Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, tonight in Bismark, there is an event honoring the State senate career of Nicole Poolman.

Elected in 2012, Nicole served in the North Dakota State senate for a decade. She used her career as a teacher to educate members of the Senate on how to govern with intelligence, competence, and grace.

Mr. Speaker, I know this better than most. She was my seatmate on the floor of the State senate for 6 years. Because of her friendship, I have become a better public servant, and more importantly, I have become a better person.

She is retiring from the senate to continue to focus on her true passion, teaching.

This year marks her 25th year as an educator. In that time, she has taught in three high schools and has had such a positive impact on thousands of North Dakota students. The North Dakota State government is going to miss her dearly. But their loss is her students' gain. I am so very proud to call her my friend.

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3962, the SECURE Notarization Act, is a bipartisan bill that would authorize the nationwide use of remote, online notarizations, which is simply an electronic notarization where the party and notary are in different locations.

Society has widely adopted remote meetings, events, and even social activities. Requirements for a signer to be physically present before a notary are often impractical and sometimes impossible, such as with military deployments or travel restrictions.

Remote online notarization increases the use of notarization and allows individuals to conduct crucial business, particularly if both parties are unable to be physically present with a notary.

This bill would provide businesses and individuals with the ability to execute documents using two-way audiovisual communication, while protecting consumers with multifactor authentication and tamper-evident technology.

The bill would not replace State laws governing the authorization and regulation of notaries public, nor would this bill alter State control over the practice of law or commonly notarized legal papers, like estate documents.

It would simply provide for the recognition of remote notarization performed in interstate commerce, Federal courts, and would ensure the recognition of remote notarizations performed under another State's law.

This is similar to the Full Faith and Credit Clause and implementation statutes that ensure the recognition of official activities or judicial proceedings in another State.

Again, this has been said, but this bill has 123 cosponsors. It proceeded through regular order. It passed the Energy and Commerce Committee with a 56-0 vote. It also has the support of 20 organizations like the American Land Title Association, which utilizes notaries public on a daily basis.

Mr. Speaker, I, too, thank the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Dean), my friend, for working so closely with our office and having a lot of fun as we moved the notary bill forward. If you think having fun on a notary bill is easy, Mr. Speaker, you have got to work at it, but we have had a lot of fun, and I appreciate it.

Madam Speaker, the Constitution grants Congress the power over the size and composition of the judiciary. The Judiciary Act of 1789 and subsequent laws established this structure.

Since 1869, the number of Justices has been fixed at nine. Congress has the authority to change that number. Whether Congress should exercise this authority is another question entirely, and whether Congress should exercise that authority in a 50/50 Senate and a single- digit majority in the House is another question.

In Sykes v. United States, Justice Scalia wrote: ``It should be no surprise that as the volume'' of law ``increases, so do the number of imprecise laws. . . . Fuzzy, leave-the-details-to-be-sorted-out-by-the- courts legislation is attractive to the Congressman who wants credit'' without dealing with ``the nitty-gritty.''

The real problem is that Congress doesn't want to deal with the nitty-gritty. We want to fundraise off of top-line messages and vague legislative text.

We write ambiguous law that leaves important details and major questions to unelected bureaucrats. The decisions of those unelected bureaucrats inevitably are left to be sorted out by the courts. The Court is merely doing its job to say what the law is.

Our reaction should be to take back our Article I authority and to clearly articulate congressional intent. If we write detailed laws, judges will properly implement Congress' intent.

Instead, too many in this body seek to exploit congressional inaction, choosing to double down on fundraising pleas by bashing the courts and promising to pack judges onto the Court to guarantee their preferred outcome.

Here is a better idea. If you can't pass the Clean Power Plan through Congress, don't ask the EPA to implement it and then feign outrage when the Court says, no, that is not how a democratic republic is supposed to work.

James Madison said Congress would fight to the death to protect its Article I authority. Unfortunately, I think what we have seen is that Congress will fight to the death to maintain their membership in Congress.

Now, the one way in which far too many on the left want to exert our Article I authority is to pack the Court so Congress can continue to outsource legislating to the bureaucratic state and then ensure the Court gives them the decision they would like.

Madam Speaker, I urge everyone to defeat the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the Restoring Hope for Mental Health and Well-Being Act.

This bipartisan mental health package includes my legislation, the Summer Barrow Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Act. This bill reauthorizes several substance use disorder programs administered by SAMHSA that help local communities provide substance use disorder and mental health services to those most in need.

This is particularly important for rural States like North Dakota, where individuals struggle to access all treatment options that may work for them.

The package also includes the Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment Act, or MAT Act. The MAT Act would remove the burdensome requirement that a healthcare practitioner apply for a separate waiver, known as the X waiver, through the Drug Enforcement Agency to prescribe certain drugs for substance use disorder treatment.

The X waiver requirement limits access to lifesaving treatment, which is particularly painful considering recent news that drug overdose deaths hit a record high of more than 107,000 in 2021.

Lastly, I offer my support for an amendment I offered with my friend Congressman Trone of Maryland that will come to the floor soon. Our amendment would add the State Opioid Response Grants Act to this program.

This amendment will provide $8.75 billion over 5 years in flexible financing for State Opioid Response grants and Tribal Opioid Response grants, providing States and Tribes certainty and stability to implement prevention, treatment, and recovery.

Madam Speaker, the fact is, President Trump has exerted executive privilege, and Mr. Scavino has raised the issue of executive privilege at President Trump's request.

No matter how much my colleagues on the other side want to say differently, it is a legitimate assertion, considering the D.C. Circuit Court, in Nixon v. Administrator, held that the executive privilege can be raised by a former President, a determination recently reinforced by Justice Kavanaugh in Trump v. Thompson by stating that the right of a former President to assert executive privilege exists, even if the sitting President does not support that privilege. Concluding otherwise would, in fact, actually eviscerate the privilege in total.

Keep in mind that the ruling on executive privilege in Trump v. Thompson deals with a narrow set of documents from the National Archives. It has no bearing on whether Mr. Scavino testifies. The ruling does not apply to documents at issue in this case, nor does it apply to the testimony sought by the committee or whether the committee has a legitimate purpose for conversations between President Trump and his aide.

The select committee has refused to acknowledge President Trump's assertion of privilege as it applies to Mr. Scavino, and the committee takes an overexpansive view of what Trump v. Thompson actually says and fails to even acknowledge that the Supreme Court case of Nixon v. Administrator exists.

This is not a settled question, and it is not nearly as clear-cut as some would have you believe.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act.

I thank Mr. Cohen for introducing this important legislation.

Mr. Speaker, due process is more than an ideal. It is a fundamental right enshrined in our law. The Constitution confirms that right and explicitly ensures procedural fairness to those accused and convicted of crimes. Yet, the criminal justice system often grants judges with discretion to increase the length and severity of punishment based on conduct for which an individual was proven not guilty.

We can all agree that holding criminals accountable is essential to law and order. However, sentencing based on acquitted conduct is an affront to all Americans' constitutional rights. The Prohibiting Punishment of Acquitted Conduct Act will bring an end to this unfair practice.

This bipartisan, bicameral legislation bars judges from considering an individual's acquitted conduct during sentencing, except for purposes of mitigating a sentence.

This bill is a crucial step toward restoring some fairness in our criminal justice system and commands a broad coalition of support, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, the ACLU, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Conservative Union.

I thank both Chairman Nadler and Ranking Member Jordan for moving this bill through the Judiciary Committee.

One last thing: Judges have a range of sentences in the sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors, after conviction, make recommendations. There is a pretrial sentencing report. Again, the sentencing can vary very highly up and down in that vein. There is absolutely no reason, in the interest of justice or fairness, where acquitted conduct needs to be used in sentencing offenders.

Mr. Speaker, my hometown of Dickinson, North Dakota, is in the southern part of the Bakken oil patch. It is where we unleashed this revolutionary technology of shale hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, and producing natural gas. But you know what else? Eighteen miles away from my childhood hometown is an ethanol plant. Seven miles to the west is a biodiesel plant. Thirteen miles south, fourteen miles south is the largest wind farm in North Dakota generation of Brady I and Brady II. About 80 miles to the northeast we are figuring out how to strip rare earth metals out of lignite coal so we can be less dependent on Russia and China in all of those issues.

The people who work and live in my communities grow all the cereal grains, and the by-products from the ethanol plant are fed as feedstock to our cattle industry, so I don't need lectures from anyone on all-of- the-above energy, particularly when the left's version of all-of-the- above energy is solely wind, solar, rainbows, unicorns.

Here is the dirty little secret: The world is going to burn more carbon in 2 years whether we shut down domestic production or not, and this naive and idealistic viewpoint that if we shut down American industry, American ingenuity, then the rest of the world will follow along is fundamental differential to the fact we are watching it play out in real time.

Our strategic adversaries and, indeed, our enemies will fill this space--that is the fact--because the world needs these products, and they are going to continue to utilize these products. But at least welcome this: We are going to do nothing to reduce global carbon emissions because the atmosphere doesn't recognize countries' borders.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question, allow this to go back, and let us do what we were doing so well until the last year, developing American energy, allowing it to be utilized, rather than energy from our adversaries.

I can tell you one last thing, and then I will close. In the last year, we haven't had a Federal lease sale in North Dakota. Congressional Democrats have tried to ban the transport of liquefied natural gas by rail, and so let's be honest about how we got here so we can get there in the future.

Madam Speaker, we all know the importance of the U.S. Postal Service and its core mission of prompt, reliable, and efficient mail service to all Americans, regardless of where they live.

This is essential in States like North Dakota, where even the most rural postal customers rely on the USPS for the reliable delivery of everything from electric bills to essential medicine.

But for too long, Congress has ignored the substantial problems plaguing the U.S. Postal Service. From declining mail volume to operational inefficiency, the Postal Service has been stuck with a business model that is not suited to meet the needs of the 21st century.

This body has been complicit in allowing the financially independent Postal Service to die a slow death over the last 15 years. In that time, we have seen mail volume collapse by 40 percent; annual losses total more than $90 billion; and the addition of more than 1 million new delivery points every year.

When I was on the floor debating these issues last Congress, I said the Postal Service does not need a short-term bailout; it needs serious reform. This bill begins that process.

H.R. 3076 is complementary to Postmaster General DeJoy's 10-year reform plan and his request to Congress. This bill increases accountability by requiring a public dashboard with national and local service performance data that is routinely updated. It supports the delivery of mail at least 6 days per week. It requires regular reporting to Congress so we can keep on top of the Postal Service's plan and ensure the investment goals, cost savings, and revenue projections are met.

It is more important than ever to support initiatives that place the Postal Service on a path to financial stability and maintain its self- sufficiency. With a current projected insolvency date of 2024, delaying postal reform today will only make future decisions more difficult and more expensive. The status quo is simply not an option.

I appreciate Ranking Member Comer and Chairwoman Maloney coming together on this bipartisan bill to do the hard work of making the Postal Service more reliable and sustainable in the long term, and I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Madam Speaker, I was in Minneapolis the Saturday that speech was given, so to say that it wasn't analogous, I think, is fairly uncertain. The entire town was a tinderbox.

So as we continue to move through this, I would appreciate a little less of the self-righteous indignation. What is really damaging here and what is really unfortunate is that we have abandoned any recognition of institutional integrity, any pretense of fairness, any notion that something should be above partisanship.

Because I got news--and I believe this--I thought what was said in Minneapolis doesn't rise to incitement of violence. Jury tampering, possibly. Irresponsible, absolutely. The same thing goes for this post. It was dumb. It was silly. It was stupid. It was mean-spirited. But you know what it is not? It is not incitement of violence. And when we use hyperbole in those words, we cause ourselves problems, but there is no point and attempt with the majority at this point to follow through on any rules or procedures.

The U.S. House of Representatives looks significantly more like a junior high lunchroom than a legislative body. If you are in our clique, you are okay. If not, tough. If we like you, no fines. If we don't, we will take it out of your paycheck. A Member on your side calls for violence, motion to table; a Member on our side, stand in the well and answer for your sins. Rules matter, process matters, the institution matters.

Madam Speaker, this will be the fourth Member of the minority stripped of their committees by the majority this Congress. That has never happened before, but it is going to happen again.

And that is what I don't understand. I understand completely why the majority's leadership is willing to do anything to maintain control over the caucus until the next election. But in the process, you are all negatively and permanently changing the way this body

functions--forever. You are weaponizing the gavel against minority Members. And if you think it stops at the next election, I have no doubt that the leadership in the majority has no intention of going back to being a rank-and-file Member in the minority, but the rest of you all will. And how do you think this ends? When the pendulum swings, and it will, we are all going to suffer the consequences.

The SPEAKER PRO TEMPORE. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Madam Speaker, the institution is going to suffer for it, and it is already suffering for it.

Committee structures, scheduling hearings, witness lists, these are all purviews of the majority. But rules of conduct and decorum have to be applied equally to all Members or the institution continues to degrade.

Madam Speaker, the rules are not being applied equally. It is noticed by us. It is noticed by the American people. It is unfortunate, and it is sad.

Mr. Speaker, throughout the consideration of this bill in committee, at Rules, and now here, several of my Democratic colleagues have argued CERCLA liability only attaches to two legacy chemicals, and we don't have to worry about others. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

This bill requires regulatory determination on 9,250 different chemicals, individually or in groups, on whether they will be CERCLA hazardous substances.

My colleagues argue that people don't have to worry about Superfund liability if they don't cause environmental harm. This argument is false.

Superfund liability is strict liability. If a party has any involvement, they are liable, period, end of story. That strict liability is what causes concern and is why Mr. Burgess offered an amendment to make only those who cause the pollution pay for its cleanup. For some reason, the majority found issue with that amendment and prevented its commonsense consideration.

If there is interest on the other side of the aisle in changing the overall rules of Superfund liability, I am sure we would be happy to consider it. Short of that improvement, my colleagues should not take comfort that only reckless, willful, or irresponsible parties will be held liable under future CERCLA designations.

Madam Speaker, I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay'' on rollcall No. 217, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 216, and ``nay'' on rollcall No. 215.

Members Recorded Pursuant to House Resolution 8, 117th Congress

Amodei (Balderson)

Buchanan (LaHood)

DeSaulnier (Matsui)

Fulcher (Simpson)

Garcia (IL) (Garcia (TX))

Granger (Calvert)

Grijalva (Stanton)

Johnson (TX) (Jeffries)

Jones (Williams (GA))

Kirkpatrick (Stanton)

Lawson (FL) (Evans)

McEachin (Wexton)

Meng (Jeffries)

Napolitano (Correa)

Payne (Pallone)

Rogers (KY) (Fleischmann)

Ruiz (Correa)

Rush (Underwood)

Salazar (Cammack)

Stewart (Curtis)

Titus (Connolly)

Van Drew

(Reschenthaler)

Wilson (FL) (Hayes)

Mr. Speaker, you can put American behind Equinor. It doesn't make it an American company. It is a Norwegian company that used to be called Statoil; now it is called Equinor that has American operations.

You can put American behind Shell. It doesn't make it an American company. It is a Dutch company who has its own legal problems in its own court that has American operations. I appreciate both of them.

At times they have done business in North Dakota; they have been great corporate citizens. You can talk about Exxon and you can talk about BP; you can talk about Shell. But let's be careful when we talk about all companies big and small that support this industry, because the one caveat with all of these companies--and this is true--the vast majority of their production does not occur onshore and most often does not even occur in the United States.

And so what does that mean? They are not subject to this CRA.

Small and medium-sized gas companies do not support this regulation. North Dakota oil and gas companies do not support this regulation. And it is not because they are interested in polluting. It is because they don't want to be duplicatively regulated from the wellhead to the market.

States are already doing this. We have heard this from New Mexico. North Dakota is regulating this. We have our industrial cushion; we have our DEQ.

But the real problem with this EPA regulation and these Obama-era policies coming back is not only its duplicative regulation, but it actually stifles innovation; because the one thing State regulators can do significantly better than the Federal Government is respond quickly--adapt. So when an industry comes to you and says, Hey, I have a way to do this better, they will work with you, they will get it done. We see it happen every day in the Oil Patch in western North Dakota.

The problem is Federal regulation at its very core is unwieldy, it is burdensome, and it gives a tremendous market share advantage to large companies over smaller companies.

We need to stop duplicative regulation. We need to allow industries to regulate and States to innovate and regulate. And we know this because we have heard it a lot. If the market is demanding, companies are going to do it. Why do we need the burdensome Federal regulation?

Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, June 5, the Dickinson High School girls softball team capped off an extraordinary season by winning the North Dakota Class A State Championship.

Dickinson had 13 hits, and Mataya Mortensen's dominant pitching performance led to the team's first-ever State title. Dickinson's 10-0 win was their 30th in 33 games. Mortensen surrendered only two hits in the shutout. And senior Paige Balliet ended the game with a walk-off double to trigger the 10-run rule.

Dickinson finished the season with 30 and 3. They had 487 hits, 110 doubles, 19 triples, and 51 home runs. Their team batting average was .464, and they averaged 14.5 runs a game, contrasted with a team ERA of 1.42 and 250 strikeouts in 196 innings.

Both Taya Hopfauf and Jenna Decker were named to the all-State team, and Coach Amanda Mickey was named coach of the year.

Congratulations to the entire team on a great year, especially Paige Balliet and Madison McChesney.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues on both sides of the aisle recognizing the unique nature of the State of North Dakota.

In 1993, the Voter Registration Act passed and there were six States that did not have voter registration. And so, rightfully so, under thoughtful and considered language, they exempted the States who didn't have voter registration from the Voter Registration Act.

Well, now we are in 2021, and the only State in the country that doesn't have voter registration is the State of North Dakota. So as this process has been going on and the different fights that exists, which I agree with my colleagues on this side of the aisle on a lot of those issues, we find ourselves in a fairly unique position in that the intent of what people are trying to do with this bill would have actually made it more difficult in a lot of cases in North Dakota for how we do things.

We are proud of our quirky board of elections system. I will just tell you, when I served in the State legislature, I was the chair of the State Senate Judiciary Committee, which was in charge of election law. And North Dakotans are very proud of it. I also served as the State party chair for 3 years, so I was very frustrated by the fact that we didn't have voter registration. So even in my own background, I had conflicting views on this.

Madam Speaker, I just appreciate the ability of everybody working together because this is really important to my State, and it would fundamentally alter things, and not in a good way.

Madam Speaker, what happened last Wednesday is an absolute tragedy. Not only are we part of dealing with it now, we were part of it then.

When emotions are frayed and tensions are this high, process matters more. It matters more now than it did

before, and the reality is this. There are serious constitutional questions about these articles.

Donald Trump is going to be President until January 20, and on January 20, Joe Biden is going to become President.

But I am going to vote against impeachment, and that is going to give me credibility at home with my base. You are going to vote for impeachment, and that is going to give you credibility at home with your base. It is easy to point at me and blame me. It is easy for me to point at you and blame you.

But on January 21, we are all going to be back here. So use that credibility. Go back and talk some hard truths to your people. I am going to do it.

And we need to do a better job.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table H.R. 3401, with the Senate amendment thereto. And if we would like to talk about accountability and if we would like to talk about oversight, I would prefer we start right here. Let your Members vote.