Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 10 p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, February 11, 2026, at 11 a.m.

Mr. Speaker, 20 years ago this spring, there was a Cinderella moment in southeast Kansas. The Iola High School girls' basketball team, known as the Fillies, won the 2006 Kansas State High School Activities Association Class 4A State basketball championship. This came on top of a remarkable 24-2 season.

As a Kansas State senator at the time, I had the privilege of sponsoring a resolution in our State legislature to commend the team's win and to host the team at the Kansas State House to see the resolution's unanimous adoption.

A week ago, on the 20th anniversary, the community in Iola came together and inducted that 2006 team into the Iola High School's Don Bain Hall of Fame. Believe me, Mr. Speaker, the community has not forgotten what they accomplished.

The auditorium was packed. Former classmates and teachers came home to join in the celebration. Back in 2006, the student members of this outstanding basketball team received statewide recognition for their fine sportsmanship and athletic accomplishments. At the Hall of Fame induction last week, the team was also recognized for the ongoing camaraderie and success of its members in the years since.

As I said in the Kansas State House back in 2006, the team did an outstanding job of representing Allen County and southeast Kansas in the State tournament. I am very proud of their achievements, and I am honored to say in the United States Capitol today, 20 years later, I continue to be very proud of this team, the young women who composed it, and the community who supported it.

Congratulations, Fillies.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to add my voice to those thanking our colleague from Missouri for her leadership on this work. It has been a pleasure to work with her and with our colleagues on the other side. It has been an honor to help lead the support for what she is trying to get done here.

Mr. Speaker, in my State, we dealt with this issue a number of years ago, and it is a policy fight that is separate from what we are doing here today. We actually ultimately decided to move our State-based crime victim support programs into appropriated support from our general fund and deposit all of these erratic streams from the court system into the general fund so that the risk of funding was shifted onto the State generally and not borne by those who rely on the services in particular.

That is a discussion for another day.

I share it today because for me, at least, this brings back memories of a time when we were wrestling with the same issue back home.

Mr. Speaker, how do you look a rape victim or a domestic violence victim in the eye and tell them that the good folks in your community, the advocates and the supporters of domestic violence services or rape crisis centers or child advocacy centers who want to be there to help you in your time of greatest need may not be there because their government didn't pay the bills?

The lights aren't on. The staff wasn't paid, so they left. That is where we are writ large in this subject matter, and we are there because of the vagaries in the recovery cycle and all kinds of things that happen in the court system that generate these revenue streams. This is a way to put our finger in the dam until we figure out longer term how we provide that sort of certainty.

There are a lot of different groups of crime victims. By the way, none of them asked to be crime victims. They didn't wake up and expect to be victimized. They have had a terrible moment thrust upon them by somebody else's actions, and they are in a time of need where they need help. That is what advocates do in these support services. That is what this money goes for.

This helps a lot of different types of crime victims. I will share a couple of moments in my last minute or so here about the work of the child advocacy centers that this supports. I have often said in the work I did when I was a State legal official, we did a lot of work with crime victims, child crime victims, supporting our child advocacy centers, and prosecuting criminal cases under State law against offenders who committed terrible crimes against children.

I have often described it to people this way: It is not like on TV in the crime shows.

When the victim is an 8-year-old child or a 7-year-old child, and when what happened to them was some form of sexual abuse, the odds are about 90-10 that the offender is somebody that the child knew and trusted.

It is rare that it is a stranger offense with little kids. That is because that is how the offender got access to the child.

Mr. Speaker, on our watch, we prosecuted parents, we prosecuted grandparents, we prosecuted ministers, and we prosecuted coaches.

Mr. Speaker, the only evidence you have is what that child can testify to in front of a bunch of strangers in a jury box, a judge in a dark robe, and people in our adversarial system because you rarely have physical evidence in these cases. We sometimes, but rarely, have extraneous evidence.

That child has to be able to testify, or justice is never done, and that child cannot testify if he or she has not had the support and services of victim advocates at, for example, a child advocacy center to bring them to the point they can tell truthfully what happened to them.

This bill is about justice, and I am proud to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman and the ranking member for this debate on the floor today.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 2965, the Small Business Regulatory Reduction Act of 2025.

I certainly join those remarks of my colleagues on this side who have advocated for the bill. I would like to back up a bit and talk more generally about regulatory burden and how this bill is an important step in dealing with a much larger problem.

The chart on my right shows the number of pages in the Federal Register. The year I was born, 1968, there were about 50,000 pages. Today there are almost 200,000 pages. In my lifetime, the number of rules and regulations written by unelected Federal bureaucrats, the people in the real world that we all represent--in my case in eastern Kansas--must comply with, has quadrupled.

I will guarantee you, Mr. Speaker, that is a silent tax increase on every American and every small business in all of our States.

The estimated regulatory compliance cost for businesses in the United States is about $3 trillion per year. As has been mentioned, about $1.8 trillion of that was added in just the 4 years of the prior administration. To put that in context, the entire Federal budget is about $7 trillion per year.

Do you know what the difference is between a tax and a regulatory command, Mr. Speaker? With a tax, the Federal Government says to, in this case, a small business owner: Give me your money, and we will spend it on priorities that we decide. With a regulation, the Federal Government says to that same small business owner: You take your money and spend it on the priorities that we decide. Not on hiring more people, not on growing and expanding, not on giving charitable support in our communities, not on doing all of the things that small businesses do, but as people in this town have decided. That is what is at stake here. That is why we have to take this action.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this measure because it is one step toward peaking that mountain of regulation, making small businesses freer to do what they do, making life more affordable to all the people I represent who buy and sell on Main Street each and every day.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in support today of H.R. 4305, the DUMP Red Tape Act.

I am back again on this subject with this chart that shows the growth and the number of pages in the Federal Register where all of the Federal regulations are published. It is where they are codified. That is where you go to look them up, and the number of pages has quadrupled in my lifetime.

Let me just offer a couple of thoughts on how this bill is, in my view, important for small businesses to get at that problem of the creeping weight of Federal overregulation.

In my district, the Second District of Kansas, the eastern part of the State, it is, more or less, 80 percent of the small businesses in the State employ 20 or fewer people. Eighty percent of them are really small businesses. There are about 93 percent if you go under 500 employees. For a lot of us that sounds like a big number, in my part of the world, but under 20 employees, that is a small business. Those are the Main Street businesses we are talking about.

I talk with a lot of people that own those businesses, that work in those businesses. They are all active in their communities. They support everything from the local sports team to the local charity to the local school's foundation. That is what they are focused on: making a living, making their business work, whatever it is they do: providing professional services, other services, retail items, manufacturing items. That is what they are focused on.

They are not focused on this. They don't have an army of compliance attorneys and compliance consultants to help them figure out what is in these 200,000 pages of Federal regulation and what that means for how they conduct their behavior in their communities each and every day.

Mr. Speaker, how do we figure out where to start? I think this bill is a very commonsense answer: Ask the people who are most affected. The whole point of the red tape hotline that President Trump set up and that this bill codifies and makes permanent is to allow the people in the small business world who are affected by regulatory decisions made in this town, our Nation's Capital, to tell somebody who has the ability to aggregate that information and do something about it. Let's bring it to the attention of lawmakers that this is where you need to focus. This one, of all of these, is what is making a difference in preventing me from adding more employees or having a little more liquidity so that I can maybe redo the storefront on Main Street. Maybe I can give a little more to the local charitable cause or maybe my family will just be a little bit more comfortable going into the holidays.

Mr. Speaker, ask the people affected and listen to their voices. That is what this bill does. It makes sure we put in place a simple structure that is permanent so that the vagaries of this town don't change things on Main Street.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly support this measure. It is just common sense.

Mr. Speaker, I was inadvertently detained in a meeting with constituents and missed the vote on H. Res. 719, of which I was a cosponsor. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 282.

Madam Speaker, our colleagues on the other side think that if they just talk about enough other things long enough, the clock will run out and that the American people will forget the disaster that the policies of the prior administration created not just on our border but throughout our communities in this country for the prior 4 years.

They are mistaken. We are not going to forget. We are not going to stop until we fix the holes in our law that enabled bad policies to drive through them.

That is what this bill is about. This bill is about focusing on the worst of the worst. It is about focusing on those who are not deterred under current law by the threat of a 2-year prison sentence. Perhaps it is because they are being paid by the cartels or enabled by the cartels, and the risk is worth it. That is who this is aimed at. That is why a 5- to 10-year prison sentence is warranted, valid, and necessary.

Madam Speaker, I will share just one story from my home State of Kansas about why we care about this issue. This is just one example. In March of 2016, Pablo Antonio Serrano-Vitorino, an illegal alien from Mexico, shot and killed four people in my State. Then, while fleeing from law enforcement, he killed another person in Missouri.

Here is the kicker: It wasn't his first time in the country. It wasn't his first crime in our country. In 2004, he was convicted in California of making a terrorist threat. He was deported, and he came back. In the years that ensued, he encountered law enforcement when he committed battery, when he committed drunk driving, and when he committed traffic infractions. He came back, and he stayed.

I can't say with certainty that if ICE had done their job and shown up, if the prosecutors had actually prosecuted, if the law were tough enough, that none of that would have happened, but I can sure say the odds are much better that those five people might still be alive. I can certainly say that justice would have been done.

This bill is a good first step. We need to do it. It is the right thing.

Madam Speaker, I encourage all of my colleagues to support it. Let me just say, I hope we don't stop here. Let's put this on the President's desk. Let's keep going and finish the job.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time.

I rise in support of the rule and urge this body to adopt it. It is the next necessary step for us to proceed to consideration and ultimately adoption of the National Defense Authorization Act for the 65th year in a row.

While this Congress has done this 65 years in a row, this is the first year I have had the privilege of being part of this debate and discussion. I am honored to be here. I am honored to be the

Representative of the Second District of Kansas where I represent, among others, those associated with Fort Leavenworth, with Fort Riley, with Forbes Field, the 190th Air Refueling Wing, and other important military assets.

I will highlight just a couple of provisions in this bill that are so critically important to the people that I represent.

Obviously, with the continued focus on servicemember and family quality of life, the 3.8 percent pay raise is vitally important to these folks who are serving our country. There is the $350 million this bill authorizes for expanded childcare facilities for military families. There is the $35 million that it authorizes for impact aid in support of the communities who support our fighting men and women. There is the provision that restricts and precludes the downsizing of certain military healthcare installations so we can continue to provide for the health and well-being of our servicemembers and their families.

This bill focuses on acquisition reform and includes a provision to make it easier for small businesses to access what can be the complicated and sometimes frustrating process of being in the queue to provide support for our military men and women in our armed services.

It provides for a focus on additional training space and support for unmanned systems, which is vitally important. It is important to us in Kansas where we have a lot of assets clustered together to provide that type of next-generation support, both in the physical world and in the simulation world in terms of the National Simulation Center at Fort Leavenworth.

Of course, it provides some top-line critically important provisions that are important to the defense of our country, and that includes authorizing funding and support for our counterdrug efforts, which are vitally important to our communities.

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this legislation, and I encourage adoption of the rule.

Mr. Speaker, I was absent from the house to attend the funeral of Kansas City, Kansas, Police Officer Hunter Simoncic, who was killed in the line of duty last month. Had I been present, I would have voted YEA on Roll Call No. 221, YEA on Roll Call No. 222, and NAY on Roll Call No. 223.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the life and legacy of fellow lifelong Kansan, John Brewster ``J.B.'' Hodgdon, who passed away on June 13, 2025. J.B. was born on October 16, 1936, to Bruce and Amy Hodgdon in Kansas City, Kansas. He lived a life full of service, always giving back to his community, and I was proud call him my friend.

While growing up in America's Heartland, J.B. and his brother Bob helped with the family business, which he eventually entered full time in 1959 after graduating from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration. J.B.'s father served as an aerial gunnery instructor for the Navy. J.B. recalled that in grade school he and Bob would help their father by loading shot shells at night so their dad could prepare to teach his students the following day. With the grit and determination instilled in them by their parents, J.B. and Bob would grow Hodgdon Powder Company from operating at the family dining room table to the largest U.S. consumer supplier of smokeless and black powder substitute propellants. Hodgdon Powder Company is now a household name within the firearm and ammunition industry and among handloading and muzzleloading enthusiasts.

Passion for hunting and the shooting sports runs deep in the Hodgdon blood. J.B. was an unwavering supporter of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, life benefactor member of the National Rifle Association, life member of the Kansas State Rifle Association, and a member of Safari Club of America, Pheasants Forever, Ducks Unlimited, and the National 4-H Shooting Sports. J.B. enjoyed growing the next generation of hunters and recreational shooters. He especially cherished his time with Philmont Scout Ranch, Scouting America's National High-Adventure Base in Cimarron, New Mexico. Along with his wife Anne and their charitable foundation, J.B. was integral in enhancing Philmont's success in serving our Nation's youth.

For his leadership contributing to the success of the firearm industry, firearm ownership, and enjoyment of hunting and the shooting sports in America, J.B. was inducted into the National Shooting Sports Foundation Hall of Fame. He was also the recipient of the Shooting Industry Academy of Excellence Award, and he and his brother were awarded the NRA's Golden Bullseye Pioneer Award.

J.B. unquestionably touched countless lives and was highly respected, including by those in the firearm industry, on which he has left an indelible mark. He will be remembered for his strong work ethic, love for shooting sports and the outdoors, his utmost appreciation for first responders, passion for youth and scouting, and keen interest in classic cars. He will also be remembered as a man of faith and a loving husband, father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. I thank Anne, his beloved wife of 28 years, his four sons, two stepchildren, five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, for sharing J.B. with all of us who are blessed to have known him. I hope they find peace and comfort in celebrating a life well-lived.

Mr. Chair, I thank the chairman for his leadership on this issue.

This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I come from a part of the country in southeast Kansas where I have got a lot of classmates, friends, and neighbors who have struggled with addiction over the years. I know them personally.

When I started in public service, it was all about methamphetamine in our part of the world. It was the clandestine meth lab in the trunk of a car or an abandoned barn or an old house. We dealt with that, as a matter of public policy, by putting Sudafed behind the counter. We made it harder for people to pilfer Sudafed and go out and cook up their own meth. We knew that that was going to cut down the number of clandestine laboratories, but it wasn't going to decrease the demand; it was just going to increase the demand for meth to come across the southern border, and that is what happened. They created trade routes.

Then along came the 1990s and unrelated to methamphetamine, we had a lot of big drug companies and some bad actors, who decided they were going to make more money by doing a lot of stuff they shouldn't have done to incent the medical community to prescribe more opioids, and they did and it was illegal.

When I got to serve as attorney general, we joined together, Republicans and Democrats. We didn't think about party affiliation, and we sued some of these companies and held them accountable. When I left office, we had recovered about $340 million, $350 million for my State of Kansas to deal with drug treatment from Purdue Pharma and other companies that had peddled addiction for profit.

It doesn't sound like a lot of money in this Chamber, but to put it in context, that was many times more than the State of Kansas had ever spent on addiction treatment and intervention and prevention.

We have an obligation to support these folks who are struggling down the street from us with addiction. It shouldn't be a partisan issue. It is more than just closing the border, although we have to do that. It is about helping folks change their behavior and their lives.

There is a lot that needs to be done. This is one piece of it. I am a little bit disappointed that this has been something of a partisan debate. It never has been for me. It never was in my previous public roles. It should not be now.

Mr. Chair, I thank the chairman for his leadership and encourage all my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 405, I call up the bill (H.R. 2243) to amend title 18, United States Code, to improve the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act and provisions relating to the carrying of concealed weapons by law enforcement officers, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on H.R. 2243.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2243, the Law Enforcement Officer Safety Reform Act, which reforms the LEOSA, makes important updates to the existing LEOSA program.

In 2004, President George W. Bush signed LEOSA into law. The law exempts certain active and retired law enforcement officers from local and State prohibitions on the carrying of concealed firearms.

In order to qualify under LEOSA, active law enforcement officers must meet several important requirements. For example, they must be authorized to carry a firearm by their agency. They cannot be subject to disciplinary actions by the agency that could result in the loss of their police power. They must meet certain firearms qualification standards. They cannot be under the influence of alcohol or other intoxicating substances, and they must not be prohibited by Federal law from possessing a firearm.

Retired law enforcement officers must also meet several requirements in order to qualify under LEOSA. For example, they must have separated from service in good standing and served as a law enforcement officer for an aggregate of 10 years or more. They also are required to meet certain firearms training standards and must not be prohibited by Federal law from possessing a firearm.

The LEOSA Reform Act will allow these officers to carry a concealed firearm in the same manner many licensed citizens carry a firearm in their State.

For example, the LEOSA Reform Act will allow law enforcement officers qualified under LEOSA to carry concealed firearms in national parks, certain Federal facilities that are open to the public, on public transportation, in school zones, and in other areas.

The bill also reduces the frequency that qualified retired law enforcement officers are required to meet certain qualification standards.

Many States allow State licensed concealed carry permit holders to carry a concealed firearm in gun-free school zones and on public transportation in the State in which they are licensed. This bill affords qualified law enforcement officers the same privilege.

This legislation improves public safety as our officers face increasingly greater dangers, and current restrictions hinder their ability to carry firearms and protect themselves and others.

At a time when violent crime continues to plague our Nation, we must support our active and retired law enforcement officers and ensure they are able to protect themselves and to protect others no matter where they are in the United States.

This legislation is supported by the Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the Major Cities Chiefs Association, the Major County Sheriffs of America, the National Association of Police Organizations, the National Narcotics Officers' Associations' Coalition, the National Sheriffs' Association, and the Sergeants Benevolent Association NYPD.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, a law enforcement officer does not cease being a law enforcement officer merely because he is off duty or because of where he goes, or she goes. Upon retirement, the scars of service, including the animosities built up with many people who do not care for law enforcement officers because they have been subject to the enforcement of the law over the course of a career, upon retirement those old animosities often linger.

Those of us who support this measure and support it strongly understand and argue that it is essential to the safety of our existing officers and to the safety of our retired officers that we recognize that ongoing risk and burden that they have taken on and that they continue to carry and allow them to continue to carry the means to defend themselves and others in reasonable locations, as in many States ordinary civilian concealed carry permit holders may do.

We think it is commonsense legislation, and I would just point out in response to some of the comments of my colleague from Maryland, I wasn't here in 2004 during the debates that he cited over the original LEOSA. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of what he said, but I would say this: It is now 20 years later, and I think that history has shown us that many of the concerns presented in 2004 were not, in fact, realized by LEOSA's enactment, nor will they be realized as a result of enactment of this strengthening of that underlying statute for our officers.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking member for his argument and advocacy today.

I would just point out to the body that while my distinguished colleague speaks with his usual passion on many subjects, the only subject before us today is whether or not this body is going to pass, to enact, to approve H.R. 2243, the LEOSA Reform Act. That is the sole question in front of us.

That measure is critically important to the safety of many law enforcement officers retired to many law enforcement officers off duty. The bad guys don't stop looking for them just because the cop is out of uniform and at a restaurant or taking his family to a national park or otherwise visiting a location where today the law may preclude him or her from carrying the means of defending himself, his family, his colleagues, or the stranger standing next to him.

We trust those officers to do exactly that while they are on duty and in service, and we should trust them to do exactly that under the reasonably expanded scope contemplated by this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of this bill and to send it to the Senate.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 352) calling on elected officials and civil society leaders to counter antisemitism and educate the public on the contributions of the Jewish American community.

Mr. 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 H. Res. 352.

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

Mr. Speaker, this month, we celebrate Jewish American Heritage Month. First proclaimed by President George W. Bush and by each President since, this month recognizes the contributions of the Jewish community to our country. We celebrate this month amidst a persistent increase in anti-Semitism in our country.

Since the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas on Israel, incidents of anti-Semitic attacks and harassment have skyrocketed. The American Jewish Committee found that 77 percent of American Jews say they feel less safe in the United States since the October 7 attacks. Hillel International found that 83 percent of Jewish college students have experienced or witnessed some form of anti-Semitism since the October 7 attacks.

In April, Harvard released a report examining anti-Semitism on its campus with stark findings. One Israeli student said: ``My friend has been told that others would not attend social gatherings if I was present, as they couldn't risk the social consequences of being seen with an Israeli.''

Another student said: ``I am tired of fighting. It is the same group of students whose sole objective seems to be to harass and intimidate Jewish students. Despite reaching out to every office, everyone says it is not their problem.''

Mr. Speaker, this is unacceptable. It is all of our problem, and it cannot continue. This House, elected officials at the State and local levels, faith leaders, community leaders, and university administrators all have an obligation to confront anti-Semitism.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers on our side, so I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, we have another colleague on our side who now seeks recognition. I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Fine).

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank all of our colleagues who have engaged in this discussion today on both sides of the aisle for their remarks. This is an issue that, although we go off on particulars from time to time where we strongly disagree, at its core, it is an issue where all of us agree as Americans, regardless of our philosophy, regardless of our faith, and regardless of our geography, that there is no space for anti-Semitism in American public life. I come from the State of Kansas. It was one of our favorite sons, Dwight Eisenhower, who was the Supreme Allied Commander at the end of the Second World War who entered the camps, saw the horrors, and ordered that videographers record what was seen so that people would believe because Ike was sure that it was so far beyond the pale and experience of most people what had occurred in the camps and to the Jewish people and others during the war at the hands of the Nazi regime that, without seeing, they would not believe.

I can actually still find those films on some of the streaming services. I commend them to those who have an interest in seeing that moment in history and perhaps feeling just a little piece of what those who saw it in person understood.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is true--I know it was a few years ago--that there are still fewer Jewish people alive today than there were at the start of the Holocaust, that the roughly 6 million who were killed, it has taken all this time to sort of get back numerically to that starting line.

This is not just another issue. Nobody has done it here today, but when we hear people out and about who will compare our current politics to the Nazis or to Hitler, I hope we all will remind them that it is not the same. There are moments to have vigorous debates, but it is not the same. Perhaps when those terms are used, it cheapens a bit of the experience that some of our fellow Americans lived through.

Mr. Speaker, I thank everybody for joining together on this. I encourage all of our colleagues on both sides to support this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I will have no comment on that last comment from my colleague from Utah.

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to join my colleagues tonight in recognition of National Small Business Week, and actually, all the parts we have talked about are connected.

National Small Business Week recognizes the importance of the small businesses throughout all of our communities, and the numbers aren't that different from State to State.

In my home State of Kansas, 99 percent of the businesses that operate are small businesses. Whether they are small businesses on Main Street, small mom-and-pop shops, little manufacturing operations, farming operations, or supporting operations, 99 percent of our businesses are small businesses.

Those 99 percent in my State employ about 600,000 Kansans, which is roughly half the total number of Kansans who work. All but 1 percent our businesses, 99 percent, employ half of our people who rely on them for their livelihood, for their hope, for their jobs, for their benefits in many cases, and for filling their days because they, obviously, have to work in order to support their families and pursue their dreams.

We cannot overstate the importance of small businesses to all of us, the people we represent. Yet, that often doesn't get reflected in the decisions and the actions that come out of this town.

My colleagues have talked a bit about reconciliation, and I say these are connected because we are going to make large policy decisions here in the House, in the Senate, and with the President over the course of the coming weeks that are going to have huge implications for all of those small businesses on our Main Streets and all of those individuals who work in them and rely on them for their livelihoods.

We talk a lot about the tax implications. That is not my focus this evening. It is critically important. We have to extend the small business and middle-class tax relief so that those businesses can continue to operate and continue to employ the people we represent.

I want to talk a little bit tonight about the regulatory environment and the burden that we have created--really, a tax by another means. When the government says to a small business, ``thou shalt do this,'' the compliance cost of doing it is borne by that business, and it comes out of their bottom line or out of their pockets. It takes away from their ability to invest in expanding, growing, and hiring more people. It has the same effect as taking another dollar of tax out of their pocket to pay not for their priorities, their community's priorities, or their employees' priorities, but for the government's priorities. That is true whether it is a dollar taken out of their pockets collected in tax, in cash, or whether it is a dollar taken out of their pockets and ordered by the government to be used to comply with a government requirement, a mandate, a regulation.

I am one who believes, because my constituents have told me this, that one of the most important things we can and must do in this Congress is make real progress on regulatory relief for the small businesses that all of our communities rely on. We have begun to take some steps.

You know, Mr. Speaker, that we are currently using one of several tools available to us in this body to undo some--a small number, but some--of the newer regulations that have piled burdens on our small businesses. We are using the Congressional Review Act. We only have a short amount of time that we can use that tool, so we have to strike while the iron is hot.

So far, in the House, we have used that tool to propose undoing 15 new regulations that were adopted in

roughly the last 6 months of the prior administration. Of those 15 that we have approved here, 3 have been signed into law by the President. We have done three. Another six have been approved by the Senate and are currently awaiting President Trump's signature. Then, there are an additional six that are awaiting consideration and, I hope and expect, passage in the Senate.

That is good. It is a good thing. We are using the tool available to try to make progress to provide some relief for those small businesses, but, Mr. Speaker, it is barely a drop in the bucket.

The chart next to me was compiled by George Washington University. It shows the number of pages in the Federal Register, starting back in 1950. The Federal Register, of course, is the government book, the government entity, where all the agency regulations, not the laws passed by this body, but the agency regulations, the bureaucratic regulations, get published.

They have the force and effect of law. They are just as burdensome and binding on somebody running a mom-and-pop shop on Main Street in Kansas as is a statute enacted by this body. Usually, they are regulations adopted by an agency at the direction or, arguably, with the permission of this body. We fight over that sometimes when agencies exceed the authority they were given.

There is a penchant here in Congress to avoid some of the hard decisions and just ship it downtown, let the agencies have a lot of running room. As a result of that, you get lots of decisions. Sometimes, they are not consistent.

One administration goes one way, and another administration goes the next way, or they adopt one regulation, then pile another regulation on top of it, and then another on top of that. I heard a term the other day--I had never heard it before--``coral reefing,'' this idea that you lay down something that is living and makes sense, then that layer dies, and you just build another on top and another on top. Eventually, you get this giant dead mass. That is what we have done with a lot of these agency regulations. Part of it is Congress' fault. Part of it is the agency's fault.

If you look at this chart, Mr. Speaker, back in 1950, roughly the time they started publishing the Federal Register, compiling all these agency rules, diktats, actions, there were about 10,000 pages. That is about how long it was, the sum of all regulations adopted by agencies. The year I was born in, 1968, it had grown fivefold to 50,000 pages. When this chart was compiled about a year ago, a little more, it was nearly 200,000 pages. Nearly 200,000 pages of regulations that folks in our country, our small businesses, have to comply with.

By the way, to put that in comparison, the number of pages in the U.S. Code, the laws actually adopted by the people's Representatives in this body, last time it was compiled, it was around 60,000 pages, so about four times, roughly, three or four times as many rules and requirements on Main Street businesses written by people nobody out in the real world ever voted for as opposed to laws that their elected Representatives are accountable for.

By the way, this chart is not current. It doesn't include those regulations piled on top of this last tallest bar. Since this chart was compiled, we know that in the last 5 months of the Biden administration alone, more than 1,400 new regulations were adopted and shoved out the door. That is not 1,400 pages. That is 1,400 regulations, most of which were long, so this chart is actually much higher.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to remind all of my colleagues and all of us who serve in these roles how important it is that, during this Small Business Week, as we are doing our reconciliation bill and doing all the things we do, we not forget about this hidden tax, that we have created this burden that we have placed on the 99 percent of small businesses in our community, which employ half the people working in my State, making it harder for them to do what they do, what we rely on them to do, what we count on them to do, and, more importantly, what the people we represent, our constituents, count on them to do.

We can't lose sight of it. We must fix this system, tear down some of the coral reef, and get those lines moving back down.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for bringing us this important piece of legislation.

I haven't been here very long in this body, but I have learned something, and it is amplified today. That is that this town has a remarkable ability to snatch disagreement out of the jaws of consensus. This is an issue that liberal thinkers and conservative thinkers have both said is a problem that we ought to address.

Justice Kagan has been quoted widely as having said that it just cannot be the case that a single district court judge can hold up Federal policy for the lengthy period of time nationwide that it takes for the ordinary appeals process to run.

On the other end, Justice Gorsuch has suggested that these nationwide injunctions bear a remarkable similarity to a step in the legislative, not judicial, process.

In our branch of government, we had Democrats in both bodies of the legislative branch who proposed legislation just a Congress ago saying this is a problem we ought to deal with. Their legislation looked a lot like part of this bill, three-judge panels. Now, we have Republicans saying the same thing.

We ought to agree this is just the right thing to do as a matter of public policy, not because of who is in the White House or who is the plaintiff bringing a particular lawsuit.

Look, district courts are supposed to resolve disputes between litigants. If we adopt this thing and make it law, there is no doubt any citizen who can walk into court today can still walk into court and get relief for anything they are entitled to relief for. What they can't do is get a district court judge to order that an entire Federal policy nationwide be disabled.

There is still a relief valve because we added an amendment in committee that allows States to go into court to seek that type of nationwide relief. Why? It is because States are unique. It is not the national association of people who lost last year's election. It is a State organized under our Constitution that has a unique role in our Federal system and an interest in nationwide relief.

We ought to adopt this bill and do what everybody agrees is the right thing.