Conor Lamb

Mr. Speaker, this is my last speech.

The first time that I walked in here, I looked all around the Chamber the way that new Members do, and it really struck me that there are only two paintings in here. They are right behind me now. One is of George Washington and the other is of General Lafayette.

I think what struck me is that neither man ever served in this House, but on that first day, I felt that they were looking right at me and saying, we have a message for you: Don't take this place for granted. Other people had to fight for us to be able to do what we do in here.

On that first day, I had no idea that within less than 3 years, the D.C. police and the Capitol Police would have to fight for us again right here, that hundreds of them would be injured, that some of them would give their lives just so that we can walk back in that night and do our job.

I saw a recent poll that showed that just 21 percent of Americans approve of the job that we do in here; 75 percent of Americans disapprove. And most of us know why that is. We have been in our Congressional districts during a government shutdown and after we fail to pass yet another bill that most Americans support, and also because the bad news about this place travels much farther and much faster than the good news ever does.

But I just keep thinking about how those officers fought for this place. They fought for us. And I think they would do it all over again if you asked them to.

We can take confidence in that fact. We can take confidence in the fact that this institution did its job on January 7, hours after being attacked on January 6. We can take confidence in the fact that since then our fellow Americans have continued to reject so many candidates around the country who are not committed to this democracy.

If I could only make one observation on my way out the door here, is that I think we all have to be confident about this institution and we should be more confident in ourselves.

Our failures are noticed more. We all know that. But our successes are real. And we have to value those successes because they are a credit to people like Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick or to Representative John Lewis or to a young Air Force staff sergeant from my district named Dylan Elchin, people who sacrificed and shed blood for this democracy and for what it means.

The things that we have done in here and that you will continue to do next term reflect the greatness of these people. I keep thinking about these brown cardboard boxes of food that the Department of Agriculture put together during the pandemic. They rushed them to food banks, and I loaded a lot of these boxes into people's cars when I was back in my district.

These were honest and good people. In their trunks, these were people that had work boots and tools; they never thought they were going to need something from a food bank. But it was our votes that fed those people and gave them help in their hour of need.

I could go on and on about the things that we have done in this room that are so special. My staff knows I talk endlessly about the fact that our district was home to the first-ever civilian nuclear power plant, and its successor power plant was at risk when we came into office. It is now secure because of the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Inflation Control Act; thousands and thousands of jobs, clean power that our region needs in investment and science.

I would talk about the teamsters and the miners and how we saved their pension if I had time.

How we rebuilt a bridge in Pittsburgh in less than 1 year because of Federal funds.

How the microchips and hydrogen that we have set aside money for are themselves an expression of so much confidence in our future in this country.

My time is up, so I will just say that I don't want to deny that we have our problems in this country, we definitely do, but I have only been here for 4 years, and it is obvious to me that we have everything we need to be successful. For an Irish guy, that is a very emotional thought, but I have seen it.

When I was a kid, I had this plaque that my grandmother gave me that said the words of St. Paul, which were that we have a responsibility to stir into flame all the gifts that God has given us.

God has given this country so many incredible gifts. I just think we have to be worthy of that. We have to honor our inheritance; and on our best days, for the last 4\1/2\ years, we have done that. It has been the honor of my life to do that.

Mr. Speaker, to all my colleagues, I just say that I am confident in you. I know what you all are capable of and what this institution is capable of.

To my constituents, I say thank you. It has been a tremendous privilege to be here in your name.

Mr. Speaker, if you were in western Pennsylvania for the 2020 campaign season, you would have seen a lot of commercials about what Republicans were going to do on the issue of energy and for energy workers and what Democrats were going to do. The contention was that Republicans were going to make us energy dominant, that they were going to help all these workers and give them more job opportunities, and that the Democrats were going to take all that away.

So here today, we have a bill that is all about energy dominance and energy jobs. If you build pipelines, this bill is for you because of the increased money for carbon capture and hydrogen.

If you make the steel tube that goes into those pipelines, if you work at a nuclear power plant, or if you build things for the nuclear power plant, this bill is for all of you. It strengthens and widens our energy portfolio and gives us more options at a better price.

Yet, today's bill is not a Republican bill. It is a Democratic bill. I wish it wasn't only a Democratic bill, but it will be because when it comes to the needs of these workers and the true need for our country to be energy secure, we are the ones doing the job.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill not only for the important semiconductor provisions but for some of the provisions that are less noticed, including the text of the SUPER Act authored by Representative Gonzalez of Ohio and me which focuses on how to get the carbon emissions out of steelmaking.

It is often the people from steelmaking parts of the country who stand up in support of provisions like this, but this is important for every American. Every American uses 600 pounds of steel every single year. If you think about the roads you drive on, the bridges and buildings you enter, your own car, and your own house, Mr. Speaker, it starts to add up.

There is nowhere in the world that they make this steel without emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere. Somewhere someone in the world is going to figure out how to do that. If we do it here in the United States--we are already emitting less than everybody else-- but if we can get it to zero, then we will have a product that everyone in the world is looking for and is crucial to our future. This bill will help us do that.