Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I was looking at a local news source here today. The title of the article is: ``Heat Waves Add Burden to Electric Vehicle Owners.'' There are challenges, as it turns out, that these heavy, expensive batteries in electric vehicles have a tendency to get damaged by high temperatures.

Electric vehicles are extremely complicated, and they are expensive. Repairing EV batteries is nearly impossible, and replacing one is very costly. A section of the article referenced a really expensive brand of pickup that's on the market. It talked about making repairs in a fender bender if somebody hit the rear quarter panel on it and it drove the body work up into the rest of the forward part of the car. It isn't just a matter of repairing that quarter panel. They had to take the vehicle almost entirely apart, which made it a $42,000 repair because there is so much complexity with the extensive wiring system in the electric vehicle technology that drives all the different wheels.

We are being told as Americans that we should start driving these vehicles. We should buy them, replace what we have, and drive these vehicles. In my home State of California, they are basically forcing the mandate on that, followed closely behind the Biden administration wanting to do certain things by an X amount by year 2030. By the way, they just make up numbers. They will say 50 percent by 2030 and 75 percent by 2035. They will do the same thing at the Federal level: X amount by 2040 and 2050. They just make this stuff up with fancy round numbers.

Some of the recommendations in the article about how to deal with your electric vehicles are actually the absurd part of it. Don't park your car in the Sun and charge during cooler times of day are some suggestions in the article to EV drivers.

Now, I got to spend the weekend here in D.C. because my plane was canceled going home the other day, so I am not sure how you try and figure out when the cool time of day is in D.C. so you can charge your car.

Another suggestion of the article was to use air-conditioning sparingly. Sure. In places like this, or even where there is more humidity in the South and others, you are going to drive along in this car because it is electric and not use your air-conditioner.

One of the really good ones was that they wanted you to keep the car plugged in while you are using the air-conditioner. What does that even mean? How do you keep your vehicle plugged in while you are using the air-conditioner?

People made fun of this one. Are you supposed to have an extension cord that is 10 miles long so you can keep it charging while you are driving around? It becomes really absurd after a while.

What is the bottom line here? For certain people, electric vehicles make sense for them if they have short commutes or they do a lot of in- town driving, and it will last for a particular amount of time.

The article goes on to state, though, that most of the time you can come home and plug in, and you don't need to use a fast charger, unless you are on a long trip. If you are on an extended trip, then you are going to have to find a means to do that. You can't just go 200 miles and then charge it for 8 hours. However, they also don't want you to use a fast charger because it is tough on the battery in hot conditions.

Your mobility is really what is being affected, what is being taken away here, and there are those in this place in the regulatory scheme we have in my home State of California or here in D.C. that don't really care that you have mobility. They don't want you to have mobility. They want you to be tied to what they believe are your walkable neighborhoods and stay in your 15-minute cities. They don't seem to like that.

This all starts with these mandates, taking away the systems, the things

that you normally use, use at your choice, and forcing you into something else.

Whether it is your vehicles, whether it is your gas stove or other appliances, your yard maintenance tools, they want to take that out and convert you to a grid that is not actually ready to accept the mass amount of charging that is going to be needed to do this again.

California's grid on many hot days is close to going down. They have to start telling people to shut off their manufacturing plants and such so they can keep the grid going. They are tearing down hydroelectric dams in my district right now because they aren't green enough, even though it makes CO2-free power.

It is absurd what is going on with the regulatory state, and we need to stop the Biden administration by doing it just by executive action. It needs to run through us so we are held accountable to you.

Madam Speaker, this year marks the 75th anniversary of the State of Israel and its recreation after World War II when many countries around the world got together and decided indeed there should be a current Jewish state.

Now, their day of independence, known as Yom Haatzmaut, occurred this year on April 25. It moves around in order to not conflict with the Sabbath.

On the day after Israel officially declared independence back in 1948, they were attacked immediately by five surrounding Arab countries. We see that Israel's existence is not an easy one. It is one that requires our alliance, as they are a loyal friend to this country as we are to them.

It is my understanding that President Issac Herzog is actually the first native-born Israeli President since the creation of the State, so it is only fitting that we welcome his address to the House this week.

Mr. Speaker, this is National Forest Week across this country. I encourage everybody to partake and enjoy your national forests. Our Nation indeed was blessed by God with some truly inspiring natural beauty. It is our job to preserve it and utilize it for future generations.

Unfortunately, many of our national forests are under threat not from the usual climate change nonsense but actually wildfire caused by overcrowded forests, too many trees.

We haven't been tending to the forests for 50 years. The Federal Government has refused to properly thin and manage our forests, largely because of the lack of funding or, in a lot of cases, frivolous lawsuits--preventing the work that needs to be done--by extreme environmental groups.

They are now overgrown, overcrowded tinderboxes. All it takes is one lightning strike, a cigarette butt, or a spark from a flat tire going down a rural highway. Once they catch fire, they become infernos, such as the million-acre fire I had in my district a couple years ago called the Dixie fire.

A healthy forest has about 40 to 70 adult trees per acre. We have a situation where we have 500 or more trees per acre, a recipe for disaster. We need to do better and manage our forests.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and pay a heartfelt tribute to Mike Reynolds of Fresno, California, who recently passed away. He has left behind an indelible legacy on our State and, indeed, for people who love safe streets and feel that it is proper to make those criminals pay the price for their activity.

Mike was a remarkable individual who exemplified resilience and dedication in the face of adversity which he and his family faced throughout his life.

He, indeed, was the driving force behind the three strikes law in California that many other States since picked up afterwards. This was after the tragic murder of his daughter, Kimber, by violent serial offenders during a robbery. She is pictured here. No parent should have to see the loss of their child, especially time and time and time again around our country with repeat offenders. We know better. We know better as a society how to treat crime, how to deal with it, yet this happens.

Mike was a champion for passing an initiative in California called the three strikes and you are out law to make sure that repeat offenders would do proper prison time and not be out on the streets subjecting our neighbors, friends, and families to these violent criminals, time and time again.

We hear conversations here about something called gun violence. Well, a gun is an inanimate object. It is people that do the violence. It is people who have to be held accountable.

Mike Reynolds was the driving force in California that helped change how crime is fought, and it is up to us to uphold his legacy for preserving what safety we have on our streets, which we don't have a lot of, especially in our urban areas.

What Mike created as an homage to his daughter, Kimber, and a way to make sure that other families wouldn't have to suffer as they had to has become a lightning rod for citizen groups. Indeed, over 20 States have enacted laws with the same purpose as the original three strikes in California that Mike drove.

I want Mike's family to know that we appreciate him as a good man who showed strength of character and turned an unimaginable tragedy into a force, indeed, for good.

We will miss Mike and grieve for him. I have had a chance to meet with him, and I enjoyed being able to work with him when I was a State legislator to ensure that we didn't lose ground on what we had gained.

At this time we grieve for him, we grieve for his family. We honor his memory and celebrate the, indeed, profound impact he had not only on the State of California but on the country.

Mr. Speaker, we talk about how do we keep our streets safe or how do we make them safer than they are. In our blue cities all around the country, they have some of the most aggressive anti-gun laws, and yet, the crime is the highest in those areas.

What do we have instead? The work that has been done through the three strikes and you are out, in order to keep violent prisoners in prison, pay the price, has been undone by defund the police and by watering down sentencing laws. It is absurd.

We have all the anti-gunners here saying we have gun violence, yet they take away the sentence enhancements for ``use a gun, go to jail.'' When using a gun in a crime, there used to be special enhancements in my home State. They have basically eviscerated those.

How does that make an ounce of sense, when you are anti-gun on one hand, yet you don't want to have the enhancements because you don't want people sitting in prison? Indeed, there is more and more legislation all the time to figure out how to let prisoners out sooner; some very violent offenders, to release them, those on death row who have been downgraded because they got rid of some of the death penalty requirements for certain people on death row. Governor Newsom in California has completely done away with the death penalty during his time in office by executive action. It is still on the books; he is just not enforcing it.

How is this going to deter criminals? When you see the crimes that are happening right under the noses of clerks in retail stores, jewelry stores, and they are told by their corporate officers, don't dare say anything, don't even take pictures of them. Someone lost their job because they took a picture and video of a crime happening inside their store because we have these lily-livers at the CEO level who don't want them to help enforce their own goods, therefore, driving the cost of everything through the roof because we don't enforce against crime.

Mr. Chair, I hear nonsense. I call it nonsense.

Our strength is not in our diversity. Our strength is in our unity. We take diverse ideas, diverse talents, and we put them together. With an offensive football team, where you have all different types and sizes of people with speeds and talents, they all come together as a team. They all start to play at the same time.

The same thing for our military. We have the Navajo Code Talkers. They weren't worried about what color or gender or whatever they were.

We have all sorts of people coming together as a team. Our military is forced together in recruiting and in training to become a team. You don't worry about what everybody looks like and this and that or the other.

That is what we have when we have unity, not diversity, which is divisive.

Mr. Speaker, each year, especially in the Western States, we have to suffer fire season, and the season is getting longer and longer. We have an issue of not having enough people to help put out the fires.

What had happened under the IIJA was that our wildland firefighters had gotten a temporary bump in pay, which is deserved. Those folks are at risk and working hard out there, but that is going to run out in a couple of months. Federal wildland firefighters will see basically a drop in pay unless we do something about that to keep their salary, their wages, commensurate with what they have been used to the last couple years and indeed deserve.

We need to move quickly on measures to either do a long-term solution, or at least do a stopgap, to make sure firefighter pay doesn't actually go back down to the levels of almost 3 years ago.

Instead of gimmickry, like saying we will give them a massive bonus, why don't we find what level their pay should be on an hourly rate and set it there, and that will attract people back into the fold of wanting to help out with our forests and the wildland firefighting we so desperately need.

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

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 11 o'clock and 32 minutes p.m.), the House adjourned until tomorrow, Friday, July 14, 2023, at 9 a.m.

Madam Speaker, as the country deals with distractions, the truth of which is very difficult to get out of the White House or other sources, such as the missing Titanic submarine--when did it actually implode? We couldn't get the truth on that.

Where is the packet of cocaine that came in the White House? Who is responsible for that? Why can't they track that with their massive security systems?

Also, it is silly that males compete in women's sports and are being allowed in women's places like their locker rooms. These are important issues in and of themselves, but they distract from some really important issues that don't get a lot of press or coverage these days.

Madam Speaker, look at the situation with Iran and its development of nuclear weapons. Iran is a very unstable country and one that is a very well-known sponsor of terror around the world in many areas. Let's hearken back a little ways here.

Under the Obama administration, everybody remembers that first pallet of cash that was flown into Iran of about $400 million, basically of other currencies because there were still sanctions at the time that we couldn't send U.S. dollars in there. It was mainly Swiss francs and euros that were sent in for a total of about $1.7 billion to help sponsor terror that Iran is so good at.

How are we supposed to ask our partners around the world to continue sanctions against Iran--whatever is left in place after the JCPOA was put in in 2015--to help stop the major sponsor of terror in the world? How are we supposed to continue that?

Indeed, the Biden administration has a plan or an idea of sending $17 billion more over there to help prop up their treasury. What in the world are we doing that for?

With all the things we need to spend money on in our own country here, why would we want to help prop up the treasury of the major state sponsor of terror that Iran is?

JCPOA, agreed to under the Obama administration, has been a complete failure in trying to limit the amount of uranium that they would be refining through their centrifuges. Our understanding is that they have 23 times the stockpiles of these uranium materials provided for in the 2015 JCPOA. We are really adhering to that agreement and enforcing that agreement it sounds like. Yet, we are talking about this administration sending $17 billion more to help prop up their economy and help them do more terror activity.

At the point that Iran reaches 90 percent enrichment on its uranium, Israel is going to have some very important decisions to make because Israel is already surrounded by a lot of people that don't like them in the Middle East, including Iran.

If they get the weapons they need and the ability to deliver them, Israel is going to have some very, very tough decisions to make on preserving themselves. Israel is not getting much of a good signal coming from the current administration in the White House that the United States is going to be there to back them up like they need to be. What will that force them to do?

Who knows? It will probably force them to do some very extreme things. I don't blame them. The International Atomic Energy Agency can verify that they have reached already 83.7 percent of enrichment levels of a certain amount of stockpile that Iran has. They are not far from having nuclear-weapon capable materials. When they reach that 90 percent point, that is generally accepted as nuclear bomb ready.

Is Iran a stable enough country that we can trust them with nuclear bombs?

That was what supposedly the whole JCPOA was about--to keep them from getting nuclear weapons. This isn't the Iran of old where the United States at least used to have a relationship with them, and they had a lot more of a westernized culture with free movement, free activities for women or for many Iranians. This was pre-1979 when the Ayatollah was taking over there. It is still a very unstable country and causes much instability in the world.

The idea of them gaining nuclear weapons very soon, when they reach that 90 percent mark, puts us all in a pretty perilous position. We are across an entire ocean from the situation. We are across the Atlantic and such. Our great ally, Israel, as well as part of Europe, what are they going to be facing with a nuclear Iran?

We better get serious on not sending them $17 billion or more, but putting the sanctions back in place that will bring Iran to its knees and stop this nuclear proliferation and their ability to sponsor terror.

Mr. Speaker, we know from the Bible, under John 15:13, the phrase, ``There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends,'' which is very applicable to our military willing to enlist and serve in that way to defend our country.

So, what is the reward? When the COVID farce hit, they were told initially by the President that we are not going to require injections, but that turned to: If you don't take this injection for COVID-19, you are going to be removed from the military.

That is what, indeed, happened to many servicemembers who said: I don't really wish, in this free country, to take an untested injection.

So, provisions we are making in the NDAA having to do with the COVID- 19 vaccine so-called discharges continue the prohibition on adverse action for any servicemember that refused to take it but also gives them a path back to service.

We want to invite them to come back to serve. Recruitments are actually down during the summer season, but usually there is an uptick in people coming into the military. We need to do everything we can to provide an incentive and a welcoming atmosphere to come back to our military.

We need to treat time away from service for anybody that had to be kicked out and then reinstated as just a career intermission so it does not impact their future promotions negatively.

It prohibits the DOD from requiring cadets to repay tuition if they had to miss a period of time.

Mr. Speaker, one of the cornerstones of our responsibilities in Congress is oversight of government operations, whether that is the agencies, the White House, courts, or ourselves.

What are we looking at right now with the Biden administration? They can't even keep the White House clean and orderly and honorable. The story coming out on this cocaine issue is embarrassing for the country, and it is embarrassing that the leader of the free world will not investigate and provide answers on that and some other tawdry activities that have gone on on the lawn there during other events.

Accountability is extremely important for people to have faith in what their government is doing, and to see the Department of Justice either not doing its job or being weaponized against individuals they disagree with politically really lowers the faith that people and we as legislators have in the process here.

We have to do better, and that starts with our ability to have oversight hearings that are attended and questions that are answered here in this House, but also maybe a little better self-governance by the White House and this place of acting right, of doing right, and being honorable in their jobs.

Mr. Speaker, small businesses in this country have ranked the cost of health insurance as their number one problem for 32 years straight.

Democrat policies like ObamaCare have led to skyrocketing health insurance costs and a broken individual health market. ObamaCare costs taxpayers more than $1 trillion a year while covering less than 5 percent of the population.

Small businesses are hardest hit by this as they often struggle to afford the absurdly expensive costs of healthcare.

The health insurance market is overregulated, and power is concentrated in just a few large insurers. This is not a free market.

Medicare itself will be on the rocks in just a few years unless we change this tide.

To ease the burden on small businesses, House Republicans will introduce and have introduced the CHOICE Act, which will enhance the flexibility and affordability of healthcare for small businesses.

Small businesses are a cornerstone of our American economy and are essential against corporate tyranny, which we see happening these days.

House Republicans will not let small businesses be crushed to death by rising costs and these failed policies.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Mrs. Susan Spannagel and wish her a happy 100th birthday. Mrs. Spannagel is my Chief of Staff's Grandmother and former constituent of mine. She will celebrate her 100th birthday on June 22nd. Susan Spannagel was born June 22, 1923, in Harvey, Illinois to Annie Inglis Wilson and George Drummond Wilson.

Her parents immigrated from Glasgow to New York in 1923 and left for Harvey, Illinois after two weeks in America. Susan grew up in Harvey, Illinois and attended Whittier school until the completion of the 8th grade when they moved to Pacific Grove, California. She attended Pacific Grove High School and graduated in 1941 at the age of 18. After High School Susan then moved with her parents to South San Francisco where she lived and worked in the Post Office. During this time, a handsome sailor named ``Robert (Bob) Spannagel'' came into the post office to pick up the squadron mail and they became friends.

After dating for a short while, Bob and Susan married in South San Francisco on April 8, 1944. Soon after their marriage, Bob received orders and shipped out to Ford Island at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Bob worked as an ``Aviation Mechanist Mate'' on airplanes for the war and Susan continued to work at the post office in South San Francisco. Bob returned from the service in 1945 and the couple continued to live in South San Francisco. Bob and Susan's first child, David Wilson Spannagel, was born in July 22, 1946.

Soon after in 1950, Susan, Bob and David along with Susan's mother Annie, moved to Concord, California. Bob worked at the Pacific Gas and Electric power station in Pittsburg, California. In 1953 their 2nd child Peggy was born. During her children's school years, Susan was very active and president of the Parent Teacher Association'' (PTA) for many years as well as becoming the secretary for the Clayton Valley Presbyterian Church. In 1964, the family moved the Clayton, California where Susan went to work for Contra Costa County, Farm Bureau, ultimately becoming the Contra Costa County Farm Bureau Secretary.

Bob passed away suddenly in 1976 and Susan continued to work there until her retirement from Farm Bureau in 1995 at the age of 72. Susan moved to Grass Valley, California after retirement and became active with the Elks Lodge, the Sierra Presbyterian Church and other friends, until the age of 85. At age 85, Susan moved down to Lincoln, California to Del Webb's Sun City Lincoln Hills to be closer to her son and daughter. Susan's son David, passed away in 2016 at the age of 69. Susan is doing well and is now living in Rocklin near her family. She has 4 grandsons and 9 great grandchildren. I ask my colleague to join me in honoring her and celebrating Susan Spannagel's 100th birthday.

Mr. Speaker, talking on the issue of a campaign being used for buying votes, the President back in his 2020 campaign promised to cancel up to $10,000 of Federal student loan debt per borrower. Of course, after his election he called for the 117th Congress to pass a bill to facilitate $10,000 in student loan forgiveness.

When he first announced his attempt by his administration to forgive the debt for those who need it most was in August of 2022. Since that announcement, the plan has been mired in pushback from the judiciary and legislative branches of the government. It isn't even seen as legal or constitutional is the charge.

The Administration's main legal argument for its ability to forgive student loan debt is that the 2003 HEROES Act, a bill that provides reservists and their families relief from making student loan payments, also allows, theoretically, the executive branch to cancel student debt for anyone they wish to. This theory has faced severe pushback from many legal experts.

The administration's argument is that because of the language of the HEROES Act of 2003, the President would somehow have the authority to unilaterally transfer up to $500 billion in student loan debt from those who are contractually required to repay it to taxpayers who never borrowed the money.

The plan would cancel up to $20,000 in Federal student loan debt for more than 40 million borrowers. Republicans and Democrats have voted for legislation that prevents the administration's bailout from taking effect.

Many Republicans see the bailout as a wealth distribution scam because it in effect forces working-class Americans to subsidize the college tuition of wealthier Americans.

Nearly all borrowers who today obtain Federal student loans do so under the William D. Ford Direct Loan Program authorized by Congress in 1993. The designation of this Federal program as a direct loan program means that when making an FDLP loan, the Federal Government disburses funds to a non-Federal borrower under a contract with the borrower that requires repayment.

Since September of last year, multiple lawsuits have resulted in the administration's scheme being put on hold. A Federal judge in Texas declared the entire plan to be unlawful. The Department of Education stopped taking applications from student loan borrowers who would have been forgiven under the plan, but the DOJ is currently appealing that decision.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an appeal from the Biden administration asking to allow the scheme to continue while the Supreme Court took up the case.

Lawsuits against the Biden administration have been filed in the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. In a case known as Biden v. Nebraska, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to weigh in on the constitutionality of the plan. Oral arguments were heard in February. A decision has not been announced, but many legal experts expect the Court to overturn the program.

Congress itself has also reacted negatively to the plan. H.J. Res 45, a bipartisan resolution which uses the Congressional Review Act to overturn the administration's student loan forgiveness plan, was vetoed by the President earlier in June.

Republicans in Congress have likened the President's plan to a vote- buying scheme, claiming it is an attempt to buy college graduate votes in exchange for the possibility of financial reward in the form of debt forgiveness.

Concerns have been raised that if the President's scheme is successful, there is the possibility a future President may forgive large sections of the country's debts and use the Biden student loan cancellation as a precedent to justify it.

The bottom line is that for the people who took the loans out, they need to pay their own loans back. Hardworking people in this country that chose not to take student loans for college, or just went immediately to work or went into a trade or other aspects of that, should not be footing the bill for those that agreed to do it when they signed up as adults to take on these loans.

Mr. Speaker, we don't need to have an administration somehow intervene and buy votes on that and promise things that it cannot deliver for folks that really don't deserve it when they incurred the debt and were making a free decision to do so.

This is a scam, a scheme, and it needs to be prevented. I hope the Supreme Court rules that way and Congress needs to act to make sure that isn't carried out.

Mr. Speaker, let's reward the people that work hard and pay their debts and not have a giveaway program that the Federal Government does in order to buy votes.

Mr. Speaker, open borders make a mockery of our Nation's sovereignty. Democrats have decided to incentivize a flood of illegal immigrants over the southern and northern borders with their open border policies.

Every State and every town has effectively been turned into a border State or border town with all the problems and crime that come with this problem. Because Democrats seem to care more about the promoting of illegal immigration than the needs of American citizens, they prioritize the well-being of the former over the latter.

Illegal immigrants in Democrat States and cities are provided with everything from free iPhones to healthcare. A contentious point in the last Democrat Presidential primary was who could provide more free healthcare to the most illegal immigrants. They are now going so far as to use our kids' elementary and secondary school facilities to provide shelter for illegal immigrants.

This is madness. American schools should be used for educating kids, not for a made-up crisis that has been created by this lack of leadership.

House Republicans wholeheartedly oppose the hijacking of our American resources for the benefit of the people who have broken our laws and violated our Nation's sovereignty. We must pass H. Res. 461, which condemns the use of elementary and secondary schools to provide shelter for those who are here illegally, and who are not here playing by the rules.

Our borders must be protected. We cannot discard this just for some short-term political gain.

Mr. Speaker, Federal bureaucrats have usurped more and more power over the American people in the last few decades.

Three-letter agencies now regularly enact sweeping unilateral rules without congressional approval or consent of the American people. This kind of governance is not in the spirit of the Constitution.

Congress makes the laws, the executive branch enforces the laws, and the judiciary makes sure the laws are constitutional.

Agency rulemaking makes a mockery of this system of checks and balances. This is why House Republicans passed the REINS Act. This bill will allow Congress to rein in out-of-control agencies by requiring our oversight over any regulation that is going to cost the people over $100 million.

Congress for too long has abdicated its authority over these agencies. It is time for that to end.

It has been devastating, especially to our rural economies in agriculture, in mining, and in timber. It is killing small towns. Instead, they are burning up because they can't get over the regulations to do normal things like timber harvest, et cetera.

The American people elected us to do the job--not the EPA, not the ATF, not the FDA--to make the laws of this country.