Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the steadfast patriotism and integrity of Adam Schiff. This scurrilous resolution is so dishonest and defamatory that it would justify a lawsuit if it were made anywhere other than the Halls of Congress.

This is pure political revenge and exposes both the depths to which the House Republican majority has sunk and their threat to our constitutional order.

I encourage our colleagues to seriously consider how stunts like this bring dishonor upon this House and to condemn it unequivocally.

Mr. Speaker, I share with you and with the American people a conversation I recently had with a group of children's doctors because it has haunted me ever since.

These busy doctors who work at some of our Nation's finest pediatric hospitals and practices took the time to travel to D.C. because they wanted to

help Members of Congress understand the ever-expanding and heartbreaking toll that gun violence is taking on children and our communities every day.

They came to D.C. to beg lawmakers, not for thoughts and prayers, but to pass commonsense gun safety laws that will help them stop this epidemic.

We now know that firearm injuries are the leading cause of death for children and teens, but they see it firsthand.

The stories these doctors shared of the injuries and death that they have to deal with on a daily basis were shocking, but what really struck me was the raw pain in their faces and in their voices as they shared those stories.

Think about it. These doctors have dedicated their lives to caring for children, and now they are reeling from the trauma of having to face day in and day out the toll that our Nation's gun violence is taking on those children, knowing that the lion's share of this pain and death is preventable if lawmakers only had the courage to act.

The stories these children's doctors told broke my heart. Today, I share their words with you. One said: ``As a primary care pediatrician in Philadelphia, my heart stops every time I see on the news that a young person has been shot and killed. I fear they are my patient. I am sick that these young people that I watch growing up are being murdered on the streets by gangs. Something must change.''

Another said: ``I am haunted by the image of a child's shoe. My patient, a young boy with autism, was at a community July Fourth celebration with his family when they heard shots. The family ran, and in the chaos that ensued, his shoe fell off and was lost. For weeks after the shooting, this child didn't have the words to describe what he was feeling, but he kept asking: `Where is my shoe?' He was clearly impacted by the events and was having trouble sleeping. Although this child and his family were physically unharmed, the question, `Where is my shoe?' is evidence of a child, family, and community traumatized yet again by gun violence.''

Another is a neonatologist, a baby doctor. She said: ``You might think I would never see my patients be impacted by gun violence, but sadly, I have seen too many families impacted by it. Mothers tell me about close calls they had with gun-related violence. After all, pregnant and postpartum women are more, not less, likely to experience abuse and assault. I have had patients who were born early, delivered frantically in an attempt to save their lives and those of their shot mothers. Patients have fathers, siblings, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who are disabled or dead because they were shot. I should not see this so often, babies whose lives start shrouded in trauma because we do not have background checks and red flag policies.''

Another said: ``As a pediatric emergency physician, I face the effects of gun violence daily. I tell devastated parents that their toddler has been fatally shot by a sibling playing with a handgun. I scramble to rapidly transfuse blood into children caught in the crossfire of gang violence. I exit trauma bays covered in the brain matter of teenagers who have made the tragically final decision to end their lives with a gun. And if I am lucky, I find a moment to grieve these losses before moving on to the next patient in need of my care, a child struggling with depression after losing a family member to gun violence. This is my reality. It is heartbreaking, and it must stop.''

Finally, one said: ``I am also a mother, a mother who spends sleepless nights googling bulletproof backpacks every time an AR-15 has turned other mothers' children into sitting ducks at their schools. I should not have to worry that someone with a mental health disorder can go to a store, buy a weapon of mass destruction, and, that same day, shoot my little boys as they sit sounding out letters. But because of our laws, that dull, familiar fear rears its head often when I drop them off at school. It doesn't have to be this way.''

She is right. They are right. It doesn't have to be this way. It must stop. We don't have to live this way.

There are laws that could help turn the tide, and this shouldn't be a partisan issue. Children are being shot every day regardless of their family's party affiliation.

Mr. Speaker, our communities are begging the Republican majority to come to the table and find common ground to pass comprehensive, commonsense, and constitutional legislation that will end this epidemic.

The American people overwhelmingly support background checks, safe storage, red flag laws, and limiting access to assault-style weapons because they understand the Second Amendment is not a suicide pact.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman from Kentucky for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

With all the very real issues facing our great Nation, it is really disappointing that once again the House majority has decided to waste valuable time and resources to promote a bunch of half-baked legislative ideas and stir the culture wars pot with MAGA conspiracy theories.

The bills that we started considering yesterday in the Rules Committee and will debate and vote upon in the next couple days, consuming an entire week of scarce legislative time, will do nothing to address the most pressing issues our constituents are begging us to address: gun violence, affordable health and childcare, the growing impact of climate change, Social Security solvency, immigration, and national security.

Worse, the antigovernment philosophy inspiring these bills will ultimately harm Americans by creating dangerous bottlenecks in critical government functions, misrepresenting the role and actions of the Federal Government, and disrupting the government's ability to protect Americans from harm.

Let's get some facts straight. While our colleagues across the aisle have framed their argument as necessary to ensure that Congress exercises its legislative function, they completely ignore the fact that the Federal agencies and rulemaking processes they are attacking have been established by Congress to undertake specific functions. That includes rulemaking, which is delegated to the agencies by Congress and ensures that they implement policies using the best and most recent expertise available, for the benefit of the American people.

By enlisting the assistance of Federal agencies to administer the laws that it passes, Congress fulfills its constitutional mandate, the mandate for our entire government to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to our colleagues.

In other words, working together with the other branches, our government is charged with accomplishing certain basic goals for the American people. The regulatory process that our colleagues seek to frame as a battle against a vast bureaucratic conspiracy is actually an essential part of ensuring that we all have clean air and water to breathe and drink; healthy food to eat; safe planes, trains, and automobiles to travel in.

In reality, regulations mean that when a senior goes to the pharmacy to pick up their prescriptions, the lifesaving medication that they will take is both safe and effective.

When you boil it down, rules and regulations are extremely tangible ways that the Federal Government protects people's health and safety and helps create a fairer economy where everyone has a chance to succeed.

Subject matter experts at agencies craft these regulations, many based on highly complex and technical data. Once a rule is proposed, it undergoes an often years-long rigorous review in which comments are solicited from the public, business interests, and other agencies.

Of course, these rules and regs are issued in response to congressional directives. They are an important step towards implementing laws that Members of this body have passed while representing the people back home who elect them to come here.

We can see examples of successful rulemaking all the time across the country. Before the Clean Water Act, the Delaware River, which runs alongside my district, was so polluted that it stripped the paint off passing ships. These days, you can safely kayak on the river thanks to regulations developed by agencies to carry out that law.

While the regulatory process can always be improved upon, the proposals we are considering today are not good-faith improvements or efforts to provide checks on the regulatory process.

The first of these bills is H.R. 277, the REINS Act, which would turn the administrative rulemaking process on its head, requiring every major rule--of which there are dozens and sometimes hundreds every year--to be passed again by both houses of Congress and signed by the President.

Remember, these rules have been developed in the first instance as a result of congressional action.

What the REINS Act is really doing is creating a process that will cause

gridlock that then Republicans, or other political operatives, can take advantage of to stop rules they don't like.

The burdensome requirements of H.R. 277 are simply not needed because Congress already has multiple opportunities to shape or rescind major rules if it disapproves of them.

We can hold hearings and offer public comment. We can disapprove major regulations before they take effect, or we can rescind those regulations under the Congressional Review Act.

On that last point in particular, I will note that this majority has moved these types of measures through this Chamber already many times this Congress.

In addition, we can also pass legislation to change laws or regulations, if we so please. Of course, we are considering bills today to do just that.

I know my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are aware of the avenues through which Congress can review and reverse rules. I know it because they use them, or try to use them, week in and week out.

For them to paint a bill like the REINS Act as a noble effort to empower Congress is disingenuous, and, ultimately, it diverts attention from the disastrous consequences this legislation would actually create.

Effectively, the REINS Act nullifies all new rulemaking by any administration, whether Republican or Democrat, and it would bring government operations to a standstill. Any new regulation would have to be passed by Congress in order to take effect.

So let's think about what that would really mean. A Congress, with a House majority that would rather bring the country to the brink of default instead of paying bills that Congress has already approved, would have to vote on every new major regulation from every Federal agency.

If that doesn't scare you, the Senate, hardly a model of expeditious legislation, would need to do the same.

In addition, the bill might actually be unconstitutional because it creates a mechanism in which one House of Congress can effectively veto an agency's rule by simply not acting on it within a 70-day legislative time frame.

This, in effect, is indistinguishable from the one-House legislative veto that the Supreme Court held to be unconstitutional in Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha.

The unfortunate truth is, Congress struggles every day to meet the most pressing needs of the American people. There aren't enough hours in the day, year, or congressional term for us to weigh in on all the regulations that we would need to implement the laws that we are passing.

Under this policy, crucial regulations would be left to languish unacted upon, and the health, safety, and welfare of the people we are supposed to serve would be in jeopardy.

In addition to the REINS Act, there are three other bills that my colleagues are pushing through today which would also undermine the regulatory process and threaten public welfare and safety.

H.R. 288, the SOPRA Act, eliminates the decades-long standard for judicial review of agency decisions. That is a precedent that rests, in part, on the understanding that Congress delegates to agencies certain authorities to carry out the laws that it passes.

It is clear that all the talk on the other side of the aisle about this being to restore power to Congress is empty words because this bill actually incentivizes unelected judges, not Congress, to make and enact policy from the bench. Ultimately, it would slow the rulemaking process and skew it toward more powerful, well-funded, and often corporate litigants, which may be the point.

Finally, the two gas stove bills that our colleagues are pushing this week actually demonstrate some of the flaws in the REINS Act; chief among them, the ready availability of alternatives to the REINS Act proposal and the dangers of politicizing the rulemaking process.

H.R. 1615 and 1640 are fearmongering attempts to prevent the enactment of standards to make gas stoves more safe and efficient and would hinder agencies' abilities to address potentially dangerous consumer products.

The majority's trumped-up battle to defend gas stoves from the Federal Government is nothing more than a conspiracy theory cooked up to embroil Congress in culture wars that shed more heat than light on the issues facing our Nation and are likely done so with a healthy helping of fossil fuel lobbying dollars.

Contrary to the heated rhetoric from our colleagues across the aisle, the Federal Government has not proposed to remove appliances from Americans' homes. That persuasive falsehood has been repeated for months by partisan hacks like Tucker Carlson to stoke grievances and cause chaos.

H.R. 1640, the Save Our Gas Stoves Act, nullifies new, congressionally mandated energy efficiency standards for gas stoves, for new gas stoves only, that would save consumers up to $1.7 billion in energy bills and cut down on emissions that are being shown to be particularly dangerous to children's health.

Most of us are familiar with these energy efficiency standards, and we rely upon them when we purchase new appliances like stoves and freezers and furnaces. I know that I do because it is the responsible thing to do as a consumer from both an environmental and an economic perspective.

Contrary to my colleagues' assertions, half of the gas stoves on the market today would meet the standard, and the remainder would have 3 years to make the necessary and already available adjustments to bring their new stoves into compliance.

H.R. 1615, the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act, is even worse because it threatens the government's ability to identify and regulate unsafe gas stoves, including those with design defects that could cause injury or death to American consumers.

Just last year, the Consumer Product Safety Commission recalled a gas stove that had sent multiple people to the hospital and placed many more at serious risk of injury or death from carbon monoxide poisoning.

This bill would have prevented the recall of that dangerous appliance and would prevent the Consumer Product Safety Commission from addressing other dangerous appliances in the future. It is simply irresponsible to jeopardize the health and safety of Americans in order to promote conspiracy theories for the far right.

Overall today, my Republican colleagues take a misguided approach to the issues facing rulemaking and Federal regulations. It is clear they don't want to make the government work better. They want to break it.

They would rather allow polluters and corporations to wreak havoc on our environment, children's health, and working people's livelihoods. They would prefer to decimate a regulatory process that improves the lives of Americans every single day.

The Federal Government has long played an important role in promoting the health, safety, and welfare of the American people, and we need to ensure that it can continue playing that role.

Madam Speaker, I strongly oppose these bills, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett).

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to include in the Record a Politico article titled: ``What the right's gas stove freak- out was really about.'' That is dated January 14. The first line is: ``No, President Joe Biden isn't coming for your gas stove.''

I also note that, in that article, it talks about the multiple studies now that are investigating the impact of gas stoves on asthma, including by the American Lung Association.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas.

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

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

My esteemed colleague from Kentucky talked about the popularity of the REINS Act, but I suggest that that popularity is overstated. The REINS Act has been introduced by its extremist advocates for more than a decade without ever being enacted into law, even when Republicans held both Houses and the White House. I would suggest that it is because saner heads have prevailed and understood that enactment of the REINS Act is bad for America.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a resolution which states that it is the House's responsibility to protect and preserve Social Security and Medicaid for our future generations and reject any cuts to these essential programs.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record, along with any extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, Social Security and Medicare are vital to many of our constituents' economic and health security, yet many of my friends across the aisle have called for major cuts to these critical programs.

In fact, just last week, Speaker McCarthy announced he was forming a bipartisan commission tasked with looking at budget cuts and suggested that Social Security and Medicare could be on the chopping block, saying: ``We have to look at the entire budget. . . . The majority driver of the budget is mandatory spending. It's Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt.''

It wasn't too long ago that I remember some of my Republican friends calling the President a liar during the State of the Union when he suggested that Republicans were willing to put Social Security benefits on the chopping block.

Now, instead of debating gas stoves and the finer points of administrative law, I am giving my friends on the other side of the aisle a chance to reassure the American public and unequivocally state these programs won't be cut, not just with rhetoric but also with their votes.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Missouri (Ms. Bush), to discuss our proposal.

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

Once again, my colleagues on the right are reverting to their favorite tactic when confronted with real problems in the real world: distraction to conceal that they are doing nothing.

They propose to grind the gears of government to a halt to impose an extreme ideology that Americans as a whole do not support, just as they threatened to tank our entire economy to impose other extreme cuts that even their own party members couldn't support.

They want to ensure that we can do nothing with these bills, that we can do nothing to protect kids from pollutants and dangerous products, to keep businesses from scamming working families out of money, or to ensure that the food people eat every day is safe.

Imagine an FDA that can't issue new food safety and drug regulations, or an EPA that can't keep our drinking water clean, or a VA that can't properly serve our veterans, or a Department of Transportation that can't enforce safety standards for cars, trains, or airplanes. This is what the majority is proposing, and it is a very dangerous vision for America.

The people who elect us to Congress depend on us to make their and their children's lives better, and doing nothing will not accomplish that goal. If anything, we need to make our government more responsive to the needs of the people. We need to do better, not nothing at all.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, Americans are demanding action, and we must deliver. Too many lives are being lost to senseless gun violence. Every day, we are retraumatized by yet another shooting.

In school, our children are learning active shooter drills before their ABCs. When families go to a grocery store or the mall, they scan the crowd for shooters rather than sales.

We know we don't have to live this way, fearful for our kids and our loved ones when they leave the house, furious that gun manufacturers are making billions of dollars marketing weapons of war to irresponsible gun owners, and frustrated by lawmakers who lack the courage to pass commonsense gun safety legislation.

We can change this. There are commonsense, constitutional solutions with broad public support that can stem the carnage. Where leaders in my district and across the country have adopted those solutions, we have seen progress. It is not enough, but it is a start.

Above all, doing nothing is not an option. We cannot sit idly by and allow preventable gun deaths to happen day after day. We need to pass policies that will save lives now.

Mr. Speaker, at 10:15 a.m. on Thursday morning, with the U.S. on the brink of a devastating default, our colleagues across the aisle decided to call it a week. Turning their backs on the American people to beat Memorial Day traffic is a new low for House Republicans.

House Republicans have left town while America speeds toward a devastating default, and they chose that route. They are willing to drive our Nation off an economic cliff and trigger a global recession, cutting veterans' benefits, taking food from hungry families, and laying off first responders.

The American people didn't send us here to play chicken with their retirement plans. House Republicans created this crisis, and they can end it. There is an off-ramp from this highway to hell. The overwhelming majority of Americans don't want the far right driving our national agenda.

Responsible Republicans need to come to the table for the American people, not skip town with the MAGA extremists.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, it is now after 4 o'clock in the afternoon. We were scheduled to be on the floor today around noon, but when I came to the floor prepared to debate this rule, we were told first to wait and then that the House would recess so the Republicans could go back behind closed doors to negotiate among themselves.

This is becoming a pattern in this Congress. For the second session week in a row, the Rules Committee met far into the night and reported out completely closed rules that allow no amendments on the floor.

Now, after Speaker McCarthy realized that he couldn't pass his own bill, he spent all day negotiating in secret to twist people's arms to get enough votes from his own party to get this bill or the rule passed on the floor.

No one has seen what is coming out of the backroom deal today and allegedly moving to the floor under this very rule.

This isn't how you run the people's House, although it is apparently how the new House majority runs the people's House--backroom deals that prioritize politics or policy over people.

Turning to the matters at hand, this rule moves two bills to the floor. The first bill is H.R. 2, although, as mentioned, we still don't know what the final version of that bill will be.

We should all be able to agree that immigration and border security present vast and complex issues. Despite my colleagues' pronouncements to the contrary, we all want a secure border that protects our national security, but we also need to address the realities of migration, the forces that are driving families, even young children, to flee their homes, and the serious workforce shortages confronting businesses in our country and elsewhere.

Given the complexities of these issues, they require comprehensive and nuanced solutions. H.R. 2 is neither. It is a great example of the old adage: For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, clear, and wrong.

During my legal career, I spent decades working on immigration cases and within our immigration system. I know it is underfunded and dysfunctional and has been for many years. We also know that American businesses, small and large, are asking for immigration reform so that they can hire the healthcare, agricultural, research, and food service workers they need.

Solving these issues is not simple, but I am extremely disappointed that my Republican colleagues want to create more chaos by bringing an extremist, cruel, and completely unworkable bill to the floor today.

The truth is, this isn't responsible or serious governance. Without any real proposal, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle resort to conspiracy theories, fact-free rhetoric, and political theater designed to stoke fear and chaos to distract from their lack of real solutions.

We have seen how the failed and inhumane immigration policies of the prior administration weakened our economy, undermined our moral standing in the world, inflicted unimaginable cruelty upon defenseless migrant children, and did not make us any safer.

However, Republican extremists want to take us back there again. Once more, they would rather fixate and waste American taxpayer dollars to build a wall that the experts, including Customs and Border Patrol, agree will not solve the issue.

I must call out the dishonesty of claiming that families seeking legal asylum are a source of the very real scourge of fentanyl and other dangerous drug trafficking. We know from Customs and Border Patrol data that over 90 percent of fentanyl seizures occur at U.S. ports of entry in trucks or cargo ships, not in areas that a border wall might cover.

Despite this fact, the bill fails to provide needed resources at ports of entry to fight fentanyl smuggling where it is actually happening.

Just last month, House Republicans voted to cap nondefense discretionary funding, which, according to DHS, would result in the cutting of 2,400 Customs and Border Patrol officers and agents that do this work fighting the scourge of fentanyl.

How can we begin to craft measures to address either the fentanyl crisis or humanitarian issues at our border if our Republican colleagues insist on starting from a place of misplaced blame and misguided policies?

Additionally, this bill, or at least the most recent version of it that we have seen, enacts a nationwide E-Verify system without providing other reforms that give meaningful pathways for undocumented workers to legalize their status, which employers across this country are screaming for.

In doing so, this provision has the potential to wipe out half of our agricultural workforce, cause huge disruptions in our Nation's food system, allow a mass offshoring of jobs, and sink American farms from California to Pennsylvania and throughout States across the Nation.

This isn't the first Congress in which Republicans have tried to move forward on this E-Verify proposal. In every Congress, it faces opposition from the small business community, civil liberties groups, religious organizations, agricultural organizations and growers, privacy advocates, libertarian think tanks, and immigration reform groups because it fails to address our broken immigration system in a meaningful way. This time around is no different.

H.R. 2 also bans Department of Homeland Security funding for critical nonprofit and religious partners that provide shelter, food, legal assistance, and other aid to vulnerable immigrants.

That means a faith-based NGO that helps an Afghan refugee to find housing or gives support to a woman here on a U visa, a special status set aside for victims of crimes, will no longer get assistance to do that important work.

How can our Republican colleagues say this bill is only about border security when it clearly and cruelly rips resources away from those in the country legally, too?

When it comes to this bill, the immoral policies do not stop there. This legislation puts children in harm's way--the very ones the other side of the aisle claims they want to protect.

Children come or are brought to the U.S. because the conditions in their home countries are so horrific, whether due to poverty, violence, corruption, or climate change and how it is destroying their way of life.

This is a situation that has been building for decades, and H.R. 2 does nothing to address it.

During my legal career, I represented many of those children, those who were orphaned, those who were fleeing gang violence, starvation, or abuse.

If we really want to protect child victims of trafficking or children separated from their parents who arrive at our border, we don't limit their access to representation, as this bill does. We give them the tools to make the case that they are eligible to stay in this country, which a child simply cannot do unless they have a qualified attorney with them.

Mr. Speaker, I have seen up close how important representation is to anyone trying to navigate our immigration system, but especially kids.

When our colleagues say they want to send unaccompanied children home to safety, they are turning a blind eye to reality. The reality for most of these kids is there is no safe home. Their parents are dead or otherwise unavailable, and country conditions are so dangerous that the journey to our border is a safer alternative.

This bill would expose children to the very harms and exploitation my Republican colleagues hollowly insist they want to prevent. In addition to

limiting children's access to counsel, the bill allows them to be jailed. It guts the protections of the Flores settlement agreement, which has governed the conditions of children held in government custody for 26 years.

In doing so, the bill upends a carefully crafted system to minimize the detention of children due to the grave impact that it has on their physical and mental health. The evidence is clear: No amount of detention is safe for kids. Even a short period can cause long-term harm like psychological trauma and mental health risks.

Despite knowing this, my Republican colleagues wrote a bill that allows the long-term detention of minors who arrive in the U.S. and that jails kids and their families indefinitely.

I want to describe for a moment a tragic situation this bill creates. A mother and her child fleeing violence or starvation at home come to America in search of safety and legal asylum. When she finds the ports of entry are closed, which this bill would do, that mother takes her child and crosses between them. She then follows the rules and applies for asylum.

To be clear, she is not a risk for flight or violence. Even so, this bill requires that she and her young child could be jailed for what could be years if she is prosecuted for the misdemeanor of unlawful entry, a result that is prohibited by current law and the Flores litigation.

This legislation falsely states it is consistent with the Flores decision; although, it is clear that it is not, and that the Court has already ruled on that precise point.

If my colleagues want to come together and meaningfully work on immigration reform, it can't start from a place of cruelty against the most vulnerable. Instead, we need to recognize both the horrific conditions that cause migrants to flee their homes and the meaningful contributions that immigrants make to our country and, critically, we must provide functioning pathways for people to enter the U.S. lawfully.

Mr. Speaker, the second bill here is H.R. 1163. In addition to their misguided immigration plan, today House Republicans are bringing up a harmful bill that hinders antifraud programs, opens up new pathways to fraud in unemployment insurance programs, and opens workers up to surprise bills through no fault of their own.

My colleagues want to attack unemployment insurance, a benefit that helped millions of Americans stay afloat during the depths of the pandemic. Of course, it is important that we prevent fraud in our public programs and instances of fraud in unemployment insurance absolutely should be addressed and prosecuted.

In fact, just this morning, we learned that a Republican Member of this Chamber was indicted in New York on charges that, among other things, he allegedly stole public funds by fraudulently collecting pandemic unemployment benefits.

I hope all my colleagues agree that stealing public funds, especially during a global pandemic when so many working people lost their jobs and needed the support to keep their families healthy and fed, is unacceptable and absolutely should disqualify someone from serving in the United States Congress.

However, although my colleagues across the aisle claim that they want to fight fraud in unemployment insurance, their leadership continues to welcome the votes of this alleged fraudster in order to push a deeply unpopular and extremist agenda and they want to pass a bill that makes it harder to catch the kind of cross-State fraud that their colleague has allegedly committed by slashing $400 million in critical funding for Department of Labor antifraud programs.

It opens up opportunities for fraud in UI programs by halting the roll out of new identification verification systems and the legislation allows States to send surprise bills to workers for accidental overpayments of unemployment insurance benefits made during the pandemic.

These overpayments were made to workers who did nothing wrong and did not know they had been overpaid. These people spent their unemployment insurance on necessities like food for themselves and their children. They returned to work as soon as they could, but now Republicans, with this bill, want to send these working people a bill and punish them for an error that they didn't commit.

Ultimately, both of these proposals from my Republican colleagues are unserious and unworkable. They will wreak harm on America's economy, especially businesses unable to find workers to grow or even survive. They will wreak harm on working families, law-abiding immigrants, and terrified refugees who have the right to seek asylum at our borders.

These bills are political stunts to stir up extremist supporters, not serious solutions to complex problems, problems that require comprehensive and nuanced solutions. We are eager to work with responsible legislators from any party on an immigration bill that truly secures the border, protects Dreamers, and solves the workforce challenges we are seeing from farms to pharmacies. Such a bill would grow our economy, help our communities combat crime, and stem the flow of illegal drugs into our country.

We firmly believe that we can reach an agreement that secures our border and reforms our immigration system in a way that reflects fundamental American values, and we are ready to work on that now. We welcome assistance in that from the House majority.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do find it a little hard to credit the expressions of concern for the migrants who are crossing our border when yet again, today, the Governor of Texas sent a busload of migrants from the border after announcing he was providing free transportation to them.

He refuses to tell the cities where they are headed, but the migrants are on their way. So as has occurred multiple times over the last year, people were dumped in Philadelphia at 6 o'clock in the morning. Thank God that the weather has turned because when they were dumping them on New Year's Eve, it was pretty darn cold. So please spare me the crocodile tears for the humanitarian concerns when you are not willing to help ease that process.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez), a very distinguished member of the Rules Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I just have to push back a little bit on this idea that somehow immigrants coming to this country are taking advantage of our police and different parts of our society. I mean, the Cato Institute, of all places, has recently published a study that shows there is a net economic benefit for several generations when we have immigrants come to this country.

Of course, there is also the continuing inaccurate characterization of these folks coming here illegally when they are applying for asylum.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the distinguished

ranking member of the Committee on Rules.

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

Mr. McGovern raised a few good points, but one in particular: We haven't seen the bill that we are allegedly supposed to be considering with this rule.

Last night, Mr. Norman, who just spoke, correctly criticized this closed process. He said, ``That's a problem going forward, a huge problem because that is not the process we think is fair to everyone.''

I would simply say to the gentleman that the process has only gotten worse. Reportedly, there will be an amendment offered to this rule that we haven't even seen yet. Although, I guess the fact is we may know why we had to delay the hearing until this point; so that your Member could return from New York.

I wonder when we are going to see the open and transparent process that some of our Rules Committee colleagues have spoken so much about.

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

Mr. Speaker, I apologize to my colleagues across the aisle. I didn't realize that I needed to delay my remarks until the next round.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the Record a letter from the Department of Labor, which states that H.R. 1163 would hinder efforts to tackle unemployment insurance fraud, delay payments, and undermine State efforts to modernize and protect the system from fraud.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security.

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

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a resolution which states that it is the House's responsibility to protect and preserve Social Security and Medicare for our future generations and reject any cuts to these essential programs.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment into the Record, along with any extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, Social Security and Medicare are vital to many of our constituents' economic and health security. Many of my Republican friends across the aisle were calling for major cuts to these critical programs but recently some have changed their tune.

If they truly believe in a new position, I am offering my friends the opportunity to back it up with a vote in the people's House. This vote will give Members the opportunity to reassure Americans that the House won't eviscerate these foundational programs that our constituents rely upon.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Magaziner) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa).

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

Mr. Speaker, since the aftermath of World War II, the United States has championed its duty to uphold the international right to seek asylum by providing those fleeing persecution with safe haven here in America.

However, the Republican immigration plan in H.R. 2 and the rhetoric we have heard about it today does nothing more than sow chaos, anger, and fear about this important humanitarian system.

It puts the blame for our broken immigration system on the backs of families and children fleeing poverty and violence, instead of recognizing the complexity of the issues involving immigration and border security and blaming Congress for failing to address our broken system for decades.

It is clear that jailing families indefinitely or sending unaccompanied children back to dangerous and exploitive situations and refusing to provide working legal pathways to residents will not make us any safer; neither will wasting American taxpayer dollars to build a discredited and ineffective border wall, decimating our agricultural sector, or defunding trusted nonprofit organizations that provide support to immigrants.

These are not the comprehensive, multiprong solutions we need, the kind of solutions that Democrats have been imploring our Republican colleagues to come to the table on, solutions that secure our ports of entry, expand legal pathways, and address the root causes of migration.

A long and impactful history of immigration is at the heart of our American story. As such, we should meaningfully fix our immigration system so it works better and can continue making our county stronger. We shouldn't gut it or attempt to destroy it altogether. I want a better future than that for the United States and all of those who call it home.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule and the underlying bill.

This bill makes good on Speaker McCarthy's threat to hold the economy hostage. Several of my colleagues have spoken about the draconian cuts that this bill would make to our social safety net, to services for vulnerable veterans, seniors, families, and children, but it also jeopardizes critical investments that were just enacted as part of the historic and long-overdue climate rescue measures that were included in the Inflation Reduction Act, and those cuts have received less attention.

If you didn't know that this bill gutted billions of dollars of environmental measures, you are not alone. Those cuts were made in a deal the Speaker negotiated with the extremists who control his Conference sometime after midnight last night, around 2 a.m. this morning. I am not surprised that they are trying to sneak this provision into a bill that they are ramming through the House with no hearings.

The Speaker and his far-right allies argue that Federal spending poses the most significant threat to our country while blocking legislation to address gun violence, healthcare concerns, and other pressing concerns for all of our constituents, but climate change is an actual existential threat to our children and to all future generations.

I know the Republican Party isn't fond of looking at the science, but without intervention, the facts are clear: Our children will be forced to face more frequent climate disasters, new and devastating health threats, and untold economic loss. The extremist bill before us dismantles the clean energy climate rescue programs that we passed in the IRA that are essential for our children to thrive.

This bill eliminates a billion dollars to promote energy efficient construction, $5 billion for loans to back energy infrastructure projects, $1.9 billion to improve access to public transportation in low-income neighborhoods, and $5 billion to reduce climate pollution in addition to gutting environmental review protections.

Mr. Speaker, I am appalled that the Republican Party would so carelessly leverage our children's future, health, and safety to satisfy political extremists. I am disturbed by the shadowy process used to put this bill together.

I encourage all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rule and the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the 324th anniversary of Khalsa Sirjana Divas (Vaisakhi) which falls on April 14, 2023. On this historic day in Spring of 1699 the sapling of Sikhism planted by Guru Nanak and nurtured by nine successor Gurus came to full blossom with the creation of the Khalsa (Saint-Soldier Sikhs) at a historic Vaisakhi Congregation in Anandpur Sahib, Punjab

Sikhism was founded by Guru Nanak in the late 15th century in Punjab on the principles of equality, justice, and respect of all human beings. Sikhs started immigrating to the United States about 125 years ago. It is the world's fifth largest religion with around 30 million followers, including many in my district in Pennsylvania.

Sikhs share a strong sense of community, family, and selfless service. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sikh communities across the country, including many of my constituents in Upper Darby, mobilized to deliver meals, groceries, masks, and other supplies to first responders a hundreds of thousands of families in need.

Tragically, Sikhs are frequent victims of hate crimes. In fact, Sikhs are among the most targeted for hate crimes, according to the 2022 FBI Hate crimes report. We must do everything in our power to prevent senseless violence and protect our Sikh brothers and sisters. To that end, I am hopeful that the recognition of Vaisakhi, April 14th as ``National Sikh Day'' will allow people to learn more about the vibrant Sikh religion and encourage more unity in our community.

I am proud to lead my colleagues in again introducing a resolution supporting the designation of April 14, Vaisakhi as ``National Sikh Day'' to recognize this exceptional community and the contributions to our country.

Madam Speaker, we are failing our youth, and they know it.

I rise today to share the voices of our children, the voices of those who attend schools where, once again this week, young lives were lost to gun violence that Congress refuses to prevent.

My office runs a Congressional Youth Cabinet, a nonpartisan program that gives high school students the opportunity to learn about our government and share their views. We meet every couple of months during the school year, and they select topics for discussion at each meeting.

Last weekend, the topic was gun violence. The next day, six people were slaughtered in yet another school shooting. Three of them were only 9 years old.

As I struggled to find words to convey, once again, the urgency that Congress act, I turned to the students in my youth cabinet. I asked them what

they would say if they had the opportunity to address Congress. Here are their voices, the voices of America's youth.

Claire: ``It is terrifying to see another school shooting on the news, and even scarier that this is an almost normal thing. As students, we just want to be safe to learn and grow. . . . I feel, and I have heard this from a lot of kids, I can't walk down the hall without looking for a safe place to hide in case something happens. It really messes with your head.''

Zeyan: ``Gun violence feels normalized and ingrained. My school had a lockdown drill today, yet afterward, we went on with our day like the need for a lockdown drill is trivial and not disturbing. I hope legislators understand how drastically gun violence can alter students' daily lives and thoughts.''

Tyler: ``It is really hard to stay optimistic as a young person when we see these tragedies again and again.''

Lindsay: ``All those kids did today was go to school on a beautiful Monday morning. But instead of making paper cutouts of Easter bunnies or painting eggs, they were shot and murdered. [That] school is a private Christian school. Prayer takes place in every single one of those classrooms, including where third graders were shot to death. Prayers did not stop our children [from being slaughtered with] guns. A lock on the door did not stop the killer from coming in. Legislators . . . can stop this.''

Several observed that easy access to guns is a major driver of school shootings.

Kiona said: ``These situations happen so frequently, it makes me question how easy it is to get a firearm or assault weapon in this country. We could have prevented more of these situations.''

Quin: ``For me, gun violence is personal. Lives like ours are on the line. On the news, time and time again, I see my own communities attacked, from the Lunar New Year Monterey Park mass shooting to the Club Q nightclub shooting. Our schools are not safe. It is clear that gun violence targets vulnerable people of color and LGBTQ+ people. . . . Guns are the leading cause of death among children and teens.''

Noah: ``We need to stop treating shootings like isolated events and think of them as part of a whole. It wasn't just one person with a gun today in Nashville or in Colorado Springs or in Uvalde. It was a web of corporate greed, insufficient legislation, and hatred.''

Eliot: ``I am a senior in high school, and I have been directly affected by four separate instances of gun violence in the past year. I was in lockdown . . . during the Highland Park shooting . . . at the same time my close friend was hiding in a church [during an active shooter situation] at a concert. . . . Our school recently lost a classmate to gun violence, and we had a lockdown because of a threat of a shooting. . . . The lack of action is alienating my generation. We are supposed to be the `future of our democracy.' Our experiences of gun violence are more common than instances of legislative progress. We are told we are supposed to save democracy, to save the planet, but no one is saving us, and we notice that.''

This last line really sticks with me. Our kids are being asked to put our democracy and our collective future first, but their country and their Representatives in Congress are not putting them first.

It breaks my heart to hear the fear, anger, cynicism, and hopelessness in our children's voices. We are failing our youth, and they know it.

Doing nothing is unacceptable. If you don't have any solutions, then you need to get out of their way.

Our kids deserve action now.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 1, and I urge my colleagues to vote against this dangerous and irresponsible bill.

With extreme weather events becoming more and more frequent, and climate change impacting our communities, agriculture, homes, and even our national security, we need to work together to advance climate rescue measures that move the U.S. away from fossil fuel dependence, protect workers and communities, and strengthen environmental protections, all while reducing costs to the American people.

This can't happen overnight, but instead of building upon the historic, deficit-reducing provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, Republicans are trying to roll back that historic bill, and in the process they are putting polluters over people and the planet.

H.R. 1 restricts community input by gutting NEPA. It forces the sell- off of public lands and undermines the health of all Americans by compromising air and water quality, all while adding billions to our national debt.

Of particular interest in my district is that this bill would block the EPA from requiring refineries to study alternatives to the use of hydrofluoric acid--or HF--in fossil fuel processing. HF has the potential to form a poisonous, killing aerosol cloud which can travel for miles if it is released.

There have been dozens of accidents involving HF in recent years, including a devastating 2019 explosion and fire at a refinery in my district. That explosion put U.S. steelworkers and tens of thousands of nearby residents at serious risk of death and serious harm. An inspection found that the refinery lacked adequate inspection and safety protocols to prevent a catastrophe. Essentially, it was a miracle that no one died that night.

To safeguard against future accidents, I offered a commonsense amendment to this bill that would require refineries with a history of accidents or Clean Air Act violations to study alternatives to HF, but my Republican colleagues refused to allow the amendment.

This refusal to consider past disasters to create necessary safety standards tells us exactly what this bill is about: empowering the fossil fuel industry at the expense of worker and community safety.

Again, I urge my colleagues to vote against this reckless bill.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Indiana for yielding the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I think we can all agree that public education plays a central role in our democracy, helping to ensure the Jeffersonian ideal of having an informed electorate to participate in the governance of our country. I think we can also agree that it is vitally important that parents, as their children's primary caregivers, play an active role in their kids' education in our public schools.

That is why governance of our public schools is entrusted to local boards of education, where most school board members are, in fact, parents and are directly responsible to the communities they serve.

In our fast-paced and online world, the glue that so often holds our communities together is our neighborhood schools, the parent-teacher and home and school organizations that support them, and the extracurricular athletics and activities that we all gather at.

That is why it is so disappointing that the Republican majority has chosen to bring to the floor a bill that undermines those community values and does nothing to address the real issues facing America's schools today.

Contrary to its title, this bill does not give parents any more rights than they already have. Even the conservative Cato Institute has criticized this bill for doing nothing to actually empower parents. In fact, many of the so-called rights this bill claims to establish, like parents' ability to meet with their child's teachers, testify at school board meetings, examine school budgets, or protect their children's privacy, are already enshrined in law and are things school districts nationwide already do and in which parents consistently participate in.

What this bill does do is promote efforts to inject divisive D.C. politics and culture wars into our neighborhood schools and create burdensome new Federal mandates for those schools, dictating to our local communities and our local taxpayers how and when to perform certain tasks.

To add insult to injury, this bill doesn't offer any funding to meet these new Federal mandates or propose resources that would actually help students and families or support our public schools, many of which are already struggling to make ends meet under inequitable funding formulas.

This bill would force schools to invest already scarce time and resources toward onerous compliance requirements and administrative costs and away from crucial measures that actually improve student outcomes, all with no additional money and with no discernible benefit to our children.

Ultimately, this bill is an act of Federal overreach that would hinder students' ability to learn and undermine the important work that educators, librarians, and other school professionals do every day. It would undermine the valuable relationships among parents and between parents, students, and teachers, relationships that are built on trust and shared goals.

The truth is that the primary concerns for too many teachers and parents are to make sure that their children have enough to eat, a bed to sleep in at night, and can get to and from school safely. This bill does not address those critical needs or, for that matter, anything else that promotes student success and well-being.

What this bill does is open the door to allowing a noisy minority to dictate what all students can and cannot read or learn, and that hurts both our kids and our communities.

We have already seen in Florida and other States that have passed versions of this bill that the provisions buried in this legislation have allowed rightwing bullies to ban books, gut history lessons, and marginalize some of our communities.

The beauty of our public schools is that they help our children become critical thinkers and functional adults by meeting and learning about the diversity of people, viewpoints, and experiences in the world around them.

Allowing some parents to dictate their worldview to all parents and students in our public schools does a disservice to our schools, our children, and our communities, particularly when, as has been so often the case recently, those efforts have sought to marginalize people of color and the LGBTQ community.

Perhaps my Republican colleagues are discounting the opportunities for parental engagement that are already baked into our public education system because the views they are pushing, to ban books and whitewash history, are not accepted by the overwhelming majority of Americans.

I know how much children benefit when parents and teachers work together to help them reach their full potential. I know this from experience. I spent a decade providing training and representation for parents and students in the public school system. I spent two decades, while my children attended public schools, as a home and school parent, a classroom volunteer, and, like my father and sister before me, a school board member to help not only my kids but all the kids in our district to succeed.

I often think that school boards are one of the purest forms of local representative democracy. Unpaid members from the community--most of them, like myself, parents--spend endless hours working together with school administrators, educators, and parents, all united by a common goal to do what is best for all of our children.

Over the years, I had countless conversations with involved parents and constituents in grocery stores, at school concerts, on soccer fields, and at formal board meetings about how our schools could best serve our children and taxpayers, where we could do better, and where our options were limited, usually by financial constraints.

Those discussions were sometimes emotional or passionate, and people didn't always agree, but everyone respected our democratic processes and the boundaries of protected speech as we sought to reach the best possible solutions for our community.

Those conversations and deliberations also reflected a core principle of our civil society, one that is important to remember as we struggle to reduce the hyperpartisanship and lack of civility in our politics and to model good behavior for our children. That is the principle of cooperation and compromise, that having the loudest voice or being a bully doesn't mean that you always get to win.

This bill, H.R. 5, does not help parents, educators, and school districts to work together more effectively. Instead, this bill pits parents against each other and against teachers in a way that creates more chaos and community discord. That hurts students and families, disregards talented educators, undermines public schools, and detracts from what should be our ultimate goal, providing the best possible public education for America's children.

Our national motto is ``e pluribus unum,'' ``out of many, one,'' not ``my way or the highway.'' We form a stronger and more perfect community when we bring our diverse talents and strengths together, and this bill undermines that goal.

I now represent a congressional district with 21 school districts in it, including one of the largest in the country, and I talk to a lot of parents in my community.

Parents in my district want to talk about how to help our kids succeed. They want to talk about hiring enough teachers, librarians, and guidance counselors. They want to talk about fixing crumbling school buildings and preparing our children for the jobs and challenges of the 21st century.

They want schools in our communities that serve the healthy food kids need to learn and grow, offer mental health resources, and teach the skills

that every American needs to be engaged and informed citizens and taxpayers to ensure our long-lasting democracy.

Overwhelmingly, these parents are appalled that bills like H.R. 5 threaten to open the floodgates to book bans, more restrictions on what can be said in the classroom, and attempts to rewrite history and censor facts, all at the expense of our students.

While it sounds benign, this bill will be used to eliminate classroom conversations about racism in the American story or portrayals of LGBTQ people in books, all while refusing to deliver on what parents are actually asking for to keep their children safe, the kind of policies that House Democrats are bringing to the table to keep children safe from dangerous toxins like asbestos and lead that are still prevalent in too many schools and to keep children safe from gun violence, now the leading cause of death for American children.

We need commonsense gun safety laws that keep weapons out of classrooms and out of the hands of children so parents aren't scared that one day they will send their kids to school and they will never come home.

My colleagues on the other side of the aisle often talk about being the party of small government and local control. They condemn the intrusion of the Federal Government into local affairs, but this legislation is nothing more than an attempt to nationalize our education system and mandate a one-size-fits-all approach across the country, assuming that the size that fits is a rightwing straitjacket.

Even the conservative Cato Institute has said that H.R. 5 suffers from a fundamental flaw: It is not constitutional.

We should give young people the resources they need to learn and grow, not stifle their ideas, threaten their civil rights, censor their classrooms and teachers, or take books off library shelves. We should not promote chaos and bullying in our communities.

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

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record a letter from the American Library Association opposing H.R. 5, saying that the bill would create a catalyst for more book banning and censorship.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Rules.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take a minute--or not even a minute--to correct a couple statements that were made.

First of all, I include in the Record an article from Jax Today titled: ``Duval Schools to keep 73 `diverse, inclusive' books out of classrooms.''

[From Jax Today, Dec. 22, 2022]

Duval Schools To Keep 73 `Diverse, Inclusive' Books Out of Classrooms

(By Claire Heddles)

Dozens of books the Duval County school district ordered in

the summer of 2021 will never hit classroom shelves. That's

the result of an ongoing review after the district pulled

almost 200 books this spring while the Florida Legislature

passed limits on what teachers can say about race, gender and

sexual orientation in classrooms and set new rules for

purchasing classroom materials.

After a 10-month process--delayed by staffing shortages,

according to the district--47 titles are being returned to

the distributor. Twenty-six others will remain in storage,

awaiting further state guidance.

Among the rejected titles are a book about Martin Luther

King Jr. intended for fourth graders; a biography of Rosa

Parks for second grade classrooms; a first grade Berenstain

Bears book about God; and multiple titles including LGBTQ+

characters and families. District staffers are sending the

rejected books back to the distributor, Perfection Learning,

for exchange.

The rest of the 179 books that had been held for review

were determined to meet ``statutory guidelines and are useful

toward our reading goals,'' and were distributed to

classrooms in October, a district representative tells

Jacksonville Today in an email.

All of the books are from the Essential Voices Classroom

Libraries collection, which the distributor says are meant to

engage students in ``independent reading through these

diverse, inclusive'' stories.

Explore the full list of books that were pulled for review:

`Banned books'

In September, PEN America, an organization advocating for

free speech, released a tally of books they said were banned

across the country, including more than 550 in Florida, the

second-most of any state. Only Texas banned more.

The list included the Essential Voices books the district

withheld from classrooms. Duval Schools contested the

characterization as a book ban because none of the books was

challenged by the public--the district pulled them before

they ever went on shelves.

Ami Polonsky is the author of one of the recently rejected

books, Gracefully Grayson, a transgender coming-of-age novel

intended for fifth grade classrooms. A teacher herself,

Polonsky believes books like hers are blocked to appease a

small subset of parents.

``Books can save kids' lives, and to know this, but still

refuse to take them out of storage is nonsensical, it's

immoral. A parenting perspective cannot outweigh a national

mental health crisis among trans children,'' Polonsky told

the School Board this month. ``Books that are ordered with

the best of intentions gather dust, and the LGBTQ children

continue to receive the message that their existence is

controversial.''

Polonsky and two other authors came to Jacksonville to

address the Duval School Board in early December at the

urging of national free speech organizations PEN America, We

Need Diverse Books and Freedom to Read. At the time, the

district had not yet publicly released the list of 106 books

it now says were distributed to classrooms in October.

New state laws

Another of the authors, Linda Sue Park, wrote a book about

South Sudanese sisters on a two-hour walk to get water for

their family called Nya's Long Walk. Her book was among the

179 titles initially pulled, but it was since distributed to

kindergarten classrooms, according to the district.

Park was in Jacksonville advocating for all the books in

the Essential Voices collection, many of which are written by

authors of color with main characters of color.

``You never know what book is going to do it for them, what

book is going to hit them, and that's why more choice, more

access, more variety is so important,'' she said.

Duval decided to pull the books for review as it grappled

with limited state guidance for how to implement at least

three new Florida laws that restricted school curricula: HB

1467, HB 7 and HB 1557.

HB 1467, sponsored by Rep. Sam Garrison, R-Fleming Island,

requires school districts to maintain a list of library

materials and make it easier for the public to contest school

books. Districts are also required to have a state-certified

media specialist sign off on new materials.

Starting in January 2023, school librarians and media

specialists will have to complete an online training program

developed by the state Department of Education. In an email

this week, a Duval Schools spokesperson said the remaining 26

Essential Voices book reviews will be the first use of this

training.

``Once that training [is] released, the district will use

this as a great opportunity to go through this process

applying the required training,'' the spokesperson wrote.

Another new law, HB 7, which Gov. Ron DeSantis nicknamed

the Stop WOKE Act, limited how teachers can talk about race

and

racism and in the classroom. A federal judge blocked the law

from taking effect last month, calling it ``positively

dystopian.'' The DeSantis administration is appealing the

ruling in federal court.

Though HB 7 is not currently in effect, Duval Schools

blocked multiple books that deal with race and history,

including a Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop by Alice

Faye Duncan, about Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1968

sanitation strike; Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga,

about a 12-year-old Syrian refugee in the U.S.; and Separate

Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family's Fight for

Desegregation by Duncan Tonatiuh, a children's book about the

fight to end segregation in California schools seven years

before Brown v. Board of Education--the Supreme Court

decision that found school segregation unconstitutional.

A third new law, HB 1557, or Parental Rights in Education,

bans instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity

in first through third grade, ``or in a manner that is not

age-appropriate'' in older grades. Rather than define ``age

appropriate,'' the law that critics call ``Don't Say Gay''

allows parents to sue districts if they believe something is

not.

Polonsky's rejected book, Gracefully Grayson, was intended

for fifth graders. Other books meant for older grade levels

with LGBTQ+ stories are also being sent back, including the

fourth grade book, Rainbow Revolutionaries: Fifty LGBTQ+

People Who Made History, by Sarah Prager, and The Stonewall

Riots: Coming Out in the Street, by Gayle E. Pitman for fifth

graders.

Also in response to HB 1557, the Duval school district

dramatically shrank its LGBTQ+ support guide, removed rainbow

stickers and posters that supported LGBTQ students from

classrooms and took down a 12-minute anti-bullying video that

taught middle and high school students how to support their

gay and transgender peers.

Ellen Oh, author and CEO of the national nonprofit We Need

Diverse Books, says Duval's actions are particularly

concerning because the decisions were made before any parent

complained about the books.

``It's the secretive, the silent censoring part of it that

is so troublesome to us,'' Oh said ahead of the Dec. 6 School

Board meeting. ``Books that have been banned have been done

publicly. People have challenged books. In this case, these

books were pulled because of fear. We can't live in a society

like that.''

Mr. Speaker, also, it is not the first time my colleague mentioned the book ``Flamer,'' which he described as a graphic book about a child at summer camp. In fact, it is a graphic novel, which is kind of a trend that he may not be familiar with.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Correa).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Hayes), who is a teacher.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from Connecticut.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Landsman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Neguse).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 30 seconds to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. Speaker, there are many issues that we should be dealing with here.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to provide for consideration of a resolution that states the House's unyielding responsibility to defend and preserve Social Security and Medicare for generations to come and to affirm that it is the position of the House to reject any cuts to these vital programs.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, Social Security and Medicare are foundational to our constituents' economic and health security. Republicans have demanded unconscionable cuts to these programs in exchange for raising the debt limit and paying our Nation's bills.

Some of my Republican colleagues have recently changed their rhetoric and now say that they don't want to eviscerate Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Mr. Speaker, I am offering my friends the opportunity to back up their newfound position.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Rules Committee, I do feel compelled to comment upon the amendment process that we have with respect to this rule and bill.

I am astounded that, once again, the Republican majority has reported such an imbalanced rule. This rule actually makes in order every single germane Republican amendment submitted before our meeting yesterday, but for Democratic amendments, the rule blocks 28 of the 31 germane amendments offered by the Democrats. That is a 90 percent suppression rate of the ideas submitted by the minority party, all of which were compliant with the rules of the House but have been blocked by Republicans from being debated or voted upon.

The Rules Committee Republicans actually complained about amendment disparities during the Democratic majority, saying, ``There is no context in which such a stifling of minority voices is consistent with the designs of this institution or in the best interest of the American people we represent.''

That complaint was written after we made in order 30 percent of the amendments submitted by Republicans to structured rule bills. When we do 30 percent, it is a crisis for the institution, but when they do 5 percent this month, it is okay.

Speaker McCarthy actually promised both sides ``. . . more openness, more opportunity for ideas to win at the end of the day.''

Mr. Speaker, that promise has been broken. This Republican majority knows their bills fail to address real problems, so they continue to block our good ideas from coming to the floor rather than actually debating them. It is wrong, and they need to do better.

Mr. Speaker, with respect to H.R. 5, it does not promote the rights of parents, but it does open the door to censoring teachers and textbooks, threatening the rights of students and their parents, imposing costly burdens on our neighborhood schools that they cannot afford, and infringing on core American values, including freedom of speech and ideas.

It puts rightwing politics over parents and would let a noisy minority push their own agenda and impose their beliefs of what children can or should read or learn onto all parents and students.

Our schools carry out important responsibilities of educating the next generation of Americans, and all children deserve access to an equitable and well-rounded education that equips them for the future.

We should give our schools the resources to help young people feel supported and ready to reach their full potential. We should not create hostile environments for our most marginalized students. We should not pit parents against each other and against educators, and we should not drive wedges between families and their neighborhood schools. I want to do better than that for our kids, and I hope others today want the same.

Mr. Speaker, again, I urge my colleagues to oppose the previous question and the rule.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, last year, on my birthday, I was really excited to see that I had a kayak expedition on my calendar. I love getting outdoors and especially on the open water, but because I represent a district that has some of the oldest infrastructure in the country, it turned out that my kayak tour was an inspection of combined stormwater and sewer outlets on the Schuylkill River.

That is why I am more excited today to highlight that $2.4 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law is being invested in communities nationwide to support necessary upgrades to our infrastructure to increase access to clean water.

I am thrilled to see yet another wave of clean water infrastructure funding, including $92 million for Pennsylvania, being invested in the health and safety of our families. Nearly half that funding is available as grants and forgivable loans to ensure that our most underserved communities can access the investments.

As I noted, some of our greatest infrastructure and environmental challenges facing southeastern Pennsylvania involve the need to address critical water, wastewater, and stormwater projects.

This new funding will protect the health of Pennsylvania's children and families.