Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I had to fly back home to be there for the birth of my first grandchild. Had I been present, I would have

voted YEA on Roll Call No. 188 and YEA on Roll Call No. 189.

Mr. Speaker, I had to fly back home to be there for the birth of my first grandchild. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 190, ``nay'' on rollcall No. 191, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 192.

personal explanation

Mr. Speaker, I had to fly back home to be there for the birth of my first grandchild. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 185, ``yea'' on rollcall No. 186, and ``yea'' on rollcall No. 187.

personal explanation

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, this amendment is simple and straightforward. My amendment provides congressional disapproval of the denial of the Jordan Cove project permits.

The Jordan Cove project was an important liquefied natural gas proposal that would have been the only West Coast LNG export terminal and would have been essential to exporting LNG to our allies in the Pacific and freedom around the world.

The Department of Energy determined that the Jordan Cove project was expected to create 6,000 jobs during peak construction and generate up to $100 million in State and local tax revenue annually.

Importantly, this project would have allowed us to export clean liquefied natural gas to our allies, many of which have been dependent on energy from Russia, OPEC, Venezuela, and even Iran.

America makes the cleanest energy around the world. In fact, our natural gas is 42 percent cleaner than Russian gas. American innovation, in particular, fracking, has allowed America to be the global leader in emissions since 2000.

In 2016, the United States Geological Survey released a report that increased the estimate of technically recoverable natural gas in the Mancos shale deposit from 1.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to a staggering 66.3 trillion, a 40-fold increase.

David Ludlam, who worked for the West Slope Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said, there is enough natural gas to power the State of California for 50 years right in Colorado's Third District's backyard, and the need for our community to join the global energy marketplace has never been more urgent.

A West Coast LNG export terminal would have shaved critical days and significant costs off exports to Asia, eliminated threats associated with hurricanes, and reduced our reliance on the Panama Canal, which causes significant uncertainty and delays.

We should be advancing energy infrastructure projects to help ensure American energy dominance and help promote economic growth through a true all-of-the-above energy policy, not having elected politicians and bureaucrats pick winners and losers in the energy sector.

Importantly, Jordan Cove has significant bipartisan support. In fact, the project in Colorado was supported by former-U.S. Senator Cory Gardner, U.S. Senator Michael Bennet, former-Governor John Hickenlooper, the Colorado Senate, the liberal Denver Post, the liberal Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, and local governments in western Colorado, including Mesa, Garfield, Rio Blanco, Moffat, Routt, Delta, and many other counties and municipalities in my region.

While similar project proposals have languished for decades, Jordan Cove was on track for success after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted two Federal permits for the Jordan Cove Energy Project and issued a certificate of public convenience and necessity to the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline in March of 2019.

Unfortunately, the anti-pipeline, anti-natural gas, liberal Governor's administration in Oregon denied the permits and the certificate necessary for these projects, essentially killing the project in December of 2021 when the company pulled out, citing their inability to obtain the necessary State permits in the immediate future.

If Green New Deal extremists in the Governor's office actually cared about the environment, they would have supported this project as natural gas emissions result in significantly fewer air pollutants and carbon dioxide emissions, and this important project would have advanced local, regional, and global emissions reduction goals.

Like the Keystone XL pipeline, Jordan Cove was a major opportunity killed by extreme environmentalists whose sole agenda isn't protecting the environment, isn't being good stewards of what we have been blessed with, but is keeping our American energy sources in the ground and killing off fossil fuels.

America deserves an American energy strategy that works for all Americans, and this amendment makes clear that we should not allow States with a misguided agenda to kill projects of national and global energy importance.

Mr. Chair, I support adoption of this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in favor of my amendment which inserts my 90-Day Review Act into H.R. 1. My amendment will further improve H.R. 1's overall goal of ensuring reasonable timelines and predictability for projects by shortening the timeline to file a petition for judicial review of a permit, license, or approval of a major infrastructure project from 150 days to 90 days.

Frivolous litigation should not be a hurdle to critical infrastructure projects that will improve the lives of Americans across the country. For far too long, we have put trial lawyers' interests ahead of the American people. Burdensome litigation causes our hardworking men and women to sit idle on job sites as they wait on court processes.

It is far past time that Congress reduces the Federal Government's stranglehold on critical infrastructure projects and helps job creators put the American people to work.

By streamlining the Federal litigation timeline, my amendment will help reduce frivolous litigation, cut red tape, and help critical infrastructure projects move forward in a more timely manner. My amendment will reduce the amount of time it takes to construct real and important infrastructure projects like highways, bridges, railways, dams, and other important projects that will improve the lives of the people in my district and all across America.

Last Congress, we saw Democrats ram through a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill where only 9 percent of it actually went to infrastructure. Rather than focusing on meaningful reforms, this bill funded a slush fund at the Department of Energy for Green New Deal projects; tens of billions of dollars to subsidize the electric vehicle industry, establish programs to cool down pavement, reduce idling done by trucks, and even study racist roads and bridges. Yes, Mr. Chair, you heard that correctly.

Instead of spending time on this unpopular, America last agenda, House Republicans have proposed real reforms like this one, and it would cut red tape and speed up construction. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of my amendment as well as the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman), the chairman of the Natural Resources Committee.

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

Mr. Chair, I remind my colleagues, last night while they charged their phones, this morning when they brewed their cup of coffee, or even considered maybe putting on a mask for the third year in a row, and even this very moment as we stand in this Chamber with the lights on, the mics working, the AC turned down very, very low, for every one of these actions, they have an American energy worker to thank for it.

Instead of being grateful, Joe Biden and D.C. Democrats have waged a war on the American energy production, and the consequences have been devastating for the American people. Gas prices are up 44 percent, and instead of trying to enable moms and dads to get to and from work without breaking the bank, my Democratic colleagues are still suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. I don't know, maybe Pfizer has a vaccine for that one.

You know, in my district, we have been regulated into poverty because of Democrat policies pushing oil and gas out of our communities. Now, moms who could have stayed home are forced to get a job to supplement the income that is lost from the good-paying job that dad no longer has. Then there are the childcare struggles that they are facing and the inflation struggles that they are facing that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Chairman, have created.

Mr. Chairman, instead of screaming: ``Orange man bad'' on TikTok, maybe they should come up with some real solutions because that isn't going to solve the problems that America is facing.

American Republicans are focused on delivering policy solutions to address those problems. H.R. 1 includes my bill, the American Energy Act, which will reduce gas prices by providing certainty for responsible energy production and preventing baseless litigation. After all, no one produces better, safer, cleaner energy than us right here in the United States of America.

Mr. Chairman, it is past time House Democrats start to have a little empathy and dismount their moral high horse of climate change. There are thousands of children currently today slaving away in the Congo at Chinese-owned mines. They have to dig for cobalt with their bare hands. Instead of freeing these slaves and even ourselves from the need of this resource, they want to buy more Chinese-made products. It is clear they have a climate religion. They worship the Earth while I worship the creator, not the creation.

We are here to be good stewards of our land, so stop sacrificing the American families at your altar of climate change. The choice here is simple. America can continue to rely on foreign energy produced by nations that hate us----

Mr. Chairman, the choice is simple. America can continue to rely on foreign energy produced by nations that hate us and hate our values, or we can become energy independent once again.

Pursue energy dominance and put the American roughneck before OPEC, and maybe, just maybe, we put the American people before the Green New Deal lobbyists.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly support the passage of H.R. 1.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, this amendment is simple and straightforward. My amendment simply requires notification to parents if their child's school operates, sponsors, or facilitates athletic programs or activities to permit a person whose biological sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for biological females.

Madam Chair, women's sports are under attack. Woke policies backed by far-left extremists who demand male participation in female sports are completely delusional and contradict

science. This allows men who identify as women to undermine legitimate women's accomplishments. American women and girls deserve to compete against biological women in sports, opportunities for athletic scholarships, and their rightful places on the winner's podium without the fear of being sidelined and beat out by a biological male.

This was on complete display when William Thomas, a biological man who previously competed in men's swimming, stole Emma Weyant's first- place trophy at the 2022 NCAA Division I Women's 500-Yard Freestyle Final.

As a competitor in men's swimming from 2018 through 2019, Mr. Thomas ranked 554th in the 200-yard freestyle and 65th in the 500-yard freestyle. After deciding to compete against women, this mediocre male athlete, Mr. Thomas, ranked fifth in the 200-yard freestyle and won the 500-yard freestyle.

Mr. Thomas stole Emma's championship trophy and took former Olympic swimmer Reka Gyorgy's spot in the 2022 NCAA Division I swim meet.

Last Congress, I led a couple of dozen Members in introducing a resolution honoring Emma Weyant as the rightful winner of the 2022 NCAA Division I women's 500-yard freestyle race.

I am also a cosponsor of Representative Steube's bill, H.R. 734, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023.

Madam Chair, I refuse to allow our children and grandchildren to be groomed by big corporations, schools, and politicians and to think it is okay for men to compete in women's sports.

Again, my amendment simply requires notification to parents if their child's school allows males to participate in female-designated sports. I hope that we could all come to agree that parents have the right to know this before it occurs.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, we have so many people who see the idiocy in men pretending to be women and stealing opportunities from females. These girls practice their whole lives and sacrifice their bodies with strains and other injuries in sports at times only to be outpaced by a biological male. I think it is very common sense for parents to simply be notified that this is taking place.

There is Federal funding going to our public schools. If we are going to see this extremism take place in our public schools, I believe we have some sort of nexus with that to at least say parents have a right to know what is going on and that it is not being taken from them.

Other than this very simple, commonsense amendment, I am more in favor of abolishing the Federal Department of Education and getting the Federal Government completely out of public schools, but we are not there right now. We do fund public schools, and there is a mess going on there. Our children are hurting and suffering because of it.

Madam Chair, again, I urge my colleagues to support this simple, commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise in favor of my amendment, which will require schools to notify parents if they allow biological males to use restrooms or changing rooms designated for biological females.

Throughout our debate today, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have continued to mischaracterize this bill as extreme. They harp on the same talking points, saying that this bill is looking to ban books, censor curriculums, and punish teachers. I would like any child's pornographic books to be banned, but that is not exactly what we are talking about here in this amendment.

All the while, under Democrat control, we have seen public K-12 schools promote: critical race theory, teaching our children to hate their country and to hate their fellow classmates simply because of the color of their skin; radical gender ideology; and even drag shows to impressionable young children. That is what is extreme.

A school in my home State of Colorado has even changed a child's gender pronouns and preferred names and kept that information from the child's parents.

Speaking as the mother of four boys and a soon-to-be grandma, enough is enough. I don't send my boys to school to receive indoctrination from the woke mob or be sexualized by groomers. If they are, I sure as heck want to know about it and have the right to speak up, and so do these parents.

Let me set the record straight. House Republicans want parents to be involved in their child's education. We want to take control back as parents of our children's education rather than leaving it to partisan politicians or unelected bureaucrats. We don't want to send the FBI after them as domestic terrorists.

We want to foster an active learning environment, not shut schools down and enforce outdated and unnecessary mask and vaccine mandates on our children. We want children to feel safe at school and not pave the way for school administrative staff to hide a sexual assault from parents, like we saw in Loudoun County.

Less than 2 years ago, about 30 miles from here, a ninth-grade girl was sexually assaulted by a man wearing a skirt in the women's restroom at school. This male was allowed to follow the victim into the restroom because of Loudoun County Public Schools' inclusive transgender bathroom policies.

When the father of the victim came to a school board meeting to protest these policies that caused his teenage daughter to be raped, he was arrested after an altercation with a woman who

said that she didn't believe his daughter was raped. The superintendent also defended the school's transgender bathroom policy at that meeting.

The man in the skirt was found guilty of two counts of forcible sodomy, a count of anal sodomy, and a count of forcible fellatio. He was also charged with the sexual assault of another student that occurred months later at a different Loudoun County school.

The left's ideology is far more delusional, and it is dangerous. These inclusive policies have paved the way for sexual predators to use the left's definition of gender to take advantage of their victims. Unfortunately, this is just one example of many biological males using bathrooms to assault women and children.

Madam Chair, my amendment would grant parents the right to know if schools that their children are attending are forcing their children to share vulnerable spaces with potential predators.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in favor of H.J. Res. 27. This resolution will overturn Joe Biden's latest attempt to expand the Federal Government's jurisdiction and regulate every aspect of our lives.

The decision to return to the 2015 WOTUS rule puts burdensome regulations that will devastate small businesses, manufacturers, farmers, home and infrastructure builders, local communities, water districts, and everyday Americans across my district in Colorado and the entire country.

In short, the EPA's job-killing WOTUS regulation expands Washington bureaucrats' jurisdiction over ditches and navigable waters, threatening property rights and water rights for our communities. Rural Colorado runs on water, and this unconstitutional regulation will harm our way of life.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Sam Graves, for his great work to protect private water rights. We all want clean air, we all want clean water, and we know that we do it right without bureaucrats getting in our way. I support this legislation.

Mr. Chairman, free speech is under attack here in America, the free United States of America. Putin is a thug, yes. China is a threat. But nothing--and I mean nothing--will bring America to its knees like the removal of our free speech, the cornerstone for our constitutional Republic.

America without free speech is like a phone without a charger. It is only a matter of time before it dies.

Attacks on free speech should not be seen with a partisan lens. Any attack on free speech is an attack on every American who gave their life so that you and I could live freely, so that you and I could express our thoughts, beliefs, and opinions without fear of retribution or persecution.

Mr. Chair, the sad reality is the Biden administration has decided to collude with Big Tech to silence the voice of the American people under the guise of misinformation.

We saw in our committee hearings it was demonstrated that the FBI colluded with Big Tech to silence Americans' free speech. The gentleman from New York says, well, it is Russia and China who are going to interfere with our elections. No, no, Democrats are doing just fine with that on their own. When they have the Federal Government working for them and their agenda to push that forward and silence Americans' free speech, they are doing just fine with election interference.

We have seen the polls that said if Americans knew about the Hunter Biden laptop from hell, the election outcome would have been different, and you all wanted that silenced so greatly.

Now let me ask you--we certainly have the Constitution; I would love to get my colleagues on the other side of the aisle a copy--who decides what is true or false? I certainly don't trust the Federal Government to make that distinction.

They were wrong about the Hunter Biden laptop. They were wrong about the vaccine mandates, about masks, about the Wuhan lab leak, wrong about shutting down churches and schools and businesses, and they are dead wrong to use their positions to attack Americans' free speech.

For the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the only thing harder than climbing a flight of stairs, riding a bicycle, or reading a teleprompter seems to be telling the truth.

Free speech isn't just for kind speech or true speech or widely accepted speech, it is for all speech, and it is worth fighting for. I thank my friend, colleague, and chairman of the Oversight and Accountability Committee, Mr. Comer, for his work to preserve free speech in America.

Mr. Chair, my voting card did not register my vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye'' on rollcall No. 126.

Amendment No. 6 Offered by Ms. Jackson Lee

Madam Chair, I rise in favor of H.R. 347, the REIN IN Act.

I do think that it is very rich that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking about regular order all of a sudden. My first 2 years in Congress there was no such thing as regular order. In fact, I served on the Budget Committee and they passed two budget reconciliations on the House floor without it going through committee: completely bypassed committee.

First one was $1.9 trillion. The next one, $700 billion. Really all it was, was the Green New Deal: just real quick, hurry up, get it to the floor. We have to spend trillions and trillions of dollars and hurt as many Americans as possible in the 2 years that we have left in power.

With this REIN IN Act, this bill will hold Joe Biden accountable for this reckless spending that he has approved by my Democrat colleagues, who hastefully sent all of these bills to him, rushing him to spend trillions and trillions of American taxpayer dollars.

His administration will now be required to publish the inflationary impact of executive orders before enacting them.

Madam Chair, my constituents are struggling to deal with the disastrous effects of Bidenflation. Under 2 years of a one-party rule, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi unleashed a record inflation crisis on the American people that has decimated their bank and retirement accounts, increased gas prices to record levels, raised utility bills, drove up grocery costs, and made it harder to live for the people in my district, Colorado's Third District, and all throughout this great country.

The primary root cause of this record-breaking inflation was trillions of dollars of wasteful Federal spending.

In Joe Biden's first year in office alone, he issued more executive orders than any other President in my lifetime, costing taxpayers more than $1 trillion.

The American people said loud and clear last November that enough is enough. They have empowered this new majority to demand transparency by revealing just how much Biden's executive orders are costing American families and small businesses.

Madam Chair, I thank my colleague and chairwoman of the Republican Conference, Elise Stefanik, for her work to hold Joe Biden and his administration accountable.

I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the underlying bill.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, I rise in favor of Amendment No. 3, which will require inflation-impact assessments to be published on the Office of Management and Budget's website, not just reported to Congress.

This simple, straightforward amendment will ensure that the American people, who bear the brunt of inflation's impacts, will be better informed of the President's inflation-inducing actions.

Without my amendment, the real-life consequences of Joe Biden's spending spree in the White House will not be seen by those impacted most. This will provide transparency for the administration to answer to the American people.

Thanks to Joe Biden's reckless spending agenda, America will spend $10 trillion more over the next 10 years than we were estimated to spend. While the Federal Government continues to spend trillions of dollars it doesn't have, inflation has hit a 40-year high and our Nation is now mired in a recession.

Instead of addressing these major economic concerns head-on, the Democrat solution to inflation is to keep on spending.

The GOP majority has been empowered to hold the Biden administration accountable and demand transparency by revealing just how much Biden's executive orders are costing American families and small businesses.

This excessive spending has real consequences. American families will pay an $8,581 inflation tax over the next year.

Currently, 20 million Americans cannot pay their electric bill. We have seen a 4.3 percent decline in real wages since Biden took office. Americans have lost more than $2 trillion in retirement savings. Gas is nearly $4 a gallon again.

Americans are paying more for everything because of leftwing extremist policies.

House Republicans are working to reduce inflation by fundamentally changing the way we vote on appropriations bills and putting an end to reckless spending omnibus packages passed on Christmas Eve, without any time to actually read the bills, multi-thousand-page bills spending trillions of dollars, about 24 hours or less to read it.

We are working to cut wasteful spending, get to the bottom of fraudulent payments made by the Federal Government, support American energy production, and oppose tax increases proposed by the Democrats. Economic strength and job growth result from policies that unshackle job creators, allow American ingenuity, and provide certainty.

Madam Chair, I again thank my colleague, the chairwoman of the Republican Conference, Elise Stefanik, for her leadership on this issue.

Madam Chair, I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and vote in favor of the underlying bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I do want to take a few seconds to respond. That was great. We are addressed as MAGA extremists, extreme MAGA Republicans. I will just make a clarification point. It is ultra MAGA. That is what we prefer.

But I will say to the ranking member, I am very happy that they have moved on from pronouns to adjectives. When they start acting democratic, I will be sure to call them the Democratic Party.

Madam Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Comer).

Madam Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, I rise in favor of my amendment which will require the CDC to produce a report to Congress on the number of visitors denied entry under the Biden administration's vaccine mandate for all incoming international air travelers and visitors to the United States.

This simple, straightforward amendment will provide transparency surrounding this ludicrous and unscientific vaccine mandate put in place by Joe Biden's bureaucrats.

This unnecessary CDC rule has made everyday life so much harder for so many people; from tearing apart family reunifications and forcing loved ones to die alone, without their relatives by their side, to punishing companies overseas for doing business with America.

Just a few short stories my congressional office has come across include: The mother of a Dutch tourist who died on the Appalachian Trail, was unable to come home to the United States to collect her dead son's body; a woman's fiance who lives in Canada has been unable to visit her on American soil for the past 3 years; a man working for a company in the United Kingdom who is unable to travel to the United States for business meetings; and a family in New Hampshire with Canadian in-laws has been unable to have Canadian family members visit for Christmas in the United States since COVID started.

My amendment will require the CDC to account for these stories and countless others who have felt the negative ramifications of this rule. It will also provide transparency and allow congressional oversight of the consequences of this vaccine mandate.

Despite Joe Biden stating the pandemic is over, he has refused to lift this mandate. Even Canada has lifted its vaccine mandate for incoming U.S. air travelers.

Other than a few countries around the world run by dictators, the United States of America is literally the only country left that is imposing this unscientific and immoral COVID vaccine mandate on our visitors. Of course, if you cross our southern border illegally, there is no such mandate; and we know of about 5 million who have done just that.

Simply put, COVID is over. It is time for us to rejoin the free world.

I thank my friend and colleague, Representative Thomas Massie, for his work to end yet another vaccine mandate. I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and I strongly support it.

I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and to vote in favor of the underlying bill.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Chairman Comer's resolution.

If free flights, free phones, free healthcare, free education, free lawyers, and other freebies being offered to illegal aliens weren't already enough, the D.C. Council decided to now give illegal aliens the right to vote--a right that more than 1.1 million American military servicemembers have given their lives for.

Giving this right to illegal aliens is as if our government were ``The Oprah Winfrey Show.'' You get a vote, you get a vote, you get a vote.

It makes a mockery of our constitutional Republic that our brave heroes have fought for and died to defend.

The right to vote is the most sacred right in our constitutional Republic. Giving the right to vote to noncitizens cheapens this sacred right by discounting the value of citizens' votes. It also cheapens the value of American citizenship and cheapens our standing around the world as we incentivize the invasion of our own country.

Under Biden's watch, over 4.6 million illegal aliens--and those are just the ones whom we know of--have already crossed our wide-open southern border that Secretary Mayorkas and Joe Biden refused to secure, and about which Democrats could have done something for the past 2 years when they held all levels of power and refused to do so.

By the end of the year, Biden will have let in more illegal aliens than the entire population of my State of Colorado.

Instead of trying to secure the border, Democrats are more focused on giving illegal aliens more handouts and privileges, including giving them the right--the sacred right--to vote. These illegal aliens are even treated oftentimes better than our veterans who are struggling to have their healthcare needs met and to get the services that we promised them for their great service, but it is immediately given to those who come across our southern border illegally.

Let's put American citizens first and not cheapen their votes. Let's pass this legislation and ensure the voice of the American people is heard without interference from foreign nationals.

Mr. Speaker, I urge support of the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak in response to some of the opposition that I have heard to this legislation.

First of all, we have heard about slave trade multiple times this evening. If we are concerned about slave trade, then let's secure the southern border because that is where the human trafficking is taking place. Millions of people are being trafficked, and women and children are being sexually assaulted and abused. Young girls are taking Plan B pills at the start of their journey because they anticipate being sexually assaulted on their journey.

If this is something that you are that concerned about, then let's work together to secure the southern border and stop the human trafficking and the slave trade that is happening there.

There is slavery that is taking place in China in the cobalt mines that these climate extremists are pushing. There is child enslaved labor there. That is where we are extracting our rare earth minerals, from China-owned mines in the Congo. So let's talk together about American energy.

You say that this is just for local elections. Are there two registries? How is that going to work if there are two registries? I don't think it is going to stop there because every time we give in and give an inch, well, they take 7 miles.

The gentleman on the other side of the aisle mentioned that in Colorado illegal aliens are voting. Well, illegal aliens are voting, but no State has actually allowed that since 1926 in America. There are loopholes that are allowing illegals to vote in our elections. This is election interference, allowing noncitizens to vote in our elections.

In fact, this is why the crime rate is up in Colorado. We are encouraging illegal aliens to come to Colorado. We are number one in the Nation for bank robberies, number one in the Nation for auto thefts, number two in the Nation for fentanyl poisoning. We have a Department of New Americans. If you go to the Colorado State website, it says, well, what is a new American? A new American is a Coloradan.

What is a new American? A new American is a Coloradan, an immigrant seeking asylum, a refugee, asylee, a DACA recipient, an SIV holder, and all other forms of immigrants seeking safety, opportunity, reunification of family. Chain migration is being encouraged in my State where noncitizens are voting and making a difference in our elections.

Now, if there is a better way to do so, then let's let the D.C. Council reevaluate this. That is why we are sending it back to them. I would say that statehood is a matter that Congress has to consider on behalf of the entire Nation and pursue a constitutional amendment if so desired. Congress dealt with this issue in both the 116th and 117th Congresses and rejected the idea.

Congress has jurisdiction over D.C., and we need to ensure a vibrant capital city. This act does the opposite. I would again encourage opposition to this bill.

Mr. Speaker, the pandemic is over. Joe Biden has said so. I don't know why he is waiting until May to do something about it, but the pandemic is over.

It is time for the Federal Government to get back to work. It is far past time for the policies of the Federal Government to reflect this reality and the policies of hardworking Americans and for Federal employees to show up and get the job done.

In my district, the Bureau of Land Management headquarters was a hot topic of debate because this administration's--one of their first actions, they wanted to take that from my district and move it back to Washington, D.C. Why the haste? Why so fast to do this?

No one is going to work. The building is empty. They didn't have anywhere to bring the employees to a new building here. In fact, the employees that they did relocate to Washington, D.C., still only show up to work 1 day a week.

According to one disturbing report by the Federal Times, just one in three Federal workers has returned to their full-time job.

Equally disturbing, a leaked memo from January 2021 to the then-chief of staff of the Department of Health and Human Services showed that between 20 and 30 percent of the Department's employees did not log in to work on any given day between March and December 2020.

This negatively impacts all of our constituents.

The VA has been incredibly slow to fulfill records requests so that our veterans can get the care that they need, the care that they deserve.

The Social Security Administration faces a massive backlog of appeals.

As of last month, the IRS had a backlog of 2.5 million returns from 2022 that are still unprocessed.

This Republican-led Congress is moving to end Biden's emergency powers. He won't do it at the executive level.

We have created these agencies. We fund these agencies. Now, we are demanding that these Federal employees get back to work.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be a cosponsor of this legislation, and I strongly support it. I urge adoption.

Mr. Speaker, it has been nearly 3 years since the first national emergency declaration was issued related to the COVID-19 pandemic on March 13, 2020.

Since then, the Federal Government has authorized over $6 trillion in response to COVID-19. Our children have suffered severe learning loss due to school closures, and countless small businesses have been forced to permanently close their doors.

The Democratic Party has used and abused the national emergency authorization to push their unpopular, radical agenda, like the eviction moratorium, student loan forgiveness, and reckless spending that has led to skyrocketing inflation that is impacting my constituents today--your constituents today.

When they go to the grocery store and are paying $9, $10, $11 for 12 eggs, this is a problem. They also put unconstitutional vaccine mandates in place to put healthcare workers and our military servicemembers, serving in all branches of our military, out of work.

COVID is over. Yet, nearly 3 years later, more than 35 National Emergencies Acts are still in effect, and the current administration is continuing to abuse more than 120 special statutory powers only meant for times of emergency.

Even Joe Biden said the pandemic is over. We agreed with that long before he said it, and we are happy he is finally saying it. It is far past time to put an end to this abuse.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend and colleague, Representative Gosar, for his strong leadership on this issue. I am proud to be cosponsor of this legislation, and I strongly support it.

Mr. Speaker, first, I thank my friend, fellow Freedom Caucus colleague, and proven fighter for the Second Amendment, Mr. Clyde, for organizing this Special Order. I thank him for highlighting what is going on here.

Mr. Speaker, the ATF's new pistol brace rule violates the separation of powers. Bureaucrats don't create laws; Congress does. This rule functions like a law that Congress never passed.

ATF--Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. In western Colorado, we call that a fun weekend, but D.C. bureaucrats have used this agency to infringe on the rights of the American people.

When you research how many pistol braces the ATF expects to be registered, the number varies. Some say 10 million, others say 20 million, and it may even be 40 million.

Why such disparity? Because the ATF doesn't know how many are out there because law-abiding Americans do not trust them enough to tell them.

In fact, there are probably going to be many more boating accidents this spring and summer than we have ever encountered in U.S. history from law-abiding gun owners.

We don't trust the ATF because of their overreaching actions, exactly like we are seeing with this rule.

There has been a lot of talk about defunding the ATF, even abolishing the agency altogether. I am still waiting to hear a good reason why the ATF should remain an agency at all. I have yet to hear one.

Instead of providing regulations that keep our communities safe, this agency has made our communities more dangerous by laundering weapons to the cartels. Operation Fast and Furious exposed the recklessness of the ATF, how little regard they have for the rule of law, and Americans have had a hard time viewing this agency and its rules as legitimate.

Think about it. The ATF had about 1,700 firearms that were being tracked. They had tracers on them. They were selling to known criminals during this Operation Fast and Furious. They lost 1,700 traced firearms, and now they expect to go after law-abiding American citizens for firearm accessories?

Are they really that competent to go after this many millions of Americans for a firearm accessory, a stabilizing brace, when they had 1,700 tracked firearms in the hands of known criminals that they just lost?

I think that alone proves the legitimacy of this agency, and I am very excited to bring them into an Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing so they can speak for themselves as to why they should remain an agency in our Federal Government and not have the appropriate features of their agency put under another, like the FBI, once we clean that out.

But other than that, the Second Amendment, it is absolute.

All the regulations the bureaucrats make, the laws that bureaucrats are trying to make, the unconstitutional laws that are passed by the Federal Government, the State legislatures, they make our country less safe. Gun-free zones are the most dangerous places in our country.

The Second Amendment is absolute, and it is here to stay.

A recent report states that Americans own 46 percent of the world's guns. I think we need to get our numbers up, boys and girls.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Clyde for hosting this Special Order. I thank him for bringing us all together on this topic and, hopefully, we can shed some light to the American people and let them know that we are fighting against this agency and their abuse of separation of powers.