Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, as a cosponsor of this legislation, I recognize the importance of our engagement with Taiwan economically, as well as our military presence to deter conflict and to maintain safe passage through the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. These are international waters.

This incomplete trade agreement that we take up is a modest first step and can only be enforced after the approval by this Congress. The work that we are already doing with Taiwan benefits businesses across America. Taiwan is already our ninth largest goods trading partner with over $90 billion in two-way trade during 2020.

We have seen the People's Republic of China, unfortunately, violently suppress democracy in Hong Kong, breaching its claim that it would support one country and two systems. We have seen, apparently, over a million Uyghurs who have been placed in concentration camps. There is every reason to be concerned by the threats the PRC has made about the future of democracy in Taiwan.

The opportunity tonight is not only to speak up for Taiwan, but as Chairman Smith indicated, to reaffirm the role that Congress plays not only with Taiwan, but with all of our trading partners.

No administration, neither Democratic nor Republican, can adopt trading agreements that are enforceable without Congress exercising its constitutional responsibility for international trade. We will not yield that authority. It applies not only here, but to every trading partner.

We do, as we move forward in supporting Taiwan economically and militarily, need to recognize as well that it is not a matter of abandoning Taiwan to talk with China, to seek to avoid war with the People's Republic of China, which would be disastrous for the entire world. While effective military deterrence, strong deterrence is essential, this trading engagement is important. Our diplomatic power is also important, and, in that regard, the recent Republican attacks on Secretary of State Blinken for attempting to normalize diplomatic relations in Beijing are outrageous and totally counterproductive.

As a member of the Taiwan Caucus here in the House, I salute Taiwanese Americans, particularly their contribution to my hometown of Austin, and to the valuable insights that they have given me about the importance of our relationship with Taiwan.

Mr. Speaker, the GOP has become, sadly, the ``Guns Over People'' party. Their answer to the desperate pleas of families from all across America who want to stop the slaughter of schoolchildren and other innocents--their answer is to do absolutely nothing.

Today, during this National Gun Violence Awareness Month, what do they do?

They go a step further. This is the only opportunity this year that Speaker McCarthy has permitted us to consider any gun violence legislation. What do they do about gun violence?

They enable a little more of it. More pistol braces in the hands of killers will cause us to brace for more death.

Republicans want to stop an ATF rule that will require background checks in certain narrow instances when a brace turns a handgun into a rifle. Background checks are exactly what we need for all gun purchases so that those who go through the gun shop loophole and don't get a check when they buy it at a gun show or on the internet have to have the same standard as if they bought it in a gun shop.

They will not even permit us to respond to the desperate pleas of the people of Uvalde to ban weapons of war from the hands of teenagers who couldn't on their own go out and buy a beer.

There is an orgy of violence going on, and they are obstructing those of us who want to respond to the police from doing anything about it, from banning weapons of war, from requiring background checks to ensure we know what kind of person is getting a gun and, if they have a problem, they ought to be denied that access.

The gun industry is marketing these so-called ``stabilizing braces'' to convert heavy pistols into short-barreled rifles that are more concealable.

Mr. Speaker, the guns are already the number one killer of children in our country. This year, there have been 291 mass shootings. We can count the numbers, but we can't count the pain of an empty chair where there was once a vibrant parent or a wonderful little child who was murdered in a mass shooting. This Congress could do something about it if we could end the obstruction. We need to move toward reducing gun violence, not enabling it.

Madam Speaker, since Austin, deep in the heart of fossil-fueled Texas, is the only place I have ever called home, I don't believe I have ever been in a home without a gas stove. But I certainly don't need any protection through this contrived bill, and neither does any other American.

I don't need to save my stove because there is no Federal bureaucrat out there about to turn off the burners and mandate cold meals forever.

After meddling in our bedrooms and in our bathrooms, as if that weren't enough, now Republicans are turning their attention to our kitchens. Republicans propose in these bills to stop regulations that no agency has ever proposed. It follows the Republican playbook. The easiest problems to fix are those that don't exist in the first place, and they are very good at that.

Pursuing this manufactured problem places this bill in the race for the silliest Republican bill of the year but, with culture warriors developing this kind of stuff all the time, that is an honor that is very competitive to get.

Nonsense like these bills represent just another way of avoiding dealing with the genuine problems that our families and our country confront.

There is a growing body of science that indicates that burning natural gas increases the chances of childhood asthma and can worsen preexisting heart and lung issues. Using gas in the home, of course, like using it anywhere else, can involve methane leaks that are important as we deal with the climate crisis.

This bill prohibits any consideration of science in the future, no matter what it shows, or what improvements might be recommended for health and safety of those who are cooking on a stove or their families.

Unfortunately, rejection of science is to be expected from a crowd of climate deniers who regularly prefer political mythology and ideology over reality.

What we should all be concerned about is not how we are cooking on our stoves, but how our planet is cooking. It is overheating to a dangerous level.

This bill is yet another indication of Republicans' rejection of science. Our families are already encountering the human health effects of climate change, tropical diseases we have never seen before, heat exhaustion, death and destruction from one disaster after another.

When Democrats pursue solutions to these problems, House Republicans are quick to point, look over there. Look over there at this imagined Fox network fantasy that can upset you, while meanwhile they seem to have never met a polluter they didn't like or to whom they were unwilling to grant special privileges.

More and more families are, in fact, going electric with their cars, their water heaters, their solar panels and more. At some point, I expect my family also will make the change with our stove, not because we are being forced by a bureaucrat, but because science shows that it may be healthier for our grandchildren and for our planet.

Indeed, in January, the American Public Health Association called on Federal agencies to do more to educate the public about these dangers. More research is exactly what we need, including from the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Department of Energy so we can base what we do here on facts, not on fantasy.

Mr. Speaker, the leader they worship, Donald J. Trump, is the ``king of debt,'' as he described himself.

Spellbound, whenever he commands, they would crash our government and default on America.

Never concerned with the soaring Trump debt that they supported, their sudden interest now in deficit reduction is really about undermining education, health, environmental protection, and social service initiatives that they never supported in the first place.

Their plan is not about debt reduction. It is only about making room for another round of tax cuts that they have already scheduled for June to benefit the superrich, the giant multinational corporations, those who refuse to pay their fair share of our national security and other vital public services.

Don't make Americans pay for Republican hypocrisy.

Mr. Speaker, within this very week, the World Meteorological Association has indicated that for the first time in human history, we will hit a critical high temperature level by 2027.

It reported that in just 2 recent years, there were 22,000 deaths from extreme weather events.

Recognizing that we already face a grave climate crisis, the American people need a true winning strategy to escape the addiction to fossil fuels.

More and more Americans are turning to clean energy, daring to go green. A growing solar industry plays an instrumental role in helping them in seeking lower global temperatures, in saving our planet.

Disregarding the extreme heat, extreme Republicans only seem to get hot, to get warmed up, when they see the slightest opportunity to impede progress.

Their answer today to those who are trying to help solve this problem?

Punish American companies that are out there actually doing something about this problem. Punish them with a $1 billion retroactive tax that they will have to pay.

I believe that there is an opportunity to continue to resolve the problems that we face with climate change. We responded to it last year with a climate incentives law. Our Republican colleagues are also seeking to repeal that law.

The pause that is involved in these tariffs ends in a mere 12 months, and Republicans will not ultimately be successful today in blocking the President.

What happens with this, as with their challenge to our climate incentives law, is an indication of the many obstacles that we face that we must overcome if we are to address the climate crisis.

I am yielding my time now, but we must not yield in the determination to protect the only planet that we call home.

Madam Speaker, it reminds me of Texas--in fact, it reminds me of someone with whom I served in the Texas Legislature. He was asked what he did there, and he said: ``Oh, I am not here to do anything, I am just here in case somebody else decides to do something.''

That is the approach of these extreme House Republicans. They have no plan to protect our families from pollution or protect our planet from the climate crisis. Following their seditious leader, Donald Trump, they are just here to say ``no.'' For some reason, any time we have a success that is green, it just makes them see red.

Democrats are choosing to stand with families that are concerned about real health problems like bronchitis and childhood asthma and cardiovascular disease that is caused and accentuated by pollution.

We need some heavy-duty action here today to protect our lungs and the lungs of our planet. Yet, they object to even this modest heavy- duty truck rule--the first updating of this pollution standard in 20 years.

With their fossilized thinking and smoggy judgment, Republicans are permitting our planet to overheat, and with this rule rollback, they would ensure that we keep choking during the overheating.

As health-harming pollutants enter our air and bake, smog pollutes our cities and endangers the most vulnerable. To prevent announcements of yet another ozone action day, what we need is a little ozone action right here in the Capitol.

When this truck rule takes effect, each year we will see tens of thousands fewer cases of childhood asthma and fewer premature deaths. Yet, MAGA extremists are not content with merely polluting our minds, as they do across this country, they refuse to prevent smog and soot from polluting our lungs.

Yes, life is a highway, but it need not be overwhelmed with health- harming pollution. Adopting a cleaner standard for trucks protects all of us, but especially the most vulnerable, the young, the elderly, and those with respiratory ailments.

You may remember a great musical that proclaimed, ``On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.'' Not so much now. Not so often across America, even in our smoggy national parks. Democrats and Republicans may not see eye-to-eye on much, but we should be able to be clear on smog, it shouldn't be a partisan issue.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, ``conservation'' was a conservative value. A ``no'' vote is a breath of fresh air--a vote to keep soot out of our lungs.

Mr. Speaker, I hereby remove my name as cosponsor of

Mr. Speaker, rain can be a blessing or a curse depending on whether we get too much or too little. Like water, America can sustain our prosperity and our strength by the flow of people who want to come here, if they can come here legally. What Republicans rave about as a crisis, if properly addressed, represents a great opportunity for our country.

By overcoming Republican opposition last year, we have achieved the lowest unemployment in America in 50 years. If every single American who is reported as unemployed today were to take a job, we would still have millions of unfilled jobs in this country.

Our economy is crying out ``help wanted'' to which Republicans respond, ``keep out,'' and ``let's build a wall to wall us off from the rest of the world.''

We have a serious worker shortage. Our economic growth today is being slowed because so many businesses cannot find the workers they need to fulfill the needs of their customers.

Yet, just across our border are a host of people who are looking for a job. We need construction workers. We need workers to care for the old, the ill, and the young, and restaurant and other service jobs. Some of them are very highly skilled, and some of them are hardly skilled.

If some immigrants could work in this country and come here legally and go home when they need to, then they wouldn't be risking their lives in deserts, dying in dangerous rivers, and sitting on the streets of our border communities.

Certainly, we cannot take everyone who wants to come here. We need rules for orderly immigration and for fairness. They are the rules that Republicans have blocked in this Congress for years. So long as they see any immigrant hysteria as more valuable to them politically than finding a solution, then we are not going to get there. Today's vote represents just their latest refusal to accept reality and another refusal to enact a comprehensive and reasonable system for legal entry for workers.

There is, of course, a humanitarian aspect. Our Dreamers, who were brought here as little children and many of whom are now adults, are facing years of uncertainty. A nurse, a Travis County prosecutor, a teacher, and many students whom I have met personally, still don't know how long they can tell their employer they can work. There is so much they have to contribute. Multiple studies show they will only strengthen our economy.

There are other families in Texas border towns today who have risked everything to escape oppression and corrupt and authoritarian governments like Venezuela. Many of them have legitimate claims for political asylum, but the Republicans have abandoned the promise of our Statue of Liberty.

America's strength has always been found in our diversity. Let's overcome the fearmongering and the anti-immigrant hysteria and do the serious, hard work of passing genuine comprehensive immigration reform. Let's turn immigration into a true win for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, after President Trump twiddled, while thousands of Americans died of COVID, we entered a national crisis. In that emergency, the Trump administration, the Biden administration, and the States did not do enough to prevent fraud in this and other programs.

If Republicans were genuinely interested in strengthening any fraud efforts, as I certainly am, we could, today, approve bipartisan legislation to do that. Instead, they rejected many of the important recommendations from their own witnesses before our committee from the Government Accountability Office and the inspector general told us were necessary.

Instead of protecting taxpayers today from fraud, they use this misnamed bill to actually cut the very funding that is required for any fraud and recovery of wrong payments. When millions of Texans found themselves out of a job, the Texas Workforce Commission was not ready to provide a lifeline.

Even in the middle of the night, my neighbors could not get through to get the insurance to which they were entitled. Little wonder that the same State agency did a sorry job of preventing fraud.

The vast majority of Texans, who eventually received unemployment, were entitled to it, unlike apparently an indicted member of the Republican Caucus. Our unemployment insurance system should be strengthened, not undermined, as this very bill would do.

Mr. Speaker, ``Here Comes the Sun.'' It is more than a great tune. It is about a great renewable future, but our Republican colleagues refuse to see through the dark smoke of fossil fuels and fossilized thinking. They just blindly follow Trump at every opportunity to try to reduce progress on addressing the very real climate crisis.

President Biden is both enforcing our trade laws and maintaining our commitment for more solar power by giving American companies a reasonable time to adjust their supply chains away from China and without an unreasonable disruption of installing more solar panels all across this country.

This temporary tariff pause ends in only about a year. That is just not soon enough for those who are determined to disrupt our move to a clean energy future. I must say, this is a truly anti-business move because it penalizes companies that have relied in good faith on the President's order. It also, as my colleague from Oregon has just shown, will kill a number of good-paying union jobs across this country.

Despite ice mass in Greenland and Antarctica melting at an average of about 420 billion tons every year, already raising sea levels in the Gulf of Mexico, Republican opposition in fighting climate change remains frozen in the past.

Trading fossil fuel and fossil power for the power of the Sun by getting as many solar panels as soon as possible is one way that more and more American families and American businesses can make their contribution to their own lower energy bills. It can help us respond to the climate crisis that is already engulfing America with wildfires and intensified weather, like tornadoes and floods and droughts in different places, and, of course, hotter and hotter and hotter temperatures.

At this dawn of a new clean energy era, now is not the time to eclipse solar. In Texas, we are already number two in the country among the States for solar capacity, creating thousands of new jobs and providing clean energy and lower energy bills to thousands of families. Austinites know that solar power saves them on their energy bills and saves them when storms disrupt the grid.

Mr. Speaker, I hope my colleagues will see the light and see the power of solar and join us in voting ``no'' on this misguided proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this Republican ``Default on America'' act because it will create more deficits for millions of Americans. It will create an educational opportunity deficit for the students that are relying on Pell grants, seeing them slashed, and their hope for debt forgiveness dashed. It would create an educational opportunity deficit for the children that are denied preschool.

Madam Chair, with this bill, our Republican colleagues offer their answer to our overheated planet, turn up the heat. And to those parents concerned about their children's future in what could become an uninhabitable planet, they say quite simply, ``shut up and get out of the way.''

This dirty bill will not bring our energy costs down, but it will drive our hospital bills and our doctor bills way up because it is a dirty deal.

Republican fossilized thinking threatens the health of millions of Americans and endangers the future of our planet.

Our country should be the world's leader in combating the climate crisis and growing the many new jobs that are necessary to develop the new technologies to combat the ravages of an overheated planet. But instead, the Republicans surrender the green technology leadership to China and other countries around the world.

Protecting American families from the climate crisis should be a bipartisan issue, but it has increasingly become one as most of our Republican colleagues ignore the dangers and remain beholden to polluters over people.

Last year, we made some modest progress under Democratic leadership. We offered incentives for both businesses and families to come together to slow carbon pollution, to go electric, to improve energy efficiency, and to develop additional renewable energy resources.

Instead of adding to that progress, which we need, Republicans today would drag our country back to the disastrous years of their hero, Donald Trump, who abandoned American leadership in favor of more and more pollution.

Only this month, the world's scientists have told us once again: ``There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.'' Republicans want to slam that very window shut.

As the U.N. Secretary General declared: ``Humanity is on thin ice, and that ice is melting fast. Our world needs climate action on all fronts, everything, everywhere, all at once.''

This bill doesn't deserve its designation as H.R. 1. It is not even H.R. 0 because it drags us backward into a world in which our grandchildren will not be able to safely reside.

And even for those who won't listen to the scientists and the world leaders near unanimous view on this, all they need to do is just open their eyes. The extreme weather that we see, the intensified heat, the mega-droughts, the ice storms, the tornadoes and hurricanes, and heat, heat, and more heat in places that it has never occurred before, threatening food production and human health. All of this, along with the threat of tropical diseases appearing in places like Central Texas where they have never occurred before.

The climate crisis is already taking lives, and it will take many, many more the longer we are delayed by outrageous tactics like we see here today.

This sorry bill will never become law, but every day that Republicans dither, delay, and distract us; every day they feed the ignorance about the climate crisis, the nearer we come to a tipping point from which we can never recover.

I am voting ``no'' because, left unchecked, Republican half-baked ideas will burn up our planet.

Mr. Speaker, I was prepared to vote for this resolution. Socialism is clearly not the best path for America.

Who wants to be associated with Stalin and the others whom this resolution denounces?

They were really thugs who were masquerading as socialists.

But when the promoters of this worthless resolution rejected the Takano amendment to protect Social Security and Medicare, their goal became clear.

They have a long history of rigorously attacking most every new social initiative--originally claiming that Social Security would ``enslave workers'' and ``Sovietize the country''--and they have long denounced Medicare as ``Socialism.''

Mr. Speaker, this first Republican bill should be known as the protect Donald Trump and his tax cheating cronies act.

After years of obstructing access to Donald Trump's tax returns, we learned how little he paid toward the cost of our national security and how poorly the Trump Internal Revenue Service enforced our tax laws.

Each year the richest 1 percent in our country avoid paying an incredible $160 billion of the taxes they owe. This crime wave of Trump-style tax cheating is made possible by Republican insistence on defunding the revenue police. Over the past decade, audit rates for corporations are down by half and the ultrarich by three-fourths.

Republican claimed interest in law and order seems to vanish when it comes to tax fraud by the wealthiest few. And their very first bill adds $114 billion to our deficit. Yes, Trump may have been indispensable last week, but this is outrageous. When those, like Trump, don't pay what they owe, then the tax burden gets shifted to small businesses and to families across the country.

Reject the Republican drive to defund.