Federal lands. The simple truth is, the lower the royalty rate, the more interest there will be in energy production, the greater our Nation's energy security, and the cheaper energy process will be for all Americans. The Democrats know this.

Earlier this month, the Biden administration confirmed this fact in a leaked Bureau of Ocean Energy Management memo on Cook Inlet lease sale 258. Their own memo noted that a lower ``16\2/3\ percent royalty may be more likely to facilitate expeditious and orderly development of OCS resources and potentially offer greater energy security to residents of the State of Alaska.'' That was from the Biden BOEM administration.

Madam Chair, because I believe in promoting American energy security and reducing our reliance on foreign adversaries for energy and mineral resources that we should be producing here in America, I oppose this amendment.

Madam Chair, I encourage my colleagues to join me in opposition, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Madam Chair, I encourage my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Chair, as much as I appreciate Mr. Levin and his real sincerity and work on the committee, on this bill, and his expertise in this area, I must oppose this amendment tonight and hope to work with him on some additional legislation in the future.

This amendment would strike all of the provisions in division B that increase domestic energy production and reduce energy costs for American families. This amendment prevents division B from going into effect until all of the Federal agencies impacted certify that they have adequate funding and staffing to meet the timelines in the bill.

In response, I ask a simple question: When has a Federal bureaucracy ever felt it has enough staff on its payroll or enough taxpayer dollars to spend in its budget?

The answer is never, at least not as long as I have been in Congress and I have talked to Federal agencies.

Even with the spending push by the Democrats in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act--they have stated several times during the debate on H.R. 1 that they have put a billion dollars out there to speed up permitting--these Federal agencies are still asking for more money and more staff, and permitting timelines are still ballooning.

Why?

Because the issue is not an issue of staffing or budget alone. The underlying statutes and the processes are broken, and they must be fixed. That is what H.R. 1 does. It addresses the underlying issues, and it will expedite permitting for all kinds of projects.

This messaging amendment would prevent meaningful reforms in the name of growing the Federal bureaucracy. For these reasons, I oppose this amendment, and I encourage my colleagues to join me in opposition.

Madam Chair, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber).

Madam Chair, I urge opposition to this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. I also thank her as a freshman Member for her proactive work on the committee.

Representative Luna's amendment requires the Comptroller General to have a report on all potential adverse effects of wind energy development in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the South Atlantic, and the Straits of Florida planning areas.

Until this report is published, the Secretary of the Interior is prohibited from publishing a notice or holding a lease sale for wind energy developments in the area.

As she stated, the report must evaluate the potential impacts of wind energy development on military readiness and training activities, on the marine environment, ecology and tourism, including the economic impacts on communities adjacent to the planning areas.

We cannot compromise our military readiness and training activities, which are crucial for national security.

By requiring a Comptroller General report, we can make informed decisions about the potential impacts of wind energy development on our national security, marine environment, and local economies.

Therefore, I support this amendment and urge my colleagues to vote in favor of it.

Madam Chair, I again thank the gentlewoman from Florida for yielding time.

I rise in support of this amendment. The renewable energy sector is a rapidly growing part of our Nation's energy mix.

We have seen positive growth in wind energy and we hope to see it evolve into a subsector of American energy exports one day.

To achieve this goal, we need to promote the development of a strong domestic supply chain for wind infrastructure.

This amendment is a constructive step in that direction and expresses the sense of Congress that we should develop our own domestic supply chains rather than import critical components from China.

This amendment aims to prioritize the development of related industries through port upgrades, cable manufacturing, and hiring of vessels and crews for wind energy operations in the United States.

By promoting domestic production and expanding our supply chain, we can create jobs, enhance our energy security, and strengthen our economy.

Representative Luna's amendment will not only support our energy goals but also promote economic prosperity.

I support this amendment as this policy is a positive step toward the development of a strong and secure domestic supply chain for wind infrastructure. I also encourage my colleagues to support this amendment.

Madam Chair, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 1.

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

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act.

As an engineer, I have learned that no issue is too difficult for American innovation and ingenuity to solve when we honestly identify the problem, develop a sound plan to solve it, and do the hard work to get the results we desire.

The truth we all know is America has an energy crisis. Energy is foundational to everything we do, and for the sake of our future, we must solve this problem.

Energy prices, in general, have gone up nearly 40 percent in a little over 2 years. High energy costs translate throughout the economy, causing inflated prices for every necessity of life, from the food we eat to the clothes we wear to the roof over our heads.

President Biden has said he is working to lower these costs. But his actions are drowning out his words. He has waged war on American producers, shutting down oil and gas leasing, banning mining development in certain areas, and insisting on keeping our Federal regulations permanently stuck in the past.

What are we getting in return?

We are getting more dependence on the worst polluters in the world while we wreck our own economy sending our wealth and jobs overseas.

Our current energy policies favor Putin, the Chinese Communist Party, and despots around the globe over the American people and freedom. Why would our friends across the aisle continue to put the worst polluters, human rights violators, and those who wish us harm above the American people?

No more. H.R. 1 is designed to solve our energy crisis. House Republicans are ready to show the world that American energy--not Saudi Arabian, not Venezuelan, not Chinese, or Russian energy--American energy is our future. American mining, American innovation, American processing and refining,

American manufacturing, and American infrastructure will lead us out of this energy crisis.

H.R. 1 outlines this through a variety of measures. First, it rolls back the Biden administration's oil and gas leasing moratoriums, giving producers certainty to produce resources safely and responsibly right here at home.

Next, given the importance of minerals to our national security, clean energy technology, and a host of everyday uses, H.R. 1 shores up domestic supply chains for commodities like copper, lithium, and cobalt, and allows us to make our energy infrastructure where it should be made--right here at home in the United States.

Every ounce we produce here is an ounce less we and our allies are forced to purchase from Chinese-controlled mines with deplorable labor and environmental standards. And, of course, none of this is possible without modernizing the Federal regulations that delay the projects we desperately need.

If you don't believe permitting reform is needed, maybe you will believe President Biden's senior adviser, John Podesta, who recently said: ``We can move faster by setting tighter deadlines for agencies to complete environmental reviews. We can move smarter by making it easier to approve projects with low environmental impact . . . But Congress needs to do its job . . . So it is time to get back to work and pass permitting reform legislation.''

We are called to be good stewards of our resources and leave them better than we found them. That is the definition of conservation. We cannot say our global resources are better off today under Democratic policies. China is building coal plants at a rapid pace, using slave labor to construct solar panels and develop critical minerals, while Russia is not only one of the worst environmental catastrophes on the planet, but they are also using their energy revenues to fund their war in Ukraine.

We cannot continue to turn a blind eye to these injustices and say, ``not in my backyard.'' America drills, mines, builds, and innovates cleaner, safer, and more responsibly than anywhere else in the world.

Before American innovators and workers can solve our energy problems, we need a plan. H.R. 1 is the plan to solve our energy crisis.

For these and many more reasons, I am proud to be a cosponsor of the Lower Energy Costs Act. H.R. 1 is the blueprint to ease the burden of this self-inflicted energy crisis on American families.

H.R. 1, when executed, will make the United States more secure and competitive on the global stage. Ultimately, H.R. 1 will improve the health and longevity of our natural resources, create a better climate, and spur economic growth and jobs--these are results we should all get behind.

Mr. Chair, you don't have to be an engineer to solve this energy problem. I urge all of my colleagues to join with me and vote a resounding ``yes'' in support of H.R. 1.

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

House of Representatives,

Committee on the Budget,

Washington, DC, March 20, 2023.

Hon. Bruce Westerman,

Chairman, Committee on Natural Resources,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Westerman: I am writing regarding H.R. 1335,

the Transparency, Accountability, Permitting, and Production

of American Resources Act, which was ordered reported by the

Committee on Natural Resources on March 9, 2023.

The bill contains provisions that fall within the

jurisdiction of the Committee on the Budget. In order to

expedite House consideration of H.R. 1335, the Committee on

the Budget will forgo action on this bill. This is being done

with the understanding that it does not waive any

jurisdiction over the subject matter contained in H.R. 1335

or similar legislation and that the Committee will be

appropriately consulted and involved as this bill or similar

legislation moves forward so that the Committee may address

any remaining issues that fall within its jurisdiction. The

Committee on the Budget also reserves the right to seek

appointment of an appropriate number of conferees to any

House-Senate conference involving this or similar legislation

and requests your support of any such request.

I would appreciate a response to this letter confirming

this understanding with respect to H.R. 1335 and would ask

that a copy of our exchange of letters on this matter be

included in your committee report and in the Congressional

Record during floor consideration of H.R. 1335.

Sincerely,

Jodey C. Arrington,

Chairman, Committee on the Budget.

Mr. Chair, this utopian idea of having our cake and eating it too, the ``not in my backyard'' mentality, it just won't work for the economy or the environment. That is why we need change.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, someone who knows the importance of energy to production agriculture.

Mr. Chairman, the rhetoric is just not matching the reality. The reality is that current energy policies are forcing us to buy energy and minerals from the worst polluters on the Earth. Not only are they the worst polluters; they are the worst human rights violators.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Fulcher), who serves on the Committee on Natural Resources.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wittman), who is another member of the Natural Resources Committee.

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

Madam Chair, I heard the word ``rich'' mentioned a few times. I will tell you what is rich is when our colleagues across the aisle project their energy policies onto our plan. Again, the only polluters who are being put over the people are China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

Talk about big oil company profits, I read where Aramco, a Saudi company, had record profits last year, $161 billion in profits. I believe that is the country that President Biden went to and asked them to increase production because we weren't making enough at home.

Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Stauber), the chair of the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee.

Madam Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Madam Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Lamborn), the senior Republican on the Committee on Natural Resources.

Madam Chair, the Inflation Reduction Act that has been referenced here, it did invest in energy companies: energy companies in Saudi Arabia, energy companies in China, and energy companies in places like Russia and Venezuela and Iran at the cost of the American people.

The bill also referred to--outside of the House Chambers--is the climate bill, referred to by my colleagues across the aisle. It did one thing to inflation, it drove inflation up at the cost to the American taxpayer.

Madam Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock).

Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Puerto Rico (Mrs. Gonzalez-Colon), another Member of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Madam Chair, I thank the gentlewoman for her input on the bill and for her great ideas.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I find it ironic that a Member from Pennsylvania, where one of the largest deposits of natural gas in the world resides, would call the producers in Pennsylvania the polluters versus the ones in Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California, (Mr. McCarthy), the Speaker of the House.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar), another member of the House Natural Resources Committee.

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

The ideas of the Republican Party will do more to reduce global carbon emissions than anything that the Democrats have proposed, especially the legislation they passed in the last Congress that is actually incentivizing foreign production of energy.

I remember distinctly President Biden going over and fist-bumping the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Then, this year, guess what? Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company reported the highest profits ever-- $161 billion, for an oil company.

They are the plans that we are putting in place, H.R. 1, that will help the planet. It is not the continued misguided principles that are putting the real polluters, the global polluters, ahead of the people.

It is ironic that a Member from Texas would think that producers in Saudi Arabia and Russia and Venezuela are polluting less than the oil producers and the energy producers in the State of Texas.

Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rosendale).

Madam Chair, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Carl), another member of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Madam Chair, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves), who has offered so much positive input on the Lower Energy Costs Act. He is the author of the BUILDER Act and added so many other great provisions to this bill.

Madam Chair, I checked. We are in the 118th Congress, even though our colleagues keep putting signs up to describe their so- called Inflation Reduction Act, the polluters over people act.

We also know they call this the climate bill. Even President Biden, in his State of the Union Address, talked about the $370 billion investment in climate in the Inflation Reduction Act. We know that giveaway is not $370 billion but now is being projected to be $1.2 trillion in outlays--again, increasing inflation, not reducing inflation.

Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Tiffany), who is the chairman of the Federal Lands Subcommittee of the Natural Resources Committee.

Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Valadao), who understands what bad energy policy does to rural America.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. James).

Mr. Chair, when I see the sign about selling out clean air, I think about the coal-powered plant per week that is being built in China so they can manufacture the minerals that we need here in America.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Williams), the chairman of the Small Business Committee.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Guam (Mr. Moylan).

Mr. Chairman, I yield an additional 20 seconds to the gentleman from Guam.

Mr. Chairman, thanks to Democrat energy policies, Putin, Xi Jinping, and the crown prince of Saudi are the ones that are drilling and mining their way to prosperity at the expense of the American public.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Mrs. Boebert), another member of the House Natural Resources Committee

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentlewoman an 30 additional seconds.

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

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Oklahoma (Mrs. Bice), who knows a lot about diversified energy because Oklahoma has the most diversified energy portfolio of any State.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. LaTurner).

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), another member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Wyoming (Ms. Hageman), another

member of the House Natural Resources Committee and the chairwoman of the Indian and Insular Affairs Subcommittee.

Mr. Chair, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Wyoming.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Collins), another member of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chair, may I inquire again as to the time left.

Mr. Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Duarte), another member of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse), the chair of the Congressional Western Caucus.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Ezell).

Mr. Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Feenstra).

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bean).

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Jackson).

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bergman).

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

It is a time for choosing. It is a time to choose whether you want to be with America or if you want to be continually supporting our adversaries across the seas.

H.R. 1 provides a solution to a problem that Democrat energy policy has created. Democrat energy policy means energy dependence.

H.R. 1, the Lower Energy Costs Act, means energy independence for America.

Democrat energy policy is a threat to national security.

H.R. 1 secures our country, secures our country's energy, secures our country's minerals, secures our country's food supply, and secures our country's future as we move forward.

Democrat energy policy is bogged down with their very permitting processes.

H.R. 1 will relieve those permitting processes. It doesn't undermine any bedrock environmental laws. It actually makes the environmental laws work. It allows projects to be permitted. Green energy projects, American energy projects, roads, bridges, transportation corridors, ports, navigable waterways, all of those things are being held up by the permitting process. H.R. 1 will be a great step toward making things happen in America.

Mr. Chair, I encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 1, to lower energy costs for Americans, and I yield back the balance of my time.