Floor Statements

For the first time ever by Congressional statute, this legislation would legally enable the violent death of unborn baby girls and boys by dismemberment, decapitation, forced expulsion from the womb, and deadly poisons for any reason until birth.

This bill will nullify every modest pro-life restriction ever enacted by the States, including women's right-to-know laws in 35 States, parental involvement statutes in 37 States, pain

capable unborn child protection laws in 19 States, waiting period laws in 26 States, and more.

This bill constitutes an existential threat to unborn babies.

Madam Speaker, this bill is far outside the American mainstream and goes far beyond Roe v. Wade.

This bill constitutes an existential threat to unborn children and to the value of life itself.

For the first time ever by congressional statute, H.R. 3755 would legally enable the violent death of unborn baby girls and boys by dismemberment, decapitation, forced expulsion from the womb, deadly poisons, or other methods at any time until birth.

A significant majority of Americans are deeply concerned about protecting the lives of unborn children.

A 2021 Marist Poll found that 65 percent of Americans want Roe v. Wade reinterpreted to either send the issue to the states or stop legalized abortion.

Of that 65 percent majority of Americans--40 percent of Democrats would ``allow certain restrictions on abortions as determined by each state.''

If enacted, this bill will nullify every modest prolife restriction ever enacted by the states including: women's right to know laws in 35 states; parental involvement statues in 37 states; pain capable unborn child protection laws in 19 states; and waiting period laws in 26 states, and more.

Seventy percent of Americans, according to the 2021 Marist poll, oppose abortion if the child will be born with Down syndrome--with over half of those who identify as pro-choice (56 percent), opposed, or strongly opposed to abortion due to the expectation a child will be born with Down syndrome. Americans seek to ``embrace'' and not ``erase'' those babies identified as having an extra chromosome.

H.R. 3755 overturns state laws that protect children with Down syndrome as well.

The U.S. Supreme Court majority in Roe v. Wade wrote: ``We need not resolve the difficult question of when human life begins.'' Sidestepping that threshold question and giving no benefit of the doubt to the child, they went on to legalize and enable abortion on demand.

For decades, abortion advocates have gone to extraordinary lengths to ignore, trivialize, and cover-up the battered baby-victim.

But today, thanks to ultrasound, unborn babies are more visible than ever before.

Modern medicine today treats unborn children with disability or disease as a patient in need of diagnosis and treatment.

Birth is an event--albeit an important one--but not the beginning of life.

Regarding international law, the bill falsely states that ``Core human rights treaties ratified by the United States protect access to abortion.''

In fact, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the U.S. has ratified, is concerned about unborn children being killed. It states in Article 6 that ``Every human being has the inherent right to life'' and that ``No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.''

It goes on to declare that the ``sentence of death . . . shall not be carried out on pregnant women.'' The ICCPR creates an exemption from execution for pregnant women, recognizing that their unborn children have an independent claim to legal protection, as do all unborn children.

The legislation under consideration by the House today is deceptively titled the Women's Health Protection Act of 2021. Abortion is not health care unless one construes the precious life of an unborn child to be analogous to a tumor to be excised or a disease to be vanquished.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank him for his leadership. And I thank the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. Rodgers) for her extraordinary efforts on behalf of the unborn. It has been, frankly, a team effort, and what a team.

Mr. Speaker, the legislation under consideration by the House today is deceptively titled the Women's Health Protection Act of 2021. Abortion is not healthcare, unless one construes the precious life of an unborn child to be analogous to a tumor to be excised or a disease to be vanquished.

This bill is far outside the American mainstream and goes far beyond Roe v. Wade. This bill constitutes an existential threat to unborn children and to the value of life itself.

For the first time ever, by Congressional statute, H.R. 3755 would legally authorize and enable the violent death of unborn baby girls and boys by dismemberment, decapitation, forced expulsion from the womb, deadly poisons, and other methods at any time and for any reason until birth.

A significant majority of Americans are deeply concerned about protecting

the lives of unborn children. A 2021 Marist poll found that 65 percent of Americans want Roe v. Wade reinterpreted by either sending the issue back to the States, or to stop legalized abortion. Of that 65 percent majority of Americans, 40 percent of Democrats would ``allow certain restrictions on abortions as determined by each State.''

If enacted, this bill will nullify nearly every modest pro-life restriction ever enacted by the States, including Women's Right to Know laws in 35 States, parental involvement statutes in 37 States, the pain-capable unborn child protection laws in 19 States, waiting periods in 26 States, and so much more.

Seventy percent of Americans, Mr. Speaker, according to the 2021 Marist poll, oppose abortion if the child will be born with Down syndrome. Of over half of those who identify as pro-choice, 56 percent oppose or are strongly opposed to abortion due to the expectation the child will be born with Down syndrome.

Americans seek to embrace and not erase those babies identified as having an extra chromosome.

H.R. 3755, however, overturns State laws that protect children with Down syndrome.

Regarding international law, the bill falsely states that: ``Core human rights treaties ratified by the United States protect access to abortion.''

That is absolutely untrue. In fact, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States has ratified, is concerned about unborn children being killed. It states, in Article 6, that ``every human being has the inherent right to life'' and that ``no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.''

It goes on to declare that the sentence of death--in other words, capital punishment--shall not be carried out on pregnant women. Why? The ICCPR creates an exemption from execution for pregnant women, recognizing that their unborn children have an independent claim to legal protection, as do all unborn children.

Many women have been seriously harmed by abortion. The Silent No More Awareness Campaign and many other initiatives throughout this country-- and this never gets reported on by the press, never gets focused upon so people are more aware of this help out there, both within the church as well as in a nonsectarian point of view, to help women who are post- abortive and who are suffering and suffering so immensely.

A few years ago, Linda Shrewsbury, an academic African American with a degree from Harvard, who had an abortion, said at an event right here on Capitol Hill: ``The lies that brought me to that day and to its sorrowful aftermath are crystal clear in my mind--falsehoods and deceptions that concealed the truth about abortion. Lies planted in my thinking by clever marketing and media campaigns and endless repetition led to a tragic, irreversible decision--the death of my first child.''

She goes on to say: ``I really didn't understand back then. At age 20, I had no inkling of the mental and emotional darkness I was about to enter. I couldn't have grasped the immense psychological toll'' abortion ``would take for years and into the future--unrelenting tears, guilt, shame, and depression. After spending many years in denial, I did eventually find healing.

``When I understood and rejected distortions about fetal development, doublespeak about choice, rights, and planned and wanted children, I understood the reality and victimhood of my aborted child.

``I understood the absence of moral basis for choosing to disentitle an innocent human being of life. When I embraced the truth, the truth set me free, and I, finally, gained inner peace.''

She goes on to say: ``It is past time to lance the national wound of abortion with truth. The high culture--thought leaders, media, celebrities--that brought us abortion seem vested beyond extraction. I dreamed of the volcano of abortion truth that could erupt one day from the grassroots--women and men and their relatives witnessing to their suppressed emotion, unspoken trauma, and lived pain. With abortion denial ended, we as a society could then reconnect with reality and life.''

Mr. Speaker, the United States Supreme Court majority in 1973, in Roe v. Wade, wrote, in pertinent part: ``We need not resolve the difficult question of when human life begins.'' Sidestepping that threshold question and giving no benefit of the doubt to the child, they went on to legalize and enable abortion on demand.

For decades, right up to this very moment, abortion advocates have gone to extraordinary lengths to ignore, trivialize, and cover up the battered baby victim. But today, thanks to ultrasound, unborn babies are more visible than ever before.

When a woman is carrying a child, the first baby pictures, those that often end up on the refrigerator in celebration, are of the ultrasound pictures, not of the newborns--they follow later--but the ultrasound pictures of that little boy or that little girl or the twins.

Today, science informs us that birth is an event--albeit a very important one--but an event in the life of a child. It is not the beginning of life.

Modern medicine today also treats unborn children with disability or disease as a patient in need of diagnosis and treatment. There has been an explosion in interventions that have saved children's lives and mitigated many, many problems that they may face when the disability, for example, was not caught early.

Unborn babies are society's youngest patients and deserve benign, life-affirming medical interventions. All unborn babies deserve our respect and our love, not death by abortion.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend from Texas for his leadership.

I do believe and see this--I know it is not represented on the floor of this House when it comes to our good friends and colleagues on the Democrat side, but there is a serious movement in the direction of embracing life, including the unborn child.

Like I said, some of those polls that have come out in recent days, if you just ask the question pro-choice versus pro-life, you don't get much insight. But when you break it down under what circumstances that child's life could be lost to abortion, huge majorities--not just for late-term abortion opposition--but huge majorities in America are clearly trending in favor of life. That is, like I mentioned, those with Down syndrome, 70 percent want that child to be given life. For those who are without Down syndrome, there are huge majorities as well.

On funding, not only the Marist poll but the other polls show as well that 6 out of 10 Americans do not want their taxpayer dollars being used for funding of abortion.

Just a few weeks ago, we passed legislation and appropriations bills, during the summer, that are pending over on the Senate side that would eviscerate the Hyde amendment, an amendment I first offered in 1983 called the Federal Employees Health Benefits

Program Abortion Ban, legislation to say that taxpayers don't want to be complicit in, as I said before, chemical poisoning, dismemberment abortions, the methods that are used routinely by the abortionists to kill that baby.

It is an assault on life. It is an assault on the weakest and the most vulnerable. We need to be caring for the weakest and most vulnerable.

You hold a child in your hand, and especially if you go to a NICU and look at these preemies--and you know that personally, Mr. Gohmert, through your personal experience. You look at those children, and they are in desperate need of love and concern and good medical interventions that affirm their life and not take it. They are just so helpless.

You know, all the glib talk about choice--choice to do what? Kill a baby. I think we have to be so honest.

As I said with Linda's story--and there are thousands of stories like that of women who have been harmed. Often, there is relief when the abortion is over--not all the time. But it kicks in over time, either whatever method was used or just how old would that child be today.

The beauty of these outreaches to post-abortive women is that they are nonjudgmental. It is all about loving the woman and helping the woman. My wife, Marie, and I know many post-abortive women.

Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, had two abortions. She is now strongly pro-life, and she made the statement in a speech where she asked how we can honor the legacy and the dream of her uncle, Martin Luther King, if we murder the babies.

But she and so many others reach out in love and compassion to those women and say: That is over. Yes, the baby is gone, but we love you, and we care for you.

I have been in this movement, the pro-life movement, for 49 years. I got involved in 1972, my first year in college. I have often thought if people just knew the truth, like Linda said in her testimony, they would run out of the abortion clinics.

Bernard Nathanson, the founder of NARAL, one of the biggest pro- abortion organizations in the country, he is one of the three who founded it, along with Lawrence Lader and Betty Friedan. Bernard Nathanson wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that he came to the agonizing conclusion that he had presided over 60,000 deaths, and he became a pro-lifer. He said if wombs had windows--and that is what ultrasound is. We can now see that child moving, sucking his or her thumb. It just explodes the myth that somehow these children are not human and alive.

They have a wake and sleep cycle. They exchange the breathing that they have been doing with the amniotic fluid and building up of their lungs for air at birth. It is the magnificent continuum of life that starts at conception.

Again, as I said a moment ago, birth is an event, just an event that happens in life. We have many events. That is a big one. We all remember our birthday, but it is not the beginning of life. These children deserve respect.

Again, I thank Mr. Gohmert for his leadership.

I say to anyone who may be listening, there is Project Rachel, within the Catholic Church; the Silence No More Awareness Campaign; and all of these efforts being made across the country and the world to reach out to post-abortive women.

Then there are the pregnancy care centers, some 3,000 of them throughout the country, that do nothing but say we love them both. We want mother and baby to be assisted, and that includes after the child is born.

I have gotten to know many of those people. They are mostly women who run them. It is all about love in action. They care so completely for those women and their families, and they stay with them. Some of the women who run them are post-abortive themselves, so they know the agony that could occur if the abortion is procured.

The pro-life movement is all about affirming life in a nonjudgmental way. Like I said, I have been in it for about half a century. We need to do more, and we need to reclaim the protection of life in our law and policy.

The parental involvement laws which would be overturned by this legislation deal with abortion, not with birth control. Just abortion. There is a bright line of demarcation between the two.

I remember meeting with a woman from Virginia who testified here on Capitol Hill, and at the time she called her group Mothers Against Minor Abortion, and the way she discovered that her daughter had an abortion was when she was hemorrhaging in her bed.

She went into the young girl's room and was shocked to find that she was, you know, very, very, very at risk, and quickly got her to the hospital. Thankfully, things turned out okay.

You know, the modest bills that would be overturned by this legislation--I mean, I am the prime sponsor of the bill here in the House to protect pain-capable children. We have had votes on that in the past. Trent Franks sponsored that in the past. That is at 20 weeks. We know beyond any reasonable doubt that at least at 20 weeks, and maybe before, an unborn child feels pain.

Dr. Sunny Anand, who is not even a pro-life pain specialist, has said that sometimes that pain can be far in excess of what a newborn or any less would feel because the pain receptors are so close to the skin, to the exposed area.

When the dismemberment process begins, the arm or the leg or some other body part is literally hacked off that child. Nobody wants to talk about that. They talk about choice. That obscures the fact that it is a violent procedure. As that is happening, the child feels pain until that child, either through shock or death, no longer feels it, then a dismemberment abortion goes on, and they don't feel it anymore.

I mean, I don't like pain. I don't think anybody in this Chamber does. That is why we take analgesics and all kinds of pain relievers, to mitigate pain when we feel it.

That child gets no such intervention, and he or she suffers an excruciatingly painful process as they are being dismembered.

We need a national debate on abortion like never before. The news media needs to cease its enabling of a narrative that is truly false that completely trivializes the unborn child, acts as if they don't exist because, obviously, they do. We need to be, I think, trying to protect the weakest and most vulnerable.

I hope we have many more debates like today. Not less, but more. We need more light and scrutiny being brought to this issue. Many women have spoken up who have been harmed. At the annual March for Life, several of the Silent No More Awareness women have spoken. And what courage that takes to stand up and tell your story, and often with family present to see this. We are really, hopefully, going to pivot.

I respect our friends on the other side of the aisle. I believe that we need to always keep it civil. But, again, those children, they are facing a death sentence.

As someone who is against capital punishment, even when there is a commission of a capital crime, capital punishment for the unborn must end.

I thank you and I yield back to my friend.

Mr. Speaker, my amendment directs the Army Corps of Engineers to provide uniform guidance and to strengthen enforcement of laws that are already on the books to ensure that federal construction projects, particularly on our military bases, are completed with the highest quality workmanship.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO)--the federal government's ``watchdog'' agency--recently completed an investigative report, mandated by an amendment I authored as part of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), that found inconsistencies with implementation of the Corps mechanisms for compliance with important worker protection laws. Today's amendment addresses those problems and instructs the Corps' to fully comply with relevant federal laws and regulations for: building quality facilities--labs, hangars, housing, and workspaces--for our military men and women; providing an honest wage for construction workers; and providing the best investment for the taxpayer.

For years, we have witnessed unscrupulous contractors win construction bids for critical federal work, only to have those important projects mismanaged, understaffed, delayed, left unfinished, and in some cases, rebid--then properly redone by high-skilled tradesmen and women who should have gotten the job in the first place.

There is wide-spread concern that irresponsible contractors and subcontractors hire unqualified or underqualified workers and put them in high-skill jobs for which they lack the needed training and expertise--a practice known as misclassification.

There are two different types of misclassification: craft misclassification and independent contractor misclassification. Craft misclassification occurs when dishonest contractors misclassify high- skilled workers as general laborers or lower wage classifications in order to avoid paying the higher prevailing wage rate applicable to the high-skilled work actually performed. Independent contractor misclassification occurs when contractors misclassify employees as independent contractors to avoid paying prevailing wages thereby reducing labor costs and avoiding state and federal taxes.

These practices deny workers of their rights to critical benefits and protections, including prevailing wages, worker's compensation and unemployment insurance, and communities suffer because misclassification results in lower tax revenues for federal, state, and local governments.

Additionally, the end product is often compromised by shoddy workmanship which can lead to do-overs and substantial cost overruns.

Congress has passed laws to prevent such problems and punish the offenders. The Davis-Bacon Act is critical in this effort as it requires contractors working on certain federally funded construction projects to pay their workers a prevailing wage to ensure that our federal projects are completed by skilled workers who have been properly trained, classified and paid according to their expertise and locality. The Act stands as a check and balance designed to protect employees from low-wage, low-bidding contractors who look to do the job on the cheap hurting the workers and the client, i.e. the federal taxpayer.

When it comes to domestic construction projects, the Army Corps of Engineers, procures more than most divisions of the Department of Defense. According to the GAO, in 2019, the Corps obligated over $11 billion for domestic construction contracts.

Each federal agency is primarily responsible for enforcing the Davis- Bacon protections at its construction worksites. The Army Corps has a lot of construction projects and federal construction monies to properly oversee.

Unfortunately, federal construction projects in my district, including Army Corps projects at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst--have fallen short in oversight and compliance and have run into trouble with unqualified, subpar bidders who avoid hiring needed skilled workers. We have seen cases of sophisticated work--HVAC, plumbing and sheet metal-- needing to be ripped up and redone after the irresponsible bidders failed to properly do the work.

To examine this problem and find lasting solutions, in 2019, Congress enacted my amendment to the 2020 NDAA directing the GAO to study the contracting practices of the Corps with a focus on how the Corps monitors and enforces the Davis-Bacon Act.

The GAO conducted its audit from May 2020 to March 2021 examining Corps guidance, relevant documents about the Davis-Bacon Act, Department of Labor guidance and other relevant laws and regulations. They conducted ``semistructured interviews'' in four Army Corps district offices--Louisville, New Orleans, New York and Walla Walla-- based on the district's activities and representing ``various geographical areas in the U.S. and a mixture of volume and type of construction contracts (e.g. military and civil projects)''.

They interviewed Corps headquarters officials, DOL officials and four external groups including two labor unions and two trade associations.

The GAO said that ``monitoring, including payroll reviews and on-site inspections, are key to ensuring that the Corps enforces contractor's compliance with the Davis-Bacon Act''.

But the report also described implementation inconsistencies across the various districts that can easily lead to gaps in compliance with Davis-Bacon.

The GAO concluded that aspects of the reviews and on-site inspections ``may not be sufficient.'' They found that ``Corps documents lack information'' and said that ``In the absence of directions to consistently document on-the-ground conditions, like the number of employees on site'' district officials ``may not be fully using on-site inspection to ensure contractors' compliance with the Act.''

GAO's final recommendations to Army Corps were that Corps headquarters provide clarifying information on how to conduct payroll reviews and document on-site inspections to ensure the proper monitoring of the number of workers and work performed.

In essence, the GAO found that the Army Corps needs to do a better job in complying with and enforcing Davis-Bacon protections on Corps' projects.

My amendment instructs the Army Corps to provide each of its districts with the guidance it needs to enforce Davis-Bacon. It also directs the Corps to investigate worker complaints and third-party complaints within 30 days of filings and reaffirms transparency and disclosure requirements for certified payroll reports.

With better compliance and more transparency, we will see better workmanship, and a greater return for the taxpayer.

Mr. Speaker, in the spirit of transparency and accountability my amendment directs the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to probe whether the Department of Defense ever weaponized ticks with Lyme disease or any other dangerous pathogen.

Two similar amendments I have offered--one for an investigation by the Inspector General and another by the GAO--previously passed the House but did not make it through the Senate. I offer it again as the investigation and research may help uncover decades-old information and possibly provide some answers for those that suffer from Lyme. Americans deserve the truth.

For years, books and articles have been written credibly asserting that significant research at Fort Detrick, Plum Island, and elsewhere was conducted to turn ticks into bioweapons.

In her book, ``Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons,'' Kris Newby includes interviews with Dr. Willy Burgdorfer, the researcher who is credited with discovering Lyme disease. It turns out that Dr. Burgdorfer was a bioweapons specialist. The interviews, combined with access to Dr. Burgdorfer's files, reveal that he and other bioweapons specialists stuffed ticks with pathogens in a quest to cause severe disability, disease, and death.

Mr. Speaker, Lyme disease and other tick-borne diseases are exploding in the United States. According to the December 2020 report of the Health & Human Services' Tick-Borne Disease Working Group--a federal advisory committee created by language included in the 21st Century Cures Act, which I fought for--Lyme disease is the most common tick- borne disease with an estimated 300,000 new cases diagnosed each year. A figure that many researchers, and Lyme-literate doctors, believe is underreported and could be upwards of 476,000 cases each year.

I also might add that this threat is very real for our servicemembers as they train in the field, especially at Fort Dix in my district where the geographic area has an increased prevalence of Lyme. To stop the spread of these horrific tickborne diseases, we must first understand their origins and how they came to be so pervasive.

Mr. Speaker, my amendment tasks the GAO to ask the hard questions about DOD's bioweapons research on ticks from 1950 to 1977. What were the parameters of the program if there was one? Who ordered it? Was there any accidental release anywhere or at any time of any of the diseased ticks? And the most important question, can any of this information that might be derived from that study, that audit, help current day researchers find a way to mitigate these diseases?

10 to 20 percent of Americans with Lyme suffer with chronic Lyme disease. They have a right to know whether any of this is true, and if any old research documents could be applied by current-day scientists to finding a better diagnostic or treatment for Lyme disease--something that's desperately needed.

If the investigation concludes our government's bioweapons program did not contribute to the proliferation of Lyme, we tum the page. And if it did, hopefully this investigation and research will contribute to a cure.

Madam Speaker, Americans simply cannot afford S. Con. Res. 14--the Biden-Sanders budget that will authorize trillions of dollars in new taxes and spending, and I join my Republican colleagues in strongly opposing this irresponsible proposal.

One of the many egregious provisions in the Biden/Sanders budget will make conveyance at death of a small business or family farm to family members or loved ones a catastrophic tax event--possibly triggering a 40 percent death tax that must be paid immediately on how much the asset has appreciated.

Shockingly, this Biden/Sanders new death tax would not be triggered by the sale of the business or family farm--instead merely taking ownership makes the inheritor liable for the new 40 percent confiscatory tax. Many of those who inherit would be forced to sell the hereditary asset just to pay the new tax.

The author of this massive new tax and spend proposal, Bernie Sanders--Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee--President Biden and the Democratic leadership are ramming this highly partisan bill through Congress without serious consideration of its disastrous impact on families and the economy.

My constituents deserve better than this.

When will we return to working across the aisle in a bipartisan way?

After all of the suffering and economic pain endured by the people of my district and throughout the country during the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Biden/Bernie Sanders budget: doubles the capital gains tax to 43.4 percent, raises the tax rate for many businesses--including at least 2 million small businesses--from 21 to 28 percent and as I mentioned a moment ago imposes a major expansion of the ``death tax'' by taxing unrealized capital gains at death.

Small businesses in particular should not face additional tax burdens as they struggle to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Organizations such as the New Jersey Business & Industry Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce expressed alarm at these proposals, and the National Federation of Independent Businesses stated, ``increased taxes on small businesses mean less investment in employees, less investment in small businesses, and less economic growth.''

According to the Senate Republican leadership on the Budget Committee, the reckless tax and spend plan includes: $4.2 trillion in new spending over 10 years; $3.5 trillion in new mandatory spending; $263 billion in new discretionary spending, and $390 billion in increased interest on the debt.

National debt soars to $40 trillion (119 percent of GDP) by 2031.

Total debt (subject to limit) soars to $45 trillion (134 percent of GDP) by 2031.

Nearly $400 billion in defense cuts compared to current law projections.

Deficits that average $1.6 trillion annually under the plan, reaching $2.2 trillion by 2031.

According to supporting documents provided by Chairman Sanders, the $3.5 trillion reckless tax and spend spree will be ``fully offset.'' Because the Finance Committee was given a broad reconciliation instruction that did not require or disclose a specific level of revenue, this can be accomplished entirely by raising $3.5 trillion in new truces. There is no restriction on the amount of tax increases allowed under this budget resolution or through the fast-track reconciliation process.

Especially in New Jersey, one of the highest taxed states in the Nation, taxpayers need relief, not the massive taxes that will be levied to pay for this Biden/Sanders budget bill.

Mr. Speaker, by executive order, President Biden reversed the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance policy, which was a reiteration and expansion of President Ronald Reagan's Mexico City policy. Announced by Ronald Reagan at a U.N. conference on population growth in Mexico City in 1984, hence its name, the policy was designed to ensure that U.S. taxpayer money was not funneled to foreign, nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote abortion.

My amendment, which was not made in order, would have inserted new text that reinstates the Mexico City policy which was rendered inoperative by the President, and it also would have taken out new pro- abortion language that says that no President in the future can promulgate any iteration of the Mexico City policy.

The Mexico City policy established pro-life safeguards; benign, humane conditions on global health assistance. For years, foreign nongovernmental organizations have been subsided and empowered by taxpayer funds--and let's not forget, this is grant money--to weaken, undermine, or reverse pro-life laws in other nations, especially in Africa, and to destroy the precious lives of unborn children.

The Mexico City policy mitigates U.S. taxpayer complicity in global abortion and underscores our deep commitment to protecting the weak and most vulnerable.

According to a recent Marist poll, 77 percent of Americans are opposed to using tax moneys to pay for abortions in other countries. Only 19 percent support it.

The Marist poll found that 55 percent of Democrats, 85 percent of Independents, and 95 percent of Republicans were against using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions in other countries.

U.S. foreign assistance, Mr. Speaker, and foreign entities that we fund with billions of dollars of grant money should consistently affirm, care for, and tangibly assist women and all children--all children, including unborn babies--regardless of their age or condition of dependency.

Second, Mr. Speaker, since 1973, the Helms amendment has prohibited using taxpayer funds to directly pay for abortions in other countries. Helms is the Hyde amendment for the rest of the world. The bill before us today, however, completely reverses the Helms amendment.

I had offered in Rules a second amendment that would have reinstated Helms. It was not made in order.

Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for child dismemberment, including severing arms and legs and actual decapitation of the baby with sharp knives, or deadly poisons or drugs like RU-486, which starves the baby to death.

Children alive but not yet born who are killed by abortion after 20 weeks or later experience excruciating suffering and pain. And until they are rendered

unconscious or dead by these hideous procedures, the baby feels the pain of every cut.

Years ago, Senator Biden said, and he wrote to constituents, that opposition to abortion funding would: ``Protect both the woman and her unborn child.''

He said: ``Those of us who are opposed to abortion''--again this is Joe Biden--``should not be compelled to pay for them.''

Finally, my amendment on the U.N. Population Fund was not made in order, as my good friend and colleague Harold Rogers had said, this legislation weakens the Kemp-Kasten language significantly.

I would point out to my colleagues--because I offered the first amendment on this floor back in 1984 on the complicity of the U.N. Population Fund in forced abortion and forced sterilization in China. For over four decades, the U.N. Population Fund has vigorously supported, funded, defended, promoted, even celebrated the Chinese Communist Party's coercive population control program.

I met with the head of the Chinese program, Peng Peiyun, back in 1991 in Beijing, almost a 3-hour meeting.

Mr. Speaker, Peng Peiyun told me over and over again, there is no coercion in the Chinese program, even though everyone who has followed it knows that there is, because she said the UNFPA was there, on the ground whitewashing and falsifying the truth.

We are missing maybe 60 million females, women of all ages now, because it has been a systematic extermination of the girl child in China. It is one of the reasons why human sex trafficking has exploded in China, because the girl child has been killed, exterminated, and the UNFPA has been at best silent on that issue, again, giving the Chinese Communist Party a clean bill of health.

Doubling the amount of money that was in previous bills from $35 million to $70 million while simultaneously weakening Kemp-Kasten trivializes these crimes against women and these crimes against children.

Mr. Speaker, this needs to be clarified for all Members who are listening.

The Kemp-Kasten language--is and has been--the law and has been supported in a bipartisan way for years, because we are so unalterably opposed to coercive population control. It says that we will not support any organization that supports or comanages a coercive population control program. The new language takes out ``supports and comanages'' and puts direct, ``directly involved with abortion.''

China is an absolutely closed society. It is run by a dictatorship under Xi Jinping. I have chaired 72 congressional hearings over the years on human rights in China, and many witnesses were women who have been forcibly abducted. Usually only the ones that escape and get here and become asylees and get asylum by our law here in the United States can speak out about it.

So how will you ever ascertain if it is ``direct'' because Xi Jinping is not going to let you in to investigate. We can't even get answers on Wuhan, and this is even more closed than that, quite frankly.

I do hope Members will realize this is a gutting of the Kemp-Kasten language. No matter how you feel about population control, we should be absolutely opposed to coercion. Nobody should be forced.

Madam Speaker, sadly the rule under consideration precludes a vote on the Cole amendment to preserve the Hyde amendment and Weldon conscience protection law as well as other pro-life amendments, including one that I first successfully offered back in 1983 prohibiting abortion funding in the Federal Employees Health Benefits program. All of our amendments were ruled out of order. That is tragic; we are not even going to get to vote on these lifesaving measures.

Madam Speaker, the Hyde amendment has saved more than 2.4 million lives, about 60,000 per year since first enacted. If retained in law, more innocent lives will be protected.

It is time, I believe, for more of us to face the harsh reality of what abortion actually does to children. No one in the media ever bothers to expose the violent methods of abortion that include dismemberment of a child's fragile body, including decapitation; that drugs like RU-486 starve the baby to death; or that unborn babies killed by abortion at 20 weeks or later experience excruciating physical pain, and until rendered unconscious or dead by

these hideous procedures, the baby feels the pain of every single cut.

Madam Speaker, abortion is not healthcare unless one construes the precious life of an unborn child to be analogous to a tumor to be excised or a disease to be vanquished.

Mr. Biden once wrote to constituents explaining his support for laws against funding for abortion by saying, ``It would protect both the woman and her unborn child.'' He went on to say that ``those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.''

Over the years, the polls have consistently shown that Americans do not support taxpayer funding of abortion. The January 2021 Marist poll found that 58 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion as opposed to 38 percent who support it. The Marist poll also found a supermajority of 65 percent Independents oppose taxpayer funding of abortion.

Madam Speaker, unborn babies need the President of the United States of America and Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to be their friends and advocates, not powerful adversaries.

Madam Speaker, the bill under consideration removes several longstanding pro-life protections and advances provisions that would force U.S. taxpayers to pay for abortion-on- demand.

It removes the Hyde Amendment which protects federal taxpayers from being forced to fund elective abortions--an agreement that has received bipartisan support since 1976. It also removes the Weldon Amendment which prevents discrimination against health care providers who do not want to participate in abortion.

Similarly, the rule under consideration precludes even a vote on the Cole amendment,

which would restore the Hyde Amendment and the Weldon Amendment.

The rule also denies a vote to my amendment, which would restore a law I authored in 1983--38 years ago--prohibiting funding of abortion under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Like the Hyde Amendment, that law must be renewed every year.

A total of 14 pro-life amendments were ruled out of order by the Democratic majority.

All is not lost, however. I remain hopeful--confident--that the Senate will reinstate all current pro-life protections, like the Hyde Amendment.

Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize abortion nor should anyone or any entity be coerced against their conscience to perform or facilitate the killing of an unborn child.

The Hyde Amendment has saved more than 2.4 million lives--about 60,000 per year since it was first enacted.

If retained in law, more innocent lives will be protected.

It is time, I believe, for more of us to face the harsh reality of what abortion actually does to children and look beyond the sound bites and slogans.

No one in the media ever bothers to expose the violent methods of abortion that include dismemberment of a child's fragile body, including decapitation, and that one of the drugs in RU-486 starves the baby to death.

Or that unborn babies killed by abortion at 20 weeks or later experience excruciating suffering and physical pain. And until rendered unconscious or dead by these hideous procedures, the child feels the pain of every cut according to medical experts in life-enhancing prenatal surgery.

Abortion is not health care unless one construes the precious life of an unborn child to be analogous to a tumor to be excised or a disease to be vanqulshed--pregnancy is not a disease.

Mr. Biden once wrote constituents, explaining his support for laws against funding for abortion, by saying ``it would protect both the woman and her unborn child.''

Mr. Biden went on to say ``those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.'' I agree. Most Americans agree.

Over the years, the polls have consistently shown that Americans do not support taxpayer funded abortion.

The January 2021 Marist poll found that by a margin of 58 percent to 38 percent Americans oppose taxpayer funded abortion.

The Marist poll found that a supermajority of 65 percent of Independents oppose taxpayer funding of abortion.

Unborn babies need the President of the United States and Members of Congress to be their friend and advocate, not powerful adversaries.

Madam Speaker, I have three amendments that I am asking our colleagues to support. They are bipartisan amendments.

The first is a redirection of $3 million to the Centers for Disease Control for Lyme disease. I would point out to my colleagues that I have been working on Lyme disease issues since 1992, and we tried very hard for years to get a federal working group up and running. And in 2016, we did it.

The Health and Human Services Tick-Borne Disease Working Group found that there are about 300,000 new cases of Lyme every year. The higher estimate or guesstimate is 476,000 cases each year. It is exploding all over this country, particularly in the northeast where the chair, obviously, comes from, as do I. It is highly endemic in New Jersey. This additional money brings the total to $24 million for CDC to work on issues related to Lyme.

Amendment 51, the second amendment, has do with LymeX. It provides $5 million, through give and take, and underscores that we really believe the LymeX Innovation Accelerator will help find new diagnostics, research, and treatments.

What the working group found and then what an NIH document produced by Secretary Azar, and others, found, was that we really don't have a diagnostic that works. We don't have a Lyme testing capability that is reliable and affordable.

And, finally, years ago I founded, along with my good friend and colleague, Mike Doyle, the Autism Caucus. We have been leading it for over 20 years. We have done a number of bills, including the Autism CARES Act, that have become law. Amendment 52 would provide $10 million to help the CDC's developmental disabilities account to expand the Autism Developmental Disability Monitoring Network, or ADDM, and at least nine new sites could be established.

Madam Speaker, the ADDM network has been incredible in tracking children and young people to help us understand the prevalence. You can't combat something if there is no solid data. This ADDM network has been a tremendous asset. This amendment would expand it. So I thank my friend for yielding and I thank the committee chair for her support. I thank the Rules Committee for having made the amendments in order. It will make a difference.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Refugee Sanitation Facility Safety Act.

I commend my colleagues, Representative Meng and Chairman Meeks, for their work on this issue.

Around the world, we are seeing unprecedented levels of displacement due to conflict and humanitarian disasters. Unfortunately, many of these crises have gone on for many years, even decades, like we have seen in South Sudan.

I would just note, parenthetically, my good friend Karen Bass and I have been to refugee camps throughout Africa and have seen the great work that is done by the United States, working with the UNHCR and other international organizations, literally saving people who otherwise would die of starvation or sickness, so what a great humanitarian effort made by this country and by others, including the

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

I rise today in support of the Divided Families Reunification Act. The sorrowful legacy of the Korean war is with us even today, almost 70 years after the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed.

The Korean peninsula remains divided between a nation of free people and a nation that subjects its people to utter tyranny.

The barbaric Kim regime continues to threaten the peace and security of South Korea, the region, and even the world.

And families remain broken, from those still fighting to bring their loved ones' remains home, to those with family members trapped in North Korea. This is an attempt to try to say let's get this moving to try to get those families reunited.

Our vibrant Korean-American community, led by groups such as the Korean American Grassroots Conference,

feels this legacy strongly, so I commend Congresswoman Meng for introducing this legislation which directs the State Department to consult with South Korea and Korean Americans on opportunities to reunite families separated by the DMZ.

I also trust that the State Department will be vigilant in ensuring that organizations with ties to North Korea will not be exploiting the desire of these families to be reunited with their loved ones to raise hard currency for the Kim regime.

Mr. Speaker, with that in mind, I urge support for the bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Kim), the vice ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific and an original cosponsor of this legislation.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 294, which reaffirms the House's commitment to support our Korean-American families seeking to reunite with relatives who are trapped in North Korea.

The resolution, authored by my good friend and colleague, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Bass), rightly observes that family reunification is a humanitarian priority.

As she points out, it calls on the United States and North Korea to begin the process of reuniting North Korean and Korean-American divided family members with their immediate relatives through ways such as--and I quote from the resolution:

``Identifying divided families in the United States and North Korea who are willing and able to participate in a pilot program for family reunions;

``Finding matches for members of such families through organizations such as the Red Cross; and

``Working with the Government of South Korea to include American citizens in inter-Korean video reunions;

``Reaffirms the institution of the family as inalienable and, accordingly, urges the restoration of contact between divided families physically, literarily, or virtually.''

Mr. Speaker, it is a very, very good resolution. I thank my good friend and colleague for authoring it. I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Securing America From Epidemics Act.

I thank my colleagues, Congressmen Bera and Fitzpatrick, for introducing this bill and for their work to address this important issue.

COVID-19 has shown once again that pandemics know no borders, and that the United States and the world must be better prepared to respond to disease outbreaks, including pandemics, around the world.

The bill authorizes the United States to participate in the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, an alliance of countries and private partners that are financing and coordinating the developing of new vaccines for infectious diseases.

In addition to COVID-19, CEPI has developed a list of priority diseases with epidemic potential, including MERS, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

By leveraging contributions from member states with expertise and funding by private partners, CEPI seeks to develop vaccines before a disease outbreak occurs.

I would note, parenthetically, that in October of 2020, the Trump administration gave CEPI a $20 million grant to advance its work.

Mr. Speaker, according to the Johns Hopkins Resource Center, COVID-19 has killed over 4,092,000 people worldwide, including 609,000 in the United States and in my home State of New Jersey, 26,545 deaths, the most COVID-19 deaths per capita in the United States.

The pandemic could cost the global economy approximately $10 trillion, or more than 12 percent of global GDP. The loss of jobs and businesses is unprecedented in modern times. And all of us know it from our case work working with our local businesses. This has been an incredibly horrible pandemic, and we have to make sure it is never repeated.

Developing vaccines and treatment for emerging infectious diseases is not just an issue of individual health, but it is important to national security, including economic security.

Our committee has worked together on many pieces of legislation over the last several months in response to COVID-19. The SAFE Act, for example, is an example of this kind of bipartisan effort.

I urge all my colleagues who believe we must do all we can to prevent another pandemic like COVID-19 from emerging in the future to support this legislation.

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 strong support of the Desert Locust Control Act, a bill I introduced along with my good friend and colleague, Representative Karen Bass of California, and we have worked on this issue together for quite a long time trying to mitigate its impact that it is having, particularly on Africa.

I thank Representatives Meeks and McCaul for their work in ensuring that this legislation is on the floor today so that we can vote on it and hopefully see it enacted into law.

Mr. Speaker, this bill will establish--and this is the core of it--an interagency working group to develop a comprehensive, strategic plan to control locust outbreaks in the East Africa region and address future outbreaks in order to avert famine, starvation, and mass scale food insecurity and potential political destabilization that goes along with all of that.

According to USAID: ``The desert locust is one of the most destructive migratory pests in the entire world, rapidly consuming most vegetation in its path, including crops and pastureland critical to maintaining the food security and livelihoods of populations in East Africa. Locust swarms are highly mobile and carried on the wind; swarms can travel up to 100 miles per day, and even a relatively small, 0.4 square mile-sized swarm can consume an amount of food sufficient for approximately 35,000 people in one day.''

As recently as July 6, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, has said that ``a desert locust upsurge is still underway in the Greater Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula,'' and that ``although substantial control operations are underway, the battle to control the desert locust is not yet over.''

The World Bank notes that: ``A new generation of locusts emerges every eight weeks. Each generation, on average, sees a 20-fold increase in the population. The growing swarms spread to new areas, disrupting the food supply, upending livelihoods and requiring substantial resources to address.''

Mr. Speaker, I believe there are three very important reasons to support this bill.

The first is an obligation that we have to mitigate suffering wherever we are able to do so, and prevent starvation, famine, food insecurity, and stunting. Stunting increases when food is not available to young people especially during the first thousand days of life from conception to the second birthday.

The second is our strategic U.S. national interest. Food insecurity causes instability, as we saw with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt a decade ago. Here, the Horn of Africa is vitally important, and we see an area wracked by war and violence, be it the war in the Tigray region of Ethiopia and ethnic violence elsewhere in that strategically important country, or Al-Shabaab's efforts in neighboring Somalia to establish a radical terror regime. On top of this political chaos then is the food crisis caused by locusts, compounded by the ongoing COVID concerns.

The third is that this legislation is both penny-wise and pound-wise. The bill calls for greater intergovernmental coordination so that we don't waste resources through redundant efforts but work in a highly coordinated fashion. Further, by addressing the food insecurity problem at the source, the locusts, we mitigate the need down the road to provide disaster and humanitarian assistance, which is more costly not only in terms of dollars, but most importantly in terms of human lives.

I would further note that just last week Administrator Samantha Power addressed the Foreign Affairs Committee, and she addressed how spending a little money up front can save more down the road, while underscoring there is much work to be done.

She said: ``We have treated more than 5 million acres of infested lands since 2020``--and the last administration and this administration is very focused, I would say parenthetically, on this--``preventing the loss of four million metric tons of crops. That's $1.2 billion worth of crop yields that were saved by virtue of this effort. I gather that things got better and now are turning downward again, so that is something that has my attention.''

She went on to say: ``Whether it is providing surveillance, aircraft training, pesticides, and training about how to use the pesticides in order to avoid environmental damage and so forth--it is a very important enabling complement to the other work we do on food security.''

Finally, I would like to call attention to the yeoman's work that was done by our past ambassador to the United Nations Food Agencies, Kip Tom. This is an absolutely critical position that tends to be overlooked.

He advised us, provided unbelievably important insights and information that helped us craft a response to push the previous administration to do more. And, hopefully, this will help coordinate everything.

I would note, parenthetically, that President Biden has nominated Cindy McCain to fill that role at FAO, and I look forward to working with her and the rest of the administration on this important initiative.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to close.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I thank my good friend and colleague, Congresswoman Karen Bass, the chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations. We have worked so close on so many issues. Sometimes she takes the lead; sometimes I take the lead, but we are always striving for that same outcome, and I thank her for her great support for this. It really is an honor to work with the gentlewoman.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the Rewards for Justice Act introduced by our good friends, Joe Wilson and Congressman Deutch. It is a good bipartisan bill, and I think it will really make a difference.

The bill would expand the Rewards for Justice program at the State Department to authorize rewards for individuals coming forward with information on sanctions evasion practices.

The bill was inspired by Bassam Barabandi, a Syrian defector and former diplomat at the Syrian embassy in Washington, who worked to provide passports to critics of the criminal Assad regime.

For years after his defection, Bassam lobbied the U.S. Government with information on Syrian oligarchs close to Assad, detailing their sanctions evasion practices. Bassam's assistance highlighted the need to create a clear mechanism to incentivize individuals to come forward with this kind of vital information.

The legislation will do just that and ultimately enhance compliance with U.S. and international sanctions, increase confidence in the rule of law, and bring criminals and rogue regimes seeking to circumvent U.S. law to justice.

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

Madam Speaker, more than 20 peer-reviewed studies show that more than 2.4 million people are alive today in the United States because of the Hyde amendment, with about 60,000 babies spared death by abortion each and every year.

Over 2.4 million girls and boys who would have been aborted instead survived because taxpayer funding was unavailable to effectuate their violent demise. Growing numbers of Americans, Madam Speaker, continue to be shocked to learn that the methods of abortion include dismemberment of a child's fragile body, including decapitation, and that drugs like RU-486 starve the baby to death before he or she is forcibly expelled from the womb. There is nothing benign or compassionate about abortion methods.

The multibillion-dollar abortion industry cleverly markets the sophistry of choice while going to extraordinary lengths to ignore, trivialize, and cover up the battered baby victim. By reason of their age, dependency, immaturity, inconvenience, fragility, and unwantedness, unborn children have been denied justice and the most fundamental of all human rights, the right to life.

The right to life, Madam Speaker, is for everyone, not just the planned, the privileged, and the perfect.

Ultrasound has not only been an amazing diagnostic tool for treating disease and disability before birth, it has also made the unborn baby more visible. Today, for many expectant moms, first baby pictures aren't of their precious newborn baby, but of ultrasound imaging photos and videos chronicling the amazing miracle of their child's journey before birth.

Madam Speaker, 166 Members of Congress have cosponsored my bill, H.R. 18, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, to make the Hyde amendment and other current abortion funding prohibitions permanent.

According to public opinion polls, most Americans, by a decisive margin of 58 percent to 38 percent in a recent Marist Poll, agree that taxpayers should not, I say again, should not be compelled against their conscience to fund abortion.

Years ago, then-Senator Joe Biden wrote to constituents explaining his support for the Hyde amendment and said it would ``protect both the woman and her unborn child.''

He said in another letter, ``I have consistently--on no fewer than 50 occasions--voted against Federal funding of abortions. Those who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them.''

So says Joe Biden in the past.

I wholeheartedly agree. Those of us opposed to abortion should not be compelled or forced to pay for them.

Madam Speaker, someday future generations of Americans will look back and wonder how and why such a seemingly smart, enlightened, and compassionate society could have enabled and facilitated the extermination of over 62.5 million children, a number of child

deaths that equates with the entire population of Italy.

So with deep respect for my colleagues, I believe unborn children need the President of the United States and Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to be their friends and advocates, not powerful adversaries.