Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise before you here this evening, a stormy evening in Washington, D.C., in our Nation's Capital, to make an address on behalf of my constituents in my district in Michigan, Michigan's 11th District, representing and covering the bulk of Oakland County.

I make such an address this evening to reflect on the trajectory of our democracy, to reflect on events that have occurred since I booked this Special Order hour address back in July, and also to make some pronouncements around reforms, revisions, and efforts to come together for the health of our Union.

Make no mistake about it, Mr. Speaker, I absolutely recognize the profound and humbling reality that it is to be a duly elected Member of the House of Representatives speaking and maintaining the privilege to speak in this Chamber to anyone who seeks to be watching back at home and on behalf of this profound nature of the discourse of our democracy.

I booked this Special Order hour because so much happens in the days of Congress, the session days of committee markups, of meetings with stakeholders and constituents, and conversations with colleagues who hail from every ZIP Code around this great Nation. Something that I would like to tell the people back at home is that I have friends, such as the woman from Oakland County, Michigan, who is a champion for advanced manufacturing. Somehow now I have friends from Alaska to Tennessee to Maine to the coasts of California and inland into Nevada and the like, and the experiment of America and the experiment of American democracy really truly manifests in this very Chamber.

Of course, we recognize that all too often it is not celebrated, and it is not covered in the media outlets from the national news to the print journalism to the ongoing nature of social media when and how we come together on behalf of this Nation.

Something that we just witnessed is a failure to vote on passing our budget, and the clock is clearly ticking. The Democrats and Republicans couldn't come together. In fact, Republicans joined Democrats to tank Republican legislation to fund the government. So we are again faced with the scenario that we have seen ourselves in time and time again in the 118th Congress where the minority party comes forward to act to save the worst from happening.

Proudly, President Biden in the last year of his Presidency can now just about claim that the government hasn't shut down once under his watch. We have not defaulted on our debt, and, of course, just last term in the Congress, we rescued this Nation from the worst effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, investing in communities, investing in the incredible county I am so privileged to represent in Oakland County.

We gave Oakland County $300 million, so we didn't have to go back to our taxpayers and ask for more.

We are a donor-rich area. We all know that. We pay more than our fair share of taxpayer dollars, and then when we want to do more in the communities we have to go back and excise new tax. We have got to do millages.

Oakland County is under the great leadership of Dave Coulter. He is someone whom I am so proud to call a dear friend and collaborator. He is someone I work with really closely on behalf of the constituents of the 11th District because we believe in the table setting of government. We believe that government works best when Federal, State, local, and municipal come together to utilize taxpayer dollars effectively.

So what Coulter and his team were able to do with the moneys that came down from the great American Rescue Plan Act, the tiebreaking vote that Vice President Harris placed to pass it, is that they have invested in dozens of senior centers. Senior centers like the one in Waterford that was going back time and time again for a millage and couldn't achieve that millage, and now they have their funding. Birmingham next has their funding. Medical debt for the people of the 11th district and Oakland County is wiped out. Money is available to invest in 3-D printing, a program designed by Automation Alley, which is now being replicated in several other counties and has received funding from the State.

So that was just one bill that was passed at the beginning of the 117th session of Congress when President Biden rightfully took his oath and was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States.

We didn't stop there, and we did become bipartisan when we passed an infrastructure bill.

Who knew that infrastructure would become so partisan?

It was somewhat partisan for some who were adamantly against the bill and now they go home and take the credit when the bridge is being repaired and the road is being paved. It is absolutely enormous that, for once, instead of just authorizing, we appropriated money to say we are going to do the maintenance and repair, and we are going to put the contractors to work. We are going to make sure we have got a prevailing wage and good wages and a seat at the table for our unions.

I talk to my building trades. They tell me they are all very busy and that they couldn't be busier. Of course, when matched with the incredible infrastructure bill, which has done a lot for our water systems and our lead pipes and public transportation as well, of course, Oakland County passed a major transportation millage as well. Here in the Motor City, we now have busing that works very well and goes east to west. It was quite the triumph last term.

What we also have noticed, though, here is that when we did the clean energy investments, when we looked global competition in the face and said: In the last administration in a bipartisan way, we renegotiated NAFTA, we halted USMCA, we plussed up buy American content, we said we are going to have the rules of the road for our auto industry to succeed, a platform for us to go into markets. Yes, this happened under President Trump with Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We renegotiated USMCA.

Then in the next term we said: We are going to make investments in clean energy, not subsidies, not ownership structures, but large capital-intensive investments in industries of scale.

Mr. Speaker, that is so we are not overly reliant on our adversaries on the global stage, the Chinese Communist Party for one. Gosh knows what is going to totally happen over there.

We want to have domestic technologies in innovations. We want to have an ownership structure so that we are not forced to go and buy from overseas markets. We have learned this lesson over and over and over again. We have, frankly, learned this lesson with semiconductors, the microchips that go into anything from our general electronics devices, our cell phones, our

computers, our music players, if we are still listening to those, too, of course, the automobile.

The pandemic hit, and all of a sudden, we couldn't get the shipments in, and we were making all these beautiful cars. We really do salute our autoworkers for their great efforts during a very trying time, certainly protecting and maintaining their safety but staying dedicated to the production and the production efforts of their enterprise as well as their innovation ecosystem.

So you see, Mr. Speaker, Michigan did something enormous. We responded to the industrial call to action during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was, of course, our manufacturers, large and small, that were addressing the supply chain disruptions, from the personal protective equipment to the ventilators that we were running low on, and all that.

Then they continued to innovate, and here we stand at the precipice of this incredible, new mobility moment that is being led by the auto industry. I think some want to say: Oh, my gosh, this is the government dictating the terms.

Of course, I just received an incredible briefing today from the MIT Sloan School of Management. They work across the aisle. They have this unbelievable dataset that shows what we need to do to stave off the 5- degree warming of the planet, and it is a whole host of things. Of course, to my capitalist focused friends and my capitalist focused countrymen and -women, those are all profit-making endeavors.

We are here, Mr. Speaker, to talk about the future, and we should be celebrating it and not cowering and clinging to the past. We should absolutely be saluting and recognizing the freedom of our fellow countrymen and -women who are going to buy the automobile they want to buy.

Of course, we have 1 million new electric vehicles that were sold in the United States of America, 75,000 from GM, 75,000 roughly from Ford. They are being honest and transparent about what they want to do.

Every week I go and I visit a manufacturer, and I meet them where they are at, and I sit in their conference rooms. I walk their floors. I am in my sixth year of doing this.

Really tremendous things are happening all across southeast Michigan with our automotive supply chain. They have been very dedicated to some of the transition that their customers, the OEMs, the original equipment manufacturers, are professing to make if they want to be zero emissions maybe in total.

We want to win the future, and we want to be innovators and technology leaders. Of course, I mentioned chips and microchips were running short during the global pandemic, and Michigan really responded to it in a tremendous way.

We also, frankly, Mr. Speaker, learned a big lesson which is that the United States, Gordon Lawrence and the brainiacs out West, innovated the chip. They innovated the microchip.

We were at one time producing 40 percent of these chips in the United States of America. It was our technology, and it was our innovation. Then it wasn't just low labor costs, which is a reality, but it was kind of an investment structure. It was kind of a wooing that took place, and the chips started going over to Taiwan and China and all this and that. The tide really rolls out.

I can speak to this as someone who was serving as a Presidential appointee in the administration of Barack Obama during the Great Recession when we were doing a rescue, not just of Wall Street, it wasn't just a Wall Street rescue that started under President Bush. These financiers in the capital markets and the derivative trading that had gone awry, it was derivative trading that had gone awry. It was the foreclosure crisis that was tied to that, it was the Main Street effort saying that we were not going to liquidate or see the liquidation of General Motors or Chrysler. We used the Troubled Asset Relief funds to invest in the companies, not to own them or control their day-to-day management.

Of course, we were sitting in these ornate government rooms, and we were rightfully saying that we have two other big problems. One is on semiconductors. We are not making enough chips. We are too overly reliant on foreign markets. That comes to roost in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of course, I, a humble Member of Congress from southeastern Michigan and someone who evangelizes and champions our manufacturing economy, I decide to reach out to the Speaker of the House through the professional way in which we do so as Members of Congress, by letter. I sent the Speaker of the House a letter a week almost. Let's do something on chips.

Then, of course, the great Gina Raimondo, Commerce Secretary, partners up with the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and some of us lawmakers. The Senate was involved, and I love to tell the Homeric story about passing bills.

The short of the long is we passed a chips bill, CHIPS and Science. It was a really ringing moment here in this body because, again, it was bipartisan. Of course, I am sitting in the Science Committee as chair of the Subcommittee on Research and Technology authorizing the doubling of scientific research for the National Science Foundation. It all passed unanimously, and it all passed bipartisan. We passed CHIPS and Science with a tranche of money. I understand that my friends and colleagues on the other side of the aisle are more keen to austerity measures and maybe didn't take the vote accordingly, $52 billion we said we would commit in the marketplace.

Of course, we are poking and prodding at the Commerce Department. They are working through some of the legal matters to get more of the money out. We don't want it to be too cumbersome, but $52 billion signed into law and was committed. It was an August day in 2022, hot as all get out.

It is absolutely incredible because within one business quarter, $200 billion of private-sector capital commitments were made here in the United States of America. That is a 21st century industrial policy approach.

So we are looking at this also because there was a number two, we had two problems, chips, which we sought to solve. Then Secretary Raimondo will tell us that we have a plan to be the only country by 2030 who will design, produce, and ship these chips. We will be the ones to do it. I am very excited to see where these investments are going.

We had a second problem that we had recognized 1\1/2\ decades ago, and that was around critical minerals. We, again, are overly reliant on foreign markets, and particularly the Chinese Communist Party, on critical minerals. The challenge here is that 98 percent of these minerals that go into the cell phone and that go into manufactured goods that are so absolutely tied, the critical minerals are so tied to our manufacturing enterprise, and it is a weakness, a supply chain weakness of the United States of America.

We are now starting to form a legislative agenda around how we could do similar to what we did with CHIPS, although it is more complicated. Of course I can see my colleagues on the other side of the aisle eyeing on some of the permitting challenges and some of the reforms that we want to do to accelerate this clean energy revolution, so you have got the environmentalists and the regulating insecure people coming together for once.

We want to do the same thing on critical minerals, right? We want to work with our allies. We want to pass trade deals. We know we are going to be renegotiating USMCA. The year 2025 is just around the corner. So many of us remember the energy, the enthusiasm, the almost revolutionary moment that it felt like to arrive in the 21st century. Everything was 21st century. Everything was the next 21st century plan and the agenda and all of this.

Well, now we are squarely in the 21st century, and we have got opportunities galore, and we have some challenges that we want to address. We want to bring together our allies, similar to how we did in other types of arrangements. The AUKUS arrangement that is now Australia, U.K., U.S., allowed us to invest in nuclear submarine development and technology development.

We have the Quad initiative, and we really do salute and recognize the current administration's approaches to

foreign policy as a way forward and a way to lead by bringing people along, and not saying that we are going to pay for everything, but bringing people along through the rules-based, open, free-market, capitalist, democratic society principles.

In April of this year, believe it or not, we passed a foreign aid package for democracy here in the Chamber, and of course in the other Chamber, the upper Chamber, and it was signed into law by the President.

Well, it was, to a tee, the exact package he asked for in October. You know, support for our democratic allies, support for democracy, and obviously some efforts which have fallen off the rails this term around securing our own borders, and we can only hope to see the day in which such important things are not so political that they remain stalemated.

I certainly seek to be a part of the bipartisan solutions to say that, if you are trained in the United States of America, if you are getting that Ph.D., we want to find a way to keep that talent here. This is something that we heard over and over again from our stakeholders on the Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party: Don't let the talent leave our shores. That is a way in which we innovate. At the same time, too, let's truly invest in border security.

I come from a northern border State, and we take really seriously our relationship with Canada and the security of both of our borders and trade, and certainly looking at the rail and the bridges and we are working on building a new bridge.

Well, it is almost built in southeast Michigan, a large export destination. It is economics, it is livelihoods, and it is also people's lives. It is what draws people together in many respects, the ability to connect.

That was something that was somewhat taken from us during the pandemic period, and we are not forgetting of it, and we certainly want to continue to support people to be the best and the most achieving that they can be.

That is all around us in southeast Michigan, people innovating in their garages and creating new businesses and being entrepreneurial. We always want to support people to succeed in small businesses and listen to them. I always say: Listen, if I can be of help, that is great. If not, I am happy to step and get out of the way.

Of course, some other matters of bipartisan congressional coming together at this moment are worth reflecting on, and a new subject. That is with regard to a role that I have had in this Congress since the year 2022, as the co-chair of the Task Force on American Hostages and Americans Wrongfully Detained Abroad.

This is a task force that is bipartisan. It is co-chaired by the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill). It brings together Members from all over Congress to shine a light on these wrongful detentions, on these American hostage scenarios.

We have certainly had a term around hostages here in the Chamber, and some really great work has been done in addressing the hostage crisis, the hostage crises, and the ways in which we can operate most effectively as a legislative body.

I fell into this role on the request of a former Congressman from Florida, who now runs the American Jewish Committee, the president of the American Jewish Committee, former Congressman Ted Deutch, a dear friend of mine. He was the co-chair. Upon his retirement, he asked me to fill his shoes.

In part, it is because I was showing up at all the task force meetings on behalf of Paul Whelan--Paul Whelan, resident of Novi, Michigan, employee of BorgWarner, a very large, billion-dollar-plus American automotive supplier, in which he was in charge of global security.

Of course, it is quite memorable because, just as I was preparing to be sworn in for my first term in Congress representing Michigan's 11th District, right as the year 2019 was being rung in, we had gotten word December 28, 2018, that Paul was taken captive by the KSB and the Russian Federation. They ultimately charged him on false grounds, a total sham, of espionage.

It was 5 years, 7 months, and 5 days that Paul was unlawfully and illegally and unjustly imprisoned.

In this term of the 116th Congress, I had the privilege and the rightful duty in coordination with Paul's incredible family of writing a resolution, H.R. 552, calling on the Russian Federation to free Paul Whelan. I worked with my colleagues across the Michigan delegation.

Mr. Tim Walberg was, at the time, representing Manchester, Michigan. That is where Paul's family lived, and I was in regular communication with them.

We were staring down the face of Putin because it was Putin's game to take Paul Whelan, a former marine, a hometown son of Michigan, and attempt to disappear his life and attempt to play games of politics and embarrassment to the United States and, of course, with the ultimate goal of getting a swap.

Now, H.R. 552, the resolution calling on the Russian Federation to free Paul Whelan, produce the evidence or free Paul Whelan, they had no evidence. There was nothing he had done wrong. He was a citizen on his own time, an American citizen on his own time visiting Russia. That resolution was voted on unanimously. Everyone who voted that day, they voted ``yes.'' They voted to support the resolution, and the same thing happened in the Senate. We had three terms, and we voted on the same resolution each time.

On August 1--it was a Thursday into, actually, almost the following day--it was nearing midnight by the time the plane landed--Paul Whelan returned home to American soil. The ultimate and largest hostage- freeing effort since really the Cold War took place: Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, involving some of our other European counterparts.

Of course, I was watching as the plane, the bright light in the sky descending from the heavens, it felt like, landing at Andrews Air Force Base, greeted by President Biden, greeted by Vice President Harris, among the political events that were going on as well, but of course the governing, as President Biden always reminds us, still goes on. There is still so much work to do. Paul Whelan--the door opens, he appears, and he steps off the plane. He walks down the stairs.

The President placed the very American flag pin that he was wearing on Paul, and we know that Paul cherishes that and wears that pin often. It was so momentous. It was so surreal. We had so many starts and stops and missed opportunities and trials and tribulations and lack of familiarity of what it was like to see an American--he was the first one out of the crew who was taken--be put into a prison, not wanting to at all prevent what needed to happen from happening.

That was such a cause for celebration in Michigan. Billboards: Welcome home, Paul, with a yellow ribbon adorned on the billboard that people could see as they drove along our highways.

There is so much to share about this journey and the legislative body of work that surrounds hostage affairs and negotiations and the return of wrongfully detained Americans. It was 5\1/2\ years. Paul lost his job. He lost his place of residence. His dog passed away. We have mentioned Flora on this House floor before.

Now it is an effort to rebuild.

As we know, we are passing an NDAA soon. We got the Robert Levinson bill passed in 2020, and a really phenomenal package of legislation that has passed, but there is more to do.

We remain dedicated to that effort, but, of course, later that month, that very same month of August, just last month, another tragedy struck our hostage community.

Six hostages who were taken from Israel on October 7, 2023, were murdered, murdered by Hamas terrorists in a tunnel. It takes your breath away. It puts sand in your mouth. What is there to say beyond the overwhelming expression of condolences to the families and the people impacted by this?

We don't even have the exact date. We have a sense of the exact date. The bodies were recovered on August 31. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose name I know has been spoken in this Chamber and who has absolutely remarkable parents, Jon and Rachel. Rachel, who received a TIME 100 designation. It is a TIME 100 ``Person of the Year'' for her advocacy.

Hersh is American. Hersh was born in America. Hersh was born on U.S. soil, and he was taken by terrorists on October 7, 2023, because he was at a concert celebrating peace, love, and freedom.

As someone who has been doing the task force work and working so closely with so many advocacy partners, over and over again, we kept expressing that the hostages in Gaza, the Americans--32 Americans killed that day, 9 Americans taken--that they are the heartbeat of negotiation. Hersh wasn't the only person killed, murdered, in August, 23 years old--Eden at 24, Ori at 25, Alex at 32, Carmel at 40, and Almog at 27.

These are shots heard around the world, and they are attacks on all of our humanity. They are a reminder to those of us who are stewards of democracy and freedom and the efforts of this Chamber that we must do more; that we must continue to say the names; we must continue to push for a just cease-fire, an end to the war, which means that we are going to see a return of the hostages and Hamas surrendering; that these individuals should have never been murdered.

In August, we weren't in session. There was no way to verbally address this Chamber. As I had booked this Special Order hour address before the last session had concluded, it weighed on me, recognizing that we had a pretty enormous month in terms of these affairs and the work and the support alongside the Levinson family, alongside Paul Whelan and his family, the family of Hersh, the remaining hostages in Gaza, who have suffered through torturous conditions in tunnels and with starvation. One of the young women who was murdered was just 79 pounds.

This is why we stand united around a foreign aid package for democracy here in the United States of America as we seek to continue to do the work on behalf of the people who sent us here, to continue to do the work on behalf of justice and fairness, and to remind ourselves that there are many who, unfortunately, do not share our view of freedom and who want to disrupt it, who want to override it. Is the target Israel, or is the target America?

Israel is at war now on so many different fronts with pressures in the north. Mr. Speaker, 80,000 people removed from their homes and the like.

I am proud to be a supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship. I am certainly not a voting member of that country, but I am a supporting Member of this body who recognizes the essential nature of the U.S.- Israel relationship and what that means, not just for our national security, which, in this moment, is quite paramount, but also what that means for our trade, economy, innovation, and the like.

We continue to extend our support, encouragement, and love to the people of Israel, to the people suffering, to the people who are scared because of the sirens. Are you going to have to hide? Are the children going to be able to go to school?

The reality of what Hamas has done in Gaza, caring nothing for the nearly trillion dollars of assets for the people, the innocent people who live in Gaza, proclaiming that civilian deaths are a good thing.

Of course, that is one element of what is going on now in the Middle East. As I look toward the next 25 years in terms of the first quarter of the 21st century to the mid-21st century, and what is going to be determinative of our outcomes, we certainly recognize that history, the brief history of this incredible Nation of ours, is so incumbent upon us. It is heavy, and it is incumbent upon us, in part, because of a great World War that Michigan played a critical and central role in, the Arsenal of Democracy, as we responded to the attacks on our country, the attacks on civil liberties, and playing a role in ending it, and then using our industrial might to change the world's economy yet again, almost 80 years since the end of World War II.

A living memory it is barely, and it is a history worth teaching. It is a history worth knowing as an American. As part of the horrors of the Holocaust, we say Never Forget, and we ask ourselves what our challenges are for these next 25 years.

I don't want to see it be the drumbeat of war. My responsibility here is not to shepherd America into war, but certainly, it is recognizing that autocracy and democracy are competing and there is an undergird of jihad taking place, a jihad that seeks to disrupt and to dismantle, to bring us back to an ancient time that we don't want to see arrive again that terrorizes people.

The jihad is hitting in Russia, and it is a threat and a reality here in the United States of America and across Europe. Yet, as we look at ways in which our Nation exemplifies its leadership on the global stage with allies, trade partners, and the like, we have to seek ways in which we bring people along to succeed.

It can't just be America on an island alone. We have to advance and continue to push forward a foreign policy agenda that allows for and provides the conduit for our success, not just as a nation but as the harbinger of freedom.

Last century, we tried a lot of different ways to place freedom on people and to encourage democracy. In some ways and countries, it worked, and in some countries, it didn't. Exploited free markets on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party remain a problem.

As a member of the Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, as I have mentioned, we really seek to compromise and work in a bipartisan way because that sends a bigger message.

Some of this also comes back now to another important topic, which is the reform of our democracy, not in full, but as lawmakers. Anytime we are passing a law, we are making a contribution to our democracy. When I, as a Member of Congress from Michigan, introduce a bill, Mr. Speaker, it is not just for my constituents. It is the Nation's laws.

We here this evening couldn't pass a Federal budget. We are passing the Nation's budget, so I find it worth our efforts as lawmakers and as stewards of the Constitution to ask ourselves of worthy improvements. You have seen this term ``seven bills'' introduced by colleagues on the other side of the aisle specific to the District of Columbia and its unique status, non-State status of seeking to govern ways in which the District of Columbia works.

I don't know if those are messaging bills. Sometimes that is what they call them, messaging bills, or points that folks are trying to get across. It puzzles me. Why would you come here from Texas to legislate specifically to the District of Columbia?

I have participated in the majority in the debate to add the District of Columbia as a State to the Union, and this is not about politics. Of course, there is the Puerto Rico consideration, and that comes with its complexities and its own points about self-determination, but the people of Washington, D.C., over 700,000 people, larger than a handful of States, have said they want to become a State.

This is the grand conversation of the historic nature of the body we serve in. It is every debate that was had in the first 100 years of this Chamber. How did States get added? Well, of course, it was controversial, based on the horrors of slavery and something that this country had to shed itself of through Civil War, and I am not saying that is what is weighing down on District of Columbia, but we added States to this Union.

It was a Constitution with 13 Colonies. It was a Constitution that was written over periods of time. We have these constitutional scholars and these points of history, and allow me to just share as an aside that it is really quite humbling to talk about the Constitution on the floor of this House.

Debates that we can go back to that were written up and points that were made and doctrines that were written surrounding it, of course, starting with the Declaration of Independence, that is an origin story. Our Declaration of Independence is an origin story. It is just like meeting someone for the first time. Where were you born? Who were your parents? What is your origin story?

Origin stories become not things of myth but really cause for celebration. We should be proud of America's origin story. I certainly am. I revel in celebrating July Fourth safely and freely here in the United States of America every year, and I am grateful for it.

It is not to be blasphemous to our Constitution. It is not to be disregarding of its strong governance and

the ways in which our laws and our systems have moved us forward over and over again, much to the envy of many.

We have a strong economy, the strongest economy in the world, great innovation, great communities, great schools, good elections, but we have to look this time in the face.

In July 2020, I didn't speak these words, but I wrote these words and submitted them to the Chamber. I think that they are worth sharing in part because we are in an election year. I am not politicking, and I am not abusing this lectern or my time or my space here.

These elections seem to drive us further from each other than they do drive us together. It is like we can't see each other. I am from a politically popular State, Michigan. People are campaigning and competing for Michigan, so I see it all. I see what is going on with these national campaigns.

On July 9, 2020, I submitted words to the Congressional Record:

Madam Speaker, I rise today with respect to our democracy.

We boast a steady history, no matter the circumstance, of

maintaining a peaceful and efficient process upon the

conclusion of our Presidential elections. Whether a President

continues in office for another term, experiences defeat, or

concludes holding office due to the constitutional term

limit, our democracy has flourished to the benefit of the

American people for centuries.

Now, I am going to guess that we are going to have a passionate, heated November 5 and a result is going to happen. I am going to make this extension, similar to how I did in written form 4 years ago, of committing to that peaceful process.

This is not to shame, scold, or admonish. We are in a new time. We are not struggling with the pandemic. We are not struggling with people not being able to work and dealing with some other matters that kept them pent up, but we are here to flourish as the 21st century hits its quarter mark.

When I think about what happened, and I was here as the 2020 election happened and then debates pursued and fights and claims of malfeasance, which were really never proven, but I stand here because, from 2000 to 2020, we had a lot of frustrations with our Federal elections. 2000 was one. It was major.

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

Mr. Speaker, 15 minutes, a good 45 minutes of going strong here, and not a sip of water. Mr. Speaker, I will use my 15 minutes.

I am going to say this because we had the 2000 election, which was really determined by the Supreme Court. People who were in the political process and people who surround the lawmaking of this Nation, instead of saying, gosh, what are the American people telling us over and over again? We are closer together than we are further apart.

We have a four-seat effort to have a new majority in the Congress. We have a 50-50 Senate.

We have an electoral college, which was somewhat designed to placate and recognize legal and important matters in the United States of America.

We have an electoral college that has determined a handful of these elections, particularly in this century. We want to say your vote matters.

Well, the popular vote is recognized, but it is not determinative, and we really haven't reformed or adjusted a thing. We have just continued on.

We haven't made amendments. We haven't added States to the Union. We have just said, this is the way it is going to be.

We are experiencing a somewhat frustrating and tragic uptick in the disappointment of our fellow countrymen and women. They don't trust the system.

It astonishes me. This is the time in the process of elections where, of course, I am in rigorous conversation with voters, but I am also in rigorous conversation with people who aren't voting the way I am. Why is that?

I know that the world changes really quickly after an election, and we have to find a way to keep going. We have to find a way to make sure that this institution hits its pitch level of perfection. It will never be perfect, but in terms of outcomes and results.

Frankly, if you don't understand why people are voting a certain way, if you are just quick to write them off or to make a judgment or an insult, and maybe this is a lecture to everyone, but it is really just a point of personal privilege, you are not on the path to succeeding, and we know that.

I take pride as a liberal, as a Democrat who came in and won because people who voted for the 45th President voted for me, and I recognize that. I took that seriously. I always kept it up.

We have had a couple of impeachments last term and this term and the term before it. Every term I have been here, impeachment comes up. It is not clear to me that impeachment is even working for its intended purposes.

Now, the last time we impeached a President, I thought, well, that is very impeachable because of the dereliction of duty and the total abandonment of the roles and the responsibilities of the Commander in Chief. The government was being attacked. There is no excuse about it. Well, that impeachment failed. The impeachments are failing.

We do have elections, and elections have to be fair, we can say that, but they have to be trusted. They have to be trusted.

Whether it is me or another elected official always deems someone as political it is because they are falling in a party, well, you are on that side and I am on this side. The trust can only extend so far, and that becomes painful to our democracy.

While I haven't proposed every answer on every reform, de Tocqueville, certainly when he was evaluating our Nation and exploring it and writing about it, said ``Nothing is more wonderful than the art of being free, but nothing is harder to learn how to use than freedom.'' The freedom of our fellow citizens, our fellow residents, and the freedom as lawmakers who have been bestowed a trust on behalf of the citizens of our district, the voting residents of our districts, to continue to help to form a more perfect Union.

We must reclaim trust. We must utilize every facet of this body, not in perfunctory terms, not for show, which is why I have carved out an hour of my evening to make this extension and to make this reflection and to dare to proclaim that a reformed and strengthened American democracy will best serve us to the future generations and those before us today.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to rise in celebration of the union of Mrs. Christie Houlihan and Mr. Rahul Dev Chatterjee.

Christie and Rahul came from different walks of life--Rahul moved to Texas from India in the year 2000 to study at Texas A&M University, while Christie grew up in New York and had relocated to Dallas in the last several years. Their first date allowed them to bond over their Irish and Indian backgrounds, developing a mutual understanding of their love for their families and for travel.

Towards the end of that first date in June of 2022, when Christie began to make her exit. Rahul presented her with a parting gift: a small box with a bottle of Shalimar perfume by Guerlain. The same type of perfume that Christie's late grandmother used to wear every day and shared with her when Christie was a young child. As was described in the New York Times. Rahul had no way of knowing the significance this small bottle had for Christie, but to her, it was a sign. They were wed on November 18, 2023, in Palm Beach, FL., surrounded by loving family and friends.

Mr. Speaker, I am elated to recognize Christie and Rahul, and I extend my enthusiastic well-wishes as they continue this chapter

of their life together. Please join me in celebrating the marriage of Christie Houlihan and Rahul Dev Chatterjee who are so beloved by their community and whose partnership brings joy to so many. I was honored to pay witness to their nuptials and ask Congress to join me in celebrating them as their one-year anniversary approaches.

Mr. Speaker, I was unable to vote today on ordering the previous question on H. Res. 1370. Had I been present, I would have voted NAY on Roll Call No. 359.

Mr. Speaker, I thank this Chamber that affords the time for this special hour. It is a profound and deep honor to stand here with my friend, who I am also privileged to call one of my heroes, Congresswoman Lucy McBath, who I came into this very Chamber with as new freshmen, the class of 2018. Most of us never ever had run for office, and we took on a new House majority in a very challenging time for this country.

I have seen her work day in and day out. It doesn't matter if it is Gun Violence Prevention Month. While I never got to meet her son, Jordan, and his fate is certainly why I know his mother, I know his soul, and I know his spirit because his mother has channeled it into good and into change and into togetherness for this Nation of ours.

Mr. Speaker, I also stand here as a Representative of Michigan, and we are coming out of a very tough week in Oakland County. About 10 days ago, we had a shooting incident at a splash park on a Saturday, the day before Father's Day, with nine injured parents shielding their infant children, a grandfather, an 8-year-old shot in the head and still is in the hospital. This was followed by another horrific scene the next Saturday; an Oakland County deputy sheriff was shot while investigating a crime in Detroit.

Time and time again, we see these incidences. We see these horrific mass shootings. I have, as a lawmaker and as a policymaker and someone who has stood by President Biden, who has stood by my colleagues on getting so much done, remain absolutely baffled by these statistics, by these events, that just seemingly and uniquely happen in a country where we refuse to change our laws, where we continue on this path of insanity.

There is too much pain. There are too many mass shootings. I invite everyone to 2411, my office in Rayburn, outside of my office door, where I have the orange ribbon for every mass shooting that has happened this term in Congress. We are over 800.

I remember calling Congressman Neguse when the mass shooting happened in his grocery store in his district. I remember the mass shooting in Buffalo and how personal that has felt. Again, another grocery store. We are arming hate in the United States of America, and we are arming insanity. Yes, those of us on this side of the aisle are talking about common sense, and we all have a responsibility to the next generation.

Our first Generation Z Member of Congress, Maxwell Frost, has been carrying the torch of gun violence prevention through his activism work before he entered this very Chamber. When are we going to double down on passing commonsense gun safety legislation? When are we going to say that the right to bear arms is a privilege in the United States of America?

Our U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, just proclaimed gun violence as a public health crisis, and that is what it is, at parties and in grocery stores and in houses of worship.

We are in a grand competition on the global stage. I have been so honored this term to work on the U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. We need to look ourselves in the face, and we need to show that democracy works, and it works when we pass laws. It works when we regulate.

It works when we institute training programs and check-ins and red flag laws and when our prosecutors prosecute, like our Oakland County prosecutor did in Oakland County, Michigan, the parents who don't utilize safe storage.

Your right is a privilege, and our right to live freely, safely, and peacefully deeply matters, even outside of the month of June, where we say wear orange and stand for gun safety and gun violence prevention. This is something we can all rally around and do, just as we did 2 years ago almost on this very day, when we passed a bipartisan gun safety law. That was a good start, but there is more to do because these mass shootings and these shooting deaths of innocent children and people continue to happen in the United States of America.

Anyone who walks through the door to my office will see those orange ribbons and is invited into the conversation and the solution making that we need.

Madam Speaker, I thank the distinguished ranking member of the Oversight Committee for yielding. I also thank my colleague, the Representative from Washington, D.C., who tragically and outrageously does not have full voting rights here in this Chamber, but whose arguments and points are very well received.

Madam Speaker, I am rising in stark opposition to H.R. 192, another unbelievable attempt by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to legislate specifically on the District of Columbia. We are individual Representatives duly elected by our constituents to legislate for this country and our constituents have representation, and yet the District of Columbia, who we are obsessively seeing our colleagues try and legislate on, does not have representation.

Why not look at the host of issues this country is facing? We only have so much time in this body. We are almost to the halfway point left of this term. We could be working on paid leave, decreasing maternal mortality, fully funding special education, the climate crisis, a national gun violence epidemic, women's rights, real voting rights for this country.

Give me a break. This is how we are choosing to use our time, a fifth effort to legislate specifically to the Nation's Capital, the only capital of a country that does not have full voting rights in a Federal Chamber?

This is outrageous, and it is anti-democratic. Frankly, what this also is, as we have seen this playbook before and the ranking member knows this, this is another attempt to fearmonger around national elections that are coming, that supposedly those who are voting shouldn't. We need more people to be voting.

Madam Speaker, I fiercely oppose this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight an extraordinary initiative in the heart of Michigan's 11th district, Project DIAMOnD, a groundbreaking program spearheaded by Troy's Automation Alley and the Oakland County Economic Development Office.

This project encapsulates not just the spirit of innovation but also the determination of our local communities and our industrious small to midsized manufacturers.

Project DIAMOnD is revolutionizing additive manufacturing with 3D printing, positioning Michigan as a global leader and delivering 250 3D printers to empower manufacturers in the automotive, aerospace, and defense sectors.

This technology allows rapid prototyping, reduces lead times, and integrates seamlessly into existing supply chains, advancing our national manufacturing agenda.

Mr. Speaker, as we look to future-proof our industries, let us support and expand initiatives like Project DIAMOnD.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague, the gentlewoman from Connecticut, for yielding time, and I reflect on this farm bill from the standpoint that at this period in time, Americans are paying more of their earned income for food than they have in the last 30 years.

Our President's FTC chair has notified us that grocery stores, big grocers, some food manufacturers, but mostly the grocers are price gouging.

If you are middle class, if you are poor, if you are trying to save for college for your kid, or if you are trying to save up for an unexpected occurrence, food is squeezing the middle class and working families of this country.

We have a responsibility to pass a farm bill that addresses the needs of the hungry and addresses the needs of our middle class.

We have to get real because what we do is we say, oh, you know what? We are going to cap you at this income level. If you are a single mom, and you are raising your kid, and you are $500 over that income level, you don't get the SNAP benefits.

I am sick of this type of governance. I am sick of this type of means testing. We did this in the pandemic. It wasn't hard.

Steve Mnuchin was able to give everybody a capped unemployment level, but when it comes to food, you have a Democratic Caucus over here fighting over and over and over again.

We have free and reduced lunch in our schools. Thanks to the Governor of Michigan for actually getting that done. We would like to see that in the United States of America.

This is real stuff, and kids are going to school hungry, and kids are ashamed when they are carrying in those meal cards, and parents are worried.

Do you know what we have? We have over a trillion dollars of credit card debt because people can't go to the grocery store.

They can't take their kids out to eat because it costs $50 for a family of four. You can't get lunch for under $15.

What are we litigating here? We are just filling the pockets of the grocers and the big business and the this and the that when we don't actually have a real North Star here in this Chamber.

Just one last fact: The maximum benefits of SNAP right now fell 19 percent short of covering basic meal costs.

One study revealed that in 98 percent of counties, SNAP benefits did not cover the cost of a modestly priced meal, so we are not even meeting the bare minimum, my friends. We are not even doing the bare minimum.

The House Democrats are going to continue to stand up to this wrong- minded package that will not be serving the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the President's announcement of increased tariffs on Chinese goods in key sectors.

President Biden leads once again. He took strong actions this week to give us the tools that we need as a nation to combat unfair trade practices, support cutting-edge American manufacturing, and protect our national security.

American workers and businesses can outcompete anyone on a level playing field, but China has undermined that level playing field for decades. The increased tariffs on electric vehicles, EV batteries, steel, aluminum, semiconductors, critical minerals, and other fundamental inputs will support American manufacturing and ensure the next generation of good-paying jobs are created right here in the United States of America with good union jobs.

These measures will also help secure supply chains essential to our national security. President Biden's tariff increases will build domestic capacity and insulate critical industries from undue Chinese Communist Party influence.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of Michigan's 11th District to celebrate the overwhelming bipartisan passage of the FAA reauthorization, which included my bill, the Severe Turbulence Research and Development Act.

Turbulence is a leading cause of injuries to flight crews and the flying public, yet we lack a fundamental understanding of why turbulence incidents are increasing in frequency and severity. We also lack the ability to accurately predict where turbulence incidents will occur to adjust flight routes. This is unacceptable.

The FAA does not have the research, resources, and datasets needed to keep people safe. That is why my bill will enhance the monitoring and understanding of severe turbulence and inform the development of measures to mitigate safety impacts on crew and the flying public that may result from severe turbulence.

Today is a great day for flight crews, pilots, and airports across America. Again, I celebrate the passage of this legislation and look forward to seeing it signed into law.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, an annual celebration that recognizes the many historical and cultural contributions of Asian and Pacific Islander descent to the United States.

From science to medicine, literature and arts, sports and recreation, government and politics, activism, and law, our Asian-American community is so vital to our country's success.

I would like to shine a light on the Asian Pacific American Chamber of Commerce back in my home state of Michigan, which I had the honor of celebrating with for their 23rd annual anniversary and gala that included so many constituents, leaders from throughout Michigan. Yet again, Michigan continues to lead the way alongside our AAPI community.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Ranking Member Lofgren for yielding time.

I am standing before you here today in support of this incredible bicameral, bipartisan bill, the Fire Grant and Safety Act, which I am so pleased to be an original cosponsor of.

I certainly want to recognize the incredible work of our junior Senator from Michigan, Senator Gary Peters, for moving this bill forward for our consideration.

I certainly recognize Mr. Kean, who is the lead sponsor on the Republican

side of this critical bill, and, frankly, senior Members of this body who joined in the debate, as well.

This piece of legislation, as has been shared, just reauthorizes very critical elements of the U.S. Fire Administration and its programs to support firefighters and lifesaving EMS workers to make them better protected. It is just really one of the best things that we can do in this Chamber.

Just last week, I was visited by Fire Chief Robert Jennison. He lives in my district in West Bloomfield, and he is a fire chief in Livonia, a community I used to represent. He mentioned this bill and how important it is for his fire stations and for his activities.

We should be really proud to be coming together in a bipartisan way to reauthorize our fire safety efforts here in the United States of America.

We also have to be real with ourselves because over a 10-year period, fire-related deaths in this country rose by 33 percent.

That has been unnecessary, and it has been an unnerving loss of life. With the National Fire Protection Association estimating that once every 23 seconds, a fire department somewhere in our country responds to a fire emergency, we must do more to support our local heroes.

Mr. Speaker, I thank again Ranking Member Lofgren, particularly in light of her remarkable leadership in crafting and introducing this bill. I join both of my colleagues to shine a light on the deep and critical importance of H.R. 4143, the National Construction Safety Team Enhancement Act.

We all know that NIST is the little engine that could within our Federal Government, doing so much with little resources and showing the true benefit of where and how we invest taxpayer dollars for the greater implications of society and safety. We know that the National Construction Safety Team within NIST is modeled after the National Transportation Safety Team, both expert operations that get dispatched to the site of major building disasters to investigate the cause and identify preventive solutions.

However, the existing authority only extends to buildings, and it leaves out major swaths of our built environment, as the ranking member mentioned, like bridges and levees, which, just frankly, leaves our Nation vulnerable.

This legislation will expand the safety team's existing authority to better investigate those failures of infrastructure in structures other than buildings.

This really couldn't come at a more important time. I know this is deeply critical to residents in Michigan. We want to be in a place where we are creating resilient structures and recognizing some of the damaging impacts of climate change and rising sea levels. That is the extreme weather environment we are in.

I thank the ranking member and all on the Science Committee. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this bill and eager to see it passed in the House of Representatives.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the news that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will soon reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.

Reclassifying marijuana from a schedule I drug to a schedule III drug while not legalizing marijuana is an important step in normalizing cannabis use in the United States and recognizing that marijuana is not cocaine, and it is not heroin.

The order will broaden access to the drug for medicinal purposes and move us further away from a time of prosecution and incarceration for simple possession, something that has had damaging effects to Black and Brown communities across this country.

I commend President Biden for his important work on this issue. From pardoning thousands of Americans convicted of simple possession of marijuana to reviewing all Federal marijuana laws, the Biden administration is taking the necessary steps to improve marijuana policy in the United States.

Promises made, promised delivered. I thank President Biden.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of Manufacturing USA, the network of research institutes that develop manufacturing technologies through public-private partnerships.

Ten years since the creation of Manufacturing USA through the American Manufacturing and Innovation Act, or the RAMI Act, we are seeing firsthand why these institutes and funding them is so critical to our country.

This was an initiative that started under President Obama and has carried forward through two Presidential administrations since. From MxD's ability to push the bounds of digital tools in manufacturing to ARM's ability to revolutionize the sector with robotics, to all of the amazing biomanufacturing institutes furthering materials science and biotechnology applications, to Remade's work of creating a circular economy, to PowerAmerica and its forthcoming sibling ensuring American leadership in the semiconductor industry, to my hometown hero, LIFT, creating technologies needed for an electric future.

My friends, this is Manufacturing USA. This is workforce development in action.

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

Mr. Speaker, in Hawaii, California, Colorado, and Michigan, wildfires are posing an increasing threat to the lives and livelihoods of so many Americans.

Over the last 30 years, the wildfire season in the West alone has lengthened by several months, and the total number of acres burned per year has nearly doubled.

Climate change has contributed to warmer temperatures and drier conditions, causing more frequent and intense wildland fires.

Understanding the fundamental science behind wildfires, including the impacts of climate change, is absolutely essential to our ability to improve the prediction and forecasting of increasingly severe wildfires.

Another essential element to our response to wildfires is the effective communication of information and risks to land managers and to those living in wildfire-vulnerable areas.

To accomplish that, we have H.R. 4866, a phenomenal bipartisan piece of legislation to direct NOAA to establish a program that will increase the accuracy of, and effectively communicate, fire forecasts and warnings.

The brave and tireless work of incident management teams is absolutely the cornerstone of successful wildfire responses. This includes incident meteorologists, or IMETs, who work around the clock at active fire sites for days or weeks at a time, providing lifesaving information about wildfire and environmental conditions to firefighters and managers.

This bill also allows NOAA's National Weather Service to fully compensate IMETs for overtime work during active fire events, which will expand the capacity of IMETs to conduct their essential work.

The bill also requires NOAA to leverage collaborations with State, local, and Tribal governments, Federal agencies, academia, and the private sector to decrease the loss of lives and property from wildfires and support fire response personnel.

I truly commend Congressman Mike Garcia and my colleague from Colorado (Ms. Caraveo) for working on this important legislation that will truly put the United States in a better position to respond to increasing threats of wildfires.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Colorado (Ms. Caraveo).

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

Mr. Speaker, we find ourselves at a prominent moment here on the House floor, hopefully seeing the passage of H.R. 4866 to address some of these extraordinary fire considerations that have taken place. I continue to encourage my colleagues to join those of us who do this hard and great work on the Science Committee to pass this bill.

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